Well, hello, everyone!!!

Well, hello, everyone!!!

This is my first page, in'it speshul?
It just makes me wanna turn purple.

This was a post from the new Writely website.

Just surfing around...

And came upon this.

The gal who does these is actually a good friend of mine--she's practically my cousin.

Anyway, those beads on her site? She actually makes them. Local celebrities, like one bay area news lady that I know of, buy her beads. She teaches classes all over the world. She studied glasswork under Dale Chihuly, who was named one of the top ten modern artists in Art for Dummies.

When we were kids she was always drawing and always had markers or pencils with her. Her eyes seemed to seek out color wherever she could find it. My mother has always been a very colorfully dressed woman and it was interesting watching her eyes dance over my mom's outfits.

In more recent times, I was able to see her workspace in the garage of her home, with all of her glass rods and her flamethrower and her gas masks--it seems like a very dangerous undertaking, but I'm sure she wouldn't be doing anything else with her life. I've looked at the way she has grown up into a very professional artist--one who is actually able to make a living (yes, Wirewoman, it can be done!) doing art.

It's something that has inspired me, when I think of writing, or illustrating or anything like that.

Cool Interest List idea:

I don't know why I never thought of this before: how about using your blog interest list (or interests you have ganked from others) for two different things:

As a writing/journaling prompt generator--write each interest down on its own 3 x 5 card.

• If it is an object, use it in a story
• If it is a person, pretend to be Larry King and interview the person
• If it is a band, pretend to be a member and write from their perspective
• If it is an author, try to write an entry in their style
• If it is a concept, write an essay paragraph about it

As an oracle deck. Shuffle your cards, ask a question, or not, and see what you get.

• If it is a person, try to channel them and ask questions
• If it is a band, listen to some of their music while you meditate and see what happens
• If it is an author, open one of their books and read the text under your finger

Swinburne Fun

When you see this, post a poem in your blog:

The Higher Pantheism in a Nutshell
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

One, who is not, we see: but one, whom we see not, is:
Surely this is not that: but that is assuredly this.

What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under:
If thunder could be without lightning, lightning could be without thunder.

Doubt is faith in the main: but faith , on the whole, is not doubt:
We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without?

Why, and whither, and how? for barly and rye are not clover:
Neither are straight lines curves: yet over is under and over.

Two and two may be four: but four and four are not eight:
Fate and God may be twain: but God is the same thing as fate.

Ask a man what he thinks, and get from a man what he feels:
God, once caught in the fact, shows you a fair pair of heels.

Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which:
The soul squats down in the flesh, like a tinker drunk in a ditch.

More is the whole than a part: but half is more than the whole:
Clearly, the soul is the body: but is not the body the soul?

One and two are not one: but one and nothing is two:
Truth can hardly be false, if falsehood cannot be true.

Once the mastodon was: pterodactyls were common as cocks:
Then the mammoth was God : now is He a prize ox.

Parallels all things are: yet many of these are askew:
You are certainly I: but certainly I am not you.

Springs the rock from the plain, shoots the stream from the rock:
Cocks exist for the hen: but hens exist for the cock.

God, whom we see not, is: and God, who is not, we see:
Fiddle, we know, is diddle: and diddle, we take it, is dee.

Meme: Fifteen Fun Friendly Facts about Hermgirl

Be lookin' at your friendslist. Notice that friend stonemirror
has tagged you for a meme on twenty random facts, which he has done a lovely, complete job on (no wonder he's a great captain of industry!)

Think about it for a while. Wind up with only fifteen, and then tag fifteen friends who seem like they don't have anything better to do <;P.

Blame The President.

1. I sometimes feel like a woman without a country, I don't seem to fit into neat categorizations. You know, those things where some kind of "expert" says, "If you do a, you fit into this category, b, you belong to this category, c, this category," etc. I'm always going, "Yeah, but what about people like me?" Not that this makes me feel inferior in any way, on the contrary, it tells me that those kind of tests are bullshit.
2. I am fairly antisocial. Not because I hate anyone, but because I am often very disappointed in people. Often, my radar goes off, and I have to drop people like a bad habit. I generally keep things to my family, a few family friends, and you wonderful online people. Even the people that I am friends with at work or whatever, I don't see very often, and I like to keep it that way.
3. This is probably because I prefer books to people. I have not counted my books, but I probably have four or five thousand. All jammed into my little bedroom.
4. On June 13th of next year (the same birthday as W.B. Yeats, I like to tell people,) I will be a REAL "Forty Year Old Virgin". I don't need a silly movie, I am living it, buddies! This is not because I am unattractive and can't get a man, but because I have made a commitment to celibacy. I would rather be alone than with the wrong person, and I also feel that my time and energy are better spent on other things. Also, I feel that magickwise, your sexual energy is a powerful thing that should be directed purposefully.
5. Having said that, I am actually very pro-sex. I sometimes (make that, somewhat often) enjoy seeing good looking men get naked. I also enjoy what I like to call, "comic book porn", of the type done by artists from Heavy Metal magazine, such as Guido Crepax, whose version of de Sade's "Justine", and Réage's "Story of O" is on my shelves somewhere.
6. I stay up into the wee hours way too often (this item written at 3:50 in the morning.) I attribute this to having had jobs where I had to work all manner of goofy hours. The clock workings have finally sprung into a mass of debris. But then you knew I was a little "off" didn't you, buddies?
7. Like a lot of eccentric pack-rat types, I'm extremely messy.
8. In my head, there really is a place called Hermworld, it's one of those sci-fi utopia/dystopia type places, like Dune or something. It was discovered by me with the help of an otherwise incompetent therapist I went to when I was 23. I remember a guided visualization thing he led me through, and there it was, real as the table I'm sitting at. I remember telling the therapist, "It looks like an old junk shop."
9. I'm aware that this is kind of a narcissistic exercise, in which I share things that make me seem more interesting than I really am. To the contrary, I am actually kind of a boring person and I sort of like it that way. I enjoy the fact that I'm turning into a boring old fart. Because not getting older would be sort of a bummer.
10. Having said that, Neil Young once said hi to me (and my brother-in-law has been to old Shakey's farm on a couple of occassions.)
11. I once pissed off Todd Rungren during a show, and if enough people are interested, I will dig up the story from an old journal somewhere and post it here if I can find it.
12. Once, when I was at a Counting Crows show(a group I've seen nine times), Adam Duritz (one of the great loves of my life--and I'll brook no comments from the peanut gallery) got so pissed off and told me (and nobody else--seriously!)to zip it. I had had a little too much to drink and was being disruptive.
13. To round off my stories of brushes with rock star greatness, I was at a radio station seeing the great Alex Bennett perform radio magic. It was the asscrack of dawn, and in waltzes Art from Everclear. They were touring with an English band called Kulashaker, who also showed up. About a year later I was at a Kulashaker show and got to talk to Paul the drummer and told him, "Now, I hope you guys are gonna keep making those great records and keep coming over here and touring." He looked me straight in the eye and said, "Well, we'll do our best." Three weeks later, the group had broken up. You betrayed me, Paul Winterheart.
14. I'm an extreme procrastinator.
15. I also sometimes leave things unfinished, as in a list of twenty things that somehow turns into only fifteen.

Bob Larson and the Devil in New Orleans, and Gettining Paid vs. Dogwalking

It has come to my attention, via the fine folks at "A Current Affair", that evangelist Bob Larson is at it again. This time he isn't just trotting out his old bag of cheap exorcism tricks, he has stated that he is going to go to New Orleans to cast himself out a bunch 'o devils down there.

If you've never heard of the Good Mr. Larson, you've actually missed quite a laughfest. His radio show, "Talkback", ran during the late '80s and early '90s. This guy was actually kind of entertaining, conducting exorcisms via telephone! And he would bait people, choosing a different group every day to pick on, "You people with multiple body piercings, call in and tell me why you do this to yourself!", etc. So he would get punks, goths, straight ahead metalheads, occultists, polyamorous, and what have you to call in, and eventually he would get one that needed an exorcism.

I recall one guy, a musician in a death metal band, talking to him in a goofy accent, claiming to be possessed by a demon that called itself something that sounded like, "Chicken Gita". I remember thinking, "Now, who is pulling whose leg here? Or are they both working together on this?" And of course, Larson went to commercial break, commanding, "I want someone to call in with a thousand dollars for Bobby the possessed death-metal guy!" The balls!!! It was high-larious.

* * * * *

And in the Suck My Ass, You Heartless Gibrones Department: Well, last week they had me working at the bookstore, and then they put me on a call in basis, and this morning I was told that they were making cuts, and one of the things they were cutting was me.

(Sigh)Well, at least I made a few bucks to cover my school expenses. So I picked myself up off the floor, dusted myself off, and waltzed on over to my neighbors and asked for my old dog-walking job back. One of whom so far has taken me up on it, so I will at least have monthly travel $$$.

Things are not as black as they could get. Last week as well, the psycho I was working for before actually paid me the money she owed me. There is something to be said for a mother who has friends she can talk to so she can call the person on the phone and say, "Now you know, if you don't pay her, that you're in violation of state law number XYZ? And we will be seeing you in court."

I found out on Friday that the bookstore hired one of my friends from Book Market. If they don't treat her right, I'm just going to go postal on them.

Doing the dance of the happy book people!!!

I have just gotten the job at my local bookstore!!!

I will be working full time, and taking classes on bookeeping and accounting software on Saturdays in the late fall.

I am still only seasonal Xmas help, but I can probably get my option picked up at the end of the year by being a wonderful employee. And if that doesn't work out, the class I take will help me to get some kind of office job. So the rest of my year is set.

Yes, I WILL play the blame game!

Current Mood: Aggravated

This could have been prevented. (Warning: You might have to cry when you see this.)

While That Little Honey was playing his guitar, and his mother is making cute little remarks about how wonderful things are for the evacuees, people are going through heartbreaking terrible things. Well, if it doesn't break somebody's heart, I don't know what to tell you.

I can't see how anyone can sit on the fence, clinging to political correctness after this. You can't appoint unqualified people to run things as important as FEMA, just because they're your friends.

Bush is a robber baron who made his money (not that he made a lot of $$ without help from Daddy, or that he was the most tremendous businessman,) in Texas by stealing land from people, and I guess he's going to do it again.

At a news conference, Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush's choice for head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency had "absolutely no credentials."

She related that she had urged Bush at the White House on Tuesday to fire Michael Brown.

"He said 'Why would I do that?'" Pelosi said.

"'I said because of all that went wrong, of all that didn't go right last week.' And he said 'What didn't go right?'"

"Oblivious, in denial, dangerous," she added.

--From SFGate.com

It seems to be following me...

And now for a pause in the coverage, to acknowledge a bizarre recurring theme...

Thanks for the comic relief, 14theditch.

Bush Buddy Michael Chertoff's idea of "Homeland Security"...

Pat Robertson? Really? You thought that was a good idea?

More evidence of President Tweedledum's incompetence:

Link.
He needs to be sat down in a playpen away from the sharp objects, like authority to appoint judges...

In the Court of the Crimson King...

Current mood: I don't know...

The wall on which the prophets wrote
Is cracking at the seams.
Upon the instruments of death
The sunlight brightly gleams.
When every man is torn apart
With nightmares and with dreams,
Will no one lay the laurel wreath
When silence drowns the screams.

Confusion will be my epitaph,
As I crawl a cracked and broken path.
If we make it we can all sit back and laugh.
But I fear tomorrow I'll be crying.
Yes I fear tomorrow I'll be crying.

Between the iron gates of fate,
The seeds of time were sown,
And watered by the deeds of those
Who know and who are known:
Knowledge is a deadly friend
If no one sets the rules.
The fate of all mankind I see
Is in the hands of fools.

Confusion will be my epitaph,
As I crawl a cracked and broken path.
If we make it we can all sit back and laugh.
But I fear tomorrow I'll be crying.
Yes I fear tomorrow I'll be crying.
King Crimson: Epitaph

Today I went into a record store, thinking, "I should get a King Crimson cd."

I kid you not, when I went in, what was playing but "In the Court of the Crimson King"? Not something people just pull out and listen to these days. Seriously, that's the way it happened.

But that's not all. Check out what I tossed last night for The I Ching of Mi-Lo:

"51--The Arousing (Shock, Thunder)
Blitzkrieg! Neighbors are blown to smithereens.
If you can walk, you may get to safety.
Bam! Bam! Bam! Nonstop shocks! It's irritating, but you don't really get hurt. (!!!--Me)
Stuck in the mud. Nothing to fight. Nowhere to go.
Wow! That was a wakeup call! Change your ways and don't get caught snoozing again.
A shocking loss. It's terrible. There's nothing to do now but write it off (you'll get it back.)
Oh, man! That nearly scared me to death.
Haha. Thought you had me there, didn't you?"

I have been spending most of my time the past few days just reading blogs and surfing the net. I wish I could think of something pithy and wise to say, but words fail me. I'll bet Dubya is sorry they diverted those funds to repair the levee last year over to the war.

One of the people on my f-list had some very well-thought-out thinkin' that I thought I'd share with you.

To Phoebe, the Totally in Charge of Herself Bunny I Took Care of Last Weekend

Because I can.

Over the weekend I petsat, a rabbit and a cockatiel. The owner had told me to let the rabbit out and go ahead and let the bird out of the cage too if I felt like it.

The rabbit was kind of an independent lady. She would come if you rattled her box of treats, but other than that, she was aloof. The cockatiel, named Rocky, was of course a prisoner in a cage. I saw no reason to let him out, what was he gonna do that was interesting? Birds don't excite me that much. What I really don't understand is people that insist on providing birdseed to the wild ones in their backyards. So you're saying you want a festival of white poo all over? Whatever floats your boat, Chachi.

On the last day they were both quite animated, pets tend to know when their owners are coming home. But Rocky was absolutely going nuts, so I figured letting him out would be a good idea, let him fly around the place and work some of that off. He very happily flew around, pooed on things a couple of times, and lighted on my shoulder then flew away again several times. Even the rabbit got into the act, jumping on the couch and crawling on my lap.

What can I tell ya? I got animal magnetism.

"Where have I been?!"

"Out of my brain on the 5:15!" (Guess the song lyric, budddies!)

So long time, no postee.

Sometimes life takes very swift turns.

My mom informed my dad that he has to move upstate with my brother, or she would get a lawyer. She is going to come home, which will be nice, and then she and I will be spending about six months or so getting the house (the house I've lived all my life in, the house my dad's lived in for 50 years) in shape to sell.

They are going to split things two ways, and apparently help me get some kind of place on my own, etc, til I can get on my feet or whatever. Or maybe she is going to buy a place and let me have a room, I don't know. As far as my own financial situation, money will be tight. The bail bonds office that I was working at turned out to be a bust. I worked there for about three weeks and the lady went psycho on me. I was too embarrassed to say it here. I have recently been doing house/pet sitting for friends and made a fair amount of $$$ that way, but I am hitting the job trail with even more earnest than I was before.

On that score, I recently had a very positive interview experience with Barnes & Noble. I am going to try to parley my four years of experience in various bookstores into a full time position at the new store opening up near my home. So I was at this job interview, and the guy was going around the room talking to people and while he was talking to me the woman who he'd just talked to leaned over and told him that I'd helped her and her daughter find books at the bookstore that I'd last worked at, and apparently I'd sent her on her way a very happy customer. I should possibly find out if I have the job sometime this week.

One of the upshots of all of this is that I won't be able to do the thing I've been talking about recently. I will have to spend all my time helping my mom or working. At the very least that means, with the exeption of private studying on my own, the other thing will have to go on the very back burner until my life is stable enough to take another stab at it in a year or two.

My mom and I usually get along pretty good, but with her Capricornian control-freak issues, I may wind up feeling like killing her, who knows. Keep on the lookout for some very interesting "venting" posts on that topic.

Why Kathy Griffin is just cool:

Kathy Griffin's husband: "Where are we going again?"

Kathy Griffin: "Some bullshit Kabbalah party!"

She's definitely D-List. She's no Madonna. (Did I ever tell you guys that I really hate Madonna? I do.)

Who Am I?

I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.

I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman.

I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights.

We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time.

I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room.

I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I wish they could adopt me.

I am one of the lucky ones, I guess. I survived the attack that left me in a coma for three weeks, and in another year I will probably be able to walk again.

I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.

We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men.

I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me.

I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found out my abusive partner is also a woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.

I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.

I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that.

I am the man who died when the paramedics stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual.

I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I didn’t have to always deal with society hating me.

I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.

I am the adolescent boy who committed suicide because my priest told me I would be better off dead than a sinner.

I am another adolescent boy who was molested for years by the another priest who all the while told me God hates homosexuals, but I never mentioned it because he convinced me it was my fault.

I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love.


Repost this if you believe homophobia is wrong.

"Any secret worth keeping is worth killing for."

Or so said the billboard that has been confronting me at the BART station the past couple of times I took the train out to Castro Valley.

It was a billboard for the new Jeffery Deaver mystery, "The Twelfth Card."

Guess what card graced the cover of the book?

The Hanged Man. Of course, as a tarot reader, I look at this advertisement and think, "Shame on you, Jeffery Deaver!"

Last night, I had gone to another Pathworking meeting. This time, the path was Netzach to Tiphareth.

This path can be easily understood by its corresponding card, Death. It must be understood that death is a part of life. It does not serve one well to go frolicking in the Forest of Dingley Dell (spot the old Prog Rock reference, buddies!) and just forget that death happens.

Much like the Tower card, my thinking is, "If you're gonna make an omlette, ya gotta break some eggs." But Death takes this idea even further than the Tower, it doesn't just break the eggs, it obliterates them. There is a chance that they will completely relinquish their inherent "eggness." We do not yet know what we will be "when the roll is called up yonder."

Having said that though, another aspect of it is rebirth. Scorpio, in its capacity of being the stinging insect as well as the eagle, reminds me of the process from larva to pupa to adult butterfly. Once the old is cleared away, there is room for the new life.

In related news, some of you will have a new sister by the end of the year.

So I live with these concepts of death and new life, until next pathworking, when I will be guided by the twelfth card, the Hanged Man.

To paraphrase (and correct) the Jeffery Deaver ad, "Any secret worth keeping is worth dying for."

"There is nothing in me that is not of the Gods!"

Well, I finally went to my first Gnostic Mass!

It was just an amazing experience. Words fail me to describe it, and most of you know I am rarely at a loss for words (exept when it comes to actually posting my own entries--gotta get on that.) Beautiful would be a good word, there's a word for you.

Of course there was an embarrassing/humorous moment when I went up to eat the cookie/drink the wine (this is me we're talking about here!) After watching everybody take the elements and "communicate", my mind was spinning so fast that when I took the wafer I blanked out, and had to whisper, "What do I do?" The lovely priestess leaned forward and said, "You eat the cookie!"

This I did, and then for some reason I drank the wine like I was in a beer-chugging contest. I had been thinking of that scene in the Joan of Arc movie where she drinks from the cup till it runs down her face, so thirsty is she for God.

I remember wanting God like that. And now I am God and Godly and Godlike and I give all good things to my children and them that love me. God is in all, through all, I am God, God of God-Hall, God of the mountains, God of the seas, just beatifically Godlike.

When I left I don't think I stopped smiling til I got to the BART station.

There is no god but man.

Here is my personal Declaration of Independence.

It was penned by Aleister Crowley, a very bizarre, extraordinary, Victorian Englishman. If anyone has any questions about this, I'd be glad to answer them.

Here's wishing all my buddies a very safe, and happy 4th of July.

And it's ok to like the BeeGees...

So yesterday, I'm watching Pulp Fiction, one of my current favorite flicks, and I start thinking: You know what? A lot of the things I like really are mainstream and predictable (someone said this of me recently, it matters not in what context.)

And you know what? I don't care. I don't give myself extra cool points for being obscura or uber-anything.

Maybe I was inspired into this line of thinking by the way Uma Thurman was acting (before she snorted the heroin.) Her demeanor seemed to say, "Lighten up, enjoy yourself. You like the Beatles? You like Elvis? You like five dollar milkshakes? Who cares?"

If you think about it, she and Travolta were both having vanilla drinks. Him: Vanilla Coke. Her: Martin and Lewis. Both in congruity with each other.

Vanilla: a word that can be used to mean plain, boring. Vanilla sex.

And yet, they were both enjoying a delicious beverage.

I'll just leave it at that, buddies.