...much to the jealous anger of the other waiters in the place that was like a Bentley's/Lovin' Spoonfuls mashup  (the guys particularly jealous, in an ugly way, leering at her and talking loudly about wanting her to finally take it all off in a movie). She had minestrone soup, and barely acknowledged me as she talked earnestly with her Tucson friend. And then a phalanx of paparazzi descended upon the table, and she was whisked away by attendents.

When I woke up, it was with a bit of a shudder. The men were vile and creepy, making me feel unclean by association.

I've always wanted to find a way into Faery.

One of my favorite Tolkien stories has nothing to do with Middle Earth -- it's "The Smith of Wootton Major," one of the delightful fairy tales he wrote over the years. From the first time I read that story as a kid, I loved it with a mad crazy passion. The idea of a badge, as it were, that gained one entrance into Faery. Damn, that was cool. Beyond cool.

The story had it all -- magic, "accidents" that are anything but, incredible wanderings through a Faery that is beautiful, terrifying, bewildering, always one step past our understanding. It had that sense of loss -- the boy, now a man, comes to a point where he has to pass on the gift, and forever forsake Faery.

In so many ways, I spent my childhood looking for that entrance, that way in, that badge or secret handshake that would get me past the gates. Really, I spent my childhood in my head, in make believe and pretend. On family hikes I'd amuse myself silently imagining that we weren't tracking up another boring trail, towards yet anotther inevitable encounter with a flower/rock/squirrel that the Donor would spend hours and days taking a perfectly precise and perfectly soulless picture of. No, we were hobbits tramping towards Mordor, or a band of adventurers seeking for the Caves of Chaos (the car, way back at whatever parking area/turn off we had left it at, was the Keep on the Borderlands. You know you're old school D&D if you laugh at that). Wait, did I say "we?" I meant, me and my imaginary pals, whoever they were for that adventure. The family didn't figure into it, certainly not the Donor.

I've always had this thing about otherworlds. Whether it's exotic alien worlds or fantasy realms or Faery, I've wanted it to be real, wanted to go there, wanted to step out of this reality and into another. Narnia, Nehwon, Middle Earth, Faery, you name it, I wanted to there. A lot of my favorite stories involve that idea, whether it's stories of people in Newford stepping into otherworlds just down the street, or Jack Flanders finding floating cities of crystal or alternate Montreals.

I think, in part, it has to do with an odd thing that, honestly, I've never shared with many people -- one or two at most, and I'm not sure that anyone in my family is on that list.

I see things.

No, not like that. What I mean is -- I see thoughts. Mine, mind you. And not clearly. But it's always there, like background noise. The best way I can describe it is that it's like a collage of moving images, dimly seen, easily ignored, ghostly images on the periphery of the periphery that I can bring into focus if I want to, just for a few seconds, before they skitter off into something else. As a kid, this entertained me enormously. White walls were a goldmine of entertainment. Always those ghost possibilities playing before me, and so small a step to the desire to jump into those swirling worlds.

Of course, otherworlds, Faery, it's not always wine and roses. Perhaps it's the time of year that has me in an odd, reflective mood -- it's almost a year since the official Break Down that led to this wild year of growth and reborn hope in my life, an artificial but powerful waypoint at which to assess and ponder and wonder. So much good to be proud of, so much more to be done, a continued awareness of the deep wounds I dug into my heart over the years, of the darkness into which I walked and have yet to free myself from completely. And I wonder (Phantastes-inspired, George MacDonald always there to provide the metaphors of my life) about that darkness, and what Faery it might still fate me to see. I know, in large part, that whatever success I've managed in this past year has been because I refused, finally and at last, to believe anything but this: I am not scarred past redemption, whatever it may feel like at times. Maybe, just maybe, that means that I'll be able to look on the vistas of Faery, free of terror and horror and darkness, if only for a moment, before it is my turn to pass the Star on with a bittersweet smile.

Joss Whedon's new show comes out in January. Which gives us plenty of time to get out in anticipation, and plenty of time to theorize how Fox will screw it up this time.

Yeah, I'm still bitter.

Today was one of those days that was just good, for no particular reason, just good. Like a trickster came through and said, hey, what the heck, here's some pixie dust, I'll screw with you later.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, has to go and sign up for Pmog. You can read Cory Doctorow's description of it at Boing Boing.

You know you want to. Dooooo it. Think of the fun we can have. Make missions! Lay mines! Gang up on desultorie! (or, you know, someone else. Me, even. I'm not picky)

ps -- if you do join up, you can find me there as poukledden. Surprise surprise.

After a long day at work, a happy hour or so writing. Exhausted, bleary-eyed (as much from allergies as sleepiness), but typing. Right now it is strictly For Me, wandering stream of consciousness stuff. Explore, get my feet wet, rediscover a joy in words.

Odd, the thought storms that erupt. A pondering on the smell of the Volvo leads to a series of memories that lead, in turn, to the realization that there's a suite of machine smells that signify, to me, death. And remembering sitting in the car before it came to life, and the silence inside was so deep, it was like you were in a void outside of the universe, only  a few car creaks and pops to break the voidness. Sounds from outside muffled and dull, the silence humming in your ears until you wanted to scratch at your skin to get it out.  And then the low roar of the engine would break in, and the radio would turn on, and the universe was human once more.

The Gay-outing Principal: the stupidity continues.

I wish I could say I was shocked. But given the world we live in, I guess we should be surprised the district isn't giving her a medal and a raise.

And am I the only one wondering what their definition of "explicit sexual behavior" is? I'm still betting they got the vapors over some kissing. (And I bet you, based on what the principal allegedly said to the boys' parents when she called, that the definition of "explicit" is different in their case than in the heterosexual couples' cases.)

Seriously, folks, more and more these days I feel like I stepped through the Looking Glass and am caught in Insanityland.

There's just not much you have to say about a day in which you see a picture of a seal trying to have sex with a penguin.

Apparently they don't screen for dickheads when choosing education professionals.

Actually, it isn't even just the way the gay kids got treated that bugs me. There's also that whole freakout of the principle over "public displays of affection." Because we all know civilization will end if kids kiss each other.

Sigh. I'm so sick of my culture being controlled by 2000 year old ideas of morality.

via Pharyngula

The Root of All Evil -- if I were to succumb to the desire to simplify such a complex question into a simplistic answer -- might be our desperate need for certainty. We don't deal with Not Knowing very well. We don't deal well with Doubt.

Jacob Bronowski once warned us about that, and showed us the example of where that desperate need to be certain can lead:


But that is the stuff of the large movements of peoples and civilizations. It works on a personal level, too. As I look at myself, I see that every fear I have is founded in just that desire -- to know, to be certain. Labels are useful for that, because they give the illusion of Knowing. I am This, or I am That, and it all becomes easy to understand. Labels encourage ingredients-list membership*, and suppress the difficult act of thinking and questioning. Labels are, of course, useful, and often necessary. But they carry a danger of becoming the object of devotion, rather than the thing they point to.

In the modern age, we know more than ever how little we know. It takes a definite courage to face up to that, embrace it, and run with it, content to know that there is much you will never know, much you'll never be certain about. I'm tired of searching for certainty, and increasingly aware of the madness that quest can engender.

(*it strikes me that there's an entire metaphor to be had with cooking -- there's folks who follow recipes religiously, always using exact amounts and never experimenting or deviating. Cooking is Following Directions. And then there's the mad scientists of the kitchen, who mix and experiment and wing it, and sure they sometimes create something inedible or accidentally set fire to the blender, but then again, they also create wonders. Certainly, we all know whose dinner parties we most look forward to.)

The world is a much better place for having Sontarans in it once more. Funny heads! That goofy hole in the back of their necks that is their Achille's Heel and forces Sontaran warriors to always face their enemy!

And, of course, Martha Jones.

CNN tells us:

Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study says

BBC tells us:

Human line 'nearly split in two'


They're talking about the same study. Why is CNN stupid? Because the study simply notes that another study had determined that humans faced an evolutionary bottleneck about 70,000 years ago, when the population may have been reduced to as few as 2,000 or so individuals. But that, my friends, is old news. And it isn't what this study is about. This particular study is adding a new twist to that story -- that there were two populations that were isolated from each other for a big chunk of time, long enough that they could have been on the road for speciation to occur, if they hadn't met up again. (All the more interesting is that one of the groups is what we now know as the San, which includes the Bushmen).

One wishes CNN would bother to have science reporters who wrote about subjects they were up on. I mean, that bottleneck theory is old enough that there's been a Discovery Channel special about it.

P.S. yeah, I've been quiet. Just one of those not feeling talkie weeks.

This will give you an idea of the past few days of my life:  I have an underarm rash.

I could list the other minor and annoying ailments that are besetting me, but I'll spare you. Suffice to say that Physical Discomfort has been the name of the game, and work today was literally one long headache.

In lieu of whining, a song that I realized, upon a chance encounter with it after the end of the Very Bad Movie on Channel 18, is practically perfect in every way:

Because if we kill Microsoft, maybe there'll be no more of this kind of thing:

Today started out with a bit of a bang -- the power went out while I was having a cup of coffee and reading stuff on the web. Turned out to be a mondo power outage that affected a big section of the city. They claim it was some transformer doohickey, but I think we all know that it was really hamster cylons who rebelled against their human masters. Luckily, though, the crack commandos of the Tucson Electric Power Elite Guard beat them back. Humanity's demise thwarted once again. But when will these corporations learn to stop using hamster cylons?

The power went out a couple of times at work too, while they were working on the transformer snuffing hamster cylons.

The only semi-decent story that I've ever written was, not surprisingly, one of the few times that I opened a part of my life and looked at it, not to dwell but to acknowledge, understand and transform it.

I find it remarkably hard to talk about my life. There's a host of reasons -- shame is one, because for years it seemed I did nothing but hide and collapse slowly, so that I see it as an emptiness that has no fertile ground for imaginative work. Ray Bradbury had his childhood and his later, active life to work with and build from, to create all those amazing stories. I had, what exactly? Which is, of course, bullshit, something I've been slowly gloming onto lately as I think over the broad strokes of my Life So Far. If I want to play the Ray Bradbury game of nouns that have powerful associations for me, I can think of a bunch. The Mall, the House on Twilight, The Campfire, The Empty Desert Lot, I could throw them out by the dozen if I really got going. I have lived, whatever the mishaps along the way. And boy oh boy, let me tell you, I have felt.

But I still deal with the secret despising of my life, and all those missteps and ugliness and you name its. And on top of  that, there was a simple act of hiding, not acknowledging it, pretending it wasn't there. Denial as survival strategy. I got good at that in high school, for values of good equal to near brushes with self-destruction. I got, frankly, good at lying, to myself as well as others. Honesty, when it comes to my life, is hard.

I've been thinking a lot about my life lately. Not nostalgically, not with self-pity, but just thinking about it. And all those Bradbury nouns are tumbling out, things that invoke hurt and pain and joy and fun and silliness and hope and sadness and disillusionment and you name it. And I'm aching to tell it all, sing it all to you folks, and to the world. I want to tell you about why I really hate malls, about what Cheech and Chong have to do with Wilderness Survival Badges. I want to tell you about the Donor, and not just the bad bits, but the good bits, too, his awkward attempts to reach out to me (driving to IBM post-thunder storm evening, the mountains around Tucson a ring of fire; him taking me home after getting my wisdom teeth out). I want to tell you about The Volvo, and about my friend Joey, and the empty desert lot we played in, and how much it hurt, years later, when they put up houses there. And the Creek, and the coyotes on cold winter nights, and poor, lost Smudge, whose short life seemed to be the tragic acting out of the House on Twilight.

And it's so close, I can feel it, it's churning inside me, so many feelings and thoughts, so many random memories of my life suddenly suggesting stories and ideas wanting to burst forth, and still that block there, so strong that the simple act of trying to write a livejournal entry about my hatred of malls turned, tonight,  into a spinning in circles as words fled the scene in panic. That old defense, that old self-hatred, still trying to strangle the poetry in its crib.

It's making me dizzy, let me tell you. And it's a thing I Have To Do, because if I can't write as Gregory, I can't write. That's the lesson of the One Sorta Good Story.

The Gold Diggers of 1935 (Busby Berkeley, umm, sometime in the 1930s or so)

Last week I watched The Gold Diggers of 1933, which was good fun in the early 1930's, romantic-comedy-musical "Code? What Code?" type of movie. The Gold Diggers of 1935 was made in the Code Era, so there's less in your face sexual innuendo and scantily clad eye candy. But Busby Berkeley was in full charge for this one, so you get a full dose of the Berkeley magic.

The thing I love about Berkeley -- his movies have this pattern. It's all normal romantic comedy silliness, but coherent, interspersed with Dick Powell or whoever singing at random moments, and then, just when you think you've got a handle on it,  BAM. Everything is out the door, and there's music and dance routines that completely step out of the movie and go completely, utterly apeshit. You're mainlining Escher, the legends of Prestor John, and the wormhole sequence from 2001 straight through the eyeballs. And it's not all happy weirdness, because, as the Lullaby of Broadway sequence from this movie shows, sometimes ol' Busby was droppin' the brown acid.

In sad movie news, my copy of The Man Who Fell to Earth arrived from Netflix in a sadly cracked and unplayable state.