And Now For Something Completely Different - NOT!

One of my best friends is the stupidest sonovabitch I'll ever meet. He's proved it, beyond a shadow of a doubt, today.

A bit of background: I've known him for almost 11 years. He and his long-time girlfriend married very close to the time he and I met; they already had a young son. He is a handsome devil, charming as they come, and with the gift of gab on top of it all. She is classy, lovely, demure, and built like a brick shit house. They remain married to this day. I met him the same way he meets all of his female friends: he flirted outrageously with me and I flirted back. I'm not dumb enough to qualify as a girlfriend, so he and I just became friends. Eventually our families became close enough that we all just consider ourselves one big family.

Until today.

See, my friend has never been one to limit himself socially. Nor has he ever been one to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. As a matter of fact, my friend is one of those people who can never just answer a question: he has to spend a minute or so trying to remember who he told what lie to and trying to calculate how easy it would be to check it before he answers even the simplest question. Though I appreciate the magnitude of intelligence this layered life must require, I must say that the constant evasion - not to mention the downright lying - grows tedious. I have to point out that the guy has absolutely no reason to lie to me: I'm not his mother, I'm not his wife, I'm not his God, and though he drives me crazy even on good days, I love him like no other.

Eight months ago he was stone-cold-busted having an affair with a co-worker. Approximately seven months prior to that, there were serious and probing questions regarding his marital loyalty, again regarding the same female co-worker. I knew about the liaison, in the academic sense, but didn't pry too much because I figured it was none of my business and the less I knew, the better. I met the girl once, under fairly normal circumstances (on the job), and had an interesting run-in in a parking lot with her several months later. I tried to run interference in a roundabout way, as friends do, but My Stupid Friend's stubborness and certainty that he could pull off the grandest of schemes circumvented any real communication in the matter. The fact is, he stopped being careful and started being , well, stupid. He and his wife came close to divorcing, but he agreed to cut all ties with the lady in question (including changing his work schedule) and vowed that he wanted to work it out. See if you can guess what really happened (please reference aforementioned notes regarding strong sense of adventure and serious lack of self-control).

The best part? The "lady in question" is a complete and utter psychopath. I'm not just saying that. In a movie, this situation would be disgustingly fascinating (especially if well-acted). In real life, it's uber-tragic and horribly predictable.

So, the long and short of it is that though he agreed to sever all ties with the crazylady, he chose not to. Which, I suppose, would have been fine if he had continued to be as careful as he used to be. But instead, he chose to drag me into it, putting me in a position where I would have to choose between lying to protect someone I love or telling the truth to protect someone I love.

We were together in a place where we never would have known we were together had My Stupid Friend not approached me to say hello. In reality, there was no way I would have known he was there otherwise, as I walked among 5,000 other people participating in the San Diego MS Walk. I had noticed that others employed by his employer were there, wearing shirts signifying their solidarity, but quickly scanned the faces for those I knew and dismissed the rest. Had he - or his little psychopathic paramour - been among them, I would have seen them immediately. Obviously they were choosing not to walk with their "crowd" during that time. About halfway through the course, my friend ran up behind the group I was walking with (comprised of several members of my family), and greeted us heartily, stating that he had agreed to participate in the walk because his boss was there and he was in the process of applying for a promotion (the parts about the boss and the promotion are true). We strolled along, chatting amiably as friends do, when I noticed that a certain young lady - who I had met before and have heard volumes about since - had begun walking along at my friend's opposite side. She leaned forward as she walked, as if positing herself into the conversation, smiling in an "acknowledge me" way. I gave her a rather censorial look, as if to say "I'm pretty sure you don't want to do this with me, how about just vanishing as quickly as you appeared?" No dice. And then, in the most ludicrous attempt at subterfuge I have ever witnessed - and this from a Master in the art - my friend turned to Crazylady and said, feigning surprise, "hey!!!," like it was the first time he'd seen her all day. It was a Herculean effort not to roll my eyes and casually break his nose with my water bottle. The kicker? Crazylady looked at My Stupid Friend with a territorial moue and whined, "Aren't you going to introduce us?" I stopped walking, turned directly to face her, stuck out my right hand, and said incredulously, "we've met." I shot him a look that said "we're gonna talk" and then summarily dismissed them both. I was, needless to say, furious.

And of course the inevitable was, well, inevitable... the hysterical phone call from the wife came, the questions were asked, the answers were given (as fairly and objectively as I know how, but no less incriminating), and the showdown was shot out with both parties lying bleeding on the fertile and forgiving ground that was once their marriage. And somehow, the entire situation has become - you guessed it - my fault. My fault because he was too STUPID to stay away from me during the MS Walk. My fault because I'm not dumb enough to buy the "I'm here to schmooze with the boss" crap. My fault because I'm not willing to lie for him.

What hurts the most is the fact that he obviously expected me to. Oh, ouch.

MSWalk

Today I participated in one of many nationwide MSWalks, raising money for Multiple Sclerosis research, support, and awareness. My eldest daughter was diagnosed (as much as anyone can be) with MS in November of 2005, and we have since been searching for acceptable alternative treatments and trying to come to terms with the fact that this degenerative and currently unstoppable disease is allowing her body to attack itself at its very core. This is something that over 200,000 American families have to come to terms with every single year. The caveat mentioned above is due to the fact that there is no way to definitively diagnose Multiple Sclerosis (though researchers believe they have finally isolated the gene)... all medical professionals can do is try to discern what is not causing the symptoms. Once the other possible diagnostic impressions are eliminated, often all the neurologists are left with is MS. People with MS are very low in two certain types of regulatory T-cells (or are missing them altogether). The regulatory T-cells in question are responsible for keeping the "killer T-cells" (the one which fight disease) from killing the body that houses them. Ironic, yes?

My daughter raised of a team of 85 people and together we raised over $9000 for this event. The event itself raised over $2 million dollars. As researchers believe themselves to be very close to a cure for MS, the money that continues to roll in is heartening, as it is predicted that a cure (or a viable treatment that isn't as degenerative as the disease itself) will be discovered during this generation.

I was proud to be there. I was proud to be a part of it. Mostly, I am proud of my daughter, who refuses to believe that she can be conquered that easily. She also refuses to partake of the standard treatment for MS patients, choosing instead to completely rework her diet into a daily regime that is as demanding as training for a marathon. She terrifies me, but thrills me too: if anyone can beat this, it's her.

Made Me Think... Made Me Cry...

This is just about 90 minutes long. It's worth it, whether or not you agree. And maybe this helps those of you who, like me, asked over and over, "Where's the plane????"

Mistaken Identity and a Time Warp

I saw my second fiancee at a softball game tonight. I thought I did, anyway. The woman who was with him must think that I'm a blatant and impenitent harlot, because not only did I do a double-take, but I stared unabashedly for a full minute before finally feeling the flaming daggers she was shooting at me from her eyes. He, of course, was oblivious. I had the rare good taste to avert my eyes at that point, but continued to sneak glances at him throughout the game because - damn - it really could have been him.

I finally realized that - of course - it wasn't him and couldn't have been him in the first place because the person I was staring at was the spitting image of the man I loved twenty-one years ago. The man I was momentarily convinced was a blast from my personal and sordid past was not a day over 20 and neither was the lovely young lady he was sitting with (which leaves open the mystery of why she was threatened enough by this old lady to actually respond censorily to my baffled staring).

Time marches on everywhere but in my head, I suppose. And maybe that's why those memories are still so bittersweet: in my head, it all happened only yesterday, not twenty years ago. In my head, I'm still nineteen. It's only the sudden and stark reality of the morning mirror that reminds me of who I've become (externally, at least).

Strangely enough, I don't feel the slightest bit melancholy. The moment was fleeting (and fundamentally false), but it was wonderful to see him.

A Thought Before Bed

Today I ran away to join the circus (well, a kind of circus) and my seven-year-old daughter went to the Moon.

I had forgotten what a rich resource imagination is! I resolve to cultivate and carefully tend the surviving roots of mine, with the hope that it will flourish once more.

Speaking of Emo...

Mention suicide once

and everyone wants to "help."

I could be doing something useful

loading a gun, for instance

or sharpening knives

perhaps drawing detailed images

of local bridges and

freeway overpasses.

I should be wearing all of my jewelry

and walking alone in a

dark alleyway

or semi-deserted park

in the very late evening.

Everyone wants to "talk about it"

but I haven't the time

becasue there are brake lines that

need cutting

and warm baths to draw

and straight razors to purchase

with maxed-out credit cards.

The psychiastrist says

"We have drugs for that, you know"

and I smile

and say that I do.

A Road Unforgotten (or, in my opinion, the best I've ever written and probably ever will)

The sky cries when I do

the sorrow of the atmosphere

(too much pressure, you know)

a natural and violent response

to the disappointment of the gods.

How ridiculous, you say

that my insignificant tears

would trigger Heaven's downpour,

that my paltry personal pain

could have such universal effect;

as if I alone could control

some indeterminate stretch of space

with trite human emotion.

Still, perhaps you've noticed

that the sky cries when I do.

Divine presence made known to me

in wind and wet and chill:

our tears commingle in common

as the air howls in sympathy

caressing my skin in cyclical bursts,

sucking and pushing at my clothing,

so I may stand naked and cleansed.

The sky cries when I do

the life of the world bursting forth

from the bulging gray belly

of the universal gateway;

the anguish of the effort

(water and air torn apart to birth the rain)

the evidence of my creation.

Carefully crafted by the cosmos am I:

star and space, heaven and Earth

joined in me by ethereal design.

No one save I compelled to recognize

that the sky cries when I do.

No saviour but I to myself, the world

but nonetheless forged human.

Object of Grace, yet subject to sorrow,

perfection encased in cellular disarray.

The gods weep for my temporary disorganization

and their own fury for such experimental embodiment,

my tears the shameful provenance

of a promise left vaguely unkept.

Holy I am, self-denial itself denied;

the element of my momentary unworthiness

effectively hidden and lovingly masked -

the sky cries when I do.

Winter Break (for Alex)

Words on white pages:

black and blue, mostly;

some green and red and

even purple.

You read theirs and I read yours

in a comfortable silence.

I can't help thinking that

I have the better deal:

I read your words

while you read theirs.

Yours, at least,

are all black.

Blessed

A champagne breeze picks me to embrace

and I

dazzled and perfumed by it

trust my kisses to the air and smile

and then

a velvet rhythm learned in it

the salt and liquid from my eyes sail away

on the breath of that one star

Autumn

My mother-in-law is dating. She's 70. Her third date with the same man is coming up on Tuesday. Reportedly, he's a 76-year-old retired aeronautical engineer who skis and doesn't drive like an old man. You know what the third date means.

My father-in-law died just about three years ago. My in-laws were hot on the heels of their fiftieth wedding anniversary when he finally succumbed to the COPD that had been eating him alive for several years. My mother-in-law took care of that crotchety old man for a really long time - without thanks, without reward, and certainly without any meaningful companionship - and we never heard even one complaint from her. Must've been love, eh?

So, here we are, a few days before Date Number Three. We're attending the matinee of the musical my daughter is performing in, and it's intermission. She mentions that she's had a sore throat for a few days and is concerned that she won't be feeling any better before Tuesday (the BIG DAY). She tells me that her uncle had warned her to "not let this guy get in (her) pants." She laughs it off, her uncle playing like he's her Daddy and she's 16... she's laughing like a schoolgirl about the whole conversation... and then she confides, "he's worried about the guy getting in my pants when I haven't even been halfway to First Base yet!"

First Base? What??? YET???? It hits me - she's actually planning it. Maybe she hasn't been to first yet, but she's already calling her shot. She standing in the box with the bat rested casually on her shoulder and her finger pointed defiantly at the top tier, daring the pitcher to bring the heat. And I, suddenly, am overcome with admiration.

She may well be the most courageous person I know.

Huh?

My daughter tells me that I'm "too Emo" in these posts. I can't decide if that's insight into me or into her?

Lies, Lies, Lies (The Caveat)

Someone asked me if having a secret from a loved one is the same as lying.
"Funny you should ask," I said, "because I'm pretty sure it's not the same thing."

I have secrets. Lots of them. Some have been shared with trusted souls, but most I carry around in a big old emotional steamer trunk of shame, pain, and fear. I'm human, and I make decisions that occasionally I'm not proud of. Therefore, I'm not in a big hurry to share them with other people. However, if someone asks me a question, I'll answer it as truthfully as I can - and I'll even go the extra mile to attempt to refrain from excuses.

The reason I know that my best friend is truly my best friend is the fact that she knows most of my darkness and loves me anyway. Sure, some of my secrets will go with me to the grave (unless I find myself in the company of an extremely nosy and powerfully psychic person), but she knows most of them. And the rest she's smart enough not to ask about.

Secrets are not the same as lies. A relationship of perfect love and perfect trust has plenty of room for secrets, but not for lies. And most people who share a relationship of perfect love and perfect trust realize that it's pretty stupid to ask a question when the honest answer is better left unsaid. For in a relationship of love and trust, the truthful answer will always come. And sometimes it won't be pretty. Most times it won't be something that the loved one really wanted to know in the first place. Though it's said that knowledge is power, it is not power that can be easily wielded when the flaming sword of truth is freed from its scabbard and is getting down to the business of carving your heart out. Ugly, yes?

But... certainly less ugly than a lie. And I'm constantly amazed at the sheer number of people who don't know this fundamental truth. Or don't care. Or both.

Of course I'm not saying that anyone who walks up to me and asks an intimately personal question should get the full truth. I'm not going to lie to people, but I'm definitely not going to lay my pain at the feet of every person who asks for it. Ever notice the stunned look on the face of a person you've just told that something is absolutely none of their business? It occurs to me in these situations that people expect to be lied to. Why else would a person ask me a question that they themselves would be hesitant to answer? Or expect me to reveal a part of my psyche in a superficial conversation? Yes, I believe it's acceptable and appropriate to tell someone that something is none of their business... especially if you'd answer (just to be nice, you know) with a lie.

Keep your secrets, you've paid for them. Accept those decisions and love them for their contributions to your life. Share them if you think you or someone else will benefit from the knowledge. Lock them in your personal steamer trunk if nobody will, and know that you decieve no one by doing so. Keep the secrets that others have trusted you with as faithfully and carefully as you do your own. Love and Trust demand it.

As for lying? Scroll down. It's not the same thing at all.

Guess My Liberal Arts Major

per·spec·tive (pr-spktv)n.
A view or vista.
A mental view or outlook: “It is useful occasionally to look at the past to gain a perspective on the present” (Fabian Linden).
The appearance of objects in depth as perceived by normal binocular vision.
The relationship of aspects of a subject to each other and to a whole: a perspective of history; a need to view the problem in the proper perspective.
Subjective evaluation of relative significance; a point of view: the perspective of the displaced homemaker.
The ability to perceive things in their actual interrelations or comparative importance: tried to keep my perspective throughout the crisis.
The technique of representing three-dimensional objects and depth relationships on a two-dimensional surface. adj.
Of, relating to, seen, or represented in perspective.

(Thank you, www.dictionary.com)

Each of these definitions of "perspective" have surfaced in my everyday conversations of late, for no reason other than my own perspective seems so skewed these days. For example:

BOSS: I want you to look at this again. I don't think you gave it enough thought.
ME: Try looking at it from the client's perspective, and see if it makes more sense to you.
BOSS: It's your perspective I'm concerned about, not the client's.
(Do I really have to say that this was not a good day at work?)

OVERHEARD UNKNOWN PERSON ON A CELL PHONE: I'm trying to keep it in perspective, but I still think he's hiding something from me.

FRIEND: Well, that's a good thing, right?
ME: Depends on your perspective.
FRIEND: Everything depends on perspective, doesn't it?
ME: I'm finding that statement to be more and more true each day!

Okay, not all the definitions. I don't generally discuss artist's techniques.

As I mull over the conversations that give direct reference to perspective, I wonder (again) how we manage to communicate at all. Then I wonder if, in fact, we are communicating. If I have to invoke perspective in random discourse, aren't I really saying that the person attempting to relate to me has no hope of ever doing so? If a person engaged in conversation with me tells me that, God forbid, I'm not looking at a concept or situation with the right perspective, aren't they really saying that I have somehow not only failed to communicate my idea but also failed to incite their empathy?

The bottom line: If I invoke perspective into our conversation, aren't I telling you that I'm right, you're wrong, I'm smart, you're dumb, I'm big, you're little, and there's nothing you can do about it?

From a Fregian perspective (oh, ha ha ha), each of the definitions (again with the exception of the artist's technique) presented above has sense but no reference. Even the noun forms of the word reference subjective information. The concept of perspective is similar to that of the gryphon - when I say the word, you will understand it and will assume that the picture you have in your head that represents the concept is the same as mine, but we have no tangible fact to point to to demonstrate our intent (as in, "Look!! A gryphon!!!!). Not gonna happen. I can't point to my perspective to make sure you know it the same way I do. I can't point and say, "that's my perspective. Isn't it beautiful??? Isn't it true???????"

A sad side note: Love is the same. Sense but no reference. We never know if we're talking about the same thing. In my experience, we usually aren't.

From the Russellian point of view, if perspective could be reduced to a fact - an object of immediate perception - then we could discuss it, catalog it, even know it. For my man Bertrand, who hoped to reduce all language to facts and thus afford us the opportunity to paint an accurate picture of reality with a perfectly logical language, the concept of perspective must have been quite an obstacle. After all, he himself had at least one perspective, right? The resulting flurry of publishing by other analytical philosophers (Frege and Wittgenstein among them) seems to indicate that Russell's perspective was not entirely understood (and therefore not entirely factual, right??) and open not only to interpretation (or, horror of horrors, another perspective), but to actual argument. And since perspective (even, apparently, by definition) is wholly subjective, how does one posit it as fact OR argue about its veracity??

Logically, perspective - in any of its manifestations or states of definition - is an analytical nightmare. Reduced to a Russellian fact, it is non-sensical at best. Accepting, as would Frege, that perspective is a concept that has sense but no reference doesn't bring us any closer to universal objectivity. How then do we speak of understanding, especially when we are discussing the perspective of another person? How then do we feel justified in assuming the truth or falsity of such judgments? When I tell you that I am trying to see a situation from your perspective, how do you know that I am 1) trying, and 2) seeing?

Here's a fact for ya, Bertrand: You don't. Ever.

Which, in my humble opinion, is where analytical philosophy consistently fails. As long as I have a perspective, as long as you have a perspective, the realm of human existence continues to be a place that is largely without words that accurately reflect the state of that existence as a whole. I sorta, kinda, maybe understand where you're coming from; you think you might have a tenuous handle on my thoughts of the moment. And neither of us is capable of verifying the truth or falsity of our understanding, much less of our respective perpectives.

Which is what makes it all so interesting, right? Let's discuss how this relates to the elusive concept of free will at some point in the future, shall we?

Another Poem About Sex (I have a million of 'em)

Did I think to question

what color we'd burn

if building this fire was like blushing

delicious his darkness

prisoner of night

my naked heart haunted with wanting

velvet and feverish

moist from the steam

the wet warm desire is devouring

I must know the secret

a kiss every breath

blazing red tendrils surrounding

Untitled and Unread

Sing for you, I

the skin electric

resonant humming and

demanding cry

raw and hot this voice of my need

fragrant and slick with the sound

Die for you, I

that sweet small death

but resurrected by

my joyous soul

which returns to me rich and saturated

steeped in the beauty of yours

Fly with you, I

the spirit untethered

dance ancient our flesh

yet older still

our unbidden escape from the when

into the omnilumescence of now

Know of you, I

such precious gifts

each cherished memory

restores the time

spent wise and giddy in you

and with you and for you and I

A Poem for Ten Hours

I recognize my brother-in-arms
So I am surprised by the tactic:
A resounding quip about stauts
(and considerable lack thereof)
a sudden and unmediated attack
which followed a simply stated truth.
But in this chill of the Last Days
we tend to wield our words like
misappropriated claymores on
a blood-sodden battlefield
that has long been conceded.
Oblivious, we misguided warriors,
to the corpses and silence and stench:
We thrust, parry, and slash,
Our loyalties forgotten in the
heady blood-lust of resentful retribution.
We struggle each for the advantage
as we trip on and tangle with
the stiffened limbs of the fallen
our weapons, sharpened and cagey,
are swung amid excuses of "truth"
when our truth has never been spoken aloud
for, in Days Before, there was no need.
And I, this lowly patriot,
who expects no promotion or rank,
drop my ill-begotten sword
and contribute my tears to this visceral mud
knowing well that divided, we must fall.
I, this lowly patriot,
whose status was never contested,
expose my belly to Love's wretched fate
and wait for the End of Days.

Lies, Lies, Lies

I wanted to start posting poetry today. I have a lot of it, some published, some not. Most of it is campy and all of it is amateur, but it's mine and I'm proud of it. Since I lost most of it in the recent and cataclysmic computer crash, all I have to post is rather old. See if I ever work without a backup drive again... though it's just as easy for me to kill one of those.

Alas, I don't have time to post any poetry because I have to address my teen daughter's ongoing deception problem. It'd be easy - and accurate - to say, "Well, she's her father's daughter," but she's my daughter too and I won't stand for it. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty damn tired of being surrounded by liars. If something is important enough to do, shouldn't it also be important enough to take responsibility for? In my mind, absolutely. In the minds of our youth - and many of their parents - that is just not the case.

Of course I'll take away privileges. Of course I'll give the lecture. Of course I'll watch her like a hawk and limit my own freedom in an attempt to nip this disturbing predilection toward untruth in the bud of its young life. But I wonder if my daughter realizes what she has lost this day? I wonder if she realizes the magnitude of what I've lost?

In relationships, we have nothing if we don't have trust. I'm not talking about the "don't sleep around on me and I won't sleep around on you" kind of trust. I'm talking about the fundamental knowledge that "I will love you no matter what." There is nothing we can do to each other - mothers, fathers, siblings, lovers, husbands, wives, and friends - that is more damaging and undermining than lying (and yes, lying by omission counts as lying, guys). Everything else can be worked out, one way or another. Lying will not cover your shame, it will only exacerbate it. Lying will not erase the events from existence, only bring them forward with you because you can never outrun the lie (the truth of a matter can be and usually is easily forgotten, but once you commit to a lie you have to keep it alive forever). Lying will not protect you from the truth. Perhaps most impotantly, lying hurts like nothing else. Betrayal and deceit cause holes in the human heart that never heal and always fester.

The truth sets us free. The truth sets us free. Free to live without shame. Free to seek relationships wherein our human weakness is celebrated and embraced. Free to love and be loved and revel in the knowledge that we have nothing to hide.

I hope she understands.

Relationship Apocalypse or Mid-Life Crisis?

I'm not even sure why I'm here. Maybe it's the loss of all my pictures, poetry, miscellaneous writings, resumes, inspiring forwarded e-mails, and bookkeeping records, which I have been grieving for since my peculiar electromagnetic field killed my hard drive two weeks ago (the tech we hired to recover the files told my husband that she'd never seen a drive so corrupted, "like someone waved a high-powered magnet over it." My husband glared at me, smiled at her). Perhaps I'm looking for a place to deposit work - in my case, "work" - where it can't be corrupted by my own body's bizarre sabotage and won't just disappear if my kids download an OS-annhiliating virus along with the song-du-jour from whatever bootleg service they're using these days. Maybe my 40th birthday, looming just on the horizon and obviously ready to attack, is affecting my mood in more than just the academic sense. Maybe the fact that my husband of 16 years has decided to take a job across the Pacific Ocean (leaving in my all-too-capable hands every responsibility for every aspect of OUR life while he covorts along the beaches of Waikiki) is weighing more heavily on my mind than I'd like to admit. Above all this, though... and outside of all the craziness that encompasses a "normal" life in Southern California... I think I just yearn (yes, really yearn) to connect. And though I don't believe anyone is going to read my pathetic little online journal and find a revelation, I do think that this is as good a way to connect as any. So here I am.

More rambling to come.