Physical Violence is the Least of my Priorities

A meme is born -- Physical violence is the least of my priorities
I got this video from my ether-buddy Brad, Pinko the Bear, who does a blogtalk radio show: Up Late with Pinko the Bear
Lefty Leftist Ear Candy for the Vampire Nation.
Apparently, he runs a bar at Burning Man.  I may have to go this year, if I survive this real estate adventure intact and with enough money for a plane ticket.  I can visit my cousin, one of the original Menopausal Stoners.

I met Pinko through Diane of  The Wild Wild Left and the affiliated Facebook group: Links for the Wildly Left.  This is some drunk guy in Canada.

I will be forever grateful to all three of these individuals for restoring my sense of humor.



Actually, I laughed so hard at this surprisingly impressive fellow that I believe the log jam of negativity that's been clogging the sparkling, bubbling brook we could call my life is officially unclogged.

One good thing about The World is that it's always sucked, and sucked consistently.  Spanish Inquisition, Plagues, The East India Company, The War of the Roses - whatever.  It's sucked, sucked, sucked.  Terminally unsatisfying, according to the Buddha.  So as easy as it is to get pulled down into a pit a despair about current events, it's not like anybody ever had it easy unless they were rich.  And it wasn't so easy for Eleanor of Aquitaine or any other unfortunate wives or courtiers who wound up in the Tower.

Despite all that, we can still have fun and love each other.   Lawyers and others who focus on the Worst Case Scenario can bring you down, but you don't have to be stuck there.

My own lawyer is working out the last little stumbling block in the contract so if it's not signed today, it will be Monday and the sellers already have proof that the bank is behind me so they can confidently give their tenants notice to vacate.  And I'm feel 100% positive about Mr. Wisdom. It's still too soon to tell if he's Mr. Right or Mr. Right Now - but either way, he's going to be John E from now on instead of Jon-El. There were good reasons to call the man Jon-El, but if we're going to move forward for another 90 days, then I want to get to know that six year-old show off who clearly still lives inside him when he's not oppressed by adult responsibilities.   I got a glimpse of that fellow on New Years Eve, and I liked him - hence, Mr. John E. Wisdom.

Who knew a drunk guy singing Bohemian Rhapsody in the back of a cop car could accomplish so much?  But then, he knew the words to every verse and sang with such abandonment and gusto that I howled.  It was even more fun because Pinko and I watched it in the middle of the night together.  He was just going to bed in Reno, and I was up ultra early on the East Coast.  We synchronized our videos and shared a delightful moment, combining our consciousness in the ether.  Laughter burst forth, making me cough and spit so hard it blew that bummer of a log jam apart.  I felt so light hearted I remembered my inner Tinkerbell.  Evidently, if Mr. Wisdom does become John E., Peter Pan will factor in to the story at the intersection of Real Life & Fairytale.

Mercury comes out of retrograde on Wednesday, April 4th. As it happens, Velvet's 21st birthday is the 5th. I'm not sure whether he's spending it in town or going up to celebrate at Hookah House, but it's a milestone to have a 21 year old man child. He reports for duty at the Hippie Dippie Quaker Camp on June 8th, and I'm betting we'll be all moved in to our new home by the river before he loads up his backpack and heads back into the woods one more time.

Meanwhile, I think it's ultra cool that I blended consciousness with Pinko the Bear, an anarchist from Nevada who will certainly be on hand for the General Strike on May Day.  Not sure where Pinko will wind up for that - could be out in Oakland where the real action is.  I may get myself downtown that day to see who else is out in the streets that day.  I am sincerely attached to John E. Wisdom, and I love him as deeply as I ever loved any man who I've seen for maybe a total of 40 hours - but you'll never know who you'll meet when Workers of the World Unite.

http://www.occupymay1st.org/

Mercury Retrograde

I'm up fretting in the night over real estate contracts.  Hopefully, I'll finally sign the contract today for my room with a view so that I can move forward with buyers remorse.  There has been much delay over clauses about making sure the tenants are out in a timely manner so that if we wind up with the worst case scenario and they decide to stay until King Kong himself pulls them out the window, I can walk away without penalty.

As it stands, though, I may still be stuck having to put my stuff in storage while I live in Gigi's sublet for the month of June AND pay $155 per week to extend the terms of my loan.  I'm happy as can be that I have the letter of commitment from the bank, but the clock is seriously ticking now.  My queazy gut tells me that after all we've been through to convince the sellers' attorney (who has been working from Shanghai) that there must be a "drop dead" date for closing - so that I'm not sitting here in September wondering WTF - it's a pretty safe bet that the tenants are going to tell the owners they intend to move at the end of April.  Then they will be pushing to close early because they'll have to carry the apartment until closing and pay the rent on their place in the suburbs in May.

This whole process illustrates, once again, what happens when everyone is motivated by Fear.  I know that lawyers are supposed to dwell on worst case scenarios, and it pays to be protected.  That's the way of the world.  It's just that this Fear extends in so many directions that we wind up with War and cantankerous, aggressive governments like the Israelis - and then there are grasping, aggressive hoarders like our own government who take over countries and shoot little kids for kicks like we have done in Afghanistan where Dick Cheney and the boys want control of the Lithium in the hills.

Lithium and other minerals necessary for computer batteries, cell phones not lithium for manic depressives. Dick Cheney doesn't care about anyone's health, mental or otherwise.  And now that he's got another heart - that we probably paid for - he can continue to lead a charge against We The People that was born back when Dick and Karl Rove were hunkered down in the bunker with Richard Nixon.

I still think, though, that the trouble with Rich People and Fear Mongering for profit goes back for centuries.  Just look at the Catholic Church.  But these days and in this country, we see it mostly from Rich White Guys like Newt Gingrich who pontificates from podiums as if he were Massa addressing his buddies, all sitting around a mahogany dining table over port when the ladies have taken themselves off to the drawing room.  Or from Mitt who is more like a Lord addressing his buddies over port at the club.

Either way, it's the same people who thought slavery was a good idea.  I also maintain that those guys have figured out that turning women into breeders will lead to beaucoup bucks through the private adoption of white babies and orphanages filled with brown ones to provide cannon fodder and cheap labor.  And Obama works for them as surely as Newt does - he just has the oratory skills and the looks necessary to convince the public that it's perfectly fine and civilized to fire drones anywhere we choose in the name of National Security - and that brings us back to Fear again.

I suspect I'm queazy because of all this bullshit too.  Anywhere you look in the news you'll find enough to make you queazy - and that's been the case for years and years and years.  Even before Rupert Murdoch and Rush there was yellow journalism and propaganda.  It gives me a headache.

Could be, though, that all the trouble with real estate contracts is simply the result of Mercury Retrograde which always makes life feel like we're walking through molasses, never getting anywhere.  On a more positive note, I may have a date with Mr. Wisdom next week.  We'll see if he actually calls or if he gets busy and forgets.  I contacted him the other day when I was feeling particularly bummed out and in need of a hug, and the man responded instantly.  He's been down in Tennessee filming real life murder mysteries.  Now he's off doing more of the same in New Jersey.

I'm not even going to speculate on how fear sells murder as entertainment on cable television.  However, I will speculate on how making a living by interviewing people who are talking about the grizzly murder of their loved ones could have an impact on a man's emotional sensibilities.  Specifically:  Was he an emotional retard in the first place - and that made him particularly good at turning tragedy into television or did he become immune to the emotions once he got involved in making murder mysteries kind of like cops and journalists develop a protective shell?

I also have to wonder if I just got lucky so that my email reached him at a moment when it was easy for him to respond - or was the tone appropriately earnest, submissive and solicitous which meant he had control?  He's a Leo, after all, and they like Control.  There are plenty of people who prefer to be in control who are not controlling assholes.  Since I'm not a person who seeks control, it's hard for me to tell the difference sometimes.

You can't be controlling and be a preschool teacher without perpetually going crazy.  There's no controlling two year olds.  You just have to give them the facts in a straight forward way and show them how the consequences of their actions and choices consistently lead in the same direction.  For example, when you roll around on the floor disrupting circle time - or you prolong a conversation asking questions when you already know the answer - the teacher gets irritable and bitchy.  When you quit fucking around and sing Good Morning, the teacher has a big cheery smile, we all go outside and play and you'll probably get apple juice and Cheeze-Its for snack instead of soda crackers and water.  It's very simple.

I've been on Spring Break for nearly two weeks now and am clearly missing my kids.  Grown-Ups suck balls and are generally no fun - especially the lawyers.

America's Heart of Darkness

Trayvon Martin has been on my mind this week.  And Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr.
Robert Bales, Joe Horn and Jared Lee Loughner
Innocent bystanders and murders with hearts filled with Hatred.

The whole post is over at Roundtree7.com America's Heart of Darkness.

All this killing is getting to me.  Not only the murder in the news, but I'm troubled because Velvet and Cupcake know five or six kids who committed suicide - all of them not even twenty years old.  Dead.
Now Velvet has heard that when his former roommate from Hookah House was home for Christmas vacation, his best friend from high school died in his arms.  The boys had been trying to help an old guy who was getting mugged, when the mugger shot one of them.  Velvet's roommate held his best friend in his arms and watched him die from a random gun shot.

We all know the world is fucked up and that life is fragile, but it seems like things are tougher on that front lately.  I'm glad that Velvet will be spending the summer working at the Hippie Dippie Quaker Camp up in Vermont.  It's been a long time since he's been up in that valley, working in the organic garden and playing rowdy games in the meadow.  Now he's one of the big guys, working as a counselor and figuring out how to become an outdoor educator.

He's got a little job here in the city now, too, assisting a lively young man - a former punk rocker from London -  who has a nice little business going from school to school as a traveling soccer coach.  I ran into the coach on Broadway yesterday and had the distinct pleasure of hearing that my son is a great human being.  Notably, this fellow has no reason at all to tell me this stuff other than he's so happy to have a great assistant who is having a blast with the kids and cheerfully working hard for no money.  That's the ticket for anyone who hopes to be a good teacher.  I'm very proud of Velvet.

I'm also profoundly sad for all those mothers out there who have lost their children to senseless hate - murders committed in suburban streets or in war zones around the world.  It just sucks.

I had another simple pleasure yesterday, too.  I met Vancouver Voyeur of Change Happens and her partner M for a lovely little picnic in Strawberry Fields - that nice section of the park Yoko Ono made special for John Lennon.  It's always cool when somebody from the computer comes into Real Life for a moment, and it's a little discombobulating to meet a person for the first time and already know a few intimate details.  Strawberry Fields is a good place to connect a real person to her writings.

It's also a good place to think about stuff like how a person's body may not be nearby, but you can connect with his/her spirit (or consciousness or mind or whatever you want to call it) no matter what.  I was thinking more about Velvet going to Vermont or my mom down in Texas and Woody out in New Mexico more than Trayvon, but the idea applies nevertheless.  We can always connect with the spirit even though sometimes it's only through memory like I do sometimes now with my Granny the Ho, who has been dead some years now.  Maybe it's imagination or maybe it's really Spirit.  It's hard to tell the difference sometimes, if you ask me.

Imagining what Trayvon's parents must be feeling, thinking about his mother speaking at the Million Hoodie March - I can't manage to make my mind linger on those feelings.  It's too intense and awful.  But it makes me grateful for my own son, who also wears hoodies in all kinds of weather, who is watching silly Japanese cartoons on the internet in his bedroom.

Blessed Be

Family Legends; Thing of Beauty #49-101

The other day, Cali (Midnight Toquer) left a comment saying that after she'd read the story about the day I went to Four Winds, she could understand why Buzz Kill didn't want me writing under my real name.  I was a little surprised because I thought I had been kind to Buzz Kill in that story.

The reason Buzz Kill insisted on a clause in the divorce stipulating that I must write under a pseudonym - and that I couldn't publish anything ever until Velvet turned 18 -  will be clear after reading this story here:  The Jig is Up

I wrote this one a long, long time ago too.  Back before Buzz Kill was Buzz Kill and before Velvet even had a nick name, although one could argue that Buzz Kill has been Buzz Kill since before the dawn of time.  The Eternal Buzz Kill.

He's off to Hawaii next week to run in a mini-triathalon.  He's gotten so good at these races of his that some foundation is paying his air fare since he's raised so much money for them by participating in these events.  Imagine!  I'm glad he's happy with his self in Spandex.  Could be that this little story - which finally drove him out of the apartment. stomping down Central Park West home to his mother - shouting into his cell phone, "Once you go black, you never go back!"- Could be that this story started him on the road to self actualization.

Looking at this story today, it almost seems like the kind of race based remark pervasive in this country that has resulted in municipalities where it takes public pressure to convince the cops to take somebody like George Zimmerman into custody.  I was reminded Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr.   Things like that make people afraid to have children in this world.  That's one of the reasons why I wanted Velvet to go with me yesterday to the Million Hoodie March (Amy Goodman, Indypendent).  Velvet had to escort Vagina Dentata out to dinner, though.  She's out of the hospital and authorized to go to the restaurant on the corner.  Buzz Kill was busy training for the swim portion of the mini-iron man yesterday, and Velvet took his grandma to the doctor all by himself.  The two of them have a pact where Velvet will tell his dad that Vagina Dentata did not have any alcohol.

This little story was the absolute reason why I had to cancel the Gemini Party that year since Buzz Kill threatened to read it to everyone at the party to see just how funny it was.  I didn't have the heart to tell him that I'd already read it at KGB and knew it was damn funny.  And  I was sadly disappointed to cancel that party because it was the one where I'd invited two dozen gay porn stars over to determine once and for all if Buzz Kill were gay or if he just needed a woman with a strap-on.  It may have been a rough time in my life, but at least I had the kind of life where I wound up being the only woman at a party filled with gay porn stars who I could invite to the Gemini Party for that specific purpose.  I may have been oppressed by my marriage, but at least I wasn't boring.

This little story was also the reason his lawyer wrote my lawyer about my frivolous lifestyle and serial infidelities.  All I can say is that if I'd have known how quickly he'd have stomped off down Central Park West after reading this story - I'd have written it a year earlier and saved us all an excruciating trip through DeNile.  I still can't believe that man thought for nearly two years I was going to wake up one morning and realize I filed for divorce due to an extended bout of PMS, but that's the fact.

The Jig is Up also explains why Buzz Kill would shit bricks if Mr. Wisdom does find his way up to Menopausal Stoners Outpost on the River and becomes a recurring character in the sit-com of my life.  I'm still hoping that really happens.  It's been two whole weeks since Mr. Wisdom told me that he couldn't manage to divorce his wife, take care of his kids, deal with his time-intensive job producing crime shows for cable and pay attention to me all at the same time.  In man time, two weeks is nothing.

As it happens, this story could be considered the pilot episode for the Summer Boyfriend Reality Show, which began to manifest back when Granny the Ho was sick (Stonerdate 03.30.08).  As it also happens, that post about Granny the Ho will give my buddy Cali a clue as to why she imagines Cybil Shepard playing me if my story were a movie.  Although I think Cali was referring to Cybil as she appeared in Moonlinghting, her portrayal of Jacy Farrow from Last Picture Show was more likely conjured up in Cali's mind.

No doubt about it - the way I was raised, I couldn't help but turn out like Jacy Farrow.  I have to say, though, that I prefer being a red head to being a blonde.  And I prefer being over 50 to anything I have experienced so far.

I have to say, here, that the story of the black and me takes on a different significance in light of Trayvon Martin.  I was glad to see people out yesterday at the Million Hoodie March

The Summer Boyfriend Reality Show generated a lot of good stories, my personal favorite being the story of Shakitking - who I enjoyed calling ShatAKing- the self described Wall Street Rock Star who turned out to be an internet menace, hiding in his underwear in his basement in New Jersey trolling for silly women on Plenty of Fish.  I learned he was married when his wife left a comment on the blog (The Saga of the Wall Street Rock Star, Stonerdate 09.06.08).

That highly enlightening relationship with The Narcissist, aka Bluestar727, got started as a result of the Ashley Madison Experiment, however.  Although some would say that period of my life was self-destructive - and Rhet went so far as to say that Agatha Christie herself would have trouble naming the culprit if I turned up murdered - I learned a lot about many, many things - not the least of which was the kind of mixed signals a woman can get from a man who goes through the motions of a significant relationship while he's looking all over Adult Friend Finder and other sex sites for a woman with a flaming red bush or trying to sign up for a gang bang (Light, Shadow & Internet Porn, Stonerdate 07.25.09).

As it happens, Bluestar727 was also Currently Separated the whole time we saw each other.  His wife had kicked him out, but he got an apartment in the same building.  He said that he wanted to be near his kids - which made sense - but in retrospect, I think he was a controlling dick head.  We had been seeing each other regularly for about six months when he stalled about signing the separation agreement, but he finally signed it.  The last time we talked on the phone some years ago, he bragged about how clever he was by refusing to sign off on the divorce.  The Preacher was still officially married when he came down from the mountains to visit me (Springtime and Shifting Paradigms, Stonerdate 03.18.10).  He wrote me a month or two after he went back home to say he'd filed the divorce papers with the court.

I specifically and intentionally did not check "any" marital status on my match dot com profile last fall.  Currently Separated was NOT okay with me - but Mr. Wisdom was so right in every other way that I let it slide since he had filed the papers.  I can't say that I'm up for another season of The Summer Boyfriend Reality Show.  I just want to move up to the Outpost and start manifesting a big, fat raise for myself at work.  I'm thinking I should be Educational Director or something like that.  Or maybe I should be mentoring a group of student teachers through one of the local colleges.  Or both.

Meanwhile, Buzz Kill is paying Velvet to babysit Vagina Dentata while he's chasing around Hawaii in Spandex.  Vagina Dentata has gotten the okay from her doctor to go back down the the corner bar, but she still needs somebody to keep her steady on her wobbly little feet.   Whatever we've been through as a family - and we've been through a lot - it's all working out in the end.

Thing of Beauty #49-101

Spring Cleaning, In Process

I never noticed how many baldheaded black men there are in New York until I started missing Mr. Wisdom.  There are baldheaded black men all over the dang place.  I'm glad he's been totally absent this week because I've been fragile and because if it's one thing I don't want, it's a boyfriend who has a wife.

I've been restraining my impulse to communicate because (1) I was fragile and (2) how can he miss me if I won't go away?  That's not to say I haven't sent a little note, but some things about me are irrepressible.

Now I'm getting ready to move again.
Sorting out the iTunes; making a new playlist

This one leads it off.  Note that these females can't really dance on account of their shoes, but like my old friend Maria, who used to be a dominatrix said, "You don't have to walk in those shoes."

I just like the beat and the breathing.

As part of the 2012 sorting process, since I accomplished much of the preliminary sorting before I moved into these temporary digs in 2011, I got a new cell phone number and haven't decided whether or not to give it to The Man from San Antone.  We exchanged texts on his birthday some weeks ago.  A movie he is listed as producing was opening that night downtown.  He was proud.  I wish I could have been proud, too, but   it was about Halston.  I wondered what he had been doing to support the 99%.  When I heard he'd been marginally involved in a movie that was the brainchild of that trust fund kid who calls me The Cunt From Hell, it sounded like he'd been perpetuating his commitment to a debauched lifestyle, so I haven't' given him my new phone number.

In my mind, I'm calling the new place Menopausal Stoners Outpost on Riverside.  It's smaller, but it's all the space Velvet and I require.  Time to jettison more stuff we don't really need but couldn't manage to deal with before leaving HQ on CPW - like the dining room table.  It's a combined living space with no room for a big table.  We have a nice little one, and we like to watch some variation on Star Trek while we're eating anyway.  At the Outpost, we'll have streaming Netfilx on the computer in the living room, and Velvet will have Xbox Live in his little man-cave.  We still have plenty of room for all our favorite things - like his tiki man collection.  It's just that going forward, we'll be traveling light.

I'll be hanging on to my habit of having a relationship with a man who won't talk to me for reasons of his own.  I've been doing it since college - with the exception of the time I was married.  Buzz Kill called 10 times a day.  In some ways, it was oppressive.  The Man from San Antone rarely responded to my texts or voicemails, but he did send cash with no strings attached.  I liked that about him.  Bradley and I were together for seven years when we were young - some of those years overlapped with the Man from San Antone.  Bradley and I saw each other quarterly.   We all know about that dang Narcissist who shamelessly fucked with me for two years with that ridiculous blogstalking form the library.  No way in Hell he's getting my phone number.

One thing I like about Mr. Wisdom is that The Man from San Antone, The Narcissist and Buzz Kill would all shit bricks if I had a boyfriend like Mr. Wisdom. That's not to say Mr. Wisdom should make the move to the Outpost - but if I have to manifest a boyfriend, I'm going to manifest one that makes those three shit bricks.  I like the idea that my future boyfriend is a creative writing teacher, too, because my future boyfriend will be supportive of my writing in practical ways.

This song is in the middle of the playlist:



I don't know what to make of the photo montage in this video, but I've been listening to this song since high school.

I'm happy to say that Velvet has been a big help to Buzz Kill during Vagina Dentata's recent illness.  Velvet may run over to Hawk Eye's whenever he can get away with it, but he lets me know in a timely manner where he is, if he'll be home for dinner or if he's staying out.  He remains mostly unemployed, although he has got a little job assisting a traveling soccer coach on Fridays with little kids at private schools.  I'm pretty sure he'll be spending the summer working up at the Hippy Dippy Quaker Camp in Vermont.  I couldn't be happier about it.  Organic farming and three day hikes will do him good.

I'm off for spring break until the end of March and have calendarized with Velvet so that I can show him how to find a school for himself here in the city.  He really is interested in going into education, and that means he has to go to school somehow.  As adept as Velvet is at plotting course for the day's journey on a trail with a compass and map, he sure can't figure out his way from point A to point B when it comes to setting tasks in a sequence to accomplish a goal when it's all about researching an idea on the computer.  We're starting this project in the morning.  The objective for this week is to determine how much money it will take to support Velvet through college and to draw up a document describing the distribution of this sum from the college fund Buzz Kill and I are required to set up from the condo money.  The divorce decree stipulates that I contribute 25% to this fund.  We've all agreed in principle to an amount but now it's time to write it up and get it notarized.

We're also going through all the old photos and making boxes for Velvet to keep as his own.
Meanwhile, my shoulder continues to improve.

Anniversary

The middle of March is always a reflective time for me.  If I've successfully created a separate page, following this link will lead you to a chapter I wrote a long time ago about what was going on sixteen years ago - back before Buzz Kill was Buzz Kill and Velvet had no nicknames at all.
Some people who know me find this story too intense - but then a lot of people find me too intense entirely.  I made a separate page so I can leave it up or take it down as I choose, and because it's much too long for a blog post.

I'm sensitive today, and glad I am alone - but I'm also glad I chose to live when another choice was tantalizingly within reach.  Sometimes I call this story A Mother's Tale but I really don't know what to call it.  It's just my story, and this stuff about suicidal tendencies and the looney bin is part of it.

Link to Windy Hill

I have to say, though, that there's something very life affirming about deciding to live instead of simply finding yourself alive and then going through the motions of a life without much thought - like painting a picture by numbers.  I'm pretty sure it's a Thing of Beauty (#49-101) that I chose to live and do the work that was necessary to become the generally happy camper I am today.  It's one thing to choose to live, but without doing the work, I would have stayed a depressed housewife, overeating to smother my anger and making everyone around me as miserable as I was myself.  It took a number of years, but it looks like most days in my happy little world, this little light of mine shines as brightly as it can.

I also have to say that blogging has alleviated the isolation and alienation that goes along with the Depression territory, and once I started feeling like I was Understood out here in the ether, I began to feel more connected to people in real life.  Once you get that connection going, it's easy to build a happy world for yourself - even though sometimes those assholes on C Street, and ALEC and AIPAC and the Uniparty and all that bullshit intrudes in ways that disturb the inner peace.

The main thing is that I'm okay - thriving even - and I'm grateful that all y'all are out there.

Whoa, Dude!

I'm late to work - again - but spring break starts at noon today and lasts for two glorious weeks.  Hopefully during that time, I'll write that post I've been meaning to write for weeks regarding the noise around the presidential election, Frothy and all those other things that swirl around the windmill of my mind.  Meanwhile, all I've got is this:

Archetypes, Assholes and Jesus

Now that I'm back to my usual charming self after all the commotion last week over Mr. Wisdom, I've been thinking about all the commotion last week with Mr. Wisdom.  Fortunately, the full moon in Virgo last week was all about Clarity, and it always helps to have the moon on your side.  I learned that from Gwendolyn Holden Barry of New Global Myth and Daughters of Isis/Ancesestor Aromachologie.

I've been saying for years that I wanted to settle into this new phase of my life with as an independent, autonomous individual.  I've never done that before.  Even when I was choosing which college to attend, that decision was based mostly on where my friends were so I could have the most fun.  It was my own decision to run off with a Yankee to New York, but I'd have never done that if there hadn't been a Yankee in the first place.  It was all about the man.  It makes sense because the career I had chosen for myself was Wife and Mother, and my BA in English was essentially and MRS.  Before the Yankee, it was The Man from San Antone.  Before that,  my choices were pretty much based on what my parents said they would subsidize.

Ergo:  Now that I'm a grown woman with a modest independence, I wanted to decide whether to live in New York City or Texas without having a man influence my decision - besides Velvet, of course.  He's still a man-child, but he's a man nevertheless and the only man who I choose to allow to be a factor in my decisions.   Once I settled on New York, I wanted to establish a new home for me and Velvet on my own.   If you look at a situation in terms of the unconscious at work or from sort of a yoga-ish perspective where your energy goes out into the Universe and the Universe responds accordingly,  then I've gotten exactly what I wanted all along, because without Mr. Wisdom in the picture,  I'm moving into my new place without a man telling me what to do.

I don't mean to be disrespectful to men.  We all know how much I like the way they smell - or at least, I particularly like the way a few of them smell.  The point is that men are often driven to find solutions, and they consequently sound like they're bossing people around when they are simply offering an observation.  Given that I have shown a profound tendency in the past to see the man as an authority figure whether he wants to be in that role or not, it's probably best if there's not a man within sight while I'm trying to make up my mind about something.

Things have progressed well enough with the lawyers and the bank so that we're all shooting for me to have possession before the end of April.  Hopefully there will be enough time to get a few things done to the place before Velvet and I move in, but if not - fuck it.  I don't want to pay rent on this place for May when that money would easily cover the cost of the movers and a new dishwasher or window treatments or something.  My parents will be on hand to spring into action the minute I get the keys.

My mother has flipped 21 properties over the years, and she's able to determine the most effective use of space for the least amount of money better than anyone I ever saw.  It's a gift.   Although I value the insight and support of my friends, the only person's opinion I trust implicitly and without question with regard to real estate is my mother's.

The commotion with Mr. Wisdom last week guaranteed that there wouldn't be a man in sight while I'm jumping through the next set of hoops with the bank and with the co-op board.  There won't be one around to offer suggestions on modifying the kitchen, refinishing the floors or even to offer noncommittal remarks on paint chips.  To be clear - I'd be damn glad to have Mr. Wisdom over for dinner as soon as I've got the dishes unpacked, but until that moment, I've got enough on my mind.  And we haven't even factored in the general strike on May Day, or getting Velvet situated.  Velvet's okay, he's just still completely without direction.  He can't play Dungeons and Dragons with the trust fund crowd downtown forever.  I have strategies in place, but they have to be implemented.  Meanwhile, he can paint the fucking kitchen in the new apartment.

I've felt better ever since I sent Mr. Wisdom a note the other night saying I chose to interpret the current situation through a lens of Love instead of Fear.  I totally get it that he's stuck in a Category Five shit storm, and there's so much shit swirling around his head that's all he can see.   I closed by saying that I hope our paths cross again when he can see me as a blessing instead of as more shit.

It's really easy to see a situation with Love instead of Fear once you recognize that nobody involved means to be an asshole.  That Narcissist meant to be an asshole.  He elevated Ass-Wholery to an art.  The whole point of meeting Mr. Wisdom that night at Cafe Lux was to make sure he was not an asshole.  He may be overwhelmed and exhausted, but he's not an asshole.

If you ask me, Jesus and the Buddha were both saying that a whole new world was possible if people would consider, for just a moment, that we don't have to be assholes.  With Easter coming up, it's kind of like Jesus is on the cross, but instead of saying "Father forgive them for they know not what they do," he's saying, "GOD, they're such assholes."  The global consciousness shift we've been feeling since the harmonic convergence back in 1987 is based on essentially the same idea - we are finally achieving a critical mass so that enough people on the planet can take a breath, step back from a situation and decide they don't have to be assholes about everything.

We could look on each other and the world with love instead of fear and finally have peace, sustainability and economic justice.  It's very simple:  Stop being Assholes.  Blessed Be.

The trouble starts when people start trying to own the resources - but I'm not getting into all that shit today. It's in the book of Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn, which gives a thorough description of cultural anthropology since from about the time people started settling into agricultural communities.  The stuff about assholes can be found in Lamb:  The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

I figure that if I'm going to Be The Change, that means all I have to do is give poor Mr. Wisdom a break.  I may have a pattern of falling for unavailable men, but I was in my right mind when I determined Mr. Wisdom is not an asshole.  Woody, who knows all about assholes since he is the founder of the American Society for Recovering Ass-Wholes,  says that it's a big deal when an ambitious, accomplished, successful executive type admits he's not in total command of a situation.  If his wife has finally realized that, as Robin Williams notably said, divorce is the latin term meaning, "to rip out a man's genitals through his wallet," Mr. Wisdom is in for a rough ride.

The thing is that when a man is getting divorced, it's tricky to be with a woman who is a heavy hitter for the other team.  And it's tricky for a heavy hitter to keep her mouth shut - which is exactly what I'd have to do in order to be objective and supportive.  At least in conversation.  Personally, I can see where there are many more productive ways to use my mouth under the circumstances.  However, I've also begun to realize that when a man is approaching 60 years old, and all his time, energy and focus are going to his kids, a time-intensive, travel-heavy job and an irate woman he's trying to divorce, having an energetic, buxom redhead sending you suggestive emails may feel like pressure to leap tall buildings in a single bound, as it were.

Besides, if he's the man I think he is, he'll be back soon.  If he's not, who cares if he never comes back?

A couple of years ago, when that Women's Studies professor was hanging around the periphery indulging in a sexy correspondence with me when he was tired of grading the essays of undergrads, I was comparing the intersection of Real Life and Fairy Tale - which is one of my favorite topics (Archetypes and Internet Romance, Stonerdate 12.19.10).  That episode wasn't the first time when the scenario unfolded much like a suitor approaching a lady in a castle or tower.  With Mr. Wisdom, I find myself in the situation again especially since the tower at the church where I work has been involved in the story itself.

I don't work in the tower.  I work on the top floor of the wing on the right and have been known to wave a giant fuchsia scarf out the window at the sailors during Fleet Week.

So here at the intersection of Real Life and Fairy Tale, I'm back in my tower, capable of taking care of myself and slaying my own dragons.  Velvet and I are on the verge of moving into a cute, cozy home with a river view, and I love my job. I spend my mornings playing with prisms and ping pong balls in a room filled with two and three year-olds who are, at essence, pure human nature on display.   Human nature, before the enculturation process takes hold, is delightful to see.  So delightful, in fact, that I'll call it Thing of Beauty #48-101.

Mr. Wisdom was following the trajectory of his own story when he came into the castle yard.  We know he's a Storyteller, a Teacher, a bit of a Dreamer, an Explorer and a Messenger.  We don't know if he's a Hero or a Vagabond, but one thing is sure - he is no Villain.

Meanwhile, my shoulder is substantially better.  The physical therapist says my mobility has increased by 16 degrees this month - which is pretty major, and I hardly need to even take anymore.  So something's going right, for sure.


*Note* Archetypes from Caroline Myss' Library, Gallery of Archetypes.

Ice-Nine and the End of Romance, Thing of Beauty #47-101

There will be no more thoughts or indications of growing intimacy between Mr. Wisdom and me.  I have said a very reluctant and very sad Good Bye.

The long and short of it is that getting divorced isn't nearly as easy as Mr. Wisdom initially imagined it would be.  I had a feeling we might find ourselves in this quagmire which is why I hesitated to get involved with him in the first place.  I just wish we had never gone to Cafe Lux that night because I had made it clear that if we moved forward, I would get attached.  We moved forward; I got attached, and then his life got too complicated for a relationship.

I wish it were as easy to accept in real life as it is to explain on paper.  We still haven't even talked about it.  He sent me an email during a break in a marathon mediation session last weekend saying he was sorry it took him so long to recognize what had been clear from the beginning, but he used words like "significant," and "postpone," and said he wanted to talk face to face.  All I heard was "significant," so I felt like if I were significant to him, we should be able to navigate through some choppy waters.

Silly me.   For the most part, I've been leaving Mr. Wisdom alone ever since he started traveling for work because of all the pressure he gets from other directions, and because as recently as last week, I believed that he and I were moving toward something significant.  I don't think there's any reason to rush into a relationship at our age - or any age at all for that matter, unless you're so eager to have babies that you dive right into Lovey Dovey Land.

Even though I accepted the situation with equanimity at first, it wasn't long before I began to get the idea that he was actually dumping me.  Naturally, I got mouthy about it - but really, when you've told a man that you're going to get attached and he moves forward anyway, I think it's fair to believe he's open to the idea of a relationship with you personally.  So when he no longer has time for a relationship, even though it's all about relationships in general, it feels like you personally are being thrown away with all the other stuff nobody wants anymore.

We've had words - virtually not in real life.  I meant to say that now I realized I was, in fact, ditched and to wish him well gracefully and all that short, sweet, mature stuff.  Somewhere in the process, I concluded that he had taken advantage of my good nature.  The situation deteriorated further once I entered into that downward spiral most women know all too well - the one where we start thinking that if we were smarter, thinner, prettier, nicer and just all around better, we wouldn't be getting dumped.

Fortunately I didn't say any of that shit, but I said plenty of other shit - which may have been justified under the circumstances - but after talking to Woody about the whole thing, it may be that Mr. Wisdom has done everything that a man in his position can do to show he cares about me.  I just don't recognize it because he's been talking about time management and I was looking for words of affection.  And it definitely didn't help anything that he gently referred me to Occam's Razor in answer to the emails where I asked him to help me understand the situation since in my view, he clearly didn't like me anymore or he wouldn't be ditching me.  Wikipeida says:

Occam's razor (also written as Ockham's razor) is the English equivalent of the Latin lex parsimoniae --- the law of parsimony, economy or succinctness. It is a principle urging one to select among competing hypotheses that which makes the fewest assumptions and thereby offers the simplest explanation of the effect.

I could only point out that this law clearly didn't apply to women, but I must admit I felt like I had been reprimanded for talking too much.  Sadly, his next response wasn't any mushier.  He simply reiterated that his life was fucking fucked up right now and that he was thinking of my feelings when he said there was no space for a new relationship.  That's when I had to call Bull Shit because if he cared about my feelings he wouldn't be ditching me at all.  He'd say, "Tricia, I want to be with you but I'm so fucking fucked right now I can't breathe.  Can we get together on 4-20?"  I'd have said, "Sure, you handsome thing. But can you squeeze in a quickie the last week of March?"

Personally, I don't understand why a man can't say that.  Woody says it all has to do with the way men and women are enculturated in the Patriarchy so that we can't understand each other - but then Woody and I both agree with Deborah Tannen's position in You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men Conversation.  Woody was so happy to explain Occam's Razor to me that he was compelled to include Grice's Cooperative Principles of Conversation with specific emphasis on implicature because it appeared to Woody that my insecurities had dominated my implicature which led to the issue with Occam's Razor.

One of Woody's blogs is Blogito

In other words, my ego got the better of me and I reacted with anger instead of responding from spirit - but a million years could go by before Woody would ever talk about ego and spirit.  Anyone familiar with Eckhart Tolle - or yoga for that matter - understands how ego relies on fear to keep us separate from one another, whereas spirit connects us.  It's all about Love vs Fear, and I was 100% afraid that Mr. Wisdom didn't like me anymore.

It all makes perfect sense today, but yesterday I was pissed off and loaded for bear.  Despite being hit with both barrels, Mr. Wisdom said he would be happy to talk with me next week if I still wanted to talk, but he wasn't taking any chances yesterday.  He was supposed to call me last night to arrange a time, but he never called.  I'm not bent out of shape by that because he was with a sick kid, he's got an irate wife on his ass and who knows what else could have interfered.  Nevertheless, the silence illustrated why it was necessary for me to say good bye, which I did with as much grace and as little drama as I could manage.

Once I realized that even a loving, supportive, affectionate woman can feel like pressure to a man trapped in a Category Five Shit Storm, I could see that I was more shit.  In the end, as all good Bokonists know, everything happens as it is supposed to happen.  At the moment,  I feel like sucking on some Ice-Nine.

When I first sat down at the computer to write my way out of these feelings, I didn't think I'd find a Thing of Beauty in this situation.  Deciding not to kill myself 17 years ago should count for something, but I don't think it's a thing of beauty.  Those suicidal impulses never really, truly go away - and I have to say that when you thought a relationship was heading towards intimacy and suddenly find that you're more shit in the shit storm, it will trigger the impulses.  I've understood for a long, long time that suicidal thoughts simply mean I'm feeling angry and powerless, or I'm so hurt that there's no other way to stop the pain.

So even though I'm terminally sad at the moment about saying Good Bye to Mr. Wisdom and am pretty well convinced that I'm meant to spend my whole life without a partner, I'm not suicidal and haven't been for years.  I think I'll call that Thing of Beauty #47-101.

I'm still healthy and vibrant, and have something to contribute somewhere.   And maybe once the shit storm finally passes, Mr. Wisdom will come back.  Maybe not.  Maybe by next week, I'll be able to see how it's all for the best.