MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

You Gotta Laugh Some of the Time, Or You'll Be Crying All of the Time

Oh my little blog peeps, right about now you're probably
wondering, where oh where has MadameBastet's sanity gone?
She's really gone off the deep end o' the tepid pool this time.
Ranting and raving about doctors and her country...even ranting
on Steve Kilbey's blog! Ah, I gotta apologise, life got the better of
me for a bit earlier today. At the end of the day, I stepped in gum,
and started laughing hysterically. It was just so fitting.

You see, I'm going back to school for the second time after
high school. This is hard for me. I was all nestled in my comfort
zone, teaching art history to petulant, rude college students, but
I couldn't get a full-time job and I couldn't take not knowing
whether I'd have one class or three from semester to semester
anymore. But because I love teaching and believe strongly in
education and the need for good, dedicated teachers, I decided
to go and get my credential. I just never imagined in a million
years all the hoops I'd have to jump through - just to be accepted
into a credential program! I haven't even started it yet. Take this
test. Take those tests. Take these classes, but not before taking those
classes. Take this test after that class. And if you don't read Mr.
Kilbey's blog (shame on you) I found out today that I'm going to
have to be fingerprinted AGAIN just to become a substitute
teacher. This will be the third time I've done this. And they make
you pay for the application to get fingerprinted, they make you pay
to get fingerprinted...pay pay pay. I'm really not independently
wealthy. My trip to Chicago has been generously financed by a grant
from the Mom Foundation...because I think she knows this is
important to me, and she knows I need a break before starting the
Grind. Plus she probably figures it's an early Christmas present too.
REALLY early. ;)

I had a mandatory meeting today at CSUN (the college I will be
attending the next two years, please learn and remember this, haha).
It was OK; I knew I wasn't going to learn anything new, but I went
because I had to. Which reminds me, I need to order my textbooks,
which I can do online! That's pretty cool. The less contact I have with
the public, the happier I am. My but I sound so anti-social! I just
need to remember the kids. The kids. My kids from my school last
semester. I looked at their pictures again and I thought, this is why
I'm doing this. And again with my stubborn personality. Go ahead -
throw more obstacles in my way. Make me jump through hoops!
Start bringing out the clowns, put up the tent. Oh it's a circus all right.
But that just makes me all the more determined to get that credential
if it's the last thing I do!

Sure, I might end up in an insane asylum after all is said and done,
but I'll be ready to teach after a few months in a straightjacket, I'm
sure. I've had desk jobs/office jobs/what have you. I was a music
publicist. I worked at Disney. I can't take it. It's just my personality.
I gotta keep moving. I gotta be interacting with people. Learning and
education are two of my favourite things in the world. And I don't care
how someone educates themselves. Broadening your horizons via
reading, travel, school, what have you. It's all good. I think things will
settle down once I start school. I admit it, I'm scared. I'm back at the
same school, ten years later, but I think I'm more scared now than
when I was there to get a Master's Degree.

So anyway, Zoe is having her surgery tomorrow. ALL FOOD has
been put away. I made sure the cats stuffed themselves silly before
8pm tonight. I have my second appointment tomorrow with my
pain therapist. I'm actually looking forward to it. It's not like the
usual therapy I've had. It's all about dealing with my physical
pain and the impact it's had on my life, and is still having on my
life.

The heat has abated a lot here, but my God, those poor souls
in the east. I can't believe the Church decided to tour America
during the summer. Well, it's not their fault it's the Summer from
Hell. But Steve is sure cranky. I spoke with my brother today;
he's going to the show in Atlanta. We were just praying Steve would
make it through - selfishly, at least to Chicago, haha. I'm so looking
forward to meeting the girls - the LADIES - and hanging out. I am
NOT looking forward to the plane ride. I know myself. The minute
that plane takes off I will be saying "Shit! Why did I do this! I don't
want to die for this!" Haha. No, it'll be OK. I go through it. I survive.

I have just finished watching Season 1 of Entourage. Holy cow
I love that show. After having worked in the entertainment
industry, so much of the show is RIGHT ON THE MONEY.
Someone called it a "Sex and the City" for men.
Uh oh, there we go again. Must be my testosterone acting up. I
can't help myself. And I'm not even doping!

Haven't paid much attention to the news. I figure
the war's gonna go on without me. I was too wrapped
up in my own little dramas today. Well, I wish this
was more exciting. I guess all that energy I blew
earlier has tired me out.

BTW, I didn't have it out with the doctor's office.
I left them an explicit message to call me back.
I decided it wasn't worth the energy it would
cost me to deal with these morons. And they never
did call me back. Can you believe it? I fired off one
of my hot missives to them, sent them 1/4th of
the bill. I told them it took them 5 months to
bill me and so I'll pay them in installments over
a 5 month period. Sent it certified mail. I'm not
worrying about it. I still hate doctors for the most
part though. I have a fairly decent general practioner
that does my blood work to check my liver and
kidneys because of the medication I'm on. But
even he is a pain half the time.

I'll be hanging out at my mom's tomorrow
while my precious angel has her teeth extracted.
I've got to get my sister-in-law a birthday gift.
Her birthday is Monday. I used to be so on top
of things. I was never late with gifts. Now I feel
like a flake, a slacker. I've moved from a Type A
personality to a Type A- personality, haha.

Ok. I rented a documentary on the movie Deep
Throat. Don't ask me why. But I'd better go watch
it before the Blockbuster goons come out and take
me away in the night.

Is everyone else as tired of hearing about Mel
Gibson as I am? Damn, the man gets drunk one
night and spouts his big ugly mouth off and we hear
about it for days. Which reminds me. When I was a
senior in college -- this was about 1989 or so...I left
class one day and was filling my tank up with gas at
the 76 station in Malibu (I'm sure you can figure out
where I went to school if you haven't from previous blogs
already.) Anyway, I'm standing there, totally spacing out,
waiting for my tank to fill, when this black Mercedes
pulls up. Out of the car steps this gorgeous guy. He starts
to pump his gas. We look at each other. He has the most
amazing blue eyes. He's stunning. I realise it's Mel Gibson.
I don't know if he could tell I'd just realised that, but he
smiled at me. I think I half-smiled back - what a dork
I was. And to think...all these years later, he's still hanging
around the same restauraunt in Malibu, drunk and spewing
hatred in a drunken rage. Aside from his anti-Semitic rant,
is anyone else the least bit concerned that he could've
killed someone driving at night on PCH drunk? Hell, driving
stone cold sober on PCH in the daylight can be dangerous
enough. Ah, how times change....

Photo: Corbis Royalty - Pacific Coast Highway - Scene O' Many Crimes

MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

My Country's Fucking Me

Can I just say I HATE THIS BLOODY
FUCKING COUNTRY!
It's a three ring circus!
And Bozo the Clown is taking us all on a ride
to Hell.

MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

Physician Heal Thyself

Two blogs in one day. It's that kind of day.
It started out nutty, it's ending up cranky.
My friend Ilkka is graduating from Pepperdine
Saturday. He stayed home from work today
and took us (his wife and I) out to lunch. Then
we had some ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery.
Mmmm. Then we went to the book store. That's
a really good day to me; eating ice cream and looking
at books.

Then I come home and get the mail. In the mail
I get a bill from the rheumatologist I've seen 3
times in the last 5 months. The bill is for $409.62
and is - get this - 90 days overdue. Naturally I am
LIVID. It was after 7pm though, so all I could do
was leave a nasty, cold message on the answering
machine. I have not been billed by this office since
my first visit in February. I kept thinking that was
odd. But what was I supposed to do? Call up the doctor
and beg for my bill? I was billed for almost $400 worth
of blood tests by the hospital near his office; I figured
I was paying for all my tests. The bill they sent out today
DOES NOT explain ONE bit what the $409.62 is for.
It doesn't say anything. It just says I owe them money.
I had to go into my medical file (yes, I file everything,
I am anal) and look at my insurance papers to figure it
out. I love playing fucking Columbo with jackasses in
doctor's offices who don't know how to bill people correctly.

I figured it out. They are billing me for every office visit
and even MORE blood tests - everything since February,
which was my first visit. They have waited 5 fucking months
to bill me and drop it all on me at once, AND tell me I'm
late with the payment, when I have NEVER EVER EVER EVER
received ONE BILL from them. I do NOT let my bills lie
around for 90 days. I always pay my bills on time. ALWAYS.

I hate doctors. I hate them, I hate their nurses, I hate
their staff. I hate their smug, self-righteous demeanors.
I hate their bullshit, their inability to say the words "I
don't know." I have sadly been seeing doctors since January
of 1994, one month after I got fibromyalgia. I have seen
more doctors than I can count over the last 12 1/2 years.
Most of them in the beginning were either arrogant,
supercilious jackasses who either told me this was all in
my head and I was just 'depressed' or they told me I was
screwed for life.

In the beginning I was in so much pain I could barely
move. I was nauseous I was in so much agony. I would
go home and sit in the bathroom on the floor, trying not
to throw up. Or I would throw up because I hurt so much.
Not one doctor ever tried to alleviate my pain. I didn't
know what to do back then; I'd seen my father in chronic
pain and he was addicted to Vicodin. I didn't want to go
down that path so I didn't ask for narcotics. Not once. But
not one doctor seemed to care about trying anything else
on me to relieve my suffering. Because you see, if you're
not dying, if you don't have objective blood tests coming
back with objective results, they don't care, and they don't
believe you. Oh, your blood work is fine. There must be
nothing wrong with you. I don't care if you tell me you're
in agony. I don't care if you tell me you're practically
bed ridden and have had to drop out of school. Oh your
neck hurts? Have a little physical therapy. We're not
going to treat you, because you're not dying - hell,
the tests say you're not even sick! Anecdotal 'evidence'
means shit to doctors. Doctors do NOT listen to patients.
They do not HEAR what the patient is saying. And if they
do, they DO NOT CARE. The patient obviously knows
NOTHING about what's going on in his or her own body.

If I did have a doctor listen to me, they gave me
all sorts of crazy-ass remedies to try. And I was desperate
enough to do some of them. Weird drinks, vitamins,
all sorts of tests on my hair, skin, everything. You're
two quarts low on iron and yes, you could use a pint
of blue-green algae as well. You say your hands and feet
are tingling and your spine hurts? Hmmm. Well, that's
all. I'll see you again in 6 weeks.

Western medicine is good in a crisis. It's great if you
break a bone, need a heart transplant. But GOD FORBID
you get something that they can't quite figure out.
Now fibromyalgia is well known, and pretty much
accepted as a real illness by most sane people. For the
doctors who think it's imaginary, I only hope they
would get it for just one year and then tell me what they
think. I went to this last rheumatologist because four
years ago, after my sinus surgery, I started having other
immune-system symptoms. Sore throats, more fatigue.
My ANA tests were coming back positive - meaning my
immune system was attacking something - something
that isn't there. It's essentially attacking me. But they
can't figure out why. I've been tested for every disease
you can think of - and I don't have any of them, thank
God. But it sucks to feel shitty. And THEN to TOP it
ALL off, I get a BILL from these idiots for $400.
I don't have that now. Great timing! I book a trip
to Chicago, all hell breaks loose with my finances.

I cannot WAIT to talk to the idiot who did this
billing tomorrow. They are going to be really sorry
they billed me this way. They will get their money -
one month at a time. I will pay them a certain amount
every month. They take 5 months to bill me, I will take
5 months to pay them.

I have hit the wall. I know someday I will need a doctor.
I know I will be thankful I was able to go the doctor. But
I have never, never, never really met a doctor I liked.
One doctor at UCLA told me she had lupus, and to suck it up.
One doctor said I wasn't sick, I was having issues with my
mother. How many doctors just thought I was a depressed,
hysterical woman?

I will say it. Doctors are necessary. But by and large, I
hate them with a passion. Western doctors can kiss my
ass. This last doctor hands out pills like they're candy.
Ironic, since in the last 12 years I couldn't get ONE doctor
to give me ANYTHING to ease the pain, the muscle spasms,
nothing. No, strike that. One doctor wanted to give me
speed. Yes, speed. He gave me a prescription in triplicate.
One copy went to him, one went to the pharmacy and one
went to the DEA so they would know I was taking speed,
legally. Fuck that I said. The DEA is NOT going to monitor
any part of my life (this was pre 9/11 when I actually thought
we still had a modicum of privacy left) and I am NOT taking
speed, no matter how tired I am. Idiot!

My current doctor seemed nice at first; a lot of them
do. Then they turn out to be pill-pushers or just slackers
who want you out of their office if they can't fix you.
Luckily I monitor my own pill intake. Perhaps it's a good
thing I had my father as an example, because I don't want
to be some prescription drug casualty. He gave me sleeping
pills. He gave me tons of stuff I don't even take. I don't want
my body full of pills. But it's easy to write a prescription out
and say "goodbye" isn't it.

I have started seeing a pain therapist for the first time in
12 years. It is the only way I can deal with my pain in a
more positive way. I am finished with Western medicine,
as far as the fibromyalgia is concerned. Done. Finis.
Finito Benito. Oh I'm sure I'll need a doctor at some point
in my life for something else. But I probably won't like him
or her or it. I used to joke I'd been through the medical mill.
But it is a mill. Between the doctors and insurance companies
it's a sick, greedy, twisted mill of avarice, insensitivity and
cruelty. Pray to God you never get caught up in this mill.

I think of all the times I was so scared, so sick, sitting in
a doctor's examining room, basically wearing a large
napkin while the doctor 'examined' me and then proceeded
to either insult me, dismiss me or send me home with
false hope based on their own twisted medicinal
remedies. Bedside manners like pitbulls or socially
fucked-up morons. No more. No more, no more, no more.
Physician, go fuck thyself.

Photo: The Greek physician Hippocrates; he actually held the belief that the body must be treated as a whole and not just a series of parts. Too bad doctors have chosen to ignore this.

MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

Feline Famine

Ladies and gentlemen, we've all seen it.
The horrific famine happening as we sit in
the comfort of our own homes...in Darfur, in
Niger...bulging bellies, shrunken, tiny forms,
heart-breaking images of starvation that haunt
us and seemingly never end.

However there is a little known crisis and situation
happening right here in America. It could be happening
in your own home. It's feline famine. Yes, it may not
be as obvious as the crises in Africa, but it's real.
We don't see bloated bellies, or flies crawling on faces.
We HEAR the agony of these poor creatures...
deprived of food sometimes as long as two or even three
hours. We hear the insane meowing, the wailing, the howling;
we are forced to watch the hideous pacing back and forth
in the kitchen. Their eyes are WIDE with stunned shock
and horror. We know what they're thinking. They are
thinking, "WHERE IN THE HELL IS MY BOWL OF
KIBBLE YOU BITCH!" Why, why, why did you take away
that last bit of dried, crusty wet food I could've eaten!
Oh god, is that food? No. A piece of lint. Well, as a last resort...

The images are often so heart-wrenching we must look
away. They walk about, unstable, dizzy, they collapse
onto the bed, onto your 1000 thread count sheets and
gaze at you with huge, sad eyes, pleading eyes that say:
I AM STARVING WENCH!! I have not eaten in three hours.
I need, at the very least, a Temptations treat. What are
you, a sadist? Come on woman, I'm not gonna make
it here. I'm losing the will to live.......

Zoe, my beloved child, was going to have dental surgery this
morning. I kept ALL food away from both cats after 8pm last
night for fear she would eat something. Fletcher barely made
it through the night. I thought about hooking her up to an
emergency saline IV drip. Chicken-flavoured saline. Available
now at a pet store near you in case of these emergencies.
Zoe paced and cried. She hadn't eaten her dinner by 8pm but
it was too late. I could see her shrinking through the night.
In the morning, like a bag of bones, my poor children weak and
dazed, watched me get ready. Fletcher howled in the kitchen.

Then. Fletcher screams louder. It was the crack of dawn; I had
to take Zoe in for surgery. She hides under the couch. She
knows what's about to go down. I'm almost ready to go.
I take a stupid risk and let Fletcher eat some dry food in
the kitchen just to get her out of my incredibly thick and
beautiful hair and SHUT HER UP. Then I see it. Oh god. No.

ZOE! Zoe is in the kitchen near the dry food. DAMMIT!
I didn't catch her in time. My fault. She was so hungry her
hunger overcame her fear and she crawled out from beneath
the couch. I have no idea if she ate any dry food. I don't think
so. I call the vet. They have to reschedule the surgery for
Friday. FUCKING CAT!

No. I cannot blame the cat. It was I who stupidly thought I
could get her in the carrier before she saw the food. I made a
grave miscalculation. And now, here I sit, early in the morning,
dressed, light make-up on, and I finally was able to feed both
cats. Two whole cans of wet food! A big bowl of kibble! Come on,
stuff your sad, skeletal, sunken faces! It warmed the cockles
of my heart to see them chowing down so heartily. And just what
are cockles anyway? Greedy monsters.

Feline famine folks. It's real. It's here. It's a crisis too
often ignored. Please, please, give if you can. Anything.
A can of Fancy Feast. Note: My strange cats hate all fish.
No salmon or tuna. They prefer chicken and turkey. Beef
as a last resort. The only kibble they will eat is Deli Cat.
We're accepting donations until the end of the year.

DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT! I had my day all
planned out. I wanted to get this surgery over with.
Now we alllllllllll have to wait until Friday. I will NOT
make this stupid mistake again and leave any food out
while trying to get Zoe ready. Hunger beat fear. And now
their bellies full and distended, worn out and tired from
several hours without access to any food, they collapse
in a sleepy heap on the bed and sleep like the dead. All
is well in the world now. They have eaten. An in an hour
they will eat again. Speaking of food, I'm up now....going out
for breakfast doesn't sound half bad. Hmmmm.....

Photos of the famine: Oh get real, do these two look like they're starving?

MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

Hail Augustus

The first Emperor of Rome, formerly known as
Octavian, grand-nephew of Julius Caesar, was
purportedly a lucky man in what is now this,
the 8th month of the year, obviously named after him.
Yes, we call this month August, and with
it comes the waning, unofficial last days of summer,
although with this crazy weather, we can expect
the wretched bloody heat well into October, if
not November. Ah, there's nothing like an 85 degree Thanksgiving.

I fell asleep on the couch earlier tonight and now
I'm awake and it's after 3am. I ate much too much
chocolate, which is unusual for me as I'm not crazy
about chocolate. I have to really be in the mood for it.
Everything in excess with the food! Aristotle would've
just been so irritated with me. Everything in moderation
my dear, even moderation. Ha, I'm irritated with
myself.

Took the cats to the vet over the weekend. Well,
actually Zoe ended up seeing two vets. After 11
years, I now realise that wasn't a great idea. Zoe
let it be known after getting a rabies shot, a
thermometer up her kitty behind, lights shone into
her eyes, her heart monitored, her ears looked
out, her mouth pried open (which revealed two
nasty cavities) that she'd had enough....by starting
the loudest fight I've ever heard with her sister
in the examining room. I normally take both girls
to the vet in the same carrier and have had no
problem. Zoe turned into a wildcat, thrashing and
screaming and scaring us all to death. Poor Fletcher.
She did get one good swipe in, right across Zoe's
nose. I stood there, with Gena, and did nothing.
Hey, I value my hands people.

Zoe has to have dental surgery Wednesday morning
to extract her two teeth. They tried to get blood from
her on Saturday but holy shit! The sound that came out
from the back of that vet clinic was not animal, not human.
We all just stood there and stared at each other. I considered
bringing a priest in. When a big, burly male vet tech brings
your cat out and says, "We're not getting any blood today"
you know you've got a tigress on your hands. God I hope
they fare better with her on Wednesday morning. Poor baby.
Now she's alseep on the bed, on my pillow, looking so cute and
innocent. She's not fooling me anymore. I should keep one eye
open when I sleep.

So a lot of things are happening this month. I will find
out if I passed the Test from Hell on the 21st. I am flying
to Chicago on the 16th to meet up with H and S, and to see
the Church as a real live fan, without having to work the
merch table. I won't be a 'merch wench' as Heather so
aptly put it. I must also somehow extract another hug from
Rob Dickinson, and convince Steve I am NOT stalking him.
I've never done anything like this; it feels a little strange, but
exciting too. Since I saw the Church at the first two shows,
I feel a little robbed...as they seemed to hit their stride
on their third show, haha. Missed the boat. I only hope
they still have enough energy for us when the 18th
comes around. Although a less-than-stellar Church
concert is better than any other concert I could ever
see. I also want to visit The Art Institute while I'm in
Chicago. I've always wanted to go there; they have
such amazing pieces of art - pieces I taught for years
but haven't seen in real life.

Speaking of my teaching, I ran into a former student
today in a card store. I heard this tiny female voice say
"Professor_________" (the line being my last name
which y'all aren't getting here) and I thought, "Oh wow,
someone else has my last name" which is pretty nuts
because I've never met anyone in almost 40 years
who shares my last name. I forgot who I was once, ha.
She was really sweet; she told me she and her friends still
talk about my class and how much they enjoyed it. We talked
about what each of us were doing. Gena managed to really
embarrass me by waltzing up and telling this girl how I needed
to hear this as "she feels she hasn't made a difference" or
some such litany of my personal insecurities. I wanted to
kick her in the ass, frankly. I kept saying, "Gena, Gena,
GENA" louder and louder as if to say, "SHUT THE FUCK
UP PLEASE." I mean, Christ, who wants their former student
knowing all their personal feelings of potential career failure
and insecurities? Wasn't that nice of my friend? I'm so pissed
at her. Lately she's been on my fucking case and I've had it. I can
tell a 'talk' is coming. She really has no right to judge me on my
career, or feelings about such career, or work at all. What would she know
about work? That sounds terrible but it's true. She's
almost 43 years old and has never had a real job in her life. She
rides the lazy wave of her husband's efforts and even though
they're having financial problems, she refuses to get a job. God.
Who needs enemies when you have friends willing to blast it all
over the mall what you really feel like inside all the time. If I want
to tell people, that's one thing. But I don't appreciate my friends
(I'm starting to use that term loosely here) telling strangers things
I tell them in confidence. Or what I thought was confidence.

I have to go to her husband's graduation on Saturday at Pepperdine.
I kind of dread this, for personal reasons. He is getting his MBA, which he
got while working full-time, an impressive feat. But every time I go back
to Pepperdine, I am overwhelmed with emotion. It is my alma mater,
and also the place where I lived out some of the best, and some of the
worst times of my young life. They're having the ceremony in the same
place I graduated all those years ago. I don't know why I get so emotional
there, but I do. Funny. I'll probably cry and it won't even be about him. The
past often has a hold on me and it's hard for me to go back, whether it was
good or bad. This is probably why I'm not fond of people from my past
crawling out of the woodwork, contacting me and wanting to rehash shit
that went down years ago. When I walk away from something or someone,
I normally do not want to go over the situation in all its minutiae. Get it?
Got it? Good. :)

Anyway, I felt sad telling my former student I wasn't
teaching art history anymore and why. It was only a
couple of nights ago as well that I checked my old Yahoo
email address and found another former student had
written me, telling me my class had completely changed
her LIFE (geez!) and how she wanted
to study art now, blah blah blah. Wow. Very nice. It's nice
to know you've made an impact on people's lives. It's sad
because teaching art history is definitely my first love, but
I cannot make a living at it. Some things just sucketh.

So I am going to start school yet again at the end of this
month, for my teaching credential. I have about 10 million
birthdays to remember this month as well. I swear, I've
never seen so many people who have birthdays in August.
November must be a really sexually arousing month for
couples. My grandma, aka, The Immortal, turns 93 this month.
My other grandma, who died in 1995, would be 106 on the
16th. I miss her. A lot. My mom turns 67 and we're all already
feeling the heat from her on this one. She is really bitter about
getting older. It's a bitch, no doubt about it. But what's the
alternative? Well, look at my dad. He'll be 53 forever. That's
the alternative.

I hate summer. I'm never sorry to see it go.
It can't go fast enough for me. Especially this
summer, with its brutal heat and odd humidity.
Autumn has always been my favourite season,
which is odd, considering we don't really have
very distinct seasons where I live. But if you
look around, we are surrounded by trees whose
leaves change, and become wildly colourful.
Occasionally we might even get a cool, crisp day.
In my youth, I remember actually frost and cold
days. Global warming has taken care of that. I like
the clothes of autumn, the smell of autumn. I even
like the Santa Anas, although they always seem to
bring the inevitable fires. This is when I wished I
lived in New England or some place where I could
really have an authentic season. Maybe someday.

Augustus was that rare emperor who ruled
quite successfully, and died in his own bed. So
many of the Roman emperors, especially during
the dark days of the end of the empire, were
killed, assassinated, committed suicide or 'forced
to commit suicide.' I love that last one. I always loved
that nut Nero, who said, "What a great artist dies in me"
before kicking it. What a moron. Augustus brought about
the 200 year period called the Pax Romana, or
'Roman Peace.' Peace in Rome. What did that mean?
They only conquered and slaughtered a few
thousand people, as opposed to hundreds of thousands?

Perhaps it is Augustus and his diplomacy we need now,
heading into the 3rd week of war in the Middle East.
Sadly, I fear nothing will ever stop the Jews and Arabs
from fighting. The hatred, deep-rooted and seated, the
fear, the self-righteousness of both sides...they are going
to dig in until every last one of us is somehow directly
or indirectly killed by their insane hate. I fear it will be
some crazy terrorist group that gets the bomb.

CNN did a special today on the question of whether
these are the true 'end days' - as in the Biblical end
days. I am either going straight to Hell, or I'm totally sane,
because watching preacher after preacher screaming
about being ready for the rapture, and being taken up
any moment, Armaggedon, the Tribulation,
and the Seven Years of Rule by the Anti-Christ kind
of cracked me up. I think Paula Zahn was having trouble
taking it seriously too. Well if it's happening and I'm laughing
and damned, then so be it. I can't stop any of this shit.
At least I'll go out with a smile on my face.

Photo: Augustus, first emperor of Rome, nee Octavian

MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

Fairytales for the Damned

Here is where I am now
Here is who I am now
listen up
because this is the siren call
for all those who care to judge, discern
change, dissect me or care at all
The curtain is rising on my little show
all myths and lies cast aside off the stage
Be careful what you wish for
Be careful of all that you long to know
You long for enlightement
the laughter of the fool, the tears of the clown
the wisdom of the sage.

Here is where I am now
I am 39 years old
I am I am I am
an ethinic mutt
I am an American
for better or for worse
tis the land I love
the government I curse
Where did I come from all those lives ago?
I am Welsh
I am English
I am Irish
I am French
I am German
I am Cherokee
it's all true

I am pale as an Enlish lass
I have brown hair and blue eyes
I will not get a tan
or bleach my hair Marilyn Monroe blonde
(but I'll hide the gray and highlight it away)
or starve myself into Nicole Richie oblivion
I will not fit in I will not fit in I will never fit in
Who are the people that fit in? And where in the hell
is in? I've never had the pleasure, no I've never been.

I am a Taurus
I don't believe in astrology
but the things I read about this Taurus sign
Hmmm...they kinda fit me.
Go on, ask my mother.
I am stubborn (as a bull?)
I am stubborn she would say, because she thinks
Germans are stubborn
as if I have come straight from Berlin, a pure-bred;
as if you can generalise this about all Germans.
Yeah that was Hitler's big problem. He was just too
damn stubborn!

Ok, I am stubborn, I'll admit to this.
I am opinionated and less and less afraid to share
my opinions. When I was 20 years old I sat mute
in classes and cars, restaurants and bars
because I had not enough courage, self-esteem
whatever you want to call it
to speak my mind on anything.
Terrified to raise my hand in class, though I knew the answer.
Self-conscious to an almost pathological degree.
Now I stand in front of auditoriums and classrooms
and love the Socratic dialogue....it's showtime baby!

I am the daughter of an alcoholic.
I am a suicide survivor.
I have survived being held at gunpoint,
raging fires, an airplane engine explosion,
the deaths of many friends far too young,
growing up in Los Angeles, and most of all I have survived
myself.

I am an educator. I am a woman in what is still
wholly and utterly a completely damaged man's
world. I am not a feminist. I am a humanist.
I am a lover of men, and children and animals.
My heroes are many, and most are dead. Viktor Frankel,
Rosa Parks, Martin Luther, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Gandhi,
Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Elie Wiesel,
Hellen Keller. Anyone who stands up for the rights of
the oppressed, women, men, children, animals. Anyone
who tries to make this crazy a world a better place.

I despise anything organised. Especially religion.
Political parties, unions, corporations, the whole bloody
System. Democracy. Have we come so far from ancient
Greece? A plutocracy is more like it.
Religion has fucked us all the most. I fear we are going to
die, maybe not today, maybe not us, or our children, or theirs,
but eventually, we will all die in the name of God, Allah, Jesus, Buddha,
Vishnu, fucking Ronald McDonald. Jesus died for
somebody's sins, but not for mine.
Buddha got enlightened but his trip is a bitch.
Allah's rules are tight and few; what's a neo-pagan doubting,
hopeful, sad and sorry bitch like me to do?

I suffer from chronic depression. I like to think of it more
as chronic melancholy. Let the shrinks wrap it in their own
label. I know what it feels like and not one single solitary
motherfucking soul in 6 billion can tell me what I feel.
This is my emotional DNA.
I've had too many people for too many years
with and without degrees
telling me how I feel.
Oh magic! All of you put Houdini to shame
How'd you'd do it?
How'd you read the neurons firing
in MadameBastet's mind?

I was a good girl. I never drank, or did drugs or slept around. Hey!
Once upon a time, I didn't even swear. I swore I'd never swear.
That's gotta be good for a laugh. I mortify and shame my mother
with my sailor's mouth. I am far too educated and well-read and classy
and have far too vast a vocabulary at my disposal to swear. Alas,
but I do. Especially on freeways. So chalk this up as a venal sin.
Father it has been forever since my last confession...

Okay I lied; I did drink. At 14 my best friend
and I snuck a beer out of her parents' fridge.
We hated it. I never drank again until college. I rarely
drink today. An apple martini here. A beer there.
Not my poison. I have smoked pot three
whole times in my life. I hate the smell. I did
something stupid - I smoked cigarettes on occasion in my youth.
Because like every other 20 year old, I thought I was immortal. What were a few cigarettes gonna do to my beautiful,
healthy pink lungs? I could've gotten into maryjane...
but the scent just makes me sick. Still... I believe it should be legalised. Check the stats on drunk-driving deaths.
And that shit's legal. I think the drug war is a fucking joke.
I believe prostitution should be legalised.
Why not? They've legalised the whores in
every other business in this country.

But I was basically a good kid. A borderline geek.
I got good grades.
I followed the rules.
I coloured inside the lines.
I painted by
the numbers.
I bought into the dogma and the lies of Madison Avenue.
I read fashion magazines and learned to properly hate myself
and how I looked.
It all worked exactly like it should. I wanted to be a model.
I wasn't pretty enough.
I wanted to be an actress, like my next-door neighbour.
My parents convinced me otherwise.
Like teaching has been a really stable career.
I did the tricks of the trade. I jumped when
they said jump and I went to churches and kneeled down
and I prayed to Gods who never heard my prayers or laughed
or ignored them. I was played for the fool.

I loved pop stars and had a huge poster of Bowie on my
closet door for years. I listened to "Heroes" over and over until I
broke the needle on my record player. I wished I was rich and famous.
I thought musicians had it all. I never knew the glamour was really
under Marty Willson-Piper's shoe. I never knew. Until I was 39.
I believed in the magic of our Scream nights. Chasing dreams down
Hollywood Boulevard, screaming about meeting Sex Pistols and
clubbing the summer of our discontent away. It was some kind of drug
and there's nothing that can convince me that those nights weren't
magical. It was the days that were rudely interrupted by reality.
The smell of smoke in your hair in the morning. Some strange musician you're dating. And you realise in class, at college, you've left this virtual stranger, in your apartment, alone. With everything you own. Caution thrown to the wind. Because don't you know, time was on our side, and the Gods were smiling on us in the end. I wanted out of school into college. I wanted out of college into work. I wanted out of work into grad school. I wanted out of grad school back into work. I wished half my life away.

I grew up with a very sick father. I grew up in and out
of hospitals and doctor's offices. This surgery will work. That
procedure will do it. This time he will get well. This time,
this time, this time. A 15 year mantra.
This time the pain will go away. Daddy will not become
the monster anymore. I stayed positive until I opened the door
and saw death in lieu of my dad. The form was there, the energy gone.
I stayed positive until I signed the very
last paper the coroner gave to me. I wept and said to my mom
"It's over." I was wrong. It's never really over.
There's a morbid joke in grief; something known
as closure. Only those who've never lost anyone believe the punchline
on that one.

I wasn't picked on, or bullied. I wasn't the prom queen
or a cheerleader or a stoner or a rich kid. I was about average.
I was friendly with everyone. I had some best friends.
I grew up a big house with every material possession
I could've wanted. I had a nice car. I longed for nothing.
I knew I was loved, despite the chaos of diseases surrounding
me. I believed in the American dream.
I believed in happily ever after.
I had a nice sense of entitlement.
I believed nothing really bad would
ever happen to me.

I went to an expensive private university.
I got good grades. I did a few
crazy things. We went to parties.
We hid our liquor, as the campus was dry.
I stayed over in my boyfriend's apartment when
it wasn't allowed.
I drew graffitti on the wall of the library when
I was bored. I lay down in the middle
of PCH one night, screaming with laughter.
The Gods were watching over me you see.
I was immortal. We jumped out the windows
if the RA came while we were drinking.
We ran across the campus laughing like
insane asylum escapees. We slept outside on
the deck at night and watched the stars,
listened to the ocean waves.
We got so drunk one night we locked ourselves
out of our dorm room and had to
cut the screen off the window and climb back in.
Heather and I discovered music and clubs
and Hollywood and I lived for every night
spent in those smoky rooms of mystery and magic.
Almost every one of those places are gone now.
Heather is gone now.

In my last year of college I developed an
anxiety disorder which almost
destroyed me. I worked with counselors and
took meds and worked and
talked and I freed myself from the clutches of
that beast, or most of its clutches anyway. I stood up
to the fear. I said Fuck you, you cannot have my life.
I always made a joke, "Hey I was the only agoraphobic
who couldn't stand to be in the house!" I was the actress,
the clown, the one who couldn't let the world know
I was afraid. I didn't have it all together. It was all falling
apart inside of me. I was ashamed. I was nuts! No.
I was just reaching out for my own acceptance.
A different kind of sanity.
God it took so long. It took so long.

I am a sinner, but certainly not a saint. Who is?
I am a human being who'd like to give God some advice.
I'd like to tell the Pope to **** off.
I'm the doubting Thomas who longs to believe
even if God is just some cold, mathematical formula.
I have broken a few of those Ten Commandments. I have not
always honoured my father and mother. They have not always
honoured me. I've lied. I haven't committed adultery. I've coveted.
What I can't even recall.

I will walk a million miles so as not to purposely hurt someone.
When I say something, listen. I mean what I say.
If I tell you something, it's true.
I believe in the Golden Rule.
When I was 26 I got really sick. No one but a few believed me for years.
Doctors either called me crazy, told me nothing was wrong or that they
couldn't help me. Anyway you wrote it, I was screwed.
I was dying. It was an unimaginable horror. I dropped
out of graduate school for a year. I was
trying to save my father and myself at the same time.
Now I'm better but the game isn't over by far.
If you want me, you get the whole package.
And you'd better believe what's written on the package.
Those who couldn't deal fell by the wayside long ago.
I will not hide anything anymore. If you cannot cope,
don't bother me. You aren't worth the powder.

I believe you stay by those you love, no matter what happens.
As long as they are not abusive. People get sick. People die. People have
problems. You don't go into relationships with conditions. If you do,
get out now. Stay away from me. It ain't all flowers and candy.

I am funny and smart, sarcastic and snide.
I worked in the music industry and hated it. I love music;
it's my lifeblood. But I was destined to do more than coddle
newspaper critics and fucked-up rock stars.
I am a teacher, a writer, an insatiable reader.
I am a lover of art, of poetry, of words, of music, of cats.
I love my two cats more than I ever thought I'd
love any animals in my life. The things I love the most in the
world are a strange and motley lot.

My crazy family.
My beautiful, sweet feline children.
My friends who truly have stood by me, through the best and the worst.
My students.
Teaching.
Reading.
Movies.
Music.
Steve Kilbey's voice, which has often been the most beautiful sound I have ever heard in the universe. Sometimes I weep, because I believe if beauty itself had a voice, it would be his.

So I am a good teacher and student; a good listener. I am extremely sensitive. Sensitive in every way. To a fault. Blame my DNA.
A mutation on the gene? I cry easily and often. I am moved
equally by some idiotic commercial and the homeless man asking
me for change in the parking lot of the grocery store.
I become enraged beyond description at child abuse, or animal abuse.
I would probably try to kill anyone I ever saw hurting a child or an
animal in front of me.

I support many charities.
I spend too much money on frivolities.
I've wasted money trying to fill the hole in my soul.
I've given money
to hurricanes and famines and fires and floods
and earthquakes and I know
it's a drop in the bucket and I don't know
what else to do. I want to save the world;
I know I can't. I'm still working on my saviour complex.
I read the headlines daily. Sometimes I cry. Most days I don't.
I know people who think I'm a sadist for reading the news.
I don't call them ignorant self-centered, insensitive jackasses
who'd rather live with their heads in the sand because they choose
NOT to avail themselves of any news outside their own tiny world.
So don't give me grief for being interested in the world around me.
It's not a crime to want to be informed.
Yeah, it's pretty bad out there.
But if you think about it, you can say to yourself, it's all
fucked up and I don't want to know. Or you can say,
it's all fucked up, what can I do to
make something, anything even a tiny bit better?

I spent years only giving to myself. I now believe you get what you give.
Call it Karma. Call it insanity. The calling card of the
foolish, the hopeful, the naive, the suckers. Count me in,
P.T. Barnum and Mr. Bailey.

And they call this carnival progress....he sang.

Be the change you wish to see in the world, said Gandhi. That is
my only prayer, my only mantra, my only surviving hope when
I read the daily death report.

I have been accused far too often of being too sensitive,
too emotional. Guilty. As. Fucking. Charged. I am sensitive.
To drugs, to lights, to crowds, to noise, to the circus around me.
Sue me. Leave me. Walk away. Because at this stage of the game
I ain't gonna change. I'd rather be too sensitive than too insensitive.
I despise insensitivity. I despise the compassionless. They have no
place in my world. Walk past the man in the streets, there by the grace
of God go I....

For Christmas, buy me something from the Oxfam catalogue. Buy a
village a well, a donkey, a classroom. You're the jackass for thinking
that's stupid. Laugh at me. I am kind and generous to a fault. I will give you the shirt off my back. I don't need anymore STUFF. Peace of mind would do nicely. If you find a little, I'd love a hit off that drug;
I could get hooked easily baby. I will help you and love you.
I will even probably inadvertantly hurt you.

I have judged and been judged.
I have walked away from friendships
and never looked back.
I have said horrible, mean things to people
I love. I have lost friends because of
my own stupidity. I took people for granted. I tossed away
relationships like wilting flowers so sure there were others, better and
brighter just outside my door. I was stupid. I was young.
I have regrets. I have wishes. I have dreams. I have fears.
If you ever give me an ultimatum, be prepared to watch me disppear.
I don't like ultimatums.
I don't like to be forced to make choices.
Between people. Between men. Between friends.
Utilmatums are always the beginning of the end.

If you tell me not to do something, it brings out the five year-old in me.
I'm not proud of this; it's just a fact and I thought you should know.
Go on, tell me not to do it. Go on. I dare ya. Ha!
I will want to do it. I don't know when that started. Life kicked me
a bit and I kicked it back. I'm a rebel without a cause and it started late in the game for me. Not a good role model I admit it.

I have taught adults and children alike,
and by far my greatest teachers
have been under the age of 6.
I have trouble living in the moment.
My children reminded me of this.
I'm in the past, I'm in the future. They brought me the present.
I worry too much. I admit it. I feel sorry for myself sometimes.
But usually, more sorry for the world and the awfulness around me.

I don't make my bed. I have too many books.
My mother calls it clutter. Too much information.
I want to know everything. I want to know nothing.
I feel everything at once. I long for numbness.
There has got to be some great escape.
There's nothing permanent except impermanence
and that's a deal we all get to make.

Oh I am moody without a doubt. This I've been
accused of too. What's a moody chick to do?
I suffer from insomnia. I dread my own bed.
I sleep during the day and walk the pathways of
my mind at night, alone, the dendrites and cables
bring me a lousy, lonely cache of images, all that
I could've been, all I could've known.

I long for the dead. I miss ghosts. I know I've
had it good. I am more often than not,
a worst-case scenario person when it comes
to certain things. Still, hope dies last!
I don't like to fly, but despite that,
I usually think the plane will make it.
I don't like heights, but I will climb to the top anyway
just to say I did it.
I will walk up to my fear and I will kick it
in the balls. In pain, in fatigue, I've done more than a lot
of people I know, who have perfect health.
I don't want a medal, or even a standing ovation.
But I've got a message for those who are quick to
condemn me for some instrinsic pessismism
wrapped tightly in the folds of my cerebrum.

My beloved Zoe possibly has a serious health problem.
Of course, she possibly doesn't. Intellectually I know that.
But I admit, when it comes to my animals, I go for worst case right away.
Last Christmas, I found a lump in Zoe's back. One vet told
me it was cancer. One vet said, probably just a fatty tumour.
Let's take it out and see. My Christmas was miserable. December
29th the best day of my life. Zoe was OK. I just paid for the most
expensive feline liposuction ever.

Everyone yells at me. Be positive!
Stop borrowing trouble! Everyone who's never lived my life.
You're so right I say. Because look how great
things turned out for my dad. And you should all know too.
And how wonderful for me to be struck
down by the Great Mystery Illness
at 26. How fun it was to walk into my
house one night and find my kitten
hanging from a chair, her spine broken.
Oh woe is me, I am such a tragedy stricken heroine!
But not pretty or thin enough they say.
It's OK, I think I've got Camille down anyway.

You can't live in the past! They scream.
You've got to let it go! I agree. Shit happens. I've moved on.
But my mind, my emotions,
my heart, the seat of my fragile soul
is bruised and battered.
And no matter how much therapy I get,
no matter how many books I've read,
no matter how many Pollyanna
friends I have (who still have their health, their parents and
wouldn't know true loss if it kicked 'em in the ass)
I just can't stop being afraid sometimes.

There's a little girl inside me who is scarred.
I have to live with her.
You might have to as well.
She isn't going away.
I must be gentle with her.
She needs to be reassured that
no matter what happens, she will be OK.
She will survive.

So here's the moral of the story
the denouement; so hurry back to your seat,
the curtain's coming down, the last act is about to end.
Despite all of this, I love life.
I love to laugh, long and hard, until it hurts.
I love listening to All I Know over and over and over.
I love going to watch The Church and
weeping in the corner, in the dark,
where no one can see me, because
I am so moved, so happy.
I love watching movies that take me to places
I would never be able to go...
I love the poetry of Eliot and Yeats,
Plath and Keats - the words of men and
women who assure me I am not alone
in my desires, my wants, my fears.
I love reading and writing and swimming at night.
I love the desert. I love Paris at night
and London at dawn. I love Rome
and all its ruins. I love Caravaggio's
realistic religious masterpieces and
Vermeer's quietly sacred domestic interiors.
I love sleeping with my furry babies.
I love men who kiss the inside of my hands.
I love dusk and the sweet scent of jasmine.
I love Brunellechi's dome and the
Ponte Vecchio in Florence. I love the Spanish Steps
in the rain. I love the laughter of a class of 5 year olds.

I do believe things often
have a way of working out for the best.
I love to laugh, to see the humour in it all
to be the actress, the master of masks, the clown.

But sometimes things don't work out
no matter what you do.
And if I'm afraid, if I worry too much for you, if I am too
pessimistic and you don't like it
Let me kindly show you the door
Because this is who I am now
This is where I am now
I am the sum of all my experiences in life
for better or worse
for richer or poorer
in sickness and in health
til I shuffle off this mortal coil
and take my final bow...
This is who I am now.

Photo: Masks. Sometimes taking them off is easier than leaving them on.

MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

Bark and Bite

Killer mom was insane
Accidental history
How far does I’m sorry go?
Office drone by day, stripper by night
I bloomed!
Face to face with a suspected serial killer
What’s the way out?

Mother’s shocking confession
Sorry, but my children bore me to death
Monsoon prayers, future scenarios
Scientists create a sense of déjà vu
In laboratory

I was on a divine mission
seeing God personified
in a black dog and the eyes of a cat
God seemed to 'stare' back at me

If I’m to be executed please make it by firing squad
Waxing of Shiloh and Cassini finds lakes on Titan
Has the internet killed the video star?
Mighty Mouse loses its tail
Cheaper strategy to fight heroin addiction

Do you know any of them?
Murderer took pictures of women
104 year old living in squalor
Talks fail
Power shortage
Nine die
and some members
of the Roman Catholic Church
hierarchy are behaving
as if they were in
"the times of the Inquisition"

With friends like these…
Drowning in blood
Consistant inconsistancy
Round and round
Violence still terrible
World War III: Yay or nay?

Snake gulps queen-sized electric blanket
While voodoo faithful pray for miracles
California is cooking
Explore the infinite beauty of the universe.

This poem wrote itself thanks to the insanity of the world and news headlines...

MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

And When You Die, They Will Say It Was Only a Dream

I swept down the emerald haunt, into the womb of a softer, stranger world. I slipped down rolling hills and dreamt of far away lands, the feel of silk in my weary hands, the taste of bitter teas amidst the dark spell of distant forests and trees. I stumbled across diamond flecked streets and I wept at the smooth, sad way sidewalks are paved in cities far, far away.

Yes, I dreamt of shops that sold shadows and pharaohs who were kings; I dreamt of gilded pyramids and unknown tombs, of rooms that smelled of lost, ancient lives and I dreamt of faces now gone, long, long gone. I watched the flicker of memory and caught the stares and smiles and mysteries that lingered in the still, warm, dusk air of the eons.

I closed my eyes and ran down avenues lined with a thousand palms, all swaying in lonely colonnades. I stood on the bitterly
cold shores of seaside towns and felt the cold winds rush down my spine and heard the lonely echoes of ships sailing off into the unknown and uncaring arms of the dead night.

I felt the shimmer and shatter of hearts across the years; of kings who fell and countries whose slow, sad descent began with some cruel, ambiguous sentiment. I dreamt of cities buried beneath grey ash; I felt the hands of strangers in dark and wet Paris streets and the soft caresses of London fog on my cheek.

I wept with Gods on my knees beneath gold mines, velvet jungles and blessed the hope found in trees still standing tall, swaying proudly in the balmy breeze. I blessed the radiant lush paradise and prayed the fires would not touch her; the sounds of footsteps and voices calling, the executioner's song would not be sung here in the very end.

I kissed my children a thousand times, in Bangkok streets and Italians piazzas, the Spanish steps slick with rain, we ran into a tearoom and I felt their gaze descend upon me as I walked past the ruins of ancient Rome, a dazzling terrain.

I opened my arms wide on the Acropolis and stood on the hill listening to the whispers of the men who built these great temples, now nothing more than ruins, but they came to me as the sun set and told me of Athena, her blessings and curses, and the rubble reassembled itself into shining, colourful structures...the ruins reversed and time perplexed and I bowed before the statue of the goddess and thanked her for Doric dreams and the cool feel of Pentellic marble in my hands.

I slept through the fertile promise of Nile Valley nights and wept with joy when the river overflowed; oh we have waited, we have waited, almighty Ra has blessed us again. I traveled in secrecy to Alexandria and shopped down long, hot sun-filled streets, with Greeks and Jews and Egyptians and Macedonians, the children and ancestors of Hatshepsut and Ramses and Tutankhamen, the daughters of Akhenaten, and their daughters, their brown skin blazing in the noonday soon, their eyes coal, flashing across me like I was some ghost.

I ate oranges in citrus orchards; I made love between the tombs of queens and listened to the echoes of my screams in the Valley of the Kings.

I sailed to the great promise called America and wept at the slaughter that lay before me, in century after century. I listened to tales of dying men and watched candles sway in hot humid winds. I tasted the salt of many oceans; seas that swallowed souls by shiploads down through time and history. I drank something cool with Minoan Cretes and lost myself in mosaic-covered streets. I wandered the breeze-filled hallways of Knossos and watched the azure seas in the distance. I was blinded by the light of a million souls circling in my mind; I ran down stairs and into the arms of shadows who offered me only a brief respite from the keening.

I only wanted to touch the soft skin of history herself. I walk streets now long since disappeared, smelled the winds of war coming off distant seas. I gazed into the eyes of men now just mere memories, and felt their flesh and held the hands that now lie still and cold in boxes of wood, tin, silver, gold.

I felt the breath upon my face of men who ruled the greatest kingdoms and built cities of glazed brick and gold with grandeur and glory. I watched my children play and thought, "You will be ghosts someday" and I heard the screams, the echoes of every yesterday.

I gazed at stars that had long since died, accepting their dead light in a universe of dark matter. I walked slowly through marketplace crowds who rushed by me, the whole grand promise of their lives stretched before them, the whole history of the world aching deep inside of me.

I sat on the steps of the Parthenon, I sat beneath olive trees and watched the sun bleed pink and purple and I screamed "These are not your days!" Some day they will be passed on down to me, through all of your children and their children and their children.

Oh god these are not your days but love them, long and well, look deeply into the eyes of those you love and adore, hold tightly the tiny hands of your children and swallow all you can, the cool night air.

And when you go West, let it go, let it all go. So I walk down these strange avenues thinking, you would not believe what your world is like now and someday I too will become a ghost. We are strangers now who merely pass each other through the long and winding avenues of history and time but someday we will travel to a place where the stars do not die, we are not illuminated with dead light, where temples do not decay over bitter cruel seasons and where the Gods are finally and truly and forever kind.

Photo: The Nile River at sunset, Luxor, Egypt

MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

Hot.

Some people say L.A.
is hell on earth.
Now they're right.
119 degrees yesterday
in Woodland Hills.
Welcome to the jungle.

Photo: It doesn't feel like we're 93,000,000 miles away from it.

MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

Madness

Everyday
more bombs, more artillery, more airstrikes
more blood, more screaming, more dead
more children gone, more wooden coffins
lying in shallow graves.

It is probably considered anti-Semitic of me
to say this. But I will say it. Fuck Israel. I am no supporter
of terrorist organisations like Hezbollah. But Israel's
reaction to the kidnapping of two soldiers and its
long-festering obsession with terrorism is taking
an entire country down. Innocent civilians. Children.
Crying parents. Terrified tourists. The lovely city of
Beirut, having seen such horrific bloodshed in the past,
is brought back to the nightmare.
I will not support Israel as they are the biggest terrorists
of all now.
For years I thought the Palestinians were all nuts. And then
I understood their story.
The Jews have bloodied their hands too much this time.
The Israelis are bringing down and entire house full of
innocents to get to some cockroaches.

And two top news stories are....
Bush said the word "shit" while
talking to Blair. And for some odd reason
he walked into the room full of world
leaders and rubbed the shoulders of the
German Chancellor.
This might be the only evidence on file
that he is actually somewhat human.
But other than that?

Special religious forces wear gloves
to pick up pieces of bodies blown apart
in train stations and suburbs so that
the entire body can be buried together
as religious custom dictates.
What if they're all not there?
What happens if you look and look
and still, you are missing a hand? A foot?
A finger? What then?

The absurdity of the world is becoming
more crushing and mind numbing to me;
just when I thought I could not be more
sickened
I am.

Photo Credit: CNN - Israeli tanks line up at the border of Lebanon for possible full-scale ground invasion.

MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

5am and Feeling It

I've 'worked' two Church gigs
mwp is a taskmaster
indentured servitude
dude, we dinae eat dinner!
had to watch the merch

5am and i can't sleep
everything hurts
cuz we folded shirts for two hours
and as hard as i worked sk's art
only one print sold
i feel like i failed him; he seemed sad when i told him

who the fuck took off
with the print cheat sheet?
morons.
now the real church merch person
is screwed and sk's art rep has to do it
all over again
sheesh
you go watch the band you paid to see
for a little while, you leave someone else
in charge and mayhem ensues
ok so it wasn't mayhem
just annoying crap.

so much to say, too tired to write
how do these guys do it
granted none have had the fms for 13 yrs
but still...i see the drug connection
you're tired but wired
you're down and out
but you're brain is running all about
did i give sk the right amount of $$$$
mwp is not only two places at once but
a million
you need downers to sleep
uppers to get up
you get very little sleep
you go home early hours of the morning
you're back at club at late afternoon
what a crazy way of life
gotta peek inside, fun for a couple of days
couldn't do it more than a week
check myself into mental ward

damn drunks
why do they come to these shows
to fuckin' talk louder than the band can play
some idiot chick talking so loud
mwp said, 'why can i hear one voice above everything else'
she shut it but people at the bar
drunk off their arses kept at it until
the entire henry fonda yelled SHUT UP!

people go home....
who's worse? them or the ones who keep
yelling "COLUMBUS"
i want to put a chair on their head
sk says "No but thank you for coming"
yeah like the band is gonna take alllllllllllllll
your requests
someone actually yelled 'shadow cabinet'
and i wished anyone who yelled out of order
would drop out of their seat into oblivion

i leave one inch of beer in a cup on the table
it takes less than a second for some chick to knock
it over and ruin my inventory sheets
hey lady, i spent all morning slaving over a hot excel
trying to cook those up for marty
cuz he ain't havin' nothing sold without inventory lists
good thing i made extra copies because i assume the worst!
and people never seem to disappoint

strange show tonight in holywood
weird vibe
pk lost half the day - where did run off to pk?
late late late for soundcheck
the infrastructure frayed
'we already did sound check w/o you'
sk says 'maybe he got arrested'
then later on stage bickering starts
i get nervous when anyone starts to argue
i am waiting for the war of the words but thankfully none come

during the show
pk starts in on 'a new season' and then stops
and says 'oh. maybe we should do grind.'
yeah, that's how the set was supposed to go.

steve says 'pk knows his way all over l.a.
but can't find his way around a set list.'
family squabbles, we've all been there, done that

in the middle of pk's song marty stops playing guitar
and looks like he's gonna bust an artery for a while
then hooks back into the song
don't know what went wrong there
mwp smiles a lot when playing guitar
i wondered, has he ever been really depressed?
i wonder a lot of strange things while watching people

tim left his drumkit twice - where did he go?
came back once, said he bought his ticket from
l.a. to auckland...very expensive...
ready to leave so soon tim?
leaving, i told tim, you were great, but stay at your drumkit buddy

don't know tim really but i like him
he seems grounded
i like his baseball cap
he's cute like a teddy bear
and nice

mwp played every instrument on stage practically
played us for foooooooooooools haha
steve says, 'denise, why are you letting mwp talk you into this'
well sk, it's kinda hard to say no to mwp
sk says 'you gotta say no'
friday i get to go as a fan
and i'd better not hear one dumbass yelling
columbus
but i know i will
heads will roll
no, the best ones are the idiots who yell "STEVE!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"MARTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
if these poor guys had a dollar for everytime some shmuck yelled their
names they'd be living it up on the coast of some exotic isle
guess what dumbshits,
i think they know their names by now.

i do not do not do not
know how these guys do this
and after 25 years, all this
met robert rankin walker
who is one of the sweetest people i've ever met
hard to believe he's in the music biz, haha
not hard to look at either, but alas, married w/children
oh aren't they all
my ship has sailed? no, i'll catch one
someday
but my my my, he was a sweetheart who helped move
my table
mwp stuck me in the corner w/sk's prints like
'some bastard child' as robert said
so true!
robert came to visit me, kept me company
we had a delightful long talk about mwp's guitar playin' talents
and heyday records
his kids

tiare is a goddess
can't say enough good things about her
honoured my request for reserved seat
so as to live out dream of watching mwp
play the guitar up close and personal
sat directly in front of stage - in front of sk
and mwp
behind sk's friend jeffrey cain - another nice guy
was i loaded all night or were all these people just
really fuckin' great?
in another time, another place, it would be fun to
hang out with tiare
we did laugh and rant n rave about the bitch who runs the henry fonda
kept on us all night like white on rice
cuz the club takes a cut of all the merch sold
i went upstairs to her office to get some change and bitch
practically bit my head off
money-hungry viper
bitching about getting the t-shirts off the table
i said hey man, if she's in this business, late nights should be
expected
suck it up wicked witch of hollywood boulevard
seriously i mean i wanted to slap her in the face
in the car on the way home laughing said to g
'i should have just told her
anna, suck it bitch and calm the hell down.'
how crude!
did she kick out the band?
oh i can see sk being kicked out of somewhere - not!

sk had on some all black ensemble which suited him
very nicely
he looked sexy
and i say that full well knowing he is married w/kids
i have no intentions
he is just a sweet, moody, brilliant man w/socializing issues
but hey i'm a woman, i can admire the merchandise on stage, right?

mwp - you had the best hair in the business
going a little grey - aren't we all
if you don't wanna dye, ok
but please, i beg of you,
get a haircut, brush your hair and let your woman
introduce you to the wonders of conditioner

ha. he still plays the 12 string like some kind of
freakin' god. rubbin' his fingers in the lobby
i touched them - still so soft after all these years
charmed, he is
i left mwp with these words
you are awesome (how valley girl of me)
you are gonna miss us tomorrow night! (extreme sarcasm)
damn your bone structure
no i didnae say the last part
but seriously, damn chiseled face i would kill for
marty says "i'm so hungry"
so are we man, we had no dinnnnnnnnnnnnnnner
we are not bears who are hibernating
living off our fat, haha
we like to eat too.

i look forward to friday when we will not be indentured
and we'll be allowed to eat, watch the show, and mwp will
have new person to boss around for rest of tour, haha
no, he was pretty nice, just has his own method to his madness
i don't know how ONE girl is gonna handle ALL that merchandise
that's fuckin' insanity
we had 5 people working three tables
and shit still went down wrong

rob dickinson btw, is the sweetest human being ever
no hyperbole
really, really great guy
offered to get gena some dinner!
humble, gracious...he of the former band the catherine wheel
amazing voice
wondrous guitar
bought his cd - marched up in the crowd and said "Rob I have no time to be a fan, sign the CD" and he laughed and said "well you just get right to the point"
and he signed away graciously
he has a nutty stalker fan though and i was commanded to try
and keep her away from him
damn, fame, even small fame can be scary
what's with these people
rob is #1 classy guy in my book now; great girlfriend, all-around good people
he deserves mucho success

marjorie field opened up and hell they WERE good
i bought their cd from one of the band members and i swear
i think he was 12
but then again everyone looks about 12 to me these days
young band
but gonna go far
is that good or bad??
who knows.

went downstairs to do last task - give sk his money
i didn't trust anyone to do it, haha
sk seemed relax, hanging with friends, not bothered
i stayed only a minute
he thanked me and g
and was again a gentleman
thanks for the contact high
stevie.

surreal evening all around, but what else
can you expect from hollyweird
in the dead of night the dead, the drunk the demons
are out
we left the club and two guys walked by and yelled
'we love the church' at the top of their lungs
and i am
like
so
what
you have me mistaken with someone who gives a shit
young man.

must sleep. tutor coming soon. must have math mind.
we laughed our way home. so bloody hard i thought i
rearranged my organs
good laughter
didn't even have but half a beer
the sheer silliness of life on earth
enough to make you weep or laugh
and what the hell
laughter feels better in the end.

The band. Surprisingly human. ; )

MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons
Ouch

I hope Steven John Kilbey knows how much
I love him and appreciate the pure joy and
happiness his music, words and art have
brought me over the years. Because if he
doesn't...he soon will.



Photo: SJK - the man, the myth, the legend.

MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

If You Think You're Going Insane, You're Probably Not

At least that's what I've heard...and on the few occasions in my
life when I truly thought I was losing it, I would comfort myself
with that thought. "Well, I am afraid I'm going nuts, so I must not
be going nuts." Ha. Who knows if it's true. I feel guilty by reason
of insanity lately, that's for sure.

So I've been trying to stay on an even keel, as they say.
But everything's catching up with me, and fast. One week
from this very moment, hopefully I'll be asleep in bed,
and I'll take The Wretched Exam a few hours later, and come
home, and collapse. I am hitting the wall. My mind simply cannot
take in any more information. I have so much to do in the next
few days though. You know, study, clean the house, get my hair
done, get car washed, shop, study more, cry, watch world fall
apart on TV, complete top secret activities, listen to the voices in
my head, hahahaha...I *am* kidding...about that last part.

I should be looking forward more to the Church shows than I am
now. Sadly but oh so predictably the gift that just keeps on giving,
my FM has flared up really badly. I'm very tired again, despite
massive amounts of vitamins and sleep, sleep, sleep. Lots of pain,
causing me to take more Aleve than I'd like to. What gets me through
this is knowing this happened last time before the other two exams
and I physically started feeling better after they were over. It's
amazing what the mind can do to the body.

Ironically the show I'm looking forward to the most is the Friday night
show...the one before the exam. I'm excited to see Sandy again. I've been
thinking about Cathy a lot. I miss her. I feel so sad about what happened
to our friendship and yet I essentially ended it. I believed it was something
that had to be done...but that doesn't mean you stop missing a person
or caring about them. People keep asking me, do you think you will see
her? I don't know. If she's on Seance, or is on Steve's blog, I can't tell. She's
gone very incognito. I know she wouldn't contact me. I'm not even sure
she's still following the Church anymore. God knows I stopped for a few
years. Now I'm caught up in the madness and I kind of just want my life
back, haha. As boring and predictable as it can be.

Although I will say, thanks to Steve's Blog (#24 on our Hit Charts today)
I've 'met' some really fantastic people. I've actually met Sandy in person,
and look forward to spending at least a few hours with her....a true
Church fan. I'm bringing Gena, but she's not really familiar with their
music. She just knows them through me. Maybe that's part of why I
miss Cathy. It's so fun going to a show and watching and listening to a band
with another die-hard fan. Anyway, back to 'meeting' people. Veleska is
an absolute doll, and we've discovered in so many ways we share the same
brain! Her letters could've been written by me. She is great - I can't say
enough nice things about her.

And naturally Catz and Eek, my other two partners in crime...what can I
say? I'm excited they're going on a road trip together, and I hope someday
I will have the chance to meet them in person....they're both fabulous,
intelligent, funny ladies. I guess we're not girls anymore, huh? I always want
to call my friends girls. Well, what the hell. Girls, chicks, ladies, women...
women just sounds so...old! My mom is a woman. LOL! You never feel as
old as you are...ain't that the truth. I seem to only do this with women.

You'll never hear me refer to my dear friend Thomas as a 'boy' - nope,
he's a man. A gentlman, in fact. I think of him often these days, as he
takes NYC by storm. I miss him too...it's my fault though for not being
able to squeeze in a trip to the big Apple to see him this summer.

So I'm gonna get back in bed...Zoe has taken my spot as usual. I'll
pick up her little dishrag, sleepy body and move it over and she'll
meow, annoyed that mommy wants to sleep in mommy's spot...
and hopefully this time I can fall asleep without visions of atoms and
plants and planets and laws of physics and math theorems floating in my head...not to mention so many other things.

It's kind of sad to wish this week away because of the CSET...then
I'm wishing away the good stuff too. So I won't. I'll be good. I want
to try and live in the moment...like my wonderful 6 year olds taught
me. So easy for them...so hard for those of us who've accumulated so
many moments...we either live in the future or the past and forget
the only thing we have...now.

I don't know why - I mean beyond the obvious reason that the
shows fall right before my exam. but I'm kind of annoyed that
the Church have chosen California for their first shows. Why
does that bug me? Who knows. That very first show should be
interesting...I can't imagine getting off a plane from Australia,
and doing a show a day or two later. The jetlag is such a bitch.
I don't know if your body can ever get used to it? I've not traveled
enough to know. I know when I came back from Europe last year
I was off for at least a week. Circadian rhythms...delicate stuff.
Well, hopefully all will go well, I'm sure we'll get the lowdown
if there's a showdown...and once there was at a Church show in
Santa Barbara...but that's another story...one I really don't care
to remember at all.