Eulogy

I’ve been asked by Betty, Kim’s mom, to express how deeply grateful she, and we are, that you came here today to share all of our love, and our sorrow.

I’d like to open with an invocation from my tradition which generates love and compassion: “May all beings have happiness May they be free from suffering May they find the joy that has never known suffering May they be freed from attachment and hatred”

*******

Kim and I used to giggle about people who got ordained out of the back of Rolling Stone magazine. I would always joke that “oh yeah, they’re a minister from that Church of the Brighter Light”. When I got ordained it was totally different. Well for one thing, it now happens over the internet. For another I fancied myself to be this really cool someone, who really should be officiating marriages. Cuz how much fun is that? I’m guessing that had I thought a little more seriously about it, or actually gone to a Divinity School it might have occurred to me that the not fun, flip side, would be potentially officiating at funerals, memorials and wakes. And it certainly never, ever, crossed my mind that the first one of such occasions would be the memorial for one of my oldest, dearest, friends.

*******

Kimberly - She had so many brilliant, jewel-like qualities.

Her mind was quirky, creative, quixotic. She could handle herself in almost any conversation - from the best way to get a really moist carrot cake, to the fine points of metaphysical philosophy, to teaching a kid some vital life skill like reading, shoe tying, or just the right spots to hang the decorations on the christmas tree. Had she had a meaner spirit, her sardonic wit and sly, charismatic laugh, could have earned her a spot at the Algonquin’s Round-table.

Highly intuitive, Kim could read other people, and their situations, piercing through facades and bringing to light underlying realities. And like so many of us, it was always easier to see for others, than to see oneself.

She was extra-ordinarily empathic. The worlds suffering was her suffering. She was always taking in strays. Of every race, creed, and breed.

Kim was generous to a fault. She used to literally give me the clothes off her back, by the armload. She was basically what we now would call my stylist when I was 18. Although I learned later that perhaps it was more Betty who was technically behind that, whether she was aware of it or not...

She deeply enjoyed the rituals around food, whether it be gourmet at The Earle, exotic like her favourite Indian food or just plain good cookin’ like a Manikas omelet or her Nana’s chicken and dumplings. Making and sharing it, trying new foods and recipes, going to restaurants to socialize with good food and beverages at the center, as well as all the traditional holiday feasts, even when she couldn’t fully participate, warmed her, cheered her, and nourished her soul to simply be around and involved in such activities.

She passionately loved art, and music, and books.

Theatre and movies.

Saints and sinners

Because most of all, Kim loved.

She constantly surprised me when she would offhandedly comment “well but of course I do love him - her - them” whomever. I thought that maybe this capacity she had, to love “sinners” just “not their sins”, was kind of foolish, and possibly, probably, dangerous. In reality? It was daunting. I was a little shamed by her ability to generate genuine love for people I considered useless, a waste of time or too big of a problem. She always ended our phone conversations with “I love you” or “I love you Laurie”. I, having grown up in a family that was never expressive in that way, initially would always awkwardly say “yaloveyatoobye”. It really took me a long time to learn to say, sincerely, with real feeling, “I love you too Kim”.

*******

Nowadays we’ve all been exposed to some Jungian psychology, often under the guise of new age philosophy, as Jung wrote compellingly of learning to live with one’s own shadow side. The ideas of having compassion for oneself, learning to understand and accept one’s shadow in order to become a fully integrated human is now a common and accepted methodology for becoming humane, forgiving oneself, and moving into balance.
What has not been quite so humanely articulated, written about, and subsequently served to us, the questing friends and families, is how to deal with the shadow in others.

We’ve been bombarded with some very popular theories of how to conduct our relationship to people who seem to want, need or to be under some compulsion to, live primarily from their shadow. We are told, and our own experiences frequently appears to reflect that, trying to help people who seem to be becoming lost there, is pretty much like shouting down a well.

We’ve seen talk shows, read books, and been immersed up to our eyebrows with the advices of mass psychology instructing us in methods of “tough love”, “codependent no more”, “dealing with toxic people” and other, sort of, one size fits all, approaches to these relationships. Realistically, these are likely to be some of the most complex and painful, intimate relationships we will experience in our lifetimes. These are the relationships that have asked us, and potentially will continue to ask, throughout the years, What if...? Why didn’t I..? And, if only...?

It’s no wonder that we’ll eagerly try out all these various techniques. When nothing else seems to work, when we find ourselves baffled, desperate, and really, very terribly, afraid, solutions that assure us that they are almost surefire are very appealing. Not to mention that if we don’t have some recognized theory or technique that we can claim to be utilizing, we ourselves run the risk of being socially and psychologically bullied, belittled, and labeled with some catchy buzzword which infers that as we are clearly not being part of a trendy solution we therefore must be part of the problem.

I don’t have any one solution to offer here. The problems are too complex, the circumstances too individual. But I have come to feel that the usual approaches of becoming insular, preserving our self above others, trying to remain in, or restore ourselves to, a pain free state are potentially not as helpful or as safe as some would claim.

We are come to this life to learn, and these terribly painful moments are some of our most defining, learning, moments. These teaching moments have the potential to become like fruits of the vine, with precious juices that blend together, and processed thoughtfully, carefully, with love and compassion for self and others can become a rather heady wine of a profound, personal, understanding of life, living, and death. Mark that it must processed carefully though, as any wine that is not lovingly handled can turn and become vinegar. Just as our love can turn bitter without that large dose of compassion for self and others.

I have learned maybe two basic things so far from my work with the dying, the living, and those balanced there, trembling, with only one breath separating the one from the other:

One is simply that no one can, or should, micromanage anyone else’s life or death. People need to make their own choices about their living and dying even if those choices bewilder us. All we can do is offer our very best and truest information to them and let them proceed to work it out from there.

Another is that - people do the best they can at the time, or they would have done better, period.

This is true of others, this is true of ourselves. Everyone here did the best they could in each moment. If there is something in your heart of hearts that whispers to you “I could have made a bigger effort, I could have tried harder, if only, if only.... well I’m not going to give you the easy task and tell you to just let it go, instead I will ask you to take on the harder but much more rewarding job of holding and remembering that feeling, in order to learn from it, so that another time you’ll be able to let it be the spark that ignites greater effort, inspires you to greater compassion, and subsequently creates one billion better moments, for yourself and for others.

Hail & Farewell from Stoners Blough

A founding member of the original swimclub died last week. Oddly he was the ex-brother-in-law to Michael Davis of the MC-5 and as far as I can tell they died on the same day, of the same cause.

We had chatted briefly a few times on Facebook but I had not seen him in person since the early ‘90’s, as he had become a determined left coaster and once my grandmother died I had no cause to go back to Seattle except that it’s one of my favourite cities. Too bad for poverty eh?

Randall was both my friend and my nemesis. He was scathingly brilliant, witty as shit, and at times completely amoral. He once framed me for a thief when he himself had been the thief. This has rankled in my soul for years, as I have done all kinds of things in my life but deliberately gave up thievery at a quite young age, as well as that I have a huge issue with stealing within the tribe. He had no such qualms at the time. And given the circumstances there was no particular reason for anyone to believe I had such qualms. I really felt the sting of that scarlet letter T within that community, still do, I just don’t wear it on the outside anymore.

But prior to, and even later after all of that, he was my good friend. Early on he was my housemate for awhile. We had such a blast. At least until he abruptly abandoned the house and his 8 foot boa constrictor there. Which having two very elderly cats and being really nervous of feeding a really hungry, really large, snake became a serious issue for me. Someone finally did come for her after I threatened to sell her.

Swimclub was where my memories of him shine. His humour, his magic tricks, his natty outfits, his ability to construct suddenly critically necessary things from weird scrap and “ordinary household items”, his willingness to go gonzo into any adventure that arose. He was, at times, truly a mesmer. When he was sharp, focused, playful, “evil twin Vic” he was terrifically fun. When he was “do what thou wilt shall be the sum of law” Vic, not so much. I’ve never been a Crowley fan and within that community his influence was seriously not helpful.

But the rage at the time was to live primarily from your shadow self. And there is some serious beauty in that realm. We were all so young, so lordly, so dead earnest about it all. There are winter shadows foreshortened onto glittering snowdrifts and long summer shadows on parched pavements. Many of us couldn’t or wouldn’t, make the journey into integration. And when looking at ones aging self, in the trophic light of the daily rat race it is not easy to keep that keen, sharp, edge of humour that helps keep despair squimped down to its proper supplicant position. So one lets go this time when Yama approaches, yet again, from behind the left shoulder. Why not? He is our old familiar after all. And who doesn’t ache for that moment of rest, and then another cast.

FOTO Credits:
#1 Unknown
#2 Christina LaNoire

888th post

So this is it, the confluence I was mentioning before. I am posting this in time for my 8888th visitor. Also in a few days is the anniversary or birth date of the blog. It’s July 4, which is oddly, also the birth date of Nigel Patel’s blog. Only his is a year older than mine. Which if I’m not mistaken makes his coming up on 4 and mine coming up on 3, years old.

Nigel and I have many strange confluence's ourselves, then we will discover some (usually point of ideology) where we could not be more divergent. But he never rolls his eyes at me like the former roommate when this arises. Nor does he seem to take offense when I laugh WITH his interesting perspectives, never at.

But it is odd to think that when I started this blog that I hadn’t started school yet, and that few of my readers knew me before I was such a whiney cripple. I used to be much more vibrant you know.
The moral, of course being, don’t expect greatness from doctors especially surgeons who for the most part are overpriced plumbers.
As well as that good art and bad art are completely and irrevocably subjective and can never be proved definitively at all. That as long as someone made it, it’s art. And that, my friends, is the ONLY thing that counts.

Uncle Bunny XMAS with lei

Pete, Hi, Pete

Scrofulous Humours

Well-
Uncle Bunny is back in the hospital
Little ghee ended up at the vet with fever
I’m in bed waiting for gross things to come spewing out of my stomach

I get just tired of labs and offices and waiting rooms.
Pills and doses and needles.
I’m tired of bed
sick of tired
Waiting waiting waiting

It never rains but it snows

Bah, bad week and not just for me. My piano teacher has a big wrist issue. My friend Nige is fleeing the state because our economy is one of the worst. I have been sick as a dog. There’s more with more people and more issues but that’s what pops in my head right off the bat.

Did you know it costs over 80 bucks for half a stupid computer charging replacement cord?
Did you know my super drugs cost 60 dollars?
Did you know that trying to take the bus to school on a Saturday takes 2 and a quarter hours?
Did you know that it’s cold and depressingly wintery in MI right now?

Today is the kittens first vet appt. Man they are going to be pissed when we get home. They’ll have had rabies and distemper shots and I’m sure they won’t really enjoy that. I’m sure I won’t either. It ‘ll be pure joy for Oliver putting up with all the grouchy leos in da house tonight.

I changed my mind...

I do have something cheery to say, and that is, that I’m so proud and excited for my three friends, Karl LaFong, F. Rhetoric, and Cheddar, some of whom were really down in the pit swimmin’ with the darkest of angels when they decided to get into the prickly embrace of sobriety. Between the three of them they have over six years in. As expected they all turned out to be bright, sincere, sweet, sensitive people. And a couple of them, hilariously irascible.

So this is how it’s just gonna be...

So tired, the store job kicks my ass. When I first started it kicked my ass also. Then I started getting stronger and stronger. I got some decent shoes. I started getting some muscles and stamina. I did better and better as the years went by. Then I had a couple surgeries the first of of which went kinda wrong, the next of which went really wrong. The horribly expensive shoes wore out. Now if I do a four hour shift I have to sleep 3 hours.

On Mondays, cuz I’m a homework slacker, I get off work then play drums until I’m really, really tired and usually quite frustrated. Then go to drum class. Then I can crash for awhile. While I tell myself its for just a quick, rejuvenating nap it invariably turns into a long stupefying nap, then I spend the rest of the day being a schlub.

This last month adds to the stultifying mix, extreme tension in my home life. The result is the house is dirty, the energy levels are all fucked up, and it doesn’t seem worth it to get up and do a damn thing. However something has to change the energy, I can no longer sit and stew. (I am so good at stewing, I meant what I said about grudge holding.)

So while I didn’t go about solving the problem the super high road way, I also didn’t take the lowliest low road. I, at least, addressed an individual face to face for the 15 seconds requisite and decided to skip the “preserve the friendship” part. I got some support for that approach from a few people who said if I didn’t want the friendship to just go ahead and remove the pain source.
Done.
Its not like I had zero interest in the friendship, but when alcoholism is the factor, what’s the point?
This is something like the 10th friendship of some significance that has terminated in the last 10 years or so, where I trace the real source of the problem to addiction. Not mine, someone else's. If we went back farther in time, the numbers would grow exponentially.

It’s just getting so very old. But when there is little or no return for your energy, so little actual dialogue, just boozy, stale monologues repeated over and over while someone breathes alcohol in your face what's left anyway? It won’t change until it changes and that's nothing you can control at all, so rather be done.

This whole giving your whole life to a THING is freaking me out. You just hand over everything you are, could be and will do, to an inanimate object. What the hell is that? I’m not saying I haven’t had my skirmishes with such slavery, but I seem to have a finely tuned sense of personal freedom. When a stupid thing starts requiring my very core self and values, I turn and run. I don’t care how much fun it’s promising. I don’t care if its a substance or a job or a relationship.

The other part that's bugging me, is the age of these people. I can see how in your twenties you haven’t figured it out yet, but the people involved are in their thirties, forties and fifties. One of them had already done over 20 years in prison as payment and just took another twenty to pay for just a couple months of getting high. Yet it’s his primary relationship and he’ll apparently never, ever, put anyone or anything ahead of it. It, an inanimate object, a thing.

I can’t think of a goofy, cheery, twist to end this on, everything about this is so annoying. I suppose the the best I can do is mention that at least I’m mostly over the furious and into the sad.

"It’s a thin line between love and hate"

“She opens up the door and lets you in,
never once asks where you‘ve been”

Here’s the thing about me and caffeine.
In the early 80’s I was, among other things, a serious tweaker. I have noticed this trend, ecto-morphs who use tend to become Junkies, meso-morphs who use tend to become tweakers. Cerebretonics seem to be fair game to all kinds of things but frequently it turns out to be sex.

Why did I become a tweaker? Well, I always suspect it was due in large part to my relationship to caffeine. I adore caffeine. I am highly allergic to caffeine. To this day I have not been able to kick caffeine right out of my life. Imagine my dismay when in ‘93 I went to visit my dying Grandmother in Seattle, and found a cappuccino machine in a Burger King. This was my first foreboding of the caffeine culture soon to reach across the country and now the world. It feels very much the same as being a nondrinker in this alcohol fueled culture. (Which is, for the most part, also one of my struggles).

So, given that I needed to work 3 jobs and party incessantly, and that caffeine compromises my immune system and severely aggravates one of my genetic illnesses, what other recourse did I think I had at the time?
Needless to say it was another in a series of really bad ideas.
I had no idea at the time that crank is the very devil, that one only has to smell it to know that it comes straight from the pit and that putting something in your body that looks, smells and tastes exactly like you scraped it off the bottom of the cat box is inestimably stupid. But it wasn’t caffeine, and it was so much stronger! How exciting was that?

I did gain one, single, boon from it, in an indirect manner, I met Uncle Bunny because of it.
I was sent to him by my friends who said to me;
“Stella, darlin’, you’re psychotic, and we think you should go talk to this guy who can help you. Tell him what idiot shit you’re up to and he’ll sell you some supplements to counteract that and you’ll feel and behave ever so much better.”
They were right.

I probably can’t get away with saying what he suggested, and what worked for me or the FDA will arrest me or something. But once I was assisted to stop being psychotic, I realized that caffeine, for all it’s problems was at least a known toxin. So I gave up the other and never went back. However, it didn’t end there, as I discovered that among other things my metabolism was now supremely fucked. It takes years to recover from that stuff. I still have some issues and its been what, over 20 years now.

So given those extremes I have decided that known toxins are generally the better choice. Like sugar. I happen to be a chocoholic diabetic. How pathetic is that? Its the caffeine thing again also, only in chocolate its the double whammy. When I work at the store, I stand right next to a huge stack of super-fudgy, chocolate-chocolate chip brownies, some of which I’ve found to weigh over a half pound, made at the restaurant by the fantastic baker. And, they just reek of chocolate. It’s like being madly in love with a married man, that you have to see socially, who doesn’t love you, but who occasionally uses you for sex.

But, in my distrust of Nutra-sweet, Splenda, other chem-sweets and chemicals, at least I know where I stand when I go back for more chocolate and tea. I’m making that perfect cup of properly brewed, black tea with milk, with my eyes wide open.
Someday I'll get what I want out of this relationship, someday it won’t hurt like this.
Then there’s tobacco.....

Working over the weekend

I feel like while I have a tiny break from work and the network is actually running the way it’s spozed to, I should get in here and rewrite my lost entry or say something salient.
However as its still early and I havent had my proper cuppa tea I just don’t feel inspired.
You would already know how I like my tea, my relationship to caffeine and about Karl LaFong and Charlie Daytona who are coming over later to play music, had I not lost that other post.
It’s so painful and I feel so wistful because I am a classic three finger typist and losing something I typed away at for an hour makes me daggers mad.
But the teapot awaits, the dogs need to be sat, Im sure there’s plenty of filing to do, and Oliver just sleeps blissfully on, like the world is just prepared to wait for his attentions.