greatest possible news

I'm going to have a nephew! He's arriving in late January!! They've got some great technology these days. You can see the baby so clearly now.

My niece Jenna is going to be in Northern Cali for the better part of October, so there'll probably be quite a few new pictures that you'll have to scroll through. I mean, come on.

Can you blame me?

the universe is conspiring for you

Went to a Rob Brezny reading last night, and man that guy is wacky good. The whole thing was basically one long poem/performance art piece. He is fun! I bought his new book, Pronoia Is The Antidote For Paranoia. It's full to the brim with different ways to wake yourself up and those around you. After the reading, I totally wanted to say, "Hey, I think my housemate is dating your sister." Which is true, but I thought that might seem kinda creepy so I kept my mouth shut. He asked us to write down what pained us on a piece of white paper and drop it in this big cauldron. He said he would go to the beach at a later time and burn them all. Then he asked us to write down on a yellow piece of paper how we might practice pronoia and then pin the pieces of paper to his lab coat! It was a funny sight. He wears the lab coat because he has this whole thing about being in the "Beauty and Truth Lab." He loves to dream up new ways of bringing positivity to people. But always with humor. One thing I loved is that he said that no one is immune to fundamentalism, including religious zealots AND hippies. This caused a bit of a stir in a room full of people wearing hemp headscarves and casually talking about their chakras. I so loved that! Not that I consider myself one of them, but we've got to be able to look and laugh at ourselves.

Just some things I noted from last night:

Do you realize you can actually listen a person's soul into existence? The teacher Richard Moss says, "The greatest gift you can give another is the purity of your attention."

"If something is not beautiful, it can't be true." - John Keats

"Until you have loved, you cannot become yourself." - Emily Dickinson

There is a sour, puckered mass hallucination that is mistakenly called reality.

Beautiful truths are suspect; ugly truths are readily believed.

Write a love letter to the person you will be in one year. Outline in detail three great things you will accomplish in that time.

I'm not afraid of running out of love

You are your own guru, you hear your own pain. You save your own life, you are your own wife.

Just lots of happy-feel-good stuff. And why not? We don't celebrate enough. We don't point our fingers at the folly of this world and burst out laughing enough.

Another thing he touched on is something I've been thinking a lot about. In storytelling, we seem to think that devastation and corruption are the most interesting. So many of our dramas are based on that. It's true that conflict is what moves a story along, but conflict simply means confrontation, and that doesn't have to be a bad thing. Storytelling can be more interesting if we dig deeper and look at the growth that can come from conflict. I don't think that any of the plays I've written thus far are good enough to be produced, and it may be because I haven't delved into these aspects of conflict enough. My stories could be richer if I allow my characters to see both the light and dark sides of conflict, whether or not it includes resolution, and whether the confrontation is happening with the self, with loved ones, or with people they don't know.

Well, just some thoughts for today.

goodbye to grandma

I don't spend much time with my family. In fact I barely see them or talk to them. The relationships are so complicated I couldn't even get into it here, and you don't want to hear about the details anyway. But this weekend was very interesting, and eye-opening.

Man, saying a final goodbye to Grandma was hard. She was the most compassionate and loving Grandma ever. I never really knew her as a woman, just as Grandma, you know? But she provided such a safe and loving place for my brother and I to be, I will never be able to thank her enough for that.

The whole thing really got me to thinking about relationships. My great aunt Lorraine made a short speech in which she said that June, my Grandma, was not only the best sister-in-law ever, but a great friend. When it was her turn to drop a handful of dirt over grandma's urn, she said simply, "Goodbye June." This touched me more than I would have ever expected. The whole thing was so simple, and yet so true. Lorraine and June were friends for 55 years. My Grandpa and June were spouses and friends for over 60 years. Can you imagine?

The tombstone is a double, with room on one side for engraving when my Grandpa goes. At the bottom it says, "Side by side." When my Grandpa did his speech he said, "If you want to know where I'll be for eternity, I'll be right here. Side by side."

Then you had three of June's children there, expressing that she was the best mother anyone could have ever asked for. This was so profound to me. These are real relationships. And it really made me look at my life.

While extremely kind and gentle, I'd never seen my Grandpa break down and show any real emotion until that day. Look at the picture below: Is this not the cutest guy you've ever seen?? My Grandpa is the greatest. You could never meet a kinder soul.

We all had a big lunch afterward, and then retreated to my parents' house. I was having a lot of anxiety, but I tried to relax and take it all in. And hey, wait a cotton-pickin' minute - I had trouble this summer keeping some daisies alive. Why then, I ask, can my mother do this? Especially when the climate she's in is much, much dryer?

Ugh. Also, I wish I had matured as much as my parents' backyard has.
So, I'm thinking that this pretty much sums up my mom. With her perfect yard and her perfect everything, this is her perfect half bathroom. If there is any kind of surface upon which to hang any sort of ribbons or silk flowers or doilies or any manner of lace, my mom will find a way to do it.
I was really glad toward the end of the evening when everyone wound down and we started playing some poker, which is an old tradition in my family. It really took the edge off of the day. Playing poker with old people RULES. They get so into it. We had so much fun.


I spent the money I had, and my dad totally kept giving me more dollars to play with. It's funny how my dad and I can have a couple beers and hang out, and pretend that everything is fine. We've pretty much always been able to do that. This time, I really appreciated that. I can't ever change my dad. He is who he is, with all his limitations. It might be a good idea to try and appreciate what good there is and let him worry about the rest of it. We'll never be my ideal of a good relationship, and he'll never be what most of us think of as a dad. Maybe it's time to just accept that. Why has it taken me all these years to figure that out?

This is one of my more colorful uncles. Check out the shirt. Yeah. This guy is crazy. He was born and largely raised in California, but always hated it. After the war, he headed out east. He found Minnesota and stayed there for the rest of his life. He loves it so much. We have a lot of family roots there, so he's been connected to a whole other faction of the family that I've barely known - the farmers. I asked him if he'd ever leave that area, and he said, "Never. I've got family bones buried in that soil. That means something. It matters to me." Being so non-family-oriented myself, this really struck me. The relationships he has are really important to him.

He's pretty jacked up though. Like so many others, he had some really fucked up experiences in Vietnam, and he's got some problems. There is such an irony in that shirt he's wearing, in this odd pride he still takes in being a Marine. But I guess that's part of the animal that the Marines is. He was homeless for a while, and in very poor health. But, to my surprise, he's developed a close relationship with his cousin Mena in Oregon (who was also there this weekend). Mena has helped him to get help from the VA and he's doing much better. He's realizing that even though his government fucked him over, they can help him now. He's now got a decent place to live and he's gearing up to write a book! He's wicked smart so I can't wait to see what he produces.

I had a good talk with Mena too. She's been single for like 15 years and her sons, while great guys, haven't exactly followed the family agenda. It seems I'm not the only one who sometimes feels like an outsider. We totally bonded! I'm getting her address and am going to write her a letter. I've always really liked her, but never expected her to suddenly open up to me in the middle of my parents' kitchen!

Relationships are sacred. You never know where they're going to pop up. They're complex and rarely easy. And they take a lot of care and maintenance. But look what you could end up with! A 55-year friendship or a 60-year partnership or a trans-generational connection that you can really learn from. I'm glad I went this weekend, and I'm glad I said some goodbyes and some hellos.

labor day weekend recap

So I stayed in town for the holiday weekend. Lots of tourists, but what are you gonna do - (in case you can't tell this woman's "edgy" skirt reads, "Democracy is not a spectator sport.")

Let's see, what did I do. Oh, party. Hangover. Party. Hangover. And some random goings on, like this drag show.

Also, I'm not sure how, but there ended up being an all-night marathon of Settlers of the Stone Age. This game fucking rules. It's a big commitment, it takes a long time to play. But clearly one of the greatest games ever.

One thing that kept us going was this nipple cup.



And so it is with fond memories of ceramic nipples and false eyelashes and bad fashion choices that I leave for what promises to be a very fun trip indeed. Over a year after her death, we will be burying my grandmother's ashes. For this occasion I will be seeing many relatives I haven't seen in a long time, including my mom's three brothers from Coeur d'Alene, Salt Lake City, and Minneapolis. They're all interesting for very different reasons. And seeing as I'm not on speaking terms with my dad, things should be very interesting. Yes. Wish me luck and I'll be back next week.

garbage at the catalyst

So Garbage put on a pretty darn good show - much better than I expected. I am not much of a fan of theirs, but it's clear they've been together for ten years. They walked that fine line of being professional but still knowing how to rock. And some of the lyrics are surprisingly good. Shirley Manson is every inch the rock star. She knows how to dress, how to connect with an audience, and how to spit. In that order. The Scottish accent and the obvious tendency to consume whiskey don't hurt either.

It was apparently an all-ages show. There was only a small pen for the drinkers. We should have brought some other drugs or something. I insisted on getting as drunk as possible before joining the masses. I wish I'd gotten a picture of Shirley's outfit, but I didn't bring my phone. By the way, never bring your phone when you're planning on doing any amount of drinking. I've reached this conclusion from methodical experimentation. Carrying a mobile phone while going out carries the following risks:

1. Drunk dailing
2. Someone will ask to use it and will fail to give it back
3. You'll leave it on top of the toilet in the bathroom, and it'll be gone fifteen minutes later when you actually need it to call a cab
4. There will be an incoming call which you really shouldn't answer but in your state you'll answer it anyway. This conversation will last either 30 seconds or 30 minutes, and either way it will be bad

Anyway, at the Blue afterward, there was a gorgeous band with a CELLO. Can I say how much I love that? Favorite instrument. I have no idea who they were but they were hip in that mellow, not-trying-too-hard way. Sitting at the bar, there was this fratty looking guy (drinking a HAMM'S for fuck's sake) who looked over and tried to have some convo.

Frat Guy: Where do you usually party?
Me: Excuse me?
FG: Do you usually party here?
Me: Uh, sometimes.
FG: Are you a lesbian?
Me: What?
FG: Are you a lesbian?
Me: Ok. We're done here.
FG: Why?
Me: We're done.
FG: But I don't...

And he stumbled off to parts unknown.

And that, my friends, was my Wednesday night.

call the governator!

If you live in California, now is the time for a little action on an historic event. Again from Equality California:

On Monday, September 6, 2005 the California Assembly voted 41 – 35 to pass AB 849, the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, after the California Senate passed it the week before 21 -15. The bill now goes to Governor Schwarzenegger for his signature or veto. He has until October 6, 2005 to make a decision.

We need your help! Please take two minutes and call the Governor’s office and urge that he sign the marriage equality bill: (916) 445-2841.

Theoretically, Arnold is for gay rights and should sign the damn thing. Although that's logic speaking, not politics. At any rate, it's time for the tide to turn.

NEW POLL INDICATES GROWING SUPPORT AMONG LIKELY CALIFORNIA VOTERS FOR MARRIAGE EQUALITY

Sacramento, CA -­ A new Public Policy Institute of California poll indicates that public opinion among likely California voters on whether same-sex couples should be allowed to marry is for the first time ever evenly split. The poll indicates that 46% of the electorate support marriage equality with an equal number opposed.

quote of the week

It's fun to be treated like an idol
For absolutely nothing at all

- Lawsuit