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.

MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

Forty Miles of Hell and No End in Sight

"We will have peace with the Arabs when they love
their children more than they hate us."

- Golda Meir, Founder and Former Prime Minister of Israel


Dear Golda,
Hello from 2006. It has been 28 years since
you left this planet, left your beloved Israel.
Oh don't worry, it's still here...indeed, not much
has changed I'm sorry to report.

I always loved the above quote - you were indeed
a wise, wise leader in many ways. I've always wondered
though...in your heart of hearts...in the deepest, darkest
hours of any doubts you may have had...did you ever
dare harbour the thought that perhaps this idea, this great
sentiment went both ways? That you, Israel, would have
peace with the Arabs when YOU loved your children more than you
hated the Arabs?

I am not a Jew, nor an Arab, so what do I know about
these things. I am a human being though, and what I know
is that in the year of your death, 1978, Lebanon existed in
a state of civil war for 12 years. Since your death there have
been more bombings, more killings, more terrorist acts, and
we are a much sadder world for all of it. What I do know is the history
of your people. Perhaps not as well as you, but I am somewhat
a student of history and I know, I know. Why the Jews? Did you
ever wonder that? Because they are the chosen ones? Why have
the Jews been persecuted since the dawn of time? The place you called
home is still rife with tanks and missiles. It was once a defenceless
desert, a land the Greeks called Mesopotamia, the land between two rivers.
The Cradle of Civilization. The place once thought to be the Garden
of Eden. Oh but if it was ever paradise between the Tigris and
Euphrates, it has become the very antithesis of that now. I know
about the cruelty of Nebuchadnezzar and the destruction of the Temple.
I know about Emperor Titus and the bringing of the spoils of
Jerusalem back to Rome. The Crusades have been burned into
my mind and of course, the story of Moses and Pharaoh. And the one man who
took all of humanity's ills upon himself, a Jew, who died on the cross
for what we did, what we will not do, what we held, what we let go,
what we found, what we've lost.

Your people wandered the vast desert, this I know. Lost, tired and hungry.
And then, the horror of all horrors, the Holocaust. Six million
Jews. We have seen it, we have read of it, we have been taught
to never, ever forget. And yet I know we cannot really know
what the nightmare was really like. I can stare at the gaunt,
haunted faces at Auschwitz, with dead eyes and skeletal frames,
and I know I can never even begin to imagine that kind of Hell.
I do not know what it is like to be persecuted for being who I am.
For my religion, for my ethnicity, for the colour of my skin, for
who I am. I do not know.

I do not know what it is like to not have a country, a home.
For as much as I despise what my government is doing now,
I was born into a country that not only existed, but exists still
as some kind of bizarre superpower. I have always had a home,
a geographical and psychological idenity of sorts. I am an American,
whatever that means, for better or worse. It has little to do with
ethnicity or background or religion. It is more a state of mind, an idea.
But I know who I am, I know where I've come from, where my people came from and I know I have a place called home. I never had to suffer the
wretched indignity of being displaced from my home; I never had to
wear a mark on my clothing identifying myself. I was never torn from
my mother's arms and forced on a sweltering train bound for Hell.
I was never raped, starved, beaten, separated from all whom I loved
dearly. I was never torn asunder from the only home I ever knew.
I was never forced to work in the icy snow until my hands bled, to
sleep on hard, cold wood with lice and vermin and the stench of death
my most familiar companions. I was never forced to stand and fear
for my life on a daily basis; to beg God for mercy, to deny God, to curse
God, to have numbers burned into my skin until the day my earthly
body shut down and my soul crept off this mortal coil.

I know that your people never really did have a home. I don't
pretend to understand why that is. This tragedy in the Middle East has
perplexed me for 39 years; I suppose I could live to be 100
years old and still not understand all of its complexities and
contradictions. It is a battleground that has perhaps seen more
blood than any other place on earth. For I know that once upon
a time, a people called the Sumerians created what we call
civilization between those two rivers. And they created words,
and wheels, and ships and monarchies and societies and cities and
yet they fell to another group of people, the Akkadians. And like
dominoes the land would see the rise and fall of so many peoples;
the Akkadians giving way to the great Babylonian Empire, and
Hammurabi with his ingenius law code. Even Babylon fell to the
cruel and paranoid Assyrians, who lusted for power that took them
so long to obtain. But despite their citadels and defences, the Babylonians
rose again. The Tigris and Euphrates must have run red; rivers
running blood red with the deaths of so many innocents...for what?
Land. Resources. Dominance. Power. Lust. Greed. Religion.
Unable to overcome their lizard brains, they slaughtered each other
and your people too with blades of copper and silver and drank toasts
in cups of repousse gold. They built great cities out of azure blue bricks
and gateways of grandeur; hanging gardens for homesick wives and
towers so high they crumbled under the weight of men's pride.

After the war, the mantra. Never again. Never again.
The work camps, the gas chambers, the destroyed cities
and homes and decimated families...the piles of broken bones
and stench of the crematorium. Never again. The world understood.
It turned away for far too long but in its shame and regret, it
whispered as well, "Never again will these people suffer this
nightmare, this hell."

And three years after the end of the war, Israel was born.
But it was a cruel birth; it was necessary but it was more than the
birth of one nation. It was also the death of another. The story of
Solomon and the two women who both claimed to be the mother
of one baby, had a somewhat happy ending. Threatening to cut
the baby in half, Solomon discovered the real mother, who stepped
forward to save her child. The baby was spared; it wasn't divided in
two. For if it was, what then? Both women would suffer, and moreso
the real mother.

That is how I see the birth of Israel. Israel came about in 1948 by
splitting the land of the Palestinians in two. And death has been the
result of that birth ever since. Death and destruction. The Palestinians
were forced from their homes, stripped of their possessions, or forced
to leave with whatever they could carry with them. These people had
lives, and families, and a history there. And yet one day, it was decided
by other governments, that they should leave. I cannot imagine that
horror. And so the war began. The Palestinians would not give up
their land, their history, their pride easily. Never. Never. Never.
It is a familiar word, no? The Israelis were more powerful. So many
Palestinians reduced to nothing; so many dead, so many ending up
living in refugee camps. Why? What for? A displaced people. This was
their holocaust. Did you ever wonder what that must have felt like?
Does the story sound familiar?

Out of the horror, grief. Unimaginable grief. What are these people
fighting for? Land. Resources. Religion. Pride. Dignity. What is
rightfully theirs. But who is right? And so, some years, a battle of
inches. And some a battle of miles. Some, as in 1967, a battle of days.
And mothers buried their children in graves dug from the same soil.
And children wept over dead parents with the same salty tears.
Out of the bitterness and the rage grew hatred. Hatred so strong, so
unbelievable, so insane it became terrorism. All conscience has been
lost. All reason, disappeared. Now there is nothing left but the fervent
desire of the annihilation of your beloved country.

Do you see it? Do you Golda? Can you see what has happened?
The very thing that happened to the Jews....Israel and the world
was guilty of doing to the Palestinians. There is more than one tragic
story to be told here. Israel's fully justified mantra of "Never again" has
turned however, into a war mentality. The fear has been replaced
by hatred as powerful as that of the Arabs. And now, here we are
in the year 2006, and the hatred continues to grow.

Please, let me update you on the current situation. This week,
Israel has begun what might turn out to be the worst conflict
the Middle East has ever seen. The terrorist group Hezbollah
supposedly kidnapped two Israeli soldiers; a terrible act to be
sure. Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation, I know. I do not
support terrorist organisations. Israel's response was swift
and merciless. Hezebollah, which plays a role in Lebanon's
government, would not get away with this. And so Israel rolled
out the tanks, the war planes, the long-range missiles. Instruments
of death my country no doubt helped to procure for them, if
they were not given to them by America outright.

And war has all but been declared on not only Hezbollah but
on Lebanon, and sadly, its innocent citizens. Airports runways
have been blown up. Naval blockades have formed. Fuel depots
burn in the night. Defence Ministries explode. The Beirut-Damascus
highway burns with hellfire. It's only 40 miles. It's a small
geographical conflict. For now. Israel accused Hezbollah of sending
missiles into its country. Missiles hit Haifa - the farthest missiles
have gone yet. Are you impressed? Missiles are going
places never dreamt of in your lifetime! Suburbs in Lebanon are
being targeted; but to be fair, Israeli planes dropped leaflets and
told people to get out. To leave their homes, their lives behind.
And so we see them. In cars, on foot, carrying children and all
they can in old suitcases. And we see the ambulances. And hear the
sirens. And see rivers of blood running through the streets.

Television pundits are bantering the words World War III
around with nary a care. Because you see, we've got a few other
problems. Iran wants to make nuclear weapons. North Korea is
shooting off missiles into the Sea of Japan. I wouldn't even begin
to know how to explain September 11th to you.

I am not a Jew. I am not an Arab. I am a human being who sees
hatred so fierce that I fear no peace will ever truly exist in your
country, or the countries around Israel. Golda, neither the Jews
nor the Arabs love their children enough. You have all chosen hatred
of each other over love of your children, and of a future for those
children. You have condemned them, and perhaps all of us in the end
to a Hell that mere words cannot describe. Never foret, never forget.
What was it Golda, that we are never to forget? Hatred? For the cycle
has been born and when it dies, I fear we will all die with it.

So the world goes round as it always has and the lesson of the day
seems clear: love is not strong enough; hatred reigns supreme.
This is what is, in 2006. And what will come, remains to be seen.

Photo Credit: CNN - Fuel tanks burn at Beirut International Airport

We Are All The Children of Stardust

Yesterday was a sad day. I spent all of it inside
both my house and my head. I slept, and desperately
tried to memorise mathematical formulas in order
to jump through the next hoop that will be placed
before me.

In the news, the announcment that Syd Barrett died. What a life.
To have influenced so many; I wondered where did he go?
Did he know he was going? And where is he now?
Floating amongst the asteroids and comets and supernovas?

Terrorists blew up commuter trains in Mumbai, India.
Almost 200 people died and it is virtually incomprehensible
to imagine the horror and the nightmare of the scene
when you are thousands of miles away, living in another
country, another city, another place inside your head.

I do not know this world anymore and yet I thought once
I did. We cursed the Cold War, but as many have said now,
at least we knew the rules. It was an imperfect insanity,
marked by futile wars and thousands of deaths. Yet there
were perimeters, even alongside the blight of communism and
the bitter sadness of Vietnam, the heavy threat of mutually
assured destruction and Star Wars. Little did we know that
mutually assured destruction was indeed our saving grace.
The USSR did not want to be obliterated anymore than we did.
And so we lived. And down came the wall, in 1989, in Berlin,
and we all witnessed what we thought then was a glorious
moment in history. When did it end? Did it ever really begin?
Have we merely traded one set of fears for another? What
is the sum of all fears? Is this my life now, and for all the years
to come?

My heart is heavy, and I am scared. It is not as if terrorism
is new; indeed I can recall terrorist acts from my childhood in
the 1970's. But the rules of the game have changed. The USSR
disappeared and with it, some frail cobweb of connection that
held the misery and fear together. Internal wars and rebels and
grievances have turned Russia into a frightening, failing democracy.

It seems as well we can look back and fool ourselves into believing
everything was OK before September 11th. Intellectually we know
it wasn't. Europe and other continents and countries had been living
with the hideous blight of terrorism for decades. It was the shock
and scale and magnitude of the attacks on - gasp - American soil
that shook us awake from our dreams of immunity, our fantasies and
necessary illusions of safety. And we woke up, some of us literally and
figuratively, and we knew: there was never any safe place. There is
nowhere to run and hide. The boogeymen are not on the other side
of the world; they are here, they are there - they are everywhere.
None of us will probably ever forget where we were when we heard
the news - my mother woke me very early that Tuesday morning;
in time to see the Twin Towers fall, collapse into ash, dust, and vapourized
nothingness.

My mother, the queen of hyperbole, for once was not exaggerating
when she said our country was under attack. I knew, as sure as I'd
known anything in my entire existence, that the world had irrevocably
changed that beautiful Indian summer day. And then, the carefully
constructed nightmares of Afghanistan and Iraq. The mind cannot
fully fathom the grief, the agony, the lives destroyed forever by such
futile and senseless self-serving political strategies. The rules of
engagement no longer apply. The soldiers, over three years in, are going slightly
mad. They are living in a constant state of hypervigilance which
has pushed many to allegedly commit horrific crimes - rape and murder
and torture. If you are around madness long enough, you become
the madness. If you are living with monsters, one day you will
become the monster.

July 11, 2006, Mumbai, India. How many lives were destroyed on
those trains? March of 2004, Madrid. July of 2005, London. Mind
the gap. Mind the men and women who do care a whit about life;
who seem to long for death in their sick, twisted war. A war on....
what exactly? Ah, there's the rub. Tis there where the rules have
changed, and the players as well. They are everywhere now. They
are sitting in our junior colleges. They are sitting in caves in the
Middle East. They are insurgents in the deserts, hiding bewteen the
Tigris and Euphrates. They are walking amongst the businessmen
of Mumbai, and the commuters of London. My friend Catz and I
spoke today of what they want. What indeed? The Palestinians want
their homeland back. Can we blame them? The Israelis want a home
and for the world to never forget what happened to them. Yes, it
is understandable. The others - they all want something different,
and in the end, it's probably all the same. Some of them, like the
President of Iran, want the absolute annihilation of Israel. Osama
wants the annihilation of the West. al-Zarqawi didn't even discriminate
anymore - everyone and everything was a target. Men, women,
children. Christians, Jews and Muslims. He beheaded human beings
as if they were tiny ants he stepped on with glee. He is gone now,
but what does it matter in the end? A million others will take his
place. The madness has no end. It cannot be contained.

North Korea is hell-bent on obtaining nuclear technology. Kim
Jong Il taunts the world by firing off impotent missiles. Perhaps
now they will all fall and sink to the bottom of the sea, but he
knows the psychological effect it will have on the world. The board
game positions shift. We send a missile destroyer to Japan. There
doesn't seem to be any diplomacy, for how do you appease a
madman whose country and government remain a mystery?
India fires off wayward missiles; India and Pakistan live on the
precarious bit of peace gained over two long years, and now, and
now...Mumbai.

Ireland, Indonesia, England, India, Spain, Russia, America,
Iraq, Afghanistan, Italy, Scotland, Africa, the Philippines...is there
any continent or country that will not be touched by terrorism?
And the wall came down, but alas, it was not freedom that
was born, but a world unknown to us as before. The Cold War years
were a comfort zone and we didn't even know it.

I am in a way, glad I do not have children. Yes, the world has
always been a place where control is a mere illusion. My mother
was born two weeks before World War II. I was born during the
heaviest battles of the Vietnam war. But there has been a sea
change, and it is an ominous one at that. The tides have turned,
the waters are pitch black, still at some times, wildly turbulent
at others. There are no predictable tides, the man on the moon
smiles wanly down at us, as if to say, "I'm so sorry, I cannot control
any of this anymore."

We live on edge, on bizarre terror alerts, we live at the edge of
a beautiful spiral disk called the Milky Way, and we know we also
live on the edge of a steep precipice. Will we fall? How long and far
do we go with our lives before the terror starts encroaching upon
our freedoms? Last fall I insisted on riding the Tube. I would not
be undone in London by hate-filled terrorists. We road the shaky,
old rails, and it was like some kind of victory. We survived.
In New York I insist on riding the subways; a day after I arrived
in 2004 NYC was put on a high terror alert. I would not be dismayed
or discouraged. Fuck them, I said. Fuck their insanity, their threats,
their madness. It is easy to say when you still feel that invisible and
yet slightly comforting illusion; the cloak of comfort that envelops
you and tells you 'oh yes it is happening but certainly it could not
happen again, so soon.'

But it is happening. Over and over and over. And it will happen again.
And my fear, our fear, the collective fear that lives inside all of us,
whether we want to admit it or not, is that someday, one day, something
is going to happen that is going to make September 11, 2001 look
like child's play. What then? Will will even be here to contemplate
it? I never thought this would happen in my lifetime. I never thought
I'd live in a world so hopelessly caught in a tangled web of torture and terror.
There are no rules, the culprits are everywhere, hiding in the very
threads of this loosely woven fabric of madness; and they are nowhere -
they are ghosts, corpses among the corpses, voices and images on
shaky recorders and video cameras and they will never, ever be
easily be caught, killed or deterred. When death itself does not
deter a man or woman from his or her quest to kill and destroy,
what alternatives do those we seek peace have? When men are not
afraid to plow themselves into buildings in jets at 500 miles an hour....what then?

So we live with our fears, and we try to keep them at bay, and
we make macabre jokes, and we know, we finally know that
the laughing sadness that now owns our souls is not going away.

Photo: Our home, the Milky Way, in all its sad beauty.

MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

It's All Good

Isn't it? I mean, as long as we're all still alive
and healthy and kicking and breathing? Yes my
dear fans and fiends, ha!, kidding. I mean my dear
friends, all 2 or 3 of you ; )....I have my head on
straight again. I went a bit over the bend on the weekend
but I've reeled myself back in. No test is worth the
#1 thing to me, and that's my health, which is currently
in the toilet. I've been sleeping poorly, dreaming of
babies made out of vegetables (only Eek will truly, truly
understand this), eating sporadically and not well,
not taking my vitamins and haven't done a yoga pose
in weeks. So...I'm tired beyond description and in lots
o' pain. Bad, bad, me. So I'm listening to my body now,
and letting it do what it needs to do, whether that be sleep,
eat or what. My body wanted orange juice today, which to me,
was my body screaming, "For God's sake woman, eat something
that has some nutritional value!" I must ignore my body when
it wants to go buy more manuka honey though - that stuff is
loco expensive, and I've taken a real liking to it now. Addictive!

My tutor came today - he's only coming one more time.
He's so optimistic, I find him funny. I think he thinks I may
pass this test, and who knows - maybe I will! I'll study the best
I can, and I will let it go. I've got a LOT to do at the end of this week
and beginning of next week for the shows, and that has to take
precedence. Here's how I'm letting go - I'm not sure I spelled
that word right - precedence - but I'm not even going to use
spell-check or the dictionary. Let a word sit there spelled wrong.
And the world will still spin on its axis, which is, I might add,
tilted 23 degrees to the perpendicular, which is why we have
seasons! Isn't it lovely? Now due to the Coriolis effect, the winds
blow right in the Northern Hemisphere, where I live, under a high
pressure system, and they blow left in the Southern Hemisphere,
where SK and Sue C live (and a few others!), under a low pressure system.

So next time you're enjoying the fall colours on the trees,
or wondering how long this bloody summer heat will last,
or freezing your little tush off in the snow, remember, it's all
due to 23 degrees, and naturally it all depends on where you
live as to what season we're in. I still think people in Australia
live backwards, season-wise. Have they always thought
that about us? Hee. Which is why I find it fascinating that SK blogs about his
freezing kitchen, whilst I blast the A/C with the 100 degree
temperatures here. See, I've learned some science. Just don't
get me started on isotopes.

So I turn on CNN today and I hear India's shootin'
missiles off. INDIA? I can't keep up. I thought it was North
Korea that was shooting wayward (thank God) missiles off
right and left and right. The Sea of Japan thanks you, Kim
Jong Il-Fucking Maniac, for polluting it with your impotent
missiles. And yet thank god they don't have the technology.
So what in Pete's sake is India doing? What is it, National Shoot
Off Your Missile Month? Can't these guys go back to jerking
off the old-fashioned way? (all pardons to my more sensitive
readers).

Seriousy, it's kind of scary when the US sends a missile destroyer
for permanent deployment to Japan. We laugh...until we don't.
Or as my mom said, "Life goes on...until Kim Il-Jong decides it
doesn't." And China! Well, they're going nuclear too - you know, running
out of fuel and all that. So we must enjoy each moment, I suppose
because we do not know what the future will bring. It is becoming
an exceedingly frightening time to be alive. Who the hell decided
to split that first atom in the first place? Ugh!

I also apologize to my humble readers for the amount of times
I used the "F" word in my last blog. No, not Marty's 'f' word - that
would be 'fun' and I'm wasn't having too much of that. The
shall we say, traditional 'f' word. Joycie and my own mum aren't
even reading my blog, but a girl shouldn't end up sounding like
she's in a Quentin Tarantino film.

And now....the most important news for last.
Keith Richards has announced he's ready to tour.
Did anyone ever doubt it for a minute? My grandma and
Keith Richards: two immortal human beings.
At least my grandma isn't climbing trees.

Only a bit over a week until....THE CHURCH!!!!!

Photo: The boys of summer (well, our summer)

MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

Breakdown

Well, I'm not even sure this is going to post correctly
as apparently something is fucked up with my blog. I
thought it might have to do with something in regards to
the last blog, so I deleted it. I don't know how my blog looks
now to other people. It looks fine to me, but obviously
something's wrong.

I think I finally cracked today. I'd been studying science so
long and so hard my brain literally hurt. Even though I know
your brain can't hurt; I swear mine did. I promised my tutor
Mike I'd take a practice CSET math test and I did this morning
and fucked it up in more ways than I can count. Granted I was
tired (what else is new), anxious, totally froze up when I realized
I didn't even know how to go about the first question. I blew so
many - I would've failed and the test is less than two weeks away.

There's a lot riding on this test - mainly my ability to student
teach in January. I need to do that to continue forward and make
money. I don't have endless amounts of money. I just paid a bunch
of medical bills, my tuition, credit cards, cell phone...Jesus it adds
up. I've never been so frazzled and out of it. I am really scared.
This is not like me. I am usually very organized, on top of everything,
I remember everything, and conduct my life in a pretty
responsible manner.

I've always prided myself on being on top of EVERYTHING.
I am nothing if not organized, responsible and conscientious.
Yes, I am a perfectionist and over the years I've learned to let that
go, but it's hard. Even with FMS I am a type A personality.

I realized, with complete horror and shock (I am a bit of a drama
queen) that I completely forgot to pay my estimated taxes in June.
I pay taxes four times a year on the interest I get from the modest
inheritance I received from my father. The week the taxes were due
was the week my friend had surgery, the week I went to meet Anderson Cooper, the week my kids graduated, and the last day of school. In ten years, I have NEVER forgotten to pay my taxes.
I know it's not the end of the world - hell, I'm sure the penalty
won't be that huge, but it was like an indictment of how disorganized
and scrambled my brain has become. I couldn't even blame that
goof on the test.

I had a miserable day today. Gena took me out, we had lunch
and I know I was a lousy companion. I'd just essentially failed my
math test and I've spent hundreds of dollars on this tutor. I am NOT
a stupid person. I have a master's degree, I had almost a 4.0 in
grad school, I have a fairly decent IQ. I just cannot comprehend
math. And apparently I'm missing science questions I should be
getting too. The problem with these fucking tests is that they
expect you to study and know EVERYTHING - and it's impossible.
I have an excellent memory and I have an amazing amount of
knowledge in my head, but it never seems to be enough.

I've been very emotional, crying at the drop of a hat. I've noticed
when I type letters my words are screwed up. My spelling is totally
off. I can't seem to form sentences when I speak. My house is a mess.
I started stuttering last night talking to my mom - I've never
stutterd in my life. I'm tired constantly. I'm in pain all the time -
I'm sure it's do to the mental stress I'm under.

I know this isn't a life or death situation; it just would be so
easier for me if I pass this now, rather than have to take it again
in September when school is started and I have four classes to go
to.

The thing that scared me the most, is I am so preoccupied,
I almost caused an accident driving with my friend in the car.
She said she was going to drive until my test was over. It's fine
with me. I am struggling with myself to just let go of this - all
I ever wanted to do was matter a little bit in this world - to make
the world a better place. I love teaching. Why is it so hard? I've
proven I'm a good college teacher and I'm excellent with little
kids. They're screaming for good teachers - here I am you fuckers!

Tonight G and I saw Pirates - wow. I'm exhausted from seeing it.
It was fun,and Johnny Depp was naturally delicious - but there was
SO much action in it that I think it was a bit much. It ended exactly
as if there is a sequel coming...and of course we know there is.

Today G and went to Whole Foods. I shelled out and bought some
Manuka Honey. Damn, that IS expensive. I tasted it tonight. I am so
used to the clover honey I get that the manuka honey tasted slightly
bitter to me...but I think it's good and it'll grow on me. I've got to
make it last, haha. Whole Foods is introducing a huge new line of
vegan foods - they looked good. I know I couldn't go vegan. But I was
reading one of their vegetarian magazines and I am seriously
considering going vegetarian. Long before I listend to Steve Kilbey
ramble on about the horrors of meat, I have been conflicted when
eating meat. I might start to gradually phase meat out of my life and see how I do. Its' funny, G was busy buying something and I stood in
front of all the beers looking at the. I don't normally drink beer but
I somehow wanted to get really plastered. The guy at Whole Foods
said, "Can I help you?" and I said, "Yeah, I wanna get drunk." I
don't think he knew what to make of that! He kind of laughed. He
said "Well if I can help you with any specific brands, let me know."
Yeah, how about something herbal?

Steve, lovely soul that he is, actually answered many of our questions,including mine. I loved his answer. He is a good guy -
learning to be nice. Funny, I've been so nice my whole life I
think I've let people run right over me. I don't need to learn
to be nice. But we're all here for different lessons. I need to learn
to let go and let God.

I absolutely refuse to have my Church week ruined by this test.
By next Monday, I want the bulk of my studying done. I will not study on Friday, the day before the test. Sadly I might
have to leave that show early - it figures the show is in
Anaheim and I'm in Simi Valley. I need a few
hours of sleep before the test.

This is an introduction to all my new blogger friends to how
anal retentive and perfectionistic I am, haha. I just want to give
myself a break. I feel so much pressure, and all, the pressure
is coming from within me. It's been this way my whole life. It's
a miserable way to live. I haven't pursued a new goal for so long
that I haven't had to feel any pressure. I was in a comfort zone
and I've pushed myself out of that zone. It's a bitch.

Tomorrow I plan to study math, slowly, and learn what I screwed
up on. Monday Mike is coming and then he is not coming until the
Thursday before the test. I figure at that point, I'll either sink or
swim as they say.

I can't believe I just spent $3000 on bills, tuition, parking passes, etc.

I'm praying to the Gods, whatever might be up there, to let me
get my head on straight. A stupid test isn't worth my health, it
isn't worth getting my friend and I killed in the car. I look forward
to next Monday, when I plan to essentially let it go and concentrate
on the Church activities. I feel like I deserve to enjoy myself and have a good time.

Life is short, this shit isn't worth it. Mostly I think I am worried about finances. I NEED to go back to work and start bringing in
money again, instead of all money going OUT.

Time for bed. Bless those poor souls in that Russian air crash.
I am well aware that my problems really don't amount to a hill
of beans in this crazy world. I hope the crash doesn't scare Steve.
I swear once, I spent years flying and every single time I would fly,
I kid you not, right before I flew there would be a major air disaster.
That did not help my fear of flying, to say the least.

So much pain, and grief and sorrow. Usually I am really good
at getting perspective on things. Hopefully I will be better.
And hopefully this blog looks normal. If not, please tell me.

MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

It Ain't a Party Until Somebody Cries

Well yesterday was OK
not too bad actually;
the pool was heavenly - deliciously
cool water on a sunny, hot, perfect
Southern California Fourth of July.

I played with my cousin's little kids
in the pool and didn't eat too much;
the day flew by so quickly. It was strange.
At the end , I thought, "That went so
fast. It's over already?" And I thought
I could live to be 100 and that will be
what life is like. It was over before it
began.

The kids are all adorable, especially
Carson, who wanted to be thrown up
in the air and into the water repeatedly.
He is 2 1/2 and just said, "Again" so many
times. Then Kevin, who is 4, started crying,
and hey, that's when things really began swinging.

My grandma and grandpa, those people
who I call The Immortals, are still going
strong physically. What I find really ironic
is that I watched one Twilight Zone episode
at their house yesterday and it was about
a man who'd found the secret to immortality
and was over 2,000 years old. He was truly
immortal. But he didn't enjoy it like he thought
he would. He was tired. He'd watched everyone
around him die, and die, and die again and again.
In the end, he was killed, and it seemed a relief
to him. He said, although he feared death, he realized
that death is what gives life its true meaning.
My grandparents do not have the ability for such
introspection and clarity of thought. I love them, but
they are the simplest of people. I do not think my
grandmother has ever questioned anything in her life,
especially death.
I know she is afraid though.

My grandma's
mental state is not good. She called me about
four names before she remembered mine.
She knows who you are; she just has to go
through the entire family tree before she
gets to you. She's getting bad with her sense
of time and numbers. I wondered if a
certain part of her brain was deteriorating on
its own. She told me, "Next month I'm going to
be 23."

It was hard not to laugh. I said, "No, you're
going to be 93." I think she had herself at
64, and a few other ages too. She talks about
her work at the hospital as if the people she
worked with were all still alive. Will I be this
way? What is going to happen to me? I have
no children; I doubt I will. Where will I end up?
Or will I, with the way the world is going.
No use worrying about it. My father always told
me the things you worried about never seemed
to materialize and the things you never worried about
often happened. It's true for me. For him. Perhaps
a shark will eat me. Or I will be run down by a bull
in Pamplona. Because you see, I never worry about
those things. I am deathly afraid of sharks, and rarely
go into the ocean (thank you Steven Spielberg). And
I think running with the bulls is one of the stupidest
events on earth. I think anyone who does that deserves
to get gored in the ass. Poor bulls.
So yes, expect the unexpected. More cliches to come.
A dollar a cliche. They'll be on sale til midnight.

My grandfather is more amazing. Too bad I'm
not related to him; technically he's my step-
grandfather, but the only grandfather I've ever
really had. He is almost 93 as well - he's got
genes that are even more stunning than my
grandma's. A few years ago he fell and broke a
hip. At his age, that usually would've been it for
someone. Not him. He recovered; he's even got
disintegrating vertabrae and just keeps plugging
along. He does have a cane now, and he hasn't
driven in years so he has a scooter - actually two.
I said, "Oh a two-scooter garage!" He shops
and scoots around, deaf as a post. It's a miracle
he isn't killed in traffic.

But what's truly amazing, and I wish you could
all see this - is that the man doesn't eat anymore.
I mean, his caloric intake daily must be under 500
calories. He is literally, literally a skeleton. And yet
he drags this skeleton around - how? HOW? My mom
and I think they are both alive on sheer will.
I don't know why he doesn't eat. I guess he's not hungry
for some reason.

He bar-b-qued the steaks yesterday. I felt sorry for
the cows. Not only were they slaughtered for their meat,
but he burned those steaks so that they were like pieces
of charcoal. Needless to say, I didn't have any steak. I'm
not much of a beef eater anyway.

My grandma did get me laughing when she
started talking about the neighbour down the street.
Some woman who's 102 years old. My grandma was
saying, "I wouldn't mind getting really old, as long as
I have my mind." It was so strange; first, she said it like
she wasn't old yet. I'm thinking, lady, you're old. Perhaps
we never think of ourselves as old. I mentall still feel
about 25, but thanks to fibro, the gift that just keeps
on giving, I physically often feel like I'm 105. Anyway, I
inadvertantly burst out laughing and had to stop myself
because she pretty much HAS lost her mind. She doesn't
have Alzheimer's so much as your garden-variety senile
dementia. Her caretaker, Delia, just looked at me and smiled.
Delia is a saint. I mean really, forget beatifying the late Pope.
Delia needs to get in line ahead of him.

I told my mom, "She thinks she has her mind, but
she doesn't." Maybe that's like me. "She thinks she has a soul
but she doesn't." We're just a mass of chemicals and neurons
and dendrites and fibers and one hard blow will make
us disappear....where?

It's all absurd lately.
North Korea is launching missiles into
the Sea of Japan. It appears they may not
have the technology yet to hit us, but they
will get it. I hate that fat little North Korean
communist dictator. Kim Il Whatever. Normally
I do not call anyone fat. But I will call him fat and ugly
and worrisome, because we have our own maniacs
in our own government to worry about. We don't need
anymore maniacs interacting with maniacs.
And to think, as a child, all they
pounded into us, at school, was fear of the big, bad
USSR. Get under your desks! Drop and cover!
As the brilliant comedian Lewis Black says, these
are the adults. ADULTS. In charge of children. And
they are telling us to essentially get under a pile of
wood, of kindling, while an atomic bomb goes off.
And if we survive the blast, it's a sure bet, as he says,
we'll walk outside and our nose will be melting onto
our shoe.

I believe there will be a nuclear
'incident' of some kind in my lifetime...
if I have a lifetime akin to a normal lifespan.
It is frightening. Am I a pessimist for saying this?
I don't know. Everyone started talking about it in
the pool yesterday. My cousin said she would rather
just be hit directly rather than suffer the effects of the
aftermath. I started yelling "Nice holiday conversation!"
I just wanted a few minutes in the pool, in the sun,
without thinking about these things.

Ken Lay, of the Enron disaster, died from
an apparent heart attack. His 'pastor' said,
"His heart just gave out."
I said, "What fucking heart?"
In a way, I am angry. The bastard won't see
the inside of a prison; he escaped his earthly
punishment. How convenient. I can only imagine how
those directly affected by his massive arrogance
and greed feel. I can also only hope there is
some kind of judgment after this life, although
I suppose it isn't mine to dole out, or even wish
on a person.

I'll never forget seeing his wife crying on TV,
crying because they were going to have to sell off
some of their 5 or 6 homes. I have no words. Well,
I do, but they're really pretty bad, so I'll refrain.
I'll pretend that my mom Carole, and Steven's mom
Joycie, are reading my blog. Apparently they both
freak out at the mere mention of the mention of
swearing.

My sleep schedule has been screwed up and I need
to get on a correct one soon. The last two and half
weeks of studying are before me...as are a few Church
concerts. I need energy to get through it all and energy
does not come to me so easily anymore.

My dreams are getting more and more surreal. And I
mean surreal. Salvador Dali would be proud. Even I'm
getting scared of my own dreams.

No photo. Too tired to even find one.

MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons
Happy Birthday America

Oh yay!!! I got home from the fireworks
extravaganda at the Bowl and one of the best
Twilight Zone episodes is on. It's the one where
the plane keeps flying around and gets lost in
time. They keep trying to get back to New York
but they've gone back in time and cannot get
back to the correct year; they're stuck in
1939 now - the year my mom was born.
At least they're not in outer space. I swear every single
marathon they always show every single space episode.
Now the pilot is telling the passengers they've flown
backwards in time. And I thought turbulence was
scary. Rod Serling was a fucking genius. If only he'd
figured out how bad cigarettes were for you.

The Hollywood Bowl was a lot more fun than I
thought it would be. I have that problem though.
I tend to dread all social events, but 9 times out
of 10, I end up having a good time. It's never as
good as I'd hoped...or as bad as I'd feared, to quote some moody
bastard. They've re-done the front of the Bowl...I don't think anyone's
seen the gorgeous art deco statue there
since the place opened in 1922. It really is
a spectacular venue; a gorgeous place to listen to
music outdoors. It was unbelievably warm tonight.
My fruit tarts melted into piles o' goo. So no fruit
tarts.

The show was the usual patriotic mishmash
with - get this - Kenny Loggins as the special
guest. Ok, when Jill told me this I was like,
Kenny Loggins? All I remembered about him
was that he did that song "Danger Zone" for Top
Gun. I thought he had disappeared. What a goof.

Not so! I actually knew SO many of his songs
it is scary! Hey, what about "Danny's Song"?
I love that sappy tune! It was really quite lovely;
Kenny stuck the microphone out and we all sang
"And even though we ain't got money, I'm so in love with ya honey,
And everything will bring a chain of love.
And in the morning when I rise, you bring a tear of joy to my eyes,
And tell me everything is gonna be alright. "

It was so beautiful, hearing all the soft, lovely voices
echoing against the dark hills surrounding the iconic shell
on the stage. I'd totally forgotten he also did the song "I'm All
Right" which begins one of the funniest freakin' golf movies
ever - Caddyshack. That's some funny shit.

Ok, but here's the really scary part. I thought Kenny
looked really hot. Super sexy. I love his hands. I love
men's hands in general. But his are great hands. Long
fingers. Tan. I love to watch men do things with their
hands....yeah, like play guitar. What a cliche! I just sat
there and thought, I'd like to have some hot monkey sex
with Kenny. Obviously, I am more disturbed than anyone
previously thought.

Anyway, I have NO idea how old Kenny is;
he's got to be in his mid 50's at least. I mean
the man put out his first stuff when I was about
3 years old. But he's lookin' good and geez does
he have some serious fans! Mostly female of course
and they were cracking my friend Jill and I up so hard.
This one woman was truly 'dancing like no one was
watching' and I am not making fun - good for her,
but damn, it was a riot.

The night ended with truly incredible fireworks;
the orchestra played all sorts of patriotic tunes
and we ooooohed and aaaaahed and sang America
the Beautiful.

Now I am home and need to go finish my word
problems before I go to my grandma's house
for swimming and a bar-b-que tomorrow.
I was thinking of these women getting so
into Kenny, and I thought well hell woman,
in a few weeks that's gonna be you at the
Church concert - unless Steve has some kind
of nervous breakdown or something. Because
he seriously seems to have something going on.
I could be wrong, but right now, this does not
seem like a happy man.

And yet once upon a time, I looked at
those guys and thought "Oh they have it all."
I thought their lives were magical or
something. Especially Marty. I swear when
he put out his Art Attack CD, I used to listen
to it every night when I lived in Brentwood.
Every night around 7pm I went for a walk.
I lived in a really crappy apartment in a
very beautiful neighborhood. The voyeur
in me loved to walk at dusk, and peek into
the warm yellow glow of stranger's windows.
Not to see anything risque; on the contrary -
it was the ordinariness of stranger's lives
that fascinated me. The myriad events of the day,
collapsing gently into the arms of night,
the sounds of glasses clinking and silverware
and dishes and dinner conversations....the
different, often delicious scents of various
meals wafting out open windows....the cats
that sat in windowsills, the leaves swaying
in the summer breeze as I walked down
the sidewalks...Art Attack was the soundtrack
to that time in my life. I honestly thought
Marty lived with Ann in some kind
of gingerbread house in Sweden; he
sat by the fire with the cuckoo clock ticking
away, a modern day Dorian Grey. I think
I thought fuckin' fairies visited him and
he was so perfect with his shiny long hair
and his gorgeous bone structure and that
Ann, what a bitch she was! I thought surely
they just traveled the world, looking like
The Beautiful People, wearing fashionable
clothes and nothing bad or stupid or real
ever touched them.

I was 21. Naive isn't the word for it.
I had pixie dust in my eyes.
I've seen The Wizard of Oz.
You'd think I'd know that the
Wizard was just a small, frightened man
behind a big curtain.

Photo: The Hollywood Bowl Fourth of July Fireworks show

MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

Fuck It

I have nothing profound to write.
I am in a pissy mood. What should be a nice,
relaxing time - fourth of July and all - has
turned into one of the most stressful times
I've had in a while.
The tutor came today. I fucked up on my
exponents and screwed up my homework.

He seems to be living in some fantasyland,
either lying to me, or actually believing I'm going
to pass this test. I've been studying science non-stop
for days. Chemistry is the only thing kicking my ass.
Everything else, I am good with.
Although Newton can kiss mine, with all his laws.
Didn't he have anything better to do than sit around
and figure out the fuckin' laws of motion?

Going to the Hollywood Bowl tonight with my friend
and her family. They have great seats up front because
her grandma is handicapped. They had great seats before
because her mom had MS. A really shitty reason to have
great seats. Her mom died three years ago. It's weird to
go to the Bowl without her. I know they'll have fireworks
tonight; I've been there before around the 4th and they
really are spectacular. Maybe that will put me in a better mood.

My mother and I got into a bad one - she finally confessed
she's been angry about some real estate we sold in 1999.
For 7 years she's blamed ME for selling off too soon. Like I
knew what was going to happen with the goddamned real
estate market. It was a decision made by the whole family
after my dad died. I take the hit for everything with her.
I never lived with "What could have been." She's been living
that way for the last 7 years. I just figured, as Maya A. says,
"You did the best you could at the time with what you had."

Jesus. I'm sure a lot of people would've called in sick on
September 11, 2001 if they'd known they'd be taking a
leap off the 103rd floor of their building before their
10:00am coffee break. I can't live anymore with what could
have been. It's hard enough to live with what is.

I have a ton of math homework but am expected to be
at a family bar-b-que tomorrow. Why don't they just put me
on the grill. At least the Twilight Zone marathon is on.
Somehow, that always comforts me. Insane, isn't it?
I registered for four classes this morning. Still need to pay my
tuition. I'm going to try and sub during the day.
I'm freaked out. I've never gone to school full time,
and worked, esp. with the limited energy I have.
I have no choice. But I'm still scared.

Something about Steve Kilbey's last blog really,
really upset me. I swear I could't tell if he was kidding or not.
His fans piss me off even more.
I'm supposed to be excited about going to see The Church.
There's something really disconcerting though when Steve
starts to announce he needs his ego stroked.
He pisses me off and breaks my heart. What can I do?
I want to save him, make his life better. I can't even do
that for myself. I gave up the salvation complex after my
dad. Didn't work out too well on that one.
I like commenting on his blog; I've probably made hundreds
lose their lunch with the constant gag reflex.

As my blog says today, fuck it.
Maybe North Korea will make good on its threat
and blow us all to hell
and none of this will be a worry at all.

Photo Credit: CNN - North Koreans make their feelings known.