Monday, October 28, 2013

A Case for Divergent Thinking

In just under 36 hours, Pinko will be here.
The house may be as clean as it's going to get, and out of all the errands I planned to do, I'll be lucky to accomplish two or three.  Cupcake's parents came over for dinner Saturday night.  Cupcake and Velvet helped clean and cook.  Her parents brought a bottle of wine from the old country and some yellow tea roses.  It was all very pleasant, and the apartment got cleaned in the process.

In the meantime, it appears that Pinko and I have been attempting to understand each other's communication style.  Overall, the conversations themselves have been well executed and encouraging, and it's essential that the two of us integrate the way we interact in Facebook threads with the way we interact in person which is kind of like four-way conversation between two people.  In the process, there has been friction which may be inevitable and ultimately good.

At issue, from my perspective, is intrinsic patriarchy as opposed to overt, oppressive patriarchy.  I'm not entirely sure what the issue at hand is from his perspective.  Could be evidence of crazy female stuff - which is a term he used when trying to describe my observed behavior - but only because that's how my behavior is commonly described by men who don't have a clue what is going on with me.

It all started on a Facebook thread which began with him asking a specific question regarding a contentious current event.  Should disability claim law be applied equally to all citizens regardless of how the disability was incurred, or should the circumstances surrounding the person's condition be a factor in the decision, particularly when the claimant's own actions resulted in the disability in the first place and those actions may very well have been illegal and were certainly morally repugnant to many in the community?  That was the question, but in putting the question to the group, he said he was perplexed because so many of his lefty buddies thought that the circumstances should negate the right to disability payments.

I didn't address the ethical dilemma about the disability award since to me, the answer was self-evident.  One pig is not more equal than another.  Instead, I focused on the context of this question, which was more interesting to me, and offered a suggestion as to why lefties might be bent out of shape regarding the disability settlement from UC Davis to Lt. Pepperspray Pike.

Pike calmly, and deliberately blasting handcuffed students in the face with pepper spray as if he's spraying roaches -Photo from an interesting article in The Atlantic:  Why I feel Bad for the Pepper Spraying Policeman, Lt. John Pike (Nov 19, 2011)

Results of Pike's behavior

Pinko seemed a bit disappointed because the responses from his buddies in the Journey Room (where I am an administrator) seemed just as emotionally motivated as those of random assholes across the internet.  In the Journey Room, we sometimes give current events a more thorough examination as compared to tossing off a simple knee-jerk reaction. I guess he thought we could be confronted this situation before coffee and remain neutral.  Our answers, in his view, were tangential at best, emotional at worst, and didn't pertain to the primary question at all - which in his view was the whole point of the discussion.  He asked about equal application of the law regardless of morality and/or ethics, and we provided reasons why we questioned the process by which the decision to reward a settlement was made.

Pinko made a disparaging remark, which he later explained was sarcastic.  I had no idea he was merely being snarky, so I'm pretty sure anyone could feel my head exploding in my response.  Pinko considers the lamentable fact that there is no font for sarcasm to be a tremendous oversight on the part of computer engineers everywhere.  He's right, of course. Without a snark font, I thought he used a supercilious tone to call me and another fellow hypocrites - sounding just like some TV producer or lawyer who finds support for his/her own biases in every remark.

If it had just been me he was calling a hypocrite, I may not have said anything else in the Facebook thread, but because I take my responsibilities as an administrator in this group seriously and feel generally protective of the integrity of the regular participants in group discussions, I came out swinging.

The whole public interaction turned out fine, but in the course of discussing the situation privately, it became clear that Pinko believes clear, rational answers are only derived via Aristotelian Logic.  He frowns on emotional reaction and irrational conclusions.  He will concede that people can be irrational without being emotional, and that people can be emotional without being irrational - but in his experience, he said, the two often go together.  And that's true.  When negating the remarks, reactions and responses of women, men often use the terms Emotional and Irrational in the same sentence.

I tried to explain (1) that if everyone to whom he posed his question initially made an emotional comment, it could be because the incident itself is so emotionally charged that a respondent needs to have his/her reaction before continuing the discussion.  Could be that everyone reacted that way because it's normal and shouldn't be condemned as invalid. (2) Sometimes a point may seem tangential or even unrelated to a specific issue - but that's because Aristotelian Logic is inflexibly linear. There is no room for divergent thinking.

Illustration of Sir Ken Robinson in

I'm sorry to say that Pinko had never thought about Aristotelian Logic as one of the Patriarchy's customary tools.  He was intrigued and interested in what I was saying, I think, and he was having fun discussing all this stuff.  By the time he asked me to explain what I meant about Logic, linear thinking and Patriarchy, he was having so much fun that he began playing with me and I didn't recognize we were playing. 

I thought I was trying to explain something serious since Priests and Academics have been the gatekeepers to accepted rational thought and reason for centuries, and during those centuries, emotion has been terminally negated.  In school - or anywhere these same priests and academics, as strong armed enforcers of Reason for the Patriarchy, have asserted their authority - convergent thinking is rewarded.  Divergent thinking is generally penalized and sometimes looked upon as a language processing disorder and remediated.  While it's a patriarchal imposition, it's not necessarily gender specific.  It's more about Church, State and Business stifling creativity, or any of thought process outside of the linear norms established by academic authority.


Convergent thinking requires that everyone remain focused on the point you introduced as if there is no other point.  Divergent thinking takes the original premise as a point of departure. In both cases, the train of thought runs in a straight line and is connected to the original point.  While I concur that the resulting discussions can be confusing unless divergent thinkers can connect their thinking to the point in a way others can follow, both ways of thinking are logical, rational and - to everyone except Solipsists, valid.  The Patriarchy is notoriously Solipsistic.

Pinko suspects that I project Patriarchy onto him because of my experience with other more stupid men.  Buzz Kill, for example.  While I agree that it makes sense to examine my own reactions to make sure I'm not using any of Pinko's remarks to support my own biases about Patriarchy, the thing is that privileged white men in the US frequently don't recognize how they reinforce and propagate Patriarchy.  In my view, the insistence that an opinion is only relevant and rational when it converges on a single, predetermined point illustrates Patriarchy in action.

By the end of our discussion, I realized that Pinko has had no experience with Jungian Feminists.   Jungian Feminists will take an interaction into messy, murky emotional areas that most people, especially men, prefer to avoid - and we'll point out how denying emotion may be the most damaging factor in the ruination of the planet through endless war and ecocide, perpetrated by Patriarchy and subsequently, Imperialism.  If we simply feel that something is wrong - mountain top removal or droning little kids in Pakistan - that's not enough for Imperialism and Patriarchy.  We have to be able to prove it's wrong using a rigid narrow band of reasoning championed throughout the centuries by Priests and Academics.  And in that proving, when we start to cry or shout in frustration at our own negation, that's crazy female behavior.  It's annoying, but as my mother always says, "Honey, Eve ate the apple."  She's right, of course.  That's how it is in this life, and priests and academics recorded the story of Eve and the apple in a way that ensured women would be dismissed throughout time as weak, emotional and all that other stuff.  The same priests and academics diluted Mary Magdalen's power and authority too.

I don't care about everyday manifestations of patriarchy right now.  In the first place, I'm used to it and in the second place, patriarchy will be part of the broad societal landscape for a while yet.  At the moment, I'm more interested in focusing all my energy on a single point that converges in my bedroom tomorrow night.

There is infinitely more to a relationship between two individuals than logic, and when both individuals are willing to see a situation differently, you have an opportunity for a splendid merging of the minds.  It looks to me like Pinko and I have that very opportunity - especially since he's asked me to tell him about Feminism.  As a Jungian Feminist, it's particularly exciting for me to get the opportunity to introduce feminism by way of the Goddess on Samhain.





Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Countdown to Pinko

Pinko will be here one week from today.
Every now and then, I'm a bit bewildered by the magnitude of what is about to occur.  Then I repeat all the reasons why it's all just fine and that I have consciously done exactly what I felt like doing throughout this situation - which I have deliberately created.
My reasoning is documented all over the internet.
This past weekend, I started making space for his stuff.

He needs dedicated space so that there can be a place for everything and everything is in it's place.  For the most part, this project simply involves finishing up the sorting and consolidation task that remained after my parents were here last spring.  I said multiple times over this last eighteen months that I was going to finish up the apartment before I let a man through the door. Now a man is coming next week, and he's staying 'til Christmas.

Who knew the man would be a Burner?  Summer before last, when I spent so much time reflecting in the Heather Garden up by Gigi's old apartment, I hadn't even heard of Burners.  Now I've gone and brought one home.  My mood is swinging between Stunned, Delighted and delightfully stunned, especially since I've been listening to a mix he made the other night while I've been puttering around making sure he has a couple of bookshelves to himself.  The mix is kind of sexy and romantic, and it's pretty romantic to be making space for him here.
Here's the Dropbox link:
Deep House mostly All Female Vocals

I half way expect to find him at the airport carrying his pillow and wearing his Grinch PJ pants.


The PJs are made of fleece with this print and they have bright green fake fur trim around the bottom, like 2" cuffs.  He wore them everywhere at Burning Man, and even though I've seen pictures of him in street clothes, I always seem to picture him in those pants.  We'll probably need to pick up a few things for him once he gets here, but that will be fun since thrift shopping is what Burners do best, besides setting things on fire in the name of Art.  Burners often cultivate a certain thrift shop style, and tend to agree with Macklemore & Ryan Lewis that paying a lot of money for Tee Shirt is "some ignorant bitch shit" and "getting tricked by a business:"



A couple of Burner groups have regularly scheduled happy hours - there's an Uptown contingent who meets monthly, and a city wide group that often lands in the East Village.  In late November, we're going to a screening of a documentary called Is the Man who Is Tall Happy An Animated Conversation with Noam Chomsky.  Noam himself is expected to be there, and since Noam is one of Pinko's heroes I naturally got tickets.

Our first date at Burning Man is a tough act to follow, but between Banksy, and Noam and scoping out bars where Pinko might work all while expanding his lefty network, I think we'll be having fun.
I'm mindful, however, of my experience with Gayle the Hillbilly Hustler when I learned that I really don't like it when someone is parked on the sofa watching TV and drinking in my house while I'm at work.  I don't think that Pinko will do that, but just to make sure, I've set a trap with a big bottle of Bulleit, a bigger bottle of Jameson's and a refrigerator filled with PBR.


I also have an issue with leaving skid marks in the toilet.  Pinko knows I have personal mishigas around bodily functions - poop in particular since I didn't poop the whole time I was out at Burning Man.  Some people are just like that.  When I told my mother, she said, "You are your mother's daughter," so needing special conditions for pooping could run in families, for all I know.

Velvet didn't inherit my tendencies, or if he did, the folks at Hippy Dippy Quaker Camp took care of it because the walls around the outhouses at camp, known as Kaibos, only go half way up.  Not only does it prevent staggering smells from filling the outhouse by promoting ventilation but these half walls act to turn every Kaibo into a room with a view - generally of the lake peeking through the birch forest.  Kaibos are typically two or three holers, but with a little effort, you can achieve some degree of privacy.  For the kids, though, this system effectively counteracts any body shame associated with the bathroom.

Actual Kaibo at the Hippy Dippy Quaker Camp
They aren't supposed to leave the lid open like that

Casual, communal pooping in Kaibos notwithstanding, Velvet knows I don't like poop crumbs or skid marks in the toilet. I don't lose my shit, so to speak, if I see them but I've chased him down with a toilet brush enough times that he understands I'm not on this earth to clean up after him.

While all my girlfriends are excited and happy for me, and my mother is generally supportive about Pinko, my brother and my father are taking a Wait and See attitude.  They're not exactly skeptical because a few men have had a lasting role in my life. The Man from San Antone comes to mind.  Sometimes, I get bummed because, for all practical purposes, The Man quit speaking to me after I told him he was a sell-out last year at Cafe Luxembourg.  But really, he is a sell out and that's why I didn't marry him in the first place.  More importantly, I sure don't want to be mixed up with all his family's self-important bullshit now.  They remain all up into electoral politics and like to view themselves as Power Brokers.  As much as I enjoy piles of cash, I don't want piles of BS in my life and life with The Man would mean piles and piles of Bull Shit.  He's probably drinking himself into a coma somewhere right now.

On our regular Sunday morning phone call this week, my father reminded me that I have said on several occasions, sometimes quite adamantly, that I would never, ever let a man in my house again.  He wondered why I changed my mind.  I pointed out that when I was living with Gigi and with Diane during the Restoration Project, I found out that I enjoy the company when I'm living with someone I like.  For the last decade of our marriage at least, I didn't like Buzz Kill very much - and I certainly didn't like The Narcissist or Notta Goodman at all even though I was technically "intimate" with them. 

It may be my recent practice of getting involved with people I don't necessarily like but about whom I am curious that has prompted my brother and my father to take a Wait and See attitude.  They may be thinking about that Preacher from the Mountains who came to see me and was dispatched to Velvet's room in a nanosecond.  That the Preacher was in my bathroom was especially distressing (Intimacy Issues (Mine), Stonerdate 05.07.2010).  But that man had driven me crazy on a few counts before he even got here.

With Pinko, I'm enjoying the anticipation and adventure even when I'm stunned by the magnitude of it all. This apartment only has one bathroom, so Pinko's going to be in there no matter what, and I don't even mind.  I kind of like the idea, actually.  I made room for him in the medicine cabinet too.

When I told Velvet that there was a distinct possibility that Pinko would move in for real, Velvet was very supportive.  The first thing he said was, "Oh Good! He can help you pay the bills." His mouth to God's ears, or the Dog's ears - which ever you prefer.

There's something very comforting about facing the future with a partner.  It's like Countdown to the Apocalypse with Pinko the Bear and PENolan.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Vocabulary Words

My recent focus on the discourse between militant atheists and people like me who are labeled "Spiritual but not Religious," or Airy Fairy, Hippy Dippy New Agers, for lack of a better term, has required an examination of charged vocabulary words.  A recent example of this phenomenon was when Pinko took exception to my use of the term "leap of faith," on account of the way Religion has used faith to oppress people.  More recently, I noticed a reaction in myself at his use of the word "reward," when he wondered what sort of reward I received from my behavior.

I was all Boo Hoo because he likes a lot of atheist memes on Facebook - and in that sentence "likes" means he likes them as in appreciates and agrees with the statements as well as him clicking the Like button.  Now that we've declared we are In A Relationship on Facebook, and he's on my Close Friends list, his activity shows up all over my newsfeed.  That this whole relationship illustrates the interpersonal results possible via Social Media is a topic in and of itself, but right now I'm more interested in emotionally charged vocabulary words.  The other night, the way he said,"reward," sounded like business school speak to me, and I experienced a reaction.  My spine stiffened instantly, but I was able to control the impulse to curl my lip.  The feelings I have about Business, which I picked up along the Sabine River in East Texas, clearly run as deep as those he has about God.

I can't remember if I already mentioned that when Pinko was at the University of Texas at Austin, he was a Young Republican in Business School.  He got to Austin about the time I was leaving, although we may have overlapped a year.  While I never laid eyes on him personally until Burning Man, I saw plenty of Young Republican Business Majors at UT, and wouldn't talk to any of them.  I avoided that area of campus entirely since I was a New Wavy English Major, listened to the Sex Pistols and went to see the Ramones every time they were in town.  Everybody knew Republican Business Majors were complete and thorough assholes, or Ass-Wholes (h/t Woody).

 This was my part of campus - English, Philosophy and Foreign Language mostly

This is the business school which probably wasn't all built when he was there

Pinko voted for Ronald Reagan any time he got the chance.  That was his social and domestic conditioning, rather like my own mother's.  She was a John Bircher Southern Baptist in Texas when I was little because it was expected in her social milieu.  Any time she questioned statements made by people in her environment - people from my dad's job and the family in Beaumont - they told her she was stupid and needed to hush up.  Same thing happened to Pinko only he was surrounded by Reagan Republicans.  That both my mother's and Pinko's thinking has evolved so much over the years just goes to show how much can happen once you stop listening to people calling you stupid because you're questioning their authority.

Nevertheless, if a word reminds me Ronald Reagan and/or business majors, I have a negative reaction - but that doesn't mean the word itself has anything to do with Trickle Down Economics.  My own perspective determines the emotion charge associated with vocabulary words in my own head, and if I'm the one applying the charge to the vocabulary word, then I can modify my emotional response in order to continue a conversation aimed at establishing a common vocabulary between two individuals.

I have to pause a moment to express my appreciation for the ability to settle a lot of this cerebral stuff from a comfortable distance.  It may be easier to learn about a person through correspondence.  Correspondence is a component in many great romances.  I enjoy a correspondence.  I enjoy conversation more and Skype makes it possible to have discussions around emotional, intellectual issues without falling into bed for one reason or another.  Hiding under the covers is a good way to avoid conflict and connect at the same time, but if your feelings are shut off because you're fearful, you never really connect at all.

As it happens, Woody and I spent nearly two years sifting through emotionally charged vocabulary so that I could talk with him about stuff I was reading in A Course In Miracles.  Woody went to Catholic School and was so traumatized by the nuns, and his own mother, that he couldn't even hear the word spirit, much less God.  His experience was that anytime somebody brought up Spirit, they'd be using it against you somehow because of Guilt and Blame.  Makes perfect sense because the Catholic Church is the ultimate hierarchical, patriarchal, fear mongering organization and pretty well wrote the instruction manual on how to keep peasants in their place through guilt, blame and sin.

The thing is that the narrator of A Course In Miracles, who may or may not be Jesus himself, says all sorts of stuff that people think when they're tripping - like about how we're all connected and being At One with each other and the universe - which is why I think of the narrator as Tripping Jesus.  Turns out that Woody and Jesus say the same kind of stuff all the time about perspective, vocabulary and how the way popular, mainstream Christianity is practiced is Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. Once Woody and I got through two years of shouting so that we could listen to each other, he came to enjoy being on the same page as Jesus about all kinds of things.

These days, Woody says that my understanding of God, for lack of a better word, is an anomaly since for me, God is a verb that describes the internal process of coming to love yourself, and expanding that love in order to connect with others.  Granted, accomplishing that level of expansion is easier for people like Jesus, Buddha, etc - but the whole point of the stories about those guys is that they were in bodies just like the rest of us, so if they can do it, we can do it.  Loving is simply practice - like yoga.  That God is Love and we are Love means we are God - so naturally God is all in your head.
Where else would God be?  That's why it always surprises me when atheists say that God is all in your head as if it's a problem.  That's the best place for God - unless your ego takes over and declares itself God which is how all the trouble got started in the Church to begin with.

Religion, according to Tripping Jesus, has nothing to do with God since it's an expression of the Ego.  Ego lives in your head too and is forever interfering with Spirit.  It's no big deal because all you ever have to do is take a breath and pull your head out from up your ass - but that takes practice.  Pretty much the last place you'll find that practice is in a mainstream church since the whole financial structure depends on plenty of heads up plenty of asses.  So does the entire system of Business and Government in America but that's another discussion.  This discussion is about use of vocabulary in relationships.

So when Pinko started talking about Rewards the other night, and how the reward was being Right, it was clear we had a common language because ACIM talks all about how the ego needs to be right all the time so it can feel special, and the whole cycle of isolation, fear, blame, defensiveness - all that stuff kicks into high gear.  Tripping Jesus also spends a lot of time explaining how Special Relationships, or being "In Love," is all about the ego because none of us are Special.  We all have individual characteristics because we're in bodies here on this earth, but because we're all from the same energy, none of us is special.  So having A Special Someone is a big problem for both yourself and that someone especially when Hallmark cards, Hollywood movies and the DeBeers have been creating the definition of another highly charged vocabulary word:  Love.


Using the common, DeBeers inspired definition, there's Love, and then there's everything that Love entails.  I'm not sure what it's entailed for Pinko, but for me, the whole Love thing has been problematic on account of looking to other people to validate my right to exist.  I used the vocabulary word Love, but it is more accurate to say Special Relationship.  The good thing about Notta Goodman is that since I was studying what my ego did during the interaction instead of having a relationship with another person, I could get a clear picture of how Special Relationships function especially since I had spent my life giving someone else the power to determine my value and to forgive my mistakes and shortcomings.  That's why Special Relationships are fucked up.  Nobody else can determine your value, and even though people can forgive each other, the real issue is forgiving yourself for being vulnerable.  So when you're looking to somebody else to do what you can only do for yourself,  there's no way s/he can get it right.  When s/he gets it wrong, you get all pissed off, resentful, blaming, judgmental -- all that Ego stuff wins again.  Being in a relationship on those terms is absolutely convoluted, and I'm grateful that that my perspective on Love has shifted enough so that Special Relationships are in the past.

Which brings us to the present.
Pinko may very well be here in two weeks, and I keep finding reasons why he should stay in New York until Christmas, when we'd each go to our respective families of origin.  That's because I totally love Pinko in exactly the same way as I love all my friends and family - which means there's none of that Special shit making me nervous.  Talking about it makes me a little nervous, though, because when it comes to some vocabulary words, the dictionary definition is simply insufficient.

Saturday, October 12, 2013

On Clearing Chakras and Taking the Edge Off the End of Empire - Thing of Beauty #072-101

I've talked about my creaky shoulder for a while now - particularly the idea that my chi took such a detour when it hit a block at my heart chakra instead of going straight up my spine and out the top of my head like it's supposed to, and as a result, arthritis ate up the cartilage in my left shoulder.  My guiding premise in fixing the shoulder has centered on the Tantric idea - or at least my interpretation of Tantric ideas - that by having enough mind blowing orgasms, the heart chakra will clear and the realignment will send the chi in the right direction so that my shoulder will heal itself.  Along those same lines, clearing the heart chakra would lead to clearing the throat chakra which would subsequently free my voice.  I hadn't really thought through the whole connection between freeing my voice and connecting with the Divine, although that would be a lovely outcome.  I've been more concerned with my shoulder.

As it happens, after spending a week in Pinko's RV at Burning Man, the mobility in my shoulder increased dramatically.  And as it also happened, about the same time I realized that going to Burning Man was a lot like Jake and Elwood's mission from God (Burning, Hell and Texas, Stonerdate 07.13.13) I got a toothache on the left side of my mouth.

While I was at Burning Man two separate individuals mentioned clearing my throat chakra.  One was a very nice fellow who did readings at Sideshow, our theme camp community which was the brainchild of an artist known as Killbuck.  He  did the readings from the little booth on the right side of the main tent.  He was insightful and accurate, in my case, and gave me a mediation about clearing the throat chakra.  I hope he turns up again next year because he was great.

My throat chakra came up again the next day when I went by myself to check out Center Camp.  I met an older man from India there who said he was a Brahmin and had studied with Osho himself.  He said he could absolutely clear my throat chakra so that I was fully aligned with the Divine.  It was a simple matter of sucking his cock.  Apparently, the energetic force, or prana, in his semen was strong enough to fix me right up.  Here's a photo of him from his website.  


I hesitate to "out" him - since for all  I know, he's cured lots of folks and there appears to be more than one Pandit with the same last name.  He said he sits in the driver's seat and the client sits in the passenger seat.  I didn't ask if his jeep was there at Burning Man because by the time I heard about the logistics of the cure, it seemed to me that I should be getting paid, not him.  It also occurred to me that most likely the power of the prana in his semen was probably equal to any semen's prana - so one cock was as good as another for aligning with the Divine.  Everybody knows that kind of stuff all depends on your intent anyway.

I figure that my throat chakra was starting to open on its own before I ever got to Burning Man - but I didn't make the connection until a couple of weeks ago when this toothache really started bothering me.    It all started a few weeks before I got on the plane to California, but I thought the pain was related to my sinuses.  The pollen count in New York was really high this summer, and I've had pain in the nerves to my teeth on that side of my mouth related to sinus issues for a number of years.  I just take a decongestant and some Advil.  This year, though, the situation grew more troublesome so I discussed it with my dentist when I went in for a cleaning in September.  The periodontist and I talked about it again the next week when we were taking the next steps to finally install the new tooth on the upper right side.

The dentist and the periodontist were concerned that a shard from the bone graft we did last year as part of the excavation project may have been floating around the left side, but x-rays revealed that I needed a root canal on the bottom right molar.  When the endodontist took more x-rays, he discovered that the tooth was cracked and needed to come out.

So I figure that whatever happened at Burning Man with Pinko was so significant that my heart chakra finally cleared totally, which enabled the energy to go through the throat chakra with enough force to blast my dang tooth right out of my head.  It makes sense.  If the energy had already blasted out the cartilage in my left shoulder, once it got through the throat, the tooth was a goner.

During all this dental stuff, I remembered that my old dentist could tell that I had bone loss on the left side of my lower jaw years ago - at about the same time I got thrown off that horse at Claremont Riding Academy on West 89th Street which is when the shoulder started dislocating all the time.

This is some random photo and doesn't include anyone I know - but that may very well be the same bitchy white mare who got spooked by construction in the alley and sent me flying right toward one of those cement pillars.

That was seven years ago, and anyone who pays attention to astrology knows that Saturn causes some major shit every seven years in order to balance excess or something like that.  Seven years ago I was compelled to go to Tahoe to see Granny the Ho, who went on to her reward not long after, and while I was there I got my DNA activated (Angels, Beavers and Spiritual Alchemy, Stonerdate 11.12.10 and Character, Fairytales and Chakra Alignment, Stonerdate 04.14.13). 

It was during that DNA activation that I learned my totem - who functions as an animal spirit guide - is a Beaver.  Ergo: it logically follows that the path to healing and enlightenment is through my pussy.

I already knew that before I met Pinko at the Black Rock Hilton, and now that my chakras have aligned well enough for the energy to crack that molar, who knows what will happen when he gets here in a couple of weeks with that mojo of his.

Last week, once the dentist performed the extraction, I got all twisted up about Pinko and the spirituality issue again - but this time we finally talked the whole thing out.  In the process, we discovered that there is a common language between us after all.  He took a self development course some years ago which he found very helpful despite the fact that the organization itself was set up as a pyramid scheme.  Although the material really did facilitate the removal of emotional blocks to personal happiness, the hard sell to sign up for masters courses turned him off so thoroughly that he's suspicious of all that stuff now.  Nevertheless, we found a way to have a meaningful conversation about the whole thing.

I had been concerned that my ego was throwing Pinko's mouthy atheism at me in order to keep me isolated inside myself instead of partnering up with a kindred spirit.  Any time you're feeling sad, isolated and despaired, you can bet your ego is getting in your way.  Max the Psychic Life Coach and Hair Dresser, whose business has now evolved into www.AttractPositiveResults.com, posted this graphic yesterday.  Pretty well sums up the situation.


I still prefer A Course in Miracles over all that Law of Attraction stuff since the Course is all about shifting your perspective from Love to Fear.  While LOA can provide some tools to help you get over yourself, until you really shift internally, it's all magical thinking - as if all you have to do is make a vision board and Santa Claus will bring you a fancy car or something equally as consumerist.  Feel Good bullshit spirituality that tells us, just like the conservative Christians, God (or the Universe) shows He likes you best by filling up your house with lots of stuff.   Shifting from Fear to Love brings you absolutely nothing but inner peace, and the confidence to take a leap of faith every now and then.  

Who knows why my shoulder is better, really?  All this DNA activation, chakra clearing meditation, astrological impact and beavers makes a lovely airy fairy story - maybe it's true.  Why not?

Shifting from Fear to Love, however, is important for all of us right now especially when you consider things like Fukushima (the latest from Greenpeace).  I've maintained that as the empire collapses around us, we need to reach out and build stronger connections with each other.  Global economic and environmental collapse is alarming any way you look at it, and it seems to be increasing exponentially these days.

I'm thankful to have found a man who I like well enough to let inside my house.  No matter what's happening in the outside world, inside we can take the edge off.

That's such a nice development, I'm declaring it Thing of Beauty #072-101
(h/t  Jennifer Morrison for Explore Beauty, a challenge at realia)

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

The Writing on the Wall

I can't decide which is more predictable and frustrating:  Buzz Kill's Bull Shit or watching half of the US population blame the other half for our current governmental woes as we continue to play out Jay Gould's boast that he could hire one half the working class to kill off the other half.

What I really don't understand is how so many entrenched Democrats can be howling and pointing at the Republicans when it's been clear for decades that rich white guys, aka Businessmen and women, were taking all the money with systematic determination and without regard for anyone but their own selves.  And they are so focused on the money that I'm not sure you can even say they care about their own selves unless they like the idea of living in underground bunkers.
Actually, they might like that whole cold war concept.

Woody occasionally points to this document, the Powell Manifesto, to illustrate just how thoroughly rich white guys implemented their ideas.  An introduction to the Manifesto explains:
In 1971, Lewis Powell, then a corporate lawyer and member of the boards of 11 corporations, wrote a memo to his friend Eugene Sydnor, Jr., the Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The memorandum was dated August 23, 1971, two months prior to Powell’s nomination by President Nixon to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Powell Memo did not become available to the public until long after his confirmation to the Court. It was leaked to Jack Anderson, a liberal syndicated columnist, who stirred interest in the document when he cited it as reason to doubt Powell’s legal objectivity. Anderson cautioned that Powell “might use his position on the Supreme Court to put his ideas into practice…in behalf of business interests.”
Though Powell’s memo was not the sole influence, the Chamber and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades. The memo influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and other powerful organizations. Their long-term focus began paying off handsomely in the 1980s, in coordination with the Reagan Administration’s “hands-off business” philosophy (
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/).
About the same time as Powell was confirmed for the Supreme Court, George Carlin was perfecting his  Seven Dirty Words routine,  CBS cancelled The Smothers Brothers' Comedy Hour, and Tom Lehrer's That Was the Year that Was had already been out for years.  So what I really don't understand is how anyone can continue to think that our elected officials are doing anything besides sucking corporate dick while they're filling their own bank accounts when you don't even have to read tedious historical documents like The Powell Manifesto.  All anyone has ever had to do is pay attention to George Carlin, who performed his classic bit on the American Dream on HBO back in 2005.



Yet people who have seen The American Dream clip over and over continue to blame Republicans and  praise Obama and the Democrats.  It's all so stupid, so frustrating and so annoying that I can hardly stand to turn on the computer to see the headlines - much less the blatherings on Facebook.


Meanwhile, Buzz Kill and I are performing the same old dysfunctional dance around money that eventually resulted in our divorce.   The number of times we'll have to repeat this routine is limited, however, because sooner or later, Velvet will get a job and move into his own place.  Buzz Kill's bullshit might continue for years and years, but at least I won't be involved.

Life with Buzz Kill has been easier ever since that day he was getting in my face telling me to shut up and go to work and I said he was a big, fat Israeli Bulldozer and I was not his Palestinian anymore.

It would be great if American workers would say the same thing about this fucked up system and go on a general strike or something instead of bending over and taking that Red, White and Blue dick up the ass.