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1998 september
1998 september
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1998 september 1998 september
2 september another person from the office i work in died today. that makes two this month. i never realized customer service had such a high mortality rate. i'm not surprised.
5 september life is such a slippery, goopy mess these days, or does it just seem that way? time passes so fast and sleep is always scarce. where does all my spare time go? am i squandering it somewhere? somehow? yes. eight hours a day, at work. being shouted and whined at by homo sapiens with unverifiable and insignificant tales about their disharmonious existances which pile up about as high as a hill of beans, limas, on the relativity scale. but i'm not here to rant. and sleep sounds very appealing tonight. maybe someday i'll have enough energy to write about something slightly interesting and worthwhile. until then, life will just have to continue on at its merry pace and drag us behind, gurgling in its turbulent, bubbly wake.
8 september i've been salvaging old stuff off my computer. here's an article i wrote years ago for a quarterly called "Breakthrough" for people with osteogenesis imperfecta. Jezebel's Skeleton Closet Welcome to the eccentric dimension. If outrageous things shock you please stop reading now. This column's purpose is to reflect the essence of people with OI by means of catharsis. We all know catharsis is a healthy purging of emotion. It's like drinking a good cup of strong coffee. Maybe here we can learn how people with OI act in everyday life. We'll ponder our functions as basic human beings. We all know what we're like from a medical perspective, or in the rare disease research department. But what are OI people really like? How do they go to the bathroom? What do they eat? How are their sex lives? Are they spiritual? What do they drink? Are they optimistic, pessimistic or some other kind of -istic? Why do they smile so much? What's their sun sign? How do "normal" people treat them? Since OI is a very rare disorder, disorderly answers to the previous questions are permitted. You may respond if you want. My responses are: Very carefully. Plants. Up and down. Pagan. Liquids. Masochistic. It's genetic. Scorpio. Most normal people think I'm psychologically stable and have it all together. That's a laugh! After 32 years in this decadent incarnation--this body of mine, I have yet to physically touch another OI person. If it weren't for Sally Jessy Raphael or Breakthrough I wouldn't have even seen a picture of one. This is no one's fault, it just hasn't happened yet. Last year I bought a plane ticket and paid my admission to go to the OI conference. I wanted to see for myself what other OI people were like and if they really did exist, or if it was just trick photography. I wanted to judge for myself if they were like me in body, mind and spirit. But fate had different plans. A week before the trip I fell from my wheelchair and broke my legs. I cancelled the flight. So here I am, waiting for the next big meeting and still wondering if other people with OI are as freaky as me, or if I truly am a freak among freaks. Don't be offended when I say the word freak. I define freak as, "a pleasantly unique and extraordinary representative of its species." I don't think it's a derogatory term at all. However, I don't think garlic is bad either. Many people retreat from garlic with fear and disgust. This is a mistake. Garlic should be respected and admired as a gift sent directly from the goddess of good taste. Garlic is a magical herb. It's savored by people who are truly in touch with Earth's natural wonders. But back to freaks. What do they do all day? Do they just sit around and act weird? I don't ... usually. I go out and interact with all my normal friends and do all those normal-people things just like they do. I eat too much. I drink too much. I sleep too much. That sounds normal to me. I do act abnormal sometimes. I always seem to be on the fringe of society. I freak-uently wonder to myself, "Is this a human thing to be so bizarre or is it an OI thing? Are other OI people eccentric like me?" I've always been odd. My parents mainstreamed me from day one. They thought it would help me get normal. I can remember the 1960s, and mom and dad leaving me at some misery-type church nursery-thing while they went to Sunday services. It was one of those places where screaming children run amok. I hated those kids. I just wanted to find some corner and crawl into it. I didn't want to hide because I felt like a freak. I wanted to hide because all the other kids were such weirdos. They were so childish! All they wanted to do was be violent and chase each other around. Why couldn't they just calm down? As I grew older I tried to fit in. I freak-uently lingered with the snotty-nosed kids who got in trouble during recess at school. We were the freaky group, good and bad, smart and dumb, disabled and abled. I was not an outcast. I had many friends. They were always nearby to help me do things like get my wheelchair up the curb or rescue me from some nearby imminent danger. I had a wonderful childhood. It was definitely unique. I lived in a funeral home. I found all kinds of crazy stuff to do there. I believe it helped me get a really good perspective on things like life and death. As I matured I went to high school and blah blah. I did all the normal things with all the normal kids. We went to movies, spent the night at each other's houses, laughed together and cried together. My friends liked me because I was me. They liked me because I was intelligent and fun, but they also liked me because I was a freak. I was one of the few freaks they knew. I'm sure I made some sort of impression on their lives. I hope I showed them how to act around other disabled people in the future. After high school I moved away from home and went to college. Independence ... wow. I knew things would be different, but this was beyond my wildest expectations. I opened my body and mind to receive as much of this new lifestyle as possible. I got involved with a whole new circle of friends. My old high school buddies wrote me off as totally weird and too outrageous to associate with. I discovered the punk scene. I utilized the drug scene. I lived with many different roommates and housemates during my collegiate career. All this time the people I mingled with were more and more freaky in the eyes of society. College was a ten-year experience for me. It was just too much fun to stop. I dropped out and in of various universities until I finally acquired so many hours and credits of college time that I just ended up with a degree and had no choice but to graduate. I discovered my sexuality during those years. I noticed that more and more of my friends were not heterosexual. I again found myself among freaks. Gay is not a perverse term to me either. As the years passed I realized I was not like most people in the way I perceived the world. Then the AIDS thing happened. Many of my friends became ill. I volunteered at a local AIDS network. I knew how to live with my disability. I helped others learn to live with theirs. We suffered together. We faced death together. I was hopelessly stranded in the land of the living as I watched too many friends die. I almost died too. My malady stemmed from a blend of empathy and lousy bones. But I survived. My soul emerged in a purple light. So here I am in St. Augustine. I spin with a new circle of friends. I realize now all these circles are parts of a larger and lovelier spiral. I have young friends and old friends, some are straight and some are gay, some are abled and some are disabled. Others are just plain strange. They are all wonderful. I still haven't met anyone else with OI. I continue to drift in a luminous sea of obscurity. The point I'm trying to make is that I'm glad to be on the fringe of society. This is where I want to remain. I'm getting old and fat and my teeth are crumbling away. I wouldn't, or couldn't, be normal if you paid me. But I wonder, do other people with OI feel all these things? ---------------------------------------- ----------- long winded in my younger years. that was a seemingly endless soap opera wasn't it? sorry to bore. it just goes to show, even the milktoast does eventually come out.
9 september here's another bejeweled corpse from the salvage pile. this really happened during one of my satanic migraines. as soon as i was able, i used my dad's word processor (i was staying with my parents at the time) to write down everything as i remembered it. PAGEANT I had a vision. I've never before experienced anything like it. This was not a dream. I went to bed late one night, thinking about a friend of mine who is very ill--dying. I began to sleep and a peaceful calmness came over me. I found myself in a large chamber, like a room in a museum, with a group of about 20-30 other people--all different nationalities and ages--but all related and alike in some way. We all knew each other. We communicated without really speaking. The lights dimmed, a calm aura enveloped us. We all felt very relaxed and we all waited eagerly, anticipating an upcoming ordeal--like a show of some kind. Music began--a calm, relaxing sort of flute music--Eastern, Oriental, Indian-like. We were all dressed in plush, sateen cloth in colors of black and gold, and green or blue velveteen. We all wore different styles, some dresses, some pants and shirts, some kimono; I wore a large blue-green blouse that went to my knees and loose black pants with black slippers. Music continued. The chamber we occupied became dark and warm. Then a floor show with actors in colorful make-up and costumes highlighted with spotlights began. People in our group joined in. The show became a performance, it included several different scenes--all accented with the lively flute-like music and Oriental strings. The scenes were mystical, poetic, engrossing, they carried our group of audience/participants with them, like a tide carries a raft--naturally flowing from scene to scene. Dancing figures turned the performance into a pageant. I feel I can remember every detail exactly as it happened--action by action, movement by movement. But I can't. The whole vision was like a roller-coaster ride. Every scene was followed by another more fascinating one. Every event was mystical, telling a story--like Indian legend. I only remember one scene with clarity. It was like a dance--a dance of death--with several characters/dancers. The scene was choreographed with frantic but tranquil movements. The dancers were scantily clad--mostly loin cloths. They had voodoo-style jewelry and make-up. It was a lively dance of death, with many ceremonial steps and movements. The main character was shaven-headed and strong-boned, he had glistening bronze skin embellished with bone jewelry. He performed a dance celebrating what seemed like a death ritual, and I'm not sure, but I think he died at the end. We all danced with him, it was very ceremonial. This dance was the climax of my vision. After that dance, I think a few more scenes took place and then the ritual ended. At the end, all of the participants--the original 20-30 of us--were left speechless. I felt invigorated, but paralyzed. After the performance, people filed out, just like at the end of a movie, but we were all emotionally and spiritually changed. We had gone through a group experience of the deepest kind--like a spiritual orgy. The lights stayed dim. The chamber remained dark. I found myself alone again; alone like I had been at the beginning, but I had not experienced this pageant alone. That group of 20-30 people became a spiritual family during the performance and we will always be a part of each other. I know if any of us meet, in this or any other world, we will recognize each other and remember what we experienced that night. I remember being with one person in particular through the whole event. I don't remember what he looked like, but he was older than I and he was wise, this was not his first experience of this sort. He was a companion to me who assured my safety through the journey. But he was merely a participant also. After the pageant he disappeared with everyone else--discussing and reliving what happened with the others as they faded into the darkness. When everyone was gone I found myself sitting alone in the dark. I sat at the edge of my bedroom--lost--I wanted to be back in the group. I didn't know where I was. I collapsed in a chair--euphoric.
10 september 12:45p today the nose piece on my specs finally broke off. i've been expecting it to happen any day now. so instead of fixing a sandwich for work later i went to the eyeglass repair shop (lucky to live downtown where things are near i suppose) and dropped them off for a fix. they are supposed to be ready for me to pick them up a half hour before i go to work. i guess things could be worse. i have my dark glasses as backup so i'm typing this stuff sort of in the dark. it seems everytime i come here to write something i get sidetracked with trying to improve this site and lose my writing time learning html, etc. hopefully, in the future this too will pass as i get more familiar to this dimension, this most cobbed of zones.
11 september ...more from the salvage pile. or back to my past-lives. as the saga continues... "We know how to give our whole life everyday." A. Rimbaud Rimbaud died relatively young. He suffered when he lived, but he knew more about life than he knew about death, so he struggled to be able to suffer. He knew how to give his whole life everyday. His life was not wasted, he left art in the form of words for succeeding generations to read and contemplate. It was visionary art. Visionary art is a technique that involves the reader's imagination and creativity. It is an art that can be interpreted in ways limited only by the imagination of the reader. What does this art do for anyone? Does it make life easier to face? Or does it simply involve the reader's imagination in mindless deliberation, which consequently forces him to temporarily forget his own useless attempts at making some sense out of existence? Most of us don't know where to begin to think about unknowns like death or suffering. Artists throughout history have continually approached these subjects, only to end up more puzzled than they were when they began. They end their creations in questions, or images of confusion. Some end in suicide. The answers to questions about death are only found in death. The only way to find the truth about something is to experience it, or to hear of someone else's experience. Everyone wants to know more about death, but no one wants to die. It's a dilemma that is solved in one way, but to solve it is to succumb to it, and to succumb is to fail, because once one is dead one has no way to communicate the answer to the ones that most dearly want to know it: the living. So how is it possible to describe death? The only way is to illustrate it from the point of view of the living. Death is the cessation of life, it is the absolute end as we know it. For this reason it is feared. It is feared because the result is the decay of flesh into dust. Dust swirls and disappears in the wind, leaving no remnant of what it was before. Death is a fact. It is a fact of life. Death cannot happen without life. But life cannot exist without the fact of death, just as light cannot exist without dark. If there were no such thing as dark, then light would not be required. If there were no such thing as death, then life would not be needed. We must die in order to live. We must suffer in order to know pleasure. If a person did not know pain, then he would not appreciate the absence of it. Pain is required for pleasure. Death is required for life. We know how to give our whole life everyday. Most of us still haven't learned how to give death a place in our life. To die is to enter the unknown, alone, and many times unprepared. The question should not be, "What is death?" The question should be, "What should I do to prepare for death?" Rimbaud prepared himself for his death because he saw it coming. Death did not take his life. He gave his life to death, he knew how to give his life. He knew how to give his whole life. He used his visionary talent to prepare himself for the unknown, and he left these visions behind to be contemplated. What is left behind by the dying should be carefully considered. It does make death--and life--easier to face. The person closest to death is the person that understands it most clearly. The person that has suffered the most is the person that understands pain--and pleasure--the most. Life is not fair, and death is not fair, but they are reality. Reality is so hard. Reality is so hard, and death is a final relief to the intensity of reality. So 1987 dies here, and 1988 is born. --- 12-31-1987
11 september my glasses are repaired. death and rebirth. i can see again. i've realized these old journal entries have formed an actual story of their own. and i'm telling it here. i see now why i wrote them down as they were happening years ago. at the time i think i often wondered why. --------------------- eulogy 1989 Maud didn't want a big fuss over his death. He put his energy into living, because he knew that death comes for all, and it's unavoidable. Arthur Rimbaud wrote: "We know how to give our whole life every day." Maud did that. He didn't hold back, in his actions or in his feelings. He gave his whole life--every day. Sure, he wanted to live longer, but he had no regrets when he died. His life was short, but it was full, because he didn't waste any of it. We should all learn from this. Don't wait 'till it's too late. Rimbaud wrote mostly about life and death. Two pieces in Rimbaud's writings make good elegies for Maud, as well as others who lived and died on this earth--others like Maud, who lived their lives to the fullest. The first is about life: O Seasons, O Castles What soul is without blame? O seasons, O castles, I carried out the magic study Of happiness that no one eludes. Oh! may it live long, each time The Gallic cock grows. But I will have no more desires, It has taken charge of my life. That charm! it took my soul and body, And dispersed every effort. What can be understood from my words? It makes them escape and fly off! O seasons, O castles! --A.R. The second is about death, Departure Seen enough. The vision met itself in every kind of air. Had enough. Noises of cities in the evening, in the sunlight, and forever. Known enough. The haltings of life. Oh! Noises and Visions. Departure into new affection and sound. --A.R. --------------------- grad school exercise circa 1989 Funerals help people face death as a fact of life. Funerals have served the purpose of helping people realize the finality of death throughout history. This can be seen in the following examples. Most survivors of the deceased see the body in a formal service (the funeral) after the death. Even if the body is mangled beyond recognition from some horrible accident or violent murder, the casket is still there. Sometimes the casket is never opened, but its presence is a symbol of the dead body. This helps the survivors realize the person is indeed dead. If the deceased died a death of little trauma, the service is usually held with the casket open. When the casket is open, the body is in full view for all to see. The dead body somewhat resembles the person when he or she was alive, but it is noticeably different. This different appearance is another reminder that the person is dead. Survivors grieve at the funeral. This grief is natural and it is expressed in many different ways. Some people grieve quietly, they do not show many outward signs. Some people simply cry. But some people really grieve. More emphatic expressions of grief can range from wailing and shouting to actually swooning and losing consciousness. This emotional release, however it is expressed, serves as a form of catharsis. Catharsis, or purging of emotion, is very important for survivors of the deceased. Catharsis is a method of helping people recover from the depression they suffer after the death of a loved one. The act of crying, or wailing, or fainting is still another way the survivor faces death. A final reminder to the survivors of deceased individuals is the bill from the mortuary. Some funerals can be quite costly. If the family buys a solid copper casket and a steel vault to bury their loved one in, the cost can be in the thousands of dollars. On the other hand, if the casket is a simple pine box covered with some inexpensive material, the cost is not extremely high. The cost, whatever it may be, is sometimes the final real-world reminder that your friend or loved one has indeed died (along with a portion of your savings). --------------- Snapshots --1990 Last night's dream returned today like a photograph developing before me in brilliant flashes of color. The day was sunny and hot. I was plodding through Lincolnville, returning from the almighty food stamp dispensary, when I saw three little children ramble across the road. The kids were cute, dark-skinned with chocolate-colored hair. Two toddling boys with wide eyes trailed behind their slightly older sister. She stuck close to her mother. It looked as if mom needed a quiet respite under some large shade tree. The scene conjured up a picture of Maudey.Spawned in the Bahamas, Maudey and his brother came to the States as small children. In the photo they stood gazing at the camera, solemn but not quite dissatisfied. They held hands in front of their gray house, a shack in South Florida. Two decades later the photo was faded and crumpled. Maudey discovered it one night in a scrap book. He immediately phoned to tell me he had a surprise. He sped across town and made his presentation. This was his life. As he described the scene in the picture, memories of his early days came flooding back. That snapshot sparked energy I rarely saw in Maudey. For the rest of the night he talked and talked about his youth. The tales reflected a life full of adventures, both good and bad. That night he established his history. It was a tiny window into his past. I met Maudey about a year before he discovered the picture. We became very close very quickly. We instantly found a rapport that surprised and elated us both. We shared a bowl of ice cream at Baskin Robbins, and from that moment on we existed like lovers or sisters or brothers exist. We shared a beneficial relationship. We were bi-beneficial. We shared our strengths and our weaknesses. We shared our complaints. We shared our compliments. We were bi-complimentary. We were alike in many ways. We were bisexual--but we never did sex--with each other. We respected each other too much to mess up with sex with each other. We were both messed up enough. We were bi-afflicted. I had osteogenesis imperfecta and he had acquired immune deficiency syndrome. I had lousy bones and he had a failing immune system. My worst enemy was gravity and his was infection. I got shorter and he got thinner. But his problems progressed much faster than mine. Life for him became sickness and malady at increasing velocity. His illnesses piled one on top of the other. On Christmas day Maudey's lung spontaneously collapsed. At first it was just another pain in his chest, and he ignored it. We had dinner with the children at my brother's house, and wound up the day with a VCR video. We watched Bruce Wayne transform into Batman. Then I watched Maudey transform. He spent the rest of his life in a vicious automatic revolving door, checking in and checking out of the hospital. Every stay was more difficult. He developed a hatred for hospitals. A month later it happened again. I sat with his mom in the emergency waiting room. I held her hand while she cried. "I'm afraid he's not going to make it this time," she sobbed. "He can hardly breath." The doctors planted a tube in Maudey's side to keep him alive. It snaked through his rib cage like a serpent. It made sudsy gurgling sounds as it bubbled. It was a beast growing from his body, increasing the torment. He coughed a pitifully weak gasp every few seconds. The doctors prescribed dilaudid to ease the pain. Dilaudid is like an opiate. Maudey drifted in and out of reality. He withered like a flower stuck in a vase. His words started to stop making sense. From time to time, however, his eyes opened and sparked clear. In the end he suffered so much I urged him to die. His eyes snapped open and he looked straight into my eyes. He was fully conscious and fully aware of the state he was in. "Remember that old picture you found? Remember how happy it made you? You told me then the way you wanted to die. You told me you hoped you would just go to sleep. It's time to do that now," I said. "It's time to slip into that sleep. It's time to end the suffering." He looked at me with exasperation. He knew what he had to do. But he wouldn't do it at the hospital. He just couldn't die there. Maudey did not die at the hospital. His mom got permission to remove the tubes and wires and we took him home. He died quietly the next morning in his own bed. But last night Maudey returned. He came into my room like a vision and sat on the side of my bed. He was vital and whole, glowing with passionate strength. "I couldn't stay gone without letting you know," he intoned. "Your care at the end of my life helped me go. Just like you were there to help me transcend, I will always be here for you, my best friend." Maudey went away again. I remained alone again. I knew it was forever again. Now I'm not so sure.
14 september so far today has been blah. i got e-mail letting me know my submission failed to open pages due to technical difficulties. everything looks good on my end. so i guess i just have to be an outsider as usual until i get the technical problems resolved. i hate computers. i thought getting web tv would simplify things, but i forgot to take into account the fact that you still have to interact w/other computers until they upgrade from their current "model-T" phase. the worst thing about it is most people still think computers are the cutting edge of technology. being an outsider is my normal way of life, so it's not a problem. actually, i prefer it that way. but back to my day. i was hoping to start it on a hopeful note to get me in a good mood to prepare for my dr. appt. tomorrow. i'm going to a dermatologist to get my skin cancer examined. i was supposed to go about a year ago but i guess i got busy. or maybe i had a serious case of denial. either way, i'm about a year behind in getting to the dr. to attend to this matter. maybe i was hoping i would get lucky and get killed by something else before i had to deal with something like melanoma. i have a spot on the bridge of my nose and lately noticed small spots on my shoulder. probably results of this wonderful oahu sunshine. now i remember why i like rainy weather so much. anyway i wanted to be in a good mood so i don't worry about silly things like mortality. maybe someday....
15 september i have cancer. no news there. it's just been verified by a dermatologist, that's all. so i'm gonna go get it scraped off/excised/exorcized sept 25 by a plastic surgeon no less. the dermatologist (dr. matsunaga) recommended it to preserve my beauty. she said it wouldn't spread and engulf the rest of my body. i guess it's up to some other sort of disaster to eventually do me in. maybe i will last till the end of the millennium after all. i really don't think many of us will last after that. y2k will do us in. too many life threatening devices out there to diffuse them all before 2000. i just learned that russia has admitted they have aging nuclear power plants that haven't even been checked for y2k, much less corrected. ha. serves those humans right. that's what they get for playing with things they can't control. i wonder if anything at all will survive. or will we go by way of the atlanteans? just disappear without a trace. it doesn't really matter. i'm sure we're not the first species to destroy ourselves out of sheer stupidity, and we probably won't be the last. but now at least it looks as if i might survive till then to see it happen. this is one event i don't wanna miss. armageddon, the final episode.
19 september ok, i'm admitted to the ring now. now all i have to do is stop making stupid technical mistakes and i might result in a readable website. time will tell i guess. so far i've only made about 8,000 stupid mistakes. what's that called, learning by doing? --------------- this site is now officially open. my cat (ume prudence) is celebrating the event by sitting on the table. i don't know why. after a few billion screw-ups i'm finally officially publishing these sometimes old and moldy words. eventually however, i will run out of clips and scraps to post and the rest will depend on what i produce at the time. this experiment may now go forth. if nothing more than sheer space occupation by useless data results, then at least one thing will have happened--one more useless crowded assemblage of alphabetical characters.
20 september today the moon is new. i've been working off and on, mostly on, all day on this silly site. now it's much easier to get from page to page and also i now have a working guestbook. for some reason the first one i had didn't work. i wondered why no one was signing it. i thought nobody liked me. well it works now. so maybe if someone signs it they won't get frustrated by a message that says "you failed." i wonder if i created any enemies by having a disfunctional address book? that would be funny.
21 september this entry moved to asylum22 september well, i did it again. i spent all my journal time on changing things at this silly site. i only have time to paste in this excerpt from years ago. ............. Tuesday -- 21 April, 1992 -- 10:32am
st. agustine, fl The weather today is wonderful. It's my favorite. It's cloudy, gray, damp, muggy and threatening rain. I hope it rains all day. It will be proof that Astarte, the wonderful watery fertility goddess that the Phoenician princess Jezebel worshipped, still weeps tears of joy. But who was Astarte? In The Witches' Goddess, she is said to be, "first known as Inanna by the Sumerians; early in the second millenium BC she became Ishtar of the Assyrians and Babylonians; and later she became known to Phoenicians as Astarte." The book further says that, "In all her forms, Ishtar [Astarte] was a very complete goddess, embracing both the bright and the dark aspects, and this is reflected in the variety of fathers, brothers and consorts attributed to her. As a goddess of love and benevolence, she was said to be the daughter of the sky god Anu and the fertility goddess Anat, and was associated with the fertility god Min. As a battle goddess, she was daughter of the Moon god Sin and associated with the slayer god Reshef. "Over the centuries, she took over many of Sin's lunar attributes, becoming in fact a Moon goddess. . . . "Her consorts were the supreme god Assur, who was also a war god; or Marduk, god of the Spring Sun, originally a vegetation god, or Nebo, god of writing and speech. And, of course, Tammuz, the dying and resurrecting vegetation god. . . . She had many lovers, and the Gilgamesh epic tells how the hero paid dearly for spurning the advances of so powerful a goddess. . . . "In addition to her Moon aspect, she was the planet Venus, as both Morning and Evening Star; the Zodiacal belt was known as the Girdle of Ishtar. Her symbol was the eight-pointed star and also a loop-headed symbol rather like a comet. She was typically represented full face, naked but richly ornamented, elaborately coiffed and often crowned by a crescent with a jewel in the middle, and with her hands clasping her breasts from underneath. . . . "Her cult animal was the lion and, in her dark, Underworld aspect, sometimes the scorpion. "As a fertility goddess, she was often depicted with flowers, branches or grain or dispensing water from a never-failing jar. "Water, whether nourishing or overwhilming, was very much associated with Ishtar [Astarte], the Biblical Flood story is a revision of the Ishtar one. She inherited it from an earlier Babylonian Moon goddess, Nuah, whose name, masculinized, is the obvious root of Noah. Tom Robbins, author of Skinny Legs and All, says Astarte was, "virgin, bride, mother, prostitute, witch, and hanging judge, all swirled into one. She had more phases than the moon. She knew the dark side of the moon like the palm of her hand. She shopped there. Robbins goes on to say that, "Because the Goddess was changeable and playful, because she looked upon natural chaos as lovingly as she did natural order, because her warm feminine intuition was often at odds with cool masculine reason, because the uterine magic of her daughters had since the dawn of consciousness overshadowed the penis power of her sons, resentful priests of a tribe of nomadic Hebrews led a coup against her some four thousand years ago--and most of what we know as Western civilization is the result. . . . "Incidently," says Robbins, "Astarte's Hebrew appellation--Ashtoreth--is mentioned in the Bible only thrice. In carefully patriarchal incarnations, the Goddess does appear in Scripture as Eve and the Virgin Mary (the one a wily temptress, the other an asensual, passive vehicle); John refers to her as the whore of Babylon, identified with the fornicating "Beast" whom the innocent, nonorgasmic "Lamb" will defeat in the battle that climaxes history." Astarte, rain on me today. Deliver me anew with your liquid motherhood.24 september key west is all i can think about at the moment. its been on my mind all day. i checked on the weather map and all of the keys are blanketed by a hurricane. i've only been there once. i drove there from tampa as a vacation celebration after graduation from my overextended college try at education. it was a nice place. except for the fact that i got food poisoning from scallops i had at a restaurant in key largo. i stayed at a small motel in key west after spending half of forever trying to find a wheelchair accessible room. i spent the rest of my week there having a migraine and basically being miserable. but i enjoyed it. i had a great time. really. i remember it as not appearing to be built very sturdy. lots of rickety lumber and 2x4's holding things together. i hope it survives this hurricane. i'm having disturbing premonitions.
25 september am i stupid or what? today i went to the surgeon who i've never even met before and expected him to slice a tumor off my face immediately, without even a consultation. well today i came back to reality when i met the surgeon. he scheduled the actual operation for next wednesday. of course he couldn't do it immediately. today i just did preop stuff. i have to wait 5 more days for the real thing. i went to the lab to give a blood sample. the vampire who did the actual vein draining was a young philipine woman. she never looked at me, or even hardly talked, at the beginning. as she was preparing the needle i broke the silence and asked, "what's your name?" she showed me her name tag and meekly uttered her name. "nice to meet you," i said. "i'm sorry," she said as she continued her job and pierced my arm with the needle. my blood drained into the test tube. "sorry for what?" i asked, purposefully not wincing from the pain. "sorry to hurt you." she said. "i like the pain." her eyes jumped from the needle and she looked into my eyes for the first time. "what? why?" she had a very puzzled look on her face. "it reminds me i'm alive." i said. "it breaks the monotony of the day.
28 september my dr's office left a message on my voicemail. my appointment to get my nose chopped off is cancelled. so now i have to try to get my work schedule fixed again. this is ridiculous. it's enough to have to live through surgery. but to have it cancelled at the last minute and rescheduled? jeez. why don't they just put me to sleep with the rest of the sick puppies and get it over with?
30 september this is the end. the end of this month, my friend. this is the end of september. the end.
i've almost lost this month in cyberspace more than once. this is my first real complete month to finish on a website, if indeed i do ever finish and get it all saved one last time. i've not really said a lot this month. but a lot has been recorded and that's the main point of this site i suppose. maybe some day i'll really say something. maybe.
