Homo-sapient

So, Firefighter Dude is a Republican. In my little Dem den, that couldn't go without comment, though I also may have mentioned that he called me "Libby." I reminded them that Twilight-and-Dave, the currently pregnant part of our own friend-clan, are of opposite political persuasions.

To which Geoff replied:
"I just don't understand these hetero-political relationships."

;-)

In the Sky with Diamonds

Caleb is a slender bean of a three year old, with the sweet warmth of his mom and his Aunty Lisa. He's helpful and considerate, he's curious, he asks lots of questions. Last week Lisa and Ali (Lisa's sister, Caleb's mom) said goodbye to their grandma, who passed on Wednesday. Before she passed Ali was concerned she had not yet talked with Caleb about death, and she was gathering into her consciousness ways she could talk with Caleb about Nana when the time came.

Enter Earth Hour. See post below for details on last night's worldwide movement to turn out the lights between 8 and 9pm local time. Lisa and Ali and Caleb lit candles and watched the stars. It was a beautiful clear night and the darkness was calming. Then they started talking about Nana.

ALI: You know, Nana's up there in the stars.

CALEB: She is?

ALI: Yeah.

LISA: What do you think she's saying to us?

CALEB: .... HELP!

Brain Bomb/Earth Hour

This is one of those nights where I stare straight ahead and at some point realize my body has sunk to the left like I'm a Leaning Tower of Pizza. 12 hour work days went away with winter, but today, ah, today, they're back with a vengeance. I'm so tired I have to remind my body to lie down when it's time.

On a happier note, who is taking part in Earth Hour 2008 this weekend?? So fun. I'm curious to see the spike in births 9 months from now. :-) Lights out may turn out to save energy tomorrow night but consume resources in the form of increased population down the line! Tee hee.

What God Says

Oprah is the new Jesus.

My friend, Britt, loves Oprah. A fan myself, but a less avid TV watcher, I listen greedily to Britt's reports, of recent Oprah shows, of her latest magazine articles, about the love and tolerance and awareness the woman generates daily WORLDWIDE.

Britt was telling me about Oprah's new show, THE BIG GIVE, where she has made a game out of giving contestants money, to see how much they can in turn multiply it and give it to people in need. That's a story straight out of the Bible, where a father gives each of his sons "talents." The son who puts his talents to work and multiplies them wins his father's favor. (Pardon my bastardized version of the Bible. Maybe we'll publish it and call it the Queen Pema version.)

Well, I'm a downright sucker for giving money away. So upon Britt's proclamation, and a few dips into the pre-dinner cocktails we were on, I replied, "Oprah is the new Jesus."

Then we laughed our heads off.

Then I thought, I should blog that.

Then I googled for images that might illustrate my short but profound sentiment.

Then I found all these "Pray for Oprah" links that called her the Devil and Satan and misguided and brain-washed, and gleefully leading dangerous millions of people to their firey eternal graves!! Oprah! Please, everyone pray for her and all those innocents misguided by her EVIL DEEDS!!!

Sheeeucks, folks. Can we get a COTTON-PICKIN GRIP ON REALITY PLEASE GOD ALMIGHTY??? A grip is all I ask. One teeny tiny little GRASP on the physical world thank you very MUCH.

According to these pleas, Oprah is getting attacked for her active role in teaching "A Course In Miracles," which is described this way: a complete self-study spiritual thought system...it teaches that the way to universal love and peace—or remembering God—is by undoing guilt through forgiving others.

According to Wikipedia, over 1.5 million copies have sold worldwide in sixteen different languages.

Sounds pretty harmless, right? Pretty progressive and peace-generating, and moving, hey? Even Christ-like.

Not to the thumpin' folk, who have blanched at the experience of the book's "scribe," Helen Schucman. Her spiritual testimony bears that she heard an "inner dictation" that identified itself as the voice of Jesus Christ. It said, "This is a course in miracles. Please take notes."

IMPOSSIBLE!! HERETICAL!! HEATHEN! Antithetical to the Bible, so many have cried. But I have one thing to ask....

Isn't the Bible written in the same way? Is it not a series of books written in the hands of scribes who were moved by the holy spirit? If the system worked for God flawlessly back in the days of papyrus and ink pots, granites and chisel, then imagine how fast he can record his thoughts via a few eager listeners in the computer age. Thank you divine mortals Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Thank you contemporary scribes who are willing to put your butts on the line by answering your spiritual call amid a fearful public.

When a very ordinary Mary is plucked from an ordinary life to deliver the son of, oh, you know, GOD... what will it take in today's world for believers to open up and allow the possibility that the spirit still moves ordinary folks to deliver extraordinary messages? The Bible went blockbuster. In a world where sequels sell, why would God stop there?

overwhelm

Sometimes the ideas come on fast. Sometimes every trip outside and every overheard conversation is art. Sometimes the invisible string that holds everything together materializes right before your eyes and you laugh under your breath. How can you keep up with the synchronicity when its pace rides this high? What can you expect around the next corner, or whom?

My friend Dan tells me that even in my naked forays onto the park bench I am an enigma. But the paragraph above means only what it says. My ideas are headed in so fast right now there's a lineup of hovering aircraft waiting for a go at the landing strip. Everything in my physical world seems to be tied, in color, form and content, to my emotional world--I think it's always like this, but not nearly as often noticed. I also seem to be conjuring, controlling and creating things with my thoughts. I'm going to put this to some good use instead of being so grumpy at work all the time, and see what comes of it.

Go ahead. Get dark...3/29/08

Save the Date, Save the Hour, Save the Earth.
One hour on March 29, 2008. That's it!
Click on the pic for the text story or watch the YouTube vid. Check this out!

Kitten friendly

Caleb is Lisa's 3 year old nephew. He and his mom, Ali, are visiting Lisa in SB. Today, they dropped in on Kara and Kate after an Easter egg hunt and a trip to the beach. Kara asked Caleb what he liked best about Santa Barbara.

"Aunty Lisa," he said.

He might be enjoying Aunty Lisa, but the kitties are having a field day with someone closer to the ground and much more entertaining than the rest of us. They were playing with the strings off the back of of Ali's blouse.

CALEB: Yeah, I used to do that when I was a cat, too.

ALI: When were you a cat?

CALEB: I can't tell you.

Good Things Return to Good People

...so the card says. It continues:

"...And so it goes with you. I came across this treasured vase of yours as I was packing to move towards the city you were moving away from when you parted with this piece. But now you are reunited."

I couldn't figure out who or what was sending me a box from New Jersey. The moment I saw the circular stripes inside the bubble wrap, I knew who the box was from. Barbara. Barbara! My vase! The vase!

The story of the vase goes like this. In college, $20 was a lot of money. A LOT. Several days of burritos. Even more of coffees. More still of proper dinners made from groceries from the market.

But one day, as I passed the vendors in the main quad, I fell in love, IN LOVE with a ceramic vase that sat among the handiwork of a local ceramic artist, on his portable wooden shelves. It was a long, lithe thing, dressed in blue-hued stripes in circles around its top to bottom. It was delicious. It hummed in my hands and I couldn't put it down. So I dropped the $20, choosing beauty over hunger for perhaps the first time.

Years of my love of this vase had it travel with me from city to city, until I was in New York and moving back to the West and realizing I had no place for the vase, and no heart to see it broken if it didn't survive the trip one more time.

So I gave it or I sold it to Barbara. I don't remember which. She had was just moving back to New York from San Francisco, where we had come to know each other. It was sad sad sad to part with the vase I had loved so dearly. But she took it and treasured it and understood its story.

And then, yesterday I open a mystery box to discover that Barbara, in her recent move, has found time and joy and inclination to pack it up and send it back to me. The vase.
What is that they say? If you love something set it free? If it comes back to you it's yours. If not, it was never meant to be.

I can't tell you the laughter from deep in my gut that came from seeing the stripes in their bubble wrap, the recognition of what was going on here, the remembrance of how freaking downright cool Barbara remains.

Thank you Thank you Thank you, little vase for finding your way back and Barbara, for the presence of mind and heart that understands the meaning of a few blue stripes and the history of a hungry $20.

Good Things return to good people. Good people return to good people. Thank you, Barbara.

If You Wanna Make the Blog

...write me a poem. Dan caught wind of the grouch in me today and sent me two things: a YouTubed man playing a flute made of broccoli. Hm. And this fabulous poem.

Pema, Pema, oh so fair
Is in a mood, you'd best beware
So watch your tone
Or you're on your own
When she swings you 'round by the hair

Don't babble on while on the phone
Like some poor freak on methadone
She'll send you flying in the air
And where you land? She just don't care
Long as she can't hear you bitch and moan

So keep it calm and keep it cool
And make this guide your golden rule
Treat Pema kind and Pema sweet
Or on your demise we do compete
In the latest office pool

Goes straight to my heart. And cools the heels of my hellfire. Thanks, Dan.

If these walls

Quotes in our house tonight...

PEMA (excited, not surprisingly, about food): "Mmm! These grapefruits rock the house!"

later...

LISA: You okay? I heard an "Ohmygosh."

PEMA: I put on my new underwear. Look how cute they are.

LISA: Ohmygosh! Those ARE cute.

synchronicity

A while back I put a profile on Match.com. The way it works is you pay for the monthly service and you communicate with other Match subscribers. When you stop paying, your profile remains and others can still communicate with you, but you can't respond unless you've paid up.

I stopped paying a long time ago. But recently, a guy I once corresponded with but never met sent me a "wink." I wasn't inspired to sign up again, and figured Santa Barbara is small. I'll probably see him around town.

About a month later, I'm walking down the bike path at the ocean and this mug I vaguely recognize walks by. It's easy to let him keep walking--he doesn't know who I am. But then I remember...you were expecting this! This is the maybe-I'll-see-him-around-town moment. This is that guy. I don't even know his name. But I'm intrigued that I thought this, and here it is, so I turn around to stop him.

"Excuse me!"

He turns around.

"Are you a firefighter?"

"Among other things."

"I think we corresponded on Match."

He did this funny double-take, like, what?? You recognize me from a picture and called me out? We only had a few minutes to talk, but I was so curious at the synchronicity of what got me right there right then that I gave him my number so we could talk it out some more.

When we gabbed on the phone a few days later, we discovered an even stranger serendipity. The out-of-town cousin he was hosting that day is the recent ex of my friend, Ceal, the friend I had just spent my day with. And the common bond we all share is Michael. Firefighter dude went to high school with him. Ceal and I met through him.

Sometimes, we get spinning in such tight circles, we're sitting in our very own laps.

Food is Art

Pema Whispering

Okay, so, because I'm researching dogs, I've steeped myself in the TV show "The Dog Whisperer" with Cesar Millan. He's fantastic. His training places HIM as the pack leader of an animal, and thus gets the dog to play into a submissive role to the leader's dominant one. There are consistent tricks you can pull to communicate your dominance.

I wondered if it would work on kittens. So I tried it, and low and behold, the kittens are mellowing out around me.

So...today, finding myself back in grump-mode at work, I started reviewing the moments of the morning, trying to figure out the thing that tripped me up. And before I knew it I was practicing Dog Whispering on myself. Self-Reflexive Pet Training. Canine Behavior Modification Sans Canine.

This, my friends, is what happens to creatives exposed to too much of anything. Imagine me after watching Rainman. Yep. I talked like that for days. Definitely for days.

Happy Sundaes

Seniors get free sundaes. So the server asked Lisa's mom:
"Would you like a happy ending with that?"

Daylight SaveMe Time

Shouldn't I be zippy and charged because it still feels early, now that the clocks have changed? No. It's 9:13pm and I can't keep my eyes open. Two little play-warriors pounced me awake through the nights last weekend, and I'm still trying to catch up with the sleep they beat out of me with their furry paws.

Letting Someone Else Say It

I just heard the DJ say that, these days, we have Jon Stewart on TV. In the Sixties & Seventies they had Frank Zappa records. Then they played "TROUBLE EVERY DAY" and I wondered if dial radios in broad dashboards, driving 55, and the time it takes to hold an album in your hand before you play it, like the ritual of lighting a cigarette or making love, made permanent memories and deeper politic than our funny guy Jon, who we can channel surf away from during the commercials while we shift off the tingling cheek and onto the other to let someone else say it, think it for us.
KCRW's Gary Calamar hosts Domenic Priore as guest DJ on OPEN ROAD, 3/9/08. Priore is a rock historian; his new book is RIOT ON SUNSET STRIP: ROCK N ROLL'S LAST STAND IN HOLLYWOOD.

Cat's Paw

Seems the cat has my tongue in recent days. Something must be brewing. This is a picture from NASA's website of space photos. The Cat's Paw Nebula is a birthplace of stars. Can't you just hear them gee-gooing over the bouncing new baby beams of light, just like we do here on Earth?

You can go here for an astronomy picture of the day. TODAY's is unbelievable.

Canine Language

I'm researching dogs for a play I'm writing.
They TALK!

Wanna...kiss?

smmooooooooooooch mm!

Duane Daniels

With a thank you to Lisa for blogsitting while I was visiting Gramcracker in the virtual no-fly zone, I'll segue to another entry for the Thank You Catalog. This one is for Duane, who strangely, miraculously, sweetly has shown up as a guardian to me since the moment I met him.

Have you heard of soul contracts? Carolyn Myss suggests that before we're born, we as souls make contracts with each other; and each event that occurs in our life's relationships, each joy and commitment and betrayal, is decided upon before we even take form in this world. If that's true, Duane must have agreed to be my rock. Ha--both my anchor and my rock-and-roll.

Duane offered me a job the day after I met him, and in so doing, introduced me to the love of my life: theatre. As house manager of a downtown San Diego, 99-seat brick box, the theatre took physical shape beyond my curiosities about plays. I sold tickets and counted the house. I swept the floor and watched wide-eyed the actors as they assembled in my reception area that doubled as a sort of back stage. I listened to the same play night after night and took flight to the cadence of the script, the rhythm of the actors, and the uniqueness of each night. I was inside the thrill of live performance and loved nothing more.

With a presence that calmed me every time he came near, Duane became my first boyfriend in many years. There's a funny story about how dating him put me back in the closet: after years of being gay, I didn't want my family to discount my life before him--like he was a silver bullet to the "lesbian problem"--so I didn't tell them I had a boyfriend for a very long time.

Cities and ambitions and years parted us. But Duane remained ever present in the dear parts of my dreams and survival. It seemed coincidental that he was in New York City on 9/11, and our astonished and shaken days that followed were spent together in this my new city. It seemed coincidental until last December, when my world shook again at the loss of Michael and his daughter. Duane and I both happened to be in San Diego on visits and met for dinner. As we walked into the restaurant, I got a flurry of calls that Michael hadn't shown up to his destination, and the rest of the evening was spent in distracted conversation. By the next morning, Michael's plane had been reported missing, and Duane was there to drive me home in my fragile state from San Diego while we waited for the news.

In between those times, he would show up in New York when I was a playwriting student and slip me a few hundred dollars, to pay back when I could. He gave me money to buy a car in L.A. when I was so broke I was stealing quarters to pay for half-sandwiches at the corner gas station...all the while saying I could pay him back whenever I was able.

This is a man who is not always money rich. A producer, actor, director, he has money when he's working and bread crusts when he's not. But when he's had it, he has shared it, and has subsequently cushioned the sharp corners of my life with his generosity.

It was his presence during the loss of Michael last December that crystallized it for me. I always realized how special Duane is to me, but when coincidentally he was there on the day I would need him most, in the same way that coincidentally he was in NYC with me when it was falling down, it brought even more to the fore that he's a living guardian angel of sorts. Duane without wings, but with long lanky arms around a deep hug, Duane without halo, but with a rich sweet baritone for making you feel serenaded in speech, Duane with the expansive heart and wicked stage smarts. I'm thankful for our souls' contract.

Guest Blogger--Lisa

I was making lunch today and I said to Tania, "I like having Pema live with us."
Tania (who always wants to know why) asked, "Why?"
Me: "Because she brought rice cakes back into my life."


That Pema, quite a gal!