The Internet is Interfering with My Ability to Hide My Head in the Sand.

When the question 'How Are You' can't be answered with a simple word like 'Fine,' it seems the only options are to lie or tell the truth and run the risk of making the questioner feel uncomfortably obligated to listen or worse, ask more questions. Hating both those options, I prefer a third: Temporarily absenting myself thereby avoiding the question altogether. It's in my nature to vanish when things suck, but Facebook and Twitter are making my disappearance more visible than I'd like.

"Hey Kiddo - How ya doing? I haven't seen your' witticisms or rants. Hope you're alright."

"Suddenly worried, due to what seems like an unusual, extended period of schtumness from your good self, that all might not be okay." 

"Hey Luv. Where ya hidin'? XO."

"Hi! Miss you." 


I have lovely friends. I am lucky to have each and everyone of them that is willing to put up with me. I just don't know what to say to them at times like this. When the going gets tough, This Tough goes on Hiatus, into Hiding, and Hybernates in her Invisible Plastic Bubble.

The last time things got rough, The Boy and I moved clear across the country in the middle of the night. We told our jobs, the landlord, and a few close friends then packed the pets and everything that fit in a truck. As world got around the emails and phone calls came with roughly the same question: Why did you leave your support system?

What can I say? I've taken care of myself for so long, I don't know how to use a support system without feeling like a burden. The Boy is my support system. He asked for the job, and I gave it to him. It wasn't easy, but I did it. The Plastic Bubble now stretches just enough to accommodate The Boy, the dog, and the cat, but that's at maximum capacity.

Some time has passed since we got here. I've made new friends and have been coaxed into Social Networks which allow me to keep in touch with those I left behind. And here I am, once again, temporarily avoiding them all because one day it will be easier for me to say the words, "My father died," than to currently say, "My father is dying."

I have a fake Twitter account I use for Trolling. I know it's immature, but when things get really awful, I take my frustration out on idiots who idolize Sarah Palin and Ayn Rand. Just yesterday, I got a Tweet from a kind but complete stranger who follows that account. He wanted to know where I've been and If I'm OK. Oh, for Fuck's Sake. Not even Waldo could stay hidden these days...

☯ Circle of Friends

When I'm by myself

nobody else can say Goodbye.

More Light

"Goethe's final words: more light. Ever since we crawled out of that primordial slime, that's been our unifying cry: more light. 


Sunlight, torchlight, candlelight, neon, incandescent, light to banish the darkness from our caves, to illuminate our roads, the insides of our refrigerators. Big floods for the night games at Soldier's Field, little tiny flashlight for those books we read under the covers when we're supposed to be asleep. 


Light is more than watts and footcandles, light is metaphor. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet. Rage, rage against the dying of the light! Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, lead thou me on. The night is dark and I am far from home, lead thou me on. Arise, shine, for thy light has come. 


Light is knowledge, light is life, light is light." - Chris Stephens/Northern Exposure

☯ Ebudae

Lead thou me on.

Joni Mitchell Never Lies.

☯ The River

I wish I had a river

 I could skate away on.

When Life Gives You Lemons Give Them Back, Moocher - Ayn Rand

You purchase a car and on the day it's ready for you, the dealership hands you a Transit Pass and tells you you can choose whichever mode of transportation best suits you - bus, train, cab - your choice. You tell them that what suits you is what you've paid a lot of fucking money for, and you want your fucking car, right fucking now. The dealership tells you the Transit Pass is really the best thing for you, and while you stand there demanding what is rightfully yours, a nearby group of toothless, inbred morons tell you you're asking for a handout. The dealership knows the Transit Pass gives smart people the full body sensation of Not Fucking Tempting At All, but the toothless inbreds are stupid enough to not realize they've spent years sucking dick for bus fare and will end up walking home.

Maybe this is a bad analogy.

You spend almost thirty years working your ass off and paying taxes with the knowledge that one of the things your tax dollars are going towards is health care for when you are older. But before you can collect it some punk that looks like Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, or some other Metrosexual Douchebag tells you that when your time comes, all the money you've been spending will not lead to guaranteed health care, but a useless fucking voucher that you can spend on any insurance company you want as long as that voucher can afford it.

Fuck a bunch of that. I want what I've been paying for, and it's not a fucking voucher. It's also not a Handout. Know why? Because I've already spent my fucking money on it. It's fucking mine.

If you're already shaking your head No, you are either really rich or really brainwashed, and if you're very young and saying No, I assure you you haven't been paying taxes long enough to have earned anything yet so piss off, but before you do, we have a little business You and I.

Let me lay this out for you: You don't want any of your paychecks to go towards Medicare and Social Security? Fine. But I've spent the last few decades paying for your parents' or grandparents' health care and you, my child, owe me. That's right, your loved ones have been taking the very same Handout you're whining about from each and every one of my paychecks, and if you're not going to pay into government health care when it's my turn, I want you to pay me back everything I spent on your family. I will take it in the form of government health care or cash. Don't say No unless you're willing to admit you come from a family of moochers.

And if you are one of those Ayn Rand fanatics, I've got some news for you. She was on Welfare, Social Security, and Medicare, and worshiping her character John Galt is about as valid as idolizing Lord Voldemort except Voldemort lasted longer out there. He had servants.

You should go now, I see they've set out another cup of tea for you. Drink it all. Sometimes the poison's at the bottom...


☯ Bitchin Camaro

You are the result of 4 billion years of evolutionary success.

Fucking act like it.

My 'Go To' Warm, Happy Place.

I'm standing in line waiting for a coffee and glance outside. There is a man leaning against a bike rack talking on a cell phone with one hand and casually petting his dog with his other. He finishes his conversation, gives the grateful thing his full attention and a final bit of love, and runs into a nearby store.

Moments later I see the dog excitedly jumping around as he spots something - a man he clearly knows is approaching him. As this second man unties the dog from the bike stand through frantic kisses to his face, I realize this is the dog's actual owner. They walk away, and he has no idea that a good samaritan loved his dog for a few minutes, but I'm glad I witnessed it.

☯ Somersault

You feed other people's parking meters.

I'm Unfriending Kansas.

As if I didn't have enough things to worry about and deal with in my own personal life, I have to read that Kansas Rep. Pete DeGraaf thinks that being impregnated during rape is like getting a flat tire. Really, Kansas? You voted for this guy? Fuck a bunch of that. I have no choice but to have less respect for you than I already did.

Last week Kansas approved a ban on insurance companies offering abortion coverage as part of their general health plans. When discussing whether or not rape pregnancies should be covered DeGraaf's response was, "We do need to plan ahead, don't we, in life?... I have a spare tire on my car ... I also have life insurance... I have a lot of things that I plan ahead for."

My email to him was a lot more civilized than the thoughts running through my head: That someone in office should have the compassion and intelligence to understand that rape can't be fixed like a flat tire, that a pregnancy resulting from rape can't be prepared for the way one keeps a spare tire handy, and that a politician who believes it can should be anally raped and infected with herpes and HIV then asked how his spare tire worked out. That would be justice for all the women he just screwed.


DeGraaf's Web site
His office number 785-296-7693
His home phone as 316-777-0715
Home address 1545 E. 119th St. Mulvane, KS
His e-mail pete.degraaf@house.ks.gov

☯ Nimrod's Son

You are the result of 4 billion years of evolutionary success.

Fucking act like it.

Frontier Psychiatrist Sample Breakdown

I am blown away by the work that went into the creation of this song, but having just found this Youtube video that breaks down all the samples, I'm not sure who is more impressive -  The Avalanches or Rickydown...

☯ Frontier Psychiatrist

A sculptor is a person who is interested in the shape of things,

a poet in words,

a musician by sounds.

You Got the Fear.

I'm reading About a Boy by Nick Hornby but take a two hour break to watch Defending Your Life. Fever Pitch, also by Hornby, is sitting there, waiting for me to finish up with Marcus, Will, and Fiona, so I can delve into the story of an Arsenal fan, yet I am compelled to take a short break and watch the Albert Brooks film before his new book 2030: The Real Story of What Happens to America arrives. I like to chain smoke writers.

His being an uptight, neurotic New York Jew creates an instant familiarity for me, but the self-reflection in this movie hits home hard. Not just because I've had time to spend the last few years doing my own introspection, but because the first glimpse of what this movie is really about is, to me at least, the very thing that ruled my own life for the first thirty nine years: Fear. Its slow dissipation began in a doctor's office two and a half years ago, and despite the name of this blog, I wouldn't dare call myself Brave, but everything I do these days shows just a little more bravery than the last time I did it. There was a time when I couldn't go for a yearly check up without a friend present. You know, in case they found cancer. But now I take my yearly Pap Smear, Mammogram, and MRI all on the same day, and I don't need a chaperone or drugs to do it. I only ask that The Boy be present at the reading of the MRI.

Nothing like a good fucking disease to put some perspective into your life.

So after Daniel Miller's death, he arrives in Judgment City, the pit stop where one's fate is decided. His appointed lawyer explains that there is no Hell, but in order to move forward and avoid being sent back to earth again, he must defend the actions of nine specific days in his life where it appears that Fear got the better of him and interfered with his life - a signal that he may not be ready to Move On.

"Being from earth as you are and using as little of your brain as you do, your life has pretty much been devoted to dealing with fear ... Everybody on earth deals with fear. That's what Little Brains do ... Did you ever have friends who's stomach hurt? ... It's fear. Fear is like a giant fog. It sits on your brain and blocks everything. Real feeling, true happiness, real joy, they can't get through that fog. But you lift it and buddy you're in for the ride of your life."

It's no coincidence Albert Brooks' real last name is Einstein. He's fucking brilliant. And so is Ian Brown:

For each a road
For everyman a religion
Find everybody and rule
For everything and rumble
Forget everything and remember
For everything a reason
Forgive everybody and remember

For each a road
For everyman a religion
Face everybody and rule
For everything and rumble
Forget everything and remember
For everything a reason
F.E.A.R.

Final eternity arouses reactions
Freeing excellence affects reality
Fallen empires are ruling
Find earth and reef
Fantastic expectations Amazing revelations
Final execution and resurrection
Free expression as revolution
Finding everything and realizing

You got the Fear
☯ F.E.A.R.

...the only thing we have to fear

 is fear itself.

Free Locations are Never Really Free.

...So I was working on this low budget film that had a scene involving the lead stopping at a gas station to buy condoms. It sounds simple enough, but the gas station we'd be filming at didn't sell any. If the camera wanted to show our guy staring at a wall with assorted brands, I'd have to come to set with more than just one box.

So Art Department, me and another woman, stopped at Target for an Igloo Cooler for the beer drinking scene, batteries and film for the continuity Polaroid, and a butt load of assorted condoms for the gas station. I've bought many unusual things in my career and got over being shy about any of it, but this particular grouping of items was a special blend of humor I didn't see coming until the cashier interrupted our conversation to say, "That's some picnic you're having."

I hope we made her day, and I hope she still tells the story.

☯ Sexy Eiffel Tower

Someday, we'll look back at this, laugh, 

and nervously change the subject.

TEST MSG 47

Last week I made a promise to myself to walk to the Farmers Market every Saturday hoping it will make up for all the Aqua Therapy classes I am missing. The walk is longer than a minute so I know I won't be able to feel my legs when I get there, but as long as I go slow, stop occasionally, and have The Boy at my side, I should still have some sensation in my feet. I'll slip into a three hour coma when we get home, but if I've learned anything from the women at the pool, it's that the ones who are in wheelchairs are the ones who were diagnosed and then told to rest. Fuck that.

We get to the market today, and a young woman is playing her violin. A piece from Carmen - the only opera I really enjoy.

I come from a long line of musicians, but the talent stopped dead in its tracks with me. I have an appreciation for music, but the gift just isn't there. I can sit at the piano long enough for my hands to memorize notes, but I cannot make the music. MS or no MS, my hands have never been able to make that instrument sing. The true gift is in your heart and in your soul. The Boy, who happens to be a drummer, calls it Bleeding. When Jeff Buckley sings Hallelujah, he is Bleeding. When Maynard Keenan performs Wings for Marie and 10,000 days, he is Bleeding. When I recall the sound of my father playing his violin, I hear more than technique.

Because of the arthritis in his shoulders it's been years since I've heard him play, but he used to practice for hours every day. As a little girl the sound of my mother at the piano and my father at the violin used to lull me to sleep at night. After they divorced, the sound of his violin was the background music for my visits with him. Now that he is sick his arms are too weak to to feed himself let alone play the violin; it is the least of our worries.

But then I heard that woman playing Carmen. Just one violin singing in the background of a market and I was overwhelmed. It never occurred to me that the sound of a single violin would haunt me. When will I be able to hear that sound again and not be horrified?

Before we leave, I add my money to the pile in her violin case and thank her. She didn't mean to break my heart.

☯ Séguedille
☯ Danse bohéme 

Still I'm gonna miss you.

What I Learned in College Besides My Social Security Number.

Just now I found a small circular screen on our kitchen floor. I picked it up and thought it must have been attached to the pony tail holder I just took out, but it was a lot firmer than my other screens and it was perfectly round. There are perhaps people who might wonder what it is and where it came from. There are others who will immediately recognize it is a screen for a sink faucet. I fall into the latter category and am sure it was dropped by the maintenance man who was here earlier fixing the microwave.

When you hear Steelers Wheels' Stuck in the Middle with you, do your have visions of Mr. Blonde hacking off someone's ear? If your answer is Yes, you understand just how much an event can change the way you think of something. If your answer is No, I'm sure you understand, but you really need to see more movies from the nineties. A song can take you back to a different moment in time, and so can the sight of an object.

I quit smoking in 1997. Three packs a day. Camels. In order to stop, I had to go cold turkey on everything. I wasn't a heavy drinker or weed smoker, but just the thought of having either made me want a cigarette so I quit it all. Even my morning cup of coffee had to be put on hold for awhile.

Time goes by, I break a bone, and my doctor gives me Vicodin. I become a fan. Not enough to beg for more, but enough that I am still consuming what remains of the prescription long after I need it. Two close friends sit me down in the Rumpus Room and remind me just how bad the stuff is. When I tell them I'm using it to help me fall asleep at night one of them, the Juggernaut, reminds me that weed is just as efficient, much safer, and that I am well beyond the point of needing a cigarette from a hit or two of weed before bed. He's right. I accept a small gift in the plastic wrapping from El's pack of cigarettes and run upstairs to look for my pipe. It takes no time to find, but I have cleaned it out so well there is not a trace of resin. Or a screen.

I went to college. I can handle this. I know my kitchen sink will have an extra screen for me. What I don't know is that I am no longer able to put a faucet back together.

I work with power tools. I put things together for a living. But at this moment, I don't know that I have MS and my disintegrating dexterity and occasional double vision are making the task very difficult, nay impossible. Half an hour later I receive a phone call from one of the Juggernaut wondering what the fuck has happened to me, and why am I not back downstairs yet?

As I pick up this small round screen from the kitchen floor, the memory that comes to mind is the vision of him at my sink, his back to me while he properly screws the cap of the faucet back along its threads. He turns his head around just long enough to sneer at me and say, "You know - you're dorm is one thing, but you're not supposed to do this to your own home." True Dat.

☯ Jammin 

Weed: Helping Americans learn the Metric System.

Real Life Horror

As I sit here seething over the Conservative Douchebags' latest and lamest attempt to find something wrong with President Obama, I find it necessary to distract myself or explode. Are they really whining about a poetry reading guest list? I have to learn when to turn off the news.

The Manchurian Candidate remake is on. In theory a good movie should distract me, but this one is about a manipulative group who'll do anything for political power which brings my thoughts back to the manipulative Ass Hats I was originally trying to forget. I've got to focus on something other than the stupid controversy over Common at the White House or I will give myself a new brain lesion. I'll watch The Ring again. Won't be as scary as the first time, though...


It's 2002 and my friend purchases a really cool building that once housed a two story bar. The business has been closed for over a year, but his intent is to renovate and reopen the bottom floor. No concrete plans for the upstairs yet, and I'm in the mood for a change of scenery so I ask him if he's willing to rent me some space upstairs. Before I know it, the upstairs bar is turned into my kitchen, the infamous weed lounge is my bedroom, part of the pool room is my workspace, and the water closet is turned into a bathroom. Side note: I have never batted my eyelashes to get what I want, but the day the plumber told me the water closet would be too small for anything but a shower, I batted away and got my bathtub. They had to carve into the studs to get it to fit, but I like baths. Every time the building owner came by, he'd stop to look at the tub, baffled by how the fuck they got it in there.

I leave a quaint Chicago neighborhood and move to a foul one. Dangerous El Station, nothing but drug dealers and crack heads, and a drive by shooting outside the building my first week there. But this is what I want - a really cool living space. Even better - until the bar is rehabbed I have half a city block all to myself at night. Except for the crack heads. To the east of the building there's an alley, to the south the street and a 9 to 5 business, to the west an empty parking lot and to the west of the lot a small plot of land, and to the north just some storage spaces and more alley. Eventually the bar will open and be my Rumpus Room, but even then, the building is all mine after it's closed for the night. Score. I know this is NOT tempting to many people, but I like solitude. Precious, precious solitude.

The building has ghost stories based on the murder of a girl whose dismembered body was found in the basement. Doesn't scare me. Not even being in the basement scares me. I love this place. I can play music at full volume and sing at the top of my lungs at any hour of the night, and no one can hear me. Do I see anything weird during the 15 months it takes the bar to open? Yes. I go through three Sage Smudge sticks. But those incidents do not stay with me the way The Night I Watched The Ring stays with me.

The bar opens the following year, and I take a second job downstairs. Teachers just don't make the money Gov. Scott Walker thinks they do. The staff stays behind after close to drink, but on this night, I push them all out of the building by 3AM. I want to watch The Ring in an empty building. I want it to be that much scarier knowing no one can hear me scream. Not long into the film, it dawns on me that my coworkers only agree to leave early so they can call me all night and whisper, "Seven days," into the phone, and if any of them were sober enough to dial, I'm sure they would have.

If you haven't seen it I won't ruin anything by telling you that just before someone's demise, their television turns itself on and just shows black and white snow. Do younger people these days know that before TVs used a blue screen to indicate no signal, it used to be snow? Anyway, we quickly learn about the snow, and not long after we get a glimpse at our first victim. Let me stop here for a moment. I've worked in Film. I not only did makeup, blood, and gore for a movie about the Civil War, I made body parts for it. But the makeup job they did on this first dead girl's face? Scares. The. Fuck. Out. Of. Me. No shit. It isn't gory. It's the look of fear frozen into her face. I have to pause the DVD on her to get a better look and remind myself it's just makeup. Does me no good. I already know the lights will get turned on when I go to bed.

I finish the movie quite happy that I'm freaked out, and like always, I watch the credits. There's a team of people who created this thing, and they deserve my attention. Thirty seconds in, my TV goes to snow. First reaction? Ooh! What a cool feature to add to the DVD! They're gonna show something scary during the credits! Second reaction? How long will they do this before the scary bit and get back to the credits? Third reaction. Why is my TV still on snow?

I know time passes slowly when you're scared, but I do believe I sit there for five minutes, in the dark, watching snow. No puddles of water, no killer little girl with long, black hair, just me, too scared to move, planted in that one spot in the dark with TV snow. A glance at my cat sitting calmly by my side is the indicator that nothing bad is about to happen. Surely she would be hissing and tense if there was danger present. I manage to get up, turn every light in the apartment on, and inspect the TV. It has died. All TVs must go at some point, but mine chooses this moment. 5AM, alone in the dark, less than a minute after a movie about people who are murdered by a little girl that comes to them from TV snow. I thank it for adding to my trauma this evening, but curse it for its particular brand of obnoxious which I find Really Fucked Up. I take pleasure in later dumping it in the alley and giving it a swift kick for being a Fucker.

☯ Goodnight Moon 

You are the result of 4 billion years of evolutionary success.

Fucking act like it.

Beware the Nighttime Med.

Last night The Boy had a headache, and the only painkiller we had was the Excedrin PM trial size that came with the regular bottle we last bought. He called me during his lunch hour to tell me to never buy the PM again - he still hasn't woken up. I was afraid that might happen, but I am stupid.


I was working on a film in 2000 that required a bar scene which would take two days to film. Unfortunately, the Location Scout wasn't able to secure a Chicago bar for filming so we were forced to drive to a suburb two hours away. With a 12 hour turn around time between Wrapping on one day and Call Time the next, I knew that my Art Department would spend an hour taking down our set dressing, another hour packing the van, two hours driving home exhausted, and would have, at most, eight hours to unload our cars, sleep, repack our cars, and drive back the following morning to start again. Fuck a bunch of that. I got us a hotel room. I'm quite the planner. But as we all know, I am also quite stupid.

After our first night of filming, we took down our set dressing as quickly as possible so the bar could open for business at 5PM. It was Karaoke Night. Now I am NOT one for performing in front of a crowd, but lots of the film crew were. Art Department had a hotel five minutes away, so what the hell. We stayed for A Beer. Lots of the film crew stayed for A Beer.

Sometime around midnight, after most of the extroverts had performed, even the shy ones were drunk enough to give it a try, and I would like to thank our First AD gave a rendition of Pour Some Sugar on Me I will never forget. At this point, word had spread that the Art Department had a hotel room, and requests were pouring in from people who wanted a spot on the floor, in the bathtub, or wherever they could squeeze themselves - anything to avoid the drive home and back which would give them one hour of sleep if they were lucky.

By 1AM, after everyone who was going to hook up hooked up and everyone who was going to throw up threw up, we had all three Art Department members in the queen sized bed along with the Set Coordinator who had hooked up with my Prop Guy, and I don't know how many people on the floor. I woke up at 4:00, looked at the Jonestown-like Massacre, and pitied everyone the hangover they were about to experience. Not to sound heartless, but my main concern was my crew - the Set Dresser and the Prop Guy. I ran to the closest gas station, asked the attendant for packets of Excedrin, and returned to the hotel to wake everyone up. I slipped my crew their meds and coffee and we were on our way back to the bar.

It's not surprising they dragged during our set prep, but when they were finished, my Prop Guy approached me and told me he was really sorry, but he just couldn't keep his eyes open. He wanted to crawl into a booth and die a little. He looked so ill. He asked me what I gave him and I reached into my pocket to reveal the Excedrin packets only to discover they said PM.  Oops. I so thought I was helping them that morning and accidentally dosed them.

I've only seen the film once, but during that bar scene all I could think about were the ridiculous performances I'd seen on that karaoke stage the previous night and all sleeping bodies hidden all over the set. See that booth over the actor's left shoulder? Jay is passed out and snoring there. See that section of the bar? Em is asleep on a packing blanket on the floor there.  Good times. I'm so glad I don't do that anymore...

☯ Pour Some Sugar on Me

And if I spike you

you'll know you've been spoken to.

She Rules.

When I was little, I had a set of toy plates for tea parties with my dolls and teddy bears. I don't remember what they looked like or how small they were, and I wouldn't even remember I'd had them if it weren't for the day my mother made us lunch and served both our meals on those tiny plates. I was overwhelmed with love and pride and joy to see that I would be eating my meal from MY dishes and that my mother would be doing so as well. It's one of my favorite memories.

☯  Woman's Work

Give me that little kiss.

Give me your hand.

Paul Was My Favorite. Till I Grew Up.

It's so much easier being sick than being the caregiver.

☂ Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)

Help me cope with this heavy load.

Denial Flavored Kool Aid with a Patriotic Twist.

Planted firmly on one side of a very divided nation, it's easy to look across the line and see a bunch of morons, especially when you're looking at what I'm looking at. I'm not talking about differing opinions. When one side clearly succeeds where the other side failed, it's fascinating to watch how bitter that failing Republican side can get: Bitter enough to revise history, ignore facts, and lie their asses off for a completely fake reality that suits them and their egos.

But it can't stop there. After all, someone needs to vote for them, and it sure as hell won't be anyone with the capacity to think and remember. That's where stupid people come in.


Have they convince you yet that President Barack Obama is to blame for Idiot Emperor Baby Bush's enormous deficit? Because it was there the day he was inaugurated. Baby Bush left it behind like an abandoned suitcase and a scorching case of herpes, and, by the way, pissed away President Bill Clinton's surplus with wars and tax breaks for the wealthy.

Have they gotten you to believe that Clinton is to blame for the September 11 attacks even though they happened well into Baby Bush's presidency? Because as he left office, he actually warned Baby Bush to watch out for Osama Bin Laden.

Have they gotten you to forget that less than six months after the attacks, Baby Bush gave up searching for Bin Laden and said, "I don't know where Bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority?" Because they would now like you to thank him for Bin Laden's death even though he had absolutely nothing to do with it. Just ignore the fact that Bin Laden was killed by a strategic plan put in place by Obama, please.

If you are, in fact, stupid enough to ignore history for them, you are, by now, screaming for photographic proof of Bin Laden's death because they have taught you that when it comes to factual proof, a DNA match is nothing compared to photos. You're the same schmucks who don't believe his Birth Certificate is real.


And if you are stupid enough to ignore history and facts by believing their really obvious lies, you are probably insipid enough to finish it all off with the belief that you are a patriot. All of you who love to wrap yourselves in the American flag telling everyone how much you love this country haven't the faintest idea what it means.

To be an American Patriot, you actually have to care about the plot of land America sits on and its people. Republicans have no love for this land. Their mantra is Drill, Baby, Drill, and if they have their way, they will deregulate every measure of safety taken to keep this country's soil, water, and air clean and unpoisoned.

They have no love for Americans except the rich ones. Just watch CSPAN and tell me how much they care about our way of life.

Patriots? Right. My Little White Ass. Stop wrapping yourselves in that flag before you accidentally choke on it. With the Tea...

☯ Married with Children 

You are the result of 4 billion years of evolutionary success.

Fucking act like it.

I Will Rejoice in the Death of One.

One more post about 9/11 on any day but September 11.

I found a lot of people quoting Martin Luther King Jr. in their Facebook and Twitter status yesterday. "I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy."

Fuck that. They are entitled, but I didn't respond, and I certainly didn't repost. As I set out to write this, I checked to make sure that I had the quote right, and it turns out it's an altered version of what King actually said. Fine. Its inaccuracy doesn't change the sentiment that many wanted to share - that despite the Evil of this Cunt of a man and his followers, they could not celebrate his murder. Fine, don't. I on the other hand am happy he is dead, I'm ecstatic that he was shot in the eye, and I'm hoping that the last thing that went through his head besides that bullet is the realization that The United States of America got him.

He put us all through our own hell that day.

I woke up that morning to the sound of the phone ringing, and Caller ID told me it was my father. Because he lived in Manhattan and I was 2 hours behind in Chicago, I was quite angry and indignant that he would choose to call me so early in the morning. I let the machine take the call and then heard him say that one of the towers had been taken down. I didn't believe what I was hearing so I interrupted the message he was still leaving, and picked up the phone to tell him he was full of shit. He told me to turn on the TV. And I was just in time to see that second tower go. My brain didn't allow me to register that what I was watching was live, that it wasn't a replay of the first tower, that we were in fact under attack. My country. My friends. My family.

My first drive home opened a new wound. Yes, I used to drive from Chicago to NYC and back. I'm a huge Road Tripper and even lived out of a car for two years, but that's a story for another time. It was a long ass drive, but every time I saw the Skyline, I knew I was almost home. Seeing the skyline without my towers was indescribable. Won't even try.

While home I was able to chat with my dad's girlfriend, and she told me something that has haunted me. By this point in time, people were in some way of knowing who in their lives had made it and who had not. Even if they didn't know their friend's friends that well, by this point they knew which of them were OK. But during the course of a day there are people you come across who you don't know, but who are still a part of your routine. Maybe you never speak to them, but you know their faces.

They wait for the same bus or train as you everyday.
They are in your bodega almost as often as you are.
They are at the gym during roughly the same days and hours you are there. And some of them are gone now. You haven't seen them since early September, and you don't have their name, their phone number, or anyone to ask about their whereabouts.

Why isn't that tall guy using this train anymore? Has he changed jobs?
Why isn't that blond girl using this bodega anymore? Did she move?
Why isn't that really buff guy at the gym anymore? Has he fallen out of his workout routine right now? Or was he at The Towers that day? Each person missing from your daily routine becomes an unanswerable mystery and another fucking reminder.

So I don't care if you are or aren't celebrating Bin Laden's death. Do what you feel is right For You. I am rejoicing. I'm hoping his death caused him pain and suffering, and I hope those who cared for him are forever broken hearted. No disrepect to the late and Great Dr. King.

 "Begin thus from the first act, and proceed; and, in conclusion, at the ill which thou hast done, be troubled, and rejoice for the good." Pythagoras

☯ Hallelujah

Be troubled

and rejoice for the good.

Speechless today...☯

☮ American Beauty.

Dear New York City...

Published: September 11, 2005
Spalding Gray, the actor and monologuist, died in 2004. The following letter, which he wrote in the aftermath of 9/11, appeared in "Life Interrupted," a published version of the monologue he was working on at the time of his death. 

Dear New York City...
By Spalding Gray

For 34 years I lived with you and came to love you. I came to you because I loved theater and found theater everywhere I looked. I fled New England and came to Manhattan, that island off the coast of America, where human nature was king and everyone exuded character and had big attitude. You gave me a sense of humor because you are so absurd.

When we were kids, my mom hung a poster over our bed. It had a picture of a bumblebee, and under the picture the caption read:

"According to all aerodynamic laws, the bumblebee cannot fly because its body weight is not in the right proportion to its wingspan. But ignoring these laws, the bee flies anyway."

That is still New York City for me.




What a night, huh?

☯ Requiem for a Dream

But ignoring these laws

the bee flies anyway.

Please Please Please Let it Be True.

Bravely done, Mr. President. Bravely done... Now please let it be over.

☯ Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want.

Bravely done.

Manchild

I love how playful The Boy is with our dog.

The way he crawls on the floor to sneak up on him when he's just laying there.
The way he chases him around the apartment.
The physicality of a full grown man (after all, The Boy is in fact 37 years old) and a full grown American Pit Bull Terrier playing with each other, one with no fear that he may be accidentally scraped or grazed by a claw or tooth, the other fully aware that he must pull back on his own outrageous strength to avoid hurting the man he loves more than anything else in the world - it's Fucking Precious.

My Boys. Who cares if neither one of them has any interest in balancing the checkbook...

☯ The Man with the Child in His Eyes

 

He will be yours

faithful and true

to the last beat of his heart.