Impressions on Penczak's "Gay Witchcraft"

After at least twenty years, I've finally managed to get my hands on a 2003 copy of “Gay Witchcraft: Empowering the Tribe,” by Christopher Penczak. It’s a Wicca 101 book, highlighted with gay overtones. It’s the sort of book I would have loved in the 1980s; it appears to be grounded in sources like Margot Adler, Janet and Stewart Farrar, Marija Gimbutas, Charles Leland, Starhawk, and Native American practices. Early chapters are a survey of world pantheons with a focus on gay, lesbian, and transgender deities where applicable. Later chapters are quick sketches of astrology, reiki, crystal healing, and herbal remedies.

It’s more same-sex centered than “The Gay Wicca Book,” by Bruce K Wilborn. It does have some ritual and practices for same-sex lovers, but it’s not really a gay essentialist tome in the way Storm Faerywolf’s more earthy “Satyr’s Kiss” is. Specifically, the Great Rite—placing an athame (ritual blade) into a chalice—is presented as a symbol for the heteronormative union of the Horned God and the Great Mother, i.e. Heiros Gamos, which in itself is a symbol for the union of cosmic principles. While I appreciated the handful of paragraphs exploring the Oak and Holly Kings recast as lovers, I did wish for more exploration of cis gay male eros, agape, and amore as a source of gay gnosis and as a lens for queer praxis within the framework of American Wicca.

To work beyond the book, it could be fruitful to one’s personal practice to explore decoupling elemental tools and directions from a male or female view. I’m not sure if that would make, say, a wand both masculine and feminine, neither male nor female, or some other intersection of the gender continuum. Perhaps it could be useful to move linguistically from statements like “fire is male” to “fire has male” (in the same way that one might say “he has hunger” instead of “he’s hungry.”) At the very least a reexamination of how gender and desire are woven into symbolic correspondences would result in more mindful symbolic acts, i.e. rituals.

I suppose to continue the decoupling, one could explore silent, mimed ritual. (Pause to imagine Wiccans trapped in a glass box.) Hmm. Maybe not. I’m sure there’s a metaphor in there, somewhere.

Portland in April: Sunday

Palm Sunday, April 13

Sunday morning was sunnier, colder, and windier than the previous day. Walking the early morning streets Mark pointed out that the lighting on the embossed brass doors of the U.S. National Bank Building was diffuse and at a low angle. I’d mused about photographing them yesterday, but the lighting had been more harsh. I skipped across the street to photograph them. The doors are similar to the ones on the New York City Exchange building in that eight square panels show scenes of “progress”—except the New York doors show more Art Deco styling and the Portland doors are more “Empire” or “Romanesque” (I don’t know when they were made, but based on the naturalistic poses I would guess 1890 or something).

I didn’t register it at the time, but the panels are a history of Western Expansion, starting with half-naked Native Americans witnessing a clipper ship in the top right square, Lewis and Clark (and Sacagawea’s papoose-carriered back) on the top left square. Transportation and arrival seems to be the underlying theme, with the Native Americans watching locomotives in one panel replaced with settlers watching a steam paddle boat in another. The last panels along the bottom depict senes from the 1920’s or 30’s; the rolling landscapes have been replaced with power lines, model T cars, and metal draw bridges. While I appreciated the artistry, the doors are really Colonialism (and Capitalism) on Parade. (Pause to consider replacing the panels with ones that rotate with scenes restoring the narrative of Native Peoples; pause to consider how the concepts of capitalism are embedded within the architectural details of the vault-like doors, and what a post-capitalism bank might look like.)

After the photo session, we walked south. An ornamental cherry had shed its petals over the white marble steps of another financial institution, and I briefly entertained the vision of scooping them up and throwing them up into the air as if we were in a procession—but then I imagined the unsavory items and liquids that might be commingled with the petals and checked the impulse.

Mark and I breakfasted at “La Boulangerie” (or something), on things like quiche, croissants, and macaroons. Across the street, in a corner courtyard with the cherry tree, a vortex played with black sheet of plastic, possibly an extra-large garbage bag. Against the sunlit buildings and tree, the plastic looked like a Dementor from the Harry Potter series. Every time I though it would come to rest, it would jump up again and circle, over the cherry, around a building corner and back again, gyring up eight stories and slinking on the wind over the street in a way that looked less and less like a tumbling bag and more and more like cloaked and serpentine wraith. This was made all the more incongruous by a chocolate croissant and loud, vaguely French music coming from the kitchen’s sound system. Eventually, the apparition blew around a corner and out of view.

We returned to the hotel for a quick refresh and to meet a local friend, NH. She photographed us as we processed down the grand staircase from the mezzanine, in front of the great mirror, and into the lobby proper. I’d like to say that we looked regal as we went down the stairs, but we were dressed for an urban hike and looked like we were attending an Elderhostel Orientation (I blame my Tilley Hat’s inability to contain my hair).

The three of us headed to the Willamette River and the Steele Bridge. We chatted about our elderly parents and what our children are up to. Along the way we passed by a sheet of thick, black plastic crumpled on a corner. The temperature rose, but the wind was cool, especially if we were in the shade. Cyclists and joggers and families on outings passed us in both directions.

As we were making our way along the eastern river bank below OMSI, I looked out and saw a sea lion in the Willamette. The sea lion was so high out of the water and swimming so swiftly that it looked a little like the Loch Ness Monster. Another, smaller sea lion swam on its side and appeared to be sailing with one fin held up in the air; we weren’t sure if it was in distress or not. We seemed to be the most excited folks on our section of the path to see the sea lions—normally they are on the coast; Mark opined that they must be following the salmon as they spawned up the river.

Continuing forward, we crossed the Tilikum Crossing back to the west side of Portland. We ate at what we thought was a pizza place at first, but turned out to be an Asian Dumpling Restaurant. We continued our urban hike along the waterfront plaza, and wound up back at the hotel, where we bid NH adieu.

Mark wanted to pick up some books of his own, so I ditched my Tilley hat, Mark ditched some unneeded layers, and we went to Powell’s City of Books. Powell’s has rearranged the speculative fiction section and a few other sections; so there was a repeat of the moment where I would lead Mark to the former location of something. Which was a little irksome. Eventually, a bookstore clerk directed us to the sections where we might find LGBTQ+ romance (paranormal or otherwise) similar to what Alexis Hall writes.

Since I had already used up my book budget the previous day, I felt like I shouldn’t be buying any more books (and besides, I wasn’t sure I would have been able to fit them into my train luggage). I did ask two clerks if they had any suggestions or tools for repairing books that had been savaged by Evil Scrapbookers—one clerk was sympathetic and I felt like he was going to tell me some Powell’s Book Bindery Secrets, but the other clerk sort of shushed him and I ended up getting directed to a shelf of books on book binding, but, alas, not exactly book repair.

As I was leading Mark back through the stacks and to the cash registers, I had a a stairwell moment with another patron. I would quip that it was a “stare well” moment except it was more like my gaze fell on this other guy as I was descending, who sort of jumped and stop-motioned out of a freezing in his tracks as he continued ascending. It occurred to me that between my unbound hair flowing behind me, and my nail-and-bicycle-deraillieur-parts pendant against a dark shirt, I probably looked like the love child of Gandalf the Grey and Jareth the Goblin King.

“I think my hair just got a date,” I said to Mark when we reached the first floor.
“You mean the guy on the stairs?” Mark asked. “Yeah, he swiped right. I think that was the third one.”
“Oh,” I said. “So I wasn’t just seeing things in the corner of my eye. I’d wondered.”

Since it was just a block away from Powell’s, we traipsed over to Spartacus Leather for some apparel. Something fun, in a Magic Mike kind of way, but not with any chunky buckles or pokey bits. I think my favorite lines from the experience were:

Me: “Hello. I have two questions. (Holds up something like a lace-up tank top) Can I try this on?”
Clerk: “Of course.”
Me (Holds up a second, triangular scrap of cloth): “Uh, *how* do I try this one on?”
Clerk (mentally rotating the apparel in several axes): “I… think… one strap goes over your shoulder…?”


and


Mark (outside a dressing room, asking through the door): “How’s it fit?”
Me (in the dressing room—trying to squeeze into a vest made out of poly-something-or-other—in a stuffed-up, nasal, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer voice): “It’s not very comfortable.”
Mark (in a 1960’s Donner Reindeer father voice): “You’ll wear it and like it. There are more important things than comfort!”


Ultimately, there wasn’t anything there that met the trifecta of making me feel attractive, comfortable, and wouldn’t poke Mark if I hugged him while wearing it.

We wandered around a bit, and slipped into the old Sentinel Hotel, now the home of “Jake’s Grill,” to look at its architecture and interior design. The outside looks French: many masonry “tassels” hang from the corners and cornices, or are carved into the stone window casings. The tassel motif was repeated in balustrades and in stain glass mosaics set behind Beaux-Arts light fixtures. Anticipating Transformers by about eighty years, the stone tassels along the top frieze of the building became knight-like sentinels.

We chatted up the concierge / host, who seemed more than happy to let us explore and photograph architectural details. I stepped into an empty dining area and discovered a series of sepia toned murals depicting Lewis and Clark trading along the Columbia with The Native Americans. The art was well done; we saw a little more of Sacagawea’s face and not quite so much of her back this time. I’m not sure if, confronted with eight-foot tall figures of fishing Native Americans and bartering Corps of Discovery members, a diner is supposed to start humming the School-House Rock ditty, “Elbow Room,” or the Village People’s “YMCA.” However, I’m going to hazard a guess that artists in Oregon at the turn of the century substituted Pacific Northwest Native American men for Hercules, Apollo, and other Classical Excuses to Portray the Male Nude in Art.

That evening, we upgraded our athleisure wear to restaurant casual and had dinner at The Melting Pot (a fine fondue restaurant). Mark had pointed it out the evening prior; much to my excitement I discovered that The Melting Pot’s entrance was through a baroque arched belvedere that first caught my eye when I was a student at Reed. Back then, it was the entrance to a club or restaurant called, I think, “Bacchus.” Wrought iron grape vines and Bacchus heads adorned its four sides, and a horned goat head stared out from the arch’s keystones. A stairway led to the actual restaurant, which was underground. I always imagined a sinuous, writhing interior with torches and vines and snakes and couches and satyrs and nymphs and shepherds and shepherdesses and sheep and goats and urns and craters and pyxes pomegranates and grottos. Oh, yeah; and some sort of feast.

I never did make it inside when I was at school. It was a landmark we’d pass by riding the bus on the way to the Saturday Market; or, later, drive by on the way to Powell’s; or still later, catch a fleeting glimpse of on other Portland adventures. Somewhere along the way it had stopped being a restaurant—I seem to recall it was an unused space for a while—and I had no idea it had become a fondue restaurant.

When we got to the belvedere—I practically skipped up to it—I discovered that what I had thought were granite foundation stones and the intersection of two masonry barrel vaults was, in fact, a stoney facade affixed to a metal frame. Mark and I descended the stairs, which were concrete, with a plain metal railing along one side. I had already braced myself for an an interior which would be completely different from what I imagined, but I hadn’t been prepared for the belvedere’s forgery.

The inside was a sort of Arts-And-Crafts meets Scandinavian Design in dark earth tones. Blue, green, and yellow bottles stood in inset boxes—these were, I think, supposed to be illuminated, but the lights’ elements had failed and so the bottles flickered and flashed in an erratic and disconnected fashion. The center of every table had a rectangular, metal, induction hot-plate in it. We were led to booth seating, which flexed when the person in the adjoining booth moved, and which the seats of were a might too low for the table. But it was clean, didn’t smell odd, and everyone there seemed to be having a joyful time.

We went in not realizing how hungry we were, and ended up ordering four courses: cheese fondue, salads, a chicken broth fondue, and a chocolate dessert fondue. The wait staff brought skewers and fondue pots in a combination clamp holder that they would screw down to secure the pot’s lid and prevent boiling oil splashes. Our waiter reminded us not to cross-contaminate the uncooked salmon with other kabobs of food. The safety measure impressed Mark, and he wondered aloud at the nature of the staff’s safety training. He was also amused at how focused I became on my phone’s stopwatch as I timed the shrimp, potato, broccoli, and aforementioned salmon.

Everything tasted great.

We had a sort of floor show two-thirds of the way in as a teenager in a booth across the aisle lost her cell phone between the seat and the wall. This necessitated a floor manager to remove the seat from the booth’s plywood base, get down on her hands and knees, and finesse the phone out (with a ruler, I think). I’m fairly certain the cell phone’s teen owner wanted to die of mortification.

I wanted to go dancing, but we were full of fondue and Mark was feeling tired, so we took a disco-nap until 10pm and then took a short walk to The Badlands. The drag queen who took our cover charge complemented my hair; I thanked her and then we were through the doors to ¡Kaliente! Night.

We were (surprise!) the oldest people in the club (probably). I’d say the genders were equally represented. The crowd was very diverse, which I wasn’t expecting for Portland, Oregon. I was pleasantly surprised that the music wasn’t random, arrhythmic beeps set to water being poured into a pitcher; it was mostly high energy, in a cha-cha or maybe salsa beat. We found a table in the corner and I bought us drinks.

I was surprised by the accompanying music videos—there must have been at least fifty video screens lining the walls—which seemed to require a chorus of women with Very Large Butts and Very Short Daisy Dukes to twerk and gyre and other variations of the pelvic thrust in unrelenting time with the music. Occasionally, the (usually) male vocalist would step in front of the female chorus, rap in Spanish, and either pump one fist in the air, or else open and close his vest in a game of peek-a-boo with his chest. Usually the set consisted of a swimming pool, a drag race garage, or a living room. I really enjoyed the music, but I have no Spanish, so I caught maybe one out of every thirty words, and I had no way to read the imagery in the videos beyond, “I like butts and I cannot lie.” There was a more arty video that featured a bemused looking man in country apparel, who kissed another man, and then rode a coin-operated mechanical child’s horse backward—I am pretty sure that one was a commentary on the intersection of masculinity, same-sex-desire, and country values. Then the female chorus returned to shake their thangs.

I dragged Mark onto the dance floor and we started to dance. Mark dances like a Muppet, which is adorable. My dance style is Dr. Strange Does a Box Step, which will transform into “White Guys Are So Cute When They Try To Mix Aerobics With Tribal Dance” if I really get into it. The difficulty combining our dance styles became apparent when I tried to ballroom dance with Mark and remembered that the last time we went dancing together was probably at his nephew’s wedding over a decade ago. After several songs, I just put my hands on his hips, closed my eyes, and listened to the music with my ears and listened to Mark through my body.

“Oh, you guys are so cute!” I heard a young woman say to Mark.

I opened my eyes and saw Mark ask the woman, who had very long hair, how far back she could lean, and she demonstrated how she could hold a pose that was almost a backflip. Mark applauded, they chatted some more, and then a moment later said he needed some water.

Back at our table, a young black man locked eyes with us and proclaimed that we were hot. Which was surprising. Gratifying, but surprising.

I dragged Mark out for some more dancing. I could dance for hours, although I felt like maybe I (and Mark) needed to dance more at home just to knock some rust off of my ballroom dance repertoire.

It did not occur to me what sort of impression I was making until several songs later Mark leaned in and started singing: “I’m singing to the song / though I don’t understand the words / but I’m dancing with my husband. / He wears a black turtleneck on the dance floor / and a necklace that looks like a charm / he has long silver hair / everyone thinks he looks like a brujo.”

Mark lasted about another forty-five minutes, accused me of keeping him up until midnight, and confessed that after about a half-hour, he finds dancing boring. We exited the bar. A vendor was grilling what looked like Mexican fare on a wheeled food cart and doing a brisk business.

We walked back to the hotel, said goodnight to Mariah, and returned to our room.

Portland In April: Saturday

Saturday, April 12

Mark arose, like he usually does, before I did, and after a particularly lazy sleep-in, I joined him at the Benson Cafe and Bar for breakfast. In the morning light, the place had an open and light quality that had seemed heavier the previous evening. The sun peeped out from behind clouds and shone through beveled and frosted panes of glass. Massively intricate plaster ceilings reflected the sunlight in a diffuse glow. A huge gilded and silvered mirror at the stair landing stood like a gateway to a reflected lobby—or would that be ybbol ? The darkly stained bannister held panels of carved wreaths between the sturdy rail posts. Breakfast was good, but we decided that better fair was to be had from one of the patisseries a few blocks away.

We skipped a brief reunion tour with Mariah and opted instead to explore the stairwell. This had been set up as a kind of museum, with different landings focusing on things like the history of The Benson, which of the recent U.S. Presidents had stayed at The Benson (many, except the 45th) , the Portland Rose Parade, and famous performers who had stayed at The Benson.

“Whoa,” said Mark. “Mariah requested seven limousines? And a specially lit mirror? And $50 candles? Telling folks that seems like a breach of confidentiality. They’re being so mean to Mariah; they don’t single out Elvis or Shaquille O'Neal like that! And then they make her show her boobies in the elevators!”

Mark then went on to play some Mariah Carey songs, and I recalled why I only liked “Fame!” and “Out Here On My Own.”

Then it was time for our first outing. Saturday was partially cloudy with sprinkles of rain. We entered the Chinese Garden right as it opened at 10 AM. I have never been, although I have walked outside its enclosure and caught glimpses of bushes and interior stuccoed walls through some of the ornate windows. The garden takes up an entire city block, but the layout of the tea shop and trees and galleries and shrubbery and moon gates breaks up site lines and makes the space seem much larger.

Our tour guide was a very enthusiastic Chinese woman who would lock eyes with everyone as she would explain the history and design of the garden and structures around us. Sometimes the sun would peek out from behind clouds; other times a cool wind would herald spattering rain. This was a Chinese scholar’s garden, brought together to enable a scholar easy access to both nature and culture. I would say the central design theme was bringing together contrasts: yin and yang, sharp and smooth, dark and light, moist and dry. I enjoyed the various dark and light pebble floor tiles and took pictures to see if there might be a pattern to bring back to our back yard; I’d say “cherry blossoms on ice” was the most interesting design because the other designs (which I also liked) were regular tessellations. Of all the flowers opening for Spring, I think the blooming bonsai wisteria was my favorite plant.

There were many koi in the irregular pond stretching from the center of the lot, ranging in color from red, to orange, to porcelain blue, to black, to bone, and multiple patterns between. I thought the most striking one was a large black and white koi with silver triangles running down its spine. Mark liked a large grey and white koi with pale blue, almond-shaped plate scale armor.

Later, I was able to capture a photo of the grey and white koi centered in ripples from its spine; in the water outside of the circle of advancing ripples, a cloud-veiled sun was reflected, distorted into a cat’s white slitted pupil in a small blue circle rimmed with yellow and red clouds.

“Whoa,” said Mark when I showed him the photo on my mobile. “That’s a powerful picture. It almost looks like The Moon tarot card.”

We took a meal in the tea house; I declined the chrysanthemum tea—which prompted a mini performance of Stephen Sondheim’s “Pacific Overtures” and a quick explanation to the somewhat amused tea house docent/clerk—and had a red hibiscus tea that was much more subtle than the old Celestial Seasonings Red Zinger tea I sometimes used to have a long time ago. Mark got white pine needles. The second floor of the tea house, where we ate, was open and airy, with Chinese lanterns hanging from the thick crossbeams. We had an interesting and hot soup. The moon cakes were fine, but not to my taste.

Mark had said that the Garden staff used to encourage patrons to use soft, quiet voices in order to preserve the serenity of the place. Apparently, this custom has been relaxed, and I had to compose a haiku about two particularly brash young women and their incessant chatter:

Screeching mergansers
Churning the koi pond waters

Miss the rain’s ripples.

After a final stroll along the peonies, maples and limestone formations, guardian dog and dragon sculptures, and sloped rooflines, moon gates, and ornamental picture windows, we said goodbye to the koi and ducks and exited the Chinese Garden—purchasing some chocolate from the gift shop before hand.

There was an occult bookstore that sold rare books—things like first edition copies of “The Equinox”—across the Willamette on Burnside that I wanted to visit, and Mark was amiable. As we set out, the rain was very intermittent, and the gusts had become more constant, prompting me to tie back my hair so that it wouldn’t blow across my face.

The bookstore was a few blocks east of the river. When I walked in, a wave of something like frankincense and myrrh and cedar hit me. The heavy scent had a deep note, and almost no flowery bouquet or fruity top note; it wasn’t unpleasant, but I knew Mark wouldn’t appreciate spending too long in the store (and in fact, he delayed coming in for a bit). The store was smaller than I expected; the decor was more occult than Neopagan, more Goetia than Wiccan. Folk-pagan music played over the sound system. The store had a collection of tarot decks by the front door, which looked interesting, but I already have several decks and I really only use one. Mark and I both liked a stain glass piece that used beveled cabochons to show the moon’s phases. Short stairs, decorated with occult paintings, led to a small landing with a closed door—I would suppose that a ritual space was located behind the door. The books were arranged by subject and author; the rare books were behind glass doors. While it might be fun to have a rare, first edition book—thinking of my lightly read but visually dynamic (and ponderous) copy of Jung’s “Red Book,” and my facsimile copy of William Morris’s stunning (and long-winded) “The Story of the Glittering Plain”—I felt that the florid style of early nineteenth century mystics, mediums, and ceremonial magicians probably wouldn’t warrant the expense.

I’d say the layout was not conducive to casual browsing, and my initial sense was that folks were not encouraged to loiter before the shelves. I wonder if I was giving off “I’ve come to see the freaks” tourist vibes or something when I first walked in, because I got a strong sense of wandering into someone’s enclosure. The proprietor warmed up after a bit, especially once I started asking serious questions like, “do you have this in soft bound copy?” I snagged “Queering Your Craft: Witchcraft from the Margins,” by Cassandra Snow; “Gay Witchcraft: Empowering the Tribe,” by Christopher P; and (on impulse) “The Awakening Ground: A Guide to Contemplative Mysticism,” by David Chaim Smith. Skimming them a little later prompted the Question of the Day: Can one both be critical of hyper-capitalism and still espouse the use of “money magic”?

Back on the west side of Portland, we took a quick nap, and then grabbed some food from an outdoor Food Cart World local to the Benson. I had sushi, Mark ate Columbian. We sat at a very long picnic table and listened while a busker tap danced on a stage. Then it was off to the New Mark Theatre for a world premiere Oregon Ballet Theatre performance of “Marilyn.” (We almost were seated at the stage where “Tootsie” was playing.)

Mark wore a nice, dark blue shirt; I wore a purple shirt with a detailed flower-of-life geometric pattern and a darker paisley-patterned purple scarf. I always like to see what other folks wear to the theatre. We saw a woman dressed like Carmine with a red flower in her hair; there was another woman in a dress that looked a notch above gold lame; there were two guys who were obviously together, but their outfits were not coordinated, as one wore a cowboy hat and the other was higher-end urban. There was less Hippy Chic than we usually see in Eugene.

“Marilyn” was a modern dance ballet following Marilyn Monroe’s life from childhood to her death. The mostly piano music was recorded, with occasional historical voice-overs. The set made use of a scrim, a mostly featureless art-deco wall with a split gate, and a circular stepped dais in castered sections. Effective lighting sectioned off the stage. The main antagonist was a chorus of faceless men in trench coats. At times the chorus was the paparazzi, other times it was men/the patriarchy, sometime it was just a bad situation. The most effective lighting trebled the cast by shining red lights on the trench coated dancers so that their hellish shadows danced on the walls. The most striking music was when Marilyn “sang” happy birthday to JFK without actually singing happy birthday. The dance explored Marilyn’s odd relationship with her father, her husbands, and how this translated to her relationship with men and men’s society, and how Norma Jeane Mortenson constructed the persona of Marilyn.

Afterward, Mark was emotionally exhausted. We made a new best friend (who had a fabulous green and black velvet dress) and the three of us had a mini-salon in the seats and discussed how Marilyn navigated the patriarchy while we waited for the auditorium to empty. I think the dancer we felt for the most was the very young dancer who performed as a child Norma Jeane at the beginning and who represented a regressed Marilyn near the end as she dance with Monroe’s psychiatrist (how would you direct a child to dance in such a convoluted adult head- and emotional-space? we asked ourselves).

We walked the streets of downtown Portland. Mark was open to the idea of cocktails, and I was hoping to find a place to dance (with the understanding that Mark was probably not in the mood for a dance). As we were circling in on where I thought the Silverado was, I pulled out my mobile to look at a map. Almost instantly, a young waif—I thought it was a boy, Mark said it was a girl—appeared and asked if they could borrow my phone to call their uncle. I was simultaneously processing 1) our location in relationship to the bar, 2) the mechanics of dialing a stranger’s phone number, 3) the likelihood of this being an attempt at “Apple Picking”, and 4) a Corvallis Nice Response, when Mark nailed them with a New York City buzz-off stare and a very firm, “No.”

The complex of gay bars that used to be around the corner from Powell’s Books had dispersed to other Portland sites. It was was now a Disneyfied pedestrian street mall.

We wound up back at the Benson Hotel bar for cocktails. Our waiter was putting off enough signals that even my feeble gaydar was pinging. After he suggested that my second drink might help us get lucky, we told him we’d been looking for the Silverado and Mark asked him where people went to dance. It depended on what we wanted to do. He suggested The Badlands bar, which was only a few blocks away, and mentioned Sunday night BBQ at the Portland Eagle (which was far away in North Portland).

Mark and I closed down the bar at 11 pm, more by accident than anything else, and went back to our room. Reader, I enjoyed that second drink very much.

Portland in April: Friday

Friday, April 11

Mark and I took a Lyft to the Eugene Amtrak station, where we boarded the 4 PM train to Portland. Mark has warmed up to the train, I think; for weekend getaways it makes sense: the drive to and from Portland is usually no fun, and parking the car downtown for a few days is expensive. I always think the train ride through the Willamette Valley is interesting because one gets to see the hidden sides of various towns and cities, and the views of farmland and the country are more bucolic than they are from Interstate Five.

The train filled up as we travelled north; Mark was glad that he’d purchased our tickets a few days prior. Just after Salem, we decided to get a light dinner snack. The attendant in the dining car was the most disgruntled Amtrak employee I’ve ever encountered. Maybe disgruntled is the wrong word, because he had friendly advice about the food selection, even if it was “I don’t eat any of this stuff; they don’t pay me enough to.” The conductors were hanging out in the dining car, trading horror stories about getting shunted to a side line for hours to wait for freight trains. One conductor in particular kept sharing mile stones and times and practically did a victory dance when we passed a particular landmark before a certain time. We made good time, with only one moment of being shunted to a sideline to allow a freight train to disembark from the Portland station. We detrained around 7:30.

We exited the train station and set out for the Benson Hotel. This required skirting the west edge of the Chinatown District, crossing Burnside, and skirting the east edge of the downtown bus mall. Even when I was attending Reed, this part of Portland has never been the happiest part of town, and we had to navigate around dog (at least I hope it was dog) poop, “gentlemen’s clubs,” one-person tents, and folks in varying states of mental crisis. No one was threatening, but it was a sad commentary on how social support networks have some pretty large holes in them.

We arrived at the Benson’s chandeliered and Russian pine colonnaded lobby and strode past the bar and upholstered couches to the main desk. We had to reassure the receptionist that we were fine after our ten minute walk from the train station.

We managed to summon an elevator with our room cards. The elevators were mirrored on all sides, which sometimes made locating the floor buttons tricky. A display board on the right side showed playbills and posters of famous visitors to the hotel. Mariah Carey, in a low-cut, spangly dress, appeared to lean out over her frame, prompting Mark to make a comment about “boobies.”

Our room was compact and perfect as a base for a weekend of urban hikes and adventures. The doors in our part of the floor looked like they were the originals, dark wood with lighter inlays of a shield displaying an entwined OH monogram (possibly for “Hotel Oregon”). Farther down, the south side of the hall, the doors and hardware changed to something post 1940; we surmised that the Benson had expanded at some time and combined with another building.

Since we were starving, we set off (saying “Hi,” to Mariah again, followed by a short rendition of “Fame! / I’m going to live forever…” ) for dinner. Mark said I was in charge of getting us to food, and I wanted to show him Huber’s, a bistro I had eaten at last May while attending DrupalCon. I’d enjoyed the wood paneling, the brass details, and the Art Deco / Arts-and-Crafts architecture. We walked east on Harvey Milk Boulevard; after a slight moment of confusion, we arrived at Hueber’s—which was closed for a week of spring cleaning!

After casting about downtown Portland we ran into an Iraqi restaurant called “Dara Salon.” A huge mural of the Ishtar Gate dominated the western wall of the restaurant, and Iraqi artifacts decorated the entire space. The charming decor was somewhere between Eugene Bellydance and (more) Metropolitan Museum of Art Middle Eastern Gift Shop. The food was great, and I ate a lot of felafel.

Cooking with Glass

Last night I was putting together quiches: one for our house and one to take to my elderly parents. I layered almond slivers, salad shrimp, mushrooms, broccoli, and gruyere cheese into gluten-free pie pans—lightly dancing to the music of various pop music queens—when there was a terrible crash behind me and to my left.

When I turned around I saw the slivered remains of the kitchen’s seventy-five year old glass light cover on the ground in front of the stove. It had been a flattened cylinder of thick glass that you could easily mistake for a flat-bottomed flower bowl or electric pole insulator. Frosted and clear glass shards and radiated out from the middle of the kitchen floor; slivers were about my slippered feet.

I don’t remember if I said “holy guacamole!” or just “whoa!”

Mark called from the bedroom where he was reading with the dog. “Are you okay?”

“There’s glass everywhere,” I said. Luckily, my slippers have sturdy rubber soles.

I closed the bedroom door and Mark sat with the dog while I began clean-up.

The light cover looked a bit like a jagged meteor strike underneath the light fixture, where two naked bulbs still glowed. I looked up at the metal ring and the screws that had held the cover in place: the screws looked like they were still in place and I couldn’t figure out how the cover had slipped their hold.

After a few minutes, the last of the shards tinkled into the kitchen’s garbage bin and the floor was mostly clear. Undoubtedly, there were vorpal bits of glass in unexpected corners.

I looked at the two quiches on the counter. If I had been five minutes faster, they would have been in the oven, which was still at 375F. If I had been four minutes faster, I would have been crowned with broken glass and likely fallen partially into the oven.

The question was had any broken glass made it to the kitchen counter? I looked, and looked, and found a sliver the size of a fingernail between the two quiche pans. Sighing and swearing, I dumped the quiche.

This has been the third odd accident in the kitchen over the last two weeks. An enameled pot of oil tumbled off of the stovetop and dumped olive oil all over the kitchen floor, and a few days later a glass saucepan lid jumped off of the stove and broke in more or less the same place as the light cover. Mark had had to go through a lengthy process cleaning the kitching. It’s enough to make one think of poltergeists or wicked hexes.

I wasn’t sure which was more annoying: wasting food, the wasted time, not being able to bring a meal to my folks, or having to be a one-man hazmat team.

I found another piece of glass on the kitchen nook table, next to the bowl of proto-custard that was to be the last ingredient poured into the quiche pans. As I poured the mixture down the sink, I contemplated the likelihood of a sliver or three of glass hiding somewhere in my clothing or in my hair.

While the pop queens’ music played, I moved chairs outside, swept, and vacuumed, swept again, and went over the floor with a wet cloth. I shone a bright flashlight along the floor and found glass bits hiding behind the kitchen cart.

Kitchen towels, a dog toy, placemats, and tablecloths were shook outside and tossed into the washing machine. Pet dishes, coasters, plates, trivets, mugs, and other utensils went into the sink or the dishwasher. I ran a wet cloth over the chairs and the bare table.

It took forever, but I wanted to be thorough because I didn’t want a dog or a cat or a human to encounter a stray bit of glass.

The last thing I did was step into the shower for a ritual cleansing and to rinse any glass out of my hair.

Requiescat In Pace, Smokey

Smokey, our old grey cat is dead. He was fifteen years old. He had survived saddle thrombrosis about three years ago, which slowed him down a little and required some daily meds to prevent another blood clot. He had been up to his usual “let me in / let me out” and channeling his inner raccoon at the water bowl routine early last week. 

Last Thursday, he was low energy, but restless. We think Aoife knew something was up, because she kept coming up to him as if to check up on him and would give him some licks. By the evening it was clear that I would need to take him to the vet. He went out that night, and crawled up under the outdoor sectional’s cover; as this wasn’t terribly warm, I brought him back inside to one of his cushions. 

Mark found him dead Friday morning. 

It will be weird not singing “Smokey, the Smokey Cat / Wonders where his dinner’s at” or “/ meow meow meow and all of that.” when I see him. It will also be weird not singing, “Kitty Food for Smokey / Kitty Food for Cicero, too,” during kitty meal time.

Since Friday is usually listener’s choice day on KWAX, I requested some cat themed music as a memoriam. In between some kitty waltzes, I heard a cat meow that sounded just like Smokey—I’m fairly certain it was part of a recording coming over the radio, but I’m very glad that I was hearing it while working from home alone in the morning instead of hearing it home alone in the night. Similarly, I walked into the dining nook, and for an instant thought I saw Smokey crouching out on the deck: it was actually a reflection of Mark’s shoes.

We think Aoife wonders where Smokey is; she seemed to be looking for him in the back yard Friday night.  I'm not sure what's going through Cicero's head, but I think he's noticed Smokey's absence during feeding time.

Some favorite Smokey stories:

When The Child and I first adopted Smokey, the shelter gave us a cardboard cat carrier to bring him home in. Half-way through the half-hour ride home, Smokey punched a claw through the top flap and forced it down into the box with him and managed to get out.

Smokey liked to groom Mark. https://johnburridge.blogspot.com/2019/09/cat-grooming.html

Smokey used to accompany us to the blackberry bushes a few blocks away. On our return, we ran into a dog. We could practically hear him saying, “A dog! I’ll hold it back as long as I can! Warn the others! Run! RUN!” He appeared at a house a few minutes after we did, agitated and almost panting, and had to lie down.


Smokey was visiting his “girlfriend,” a cat across the street, when a dog on a too-long leash went after her. Smokey leapt onto the attacking dog’s back and made it drop his girlfriend.

When we got a little black kitten, Cicero, Smokey didn’t find out right away. But the first time he saw a little black head peek out from a hiding spot underneath a printer stand, Smokey’s ears slowly swiveled back, his lips pulled back to bare his fangs, and he let out a long, slow hiss. Then he ran out of the house, ran across the street, and sought solace from our cat-lady neighbor.
https://johnburridge.blogspot.com/2016/09/mostly-cats.html
https://johnburridge.blogspot.com/2016/10/kitty-wars.html
https://johnburridge.blogspot.com/2019/02/smokey-and-cicero.html


Hiding out next door is how he responded when we brought home an American Staffordshire Terrier puppy, too. https://johnburridge.blogspot.com/2020/03/aofie.html


Smokey slowed down in his final years, and spent a lot of time finding sunny spots to nap in. He also liked to crawl underneath the outdoor furniture coverings, which were black, and which could turn into solar powered kitty saunas. His last year, he also developed a habit of digging in his water bowl like a raccoon washing his hands, which generated some spectacular puddles.

Navigating Allyship

The other day I was talking with a family member when they noticed both my ears had been pierced. This lead to a discussion of the 1980’s practice of signaling one’s sexual orientation by piercing only the left or right earlobe. “Nobody does that now,” I said. “If I really wanted to signal my gayness with my earrings, they’d be little pink triangles.”

“What’s a pink triangle mean?” they asked.

I was surprised, because I thought the meaning of the pink triangle was ubiquitous.

“The pink triangle was used by the Nazis during World War II to mark folks as homosexual in the concentration camps,” I said. “The symbol was reclaimed in the 70’s and 80’s, most noticeably by the AIDS activist group, ACT-UP, and paired with the slogan ‘Silence = Death’.”

The conversation veered away from the pink triangle to other “socially undesirables” and how terrible 1940’s German fascists were.

I left the conversation amazed at the power of denial and the contaminate erasure. It’s not like pink triangles were created yesterday; and I know that my family member has been aware that gay people existed ever since the character of Jack Tripper in the 1970’s sit-com “Three’s Company,” if not since my coming out in 1996 and other extended family members’ comings out before hand.

I also left reviewing a different conversation the day before I’d had with a colleague about U.S. Executive Orders and DEI, during which she reminded me, “I’m a black woman.” This jostled me out of my default observational seat at the intersection of being white, middle-class, white-collar, cis-gendered, male, and gay. I’ve concluded that I need to be less Corvallis-White-Boy Clueless and up my game as an ally.

February Blues

Lately it feels like I'm walking a labyrinth—and not the fun type where you find serenity waiting for you after an arcing, meditative walk; or the exciting type where an animal mystery is at the center; or even a magical one with singing Muppets. No, I'm talking the anxious, mirrored labyrinth where the strings you tie to milestones break after you go around silvered corners, leaving you unable to navigate back to places you can only see through the reflected turns. All you have are broken strings in your hands and troubling redoubled likenesses of things yet to pass. Occasionally, you return to a milestone knotted with with broken strands leading in multiple directions. Walking backward won't help.

I obviously need to spend more time making art, gardening, and spending more mindful time with Mark—and less time on social media.

Frazer and The Scapegoat

I continue to read “A Century of James Frazer’s The Golden Bough.” Last week’s humorous moment occurred when I was in a discussion where folks were tossing around the words “ontology” and “epistemology” and I was glad that I had been obliged the day before to make a study glossary with those very words in order to follow an early chapter, “Hypothesis and Theory.”

The latest chapter I’m reading, "The Hebrew Bible Scapegoat: Complicating a Frazerian Typology,” explores the connections (or not) between the Greek pharmakos expulsion tradition; the Leviticus 16 goat pair—one for YHWH, one for Azazel; Frazer’s interpretation of the scapegoat; and surrogate victim concepts in Joshua 7. The gist of this chapter is that Frazer popularized the 16C through 19C misinterpretation of az, “the goat,” azel, “that goes away” (i.e. the scapegoat) as a victim saddled with the sins of a group or community.

The most surprising (and Metal) passage concerned the Leviticus 16 ritual of purification, which involves sprinkling the Ark of the Covenant with drops of YHWH's sacrificed goat’s (and bull’s) blood from the high priest’s fingers (followed by more blood sprinkling around the Tent of Meeting).

As a fantasy fiction writer, usually I think of the blood in Blood Magick as a magical power source or a substance valuable to demons or other-world beings, not as a ritual detergent. Although, now that I think a little harder, I have written a story where blood was used as part of a ritual barrier.

(Pause to wonder what demons would use somebody’s blood for, anyway... and now that I think of it, what's the magical difference between a virgin's blood and a non-virgin's blood... I mean, has there been a double-blind study with virgin and demon control groups to see if just insisting that one is a virgin (or a demon) is a placebo?)

After reading this latest chapter, my new favorite word is caprine; followed by pharmakos (the Greek expulsion ritual), which is related to the words pharmakeia (medicine) and pharmakon (drug, poison, spell).

A Long Awaited Book

I had been waiting for two weeks for a book to arrive. I'd read that it might take up to twelve business days, so I was slightly annoyed when I got an email thirteen days out that the book was getting ready to ship.

Waiting turned into a game I would play with the dog: whenever she would bark at the door and try to inhale any air diffusing in from underneath the door (because wicked monsters are obviously advancing upon the house with dirty work in mind), I would say, "What? Is it my book? Are you telling me my book is here?"

When I came home from work a few days later and there was a package leaning against the door, I shrieked, ”It’s here! It’s here!” Then I had to let the dog sniff the package so she would know that there were no dog toys in it.

Gleefully anticipating the revelations of poetical back-projection onto the historical and archeological records, and the wholesale fabrication of ancient spiritual practices, I placed the spine of "A Century of James Frazer's The Golden Bough: Shaking the Tree, Breaking the Bough" flat on the table and went through the process of folding the first and last pages against the inside covers until I had reached the center of the book.

Then I sat down with tea, pen, and Post-it Notes to enjoy and annotate the book, which is a collection of essays from a symposium on the impact of The Golden Bough on folklore, comparative religion, and anthropology. The main question of the book is, "If Frazer's The Golden Bough is so flawed, why are academics in the humanities still using its methodologies?"  

So far I'm only fifty pages in, and the arguments are, 1) not everything in the Golden Bough is wrong, 2) there are some universal human social structures, 3) if we look at it as a work of historical fiction, it presents some useful and inspiring metaphors, and 4) the massive ethnological record Frazer and his predecessors was a work that should be reassessed, but not ignored.  

I think my favorite part so far was the part in Ronald Hutton's essay, wherein he pointed out that Frazer wanted to turn people off of the folly of religion (both Christianity and its perceived Pagan roots), but, ironically, Frazer wrote so luridly of the sex and violence in the prehistoric and savage rites that his readers were entertained and titillated by it.

How I laughed and laughed as I wrote the Post-It note annotating that entry—Oh Horror! I've just discovered that Post-It Notes are not that great for books!  (Looks in dismay at shelves of annotated books in his research library.)

Book Review: Solving Stonehenge

I’ve just finished reading Anthony Johnson’s “Solving Stonehenge: The New Key to an Ancient Enigma,” first published in 2008. The basic gist of the book is that the primary astronomical alignment of Stonehenge is a reflective axis along the winter solstice sunset / summer solstice sunrise; the placement of the fifty six Aubrey holes, the thirty stones for the sarsen circle, and the upright stones for the five trilithons can be described—not by alignment with whatever star is handy—but by using a regular octogram of two squares to fix the position of key points and deriving additional stone points from arcs built from the octogram’s vertices. No need to conjecture Megalithic Yards for the accuracy of alignments; it’s all done with circles, squares, and simple peg-and-rope geometry.

Although he does throw some shade on “Stonehenge Decoded,” Johnson’s crankiness about astroarchaeology (and computers) comes through as an exasperation that never quite reaches entertaining levels of snark.

The first several chapters are a historical review of various scholars, antiquarians, myths, speculations, and archeological theories around Stonehenge, with a focus on survey work. There’s a brief pause to question the racial distinctiveness of the “so-called Beaker People,” and a later a detour to discuss the geometric design elements of the Bush Barrow lozenge (~1750 BCE). Arguments, more like geometry demonstrations, for the underpinnings of the monument aren’t given until chapter 8, on page 207, about two-thirds of the way through the book.

Johnson is more interested in how the builders of Stonehenge built the monument, but not on why they did it—which is fair, since Johnson is a surveyor and the ancient builders left no written records telling us why. The conclusions of the book are 1) that the geometric steps that can be used to construct the pattern on the Bush Barrow lozenge are similar to the steps which can be used to construct the placement points for many stones and holes at Stonehenge; 2) searching for astronomical alignments within the monuments is unnecessary and distracting; 3) the stones can move or be moved around a lot in four thousand years; 4) that despite incorporating pagan mumbo-jumbo and Druids into it, John Wood’s 1740 survey of the monument is Very Good; 5) “there is absolutely no way that the master design of the central sarsen structures or even the earlier arrangements can simply have been worked out ‘on the ground’ without first having been drawn on a prepared surface…”.

“Solving Stonehenge,” is dry, but interesting; I’d say Johnson is writing for amateur surveyors and archeologists and Stonehenge historical enthusiasts. It’s a more scholarly book than some of the much briefer (but much more woo-woo) Wooden Books publications on geometry or astronomy that I own. I came (and stayed) for the Stonehenge parts, and the book’s focus is more on the geometry of surveying. I appreciated that Johnson showed his work in the earlier chapters, but I could have been satisfied with a summary of chapters six, seven, and eight. Mark, of course, accuses me of giving resources to the “Stonehenge-Military-Industrial-Complex,” and opined that I should be reading a peer-reviewed journal covering archaeoastronomy instead.

While I was reading “Solving Stonehenge,” someone asked me what it was that I found so compelling about Stonehenge. I had to pause and think about it for a while before I came up with an answer that was satisfying. There is no one answer. Part of it is the mystique surrounding the site (and being able to sing along with Spın̈al Tap about the Druids); who wouldn’t be drawn to the wonder-stories woven into the tapestry of the Matter of Britain—it’s magical. Part of it is that the stones of Stonehenge and the site itself, which I’ve been fortunate enough to visit, are beautiful and impressive; four thousand year old neolithic architecture does have its physical charm. Another part is that the arches imply portals and the romanticism of being transported to an other place or when. Part of it is how the placement of the stones interlocks with the sky’s geometry, which appeals to the part of me that builds sculptures out of forks interlocked by their tines, tracks the motion of the sun and moon on a home-built portable Aubrey hole pegboard, and owns pierced gnomon spherical sundials. But I think the main reason I find it compelling is that Stonehenge is massive statement about human participation with and appreciation of the site’s locality; it’s a place that draws one’s attention to the sun’s (at least) motion and the land’s response, and in doing so becomes an axis mundi.

Adventures in Teen Mortification

What's Been Keeping Us Laughing for the Last Two Weeks

Scene: 5:30 pm.  A local McMenamins, we join our family seated in a booth, gazing at menus.

The Child: “I guess I’ll get an RC.”

Mark: “I think I’m going to order a Grapefruit Pom Nom Paloma.” (To John) “Are you going to order a drink?”

John: “I don’t know… (Thinking about how it’s early, but it’s still a school night, and he would have to figure out how to get home.) I don’t usually order booze when I’m here….”

Mark: “Why not? You could order a margarita.”

John (Holding up his index finger, swishing his shoulders, and launching into song): “Give me one mar-”

The Child (practically launching out of his seat and thrusting his palm across the table, a look of horror on his face tempered by the look of relief that we’re the only ones in this section of the restaurant): “STOP!”

(John and Mark trying and failing to keep straight faces and barely concealing their laughter.)

John: “Whoo! I didn’t even get past ‘margarita!’”

The Child: “What? That’s a weird song.”

Dreams and Dating in 1997

Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 23:40:30 PST
Subject: What's up?


OK.

First off, I'm fine; the deer is fine; and my car is fine. You can say prayers to the spiritual guardians of your choice. ("Oh blessed Diana, patron saint of Deer and Automobiles...") Or not, as the choice may be.

I suppose that there were two impulses fueling the events of Monday night. On one hand was the need to get to Eugene to pick up my AIDS test and share the results with Mark (ah, dating in the nineties). On the other hand, my Deer Voice (which has successfully warned me about deer in the road twice in the last six weeks) was retelling me the story about when my Mom drove home with a shattered grill on her car after she hit a deer (on the same road I might add).

I've listened to the Voice which reminds me that the deer are migrating and I've driven through Monroe and am just about to conclude that "Oh, this time my Deer Voice must have been wrong" when all of a sudden a deer springs out onto the road from the left and decides to dash across the road in front of me.

I slam on the breaks and veer to the right. The tires screech in the rainy night. The deer tries to outrun me (while still crossing the road). I see it sort of dive on my left—dark eyes, brown coat, no antlers—suddenly bright past the perimeter of my headlights. "This is it," I think to myself, "I'm going to see hoofed feet doing cartwheels across my hood and end up with a deer through my windshield and in my lap." I close my eyes when I hear the BHMPF!

The car and the screeching tires stop.

I'm at the side of the road. I turn on my hazard lights. A car passes me. I get out. I go to the front of the car. No blood. No dents. No deer. I look around.

A large truck comes from the other side of the road and I see the deer lying down on the left shoulder of the road. As the truck gets closer the deer rises in one sustained motion and, as I watch, bounds over the ditch and away into someone's garden, where it apparently begins to munch on someone's harvest as if it hadn't just lost a race with a two ton 'Merican box of metal on wheels.

"Thank you," I say, and continue on my not-quite-so-merry way.

The mad rush to find parking in Eugene, and the wild dash up the stairs before the Health Department closes, and my negative test results, and Mark's negative test results, and the pizza, and Mark's light teasing about people with "agreements" with wild animals, and the discussion about AIDS testing as a form of homophobia, and other events crammed into Mark's 20 minute break are left to your imaginations.

So, I come home on I-5. Despite fog and some stupid drivers, the drive is uneventful. But as I pull in, what should I see dropping out of a tree but a raccoon. This is the first time I've seen a raccoon at our house.

"Aliens disguised as raccoons!" I say to myself, and then remember that the night (6-28-97) when I decided that I would simply just forget about ever falling in love, ever (and die Artistically Single, too). I was "rewarded" with a dream of Machka (my missing cat) leading a raccoon into my house (a weird dream house made of canvass). I didn't want a raccoon in my house because raccoons are wild animals and they might have rabies, and after a few futile attempts to lock the raccoon out of my house, I wound up accidentally killing it. (And what do you think rabies is a dream metaphor for; oh, I don't know, could it be, maybe—AIDS!?)

I watch the real raccoon retreat away from my headlights and into the brush.

"Is this some kind of vision-quest algebra test with power animals?" I ask, and begin to imagine story problems: "Deer gets on a train heading North at 50 mph in Eugene. Raccoon gets on another train heading South at 35 mph in Portland. Assuming they both start at midnight, what time will they meet with John's Car, and how many metaphors will he write about their meeting?"

Because everywhere you look at the intersection of cars and animals another metaphor for emotions and society springs up, begging to be used in a novel or at least some dippy-hippy new aged book by someone named Moonhawk Studmuffin. Animals rushing out of the margins and rebounding after a brush with the bright lights. AIDS. Health reduced to a piece of of paper stamped by the state. Did I say health—did I mean romance? dating? happiness? Masked bandits coming out of the woods and right into your house. Wild animals and domestic animals and cute animals and not-so-cute animals.

I expect that I will dream something very rich and strange tonight.


- John

 

---

Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 23:44:42 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Eeek, an essay by John


OK. 

It's late and I've been channeling Marge Boule (or someone). In any case, I'm trying to get back into the swing of writing. So my questions to y'all are:

What do you think? AND Would you send something like this to your parents?



There was a deer and a BHMPF. But when I got out of my dentless, bloodless car, the deer got up and bounded away. Thanking my guardian angel, I drove on in the rain.

The AIDS test was negative. I was pretty sure that it would be; but still in the back of my mind was a swirl of old information and street lore about how the virus spread. My partner's test was negative, too. He was pretty sure it would be; but had agreed to the test because he knew that it would make me feel better.

I drove back home. A raccoon, startled by my headlights as I pulled in, dropped out of a tree and ran off into tall grasses. This reminded me of dreams of raccoons entering dream houses of canvas, and also of wild dream panthers entering through houses protected by unlocked screen doors. In both dreams I kill the animals.

I now own a scrap of paper from the health department which says I am healthy. But I have to remind myself that the clear AIDS test result is like a ticket to a safari—and not to mistake a safari for a trip to the zoo.

In bed we create a safari. In bed we drop our human masks, shed our human skins, and get in touch with our unenculturated wildness. In the darkness behind a closed door—in the shadow of a candle—we dance with the shades of wolves, bison and mamoths; harts and hinds; horses and dogs. I have to watch out for the wild raccoon behind his mask, though; he's cute, but never mistake cute for tame.

There's an assumption that the certificate means you're safe (and some folks mistake the certificate to mean they will always be safe); but an essential part of remaining safe means negotiation of boundaries. Leaping deer flash across the inroads to our wildness.

We are animals. But we are angels as well—and so our angelic selves wrestle with our panther selves in an attempt to see who is the safari ticket holder, and who is in a zoo cage. Sexual orthodoxy demands that we be one or the other, not both; so in my dreams the house of canvass becomes the stone cathedral filled with pews which restrict movement. Sexual orthodoxy demands that we become "men who love men", "women who love women", "women who love men", and "men who love women."

Eros, agape and amor are not so easily tamed, however; and despite orthodoxy's attempts, we have people who love people, sometimes more than just one at a time. In the grip of the sexual act, our bodies leap over the stalls put up by our minds. The tabernacle becomes a canvass tent, the rows of pews are not enough to catalogue the passions of the human heart. In a spasm of a few seconds, we are between ordered universes. Like water poured from one cup to another, we switch between the domesticated, the feral and the wild. We reduce our concentration down to where the house cat, the barn cat, and the panther, become one; become us.

And so in my dreams the panthers come through the screen doors. The raccoons come through the windows. In my dreams my bedroom is a cathedral with the Sword of Chaos over one cot, the Sword of Order over another, and the Sword of Pleasure is unsheathed by my anima.

It's not a fairy tale ending, though. My anima is soon contacted by Death, who wants her to become his side-kick. In real life, the raccoon runs from my headlights. In real life the deer staggers to her feet and bounds off into the night. I am unable to be at one with the deer on the road without disastrous results.

But it sure beats being in a cage.