holla to my twin brother

Photo taken 4/10/07 at St. Marks Place.


I did agree with this photo two weekends ago when that godforsaken nor'easter flooded our basement, but I've gotten over it. Me and this state with its rich heritage of questionnable governors are pals again.

Hey, speaking of the Garden State, Zach Braff -- director of the awesome movie that goes by that name and is better known to me as My Twin Brother -- has a blog! What a find! You can see it here.

Now why would I in my craziness make such an outlandish claim not just of common ties, but of conjoined blood relation? Answers below.

1. When I first started watching Scrubs earlier this year, which I began with the pilot episode courtesy of a DVD rental (and not with the episodes being aired now which are stale and not funny at all), I swear to Yahweh I was watching myself as his character named J.D. This guy has a very rich inner life, is always running some interior monologue, sees fantasized scenes played out in front of him, and ALWAYS says the wrong thing which ends up upsetting his friends even though he started off trying to be tactful. So I thought, "Hey, the writer of Scrubs (not the actor) sounds a lot like me" but little did I know....

2. ....that Zach Braff as the writer and director of Garden State is also me! The movie deals with isolation and the attempt to find purpose and connection in the face of suburban, contemporary American life. If I were to direct a movie, I would want it to have the atmosphere, the sense of disconnection and wry humor that this movie has.

So. Funny ZB as the character J.D. equals Teaneck T, and now serious ZB is also TT when she's alone and all serious. And then....

3. ...what's with the acoustic folk and heartfelt indie music like Joshua Radin, Zero 7, and Thievery Corporation that are played not just in Scrubs, not just in Garden State, but also in his latest movie called The Last Kiss? What do the three have in common? Mah man Zach, of course! And what are the songs in my iTunes collection well before I even knew this guy existed? The very songs that I heard in his shows and movies. Plus...

4. ... he's got those big facial cheeks. What's the one most prominent facial feature I have? Bingo. I used to be embarrassed about my chipmunk cheeks before, but not anymore thanks to you, twin brother!

5. And my all-time proof: When Lorin was watching one of the 20,000 episodes of Scrubs I have devoted myself to since the pilot episode, he -- not knowing any of my claims, mind you -- actually said, "You know, sweetie, this guy's gestures and expressions remind me of you."

Man alive, if I wasn't married to him already I would have proposed right then and there. He recognized me! Not just that, he identified my kin!

Btw, if you do check out his blog, see if the meandering humor and wordy, senseless asides sound eerily familiar to you. Take out all the mentions of famous Hollywood people like Brad Pitt and P. Diddy and what do you have? A guy who could be living in Teaneck, that's what.

P.S.
Writing this post made me curious where my twin really did come from. My research tonight courtesy of IMDB shows that he hails from.... Maplewood, New Jersey! I done tole ya we're peeps! So what if I'm actually from Staten Island by way of Manila. I am shocked by how much proof there is in my chemical-saturated Jersey pudding.

day of prayer

Along the fence of Marble Collegiate Church on 5th Avenue. Gold ribbons represent prayers for the American soldiers who died in Iraq since the war began in March four years ago. The blue ribbons are for the Iraqi casualties. The green ribbons represent prayers for peace. Photo taken 3/23/06.


The death toll for American soldiers in Iraq is now over 3,200, twenty of which are from the beginning of this month alone (and the month began only seven days ago). The number of Iraqi civilians killed is much higher, estimated to be over 60,000.

On this holy week of Passover and the Triduum, when the energy of prayers throughout the world rises as people come together and pray in groups, may the prayers for peace and for understanding, the prayers of grief and of pain, transform us all.

In case you cannot read the name tags in the above photo, the legible words are:
- "Pfc. Darrien A. DeBlanc -- 20"
- "Sgt. Dave Stensma -- 36"
- "Lance Cpl. Torrey L. Gray -- 19"

my museum contest

Today (3/28/07) at the Guggenheim, while waiting in line.


Without really planning for it, I ended up catching the last day of the El Greco to Picasso: Time, Truth & History exhibit at the Guggenheim museum. My much-adored 71-year-old Photoshop teacher raved about it during class last week, and he strongly recommended that we see it before it ends on March 28. He explained that one of the compelling things about this exhibit was that it was arranged not chronologically but by theme, so you get to see how a 17th century painter like Velazquez treated the subject of children, for example, alongside Picasso’s or Dali’s versions. “Go just to see the hands!” my teacher gushed. “How those Spanish painters handled hands through the centuries is worth the exhibit! Plus you get to saunter down sideways in that museum, so that part is fun.”

So while washing dishes this morning the dismaying thought occurred to me that today might be the 28th. Sure enough it was. And sure enough today really was the last day to see it, so off I went, scruffy and barely prepared.

But man, is Professor Sanders right or is he right. Being there today really was worth it. The woman at the ticketing counter said the exhibit starts at the bottom and you work your way up, but I said screw that, and took the elevator to the top and worked my way down. A group of people, all of them with the look about them of “I’m a native New Yorker and I know what I’m doing” were all in the elevator with me. And when I got off I zoomed down, we’re talking speedy Gonzalez here (get the pun?), just glancing at each painting to get a general gist of it, and I made it down to the landing in 25 minutes. I thought of my friend Pax who has a 1-hour expiration period when it comes to museums; if she exceeds that she turns into a pillar of salt. Pax would have been proud of me.

No, not really. For I then donned one of those headphones the docents were giving out, and then I turned right back around to inch my way up, intending to look at each painting while listening to the audio tour, and hopefully have the time of my life in the process.

The exhibit featured painters ranging from Goya, Velazquez, Dali, Miro, Picasso, Murillo, and this guy I never heard of whose work I really liked named de Zurbaran. To make things even more fun, I spontaneously decided to hold a contest on whose painting is the best per category. So here are my results.

Winners of Teaneck T’s Time, Truth & History Contest: In the category of….

- Monks = “Saint Francis of Assisi in His Tomb” by Francisco de Zubaran

- Bodegones (which come from the word bodega. The subjects here are objects that would ordinarily come from the household pantry, which thus make them still-life paintings, but here the perishable nature or mortality are emphasized) = “Still Life with Fruits and Vegetables” by Juan Cotan. This one was pretty haunting to see in person.

- Vanitas (a type of bodegone that features actual dead animals, like dead rabbits and fish on tables and other stuff that made me cringe) = “Imperial Violets” by Dali (1938)

- The Domestic World = “House of Nazareth” by de Zurbaran (1644)

- Women in Public (yes, there was such a category) = “Girl Seen from Behind” by Dali (1925). This one was quite special to me since I wrote a fictional scene using this piece as a prompt two years ago during one of my freeflow writing sessions.

- Weeping Women (yow!) = “Weeping Woman” by Picasso (1937)

- Virgins and Mothers = none (or rather, nada). Sorry, hombres. Though I liked how in the “Madonna of Port Lligat” by Dali (1949), mother Mary is doing Reiki on baby Jesus.

- Nudes = This one had a clear winner. The very lengthily-titled “Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate, One Second before Awakening” by Dali (1944). The painting was huge and quite overpowering. I stood there transfixed.

- Childhood = Nada para esto. Those muchachos painted children like they were adults. You could tell they didn’t have respect for children in the 17th century. The audio guide said that children back then were considered more defiled than adults because they were closer to the state of original sin and were more like beasts than grown-ups. Yo! Tell THAT to Kayla!

- Monstrous (royalty and aristocrats in 17th century Spain liked to keep dwarves, lunatics, and deformed folks around for bizarre entertainment. Hey, maybe these are the ancestors of Quentin Tarantino) = “Don Sebastian de Morra” by Velazquez (1643-44). This man’s dignity was so captured by the great artist.

- Knights & Ghosts (bizarre phrasing but it makes sense. The ghost part is really what the Spanish called “fantasma,” which was the self-conscious appearance of the subject versus his actual real-world appearance. Put another way, the subject could have been an asshole but when the artist painted him he came out looking like a saint.) = There were two winners here. “Portrait of Luis Bunuel" by Dali (1924); and “Portrait of a Man” by El Greco (1590-1600)

- Ladies = Another clear winner: “Woman in Blue” by Picasso (1901). This is a huge painting that was hard to look away from. Btw, I didn’t know Picasso did a lot of realist paintings. Goes to show what I know.

- The Fallen (you know, sinners and people who like sex and the like) = ya think I’m gonna select something in this insulting category? Just kidding. I didn’t find any that grabbed me in this section.

- Flyers (“volandisimo” according to the espanols, aka angels) = “Liberation of Saint Peter” by Juan de Valdez Leal (1657-59). See page 10 of the linked PDF file.

- Crucifixions = um, this one was too dolores for me. Though I did like the red at the bottom of Alonso Cano’s "Crucifixion" and the audio guide’s lecture about it.

- Landscapes = “Pass with a Cape” by Goya (1793).


Doesn’t this make you feel you too saw the exhibit after reading this entry? (If you got this far, that is). Hope you appreciated my little summary vis a vis a little contest.

new camera, new (life) format

Taken 2/26/07, during the last snowfall we had which we had thought (ha, ha) was going to be the last one of the season.

This photo is courtesy of my new pet -- aka the SONY cyber-shot DSC-H5. It's the closest I'll probably get to having an SLR. The reason is inane but true. As much as I aspire to hunting with the high-brow amateur-yet-serious photographers out there, I am so myopic that I've a hard time looking through the small viewfinder with one eye shut. The Nikon does have an LCD panel you can shoot from -- as opposed to viewing from an LCD panel only after the shot has been taken, which is what 99.99 percent of SLRs have. But this Nikon is apparently heavy both on your arms and on your wallet, so I'm sticking with this SLR-like SONY puppy that got good reviews from dpreview.

The up side: I can finally take macro shots where the background is blurry but the foreground is clear, like the one above. Plus I get to play with SLR settings like varying ISO ranges and shutter speeds.

The down side: Not having an oh-so-fiiiiine SLR camera. Boo hoo to me, but only a very small one. I always end up fully appreciating what I have.

--------------

Stuff about today (my new format for this p-blog is to have this as the category to fill in):

- Snow/sleet/rain still going on, several inches already accumulated outside.

- both of us now have the very bad cold but hubby forced himself to run the snow blower outside, which I hope didn't make him worse. Ended up also helping our neighbor whose snowblower died.

- our favorite little person, the mighty K, still has pneumonia. But hope is not lost. "Do you want to talk to Auntie?" her mom asked. "No!" the little one answered. She then added in a small voice, "But I'm feeling better now..."

- It's Mama's (my maternal grandma's) birthday today. She passed on in 1988. Mom braved the snow and wind during her lunch hour to go to mass to light candles for her and for Kayla's health. She said that she was slipping and sliding so much that she kept grabbing men's arms whenever she was about to cross the street and asking them if they could escort her across. Good lord. I told her those guys probably felt so good afterwards for helping a little old lady cross the street, which is the classic feel-good thing to do.

- Started a reader's journal in which I'm writing all my reactions to whatever the heck I'm currently reading. I have GOT to find out if I'm genuinely interested in writing literary fiction, in reading literary fiction, or if I only think I do. Or it could also be that what I liked when I was younger (what Wayne Dyer calls the morning of your life) is no longer as interesting to me now (in the afternoon of my life). So far the journal has been so helpful. I start writing on it and end up writing about all kinds of stuff not even related to what I've read. It's the perfect situation of letting my mind open to one thing to get to all sorts of other goodies roaming around in my head. I finally found a new way to have fun doing what I'm doing again.

watering the plant that is 2007

Marais district of Paris. Photo taken 10/20/2006.


Ha ha, me li'l blogger site, I got you where I want you again -- i.e., forgotten; tossed aside; dead as far as the eyes of others are concerned. You can be just like me once more, growing at your own quiet pace. I love creating you when I know no one is looking. And I love that you create me everyday, even when my head is often turned elsewhere, dreaming other dreams.

As time spins another set of days for us I think of all the chances to live this world again. The older I get the more I am aware of myself as a spirit looking out from these eye sockets, the noticer noticing. More than anything I wish to live the days connected, not to something or to someone, not even just to my own core, but as a state of consciousness. The way one is when there are no more thoughts and feelings, and out of that calm and silence one feels oneself as an entire singularity, lacking nothing.

Thank you, Life, for always guiding me. Wherever I turn, I see you calling out my name.

why I do what I do

Lorin and me, hiking in Tuxedo, NY. Photo taken 4/30/06.


"I feel happy to be keeping a journal again. I've missed it, missed naming things as they appear, missed the half-hour when I push all duties aside and savor the experience of being alive in this beautiful place."

- the ever-great May Sarton
in her book At Seventy

carrots, eggs, and coffee

Mercer Street (Greenwich Village, NYC). Photo taken 3/13/06.


Here's a cute story taken from Wayne Dyer's latest book called Inspiration (copyright Wayne Dyer, of course).

Carrots, Eggs, and Coffee

A young woman complained to her mother about the hardships and difficulties in her life. She didn't know how she was going to continue and wanted to give up. The young woman said, "I'm tired of fighting and struggling. It seems that as soon as one problem is solved, a new one appears." In response, her mother took her to the kitchen and filled three pots with water, placing each on the stove over a high flame.

Soon the water came to a boil. In the first pot she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil, without saying a word. In about 20 minutes, she turned off the burners. The mother then fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She removed the eggs and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her daughter, she said, "Tell me what you see."

"Carrots, eggs, and coffee," the daughter replied. Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and they noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After peeling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich flavor.

The daughter then asked, "What does it mean, Mother?"

Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity, boiling water, and each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile, its thin outer shell protecting its liquid interior, but after the boiling water, its inside became hardened. But the ground coffee beans were unique -- after they were in the boiling water, they'd changed the water itself.

a roomful of Buddhas

Photo taken 10/31/05 in Tagaytay, Philippines


When I sit zazen by myself, I like to imagine a roomful of Buddhas sitting zazen around me. When I write, I like to imagine a roomful of Buddhas writing alongside me.

Sometimes when I sit zazen, I sense my true loneliness seeping out, getting some fresh air in the quiet.

I want to write well, but I don't need to be considered great at it. I am fine unrecognized, while not fine short of talent. But is it talent that I want? Or is it a path?

Most likely I am okay not having natural writing talent, but not okay with having no writing path.

- from a 10/21/2001 journal entry

purpose

Looking up from the Staten Island ferry. Photo taken 4/13/06.


to breathe clean and true
the blue sky in my belly, the vast
breadth of horizon imprinted on my lungs
behind my eyes, porpoises that dive
to the bottom ocean, that layer of time
old as the ancient souls, and my every breath
is quiet, so full and brave. And I too am just as
wise; I too will last forever.

- 6/18/06

new weather

Photo taken 3/11/06 at Overpeck Park.


I came across part of this poem today, by complete "coincidence" -- it was in a March 2001 journal I was archiving -- and I was struck by how much it spoke to me given all the circus my body has been doing and given my impending gloom-and-doom appointment tomorrow. Also by complete coincidence, I was just telling Lorin about how having fatigue and discomfort and limping from pain, et al actually transformed me. I've let go of a lot of mental crap, and I've simply no patience for anything that smacks of guilt, shame, perfectionism, or obligation. And I'm quieter, which has been heretofore unheard of. I actually said these words to him, "It took me getting sick to feel lighter." A few hours after that, I went upstairs and continued my journal archiving, and that was when I came across this:

Often I think I should be like
The single tree going nowhere,
Since my own arm could not and would not
Break the other. Yet by my broken bones
I tell new weather.

- Paul Muldoon

Ate's turn to slide

Ats and Kayla. Same date and place as below.


Here's the link to the short clip of Ate sliding. As with the video below, you have to tilt your head to the side to watch it. I thought you could hold the camera when taking videos the same way you hold the camera when taking photos -- i. e., portrait or landscape, depending on the framing you want. Duh!

Anyway.

So. This is what litigators do when they're not annoying the heck out of people in court.

the first video -- watch Kayla slide (sorta)

watch the cockamamy video I took of Kayla on the link below. Photo taken 5/31/06 (Memorial Day weekend) at Wyckoff, NJ.


I was experimenting with my new Exilim camera and didn't realize that when taking videos with it you have to hold it a certain way. Ooops. But here's the video if you want to see it. Just don't forget to tilt your head to the side. The video was taken at their house. (I know... a whole playground set for one tiny child!)

Watch the video here. (aka http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TyBBUkEUus)

forest flowers

I've no clue what kind of flowers these are. Photo taken at Sterling Forest (Tuxedo, NY) on 4/30/06.


"When it's over, I want to say:
all my life
I was a bride married
to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking
the world into my arms..."

- Mary Oliver

foto pherret word = hot

this sure was a freakishly hot hike we took. Photo taken 9/19/05.


I discovered today a photo meme website called foto pherret, which gives out a word each week and you're then invited to hunt around your photo collection to match it. The word this week is "hot."

I'll tell you what's hot in this photo (besides my husband. padump-bump). What he's looking at is the start of a trek across a volcano crater. That's right, friends, strangers, and countrymen -- we actually hiked across a collapsed crater with plumes of steam still coming out of it one blazingly hot morning last year. It was so hot that the walk across Kilauea Iki crater felt like a walk across Venus. It was so hot that I did not expect that *not* wearing sunscreen on my brown skin would affect me, but it did. It was so hot that a few days after this hike I had to go to the emergency room because I was so sun poisoned that my skin turned into a mottled mass of swollen lumps and rashes. (Now that made me look hot.)

Iki in Hawaiian means "a little one" or "a little bit." Kilauea Iki thus means "little Kilauea," for it sits not far from the main Kilauea caldera that everyone oohs and aahs about when they get to Volcano National Park in the Big Island. In November 1959, when all the signs were pointing to an imminent major eruption, all these volcanologists and geologists set up equipment by the main Kilauea crater. Then ka-boom! It turned out the show was somewhere else. They looked up to see a previously-ignored section of the park shooting lava more than 1,900 feet into the air. The eruption was so huge that people in the town of Hilo thirty miles away could see it with the naked eye. There are more details of that eruption here, but some of what I've written were told to us by a local Hawaiian ranger.

The best guide-book writers ever showed us how to find this hike, where to descend 450 feet to get from the top of the crater walls to the bottom, and then inch your way across. I still remember that incredulous feeling -- all the while we were enclosed inside a real, still-active volcano, with the open sky gaping above us, we knew while crossing the crater that this was probably one of the most special hikes we will ever take in our lifetime.

my goodness, he's alive

Araw ng Patay (Day of the Dead) in the Philippines. It is held on November 2, the day after All Saints Day. I think the belief is first came the saints, then came the souls. Or, to be more accurate, first came evil (Halloween), then came the saints to overcome it, then came the souls. But I could be making that up. Anyway, how the Filipinos celebrate All Souls Day goes something like this: They get to the cemetery at dawn, they pitch tents over the tombstones of their loved ones (the tents are to keep out the blazing sun), then they lay out not just flowers and candles but also their mahjong tables, decks of cards, poker chips, guitars, ice coolers laden with Pinoy food and drinks. They sit around all day hanging out, praying, gossiping, and gambling while keeping their dead company until past sunset. It's a day where a person can say the rosary with 14 relatives and then fifteen minutes later be winning 500 pesos from an all-up paningit. All kinds of vendors selling chicharon (pork rinds), barbecue, bananas, ice cream, halo-halo, and who knows what else make a killing. Pun intended? Most probably. Photo taken 11/2/05 in Manila.


This entry is dedicated to Blue, my old Pinoy friend from high school, who's back among the living after being incommunicado for two years. (Before that, he was gone for more than five years.) Have no clue how he tracked me down this time.

Naku Blue, good to know na buhay ka pa rin. LOL. Some things just don't change...

the road is winding again

After the rain at Overpeck Park, Teaneck. Photo taken 4/23/06.


I am hearing the distant call to end this photoblog stint. Anyone who works on a creative project knows when it's time to wind things down and work on something else. In my case, my attention seems to be focused these days on longer works of fiction and nonfiction that are for print readers.

So here are the possibilities:

Option 1 - I keep posting photos on this site, a la photo album style. Just photos and caption.

Option 2 - I keep it as it is now, random photos with random crazy thoughts, both serious and non-serious, and just change the thematic format again. After all, this thing I've been feeling to let go could be just a mood.

Option 3 - I start another blog altogether which has nothing to do with photos. Right now the idea of a prose poetry/meditation blog appeals to me. If I do start this it will not be for public viewing. Readership will only be upon request.

Option 4 - leave the blogging world altogether and make my dear Ate very sad....


We'll see where the road takes me next. I've no doubt the Universe will tell me where to go.

Love and light to you all who have been such faithful visitors to this wonderful, amusing project.

my two favorite people

Kayla and her Uncle Lorin. Photo taken 4/1/06, on Kayla's 2nd birthday.


The bittersweet Will & Grace series finale made me feel so sad that I feel like posting a light-fare pix to up my mood.

Btw, I saw that darn kid today during the first half of the show. (They happened to be in Teaneck tonight.) Kayla almost knocked me unconscious by pounding one of those small Chinatown silver balls that weigh a ton right at my chest (you know, the kind that come in a pair and you twirl them around one hand, thus exercising your fingers, and the chimes they make as you move them are supposed to relax you). Lorin had left them lying around, and today Kayla grabbed the pair and started banging them together. When she noticed that I kept watching TV she leaned forward and tried to get my attention by lunging one of the balls right at me. With the way I was sitting her arm went straight for my chest. That one ball knocked me so hard she might as well have used a battering ram.

"Kayla, that hurt!" I yelled. She laughed and kept clanging the balls together, enjoying the sounds of the chimes inside. "I like this!" she yelped. "Two balls. One, two. I like two balls." The kid is super articulate for her age, which makes me so proud, but today I could have wrung her neck for it.

When I hid those evil things during commercials she went, "Where are my balls, Auntie?" She looked so small and innocent poking around the sofa cushions. Where are my balls. Who is she kidding.

"Time, time, time / See what's become of me..."

Dusk at Port Authority. The clock is part of the Time + Money sculpture grouping by the great Tom Otterness. It's located at the back entrance of the Hilton on West 41st St.


Tomorrow being Teaneck T's Great Day of Gratitude, I dedicate today's Friday Five to the power of wishes.

Birthday Wishes (a Friday Five Collection)

Impossible?
1. Go back in time and undo the mistakes I made and the hurts I caused.
2. Travel the world through spontaneous transpondence.
3. Win the lotto. (It might help if I actually buy a ticket...)
4. Have what I can only call SuperReader powers: The ability to read a novel/short story/article/what have you, and immediately know the structure, sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph, on how and why the piece came to be.
5. Cure poverty in all its forms.

Probably possible:
1. No more cyst(s). No more debilitating pain from cyst(s). No more hormonal imbalance that is causing the cyst(s). No more, no more, no more.
2. Prolific writing. Produce a body of work every two months. (Wow!)
3. Possess superior internal energy flow expressed through tai-chi, chi-gung, and Reiki.
4. Become a published author with readership that extends beyond personal acquaintances. (I refuse to put this under the "Impossible?" category...)
5. Be an excellent driver. Can drive anywhere I please.

Possible:
1. 6-8 cupcakes from Billy's Bakery, all with yellow cake and chocolate frosting.
2. Eat at one of the best Cuban restaurants in Union City (ahem. Ate, I asked you about this months ago...)
3. Go on a Rick Steve's tour of Southern France.
4. Be a backup acoustic guitarist for a band or choir.
5. Indefinitely continue the lifestyle of writing at home more days than working for an employer.

the rarest of friends (a Friday Five)

Pax at her belly dancing class in New Mexico. Photo taken 7/26/05 by a classmate.


How can I not post a Friday Five on a Cinco de Mayo that falls on a Friday? That would be sacrilege! The photoblog gods would be offended.

So here's today's Friday Five. Tomorrow is the birthday of my dearest friend Pax. In honor of her and the happiness she has given me for 20 years -- das right, we started hanging out 20 years ago during our freshman year at the high school we had to take a ferry to get to -- I dedicate today's Friday Five to the mighty Googie.

Top Five Qualities That Astound Me About Pax the Friend: (not to be confused with things that astound me about Pax the Mom, or Pax the Artist, or Pax the Wife, or Pax the Math Genius, or Pax the Family Problem Solver, or Pax the Philosopher, etc. etc.)

1. True ability to love. Genuine connection with it as an emotion, as an energy, and as a life force.

2. INCREDIBLE--maybe the word is even UNLIMITED--patience with my bizarre moods. Knowledge that whatever it is I'm going through must be pretty bad for me to be so odd.

3. Not using me solely for emotional garbage can/let-me-unload purposes. (And all the while knowing that it is okay to do so.) Not allowing me to do the same to her.

4. Not messing with things I find sacred. Knowledge of what these sacred things are.

5. Always choosing, somehow, to be happy, to be honest, and to be brave. Not necessarily always succeeding in being these, but the conscious choice is always there.


You are the greatest, my wonderful Paxmeister! I love you forever. Hope you have a wonderful birthday tomorrow.

the sacred answer

Cherry blossoms across the road. Photo taken 4/20/06.


Andrea's May 1 blog entry is quite inspiring. In it she describes a game she plays in which she meditates on a question about something which she really needs divine guidance on, and then she opens a dictionary for the answer. It's a takeoff on something people for centuries have done with the Bible. In this wonderful entry Andrea explains how this very method led her to work for the famous and eternally delightful Sark. (Who, btw, is NOT the blond bloke in Alias.)

So I said why not. It's 6:29 in the evening. I can either try this or watch a Will and Grace rerun.

Here was my question to the dictionary: "What am I supposed to do with my writing, Mother God?" (Mother God being my personal name for the Divinity. I refuse to acknowledge the Lord as just male.)

With my eyes closed, I touched the cover of my Webster's 10th edition (aka the definitive source for all copy editors and proofreaders). I thanked the book for whatever answer it was about to give me. Do I publish or perish? Was it a total waste that I quit my job for it? Do I have any talent? What am I supposed to do with all that I've produced, most of which have never seen the light of day? What am I supposed to do with all this intention, this impractical dedication, this belief in something I can't fully justify?

With eyes still closed I opened the book. I felt around for what my intuition was telling me. Go to the left page or the right page? My instinct said right. Go to the inner edge or the outer edge of the page? Inner edge, said the feeling. Somewhere in the middle of the page.

My forefinger landed on an area. I opened my eyes.

The word was "railroad." My heart sank. My immediate thought was its negative usage: To railroad somebody. "My manager railroaded me," "If you want to get rid of that employee, you should just railroad them," etc. I thought, what was I supposed to do, railroad my writing? (i.e., junk it, trash it. Obliterate it.)

Then I thought, maybe I'm supposed to put the pieces together, like locomotive cars. So I began reading, envisioning my writing to be like a road. You know, a railroad.

And that was when the Angel smacked me upside the head. Stubborn, stubborn child, someone seemed to be saying. Look. Look at the page.

For my finger was pointing at railroad as a verb, not the noun. The verb railroad has 3 varying definitions. And where my fingernail was pointing, in fact even underlining, was this definition: "1 b: to push through hastily or without due consideration."

An earthquake could have happened right then and there, with thunder rolling, the skies darkening, and I wouldn't be one bit surprised.

For that was when I understood. Don't mess around anymore, the Universe said. Stop doubting. Stop f--ing around. Do it, get it done. This is your job. It is not your place to bog things down with worry.

Just push your writing through hastily, and without due consideration.