Buoy

Time, I think, she says
For bad poetry
to buoy me through the March.

Night

Three attempts at a real essay for today, and the narrative wanders, drifts down and disintegrates, miring in unpleasantly unintended subjects.

So. Well.

Thanks to Udge for a cloudy book and piquant chocolate joy, all unexpected, with the delighted shock of being seen and known, an untested friendship proving true.

For Moira, whose birthday, four days before my own, was lost in my viral exhausted brain. But she chose only to worry for me.

Dark thoughts, despite my practiced optimism, anxiety and anger. But then I remember how much worse it was in the Living History Hospital Museum, the permanently broken systems and the pervasive lack of gratitude. One surgeon has made a point of telling my supervisor how much he thinks of my work, twice. This doesn't stop the creeping despair, but it pours syrup on it. Annoys and slows the gnawing, unwelcome fury.

We find red velvet cake at Smith's. Massive, moist sweetness, decadent excess as a sop to my moody ill feelings. I get a bit of salmon, mushrooms, all my tastes, not D's, but he grins at my indulgences, offering nothing but encouragement, without fuss. And a barely managed stop for only recently found Beamish - in cans (with widget.)

Ah, well. This is life, sometimes. Just how it is, I get tired and discouraged and can't see my way clear. Night follows day follows night.

Bruised

Does this look bruised to you? Jackson tables are notoriously vicious. Made my work much more challenging. Always good to start off the morning with a bashed thumb.

I do love being capable, running my ass off and keeping all the balls in the air all day long. Today took juggling. Poor orderly, good mormon boy, asking about the multi suction, asked if I wanted a threesome, and I had to comment "Haven't been offered that in many years!" I really shouldn't do that.

I have my b-day off tomorrow. Feeling bruised all over.

Rainbows

Clear skies far West, pouring rain in the afternoon, means rainbows in the East.

If I'd felt a bit better, I'd have gone out to make these. Instead, enjoy the fine esthetics of our apartment buildings. This morning, it was wintrymix, huge conglomerate flakes of snow and gigantic raindrops together. The beginning of the urban flooding of spring.

Tired of feeling so ill. February is a heavy month.

Going to bed. Living for my days off.

Whitecastle

We finally saw Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, on the qualified recommendation of a friend. Well, we are both feeling ill and with very short attention spans, and it seemed the perfect non-commitment movie. Yes, I will spoil a few plot points, but honestly, it won't make a difference. The plot is not really a plot.

It's not a complicated film. Like Cheech and Chong, it's about a couple of guys getting baked and making crude jokes. It's a bit of Into the Night, a long series of unnecessary frustrations through a peculiar and threatening city scape. Two friends on a quest for their heart's desires, which is to say, sex, drugs, and hamburgers, with a bit of cosmic justice thrown in for good measure. Not , not, not if you are in the mood for a thoughtful, intelligent story.

It is witty, or at least smartassed. References abound, as Neil Patrick Harris appears as Neil Patrick Harris (not "as himself" mind you) stoned out of his mind, and steals their car. Extreme Sports Punk #1 is called exactly that by his friend in the film. The actors are given lines to reference their work in other movies. There is an undertone, well, not very far under, of the bigotry faced by non-whites in America, as well as the funniest "immigrant children" inspirational speech. Not taken darkly, but a real context for a surreal journey.

There is a medical scene. It's all kinds of wrong, but they know that, I figured they were having an hallucination, so that's alright. Kinda of like when they ride the cheetah.

There are fart jokes. Ok, ok, diarrhea jokes. Pus jokes. Bare breasts. Sexual situations with a large bag of pot. "Gay stuff." Corrupt cops chasing them. This is not highbrow at all. But, it's good froth, done by people with bright humor and deep intelligence, and an easy camaraderie. Which makes this, by my main rule, a very good movie. They set themselves low, silly goals, and met each and every one, and exceeded most. The energy shows, there is a lot of heart, and it made me laugh aloud.

Well, I guess I will now have to see the other Harold and Kumar adventures.

Maybe.

What?

I'm sorry, all I can hear is this buzzing hum.

Later

It's not my birthday
It's not today

It's not my birthday, so why do you lunge out at me?

When the word comes down,
"Never more will be around"

Though I'll wish you were there, I was less than we could bear

And I'm not the only dust my mother raised

more here.


I did mention, not yet. Another week. I will keep all your wishes wrapped until the day, so don't feel the need to resend.

I promised no more salons, no more getting anyone else to cut my hair. I mean this.

Have come down ill. Shall hibernate.

(Sorry, feeling more than a little irritable.)

Ytrebup

My first steps into anti-puberty are about as bad as the first steps in. All expressed in my stupid hair, as it started.

We all know about my dying out the grey, finally coming to terms, half hearted attempts to let it grow out, the ridiculously expensive salon afternoon, where the color was mellowed, but the cut sucked. Yeah, well, I asked at the time if getting the brown dye out would be easier, and was told yes certainly.

I tried doing this myself.

From the other side of the looking glass, this awkward phase feels pretty awful. Oh, I can cope better, but the feelings are just as awful.

My hair, or part of it, is orange. I cut off much of the offending material. But the thought of growing out bad hair, again, ugh. And much of the orange is still there. I weigh cutting all of of the orange off, dealing with being all shaggy for many months, but with just my real hair, salty and peppery, left. This is not my color, I look, and feel, sallow. And I can't decide which is worse.

Poopie.

(Rinsing with tea again this morning seems to have muted the brassiness just enough for me to cope.)

(Proof, if any is needed, that much can be solved by a nice, strong cuppa.)

(These are the problems you want to have.)

Cuddle

The mellow black cat who lived in my house when I was small loved to be held and cuddled. I would carry Midnight around on my shoulders, or he would curl, purring, on any available lap.When I met him, the ex had several cats with whom he co-existed, but were hardly cuddly. I got all three to like me picking them up, in varying degrees. When ex moved, they decided not to move with him (gosh, wonder why.)

Holding a cat in my arms feels like giving a friend a hug, I suppose, bringing them up face to face, a kind of equality in affection.

Moby is not the cuddliest of cats. He does not claw or bite, but wrenches himself away very effectively. Polite, friendly, he likes to hang out near wherever we are, lean on us. He started sleeping on us after about four months, probably for warmth as much as anything. But generally, he's not one for laps. It took a long time just to get him comfortable with shoulders. As soon as he stopped hiding, I started lifting him up. As soon as he squirmed, I would gently put him down. Gradually holding him a few seconds into the squirm, but every time placing him down easily, so that he came to trust the motion.

When he seemed to actually like being held for a minute at a time, as long as he was in the mood, with a token body gesture to let me know he was done, I encouraged D to start as well. He was new-papa nervous, and it took him a while to get an arm configuration that worked for both of them. Moby would let D hold him longer, sooner, clearly happy to get his claws into D's sweater, chin on his shoulder, and purr like mad. D's face would crinkle in pleased amazement, soft fur against his cheek. During that first year, D would observe that he never realized that having a cat "would be so personal." Moby treads the lines between roommate and friend and child, scratching out his own role, with his own rules.

The affection is a matter of choice, every time, for this cat. Often, a proffered hand gets an affronted, "No, don't touch me!" move away. An attempt at a pick up is met with an eloquent body arch, feet splayed for landing. "No, no, no, no.... NO. Geeze, people." Or a walk around the apartment, a funny bit, where I walk after him, and he lets me keep up, but makes sure to stay just out of reach. "Look, I've got cat things to do. You wouldn't understand." When he gets tired of this game, he goes under, knowing I will not pull him out, generally. (Only for an emergency, like when the fire alarm went off last year.) We don't even try to hold him when he is chasey.

So, while D's hand healed, he was very anxious about picking Moby up. And Moby felt the worry. The other day, when that photo of the two of them was made, was the first time they held each other like that. Much joy and purring.

D's hand is at 90% after therapy. He's Good at healing.

Years

1962 Born. Had to wear special shoes all the time due to inward turned feet.
1963 Walking, still in hard shoes.
1964 Stood on pew at church, allowed to pet Mrs. Osdene's fur coat collar.
1965 Put pebble up my nose. Midnight the cat appeared.
1966 Got an ironing board for christmas.
1967 Got the measles. Started reading.
1968 Started kindergarden. Tonsils out.
1969 Oldest brother joined Air Force, sent off to Thailand. Began writing letters. Midnight disappeared.
1970 Next older brother left for college. Oldest brother married. Stopped from believing in Santa Claus. First real break with God.
1971 Began singing in church choir.
1972 Flew to Arizona to visit brother&wife, first 3 weeks away from home. October- Period started, very tense at home.
1973 Horrible, terrible, no good, very bad year. Bullied at school and home.
1974 Made a friend at school, Anna. Started wearing glasses.
1975 Jr. High, just a different set of classrooms in grade school, but had Mr. Zubel, who told wonderful historical stories. Next two years studying American colonial history.
1976 Taken to riding my bike everywhere, started High School. Made friends. Stopped being bullied.
1977 On stage for school play, got laugh, decide this is wonderful.
1978 Best year for academics and friends. Play tennis in summer.
1979 First job as asst. camp counsellor, quit after 2 weeks. New principal, last year sucking. No future plans. Reluctantly learn to drive.
1980 Get Library job. Graduate, start radio broadcasting school.
1981 Move to Kalkaska, job at automated radio station, back to parents house in 4 months. First real failure
1982 First dating experience, utter failure. Get accepted to college, Uncle Walt dies. Job at main library.
1983 Dealing with roommates and no money, still hopeful about acting. Start seeing much older guy.
1984 Marry much older guy, many reservations, but, I sell when I can, I "am not for all markets."
1985 Quit theater program, work as podiatrist assistant, drift.
1986 Move to Salt Lake. Work doing mall surveys, at movie theater concessions, ballroom dance teacher, art modeling.
1987 Have nervous breakdown, go on antidepressants. Get job at library.
1988 Join Army National Guard hospital unit, as a way to earn money to go back to school. Marriage disintegrating.
1989 All about Army training, so many friends. Decide marriage is over, rich with lovers - all good guys. Return, and much older spouse badgers, begs, threatens and hits, and I am sucked in, trapped. I regret not going full time Army, rather than endure a year of this. Get 4.0 GPA doing nursing pre-requsites.
1990 Finally escape. File for divorce. Within a month, sent off for Gulf War I. Start relationship with D.
1991 Survive the war merely annoyed. Return to resume classes. Still working at library.
1992 Finish all required classes, fail to be accepted to nursing school, get job at nursing home, get used Subaru. Get accepted in summer, then fired from job. D moves in with me as I start the program.
1993 Scraping through. D and I officially marry.
1994 Pass LPN exam, back to nursing home, but as nurse.
1995 Graduate, pass exams, hired at better nursing home.
1996 Hired in surgery at trauma I hospital. Hardest year, but worthwhile.
1997 On transplant team. D smashes elbow, is cared for by my colleagues. Aunt Evelyn dies. I start getting tattoos.
1998 D finishes therapy. I meet Moira, am one of her trainers.
1999 Heard Prince too often.
2000 D gets real job, with pay to match. I break with my father, finally take D's last name, we finally have our wedding reception, and Moira meets D's friend, C.
2001 Lose Moira to C, and SD. I learn PACU nursing. I have nightmares and panic attacks about the war.
2002 D laid off, goes to college for his long desired history degree. The olympics come to town, causing chaos.
2003 Moira got me to start blogging.
2004 D accepted to grad school in Boston, graduates with honors. I pack, we go. Moby enters our lives.
2005 Working day surgery recovery at Big Boston Hospital. Hired at main surgery at BBH, day after my little choking incident. Chronic back pain plagues me.
2006 Another move. Back stops me cold.
2007 The end of the ride, and we come back to where our friends are. Gather up the threads. Get Moby's bad teeth extracted.
2008 D needs hand surgery. It snows a lot.

That is all for now.

Aftermath

**
We really do have quite a collection of fine and wonderful friends. Moby certainly approves of them, accepting that anyone who comes in the door is a friend of ours, and therefore worthy of at least greeting, and possibly the honor of adoring him. I must give credit to D, since the kernel of this circle started as his elementary school buddies. Not that there is any difference in the Old Friends and New Friends, if you fit, you fit, come on in.

At our reception (good gods, was that 7 years ago?) at a Lebanese restaurant, both D and I were approached, separately, by the owner, belly dancer, and several servers, to tell us how nice our guests all were. Yes, well, they are all good people, who bless our lives. So we make an effort to gather them as best we can, as often as we can. We missed them all terribly while in Boston.

Last night's do was supposed to include a few games. We got so busy talking, we never got any started. L commented on this as they readied to leave.

"Ah, well, everybody come back in. Stop laughing, we must play a game, dammit!"

I stopped K from cleaning up. She'd spent an hour crashed on the floor next to Dave*, we gave her a pillow and covered her with a blanket. So little time together, I don't want to spend it cleaning anything. ND stayed, as the only one who would not be going home to crash immediately. So I washed dishes, while he and D talked and kept me company.

Part of the problem, aside from the schedules of modern life, that makes this all difficult is that one friend has Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome, thankfully with an employer who needs that 2AM to 10 AM niche filled. Actually, make that two with DSPS. The PhD grad student has chronic insomnia, K is a teacher's aid - with a young child of her own, I of course get up at 0530. D and Dave and L have adjusted their sleep to be able to spend time with their respective spouses. For some, last evening was VERY early in the morning, for some it was VERY late at night, but we all were here. This makes me very happy.




*There are so many Daves, this does not count as identifying information.


**Yes, I know, I have to clean my fridge better...

Turkey

Turkey Roll:
Thaw in fridge 24 hours, per instructions on package. Take still frozen turkey out, stuff in large iron frying pan, stick in 350˚F oven for prescribed two hours. Wait five hours for indicator button to pop up.

Vacuum, dust, clean floors. Clean bathroom, pick up socks and dishes from hidden corners, dismay cat who'd just gotten the apartment properly furred.

Apple Stuff:
Peel and core and dissect whole bag of apples, taking over an hour, mix in bowl with oatmeal, crushed graham crackers, sugar and cinnamon, while D does hand therapy and shares the crossword with me. Instead of tried and true method of 15 minutes in microwave, put in with recalcitrant turkey roll. Burn half, salvage the rest.

Realize I have not eaten, shake and get irritable. Ask D to make lunch, then push him aside to find leftover chicken and remaining lettuce, and force ourselves to sit and watch Michael Palin's New Europe while eating. Apologize for irritability.

Yams with Pineapple:
Bake yams. Burn hands removing peel. Mash with pineapple juice from can, add cinnamon and brown sugar. Put pineapple into flat dish, with more sugar and cinnamon, spoon mashed yams over. Realize it's too soon to cook, joyfully find unsuspected roll of aluminum foil, cover dish, clean fridge sufficiently to place dish there. Hope not to forget to actually cook it.

Open windows for five minutes to encourage fresh air.

Veggie Tray:
Shun expensive and dry prepackaged veggie trays from store. Get bags of celery, baby carrots, red and green bell peppers. With southwest and ranch store dip. Fret over not being able to prepare this for several more hours.

Salsa Rice:
Make rice in rice cooker. Check for sufficient, large container, cooking salsa, without cilantro. Clean large iron frying pan from turkey cooking, (Turkey now in cleaned casserole from burned Apple Stuff, Apple stuff in large bowl what I made years ago but isn't oven safe. Covered in previously discovered aluminum foil.) Heat rice with butter to avoid sticking, add salsa, heat and thoroughly mix, cover with griddle, let sit. (Not before 5pm.)

Consider how little green is available. Find frozen spinach, wonder where to find another pan to steam it with. Decide to wait.

Soon, I will let this all go, and just play Munchkin, or Illuminati, or Gotham Horror. I don't believe in Pot Luck. I want to host, if anyone goes away hungry, it won't be for lack of trying on my part. I'm not a great cook, but it's edible, except for the burned Apple Stuff that is down the disposal anyway. Beer for those as likes it. Tea. Seltzer, Dr. Pepper, orange juice. Dishes tomorrow, friends tonight.

D has the game area ready, will take over much, after people show. Moby may put in an appearance, may even allow himself to be adored in trade for some cat therapy.

Hold (Photo)

Confidence returns
with the strength, as the pain ebbs.
Both miss being hugged.

Spying (Photo)

Mostly, spying is waiting.

Symbol

On other blogs this week, a poem and a zen interchange, in which men treat women as symbols. She is dark and mysterious, all the yin qualities. On both, I commented that I am always jarred and irritated by male poets and philosophers, supposedly deep thinkers, tuned to their intuitive side, who cannot, or will not, see women as simply human. Augustine is a saint, a revered thinker in western ideas, who detests women. Buddhist nuns are treated as second class - culture beats religious ideals every time. Poets who try to describe the eternal, with the male being implied, and the female as the other to be interacted with. I remember feeling the rage when Joseph Campbell confused this symbolic feminine principal with actual living women.

Yes, yes, there are statistical differences when studying male and female populations, even after correcting for culture, assuming this is even possible. But an average man and an average woman in the middle of that bell curve will have much more in common than the extreme edges, of two women, even more so two men. Separate is never equal, wings and pedestals are artificial markers of imaginary variation. Shoving me up and out of the way is as bad as down and out of sight.

I will not tolerate women who shove men back out of spite. Men are not babies when they are sick any more than women. They are not, each and every one, stupid or mean, and although as a group they may benefit from a different reproduction strategy than women, that does not determine what an individual will do. Tit for tat argument is not rational or useful. A woman dating only men that fit this stereotype, should perhaps look hard at how she chooses them. Women like this will keep other women down, so that they can excuse their own inability to take full responsibility for their own ill judged choices.

I won't paint men with sunny yang phalluses, I won't paint myself with dark yin moons. We are too good at limiting our full humanity. Sure, tendency powers the global cultural norms, men in charge through force of arms historically, women enforcing through fear and convenience. But tendency is not determination.

Reminds me of when the teacher called for silence in class, and half the students would try to shout down the other half, creating no quiet at all. I figured the only effective choice was to close my own mouth, baffled that this was not obvious to everyone. This could all change this very moment, if we each took responsibility for our own choices, how we choose to see the world, the humans around us. Instead of shoving each other in boxes.

Down (Movie)

Ten seconds of snow to share and enjoy.

Watching (Photos)

The snow come down.

I was once told the only person she knew for whom weather was not small talk. Indeed, although I know "Hot enough for you?" and "How's the weather up there?" and "Raining cats and dogs out there" are trite stock comments of no earthly value, weather is not trivial. I have always experienced it as elemental, powerful, a matter of vital and emotional interest. I cried when it rained and I wanted to be outside. Thunderstorms thrill me, the green wash of sky that send down tornados, walking through deep, pristine snow still makes me feel like and intrepid explorer.

I get very irritated by the tossing about of the term Global Warming by the media, eager for an easy catchall. So many idiots on cold days try to wittily retort "So much for their Global Warming!" For years, we and our friends have tried to promote GCFU, Global Climatological Fuck Up. I would follow up with that whole bucket of environmental worry worms, but I need to sleep tonight, and get up in the morning. Thinking about it too much prevents both.

I remain fascinated by the individual cases, the floods and fires, landslides and tsunami, blizzards and tornados. I have NOAAon my menu bar, and I check it every morning before work. Not just the temp and forecast, but the dewpoint, and I look at the overnight readings, locally, and where our friends live. If I'd been better at math when I was young, I would certainly have been a meteorologist. All because of Mr. Novak and his morning blackboard forecasts, drawing sweeping cold fronts and describing pressure systems, his contagious enthusiasm feeding my particular interest.

I also love stories of escape from cataclysm. My own grandmother, terrified of thunderstorms, nearly died when the fireplace she'd been sitting near a moment before, was hit by lightening. The chimney collapsed and crushed her chair. And in nearly every rash of tornados, a baby is found in a tree, unharmed, far from home. A last survivor is rescued long after hope is gone, nearly crushed under debris after an earthquake, drinking rainwater that has trickled through.

The earth reminds us we are not entitled to our lives, nature gives not a damn whether we live or die, no precautions are sufficient in all cases. But there are loopholes, rogue waves, unprayable miracles.

Therapy

D does all his OT (occupational therapy) as well as GPT (guitar playing therapy) and CPT (cat petting therapy), but his finger is still going to take a while to get back into the normal range. I admire his fortitude, and forbearance. He puts the lie to the men-are-bad-patients stereotype, which I have always hated as reactionary prejudice. Just ain't so. I'm much more wimpy about my poor auld back.

We managed to haul our agoraphobic asses out today, to see Juno. It's not for everyone, no. A small movie that doesn't seem to be doing much but show off clever dialogue, superficially Veronica Mars gets knocked up, it lingers in my mind. It seems to be about teenagers, and it is. Beneath that surface are the beating hearts of complicated characters doing the best they can with what they have. High strung, insouciant, varyingly committed to their lives and loves, half conscious of their motives and actions, reaching out, shutting off, suffering and surviving, being brave and acting brave, striving and resigning themselves all together. A messy story about love and life and the choices we make. With a funky little soundtrack.

Watching it, I thought about the Cusak movie High Fidelity, which I didn't like. A well made, well written piece about people I couldn't like. An excellent movie that I hated having seen. Juno might well be the antidote to it, the same film on the flipside, full of love and a desire to grow up, where High Fidelity was about undercutting love and staying irresponsible. Juno is also one of those rare stories where the most initially abrasive characters become, at the end, admirable and sympathetic. We are given the chance to understand how they are lovable, and why the other characters love them.

It's a hopeful little show.

Tableaux

Pressing

I worked with D's surgeon this week. I'm having retroactive walking nightmares. And very glad of this surgeon's knowledge. Let me 'splain. When we in the job have medical issues, we worry a lot. When it's our own family, those we love, it's pathological for us. We have just a little too much information, experience, and way too much imagination.

A patient with a finger infection, ok, bad enough to need surgery to clean it out. Other complications, but nothing really critical, I thought. Until Dr. G asks that some of the tissue go to pathology. "Might be lung cancer."

I laughed, thinking he joked, not unheard of from hand surgeons. But no, metastatic tumor in the digits is usually from a lung cancer source. Well. Um. D just had a tumor removed from his hand, benign. Report back, all as expected. But a frantic moment clutched my gut, as I realized that Dr. G knew this last month, as I did not. My heart went out to this patient's spouse in the waiting room.

D heals, swelling down, strength and mobility returning with therapy. He's worn with the pain, which I understand better now than when he had the shattered elbow to heal. We shall consider this our welcome to middle age.

I stopped in a lovely little shop, with D's encouragement, came out with a pointless bit of old silver for my throat. We'd already found a cool toy for C, who is hard pressed. When the losses pile up, best to give to others, take care of oneself, pet the cat.

Temptation

Carolyn Hax is an advice columnist for the Washington Post, today wrote the most beautifully wise, zen, piece, putting deeply philosophical concepts into the most down to earth language. The WP require registration, but I have never gotten spam because of them, so please, I believe it worthwhile.

The heart of her column? "Why we aren't more motivated to be wise in the face of temptation?"

I succumbed to my darkest thoughts today, lost hope and impetus. D joined me. It's been a rough month, emotionally and psychically, physically and financially. I used to think I got twisted by February because I record advancement of years this month. Perhaps it's just February itself.

I have a peek into the kinds of people who choose strange ways to kill themselves. Who leave the door unlocked, coffee pot going, note on the table, tarps to catch the mess. Strange death draws me in. The woman who drowned in a salsa making machine. The bungee jumper who measured the bungee from drop to ground, not allowing for any stretch, or his own height. The people who follow each other, trying to rescue the preceding person, into vats, toilet pits, wells, each succumbing to fumes in turn. Sexual antics in private planes leading to embarrassing death. I understand the fey mood, the reckless disregard, even if I always catch myself and pull back.

Cult

The younger of my two brothers, Bill, made me laugh. He comforted me when our parents fought once, playing a game in the basement, ignoring our father shouting at our mother. He read to me, and took me for the Easter egg hunt at Patton Park. I loved him fiercely. When he spent evenings away, then moved away to college, he left me bereft. At eight, I didn't understand why he wouldn't want to stay with his little sister. Abandoned to my fate, I had terribly mixed feelings of longing and abandonment.

During his second year in college, after having changed his major from chemistry to English to theater, mom even made him a black cape with red lining for the flair of it all, he disappeared. Then announced that he had joined the Children of God. He would fall out of communication for long periods of time, to send a letter from Pennsylvania, then England, then Portugal, Japan. This caused much praying and anxiety from our very Catholic mother, and a plunge into belligerent drinking from our dad. I struggled though childhood with this dark cloud, accused and pronounced guilty before making a single independent choice, while grieving for my lost brother.

In the midst of the early shock, the Jonestown Massacre flooded the news, and we imagined the worst. My young, impressionable brother would wind up dead in a brainwashing suicide cult. But he didn't, he tramped around Europe, had a grand time, and never considered the frantic and ate-up excuse for the family left behind. He escaped, and now I commend him. Then, I yearned for him, and talked to him constantly, argued with him, until he slowly faded from my memory.

He would be fine, living his own Christian life in what he described as a loose chain of communes, teaching children, and doing God's work, with no idea of the fevered imaginings of his mother, the raging of his father, or his small sister left to take the blame. To his credit, about ten years ago, we met, and he apologized to me, a deeply healing gesture.

But my fascination, my connection to stories of religious cults, Jonestown being the first, but Waco and Heaven's Gate and Aum Shinrikyo, all pound me in the chest like heavy artillery at close range. A reflex of fear and thrill, personally felt. Of a master manipulator gathering the lost and gullible to boost a gluttonous ego, and a sadistic mass suicide for the finale.

I feel this personally, and this is what I needed most to write about. This dark story is just beneath the surface, threatening to explode. I have written it clearly, I have tried to keep it secret, as it sits like a lump, refusing to be revealed, or hidden.

Pixies

Pixilation is not a phenomenon I have definitely experienced. The losing of an item, a thorough search, then a request for it's return to the spirits of place, with a return of the object where I had most definitely looked, not really. Losing, looking and finding, yes, but usually I can rationalize why I did not spot my glasses on the dresser, but D did, where I looked several times. Just the wrong angle, he's a bit taller, I didn't have my glasses on, after all.

I tend to think that this is a quirk in the human brain, the inability to see whatever is in front of our eyes, then a slight change, and it becomes visible again. Interesting enough as insight into how we perceive. I have little enough faith in my own memory and perception to think my keys are being hidden from me by a mischievous entity. There are times when it would be less personally insulting to blame the brownies. And there have been lost earrings showing up in highly unlikely places, long after I'd given them up for gone.

When I was eight, my brother and sister-in-law gave me a little pearl ring. I thought it was a real pearl at the time. Rather quickly, it disappeared. Desperate, I did as taught, prayed to God, and St. Anthony, even St. Jude as finding it seemed hopeless. I threatened that I would stop believing in God if He didn't help me find it. Six months or so later, I found it near the baseboard beside my bed. I reluctantly had to start believing again, sort of. The fake pearl had started to peel, and the metal tarnished. If a pagan guardian angel had hidden it from me, to point me to doubt, it could hardly have been done more effectively.

Pixies don't prank me, I suspect merely my own mind does. But I am willing to concede that others have a better case for external interference. If I had less clutter, this might all be clearer.

How would a unique gold ring, coincidentally engraved with the names of mother, sister, girl, thought to be buried, would wind up miles away, then inside a teleporting alligator, only to be found by the only surviving child of a doomsday cult?

Puma

ABC's. Alien Big Cats show up all over Britain, as well as all over the world, stealthily avoiding clear photography, leaving DNA samples, or heaven forbid being captured. Sadly, the chances I will witness a large black feline in the early hours of the morning in the English wild woods or hedgerows (as I imagine from Wind in the Willows) are vanishingly slim. There is a whole field for the unknown and out of place creatures, Cryptozoology. A rich vein these days, as new species are found, most notably in the DMZ between North and South Korea. The shadow leopard of Sumatra is a recent discovery. Yeti and lake monsters, chupacabras and mothmen all inhabit the liminal space between reality and myth. The big cats seem to me the most plausible as real.

Cats are elusive and mysterious when they live in one's home, able to vanish into a crack in the wall of reality for hours at a time. Panthers out of place could have more elusive skills. Domestic cats find their way across country to the humans they claim, even in new places. Or away to their own territory when the humans that claim them move away. Large cats could well be following ancestral paths, if they exist factually. Apart from people, but aware of us.

There are stories of cats who take busses, or who round neighborhoods, waiting miles away to be picked up by their humans every day. Cats who survive in moving vans and shipping containers. There was a cat who lived at the Mt. Washington Observatory, a spot in the White Mountains renowned for it's severe weather, at the weather station. Cats appear everywhere but the Antarctic. Where humans go, cats hitch a lift, to see what's there. They don't really need us, but we seem to fascinate them.

Then there are the cats in the walls of old homes, mummified. Put there, presumably intentionally - as magical protection, I wonder if the idea started when a cat just got stuck of it's own accord. Because for all their grace and speed, they do wind up in untenable positions at times. Up trees, in cactus, down sewers, possessing a certain whathehellgiveitago attitude.

And there is a part of us as humans that feels a fierce protectiveness for the young of our own predators. Apes have been eaten by lions, yet Koko had a kitten. The human psyche, probably from before we were human, has absorbed catness into ourselves. A strange mix of affection and fear, the feline is part of who we are. As we see human faces in rocks and trees, we also see huge cats (& dogs) in the shadows. Large, black, terrifying cats.

Smelt

I had a recurrent nightmare of wading in shallow water, and tiny fish nibbling away my toes, unable to pull my feet out of the lake. Too many nature shows about pirana. These dreams faded by the time I started school, but I still have a strange preoccupation with fish, without actually liking them. Except to eat. When I first heard stories of fish falling from the sky, I thought about the story of Moses and Manna from Heaven, a miraculous rain.

Instead of miracles, falls of fish, whether of a single species or a variety, near water or fairly far inland are dismissed as the result of waterspouts and whirlwinds. Although in a few cases, this is probably accurate, it's rather like the stab victim - who was "just standing around minding my own business." Such a blanket excuse, a comfort, not in any way analytical or thoughtful.

Living creatures from out of the blue. Jan DeBlieu's Wind:How the Flow of Air has Shaped Life, Myth, and the Land, suggests that whirlwinds could explain some falls, but adding in the amazing insight that jet streams could easily move birds long distances, and so, I thought, why not fish? Charles Fort may have believed in teleportation of some sort. I much prefer a natural, if mysterious and unlikely explanation. A rare, unpredictable, but given just the right series of peculiar circumstances, and a small area will be up to their knees in anomalous frogs or smelt. Why not wind, which throws straws into trees and changes rocks?

Occam's razor cuts both ways. The simple does not always take into account all the circumstances, when the facts are bizarre.

What, I thought, would happen if a people are faced with regular falls of fish? What if they live by the best precepts of scientific method, observing and gathering data, not theorizing ahead of the facts? On the edge, in need of protein, as most human civilization always has been? I imagine them both logging the sizes and species, times, conditions, and then having a fish fry. What would this do to their worldview, their beliefs? Especially given the human capacity to normalize the extraordinary.

I will likely never experience a fish rain. But I would hope I would have the presence of mind to turn my umbrella up to catch as many as I can.

Times

All my life, I have watched for the oddness. The maple seed spinner that had a bump, the double yolk, the bread slice with the air hole, the M&N candy. I saw the Tooth Fairy, once. My mother loved tales of Seafaring disasters, Flying Dutchmen, as well as saintly miracles. Proof of the unique and inexplicable delights me.


If I have a faith today, it is that life is stranger than we can know. I think scientific method is the best human process, but that it is incomplete. The strangeness will not sit still for a good double blind study, which does not make it invalid. I know scientists themselves are prone to all that human ego is err to, from fudging the numbers to willful blindness for whatever does not fit their comfortable frame of reference, greed and lack of imagination. Which doesn't make them bad, it simply makes them Not Gods. There are Skeptics who worship them. There are Atheists who worship the idea of No God with the passion of the Orthodox. Such Atheists and Skeptics (the one note Believers in Anti-Belief, not the thoughtful well-let's sees) are just as rigid in their assumptions as the credulous believers, closing their minds and jumping to the conclusion they most want.

D got a copy of the Fortean Times, many years ago. It took me a while, but once I started reading it, I converted. Found my true faith. Douglas Adams was a prophet A mobile point, always watching, never accepting any explanation as eternal writ. For what is there to write upon? Stone erodes, cracks, melts, what words would survive even there? People will believe anything, much of it just screwy, our own ability to conceive of the way life works woefully inadequate to encompass the infinite variety.

When I came to write a novel, how could I do other than dig into this rich source? Putting the story here could be an issue, since I do dream of publishing, one day. But the ideas that inspire me? Ah ha! That I can write about. I will reveal to you my secrets, all the Forteana that drives and populates my meagre attempt at fiction.

I change again, from long convoluted essays, to my explorations of Boston, to daily struggles and worries, and now, the far edges that have always fired my mind. Let's see where this one goes...