Dream Weaver

Two teenage girls overheard in the campground bathroom:

One: Your hair looks cute like that.

Two: Cute? I haven't showered in three days.

One: Eww, gross. Laugh. Me either.

Two: At least I don't smell. Sniff. Hmmm, then again…

One: At least the smell of the campfire covers it up.

Two: Yeah, I'd rather smell like fire pit than just pits.

Yesterday, the fortune in my cookie read: You will have a close encounter of a surprising kind.

Today, a red-headed turkey vulture hit my car as I rounded a corner on a deserted road, and disturbed him feasting on a dead deer by the roadside. Later in the day, I rounded another bend, and there was another deer, completely unafraid of my presence. She looked at me directly and, slowly and calmly, walked away into the woods. The spirit of Deer who had died walked gently into heaven, smiling at me as she went. As the sun set, I waded into Lake Ozette up to my shins. The water, crystal clear. I could see every pebble, stone, and stick resting on the bottom. My feet stirred up a sediment. After a few minutes standing still in the lake, listening to the water ripple, watching the reeds gently sway in the breeze, I looked down and saw the sediment settled onto the tops of my feet. I was already claimed as part of the landscape. I asked my totem animals to visit me. I dreamed that when I awoke in the morning, and opened my tent flap, Swan was standing right there, staring me in the face. In my surprise, I froze. She arched forward and bit me sharply on the nose. Hey! What did you do that for? She turned tail and waddled away, saying, Wake Up, You! I wonder what she wants me to wake up to? I have more dreaming to do.

Tomorrow, I'll drive past Crescent Lake, and be reminded of a motorcycle trip, long ago, supposed to be a one-dayer, with Husby and I, Crowe, and Derek and CJ. As soon as we hit the Olympic Peninsula, it started to rain. Cold rain. We stopped in Port Angeles for chowder and cocoa, and Derek and CJ decided to turn around at that point, mumbling some excuse about needing to prepare to go to a wedding the next day. Crowe and Husby and I continued on to Sol Duc Hot Springs, getting there with only about 1/2 hour left to soak. Cold and tired, we decided on the spur of the moment to rent a cabin for the night. We bought a deck of cards and some junk food at the camp store. Crowe parked his bike on the porch. The next morning dawned clear and bright. As we saddled up and headed out, there was a dusting of snow on the very tops of the mountains surrounding the lake. On this recent Olympic Peninsula trip, I had very selective eyes. I saw only people together, no one alone like me. I didn't see anybody that wasn't with somebody. That is what I am struggling with more than the fact that this project will be a lot of work for what may be little reward.

Weaving Traffic Ahead

Although that was a sign on the highway, it pretty well describes how I feel about life lately.

Dara's Photography

NOW THIS IS ART! Damn, I dig her composition. Dara used to barista at Shoreline's Hotwire, where I met her. She's the S.O. of our great former roomate Jason. No, not the creepy roommate, before him. Here, too, are some pics from my latest trip.

Mental Distortion

Perception is such a mind-bending concept. How can there possibly be such a thing as reality if everything experienced is filtered through the psyche, our emotional leaded glass?

Mullet Friday

Harmless Friday fun.

And:
Mullet Junky
Mullets Galore
Rate My Mullet
Mullet Madness
Mullet Lovers

Heart of Hearing

The lesson I had to learn today comes from Bear medicine, one of the totem animals who follows my spiritual path in this life. She says, "Anything less than the doing of that which gives you the most joy is denial." The other animal which follows me through life is Swan, who tells me, "You must be willing to accept whatever the future holds as it is presented, without trying to change Great Spirit's plan." I didn't want to listen. Today, I fought hard to deny these truths. It hurt.

Having one spirit guide dwell in the forest and the other in the water makes it easy to understand why I am equally drawn to both. I also rediscovered that Blue Topez is "my" stone. I knew it was the December birthstone, but someone at work mentioned last week it is also known as "the writer's stone." In addition to the many ways that it enhances creativity and perception, further research led me to information that the stone has a balancing effect on the nervous system for those who suffer from mood swings. Uh, that would be me.

God it feels good to take a break. Why do we push and push? Monday I met up with two girlfriends and went for a long walk. Husby and I had surprise ice cream with more friends. Tuesday I went on another long walk with another girlfriend, then to Olympus Spa for the rest of the day. Wednesday, I took myself spa-ing again, this time to Banya 5, and then Husby and I met up for a date for cheap martininis and free appetizers at Tini Bigs 10th anniversary party. I napped everyday except yesterday. Today, I worked a little in the morning, then took myself to hang out at Seafair. I am as well and truly relaxed as one can get in a week, and fuck, if it doesn't feel great.

Until this year, I enjoyed the Blue Angels without being reminded that ultimately, they represent war. I was upset with a customer yesterday who I felt ruined it for me by being the naysayer when I mentioned I was going to watch them. I realize my anger is misplaced, and it is my government and its president who've altered how I feel by waging an unjust war. All this is mixed in with a joy and grief for my father, who flew C-130s and KC-135s in Viet Nam, and I am greatly reminded of him this week, and today in particular. I think I've finally slowed down enough to do a tiny bit of healthy grieving. It's been more than a year, but I sense that I've merely dipped into a greater well of sadness still waiting. I also experienced serious techno-penis envy, looking at the cameras with lenses the size of grenade launchers.

Today was just as important for what I didn't do as for what I did. I didn't run around trying to accomplish every errand before I left. I didn't run to the store and try to buy the last bikini on the rack and get depressed in the process. I didn't take a trip to the grocery store and buy enough junk to gorge myself on for a week. I found stale peanuts and staler cookies and filled a Nalgene of water, and made do. Thanks to Leslie, who reminded me I could take an old pair of jeans that barely fit (I've lost 7 pounds in the last few months) and Daisy Duke 'em, instead of trying to find some at Ross or Value Village.All of this not running around is unlike me and bodes well for my mental state.

Of course, thanks to thick thighs and high-riding short shorts, my old lady midi undies traveled so far up my ass you needed pliers to get them out, but that's beside the point. I had fun. Remember fun?

Does this essay make me look fat?

Maybe I'm a socialist. I know I'm a utopianist. Here's where my head's at recently.

The Emperor's New New Clothes

The U.S. Military Industrial Complex has been granted personhood. He is the Emperor, strutting about the world, presuming rule by the sheer force of sartorial splendor. He's lulled into a false sense of imperiousness, enamored but unarmored by what he believes to be the craftsmanship of his tailor. Critics ineptly attack his loud handkerchief, nattily tucked into his breast pocket, to which the eye is immediately drawn on first impression. This bit of red Presidential cloth, monogrammed by Cabinet embroidery, is flashed to distract the angry bull when necessary. It is as easily plucked out and discarded, in four or perhaps eight years, when no longer in vogue.

This token of the man's affectation has only slightly less staying power than the Emperor's cuff links, a matching set of House and Senate, baubles dangled on the sleeves of corporate interests. When out of session, they're thrown on the top of the dresser, facing the drudgery of gathering constituent dust mote votes.

The shirt itself comes cheap, easy to represent as new, with one of any $1.29 same day Lobbyists around the corner pressing the flesh of it—dry cleaned, starched, and plied with pins, tissues, and cardboard—to disguise the same Old Man in neat rows of fresh pinstriped issues.

A silvered chain of Supreme Court Justices keeps the Ruler's rich tie of purchased precedent from blowing in the angry winds of activism and protest. Secured with the Windsor knot of wealth and gated confidence, his tie is snugly cinched around the Emperor's neck, cutting off ever more circulation to carotid arteries as his corpulence expands.

Our Potentate's merged and surged suit is of fabric dearly bought, through trade agreements dating as far back as the silk road itself. It is woven of acronym strands—NAFTA, WTO—pulled across the loom of exploitation, spun in gold threads from the chaff of child labor. As he preens in front of the mirrors in the halls of his peers at the finest campaign dinners and fundraisers, he is blinded in his belief that all who matter dress in equal rags of riches.

The Emperor's feet are bound by the polished wing tips of the Stock Market and Nasdaq, mirror images shouting money at each other, going toe to toe until the bell rings. His shoes are tied and manipulated by the strings of the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. He must follow where they lead, wearing shiny spots in the marble of the corridors of power.

Does he wave as he Rove's among the lesser peoples of the world? It doesn't matter, because all they can see is his Dick Cheney bobbing, wielding brainless greed and insatiable need wherever he goes. His smooth tongue talks in delusions of organized religion and divine right.

His Rumsfeld-colored sunglasses shield him from seeing how nakedly vulnerable he truly is. For threads of the finest gold, studded with conflict diamonds dearly bought, protect not against the winds of change. Those currents are heavy with the stale sweat of bloodshed, building heavy ionic clouds of hate, primed to unleash invisible droplets of revenge, be they chemical, viral, or nuclear.

As he sits on a throne boiling over with the global warming caused by his constant conspicuous consumption, he extends an olive branch of trade and aid in one hand, the other held behind his back with the finger on the button of arbitrary war.

Until enough are willing to see his true nakedness, to refuse to grant him false dignity, the world will die for him, those who choose to do so and many unwillingly and unwittingly. Until we rend the ill-gotten gains from his body and cut off all suppliers, he won't give us our shirt off his back. We have to take it from him by force of collective will. So point and laugh. Jeer and shout. Be publicly angry. Let the world know you see through the devil's disguise.