Seasoning, as I like it

If there's a heaven, I know my aunt is in it.

No matter how many sins she may have commited, she surely was redeemed by the culinary gifts she possessed and hospitality with which she charmed everyone she knew. She put these talents of her to use cooking breakfasts for the B&B she and my uncle owned in New Orleans many years ago.

I've been thinking about her a lot lately, slowly unraveling and knitting together the various ways she affected my life in the 30 years I knew her. And so tonight, I'm cooking up her jambalaya as the weekly meal I prepare so I can eat leftovers on the nights I have school. She once told me to cook this in times I'm poor, and I'm feeling a bit strapped at this moment, so it seemed a good choice.

It's also a way to connect with her. Each time I make this recipe, which she dictated to me about a year ago on my last visit while she was alive, I am taken back into her kitchen. Actually, two kitchens. The one she had in Hawaii and the one in New Orleans.

I cannot count the times I stood in her kitchen, watching her cook and talking with her. But time and again, when I think of her, many of those memories are fused with the kitchen. Jambalaya, étouffée, sauces and dips, Southern veggies of all sorts, blackened fish, roasts and, the Holy Grail of Liz's Kitchen, her crab meat crepes and café au lait.

My taste buds fall into revery just thinking about her cooking.

I cannot tell you, though, how low my heart sinks when I realize -- over and over again, each time feeling like a fresh revelation -- that I will never again stand in the kitchen with her and talk. My aunt was a wise woman, so much so that I have for the past 20 years or so held the expectation of seeing her grow very old and wondering just how wise she would get with age. This always came to my imagination by way of seeing her with long, grey hair, standing at the stove.

In my imagination, I would be a receptical. I would raise a topic, ask a question and, as she cooked, this wise old woman would tell me what she thought. Never in the form of "an answer." Always in story. As she moved around the kitchen, cooking.

In these moments -- even now I can conjure this and see it -- I felt satisfied, cared for and respected. In many ways, she has been one of the most significant and positive fixtures in my personal iconography.

I gather that's what one would call a mother figure (in the positive sense of the word).

Of course, she was human. But on the whole, in my real life, I felt very much satisfied, cared for and respected in my experience with her. Even when she was sick. Even in the conversation we had just a few hours before she died.

No one in my life has been so caring toward me. So tenacious in their love (even when I was a crazy, neurotic teen-ager constantly at war with my family). So welcoming of me at any and all moments. What's that saying? Home is the place where, when you show up, they have to take you in? That was her home.

I can't call her my mother, because she wasn't. But as I hold her in my heart, that is really what she represents.

I am angry that my imagination of these many years will not come to fruition. I feel cheated there. And yet, I also have this profound sense of gratitude for all the times I did stand in that kitchen, talking with her. I was fortunate enough one day last year to film her telling part of her life story -- while she was cooking.

And I was also blessed, during that same visit, with the dictation of the Jambalaya.

Tonight, when I went to cook it, I looked at the recipe I had written down. Having cooked it before, most recently for a Mardi Gras party, I check over the recipe for ingredients before going to the store. Today, for the first time, I saw a funny little thing in it that I never noticed before, and I laughed when I read it.

She had, one day while we were eating some Jamabalay she cooked before I arrived, simply said, "You want to cook this yourself..." and tossed off the recipe. I wrote it upside down on the back page of my journal, scribbled rather hurridly. In the list of ingredients -- celery, onions, garlic, etc. -- are the following words: "seasoning 'that you want' ".

Today I looked at that: That you *want*? I said aloud. Exactly what is that?

And then I realized two things: In being so vague, Liz had not shared *her* jambalaya. But in exchange, she ensured I would create one of my own, which is at heart what a Jambalaya is all about.

This is something I learned from Liz time and again: Seek counsel, listen to the stories people tell you, but always find your own way.

It is a loss beyond measure to acknowledge I will never again seek counsel from her in the kitchen.

But I believe those 20 years were not wasted in my imagination. She lives on within me. So now, I can simply go into the kitchen and seek counsel from myself.

Well, a quick sample from the pot simmering in my kitchen tells me the Jambalaya is done. Not surprisingly, it has the seasoning that I want.

Weekend

Man, oh man. This weekend got a hold of my ass, dragged it hither and yon and then threw it in the waste basket. Not quite like being rode hard and put away wet ... but close enough. Following is a rather edited -- for your sake and mine -- account of the weekend that takes the Fifth Amendment at some points:

Friday

In Play Therapy, I uttered a rather fantastic string of curse words, ending with "cunt" (which is a word that horrifies me every time I utter it, if you must know the truth). This was in response to my teacher noting that I said "shit" when addressing whether there's an "appropriate time and place" for being playful. Which was, in itself, part of a discussion we were having with regards to our collective adult fear of breaking social conventions.

It was all rather recursive and ironic to me, but I've a feeling that some of my classmates didn't quite get it. Oh well.

After class, I went to go see a former teacher for a bit of personal counseling -- or something like that. I don't really know what happened there.

She informed me that I can communicate with spirit guides if I will kindly alter my vibrations in a manner that allows me to bridge the quantum gap between their existence and mine. Apparently, only thing I need to do is raise my vibrations to meet up with the unconcerned nature of energy that lives in a state of unconditional love.

Sounds a little like having an orgasm to me.

But I didn't tell her that.

Rather, I asked her if a Oiuja Board would do the trick.

Fortunately, this teacher has a sharp and loving sense of humor and took my joke with the kind-hearted personal cynicism that was intended. She's a good woman. And perhaps just a wee bit nutty. As the most interesting people usually are.

Left there and was summoned to see The Good Witch, who I have been wanting to catch up with for a couple weeks. Drove on up there, and enjoyed snacks and drinks on the patio, watching the sunset. She's got a hillside 180-degree view of Oregon from just across the river in Washington. Gorgeous sunrises over Mt. Hood. Gorgeous sunsets over the hills that run along the Columbia.

She showed me her garden, and I regaled her with a story of a journey that has been on my mind lately. But rather than telling one part of the story that has stuck with me, I recounted the cultural aspects of traveling in a single day from the Peruvian Andes to the Amazon and back into the Andes, all by car.

Got home around 10, took the dog for a walk, talked to someone on the phone, worked on my art, went to sleep.

Saturday

Woke around 10. Read and otherwise fucked around for a little bit. Took the dog for a walk at one. Did the new "ridgeline route" I mapped out for myself. Turns out the final flight of stairs has 57 steps in it. Jogging up it gets my ticker going.

Came back. Bought some flea prevention stuff for the dog online. Started making a quinoa salad with snow peas, tomatoes, cucumber, mint, basil and a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice & zest, dijon mustard, salt, pepper and a kick of tobasco.

Finished that. Showered. Started watching my first ever episode of "The L Word." Finally starting to update my lesbian credentials.... (And thank goodness. I think I my memories of lesbian sex were going to fade beyond the event horizon on Tuesday or Wednesday of this week, so it came just in time!)

I got lost in time watching the two-hour pilot episode and looked up at the clock to realize that HGM was going to be by in 20 minutes to pick me up for a party. I had to find some clothes and walk the dog pronto.

Dressing was a bitch. I was going to a party populated with people whom I've never met, at a location of which I was ignorant. Inside? Outside? I had no idea what to wear. Nor whether there was the possibility of any queerity.

In the end, I wore some military green chinos with a black hoodie sweater and my little green pua mana necklace. I wear that pua mana whenever I think I need certain vibes working in my favor, and decided this would be one of those nights.

Worked like a charm. I'm standing in the kitchen, and I hear a "Well, hello..." uttered (and dripping with sexuality) in my direction. I look up and see a cute, dark and curly-haired, green-eyed young woman who looks Latina giving me a lingering once-over, a huge smile on her face. Our eyes meet.

"Who are you?" she askes.

I'm UCM.

"Mmm," she says. "Welcome...."

At this point, the woman whose birthday was being celebrated, walked between us. "This is (can't remember her real name), but we call her 'Stinky,' " she told me. "You've got to watch out for Stinky, we always say. And I'd say especially so tonight."

Stinky looks at me. Smiles. Puts a bottle of beer to her lips. Sips. Winks.

A few minutes later, she applies those lips to a boy out on the deck. Quite voraciously.

Several hours later, outside by the fire, I hear stories about how Stinky is "all about love" to the point that she "ends up rubbing you in inappropriate places."

Of this, I have no doubt.

Beyond that, the party was the most engaging social event I have been to in years. I say this not just because I finally caught someone's eye -- never mind that it is an indiscriminately wandering one -- but because the conversation was highly amusing, invigorating and free flowing. Ideas and jokes and singing and intellectual dialogue intermingled effortlessly. Someone played the acordion. There was a fire pit to enjoy. Some people were dressed in costumes, but with the exception of one -- a fabulous rendition of a 1970s housewife playing tennis at the country club -- I couldn't tell you who was in costume and who wasn't. It was that kind of party.

And there were cupcakes.

I got home about 1:30, took a long shower and went to sleep.

Sunday

The day started a little too early for its own good. I didn't sleep well on accounts of the preceding night's conviviality, and so I woke at 9 and could not get back to sleep.

Around noon, I talked to Rather Shy Classmate about plans to help her find some special fabric for a costume she's making. We decided to get something to eat before going to the fabric place, as I was feeling very hungry.

But when I got to her place, she was engaged in a little house project, which I helped her with before we ... went on an hour-long walk to a nature preserve near her home. By the time we were done, I was FAMISHED.

I ate too much for "breakfast," which I finally started to eat around 4 p.m. I had florentine benedict with roasted potatoes and a pancake with almonds and granola in it. I didn't finish it all, but more than enough. So as I felt a twee sick.

I was feeling really cranky by the time we got to the fabric store. Fabric stores always do a bad number on me. They make me sleepy. So do thrift stores. There must be something in all that cloth. Because I'm *not* kidding: Every time I walk into a fabric store or a thrift store, I almost *immediately* become tired enough to nap right there on the spot.

RSC's 8-year-old daughter was really enjoying the place, though. She found it highly stimulating for reasons I clearly don't understand. She started getting very excited, and RSC asked her to "calm down."

"How can I calm down when I'm in paradise?!" her daughter replied with earnestness and enthusiasm.

That seemed like a fair question. And so I laughed, as did RSC. "And," the daughter said just then, "I don't understand why that's funny at all."

I had to repress a big laugh. And even more big yawns.

When we were done, I dropped them off and headed home. Barely made it in the door, I was so freaking tired. Kicked off my shoes, laid down on the bed, talked on the phone for a few minutes, set my alarm and slipped into a cat nap. Gave me the extra little bit of energy I needed.

So I could finish watching all the episodes on "The L Word" DVD. Whereupon I promptly decided to put more of the discs at the top of my Netflix queue. I need my street cred back.

And now, I bid you goodnight.

After a weekend like this, I need my beauty sleep.

And some time to myself.

I, Therapist: Part 3

I saw my first client a second time tonight. I don't know how she felt about it, but I felt pretty good.

I got all this praise from the teacher, although I have my suspicions that he works primarily within the framework of praise, rather than critique. In any case, he commented that I was "very casual with the client, almost like it was a friendship, but never, not a single time, did I see you slip out of your professional role; that is really wonderful work."

Aw, shucks!

Later, though, when our class of three took to discussing a question he posed -- "What are you learning about yourself from doing this work?" -- he said something that was not the least bit surprising, but which I decided to address head-on.

In response to his question, I commented on how much I love sitting in conversation with people. I talked about how much I had enjoyed this aspect of working as a journalist, and that I knew back then that there was something disarming about me because people often forgot they were talking to a journalist. So while I had gotten into this new line of work for selfish reasons -- wanting to experience again the mind-expanding work of listening closely to the stories people tell -- I had been surprised to feel such a sense of purpose in the act of *just being* there to listen.

After I said this, the teacher replied, "There's a softness to you when you sit with the client that I didn't expect. You're obviously interested and curious about the client, and you seem so *relaxed* in the session, but you never seem to lose track of what your role is."

He says things like this with the tone of surprise in his voice, like I'm doing something wildly unexpected.

So I responded thusly: I noticed last week that there was a hint of surprise in your voice when you called my work 'low key.' I tend to be direct and outspoken, bold sometimes to the point of brazen, and have a lot of body language going on -- I know this. The other week in class when (a different teacher) asked us what strengths we bring to the table, I mentioned I was 'unflappable,' and I noticed someone rolling their eyes when I said this. It seems common for people to confuse an outspoken woman with a hysterical one. But the truth is I know how to behave in different arenas; it's simply a matter of what I choose to do. I chose to give the finger to said classmate a little bit later; I choose to be outspoken and bold and do whatever else I do when I'm just being *me;* and I choose how to be in this role of 'counselor.' None of them is inauthentic. There's a whole lot of 'soft' going on over here. If you want the truth, that's it: I'm just a big old fat softie. But I'm not going to act like someone's therapist when I'm not.

To this, one of my classmates said, "You're three-dimensional."

As a side note, the teacher also said my session seemed "purposeful" and "planned" and that it stuck to a very tight focus. This is cool because the client talked about something I did not expect, and I just sank my little teeth right into it.

But while the teacher thought it was focused, I was just thinking of this thing an old boss of mine used to say all the time: "Just throw some shit onto the wall and see what sticks."

I guess something sticky also turned out to be useful.

Perhaps I have found the right line of work. Perhaps....

The road less-traveled

I found a new walking route today. I credit its discovery to my habitual engagement in my coursework *and* to the fact that S2 once introduced me to the hidden passages in our area of town.

Our neighborhoods sit atop a plateau of sediment dumped by the raging Columbia river a million years ago. Where the plateau comes to an end, a steep ridge provides some wonderful views of downtown. I've taken to riding my bike like a bat out of hell down one of the steep side streets that go straight down the face of the ridge -- and then enjoy torturing myself on the return trip, seeing how far I can make it before stopping to give my burning quads a rest before taking off again. (I've found less extreme routes up the hill, but the straight on assault always seems called for when I've been drinking coffee and eating pastries at the bottom of the hill.)

However, I rarely *walk* down the hill because I don't like the experience of coming back up on foot. I broke my left ankle forever and a few years ago, but the limited range of motion in the joint and the steepness of this hill makes it impossible for my heel to hit the pavement on the way up. It wrecks my Achilles Tendon.

Lately, however, I've been taking a Play Therapy class and thus have been doing a lot of reading about the ways in which the act of "play" is commonly extinguished in children and why we, as adults, repress, suppress or sublimate (all differently nuanced acts of denial of) our impulses to "play" in our daily lives.

As adults, we often feel the need for excuses. If we "play," we may think we can only do so in competitive sports, such as soccer or golf (dodgeball being a bit too "childish"). Or we keep play confined to the game table, leaving room for the acting up of pantomime as required by a board game or throwing our poker chips into the pile. The more adventurous among us might engage in play through stage acting, music, art or other creative pursuits.

But it's less common for us to "play" by cutting up in front of others outside of well-defined activities. And, considering how we build our routines and make our habits, more often than not, we stick to them instead of breaking the mold and seeing what unfolds.

Breaking out of the regular and the "normal" and seeing what happens: This is my still early-in-development definition of "play."

Some of my classmates are more inspired to question and engage than others, and last Friday after class, I ran into one of them in the back stairwell of the hall where we have class.

She had revealed last week that her parents disapproved of *any* play whatsoever. She had, nevertheless, squirreled away a simple doll and another toy -- both given to her as gifts by people outside the family. These, she hid in her bedroom closet, and when left alone in her room, she would close herself away in the closet so she could play with her imagination and these two precious toys. In telling this story to the class, she mentioned how difficult it has been for her as an adult to "play." (As an aside, I will venture to say that she seems to be taking this class for personal reasons, rather than professional ones.)

In any case, I encountered her on the stairwell. I was on my way up, and she was on her way down. "How do I get out of this building?" she asked. "I tried to play around with my regular route out of the building, and this is what happened."

If you want to take the road less-traveled, go to the bottom of the stairs, and turn left, I told her. Then take a right.

Leave it to me to give directions to someone who's trying to improvise.... Who knows where she ended up.

But I was thinking about her this afternoon when I suddenly altered my walking route. The first thing I did was let the sunlight guide me. I was wearing just a T-shirt, shorts and sandals, but I had on my bad-ass mutha' fucka' sunglasses (the ones that, when I wore them in Panama, I learned just how rude it is to wear sunglasses that obscure your eyes so completely). It was a little cool in the shade, so I walked on the sunny side of the street.

In the beginning, I chose the sunniest direction at each intersection. This led me to that hill I fly down on my bike. I decided to walk down it, thought perhaps of letting the dog run around on the playground of a school down at the bottom of the hill.

While walking past the school, a woman from the opposite side of the street began gushing *loudly* about the undeniable cuteness of the fair pup Brogan, who has recently been to the groomer. "That is the CUTEST dog I have EVER seen!" she yelled in delight. She was giddy with laughter looking at him, so I walked over to her. She giggled while she pet him. "He looks just like a dog in a commercial!" she said.

For the record, this is a profile shot of the dog in question. He *is* a charmer....



Anyway, from the school, I thought to go in a direction I have never gone before. I headed east. The hill rose truely but gently into a curving street shaded by the mature canopy of large trees. Homes of modest craftsman design on flat lots gave way to ones rising on steeply pitched lots with soaring windows designed to look above rooftops to the south.

Meandering along here, I encountered several other walkers. They uniformly did not look like the people I normally encounter on my walks. Rather than hipsters, clowns and lesbians with big dogs, I kept coming across slender middle-aged women with taut necks who were wearing matching, technical workout gear, good shoes and fancy sport watches. (It was kind of like encountering a platoon of older S2s, to tell the truth.)

Oh, I thought to myself. This is where the healthy rich people take their walks.

I passed an opportunity or two to follow them up one of the steep streets that climb the ridge. I wanted to see where the curving road went, and I began to wonder if there might be another way up. Walking with S2 one day to pick up her first born at school, she showed me a public stairwell that cut between some houses, letting you get from the base of the ridge to one of the streets above.

Shortly after I started wondering if I'd find such a thing in my end of the 'hood, I encountered one. I love these stairwells. They are concrete steps that go on switchbacks up the hillside. Deeply in shade, the fences alongside covered in ivy, it feels like a gift each time I step off the streets and onto a little path only accessible by foot.

I ascended about five or six flights of stairs and came out on a wide street atop the ridge. I was stunned by what I saw there. People have always told me there were big, fancy houses near my neighborhood. Indeed, between my house and S2's, there are a lot of large, beautiful old homes. But I never got why people find them all that big and fancy. At the top of this particular stairwell, however, there was a massive home -- so perfectly European and old, so large, that it easily could be a dormitory at Oxford or Cambridge. Naturally, it commanded the finest view of the city from this corner of town.

I walked through a small neighborhood of similar homes, though this one was by far the biggest. As I headed west, I followed the line of the ridge back down about half way, where I turned toward home. There, I encountered another stairwell, this one straight and steep and about three flights high, with a great view of downtown. They are one block east of the hill I ride down like a bat out of hell.

Surfacing atop the plateau, I walked back onto the streets immediately near my home. Walking up the street, I encountered a woman with whom I had spoken briefly over her fence the other day. She hailed me, and I crossed the street to walk with her. She had a heart attack a month ago and said her doctor just gave her the clearance to walk around the neighborhood.

She's a long-time resident of this neighborhood, and as we walked up the block, she pointed out a few trees to me -- including an almond tree -- and told me a couple stories about how it used to be here. A neighbor's gate was open, and she closed it. "The woman who lives here travels a lot," she said. It was amicable, neighborly chatter. She has been a warm person in my periodic encounters with her over the past year, but she is especially optimistic and happy to be alive following the heart attack, and she says as much.

I returned to my place about 45 or 50 minutes after I left it. The sunlight was softening. My dog was tired. He didn't take to the stairs as quickly as he normally does. Playing had resulted in a good workout.

But more to the point, playing had revealed a secret passage, taken me places I hadn't seen before and given a strange woman the occasion to giggle over the profound handsomeness of my little pup.

Amusingly, breaking the mold, disrupting the routine, playing and seeing what came of it ... will give me a new routine which eventually will become a mold to break.

If I'm doing things right.

Friends

I got a call from YogaGirl last night when I was putting in some time at the H4TCI. The residents were all either hanging out in their rooms -- showering at the end of the day versus the beginning of it is the most common M.O. -- or watching TV. So I took myself a dinner break, went outside on the porch and talked to her for a while.

She was weighing a question that brought up a lot of issues for both of us, I think. In finishing her internship and preparing to graduate later this summer, she is facing a dilemma: move back to the Midwest or stay here in Portland.

The debate rages around where her sense of responsibility lies and which version of a support system -- family or friends -- she'll take a chance upon. I have had this discussion with her before, but it's getting more complexed and nuanced in its examination of the issue.

Ultimately, my approach in helping her sort it out has been this: Now would be a very good time for you to consider what *you* want for yourself. Completing graduate school is a prime chance to define and cultivate a specific version of a life you *want,* rather than the one you were living before you entered into a completely new line of work. We'll be counseling people with the general aim of helping them accept themselves and be able to know what they want and have the personal resources to mainfest themselves wholly and authentically. Ought we not give ourselves the same chance to name and create the life we want? What does that look like for you?

I can't speak for YogaGirl, but man do I have dreams! I keep them to myself, mainly. One of them -- the one I love the most -- frightens me and so I barely speak of it. It is a beautiful dream, and it is fermenting nicely.

Another, perhaps my wildest, seems to be shared by YogaGirl. It gets mentioned in passing, but neither one of us seems willing to discuss the nitty-gritty details. We may both be reluctant to do so out of two fears: One, we'd never figure out how to make it work; two: we'd figure out how to make it work and then have to face whether we are bold enough to do it. I call the job "Travel Psychologist."

That's my issue. She talks about what she's going to do after graduation, and I start thinking about what my career should look like. I also think about relationships. Whether I will be solo for a long haul or find someone who really catches me (and, if the universe would *kindly* get its shit together, the feeling is mutual), and also what will become of some of the friendships I have made in school.

For YogaGirl, the question comes down to whether she should return to the Midwest to be close to her sisters and some old friends, or whether she should stay in Portland, with its network of professional contacts she's made, the support network of friends she has and her boyfriend. Not to mention its stunning geographical location. (Yes, YogaGirl, that was a marketing ploy.)

During last night's discussion, I repeated something a mutual friendly acquaintaince had told me: "Most of the friendships we make in graduate school are fake and will go away as soon as we graduate." This came up in the context of how solid friendships are, versus family connections. Both YogaGirl and I are distant from our parents. She is much closer to her sisters than I am to my siblings. But my assessment is that she and I share similar attachment issues.

I don't share the cynicism I heard in the tone of that acquaintance's comment, but I understand what she means.

I know there are many people I will not hear from after graduation, I told YogaGirl. As it is, I don't hear from them now. But there are others I believe will be friends and some who will remain members of my professional network. And then there's the category of people with question marks: These are the friends that only time will reveal. I suspect there might be a couple of those who end up sticking around.

Something I've learned from moving so much in my life -- as a child and an adult -- is that you never know who is going to stick. Sometimes, people really surprise you. The Asian is one of those people. She and I were one of the most improbable matches in the newsroom on the surface -- she younger, calmer, quieter, considerably more dignified (which people wrongly assumed meant she was easily intimidated) and me my brazen, crusty little self with my loud voice -- and yet our friendship has survived more than 10 years.

Leaving graduate school is a little like moving in some respects.

We get to know people, we work on projects, we study and talk about the same stuff, sometimes we get in each other's business, we see each other through the stressful transitions, we watch each other go through the paces of school, we socialize, eat, drink and commiserate together.

And then we graduate.

Look around at our classmates and friends. They have different goals, different specialties, different interests, different things we can tolerate. Some will go on for doctorates. Others may move away, back to the cities they left so they could study here.

Who will we still know and associate with two years from now? Five? There's no saying.

But for me, staying in town (at least as my "secure base"), is my intention for the next good long while. I want some roots. I like the friends I have, and I would enjoy keeping some of those I have made in school. S2, for obvious example, is a keeper. But as I have been cultivating some new friendships over the past year, I have in my mind a few with whom it will be my pleasure to remain connected.

Certainly, YogaGirl is one of them. (Another shameless marketing ploy.)

That would naturally conclude this piece, but I have chosen to add the following to my response about my classmate saying our graduate school friendships are "fake":

No matter how you cut it, I have not been "fake" in my friendships with any of you. I'm keeping it real, man. Of course, that's why you like me (even when you hate me). Ain't no full-o'-shit over here; ain't never gonna be. I eat crow just as frequently as I eat my foot. And if I say I like you, I like you; if I say I love you, I love you; if I say you're a dumb-ass, I'm still open to having you prove me wrong.

Now that's all I'm sayin'.

Cats and the caldera (a story told by sleep)

I slept about nine hours last night.

Spent the last four of them, this morning, with my eye mask on.

As usual, the act of waking enough to put it on this morning -- it won't stay on if I sleep all night with it -- escorted me into a land of vivid dreaming. I always have extremely vivid dreams if I wake up long enough to know I'm awake and then go back to sleep.

In the one I had right before waking, I was visiting Mt. St. Helens. Hardly a soul was up at the observatory where you look into the yawning maw left behind when the volcano's side blew out in the big eruption (1980?). There was a long and straight line of snow dropping down between the rocky inner face of the caldera, and the color of the sky at that point so well matched the snow that it had the illusion of the mountain having been split into two, torn apart vertically in the middle.

Even though the observatory was almost deserted, I felt this strange concern about finding a parking spot and I ended up driving into an underground parking garage in search of one. (In reality, there is no garage there. And in my dream, surface parking was plentiful.) The garage was very dark.

When I got out of my car, I saw the woman who was my teacher in Career Counseling. She was kind of reprimanding a boy, telling him to return to me the pair of rain pants he had taken from my trunk. Even though I had already locked my car (and thus set the alarm), he was able to open one of the back doors without tripping the alarm, and he tossed my pants onto the seat. This gave me pause, but I decided to leave it be and walk out of the garage.

Up on the surface, in the daylight, I looked at the volcano again. The sky and snow were different colors, and rather than appearing torn in two by that strip of snow, the snow now looked like the most radical nordic ski jumping platform you've ever seen. I remarked on this to my former teacher, who was walking with me through the empty parking lot. And I also remarked on the availability of parking and wondering what had made be blind to all these open spots above ground.

My teacher ignored the parking issue and addressed the change in the volcano. "Every day, the mountain reveals to you a different aspect of herself she wants you to see. But you still have to allow your eyes to look."

We stopped walking at a little card table set up on a sidewalk, a chair facing the volcano. My teacher had been sketching whatever it was she saw there, and I looked at her work. There were colorful, squiggly lines evoking the shape of Mt. St. Helens.

I contemplated it quietly for a moment, then said I wished I could draw but cannot. She replied, "Rendering things only as they actually appear is something a cat would do."

It's not that I dislike cats, I replied. But it strikes me that they are the only pets we keep who show dismissiveness and contempt.

And then I woke up -- and stayed awake.

Discursive is as discursive does

Man, am I tired.

I haven't been managing more than six hours of sleep a night for a couple of weeks now. Part of the problem is that I've worked several shifts that start in the morning, and I rarely manage to get myself to sleep before 1 a.m. But even on the days I could sleep in, like today, I don't manage to stay asleep unless I put on an eye mask to deal with the early sunlight.

This is nothing new. I've had to wear a mask to deal with the early morning sunlight for several years now. The mask works like a charm, but it also puts me into a deeper sleep from which it becomes more difficult to awaken. My circadian rhythms get all screwed up.

And so on days like today, where I had something I wanted to do in the morning, I resist putting on the mask, and then can't stay asleep. So now I'm trashed.

In the end, though, it was a good day. Got my place tidied up, something I planned to do yesterday but didn't when I got sidetracked by a social visit. Worked on a new art project -- starting what looks like it will be a very dark piece. Read a little bit of philosophy (Foucault's second volume of "The History of Sexuality"). And a couple friends popped at different times of the day while they were checking out an arts fair here on my street.

King Rex came by around 4, and we spent a couple hours wandering between four or five stages set up several blocks apart and listening to music acts. My favorite was a band that mixed reggae and ska. Lots of people dancing. Lots of kids running around in the grass. Hippies. Dreadlocks. Circus acts. And far too many butt cracks showing thanks to the popularity of those low-rise jeans. (Time for that trend to end!)

Ended the evening watching the final episode of the first season of "Battlestar Galatica," which I've been watching on DVD. I'm enjoying that series, but I'm happy to be done with this particular DVD because the next video in my Netflix queue is ... "The L Word."

As regular readers might recall, I was recently asked by someone if I watched "The L Word." Bubba tells me that this question was "obviously" a sign that the woman who asked me is queer, as I had been wondering if she is. I don't know that I agree with Bubba that such a question necessarily means the asker is a lesbian, but ... I like to dream. It is my delirious hope that the woman in question *is* queer *and* single.

Or maybe I never told you all that. I'm too lazy to check my own blog and find out.

In any case, the pertinent part of this story is that I had to reply to the woman: No, I've never seen it. It was after I uttered these words that I began to consider the possibility my License to be Lesbian could be revoked. I clearly have not been keeping up on my continuing education requirements, and "The L Word" is apparently worth some serious CEUs.

As it is, I believe the last lesbian CEUs I earned may have been from watching "Tipping the Velvet" back in February of 2006. Can it really have been that long ago? Surely I must have seen or done *something* gay since then....

Oh wait. I recall taking a DVD of some little British film -- "Imagine Me & You" -- to work with me on one of those night shifts I worked back in February or March. It was about a woman who, on her wedding day, falls in love with the lesbian florist who did the wedding flower arrangements. Seems like one of the actresses may have looked like Kate Winslet.

And well... even if neither of them looked like Kate Winslet, there must have been something with Kate Winslet in it that I've seen recently. Even if it's not queer, *any* activity that includes Kate Winslet should qualify for Lesbian CEUs. She rates a recurring role in all my best fantasies, so every time I see her in something, her hot hot hotness is reaffirmed in a very lesbian sort of way.

Now I remember... I saw her in a movie at the theater. It was called "The Little Children" or something like that. She plays a married woman who, in one steamy scene, gets fucked on top of the washing machine by the guy with whom she's having an affair. Then, in another scene, she tells the women in her reading group that Emma Bovary had a good thing going on with the affair she was having. I was reminded of that second scene by that video a classmate of mine made for Couples Therapy. She mentioned something about Madame Bovary having the right idea about how to make the best of a suck-ass marriage.

As soon as I heard that comment by my classmate, I thought of Kate Winslet. Thus, by some weird extension of this nonsensical train of thought, I think I could technically apply for Lesbian CEUs based on my classmate's video, even though it has nothing at all to do with queerity.

I'm pretty sure I just made up that word: "Queerity." ... Hmm, I rather like it.

So this officially is evidence of how tired I am. I'm rambling. I'm drawing connections between things that are not connected at all. I've convinced myself that there are, in fact, CEU requirements and licenses for lesbians. And I'm making up words.

I should hang up now.

But before I go, I'll add this: The ancient Greeks would not have liked me. The would have considered me incontinent (which is not what it sounds like).

And you know what? I'm fine with that. I really am.

I think I'll wear my mask in the morning. Sleep in for a while.

I, (bad) Therapist

And then there's what I said to the Deaf client tonight....

So much for my sense of cultural competence.

*gulp*

I, Therapist

I had my first therapy client EVER tonight.

No. 1: It was not the client I was expecting to be my first.

No. 2: For whatever reason, I had envisioned *any* client I would see tonight would just kind of sorta casually be interested in counseling but not really need anything.

No. 3: I also envisioned that I would stumble and fumble through my words, not be able to attune with the client in any empathetic way and would otherwise create feelings of disconnection and boredom within myself, if not the client as well.

No. 4: I was totally WRONG about items 2 and 3.

Right at the beginning of the intake process, I realized I had a serious client with a very serious situation on my hands. And rather than fumbling and fucking my way through what might have caused some novice therapists-in-training to flip out, I stayed calm and exceptionally present with the client.

In fact, I was surprised by my own sense of presence.

The other week, I was talking to S2 about something, and we got on the subject of "Be here now." I said at the time that "now" wasn't so much a problem for me as "here" usually is. That's a bad joke on my part, because "now" requires "here," if you think about it. But the truth is that my mind wanders. I am given to massive fits of abstract thinking and prone to quick synthesizing of information into some kind of sense-making narrative. Both of these habits can take me away from the Here *and* the Now very easily.

And yet.

Tonight, faced with my first client, I was absolutely riveted. She had a serious concern, but she didn't have the most compelling story I've ever heard. Nor did she strike me in ways that made me *want* to like her. She was neither elegant nor erudite, neither colorful nor captivating.

What she was, however, trumped the features that often bring my attention into sharper focus: She was in pain. She was asking for help. And I was the one expected to provide it.

That gets my attention.

So it was there, in the very first session -- what one of my classmates has called the "deflowering" of therapist -- that I felt the real weight of this profession we call "counseling." I felt a sense of purpose. It has been so fucking long since I felt such a thing, I cannot begin to tell you what it means to me.

I don't know if I will help this woman get where she needs to go -- I rather doubt it because this is a huge issue and our time will be very limited -- but I realized that even in just the hour we shared this evening, something therapeutic had occurred. She needed someone to listen to her, and that's what I did.

If she returns, I'll try to do more than that. But tonight, it was illustrated to me just how powerful that can be.

I also learned that I can actually ... listen.

Imagine that.

One down, two to go...

I finished the first piece in a new art project I'm working on in my free time. No class associated with this puppy, just me attempting to ... uh, represent a process in some other way than words. In fact, you might say the title of this project is "Words Fail Me."

I don't know if my storytelling skills have met their match with this recent transformation I've been experiencing, or if the whole thing simply defies words.

Whatever the case, I was inspired by the work I did for my Couples Therapy class -- purely in media, not in content -- and I decided to try to tell a story in another way than words (although true to form, I use words in at least one of these pieces). This is something I have never done, so it's engaging me in the challenge of it.

But also, I like playing around with paper and scissors, so it has given me something other than homework to do during the really *boring* shifts I've been doing at work lately (last night being an exception, although I did some cutting work there, too).

So after much fussing, I finished one tonight. I can't speak to its "artistic" merits, but I am pleased with it. It says something that's meaningful to me. And I think the image is provocative enough that it will mean something to others, as well. Perhaps that's enough.

I've been cutting pieces for the second one, but I must spend a little while more on the visioning of it. I can see what I want to do, but am not quite sure if I'll be able to figure out how to do it. Sometimes, the layering gets tricky.

Anyway, I'm excited. One is done, and I like it.

Mother's Day

This morning, someone I know wished me a "Happy Mother's Day."

I'm not anyone's mother, I reminded her.

She tilted her head toward my dog, and said, "Well...."

This seems to happen every year. And it always leaves me with strangely ambivalent feelings. This year, I replied, That is not my child, and my friend shrugged, a kind smile on her face. No telling what she was thinking.

But I'll tell this: People frequently refer to my dog as if it's my child. I, however, do not. My dog is ... a dog. A very cute dog. A lovely lap covering. A friendly companion. A fierce alert-force, always keeping an eye out for our collective safety. But he is not ... a child.

I just wanted to clear that up.

In other mother-related hoo-haw, I called The Norotious M.O.M. today for the first time in several months and wished her a happy mother's day (avoiding any commentary on the *quality* of her mothering). It was a relatively painless conversation. It lasted long enough for me to feel like I don't need to call her for another six or seven months. (Hello, Christmas!)

For my troubles, I was rewarded with some unwelcome news: The Notorious M.O.M. has completed the first draft of a book she has written about her experience with the most controversial, disturbing and painful "event" in my birth family's collective history: the four years my youngest brother spent in a coma before dying.

I do *not* want to read this thing. I can't begin to tell you how much I do not want to read it. So let's just leave things here: The Notorious M.O.M.'s perspective is likely to be repulsive to me. I can taste a little vomit in my mouth just thinking about it. So I'm gonna stop thinking about it.

Goodbye, you nasty little thought. Goodbye....

In other news, I attended two 12-step meetings this weekend, thus completing my school portfolio requirements. Now I just have to do the write-ups and turn the portfolio in this coming Friday. I'll have plenty of time for this tomorrow, given I'm working an "eternal" day -- 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., followed by 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. Managed to double-book myself. But I've got enough homework to keep me busy for the duration, so it will work out just fine (if I can stay awake!).

So the meeting I attended on Friday night was for Marijuana Anonymous. Didn't even know they had one of these, but King Rex sent me a link. He and I went to the meeting together. It was like other 12-step meetings, except for many of the group members referred to their addiction with a bit of humor: "Hi, my name is so-and-so, and I'm a stoner." Or, "... and I'm a pothead." Often with that "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" kind of affect. Know what I mean, dude?

The other meeting I attended was Narcotics Anonymous. I found a location close to my home and rode my bike over to it. Rode my big sissy bike. Which looks like this:



Yeah. I wrote *that* thing to a kind of run-down community center in a low-income neighborhood to attend an NA meeting along with about 40 other people, 37 of whom were African-American. Cruising up on my sissy bike, hopping off and walking into the meeting with my bike helmet tucked under my arm, I suspect I looked like the most *obvious* undercover cop EVER. Or at least like someone's kindly looking probation officer doing a little drop-in work.

But I enjoyed the hell out of myself. Of the four meetings I attended, this one was the most passionate. The attendees told the most fascinating and inspiring stories. There was also a fair amount of discussion on whether certain people were lying about the amount of "clean" time they had. Beyond simply being social, the community was in each other's business. Given the work it takes to kick meth, crack and smack, I suspect it's to everyone's advantage to have such an involved and active membership.

The meeting was very "busy," with people coming and going at odd but frequent intervals. The doors were constantly opening and closing. The trips to the coffee room were endless. Children kept running through the room, eating cheetos. Compared to the other (white-dominated) 12-step meetings I attended, this was the most energetic group. I'm not sure if that's a matter of ethnicity or a matter of the type of drug addictions in these people's pasts. Both/and, I assume.

I told S2 about the meeting, and she said my experience sounded similar to those she had at the same place while attending meetings to support a friend's recovery.

Later, I found myself talking to The Good Witch about this meeting, and mentioned that it was such a "cross-cultural experience" that I felt like I had visited a foreign country. This is a pretty sad statement about how segregated our society is, or at least how segregated is my experience of this community. But at least I got an eyeful and an earful of new information. I love shit like that.

And I was saying as much when The Good Witch replied, "Well, you also have that nice little latino community there just east of your place, you know. There's that little strip of stores...."

You mean the mercado and the tacqueria? I asked.

"Well, yes, OK," she said. Later, I realized she was also talking about the latino gallery and the *other* tacquerias. They are surrounded by tea and coffee houses, Thai and Italian restaurants and several nice dress and shoe shops and an eco-friendly pet supply place.

Then The Good Witch asks: "What's it like having clowns in the neighborhood? It must be interesting living with clowns."

It was a serious question, but I couldn't help laughing at it. Mainly because it *was* a serious question. I live in a neighborhood with a "clown house," that is home to SEVERAL clowns. I'd wager there are 15 or 20 people living in there. And yes, many of them are clowns.

They specialize in, among other things, welding bikes together to make gigantic, tall bikes, which seat the rider a good six to eight feet up in the air, requiring them to duck beneath 12-foot awnings when they ride these bikes on the sidewalk. Normally, they ride them in the street. And I think that if I had been driving a car the first time I saw one of these dudes, I would've tripped out a little, wondering if the bike was going to crash when they reached a stop light.

But the truth is these people are, in fact, clowns. They can stay balanced on those bikes or jump up and down from them in ways that look effortless. Most of the time, they're just going about their business. But every so often, they put clown makeup on and hit the streets for some serious clowning around.

And so, The Good Witch was asking a real question: What's it like to have these folks as neighbors?

The truth is that I notice them all the time, but not in a way that makes them seem unusual, I said. They're always in the background, and I've gotten used to them.

Every once in a while, though, those clowns do something that gets my attention.

Thankfully, none of them wished me a "happy mother's day." Rather, they just tried to sell me some homemade organic, low-sugar, gluten-free vegetarian dog treats. Five for a dollar or a handful of smaller ones for a quarter from a bubble gum dispenser they've put on the sidewalk in front of their house. It's always something.

Time to hit the hay. Gotta rise and shine early tomorrow.

Done on the to-do list

After putting it off for more than a year and a half, I *finally* took a psychology exam required by my graduate school to assess and/or prove my competency in psychology. I scored an 85.

This is a worse showing than I care to admit -- especially because the test was pretty easy -- but I guess I don't really care all that much whether Skinner or Thorndike put some hungry cats in a maze to prove trial-and-error learning is a form of behaviorism. (It was Thorndike.)

Most of the questions I missed were arcane little things like that, rather than reflecting concepts that demonstrate my general competency and understanding of psychology. That's what I'm telling myself anyway, given my need to explain less-than-perfect performance. (And by perfect, I mean I wanted to score in the mid 90s on a test like this.)

So the other thing I tell myself, generally, is that I do poorly on standardized tests. Why? Because I am so freaking SMART and my use of language is so nuanced that I can see more answers that are possibly correct.

Ah, the defense mechanisms I can employ when faced with my own mediocrity....

Whatever. At least the test is DONE!

Now, I can move on to other things. Such as finishing my portfolio requirements.

So the other night, I attended an Al-Anon meeting. Everyone there was very sweet and several of them urged me to return. (I didn't tell them my purpose for attending was school-related; I simply thanked them for sharing their stories and giving me "something to think about.") I noticed, however, that one of the young men was especially friendly and kept looking at me when he talked. When we stood in the circle at the end and held hands, he squeezed mine very tightly.

I thought at the time -- and still consider it possible -- that he was just expressing a lot of love and compassion, human to human. Excepting homeless guys, a few funky Italian men and some indigenous villagers in the Amazon and Panama, if a man has shown *any* interest in me in the past 20 years, I haven't noticed. But I remember thinking this guy was looking at me with a little something odd in his eyes.

The only reason I mention it at all, though, is because I just found out tonight that it is apparently a popular dating strategy for men to attend Al-Anon meetings. Al-Anon groups are often predominantly women. Given the codependence issues that you often see around relationships with alcoholics, I'll bet more than a few of those women are easy pickings for guys who can speak "12-step" and other associated emotional content.

Apparently, sex addicts *really* like this move. I'm told, from a knowledgeable source, that sex addicts joke about going to AA or Al-Anon meetings as "The 13th Step." I gather this is the step in which they fall off the wagon and bruise their balls.

So, hmmm.

Tomorrow, I'm going to hit a meeting of marijuana anonymous, as part of my 12-step attendance requirements. That will leave me with just one more to go: narcotics anonymous. And then I am soooooo DONE with this business. The meetings I've attended have made me feel like I'm in church. And that's not just because they all seem to be *in* churches. It's because they involve all this "god" talk that doesn't do much for me.

So tomorrow night's meeting -- and the next possible NA meeting I can find -- will complete the extra-curricular work I have to do for my "portfolio" for graduate school. Aside from attending and writing a summary of each of these meetings, the portfolio includes my resume, examples of my professional collaboration work, details of my paid or volunteer experience working in a helping role, a professional mission statement, proof that I've attended at least 10 hours of psychotherapy ... and there's something I'm forgetting. Anyway, I need to get this particular monkey off my back, so I'll be glad to kick out these last two meetings and MOVE ON!

And lastly, tonight, I got assigned my first two therapy clients, who I will see next week. This is *very* exciting in some respects, and terrifying in others. I would like to think I can help clients, but mainly, I just don't want to harm them. ... Should be interesting.

Started my practicum in counseling today. As of next week, I'll be released on an unsuspecting world, available two nights a week as therapist-in-training at a local community college counseling center.

But tonight was all about formalities. We learned how to set up and operate the video cameras that will be trained on us for every moment we interact with the client. We learned where the toilets were. We learned how we'll be assessed.

I think it started to freak me out just a little. Not the part about being on video, but the part where I'm going to be "helping" people, particularly through the concept of being "in relation" to me. I'm a rather provocative person and create all sorts of interesting transference in my friends. But I have no idea what clients will make of me. No idea at all.

By way of self-soothing in this experience, it helps me to remember that I had some kind of funky thing going on when I worked as a reporter. People spilling their guts to me was a regular occurrence. I don't usually have trouble getting people to talk to me, particularly when they believe it's my job to listen to them.

But what about that "helping" part? Can I really just kick in a Rogerian approach and let *that* be the helping part? I can't imagine it's as simple as that. But my instructor tonight was telling me be believes it is -- that empathy, warmth, genuiness and unconditional positive regard really are the "necessary and sufficient" conditions for change.

Well, we shall see.

But more: Is it actually possible for me to channel Carl Rogers and still be genuine?

My bet is on NO.

Rather, I'm gonna have to somehow embody *myself* and still create a safe space for a person to divulge what's "really" bothering them. It's not going to look like Carl Rogers at all.

So wish me luck.

Shoes...

Despite the fact that I know better, I've gone off and acquired myself a pair of flip-flops. Given the mechanical difficulties I have with my left ankle, I'm not supposed to walk around in such unsupportive frivolity.

I bought them anyway. They were cute, and the warm day got me to daydreaming about swimming in the lake this summer. I wanted something that was easier to slip on and slip off -- and hose off.

But the darn things cost $65 bucks. FLIP-FLOPS! Nevertheless, I rationalized this silly purchase two ways: I had a 20 percent off coupon, *and* I had a $55 dividend check from REI, where I bought them. So in the end, I got the flip-flops and a new bike lock for $24.

Somehow, that justifies everything.

After making my purchase, I went for a hike in Forest Park with the In-Flight Martini Vomit man. He was breaking in a new pair of boots in preparation for a trek in Bhutan (damn how he makes me jealous!), so we hiked for about two-and-a-half hours.

My walking shoes were rubbing my toes the wrong way on the downhill, so as soon as we got to the car, I dug those new flip-flops out of the bag and let my toes chill out. Made them worth every penny instantly.

Pluto, beer, a long-distance memorial service & the high crime of writing without structure

Forgive me, readers, for I am about to commit a Mortal Sin of Writing. I am going to write some kind of scattered potpourri of thoughts, and I'm not even going to try to weave them together in meaning or give them any special context.

Part of my excuse for doing so is that I'm a teeny bit hungover. (A case-in-point: I went to fish a few bucks out of my wallet this morning to buy a coffee, and when I opened my purse, I was appalled to find an empty beer bottle in it. My purse, for the record, is not very big. The beer bottle barely fit. Now my purse smells a little bit like a brewery. Why put an empty beer bottle in my purse, you might ask? It was a bottle of Shiner Bock, which has all sorts of sentimental meaning to me. Last night when I took my first sip of that fine beer, which has not crossed my lips in a good 15 years or so, I said, I was drinking this beer the night John and Kathy's house caught on fire. And the friend to whom I said that replied, "Man did that sound like a line from 'The Outsiders'!" I don't tend to get sentimental over beer bottles, but I obviously decided this one was special and took it home with me. Where it spent the night. In my purse.)

But the other reason -- the real one -- for this sham of a writing exercise is that I'm feeling both lazy and psychologically scattered. It would be convenient to blame these traits on the hangover in question, but I can't do that and feel like the relationship I have with you all -- my own ethos of being as honest as possible (if not always completely forthcoming) -- would remain intact and ... virginally pure.

So with that caveat, let's begin our aimless journey together:

Last night, I spent about six or seven hours hanging out with Handsome Gay Male. (At this point, I would like to correct an error from a previous blog entry. A few weeks ago, I wrote that HGM was the only male in my local gay family. I'm not sure how I came up with that egregious oversight, as it was a few months back that I attempted to pair up the TWO gay men with whom I have relationships here. The other is The Party Boy. They got along swell the night we all met up, but I think HGM might have been a little too "H" -- and perhaps a little too intense -- for TPB's youthful nature. So the second date did not generate the kind of connection either of them is seeking, and they haven't seen each other since. Nevertheless, there are TWO men in my local queer family, not one. As we used to say in journalism, "extended psychosis regrets the error.")

Perhaps you can see how this is going to be, fair reader. Just. All. Over. The. Fucking. Place. "extended psychosis regrets...."

Anyway.

So HGM and I were hanging out, and at one point he said something to me that touched my little psycho heart: He actually *toasted* my intensity. I think this is because he shares it, and probably shares the stigma, if you will, of being regarded by others as a bit high on the intensitometer. "You are always intense," he said. "If you and I ever had a boring conversation, even *that* would be delivered with intensity. And I appreciate the hell out of that."

HGM is really into astrology and things Jungian, and as S2 has noted several times, I'm the kind of person who *craves* diversity of perspective. So at one point in the evening, I asked him to listen to part of this substantial reconstruction experience I've been trying to intergrate and to share his Jungian understanding of it. He decided to approach it from astrology.

(As a side note, a big chunk of this conversation occured over dinner and bottles of wine. I gave HGM a bunch of ingredients and asked him to make a salad from them while I set about making one of the world's great paninis (in other words: my own invention) for the first time. This panini was two days in the making. Back on Thursday night, I started soaking some dried figs in port wine. They were the sweet, preserve-like kick to the panini, which was also composed of proscuitto and two types of bleu cheese on a simple, freshly baked loaf of ciabatta. The whole thing could have been a bit better. If I had a food processor, I'd throw the figs into it and create something of a tapenade texture to spread them on the bread. Anyway, try the shit. Or just try the figs, the proscuitto and the cheese on a cracker or sliced toasted baguette.

Dessert was strawberries (in their shortcake-style own syrup) served over slices of poundcake marbled with chocolate. We will have to remember this fine meal as my Farewell to Dairy Last Supper (once I've consumed the leftover cheese, having since taken the defensive move of discarding the poundcake). I'm allergic to dairy and have in the past several months fallen off the wagon when it comes to eating it. But I woke up this morning with a world of pain in my joints, which is an abiding sign of the allergic reaction. Gotta say farewell to the cheesy rut I've gotten in. What a cruel world.)

So now that I've done a little scene setting -- if telling you what we were eating helps you see this picture any more clearly -- I return to astrology and HGM's assessment of this Renovation of Self I've been undergoing.

I'm a Libra, alright? Born on the 5th of October. This makes my prominent moon Sagittarius. I'll be the first to admit I don't know what the poopity-poop I'm talking about here, but perhaps my rudimentary explanation (as gleaned from HGM under the influence of intoxicants and then as reinforced from a Google search) will be effective enough for the rest of you to get the picture.

Pluto moved into my Sagittarius constellation this past year. Or something like that. That apparently explains my frequent encounters with death and loss. First, there was my own, which I faced in some roundabout way by believing I was about to die but then ... didn't. (Unless, you know, I'm dead and just don't know it.) A few months later, XGF and I broke up, which was a loss of a seven-year relationship. In the process, I lost my family -- because XGF's family had become my family -- and *all* of my crappy-ass friends. (A few good ones stuck around.) Then, three long-time friends met their various fates at three-month intervals starting a year ago in April. Then at the end of January came the death of my aunt, who was the closest thing I had in my life to a nurturing maternal figure.

So that's apparently Pluto for you, figure of the underworld and all. It's not even a fucking planet in the eyes of astronomers anymore, but it's still quite handy, in the eyes of astrologers, at fucking with us. Humph!

HGM rolled out an explanation for how these planetary and moon movements have come home to roost and made some suggestions about how, in terms of psychology and in relation to my advancing age, it makes sense that just about *everything* in my little world would become unhinged and that I, being a competent adult (albeit a bit insane), would reconstitute myself. (The only alternative being to rent a straight-jacket from a costume shop and just crumble into a heap. Some would say that's what I was doing in December and January....)

In the process, it seems my entire world view was upended. So part of this change I keep mentioning in these oblique, vague ways -- but never explain -- is a consequence of how all these various upended pieces are falling back into place.

In a conversation with my uncle this afternoon -- calling me from the memorial service down in New Orleans -- he mentioned how much the hurricane had affected his family and friends in profound psychological ways and how he was having a hard time understanding some of what they were saying to him about it simply because he hadn't experienced it himself. I feel like my life got smacked with its own little Category 5 hurricane this past year, and that when I try to explain the fallout, words fail me.

(Well, there's another little tangent. More on the memorial service later.)

At one point, HGM asked me a fascinating process-oriented question. People so rarely ask me process questions that it was kind of a thrill for me. He asked, "What's going on inside you when I talk to you about astrology? You don't really say anything in response, but I know you're having a reaction. What is it?"

Well, there are four things, I told him. First, I recall editing the astrology column for the newspaper every day, cutting it down to fit, and I think about how any one of those horoscopes could apply however I wanted it to apply to me. Second, I think it's interesting but I don't know enough about it to understand what you're talking about sometimes. Third, I consider the fact that you know me and that you could take whatever information you have from my charts and use it to fit things you already understand about my personality and my experience. So how am I supposed to know the difference? Fourth, I leave open the possibility that there's something to what you're saying because the fact is that anything is possible. But I also know I'm never going to know if the planets have any influence or not.

He poked and prodded at me for a while about whether there might be a "No. 5," that being one of accepting that there's some validity to what he's saying.

I told him he'd have to be satisfied with "UCM Version 4.0" for the time being.

But this afternoon, I Googled "libra sun sagittarius moon" to see what came up. Here are two excerpts. Those of you who know me can tell me what you think:

"They analyze to later act upon what has been reasoned. The ability to communicate, common in the airy element, becomes stronger and more impetuous thanks to fire. There is a constant feedback between intelligence and passion, between ideas and will. The energy here is also abundant, though mainly directed towards intellectual products and their diffusion to the world. The key words are agility and keenness."

and...

"The Libra Sun/Sagittarius Moon combination results in a nature that is aspiring and expansive. These subjects are highly adventurous and apt to move around in search of a variety of experiences. They are open and accepting of others. In short, to this Sun/Moon mix, "people are people." Quite possibly, there is no more openhearted and ubiased soul than the Libra Sun/Sagittarious Moon individual. Possessing a positive spirit and the feeling that ideals are workable, these natives hold to such ideals until there is irrefutable proof to the contrary. This credo extends very much to humankind since those who fall under the jurisdiction of this blend believe that everyone is essentially good...and that good is sure to triumph over evil. There is an expectation here for happy endings. Indeed, these are incurable optimists. They are outgoing and eager to meet new people, but often convey a sense of not having much free time to get to know them. There is little that is stable or secure about this combination. Natives of this mix appear to be so much on the go that their roots are never truly sunk deeply enough in anyone...or even any social issue. Success is usually achieved courtesy of charm and positive efforts. However, since these persons are abstract in their thinking, they tend to become visionary and rather impractical with regard to business and personal affairs."

Although I'd be interested in hearing any feedback on this whatsoever, I'd like to butt in quickly and say: Although I'm no 'incurable optimist,' it is possible I achieve whatever success I have in life "courtesy of charm." Heaven knows, it's never been the result of hard work.

So enough with that astrology business. My urge to summarize is rather strong, but I'm sorry to say that the most I can manage is: I'm intense, I've been surrounded by death and loss, and Pluto was always my favorite Disney character. So here is a picture of him for your enjoyment:



We now return to our regularly schedule blog, already in progress (and more scatter-brained than any once-professional writer has a right to be in a public forum):

The phone call from the memorial service was a noisy nightmare for this here gal, getting over a hangover as I am.

But first.

My dad called me. Usually, this is bad news of some sort. But it turns out that today, he was just returning a phone call I made to him a week ago or whatever. Curiously, by the end of the conversation, he was convinced that it was I who called him today. He has no life. Or perhaps he does have a life and he just lies to me about it to make it sound like he never does anything but work. He keeps firing the architects on his staff and then doing their work for them until he hires someone else who he will eventually fire. A while back, I did my own "too-close-to-the-subject-to-really-do-it diagnosis" of my dad. I believe he has not one but TWO personality disorders: Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder. (Important to note for those who aren't into psychology: Obsessive-Compulsive PD is not the same as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. The personality disorder has, among other things, a general emphasis of believing that no one is capable of doing the job as well as he with the personality disorder.)

So back to the phone call from the memorial service. It rang in during the middle of the conversation with my dad. It was my brother JAWs I calling. So after I hung up from pop, I called my bro.

There was an obscene amount of background noise and as has happened before -- this is something that occurs with maddening regularity, actually -- my brother passed off the phone to someone else without telling me he was doing it. I heard a bunch of yelling about pot-bellied pigs and albino strippers and some music or what have you, and the next thing I know, I'm no longer talking to the person with whom I believed myself to be talking.

Because they're all men with deep voices and because there was so much background noise, I carried on a conversation I was having (or *believed* I was having) with my brother when I was all along talking to one of my uncles. It was only when he referred to my aunt by a pet name that I was like: Oh! El Capitan! How the hell are you?

So then I was talking to El Capitan. I asked him how he was doing, mentioning that when I last saw him he was in a rather black mood for obvious reasons and that he had been saying he wanted space from everyone. So I had been giving it to him. He replied that he had, indeed, been an "asshole and curmudgeon" lately, but that it was good to be down in Louisiana with family and old friends, shucking oysters and drinking beer in the sweltering heat.

So I was replying to him about something on this subject when the phone was passed off to my cousin MiniMimi, and so my nice empathetic comments were received and reflected by a woman. Who before I knew it handed the phone to my Uncle D, who fed me some details about the food and people "stealing photos from the memorial wall" at the service before -- BAM! -- JAWs I is back on the phone.

Now, let me say here that I said "back on the phone" because I believed I had been talking to him earlier. Apparently, I was *never* talking to him. So I have no idea who the first entity was, the person who answered the phone and called me by a childhood nickname still used by every member in that part of the family. Mystery conversation, there.

The call *ended* with a conversation with my sister-in-law, who is British and has a funky accent that's part British, part Texan. It is one of the most disturbing accents I know. She described going to Jazz Fest yesterday, drinking all day long, getting a sunburn and having to wear a long-sleeve linen shirt to the memorial service to keep the sun off her skin. "I'm over-dressed," she said. (I imagine, given that I was expected to go for a snorkel during my aunt's memorial service in Hawaii, that a linen shirt would indeed leave her over-dressed on a hot, swampy day in New Orleans, memorial service or not.) But she added, "It's not bad weather. There's a little breeze, and if you sit in the shade and feel that little breeze, it's actually very pleasant."

About the memorial service, she said, "Everyone's having fun."

That seems par-for-the-course, and I felt a surge of regret for not having gone. Oddly, El Capitan had mentioned that my brother was there "to represent me." It's funny how people think about things. I mean, JAWs I was there to represent *himself.*

After I got off the phone, I called XGF. She had called me several hours prior and left a voice mail asking me to come over and go through some stuff in the basement. I had called her back and gotten her voice mail and said, Just let me know when you're home and I'll come over. But she never called me back. So I was a bit annoyed because I had chosen not to take a bike ride I wanted so I could do this business with her. I guess she never got my VM, because when I called, she was wondering why I hadn't called earlier.

By this point, she was getting ready to cook dinner, and she told me to come over quick but that I would "have to leave" shortly after arriving because of dinner. I was not in the mood for that, so it turned into a kind and mutual blow-off.

So now I'm gonna have to go do that shit some other day.

*sigh*

As a consequence, I have done just about nothing I set out to do today. However, I did clean the kitchen, make my bed, walk the dog, attend a memorial service by phone and write this blog.

There are worse things.

Like finding an open, not-totally-empty beer bottle in your purse.

Interning and laughing

On Thursday, I had a meeting with two of the potential supervisors for the internship I will begin next fall. The clinical director, who I had interviewed with twice, either plucked two clinicians who seemed like a good fit, or they were simply the two who showed up.

Both of them seem to be gay. Or gay-ish (which is just a way of saying "non-heterosexual"). One of them is a man who looks to be in his early 40s. The other is a woman who looks to be in her late 20s, early 30s. When you toss in the clinical director, who at my last interview asked if I watched "The L Word," everyone in the room seemed to be a bit queer. Now, this could just be my imagination; it's hard to say. But the young woman mentioned several times that she "lives with a woman," and the guy has some funny man energy and a resume that includes a long stretch of working with HIV/AIDS issues with gay men, and he talked about gay issues.

The truth, though, is that my gaydar is broken. I was talking with S2 about the possibility my License to Be Lesbian is on the verge of being revoked because my gay energy is suffering from an OPEC-like embargo of some sort. Seems the least I can do is watch a few episodes of "The L Word" to refuel. I noticed that a disk is creeping to the top of my Netflix queue. When it arrives, it will mark a passage: I have never seen the show.

Anyway.

The clinical director has, mercifully, taken herself out of the running for the role of my supervisor. She noted she would be "the supervisor of your supervisors," which is just fine by me. I'd really like to work with her, but I think there are potential transference and counter-transference issues that would exceed what I want to deal with right out of the gate.

So after talking to her a little bit this afternoon, I've decided to work with the guy as my primary supervisor. This means sitting down with him one hour each week, reviewing cases, listening to tapes of my sessions with clients and talking about the nuances of counseling work.

The young woman will be my secondary supervisor, a back-up in case my dude is unavailable. But, ultimately, all of the clinicians on the staff are said to be available for the interns to question and seek advice. There is a pretty good range of approaches being practiced by the staff, too, which means I'll have access to several perspectives for any issues that arise. It sounds like a fabulous learning environment, and I'm excited to start doing that.

I only have to wait four months.....

In the meantime, I begin my practicum in a student counseling center at a local community college next week. I'll be seeing real clients with real issues, but it will be highly supervised and will only last for about three months (where my internship is nine or 10 months). In the practicum, there will be a video camera trained on me at all time with a live feed that's being recorded. This allows for supervision (someone can monitor me without actually being in the room) and for me to observe myself afterward.

So things are about to take a dramatic turn in my education. And thank the heavens.

For the past two years, I've been reading and reading and reading. I've been researching and discussing and proposing and theorizing. I've been practicing and role-playing. But I haven't been doing.

Something that makes me a little batty -- and heaven knows, it makes my *friends* crazy in my presence -- is that all the reading and whatnot has been taken by me as massive doses of internal upheaval and reconsideration. I thought I knew myself pretty damn well before this program started, but I have learned more than I ever expected. I have done this by seriously digesting what I've been reading and constantly assessing what it means in light of the psychological subject with whom I am most familiar: myself.

This was not unforeseen in theory, but the practice of it has been a considerably more intense and gut-wrenching experience than I anticipated. In the process, XGF and I broke up, and my life began writing itself anew in many respects.

I'm sure something else will come along and get my goat at some point -- perhaps when I start developing the project on grief and loss that I'm interested in doing next year. But I suspect that much of my personal upheaval is done.

Now, I'm moving into the realm of working with others. I am a person with a lot of compassion and some amount of empathy -- hopefully I'm learning to develop the latter more -- but I have never been someone who lets other people's problems consume me. In other words, I may have some empathy, but I certainly don't have too much of it. One thing in which I have faith is my ability to keep a good boundary between me and my clients.

What stands as a larger concern for me is my ability to connect. I've learned a good bit about myself recently in terms of connection, in terms of attachment. (THAT is what my shrink said, by the way, XGF. He said my situation is a good example of how same-sex relationships might have a complex attachment issue (deficiency) that is related to social stigma and considerably less common in heterosexual couples.)

Some of the changes I've been experiencing lately -- this coming out on The Other Side (The Far Side) of the transformation incited by graduate school -- give me a great deal of hope around the prospect of connecting with clients. Nevertheless, it is an uproven assumption that my personal reconstruction will make things better, so I'm both excited and nervous about testing it on real people with real problems.

...

Speaking of untested material, I saw comedian George Carlin perform tonight. He was one of my favoriter performers when I was a kid, and I listened to his LPs repeaedly as I grew up. So tonight, I went to see him with King Rex, and the evening was pretty special. Carlin was dishing out all-new material -- so new that he was still reading cues from the printout of his material at times, as he hasn't quite memorized the whole thing and is in the process of revising it.

The new material is fabulous, classic Carlin. Lots of keen observations on American culture, lots of wonderful discursive-sounding monlogue. I laughed my ass off at times. King Rex said it was "a religious experience" to see his childhood comedic hero performing live. I'm just hoping I'll remembr a few good jokes, especially those he told around death and the stupid things people say ("I think he's up there smiling down at us"). Really great stuff.

But now, I am exhausted. I have been up since 5:45 this morning, and I'm WIPED out. Nighty-night, friends.

The rundown

Your dear UCM is still undergoing major restoration and reconstruction, which is making it difficult for me to write about much with any meaning or intent.

However, I will bring up these points from the days that were Tuesday and Wednesday:

-- I signed an extension on my lease, which will keep me in this crazy bachelorette pad for another year.

-- XGF told me that she got engaged to be *real* married -- as in, to a man. She called this decision "impetuous." I call it "her business." But it nevertheless interests me. Specifically, what interests me most is that she still identifies as a "lesbian." I anticipate getting an explanation from her about this at some point. Not because she *needs* to explain; just because I'm curious.

I can understand a married woman realizing she's a lesbian and coming out, but I am having a hard time with the concept of a lesbian realizing she's in love with a man, getting married to him and still calling herself a lesbian. It's not that such a thing can't be so -- because certainly, XGF is doing it and will thus be making it so -- but I am curious about the rationale.

-- I visited with S2 this morning, briefly. It was a nice visit; she is one of the loveliest people I've known in my life. BUT I was plagued, and I mean PLAGUED, for a while this afternoon by an earworm of some bizarr-o children's choo-choo, chug-chug train song that was playing in her house when I left. (Far better, however, was the lingering image of the little 4-year-old girls doing a joyful dance to it.)

-- I used an umbrella for the first time in many, many years. Umbrellas go against the hard-tack biscuit part of my nature. They've always struck me as items for ladies, dandies and weather whimps. (Although I'm 100 percent woman, I'm not all that much of a lady.) But while I was visiting with S2, prior to having an appointment downtown, it started pouring, and I was without a jacket. S2 offered the use of an umbrella, and I took it.

It was one of those nice "British" umbrellas, full-sized without being oversized, black with curved wooden handle. I felt kind of funny walking around with it in my hand and had to resist competing urges to twirl it around (the "dandy" use of it) or use it like a walking stick, poke-poking at the sidewalk like a self-important gas bag. So I held onto the nylon material and tucked it along my arm, a move that was also designed to resist the urge to tap people with it as if I were a queen benighting them.

There are clearly several reasons I should *not* have an umbrella.... But then, suddenly, as I was exiting a building and starting a walk of several blocks, the heavens opened up and started dumping hail. Lightning flashed, thunder followed. Noting the lightning strikes were four miles away, I popped open the umbrella and made my way through downtown.

I felt so smart. And even a bit fancy. (It helps that S2 apparently never buys junk; even her umbrellas have style and exceptional functioning.)

I arrived at my destination dry, tapped as much water off the umbrella as I could and commenced shopping. And wouldn't you know? I left that sucker behind. Hooked its nice wood handle on the counter when I was paying, took my purchases and left it behind.

Lucky for me, one of the clerks at this particular establishment seems to have a little thing for me (she recognizes me, tells me when I was in last, falls all over herself to help me and generally fawns over me in a can't-stop-talking-to-you, let-me-walk-you-to-the-stairs kind of way every time I go there). Anyway, I was down on the main floor and just about to the door when the clerk calls out my name rather loudly in the store. She comes jotting down the stairs with the umbrella and gives it to me with a little see-ya-later, nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say-no-more, know-I-mean action. Such a pity she's not my type. Especially seeing as how I could get a discount on the clothes.

But anyway.... I got the umbrella back. And because it wasn't raining, I had to summon all my powers of repression, denial and sublimation not to spin it on my fingers and pull a few dance moves, ala Fred Astair, while walking back to my car.

-- I've started a new art project, this one for my own amusement and expression. It seems to be an alternative outlet for the reconstruction project that I'm not really wanting to write about just yet. It seems like when I have talked to people about this "change" I'm experiencing, it tends to strike them as overwhelming or woo-woo or otherwise peculiar. (But then, that's because it *is* overwhelming, a bit woo-woo and otherwise peculiar.) I think words are not doing my situation much justice, so I've decided to try some alternative forms of expression and see if that helps me direct my energy in a more meaningful way.

-- I'm still reading all the aformentioned books, but I've added a fiction novel that S2 loaned me a while back. It's about a bisexual Native American living in Idaho at the turn of the century. This keeps reminding me of a brief report Rather Shy Classmate gave me about a biography she's reading about Mae West.

-- I watched a video produced by a classmate from my couple's therapy class. Technical difficulties prevented us from watching her video in class on the last night, so we were all provided copies of it on DVD. I picked mine up today when I was at school and watched it late this afternoon. Many of us put a lot of work into our projects, but this one was rather polished. And quite poetic, at that.

Also, it was fascinating. My classmate explained how she believed she inherited her "fucked up attachment" style through the messed up marriages of her grandmother and mother. I've heard a lot of stories in my time, but this one stuck to my ribs for some reason. I'm going to have to watch the video again and see if I can figure out why I was so affected.

-- I had beer and burgers with Bubba this evening. It was plesant to see her. I tried to explain my reconstruction project; she tried to explain her relationship situation. I'm not sure whether we each understood the other. But the beer was mighty fine.

Something we should celebrate here, too

According to the Hawaiian calendar I got this Christmas, it's officially time to wish you all a Happy LEI DAY.

I really like the way that sounds when said aloud.

Now, if only I was in Hawaii, maybe I'd get leid.... :-)




"That's it baby! When you've got it, flaunt it! FLAUNT IT!"