a birthday parable

This entry is dedicated to the man, the myth, the musician, the indie-rock Bodhisattva and boyfriend extraordinaire, Jonathan Jaffee! (All hail his birthdayness!)

Thirty-six years ago today, Jonathan Jaffee emerged on this plane for yet another cycle of samsara. Rumored to be a Jesus killer back in his hardcore hebrew days several thousand years ago, all that negative karma required more than one lifetime to reparate and landed him a gig with Brandy George, who, in her zeal to help him gain merit, selflessly agreed to torture his ass with her neurotic obsessions and compulsions until the day of his final purgation.

Little did she see, however, that this construction was but a delusion of her own mind, and as fate would have it, there came a day where it became apparent that her favorite Jew Boy was already realized as the very Christ his people were purported to have killed, and that rather than she "saving" him, it was he saving her by making it clearer and clearer that though she searched high and low, there was, including herself, no one to save.

Jonathan, darling, if in fact I can be said to possess such, I owe you my sanity and capacity for compassion! You are a living example of selfless love and the Heart that is our true nature, and my life is immeasurably brighter because of you! You are an awesome embodiment of all that is good, true, and beautiful, and whatever corner of the kosmos you inhabit, it is better for your presence!

Happy Birthday, Baby! I love you so.

conversations from postal purgatory

Can I just say that this day has been less than pleasant? That said, I am in no mood to detail my drama, and thought instead I'd slap up an email exchange between myself and a twenty-year old co-worker and co-conspirator who I find terrifically amusing.

Blogophiles, I give you Natalie Psuik and Brandy George, starring as Mormon miscreants in Conversations From Postal Purgatory:

N: I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT YOUR BLOG! i miss sitting next to you and your sanity. you just EXUDE it! i walk by just to get a whiff of bullshit-less air that you make in that cubicle of yours. this way i'll be able to at least read about the trans-mormon, lest to be smote with transcendental light day after day, as the unholy gawker. yes. i am natalie psuik, and i approve brandy george.

i'm really perturbed at that britney girl, for she has taken my abandoned seat (no one's fault but my own) and brought flocks of men her way. i really just want to rip her arms off her body and beat her senseless with them. there's my carnivorous nature rising above the tofu.

B: Thanks for being so excited about my blog, it makes me feel grand and amplifies my jollies exponentially!

I miss sitting next to you too. I have NOTHING against Britney, but she's so la la, like, just a teeny bit confused (crossing eyes).

That "bullshitless air" comment is one of the most ego-inflating compliments I've ever received; you know how to pour it on! (Sheesh, I'm gonna have to spend an extra hour in meditation just to get over myself!) ;)

N: you would think that certian individuals would learn from letting 12people go home around 11am. but whatever. [When things get slow here in postal purgatory, the sups send people home, only to leave the remaining employees drowning in customers ten minutes later.)

and i do swear that bullshitless is a REAL word. at least in my vocabulary. and this old man who couldn't hear monkies fuck if he wanted to, is spending all my social security money on stamps. if it were alcohol, prostitutes, or pot - i would be okay with it. because i know for a FACT that i won't get social security. what did they raise the age to again? is it 87 now? and that was 23.87 amonth? gracious of the government, n'est pas? i would rather have half a pot to pee in, thank you.

hopefully you're able to go on mental auto pilot so too many braincells aren't lost by the end of the day! i can just see it now - i'm 92 in an apartment with like, 61 cats, andall i do all day is watch the price is right (bob barker is in his1893th year...) blink once for yes and two for no, and my ticks ares creaming item numbers all day long - living on 23.87 a month.

N: I'm ego tripping at the gates of hell (if you're a Flaming Lips fan)

thank you. your support is SO appreciated. "hey nat, want to go to a corn maze?" as they're sure to pack the zippo. (and i thought this joan of arc behavior went out of style circa 1431. heesh.)

but, in psuik politik news:

there was a fierce battle with my brother over amendment 3 (9 parts changing webster's dictionary 91 parts homophobic) he was going off like those fags and dikes were going to slap him with their heathen goo that makes you sterile and transforms your children into liberal
activists. (if we could only be so lucky...)

i was like, "where in the hell is your psyche!?!" it really made me laugh because in greek mythology psyche is the personification of the soul. you have just gotta sit and think about
what these haters have going on in their MINDS. it's a fuck, really.

if the mind is the personification of the soul - i'd hate to read the auras of capital hill. talk about a dark mishap during holi.

anyway. working 10-6:30 really bites the big one. plus we have been insane today and alas - they keep sending people home.

B: A Flaming Lips Fan? YOSHIMI here, DIG? ;)

The Psuik Politik hyperlink has gone to hell (or the Whitehouse--same difference) and she that Battles Pink Robots and Republican reprobates can't get a hook up!

Corn mazes are perfectly frolicksome but only for those whose jeans are looser than their moral standards and looking for the perfect public place to consummate their counter cultural impulses. ;)

Tell your Jesus loving brother not to knock it til he's tried it, just to provoke him to a display of self-righteousness only a hardcore-hetero homo-phobic can aspire to and then inform him you intend to expand his horizons by testing the limits of his tolerance by assuming a sexual relationship with someone sharing your preferred tampon brand.

Yes, dear psyche has been confused with the monkey mind she is sovereign over, and the mental machinations attributed to her have as much depth as the petri dish she is supposedly examined in. Psyche will always be the mother of a mind asleep to it's source and suchness, and no amount of rationalize discourse will convince the wayward ego otherwise. (Meditate, dawgs, meditate!)

Speaking of, homegirl is hanging at Genpo Roshi's (Salt Lake's own internationally respected Zen Master and Spiritual Teacher Extraordinaire) Big Mind workshop this Saturday--viva la satori! ;)

What the FUCK is this today? I'm thinking they should lay off a few of us, seeing as we've got as much down time as Paris Hilton in a bordello. (Think of all the negative karma we're burning by hanging with this shit!)

Burn, baby, burn!
In agitation and equanamity,
Brandy

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What do you say, my AQALuscious friends? Am I or am I not in the presence of comedic greatness? I think I'm working with SNL's future diva. ;)

savoring samsara (nod to Stu)

Yeehaw! It's been a rip-roarin' wild ride the past few days! Something's coming down the postconventional pike but lord knows what! My monkey mind's ridden the merry-go-round more than once this week while I've witnessed it's smacked out antics with a smile borrowed from the Buddha.

I think it all started last week during a conversation with Jonathan, when it dawned on me, Oh my gosh! I am, like, super controlling!

No, girlfriend, says my boyfriend, you're like, the least controlling person I know!

Au contraire mon frere, I counter, it's subtle shit I'm shakin' down, it's way of life, it's super stealth, seen only by homegirl here!

Dig, people? This isn't the sort of controlling you think of when picturing your knuckle-dragging, grunting ex-boyfriend, or your whining, sniveling, "why do you have to hang out with your guy friends instead of me?" manipulatrix, this isn't all the overt I am the Law shit--this is that all but conveniently undetectable grasping, clinging, clenching, and contracting that constitutes your entire fucking ego identity that you would rather NOT die than give up, since to give it up would literally mean the death of the illusion you mistake (with relatively rare exceptions) for the sovereign of your psychic house.

It's not like all of this is conceptually nouveau, just that it really hit me in this moment of spontaneous Witnessing wherein it was all so crystal clear in a way never before realized. There was this really crisp recognition that all the things I'm trying to control by way of resistance are nothing but self-employed smoke screens serving to conceal the actual source of suffering, which is the action of resistance itself, and not the impinging "objects" which I imagine assail "me" in times of perceived threat. (And I've been a student of Buddhism for how long?)

Anyhow, swifty here will undoubtedy have to see the film roll on this one only about a hundred more times before she really gets it, but hey, maybe the workshop this weekend will kick off the subtle cinema in a Big Mind sort of way.

Bonding with leela has really been a shot to the sky that's shocked a flock of doves out of the kabbalistic tree in my head. The force of her presence on my subtle self is inexplicable to me, and though I don't pretend to understand exactly what's happening, I do recognize that some profound psychic shift has commenced with her arrival upon the scene of my life. I don't know what's around the bend, but whatever it is, I anticipate wider and deeper vistas ahead.

My relationship with Jon is morphing, in ways that can't find impression on my conceptual mind. Things are evolving behind the scenes with both of us, and at this point all I can discern is the mirthful movement behind the curtain and the sound of laughter that seems to be laughing at nothing but it's own play in the folds of red velvet. What I do know is that amidst the fluxing feelings and standing at the crossroads of confusion, I feel more love for this person--this dear, precious, unbelievably pure man--than I ever dreamed possible, and whatever our future holds, I will always regard Jon as the "mother" to my soul.

I can't make out the words, but there is a new sound, a new song on the wind...

and ode to I-I and girlfriends

Shined out of bed yesterday at about 10:30 and made myself a trough (three servings) of oatmeal peppered liberally with cinnamon and raisons and sweetened with just a touch of honey, chased with a multi-vitamin which, judging from it's size, was stolen from a horse stable.

Breakfast finished and still in pajamas, I settled myself at the computer and did some research on Sherilyn Fenn (of Twin Peaks fame) and completed a bio on her to pop off to Paul at Integral Naked, since her interview will be airing in the near future.

My darling Jew Boy called and gave me all kinds of props for the piece I'd just finished (the bio) and we bonded over the traumatic tale of his pristine Lexus being dinged in the door by his ninety-six year old, foxtrotting, (for real) neighbor who just lost her husband, and who could obviously not be confronted with something so "petty" while in the midst of her grief. (And you wonder why I LOVE this man!)

Then the High Priest of Hygiene showered and dressed herself and had the immense pleasure of speaking with her forum friend, leela, on the phone for the first time.

Leela, who's been accurately described as "Kwan Yin with Attitude," is one of those inimitable women whose combination of luminosity, colossal intelligence, cutting insight, quick wit, unconquerable compassion, post-conventional playfulness, and poetic panache defy categorization (I think I'm in love!). ;) Speaking with her in person was like a subtle punch in the third eye, and I hung up the phone an hour and half later noting a half dozen startling synchronicities between our lives and feeling like I'd been communing with an "earth-treading star." (I'm of the mind that this is one of those friendships that is benevolently fated and sealed for life.)

My sweetly passionate friend Gina arrived for our dinner date, and over the bread basket and french onion soup I thought to myself that she was living proof that I must have done something really karmically meritorious in my last life. (How else can I explain my incredibly good fortune in enjoying Best Friend Status with somebody so unbelievably huge hearted and exquisitely souled?) Gina comes from one of those families that statistically speaking, should have produced a serial killer and not the beautiful Bodhisattva that I was looking at across the table, and her life (like leela's) is a testament to her indominatable spirit and the goodness, beauty, and truth that prevails in the face of even the most blatant disregard for the sanctity of life. ("Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." --Albert Einstein.)

Afterwards, we talked in the car for about three hours, and during the course of the conversation the analogy of not being able to see your own eye as pointing to the reality of the Witness came up, in that whatever you can "see" (thoughts, feelings, sensations, etc) is obviously not the transcendental Seer, since it is this Seer that is doing the seeing . (ie, "what you are looking for is what is looking.") Then Gina pointed out something that I thought was absolutely brilliant, and though I can't relate it as eloquently as she, the basic idea was that although you can't see your own eye, when you gaze directly into the eye of another, you can see the miniature reflection of your own face, and that this eye to eye (I to I) phenomenon is one of the kosmic "jokes" writ in flesh. Again: when, with illuminated awareness, you look into the eye (the I) of another, you are LITERALLY looking at your Original Face, your own Self. (As a side note, it is interesting that Integral Institute is abbreviated I-I, since it points to the truth that there is only one Eye--one I, one Self--who is always already looking ONLY at Itself as there are NO selves "other" to It.)

I bounded up the stairs from the parking lot where Gina and I had been talking and telephoned Grace, who I've been playing phone tag with for a week. Grace, who lives up to her name, is no-holds-barred brilliant, astoundingly generous, fiercely commited to her pathless path, intuitive to the point of being psychic, and icily beautiful (in direct contrast to her incredibly warm nature). Alas, Grace could not be reached.

Around midnight, and to the tune of hauntingly howling winds, I went to bed with a smile on my face, thinking that the day had been one of the finest Friend Fests I'd enjoyed in a long time. Today I feel my heart blooming open with all the friendships that are growing in the garden of my life, and I can't wait to see, after the coming winter, what Spring will bring.

this just in...

This just in! Next Saturday, Septemember 25th, I'll be attending a Big Mind Workshop with Genpo Roshi! Being close to Kanzeon Zen Center in Salt Lake City, I've had opportunity to sit with this extraordinary embodiment of the Dharma on more than one occasion, but a whole day in the presence of this living Buddha should seriously fuck my subtle shit up--maybe even land me squarely in causal; I figure by 6:00 pm I'll have saved all sentient beings.

Seriously though, I feel so blessed to have this opportunity, particularly because I sense that my sitting practice needs strengthening. I'm realizing more and more that the support of a real life sangha (as contrasted with this, as wonderful as it is) cannot be underestimated, and I'm going to do everything in my power to make the trip to Salt Lake to sit with my dharma brothers and sisters as often as is possible.

Saturday the 25th...I'm counting down the days... Until then, I'll be heeding the wisdom of Blade Runner: Wake up, time to die...

giving it up for the Domestic Dakini

Wow, yesterday was fabulous, even with the dead cricket splayed out lifeless on the strawberry slice garnishing my salad at Mimi's Cafe. Um, waitress, might we have the rest of our meal at no charge, and might you throw in dessert for good measure, lest we broadcast that your establishment is stricken with a plague and pestilence? ;)

The world arose in my awareness yesterday in full regalia; it was a series of exquisite hours crowned with azure skies, golden haze, and mountains firebombed red, amber, and pumpkin by gods wrathful at summer's theft of autumn glory.

My Mom (one hand clapping for the Bodhisattva Mama) and my sister Robin (Green Tara meets Jenny McCarthy) decided to hike the scenic trail in American Fork Canyon to Timpanogas Cave, an undertaking not for wussies, pussies, wimps or whiners, seeing as it's uphill both ways.

As we gleefully bitched our way to the top while exclaiming about the natural beauty, the elegance of the AQAL model, the archetypal significance of the spectrum of light, and cursing the deadly ultra-violet (to hell with safe sex, I practice safe sun), the spirit grew ever willing while the flesh needed a good Zen beating.

About three quarters of the way up Mom was stick-a-fork-in-me done, and Robin, hot and bothered, informed me I'd be going on without her. I begged and pleaded, told her we should forge ahead and bond in our mutual misery, reminded her of the sense triumph we'd feel upon reaching the summit, and appealed to the nobler aspect of her bodymind--feminine vanity--by stressing the many calories we would burn while ensuring our butts remained tight and tidy.

She capitulated and off we went, reliving our childhoods while reciting choice excerpts from The Parent Trap to each other, (Mitch to Maggie after she's punched him in the eye: Why do you always have to get so physical? I can't even talk to you about anything, you always wind up belting me) finally reaching the top, whooping and hollering in exultation, screaming to heat-dazed people on the trail below about what a BEAUTIFUL WORLD IT IS!!!

Heading back we were giddy (or delirious with altitude sickness) and laughing so robustly it must have carried down to Mom on the bench where she was waiting for us, because an unintelligible yell meant to be a sentence floated up which was obviously her attempt at acknowledging our presence. "Shut the hell up, Mom!" Robin screamed down, knowing this would be received with great mirth. "We don't want to hear you're shit!" I continued, "we don't give a flying fuck what you want!" Hysterical laughter bubbled up, followed by the humorous catchphrase of our childhood, recognized then and now as a term of exasperated endearment: "Stupid kids!"

On my sacred honor, on the sixteen arhats, and by the hallowed name of all that is AQALuscious, nobody but nobody kicks subtle ass like the woman who afforded me passage this time around into the manifest world. A thousand prostrations to my Mother--the Domestic Dakini with the luminous lila and mega metta!

I LOVE YOU, MOM.

laundry erotica,self-fulfilling prophecies, and gorging glory

My first customer this morning introduced herself as Glenda. "As in the Good Witch of the North?" I inquired? She laughed and confirmed, and I wondered if the spirit of the The Wizard of Oz still lingered despite having expired from the television twenty-four hours earlier.

TGIF! no arising early tomorrow for postal prostitution! Tomorrow I'm going to make love to my bed until 11:00 or so, strip it naked for a good thrashing, then roll it over and over again in high heat. (Who knew laundry could be so kinky?)

This morning I logged onto the Integral Naked forum and my sense of having nothing worthwhile to offer seemed to have materialized as self-fulfulling prophecy. My post to the mental health (holy shit! I just figured out to hyperlink!) thread was perceived as "arrogant," and the subtle hostility of this pronouncement found me taken aback and questioning whether I had been less than mindful in expressing my position toward mainstream psychiatry and big pharma. (After examining this matter at length within my own awareness, I realized that because the subject is very loaded for me to the point where I actively expect excoriation for my unorthodox beliefs, that the force of my energy had managed to elicit such. I also perceived that I had been less than clear in expositing my position, and that the condescension of the response constituted a classic performative contradiction.)

As I said, upon reading the post impugning my position I was so taken aback I actually cried, since it brought up feelings of being invalidated, persona non grata, in the face of a presentation which reflects a perspective gained only by great effort and achieved at significant personal sacrifice.

I followed the sadness "down" to it's Ground until I found compassion (rather than shame) for myself and for the author of the offending post, and "girded up my loins" (doesn't that sound racy?) for a response which I hoped would further clarify my position while counting as a good faith effort toward mutual understanding. I think I succeeded, but the verdict's still out, since the source of the rebuke hasn't been seen on the forum since last posting.

Today at work I was awarded a $35.00 gift certificate to Mimi's Cafe acknowledging my unmatched flair for soothing the savage beast in difficult customers--I was delighted! (Of course, a raise and promotion to a cushy corner office would have been more appropriate, given a woman of my surpassing competence and inimitable charm, but I won't allow the sweetness of what's turned out to be a to be wonderful day to be soured with entitlement fantasies of Bigger and Better.) Tonight I gorge in all my glory!

calming the fuck down

A week without an entry! I suspect it's because I've been a little tinged with the faintest hue of blue and am feeling cramped in the quarters of a mind that feels suddenly small.

As predicted, Bumbershoot didn't fly (since the airlines didn't), so my plans for a swinging weekend in Seattle were quashed.

Then it turned out that the bio I researched and wrote for Chantal to be posted on Integral Naked was for the wrong person! They were wanting a bio for Chantal Westerman, of Good Morning America fame, not Chantal Kreviazuk, the Canadian Chanteuse Extraordinaire! (In my defense, a last name was never specified, so what was I to assume except that I was dealing with somebody on par with Beyonce?)

Then I read a friend's blog, detailing a particularly horrific sexual assualt, which triggered my own shit to no end and found me parked on the bathroom counter in front of the mirror furiously tweezing my eyebrows and indiscriminately importing the anger into the next day wherein my sisters took it upon themselves to enlighten me: "Gosh, nothing personal, but you're being majorly bitchy!" (You think?!)

And I haven't been posting on the Integral Naked forum except in isolated instances, having been stricken with the sense that my stultified self has nothing remotely worthwhile to contribute.

I think this last turn of events cast a pallor over my days that the preceding can't accomplish, because the IN forum represents my community, my source of fellowship, without which I feel adrift in a sea of social alienation, despite maintaining my connections with my co-workers and local compadres.

Last night I went to the cushion and watched as it took my bodymind a full fifteen minutes to calm the fuck down as I thrashed the zafu into a formless (something better damn well realize the Unmanifest!) lump beneath my bathrobe clad bottom. God damn, but I hate this! There, my torturous twenty minutes of dedicated Witnessing are over! I'll witness my little ass into bed now with Rumi, thank you, never mind the fact that he was as gay as the day is long.

Rumi's poems are like magic carpets of subtle tapestries that spirit you away into a world of audible illuminations and tactile scents which melt you disappeared into the entire ecstatic display. After the austerely masculine practice of a cushion and bare wall, Rumi's feminine approach to the divine is the perfect compliment:

That which God said to the rose
and caused it to laugh in full-blown beauty
He said to my heart
and made it a hundred times more beautiful.

Wow, wild synchronicity just now. Just received a phone call from a customer inquiring about the availability of the cat and dog stamps which are now sold out to the lamentation of animal lovers across the country. I informed her that stamps featuring animals were currently confined to the cute and cuddly reptiles and amphibians series, to which she replied, "No lions and tigers and bears, oh my?" which wouldn't have been terribly significant except that her whimsical inquiry was uttered at the precise moment the exact phrase was emanating from the overhead TV where somebody had decided to treat us to The Wizard Of Oz. (As if the film's not significant enough with it's themes of Awakening from the dream to find yourself always already Home.) Mysterious ways...

that great bastion of feminist values...

Swell, that bitch Frances is raging across the Bahama's due full force for Florida on Friday, probably turning the airports in the Miami area into no fly zones, which means Jonathan can't get his ass on a plane to meet me in Seattle for Bumbershoot. Shit.

After working up my courage to inquire of Paul Salamone, kick-ass editor extraordinaire of The Manifest e-zine (primo publication) and member of the dreaded Closed Hermeneutic Circle ;) if he knew of opportunity to further insinuate myself in the integral community by pimping my services to I-I, http://www.integralinstitute.org/integral.htm responded--to my immense surprise and delight--with an offer to do copy writing: bios, talk pages, video blurbs, etc for Integral Naked.

I couldn't have been more thrilled, especially since even broaching the subject was an exercise in what felt like extreme vulnerability for me. ("Are you kidding? You think we want you? Ha, ha, ha, ha!")

Paul fired off a request asking me to write a bio for Eve Essler, Warren Farrell, John Davis, or Chantal--take your pick. I immediately deep-sixed John Davis--David Deida's antithesis, the nemesis of postconventional relationships, and author of: Men Are From Mars, Women Suck My Penis, ;) (hasn't he been on Oprah, like, 800 times?) and opted for Eve, offering to cover Farrell as well.

Paul came back and said, "Farrell it is," which was slightly odd, because I thought I'd been clear about Essler as my first choice, but I was happy to change course and figured that ol' Warren would be bait for some juicy internet fishing since he's known to have defected from the 2nd wave feminist camps to install himself as a prominent figurehead of the "father's rights" movement.

So I went trolling the web for bio information, expecting it to be a bit of a bore, and boy, was I wrong. It seems that in addition to embodying the gender enlightenment of a gnat (Farrell's touted as a cultural hero for exposing the "myth of male power" to the relief of women everywhere) that he's, um, boldly gone where many perverts have gone before: in 1977 homeboy gave an interview to that illustrious bastion of feminist values, Penthouse, which featured a piece titled: Incest: The Last Taboo--An Interview with Warren Farrell, wherein he extolls the virtues of "positive incest." (My my! "father's rights" take on a whole new cast in light of this information, n'cest pas?)

I launched a missive to Paul as fast as you can say PAS (Parental Alienation Syndrome, otherwise known in progressive circles as Pedophile's Assinine-excuses Suck--do your homework on that one), expecting to be rebuffed as an overzealous, man hating, inveterate meddler, but instead received a very supportive (even complimentary) response, which was a tremendously positive experience for me in that calling attention to the sexual depredations of a prominent male didn't get me dismissed as crazy. (Commence deprogramming.)

Anyhow, I'm covering Chantal. Maybe Warren should think about covering his ass.

dribbling, dawn, dwa, blogging, bumbershoot, and The Repubic

Hi! Ms Menstrual here reporting for duty! Sleeping wasn't so successful last night. I had the distinct sensation that my uterus had been filled to capacity with air, violently dribbled for about half a mile, and returned to me. (Ibuprofen was nowhere to be found.)

Gosh, but it's early! When I left the house the moon was still high in a slate sky, and by the time I reached work the clouds were rising like little hotair balloons over the green-gray mountains in coral backlit puffs; the only word that comes to mind is ethereal. At this time of morning, I'm usually sleeping soundly in my bed, dreaming of midnight milky ways (the candy bar, not the galaxy) and blind to these auroric displays of dawn.

Driving to work, through the sleepiness, I felt so awake. There's really something to be said for solitude, even if the only thing between you and another human being is a hunk of metal. When I'm alone, a whole other dimension of being opens up as mandalic awareness. The world comes alive, it hums a song that cascades like crystal through my mind and blooms my heart open in a pyrotechnic lotus, and I hear the earth chanting joy, joy, joy to an infinite sky that swallows up the sound in liquid, luminous silence. When I hear this sound, and see the person in the car next to me, I want to tell them to listen, and ask, do you hear yourself singing?

Ever since initiating myself into the blogsphere, my interest in other people's blogs has usurped my appetite for spin-free news in the tastiest alt/indie e-zines. I feel pretty out of the loop, so I plan to spend a good part of the day grazing at The Onanist, The Onion, The eXile, Rouse, Flak, etc. Maybe I'll even peruse Alternet, as utterly stimulating as it isn't. (Needs cayenne.)

Only two more days of postal purgatory and I'm headed out to Seattle with Jonathan (my boyfriend) for Bumbershoot, http://www.bumbershoot.com/ and this being my first time, I'm very excited. I don't know exactly what to expect (except rain), but I can count on the fine company of my favorite Jew boy who never fails to amuse me.

Speaking of amusement, breaking news is that Jonathan's penis has survived, as he calls it, the Guillotine Toilet. The Commode of Infamy, with it's spring loaded seat, has been known to nearly, um, behead more than one, er, member of the royal family, and in it's less calculating moments has left many winkie's with a mean case of whiplash. Long live the repubic! ;)