So, the litany of Sky Sadist activities continues: despite the fact that the insulin wasn’t working, my blood sugars were above 300 and we were up to 30 units and the endocrinologist in Lawrence wasn’t even TRYING to keep track of my status, in the midst of all the errands I had to run on the day before Christmas because Sutton Street Service had screwed me up so badly, I thought I could swipe up a small spiral notebook, to jot down a grocery list in, for a dollar while I stopped for brunch.
And I could.What I forgot was that the Dollar Store is the poor man’s Neiman Marcus and it was the day before Christmas.I stood online for 30 minutes to buy it.I could have driven home, retrieved one of my own notebooks and been in the next county long before I checked out of the so-called “Dollar Store” – and then stood around wondering why I was in the next county.Despite the name spelled out in cheesy lights, it wasn’t a “Dollar Store”, by the way; any more than your local “Five and Dime” actually sells things for a nickle and a dime.And it was ridiculously understaffed.
Besides, who expects your friendly neighborhood clueless Latino grandparents to do their weekly grocery shopping at the Dollar Store, and sllllllowly place each can on the one and only open checkout counter at the pace of drugged snails, one at a time, with a three minute pause between each and every can for a lengthy discussion in Spanish about why they were buying chili con carne instead of porkos con beanos?A line of about 30 people queued behind them while they did this, and neither grandma or pa gave a rat’s ass in either language that they had effectively brought the decrepit and corrupt ghetto town of Lawrence, Massachusetts to a screeching halt on the day before Feliz Navidad … not that anyone gives a rat’s ass about the decrepit and corrupt ghetto town of Lawrence, Massachusetts.
The next day – which was Christmas for those keeping track - I discovered while online that Uncle Bob’s Storage in North Andover had helped themselves to an unauthorized $251 off of my debit card on the 5th of December and because it was Christmas when I discovered the heist, I couldn’t go screaming down the road to demand an explanation and get my money back. The same day I also discovered that Fidelity, the most useless of the Wall Street useless assholes, decided to shut down its website, also on Christmas, so you can’t go in and do anything, like, oh say, FIND OUT HOW MUCH MONEY YOU DON’T HAVE ANYMORE!
Two days after Christmas I finally managed to speak to Uncle Bob’s Storage on my company dime.The dumb broad who answered the phone swore she didn’t mess up nuthin‘ and the bank obveesly made an error!Back to the Merrimack Valley Credit Union, who calmly insisted the unauthorized charge was from Uncle Bob’s and shrugged about the heist.I began to twitch uncontrollably.
I called the 866 number on Uncle Bob’s Storage website – which one would HOPE would send one to the Home Office.The web site said that their phone number was available from to .I called the number at .The automated phone service sent me back to the voice mail of the North Andover office (who had already blown me off), who announced it opened at , and not , as their web site announced.I know that my blood pressure by this point was somewhere near “KILL ME I CAN’T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”
I finally hunted down the phone number of the Home Office in Rochester, which no longer goes by the name of “Uncle Bob”, but by the name “Sovereign Self Storage”.I call them at in the morning.You are given the opportunity to speak to the operator, who does not answer, because she “is in a meeting”.THE TELEPHONE OPERATOR IS IN A MEETING??!!??About what?How to steal from people’s debit cards, $251 at a time???
You are given the option of leaving your name and number which you know won’t do you a damn bit of good, because no one will call you back - ever.I call back an hour later at and again at and the operator is STILL “in a meeting”. Right.
At this point, I was practically choking in apoplectic rage at the corrupt and evil ineptitude of the so-called “businesses” that steal from citizens of the United States of America.But then., there is no US of A anymore.We’re just a corrupt police state dominated by corrupt corporate demons which might as well be the old USSR.
The good news was that I finally called the Andover office again and THANKFULLY did not get the stupid idiot woman who blew me off rudely the last time.Instead I got an intelligent guy who found the error and solved the problem, and did it all within 30 seconds.As we all suspected, it was an error – deliberate or not I’ll leave to others to decide – made by the stupid woman who blew me off the first time.I may or may not need to show them my bank statement, but I’m okay with that for the moment … at least I see a glimmer of light at the end of the dark tunnel.
Ladies and Gentleman, welcome to the morally bankrupt wasteland of North Andover, Massachusetts, Rochester, New York and the United States of America.
Happy Holidays to you too, Sovereign Self Storage, Sutton Street Service, Fidelity Financial Destruction Services, Mass DMV (“Demonic Motherf*&^kging Vipers”), Merrimack Valley Credit Union and the idiot woman from Uncle Bob’s Storage.
And here you thought you were going to read a lovely, romanticism-era poem about the beautiful and fragrant honeysuckle!Don’t you love the way one of America’s earliest poets gets you all bummed out and depressed?So … American of him.
Saturday the 17th of December.I arrive at the Sutton Car repair shop in North Andoverfor a DEC 2011 inspection sticker at in the morning.This is the place people recommended I switch to after GM screwed up their entire company and sold off the Saturn line, dumping all of the Saturn owners in a pile of offal.The Sutton Car guys can’t get my horn to work, which means I can’t get an inspection sticker.I suggest bringing my car back in the week I’m off work (Dec 26th), but noooo, after next week (Dec 19th) , they’re closed until 2012, and I’m not off work next week!I freak out.
Now I have to figure out a way to get my car to the Sutton bozos on Wednesday, get myself to the train station to get to work, and get myself BACK to Sutton at the end of the day.The Sutton people have already taken so long accomplishing nothing that it’s now .I now can’t get to the bank to get my singles needed for the highway robbery at the MBTA commuter rail parking lot.I go to CVS only to discover that the endocrinologist has NOT called in a prescription for test strips as she promised, so I now have the meter but very few test strips.I freak out again.
I finally drive to the grocery store, cursing out the universe.More Andover Demons have left their shopping carts all over the parking lot.I’ve lived in quite a few places (New York, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois), and I can honestly say that North Andover, Massachusetts is the absolute worst, as far as being crammed full of narcissistic, fat, lazy women goes.They weren’t even this bad in Worcester, and Worcester is practically a ghetto.I have never lived ANYWHERE as bad as North Andover.People were more polite and considerate in Manhattan and Yonkers, that’s how bad this place is.
Sunday the 18th of December.I have now developed a knot on my head, left side, up near my hairline. There was a small lump there anyway, ever since the accident. Now it has gotten a lot bigger when I wasn't paying attention to it. I examine it.Not an injury – it’s not tender or bruised; not a zit, it’s again not red or tender.What the [bleep!] is it?I decide to see if it changes (sinks or swims, as far as head bumps go), and do a post-breakfast blood sugar test.And completely freak out again.The number is so high it isn’t even normal for ME.The number is so high we’re talking imminent death territory.And this is a Sunday morning - naturally.My doctor isn’t even alive on Sundays.
I have a choice:the first option is to take myself to that charming site of infinite waiting and suffering:LawrenceGeneralHospital.I’d be sitting in their emergency waiting room, packed in there with the sneezing, coughing, hacking, stomach-flu vomiting residents of Lawrence and then have to pay them a week’s salary (assuming I was still alive) because Blue Cross/Blue Shield is too cheap to cover the visit.
The second option is to diagnose myself.I figure I would be marginally better off taking a second shot of insulin than dying in the LawrenceGeneralHospital waiting room, waiting for 8 hours to be seen.It’s a 50/50 proposition:do I want possible death by overmedicating, or certain death in the LawrenceGeneralHospital waiting room due to being ignored all day?Their commercials about how great LawrenceGeneralHospital is are laughable jokes to anyone who has ever been to the place.A moment’s hesitation, and then I elect Door #2 and shoot myself up again.I’m only supposed to be getting one shot a day, not two, but I still figure I’m safer injecting myself with an unprescribed second dosage.I wait a half hour to test my blood again, and unbelievably, the number is still climbing, but very slowly.Then, fortunately, it starts dropping.
What does a head lump have to do with blood sugar?I know that my blood sugar levels go up when I’m sick, but I don’t FEEL sick; I just have a lump on my head.On the other hand, I don’t know why I have a lump on my head. Correct that. I know WHY, I just don't know why it has gotten larger.
The Sutton fools finally fix my horn on Wednesday, although to accomplish this I have to pay one of their customers $50 to meet me at Sutton’s at 5 in the morning and then drive me to the train station.Why not call a cab, you ask?Sorry, the local “You Call, We Ignore You” Andover cab companies are not known for their reliability, and unlike their cab drivers, I actually have a REAL job.That night when they pick me up, I’m informed I still don’t have a sticker, because I didn’t renew my registration.Despite the fact that every other state in the union – or at least the ones I’m familiar with – don’t double-dip drivers, Massachusetts does NOT combine the registration with the inspection, makes you pay twice, AND never notifies you when your registration is due.
I spend a huge amount of energy trying not to scream out loud and am on the verge of doing a Charles Whitman and … well, I would have told you what I was thinking of doing, but I now know that the USA is no longer a free country, but The Police And Homeland Security Dominated States of America, and its repressed citizens can no longer say things out loud, or even think them.The OWS movement has proven that you also can’t protest, or the police will club you to death, while conservatives cheer them on because our corporate owned media has told them that the entire OWS movement is filled with homeless bums and drug addicts even though everyone with a brain else knows they’re not.But then any country filled with people so stupid they don’t recognize a constitutional right being ripped to shreds right before their eyes, or who buy our media conglomerates’ version of anything deserves to go down in flames.
Back to my car which still has no sticker, in a state where the psychotic North Andover police think the Egyptian military was within their rights to drag a defenseless woman through the streets kicking her unconscious, because they would think nothing of doing the same thing to a woman who didn’t get her car stickered on time in Massachusetts.Grinding my teeth in rage, I renew my registration online – from work, by the way, because the Mass DMV is unaware that people have REAL jobs, and their website is only open during business hours, proving once again that Massachusetts is the most stupid and most corrupt state in the Union, after Arkansas.
I drive it to Sutton’s after work on Friday the 23rd, two days before Christmas.NOW they can’t sticker it for some completely unintelligible reason – something about:I had to put more miles on the car to get the ‘black box’ in the car to record the correct information to feed it to the inspection machine.I’m going “WHAT???”I’ve had the car pass inspection in New York and Michigan and even once in Massachusetts and NEVER was hit with that story.They tell me to drive it on a freeway to put more miles on the car.I’m screaming, “I CAN’T FEEL MY FEET AND YOU WANT ME TO DRIVE ON A FREEWAY???”
Now I’m thinking of going postal on Sutton, while trying not to cry in rage and frustration.
So now they change their story.They actually ARE going to work the week I’m off (after telling me they weren’t returning to work until 2012 a few days earlier).I had already decided NOT to take that week off due to the huge volume of doctor’s appointments I had coming up in January. I have to go make a copy of my car key at Ace and leave it in their dropbox, and then THEY would drive it on the freeway to be able to sticker it.
Keep in mind that the next day, Saturday, was the day before Christmas, which was packed to the gills with things I already had to get done OR ELSE.Most of them were things I HAD to do the previous Saturday before , but had to cancel because Sutton kept me waiting in their shop until a week earlier, unable to fix the horn.
I know what the roads are going to be like, jammed with road-raged assholes who decided to wait until the “day before” to do all their shopping.To get to the bank and then to Ace and then to the Sutton drop box, I now had to cancel the fasting blood test I was going to take at Lawrence (“Come See the Skeletons in Our Waiting Room!”) GeneralHospital, which now means I have to cancel the appointment with the primary care physician and the neurologist, who were going to review the results of the blood test.
And the original date for the inspection?The 17th of December.We’re now up to the 24th.And they STILL haven’t done SHIT, and they’re still feeding me bullshit as to why they can’t do it.
And on top of that, all of the insulin I’ve injected into myself hasn’t done a damn bit of good.I’ve only dipped into the 200-range twice, and the endocrinologist raises the dosages in 10 ml increments.I dunno – at what point do you think she should have said, “Well, DAMN Sam, this ain’t workin!”?
Fine, she’s Asian and wouldn’t employ euphemisms in a redneck accent, but I’m sure she could have come up with an Asian equivalent of , “This ain’t working!”Hell, I even DOUBLED the dose once and it didn’t do that much good.
Really.At what point do you say, “Okay, try 50 ml twice a day!” (I’m at 30 ml once a day now).IT AIN’T WORKING!!Get me in the office, give me a huge dose and watch to see what happens!Don’t just raise my dosages in dribs and drabs and keep my blood sugar at dangerously high levels!Stupid doctor.
But I have to cancel my appointment with her, too, thanks to Sutton screwing up closing my bank account and now demanding a copy of my car key, and tossing my fasting blood test out the window.I’m almost in tears over the whole mess, one of the Sky Sadist’s “Top 10 Evil Accomplishments” of 2011.And I still don’t have a &*^&ing sticker!
Quick comment on something Damien Echols wrote about these days … although he timed the dates as December 20-25:
“The most magickal time imaginable is that short window between December 20th and December 25th when the daylight hours have dwindled to nearly nothing. I love it because the entire world feels like a pendulum that has swung all the way to one side and hangs suspended in the air for a moment before beginning to swing back to the other side.” (18 OCT 2010)
I was reminded of this sensation he had – and it is a sense that he has shared with all sorts of people who felt the same way - when I was reading about the “Halcyon Days”.Damien identified his awareness of the sensation as being five days (December 20-25); Ovid identified the same period of time as being 14 days long – seven days on either side of the Winter Equinox.
True, Saturnalia is also arriving, but the Halcyon Days are special.The mythology surrounding the Halcyon Days are based on the story of the goddess Alcyone, a depiction of whom is to the left, daughter of Aeolus, the ruler of the winds.
You’ll note, as most people would, that she is missing her nipples.
She was not, in fact, missing them in the original painting byHerbert James Draper (1863-1920) an English Pre-Raphaelite painter.The “Myth Index” (http://www.mythindex.com/greek-mythology/A/Alcyone.html) people appear to have airbrushed them out – an extraordinarily odd thing for myth-obsessed people to do, especially if they’re going to be presenting myths about gods and goddesses recreated in statues and paintings, when said deities are usually half-naked.
Of course, the second question women might ask is:“Why would she decide to strip to the waist within seven days of the winter equinox to go looking for her missing husband?”An excellent question!This makes the airbrushing of her nipples out of the painting by the Myth people even more strange; as everyone knows that if you send a naked women out of doors in that weather her nipples would be knocking viewers out of their chairs. Men, of course, don't believe that women need a reason to rip most of their clothes off and run around naked, but women - not being quite as overwhelmed with mindlessness at the thought of their own nakedness - are a bit more pragmatic about it. Really. Why would a woman strip to to waist and run to the shoreline to search for a missing spouse? Exhibitionism? Mistook the shoreline for a "Clothing Optional" beach? Stupidity?
Answer to the question: Because a horny man painted the picture. Horny men should never be allowed to paint pictures of women, lest they paint unrealistic depictions of female behavior in the dead of winter.I don’t care how sexy I was with my shirt off, I’d still be wearing a fleece-lined ski parka, flannel camisoles and three layers of winter underwear whilst out of doors and roaming the shoreline in December, which is the activity that Alcyone is performing in this painting. Most people would assume that she's moaning, "Not tonight, I have a headache!", but actually, she's scanning the horizon for her hubby's sinking boat. Yeah, most women go running half-naked to the shoreline to scan horizons for sinking boats. Really. It's our favorite pasttime.
But – as always - I digress.
Alcyone was married to Ceyx, the king of Thessaly. There are various versions of what occurred to these two.One is that they lovingly called each other “Zeus” and “Hera”, and provoked the real Zeus and Hera into getting ticked off at them; the other is that Ceyx went to consult an oracle and drowned on the way.In any event Alcyone, in grief and despair over the death of Ceyx,threw herself into the sea.Her father, ruler of the winds as you’ll recall, calmed the sea so that Alcyone could find the body of Ceyx.
This story still exists today in the phrase “halcyon days”, which means calm and beautiful and peaceful days in the middle of winter (also known as “Indian summer”), or days of peaceful calmness and stillness, in the name of various types of kingfishers, in the belief that they lay their eggs and build nests on the calm sea which occurs before and after the winter equinox (I’m not sure if that’s true or not), and in lots of cultural references.For example:
Halcyon Days (1891)
by Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Not from successful love alone,
Nor wealth, nor honor'd middle age, nor victories of politics or war;
But as life wanes, and all the turbulent passions calm,
As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the evening sky,
As softness, fulness, rest, suffuse the frame, like freshier, balmier air,
As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs
really finish'd and indolent-ripe on the tree,
Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all!
The brooding and blissful halcyon days!
From Leaves of Grass, 1891-92
Speaking of Damien, his definition of “regularly”, as in, “I’ll be posting here regularly” appears to mean:“once every year”, as he hasn’t posted anything since the 6th of December and it’s now the 17th.Which would be “regularly” to some, I suppose … but to the rest of us?Ehhh … not so much.We were hoping for something a little more frequent, Mr. Signpost.
Speaking of poetry, in honor of the Hamadryad I met (see last entry), I wanted to look up Poe’s Sonnet to Science – how often do you see a hamadryad mentioned in a poem?
Found it.Loved it.And I especially loved that while Poe is so certain that science with its “dull realities” will drive a hamadryad from the wood, I met my first hamadryad outside of a biotech building in Cambridge!He is correct in that if I were to tell the scientists I work that I had met a hamadryad … well, let’s just say that respect for my intelligence among my coworkers would wither rather dramatically.Ah well …
SONNET - TO SCIENCE(1829)
by Edgar Allan Poe
SCIENCE! true daughter of Old Time thou art! Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart, Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise, Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies, Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing? Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car? And driven the Hamadryad from the wood To seek a shelter in some happier star? Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, The Elfin from the green grass, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
The minute the Thanksgiving turkey is digested – and sometimes even before – everyone is bombarded with christmas music to the point where you start clutching your head and screaming every time you walk into a store, even if it’s only to buy the weekly groceries.To replace the awful musak in your head, I start listening to my own holiday play list, in the fervent hope that one cancels out the other.Even Mannheim Steamroller is getting annoying, and I never thought I’d say that, as creative as they are at rearranging stuff that would typically drive you bonkers, hearing it for the ten millionth time in the span of five minutes.Es Ist Ein Ros Entsprungen by the Monteverdi Choir, selections from The Nutcracker Suite, Chris Botti, some scattered Harry Connick, Jr., Zastupnitse Userdnaya from the St. Petersburg Chamber Choir, various adagios and the like.Anything to get the usual dreck out of my head.
Meanwhile, celebrating “Let’s Clear Out the Refrigerator Day”, I’m slowly becoming happily intoxicated on a weird mixture of apple juice, grape juice, pear nectar, orange Gatorade … shaken with Old Ipswich White Cap rum and Malibu Coconut rum and poured over ice.Yesterday was the first time I’d ever sipped rum right out of the bottle, and the Old Ipswich was the smoothest rum I’d ever tasted.Great stuff.So now I’m getting happily sloshed on it.Expensive as hell, but worth it.
Well, my future soul mate will be pleased to know that I can now add:“Able to make low-sugar blueberry muffins” to my resume.Since they’re in the oven as I write this, I cannot honestly say that I made delicious low-sugar blueberry muffins, only that I made them.(Addendum, 1 hour later:okay, NOW I can honestly say that I made semi-delicious low-sugar blueberry muffins.I stole the recipe off of the back of a Splenda box, and even this recipe tastes too sweet as they included a quarter cup of honey in the recipe.I’m betting I can revise it into “no sugar blueberry muffins”, as I’m not all that fond of the honey in it; I’m just wondering - if it adds moisture - what I can replace it with – a small amount of oil, maybe?Unsweetened applesauce?Back to the drawing board.
The Bayer replacement meter took 9 days to arrive as it turns out they had sent it to the wrong address.(*sigh*).I may resurrect my desire to publicly blast them for incompetence.But at least I now have the meter; I can go back to testing my blood sugar every day and getting depressed over the realization that they’re probably going to up my insulin again.
I should probably (partially) apologize for lambasting Bayer earlier – they are sending me a new meter (gratis).If it’s as good as the previous one, I officially withdraw my complaint.If not … grrrrrr.And it’s certainly taking them long enough.I’ve gone a week without being able to test my blood sugar, because Bayer has taken so long to send the thing.How did they ship it, via pack mule?
Another error that needs correcting:no, it wasn’t that 1/3 of women have never had orgasms; the actual statistic was that it is quite normal for for overwhelming percent of women to NOT have experienced orgasms during sexual intercourse.Which is not surprising.Those statistics are revealing what most women should know anyway (if they had any self-knowledge to speak of):the area being scraped raw by unnecessary friction merely so a man can please himself is not the same arearequiring stimulation for a woman to achieve an orgasm.Which is why you have men unjustfiably proud of their little squirts and women doing Academy Award-winning Meg Ryan diner performances on a regular basis.
Attention Future Soulmate:Don’t worry, as long as you listen, we’ll have fun.
Tuesday I went off to physical therapy – again – I saw them before the spinal fusion surgery over a year ago, and they were just pleased as punch to see me again, by which I mean:they were NOT pleased as punch to see me again, since very little of their “therapy” worked the last time, so neither one of us can figure out why the neurologist sent me back to them.Well, I shouldn’t say that.They did realign my neck bones and kill the daily whiplash headache I had, but were unable to do anything about the bones sticking out of my lower spine.Since they last saw me, I’d chopped all my hair off, so it took a few minutes before the memory banks kicked in.
“Oh, it’s YOU!Why, we’re just pleased as punch to see you again!”
Result:just as we all suspected:nerve damage (duh!), about which they can do nothing, but they might be able to help me with the severe leg and foot tendon and muscle cramps.Naturally, the first thing I did was lose the page of exercises I’m supposed to be doing within 5 minutes of receiving it.
Typical.As soon as something wonderful happens, and as soon as Sekhmet does something wonderful, her enemy the demonic Sky Sadist pops up.“Bitch looks too happy!This will never do!How can I make her life miserable??”
Make her lose the physical therapy instructions, screw up her working blood glucose meter; make her buy an obscenely expensive replacement One-Touch meter from CVS; make the obscenely expensive replacement meter not work properly; make her lose her receipt so that she can’t return it; make the insulin results plateau without any way for her to prove to the doctor it because there are no meter readings … make sure she loses it during the only time of the year when the post office is so overwhelmed they can’t deliver the package with a new meter in it in a reasonable time … I go very quickly from being happy to banging my head against the desk in frustration.
I’d been so distracted by these other issues I hadn’t thought of my Daybook, Lucid Dreaming or Damien for a few days.So it was a pleasant surprise to suddenly see that the real Damien Echols had decided to take over his Facebook Page.
First thought:Yay!!I really had not wanted him to simply disappear; I enjoy his writing.
Second thought:uh-oh.He’s now going to see first hand the abject levels of stupidity entertained by most of his Facebook followers and disappear anyway.Twenty years of solitary confinement and NOW he’llbe clutching his head and screaming in despair, poor guy.So apparently, the psychic meant he has begun to heal PHYSICALLY; a few days of reading the idiocy of the weeping, sniveling, sniping women on his facebook page and he’ll be mentally unhinged in a manner of minutes.Sorry, Damien.I doubt there’s much you can do about that.
Idea for new invention:“Estrogen B-Gone!” room freshener.Hey, guys!Surrounded by too many stupid panting women acting like kindergarten level assholes?One quick spray of ….”
But I digress.Went back to constructing my Daybook and found more feast days christians stole from pagans: December 10th, Lux Mundi, Light of the World, the Roman celebration of the goddess Libertas and her torch of hope (think:Statue of Liberty – that’s her).The Catholic Church blatantly stole the celebration from the Romans, didn’t even bother to change the name and announced it was a Catholic celebration.It is not and never was.Isn’t there some sort of commandment aginst lying?
November 23rd, St. Clement’s Feast Day.I’m guessing that most people don’t give it too much thought as those who call themselves “blacksmiths” are few and far between these days … unless you’re dressed up like an elf and working on “Lord of the Rings”, or employed by a Renaissance Fair.In any event, at some point in everyone’s shared histories, blacksmithing was a very lucrative profession.The Catholic Church claims this is the Feast Day of Pope Clement I, the inexplicable patron saint of metalworkers and blacksmiths.It is not.It is a feast day stolen from Saxon pagans who celebrated the feast day of Wayland, or Wayland the smith, a mythical metalworker.His feast day marked the start of winter.Pope Clement, on the other hand, is not only not related in any fashion to blacksmithing and metalworking; he is instead known for creating forgeries that solidified the secular power of the Catholic church.Charming guy.
“Clement is included among other early Christian popes as authors of the Pseudo-Isidoran (or False) Decretals, a 9th century forgery. These decrees and letters portray even the early popes as claiming absolute and universal authority.[29] Clement is the earliest pope to whom a text is attributed.”(Wikipedia)
Uh-huh.Gee, he sure sounds like a patron saint of blacksmiths to me.Not.I’m wondering if there’s a way for pagans to collectively sue the Vatican and the 1,001 different Protestant cults to get our feast days back.
Drove into the Andover Mall parking lot looking for the credit union I’d switched to.Was not paying attention to the surroundings.Got out of the car. Suddenly was hit with nausea and stomach pains.Was thinking, “What the heck did I eat?” but couldn’t think of anything unusual.Was just about to get back in my car and drive home before I puked when I suddenly caught sight of the new seasonal business set up in the corner of the lot.Said, “Oh, no … not again.”
I hadn’t had this experience since I was a child – although, now that I’m thinking about it – I know I hadn’t walked through a christian christmas tree lot since I was a child, either.Now – all of a sudden – my childhood experiences with tree lots seemed to have returned.I was wondering if perhaps my friendship with a dogwood had resurrected it.
The dogwood stood outside of my office and is shaped much like the tree in this photo, although her branches lean a bit further down towards the ground.I’d always loved seeing her blossom, but I’d never met the hamadryad inside of her until quite recently.A note on that:some sources name her hamadryad as Kraneia, but other translations of the Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus identify Kraneia as being connected with a cherry.Perhaps a flowering cherry and a flowering dogwood were considered nearly identical in ancient Greece.
In any event, that was not the name I heard when she first spoke to me:Kraneia.She used a feminine term for angel – something like “Angelique” – maybe even Angela.I think what she meant was that she was a protective spirit, like an angel.In any event I’ve called her “Angelique” ever since.My sense of her was a being who was playful, joyful, giving and filled with love.
I do remember my first sense of her – I’d walked under her branches as her leaves were preparing to fall.All of a sudden, everything went blissfully silent and still.Keep in mind we’re on Broadway in Cambridge, so the sound of traffic disappearing is a real accomplishment.I was surrounded by a sweet and loving cone of silence and love – and I remember just looking up at her in awe and being overwhelmed with the sense of love and tenderness she exuded.A few days later she gave me a gift:a beautiful rock she’d confiscated from some teenage boys who were throwing it at squirrels and birds the night before.She said she slipped the rock under some of her leaves on the ground and hid it from them until they left.She saved it for me, she said, knowing that I would never hurt anyone with it.Which is true.I then went and looked her up for my Daybook.
Dogwood Magical Properties: Wishes, secrets, loyalty and protection. The fire of passion, desire and will. Associated with fertility and sexual attraction, happiness and comfort.
Back when I was in college, I wrote an account of my childhood experiences with tree lots. This account is not 100% accurate: I left out my younger brother and sister who were running around and squalling at the same time, and my parents took a bit longer to decide that watching me puke every year wasn't worth it and bought an artificial tree. But the rest of it is true.
THE CHRISTMAS TREE
Every year, after Thanksgiving, they would visit a local farm to buy a Christmas tree. At the age of two, she whimpered as they neared the farm, and when they arrived screamed and was hurried home, to regain what composure children of that age possess. At three, she knotted her face into folds as they neared, breathing heavily, covering her ears, weeping silently but at four, she remembered the sound of keening in her ears, and not knowing what she was hearing, complained of the pain in her head although nothing was noted but the suspicion of normal childhood vagaries. When she was five, she now knew what she was hearing. She stayed silent and still, trying not to listen. When asked if she were ill, she shook her head and unexpectedly vomited noisily in the back seat of the car. But when she was six, when told she was to be taken to buy a Christmas tree, she said, "No." Asked why she finally found the words and in her six year old voice, said something that explained
The
sound of
the cries she
could hear, had
always heard, they're
crying, she said, they hurt,
she said. They're dying, she said.
They can't breathe. They've been cut
in half, they're bleeding, they're screaming,
they're screaming, the trees are screaming, I
can hear them, I can feel them, I can't help them, she
said. Their feet are chopped off, their stumps are bleeding,
their stumps are bleeding,
The trees,
Mommy!
The trees,
Daddy!
Can't you
hear them?
Can't you
hear them?
Can't
you?
Her mother and father looked at each other for a long moment and without another word ushered her into the car. They drove to Sears, and picked out a silver metallic tree-effigy dusted in chemical snow, crinkling and tinkling like a silver bell and sparkling with ice-jewels. Which she loved with all her heart, for its silence and its stillness,
So, there’s this young man I work with.I will not identify him – he's a temp, I'm a perm, and the last thing he needs is to get canned because a cougar is drooling over his tail, and who knows how identifyable people are in these blogs …
… nonetheless, he is NOT my soul mate and I have never deluded myself into thinking he was.He is, however, one of those young, gorgeous quintessentially studly Latino hunks who has the inherant flirtational capability of making all women feel beautiful and desirable … and thus has North and Central American women drooling all over him at the moment.The only reason South American or European women haven’t joined the drooling parade is because I don’t think he has ever been to either locale.Were he to board a plane for, say, Rio de Janeiro or Copenhagen, trust me, he’d have women drooling all over him the minute he de-planed and his conquest would be global.
He is, in reality, a good friend.I’m the one who provoked the friendship by accosting him right after the U.S. men’s national soccer team kicked the crap out of somebody, and no one at the office knew about it except all the Latino men who are passionate about the sport.He was the first Latino man I saw the next morning, and so I hailed him.“You DO know the U.S. men’s national soccer team kicked ass last night, right?”
Of course he did.From that moment he was my best friend at work, and it still took a few months before I suddenly woke up and noticed he was breathtakingly gorgeous.He was a good decade younger than I was, if not more, so I hadn’t really thought of him that way.Then all of a sudden – being a mammal – I unfortunately went into heat and that was the end of me not thinking of him that way.Suddenly “that way” was all I thought about when I thought of him.
Not that I told HIM that, and I don’t plan to.I just lusted after him in secret.Hell, he’s assuredly more sexually perfect in my fantasies than he ever was or will be in real life; men that gorgeous are usually narcissistic and lazy in bed and can usually just lay back, flex their muscles and let the world of women beat a path to their door doing whatever women do to snag a gorgeous man they can impress their girlfriends with.
I’m convinced that if, by some miracle, he suddenly appeared on my doorstep and announced he had a “thing” for older women – what?You don’t honestly think I’d say “Forget it, kid!” do you? – I’d end up disappointed in him for not being the mind-reader he is in my fantasies:the guy who knows by instinct every single little thing that is guaranteed to drive me crazy with desire, leading me up, up, up and … over the “Mountain of O” and back down the other side into weak-kneed bliss.
It did occur to me, however, that the sexual fantasy version of Señor “O” may be another thing I might want to work on lessening as part of the “Search for a Soul Mate”.I can’t think of any man I’ve ever known who could compete with the perfect fantasy version of this young man.Well, maybe one.But how to go about making the lust dissipate I have no idea.
I do know that sometimes these things are difficult to walk away from, whether created in reality or not.The best example I can think of:my first love.You’d think it was someone in highschool or college, but actually, that wasn’t the case.In fact, I thought of highschool and college boys – when I was surrounded by them – as not all that exciting, and was beginning to wonder if I had an underactive libido or something.
And then I fell in love.I was 19.Went to work in an office.Again will not identify him.One of the attorneys (married of course) was a paraplegic – childhood polio.Absolutely charming man – adorable smile.I liked him very much as a person and hadn’t really thought of him “that way” until one day he asked me to come in to the office on a Saturday and help him with some backlogged work.We were the only two people in the office that Saturday.
Looking back on the situation, I still can’t believe how young and gullible I was, even then, but I said, “Sure!”, not even imagining that he had anything else on his mind except work.And in fact, we did catch up on work all morning, but by time I was getting extremely horny.Why?He was wearing the most erotic musky cologne I’d ever smelled on a man, and every time he came near me I just wanted to inhale him.We had lunch together in the break room, and then started chatting about this and that.I definitely noticed he had moved behind me, because the scent of his cologne was driving me crazy.He told me later that he was fairly sure I wouldn’t reject him because every time he came near me, he said, he watched my nipples harden.
I had no idea they were doing that (what woman watches her own nipples, just for the entertainment value of it?That’s a man’s job.)As for me, I remember being amazed that I had started out the day not thinking of him in any way other than a boss, and by lunch time I so desperately needed him to bang me like a pile driver I thought I would die of longing.Go figure.
So finally, he just balanced himself on his crutches, leaned over, kissed my neck and stroked the sides of my breasts with his thumbs and watched me have an intense orgasm right there in the break room.He must have loved it; I couldn’t believe it had just happened.My face was bright red from the rush and I was gasping for air; he locked the door, removed all my clothing (and very few of his, which was even more erotic for some reason), kissed me all over, paying special attention to various and sundry naughty bits, and then took me on the break room table.I couldn’t get enough of him, and he was so talented at what he was doing, I had at least two if not more orgasms that afternoon, and that afternoon launched an intense affair that lasted for quite some time until we both had to move to different areas of the country and had to break it off.I wasn’t sure I’d survive the separation I had become so addicted to him and his ability to send me over the moon on a daily basis.
I always assumed his skill – which was considerable – came from being a paraplegic, in that he had to develop various other talents to compensate for the loss of his legs.And was he ever skillful:one of the things he learned early on was how to listen when a woman shyly told him the things that pleasured her.He figured out early on that by pleasing her, he ultimately succeeded in considerably pleasing himself, and you’d be surprised how few men actually learn that.
Although I have to say, some of the things which pleased me came out of some of his suggestions.One of the advantages of an older man bedding an inexperienced young girl is the ability to mold her in many respects to his own pleasures as well. Sometimes looking back on it, I do wonder how much of my desires now originated with him. Some definitely originated with me.But others?Not so sure.
The advantage that he had in being a benchmark for me that very few men could live up to, was that – as I later learned - most men care only about their miniscule “wham-bam-squirt- and thank you ma’am’s, and most women are so retarded they’ll play along instead of dumping the fool and demanding he come back when he learns something useful.I recently read a statistic (forget who did the study, though) that only 1/3 of women have experienced orgasms.Trust me when I tell you:that’s not ALL the woman’s fault, although women are certainly partially to blame for it.It is, however, a result of womens’ low standards in settling placidly for idiotic men who only care about their miniscule squirts and nothing else.It’s really sad.
But I digress.Point being:that affair happened decades ago, and very recently I unexpectedly caught a whiff of that same cologne he used to wear.The moment I smelled it, I had an intense rush of arousal … that was his power, that I could still get that aroused from the scent of his cologne, even after all these years.Would it be equally as impossible to rid myself of the fantasy of Señor “O”?
I hope not, or the Search for a Soulmate is going to take a dejected turn to the south ...
Has anyone noticed how appallingly pretentious poetry has become?Pretentiously written, pretentiously reviewed, accessible only to the pretentious.I hadn’t really paid all that much attention to poetry as a rule (like many people, I considered the art form ruined by the excessively pretentious) – and then I found this little gem, while researching Ivy for my Day Book:
MY WINDOW-IVY.
Over my window the ivy climbs,
Its roots are in homely jars;
But all the day it looks at the sun,
And at night looks out at the stars.
The dust of the room may dim its green,
But I call to the breezy air:
"Come in, come in, good friend of mine!
And make my window fair."
So the ivy thrives from morn to morn,
Its leaves all turned to the light;
And it gladdens my soul with its tender green,
And teaches me day and night.
What though my lot is in lowly place,
And my spirit behind the bars;
All the long day I may look at the sun,
And at night look out at the stars.
What though the dust of earth would dim,
There 's a glorious outer air
That will sweep through my soul if I let it in,
And make it fresh and fair.
Dear God! let me grow from day to day,
Clinging and sunny and bright!
Though planted in shade, Thy window is near,
And my leaves may turn to the light.
Mary Mapes Dodge
I loved the last line:“and my leaves may turn to the light”.Considering how often we lose out on poetry such as this – simple, touching - thanks to the snootily pretentious snobs among us, I was thinking of starting a “Real People Poetry Anthology”.Anyone who has been previously published in a pretentious poetry anthology is barred from submitting anything to the anthology without issuing an apology to the 99% who are the REAL poetry people(to steal a phrase from the Occupiers).And yes, if you suspect I’m still holding a grudge against the University of Michigan Hopwood Award people for not even offering a simple thank you to the students who submit heart-felt poetry to them … you’re probably right.Those Hopwood People really do need an “anti-pretentious spell” cast on them.Really.
Written on Thanksgiving, 2011
Turkey is in the oven.Salad and relish in the serving dishes.Giblets waiting for the gravy-making hour.Stuffing waiting to go in the oven an hour ahead of time.Pie is made and ready to go in the oven when the turkey is done.I have something to be seriously grateful about.The Lioness of Courage.I ordered her a shrine.Painted red, with flames.[www.bethamine.com, in case anyone wants to see a nice affordable wall shrine.]As I’m employed elsewhere, I can’t do the full Ancient Egyptian rites of temple service that the priests appointed by Ramses II would have conducted for her – that would take all day - but I can do the best I can.
Here in the United States, “Thanksgiving” can either be a day of thanks for all sorts of things, or a Day of Guilt and Atonement, considering the way westerners thanked the hosts who took pity on them for their stupidity in not preparing for a New England winter properly.I know of at least two states that wisely decided to stop celebrating Columbus Day and instead celebrate Indigenous Peoples Awareness Day, or something to that effect.
I decided to move the injection time back an hour a day until I reach the evening medication hour – somewhere around – which is when my vacation ends and I’ll be going back to work.I wanted to do it at night when I wasn’t worried about needing to leave for work.Today will be the first day when I do it (inject myself with insulin) on my own.
Instead I discovered how easy it is for the Bayer pharmaceutical company to steal money out of the pockets of diabetics.I got my test meter in 2005.It used Ascensia Autodiscs (the test strips that are used to test my blood glucose).Last time I bought autodiscs I bought quite a few boxes so that I wouldn’t have to buy them again for quite some time.That “some time” just rolled around, so I went into CVS to buy some more.
WRONG!!!Bayer had stopped making them.I was told my meter was “too old” – five years is too old??!!?? – the University of Michigan Health Service gave me these things in 2005.Too old??!!??Only in the land of Greedy Shareholders and Criminal Management is it too old – had Bayer any conscience, they would have made these meters to last a lifetime.Now they don’t even last five years, while still working perfectly.
I now had to buy a new meter, new lancets and new testing strips.The lancets were so weak they didn’t puncture anything.The tester was so poorly designed it kept kicking out error messages.The cost was astronomical.I came home so angry I was prepared to go kick in Bayer’s front door and curse them and their greedy shareholders out, because, trust me when I tell you, the only reason they did this was to heist money out of the pockets of diabetics and put it into the pockets of shareholders.(Note to all the idiots complaining about the OWS protestors?1):stop listening to Fox News because they are lying when they call protestors drug adicts and alcoholics.Watch Global Revolution TV and see for yourself how desperately unethical ALL of the major news outlets are, and 2) Here’ a good reason why people are complaining.)And of course I came home without the correct test strips and sat on my bed in tears, unable to test anything.
You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor. (Aristotle)
Since my Grandmother came back from the dead and reminded me of her embroidery skills (see last entry), I was thinking of a somewhat creative endeavor.I’d ordered a few yards of on-sale white linen to make a cheap and easy robe (stole the basic pattern off of the Servants of the Light website); was thinking of trying to embroider some motifs on a stole I could use with it.
Shuffled off to Breaking Dawn, Part I on Monday and then off to buy groceries.Movie:satisfying.Really impressive:the make-up and CGI (I assume) talent that turned Kristen Stewart into a skeletal anorexic as she got more and more pregnant.Since I’ve seen her in interviews quite recently, it’s obvious she never looked that bad – it was all make-up and special effects, and holy crap, did she look dreadful.Dumb women who really ARE anorexic should watch that movie just to see how creepy and sickening they really look.Kudos to Kristen Stewart for being willing to look that skeletal and dreadful for a movie role, even if she really wasn’t.
Grocery shopping:exhausting.Attached a food grinder attachment to the Kitchen Aid MixMaster for the first time this morning.Made Mom’s Cranberry-Orange relish, a Thanksgiving staple, which I’d never been able to make because a blender is not the same thing as a food grinder, I don’t care what anyone says; and I only bought the food grinder this year.(Acually, I don’t know if anyone ever DID say that, I’m just heading them off at the pass should they get a mind to).It still has to – what’s the word? – all I can think of is “settle” … “meld the flavors” … oh, who knows?It has to stay in the refrigerator for a day or so, to taste right, for the flavors to infuse … or something.The other Thanksgiving staple that has to be made ahead of time is Mom’s Thanksgiving stuffing, another dish that has to sit in the fridge for a day or so, to let all of the onions and sage and celery seed and other herbs and spices absorb into the toast cubes just right.
Tuesday:Was supposed to get my back, feet and legs x-rayed by the back surgeon.I was depending on him too much to fix me, I know that.But I was getting more and more crippled and was too young to be that way.
Ever see the movie, Vampires Suck?He leaves her and she has a temper tantrum on the floor of the forest:rolling around on her back, screaming, pounding her fists, kicking her legs.It’s so over the top it makes you laugh.Not so funny when it was me (in my own imagination, that is), after NOT getting my feet and legs x-rayed:I hate doctors, I hate doctors, I hate doctors, I hate doctors!!!Instead it was more medicine, more medicine, more medicine!!!!I don’t want more medicine!!!Fix me, fix me, fix me, you bastards!!!
But nooooooooo.Back to the neurologist for another bout of tasering.Another bout of physical therapy.More intense medication, so strong he wants me to start it on a Friday, in case I pass out.I was suddenly completely exhausted by it all.
Sekhmet’s Roar
After that round of unhappiness, it was off to the endocrinologist.I should mention that there is one other teensy weensy insignificant little snag on the road to true bliss with a soul mate I might not have mentioned until now.Cowardice.By which I mean “needle phobia”.By which I mean:if I didn’t somewhere find the courage to inject insulin into myself by Wednesday, I was going to die a slow and painful death, which would probably make the search for a soul mate a moot point.The oral medication had stopped working.I needed insulin and I needed it now.And the needle phobia prevented me from injecting myself with anything.
The needle phobia is a life-long problem.One of my father’s most humiliating moments was taking his five or six year old daughter to the pediatrician (can’t remember where Mom was) after I’d slid on a wooden floor in a pair of tights and got a huge splinter in the bottom of my foot.Off to have it removed.Next requirement: a tetanus shot.The doctor and my father literally had to chase me around the doctor’s office, out into the waiting room, me screaming in terror at the top of my lungs – fear must have given me wings for me to outrun the both of them with a still-sore foot, but I did.My father was completely embarrassed by my behavior, and both of us still remember that event.
Suddenly I was facing the prospect of giving daily injections to myself, and the fear was eating me up inside.I already knew that the needles were so small I didn’t even feel them, but it’s a phobia I’m combatting here – logic didn’t really apply.I printed out an article on needle-phobia for the doctor, as I don’t think either one of them – doctor or nurse practitioner – know how debilitating it is.I was so stressed out on Wednesday morning I forgot to bring the printout with me.
Wednesday, November 23rd, the Day Before Thanksgiving.Back to the Endocrinologist for another round of insulin injections.I’d stopped at CVS only to be handed a bunch of nonsense I couldn’t identify:a pen which was not the injector, a bag of needles I had no idea what to do with, and no insulin.I headed back for the doctor’s office, feeling confused, nauseous and frightened.To make the stress worse, there was an inexplicable traffic jam (in North Andover?) which made me ten minutes late.
On the other hand, I remembered that I did manage to combat another phobia a few years ago, so maybe there was hope for me.That one was thunderstorms.How did I do it?I got tired of it, plain and simple; it ran my life so totally I got tired of it.I thought, maybe that will work in this case.
I’d printed out a Charge which reminded me of Sekhmet generally, and specifically (“and the fear that coils about your heart in the times of your trials”) concerning what I was facing.
I am the Queen of Magick and the dark of the Moon,
hidden in the deepest night.
I am the mystery of the Otherworlds
and the fear that coils about your heart in the times of your trials.
I am the soul of nature that gives form to the universe;
it is I who awaits you at the end of the spiral dance.
Most ancient among gods and mortals,
let my worship be within the heart that has truly tasted life,
for behold all acts of magick and art are my pleasure
and my greatest ritual is love itself.
Therefore let there be beauty in your strength,
compassion in your wrath,
power in your humility,
and discipline balanced through mirth and reverence.
You who seek to remove my veil and behold my true face,
know that all your questing and efforts are for nothing,
and all your lust and desires shall avail you not at all.
For unless you know my mystery,
look wherever you will, it will elude you,
for it is within you and nowhere else.
Behold, I have ever been with you,
from the very beginning,
the comforting hand that nurtured you in the dawn of life,
and the loving embrace that awaits you at the end of each life,
for I am that which is attained at the end of the dance.
I am the womb of new beginnings,
as yet unimagined and unknown.
The Charge of the Crone
written by Jim Garrison
I remembered pleading with Sekhmet to roar when I met the psychic.Was she even standing behind me somewhere, or was she doing things her own way, in her own time?
As I was sitting in the doctor’s office, clutching my plastic CVS bag of nonsense, I whispered, “Sekhmet, please help me.Please give me a tiny crumb of your courage,”
I could envision her on the wall.The Sekhmet I saw on the wall merely regarded me implacably, not moving, not speaking, just watching me.I knew that the fear had changed somewhat, to a fear of shaming her, of disappointing her, but I wasn’t aware of the meaning of the shift.I thought it was just that she had no use for cowards, or for whiners.
The doctor came back into the room, preparing to give me an insulin dose.Since CVS had so utterly messed up the prescription, the doctor decided to give me a set of freebies:an injector and two bottles of insulin.Before I could talk myself out of it, I asked her to show me how to load the syringe.A little surprised, she quickly consented.
I loaded the syringe myself.5 ml.10 ml.I withdrew the syringe from the tiny bottle.The doctor prepared to re-take the syringe and inject the insulin herself, knowing darn well that I couldn't do it, and pleased that I had done that much.We were discussing taking myself off to LawrenceHospital on Thanksgiving to have them give me insulin.The problem was, we were pretty sure Blue Cross/Blue Shield wouldn’t cover it.
“Show me how to load the injector,” I said.And she did.Without looking down, I pressed the injector against my skin … looked at Sekhmet’s face on the wall.
“Sekhmet, I love you,” I said softly, pressed the injector button … and injected myself wth insulin.
The doctor’s jaw dropped in shock.“You DID it!” she cried.“You actually did it!!”This was the woman who had watched me literally unable to do it for the last 6 years – well, as long as I’d lived here, but believe me when I tell you, I couldn’t have done it before then, either.
I of course burst into tears, but the phobia had broken – just like that – and I had suffered from the phobia since I was a small child.
Sekhmet chuffed softly, turned, and strolled away from me calmly – she’d done her part and had other important things to do that day.Apparently, dissolving a life-long phobia that meant the difference between life and death in her fiery breath was worth her attention.Getting the attention of a psychic wasn’t all that important.Lesson learned.She doesn’t roar for the fun of it.
Ladies and Gentleman, welcome to the morally bankrupt wasteland of 
