I do believe that the moon was smiling.

As we approached Amma's ashram in San Ramon this evening, one of the people in the car noticed the new moon. Someone else said, "it's smiling." For me that was a portent of chuckles--and tears--to come.

It has been a quite insanely difficult year for many reasons. In December of 2008 I was not only mourning the loss of a relationship I had had with a tattoed, university-educated guy from Mexico, but I also had to deal with being forced to move out of a place in San Francisco where I felt very grounded; this place also had as a resident one of the most unique cats I've ever known, Buddy Budders. He still lives there, I think. He was jet black like a seal and just as fat with huge green saucers for eyes. Every time I had a nightmare in which I woke up not knowing who I was, Buddy was there on my bed staring at me saying, "You're back. You're here." I still miss him.

For six months thereafter I was losing my mind, piece by piece, in a living situation in which I had NO privacy. I had heard the song "Ticky Tacky Boxes" but I had never thought I would be living in one. How I survived that one was to rely on my kitten Joaquin, a raccoon-striped Maine Coon, to keep me in the present. His little striped face would scrunch up into a tiny kitten-head ball every morning when we had to wake up at seven so I could go to work.

By June I had, through friends, found a huge sunny room in the upper Haight. Work was done and I was free...I painted the walls the color called "hot kiss" and green and yellow... With no money, I couldn't go anywhere. I can't even remember how I spent my days. By August my cousin called, crying, to say that my aunt had a huge tumor in her lungs...So I went to visit her--a three-hour drive and having to pay for a hotel. My aunt was staring at my Tibetan mala I wore around my neck and when she asked to look at it, I handed it over, literally...she put it on her neck! She died a week or so before Thanksgiving.

In September, on Amma's birthday, my friend Margaret died of cancer. The father I never had, Bro Jud Presmont, died almost a week ago. I could go on and on about how much he meant to me and how much I will miss him. I will write a poem to him instead.


"Nice is nice," was one of yours.
Also: "if it ain't fun it won't get done."
We used to talk about the "Cosmic Opera"
And "Theatre Verite." Of course there
Was Kerista and polyamory and the
University of Utopia and W.A.K.E. ,
The World Academy of Keristan
Education. No one can forget
Your desire to eliminate poverty
And homelessness, with "love
Energy" guiding us "on to the
Next thing," I will miss your
Overriding optimism...a kind of
Sagittarian trait I shared but often
Forgot about, drowning in
Scorpionic desire for liberation.
Sweet angel, Jud, I am happy
You are liberated from this body
"We are trapped in." Now when
I call you up, seeking a confidant,
I will watch the candles burning
Softly with your significance.

Richard Avedon, the sculpture garden and heights.

Thoroughly unmodern willie is what the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has been since it moved from Van Ness to 3rd street. At least tonight when I visited it seemed to be digging itself out a slight bit from the past into the present.

The show of some of Richard Avedon's photographs, while noteworthy, was poorly arranged. There were some photos I have never seen before: Twiggy with long hair, Brigitte Bardot a bit out of focus, a portrait of his wife, the "workers" from Texas. The pictures which really touched me were of people over 60 plus. There were about seven scenes of Avedon's father. It brought up for me the vulnerability of the subject in the artist's hands; the subject/object dilemma.

In the video screening room there was a 1977 video called "Pilot" by General Idea. Back in my early college days I had a fascination for General Idea. There was also a video by a German artist who captured some television footage from Italy featuring tarot card readers...hilarious.

The sculpture garden is a welcome new place to roam and see fabulous sculptures, primarily bronzed and welded but some completely multimedia.

My favorite part of the SF MOMA is the bridge on the 5th floor. I love looking down and wondering if I might fly, sink, or land like a kitten!

Sometimes it's better to give in and TWO LOVERS.

It's pretty often that someone from cyberspace e-mails me on the various sites for single and attached people like Facebook, Hi5, OKCupid!, and etc. It is also common that the conversation lasts about a week and then we NEVER MEET. I remember back in February I was texting this guy from Spain who lives here. We met on OKCupid! I am older than him. He is in his twenties and I am in my forties. But does ageism equivalent to cruelty to persons!!!??? I should start a society similar to the Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals called the Society for the Protection of Cruelty to People on the Internet! Everyone is just a delete-a-way!

Fortunately, in TWO LOVERS, Joaquin Phoenix's character, Leonard, does not go on the internet to find a date. His parents are trying to set him up with one wholesome woman and he meets his vixen in the hallway of the building where he lives with his parents. Do we feel sorry for this character? He's supposed to be "bipolar." Excuse me, but this word is used to often to describe EVERYONE........................

Joaquin, I love your acting, but you didn't come off as a DSMV-IV version of a person with bipolar disorder. AND, it is a tragedy when this disorder cannot be properly treated. AND, it is a tragedy that so many people cannot communicate the fact that something better came up or that in the words of Boris and Natasha, "easy come, easy go."

While we were watching the film, my friend showed me a YouTube excerpt from the Letterman show in which Mr. Dave makes fun of Joaquin. My friend thought he was having a nervous breakdown. I thought he was bringing some dignity to an otherwise unfriendly world.

What would we do without Foucault, et. al.?

I watched some of the UC Santa Barbara television tonight. I don't know if it's a course or something, but I've seen some thoughtful things on the University of California tv station. ONe program was on the necessity of helping students with autism at the university become more social and socially conscious. Too bad Bill Gates didn't get the help he needed to think more about others and how to interact with them.

Which brings me to another computer-related issue. Tonight's program was from UC Santa Barbara on Web 2.0. The instructor (a former employee of some major US corporation) asked the question, "What is Web 2.0?" A student answered that it was a way for many people to create their own websites for major networking Another student said that it is "a buzzword that doesn't mean anything." Gracias a Dios, there is someone thinking about the power of language over consciousness--and therefore belief systems.

Facebook and Celebrities, Berkeley and St. Patrick's Day

What the hell is a "celebrity"? Back in the late eighties there was a band in San Francisco called "Celebrity Skin." I got to know a couple of them in passing situations. One of them really cracked me up when we walked through a big grocery store and pointed out all the people from tv and the media on magazines. I didn't know who alot of them were. Now, I suppose I have my favorite people who might be on a magazine in a large grocery store...or hair salon...or skin care places, for instance. Some of these celebrities have Facebook profiles. I think this is really funny and fun and very Planet Glee. Let's give everyone someone to play in their minds about That's what art does. We are all artists.

Some people get paid very well to be artists. These people are in the mainstream media, television. I am also on television on my call-in show. A friend who played guitar with me on Bro Jud on Love Energy on cable said I should call the show "Jammin' with Jennifer." That was really a compliment But I don't play guitar on Planet Glee. I play the bayan of the tabla--badly!!!---by the standards of the "classical. folk, and spiritual Indian music (bhajans) with the musicians who come on the show.

Last night we didn't have the phone lines running. Too bad. That makes Planet Glee even more fun. The guest had won 2008 singe/songwriter by voters in the local San Francisco paper The Bay Guardian. I can say this: his songs were quite uplifting in terms of lyrics. I really need to listen to the cd he gave me of his music. I was curious about what songwriters in San Francisco should be about.

Meanwhile, since Facebook has celebrities in there I looked up Naveen Andrews. I had had a huge crush on him since BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA although I also liked him as the Sikh in THE ENGLISH PATIENT. There were a few comments in there about how sexy he is in the tv show Lost. Earlier I had looked up Rafael Nadal because he is so funny. Actually I think these two men are bedworthy but it is because they can laugh at their situation. That's appealing to me. Here in cable tv world--and in the performance realm at all. I still read on Bro Jud on Love Energy. I get to pick out the stuff to read from what Jud gives me. Sometimes I completely disagree with where the reading is politically, I have to find something funny in it...glee.

Today I went to Berkeley. That's where I went to school and where I learned that I wanted to be moved by what I studied. I spent alot time writing papers--academic stuff. Let's play the scholarly game. It's a very fun game. But when I go to Berkeley I have no desire to be working there as a teacher or something. One has to have a job. I teach children with severe disabilities. I want to be an artist.

Speaking of painting and images and illusions (maya), why is the rainbow associated with leprechauns? Why did San Francisco have its St Patrick's Day parade on a Saturday? If these people are allowed to go to large parking lots behind bars to drink in the wind and cold why did they have to do it on Saturday? What sacrilege? And have you heard any snake charming music lately? I almost bought a snake charmer cd at Amoeba in Berkeley today.

"

Moving and SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

I moved at the beginning of January (The period key on my computer isn't working!!??) The sentences look like they're floating, without periods In any case, I moved to a neighborhood that is weird in San Francisco I try not to think about it!!?? BBBBUt I have hope that I will return to writing again in my blog and playing my guitar and painting and all things good and meditating

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE is a film that is a meditation on Love, l-u-v It is also a portrait of a a world that is Hollywood film noir and Bollywood and reality tv with some pans of "slums" in India For those of us how have never been to India, these slums seem so far away, removed There is a reification of the spectacle

However this film, due to the healing nature of the music, the sound of love and the hints at spirituality of different kinds, helps one get a slight bit closer to edifying the spirit while accepting what is

Accepting what is means seeing the Orwellian nightmare and yet keeping it at bay