Synecdoche, New York

I saw the above recently.
One reviewer found and finds the film so depressing he always needs to drink after viewing it though I suspect he needs a drink regularly and not just after Kaufman movies. I didn’t find Synedoche, NY depressing, sobbed at the end the first time which was quite lovely because it sneaks up on you and though there’s no sneaking up on you the second time there is the awareness of why it would set your tear ducts to pour.


Whereas Synecdoche depresses some viewers I found it life affirming because we’re all building a city with our cast of characters, recasting the role of this person or that, denying that this or that person are even on scene with us. Sometimes walling up years; maybe because we’ve already seen everything that vignette has to offer or maybe because we just don’t want to see it again and would rather forget some rooms because we ourselves weren’t truly there.
Yet another player plays the role of someone we’re reminded of, some loss or gain in and as an aspect of someone so pinnacle we’ll recast them again and again for shoes left unfilled waiting to be tripped over, risen above or slipped right into like fuzzy slippers...and sometimes too, quite oddly one drops suddenly from somewhere and then are shoes begin dropping from every which where.


The past and present and future are always onstage together. If we could rewrite, if we could just see it clearly as it was, see precisely where we were or are or am could we do it better this time, next time; are we truer now?

In a Kaufman’s reality there’s that memory of you, how you coded yourself and decoded someone else, each always a bit off the mark, not realizing, not knowing but feeling surely you have a clue- except for where you don’t and the mystery isn’t who died or how they died but how did you arrive at this very moment? And who is this that I’ve cast just as much as they’ve cast themselves to be right here right now?


And then, there you are again- same scene, same characters?

Well not entirely the same because you’re not really you anymore, your cells have died away and been replaced and died away and been replaced and then of course there is the matter of time. Time, the illusion made real in wrinkles, and coughs and that first liver spot? Or is it a mole I’ll need to watch and measure?


As with every meaningless and grave decision we make we seldom know which is which. “Millions and millions of strings” all attached to other strings of choices and decisions- each, be they grave or meaningless are tied to the invisible strings of others. We don’t see our choices when we’re making them, not really. But upon review we find a Sam in the background watching us watch ourselves, taking notes as we sleep through conversations we’ll have some day but seldom do.
Meanwhile, life writes more and more and more.


I look in my memory and knowing me I know the moment happened. And knowing me I most certainly brushed it off? Was too afraid or unsure to ask?

The moment surely happened when one of those strings, one of those insignificant decisions was decided in a request I didn’t make. So right now, this minute I am Caden Cotard and I’ve decided to go back, way back, back to that day, that split second. I couldn’t direct someone to build a set for that moment because I don’t know precisely where it happened. I can’t find what the weather was like, or what you or I were wearing. Or what I might have said instead or where I stood or sat or laid when the thought surely flitted across my brain. I can’t find the moment but I know it happened. I didn’t log it maybe because I didn‘t register it as important? but then again maybe because I did.


Line:
Could/May I call you Henry instead?

Links for Coffee and Cigarettes

one shade of mustard

another shade of mustard

Recent Read(ing/s)

Recognizing Emotions
Telling Lies
Why We Love
Contact
Marcelo in the Real World
The Seven Lessons Of Chaos

fail-(safe/soft) 1

- On schaven.org havensc.org someone had once commented they'd be happy to read about how J got his start in business: J got his start in business with a check from a dead woman.

-Loan contract and check drafted by the probate attorney of record in Louisville, Ky for The Estate of M. Martha Alford.

- Approximately two years later a restraining order was issued against J in Charleston, SC after he was tried in absentia for a crime originating in the Colombia area violating both federal/FCC and SC state statutes.

- Another Ttwo years later, an old customer from West Colombia showed up at Starbucks giving me a heads up: J knows where you live.


- Three years after his conviction I presume J lawfully had his SC record expunge. At the time of his conviction and the subsequent issuance of a restraining order he told more than one person he would be doing precisely that.

- Ten years later following a TBI and amnesia I posted a question on schaven.org in 2008 regarding “the mysterious J…” “I’d be happy to read” was the comment that sat there for nearly a year from an unknown author. In relationship to all of this - perhaps its just a coincidence, perhaps not.
But before all that I used to use a phrase I picked up from Darcy Meadows at CofC "Cool Beans".



schaven.org as a site has since disappeared over the last two weeks prior to which the "happy to read comment" being deleted and replaced for a short time by a comment from some who identified himself as "patrick" (or perhaps more aptly pa/trick) "...he was like an older brother to me".


Following those alterations, and schaven.orgs seeming disappearance, I had posed a question about classes on "woman hood" at I(man(u(el(le) church in Louisville KY in regards to the language adopted in the early to mid 1990's. Language which prompted former President Jimmy Carter to leave the denomination because of the core philosophy of male superiority domination over women edorsed by the Southern Baptist's Council, an arm of which J had found himself a happy home while he was allegedly still in SC. Having known J I wondered what his chosen church would offer his wife should the copy I read have been a quick courtship followed by an ambush style proposal. That's how I had read J's copy, having gotten to know him much more than I would have and did prefer.


After posing the question/s regarding language and core philosophy of "womanhood" I received a reply via email, perhaps coincidentally, from Mrs. J.


Perhaps not all coincidentally.

"I'd be happy to read..." Failsafe 1-10 are/will be the reply- should he decied to make good on an old promise- well obviously I've decided to leave a trail.


Supposedly J is a changed man- in which anything I could truly state would and could only be points on which to testify to that change.But so far, so far its looking like the same old J to which I'd say: if "dead puppies" are still what you think about during sex- you might to talk with someone about that. Ron Fullerton perhaps as such associations are kinda' twisted.
See that's what I always liked about Henry, he liked women.


Liking sex and liking women aren't the same thing.

The Life of a Scarecrow

I was standing in line with my documents for DSS, having had and still having the luxury of gathering the required pages by car and thus the effort took a day, without a car it would have been a good 2-3 days. Sitting in my car I started grouping the xeroxes into what I needed to present. I could and can write a brief essay/narrative on such things but put together a bunch of documents that my brain sees as completely unrelated and I quickly get confused.

I had a few weeks gone over the narrative, and gone over it again: where I'd be going, what I'd be getting, etc. Nothing confuses me more than paperwork as the part of my brain that was injured: if it's not a story my brain doesn't know what to do with it and starts firing off data like hail mary passes. But I'd done it, I'd put all the pieces together, organized them and though I remembered the date as 10 rather than 20 - and yes I reread the form several times but when it comes to numbers. I don't know something happens somewhere in my scarecrow head.







I stood waiting in a line that isn't forty people long anymore, federal stimulus money applied to make the system not only newly renovated but technologically more efficient.







The man had been ahead of me and I was hearing the dialogue that was taking place between a woman for DSS, certainly behind bullet proof glass and a man. Nothing startling about the man- a T'shirt, jean shorts and worn shoes.







"I don't have a day off again until next Thursday," the man explained.







"There's nothing I can do," said the DSS employee not at all harshly but wearing the fact that she really couldn't do anything or at least the system couldn't. The exchange went back and forth until the embarrassing admitance.







"I don't have any food, I don't have any money- I am starving," he said.







The woman behind me tapped my back- it was my turn, I hadn't noticed but wondered did he know where the food kitchens, does he know which churches have pantries - I b-lined to the empty window not wanting to hold up the line. My documenst were scanned, I was done and turned around hoping the man would still be there.







I went outside, walked to the bus terminal but there was no sign of him. I'd noted the chinese restraurant across the street and had hoped I'd find him at the bus stop. But no.







I remember when that man was me and I may be him again. I hadn't known I could even get foodstamps, no one had explained to this person with a brain injury what to do, who to contact, how the system works, how to access help- not HASCI, or Family Services or any of the churches I'd contacted over the years. So I sold every bit of gold I possessed for a few weeks.







Now yes- the man may drink, he may be a drug addict on the other hand he may have been and be someone like me who didn't make those choices. To be poor is to live in the bull's eye for me I got two notices today:



1) If I'd only received a notice less than a week earlier, mere days



2) The other a phone message perhaps telling me that even though the rent is paid and will be paid I may be have to move again.







Why I don't make enough money to live where I live that'll be arrow 1



Arrow 2 will be unemployement, I'd saved my looking for work sheet for over three months since I had been on unemployment- a full business quarter. I culled paper work last week and now that form is in a landfill. What will be interesting is if I just have to seel my car and pay the state of South Carolina a couple grand or if I now get to experience jail as well.

Information previously deemed classified: Subtitle: Y I still get anxious and hostile regarding coincidences involving the other condiment

More than one thing can occur at the same time and if your life has been fortunate enough not to know that- then congratulations and if you can’t accept that first premise then there’s really no point in reading further.

Yes, I could have gone back to Canada but due to the events chronicled and posted in I m not a terrorist (  I wasn‘t entirely comfortable with that.- and yes, I was afraid something weird might happen. Funny how in trying to avoid weird I went straight into the eye of weirdness. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, though the truth is just like in Alabama I didn’t consider the full range of possible consequences or even the idea that there might be. Twoie was and still maybe a massage therapist who specialize(s/d) in cranial-sacral work and who also did and does energy work, it’s how she works and she did erase whatever the Atlantan osteopath had screwed up thereby making it possible for me to return to school.

So it’s a week or so before Easter 2006 and Twoie and I make sure I get an appointment with her before she leaves for a couple weeks in France. She does the usual as well as some energy work on my heart chakra in particular but we’d been working on them for months. We talk about her upcoming trip to France courtesy of a couple whose house she furnished; she’d downsized whilst they‘d just bought a big house but had no money for furniture. And now years later in 2006 they’re taking her to France. All conditions were normal. A little vibration is standard- no need to be alarmed, yes this I knew, had encountered it before -have a good trip yaadada yadada.

If you’ve ever had chakra work done then you know- it’s kind of a weird sensation. All of sudden there’s vibration at/coming from some section of your body - you can feel it like when someone beats the drum or if you turn the base way up on speakers or how sound reverberates off you at the symphony. One figures you put your hand on that body section and you’ll feel the muscles and tendons producing this vibration except- they’re not. Its kind of like being a drum or sound and for me I got vibration from the throat, but mostly the heart or Anahata maybe because if one were to do my chart, as someone once did- all my elements are air. Though I blamed it on a guy who in the spring 1990 in Alabama wanted to do this heart chakra thing so we’d “always be connected”. Why he’d want to do that with a girl he had nothing but fear and suspicion for I’ll never know but that and what follows I do perceive as being related.

Just before the last day of Islam class prior to the holiday break I was walking towards The Simmon Center‘s main entrance and hear “Maren”.

I look around and there’s Twoie, her cute chameleon seat covers for a light, she was taking her dogs to be boarded and then off to France. I thought about mentioning it but then the light changed, we waved goodbye and I went to class. And then it started doing it again and in class, for most of class. The vibrations coming off/from Anahata weren’t passing they were getting longer and stronger…and I was starting to be concerned. I didn’t know if I should be concerned but now with Twoie gone- and yes in hesitation I missed my window but I didn’t know that at the time.

Fortunately I could talk to my class friend Patricia about it, dual major Religious Studies and Biology, pre-med. Pilates instructor, MBT convert and total animal junkie, my kinda‘ people. We’d had some nice talks; she considered herself an atheist but she was having a hard time maintaining that kind of overarching nihilism. It was a session with a reiki that had opened her up to there being a layer shall we say, or as she said it:

“So she put these cold stones on my back- except they weren’t cold it felt like there was heat coming off of them she gave one for me to touch because I didn’t believe what was happening,” what self respecting biology major would “and they were cold to the touch, so I can’t reject that there is something, there is, I felt it, there‘s something I just know I don‘t know what it is.”

So I knew I’d want to talk to Patricia about this vibration thing because it was well - not behaving in a normal manner. So I waited for Patricia outside after class, she’d been in some debate with our professor who had near proudly announced to the class “I have ADD” which meant fun things for the class like: oh writing down incorrect dates, forgetting what century she was talking about, writing questions that made no sense to anyone, asking questions for class discussions, and exams, that were routinely difficult for anyone to even translate -

“Is that a question?”

“I don’t know” I’d say to study bud.

The woman was a portrait of human disorganization. Problem was I was one of many SNAP students; many of which were already starting to lodge complaints against the professor. Her reviews were legendary - but she came from the Ivy so she could be as incompetent as she wanted and probably get tenure because she could teach a college level class in Islam. Post 911 they were in high demand.

Nearly everyone had cleared out by the time Patricia met me outside.

“I thought you’d have left- thanks for waiting”. We usually walked to our cars together and mine was super close- I’d gotten kick ass parking in front of the building, a minor miracle on St. Phillips street. As I’d waited I’d wondered how to even phrase this: “ I’m vibrating at levels I don‘t feel comfortable with- can you assist me somehow?”

I covered the situation: - massage, Twoie, chakra’s, yeah. Vibrations normal- yeah I know but this different, I think I don’t know - would you feel it please- I’m totally hetero and but this is seeming abnormal. Patricia held her hand out about 5-6 inches away from my chest.

“ you’ll never feel it from there-”

“No,” she said looking a might freaked out herself “I can feel it from here”.

I looked at her like- “this IS a bit much isn’t it?’

“How long has it been doing that?” she asked, like a future doctor.



“A week or so”



“No how long has it been doing THAT?”



I felt momentarily confused.



“It hasn’t been doing that all week!”



“No, no, no it started up again about an hour ago”.



“An hour?“



“Yeah,“ I said not actually liking that my reality was being confirmed, I’d hoped she’d just blow it off like I’d been trying to.



“You should that get that shut down”



“Yeah I was wondering about that”



“No I mean it you should get that shutdown-”



“Yeah I know but Twoie just left for France she’s gone for like-”



We went over how long Twoie would be gone and Patricia’s take was- no get that shut down. And maybe she was right.



“I know someone - the Reiki, here’s my email,” which I liked ‘arrow path’ “I’ll send you her contact information”.



“Okay”



Patricia sent me the reiki chick’s info and I don’t even know that I called her at that time, I really well -like the Counting Crows sang “ I am not worried - I am not overly concerned”. An hour or two after class my heart chakra had stopped vibrating and I’d figured - well maybe that’s the end of it?



I may have been in denial.



Easter Sunday- I went to Folly. Great parking on a parks gold pass- plus no danger of losing my car, a distinct possibility at the time on Sullivan’s. I brought a book and admittedly I don’t remember precisely what order things happened in except that I was vibrating again. I can’t say for certain if that’s what distracted me out of my book or if it was a big shadow from what I assumed was a really big bike kite. Except there were two guys in wetsuits, not windsurfers but some new kinda’ sail? The whole thing felt very surreal for some reason- I might have been having a complex seizure at the same time- no I was definitely having a complex seizure at the same time. Probably triggered by that flick and flutter of light change from the kite - sail….So I’m vibrating and I’m seizing. It was the weirdest thing. Not that there isn’t a perfectly logical explanation.



It just happened that it was Easter Weekend and I tend to be - well Easter Weekend always reminds me of someone. Christ you say? No I try not think about they did to that guy - what they worship themselves (ie: humanity) having been done to him. Stories can be read more than one way and that one reading, that one interpretation- is all that’s allowed. In Islam it’s called “closing the door”, the mechanics are the same.



But I digress. So my heart chakra’s vibrating. I didn’t feel panicky yet, I was still totally fine -seizing and vibrating like a bongo . And yes I did research chakra work and it can lead in rare cases to psychosis all I know is there was some writing in the sky. Which there is a totally reasonable explanation for: practice for a sky writer three dashes and two concentric circles. Nothing weird about it all.



I don’t know why and I don’t ever expect to know and I don’t need to know and don’t know that I’d want to know- but for some reason --- and here’s what does get me: I trusted THAT, I trusted the experience I was having- whatever it was. And okay- maybe that was my first mistake and yes there‘s a very, very, very long list.



Anyway for whatever reason it occurred to me to Goggle him.



I’d given the exercise certain parameters 1 page, 1 hit, that’s it. So I go home. Turn on computer which just had to last until the end of the semester until Best Buy could find whatever was glitching it up . I pulled up google ran a name search “John Mayo” - there are legions of them and as I was confined to page one. I pulled up a guy and was mildly horrified by the eyes. If I’d only clicked on the economics professor, or the faith healer or even “JOHN MAYO IS A LIAR”. But I didn’t, I made an earnest guess- the resume and unfortunately it fit because this set of eyes I didn’t know.



Was I still vibrating oh and any time I say that I mean was my heart chakra vibrating - at that point? I have no idea if I was vibrating or catching a break again. I wrote him a - well for me a brief note sent it and did some research. I did some research because that’s what I do. Brain injury and I was reading - a few pages would take hours but - if you have a problem: research- somewhere there’s an answer. Did the same thing on the heart chakra debacle that was forming.



I found more pictures. And of course I occasionally was vibrating, my computer was being a royal pain in the ass.



What finally motivated me try and get in touch with the reiki, email Twoie and even turn to any shingle up on the web was when I went into a 6-8 hour vibration. That officially freaked me out. And then of course there was the email I didn’t send, something along the lines of : have you had any strange vibrations lately because I’m having an issue- remember when we”. I couldn’t do it “he probably doesn’t even remember”. That was my thought- that and I mean- oh man part of me was really just so incredibly displeased. Last time I see him - I’m high on carbon monoxide- this time I’m fucking vibrating- oh that’s just perfect - oh that’s just fucking great.



And of course that’s just when I became the object of a prank, though it would turn out I was actually being hazed. Once I left the idiot realm I’d just figured it was a thirteen year-old-ish-kid who couldn’t really appreciate the emotional violence of what he’d done. I had a primary suspect even- computer wiz-ish, a serious authority problem- some condition that’s so intense it’s technically a learning disorder-I can‘t remember the proper name for. I didn’t see what came coming at me- or maybe I was in denial about that. But really who suspects they’re gonna get hazed, off campus, by soon to graduate seniors form a school you don’t even attend?



And if the preceding paragraph sounds unlikely- well yeah and so was everything before the preceding paragraph.



You know how coincidences are usually scattered and occur as singularities? happening once every few months or even years, all of sudden they are a couple times a day, every day. Every week- It was like that for the next couple weeks. And I don’t like it when coincidences cluster bomb me, because that’s what it felt like being frickin’ cluster bombed.



And when I went downtown to just escape the other simul-hurricane what was King Street covered in? Hearts. Everywhere you looked, every shop window covered in hearts.. That was the theme you see for Spoleto or Piccolo 2006 and to me seeing all those hearts, even now, even remembering it now all these years it still makes me cry because it‘s just so sad.



At the time, for me, I felt like I was in hell.



So let’s review: I’m vibrating all over the place and for whatever reason or set of reasons I google a guy. And who do I find- not by beloved but some angry white guy- and being such what exactly is there to be all angry about in the first place?



Oh and then I’m officially launched into hell because voila he’s not an artist but working for the NSA, following in his father’s pentagon footsteps and he’s been watching my back because all my ultra liberal letters to Senator Graham and taking a class in Islam has landed me on a watch list. (In George Bush’s America not exactly unlikely. Also not helpful that the last time I’d been in contact with technology everything occurring via wireless wasn’t the stuff of college pranks but more of a Will Smith /Gene Hackman movie. After which of course I hire the one PI in town whose bread and butter client was and has been the entity with which I’m having off campus hazing issues. And my opinions on feminist Islam- oh look that research has disappeared - and oh shit I can’t into my cougar trail account because somebody changed the damn password.





And the guy who wanted to link our heart chakras so we’d always be connected- where’s he? Oh he’s safely tucked away in None-of-This-Happening-Land.



So did I tell him everything?



Noooo.





.





Eventually I stopped vibrating and by the time Twoie came back to town she had a caution about new male clients because I’d been approached not by the thirteen-year-old-prankster but a 22 friggin years old and having a good ol’ time and seemingly on a hunt for mojo nutbar into animal mutilation and cyber hacking.



I think, no I’d definitely told Twoie about ‘Bama previously. She worked on me after a whole league of things that I‘m just plain not going to talk about. As she worked on me something came spilling out of my back, it was cold but it felt hot too at the same time, just poured out of my back. That had been what concerned a reiki I finally talked to, that I’d been wirelessly online with this guy while I was in one those couple of hours heart chakra vibration things.



What came out of my back, I’d never felt anything like that before and I don’t know if even Twoie had. After our last appointment, I wouldn’t go back after not what happened to me but Twoie. She looked me straight in the eyes after she’d poured out whatever out of my back and “I am not afraid of negative energy” but I was afraid for her



After that appointment she wasn’t the same and even the chick she practices with looked up shocked, I mean we were speechless- like stunned at what came out of Twoie’s mouth: a cutting self deprecating- full of self hate remark. You’d have to know Twoie to fully appreciate that. I never let Twoie work on me again though she knows someone who can break any connection.- chick on Folly of all places.



So that’s what I didn’t tell him, that‘s what I‘ve been withholding since 2006, that’s the secret I kept- the secondary or tertiary layer of what went on at that time. Was it a good time to try and integrate his files? No definitely not but after a certain point that hazing might go into killing had me feeling kinda’ pressed for time.



1990, University of Alabama he’d wanted to do something so that “we’d always be connected”. Why he‘d always want to be connected to a girl he had and has nothing but fear and suspicion for I‘ll never know.



I disclosed really the more likely thing that was on my plate at the time; and that which was more immediately pressing and I wasn’t believed so ya’ know why disclose any of the other stuff? And I know not fair and its probably not accurate but the two incidences, simul-hurricanes, they felt related and I blamed him, was furious at him, just furious.



Fair?



No.



True?



Yes



And I guess even all these years later a coincidence hits, and that’s the thing they still feel like hits. And that was really so unlike me; I’d always found them, that phenomena very life affirming, like seeing a rainbow or a butterfly. What happened that summer actually changed my relationship with a phenomena- and I’m not over it yet. I was so scared and overwhelmed and when I turned to him - just bs, bs, bs.



For nearly a year I was under the misimpression that mail took ten business days to get from coast to coast.



Y?



Because he lied to me, which was uber unfair as we were not exactly operating at the same grade level.



Did I lie? Yeah, I didn’t fully disclose and quite frankly why should have I? What possible incentive was there for that? Would I have been more or less likely to be believed?



Less.



Why tell the whole truth if no one’s going to believe you anyway?

anna begins

u & me r meant 2 b?

My dogs always had more than one name. Sam was of course Sam, Samantha when she was entering a zone of rule breaking, Pooh Bear, Pooh, Bear, Babe- she always knew who was I talking to. Dr. Smith had a nickname for her as well- no one told me about it until after Sam died: “The Great Spirit”- she certainly was and had that.



But in my house she had many a name, one of which I said - well was overheard saying as I talked to Randy right after the Hurricane Floyd traffic jam- “inside bear“ I said as a local GSD mix with canine socialization issues was coming up the walkway.



“Bear… “ Randy said with a hushed tone and I could feel something prickling over the phone line from him “that’ s my dog’s name… my dog‘s name is Bear too”



“We both call our dogs Bear,” Randy said at which I began to prattle “Her name’s Sam - pooh bear’s just a nick name - you know Winnie the Pooh, sometimes she‘s pooh, sometimes she‘s bear- sometimes she‘s both” .



But to Randy, at the time, “bear” held meaning- I could feel Meant 2 B pulsating from him. But to me I didn’t see or feel that way about “(B/b)ear” or anything else where he was concerned, never had. And there were these current and past aspects of me that he “knew” in advance. He “knew” I’d make my own candles, he submitted a few of those over the weeks and then months that followed. For him and maybe for the audience of me -a connection between us. And that’s not to say there wasn’t and isn’t one- just that we didn’t read that connective tissue the same way.



Some of the old dynamics came quickly back into play- not just with him but definitely with me as well.



I requested an old photo of myself - me in the best shape of my life wearing a u-Tarzan-me-Jane bikini against the foreground of his name written in sand. Unfortunately his wife, recently 2 b x-wife had found where he’d been keeping it all those years- in his wallet, total betrayal.



She had torn that picture to pieces, couldn’t say that I blamed her. Would have been a nice photo to have when I was eighty though- sadly the only photo I have of me in that bikini was one my father took on the sly. Which does reflect the overall truth better but I don’t have to like it.



“Bear” and how Randy’s story of he and I was understood from his perspective. To him that coincidence which I don’t and didn’t think then as even qualifying as one- but in his world- at least at that moment- bear was the tone and tenor- that we both called our dogs bear was indicative of shall we say a “cosmic comm link“. Actually- so I’VE said, there is no we.



Maybe that is in fact the key to two people who are actually meant to be - when their inner narratives are least the same shape or at least have enough in common with each other’s that they‘re either on the same page or can at the very least see, the others margins.



I am very clear on all the coincidences simply being an aspect of a story- that’s mine and mine alone, my narrative. And I am very clear on coincidences regarding the other condiment being my thing with the condiment and reflective of no one and nothing else but me, myself and I.

May(d/ D)ay

I read something recently and I just plain haven’t been right since. Its nothing new, my little right on cue timing- nothing new there. Nothing new in some kind of a cosmic comm link which only runs one way.


Henderson. “Henderson Cottage” and all the while I’m on Henderson as well- in a different way but there I am with Henry Mayo. These coincidences have always shaken me up where Henry’s concerned, where John Henry’s concerned its been twenty years of this, of this same thing. Over and over. Secrets I’ll probably never tell. Who would believe them anyway.

And of course those aren’t coincidences, I put those in an entirely different category because that way I can manage them, that way I can deal with that fact that I‘ve missed him for twenty years- maybe longe, who's to say.

I have to- well I don’t have to but I owe an old beau an apology . And what bothers me is I’m apologizing for something that used to be, that once was so unlike me. I couldn’t at the time figure out how we went from trading messages to full stop but then I remembered; Randy’s dad died, died back before Hurricane Floyd and we had talked about it at length.

Okay amnesia but, I just I feel badly about it. I was never that kind of person- I mean I remembered so fantastically well. The juxtaposition of these two boys I dated then, men now, makes me hyper aware of how just unfair it all is. Who and what I remembered and who I just plain forgot, and I forgot everyone, everything and I think of Randy reading that “your Dad must have really hated leaving the lake”.

A cap just flew off a spice jar- so who knows maybe Ron is still there.

But I forgot and in that I suppose I know a bit of what it is, has been to be the one I remembered because he forgets.

Randy’s been on my mind a lot probably because I saved a note and recently found it. The intense left lean of his script but what I remembered first was of course about the one the I didn’t forget and its not been for lack of trying. But what I remembered first, Randy had called right after Floyd during his separation, started calling a lot. He got married really young and the truth of the matter was I broke his heart, he broke mine too just in a different way.

It was 1999 and I was in my, largely left behind first stage of getting all the things left unsaid, said - in case the survivalists were right. I’d just finished Writing Poetry I and - well I wrote about him, the one I didn’t forget. All I remember now is “With Linderberg’s air /the fair haired- “ then total blank but I’d talked to Randy about contacting John Henry, for some reason I felt a substantial pull to. Had for over a year- Randy was - how he always was “writing is for pussies- have some balls and call him” though he started discouraging that pretty vigorously.

That’s what I remembered first, which of course led to remembering other people and specifics. Randy really knew me or at the very least - nknew where I came from. We’d both seen where the other had come from because we were each still there at the time.

And we stuck up for each other, first time he met my parents- my father in particular that’s what happened. Same with me, we wouldn’t participate in watching the other being shat upon and in that sense it was probably one of the healthiest relationships I’ve ever had. But it also had its own forms of toxicity because his protection, his presence which completely recalibrated our household it was contingent on us being an us and after a point that was the only reason I was in it. Which he eventually coppd to knowing but because he “loved me”- well that’s the reason he gave but I don’t define love like that and he be became an extension of the time I was doing, from five up all I was doing was time.

I remember when we talked, started talking after Floyd he said “My brother, Kenny?, and I we’re still not close our relationship never recovered from you”. He blamed me for that. Blamed Dusty for him owning a house that he’d bought “because of Dusty”. I remember sitting there and really wanting to tell him- not to hurt him just to say: Dude what you told me, what led to the incident that marred your all’s relationship- you told me your brother would be fiinnne, fine, fine with us being at the house- that’s how I came to be there. Only when you jumped up freaked out that Kenny and his wife were home did I get the first clue that you’d lied to me. Turned out Kenny and his wife- not at all the types to be fine with us being in a bedroom alone together. That’s when you told me- they were serious Bible beaters. And Kenny never forgave Randy for that, the relationship they had had ended and in Randy’s world - I’m sure to this day- that’s my fault. It’s not because he lied (of course it is and was) or anything that could have been responsible for that little scene.

Blew my mind- but it’s not like that’s hard.



Randy, he’s the one I’ve remembered my family through- what actually went on there, what normal was for my last two and half years of high school.

I don’t know why but - well it’s not even that it’s been on my mind, files open and there’s the video. I remembered the Sears counter first but for some reason last night I got me, walking into the mall on my way to work and spying the outfit I’d save up for- anyway.

It must have been my junior year? Right before senior year- spring or summer, school was out and I had a problem which meant I called Randy. There was no one else to call- it was how we met actually- there was no one at home for me to call- and if I did it would cost me.

There’d been something with the Corolla and I took it straight to Sears before I went to work, something with the breaks. The lead mechanic said there was no way I could drive it - it had be fixed- was dangerous, etc,etc..And I knew my parents wouldn’t accept that.

So Randy and I stood there at the counter, him picking me up because it was never worth calling my parents. The Sears guy calls either KFC or home and explains the situation not expecting to have to debate anything, but a debate ensued none the less and the mechanic started looking uncomfortable.

“The car is dangerous for her to be in,” he’d covered this before but he now delivered what he thought was the debate ender “You’re not understanding me she could die-”













Now the mechanic looked really uncomfortable and I knew what was being said, had been said, I wasn’t surprised- it only ever surprised me when he’d, that he really didn’t know that to other people the degree in which he hated his kid was - well odd.

“Okay - Someone else could die, she could be in an accident and cause multiple injuries and fatalities-”





…No I’m talking about her getting hurt I’m talking about someone else- the car has been in my shop and I will not allow her drive it - do you understand me!?.. You want to drive it- tow it- whatever but she is not leaving in that car I am NOT taking on the liability- you want to take on the liability come here and drive it home yourself”.

I remember feeling really ashamed because that was the truth, that’s who I was, I was the kid who nobody cared- well not my family at least if I lived or died.

Everyone but Kari grew to love Randy, she hated him, my Mom adored him, my father mostly hid from him - though eventually he started working on manipulating him. There was this sudden change, this warmth- the charm, the con and I knew, Martha’d fed him intel and there was only ever one thing he did with that.

“Did you tell Dad about Randy’s relationship with his father, about his father never coming to his football games?”













Yeah and twenty years with the man and she still acted like she didn’t know just where that was going, just how he’d utilize it. I warned Randy and granted it was near the end but he was lapping up the male approval which meant for me- I’m in greater state of jeopardy. Randy assured me he wasn’t getting played, but I knew he was though even I hadn’t seen what was coming, could never see as far forward with my father as I needed to.

I was called into the office one day by both the parental units, though they were more units than parental. What I was hearing was that Kari had had a boy over when no one was home, Randy had busted her to my parents. Kari had been grounded and I sat there wondering how this was going to come back on me. Kari’d been the soul of discretion where Nick was concerned, I figured she might have thrown that out there and my parents wouldn’t think twice about a month’s grounding for something that had happened two years ago. Heck one my first groundings had been because someone’s parent had been late driving me home- Mr. Bruns had me home fifteen minutes late - so I was grounded. Had made perfect sense to my parents- of course everyone thought it was nuts “Yeah but why would you be grounded because someone- because a parent was driving”. If it involved me- it was my fault, that was the law of the land.

So Kari had a boy over and Randy had told probably Mom about it and she’d of course deferred to the head lunatic so I was sitting in the office waiting to hear how this was really my fault. Nick was the only thing that had come to mind, couldn’t figure how they were gone to turn this around on me. Fact was once Randy came into the picture my groundings lessened because even though I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere but school - Randy could still drive over, would, show up unannounced even and Mom was always glad to see him.

“We’ve decided to tell Kari that you told us,” I was genuinely surprised and didn’t react so my mother took over the dialogue “See we don’t want Kari to be angry with Randy”. I just nodded my head and I guess that was unsatisfying- I didn’t fight anymore, didn’t bother but then there was that glint in my father’s eye, that satisfied grin - he was coming to something he liked, it was in his head and now he got to say the line

“She already hates you,” he said with that Cheshire cat grin. started tearing up, pushed it back.

“Is that all?” I asked as mother looked confused and neither answered - they’d apparently been expecting a show.

“Is that all?- is there anything else or can I go now?”













Yeah I could go that was all they had, for the moment. But I’d seen what apparently they’d each been missing since the beginning; Kari had nothing but daggers in her eyes for Randy. She did hate him- see he’d done something unforgivable. Kept John in check, was nice to Martha and me but then there was the coups de gras. It wasn’t directed at her- well maybe it was but he did it for me just like when the first time I met his Dad I made it clear in no uncertain terms that I was not standing for him screaming at his son. To Randy’s Mom that was outrageous “Oh that even isn’t Ron yelling”.

“Except he is yelling and I am not listening to that all day- we are leaving”.

Within fifteen minutes of pulling into the lakehouse- we pulled out. The rule held- I was around: no yelling. Randy was around- none of the various forms of my father’s bullshit. He’d been given an easy enough directive: solid food- or liquid food - you touch anyone in this house again- nothing but soft food on a permanent basis pal. But that wasn’t what Randy’s note was about, Randy’s note was when he decided it was going to stop and he was going to stop it.

We of course did go back to the lake house and I’d gotten to wear the bathing suit I’d had on layaway since January or so, cruise season. We went to the lake, came back and the suit disappeared but my things were always disappearing. Of course -well there was crossing my name out of books and writing her own and which was replaced by us receiving the same gifts. Even if we were given the same, she would have to have both. Then of course the crawl attic had to be closed up because that had proved a good stash point for a little treasure trove of my things which had been collected and gathered because- well it’s what she did. Sharing or asking her, telling her that if she asked I’d let her wear whatever just please don’t go in my room and take things…because sometimes, a lot of the time they’d just disappear, never to be seen again and I kept a neat room. It had been a problem in terms of my job at the Limited we had things that we had to wear, and all too often what I needed to wear would just up and disappear, like it walked out of the house.

Randy didn’t date the letter, the one I found, the one I kept- who’d have thought it was for lest I forget.

Everyone at work knew about the stealing thing because I’d get unnerved sometimes when what I’d laid out or was planning on wearing disappeared and I’d have to throw something together. Came into work nearly- no definitely hysterical-I’d waited until I got out of the car to lose it. My father had driven me work because - well Mom had found a lump and it was all the stress I was putting on her “You have to make Kari stop stealing”. I remember feeling like my brain would explode, that happened a lot I’d hear something so nuts I couldn’t process it; see their daughter stealing from me that was because of me because I couldn’t make her stop. She wasn’t their job- she was my job, she wasn’t responsible for her behavior- I was responsible for her behavior- everything was my job, my fault.

Randy’s note- see he’d gotten tired of it “you work all the time and then you have nothing to show for it…I care about you”. Some months it was hundreds of dollars of stuff just gone- a gift that was really dear- gone. It was my normal - had been since I was seven or so. Didn’t matter where I hid things- I couldn’t get her to stop and by the time high school came around-no one ever actually figured it out, that her friends had become the stash points, like the attic crawl space had been.

It was only when I bemoaned the “lost” suit in computer lab to Gretchen Gracy- because that’s how I always framed it- or had been told to frame it- if I couldn’t prove she stole it - I lost it, whatever it was. Nice little mind fuck my parents came up with.

But finally one day Randy had had enough, walked in the house and up the stairs towards the bedrooms- a move that made nearly both my parents blabbering and indignant. “How dare you,” they actually said that “you know boys aren’t allowed on the stairs”. With toolbox in hand he knelt down in front of my door, Kari opened hers watching this full out scene. Randy was replacing my doorknob, period and I’d have a key so I could lock my room.

“She works all the time and then she has nothing to show for it,” kari was there, red faced and furious “You won’t make her stop - so I will”. She slammed her door, she loved slamming doors, cupboards

Funny, never had anything stolen out of dryer in college- no only at home. Never had a roommate take money out of my wallet- only at home. I stopped going home because I just plain could not afford it- well that and Kari was furious when I did. See in her world I wasn’t supposed to exist and everything that was mine was really supposed to be hers.

When I was getting ready to go to college Kari told my mom that she wanted her picture or at least that’s how she framed a Renoir print that had been headed for the basement and I’d asked if I could put it in my room about six years earlier. That actually seemed to freak Mom out- Kari apparently had quite a fit- Martha couldn’t understand how Kari would and really believed that a painting that had never hung in her room, only mine and before that the living room, how she could perceive it as hers.

Technically- it made no sense but to Kari it did, to this day it still would.

I remember a guy a I dated and fell for hard asking me once “where do you see your relationship with your father going?” I was stunned then, just floored by the context- relationship? Going? And I sat there knowing - no way this guy can even develop a working concept of my father and what, who exactly that was. -Now my father- well he thought when he got a divorce he’d finally get to date his daughters. Didn’t work out that way. I remember sitting there as he started trying to run a con on me, as if he could, as if I hadn’t been paying very close attention for a very long time.

May(d/ D)ay can mean a lot of things. One is just plain: help. Another well in Kentucky it’s more the first Saturday in May and in New jersey it was May Day, like the may pole. Mom and Kari and I would make little four compartment baskets out of construction paper, fill the compartments with candy and flowers. Leaving just at sunrise we’d drive to houses of friends and leave a Mayday basket on their front door handle. No card, when she first started what became a tradition that began and ended in Jersey Mom would answer people’s questions as to who it might be from?

“Someone who knows about May(d/ Day)”

What's In A Name

“Alferd,” said the Enterprise-Rent-a -Car dude as he read my name, putting an “e” where the “o” is. Alford has never struck me as difficult to pronounce and I didn’t correct his mispronunciation of ‘al’ + ‘ford’ because I got burned out on correcting pronunciation regarding my first name so young that I quickly developed a three-times-and-I’m-done-trying rule.




Al and Ford are commonly used, seen and yet I get Alfred or Alferd regularly.



What I don’t get is how a phrase like al’s ford (sounds kinda’ like a fijord doesn’t it?) but that common names like Al and Ford can’t be properly read, pronounced and glued together. Al + Ford isn’t exactly complicated.



My first name, Maren, that’s where the pronunciation-correction-fatigue first set in. I understand the pronunciation glitch when it comes to my first name because though it’s spelled like Lauren or Karen it’s not said like either. More than once during grade school teachers and substitute teachers would look at the roll, presume my first name was a typo and call out “Marvin Alferd” or “Marvin Alferd“. How is it even possible to get that much wrong during the process of reading and saying letters that are typed clear as day?



I was once on a sales team and Billy, one of my fellow sales people, got so fed up with Lou, our boss, mispronouncing my first name “mare“ like a horse + “in” Billy blurted out in a meeting “It’s Mar, as in the planet. Mars and in - that’s it - it’s not complicated! Mar-in.” Billy had just had enough, he was just sick of this Mare-in thing.



After the meeting Lou asked me “Why didn’t you tell me I was mispronouncing your name?”



“I did,” I said “A couple of times, after a certain point I just give up.”



Lou still looked perplexed by why someone would give up on their name, on something as basic as people saying one’s name correctly.



“Some people can never say it,” I said, “say it right- pronounce it correctly- no matter how many times I or someone else pronounces it for them”.



Jan Scholtz could never say my name. Jan’s daughter Anne corrected her for years, over a decade and Jan could never apply how to say my name to memory. I’d be standing there and Jan would say “More-in” I’d be standing there with Jan mispronouncing my name and Anne would say “Mom” and then pronounce my name correctly. As time went on Anne would occasionally get exasperated at her mother but me, I was accustomed to it. Even after ten years of corrections Anne’s Mom could not say my name correctly and to this day she probably would still mispronounce my name. didn’t matter how many times she heard it pronounced correctly- she just plain couldn’t repeat the sounds she had just heard.



I guess it just would have been nice to have had at least one name that people wouldn’t screw up 99% of the time. I’ve thought about switching to the middle, to Camille- Cami for short. “Camille” - not a tough one name wise and too it has cultural reference points: books, plays, and Bill Cosby’s wife but I feel certain that pronunciation wise Camille will be turned into “Ka-mile“.



I could always drop the e and thereby misspell my name but that would probably confuse the people who would have known how to say it if I hadn’t dropped the e- all in an effort to lower the mispronunciation rate of my name/s.



I almost dropped maren altogether when I went to college but what with my mother calling and asking for me and Catina having already known me and how to pronounce my name it had seemed like something that would have just invited confusion, switching over to Camille.



The name ‘Maren’ had been a big mystery within my family, well at least for me but for my mother it was a secret. I had asked her on several occasions how I’d come to have my name, Maren, but my mother never told me. She only hinted at how I got name shortly before her death writing a post-it note “this woman is your namesake”.



‘I was named after an actual person?’, I thought because this was late breaking news, a twenty year secret



What my mother had always said was that she “read Maren in a book and thought it was pretty”. Initially I accepted her explanation as to how I got a name that appeared nowhere, not on key chains, or ID bracelets or monogrammed items.



Once and only once someone found my name already on an item for sale, a key chain with a plexi-glass heart and Maren engraved on a fake gold name plate. Mrs. Handrich had been so excited for me and about her find she bought it - and of course got a key chain for my sister too which had her name on it. “Kari” you can find- “Maren” on the other hand rarely appears prefabricated. I kept that keychain for years but the more I read in school and the more I read period and having never heard my name and sharing it seemingly only with an actress on the original Battlestar Gallactica I started asking again about where I got my name.



“From a book I read, I thought it was pretty” Mom said and I accepted that on the surface but I was starting wonder if she was lying.



Years of more butchering of my names followed, as well by lots of reading and still my name appeared nowhere, not in any book and no adult had ever referenced a book in which they too had read my name.



“How come you named me Maren?,” I asked in my early teens.



“I told you, I’ve told you - I read it in a book,” she shouted.



“-and you thought it was pretty but which book?, “ I asked.



Then Mom/Martha started yelling, there was an edge of panic in her voice and just the repetition of what was clearly a lie, something I thought she rarely did but -



“What was the name of the book?” I asked



“I don’t remember- I told you I don’t remember!” Martha/Mom said.



“How could you not remember the character and book you named your daughter for?”



I don’t know that I dared ask aloud as the line of questioning upset my mother to the point of yelling. I never asked the question again.



Years later she suicided and before doing so wrote on a post-it note “This woman is your namesake”. The Post-Its sticky stuff was attached to a Xerox of a newspaper article that was about? That mentioned a woman named Maren, a coffeehouse owner who had poetry slams regularly in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area. Maren had an adopted Vietnamese daughter and I got the impression she was never married.



So the mystery was somewhat solved; my name, - my mother hadn’t read it in a book. Up until Anita Shreve wrote a book about a murder on a small island while telling the story of a vacation romp that became pivotal for the lead character researching a murder of early immigrants and travesty of justice? Only then did I ever encounter that name in a book. (I can’t remember the title- oh the irony but if it was Shreve- awful don’t bother she ends all her novels- or the two I’ve read and presume she does the same cop out ending where ever she goes: the novel/s ended on plot points as if she were too pressed for time or too lazy to complete the story or she didn‘t know that she ends just when things start to get %ing. Ah- but I’m judging her- well then: her endings suck, are inelegant, not at all thought out and decidedly unliterary.)



But I digress.





Of course there had been a clue much earlier than when my mother went a tad bit hysterical in the car after I asked her again how I got to be named Maren but I didn’t until now pick up on it: if Mom/Martha had simply read the name how come Maren wasn’t pronounced as it was in “Something’s Gotta Give”: mare-in or More-in as some people do pronounce their very own Maren name. How would Martha/Mom have known and been particular about the pronunciation if she‘d only read it?



I never caught onto all that.



So why the big, huge secret? Given that my mother left St. Olaf’s College after her freshman year and transferred to Luther College instead -something she was always very sketching about in her answer as to why- well I presume/d Maren and Martha had had a relationship. Maybe at St. Olaf’s maybe later- I don’t know but it would have been during the late 1950’s or early 60‘s- a much different time than now.



Or perhaps they were just friends and had a spectacular conflict that was never resolved but feelings remained? But that doesn’t strike me as secret worthy, not to the length time Martha kept that secret.



Once someone said they’d heard my name in a movie, though I’d thought that too and when I checked the credit’s the spelling was different. I was working at Seabrook for a short summer and a gentleman touched my arm and said “Maren, just like in Braveheart”.



I didn’t tell him that no actually the spelling’s different, I liked what he’d said it too much to correct him.



There’s a lot in a name and in a naming. Given the smoke and mirrors nature of my name I suppose there’s a certain cosmic balance to the fact that most commonly, ordinarily, no one can speak it, just like a secret.

I Am Not A Terrorist

Fate or Destiny? Well each have the same markers/characteristics within a story/narrative. The difference is in the outcome, a negative outcome- that would be fate. A positive outcome that would be destiny. And how much of that is perception, there are all kinds of happy and unhappy endings.




So was the following fate? felt like it at the time- maybe destiny, maybe both.



“Dear Fred,



Rightly or wrongly I still presume the truck is owned by someone named Fred and he, or I suppose it could be a she, parks on Charlotte Street. I still think that your Black on Prussian skies plus this truck would make a very cool painting.



A couple of years ago I stood on Vendue Street in what some see as my rose colored glasses and you said “I remember you”. Yes, years ago on one Spoleto afternoon in Marion Square I mentioned how much I liked your truck and you looked at me as if I might be quite mad.



“The old Ford,“ I said finding it odd that I would be having to describe your own car to you “Custom paint, sky blue with clouds and FRED painted on the rear panel.”



The juxtaposition of sky colors, the advertisement value and it saying “FRED“- well it hadn’t seemed that great a leap that the Fred truck would be your truck.



You looked at me, again, as if might be quite mad.



“Well have you seen the FRED truck?” I asked wondering if perhaps I had gone and was going mad “Well maybe you’ll see it someday”.



Thanks for Charleston Shutters,



and the map,





Maren Al(fred/ford)”



Though written in yellow I remember and still it strikes me upon seeing the name fred on that cloud covered truck that fred is written in red. Maybe because red is in the name itself? or because the time I first saw the truck’s back panel I experienced it as if it were a neon sign “fred” written where “ford” would normally be, the last syllable of my last name- replaced as it often is by fred or ferd.



“The Alfred file”



I’d received a torn envelope on which a man wrote “The Alfred File” referring to me and upon reading “fred” instead of “ford” a little piece of me was torn apart. But the tearing had just begun as if I myself were a document scheduled for a good shredding.



‘The only face I remembered and he doesn‘t remember my name.’



I had thought that was the bitterest pill possible but it wasn’t and of course there’s how I came to swallowing it, them really.



And now, now there’s only ‘what ifs’ of here and there and how one unrelated thing lead to another unrelated thing and came to be in unlikely proximity.



“What if”- a dangerous pursuit? True-



but what if I had gone back to Kianouche for treatment instead of to Twoie or at the very least not changed course that spring and gone back to Montreal as I had been planning despite my last trip. Or even better what if Nadine had just brought her passport like a sensible person? then what happened with Homeleand Security and Border Control never would have happened and it’s doubtful my return trip to Canada would have been as eventful.



But then of course the next time Nadine and I were together in the states and going on a trip -all of sudden there’s an extra 10 or 100 thousand Euros in her account and she’s on the horn to France trying to get them to figure how the money got there. Maybe - oh I don’t know- but then we went to Atlanta and thus I had to see someone because the Atlanta osteopath had made things worse. I had to see someone soon and Canada- that made me nervous, so to Twoie.



Was still spooked about returning to Canada- or trying to. And without all that I never would have met Twoie much less been treated by her and even more so something as infeasible as being on some NSA watch list wouldn’t have had the sliver of plausible credibility. Well that and nobody would have been messing with my chakras in the first place.



“I’m Persian,” Kianouche had said in 2003? 2004. That had been what he’d asked Nadine to translate to me. Only after the appointment did she tell me that Kianouche, a predominantly French speaking osteopath practicing in Quebec Province, was born in Iran.



Me being American during George W‘s America, it had been Kianouche’s instinct that perhaps it was best I didn’t know about his family being from Iran. Understandable as many Americans in the 911 world saw and see someone of a Muslim country and automatically thought/think “terrorist”. But I am and Nadine had known me to be the strange breed of American who upon being faced with an Iranian born but French trained osteopath, I could only think that in his family’s native country our appointment would have been criminal because he is male and I am female.



It had been Nadine‘s idea “Let’s go to Quebec Province- I want to be somewhere totally French before I am living back in France and we can get you to a French trained osteopath”. That was her gift to me before she returned to France, after her graduation and before her departure. She had been correct because after seeing Kianouche once- for the first time in three years I wasn’t regularly leveled into the kind of pain where you want a gun or for someone to severe your head and neck from your body - not to die just for a temporary break from physical pain.



I had mentioned to two doctors that among all my other issues after a too close encounter with an SUV that “it feels like my tongue doesn’t fit in mouth”, for which I’d received a strange look, a you are strange look. I had surgery of course, physical therapy, cortisone injections but the pain didn’t stop- just kept getting worse; that and my tongue still didn’t feel like it fit in my mouth. Not that I bothered mentioning that anymore. Nor did I have anyone to mention it to once I became an American with a pre-existing condition and no health insurer who would cover anything related to the accident.





After my appointment with Kianouche I said with huge relief “This is first time since the accident my tongue has fit right in my mouth.” He’d adjusted my palette- it had been thrown/knocked out of place. After nearly two hours in Kianouche’s Montreal office I was thrilled and knew I’d be flying back to Montreal for more treatments, even before I knew that for the first time in years I wouldn’t be in any physical pain. Life, having one started to become a possibility. Nadine did that for me, she got me there but she also had gotten us and maybe me flagged at the US Canadian border before we ever entered Canada and visited an Iranian. McGill University recommended him as did the clinique who had a six month waiting list.



We had driven to the border for what was the first time I’d ever left United States. At the Niagara border crossing I had asked Nadine for her passport as the car idled in line.



“I didn’t bring my passport,” Nadine had said “I can get in with just my driver’s license.”





“Ah no that’s a special relationship the US and Canada have, we’re not going to be able to cross.”



“No my parents took us when we were kids from South Carolina, from when we lived there,” she said giving me what I’d come to regard as the Dora-look, for Dora in “Finding Nemo”.



“That’s you,” Nadine had said and we had both laughed because it was true. I was that happy go lucky forgetful fish and I, Dora, her concerns had no weight. I figured the whole trip might be over as Nadine sat assured all would be well but I wondered if my car would be taken apart.



I’d heard something on NPR about that, that border control can on mere suspicion completely disassemble one’s vehicle, not put it back together and then you’re not only without your car but having to pay someone to scoop up all the parts and re-assemble it. Surrounded by cars, there was no turning back.



Nadine and I were of course taken into custody, she being a foreign national attempting to exit the United States without proper documentation, a foreign national who on paper had no job but was depositing four grand a month in cash into a her bank account. I’d been one of the few students in the Theatre Dept. who hadn’t judged Nadine when she took to stripping to make her tuition money. Though I did tell her to save up for therapy. Her attempted illegal border crossing along with a long history of making large untraceable cash deposits -it couldn‘t have looked good.



Tom Ridge and George W. Bush had stared out into the waiting room, photographs only of course. After a few hours border control let Nadine go; they’d threatened deportation but because her student Visa and everything else were in order they didn‘t hold her or fly her straight back to France. She’d been so shaken up, had insisted she’d feel better if she could drive and proceeded to nearly have a head on collision at which point I insisted on driving.



A friend Fedex-ed her passport to New York but we crossed at a different border crossing. Nadine had been afraid to go back through that particular crossing, irrational she knew but they had really shaken her up so we detoured to a very cute and rural Vermont, crossing at a downright quaint border stop. And that couldn’t have looked good either.



The trip went smoothly thereafter, we went to the Magdalene Order’s museum, neat story given what the nuns were sending back Europe, who was resting on them, etc.- well that what priests and deacons raise their eyes from the book to say. So as to emphasize.



Too, we went whale watching where we got a show. The announcer said “This never happens!” Even the crew was excited, a sperm? Whale had followed the boat and kept doing these huge leaps. I think he or she knew and knows applause and have decided they likes it. Probably just as entertaining for them - all these usually quiet creatures making all kinds of curious sounds. Plus the clicking noises, faint but definitely there from the little devices they/we hold in their/our hands. “Maybe they’re trying to communicate,” I could picture a whale wondering, or just hoping humans as a species aren’t as dumb as we must appear.



Nadine and I ended the trip with Montreal and Kianouche, an extremely talented osteopath who happens to be Persian. It was nearly six months after my appointment with him that I had another pain attack, minor comparatively but I figured I needed a tune up. I booked an appointment at the Clinique Camirand Muzzi, just outside Montreal really, in Outremont.



On my return trip back to Canada I took a plane, checking in advance what I’d need to board as I didn’t have a passport and it was over six months off until I would due to a post 911 policy change.



Jennifer dropped me off at the airport for an early morning flight and I had figured I’d be in Montreal in time for lunch but I was delayed at the Charleston airport. I hadn’t been allowed to board my flight and was redirected to a later flight a few hours later if I could “produce the following documents,” one of which being a voter’s registration card (?) which I didn’t have but got in a few hours. Then I flew into Canada waited in line with everyone else and was taken out of line and into an office.



“Why are you attempting to enter Canada?”



The question struck me as being weird and left me feeling a little panicked as my day really wasn’t going as planned and had already been more complicated than it seemed like it should have been. I told the agent I had come for medical treatment, had to explain why I couldn’t get the same care in America. I gave him Kianouche’s information so the appointment could be confirmed, thinking that would clear things up and having only a fleeting thought that Kianoche’s birth place had been Iran.



I was allowed to enter Canada.



While in the Montreal airport I went to the cash machine. I hadn’t bothered with travelers checks or any large amount of money because my bank had said I could access any cash machine in Canada.



I went to the ATM and got some weird message; I can’t remember what it was but I just figured the machine was broken and went to another machine where I’d seen a traveler get money out just fine. And then the same thing happened, same little message- whatever it was, I might have tried another machine but point being I was finding I couldn‘t get cash. Finally I went to currency exchange and found they don’t do debit or credit cards, only cash and I couldn’t get any- at least not at the airport.



My available physical cash had shrunk when I’d had to call a cab from Charleston International airport to deal with the whole additional documentation thing. Jennifer and Jay, my ride to the airport, were at work and school so I’d just paid what I’d needed to pay a Charleston cabbie so I could get on my later flight and not miss my appointment with Kianoche. As I stood at the Canadian exchange I had enough money to get me, hopefully, to the hotel and figured there was just some computer communication problem between the company providing ATM service at the airport and Bank of America. Perhaps those two institutions didn’t work together?



I didn’t have a problem at the hotel, my card cleared fine. Didn’t have a problem grabbing some dinner with it at a little Bistro. I got up the next morning after a good night’s unworried sleep, had breakfast and went out to get some cash so I could pay for a cab ride to and from Kianoche’s office. He’d advised Nadine and I that the subway would be a no-no because of all the jostling, to wait two or three days after treatment before riding the subway, flying or taking a train.



I walked to a bank machine from my hotel, I had plenty of time before my appointment. But the same message, the same thing that had happened at the airport - I couldn’t get cash. I went to three or four different banks and it was all the same. The cashiers had no idea why I couldn’t get cash, they hadn’t heard of any Bank of America and Canadian banking glitches. I had less than a half an hour to get my appointment and no way of knowing if my card, my one card would cease working altogether and I didn‘t have enough Canadian for the cab ride, not even enough for a subway ride to the office.



Some cabbies were lined up and talking near the metro and I told them my plight. One stepped up, drove me to and from Kianoche’s with my verbal assurance he’d be paid but. He said good-bye when he dropped me off at the hotel and had looked as though he didn‘t expect to ever be paid but - ...Nice man and he finally got a really big tip.



When I called Bank of America, I don’t know that I ever got or even asked for an explanation I just told the rep what I knew: “I can’t get cash at any bank, from any ATM”. Between faxes and phone calls it was determined that I could pick money up from a Western Union. That could be arranged. I requested enough to cover my hotel bill and meals if something went further loopy with my card.



That had been my last trip to Canada and Kianouche; admittedly I was afraid to go back. Not really afraid I guess, but nervous because it had been kind of a weird trip.



That’s my what if, one of ‘em.



What if I’d just gotten a passport? What if I’d Nadine for hers before we ever got in that clogging of cars. What if I’d stuck to our border crossing? What if I’d just planned really well and gone back to Canada that May. But I didn’t go back to Canada, I went to Twoie instead, a massage therapist who uses energy work/ chakra balancing in her treatment plans and that’s a whole other story, part of the same story/mess building process. I’m still stunned by how much colluded and came to a single point.



God how one thing leads to and lines up with another in ways you’d just plain never expect. The money in Nadine’s account I’d figured some bank employee was laundering money. Great way to do it: park the money in one account, overnight it because who checks their account at 3am their time on a weekday. All of her previous traffic was probably super predictable while she was in France- that was until she went on vacation to the States. That’s what I figured at the time and still more plausible - well of course - too it could have just been an error. Nothing nefarious about it all.



I am so not a terrorist. Okay once, it could be argued, and I can argue it better than anyone, that for a time I did terrorize a small town Washington. I was way hurt and that led to wicked pissed- a rarity in my emotional landscape. I was an anger inward kind of gal before the TBI . It’s been a difficult learning how to manage that impulse, the lashing out at a target impulse. I just plain hadn‘t had to manage those kinds of instincts before but self hate- I was really good at that. Gifted even.



Fate or Destiny? What I know for sure is that there’s been and is the opportunity to interrupt, change the pattern. One of my prime goals, other then making sure things left unsaid got said was that the pattern didn’t repeat, that the pattern be broken and therefore, maybe just I - maybe he and I -don’t ever run this particular program again, ever.



I work on honesty- not the absence of lying kind but the other kind wherein the here and now and then and there aren’t just a series of edits.



The only other thing I know is that truth is a force unto itself. One can build walls or dams to contain it or canals to try and redirect it but the truth, whatever it is will have its way one way or another. Over time it’s a thing you can count on.



That I know for sure…that and I am so not a terrorist.

4.22.10

Out of nowhere I had just a wave of profound sadness hit me today at around 2:30.

"Where's this coming from," I thought.

Concluded it came from my shoe guy. I'd asked how he was doing- the last time I was there I just made it in before they closed for mourning. His father had died and I walked in just as they were covering the glass, the mirrors.

"Thirty years of working side by side everyday," he said "thirty years".

"I have no idea what that would be like," because I don't - I know, empathy and imagination can only stretch so far.

"It'll be a hard adjustment period," I said "but how lucky/blessed you were- alot kids just want to grow up just wanting to escape -but yours, you got one you'd acrtually want to stand next to thirty years."

I trace that as the point of profound sadness. At first - well too I am in PMS, and too I had personal failure, went somewhere I don't go- though when I do I have spot on timing. Or so it seems. I still like film and the above picture is why.

I posted on the 18th across four sites, essentially the same post. At least here- that post disappeared into a digital abyss.  It said what I do and have occassionally wondered over years: Did I die in that crash? Am i in a coma somewhere and this just me hovering in some vanilla sky, finishing what I didn't get to finish in myself?

How would I know? Just like that box -Philosophy 110 or 101 at CofC with professor Tucker before or after her divorce- the question she'd posit to freshman classes "If you had everything you needed would you stay in the box?" And of course the class debated- which was the point.

No, I'd want out of that box. That's what I thought then and its what I/'d say now.

"What are the chances of that"

Two wrecks, two repairs, two rentals but they all apply to one individual- so snafu city and what turned out to be an unnecessary trip to Mt. P.

Oh well, to their library to see if they have disc 3,4 & 5 for Lost, The Fifth Season, during which I was living at a homeless shelter and therefore missed most of the season. Yes- disc 5 (didn't get to see the last forty minutes of the finale) but no Mt. P didn't have 3 & 4. I searched the catalogue,  season 5 didn't show up any which where.

Went to check out to see if the library chick would look it up for me and put down a hold. Just prior a man had dropped a quarter "Sir- you dropped a quarter " but he didn't appear to hear me- oh well half a dryer cycle for me.

I began to ask the library chick at check out about getting lost seaon five- but less than ten words in & she couldn't understand, sometimes its like I'm speaking tongues- except I'm not - I'm SC which can often be Bubba-Duh-land.

"I'll go to someone else," I said- I'd felt like I should have gone to reference but well that seemed like such a negative judgement to put someone - except I was right- she was linguistically challenged.

Reference of course had no trouble understanding, making the search, finding the DVD, etc- and it's all for the best - how Candide of me-

"Oh if you're going to pick it up today we should just call Main because it can take 24 hours for something to get pulled," the reference librarian said.

Excellent customer service, I love a good librarian.

She calls main "Tv dvd for  patron- she's picking up today- Lost season 5 disc 3 &4 ...you have it your hands- well what are the odds of that"

"She was holding the DVD in her hands when I called," said the librarian, bemused "what are the chances of that?!"

I just smiled, didn't reply said thank you.

I grabbed a computer and from reference: "What are the odds of that? I call about a material and she's holding it in her hands!...what are the chances"

She might have said it again and all I could think was: Lady

 this is my normal.

I never got the big deal about the novel Sidhartha. In senior advanced humanity Mr.? said "Isn't that amazing," referring to some passage "he thinks this and then" - I don't remember what happened- a bird flew, an apple fell or something but Mr. ?, my home room teacher as well was -was blown away "Isn't that amazing".

 I couldn't figure out what the big deal was stuff like that happened to me all the time. Kinda cool on those occassions when someone was there with me but when I'm on my own- man all that shit means  is I'm perceived as liar because "that couldn't happen" so mostly I do just keep my mouth shut.

"What are the chances- what are the odds-" ...what does it mean?- so far it means I'm screwed. So far it means I get to fall lower and lower down society's rungs - generally surrounded by gamers of one sort or another.

?falling up- to quote Silver(man/stein/?)

- not from my perspective

"What are the chances of that- what are the odds-" that sort of thing -if it's a marker for anything in this world it is destruction, destruction of the bearer...

bad two days - I keep having nightmares. Kari -it's like one nightmare about her - I can't shake it off. I remember Tommy Dew saying "that much can't happen at one time" and all I could think was- wow -imagine having that kind of life? where you could even say - much less completely believe that. I don't have that kind of life I never have, I doubt I ever will and occassionally it pisses me off...I know how very un Zen of me. Except I haven't been cloistered in a safe family or a safe place- i've been doing time in the snake pits, ever looking, believing - hoping and thinking the best of people. What I've found: most any creature in the animal kingdom shows more humanity than this Lott possesses.

Dreams of Kari always do this,

An Easter Poem

Subtitle: Fo’ Men-Who-Stare-At-Goats

Title
Re(:/ / -)
citation


Amazing, they’re lost in a home-
(land/made) maze. But the zinger
per their hidden stinger
fingers who somehow figure/d:


               “… Luke Skywalker…”




                                  No, that would be




                                                          Vader,


                                                                       Imagine
                                                                                   
                                                           a nation


                                   mistaking the two.




                                     
Quoting the very verse defied,
expecting to burst into flame
if you were to truly defame
Deuteronomy’s 18th frame ?

Vatican born where

                 “…crucifixion’s God’s plan…”
                                             
                                                                 No,
                                                                        
                                                                          that would be


man,
the slayer of lambs.

MAXIMUS-izing and HMO Bozo web designers

I am ever amazed by websites. Currently I am amazed by

http://www.yourtickettowork.com/




I was sent by mail a letter from Social Security and encouraged to register for the your-ticket-to-work program which the federal government subcontracted to MAXIMUS. No instructions were sent to me in terms of how to navigate the site despite the fact that I am a TBI. One would think given the people who will be using the site something like registering would be easy to follow step by step, obvious link to obvious link- that the information would be front and center.
I have a brain injury with damage to my visual cortex which means highly complicated visual fields are difficult for me. I need for information to be front and center. An that's part of why I don't understand how the your-ticket-to-work site- was designed for or by MAXIMUS. I don't understand how this page was designed considering it's audience which includes people like me with organic brain differences and I've come to the conclussion the site wasn't designed for the people in which MAXIMUS has been subcontracted to provide a service for. Me and peolpe like me- we're not even on their radar.


 The task assigned to me was and is: register for the your-ticket-to-work program but the site clearly wasn't designed for registering. It's primary purpose in terms of design is not registering the disabled or providing useful information for them. The "consumers" were not are not the audience which the site was designed for. Whether this was and is conscious or unconscious I don't and can't know.


Whoever designed the site felt the most important information was and is "how many people are elligible". Personally I don't care how many people are elligible it's not relevent information for anyone actually using the service. The information that is front and center is relevent from a PR stand point, from an investor or  business participant standpoint but not from a customer standpoint, not for those people for which the program itself exists.


But then again is that why the program exists as a matter of practice? Does it exist to deliver services or to transfer taxpayer dollars to private for profit companies under the pressumption that socially services are just another widget?




 Subcontracting services to a private entity essentially means that money for the help and support of the disbaled is being funneled to a private for profit company- a company that doesn't comsider registering the disabled into their program a high enough priority to provide an easy or even accessible way to register.


People are worried about socialism? Umm - gee tax payer  dollars being diverted directly to corporations- the very entities that fund our elections, that lobby the congress on both the federal and state levels. To me that sounds a lot scarier. But what do I know - I have a brain injury.


 Back to my adventures with corporate bureaucracies which are supposed to be so much more efficient than a government. I have two tasks: register for the your-ticket-to-work program and pick a Medicaid HMO- that's right folks Medicaid has been subcontracted to the private sector.


The same we-did-not-construct-the sites-to-be-functional-outside-of-PR purposes is present in the HMO options I need to choose from regarding Medicaid in the state of SC. Six companies and with the exception of one HMO every site was designed not for efficiency but as a PR device. On most of the sites it is impossible to get  simple provider information, on only one site can you type in the name of the doctor and his address and get an answer as to whether s/he's on their provider list


The HMO's were subcontracted of the argument thatprivate is better than public -corporations do it smarter and leaner. Really? because that's not been my experience so far.


Smarter and cheaper would be  a simple fill in the blank search avaliable for every Medicaid HMO to check if your doctors are on their lists. Only one SC. Medicaid HMO provider has the ability to quickly check their providers online. Five of the six providers require that you the consumer call a 1-800 and that every individual provider inquiry be handled by hand, by a paid tele-person checking the list for you. Instead of letting the cutomer do the work these HMO would rather employ tele-people. How exactly is that efficient?


 Only one HMO essentially made use of the internet in their site's design providing  a simple fill in the blank search connected to their list of providers. All the other Medicaid HMO's it's call a 1-800 number so a person can type in those fields for you? Totally friggin' inefficient. If they can't do even that simple, simple action of filtering waste in the design of their own system how exactly is it that they could ever hope to manage healthcare efficiently?


And as for MAXIMUS, they can't even manage to provide an easy, no hassle way to register for the governement program they are now paid to dispense to the citizens for the governement. But maybe, maybe Maximus is just like the health insurance industry: existing not to provide the product in which they've been tasked but to impede consumers/citizens from gaining access the product or program itself.


That's how it seems from my perspective.




This American idea that private indutry whose sole purpose is to make a profit is the best means of administering services is not correct. Who delivers more for less- that would be non profits. And even on their sites there is this same issue of "who did you design this page- this site for".


Mostly the websites seem to be constructed for PR practices- as an online PR package- that's what I see. The sites weren't designed for users they were designed for press, investor information but not to get any actual work done- and I really don't get that