Schools I've attended (to jog your memory in case you knew me when):
Carthage College, Brigham Young University, University of Illinois, San Francisco Art Institute, University of California Berkeley (alma mater), University of California Davis (as a lecturer), Northern Arizona University, Humboldt State University, Mendocino Community College (I was on the staff), Sonoma State University, College of the Redwoods, Dominican University, possibly some others...
Of course, rural misbehavior wasn't unheard of: men who beat their wives, kids, and animals (sometimes to death). No, they weren't "Brought to Justice"; they were rather gently shunned, just as
I was in the most urban cultures, because I wasn't "right" (trying to fit in). But when the 60's rolled around, who-I-had-always-been was now the-person-it-was-fashionable-to-be. The flip-flop in regard to my acceptability quotient was not a major concern, but I did discover that some places are much better than others. When good luck and my motorcycle placed me in the Haight-Ashbury before it became The Haight-Ashbury, I commenced to celebrate "the geographical cure."
A bent for the bizarre helped me make bucks in San Francisco. For example, since 1962 all my cats have ridden on the gas tank and have responded to a variety of commands, about 20 last I counted. My sequential cats have been black, named Lilith (Lie-lith) and have sported earrings. That, buried in
a catalog of various other idiosyncrasies helped me land jobs 1) in show business, 2) as a singer-songwriter-musician, 3) as an artist's model [often with Lilith and/or my motorcycle-riding boa constrictor], 4) as a writer, 5) as an editor in a publication house, 6) as a commercial and fine artist, but most notably I worked 7) shit jobs. UC Berkeley was only $100/quarter, and at the top of the heap academically at the time. Yay!
So after 6 or 7 majors I finally got a degree, only to endure nearly a decade of misery on the Navajo Nation...teaching, of all things (I had no major in education). I found I was the wrong color and this was the wrong culture; I'd done better in San Francisco's Fillmore district and even on Chicago's notorious South Side! I liked kids, but it was hard when they "matured" (at grade 4) and stopped responding. And they stole my cats...a death sentence for the poor cats.
Then I got lucky and started homesteading in the "hills" above Covelo, CA (different res, the right state, and the right Native Americans). Dangerous? Violent? I suppose, but it was wonderful! Only one person could have dragged me off of it: my ex-husband. John had become a psychiatrist...a drunk one, but still the crazy guy I was/am nuts about. He's the funniest and most fascinating (yet modest too!) person I've ever known. Drunk or sober, he was excellent at his profession, but he was tough on me and the kids as only a drunk can be. Twenty years ago he shitcanned his two worst physically- devastating habits (drinking/smoking) and proceded to cap his career by specializing in substance abuse (He knew!) and multiple personality disorder.
And the kids? They turned out great anyway, not to say it didn't take a while. They value hard work, they make use of their considerable gifts, and they're good to us, better than we deserve.
Life of Brian (Monty Python)
The Meaning of Life (Monty Python)
Anne of the Thousand Days (accurate)
Every Man for Himself and God Against All
(Werner Herzog...subtitles)
Eraserhead (weirdest movie I've ever seen!)
Harold and Maude
Marjoe
Jules and Jim (Truffaut...subtitles)
The Seventh Seal (Bergman...subtitles)
The Virgin Spring (Bergman...subtitles)
Polyester (John Waters, starring Devine)
Pink Flamingoes (John Waters, starring Devine)
Irizumi (Japanese...subtitles)
Brave Heart (excellent, but not accurate)
Rob Roy (excellent, but not accurate)
Freaks
Webshots
ICQ
Panicware pop-up blocker
Jean Ritchie
Ewan MacColl
Pentangle (non-jazz works)
Steeleye Span
bibliomania
eatbug
drbukk
rotten
puzzlemaker
