Fragile Industries

The Woman Who Mistook Her Brain For A Dog

Lazarus walks -- I'm yet again clearing out the Return Of The Collyer Brothers around the house, particularly in my studio.  When it’s tamed in there, I may unearth all the constituent parts of several projects languishing since March and finish them.  Two art books, one altered book, and the long-awaited vintage family album of photos taken between the Civil War and 1900.  This result is the happy outcome of some brain science I've been reading about.  The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge describes the revolutionary advances in the field of neuroplasticity. It's a great follow-up to all the Oliver Sacks books about "funny brains" I've gobbled since the first of the year.

Basically, neuroplasticity is how the brain can and does physically wire and re-wire itself, adapting to brain injury, using unused territory, making new and breaking old connections.  Old school neurology thought that various skills were locked into specific sites, and while the normal brain has its preferences, its physiology is sufficiently plastic, i.e. changeable, to adapt. Electrical activity in the neurons and its chemical environment work symbiotically.  Brain chemistry reinforces bad or good neuronal associations, from fetishes and addictions to stoic strengths.  We all sorta knew this instinctively, but brain scans and other recent advances in mapping show just how dramatically this theory plays out. The useful part is knowing how to train or re-train brains, impaired or otherwise.  Unwittingly, I've served as my own lab rat, or lab dog, as it were, over the last few years.

For me, 2003-2004 were such emotionally ghastly years that it bent my brain, more than it was already bent, which was considerably.  In the midst of the worst psychic pain of my life, I was committed to tasks that all involved organization, planning, creating (or trying to create) order out of chaos: house remodeling with limited funds, sorting and packing acres of possessions for three separate moves, the logistics of divorce and selling a house, etc.  I also embarked obsessively on physical self-improvement.  It just so happened that the accompanying brain chemistry and emotions were agonizing, so the payoff was more misery for completing these tasks.  (If they ever got finished ... I'm still cleaning up messes from 5 years ago.)  In effect, I was giving myself a mental training consisting of "good dog, here’s your whipping, and NO biscuit."  Like that beaten dog, my badly trained brain then whimpered and trembled when presented with any similar job -- whether actual physical clutter, attending to my diet and exercise, more abstract business or financial organization, or bringing any, ANY, plan to completion.  I thought that my mental abilities for these things, marginal at best, had become permanently lost, like speech for a stroke victim.

Well, neuroplasticity studies have shown hope for mistreated dogs and aphasiatics. "Neurons that fire together wire together," even damaged ones, and improvement can appear with astonishing rapidity when specially designed exercises are given to autistics, ADD's, OCD's, and brain injury patients, especially via computer.  I found a curative exercise in the unlikely and unexpected form of a computer game.  I normally avoid them, but I played "Hell's Kitchen" once and LURVED it so much that I bought it and played for 30-60 minutes every day for the past couple of weeks.  The game is idiotic on the surface.  It's based on the cooking reality show, where contestants run a restaurant under a tyrannical chef and brutal time constraints -- juggling customers, cooking, prioritizing service and preparation tasks.  The game didn't teach me knife skills or recipes, but as I got good at it, I was training, with positive rewards for completion, my ability to break down chaos into manageable tasks in an orderly fashion.  I found I had better mental energy all day if I played the game for about half an hour first thing in the morning.

 Within a week, I was able to start clearing clutter for short periods without panic attacks, and handled other small but long delayed jobs that formerly left me bedridden just to contemplate.  I made the connection between game and increased functionality only a couple of days ago, and it's undeniable.  Compared to less bent brains, I'm barely crawling, but I continue to improve and feel at no risk of overtraining and ending up as anal as Martha Stewart.  I plan to treat my beaten dog of a brain better in the future -- "Good dog, THREE biscuits!"

What confounds me, now that I’ve experienced a full cycle of neuroplasticity in action, is how some people facing even more agonizing psychic and work/life demands do not end up crippled.  I have a friend who endured two solid years of unimaginable emotional wreckage and adversity, yet she soldiers on, a little shaky, but intact.  I started with less skill and worse brain chemistry, I know, and maybe her coping abilities were just too hard-wired to break.  In other words, her dog could survive without biscuits for a while.  A close relation also had a full-life catastrophic meltdown, and very publicly, to boot.  I’m sure he has private scars, but he’s still in the game. Some folks have neuronal wiring as resilient under stress as a pit bull; fortunately, these friends are much less likely to bite.  

How’s your dog doing these days? Sit, Ubu, sit.

PS: It's amazing how many hits my blog gets through Google searches for "Collyer Brothers."  Occasionally, someone leaves an anguished comment about the effects of compulsive cluttering and hoarding.  There's not much out there to read -- it's a hidden illness by its nature until exposed by a dramatic denoument, as with the Collyer Brothers.  My version is mild and the improvement merely anecdotal, but suggestive.  Perhaps more serious cases could benefit from similar neural calisthenics.  If a neuroplasticity researcher stumbles across this account, I urge this for your next grant application.  It could be an interesting study.

Merry Whatever, and an invitation to you, and my Whole Fucking Life Story In Music

A year ago, a Brit jackanapes posed a question on Yahoo Answers:

What is the soundtrack to your life story?

Answering this will take a little thought.

They are making a film of your life from birth to the present. You have been asked to select twelve songs that make up the soundtrack to your life. This is not necessarily your favourite songs, just those that mean something.

.

I answered:

.

In order:
.
1) Sail Baby Sail (folk lullabye)
2) If Mamma Got Married (soundtrack - Gypsy)
3) Another Pleasant Valley Sunday (Monkees)
4) 12:30 / Young Girls are Coming To The Canyon (Mamas and Papas)
5) Cracked Actor (David Bowie)
6) She's Leaving Home (The Beatles)
7) Going To The Chapel (Bette Midler)
8) I Am Woman (Helen Reddy)
9) Wasted Time (The Eagles)
10) If You're Going To San Francisco (Scott McKenzie)
11) La Boheme [entire -- only opera can capture the over-emotional drama of this time] (Giacomo Puccini)
12) Since U Been Gone (Kelly Clarkson)
.

And he chose my answer as best, although out of about 20 answers, mine was one of only a few that answered fully.  We've had some fun emails since, and he turns out to be a totally shameless Brit flirt and fellow attorney, stranger than fiction. 

.

Here's the challenge, in case anyone's read this far (and Merry Christmas to me, I really have to go to bed to do the Happy Present Opening in the am):

.

They are making a film of your life from birth to the present. You have been asked to select twelve songs that make up the soundtrack to your life. This is not necessarily your favourite songs, just those that mean something.

.

12 songs.  What would they be, no explanation needed?

Proof I'm Not Yet A Religious Zealot

Glad Tubers of Comfort And Joy

Happy winter solstice and the holiday of your choice.  As with Thanksgiving (we went to a movie), Mom and I are skipping the traditional trappings this year except for music.  Have to have lots of blaring liturgical classics -- Verdi's Requiem is a must -- and for me, the Christmas Phil Spector and Elvis albums, and a couple of rock and country compilations ("Daddy, Please Don't Get Drunk This Christmas"), are essentials.  Unfortunately, all my more, er, secular holidaytide music is packed with the seasonal decorations in the storage unit.  Fortunately, Houston just sent not one, not two, but three of his annual and highly eclectic Christmas compilation CDs, so it will be a merry musical Christmas after all.  I've sent Houston a pony, or so he thinks, for his present, arriving on Friday the 15th.

Christmas Eve, we're going for a potluck and service at my new church.  It's the local MCC (the worldwide gay denomination, an anachronism in SF but necessary in the hinterlands, very ecumenical, worship style depends on pastor/minister/officiant.)  In SF, the MCC is generic protestant with slightly campy services, a large churchy structure with a huge congregation and very active and out.  Here in My Little Town, it's a nondescript storefront with about 25 members total, episcopalian-style services, active in charities, and a tight-knit warm group where only a couple of the lesbians would set off my gaydar.  My Little Town is so far in the closet it reeks of mothballs.  Toto, I am definitely not in Kansas anymore.  The services are only one heartfelt hour long, so it's an easy demonstration of faith.  I adore the pastor.  I can confide in him.  At the moment, he's beating the bushes to find a gay man to be my AA sponsor, my first choice.  No chance of romance (a good thing) and almost certainly a sense of humor and aesthetics, so we'd get along.

Anyway, I've been assigned the yams for the potluck.  This is very ironic.  About 10 years ago, I prepared the Christmas Eve Feast To End All Pretentious Foodie Feasts, which included a yam souffle.  In preparing the yams, I found one shaped just like the baby Jesus.  Instead of calling the National Enquirer, I showed it to my ex.  We laughed together as I peeled, boiled and mashed it with the rest.  Over the next few hours, we had spun an entire quasi religion about Yam Baby.  We even photoshopped a yam into the manger of an overly-sentimental nativity scene and stuck it on the front door of our loft unit.  The title changed by whim:  "The Adoration of Yam Baby", "What Yam Is This," "Yam Baby Died For Your Sins", "A Savior Yam is Born Unto Us," "Fa-La-Yam-La-La", etc.  No one protested, but we did get strange looks.

I will try to avoid yam sacrilege this year, but as Popeye sez: I yam what I yam.

Watch Out, Thibedaux, LA

I'm not yet fully confirmed, but by the first of the year, I should know whether I'm set for a two-week stint in February with Habitat For Humanity as part of their Katrina rebuild effort.  Thibedaux is Bayou Country, and I'm eager to go, especially as this will be Mardi Gras season.  So I'm not entirely altruistic in this volunteerism.  In my application, I tried to stress my construction ineptitude, and my legal/office expertise, so that I could spend my time indoors chasing down building permits or the like.  No such luck.  Volunteers do construction, period.

Hammers I know (all too well, some would say), screwdrivers hold no mystery as long as the bit is hardened at the tip to prevent stripping, I can handle paint on brush or roller, but that's it.  I've never in my life used a drill; they scare me as do all power tools.  An old family friend, the late Chet O'Brien, was an auto mechanic and amused me as a child by putting the tip of his severed index finger near his nostril, as if searching deeply.  I thought he was a true wit, but the reality of cutting off your finger made a hell of an impression.  Even the "minimal assembly required" by catalog furniture is a trial.  After a week of fits and starts and profanity, I finally completed my lovely new CD shelves.  It consisted of about a dozen structural pieces and a zillion itsy connective devices, with tiny differences (e.g. the dome-topped Phillips screw versus the flat-head Phillips), 3 kinds of nuts, and some stuff that defied explanation.  I used all the structural bits, but ran short of some connectors and ended with a plethora of extras.  The back panel is backwards and upside down, as is the center brace-shelf, but fuck it.  It stands up, holds CDs, the doors close, and I count that as carpentry success.

So my hopes for Thibedaux are 1) to learn something, and 2) to not hurt anyone in the process, including myself and future homeowners.  If you hear anything in the news about Bayou homes collapsing, forget you ever read this (as if anyone does, my Devoted Readership is now in the low two digits).

Here it is, Your Moment of Zen

(exerpted from: http://www.sattlers.org/mickey/site/archive/2004/08/index.html -- but so far down on page that I've saved you the trouble.  I treasure my memories of Mitchell's Ice Cream in SF.  More butterfat than in pure butter, and some wacky flavors):

"Lila really, really, really, really wanted dessert at Mitchell's Ice Cream, San Jose @ 27th Street. Here's Issac eating his favorite, ube (a Filipino purple yam)."

Me and the Collyer Brothers

Homer Lusk Collyer (November 1881- March 21, 1947) and Langley Collyer (October 1885 -March 1947) were two brothers who became famous because of their reclusiveness, filth and compulsive hoarding.. The brothers are often cited as a paradigmatic example of compulsive hoarding associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder, as well as disposophobia,  or Collyer Brothers Syndrome, a fear of throwing anything away. For decades, neighborhood rumors swirled around the rarely-seen, unemployed men and their home at 2078 Fifth Avenue (at the corner of 128th Street), in Manhattan, where they obsessively collected newspapers, books, furniture, musical instruments, and many other items, with booby-traps set up in corridors and doorways to protect against intruders. Both were eventually found dead in the Harlem brownstone where they had lived as hermits, surrounded by over one hundred tons of junk that they had amassed over several decades.  That's one of their more navigable rooms pictured to the left.

In total, police and workmen took 103 tons of garbage out of the house. What was salvageable from it fetched less than $2,000 at auction; the cumulative estate of the Collyer brothers was valued at $91,000, of which $20,000 worth was in the form of personal property (jewelry, cash, securities and the like). Eventually the house was torn down as a fire hazard.

On April 8, 1947 (15 days after the search and excavation of the house began), workman Artie Matthews found the dead body of Langley Collyer just ten feet from where Homer had died. A suitcase and three huge bundles of newspapers covered his body. Langley had been crawling through their newspaper tunnel to bring food to his paralyzed brother when one of his own booby traps fell down and crushed him. Homer, blind and paralyzed, starved to death several days later.

The foregoing are selections from the disturbing full story at Wikipedia.

The Collyer boys have been on my mind for the past few days.  I have a tendency to be a bit of a packrat, and not the best housekeeper on the block.  Since I started my latest mania I haven't done a thing to my condo in the way of cleaning.  It's not yet a Superfund site, nor are Haz-Mat spacesuits necessary to enter.  The cat box is cleaned scrupulously (because if I don't, they tend to express their displeasure in the most obvious way on the carpet), the trash is taken out, and I've stopped my subscription to the newspaper, so no towers of newsprint threaten me.  Dishes aren't a problem, because I've temporarily abandoned cooking anything more complex than a microwave diet dinner or a sandwich, and I'm using paper plates.  I'm at least that realistic about my inaction on the Good Housekeeping Seal Approval front.  Still, no dusting, no vaccuming, no straightening, the pile of mail on my dining room table is taking on the appearance of a scale model of Everest, and my laundry has been limited to picking one load at a time out of the hamper (and the pile next to it) to get me to the next week.  The worst example is my craft/computer room, where I've been spending most of my time lately.

I have been filling in the gaps of my necessary (if only in my diseased mind) supplies to becoming an online art entrepreneur.  I do love shopping.  Especially online.  I posted about this earlier.  Between eBay, other mail-order purchases, and the occasional trip to a thrift or craft store, and my lack of attention to keeping things perfectly organized even before I started the website, the room was starting to look a bit Collyer-esque.  Added to the art supplies are organizational purchases from Office Depot and elsewhere to get the room in order -- files, craft storage boxes with little compartments, etc.  Yesterday I had a burst of energy, rolled up my sleeves and started in.  Armed with my label-maker, I began at the bookshelf and armoire, containing books for reference, books for altering, books for ripping stuff out of.  Also there are scrapbooks, completed and in progress, a bazillion photos -- both mine and family inheritances, paper goods and miscellaneous embellishments.  I intend to set up a system that I can keep up to date and that will make my creative process smooth. 

The process of organization starts with sorting stuff into categories.  And subcategories.  The heirarchical decisions are endless -- does this Christmas card vintage image of cats frolicking in the snow belong in the Christmas pile, the animal pile, or the vintage pile, of loose collage images I'm filing by theme?  After a few hours, I made a serious vow never to buy anything again.  A few hours after that, I nearly threw a lit match on all the little piles just to be done with it.  Today, refreshed, I'm digging in again.  There's an amazing amount of crap.  That's the danger of collage/altered/assemblage/found art.  Anything and everything is, in theory, useable.  I am so accquisitive that I take home every rusty bottlecap and magazine clipping.  In time, unchecked, I would be found in a few years, crushed under a pile of "art" supplies.  With the Collyer Brothers as a cautionary tale, I really, really, really, intend to get this under control.  Now.

Evidence of the work in progress:

sorting ephemera, photos, images

destinations for said junk:

Light a candle, say a prayer.  I haven't even gotten to the new shipment of acrylic paint.

Fragile Industries' Second Favorite Poem By Fragile Industries (And The One That Nearly Killed Me)

Background to Poem:

To left: The Fox Woman Kuzunoha Leaving Her Child (Yoshitoshi, from the "36 Ghosts" series):

One day when he was out walking, Abe no Yasuna saved a fox from hunters. Not long after, he met and married a beautiful girl named Kuzunoha. (Kuzunoha means "kudzu leaf"; the flowering vine appears in the foreground of the print.) She bore him a son and they lived happily together for three years. However, she eventually had to leave him and her son because Yasuna discovered her true nature. She left behind a poem written on a sliding screen: "If you think of me, love, come seek me in the forests of Shinoda, and you will find a kudzu leaf." Kuzunoha's true form appears in the shadow on the sliding screen; it was thought that reflections in water and mirrors, as well as shadows, revealed the true form of supernatural beings who were pretending to be human.

Look closely at the shadow on the screen, and the child clinging to her hem.  It's heartbreaking.

I saw this in an exhibit of Japanese woodcuts in Kansas City.  I was in Kansas City with my father for his mother's funeral, which is a story worth a post all its own.  My dad was many things, but I never thought of him as a connoisseur of art.  Yet he surprised me, sometimes.  He wept like a child at Puccini operas, thrilled to his core.  He was in Japan several times, first when posted there with the army of occupation after WWII, and apparently came to appreciate much of the Japanese culture.  So he was enthusiastic when I suggested going to the exhibit as a break from the Sturm und Drang of Grandma's very Italian (as in The Sopranos-Italian) funeral planning.  We were both struck by this image, as much as my Absolute Favorite, which is listed (plug, plug) in my new list to the left, Shameless Exhibitionism.  I read the story of the woodcut, posted in the gallery more or less as above.

Years passed, and the details of the story became fuzzy, including the spelling of the name Kuzunoha.  I wrote the following, based on my faulty memory.  We should never trust memory to be factual, but it is always interesting how the mind processes and transforms facts into memories, a notion I explore in the poem, as it turns out.  Wouldn't a human-turned-animal now process the human memories in a form accessible to the animal? 

Poem:

KUDUNOHA

In this Japanese folktale, an unfaithful wife and mother turns into a badger after she is evicted from the family home.

A silken kimono rustles down the hall,

then the click of claws on the porch.

Is she cursed with memory?

Kinder if she feels only a moment’s confusion

before she looks for soft earth

to turn up a grub.

But that’s no punishment.

No the moral force of the story requires

penance.  Little fires under her heart,

a burning in eyes that cannot weep.

Badgers carry sadness deep in their wide bodies.

She misses the children, the smell of their necks,

their clumsy fingers like tubers, most of all

the nestling and crooning before naptime.

Mysteries even to her, mysteries from her body.

The enormity of this loss leaves little grief

for her wronged husband.  He’s no marvel.

Under her new and bristling pelt, she thinks of him

rarely, of her lover, not at all.  With her perfect recall,

she still can’t distinguish human men

one from the other or from the violent, snarling tumbles

in the dens.  The white badge on her forehead remains

impassive, like her face

when she wore the good wife’s mask.

Sometimes in sleep her paw flutters

as if waving a fan.

1996

Aftermath of Poem:

I wrote the poem in a rush, a few hours one evening, tinkered a tiny bit the next day, and that was it.  A few months later, I submitted it to a poetry contest run by the SF Guardian.  I ended up winning and being the SF Guardian Poet of the year.  It was initially a hugely giddy process, with interviews, press, much wider publication and publicity for my poetry, and culminated in a huge poetry festival in a SF nightclub attended by Everyone On Earth, or so it seemed, where I read the poem after all the runners up, the top billing. The crowd's reaction was muted, understandably, because it was a young, poetry slam kind of audience.  The thing is, this is not an "out loud" poem.  This is a "read it to yourself, someplace quiet" kind of poem.

The totality of all the fuss and furor was that I developed a poetry writer's block that remains to this day.  I continued to write poetry for several years, but in my mind, and in fact, it was inferior work.  So I stopped, and write maybe three poems a year, mostly dreck but just to do it.  That distressed me terribly for years.  I'm OK with it now.  I have other creative outlets.  Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.  If it comes back, I'd be delighted, but it's not My Life's Work anymore.

The block is actually common to writers (and other artists) who achieve sudden recognition.  My fervent hope is that my new creative passion does not achieve Fame And Fortune, but that I can poke along having fun, and maybe make a few people happy with what I make.  So even though I'm trying to make The Greatest Art In The World, and The Most Beautiful Website, and achieve Search Engine Optimal Nirvana, please god don't let me win any prizes.

Oh, and what's my favorite, if this is my second favorite?  Wait and see.  It's Houston's favorite, too.

Student Activism - That Was Then, This Is Now

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose... (I found the curly bit I was missing earlier for the "c"!)

The news for the last few days has been packed with images of students protesting the punitive and racist immigration bill. I was pleasantly surprised by the involvement of numbers of high school students. My landlord, mentioned in my previous post, blogged that her neighboring junior high school (I suppose they call it "middle school" now, don't mind me, I matriculated in the dark ages) was the site today of a brief, peaceful walkout, and now the students are threatened with suspension.

I was involved in several political episodes while in junior high and high school.  I'm revealing my advanced years, but that was during the Vietnam/Nixon era.  There were what were called "moratoriums" in late 1968 and the months following to protest the war.  College students were walking out of classes, demonstrating, marching.  In the lower levels of education, silent protest by wearing a black armband was supposedly a First Amendment protected right.  Apparently not for seventh-graders in Glendale, California.  The first moratorium took the school by surprise.  By the end of the day, however, armbands were confiscated, we too were threatened with suspension, and the school adopted a policy, complete with letters to parents, of immediate suspension and perhaps public flogging.  I was enraged; my parents were amused.  Oddly enough, when I was in law school studying Constitutional law, one of the cases we studied was about a high school student who was suspended for wearing an armband during the moratorium protests.  Although elementary and secondary school students have very restricted First (and Fourth, and . . . you get the idea) Amendment rights under the law, his right to the armband was upheld as protected silent speech.  I felt like sending a copy of the case to the Glendale school administration.  (See, I was right!)

I also took part in an underground paper in high school (largely funded by my liberal mother) that protested the war, Nixon, and some selected and highly-loathed school administrators.  The statute of limitations has long since run, so now I can identify one of my best friends, Nancy Shinabargar, as among the ringleaders.  (I use her full name not to shame her, but in the hope that if she ever Googles her name, we can get in touch; I remember her fondly.  Hi, Nancy, welcome to the power of the Internet!)   Again, the perpetrators were all threatened with suspension, but we were stealthy and never caught.  One of the humorous related memories is the principal of the school coming into the student government meeting (4th period, I was the "Director of Fine Arts", Nancy was class president, and another co-conspirator was Student Body President) and earnestly discussing his problems with cracking down on the troublemakers behind the paper, unaware that he was addressing the very people that so concerned him.  One for our side.

The photo to the left, from the Fragile Industries Archives, shows your humble narrator during one of her tasteful campaigns for elected office in high school, attired as her endorser, Harpo Marx, complete with fright wig and horn.  I've always enjoyed anything involving a costume.  The photo to the right is what I looked like when not campaigning. The cartoon lower left is from the underground paper, showing one of my many disciplinary run-ins with the Girl's VP, the dreaded Esther.

My college and grad school education took place in less activist times (Carter, Reagan), so there were less opportunities for political comment.  Besides, I was more bourgeois by that time and focused on my career.  (Nancy, I'm sure, did not relent.  She was always more politically savvy than I.)

I am encouraged by the current demonstrations and pleasantly surprised that these young people can be moved to any political expression.  Apathy in the face of the excesses and abuses rampant in the US seems to be the rule -- especially by the kids seemingly hypnotized by their XBoxes and Lindsey Lohan's weight issues and other trivia.  Good for you, kids.  If I was still practicing law, I'd defend you.  Can I write you a poem?  Sing you an opera? Plan a protest party?

Homework

I've been given an assignment by My Favorite Teacher (aka IP): to think of 2005 not as a year of pain, but of accomplishment and growth.  Dang, another fucking growth opportunity. So here's another List Of Seven -- not a poem, not yet.

Seven Things I've Accomplished in 2005

1.  Started this blog.

2.  Started writing poetry again.

3. Went with the Red Cross for Katrina relief.

4.  Finalized the divorce (according to the Final Judgment, I will be "restored to the status of single person" as of 1/27/06, when I hope to be merrily screwing the IP, so this is an ongoing process).

5. Got clean and sober (another continuing enterprise).

6. Got my psychoactive meds straightened out, for now, anyway.

7. Spent time at the funny farm.

Perhaps more importantly, I've made friends I want to keep, and kept at least some of the friends I didn't want to lose.  I'm allowing myself (slowly) to be vulnerable while getting stronger.  I've rediscovered the joy of passion, not just physical, but that's important too.  I learned that I have to be of service to others to have a spiritual and worthy life.  I've regained a connection to my higher power, who right now, when all else fails, is a lion named Aslan.

OK, that's a lot more than seven.  So sue me.  It was a pretty good year after all.

Seven Things

Seven Things To Do Before I Die

1. See Tuscany (will do, October 2006)

2. Read Proust, War and Peace, and Ulysses (I've tried)

3. Become less judgemental of others, or less idealistic (same thing, really)

4. Quit smoking, again and for good, and hopefully before that spot on the lung x-ray

5. Get over my fear of water so I can scuba dive

7. Sell something I've made with my hands

6. Recover from mathematical illiteracy (can you help me, David?)

Seven Things I Cannot Do

1. Scuba dive

2. Be at ease at parties where I know no one

3. Sing well (or at least tolerably)

4. Speak a foreign language besides Spanglish -- I intend to get Italian lessons on DVD before I go to
Tuscany so I do not inflict Spanglish on a new country, but rather inflict Italglish

5. Settle on a gainful occupation

6. Eat cooked oysters

7. Draw recognizable objects

Seven Things That Attract Me To Blogging

1.  I love to write and more, to be read

2. The illusion that I'm computer literate

3. Discovery by, and feedback from, unlikely sources

4. To satisfy my exhibitionist nature while keeping my shy nature safe

5. To be a part of a unique culture other than my fellow nutcases, alcoholics, addicts, crafters and opera queens (other cultures with which I have associated)

6. (stolen from Houston, but true for me as well) To honor my family by telling its story -- I haven't even scratched the surface -- this belongs in the "To Do Before I Die" list

7. Self-discovery -- free hours on the psychiatrist's couch for someone who suffers from, as I have accused others, utter self-involvement

Seven Things I Say Most Often

1. Fabulous (I am a gay man trapped in a woman's body)

2. Oh my god! (You can take the girl from the Valley, but you can't take the Valley from the girl)

3. So . . . (left dangling at the end of my sentences)

4. Mm ... mm... mm... (in descending thirds, picked up from my mother)

5. *giggle* (cute when under 18, obnoxious in a grown woman)

6. Really? (or No kidding?)

7. I love __________!  (whatever the topic: people, places and things)

Seven Books That I Love

1. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (read to me at an early age by Nanny, my mother's mother, bless her memory, and my introduction to a Higher Power -- Aslan Rules!)

2. The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett (yes, I do love stories that go on and on . . . I have a reocurring dream of finding myself in a castle's tower room, where an enchanted book rests on a podium, and the pages turn by themselves and the story never ends . . . but I can never remember the story when I wake, except the image of a tree . . .)

3. The Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling (another multi-volume set)

4. Harriet The Spy by Louise Fitzhugh (my alter ego -- obviously, I like well-written children's fiction better than most so-called adult fiction)

5. Alcoholics Anonymous by Bill W., et al. (after the Bible, probably the book that has changed more lives than any other)

6. Any good dictionary, especially with illustrations

7. The Judy Bolton Mystery Series by Margaret Sutton (this deserves a post all its own, but check here and here for background.  There were 37 in a progressing series -- the reader follows Judy as she grows, marries and solves mystery after wonderful mystery.  This was the genesis of my compulsion to read an author's works in the order written. I own and have read all but #'s 32-35.  These later volumes are very rare and VERY expensive.  #36 and 37 each set me back over $200.  Each. The earlier books are easier to find and I have multiple copies in different editions of many.  Obsessive?  Me?)

Seven Movies, Plays or Operas That I Watch or Could Watch Over and Over Again

1. Madame Butterfly (I was in over 60 performances, not counting rehearsals, and cried at the end -- onstage -- every time.  Fortunately, my costume included a veil.)

2. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (play, not movie -- I never thought Elizabeth Taylor was a proper Martha, although it was her best acting, to damn with faint praise)

3. Arcadia, by Tom Stoppard (I've only seen it once, but hunger for it again)

4. Turandot (see # 1)

5. Dmitri Hvorostovsky in anything (a more comprehensive and less gushing site here -- I am seeing Dima in SF with Houston later this month.  When purchasing the tickets, he actually told the man in the box office that he needed the seats to be really close "so my date can throw her panties on stage."  I'm afraid they will stop me at the door to check my undies.)

6. The Wizard of Oz

7. The Godfather I and II

Of course, Casablanca is everyone's #1 choice, and I've posted my reasons why here, so these are really #'s 2-8.  Death in Venice used to be on this list, but after the 15th or so viewing, I finally cried uncle... I couldn't listen to Mahler's Adagietto from his Fifth one more damned time.  I'm embarassed to admit it, but Ferris Buhler's Day Off, Who Killed Roger Rabbit and Dirty Dancing are my favorite Guilty Pleasure movies, perfect for when I'm lonely, feeling fat, and have a pint of Hagen-Daaz in the freezer. 

Now I'm supposed to tag seven others, but like Houston, from whom I got this meme, I'm too passive-agressive to do it.  Take this up if you like, and let me know.

Recipe Corner: Bacon-Wrapped Dates, and Christmas Memories

When I was a kid, I enjoyed Chrismas -- all my Christmases.  Because of the "yours, mine and ours" nature of my multiply-married parental units, I had three Christmases a year: Christmas Eve, when my stepfather's children would come over for gifts and a traditional dinner with all the trimmings; Christmas morning with my mother, stepfather, godparents and eventually, my younger half-brother; then Christmas Day with my father and his family and friends.  Once I hit college age, however, I turned into a scrooge and had the Christmas blues annually.

My "bah humbug" phase lasted until about six years ago, when my future ex-husband wanted to have a Christmas Open House, huge, festive, decorated to the max, with a grand feast to last all day. I resisted at first. Christmas celebrations did not turn me on. Then I decided to cooperate as a gift to him. And if I was going to do it, I'd do it up right. I scoured thrift stores and Walgreen's for frugal decorations, candles, bought a forest of greenery, and decorated every square inch of the house with an old-fashioned Dickens Christmas flair. I baked sweets and bought a ton of delicacies -- ham, turkey, meatballs, smoked salmon. I made my trademark hot appetizers -- mini curried turnovers and bacon-wrapped dates. I invited everyone we ever met or worked with. As I worked on the invitations, the decorations, the feast, something totally unexpected happened. I got the Christmas spirit! We went out shopping for little all-purpose gifts, like candles and candies and scented soaps and potpourri and keychains and notecards, everything under $2 each. We wrapped each individually and put them in a huge basket for each guest to take their own from the grab bag as they left. I felt very Martha Stewart as I surveyed the house, the spread, the CD's shuffle of holiday tunes, especially all our friends and family having a blast. The whole Christmas budget was spent, as our gift to those we loved and one another. During the marathon party (10 hours!) I knew it was the happiest season I'd had in years and years. I was glad later that we'd made such a production -- my father died the next year and the party was his opportunity to enjoy our friends and for him to charm them in turn.

I live hundreds of miles away now, and it may be a while before I have enough local friends and family to host another blow-out like that. But a little piece of that Christmas spirit returns to me every year as I put up the decorations, even if they are just for me.

Recipe: Bacon-Wrapped Dates

A sticky, salty, sweet, chewy delight.  Couldn't be simpler, and they go like hotcakes. Just wrap half a strip of bacon around a seeded date, secure with a toothpick and bake at 350 degrees until the bacon is crisp. Make more than you think you'll need, people love them and the house smells great. They can be made well ahead of time and frozen in freezer bags. Bake frozen or not. Serve hot from the oven. Great to keep on hand, frozen, for unexpected company.
Enjoy!

Happy Birthday

Hall of Fame sportscaster Vin Scully turns 78 today, but the memories of his golden voice are ageless.

I can never hear Scully speak without remembering the summer of 1965 and Jesse Gee.  Baseball was not a feature of my childhood until about 1963 when Jesse arrived in our household.  Her official title was "housekeeper", but she quickly became much more than that, a confidant to my mother and my friend and source of inspiration.  Jesse had no children of her own, and quickly adopted me.  Sundays, she took me to her church in Downtown LA and once I heard the gospel choir, I understood the power of the human voice raised in praise.  She was the first African-American I met, and when I was very young, I had a secret yearning to lick the inside of her wrist to see if she tasted like chocolate, the forbidden fruit of my junk-food deprived family.  (My mother was very health conscious; I was denied sugar due to her fears of diabetes, the scourge of her side of the family.) 

Jesse followed the Dodgers with demonic fervor.  Spring, summer and fall, a transistor radio stayed at her elbow as she went about her day.  I had no idea what a "hiiiiigh liiine driiive" meant, but when Vin Scully said it, and Jesse reacted to his smooth tones, I knew something more important had happened than the umpteenth repeat of "Hard Day's Night" on my station of choice, KRLA.  One June, Jesse was given the assignment of watching the house and me when my parents were on vacation in Mexico, or the Bahamas, or somewhere beyond my grasp of My Little Town.  During these times, I was spoiled outrageously.  Dinners were along the lines of smothered pork chops (yum) instead of broiled chicken breast and brown rice.  We ate well, giggled during "Let's Make A Deal", and wore tennis shoes she brushed to an immaculate white with shoe polish.  Vin Scully was the musical counterpoint to all our activities.  One afternoon, we walked to the produce market at the corner and she bought a bag of bing cherries.  We sat on our front porch, ate cherries languidly, spitting the seeds onto the lawn.  Jesse always won the distance competition.  I was more of an incompetent shot-putter with the seeds, simply glad that they cleared my chin and made it on the lawn at all.  I remember that afternoon as endless, as we shared a wordless companionship, and Vin Scully announced the play by play.  I couldn't follow the game, but simply listened to the inflections, the crowd noises, the occasional crack of a bat.  The tinny radio could not disguise Scully's long, warm vowels that blended seamlessly with the sweetness of the cherries and the setting sun painting our faces with golden light.