Fetish

Cucamonga. I haven't said it in a long time and thought I should.

It's the name of a California town that always reminded me of calls we had to each other as children. Meant to be mysterious and Native American-like as we crept around the swamp and palmettos that surrounded the house. All of us had our own particular signal. Megaline's was 'E-awk-kee', Tootie Middlebrook and my sister Lynda's signal changed depending on how drunk they were on Silly that particular day - the more dumb and doofus, the better. Bobby and Billy Tilly's sounded an awful lot like farts and burps, but we ignored them. Their red orange hair made it pretty plain where they were amongst all the green without a call. Mine was "Cucamonga".

I know I must have heard it somewhere, but it became my talisman against all things dangerous and nefarious when I was very young. It also reflected surprize and angst as in, "Your mama is whistling for you!"

"Cucamonga!" I'd say. The child's equivalent of, "Oh, shit!"

Talisman's are very important to us as adults. Many of us college educated and grown up folks don't think we need such things, wouldn't admit it, but almost to the one of us, we have them: Rabbit Feet, a lucky coin, our daddy's sweater or our granny's afghan, we're all attached to something physical as a shield Against IT at some point in our lives.

That's why I took to making Fetish Dresses for friends and special occasions. I start with a Dolly Dress (* see explanation below) and then decorate the hem or edges or seams or somewhere with fetish charms. As I make the dress and string the charms, I think about the person who will be wearing it and what I want for them. I want protection, a sense of specialness, health and security, full bank accounts, and mostly just love. Lest the men in my life felt left out, I've made Fetish Shirts, too.

There's a sort of alpha state that I get into as I work and bead and embellish. I often light a candle because I realize that this is a special ritual piece, just as important as any surplice a priest would wear or asfidity and bag a shaman would have. The pieces that go on the fetish are important. After the basic ritual garment is finished I sit in front of all my embellishments in piles of trays around me and think of the person, what they need, what would be most efficacious to them. The resultant choice often looks like there's positively NO rhyme or reason, but I know that there is.

I start beading and they just fall into place, making sense as they are placed next to each other like a sentence in a long paragraph. This works with an unknown person as well, when I'm just 'called' to make a piece and put it out THERE.

I've had people run across a lot crying with outstretched arms as if seeing a lost child or parent. They go straight up to the dress, remove it from the hangar and clutch it as if someone else might try to take it. This happened at a benefit art sale for a local feminist book store. "Her" story was that she was to go home and would see the father who sexually abused her for years. She was to testify at his trial for molesting another child. She had 'asked' for a special something to protect her when in his presence in the courtroom so that she could tell him and the world how he had damaged her life and sense of innocence. She didn't find it in a department store and she'd looked.

Her Fetish Dress was a serene peacock blue linen with handmade Celtic Runes sewn and painted on it around the hem. I used: FEOH- Protection, to hasten all affairs to their next stage; ANSUR- Education, communication, writing and debate; RAD -Safety in travel; KEN -Physical well being, confidence; JARA- Help in legal matters, YR- Protection, to remove obstacles, PEORTH- Legacies, finding lost things; EOLH- Protection against the evil thoughts of others; SIGEL - Health, physical strength and self-confidence, clear thinking; BEORC- Domestic, family; TIR -Recuperation, healing, victory; ENG -Successful completion; DAEG- Growth. Of course it was HER dress!

Now there is this new one for Tary Peace's birthday. She almost didn't get it because I lost her measurements and had to cut it from memory. When she finally got them for me, the dress was a done deal and I used them to check it. I was pretty close. I took two days to choose her talismans and bead it - I have to be in the right place to work on it.

What you're seeing above is the finished work. Even though she's a water sign, her soul is like fire. I thought that the one picture I took below expressed this best. I discovered on this particular blog that the fetishes don't like to be photographed. The last shot is what happened when I tried to clean them up. I feel like I'm getting the 'call' to make five more!! If it's you, could you please let me know your bust/waist/hip measurements and your height? It will help.

(Note* The name Dolly Dress is what I call the very free flowing, draping dresses with odd hems and gores, I've made for almost 30 years. They came from a dream I had where I was Dolly Parton in a room full to the walls with dresses of the most beautiful colors and fabrics. My Dark Man applauded approval in the dream, so I started making them. Women love them. Men think they're sexy because they just slip over the curves of a woman like a whisper.)

Are you expanded enough from dinners today? Are leftovers haunting your refrigerators -- and your thighs? I was extra good today. Just ate fixings and extras and Martha and Jim Marshall's house - no turkey and no pie. I had several invitations, as I'm such a Queen of a guest, thank you for friends!

The holidays brought out the best and the worst in people, as usual. Back in my younger days, I worked in some high-toned restaurants. Easy money, no work to bring home. We always said that holidays and full moons were when all the crazies came out. This year, both almost coincided.

I witnessed two blow outs - one when a poor old woman with paranoid schizophrenia started a rucus at the supermarket. The staff was chasing her aroung a shopping cart. And the crowded store was not condusive to a road race.

This evening, on the road in front of my home, a couple got out of their vehicle to have a domestic. It escalated. I dialed 911 because the word 'kill' was mentioned a number of times punctuating the curses. They rolled off before the Sheriff got here. So much for good will toward (wo)man.

ATCs are doing well on eBay considering that I've kept my art separate from my eBay business. I want to start listing them here as well. There are just a few of the Flasher Series left that didn't sell or trade at the Gala Show. We had lots of traffic at the gallery. The two fire marshalls conservatively estimated a turnout on opening night of around 5,000 people. I stayed out front and attached straps to everyone of age and took donations at one of the two front entrances.

I have some new art projects in the works. Also found some of the old writing from contributors to the Deepwater Journal piled in a box. Have promises of brand new writings from some of my 'children' yet to appear. I've gotten lazy about showing off art and words. Maybe I'll hit up some of my artist friends for something new.

Dina Kerik. Mood: Digestive

Coon Children

The burble of fuzz you see above are various parts of three infant raccoons I rescued from the side of the road. They were camouflaged so well that only my sixth sense told me to back up and check the overturned cardboard box. They had been dumped this evening. Why would any fool think that three coon babies were capable of getting up, fixing themselves a steak and going on about life without a mother is beyond comprehension.

I'd been at Martha's all day putting together ATCs to list for sale. We really worked an eleven hour day and I was ramped up to getting something done when I got home. Instead, these fuzzy children have become my wards and my job for the evening. I called M to let her know that I got home, thank her for the day and to tell her about my roadside acquisition. M sez, "Call a wildlife rescue or you'll have three more mouths to feed."

See. Martha knows about my penchant for feeding every stray that comes along - two AND four legged. They all come. She knows that I have this invisible symbol stamped in my aura with, "I WILL" gathered in fluted script all around me. And you already know that I feed a menagerie, including two cats, assorted adult raccoons, possums and various birds right here on the porch and yard of Dog Patch if you've been a reader. What I haven't had time to mention is that someone else dumped a beautiful Himalayan male cat in front of my property and I've been feeding him for about a week. I need to figure out what to do with him. And now these coon children come.

After going on line to a veterinary college, determining their ages from a measurement chart and reading the extent of specialized care that they would take, including tube hydration and emergency feeding, I felt the best I could offer them was a towel laden bed to snuggle into for a safe night until tomorrow comes and a specialist could take over. They were not interested in organic soy milk - my only subtitute on hand in lieu of mother's milk.

George the cat needed an explanation and is taking it pretty calmly after I let her check them out and told her that it was strictly a temporary situation. I called every facility that I could think of, including the Sheriff's Office. I got two return calls that both promised to take them in the morning. So. Here they'll stay until then. Just in case you think I don't do my share, I end with a picture of one of the coons I feed regularly on the porch. That's my toe. He doesn't care.

Phewwww!

Opening night. Over 5,000 people showed up to look, shmooz, buy art, eat, drink and just be there. Thank Goddess that there's only one opening night! I worked one of the front doors taking donations, slipping on pink and yellow wrist bands and giving directions to the bano, "Ou'est dans la salle de toilets, ya'll?" (First wooden door on the left, ladies; Second door, gents).

Friends came. I hugged them over the counter. Some stayed for a bit with me. If they went inside, I never saw them again. I was supposed to work one hour and ended up doing at least 5. I'm not complaining, mind you - I'm glad that the show was a success and they definitely needed help!!

I would definitely do it again if they'll have me back and judge me in next year. But when I got home at 2:00 last night, I fell into bed and slept for 14 hours - right through the artists' luncheon today!

All of this has been said with a smug, self-satisfied smile!

Gala Press Night

So. I am recuperating from the last months frenzy of preparation. Still not settled back in my skin. I imagine that it will take me some time to regroup. But tonight was wonderful!! Gala held the private press party along with a private viewing for our site sponsors' circle of friends. Hard to tell who were the doctors and who was press. Most of the artists were recognizable. We have that certain elan, don't you know. Besides. I wore my high top PF Fliers.

I have found some kindred souls there. Their art is so cogent to me that I cannot ignore them. You already know that I'm in love with Martha Brooks Marshall's art and sally forth merrily anytime I can cheerlead her on. Her paintings are just flat world-class good.

Another artist I have a creative crush on is Apatx Latorre. Besides being a spiritually kindred soul, he has a painting called "The River" which is so close to my visual view of the universe, is so rich in metaphor and technique, that I would own it if I could! Oh for all the money in China!! Martha says he's Gustav Klimpt on steroids! I will ask his permission to show it here, but not before he says so. That you have not heard of him yet is just because he's been busy doing life and travel as he sees it. That he's exotically gorgeous AND loves his family devotedly has earned him heart space with me. I will shamelessly promote him as I do me some Martha. He's that good!

Steve Sperry is another artist just discovered. I like his quirky style that's so reminiscent of fractal art. He's got a fractured sense of humor and a boy-next-door charm in a craggy sort of way. You want to bake him cookies and slap him around when he does dumb stuff. And he cleans up nicely!

Cathey Conte follows the legacy of art in a dynasty started by her mother Margaret Conte. Cathey's photos are just microcosmic. And. I WILL own some of Candace Knapp's pieces!

There were several others at the show who awed me. I intend to cultivate them and just hang, hoping to absorb some of their goody. I am humbled to be counted among such incredibly talented people. If you're in the Tampa area, get your butt down to 3965 Henderson Blvd and partake. This is a huge happening and a movement. I love my place in the back of the wagon!

Opening is tomorrow night, Friday from 7 until 1:00 and they have an open bar, incredible fashion show/living sculpture, DJ's playing in 2 rooms, food, an enormous floor space and will also donate to the Humane Society. You really didn't want to go clubbing tomorrow anyway, did you??

(The picture is of me peeping behing Lotus Robe, one of 4 I installed in the show.)

Almost

Put some finishing touches on my 3 installations and one hanging for Gala Corina. The show this year is phenomenal !! I have already picked out my favorites and keep adding to the list. The venue is incredible, huge. The artists this year are pure cream! I've met some real sweeties!

So. Just a few more things to do before opening. I'm finishing up my series of Artists Trading Cards for the show. They're a phenom where artists created 2 1/2" by 3 1/2" mini art works and sell or trade them. This year, 40 plus of us are participating. We will trade each other for a set and the balance of the 96 we agreed to create will be sold to support the show. Go here to learn about them: http://www.cedarseed.com/air/atc.html

My series is called 'Flasher'. Each features a coat or curtain that must be opened or moved aside to view. Some 'inner messages' are benign, others stare right back at you. Next time, I resolve to spend more time on them so they're more complex.

Forgot some of the little people I made for Swept Under to pin in falling out of pockets and from under the back train of the coat, but I'll take them with me tomorrow when I go to help sort and wrap the ATCs. Interested in doing your own ATCs??

So. I'm done. Almost.

(Ed. Note: Here's a short how-to video to get you started doing your own.

http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=1098982549&fr=yfp-t-471 )

Deluge

Covered. Up to my gills in expectations. None of them necessarily extrapolated from the outside, but held to my bosom dearly, seriously. Knowing that if I did not complete the tasks laid before me, that I will be eternally damned.

It's an art show. Not a gamma ray bombardment. Still, I'm stressed. Why do this to myself? Are you kidding? I LOVE it! The detritus of creativity is fulsome even when it is rushed. You always get a high from creation.

Cleaned as part of the crew for Gala Corina Saturday. I say this weakly because I felt like the 5th teat on a boar. So many more competants abounding while I carried my cleaning supplies in the obligatory box from one destination to the other. I am not needed.

Should I celebrate or feel guilty? Get it done, oh vagrant youth with the body that doesn't tremble on a ladder. Paint walls until your clothes take on the tint of the pigment and the joints that don't freeze up into uncomfortable position have covered the 9 mile stretch of need to be spruce. Vacuum and pound and connect electrical circuitry until you have everything singing at the end of a switch. I'll sit over here and watch you.

The deal is, we're supposed to work as artists at Gala Corina. To participate means that you have to donate in kind to the drona of the show. I can give, have the will to, but the fact is that the flesh that is willing to create is less likely to perform on cue when called upon for physical labor.

Okay. Let's call the cat black here. I cannot participate much beyond a creative level. No matter. I have put out my soul in the month before making a new work. Swept Under. My labor hours are counted etherically. More about that later.

Deadline

I spent the last three days doing this when I should have been working. I am continually reminded how much I hate deadlines. How many more of them do I need before I learn?

Progress

I am making progress on the first project for Gala Corina. More details are coming through and I'm now adding a thin, red piping around the black wave accents for 'Swept Under'. I want the 'water' to look oily, thick and impenetrable on the bottom of the coat. Nothing for it but to use black Egyptian cotton. I used linen on another coat called 'Midnight Seas' when I wanted to accent the highlights of the moon on the ocean surface under the ship on the back and it worked well.

Made a mile of red bias for the piping and accents and the bases for both the outer layer and lining of the coat are together, if not pressed. I'll do that tonight. I used extra fabric for godets matching the stripes on the outer layer and lining that will look like a huge swell when the coat is worn in performance. I learned this trick ages ago when stage costuming to give that floating look like Frank Langela coming over the foggy backlit bridge or opening his cape on stage in an old Dracula take off. The air picks up the extra large bottom of the cape and makes it span out because of the bias. The air literally plays the hand of the bias.

Hopefully, the camera will be up and fully functional so I can show you what I mean. A picture is worth....

Research on the figures for the counterpane inside that Lufthansa gave me is sobering. The numbers of disappeared, sold into slavery and kidnapped for the sex trade and slave labor is appalling. I mean. My god. It's the 21st century NOT Medieval Europe or the American South of the 1860s!

Chihuahua

There he stood at the Delta Airlines gate, fatigues wrinkled and the polish waning on his combat boots from the 26 hour plane ride. Amazing how long a plane ride is on top of the planet when you could hook a string on them and pull them through the planet so much more quickly.

He's still beautiful! Almond shaped green eyes, head full of thick brown hair, broad shoulders. Mom always told me he was a spit for the old heartthrob actor Stewart Granger. Whatever. My Bobby's back home from the war.

He dropped his duffel bag and carry-on and ran for me. We were all over each other in 3 seconds flat. Yep. Absence does make the heart grow fonder. And the panties drift to the floor. After our long reunion weekend, we went out visiting old friends, my parents, the little tropical secluded park with clear springs and orchids where we used to go spooning. We made love on the hill and then discovered my butt had covered the copper headstone of the old park ranger buried there. Hope he enjoyed the worm's eye view. We certainly did try to wake the dead. I wanted to make my soldier happy.

And he was happy, but reserved those days. I often caught him looking at nothing, seeing nothing, and yet acutely aware of every fly buzz and door slam and change of temperature. If I spoke to him then, he would startle and spin on me wildly, arms up in an awkward pose as if holding something out in front of him. Then he would settle. Lord knows how many quarts of adrenaline coursed around that body then!!

Can't remember the exact occasion and why we were playing lawn tennis on the hill next to the park, but there we were with friends. Beautiful Fall weather with just a hint of chill in the air. Someone handed Bobby their new baby chihuahua puppy to admire while he waited for a serve. A bit of the haunted look left his eyes as he marveled being able to hold the entirety of the little brown thing in the palm of one hand. One of the guys yelled, 'Heads up! Incoming!', an unfortunate phrasing and meant as a joke.

Bobby reacted by dropping the puppy and volleying the ball back with a double-fisted volley so hard that it landed across the parking lot, the look of wonder replaced by grim panic and clenched jaw. This all happened before the pup hit the ground because, you see, a soldier is ingrained with this action/reaction thing. It gets in their cells after being a warrior. If they shave those cells off, new ones grow back with their beards.

The puppy yelped and Bobby gently picked it up as we all ran over. One of the tiny little back legs was obviously broken, twisted at an odd angle and already beginning to swell. The little thing just whimpered and shook in Bobby's hands. The woman who owned the new pup started screaming and yelling. "You broke it, you bought it!!", she rails at him. He looked absolutely stricken.

Everyone is discussing where to take the dog for care and someone suggests a close by emergency vet clinic. The dog gets there, is treated, sedated heavily and goes home with us. He's nervous and never really the same trusting being. I'm talking about the dog here but it applies to my guy, too. Bobby disappears shortly afterward.

When next I see him, he's wearing my dad's old 1950s sports coat. I still have it, moth holes and all. Cream colored wool with navy blue and red specks sprinkled over it like nonpareils on an Uncle Sam cupcake. The wide lapels and heavily padded shoulders date the coat and make him look even more broad shouldered than he is.

"Where have you been?", I ask. He looks calmer now, but distant. The edginess is gone replaced with something else I can't quite put my finger on.

"I could have killed that puppy", he looks at me and turns to walk away. He's escaping me, the injured dog, and himself.

"Robert Allen Wujick", I yell in my best authoritative voice. "It was an accident, a reaction. It's to be expected. You just got back from a place where split seconds mean the difference between coming home or not. It's just not your fault and the dog will be fine."

He turns, smiles that smile that lets you know that it's not a smile and shakes his head. "Doesn't matter. None of us will ever be the same. That's what they do to you. And you know, it don't mean shit. It's for absolutely nothing. It's money. Just about money. Absolutely nothing.", and he walks away. This time, I don't see him again. Ever. Now. On to reality.

You see, Bobby brought his coping mechanism home with him like lots of vets do. He self treated his raging case of PTSD with injectable cocaine between his toes so he could keep it to himself. I was so naive that I didn't know until the cops showed up at our door on Crenshaw Avenue to get back the stuff he stole from the stockroom of his job to fence for drugs. I learned about the cocaine and it's hiding place when he tried to flush the kit and it's contents down the toilet while I was talking to the cops in the living room. He showed me how the soldiers took apart a Burma Shave can and stashed their drugs inside with paper towels around them so the needles and spoon didn't rattle.

He then took to private enterprise selling marijuana from our front porch hidden in plain site in jars between my begonia plants and African violets. Still naive, I let him water the plants as he insisted on doing.

I found out about the marijuana market when a high school friend ended up being the telephone repairman come to fix the beeping and outages on the phone. He came back in the house and showed me a wiry little gadget taken from the big telephone box across the street. "This is your problem," Whitey said. "It's a tapping device to listen in on your calls."

The man in the black suit and hat reading a paper in the green Ford Fairlane on our side street reading the newspaper during the hottest of Florida days suddenly made sense. The driveby's of police cruisers that I applauded as just keeping our dicey neighborhood safe with extra patrols also got real clear for me. I quit waving and smiling at the cops. I was being watched. And tapped. Don't let anyone tell you that the spying on Americans is just a latter day anomaly, it's modernity in the Patriot Act.

I confronted Bobby on both of these drug related issues. We eventually temporarily separated over the drugs, the heartache of a miscarriage, and his inability to sleep because of night terrors and hold a job. Then I really never did see him again. He was beheaded when his van left the highway along Alligator Alley and went straight into a tree. He was coming back to Tampa with a load of recreational drugs and fell asleep at the wheel.

I still carry a spot of him on my left thigh. A 2" X 4" bit of jungle rot he gave me brought back from the war. It itches a lot. It's brown. I dutifully put antifungal's, steroids, melaleuca alternifolia on it. Nothing can kill it. It stays there right on my thigh. After all this time 40 years later. Right on the place he used to like to put his hand. 'The perfect armrest,' he said.

Bobby said they used to pass the time between patrols and skirmishes playing poker. Life is kinda like that. It really is a poker game with bluffs, steely eyed determination and the luck of the draw. So.

I'll see you, Bobby. And raise you one Chihuahua.

(Note: This is a cautionary tale. History repeats itself if we do not learn from it. Part of the above is my dream from last night. My current spate of standing on street corners holding anti-war signs and activism probably brought it on. You figure out which part. The rest is a recounting of life after he returned from Viet Nam in November of 1967. There are no good wars. Vietnam killed Bobby just as sure as a bullet, only slower and much more painfully. I had a good old cry. I guess you never do get over grieving. Or maybe I haven't done enough of it. )

I'm An Artist. Again.

So. Martha Marshall took me by my little hand almost 20 years ago when I announced that I wanted to 'do' an art show. I corraled her into doing this since, a: I'd never been in a real art show, and b: didn't know how to 'do' it, and c: had never been to art school, and d: passed along the fact that we all hang onto someone when we need to get our sea legs under us.

My sister, Linda clung onto me for balance at our tap dance lessons when we were gangly little girls, me only slightly more graceful and able to stand on my one leg while the other did a step-ball-chain. So. I clung onto Martha.

Now. That Martha consented to hit the ball and drag Fred with me is a-mazing in itself. She's like this world-class, very well known American artist who exemplifies hard work and success. The fact that she's been my friend for almost two decades makes me puff up big with pride. Google Martha Brooks Marshall or even just Martha Marshall and you'll see what I mean. Her works are all over the planet and she has at least a dozen shows and projects going on at any one time.

She's generous with more than just me. She mentors others about their art like a mother hen, pushing, coaxing, giving art supplies and instant support and tries to pass along what she's learned. She's no dilletante about that.

Okay. So almost 20 years ago, I decided I wanted to show what I call my Dream Coats. Back then, this title was exclusive to me and my work. Now, the phrase is kind of hackneyed. I could truly call mine Dream Coats because the ideas for them, nay, the entire design, color, writings and construction come to me in a 3-D, Panavision and Technicolor dream. If you're a past reader of my blog, you know that my dream life is very vivid, rich and detailed.

An alter personality I call Miss Lufthanza (because the 'voice' she uses in my dreams sounds very much like a stewardess on an International flight giving directions for the exit, fasten your seatbelt and no smoking signs), does a sort of drum roll in my sleeping brain and announces that I'm about to get instructions for a coat. I ignore many of these because there's just not enough time and material to make them all. As Martha says, "So much art, not enough lifetimes".

So. Lufthanza shows me in my dream mind a coat. I get to scan inside seams for construction details, the colors, materiels and then she gives me a counterpane that is mostly to go on a panel inside the back of the coat next to the wearer's back so it gets absorbed. The pockets turn inside out so I can see if anything is to be written there. All I have to do is wake up, sketch it, write it down and make it. As I said, many of them never get made. But I'd done a few and wanted Marty to show me how to get them out in the public to be seen.

Sometimes, there are moving parts and lights in them. One coat called "Paper Dolls with Bishop's Mitre" featured a photo of me in my underwear pushing a vacuum and several paper doll figures with various forms of women's roles - like a June Cleaver mother, Nun, School Girl, Las Vegas mannequin complete with crystal chandelier headdress, a pinup coming out of a cake all lit up with flashing lights, Maids, Teachers, Professional Call Girls -- you get the idea. There were also a pair of silicone breast implants next to a Frederick's of Hollywood ad for a padded butt enhancer.

I played "I want a Paper Doll" by the the Mills Brothers on a continuous loop and hung a purple and white Bishop's Mitre above the coat for the installation. It won best of show but was not allowed to travel with the rest of the art because it was considered too controversial. Secretaries are scary you know. Or maybe it was me in my underwear.

Another one is my signature piece. Called "Lotus Robe", it has 3 very detailed lotus blossoms petaled in 3-D parts with metal dew drops, crystal stamens and a stuffed fish in a pond in the train of the coat. Several other fishes are swim between the layers of the pond. The fact that this piece is brilliant shot violet and hot pink makes it one that you can't sneak around in. That one's won me lots of ribbons, money and has been worn on stage by director Anna Brennan, been the bride's coat at a wedding and has appeared at several operas. I have no idea where it is now. I'm hoping to find it in some of the mountains of fiber and trims I have here at Dog Patch.

I've since done many gallery shows, been invited by colleges and universities, even the State of Florida to participate in shows. Then I stopped. The reasons are too convoluted to explain here, but I've only made a very limited few since showtime. Most of them were for private collectors like hispanic artist Pedro Parra who wears his every year to the local gay film festival and other events. And Jan Roberts who heads up a national green movement owns one. Director/actor Anna Brennan finally got one of her own. My friend, Annie Shanahan owns the most of them and wears them around the house for empowerment. I'm willing her all the remaining coats because she loves them the most.

Now another flood of coats have come up and I can't ignore them. I applied to Gala Corina in Ybor. It's a very prestigious show and I knew that only the best of the best would be judged in. I've never been turned down for a judged show, but figured that this could be my first one since humility seems to be a theme in my life just now. Glory. I got in! They deposited my entry fee check and I'm a participant. I'm so excited I could pee my pants!!

I just started the first coat for the project this past weekend when I got notice. My coats are usually very attractive and it's only on closer inspection that you see the gaffs, barbs and uglies. This one is no different. If I can figure out how to get my camera loaded onto my new computer, I'll take a few photos for you to see as I construct it. It's called 'Swept Under'. When you see it, you'll know why.

(Note: The three coats above are construction pictures of "Elemental Fire", "Donatatus' Tragedia et Comedie", the the missing for now "Lotus Robe". My gallery pictures of the completed coats are buried on the hard drive of my defunct old computer.)

Zeitgeist

Now that I got your attention with my attitude, I've belonged to the Apollo Alliance Project for years. I'd love to introduce you if you aren't already familiar. The wars will stop only when there's no profit in fighting them.

I'd also like to forward a movie and a movement called 'Zeitgeist'. The movie is almost 2 hours long and can be watched in each of it's three segments. My friends Joan and Andi O introduced it to me. It cover ways in which we, the Great Unwashed are being curried for a world government run by the very wealthiest of people.

Some of it may be hard to watch, hard to swallow. But it will change your outlook and fire you up for revolutionary thinking. You'll start questioning everything. I've talked about the dumbing down of America forever, maintain that religion is crowd control, and know the pagan origins of many of Judeo-Christian myths. It may offend. Offense gets our blood up and snaps dendrites to attention. It makes your hair curl. It makes us think.

Part Two raises the provocative issues surrounding manufactured wars through the vehicle of terror and fear, how we were duped en masse into attacking Afghanistan and Iraq for hidden interests. The movie will ask you to use your logic to explain several very obvious malapropisms surrounding the 9/11 attacks. You'll get a short view of history.

The conclusion talks about entertainment and mind occupation and how media is a willing cohort in this plan. You'll learn about the banking interests that make up the Fed Reserve, the IRS, the North American Partnership treaty I spoke about the I.D.s being introduced in the Carolinas for at Wednesday's meeting.

Before you write this off as mad rambling, there are back up articles, references, a soon-to-be interactive feature with all materiels documented in the film listed in the links from A-list sources.

I hope you'll join me in watching it as you can, seeing it through to the end, forwarding it to as many of your upline as you can to spread the word. You'll know by the credits why Brandon is such an onclave of conservatism and sheep.

Helps to have a high rez 'puter screen to view it.

http://zeitgeistmovie.com/

Blessings,
Dina

Ed. Note: (I sent the above email to my activist group and my upline. I hope you'll do the same after the viewing. We all need awakening. The wake up photo was graciously shared with me by my cousing, Deb - thanks, baby.)

Falling

Seasons are changing. The Earth is getting ready to bed down for winter time. The leaves are turning ever so slightly on the trees. Even here in sunny Florida I can feel the turn of the seasons. You develop an accute nose when you live here. The sunlight gets thinner, longer. Doesn't look quite like blindingly brilliant midday in Miami Beach in mid July where any vulgar deed has to be examined under incendiary light.

There's also a tang in the air that is less of the ocean and more of the earth and mold. Things are going underground, including a friend or two.

Shirley died at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday morning. I'd gone over Monday while some of her friends were throwing her a cheese cake and cocktail party. Now. M'Lady was already in that coma state where you know that the person is out of the body, already packed bags, but keeping the sack of bones alive just in case someone needs a good shock.

After the crowds left, a few of us diehards sang pagan songs to her 'til about 10:00 p.m.:

The Earth, the Air, the Fire, the Water,

Return, return, return, return...

and

May the Circle be open and never broken,

May the love of the Lady be forever on your heart,

Merry meet, and merry part,

And merry meet again.

Shirley's sack of bones snorkled a few times, opened clouded eyes and glaced at us all and she wiggled her legs a bit as if dancing the spiral one more time. But she was already gone then. I knew it. I left.

Took care of business, a doctor's appointment in the a.m., mailed a few packages and arrived about an hour after she cut the cord. Ray looks like a spiked deer, lost and unsure of the next direction to travel. Judy, Shirley's daughter got in her car to go back to West Palm and check herself back into hospital for the pneumonia she was in for. Hospice counted the sacks of meds, checked the morphine and filled out papers. Jeannie and a nurse washed the body and put on her favorite oils. A long stem yellow rose was placed on her pillow.

I'm sure she was catatonic at seeing herself look ever so shitty bloodless holding a beautiful bloom. Three of us circled her and sang the goodbye cup to her and the crematorium was called to remove the remains.

I went to Joanne's Fabrics, the grocery store, saw a friend I haven't seen in ages and chatted her up. I wonder if any of them knew that I had kissed a corpse with lavender oil on her forhead not an hour or so before?

I'm happy. I mean, truly calm, singing happy. I did all my crying and wailing while she was going through the guts and nuts of dying. Now the deed is done, so are the tears.

I'll see you soon enough, my friend.

Appendix

Strange title to put with a protest picture. Makes sense when I tell you that I protest having an enlarged appendix in my Crone years. Cat scan says it's enlarged like the rest of me. Baffled appendixes are usually an adolescent things. What does this mean? Are the Goddesses trying to tell me that my second childhood is coming soon? If so, I'm ready to start playing.

The photo is one taken by the Move On folks at the war protest the other evening. I'm the dumpling on the right standing behind one of our vets and his flag. I'm hoping to show you less of myself in upcoming months. Martha and I are on a diet to pound of some pounds of flesh. We'll see if my non-existant thyroid cooperates.

I gave up meat a while back after having seen some video on how the meat industry treats animals. Before you write that off as bleeding heart shit, take a look at it. There's enough toxins, hormones and just plain wrongness to this to make you refuse to even look at a burger commercial. I seem to be turning into a late age hippie with social conciousness.

Sat with Shirley again this past week. Her open wound and the fistulas are actually looking better. You can no longer see into her inner workings like an ant farm but the yeast infection in her system has given her more blisters. I'm going to try to pick up another shift or two with my recalcitrant appendix in mind. I'll be closer to Brandon Hospital from her house.

Give Peace A Chance

I've got bidness today. Lots of it. Had to get myself up at 8:30 which is insane for me with my diurnal rhythms set to night owl. Got an MRI on my brain to see if they can spot the reason for the tremors and jerks I've developed and take drugs for and for the muscle weakness on my left side. Hell. I don't care if I wave spontaneously at strangers. I'm gregarious, after all. Those who love me take it all in stride. They're very used to my various quirks and eccentricities.

Some epilepsy is in my mother's paternal Drury genome but I don't think it's that. Having been very much active around horses and having several car wrecks (and a sky diving incident that almost made the papers), have pounded my collection of appendages, including my head. Picking and singing in bars and bartending while drinking my share of whatever altered grain, fruits and nuts, and my continued admiration for a good bottle of wine have also probably added to neuron dysfunction. Ain't life fun?

So. After getting bombarded with photons for my tremors, I had a cat scan to find out if I'm trying to pass kidney stones - also probably due to the gallons of wine must I have imbibed over the course of years. I've switched to whites. Easier on the head and your poop has a more natural shade to it.

Took costumes over to Cindy. Yes. I'm retired, but agreed to do this special one thing for her. 1880s Appalachian don't you know, complete with drawers, brogans and petticoats. Took care of some chores here at home and will try to slip in a nap before I go off to protest tonight during rush hour.

This is not some of my normal daily bitching. I'm attending a Move On protest in Brandon for a Peace Vigil to stop the war. As if it will do any good. I'm tired. And frustrated. I was taught that you always fight against inequity and engage yourself in local politics and bigger issues. This is also a genetic thing I think. But I will go out on US 60 with the rest of the peace marchers and wave my signs. I will dress in sensible Florida weather clothing and wave my sign at rush hour traffic. I'm as hopeful about this bringing about the end of the Iraq invasion as I was about sending off 9 letters demanding that Congress and the Senate impeach the remaining idiots left on duty at the White House on 8/18/2007.

But, I'm my mother's daughter and will go out to brave the crowds and the heat. She and my dad always said to open your mouth and never let bullies get away with their crimes. I want those good young men and women home. I want them to be treated well and compensated for their wounds. I want them to have their benefits upped instead of cut into. I want them to get the mental care they'll need to cope with life after war. I want them to know that I don't blame them for the shit of a mess in Mesopotamia. My reward will be one of Alexander's dirty martinis to add to the calcificaiton in my kidneys afterwards.

March on.

Burn, Baby, Burn

I got a letter from my mortgage company that sufficient funds had been received to pay off my mortgage. Since I've worked toward this goal for the last fifteen years, it really was no surprise. But. I gotta tell you, it's an amazing feeling unlike any other.

I am a woman of substance! A true property owner in all senses of the word. Okay. I own a couple of lots of bare land and some cemetery plots, but just knowing that I'll never make another mortgage payment on my house and dirt is liberating!

I took some advice to heart about paying extra on your principle and put every extra dime into it. When a bonus or windfall happened, it went toward the house. I've put off projects, purchases and have learned to live well within my means and very much under what the pundits call 'the poverty line'. And I feel rich!

There's something to say for simplifying, whether by virtue or by circumstance. You find that you can do without so many things - especially those 'necessities'. You develop a sense of ingenuity and creativity and the grace and beauty that come with things hand made and vistas that are free for the looking.

It's also taught me to laugh up my sleeve at pretencion. I've been pitied for my state of particular poverty - I prefer the word Spartan. I've had those with higher incomes than mine tell me that I needed to buy this or that because it would make a better impression, or sell my home to move 'up' to something more swanky. Bullshit.

Same said apostles of spending are struggling with debt overload, credit card interest rates that make the balances impossible to pay off in their lifetimes. Me? I don't care if my shoes of choice are comfy Florida Ballet Slippers - the ubiquitous flip-flops or zories. I'm wearing clothes so long out of fashion that they're about to come back IN again. But the best thing is the lack of detritus related to my day to day needs. I look around and there's very little that has to do with my daily doings.

Yes. I have the world's biggest clutter of fabrics, trims, mannequins and machines from my business of 20 years in costuming and design, but those are rapidly becoming liquidated and gone because I've retired from that. Once all the business is out of the house, I'll truly have very little me. Then I can create, build, buy just ONE good piece at a time, invest in art and pay for a redux on my 100 year old Victorian girl splinter and nail at a time!

I don't do credit cards. I have debit cards so I can deal with robotic banking and business concerns that don't recognize cash as tinder. So. Here I sit on this end of life and I'm free and clear! And it feels that way in my spirit as well.

My 60th b'day was kind of a magical touchstone of sorts. I haven't quite wrapped my mind about what happened, but it has something to do with TRUE freedom. The mortgage being paid off is just gravy!

I've heard people talk about having a mortgage burning party. You really don't get one in this state, just a satisfaction of mortgage and a note at the credit bureaus that you're done. Don't know that I'd burn it anyway. It represents a road map that got me here. So. I'll have a bonfire out in back by the river later on in the Fall when we can all sit outside without the mosquitoes carrying us off. I'll burn logs instead.

Wet On Both Ends Of It

So. I sat the afternoon with Shirley Monday. I apologized for being a chicken shit bad friend. She assured me that I was the best of friends. Her living room has been transformed into an ersatz hospital with shelving holding an incredible array of dressings, tubes, syringes, sponges, glues, unguents and salves.



Her husband Ray was there when I first came. I brought him a hot lunch and he went out to run errands while I stayed with Shirley. Ray is being forcefully bright - cutting jokes and cracking wise to cover a panic that's so close to the surface that it crackles.



Even Cookie the doberman is stressed out. She looked skinny and fitfully runs in and out of the room looking at Shirley. I need to have a sit-down with the dog and tell her what's going on. I shared part of my 7-layer burrito with her. She looked like she needed the food and the distraction.



Shirley's very thin because she's on a straight liquid diet because of this enormous hole with a hip width open scar below it in her abdomen with liquid chime sloshing out of it and another fistula that is out of the skin and won't heal. I changed her gown a number of times after cleaning her bottom and legs from the leakage. The big crease is so deep the ostomy glue won't hold the bag to incase her wound. You can very clearly see what's left of her intestines and the bottom of her stomach. This last slash and burn was a surgery of errors. Barbaric if you ask me.



The RN came at the end of the afternoon. I helped the home nurse change her ostomy bags out for a dry dressing since the bags were leaking. Her skin is so raw and ulcerated from the leakage that it'll be a good thing for a few days without the bags to let it air out.



We didn't talk much. I told her about the project I have and she said she'd like to do it. We'll wait until next week when she's not so exhausted. She's so weak and tired that I read a National Geo while she napped much of the time. She said how disgusting it was, her condition when she woke up.



"It's wet and slimy coming in and just the same going out", I answered.



I did not bring my cards. There is no need. We both know her future.

Eclipse

Hard to believe almost two months have passed since I last logged on. Wheels are turning and I've gotten another whole decade under my belt. I spent my 60th birthday on the road back home from Michigan. It was a side trip. Kind of like the ones I did back in the 60s and 70s.

Carol and I went to Augusta to watch Sally Jo die a little more in mid-July. Did I tell you that she has this ugly disease called Progressive Supranuclear Palsy? It's like Lou Gherigs Disease on speed. She was in a hospital bed that was too short for her long old frame. Me and Carol plopped her into a wheel chair and deposited the goods in her big Queen Sized Bed between us for the night. I scandalized the Christian nurses telling them that we were going to feel her up. Sally just giggled with what little breath she had left.

Peaceful, blissful night for Sally Jo although me and Carol hardly slept. Both of us were accutely aware of Sally's fitful breathing and waiting for the spasms that would send her into a convulsive cough. They never came. With whatever grace we brought with us, she was allowed to sleep like a baby through the night. We held her hands, snuggled up to her, and let her scratch and work her feet with the red toenail polish I'd decorated with hologram sparkles. Carol bitched good-naturedly about the tiny piece of bed she was squizzled into. Served her right for being skinny.

I told Sal I would be there for her when she got ready to go so she wouldn't be alone. We used to joke about shooting each other if we ever got in that state many, many years ago when she was still a cop. She even told me to use her service revolver on her and she'd use my Ruger Sarah Jane on me! We really had a laugh at that one never thinking that that day really might come. But I can't shoot Sally. Not even with her pistol. Not even with the promises.

We watched her talk to her mother in asides like her mom was in the room in moments between lucidity. She picked threads out of the air, balled them up and handed them to us. We laughed and told stories about Sally and the baloney - you'll never get the details on that one from me. Just let me say that she almost shut down the local K-Mart with a whole baloney.

So. Me and Carol left, drove to Atlanta. There we stopped, got gas and made a choice - North to Detroit or South to Tampa Bay. Carol's brother was selling his house there in Michigan. Men being the creatures they are, Carol was worried about the state of cleanliness and show-ability it was in given the current market. She asked if I wanted to go. Free spirit that I am, I said, "Sure". Buckled in and enjoyed the trip all the way there and back.

It was like the old days when we used to go on the road to some art show or another, Carol selling her art glass and me showing my Dream Coats. We slept on the floor of the house just as we'd done so many times in floors, cars, in the backs of trailers and under E Z Up tents during and before shows.

The house wasn't quite as desparate as we had thought. Bob is a clean creature, his only downfall being the male choice of shades of brown for everything - including the kitchen sink and all the appliances. Bob flew up and met us. We spent two days painting, sprucing and doing that femme thing that women know how to do and then drove back non-stop. Carol and Bob took turns sleeping and we lived off of the most dire of junk snack foods until I demanded a meal.

Mental note for future ref: Pack more than one pair of underpants and one change of clothes when you get into the car with Carol.

Came home to find a crisis looming close at hand. A friend was depressed and took the opportunity of my trip to pull an Industrial Sized Drunk the week I got back. No details here. It's over and won't happen again on my shift since I don't respond too well to addicts of any shade.

There were other phone calls, too. I told you earlier in the year that I had another friend dying. Add one more of my doyennes to that list. I've been chicken shit about seeing Shirley when she went in hospital in mid April. I knew she was starting the check out proceedure and had no desire to be the one to tell her. She knew I would so my one visit to her was brief, scattered...me wearing the plastic bag suit and rubber gloves everyone who went into her isolation room had to wear and her just itching to get me to read her cards for her so I could "see" what condition her condition was in.

Just didn't have the ovaries to tell her that I knew she was dying. She was in a state of denial at the time. Now, three months later, she's jiggy with it, is in the hands of hospice and I finally can face her as the frank and honest friend she expects of me. I'm to be on her sitting team giving the nurses a break. I have a special project planned for her. I'll divulge it later on.

So. Now there are three pending deaths and one pending life. Mine. I've finally decided that I need to be proactive about my mental health and want to see a counselor to talk to and a psych to optimize my medication. I'm a generally happy clam despite all this going on around me, but really think I need my oil changed and a tune-up.

I have many more stories, poetry and articles for you from the old Deepwater Journal that I truly will get around to putting here. Just expect the participation from me to be somewhat patchy during this time for reasons mentioned above. It's busy work, dying. It's busy work living, too.

Pam commented on the Blue Moon post:

Hi. I have been trying to think of what to say but can't think of anything except, I am so sorry about your friends and I can't imagine what they (and you) are going through. Do you believe that our spirits live on (in other dimensions)? I struggle with it; it seems impossible but at the same time I've heard and read stories from people that makes me ponder. - Pam

Little Beauty, I have already wept, wailed, wallowed, and cursed for them all many times over enough to fulfill any lamenting custom in several lands. I know I'm being selfish about it, especially in Sally Jo's case because I just want them HERE, not THERE. When I wah for them, it's the blindered side of my Inner Child having a temper tantrum because some really fun playmates are leaving my party.

Death IS life! It's SIDS for Seniors. We Americans have a tendency to overlook that. I'd like to thank the predominant cultural religions for that: You die, you go before your god, get judged pretty harshly for your worldly stupidities, and depending on whether you ascribe to the Vatican, Yaweh, Mohammed, or to Dante Alighieri, you're sent to various hotspots around the universe with varying degrees of unpleasantries.

I personally think all this is an opague attempt at trying to control the masses and whip them into shape. Support the church, pay the tithes, follow the leader, even if the leader is telling you to believe some really stupid and irrational things. Crowd control. Think Jim Jones, the Inquisition, the 'Holy Wars', Jihad.

I lean towards taking the responsibility of my own actions while here and cutting out the middleman or priest to intercede for me as best I can. I know what kind of Didoes I pull that I shouldn't have - I was THERE when I did it. It cuts down on the coin, lets you sleep late on holy days, but more importantly, the guilt is incised right out of the mix.

So. We're scared to death of death and it's consequences, which I believe makes us bale on life, too. We don't want to face the big D so we live as if there will be no tomorrow wasting our time on piddling shit and overlooking the fact that this is a really good theme park here with lots to see and do.

As for our spirits living on, I've had this proven to me a number of times. I wrote about one physical manifestation of this in 'The Afterlife of Sam, The Dog' in January 2007. I've also talked to the dead on many occaisions. Before you reach for the Straight 8 - the jacket with eight formal ties, try asking the 'out there' for some help on an everyday project. It's fun and informative. I 'talk' to my dad all the time to ask for help with things mechanical or carpentry because he was a worldly ace with it. I more often than not get an amazingly quick solution on how to do something that I've not done before, something totally not in the vein I was thinking. Ascribe this to spiritism or Psychology 101. I don't really care as long as it works.

I wrote almost every single college paper on autodrive using the same approach. Whether you want to call this savantism or that I possibly could have been given the ideas, and sometimes, footnotes to support them from an outside source is up to you. I've quit trying to persuade folk around to my view of living.

Can I give you some directions on where to start your query on why I think psychism and 6th sense issues are real? Read " I am Psychic", also from January of this year. Read some of the new books out on fuzzy and quantum physics.

So, young Padowan, let Yoda be your guide on this matter. Remember the training of Luke. Listen, you should. Buy or rent the entire set of philosopher George Lucas' works and watch them.

When it comes right down to it, each of us has to believe in our own theories. I just offer mine. But one thing I know as utter, unmitigatable truth is that when Death happens, it won't matter what your beliefs or theories are. What awaits us (or not) will be there.

It is what it is.

You know now that it was the blue moon in May, as in ‘Once in a blue moon’ - two full moons in the same month? Well. Yes. Annie, Teresa and I used this to go on a Red Eye Turnaround to Augusta, Georgia to see Sally Jo.

You’ll also guess if you’re a reader that I tend to pidge around when I have something serious to write about. Just one tiny bitty bit of chicken shit to my nature of balls out, hair afire, Mach 10, 60 MPH in one spot. So. Sally’s dying, don’t you know.

She has this shit ass illness called Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, as I've told you. It’s a wicked bad disease that mimics Parkinson’s and Lou Gerhigs Disease. She’ll die by choking. I watched her suffer through several of these spasms as she tried to eat orally on our visit. She refuses to give up the taste of food even though she’s intubated for direct meals and medications through a tube in her abdomen.

Sally always was stubborn like that. She refused to give up on me when I was a non-responsive basket case drooling on the sofa and contemplating a trip to the woods with Sara Jane, my Rueger. She and Carol Gray saw to it that I went on holiday to the hospital.

She refused to give up on her kids, too, her sisters, and any of the cases she ever worked as a deputy sheriff. Murderers confessed to her and showed her where they hid the bodies when they talked to no one else. Loonies told her about ‘Wonderment Sticks’ and I made one for her to shake at the most reprobate of speeders complete with grape root windy-ness and jewels to get them to slow down. She keeps it under the pix of me and her and Carol.

And she’s refusing this goddamn awful disease that will eat her nerve responses until every neuron in her tall ass ole body just shuts down and quits.

I told Katy and Sue to fly me up and we’ll see her out together. None of us want her to choke to death (a horrid way to go) and we hope that she’ll fall into a peaceful coma and sleep herself into the afterlife. If not, I hope the medicoes have the cajones to help her out.

I’ve thought much about the Three Norns with all this illness and dying. The Three Norns or Fates, the Great Wyrd Sisters who card and spin the skein of our life, then weave us into being, determine the length of our days, and then cut us from the weft of experience and age when we have wended our way to the other side ever recycling,

I read my mama the Book Of Fates by Z. Budapest on the stages of life – one that I was reviewing for the International newspaper, Goddessing championed and published by friend Willow Lamont - as she was dying under the aegis of Hospice in 1999. I read the last pages and squeezed the book Z wrote – something you do when a read has been so good and you could find no other words than The End or the copyright page. Ma looked up from the bed and said, ‘Just in time’. And it was. She passed very shortly afterward. I will love anything Z Budapest writes from here on out because of that book.

Now. Besides Sally Jo, I have my mentor Shirley DesRochers in a pickle in Tampa General Hospital with a hell of a hack and whack job on her colon for diverticulitis. This is the latest in several of them and she’s been fighting fistulas, infections, and you put on plastic when you go in to see her. She left me a fatalistic message on my machine before she went in over a month ago. I save it because she tells me what a good, good friend I’ve been to her. They told her there would be no more surgeries. She doesn't have enough colon yet to digest a taco, let alone take a shit.

I promised her tonight when I trudged up huffing to the 8^thfloor from a parking lot that was built in the back forty that I’d bring my cards and play straight with her when I read to say what I see. She asked me. I will. No matter how grim the news. She can take it. She has gonads, too.

Death doesn’t scare me personally. I just hate to leave a mess. And. I hate to be left behind by all the enormous Goddess women and men my life has wrapped around. Doesn’t seem quite right, although the sidekicks and good guys always get whacked in the movies.

When I gack, I hope some friend will write a line or two about me saying that they missed whatever quality about me that struck them as worthy. I know that I shall miss my girls and their faces.