Where were we?

The year is coming to an end (kind of--there New Year's celebrations in many cultures at different times), some people look ahead and backward and others just are glad that it is now and that's all that matters. For me, it's all of the above; but I try not to let past and future draw me in.

Today I felt the first pangs of exhaustion that comes from doing too much. Working alot. It's been a good week and a hectic week. I'm glad I feel tired. I need the sleep. One could write a whole treatise and a half about sleep. I recommend "The Confessions of an English Opium Eater" the author of which slips my mind. Sleep can mean lots of things, but mainly surround dreams and visualizations.

Yeah. I need the time to hallucinate, visualize and otherwise dream.

Yesterday was my birthday.

A birthday just records one's solar return; the sun returns to the place it was the "year" before based on the natal chart. One is supposed to be more tired. Perhaps that is why I am drinking so much black tea, chai. Actually, today a good friend of mine gave me thermosful of the chai he makes. I like it so well, that I couldn't resist drinking the whole thing? I've been buzzing ever since! He gave it to me mainly because I was working at the store today. Not that many last minute shoppers, so we had some time to talk. He had been to the ashram in San Ramon the night before and recounted a story told by the swami there.

Apparently Amma had asked him to watch the fanning of a banana leaf that was refreshing her. He had said that so many people wanted to have this honor of fanning Amma, that he was very nervous in carrying it out. Actually, he hit her by accident and Amma gave him this "look." Amma explained to him that the subtle bodies were upset with the way she had been treated although it were an accident. The subtle bodies watch out for Amma.

The question of Amma came up between another friend of mine who is from India. He says that he has no interest in meeting her nor in doing any Hindu practice. This person has the same birthday as me. I thought we might share it (I used to share it with my brother growing up--we're not twins, just two years apart). However, he must have been doing something fun, I hope. I didn't hear from him.

However, I did see a lot of friends today and exchanged gifts and all that. I also saw the film BOBBY. I'm not sure about how I feel about this fictional drama. It has too many Hollywood trashy actors in it. Lawrence Fishburne and Sharon Stone were the most gifted of this ensemble of "actors." The acting aside, the quotes from video footage of Bobby Kennedy was very rewarding to hear. I didn't really know what he said because I was far too young to listen to candidates for office or anything. What I'm getting at is that this man was truly eloquent in speaking from a humanitarian point of view about real problems.

So, it was a good birthday. I felt transformed and somewhat interested in something new to do with my time. I'm not sure yet.

I won't get into how much of a brat I was about the gifts I got.

The time of gift-giving and all that.

Tonight I spoke with a friend with whom I have had a strained relationship for quite a while. This woman talks incessantly about herself and her life ad nauseum. Actually, I just put the phone away from my ear when she starts talking about her week at work, day-by-day, detail-by-detail; all this is about subbing in K-12 schools. SInce I work in a K-12 school, some of this is either quite boring for me or just annoying. When do I get to talk about what happens, day-to-day, detail-to-detail in my week? This person doesn't have time to listen to that. But she must be listened to. (She's mainly German-American.)

Actually, she reminds me alot of my mother--who is far from German-American. She exudes the manic, vaporous, narcissistic tendencies of the "bad" Irish-American matron. Enough about her. At least my mother didn't tell me what she wanted me to buy her for Christmas.

This friend basically told me, when I said I would be making cds for people, that she only wanted Persian, world or Middle eastern music. I was thinking, " Wow, you're limited in your experience of life. Just because you're not into 'rock'any more (even though she likes U2 (yuck--even though Bono has his moments) and Beck (she thinks he's cute, is what I see). there is music she hasn't heard before that is made by experimental, albeit western, musicians. It's cool to be into "world" music, and I really like Indian and Arabic music and know the music of some artists well, I just don't like being told what to buy for someone. This person plays the starving artist (although she is light years away from being starved) and gives people gifts from the thrift store and things she finds on the street. Just because I work really hard--full -time--and have a bit more money than she does, I don't have to buy her anything. I'll check out the Senior Center's thrift store in the neighborhood or go down to Community Thrift and buy her some cups or bowls or something. Yeah, that's it. I'll buy what I know she likes and pay less than I would for the incense!!

"Money, money, money; nickels, nickels, nickels. How I love the sound!" (Lucy lines in "A Charlie Brown Christmas.") Greed, greed go away. I just want to have time to play.

I forgot to mention vacation.

Today is my first day of vacation. I am really enjoying my emotional and intellectual freedom already. I want to go to Mexico for a few days in these two weeks, but I don't have the cash, really. One has to plan for trips, right?

Seeing stars very large and close-up.

I wonder how many people have had the experience of travelling around the city at night while they're eyes are completely dilated. No one can describe the glistening colors, red and charcoal-grey and whites with haloes and sculptures in movement. This is the second Friday for me of spending the evening enjoying the view from my eyes.

Last week I went to the opthalmologist about my eyelid infection. Boring, right? How long (it's been since Halloween--hmm) that my eyelid has been some shade of red and either puffy or just red. Today they told my at the clinic that, looking at both eyes, that...well, both eyelids "kind of look the same." OK, fine. They can't figure out why I got "cellutis" on my eyelid. But when will it go away???

Maybe I should start meditating it away. It's served its purpose in getting me to finally have a full eye exam and all that. Today they told me that I could have had this eye disease at birth. I believe it's weird to have eye issues. So many people deal with them but I never really have had to wear glasses or anything. In any case, they told me that it would probably take a long time--if at all--for my eyes to get to the point where I might need surgery. Ok. I agree with that.

Meanwhile I took my final exam last night in the film class. I wrote about Dorothy Arzner's CRAIG"S WIFE from 1935, one of the Depression years. Arzner was the only female director in Hollywood during the "Studio Years," 1917-1954 or something. (I didn't read the chapter on this.) CRAIG'S WIFE is about a woman who loves her huge, mansion-like house over her husband and everyone else. Because the "Studio Years" were punitive (there was a Production Code written by and enforced by a Catholic layman, Joseph Breen)--if you didn't love your wife or husband or were a gangster or a non-patriot you were somehow punished from above or below. These films are hard to watch. For example, in CASABLANCA Ingrid Bergman makes the correct choice in going off with her husband instead of living with Rick, her lover for a time. Actually, CASABLANCA made me want to puke it was so overdone. CRAIG"S WIFE is disturbing in a different way. The music, the camera angles all point to a woman on the edge--and being vulnerable in that way was not permitted in film depictions until ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST. But that's just my opinion.

The film history test and THE BRO JUD ON LOVE ENERGY SHOW

Thursday I have to take the final exam in my film history class. I really hate art history. It's really subjective, putting parts together that may not fit just to prove some sort of point about nothing. CASABLANCA was so boring. So was STAGECOACH. Actually the latter film was degrading to watch. Being human can't meant that one human has a right over another for grabbing land.

So, I'm not studying for my exam. I've been thinking about what I'm going to read on THE BRO JUD ON LOVE ENERGY SHOW tomorrow night. Also, I want to sing and play one of my songs. I have to work tomorrow. This is such a busy week. I should mention that I'm going to try to understand Jud's utopian plan with alot of love energy.

Studying for the film history test and eye disease.

This semester I took the first half of Film History 20 at City College. One thinks, CIty College...really difficult, huh? Actually, I've not studied so much for a class than since I went to UC Berkeley. I took my papers really seriously. In this class, I have to take the TESTS seriously. He gives us mass information about the early days of film and Hollywood and all that. Classical cutting, parellel editing, the master shot, medium shot, close-up, deep focus cinematography (CITIZEN KANE), reverse shot/shot editing (CASABLANCA), the musical (THE GOLD DiGGERS OF 1933), and etc. I did my paper on the films of the only woman director in Hollywood in the 1930's: Dorothy Arzner. She did melodramas, which, according to our instructor, starred women. My paper dealt with the class struggle depicted in two of her films: THE BRIDE WORE RED and CRAIG'S WIFE. My instructor found my discussion "interesting" but not "deep enough." I didn't make a big deal out of the fact that Dorothy Arzner directed women in films about women. To be honest, I'd rather not have to talk about LIFETIME television. I'd rather watch "Family Guy."

Speaking of what can befall a woman, I'm dealing with the loneliness of having NO BOYFRIEND and having been just diagnosed witih an eye disease--in both eyes. I've had an eyelid infection for almost two months now. The eye disease is in the back of my eyes. It's called "lattice degeneration." A lattice is a physics matter. Apparently, not enough blood flows to the affected area and it breaks down. On Friday when I return to UCSF for my follow-up exam to probe into what might help deflect the onslaught of retinal breakage that results with lattice degeneration.

Not a real font of good news today. Feeling like I want to write a personals ad, since I never meet anyone at work or in the usual places one meets prospective loves. Somehow I'm ready to face this week at work, because Friday after 3 p.m. means Christmas vacation!!!!

Thank God for Stewie.

What would an otherwise lazy night be like without "Family Guy?" IT is so crass and gross and disgusting and cliche but oh so funny--more than once in an episode. Tonight's show was on sexual abstinence for teenagers--especially Meg. The penises are placed next to the ears of the person one might be having an intimate moment with. Hilarious.

Speaking of sex, what is it without love? Someone was telling me today that Amma says that most couples today in lust and not in love. I wonder how she knows this. And, with all she has spoken of karma, wouldn't there be some destiny and payback involved in the whole sexual thing? We haven't even addressed the dharma also implicated.

Nonetheless, I keep dealing with my karma everyday. I worked today at the store. Played a 9 hour cd of Indian classical music after listening the Dalai Lama chanting and Amma's earliest bhajans. It was a good day for music and contemplation.

And, I thank the antibiotic for my eye infection might be really working to get rid of it!

Tonight I took video at The Beat Museum.

Why do I have friends I hardly talk to turn me on to such cool things? Mutual respect but not enough closeness, probably...for whatever reason. I hope we will be better friends after tonight. But my friend asked to shoot video at a performance of woman poets and musicians at The Beat Museum. The Beat Museum is on Broadway and Columbus, really close to City Lights Bookstore. This whole area has such a history of being a creative place. It also is home to the city's strip clubs. My aunt lived in this neighborhood in the fifties and sixties. She was an art collector--mostly California fiftes Abstractionists. I grew up looking at the many paintings in my house and the ones in hers and my other aunts. I loved this palette-knived oil painting of a grove of trees in a medum shot. The painting was quite flat for a painting and yet sculpturally so interesting.

I digress. The Beat Museum. There were original photographs of Ginsburg and Cassady and Kerouac and all the other players in the play. What a perfect place for a performance by women? Especially on Broadway? If I had performed with them, I probably would have shown quite a bit of skin. That's what Broadway--can be about or, at least include. The words were delivered very differently from woman to woman. There so much variety of voice and song. My friend's song was about the Black Panthers (sex included) and Courney Love's implication in the murder of her husband Kurt Cobain. I know that has something to with my avoiding formal wedding and the legal issues involved.

Digressing again. It was alot for me to take in. People were great in abundance as spectators. I tried to include them in the experience. I hate when people look at the camera. I don't want to offend anyone by not acknowledging their presence in the video credits. Nonetheless, there was not too much ego out there tonight. Every performer was quite understated in over-expressing their importance. Substance, what the poems and songs were about was tantamount everest.

I just regret not buying a cd from a young guy who had included his songs on a cd full of well-known rappers. I told him that I didn't really know any of the music. He said I could get into by listening to it. Then, I asked him which song of his was on the compilation. He said, "I'm the guy with that..." or something like that. What did that mean? He said, "I'm one of those kind of guys." Wink wink. "A player,?" I said. "You'll have to find out for yourself when you listen," he smiled. He was just so cute that I could't resist, right" No. I didn't dig his attitude. I kept on video taping and forgot about him. Then I remembered, and I went out to see if he were there. He had told me earlier that I looked like someone who could afford to buy the cd for $5.00. Yeah, maybe, not really, and I work too stressful of a job. Video is much more interesting than teaching--anything...even drumming. I was having tons of fun. Sorry, but I don't think I was ready to listen to the music he had offer or was just off in my own world like he was. The video camera is not even mine, if that's what made me look like I have any money. What is this, I need to make my own cd so that I can trade (barter?) next time. That's what another friend did who had performed. I'll ask her to make me a copy.

In any case, I paid $24. for 3 dvc tapes. I shot two tape's worth. It was a real excursion into the nightmares of having a camera the battery of which now only lasts for about an hour. I kept having to charge the battery there in betweeen the performers. I was sweating!! ( I like to shoot through a rack of t-shirts, camera angle from below. Ozu --

The week from hell has ended.

When does your week "begin"? For those of us who do the 8am to 4p--or whatever--the week begins on Saturday. No, actually Friday afternoon. My Friday afternoon was a resolution of much time spent wondering why November was such a difficult month. The US elections were uninteresting and more of the same to me. Boring. Scary.

My days spent at work were often extremely taxing. I stopped bringing my guitar to work to play for the kids. That's part of the problem. Not staying in touch with my inner rhythms. I NEED to play music and sing and dance. Children with autism also need to move and dance and hear music. Also, I took a week off at Thanksgiving and when I got back on Monday all these social workers had come by and undending social problems were thrust in my face.

Creatively, not much got done this month. I have been so apathetic. I started out painting and ended up doing nothing. The toilet still doesn't flush correctly. Shopping for clothes was uneventful and dull. I only saw Amma once. (I can say seeing Amma was the best moment of the month besides the video I took of my friend and my ex-lover shouting about the minimum wage in the U.S. I shot an hour's worth. (So dedicated, right?) I want to edit it down to 10 minutes or less. My friend couldn't get a word in. People don't like to watch others' frustrations for too long!

Frustration? Try dealing with a karmic debt you don't know how to pay. Your heart is pounding. You can't breathe. The stars are all tugging at your hair. Your hands move but not your voice. This all happened today. I put my forehead on the rug in the meditation room at Love of Ganesha. My face fell into the garlands in the singing bowl. Ganesh always hears me.