That's *Empress* UCM to you...

You are The Empress

Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.

The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents,
beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home
decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.

The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Motivational messages on the office wall

A strange commentary about the work I do, posted at the entrance to my clinical supervisor's pod.

Blurry part of the small text says: "...outside this cubicle, though, is a horrifying and brutal world of crippling depression and pain."

(Don't know why I can't manage to rotate this file and save it. Took it with my cell phone, and there is something wrong with my cheap "photo editing software." I want Photoshop! And a real digital camera....)

Close Encounters & Love For Passion

You can't go home again.

How often have you heard that one?

I think there's some truth in it. But in my life, the idea that one "can't go home again" has been less a euphemism and more like a way of life.

I moved a lot when I was a kid. Born in a Florida college town, moved to Miami shortly thereafter. At 4, moved to Greenville, South Carolina, where I stayed until age 10. In those six years, we lived in five different homes in five completely different parts of town. My dad was an upwardly mobile architect, and we moved because of the houses themselves, not because of the people or activities going on in them. The first house was a Frank Lloyd Wright.

With all that moving, I never had neighborhood playmates for very long. I'd start making friends and have a summer and winter with them, maybe part of a fifth or even a sixth season, but never two years. I kept making friends and then moving away. It tore my heart out repeatedly. Start over again. Start over again.

The one constant thing was attending the same Catholic school. Unfortunately, I was a bit of a neurotic who didn't like to brush her hair (still don't -- and it looks GREAT), so I was pretty much the playground scapegoat and last kid picked for every team. (But I was also the dodge ball champion.) I had two friends (the black girl and the sickly boy) and a "half-friend" in a girl who lived near me during one of those summers and befriended me there but pretended not to know me at school. So staying put in the same school, while it may have prevented me from being a misfit beyond misfits today, was not all that.

In the Spring of my sixth grade year, we up and moved to Houston. There, I lived in the same house for six years, and it felt like FOREVER. I made some friends, but I moved away for college and only maintained a few of those friendships through college. The same can be said for my college years. I made friends, and then I moved away -- to California -- and did not do the best maintenance work.

California is where I started my life as I know it today. I was in one town for 14 months, another for six years. That second "pit stop" (I was planning to leave after about two years) turned out to be the backdrop for a period of immense personal growth, and I had to chill my heels for a few years to let me catch up with my life. My brother's death threw a radical wrench into my plans, and 10 years ago this month, I ran away -- no job and very little money in hand -- and started a new life in Oregon.

I had made so so so many friends there in California. And I moved away.

Having moved around so much, I have actually lived here in Oregon longer now than anywhere in my life. When I graduated a few weeks ago, the program listed my "hometown" as Portland. No other place seemed logical, and I have lived here the longest.

But just after graduation last month -- and it has taken this long for the dust to begin settling enough for me to write about it -- I made what I think was my first-ever real "trip home." I went not to the city of my birth in Florida, not to the homes of my upbringing in South Carolina and Texas. Nor did I go to any of my family homes. I didn't go to Hawaii, either. I went to that "second pit stop," a small agricultural town in California's Central Valley.

This is not a place I want to call home. Of all climates in which I have lived, it is the most intolerable. It is arid and dusty and HOT. It also has a social climate that felt constrictive to me -- sometimes, the religiously conservative political environment was more than I felt I could tolerate. For a refuses-to-be-closeted lesbian feminist who loves the Pacific Northwest RAIN for its life-bestowing properties and the always-green landscape it creates... there are many reasons NOT to live there.

The yellow hills that cover the landscape of the Central Valley most of the year could almost make me mad at times. The way the air and the view of the nearby mountains is diminished by smog and agricultural dust felt suffocating to me then -- and still does.

But there was that aforementioned "community" of friends there, which I enjoyed more than anywhere else in my life. I loved my friends. But I still left them. The environment, especially my work, had become untenable. I did not see other opportunities -- chose not to see some of them -- and left for greener pastures.

I've visited twice in the past 10 years, once just a few months after I left and once about three years ago when I stayed one night while passing through on my way to Sequoia National Park to scatter my brother's ashes. Otherwise, I have never visited as in a "returning," as in the way one revisits the scenes of past crimes to rediscover what one lost there. As in the way one attempts to go home again.

Although several friends have died or moved away, many remain. And It was in encountering them on my recent trip back -- a trip to celebrate Morrocco Molé's 50th birthday and to do some "research" on my book -- that I think I finally know where and *what* "home" is.

Home is a place where you can find your past and where your past can find you. It's a place where you can go to "hideout" but where someone unexpected can easily find you even when you're incognito. It's a place you think you know and find you don't anymore. Where the faces are mostly familiar, if changed by time and lifestyles, but where you find that familiarity sometimes creates a greater sense of mystery than anything else. Home is a place which can open some spaces within, close others and blast the heaviest of doors off the hinges of the psyche's forgotten vaults.

That may be dramatic license, but it's also my experience. At least, with this one home to which I returned.

Not since Lesha's death (if you recall the Peloton Of My Past) have I encountered so many old friends in such a short period of time. This time, however, it was all in person.

Staying with my Gay Godfathers, Morocco Molé and Lucy Ricardo, I had a GREAT time. They started my visit on a most peculiar note by inviting a collection of friends over with whom I have NOT remained in contact over these many years. One of them was only the most ancillary of friends. One was an older woman who I looked up to in my late 20s and who, I was sad to see, is now suffering from Parkinson's Disease (although possessing no less a keen mind as I had respected in her). Another was an old friend who I could tell was suffering from depression. I could feel the energy being pulled out of me when she hugged me. (I am told I can find a way to block such energy drifts, and I'm looking forward to learning that.) ... So we all had a couple hours of pleasant enough conversation.

The next morning, bright and early, I had a visit with my former therapist of about four years. Our two-hour discussion and some of the notes she gave me started the tilt of my world toward Twilight Zone -- very early in the trip, I would say, and without the assistance of Ahuasco or other mild hallucinogens. Also a bit early in the morning.

After leaving her, I went to the old coffee house my friends used to (and still do) frequent. It had been renovated massively and was operating under a new name, but something about it was still the same. The old roaster was tucked back into a corner rather than taking center stage in the window. I ate there and called the phone number of a former coworker, a photographer, who had left a message with Morocco that she wanted to see me.

Drove over to see her and got a distinct "Twin Peaks" kind of feeling to things. She was talking like a David Lynch character. That's all I really want to say about it. Sweet woman, though, and it was lovely to see her again.

Afternoon, I went to see Shall Be Revered (as she demands to be called). Visited for a while, chatted about the band director and politics with the band boosters. Then I went downtown to find Morocco.

On the way there, I called Mountain Girl, thinking she might be in Australia but giving it a shot anyway. She surprised me by answering the phone. Yes, she was in town, and yes, she thought she could go to the mountains with me. I was THRILLED. There is no one I wanted to accompany me into Sequoia or elsewhere than Mountain Girl.

Had lunch with Morocco, and as we were walking back to the car, we passed the coffeehouse.

"What, you don't recognize your old friend?" came a voice from the shadows of an outdoor table. I squinted and saw her. Mountain Girl, hair still long and greying quite nicely. We make plans to go play putt-putt, and a few hours later, I pick up MG at her house and take her back to the Gay Godfathers, where we enjoy a smoke and a little drink and head out to play. Fun, if a bit ... warm ... to this Oregon girl.

The next day, Tuesday, Mountain Girl and I take our first of what turned out to be two trips to the sequoias. On the way up, she talks about how her life has changed in the past few years, things she likes about it, things she doesn't. She mentions in passing that her roommate and best friend, who I once dated for a few months in 1997, is working in a similar field to me and has seriously gotten into fitness and activities she never used to do. Nothing else much was said on the topic of her best friend, one of my former lovers.

We climbed up on top of Moro Rock, pictured here, and Mountain Girl persuaded me to climb over the railing and wander out further along the top, going down the nose a little.



I had an energetic "spinout" up there, walked about 20 yards and had to sit down to maintain my balance. Or so I believed anyway. Not really sure about that now. I am really susceptible to dramatic and high vistas, but I was experiencing here for the first time some distinct difference between my fear of heights and a peculiarly strong energy that seems associated with the rock. Mountain Girl continued walking out on the rock and just as she disappeared below the rock horizon, she turned to me and said, "Just so you know, the energy coming off this rock is really fucking with my body, too. Never be ashamed of where you stop."

Later, we went to find the grove of sequoias where I scattered my brother's ashes. We found it, hiked to a nearby collection of granite boulders, took some rest and had some snacks. I did some drawings there, took some pictures. And when Mountain Girl wandered off to go explore a fallen sequoia, I went back down to the grove and did a little ritual there, planting a giant sequoia seed in the center of the grove.

The next day, I visited with one of my closest buddies from the newspaper, God Eye. He's working for another metro paper in the region, and after having lunch with his family (his wife also a former co-worker and friend of mine from before they were married), God Eye submitted to an interview with me as part of my research for the book. He was incredibly forthright and helpful.

That night, Morocco and I went swimming at SBR's house, then returned to his house to watch a movie with the Gay Godfathers. Turns out Lucy Ricardo starred in the movie as a nasty but stylish and effeminate drug kingpin who gets murdered in the end. They did not tell me Lucy was in the film, and the lighting and sound was so poor that it took me a while to recognize him. Little faux pas on my part. Should recognize one of my dearest old friends in a movie when he's not wearing any disguises! (Thank goodness I hadn't been wearing my glasses. It was easier to recognize him once I put them on....)

Thursday, Mountain Girl and I head back up to the mountains, this time going to the Grant Grove and some other locations in Kings Canyon National Park. We spend some time together on her secret rock, from which we spy on visitors to the Grant Tree. The last time either of us visited this rock was the last day we hung out together before I moved away. I still remember what I told her then: Fall in love sometime. She had replied, "I fall in love all the time."

This time, I chose the occasion of our visit to this spot to talk to her about a scene in my book and to tell her how much the times we hiked in the woods, snowshoed through the valleys, hung out on some rock somewhere in some season or other... about how through all of that with her, she had been my most notable teacher when it came to enjoying nature, my natural passion for it notwithstanding. From you, MG, I learned that exquisite environments are best enjoyed with exquisite foods, I told her. You pointed out that it is no more difficult to pack in a bottle of wine than a water bottle, no heavier to bring cambonzola cheese and apples than string cheese and apples.

There were many other lessons from her, too, but that was the one I wanted to mention as we polished off the sandwiches I brought from the old coffeehouse.

As we're driving down the mountain, heading back to town, we talk again for a moment about MG's roommate. Let's call her Love For Passion (LFP), as is her nickname in certain circles. I mention something -- which I will not repeat here -- regarding LFP's amazing capacity for passionate sex, as I recall it. Mountain Girl says nothing in reply. I guess this is just the way we communicate about her best friend: One of us makes a comment, and the other says nothing.

Maybe this has something to do with the fact that I walked out on Love For Passion 11 years ago and never spoke another word to her, never saw her again. It's one of those moves I regretted almost instantly but didn't know how to undo. I was younger then, considerably less mature and outrageously frightened by the immensity of feeling I experienced with her. I ran away, and true to form, never went back.

I broke my own heart that time. Smashed it to smithereens.

I know MG saw some of the fallout from that, even though I tried to keep it to myself out of respect for her long friendship with Love For Passion. Maybe that's how we settled into this place of not responding to each other's comments about LFP. Who knows.

In any event, about an hour after I made my last comment about LFP's presence as a lover, I was driving back to MG's house, about to pull up in the driveway, when she says to me, "Oh, LFP's home. I know she'd really like to see you. You should get out and say hello."

What?! I was shocked. I don't think she wants to see me, I stammered.

"Oh, I know she does," MG replied.

I got out of the car to wish MG goodbye. It being my last night in town, I didn't anticipate seeing her again and believed she would move to Australia before I ever returned to the Central Valley. I looked at her, thinking, Well, this is goodbye, but saying nothing.

I was stalling, about to kick the tires, hemming and hawing, the lingering of reluctant parting keeping me put, when I see the screen door at the front of the house open and LFP quickly striding toward me before I could respond. She threw her arms out wide and embraced me with a kind-sounding "UCM!" on her lips.

Instantly, I was held in place by her magnificent energy. The clarity of her openness and the absence of discomfort was palpable. I felt welcomed. Deeply and truly welcomed.

How does this happen? I wondered.

"It's so wonderful to see you. Come in for a drink?" LFP asked.

Nah, I gotta go meet some folks, I said, thinking of SBR with whom I had plans to hang out and chat.

"Oh," LFP said.

All three of us stood quietly for a moment.

"So what have you been up to?" LFP asked.

I'm working as a therapist, I replied. I just finished grad school. Graduated last week.

"Hey, I've got my MSW. I don't do therapy, but that's interesting we're in similar lines of work," LFP said.

Another moment of silence. Someone says something I don't recall. I'm thinking; I'm feeling. Some kicking of dust beneath my feet. Sweating in the 100-degree heat. I think about the time, make a quick calculation about how disappointed SBR might be if I stand her up versus what I feel an overwhelming urge to do.

You know, I think I'll have that drink after all, I said.

When I slipped quietly into the front door at the Gay Godfather's at about 6:45 the next morning, I was greeted by Morocco, drinking coffee with a smirk on his face. "Ran into Love For Passion, did you?" he said. "Girl.... Did you have fun?"

Absolutely. I had an amazing time.

I don't want to lead anyone astray. We didn't have sex. I was filthy and stinky from being in the woods all day, on my period and had a small cold sore. Hardly appetizing. Plus, LFP says she has sworn off "one night stands," and I simply don't do them.

And yet, something happened for me that night with Love For Passion. An opening, a re-awakening with the hint of personal discovery that I'm not inclined to write about for public consumption right now. But I was being honest with Morocco Molé: It was amazing.

In fact, the entire trip was amazing. Seeing my old friends, visiting my old hangouts, finding the grove where I scattered my brother's ashes, sitting on those various rocks with my mountain friend. What else could cap an experience like that than spending the evening with a former lover and feeling a chemistry between us that perhaps is stronger than it was before (in my experience)?

Well, there was the facial that Morocco gave me just a couple hours before I left town. It was the first facial I've ever had, and Morocco's touch was full of warmth. So much so that I started crying. I felt deeply affected, full of love and appreciation for all these characters: Morocco Molé, Lucy Ricardo, Mountain Girl, SBR, God Eye, my former therapist, the giant sequoias, Moro Rock, the old friends who came to Morocco's "meet and greet," even the David Lynch character, and of course the aptly named Love For Passion.

It was altogether more than I bargained for, more than I wanted or expected. And in the end, just what I needed.

Like a trip home ought to be.

My Secret Hideaway

The little cabin is mine, people!

I know I don't really have a claim on it, considering it's a good 50 years older than me. But I did finally today qualify for the frequent-user discount. (I love Steve. He's ever so much better than the funky drunk caretakers who were there before him. He actually returns calls, remembers me and even remembers if I've sent someone his way.)

Actually, it's been useful to get to know Steve. Not only does he give me a discount, he's become protective of his "regulars" ever since that goddamned Sunset Magazine blew the lid off the place and ranked my secret spot among the top 10 lakeside resorts in the West last year. Phooey to ruining quiet places with your insidious ink, Sunset!

Trust me people: It's a dive. You don't want to go there. No TV, no hot tub, daddy long-legs in the shower with you, the floor slopes just so, sometimes the fireplace doesn't pull well, sometimes the wood is wet, and every once in a while, the kind of windstorm that begat creation itself seems to come up and scare the living shit out of whoever didn't have the sense to flee once the pictures on the wall started rattling (such as me).

Anyway, I won't be getting up to the cabin this summer. I would've needed to book a while back, thanks to mutha-effin Sunset, to get it in the peak of summer -- and ended up choosing to take a trip down to Central California with my mula instead.

But I did get the baby for my birthday in October, which is when I wanted it. I will turn 40 at the lake. Can't think of a better place to be to usher in a new decade. Beauty, beauty. All is beauty when I get it in my head to go there.

Eco-Moi

Lately, I've been developing greater and greater concern about the environment. I'm not sure what, exactly, is driving this change -- I've not been reading about the environment much, not been watching much television out of the ordinary -- but suddenly, I have been feeling increasingly self-conscious about my environmental footprint.

Maybe it's my neighborhood. The other day, I was in the supermarket and saw that my favorite skin lotion was on sale. I didn't have a bunch of groceries to get for the week, so I decided to load up and got three of four of them. As I was pulling them off the selves, a young woman browsing the lotions asked me, "Do you know if those containers are recyclable?"

I looked at the tube. I have no idea, I said.

She regarded me with slightly pursed lips, and I felt instantly shamed. Here I was grabbing all these non-refillable tubes of lotion without even thinking about the landfill. But then, there was the landfill in my mind all of the sudden. Big pile of rubble with seagulls buzzing around the smoke-belching bulldozer on top of the whole ghastly heap.

So then I wanted to know: WHY don't the good-smelling (coconut, glorious coconut oil) lotions come in bulk where you can fill your own bottle? The bulk lotions always smell like ... oatmeal. It's not that I'm being environmentally dispassionate, it's that I can't get what I want the green way. So to the makers of Desert Essence Organics coconut hand and body lotion, I say: Buck up, you fat cats, and make your lotion available in bulk at my local New Seasons Market or make friendlier containers!

I wrote them. You can too. There, having now shouted out that plea into the universe, I can move on. (Or try to rattle their corporate cage.)

A few weeks ago, when I was getting take-out at the Thai place downstairs, another customer came in for take-out too, and as I was picking up my plastic bag with a plastic container in it, she set down her own collection of tupperware on the counter and asked the owner to put her meal in that.

*gulp*

I've been using reusable canvass bags for my grocery shopping for years, but I often forget them or decide to go to the grocery after making a quick list at work. Therefore, I have all these paper bags hanging around in my place. I walk over to the little food co-op on the corner and give them my paper bags, and they re-use them. So that is at least something.

But I can see it is not enough. My eco-conscious is bothering me.

I suppose that's why I've got a long-term relationship going on in my home with a styrofoam cup. I got it on Friday night when I stopped in at the tacqueria down the street and got a burrito (in a plastic container inside a plastic bag) to go. I had been out walking the dog, and I was thirsty. I had started to pour water in the cup already when I suddenly connected to what I was holding. Who the hell uses styrofoam these days? Good god!

And so, I have been using it and using it and using it. Only for water, and I give it a good hot flushing every so often, but ... how long can this thing actually last? Will it begin to disintegrate while I'm using it, or might I have it for years -- if I don't get carried away one night and start chewing on it? I throw away all sorts of crap, but for some reason, this styrofoam cup is really bugging me. Seems my ploy is to use it to death (or some otherwise reasonable point) to assuage my guilt.

Lastly, I have been seriously contemplating ditching my car and getting a scooter. My only problem is that the only way across the Columbia River is via the interstate. I'd have to get a full-on motorcycle or large-engine scooter -- or walk the damn thing across the bridge on the pedestrian sidewalk, which would take too long.

All I can think is that in the not-too-distant future, so many people will be unable to afford gasoline for their cars that we might get a slow-lane on the freeway to ourselves. I had a vision the other day while driving home of a nearly empty freeway with more than a few cars that had just run out of gas and been left at the side of the highway like dead bodies on Mt. Everest. Is that what our future holds if we don't make a quick transition to alternate-fuel vehicles?

In the meantime, it seems like the right-hand lanes on the freeway system could be designated for people going 40 mph or slower, and other drivers could be forced to use them as extended on- and off-ramps. That seems fair and reasonable to me, as an auto driver right now and a would-be scooter driver if it was safe and legal to drive a smaller-engine vehicle on the freeway.

So I'm hardly an environmentalist, but I have my concerns. Seems the only way I'm actually working it right now, though, is by drinking from a styrofoam cup.

Fait Accompli

I am this evening no longer a graduate student.

After turning in my internship paperwork last week, turning in my death & dying research paper yesterday and severing two final client relationships at the free clinic where I have been interning until today, there is not a single thing left that I must do for school but attend my graduation.

That will be 10 a.m. on June 1.

Until then, I am in this curious limbo where I'm working part-time and not sure if or when my hours will increase -- but if they do, it likely won't be until June. In my mind, that leaves me with the merry month of May to have some sweet time left for myself, a break between the pace of school and the start of what I hope will be full-time (or pretty close to it) work this summer.

Thus, I will be endeavoring to spend this time wisely and restfully, not to mention creatively and decadently.

In the meantime, I find myself wishing I had someone to celebrate this occasion with, someone who really understood what all this crazy shit was about for me. There are only a small handful of people who come to mind:

Top of the list being XGF who witnessed this idea I had several years ago about seriously, SERIOUSLY changing my life turn into something that was really going to do just that. As she's neck deep in graduate school in New Jersey these days, I have a feeling she can appreciate the idea of being done with it -- although it will be many years until she is done herself.

And I think about S2, who has been my diligent and fierce companion in school, and a massive friend outside of it. There is no single other student who has been such a "teacher" in my life. Lots of funky psychological stuff got worked out through our friendship, and yet we are still friends. Dear ones at that. Quite a lesson unto its own.

I also think about The Good Witch, who has been a friend and mentor to me for many years now and always tries to give me her old counseling journals and other books.

And, last but not least, I wish like hell that I could share this with my Tia L, who was always so encouraging of me and who, in telling me her about her work in a Third World insane asylum during the Peace Corps, taught me a thing or two about restoring dignity and humanity to people who are mentally ill. One of our last conversations, she told me, "You're going to help a lot of people," and she sounded so convinced that I believed she might be right. (Time will tell, Tia L!)

Anyway... So that's that. Three years have gone in a flash. And my life is seriously, SERIOUSLY different. It's a good life, and I feel lucky to have it right now.

Apparently, celebration with others must wait a month for graduation, so in the meantime ... I toast myself.

Way to go, UCM. Way to mutha-fuckin' GO!

A tidbit

I once read some time ago -- and then was reminded again this evening -- of what Goethe's dying words reportedly were:

"More light."

That is so worthy of reflection, the work of which I will leave up to each of you individually, that I simply had to jot it here.

"More light." ... What do you suppose he meant by that?

A beautiful (and lively) way to say: So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye....

I didn't know S2's mom very well, but I met and talked with her on a few occasions. What I can say I know best about her is that she produced a woman, a daughter, as firey and fierce and fabulous as S2, which says more (to me) than any other equally simple sentence might capture.

Tonight, I attended her mom's farewell soiree, an evening party to bring together those who would celebrate her life even as they mourn her death back on December 27.

I can't imagine the pain of losing a beloved mother. In almost all respects, it is a pain I will never know. (When the Notorious M.O.M. kicks it, all I envision is the work of trying to release residual pain and anger about what I never had in life rather than what I lose through her death.)

But tonight, in S2's father's dramatic but cozy, wood-warmed house in the West Hills, I had the opportunity to see what kind of party a loving family throws for a woman who, if my sense of her is accurate and if the photos I saw fairly represent, was a spirited celebrant of life itself.

The slide show S2's dad assembled and ran on a loop on a TV down in the den showed her mother from the beginning of life up until her health began to decline several years ago. I only ever knew her in the last two years of her life, so it was a treat to see more. (Not to mention getting to see photos of particular events or activities from S2's childhood that she has told me stories about.) The photos tell a visual life story of a woman who was athletic, adventurous, quite the beauty (wow... some of those photos of her as a young woman!), an active and involved mom who participated in civic life and was quite taken with theatrical performance. As I watched the slide show, I listened to a group of older adults in the room talking about S2's mom, how they knew her, how they knew each other now because of her and how much they miss her (as well as a few other mutual friends who have died in recent years).

Although it was a different type of event -- catered soiree vs. potluck memorial, for one -- I saw a similar outpouring of love for my Tia L, who died last year. It occurred to me that some people in this world touch a LOT of folks, embolden and enliven a lot of hearts, soothe a lot of souls. If the gathering I observed tonight is any indication, S2's mom clearly was one of those spirits.

Which is why I take such heart in seeing how S2 is carrying on that legacy herself and how it lives in other family members and dear friends, as well. I never knew her mom well, but what I knew of her from our encounters was spirited kindness, an edgy sense of humor and great love for her family. In having S2 as a dear friend, I benefit from what she brought into this world every day. We should all be so lucky to see our own legacies so clearly.

At this celebration of her life, I knew few others in attendance. In the scheme of things, I am a very new addition to S2's life. I almost laughed when S2's sister introduced me to someone as a "classmate" and the man said, "Oh, *another* Lincoln High graduate." ... Uh, no, I replied, we're in school together now.

At this party, I was an outsider beyond outsiders, knowing almost no one in the crowd and not really speaking their language (of all the shared history and connections). I went by myself and had to work hard to strike up conversations with people. Curiously, one question I got asked several times by strangers was, "How many children do you have?" When I would reply, "None," I got a range of responses from: "Oh," (at which point the conversation suddenly ended) to a very sweet and long-time close family friend of S2's who replied, "Well, we were kind of late bloomers, too...."

Eventually, I found some friends of S2's older sister who were in a similar boat as I in terms of knowing hardly anyone there, and I got through much of the awkwardness (for me) of this evening by chatting with one of them who kindly overlooked me saying I have no children and didn't shame me when I spilled a bunch of Zinfandel on my white pants.

I learned some interesting things about S2's sister in the process, and because I am the one who could identify S2's daughters walking through the crowd, I didn't have to offer up any secrets of my own. Periodically, I could just say, See, that one is Little Pea. Doesn't she look like her grandmother? and then, using my handy Therapist Ray Gun v.2008, I could quickly induce them to tell me about their marriages and their experiences with S2's mom without having to give up anything of my own. Which is good, because the only thing I had to trade of interest to them were S2's "version of events," as one of the sister's friends put it, and there was no way in hell I was coughing up any *real* information. Fortunately, these women were moms, and they considered my ability to identify and point out to them S2, Little Pea and Getting to Yes as "real" information. Phew!

Anyway, one reason I felt so awkward this evening is because I have a fair amount of social anxiety when it comes to attending large events at which I know no one and have no role to play. I was there in support of my friend, who was having a good time and thus required no support. Because I had no one to hang with, I sometimes had difficulty even figuring out where to stand. S2's mom had SO MANY long-time friends and so many family members who came to celebrate her that when I arrived, almost every bit of their 3,000-square-foot home was heavily populated. S2 mentioned to me a few weeks ago that her family was being rather selective in who they invited, too, so heaven only knows how many people might have shown up otherwise.

I can't imagine for all the world that even a fraction of the people who turned out this evening to celebrate her life would so much as notice mine. It occurs to me that some people are born into this world with more blessings than others, more character, better temperament, better looks, better parents, more love, more gifts, more energy, more vitality. Compared to this woman, compared to most of her family and offspring as far as I can tell, I am impoverished. (A dog and a few dear friends comprise the totality of my interpersonal personal life.)

And yet, I am enriched (with hope for myself and others who have thus far not felt so blessed) by knowing this: When you extend love to others -- as S2's mom clearly did -- you sometimes receive it in return, as it appears she did throughout her life and tonight. What you anticipate getting in return is not the reason to love, but on those occasions when it does come back around, it feels so good that you just naturally want to put more of it out there.

Generate a cycle of that giving and receiving, and perhaps you end up with what I witnessed tonight. About a month before she unexpectedly died, S2's mom told her family that she had "lived a charmed life."

Indeed.

But it wasn't something she took for granted. She actually lived it.

Tonight, amidst this crowd of party-goers, I felt her saying, "Adieu, adieu, to you and you and you." And, unconnected to all that history as I am, I felt the privilege of being there to witness it. By all accounts, she had a grand life. It is nice to know such things actually exist.

The End is Nearly Fuckin' Nigh...

I'm staring down a two-week tunnel, and I can see the light at the end of it. Between me and the end of my graduate studies is One. More. Class.

And One. More. Paper.

The class will slide by with the banality due it, although I think a few of us will enjoy a beer afterward to celebrate the conclusion of something -- at this point, the end of *anything* sounds good. Only two of us in the class are actually done, as most of the other internship students are still trying to complete their required hours. But I am done.

Done. Done. Done. (And with the instructor I've had for this class over the past EIGHT MONTHS, you have no idea how good it feels to say that. I can't wait.)

Then, there's just this paper left. I've been mulling it for weeks, agonizing over its direction, its purpose, its quality. I have collected a lot of interesting stories, ideas and meanings people making around life and death, and I am trying to distill some themes from them. There are so many different perspectives that it's hard for me to say anything specific at this moment. It is going to be a serious bit of work over the next week or so.

This paper is due on the 28th. And when I turn it in, I will officially be finished with graduate school.

Hard to believe.

Late for an Important Date!

S2 turned 40 yesterday.

When I saw her briefly, she was rather ill from some sort of respiratory (or other) infection, and I was bringing her a box of probiotics to counter the loss of precious flora and fauna caused by the gnarly antibiotic she's taking to dump the infection. I think she still had a fever. So that is not exactly what qualifies as a "happy" birthday. But it was her birthday nevertheless.

Even all ratty and tired, the woman is a lovely example of a human being at 40. I'm sure when she gets over what's ailing her, she'll be back to the youthful vigor she normally has. All I can say is that at 40, we should all be so lucky.

As for myself, I'll be hitting that mark later this year. S2 is the first of my friends who are my age to enter our fifth decade, and I've found myself a little fixated on that. Normally, I could give a shit about age. What's on the calendar is less a representation of age than how you're actually living your days, I figure. But there's something about 40 that has captivated me.

I think it's because at 40, I expect I will *then* be undeniably in middle age, undeniably an ... adult. Yet something in me still feels like a big goofy kid.

On top of it, I noticed that I've internalized all sorts of messages about 40. One of them is that there are no babies after 40. Of course, I know this isn't true. But I suppose in *my head,* I've decided that I will DEFINITELY NOT reproduce after age 40. Although anyone who knows me knows that I've not had any intentions to reproduce, somehow or other, turning 40 seems to be putting that possibility, that decision, that omission, into its final resting place.

Etched on that rock: Ain't. Gonna. Happen.

Maybe never having kids has kept me from feeling like a grown up. Maybe never actually ever having grown up is what's keeping me from feeling like a grown up. Maybe there's actually no feeling like a grown up, and whatever I thought I was going to feel is just a silly expectation left over from childhood.

I just know I expected to feel different by now. Kinda weird, that.

Mixed bag

I had my first major league bout with counter-transference in the therapy room today. That's where my own issues get in the way of the relationship with the client and perhaps interfere with therapy.

I've discussed this situation with peers who are totally in-the-know, and the feedback I get from them is that I probably did a GOOD thing for my client. I think what I said to the client was probably decent, therapeutically, but I'm struggling with the fact that *I* know some of my comments were born in annoyance rather than empathy and kindness.

If you've learned anything about me from reading my blog these past few years, you'll notice that I'm no stranger to self-reflection and second-guessing. You can only imagine where I might take a serious inquiry into my own motivations for saying something supposedly "therapeutic" to a client, something that may have been perceived as a lecture or, worse, a dressing down. I was a touch passionate as I spoke.

I'd get into it more, but I just don't think it's kosher to write about clients on the freakin' Internet, no matter how "anonymous" I might hope to make this blog.

But as I think of it, the client's behavior and demeanor is strikingly similar to that of ... The Notorious M.O.M.

So....

In other news, after more than two years, several purchases and more than my neighborhood's fair share of curse words about the approaching "end times," I finally -- mutha-fucking jesus eatin' shit patties on a fence post FINALLY! -- got a can opener that WORKS! I never thought I'd see the day. Can opener after can opener, I have managed to buy lemon after lemon. But I finally plunked down $12 on the right tool at the grocery store, and I was able to open three cans tonight without a single mutha-fuckin' curse word! Glory be!

Alas, I think it means the end is very nearly fuckin' nigh (with apologies to 28 Days Later).

Therapist for hire

Today, at 9 a.m., I earned my first dollar as a mental health therapist.

I started as a part-time outpatient clinician, working three days a week, at the mental health clinic where I have been interning since September. I've still got another couple months on my internship and am told that I might be able to increase my hours at the clinic after I graduate in June.

Considering the tight job market and the fact that I really like my internship site, I feel fortunate to have my foot solidly wedged into a professional door. The pay is decent enough for starting wages, and if I pick up additional hours in a couple of months, the benefits are better than I've had at a job in more than a decade. So I'd be happy to work more hours after school wraps up in May.

My first few for-pay clients, all new, were no more and no less remarkable than the colorful members of humanity who have already come into my office in the past few months. They are interesting, challenging and so touchingly human. In working with them, I could discern no difference in the services I provided today for pay versus those I have been providing for free.

But it is, to me, a momentous day nevertheless. I'm getting paid to do something fun! It's been a long, long time since that was the case.

What's more, I've been working toward this career change for three years of graduate school and, before that, several years of personal contemplation and searching for an intriguing new line of work.

So ... yea for me!

I think it could have only been nicer if I'd had someone with whom to share my accomplishment upon returning home tonight, maybe with a little toast over a glass of wine. The closest I came was popping my head in to see The Florist for a few minutes at the end of the day and announcing myself as a "therapist for hire." She shook my hand in congratulations, and I accepted it happily.

On Kilauea's Dark Side

On Tuesday, the last night I would be spending on the Big Island during my visit this past week, my cousin Spitfire and I embarked on a remarkable evening expedition. Kilauea, which has seen many eruptions in the past 25 years, is having another major lava flow, and we wanted to see it.

Our initial plan on Tuesday morning was to take a late afternoon hike into the besieged Royal Gardens subdivision, which sits on the southeastern flank of Kilauea. Back in the late 1980s, eruptions sent massive and many-fingered lava flows into the area, cutting through the subdivision. Some homes were untouched, others destroyed and replaced by wide open plains of rolling pahoehoe (meaning: smoother, more flowing) lava.

The hike was supposed to be an hour and a half or so, much of it through the forested and mostly abandoned subdivision. But we ended up hanging around too late in the afternoon, enjoying a soak at the warm ponds down on the coast outside of Pahoa. By the time we returned to my cousin GlassGirl's house about 10 minutes north of Pahoa, my uncle was feeling too tired for a trek, and it was presumed we had to give up our Kilauea quest because of fading light. Hiking out in the dark would be one thing, but hiking in and out of an unfamiliar place on a moonless night could be dangerous. (GlassGirl, by the way, is a new, better nickname to replace "MiniMimi".)

After dinner, however, I inquired about something GlassGirl's husband had said the day before regarding a place where you could presumably look up the mountain and perhaps see with binoculars the orange glowing lava. He described a trip to the end of Red Road, and we decided to take it.

As the four of us -- GlassGirl, her husband, "Klutch," Spitfire and me -- prepared to leave, a downpour ensued. Klutch voiced a concern that clouds would prevent us from seeing much, but we all got in my uncle's SUV and headed out anyway. Having missed a turn for Red Road -- or perhaps GlassGirl just had her own plans in mind -- we ended up driving down Highway 130, the old highway that once connected Hilo to South Point and then on to the west side of the island. A little past mile marker 21, the highway comes to an abrupt end. An old lava flow moved across it 15 or 20 years ago. As we approached, warning signs told us to turn back. Flashing yellow road signs warned away "unauthorized vehicles." Saying that she didn't "feel like talking to anyone at a roadblock," GlassGirl turned the SUV around and tried a different route, which dead-ended. She decided then that it would be worth at least seeing if those headlights up at the end of the highway were cop cars or not, and we turned back around and headed up Hwy. 130.

At the road-closure signs, an auto driver and a motorcycle driver were talking to each other. Following another truck about 200 yards ahead of us, GlassGirl passed them right on by and drove onto a crudely paved one-lane path over a finger of an old lava flow. After about 150 yards on that, we returned to the old paved highway. Looking across the lava field, we could see a murky orange glow a ways up the mountain. Scale is hard to define without knowing the terrain, but given the dimness and diffuse nature of the light, I estimated it to be a mile away or so.

Klutch began talking about how it's dangerous to be downhill from lava, especially if you don't know the terrain, because it's possible that it could come down the hill behind you and cut off your escape route. As we approached a second old lava crossing, we saw a car heading on its way out across a similarly crude path like the first. We waited for him to pass, and GlassGirl waved him down. She asked what was out there.

"Lava's crossing the road up a ways," he said. "Just keep driving, and eventually you'll run into it."

This news freaked out Klutch, and he immediately insisted we take him home or "at least drop me off in Pahoa." A debate ensued, with Spitfire insisting he was being too anxious and conservative and reminding him that lava doesn't move very quickly. "It's not like we couldn't outrun it," she said.

But he was adamant, and even when GlassGirl asked him with a "pretty please" to indulge our desire to drive farther, he said he would not come. It was a 30-minute ride back to the house, and I could see all the way there that Spitfire was pissed. She thought Klutch was being a spoilsport.

By the time we got back to the house, GlassGirl was ready to call it a night. Her 3-year-old was going to be waking her up at 6:30, she said, and it was already 11. Spitfire and I looked at each other. She shrugged, "I'm willing to go if you still want to," she said. "I know it's late but...."

I'll sleep on the plane, I replied.

We hopped back into the SUV and took off. Another massive downpour started, and I secretly hoped Spitfire would not be discouraged by it, but I said nothing. She kept driving, speeding along through the night. We hit the end of the road in no time.

"This drive was much longer on the way back to the house," Spitfire observed. "I don't know why Klutch has to be such a puss. He is so scared of things sometimes. But I am rarely scared for my life. On Sunday I was, but this does not scare me. Maybe I'm just a sheep, but you would think that if this was dangerous, some of those drivers we passed on the way out would have said something to us about it. People may be assholes a lot, but when it comes to stuff like this around here, they tend to be pretty considerate and tell you when it's dangerous."

On Sunday, we had been out sailing along the Kohala Coast and had anchored over a reef less than 200 yards off shore to go snorkeling. We were swimming in water about 30 or 40 feet deep, but we were suddenly joined in the area by about four humpback whales who seemed to be engaged in some type of mating activity. (Either mating or contesting for a mate.) They were behaving oddly and were in waters a bit shallow for them.

After we returned to the boat from our snorkel, we stood on deck and watched them for a couple minutes. Suddenly, they turned and charged the boat -- a 50-foot sailboat. I grabbed my camera and attempted to take some photos. As they neared within about 20 yards of the boat, they veered off toward the bow. Spontaneously, Spitfire popped on her flippers and lowered her mask. "I'm going in," she said, and jumped off the side of the boat. I thought to follow her, but my fins were 10 feet away, and I was torn with the desire to take a photo of what I was seeing. Her green snorkel cutting through the water was absolutely miniscule in comparison to the hump of one whale that surfaced.

Spitfire swam to within 15 or 20 yards of the whales and suddenly stopped. Her head jerked up above water and she yelled, "I'm scared!" My uncle, El Capitan, and I urged her to stay or get closer. I wanted her to see them underwater since she was already there. But despite the amazing clarity of the water in the reef, there was too much sunlight filtering down to give good horizontal visibility. A couple of the whales breached partially one more time before disappearing.

When she climbed back onto the boat, Spitfire said simply, "That was a really cool idea, but when I saw them surface, I suddenly realized I was just a tiny speck in the ocean compared to them. I realized I could get seriously tossed even just by accident, and it scared the shit out of me. I totally froze in the water."

So there is some evidence that Spitfire knows her limitations, even if she does occasionally leap before thinking things through. On our second visit to the closed road on Tuesday night, I was hoping her intuition and experience with the volcano, on which she has hiked at night before, was in good working order. Having never been around it, I didn't know enough about lava and volcanoes to know if I was balancing a relative sense of safety with a sufficient dose of caution. All I knew was that I generally felt OK about what we were doing.

What scared me most was the speed at which Spitfire would drive across the crude paths across the lava and the pot-holed pavement of the old highway on such a dark night. The new moon isn't until Friday, but the night sky at 11 p.m. was awash in stars through wide openings in the clouds, no moon in sight. I worried more that we would break an axle than get trapped by lava.

After four or five interchanges between old highway and lava flows -- which eventually were no more than dirt paths -- we came to a mango grove next to which was parked a van with some kind of official seal on it. Through the edge of the mango trees, I could see a long strand of bright orange light. We saw a couple of cars parked near a formal-looking field tent. Spitfire stopped. We backed up and saw a University of Hawaii seal on the van. We decided to back up to the last stretch of paved highway, about 25 yards back, turn the SUV around in case we needed to make a quick get-away for any reason -- not the least of which were some of the sketchy cars we had seen coming out as we drove in. It was past 11:30 when we got out of SUV, grabbed our flashlights and each took a "weapon" -- Spitfire took a small umbrella, and I took a broken 1/2-inch dowel with a sharp, splintered tip.

Then we headed out onto the next old lava flow by foot, me in my Keene's and she in her flip-flops. "Not exactly the shoes for lava," Spitfire said of her own feet, "but it's what I brought with me."

A few minutes down the road, the old mango grove gave way completely to a wide open expanse of lava, which in the dark night was simply a vacant blackness. Cutting across the darkness to the north was a wide ribbon of firey orange lava, dropping in a wide and distorted S-curve toward the road.

"See the little white lights out there?" Spitfire said. "Those are people. They appear to be walking right up to the lava."

Based on the size of their headlamps and the occasional silhouette of human form against the orange, I estimate the distance to have been about 150 yards above the road. Klutch would have freaked out about this, I observed.

"No shit," Spitfire replied. "High-five to you, UCM, for having the cajones to come out here."

It seems like this trip specifically required ovaries tonight, I said.

"Let's go up to where those people are," she suggested.

Didn't that guy say it crossed the road? I asked. Let's walk on a little farther and see if we can avoid walking that far out there in these shoes.

No sooner had I uttered those words than we crested a hill on the road and were suddenly face-to-face with the most peculiar and spectacular scene I've ever witnessed.

About 40 yards away, a lava flow in excess of 100 yards wide -- 200 yards? 300? I lost all perspective, but it was HUGE -- had indeed crossed the road and had advanced several hundred yards below the road, heading toward the ocean. Yet everywhere along this amazing river of fire, a forceful, gloopy, slow-moving swell of molten earth was inching down the mountain like a melted marshmallow.

In the cool wind coming off the ocean, the molten rock would begin to cool into black crusts before the force of more firey earth would swell up from underneath and release more of itself into the air. To our south, really dramatic formations perhaps 10 or 12 feet high were piling up. As the orange goop would force itself up the core, the fresh crust on the outside would give way, falling backward up the hill while more molten rock would cascade down on top of it.

On the edge of the road, a handful of cars were parked. A few guys sat in lawn chairs next to a van. Bob Marley blared from their speakers, and so even about 50 yards away, where Spitfire and I stood and watched the lava inching toward us, we were treated to a backdrop of reggae music. They were drinking beer and smoking pot.

Down the way, a couple stood making out in the glow of the lava on the farthest spit of the road jutting into the flow. Three or four people in their 20s were aiming their cell phones at the creeping lava and trying to take photos and videos of it. There were perhaps a dozen people on the road and perhaps a dozen more up the hill at the site above the road.

We walked up to this amazing scene and got to within 10 feet of where it crossed the road. The air was alive with a crackling sound, as if a massive campfire had burned down to hot embers popping and sizzling in the evening breeze. Periodically, small vents of gas would flame up, "Poof!" and burn momentarily before dying down.

"When they do that, I kinda feel like I'm in hell," Spitfire said. "I mean, if there were such a place."

This is without question a good depiction of hell, I replied. But I personally find it far too beautiful.

"I know," she said. "We are totally watching earth being born right here."

A few thousand feet up Kilauea's flank, above the Royal Gardens subdivision, we could see what appeared to be the origin of all this lava. From that distance, it looked like a large crucible filled with fire overflowing its edge. It was impossible from our vantage point to determine if the flow we were seeing before us and back along the road was a continuous one. Neither was moving fast enough to pose a danger to us, and so we stood there for well over an hour as this birthing scene played out before our eyes.

We also watched a few people do totally asinine stuff. One of the 20-somethings with the cell phones walked up to a pocket of dense, glowing lava and stepped on it with his boots. Rather than puncture its surface, however, the lava gave way like a balloon. With a sharp stick, he might have punctured it, but his boot -- even with a second punch -- could not. Spitfire and I were unimpressed. "I did not come out here to watch someone burn their foot off," she said.

Later, two young men approached the lava. One threw a glass bottle onto it. I wondered why they were doing that, and Spitfire said people often make gifts of gin to Pele, the volcano goddess who Hawaiian spiritualists believe lives in the Kilauea crater. However, the bottle these guys threw contained water, and after a few minutes of sitting on top of the lava, the steam pressure and heat caused the bottle to explode violently, spraying glass everywhere. Spitfire and I were unharmed, but the glass hit the couple that were smooching downwind. The man came over to tell the guys not to do that. In the meantime, they had thrown a bottle of plastic water on to the lava, and Spitfire got pissed. "Plastic?!" she called out to them. "Why did you throw plastic garbage onto the lava?"

"Just to see what would happen," came the reply.

"That is so douche," she retorted. "Really, really uncool."

Eventually, standing so close to rock which has melted at about 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit became a bit hot for my taste, and it was also getting very late. So we decided, very reluctantly, to leave. As we passed where the cars were parked, however, I turned around and took in the scene again. So long was the river of orange-hot lava oozing down the mountain that it encompassed the complete panorama of my visual field. I turned and looked up into the heavens and was treated by another spectacular sight -- a massive opening in the clouds and steam above revealed an absolute riot of stars.

Standing there with the molten core of the earth flowing across all the terrain I could see before of me and a dizzying expanse of stars above me, I felt like I was at a mystical intersection, a spot of timelessness, a point of infinite creation and destruction, birth and death, light and darkness. It was all there. And it was all so matter-of-fact.

When we returned to the SUV, we took a few moments to take in the night skies. In that brief time, I saw two shooting stars. With the first one, I made a huge but simple wish. With the second one, I made none. After such an experience as the lava and those heavens, I found I had no other want than the first wish I made. In this moment, I was completely satisfied.

Except that I would have liked to stay longer. I could have stayed there all night.

The next day, when we told our other family members what we'd seen, we all tried to return to the spot. The police had closed the road for the day, however, while crews attempted to make a public viewing area. (I later read the viewing area had been overrun by lava.) I forgot to bring my camera with me on the first adventure and was unable to get close enough for photos on the daytime trip. However, below are some photos from the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory web page, which has updates from the recent Kilauea eruption.

All these photos were taken at daytime, so they are not as dramatic as what is visible in the dark, when much more of the molten orange is visible. This first photo, taken on Wednesday afternoon, shows the smooth pahoehoe crossing the road where Spitfire and I had been standing the night before.


This one shows the lava up close. Magnify this scene, which appears to be a few feet across, by hundreds of feet, and you'll understand a little better what Spitfire and I saw along the edge of the road.


This one below shows a small section of the lava flow we observed.


And finally, this one below is an aerial view of the lava uphill from where we saw it. I believe this is the same road on which we were standing. The fresh crusty lava appears silver in color until it cools to black.

Writing through grief; grief through writing

When logging into this blog, I'm starting to get the feeling I used to have when I attended a writing group in which none of the members wrote very much, if anything at all, between meetings. We'd have a writing exercise and inevitably someone would suggest the topic, "Why I'm Not Writing."

It's not that I haven't been writing lately; it's simply that I haven't been blogging.

When I sit down at my computer to write lately, I've been trying to tell the story of my youngest brother's death. It's a hell of a journey because it took him almost four years to die -- and because the weeks immediately following the car wreck that eventually killed him were a complicated, emotional time. I am on page 20 or so (single-and-a-half spacing), and I have only covered the ground of two weeks, plus some non-linear stories that help the situation make sense.

Technically, I'm writing this story as part of the independent study I'm doing around death & dying. But it seems I am also subjecting myself to a form of grief therapy that I have been thinking for some time is probably useful -- an airing of the entire story one has assembled around a death or other form of loss. Themes and vantage points emerge in this process that I think may offer insight to people who have engaged in a protracted grieving process -- or perhaps have not engaged in one and repressed their grief instead.

The situation with my brother and me is probably a combination of the two. I got pretty fucked up in my head while he was in a coma for those four years. I grieved, but in many ways, I couldn't grieve. While he was still alive, my grief was stifled by hope and socio-cultural ideals. After he died, I grieved, but at the same time, I was feeling really fucking tired of the subject. I talked about my brother to a point, whereupon I couldn't talk about him anymore.

Those who know me well, especially those who knew me during that time, might be surprised to hear me say I couldn't talk about him anymore. After all, I talk about him all the time! But the truth is that I have flattened out the story, simplified it, robbed it of some of its complexity and assigned meaning to events and the people involved that don't come close to doing justice to them.

And so I have started from the beginning, from the point in which an unexpected phone call intruded on my evening and created a sudden dividing line between my one phase of my life and another. I am trying to be as honest as I can, which means I have gone on a little fact-gathering journey. I've called family members and friends and asked them what they recall. I've attempted to get his medical records and the crash report taken by the highway patrol. I've dug out my old writings, videotapes and files and photographs.

Assembling all of the information into a coherent narrative is not all that difficult. But writing about my thoughts and feelings at the time is something of another order altogether. It requires me to re-inhabit that time, those events and my emotions and then try to find accurate words to describe them. It is the most tiresome bit of personal writing in which I have ever engaged. It is also the most personally compelling.

So compelling, in terms of drawing my attention to it, that I could not even finish this blog entry without opening the file and making revisions to the pages I wrote earlier today. It may be ambitious, but I have a goal of finishing the first draft of this story by the 27th of this month, when I am taking a week of vacation in Hawaii.

After I'm done with this draft, I'll have to turn my attention toward the analysis of the themes that emerged in the interviews I conducted with several friends last fall about death and dying. Then, I figure to analyze this narrative I'm writing for the themes that emerge in it. For my term paper, I'll weave those two together somehow and try to make sense of what I've learned in the process.

Theoretically, this will make me a better therapist. But in the meantime, I seem to be applying my own theory about grief therapy to myself. So I wonder what this process will do terms of making me a better-functioning human. Am I on the right track? Or am I just kicking up a lot of emotional and psychic dust?

Either way, I just want to state for the record: I am writing. A lot. Just not so much here.

Giant lusty lady

I walked into The Florist's shop the other day and saw this amazing specimen, a riot of orchids on a massive stalk. This photo doesn't do it justice, in part because that's only HALF the stalk. Yes, this orchid is twice as long as pictured here. The other way this photo doesn't do this sweet baby justice is by picturing it with a full-size lighter wand so you can appreciate how big BIG is. Alas, if I'd backed up my crappy cell phone camera -- someday I'll get a real one -- so the whole stalk of this orchid were visible, you wouldn't have been able to see the loveliness of the blooms.

It's one sexy thing. I guess enjoying these orchids is how I'm sublimating my sexuality given the dry spot I've been in for ... way too freaking long now. There are worse things.

Dreams

My dream life has been in a stupor for the past few months. I haven't had many, or just not many worth recalling. But this week, I've had a few doozies in a row. I'll share two of them that have really stuck with me, both visually and psychologically.

Dream No. 1

I am sitting on the grass high on an embankment alongside a great river, much like the Columbia or the Mississippi. There are dozens of people around, most of them enjoying the sun and picnicking. We (all of us people, as I am actually sitting alone) observe two planes taking off from a runway that runs along, then juts out into the river, kind of like the runways at SFO jut out into the bay.

One fixed-wing aircraft flies away. The second, a strangely shaped aircraft that is highly maneuverable, flips nose over tail several times as it ascends rapidly. It hovers above the embankment, and starts shooting small canon balls out it's "butt." They fall amongst the picnickers, causing pandemonium but hurting no one, as we are able to avoid them and they do not explode on impact.

Presently, the strange aircraft lands, and a crowd forms to scold its pilot for dropping those shot puts. Heavily armed men in black SWAT/assault team attire flood off the vehicle and start harassing the crowd, shaking, shoving and hitting them. People flee in all directions. It quickly becomes obvious that these dudes are dangerous, and none of us along the river are capable of responding without getting harmed. So we flee.

The guys in black rush toward me and another bystander. Just as he approaches, I drop down over the edge of the embankment and roll down the hill until I am standing next to the water. The bad dudes follow, and I am leaping and scrambling up and down the hill. I get up top again, thinking I will head for the highway, when I see the parking lots are being controlled by these invaders. People are still running in chaos on the grass. I hide at various times behind trees and benches as the bad guys run or march past. I see a young woman at a drinking fountain kneel as they pass, bowing her head to them in submission.

That's not going to help you, I whispered to her from behind a nearby tree. No sooner do I say it than she is grabbed by one of these men and hauled away.

I head toward a pavilion, where I find a star-shaped concrete construction of some sort. A bench? A table? I can't say, except that it had a large overhang with a void beneath it. I decided to hide in there, as does one other fellow. I push trash that has blown under there out the the lip of the opening, thinking it will make the site look undisturbed.

My ruse doesn't work. No one even bothers to look under the edge of the bench or whatever it is before sticking the end of what looks like a leaf blower under there and turning it on. Out rushes a fog of some gas. I try to hold my breath, but eventually must inhale and do so thinking I will surely die from whatever gas has been distributed.

Instead, it turns out that the gas alters my DNA, permanently changing me. I will, forever more as far as I can tell, smell and taste like cheese nachos. I learn this via an announcement from some unknown source. But after I get out from under the structure and try to flee the area, the news gets repeatedly confirmed. Wherever I walk people sniff hungrily in my direction. Several teenage boys claim they smell nachos.

I walk into a ferry terminal where hundreds of people wait, unaware of the chaos being caused by the invaders outside. A boy of about 9 whines at his mother, "But they must have nachos here somewhere! I can smell them! I'm hungry!"

I flee the building.

Down the river a few hundred yards, I see a small boat launch. I decided to enter the river there, thinking I might be able to wash off this smell, not really accepting my DNA has been altered. Just as I'm wading into the fuel-slicked water, I see S2 in a small motorboat pull into a floating dock about 25 yards from shore. I swim out to the dock.

As I climb out of the water, I notice Little Pea squat over the river and urinate. Her big sister, Getting to Yes, who's 7, instantly rats her out, saying, "Mom, Pea's polluting the Earth!"

I really think that's the least of our problems, I say to Getting to Yes.

GTY glares at me like I'm a traitor. "Pollution is a BIG problem," she corrects me.

S2 comes around the edge of the dock, surprisingly topless. Uh, I say, you might want to put your shirt back on.

"I'm sunbathing," she says. "What of it?"

I gesture up the river. I think we're being invaded or something.

She looks at the chaos continuing on the shore and shrugs a little, then wrinkles her nose. "What's that smell?" she asks, looking at me. I extend my hand. She sniffs it. "What is that?"

Cheese nachos? I offer.

"Yeah, kinda. I guess," she says, not convinced.

Taste it, I suggest. I'm supposed to taste like it, too.

She licks the back of my hand, then quickly spits. "You taste like gasoline-soaked nachos!" she says. "That's disgusting."

I wake up.


Dream No. 2

I am standing in the middle of what appears to be a dorm room. Stroking my chin, I realize there are long hairs hanging down below it. I feel around and discover they are braided, knotted messy things like dreadlocks. They hang like the giant whiskers of a catfish but instead of my cheek or chin, they are attached to the inside of my bottom lip. I tug on them, and they pull my lip into a frown.

"You really should stop playing with those," says a woman I recognize as a classmate from my internship class. She's a petite brunette who presents as demure in class. But in this dorm room, she's bossing me around. "Your side of the room is messy; you need to clean it up."

I look at the room and discover one side is an incredibly clean, simply appointed bed, desk and table of Japanese design. Two place mats with chopsticks and tightly folded napkins sit at corners of the table. On the other side of the room is a profusion of mess -- books tossed hither and yon, my sleigh bed covered in a quilt.

I tug on one of the dreadlocks hanging from my lip, trying to figure out how to get rid of them. "I'll get you some scissors and you can just cut them off," the classmate says. I nod my head. "And stop bowing your head to me," she snaps. "Just stop bowing down like that! I can't stand it!"

I am feeling verbally assaulted and confused. With my fingernail, I scrape at the skin on the inside of my lip. As I do, four dreadlocks fall out painlessly in a chunk, as an exceptionally loose tooth might. A second chunk of five dreadlocks comes out without much more effort than that.

My classmate returns with scissors in her hand and sees the dreadlocks -- with their spit-covered roots -- lying on the ground. "Those are really nasty," she says, then sighs, "Make sure you pick them up."

....

I'm not a dream analyst, but I have a feeling both of these dreams meant something. I'm going to ponder them for a while. If anyone knowledgeable in dream symbols has any ideas, let me know.

Come on down to the Mardi Gras...

My idea with this year's Mardi Gras has been to bring home the lush (elegant, decadent) flavor of the holiday. I knew it would be too hard to pull off what I wanted for myself, so I enlisted the help of two friends who have their own reasons for wanting to get into the spirit of things.

King Rex, a native of New Orleans who was evicted by Hurricane Katrina, will be supplying some of the culinary muscle for our endeavor. I will be dishing up a few of my standby favorites, including the jambalaya I learned how to make from my dear late aunt, a cajun culinary powerhouse also born in the Big Easy. So I think we will have some delightful dishes.

Of course, there will be intoxicants. So this alters the mood of things.

But HGM came over this evening and turned on his PowerGay Transformer Ray and freaking worked over the place. We daydreamed up the ideas together. I collected candlesticks and decorations and platters from friends (The Florist and S2) and used my personal supply of masks. HGM and I visited a fabric store and bought a bunch of materials. And HGM brought over more candles and holiday lights.

The end result of about three or four leisurely but work-filled hours this evening is ... well, let's just say we've gone off and created that mood-altering atmosphere I had in mind -- with HGM's queer panache creating an over-the-top effect well beyond my expectations. When it comes to staging decadent, dark, voluptuous atmosphere, the dude ROCKS!

I have no idea who will show up to this party and who will bail. I have had a couple last minute maybes and one rather grim I-don't-think-so from a friend who may not be up for socializing. Otherwise, all I can say is that those who do show up to this colorful affair will be entering into an mood-altering space, just as I wanted.

But I'll be honest about something: It kind of creeps me out to go to sleep in the middle of this bizarro-world that has overtaken my loft. There is some drapery hanging above my bed, atop which sits the most magnificent mask I own, which is adorned with a large headdress of black feathers. I'm a little worried about waking up in the middle of the night and seeing that thing staring down at me.

Also, I'm afraid of waking up and seeing this place in the daylight. It is staged like a ballroom party. There is drapery and tulle and ribbon and damask everywhere. I'm worried that when I wake up, I'll look around and feel like I fell asleep in the middle of a Macy's window display or something. I really don't like that particular startle that comes with feeling like I've accidentally fallen asleep while I was supposed to be entertaining guests. This is a recurrent experience for me, and in truth, I'm writing about it partly in hopes that I can stem off that experience tomorrow.

Anyway, that is also a way of illustrating just how much my living space has been altered. It has a very Cinderella meets "Eyes Wide Shut" thing going on. If it's hard for you to imagine, I assure you, one look at what's going on here, and you would know I have described it perfectly.

In the middle of it will be yours truly -- dressed as pirate. To be more accurate, that means that I, a fashion-conservative female, will be dressed as a male-to-female cross-dressing pirate. Seems like those kinds of roles are normally Oscar material. I'll do my best....

That starts with getting my beauty rest. Good night. And may you enjoy this here Mardi Gras.

Fresh depressed Peace Corps boobs with leschmaniasis hiding in sperm trees, where the penis windchimes tinkle in the breeze

"Why are black women so bitchy?"

At least one person has wondered this recently and Googled it. For reasons that escape me, Google pointed this particular query to yours truly, extended psychosis.

I haven't been especially prolific on the old blog here lately, but I see in Blogger's data about extended psychosis that this is post No. 401. I sometimes wonder if anyone has read them all (myself included), but I whatever attracts my regular readers remains a mystery. One thing I'm increasingly curious about, however, is the traffic I get from Google searches. I know extended psychosis remains the No. 1 result on Google if you type in those words. But what confounds me are the readers who arrive here via other types of Google searches.

Here is a brief list of Google searches that brought readers to extended psychosis recently. Go figure.... (I am particularly curious about the last one on the list.) These are from a single day last week:

- Annette Funicello photo returning from hospital

- Peace corps depression

- Prominent boobs

- Fresh boobs

- Gay psychosis

- Jennifer save yourself

- Infamous insane people

- Psychosis of people who speak in rhymes

- Holiday song + are you having fun + safeway commercial

- Checking signs of life

- Penis windchime

- What to do if you encounter an elk

- I’m sorry to inform you dead killed

- Working with the criminally insane

- Why are black women so bitchy

- History of hairbrushes (also searches for: History of hairbrushes and how many sold each year)

- Cortisone psychosis

- Catty women

- Trees that smell like male cum (other variations: "semen trees" or "stinky semen"(

- How are dogs and humans alike

- Fuck Caprial and John’s restaurant

Mardi Gras cometh

So I'm planning another Mardi Gras party this year -- that'll be three in a row -- and this time around, I've enlisted help. I've formally established The Krewe of Portlandia, and things may get a little more "snazzy" (HGM's queer little word) around these parts.

For those who don't speak the lingo, a "krewe" is a social group formed solely for the purposes of putting on Mardi Gras events, including parades and parties. So the Krewe of Bacchus puts on the Bacchus parade in New Orleans, as well as a ball. These krewes are usually dues-paying organizations -- often very hefty dues -- but the members have the pleasure of riding on floats and tossing out beads and doubloons to the begging hoards and masses of people. (There is something to be said for that experience, as I learned personally a few times.)

I've not yet managed a Mardi Gras party where someone dares to get up on the table and bare her breasts while the rest of us pelt her with throw beads (but there's always a small hope of that). Nevertheless, I keep encouraging revelers to get into the spirit of things by wearing costumes and trying on, just for a moment or two, a touch of wild abandon. (People in the Northwest seem a bit stiff to me at times, but we're working on it.)

I thought it might be helpful to have multiple hosts, thus creating The Krewe of Portlandia.

The first person I enlisted was King Rex, who is a Katrina evacuee and hosted a Hurricane Katrina party at my place on the second anniversary of the storm this last summer. He so enjoyed cooking up a mess of New Orleans vittles and drinking Abita beer that he wanted to do it again. Well, let me tell ya: August is a bit hot to be cooking up a storm in my un-air-conditioned loft, so I said: Well, how about Mardi Gras instead? He's a good Southern boy, meaning he likes a gathering focused on food and drink, so King Rex readily agreed and started working up his menu. He's got shrimp on the brain by the sounds of all the recipes he's talking about cooking.

When I was telling HGM about our plan to cook Southern and drink, he snapped (the kind that would have had two circles up and a z-formation if he had let his inner gay flame up), and said, "You *are* planning to snazz it up a little this year, aren't you?"

I always have big dreams, but rarely do I have the follow through on these things. So I said, I *intend* to....

This was all HGM needed. "Because you know, you can't be throwing a party with a theme and telling people to come in costumes, and they walk in and see the same old place. In that case, you're just inviting people to come to your home and get drunk."

I know this.

"So what are you going to do about it?" he asked.

I got out my brand-new Therapist's Fix-It Ray Gun 2008 -- which can be used to de-escalate, stimulate, eradicate or motivate -- and set it to M-mode. I shot from the hip. The gun spoke these words: It sounds like you've got a strong opinion about that, HGM. I bet you have ideas. Would you care to be the Decadence Design Consultant? I can list you on the invitation.

BULLS EYE!

And so it came to pass that yesterday saw the collection of swaths of purple, green and gold (Mardi Gras colors) tulle, ribbons, masks, throw pillows and enough candles to send an SOS to the extra-terrestrials who keep abducting me lately. (I say it's an SOS because we have fun. It's not *all* anal probes.)

But I digress.

Suffice it to say, HGM's inner Martha Stewart came out. In the fabric store, he admitted that some fabric is so engaging to him that he wants to "eat it." I wasn't sure what he meant, but when I repeated this to S2 today, she replied, "Oh, I know exactly what he means." Somehow, I put what I know about HGM and S2 together, and it suddenly made sense. I feel the same way about certain hardwoods. (Cocobolo, how I love you and want to make you mine....)

Ooops. There I go again.

Back to the subject at hand. The fabric and the pillows and the masks and the candles and "lots and lots of Christmas lights" -- along with me supposedly replacing all white lightbulbs in my house with pink or blue ones -- is going to be assembled in my loft in some sort of decadent fashion. I believe we're going for that French damask-dripping, dark "Eyes Wide Shut" kind of voluptuousness. I'm not sure what will actually come to pass, but hey....

If you got your invite, you know the particulars. Two weeks hence, we will laissez les bon temps rouller!

How to make condensed milk

I can't think of the last time that I had a greater variety of *intense* subject matter come up in a single week. Maybe it's never happened. There was sex. There was death with dignity and drama. There was the promise of new life. There was a mutiny in my class. There was racism and heterosexism. There were tears -- good god, were there ever tears! There was also free speech and health care reform. There was God and the Goddess and a glass penis.

And I ain't talking therapy sessions and clients here. This is all in my personal sphere.

I took breaks from this Bizzaro-world by attending a couple yoga classes. In the restorative yoga class, a new teacher spoke very loudly. "NOTICE THE QUIET PAUSE AT THE TOP AND BOTTOM OF YOUR BREATH," she said, voice blaring. Just a bit distracting, and not terribly restful. A few days later, I took a Kundalini class in which my chakra kahn got stimulated. Fucking fabulous, vigorous workout followed by a melt-into-the-floor meditation. But my calfs have been complaining since then.

In between and around all of the above, people said things the following to me this week, all in complete seriousness:

"Your tongue is short, so you've learned to be artful."

"You're still working on your orbit."

"How does this work? Should I speak to you -- or to a priest?"

"When I see the two of them together, they are such a *couple* that I want to smash their faces in."

"You can always string a bunch of peacock feathers on garland and get the same effect."

"I don't get why you're doing that. I'm not judging you; I'm just curious. That's not the behavior of the person I know you to be."

All I can say is that there are times in my life when I'm surprised by the face I see in the mirror. The most curious thing to me this week is that it looks the same as it did on Sunday, when the week began. And I haven't even seen Saturday yet.

The amazing thing to me is that, as faces go, mine looks pretty happy today.

Note to self

Do not — I repeat: Do NOT — run through the house with a vomiting dog in your out-stretched arms.

The consequences of such acts should be obvious.

However, you may forgive yourself this once. After all, it was, 2 a.m. and dark and you just were trying to protect the silk duvet cover.

But still. You're a smart girl with really good spacial sense, and you have know about the splatter patterns of flying vomit ever since you were 8 and enjoyed that spinning barrel ride at Six Flags in Georgia. You should've seen it coming.

Encounters with elk

Just before the term started, I spent a long weekend by myself in a cabin up in the Olympics. I go there when I really want to get away from stuff. It is fairly isolated, particularly in winter. Late one afternoon, I took a long walk in the rain past waterfall after waterfall, just really enjoying the earth unburdening itself of an overabundance of water, all headed to the lake above which perches the cabin where I stay.

The light was starting to dim a little, a mix of the late afternoon and another squall rolling in, but I really felt drawn to head down to this meadow a couple miles from the cabin. I didn't have a flashlight, which would make my return trip rather precarious if I didn't get out in time, but I decided to take the risk and just kept walking farther, aiming for the meadow.

About 50 yards before I got to the clearing, I saw some movement through the trees at the edge of the meadow. A large elk came into view. Followed by another and another and another. One of them was a baby -- are they called elkettes?

Eventually, a dozen elk were clustered on the road in front of me, the adults in the herd surrounding the smallest of them. A huge buck walked forward and assumed a position like a guard might. They all stood and stared at me, and I slowly walked to within about 30 yards of them and stared back. We were like this for a good five minutes or so before they decided to cross the road completely and head back into the woods.

Below is a cell-phone video of the last member of the herd moseying across the road after the other dozen elk had moved on.



Once, when driving by in my car, I saw some elk on the far off edge of this meadow, but it is the first time that I have encountered them on foot -- and I have never been alone amongst such large wild creatures. It was a beautiful moment, and walking back on the road at twilight, through dense rainforest with all those waterfalls gushing and gurgling through the ferns and mossy rocks, was really marvelous. I am drawn to this place time and again, in any season, year after year, and it never loses its appeal.

Yesterday, I received a mass e-mail from a woman I know and had run into on Monday afternoon. She was announcing some classes she would be teaching and had drawn some cards from a particular form of tarot deck she likes to consult -- for what purpose, I do not know. In either case, this was one of the two cards she picked and what she wrote about it:

"Skillful Perseverance (8 of discs) shows a woman walking alone when a vision of an elk appears. She is wearing a shawl she wove - showing craft, perseverance, skill. The message - don't muscle your way through to your goal because the costs become very high. Rather, step forward with gentleness, pacing, and sensitivity for yourself."

After reading that, I wrote back and told her about my encounter with the elk, saying, I was that woman alone with the elk.

This afternoon, I spent a while baking goodies with HGM over at his place. Over a bite to eat, we talked for a little while about our shared experience of not having significant others -- or significant anybodies, for that matter -- and how we that can sometimes burden one's spirit a bit heavily. (Valentines Day seems particularly repellant to him, for example, while Christmas is a problem for me.) We were talking about cultural distinctions of the term "family," which is one way gays and lesbians have identified themselves to others in the history of our movement.

But the true nature of the conversation had to do with how difficult it can be sometimes to see people paired up when we are single and have been for a while. I'm going on two years without any decent prospects and just a few poorly matched attempts at a date or fix-up. HGM, on the other hand, has plenty of dating options but has never managed to be in a significant relationship. I had some questions about how much our sexual orientations and our age (we're both 39) winnow our statistical possibilities and how much was what HGM referred to as "difficulty in making some vital connection with others."

We also spent a great deal of our time talking about my study of death and dying and the progression of that massive paper I wrote last term, which I must now take up and revise. I have two clients who have very clear issues related to the meaning of life and death. One started talking to me about it last week, while the other announced as our session was coming to an end that she would start talking about it this coming Tuesday.

So with that afternoon's discussion in mind, I returned home this evening and found the following e-mail from the tarot-reading woman:

"I checked 'Animal-Speak' for elk and got: Keynote: strength and nobility. 'If an elk has come into your life it can mean that you are about to hit your stride,' she wrote. "It can teach pacing yourself, not giving up, not overdoing. Elk are Not solitary, they travel with companions, usually their own gender. Herds of elk have watchouts and they teach to live and work with others, not do so much alone."

So if there is any significance to my experience with the herd of elk -- aside from it being a marvelous moment that will always belong only to me (so much better than all those nasty moments I've had alone) -- perhaps it means I'm going to get myself a little posse of girls with whom to travel, live and work.

Perhaps I'm about to get my own harem.

Well, a girl can dream.