The night before my birthday, or how talking about political things makes one less popular than usual

My elder cousins called me for my birthday which I thought they knew was tomorrow. Oh well, we only grew up together. Every Saturday night my brother, father and I would have to go to my mother's sister's house for dinner. My aunt would, after serving mashed potatoes (of course, and I loved all the potato variety of dishes I had while in Scotland) and some sort of meat, and after having consumed about 5 "high balls"--drinking glasses full of ice cubes, whiskey or gin and some other substance, commence deriding someone sitting at the dinner table. Since I always kept my mouth tightly shut, I was not often a direct victim of these derisions. And, unfortunately, even though one of my two cousins would keep their mouths shut, one of them would become a target of their mother's hallucinations. It was too bad, really, that she so often had these really bad trips, one could say. Maybe, if she were given some peyote or mushrooms and let loose in the wild, she might find that staring up at the sky would be calming instead of infuriating.

Of course, I digress. I think I was talking about my cousins having called me today. We are all so much older now than we were then...kind of. The elder of the two, a natural red head, has remained the one with the most psychiatric need yet channels it into severe self-absorption. Her sister, one of two natural blondes in the family at large, has worked as a nurse for a very long time. In fact, she is the one who called me today. I have always preferred her company over her sister's, but since we are closer in age (only 5 years difference) and with the most experience with men, we tend to get competitive and insecure if one of us has a boyfriend and the other doesn't. I have noticed that when we both have boyfriends, and even if mine were somewhat scurrulous, there would be much less insecurity between us.

It's weird. I was really letting some anger out today and saying some very unpopular words for a polite person when speaking with Jeannie, the sexy, blonde should-have-been starlet who has worked as a nurse, giving people shots, sticking thermometers up their butts, and so forth. Her sister talks about herself, and if I were to say, "Oh, you almost fucking died from anemia this year," her response would be unpredictable. She admitted that she wished her 17-year-old cat would die. Pathetic, kind of...

And then there's the getting older part. Both of them still talk like they did when they were in high school. Somehow my voice and inflections are different. Patty, the elder one, said she thought she was getting old. I wonder if anyone remembers a stamp that the U.S. put out in the early eighties. It had a sepia line drawing of two elders and a baby. It had the caption "Aging Together." It used to crack me up....how existential.

Meanwhile, that was my connection to family for my birthday and for "the holidays." I went to a meditation/talk at the Shambhala Meditation Center in San Francisco on Wednesday night. The talks given here are very sophisticated and intellectual, especially the ones given by a pretty woman in her late fifties whose name I can't remember. Their are only three people that I have met there whose names I recall: Peter, Seth, and Yolanda. Of course, the woman is the most like me than the men. Peter used to work as a huge businessman in New York and owned a place in the West Village, and Seth I don't know about but I like his name. Yolanda is around my age, Latina and pretty. But she always looks sad. But I am afraid to ask why. In fact, I'm afraid to talk to many of the people there. But during the talk we are usually supposed to get into groups. We were to talk about what "wisdom tradition" we grew up under and what we feel about this other name for religion...kind of. The woman spoke about being brought up under Judaism and all she got out of it was that we should treat others the way we want to be treated. All I could think about was the picture on a poster I got at anti-war rally of a 9-year-old Palestinian boy with piss stains running down his pants surrounded by 4 Israeli soldiers, fully-armed, fully-grown men. The man in our group was from Iran and talked about how his father wasn't into Islam but his mother was so he tried to show some interest in it but was the least concerned about having to have his own 'wisdom tradition.' I spoke about my father being Catholic in a non-Catholic country and how I've embraced Hinduism and love all the gods and think about one of them every day and try to fit into Shambhala's wisdom tradition. The Virgen de Guadalupe is still an image I hold onto.

So, the very next day I had lunch with someone who comes from a completely other wisdom tradition than all these other people. We decided it was time for me to take down alot of my Hindu stuff...kind of, and not all of it. Then, I thought, I should get over my fear of having the least bit of awareness of Islam. I have two hijabs from Maroc and one from Egypt, thanks to my fwb of the past five years, Rene from Mexico City. He was always travelling. At least he brought me back some beautiful stuff, and even though sex and my undivided attention were all he ever wanted from me, I won't forget him. I just can't call him now if I need something...

I have been on my own now since September. Monday I got an iPhone for cheap (it's a 3G). Although I had sworn to myself that I wouldn't give someone whose parents came from India any bit of my attention (save this one for another time), I was chatting on OK Cupid with a guy who is part Indian and told me of one of the best Indian restaurants in the city (it's in the TL). We were then on our cellphones texting until I wrote that OK Cupid says it's OK to drink but that what most of us in my neighborhood (upper Haight) call medicine is called a 'drug.' He laughed. Then I wrote, "At least OK Cupid doesn't ask about my politics anymore." Then the guy stopped writing to me.

Planet Glee has become much more political. Last night I had the wonderous opportunity to hang out with an important filmmaker from Pakistan. I intend to work with this man on a doc...Someone we know who is from Belgium is almost finished with his doc on a similar topic. I wonder who will be less popular given the poppolitics of their work.