Pillow Talk

Well, my ex has been bugging me to give equal time in the pillow department to women, so here goes:



Happy now? Is everybody happy? I'd like everyone to be happy. Really.

My Girl

Have I talked about my secret Kelley Deal crush? Actually I had a crush on sis Kim first, but then when Kelley (that's right, there's two "e"s in her name) appeared in the Breeders, my heart, being the lonely and fickle hunter that it is, did a complete 180. It's Kelley now, and Kelley forever. I'm so glad to finally say all this out loud.

Unfortunately my Kelley pictures are way too big to post here. As a substitute, I'm going to post one of my Japanese lap pillow photos:

Comforting, isn't it?

Seattle has hills. I sort of knew this before I moved here, but didn't realize how big and steep they actually are. The kind of hills I imagine myself in a broken heap at the bottom of, my bike landing on top of me and a UPS truck coming in to finish off the job. When I lived in SF I used to have nightmares about these kind of hills.

That being said, people here are a lot more respectful of bikes and bike riders. Probably because so many of them ride themselves. They are more respectful here in general it seems. They say things like "Excuse me" and "Thanks". It's taking me a little time to get used to this, especially after the my-recent-ancestors-left-me-behind-in-this-hellhole-when-they-moved-out-west attitude of the people in the town where my mom lives (is it Gloucester? I'll never tell).

Winter will come though, and we shall see if the civility can hold out (I hope it does).

Them Changes

Sorry for not having posted for so long (sorry also for not having left comments). Mom really wanted to give living on her own a try, and so after some last-minute arrangements, Mr. Burns packed up and moved to Seattle. Yes, the Emerald/Rain/Suicide-of-Curt-Cobain City. He's staying with one of his oldest friends while he looks for work and a place to live. Graduate school? Hmm--- don't know about that. Still trying to deal with the changes I mentioned earlier and how I can fit my life into them (they are bigger than the breadbox which is my life).

Seattle's great--- beautiful, bike-friendly, relatively inexpensive. Don't know how long I'll be here, but I think it'll be a while. More soon.

Me: A River

Things that have made Mr. Burns cry:

C's death

His mom getting sick

DLL crying

The OD death of a best friend (J, his first real female friend)

"Song of Myself" (Walt Whitman)

"Protection" (Massive Attack)

"Primitive" (Annie Lennox)

The end of Dead Man Walking, when Sister Helen is seen praying with Walter Delacroix

The part in Motorcycle Diaries where Che swims across the river to the leper colony.

It's raining pretty hard today, which is probably why I'm thinking about all this.

Novus Papam

In honor of the election of Cardinal "Rottweiler" Ratzinger to the papacy, here is an excerpt from the Gospel of Mary*:

"Levi answered and said to Peter, 'Peter, you are always angry. Now I see you arguing against this woman (Mary Magdalene) like an adversary. If the savior made her worthy, who are we to reject her? Surely the savior knows her well. That is why he has loved her more than us.
'So, we should be ashamed and put on perfect humanity and acquire it, as he commanded us, and preach the good news, not making any rule or law other than what the savior indicated.'
When [Levi said] this, they began to leave [in order to] teach and preach."

*Meyer, Marvin. The Gnostic Gospels of Jesus. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.

Tabula Rasa

I'm not sure really what has happened to me in the last few days. I feel I've changed in some way.

It started with my great-uncle's death, I know that. When that happened, all the Big Questions I try not to think about came bubbling to the surface. They've bubbled to the surface before, but never in this way. I found myself caught deeper and deeper in some kind of religio-philosophical vortex. At one point I really thought I was going to lose my mind. But then that little voice came up as it always does and said, Go right ahead. It's not doing you any good anyway. Bastard little voice. Always spoiling my existential crises.

Something did happen though. I feel like the things that weighed me down before are no longer so heavy. The past seems at a small distance now, rather than always ready to smash down like a freeway overpass during an earthquake.

There's a scene at the end of Dead Man Walking where Sister Helen and the father of the murdered boy are seen praying together. That scene always moves me. It moves me because it seems to say there is a way out of whatever we are caught up in. Maybe it takes divine help. Maybe divine help is really all there is.

Tabula rasa: (Latin). A clean slate; a blank or erased tablet.

Google Me Gone

"For time will catch us in both hands
To blow away like grains of sand
Ashes to ashes rust to rust
This is what becomes of us"*

Was over at Spitting In A Wishing Well the other day and joined in on satellite mapping my hometown (Piehole was a little difficult to find). The funny thing about doing that is it's impossible to see any people. Even at maximum zoom, human beings simply don't appear.

My great-uncle died last night. I had taken my mom to see him in the afternoon, and then, after the call came, me, Mom, and Aunt3 returned to sit with his body for a while. It was amazing because, as sick and sedated as he was, once his spirit departed his body looked very different--- like a shell already in the process of disappearing. I began thinking this is what is going to happen to Aunt1, then 3, then to my mom, and then, at some point, to me (hopefully Sis1 and 2 will live longer than I will). We will all disappear, and the people who remember us will disappear too.

Of course there's a part of me that thinks I'm exempt from all this, that somehow I'll be able to sneak out of line and hide in some time-warp toilet stall. But that part has been getting smaller and smaller lately.

This life we live, the things we think are important, thoughts and feelings, our bodies even--- none of it shows up in the map. And that, I think, means something.

*Annie Lennox "Primitive"