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.
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