Away, again

I am so ready to enter another world for a little while. That inevitably means I'll be spiralling deeper into myself. But at least there will be prettier landscape surrounding me. And I won't have to look at all these friggin' boxes anymore.

That's right. I'm off to Ireland and Scotland for a month. I'm leaving behind my laptop this time and pretty much anything else that might weigh me down. It's all about bringing as little as possible to make room for what greets me.

Here's what I'm most looking forward to:

*seeing old, dear friends and searching for one particular long lost one
*returning to places that are infused with meaning for me
*retreating to a little island to write and walk and swim
*going wild at the Edinburgh Festival
*riding horses on the beach

I haven't quite figured out how, when or where I'll tackle that last one, but it's been on my list for a while. And why the hell not?

I've been so wrapped up in sorting through junk, selling junk, giving it away, packing it up, finding a place to live, preparing to be gone for a while and dive right back into it when I get back, that I haven't taken much time to ponder this trip. I've gone to Ireland so many times now that it feels less like a huge trip than it once did. It's kind of like going home without all the crap that comes with having to deal with family.

And yet I am aiming to confront parts of my past. Come to terms with my younger self. Reconcile with her.

I probably won't be blogging much while I'm away, but I'll post photos when I return.

Wish me luck (whatever that is)!

Chaos, of the soon ending, good variety

Where have I been for the past few weeks? Searching for a new place to live, sorting through 30 years of belongings, and packing it all up. I've donated as much as I've thrown away, and I'm fixin' to have a big ass garage sale.

Why did I decide to do this three weeks before I leave for a month in Europe? Because that's the way I roll. Grace under pressure. Need deadline tension to get anything done.

I think I'm over the crying jags, the insurmountable stress phase, and onto the looking forward part. With many, many thanks to my Aunt, Uncle and Mom for being good company and busting tail to help me prepare for this move.

I found out yesterday I got the place I really want with the move-in date that I want, so now it's just a matter of wrapping things up.

Ultimately, this will be truly liberating. No doubt. I've been living in my ex's house for the three years since I broke up with him. He doesn't technically live here, but to be painfully honest, on some level, I've been waiting for him to come home; and, I'm still engaged in the shitty relationship I thought I ended three years ago. No more.

Although he is coming to town this weekend, in the middle of my garage sale. It won't be easy, but it might be good to have a "last day of our acquaintance." I don't know if there's such a thing as closure. These things just fade away with time. I'm ready to speed up that process.

In other news, I cut my hair, which is no longer blonde, short. You know something's up when a woman does something drastic to her hair.

It's all change, change, change. I think Mercury's in retrograde, but it'll be coming out, soon. By then, I'll be in Ireland, then on to Scotland, then into a new home, which is very cute. I am so looking forward to not taking care of a house. No more lawn to mow, leaves to rake, snow (and chipmunks) to remove. I'm going to let all that stuff be someone else's responsibility for a while. I'll miss the lake, but I've promised MT and Kiki that next summer we'll rent a cottage up north on a bigger, prettier, Superior lake and just kick it for a week or so.

In the meantime, I'll be living in a gorgeous, old, renovated flat within walking distance of work, school, the newspaper, Kiki, every bar and restaurant I'd ever want to patronize, and with any luck, my new boyfriend.

Because I'm making space for the good stuff, y'all.

Summer was great until

. . . uninvited houseguests arrived.
I don't care how damn cute and little they may be out of doors, these bitches are scary when they're scurrying unexpectedly over your toes as you stand in your kitchen.

I had to call in the professionals for this job. I killed one all by myself by trapping it in the heating duct and waiting for it to die. Oh, the stank.

But two makes a pattern in my book, so the traps are set. The exterminator promised I wouldn't hear the scream, but if I go check the traps, I might see a "little butt hanging out."

No, thanks.

I'm worried about my karma. How do I explain to the Big Dog upstairs that I wouldn't have to kill these striped rats if they kept the hell out of my house? What kind of penance must I do to clear my soul? Clean slate. I need a clean slate.

Any ideas?

My latest aspiration

Fabulous compliments

Since Friday, I've received three unsolicited compliments on my ass, all from lovelies who possess fine asses themselves. One of them happened to be diligently massaging my naked behind at the time. "Girl, what you got is firm. Just climb stairs to keep what you got," said my masseur extraordinaire. I went to see him shortly after I blew out my lower back doing too many squats, lunges and deadlifts. "Didn't nobody tell you deadlifts are against the law?"

Another compliment came from MT shortly after he got an eyefull of my derriere as I rode the escalator ahead of him. He said something to the effect of that spinning is paying off. He detected some unprecedented lift.

Guess who's spinning every day until she leaves for Ireland in July?

Nothing beats an ass compliment from a gay man. Except perhaps an ass compliment from a girlfriend whose ass you've always coveted.

Sid came upon me ironing my trousers while wearing a thong. "It's so cute!" she squealed. "Damn you. You are so not allowed to ever complain about your 'pancake ass' again."

Duly noted.

Isn't it funny how people see you differently than you see yourself? I guess sometimes it's good to pay attention to them . . . especially when they have a clearer view than you do. . . .

ethereal toxicity and cutting bitches loose

I feel like I'm going through a phase in which I'm cutting loose all the intangibles that are dragging me down. It's not an entirely conscious choice. It seems to be an effect of choosing not to fight to make people understand things I think they should. I'm not out to change anybody but myself, and that certainly frees up a lot of time and energy.

So all that time and energy is going into the things that matter: putting down roots, taking charge of my finances, giving to things and people that give back, making time for what renews me. It's one of those seismic shifts that seems like it happened overnight, but it's really a cumulative effect from years and years of little earthquakes and day-to-day choices.

My horoscope said this would happen this year.

I guess you do reap what you sow, for better or for worse. Things seem to be lining up for me. The job--the vocation and avocation--and the residence appear to be falling into place and connecting nicely. After years of up-in-the-air-edness, having a few things land is a relief.

Lord knows you have to land before you can take flight again. And I'm working on shrugging off all the dead weight in its many forms. I think I'm getting better at detecting it early and ejecting it.

WTF?

What kind of stupid-ass dipshits do we have in charge who can't figure out how to spend money on the people who desperately need it?

Oh, that's right. I guess crooked thieves aren't necessarily in the business of spending money.

Perhaps more importantly, why did it take the press nearly two years to get wind of it?

Don't nobody tell me radio is dead

Listen to this and tell me there's no place for storytelling and the power of the human voice to transform people.

Thembi is a modern-day Anne Frank, if you ask me.

My belief in first-person narratives has been restored.

The power of the arts

Who says art and politics don't mix?

Sometimes I think politics should be handed over entirely to artists.

Serious breakfast

It led to this.

Big Baby

Remember when I was bellyaching that I got passed over for a writing award? Turns out I actually got a 1st place award after all.

I feel like an ass. Although I don't feel like I'm a better writer for being acknowledged. Hell, I didn't even know I got acknowledged until Kiki called me and said he got something in his mailbox that said so. "Maybe it's a typo," he said.

Funny thing. Got an award, or didn't get an award, I'm the same fuckin' writer.

I. Must. Remember. This. Especially when I'm feeling like chucking it all and heading for the slammer for a little R & R.

Sunday Morning ain't what it used to be

. . . and neither, apparently, is prison.
I caught the tail end of a story about a former Sotheby's chairman who went to prison for fixing auction house commission rates. He was, and is, a bazillionaire. He served 9 months at a hospital prison and spent his time catching up on his reading and being served three square meals a day. Granted, those meals cost $2.55 per day, so it was no life in the lap of luxury. But the dude managed to take an extended break from the grind, do what he loves, and drop 27 pounds, on our tax dollars. He says he's innocent, but he's not bitter, and he believes in the system.

I'd say so. I could use some of that system. I'd like an extended period of rest to read and lose some weight. I think it'd do me a world of good.

And then when I emerge from said holiday, I'll write a book about it all and receive Donald Trump, my gorgeous Miss Israel wife and Henry Kissinger among others at a fabulous launch party to sell my books and welcome me back to the glamorous life I was forced to remove myself from. More money, parties, champagne and media coverage to celebrate little, old, rested-up, smiling me. Because I've got money and I like lovely things. Funny how they always go together, no?

But the upshot of this for me? I think prison is exactly what I need right now.

How sad is that?

Jealousy

I've been thinking a lot lately about this abstract term, this most destructive of human emotions. I've also been thinking about destruction v. creation, and why destructive forces seem to carry so much more weight than creative forces, but that's a topic for another post.

Back to jealousy. It is, by definition, a desire for something one doesn't believe one possesses, right? Its meaning has some variation; it can also mean an intolerance for disloyalty, but doesn't that also presume a suspicion that someone you believe should be giving him or herself to you is not doing so?

As a kid I remember witnessing (and being somewhat baffled by) a conversation between two mothers (one who had recently endured a divorce, and one who was married) in which they argued bitterly about jealousy. Mother 1 staunchly defended her position that love knows no jealousy; that if you truly love someone, you do not behave jealously toward them, full stop. Mother 2 got physically agitated at this suggestion, and pretty much told M1 she had no idea what she was talking about. I think she might have said that M1 had obviously never been cheated on and that's why she felt she could justify her naive position.

I tend to agree with M1. And I have been cheated on. It rattled me to my core and made me physically sick. It might have even made me desire the two-timing object of my affection with greater intensity for a time. But I don't think I ever believed that he rightfully belonged to me. People do not, cannot, should not, possess each other. In the meantime, I doubted myself and looked toward outward affirmation (from said object) to bring me back to my center, but that never works.

And yet, I have been jealous. I'm not proud to admit I've experienced such a thing, but when I have, it has been out of my own insecurity, my own belief that I could not or did not have something someone else did even though I had a right to it. Destructive.

But what I now know is this: jealousy is the shadow at work. From the time I was 8 years old and thought another girl was prettier than I was to the times I've thought someone received accolades for work that I though wasn't as good as mine, each painful ripple of jealously has been an opportunity for me to see what is inside me. The people I've been jealous of have represented parts of myself I haven't yet fully acknowledged. If I despise Suzy because I think she's prettier than I am, well it means I haven't fully embodied my own beauty. If Becky pisses me off because her writing is better than mine, it may mean I don't give myself credit for the work I've done. I believe that only when I see these things in myself will I become whole. Repressing that shadow takes a whole lot of energy; elucidating it frees up creative energy.

It sure ain't easy, and I am nowhere near evolved in this area, but I'm learning. I'm also learning from people who are jealous of me. It's preposterous, but it happens. It's easier for me to turn this theory on them: they only feel that way about me because they don't see in themselves whatever it is that I represent to them. Jealousy directed at me terrifies me, but I'm learning to transform that terror into compassion.

My suspicion is that M1 was correct in her assessment: love knows no jealousy. And if we all aim to fully love ourselves, to embody our perfect natures with all their radiant flaws, then ultimately we can eradicate jealousy.

What do you think?

The Passion of M

Okay, so it's not all that; however, it was one hell of a Holy Week, folx.

Here's what I faced, in a nutshell:

On Monday, I reconnected with a past demon/lover in a way that elucidated our paradox;

On Tuesday, I ate so many jelly beans and robin eggs right before bed that I was up all night violently ejecting a rainbow of fruit flavor;

On Wednesday, I found out in a very public, embarassing way that I was passed over for a writing award; then I got the living life sucked out of me by someone I thought was a friend;

On Thursday, well, I can't remember anything too bad about Thursday; I think maybe I passed the suffering off to Kiki who had one of those teaching days that makes you question everything about what you're doing; oh, that's right! On Thursday I suffered from such intense self doubt that I seriously considered giving up on the PhD and the book;

On Friday, I went to confession, for the fifth or sixth time in my life, and I bared my soul. The priest went right to the depths with me and held me there as I wept; he counseled me, healed me, forgave me, absolved me, and issued an honorable penance. Then I did the stations of the cross on my knees and again, wept. Then I went for coffee with my dear friend where we laughed our arses off; I think I remember at one point loosely referencing Jesus and blowjobs in the same utterance. From the sacred to the profane. Two sides of the same coin. Paradox. Back to confession for me!

On Saturday I fretted about all the work I have to do before the end of the semester, but didn't actively produce anything. Found out that someone I love from my past is in trouble and pain. I went to the Easter Vigil service the local Sisters of St. Joseph do every year. They light a huge fire from which we each light a candle, twice; the priest throws holy water on us as a symbol of new life and baptism; we sing the Celtic Alleluia and receive communion. I got the dregs of the wine, I mean blood of Christ, and worried about communicable diseases, briefly. But as we left, one of the sisters said, "You must be the light." And she's right. No matter what happens, I must always return to that inner light, that divinity within that connects us all, regardless of the terror and self-doubt and misery I see reflected all around me. That is the seed of transformation. Something clicked for me. I feel like I understand differently Gandhi's "We must be the change we want to see in the world." One must recognize and be before one can do with great love.

On Sunday, I was exhausted. Spiritual transformation takes a lot of energy. It'll wreck a gal. Spent some time talking to friends and discovering we're all in some variation of the same boat. Community is a good thing. There's heaps of snow outside that have buried the daffodils, and I had no interest in going to Easter Mass. I have no Easter bonnet this year. It will come later. I read a cancer memoir that showed me what not to do with my writing, and I watched Easter Parade, my annual ritual.

After this week, I'm recommitted to my work, my passion, and trusting myself, turning to my inner light in moments of debilitating self doubt. I'm learning it will always be a struggle, but it doesn't have to be a fight.

How was your Easter?

Anna Nicole Smith's cause of death?

Who really gives a shit when there's real news.

Why doesn't anyone seem to want to get at real news anymore?

For BFF, circa 1988 (or so)

Check it.

Thanks to Sid for the link!

Pay attention, now

It's so fucking sad that this kind of thing still needs to be published.

But it does, perhaps now more than ever. So read it. Figure out how you're complicit. And then ACT UP.

Thanks to Kiki, who is turning 30! on Saturday (bettah than evah, baby), for the link.

Four years ago today

. . . I covered a massive anti-war demonstration in Boston. Thousands turned out from all over the state. I was overwhelmed by the anger, the unity. I realized I couldn't possibly be an impartial or disinterested journalist when it comes to things I feel strongly about. Now I wonder, should that ever have been the goal? Is the pursuit of objectivity, even as it's embodied in information gathering, noble?

As I listen to reports on the fourth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, I feel disgusted and responsible. Why didn't we stop it? Did our pursuit of objectivity actually keep us from reporting the truth? Do American journalists automatically temper what is horrible? Does it keep us from getting to the depths of ugliness that people absolutely must see? And timeliness. Yes, hindsight is 20/20 and all that, but news journalists must have 20/20 foresight, or at least aim for it.

It's the old grief and then blame game.

I'm finding it hard to go about my business today.

Paddy's recap:

1. The wearing o' the green(s). They need not match. Why not look like you were drunk when you dressed?
2. Pack flask, drive to A2 and arrive late to workshop. Upon leaving, engage playfully with multiple drunken fratboys dressed like leprechauns who appear to be trying to get hit by cars.
3. Find friends and begin the day's revelry by lining stomachs with Jameson.
4. Set out on foot to pub crawl, jig across all intersections, arrive at Zing's and proceed to eat more corned beef, undercooked cabbage and Guinness gelato than should be legal.
5. Arrive at quiet bar down the street, suck down $2.75 pints of Guinness, then slurp flaming shots through melting plastic straws.
6. Hit the empty gay bar where the waitstaff are particularly festive, decked out in green sequined bow ties, neon green wigs, reflective eye lashes, and/or faces painted green. Drink made-up-on-the-spot green martinis (oh the childhood memories of emptying parents' bottles of midori come rushing back), more whishkey and beer. Think we've made a fine friend but realize he's gouged us for all the shots we assumed we'd be getting for free.
7. Undeterred, we skip back across the street to the bar where the drinks are cheap, do more shots involving Bailey's and throw back more Guinness. Ravenously eat pretzels.
8. I start losing track here, but I remember having a conversation with a three-legged dog outside the food co-op and terrifying the clerks at a cupcake shop by inhaling their delicate creations, cookie-monster style.
9. Finally meander to the one and only Irish bar downtown only to find a line to the door that winds around the block. Oh, but before that we rejected a few other watering holes including a realy lame street party inside a tent and someplace where the slippery foyer had me and my speedcats nearly splayed on the tile. We did get seduced into a frenchie cafe that advertised $3 car bombs on their placard outside. Score! But since we didn't specify the special, we got unspecial car bombs at double the price. Same curdling effect, though. But if you shoot the Bailey's first and then sip the Guinness instead of dropping it in, you don't have to look at the curdling happening in the tumtum. Regardless, we stiffed the bartender on her tip. What kind of person takes advantage of recreational drunks on Paddy's Day? Oh, right. At the Irish bar, I pushed my way to the front of the line and said to the people waiting there, "What in the hell are you waiting for? To get in and pay for drinks? Pfffffft. Y'all crazy."
10. Then I think we tried to find food but only discovered more lines out doors. So we walked and walked and jigged and skipped when possible all the way to a tavern with great burgers. Tried desperately to help Kiki tame his interminable hiccups. Failed. Thought we spotted our governor with bad hair at the bar. Passed out in the park across the street on the way home. Probably spent some time rolling in old dog poo. Came up with the brilliant idea to run part of the way home so that we might make it there in the same amount of time we would in a cab but save the cab fare. Destroy property and have a mild pine-cone fight on the way there.
11. Fall asleep in coat as friends watch Cabaret. Wake self up snoring and laugh. Sleep (mostly) through the neighbors' house party.

Thank Jaysus Paddy's Day comes but once a year! And thanks to M! and his brilliant photo essay of the entire day's events for supplying most of the information herein. As soon as he emails some of the highlights (hint, hint), I'll supply some illustration. . . .

I think I'm still hungover.

Transformation

Here's what I've been thinking about: the divine feminine. I've become totally possessed by Jungian psychology lately. I feel a little bit like I'm practicing on myself without a license, but I'm unearthing stuff that's good fodder for my writing.

Speaking of which, I'm realizing there's very little fodder available in terms of creative work when there's no time for idleness. Yes, there's truth, I think, in the notion that if you want something done, give it to a busy person; however, I've busied and done to my breaking point. I am a holy mess, and have been for some time. And yet, I'm mostly excellent at keeping up appearances. But the body is wise and literal, and there's no fooling this body of mine, lord knows. I've been sick--exhausted, really. And now my face is breaking out like it did when the beginning of the end was near with HB. My skin along my jaw line erupts in defiance and anger when the emotional stress gets too great. I'm there again. Damn it.

My body's suffering, and the work that matters most to me is suffering. The result: I feel like I'm compromising my soul. I've been here before. Nothing should cost that much, even if you love it.

So, I've decided that as soon as possible contractually speaking, I'm going to eliminate the work that takes the most time and energy with the smallest financial return. I'm choosing to honor myself instead of allow an institution to exploit me. I think this is a big step. I'm being purposefully vague here because I haven't made any official announcements.

But simply by making the decision, I feel like a weight has been lifted. And while it will be difficult to give up a part of myself, I know in my heart there must be death for there to be rebirth. I expect, eventually, the world will open up to me.

Just in time for spring. The snow is melting, and the sun has been shining for three days straight! Today I went for my first run of the season outside. It felt so good to take the cold wind in my face and feel the warmth of the sun on my body. Just in time for the Shamrock Shuffle in two weeks. . . .

I also kept the momentum flowing from Paris on Friday and ate well at the new sushi joint in town (tres bien!) then danced my ass off at a little club. My date and I were the oldest ones on the dance floor, ugh; but damn, do we know how to move!
This is me at 5 a.m. in Paris after a fabulous meal and hours and hours of dancing--as KT said, we danced until our feet couldn't take it anymore! Funny how revived I look, non?

I got to see and touch the daffodils in Paris and Dublin; now I can feel them trying to emerge here at home. It's already begun. . . .

Back.

From Pah-ree and Dublin. Lived it up--ate like royalty, danced 'til dawn, took in the lunar eclipse, chased down Oscar Wilde. Then popped across the pond to inhale the city I love more than anyplace on earth, to see the daffodils growing wild along the highway, watch the full moon make a path to me on the black Irish sea, and spend a few hours with people whose company I find relief in. A marvelous mix--an all-too-brief four days well spent. Now I'm jetlagged yet renewed. And I think I've made a professional decision that just might change my life.

I'll keep you posted. Photos to come.

Finally, the sun shines again. I can visualize spring on the horizon. It can't come too soon.

And Jesus wept.

Or at least Divine M did.

*The City is off my list now for yet another reason.

I wanna see the NYPD try to enforce this in Chelsea and Spanish Harlem. Ha!

I don't know about you, but I don't plan on spending much time in a place where you need a license to dance. After all, this shaped my identity formation almost as much as Cyndi Lauper did.

In other movie news, I'm scrambling to watch all the nominees for Best Picture before Sunday. I caught Departed and Babel last night and today while waiting for the Consumers Energy people to come out and fix my damn furnace. I'm fixin' to lose a finger and three toes, here! Anyway, Departed was so expertly cast with such gorgeous shots of Boston, I can't help be partial--especially because it's about the Irish mob in Southie (I know it's wrong, but I love all things gangsta and all things Irish, so the combo is irresistible to me). But Babel hit me hard. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is a genius of a different variety than Scorcese. I love the postmodern things he does with narrative, not because it's intriguing, but because its gut-level effect is so profound. It gets me deep without my even trying. I cried four times watching that thing, and not from the pain of my appendages freezing off. Babel made me forget about how cold I was.

I still haven't seen The Queen, Little Miss Sunshine, or Iwo Jima. Have you? I'ma try to get LMS on DVD before Sunday. . . .

I think movies might be returning to their glory days. I'm excited.

*Thanks to BFF for the link.

I love Ash Wednesday

. . . for a couple of reasons:

1.The return to dust/reminder of our mortality is a favorite theme of mine (in life and in writing)--and the Catholic Church gets ritual right: you have to give them that;

2.It marks the beginning of lent, and I love lent: the notion of meditating on suffering that leads to rebirth;

3.10 years ago I went to Ash Wednesday mass in Dublin with a dear friend there, so I always think of him and how I feel like we consecrated our friendship on that day. That mass also marks a personal turning point for me;

4.It means Paddy's Day is near!

I didn't actually go to mass today, although I tried to make it work. Teaching, going to the gym, going to class, going to the orthodontist, getting work done and sleeping in all took precedence. But my heart was in the day and its significance. I spent lots of time thinking about Kiki's mom--he was waiting to hear the results of her most recent scan. She has skin cancer and they were afraid she found a previously undetected mass. Turns out it was scar tissue. He cried with relief. I declared, "Not turning to ashes yet, bitches!" He laughed. That shit's better than mass.

I don't give up anything for lent. I kind of like the idea of penance, but I don't need that ritual to connect with or be reminded of suffering and death. I do go to La Mexicana Mercado and eat their Friday fish stew specials, mostly because I like hanging around Mexicans in their dusty bakery and cafe. I also love Easter, not because I believe in the literal resurrection of Christ, but because I love the promise of spring and seeing the daffodils poke their golden heads through the frozen earth; and I believe in new life, new love, endless possibility, transformation and reclamation.

No ashes, no giving up chocolate or martinis. But lots of thought and heart. This is the gift of choosing Catholicism because its practices fit my pagan soul, not because my 'rents forced me to participate in institutionalized traditions before they made sense or exposed me to such horrible, pervasive images as the Sacred Heart of Jesus bursting out of his chest (not to mention real, live, damaged, criminal, mentally ill authority figures) as a wee child. Score for liberal humanist ideals in parenting!

Anybody else love today? Or did you enjoy Phat Tuesday more--who has a good Mardi Gras story? I do: New Orleans 1995. But I'll save that for another time. Anybody eat those Polish donuts filled with prunes I don't know how to spell--something like paczkis? I did. My favorite Polish colleague brought some in. I sucked the prunes out of the middle and wished they were poppy seeds instead. My Bohemian blood trumps my Polish sympathies, what can I say?

More than enough.

Love and Blood.

. . . on Valentine's Day, bitches.

I am happy for those of you out there enjoying time with a sweetheart. I am, really. But more than I'm happy for you, I'm bitter for the rest of the lonely community of humans who are suffering in the Western world's way of pushing stupid cupid and all the shit they want to sell us all under the guise of LOVE.

Fuck that kind of love. It's not the love I believe in.

I taught a kick-ass lonely-hearts-club spinning class today. "Listen, bitches, we're loving ourselves on this day!" I yelled through the microphone to great cheers.

I also learned, via the Soviet, that gay men can't give blood. No shit. I looked it up. The Red Cross says:

You should not give blood if you have AIDS or have ever had a positive HIV test, or if you have done something that puts you at risk for becoming infected with HIV.

You are at risk for getting infected if you:

• are a male who has had sexual contact with another male, even once, since 1977

. . . among a long list of other things.

I am livid. Just one more way to exclude people from something powerfully good and transformative because of who and how they love. Total. Bullshit.

Now, I'm not saying we don't need serious screening for blood donors. I, for example, cannot ever give blood because I once suffered from a particular form of blood cancer. Fine. But in terms of HIV, targeting an entire group of people is fallacious. Anyone who works in the health care industry is more likely to have been exposed to HIV than whole hoards of gay men. Yet, as a group, they're allowed to give blood.

WTF?

Eleanor Rigby

That's who I feel like today.

Last night I discovered my enneagram type. Any of y'all into that?

Apparently, I'm predominantly
with secondary leanings toward

and


which apparently makes me more of a conglomeration of JFK, MLK, Noel Coward, Mother Theresa, Bette Midler and Saddam Hussein.


Yep, sounds about right.

Great. What are you?

Beside myself

I made the unfortunate mistake of drinking coffee at 6 p.m. So here I am. Watching reruns of Will and Grace and Sex and the City. Eating rice cakes. Reading a magazine. Ordering books online. All at once. This is a dangerous time.

Yet somehow safer than yesterday when I was seriously considering planning a nervous breakdown. It's time, isn't it? Mama says it's a good age for it. Kiki says it can't be that bad if I'm planning it. I guess in the end I'd prefer to go abroad than out of my mind.

(A big, fat thank you alternately to S, mama, Kiki and M! for keeping me company in my pathetic, puffy, flaked-out state yesterday. Isn't it great how your best friends can keep you laughing your arse off despite yourself?)

Here's what I have to say about the Grammy's: Christina Aguilera. I want to hate her. I try to hate her. But that voice. Son. Of. A. Bitch. On the other hand, I want to love the Dixie Chicks. I do. I really do. But that singer needs to pick up a little finesse from the horsey twins behind her. Carrie Underwear took too much Xanax and Red Bull before the show. I cannot see anything redeeming about American Idol. Nothing. Mary J. Blige is a queen. Justin Timberlake, I can't help it, is charming, and I love him. Don't tell anyone. Smokey Robinson still sings better than any of those other bitches. But he really needs to take it easy with the Botox. His smooth lack of expression is worrying. In fact, it might have been a wax figure of him accompanied by a recording. I'm not sure. And Lionel Ritchie should have stayed home and force-fed his daughter a pastrami on rye.

In more useful news, I may have found real funding opportunities for the August trip down (my favorite) memory lane. I already need something else to look forward to. You see, the book just got fucking harder to write. Sometimes writers' workshops turn psychoanalytic in the worst way, and that's exactly what happened Saturday. Not yet sure what to do with it all. Except cry a while. February--just before the 14th--is a good time for that anyway.

I got to see Volver, finally. Penelope Cruz is my favorite. I love her cleavage like Almodovar loves her cleavage. She totally gives this gay man a hard on. Especially with her welled-up brown eyes, smeared mascara, and voluptuous self zipped up tight in pencil skirts. She is perfection. Even though I had to sit in the second row and the fire alarm went off in the middle of the movie, it was totally worth it.

My Monday's over, so I'll say little else about it. Except today would have been so much better if I were in Philadelphia. Why is it when I'm already bummed, I naturally think about all the people, places and things I miss? Why are absences so huge?

Killing time.

I am sitting in my favorite coffeeshop right now wondering who here might be hacking into my computer via wifi--thanks very much local tv "investigative reporters"!

Ooh. A slightly attractive dude in the corner just eyed me as if he were reading. . . .

Focus, M. Focus.

After having been snowed in for three days, and in coming to terms with this beautiful bleakness that is winter, I've found that I tend to revert to the kind of coping that has gotten me through much of my life. I daydream. Fatasize. Plot and scheme. And buy things.

Daydream/fantasy:
What if I took a cheap little flight from Paris to Dublin for just a night to suck down a few proper pints, dance in my old haunts and carouse with some of the people I love best in this world? Wouldn't that make my weekend getaway totally complete in its perfection?

Plot/Scheme:
How can I get someone to fund a longer, extended trip to Ireland for me to research the part of my book that takes place there? I want to retrace my steps of summer 1995--wind through the West of Ireland, sit on a cliff overlooking the sea until the salt air stiffens my hair. Then I want to go back to the Edinburgh Festival and take in as many performances as are humanly possible. This time I'd prefer to stay somewhere posher than some drunken Irishman's tent in a field outside the city. Or maybe not. . . .

Buying things:
So it's probably a good rule of thumb not to purchase accessories and/or cosmetics at the grocery store if at all possible. But I just couldn't help myself last night. I was in a janked-up, crashed-out, post-workout, late-night daze. I needed bandaids, which took me off my normally tread path on the periphery of the food isles. I bought a shimmery, apricot Revlon lipstick, some gold headbands (Wonder Woman, anyone?) to keep my short hairs off my face as I spin into oblivion, boxes and boxes of bandaids--none of which are able to help the gash on the tip of my right thumb grow back together, another 18 pound bag of Ruby Red grapefruits (God bless Texas), and a whole bunch of other shit I didn't really need as I aimlessly wandered around eating clementines from the box I dropped in my cart. Two days ago I ate five grapefruits. What is it with citrus and winter? Or maybe it's just me. As my mama said, "You must be awfully alkaline." I'm not sure how to take that.

How do you get through bleak times without self-destructing?

Wish Granted.

Snowed in again. Hurray!

Everything around these parts shut down, including both academic institutions that employ me, and all kinds of other places, according to the banner at the bottom of my television screen.

This is my favorite so far:

Monroe Community Church
God's Gift cancelled

What a shame, eh? You'd think the cold and snow would have no power there. . . .

White Out.

It would be much more enjoyable to get snowed in during the week, but this damn blizzard hit over the weekend. Gave me an opportunity to take down my Chri-muss tree (What? It ain't Valentino Day yet--give me a damn break), fire up the crotch pot and tidy up the hot mess that has become my house.

What would you do with two days trapped in your house with an acceptable excuse to blow off all your obligations?

I cranked up Prince and danced around my kitchen as I moved between cooking and doing laundry.

And to be honest, I did leave the damn house--the gym didn't close for the snow days, so today I still had to teach spinning. Then I decided to stay and take the next class. Why? Because it made me warm.

Friday, after spinning for three hours (endorphin high, anyone?), I got to see an extraordinary dance performance. Since I didn't have to review it, I just got to be a delighted audience member, pleasurably taking it all in. When the curtain rose, the dance transported me--right to the center of whatever tangible divinity we can access as mere mortals. The music, the skilled dancers moving through space together in their gorgeous bodies showed me--in an instant--what a glorious thing it is to be alive. To really be alive. To make meaning of experience and communicate it through symbols that penetrate all of us who take the human form is the highest of arts. And being in the presence of that is among life's greatest gifts.

I felt all that in about 3.2 seconds Friday night.

I live in a strange little city that doesn't make the map for the vast majority of people. Yet I get to take in the kinds of arts and culture on a weekly, if not daily basis, that truly fill me up. I also get to be in the presence of others who choose to do the same thing, and then are willing to sit back and talk about it with me. Often because I don't give them a choice in the matter (ha! LOVE being a teacher!), but still. I figured out how to teach Oscar Wilde in a journalism class, and I made my students read this. You should read it, too, if you're not familiar with it. God damn that man was a genius. And he continues to inspire me and give me new justifications for my life and choices. Love that!

After the dance performance, I hightailed it to a little brewpub where I met up with Kiki and the Bear to see a Glaswegian band headline a sold-out show to a roomfull of dirty hipsters, half of whom I knew. This means (1) this town is officially too small for me, and (2) Kiki, the Bear, and I were the only three present who had dragged a comb through our hair in the past three days. But the show was fun. The temperature outside had dipped well below zero, and as the little greaseheads in their flashdance outfits slipped outside to smoke their Gaulloises, I could feel the cold burst in and see the heat as it escaped. The small windows peering out of the painted, exposed-brick walls fogged up with condensation in the corners from the sweaty bodies bopping around like freshly-caught fish in a bucket. It made me smile and think, son of a bitch, this is what it is to be alive and young(ish) in Michigan.

But the fucking snow has foiled my plans for what Sid deemed the gayest Super Bowl Sunday party ever. Since K and B can't get out here without risking life and limb, we can't spend the afternoon watching this, drinking highballs and eating the roast beast I made in the crotch pot, slowing down only to catch the half-time show. I mean, hello? Prince, and perhaps a glimpse of those finely chiseled asses in tight, shiny pants?

I'll miss the boys. But don't you worry. I'll still be on that cruise ship--might even dress the part while I sing along. Too bad it's not as fun without an audience, though.

Goodbye, Old Gal.

Ralph Barrera/Austin American-Statesman, via Associated Press.

Thank you for your fierce truth telling and for being true to your own voice when others demanded that you betray it.

The world is a far less beautiful place without you.

And yet, you will forever be an inspiration.

Ms. Ivins learned she had breast cancer in 1999 and was typically unvarnished in describing her treatments. “First they mutilate you; then they poison you; then they burn you,” she wrote. “I have been on blind dates better than that.”

But she continued to write her columns and continued to write and raise money for The Observer.

Indeed, rarely has a reporter so embodied the ethos of her publication. On the paper’s 50th anniversary in 2004, she wrote: “This is where you can tell the truth without the bark on it, laugh at anyone who is ridiculous, and go after the bad guys with all the energy you have.”

As I know it

. . . the writer's life ain't so glamorous.

But it certainly is rewarding. Here's what it's been like pour moi:

After a Saturday afternoon of rewriting a new chapter, I went to see for the purpose of reviewing the show. Sunday I taught spinning to a real class of live people for the first time and then hauled my ass to the ballet, also for the purpose of reviewing the show.

After procrastinating by watching 60 Minutes and Cold Case featuring all U2 songs and washing my kitchen floor and cabinets, I went to bed at midnight, woke up at 3, spanked out the  two reviews by 6, went to the gym and spun for an hour, held office hours at a coffee shop and graded papers, took care of some business at the office--including booking my trip to Paris(!)--, spent the afternoon working and reworking the third draft of that now newish chapter and the first act of my old screenplay, prepared them for submission to a competition, went to my narrative theory class and bluffed my way through it, came home and got ready for the next day.
 
I'm learning what a deliberate writing practice takes for me.  I've always had some talent, whatever the hell that is, which has meant I can consistently write quickly and relatively cleanly and I work well under pressure.  But I've allowed myself to get away with dashing things off.  Now I'm getting into spending hours at a stretch revising a couple of pages.  Really working through my own material.  It's good.  I can do this writer's life thing.  I like to work at a coffee shop--it helps ease the isolation.  I don't know if writing for a living is my aim after all.  Perhaps.  Teaching seems to be a good balance.  It would be nice to have the option to live off my writing, though.  Get a place in the West of Ireland near a cliff, surround myself with animals and a big garden, have a pub where I can end my long days of writing, spend a few months out of the year teaching in Dublin.  Or Paris.  Or Sarajevo.

I suspect I'll always desire a kind of split life.  I crave a solitary existence, but I can also be intensely extroverted--on my own terms.  I'm city mouse and country mouse rolled into one, and I like it that way.

Oh so many ways to celebrate Paddy

~Celebrate the "Luck of the Irish" During the
Cricket World Cup in Jamaica
this St. Patrick's Day~

Trade in reggae, Red Stripe and jerk chicken for traditional Irish music, a pint of Guinness and Irish stew to celebrate the fighting Irish on St. Patrick's Day, March 17th, as the legendary all-inclusive Sunset Jamaica Grande Resort & Spa debuts its first-ever 'Irish-Fest'.

As Jamaica plays host to the 2007 International Cricket Council World Cup, Sunset Jamaica Grande Resort & Spa will host several Ireland Cricket team fans and family members. With the luck of the Irish and four leaf clovers in hand, Irish-Fest will celebrate Ireland's entrance into the Cricket World Cup following the Ireland vs. Pakistan cricket match, which will take place on St. Patrick's Day at Sabina Park.

Irish-Fest will fuse Jamaican beats with traditional Irish music in the splendor of this white-sand beach resort, complete with a spectacular variety of amenities, five restaurants, two beach grills, eight bars, spa and stellar location. Five lavish swimming pools, waterfalls, jacuzzis and plunge pools meander through this beachside complex, offering the ideal getaway for singles, couples, families and groups.

The Duffy Brothers, an Irish pop band reminiscent of the Backstreet Boys, will headline the evening, performing a fantastic fusion of traditional Irish music with Celtic rock and reggae following their appearances at Ireland's world cup cricket matches against Zimbabwe and Pakistan. Extraordinary local reggae artists will also perform as guests dance to the island beat.

I have got to start working on my travel writing career. Having to show up for classes is cramping my style.

Sometimes you work hard and it pays off

. . . unbeknownst to you.

I have lost 17 pounds since September. Can you believe that shit? I mean, I've been working out consistently and feeling good and all, but I had no idea.

I love calculations that turn out in my favor. Now I'm going to try to take that vibe into doing my taxes. . . . and ride it all the way through end-of-term grades on to bikini season!

I'm also thinking about taking a trip. I need an adventure to look forward to, and a break mid-winter, early spring always does me right. Now it's down to Paris or Atlanta. They both have reconnections on the table; Atlanta has better weather in March and a writer's conference that could be a career booster; and Paris, well, I mean come on! I've been hankering for visual art, sophistication and fun--is there any better place for that combo? I reckon, considering the facts at hand, the trips would each cost the same. But I could write off Atlanta. I guess I could write off Paris, too, if I produced an article or something about it. . . .


Obviously I'm leaning toward Paris. Wouldn't you?

You never know what a quiet Saturday will bring

Do you remember when the world was fresh and new? When you believed you were the only person who felt emboldened by a song heard for the first time? When there was so much more ahead of you than behind you? When all that you could only imagine in the future was more thrilling than terrifying? When you believed there was more out there for you, and that you would indeed grab it? When you hadn't discovered love but you could taste the sweet, dripping juices of its possibility?

I had forgotten. For a long damn time. But yesterday I walked right into it in the form of a used record shop in Ann Arbor with the boys. I saw music on vinyl that had given birth to how the world sounds to me--yet I'd forgotten. I bought obscure cds from alternative bands (when alternative existed--before Nirvana) that I'd listened to before I could drive on cassette so many times that the tape squeaked louder than the singer sang. But I hadn't thought of that music for fifteen years. I put the cds on for the drive home, and I was right back in my bedroom with my headphones on singing every angst-laden lyric by heart.

I had forgotten that budding young person--her intense sense of wonder, her unshakable belief that a glorious undiscovered world was holding something beautiful just for her and that if she could hold out, she'd find it and escape the desperate isolation of that second-floor bedroom and days filled with monotony and school hallways packed with narrowly-lived lives that wouldn't dare fathom the expansive imagination of her interior world.

I had let all that go. Why? Partly because I've grown up, I've found what I had dreamed of--quite literally in some cases, and I've become accustomed to living outside of awe. I don't fear who I am anymore; I'm not afraid of being too much in the context of others. In my life these days I'm quite often the loudest, most-laughing, chatty, charming person with the best shoes on in the room. I'm usually in charge, and if I'm not, I often think I should be; therefore, I find a way to lead the way.

But there was a long stretch there when--unbeknownst to me--I gave up on myself. I let an Other take over; I provided a stage in which he could shine, and I submitted to his sense of the ways things should be, even when they didn't jive with mine. I straightened my hair. I quit leaving my car to idle in the summertime at red lights to run through sprinklers on the side of the road. I changed out of my pajamas to go get ice cream after dinner. I let him control the stereo. He became the maestro of the soundtrack of my life. I willed discovery to him. I let him be right, even when no one was wrong.

And yet one foot into a dusty old used record shop brought me a couple of steps closer to the dreamy world that lay the foundation for the sumptuous life I now lead. Closer to me.

Reclamation number 167,892: rediscovering my music.

"The judges of normality are present everywhere."--Michel Foucault

Hot fun in the wintertime

. . . means I've been to Chicago!

Highlights:

*the drive through three states with Kiki and The Bear (thanks, Sid!), including a stop at an Indiana Dunkin Donuts in which I saw my future

*Two makeovers, one in which I actually looked like someone socked me in both eyes even after I told the lovely 12 year old named Lorelei with a rhinestone stud piercing where Marilyn Monroe's painted on mole was specifically not to make me look like I'd just lost a boxing match


*Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: a very interesting production in which the dude who played Big Daddy would have been better cast in a KFC commercial

*running into Bill Murray at a hip little Italian joint not far from the theatre

*bloody mary brunch with the always delightful Woog and Oog at The Lincoln

*bloody mary and Kir Royale brunch with the ever-lovely Shasta,

the fabaluss and also made-over Sid,

Kiki and the Bear at Angelina's

*shopping, shopping, shopping, scoring big on January sales at H&M

*drinking, eating, drinking, drinking, drinking, drinking at the usual haunts with the usual suspects, except this time I initiated a tart-like dance off between a doughy jock from Glenview and a wiry, 23-year-old Oaxhacan . . . the latin with the hips outdanced the golfer with the lips, but ultimately I won the prize for biggest whore on the dancefloor. I mean, really? Must I be loyal to a single dancer when there are so many others out there willing to give me a better spin? I need to go dancing more often. And spend more time with pretty MexiCANs.

*discovering why I scored a riverview room on the 17th floor of the Hyatt Regency for $65 a night on Priceline: Annual Narcotics Anonymous Convention. First it looked like a roadie convention, then it looked as if the pimpmobile made a delivery. Lots of smokers in the bar. Even more men in fedoras and floor-length minks. My kind of partay!

Unfortunately, after many, many martinis and very little sleep, my body rebelled, my throat screamed bloody murder, and I am still recovering from a nasty virus. My virtuous, spinning, gym-rat self isn't accustomed to such fun and debauchery. So, I've cancelled everything this week and undergone a fruit flush. Feeling better. Strep throat ruled out.

But speaking of spinning, the weekend before last was mad. The phrase "that really chapped my hide" has whole new meaning for me. Two days on a stationary bike'll do that to a gal. Damn. I start teaching my own classes in two weeks. Fun times. This is going to be good for me. How do I get myself motivated and committed? By motivating and urging on others! Does that make me an extrovert? Or perhaps a control freak? Whatevers. If it gets me into the kind of shape I think I'm capable of, then so be it. Not to get all Oprah on your ass, but I think that if one's aim is to live the best life possible, it means making the decision to embody that by getting in the best physical shape possible. That's what LL Cool J said on The View yesterday morning, so it must be true. This is why I cannot take any more sick days. (I also found out by watching The View that Rupert Everett wrote an autobiography. I love him. I want that book.) (I also discovered by accident that there is a transgendered character on "All My Children" and since absolutely nothing has happened on "Days of Our Lives" since 1985 when I stumbled upon it, I might just switch to the more progressive and by far more interesting Soap.) See?

Good Lord. I better get back to living my actual life. Off to Ann Arbor to workshop a new chapter I haven't yet written, see Volver, and do din dins with Kiki and the Bear this weekend. Wouldn't life be grand if we could call in sick every Monday through Friday and jump right into weekends? In other words, I need five days to recover from my weekends these days, folx.

Happy New Year!

I know, I know. Divine has been on extended hiatus, but I'm back for 2007!

It's not that I haven't been living or writing, it's just that I've been leaving evidence of my whereabouts and goings on elsewhere.

Things such as getting drunk and ringing in the new year with a front-porch dance party in Ann Arbor with my buds,


turning 30!, getting drunk, putting up my Chri-muss tree and dancing in a new personal decade at home with my buds (and in style),


fun with power tools! and reconfiguring reclaimed furniture,


visiting my old haunts and buddies out East; loving and getting loved back by Philly, as always, and reclaiming Boston--

--seeing it for what it is and what I couldn't see while mired in graduate school and the sinking ship that was my love life at the time. (You know, I friggin' like that place and the people I know there and I could easily see myself living there again, even though I feel much more at home in Philly--and having nothing to do with HB, just as I had nothing to do with him this time around. Funny how the trip was utterly delightful without inviting him into the experience or even telling him I was in town. Note to self: remember how life can be smooth yet filled with passion when one chooses to step out of chaos's path.)

In addition to such highlights, I've spent a heap of time doing much less photogenic things such as teaching classes; attending meetings; writing papers, chapters, reviews, Chri-muss cards; grading papers; spending hours every day at the gym. Not that it's done anything but kept me from piling on holiday cheer in the form of many, many pounds. Meaning: I have lost no weight, simply maintained. And that's fine by me. Next weekend I'll train to become a spinning instructor. Me: officially becoming a gym rat. It suits me, especially now that they've redone the women's locker room so that it clearly resembles a spa. Ain't no effort I won't make when I know I can spend 20 minutes in the steam room afterwards. I've also discovered the finest masseur in the history of ever--and ya'll know I know massage; I got rubbed every chance I could by anybody willing last summer all over the Eastern Block. But in the 'zoo? Two. Hour. Massage. $65. Magic hands. Biggest, most beautiful queen north of the Mason Dixon. Enough said.

This is the year. I'm saying it now. My year of transformation has begun. 28 was about reclamation. 29 was about clarity. 30 is about transformation.

Watch me now, y'all!

And happy, happy days to us all! What's 2007 about for you?