Help friends, seriously help. I just went to the dentist and they pumped me full of novocaine I couldn't get numb. She wasn't even through the old filling and pain was shooting through me. I started sweating and it felt like heat was rushing down my legs. I tried to be brave but I have such a low pain threshold that it didn't matter. She could see me jumping and we eventually had to stop.
I am going to go back next week and hopefully it will work but I'm worried now. What if I can't get numb in that tooth and I have to suffer through horrible dental work pain in order to get my cavity filled? I doubt she will agree to anesthesia. I'm scared and I'm annoyed because we wasted over an hour and now my lip is numb for no reason now. Although the weird part is that my lip and cheek are not even remotely as numb as it usually gets. What is going on? Have I developed a tolerance to novocaine? This doesn't bode well for my future as someone will good dental hygiene. The older dentist said that he had only had such an experience a few times in all his years, I love being special!
Friday, August 24, 2007
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Hurricane Dean: Before and After
This is the sweet little coastal town of Majahual I went to in Mexico, before and after the hurricane struck. Que triste! I hope that all the towns people got out quickly, it was hours away from other towns and just a little one road town out there by itself on the coast.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
River Redux
It seems I'm managing about one blog entry a week now that I'm back from vacation and trying to work at my "job" where they "pay me". Oh well, until I become a fabulously wealthy graduate student, this will have to be good enough. I don't even know if people are reading this anymore cause I can't figure out how to set up the counter thing. Sigh. Anyway...here goes, another attempt to reach outside myself through chronicling my life (how paradoxical, no?).
This past Saturday I went white water rafting on the American River with a group of friends from work. The company, Mariah, suggested by my friend David was chosen because they are women owned and he (and we assumed) would be a good one to support. Finding a car to drive up there was challenging and the fact we needed to be there by 8am and it was a 3 hour drive from S.F. was daunting. Nevertheless, a borrowed vehicle was secured, directions were printed, alarms were set, and I arose at 5am to make it up to Auburn, CA in time to catch a van to the river.
The borrowed car was a stick and since I can't drive stick, my traveling buddies, Teague and Anne, did all the driving while I rested my eyes (lucky me). We found our way to the parking lot and David arrived with his cadre of boys shortly after. Any time I travel outside the Gay Mecca, into the wider straight world of boring gender conformity, I am reminded of how much I truly love the homosexuals. It was delightful to see four long lanky men with spiky hair, goggles, and tight cut off pants, looking like some of the Lost Boys from the 1990's Peter Pan movie, emerge from the Zip car.
The first disappointment came when we realized that we were not all going to get to be in the same boat together. The boats sad 6 and there were 7 of us, so we split up 4 in one boat and 3 in the other. The 4 boys had one boat all to themselves and the 3 girls went in another boat with 3 other strangers. As a joke in an email, David suggested that we watch Deliverance before going up. I have never seen the movie, however, the story was reference and discussed by my rafting guide, Rick O'Shea throughout the day. At first, in the parking lot before we took off, I thought they were calling him "Ricochet", maybe they were. He was a leathery man, his skin was tanned a deep reddish brown, in his mid-40s, with a crass sense of humor who enjoyed lording his power and wisdom as river guide over the captive paddlers on the boat (us).
When we first pushed off, the other boats did exercises, paddling in circles, but not us. We just sat there watching them. "They're practicing," Rick explained, but we didn't need that, as long as we paid attention and did what he told us. "Paddle bitches!" was his rallying cry. "Ass clown" was the word of the day, used to describe all manner of man and beast. I think it's a West Virginian expression because the only other person I have ever heard use it is also from W.V. Rick told us that if we found him offensive than we should shout "Shock Limit" or something, our safe word. I didn't think that was going to be necessary, but it was.
I was in the front with Anne, because that is where we had been standing in the parking lot, much to the chagrin of the two dudes in the back who wanted to be in control of setting the pace. Rick began blabbering on about himself, it was his last day running the river, and he was heading back to West Virginia. A self-professed "red-neck", he had crazy stories about getting busted smuggling corn liquor and weed into Colorado. Perhaps I am naive, but I was not aware that people made moon shine anymore. However, Rick set me straight. It was clear he fancied himself a storyteller, and he orientated us to the do's and don't of paddling the river with tales of misfortune that had befallen naive rafters. Often he would say "but the really cool thing was..." and then tell us how someone had gotten injured or killed. "Darwinism is alive and well on the river, folks!" He gleefully proclaimed.
I don't know if I should blame, Darwin, God, myself, Rick or bad luck but after getting soaked in freezing cold water a few too many times, I elected to switch to the middle seat where I would get less wet. Things didn't exactly work out that way since I promptly got thrown out of the raft in class 4 rapids. The whole experience was weird and disorienting, one minute I was in the boat and then we started to tip and water was rushing on me in all directions. I was leaning in, but then I got confused about why I was leaning in and stopped resisting for a moment and then I was sucked away. I didn't understand what happened until I surfaced, the water moved me very quickly and when I figured out that I was in the water, far away from the boat and still in rocky rapids, I became terrified. But I followed the directions I had been told ("Don't swim on your belly and don't stand up!"), pointed my feet downstream and floated with my toes pointing up. Still this was no defense against the river, I was being battered about like a little twig and rocks were coming out at me and there was nothing I could do.
Later Teague and Anne told me I looked very calm and serene, but I was screaming at God in my head. "Why are you doing this to me God? I try to be a good person, haven't I been through enough? I have to get tossed out of the boat and die on these rocks? I hate you!" It was not a good moment for me and my higher power.
I could hear people shouting at me from behind, but the rushing of the water was thundering in my ears so I couldn't hear what they were saying and I was too scared to turn over on my belly to try to swim to them. Finally the boat came into view and I swam towards them, moving slowly against the current despite all of my efforts. I grabbed the oar that Teague held out to me and they pulled me up by my life vest and hauled me back into the boat.
I sat down trembling from fear and cold. I apologized for losing my oar and Rick told me that I should have held on it like a real woman: "I know you like to work the shaft but you have to hold on to the t-grip."
"That's very comforting." I replied. The river felt like it was inside me, up my nose, in my ears, I was freezing down to my very core and soon my teeth started chattering. "Take your wet shirt off," Anne suggested. That helped but I was still cold. At the suggestion of his girlfriend, a fellow guide, Rick eventually offered me his thermal. I hated him so much at that point I would have declined but Anne saw me hesitating and ordered me to take the shirt.
"Can you fit it over your breastses?" He asked me.
"No worry there," I told him. I couldn't believe he was sexually harassing me after my traumatizing experience.
The day continued on like that, with Rick telling inappropriate jokes ranging from making fun of "retards" to domestic violence. It was a shame, because the scenery was beautiful and he just rambled on with his ridiculous platitudes. He seemed to have burned out all his braincells with drugs years before and had very little info about the land or river to share.
The boys had a nice river guide and once they learned about what had happened David was upset for us. He even sent an email to the company asking for a refund for Teague, Anne, and myself. They wrote back very concerned but said that Rick was shocked, as everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. It's just not easy to speak out when someone who seems to have the emotional maturity of a 13 year old is controlling a little plastic boat in dangerous waters.
This past Saturday I went white water rafting on the American River with a group of friends from work. The company, Mariah, suggested by my friend David was chosen because they are women owned and he (and we assumed) would be a good one to support. Finding a car to drive up there was challenging and the fact we needed to be there by 8am and it was a 3 hour drive from S.F. was daunting. Nevertheless, a borrowed vehicle was secured, directions were printed, alarms were set, and I arose at 5am to make it up to Auburn, CA in time to catch a van to the river.
The borrowed car was a stick and since I can't drive stick, my traveling buddies, Teague and Anne, did all the driving while I rested my eyes (lucky me). We found our way to the parking lot and David arrived with his cadre of boys shortly after. Any time I travel outside the Gay Mecca, into the wider straight world of boring gender conformity, I am reminded of how much I truly love the homosexuals. It was delightful to see four long lanky men with spiky hair, goggles, and tight cut off pants, looking like some of the Lost Boys from the 1990's Peter Pan movie, emerge from the Zip car.
The first disappointment came when we realized that we were not all going to get to be in the same boat together. The boats sad 6 and there were 7 of us, so we split up 4 in one boat and 3 in the other. The 4 boys had one boat all to themselves and the 3 girls went in another boat with 3 other strangers. As a joke in an email, David suggested that we watch Deliverance before going up. I have never seen the movie, however, the story was reference and discussed by my rafting guide, Rick O'Shea throughout the day. At first, in the parking lot before we took off, I thought they were calling him "Ricochet", maybe they were. He was a leathery man, his skin was tanned a deep reddish brown, in his mid-40s, with a crass sense of humor who enjoyed lording his power and wisdom as river guide over the captive paddlers on the boat (us).
When we first pushed off, the other boats did exercises, paddling in circles, but not us. We just sat there watching them. "They're practicing," Rick explained, but we didn't need that, as long as we paid attention and did what he told us. "Paddle bitches!" was his rallying cry. "Ass clown" was the word of the day, used to describe all manner of man and beast. I think it's a West Virginian expression because the only other person I have ever heard use it is also from W.V. Rick told us that if we found him offensive than we should shout "Shock Limit" or something, our safe word. I didn't think that was going to be necessary, but it was.
I was in the front with Anne, because that is where we had been standing in the parking lot, much to the chagrin of the two dudes in the back who wanted to be in control of setting the pace. Rick began blabbering on about himself, it was his last day running the river, and he was heading back to West Virginia. A self-professed "red-neck", he had crazy stories about getting busted smuggling corn liquor and weed into Colorado. Perhaps I am naive, but I was not aware that people made moon shine anymore. However, Rick set me straight. It was clear he fancied himself a storyteller, and he orientated us to the do's and don't of paddling the river with tales of misfortune that had befallen naive rafters. Often he would say "but the really cool thing was..." and then tell us how someone had gotten injured or killed. "Darwinism is alive and well on the river, folks!" He gleefully proclaimed.
I don't know if I should blame, Darwin, God, myself, Rick or bad luck but after getting soaked in freezing cold water a few too many times, I elected to switch to the middle seat where I would get less wet. Things didn't exactly work out that way since I promptly got thrown out of the raft in class 4 rapids. The whole experience was weird and disorienting, one minute I was in the boat and then we started to tip and water was rushing on me in all directions. I was leaning in, but then I got confused about why I was leaning in and stopped resisting for a moment and then I was sucked away. I didn't understand what happened until I surfaced, the water moved me very quickly and when I figured out that I was in the water, far away from the boat and still in rocky rapids, I became terrified. But I followed the directions I had been told ("Don't swim on your belly and don't stand up!"), pointed my feet downstream and floated with my toes pointing up. Still this was no defense against the river, I was being battered about like a little twig and rocks were coming out at me and there was nothing I could do.
Later Teague and Anne told me I looked very calm and serene, but I was screaming at God in my head. "Why are you doing this to me God? I try to be a good person, haven't I been through enough? I have to get tossed out of the boat and die on these rocks? I hate you!" It was not a good moment for me and my higher power.
I could hear people shouting at me from behind, but the rushing of the water was thundering in my ears so I couldn't hear what they were saying and I was too scared to turn over on my belly to try to swim to them. Finally the boat came into view and I swam towards them, moving slowly against the current despite all of my efforts. I grabbed the oar that Teague held out to me and they pulled me up by my life vest and hauled me back into the boat.
I sat down trembling from fear and cold. I apologized for losing my oar and Rick told me that I should have held on it like a real woman: "I know you like to work the shaft but you have to hold on to the t-grip."
"That's very comforting." I replied. The river felt like it was inside me, up my nose, in my ears, I was freezing down to my very core and soon my teeth started chattering. "Take your wet shirt off," Anne suggested. That helped but I was still cold. At the suggestion of his girlfriend, a fellow guide, Rick eventually offered me his thermal. I hated him so much at that point I would have declined but Anne saw me hesitating and ordered me to take the shirt.
"Can you fit it over your breastses?" He asked me.
"No worry there," I told him. I couldn't believe he was sexually harassing me after my traumatizing experience.
The day continued on like that, with Rick telling inappropriate jokes ranging from making fun of "retards" to domestic violence. It was a shame, because the scenery was beautiful and he just rambled on with his ridiculous platitudes. He seemed to have burned out all his braincells with drugs years before and had very little info about the land or river to share.
The boys had a nice river guide and once they learned about what had happened David was upset for us. He even sent an email to the company asking for a refund for Teague, Anne, and myself. They wrote back very concerned but said that Rick was shocked, as everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. It's just not easy to speak out when someone who seems to have the emotional maturity of a 13 year old is controlling a little plastic boat in dangerous waters.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Psychic College
Some of you know that I am attending classes at San Francisco's own psychic college, Psychic Horizons, on Valencia Street (right around the corner from my office). They offer meditation classes which teach you how to center and ground, as well as clean chakras and auras. In the break room on Sunday, someone mentioned that 80-90% of people come to the school through the recommendation of former students. However, I am in the 10% (as usual) because I knew no one who had ever been to the school when I started coming.
One gray summer morning in 2004, while tripping through Dolores Park with friends Angie and Danny, after having just enjoyed a nice brunch in the Castro, I came upon Psychic Horizons for the first time. We were on our way back to our respective homes in the Mission but paused to investigate a little fair going on in the dog run area. I was still new to the city and thus, constantly delighted to discover that San Franciscan's love a good street fair, second only to their s love of a good street party--both kind of public revelry happen here in greater abundance than anywhere else I have ever lived in my life (Boston, Ohio, D.C., New York, or Portland).
Booths and stalls from local organizations were advertising programs for renewable energy and prenatal yoga classes, but one sign in particular caught my eye: "Psychic Readings $5". We three looked at each other, and as it was a lazy Sunday in NorCal, decided to go for it. We put our names down, threw $5 into a little basket, and then waited to be called by one of the student readers. In the meantime, Angie and I wandered over to the AIDS Ride SF booth, and got sucked into the enthusiasm of that challenge. We signed up for the AIDS ride and even paid $75 to register (we did start training, but didn't end up going on the ride). Then, my name was called and I found myself sitting in front of a woman in her late 30's with long blond hair.
She told me she was going to read my aura, then perform a healing upon me, and asked if I had anything I wanted her to focus on. I asked to focus on my love life issues and she closed her eyes. After a few minutes she spoke to me and began to tell me what she was seeing by reading my aura. She saw things from my past life affecting me, issues with my parents that had come up recently, and negative thought patterns I was stuck in. Much of it rang true for me, and I surprised myself when, as she told me about a past life when I was a farmer and had been tragically widowed by my true love, my eyes started leaking tears unexpectedly. I was still wiping them away when I returned back to Angie and Danny to compare notes.
We each had a different student reading our auras and consequently, had very different experiences. My reading was quite intense, with sad past life stories. Angie has a passion for fashion, although she was not decked out in one of her usual crazy outfits that day, and was working at a costume shop at the time. Nevertheless, her psychic lady told her that she had been a famous and prolific fashion designer in Italy during the Rococo period, which was exciting for Angie to learn. Danny did not have a good reading and claimed the woman was making it all up. As we continued on our way, I marveled that I lived in such a city where psychic readings were handed out for free on the street.
It wasn't until years later, at the end of January 2006, just weeks after my best friend Tucker had been tragically killed in a bicycle accident, that I had my second encounter with the psychics. Many people had been in town for the funeral and burial, staying with me. It was Saturday, a week after the funeral and I had just said good-bye and put the last friend, Natalie, on the train for the airport. She was flying back to New York and suddenly I was alone for the first time in weeks. Forever. Forever alone without Tucker.
I had scheduled an eye doctor appointment awhile ago and decided to keep it, as it would be something for me to do. However, I soon came to believe it was a terrible idea as I sat in the doctor's office answering her routine questions. I never mentioned Tucker because the occasion never arose and it was the first time I had spoken with anyone without mentioning it since it happened. The doctor was very nice but I wanted to scream at her "I'm not a normal person! I'm going through a personal tragedy! I have been marked out for suffering!" But instead, I just said yes when she asked if it would be ok to dilate my pupils. Blind and weeping, I stumbled out of her office an hour later, back into the hustle and bustle of Mission street.
The eye store was a block away from my office, so instinct lead me up to Valencia street and I crossed the street in a daze. Being around people felt unbearable and I kept thinking about the strange experience Natalie and I had shared the night before. I had been reading her tarot cards in my room when the curtain string had started moving of it's own accord. The air was still, there was no draft, and the anchor of the cord banged distinctly against my wall three times. Natalie had looked terrified, "It's the wind," I told her. "There is no wind." She replied and all the hair on my body stood up.
What was that? I kept wondering. Was it Tucker trying to communicate with us? What was happening to me? I felt like I was losing my mind. What had happened to her? Where had she gone? I needed to know. Suddenly, my vision cleared long enough for me to make out the words of a sign being taken down off of a door "Free Psychic Readings Today".
"Are the psychic readings still happening?" I asked the woman who was holding the sign.
"They are just about to end."
"I need one now!" I shouted and ran up the stairs to the psychic college.
"You are the last one!" The woman shouted after me. Inside, there were a bunch of tired looking students sitting around eating snacks and I hastily wrote my name down on the list. "We have one more." Said the woman from downstairs who had emerged behind me. The students groaned but I didn't care, I needed my psychic healing. I was ushered into a room and two sat down in front of me and closed their eyes. They asked me what my question was and I told them that my friend had died suddenly and I wanted to know where she was and if she was ok. They told me that she had died in a car accident and was very shocked but she knew now that she is dead.
"She is doing fine," they said. "She is more concerned for you and everyone else in so much pain right now. She used to fear death greatly but now she thinks that's funny, because death is nothing to fear." I cried the whole time they talked, but the psychic ladies didn't seem to notice or care. They were very matter of fact and not sentimental about anything they were saying. The reading was only 20 minutes but they said I could come back for a longer session if I wanted at another time.
During the months of grieving that followed, I did return, twice actually, although it wasn't free, cost about $30. Each time they performed a healing on my aura at the end and I always left feeling better than when I came in. This was during a time when feeling better seemed like an impossible task, I felt like I was struggling to pull myself up out of a well of sadness that was trying to swallow me whole. However, just like everyone said it would, things slowly got better and my mind adjusted to the idea of living on earth without my friend. Even though immediately after she died the idea that I could ever adjust to such an unjust tragedy was repugnant to me.
I got rejected from every grad school I applied to but decided that didn't mean I still couldn't take classes. So this year, after the one year anniversary of Tucker's death, I decided I wanted to try one of their meditation classes. I have to say that so far it's one of the coolest things I've ever done. I now meditate everyday before I leave the house and whenever I have a free minute, like on the bus or in the dentists office. It makes time pass much quicker and the most amazing thing is that I really want to meditate!
I am in Step 2, and after step 3, they are 7 week classes, I can begin their 18 month clairvoyant training if I want. They believe that everyone has this ability, it just has to be cultivated, like anything, through practice. At the end of the training, I will be a minister through their church, the Church of Natural Grace, and be able to read other people's auras and communicate with spirits. Sounds a little scary but mostly awesome. Also, I can officiate weddings and funerals.
Being uncomfortable with organized religion, I don't like the title of minister. However, I am a spiritual person and when I was young, I was super pissed that I couldn't be an alter girl. So perhaps if I had been born in another time, gender, or to a different religion, I would have felt "called to God". I do feel called to God now too, but I'm pagan, so worshipping God to me is going into nature or meditating or now that I live in the Bay Area, hanging out around a bonfire with a bunch of hippies on a beach at solstice.
Growing up in a haunted house, I have always been really afraid of ghosts but I am learning to work through that and other fears. Getting rejected from grad school was super shitty and a blow to my ego, but I feel like I am supposed to be in San Francisco right now and I think this is one of the reasons. I am so glad that I decided to sign up for classes at the psychic college.
One gray summer morning in 2004, while tripping through Dolores Park with friends Angie and Danny, after having just enjoyed a nice brunch in the Castro, I came upon Psychic Horizons for the first time. We were on our way back to our respective homes in the Mission but paused to investigate a little fair going on in the dog run area. I was still new to the city and thus, constantly delighted to discover that San Franciscan's love a good street fair, second only to their s love of a good street party--both kind of public revelry happen here in greater abundance than anywhere else I have ever lived in my life (Boston, Ohio, D.C., New York, or Portland).
Booths and stalls from local organizations were advertising programs for renewable energy and prenatal yoga classes, but one sign in particular caught my eye: "Psychic Readings $5". We three looked at each other, and as it was a lazy Sunday in NorCal, decided to go for it. We put our names down, threw $5 into a little basket, and then waited to be called by one of the student readers. In the meantime, Angie and I wandered over to the AIDS Ride SF booth, and got sucked into the enthusiasm of that challenge. We signed up for the AIDS ride and even paid $75 to register (we did start training, but didn't end up going on the ride). Then, my name was called and I found myself sitting in front of a woman in her late 30's with long blond hair.
She told me she was going to read my aura, then perform a healing upon me, and asked if I had anything I wanted her to focus on. I asked to focus on my love life issues and she closed her eyes. After a few minutes she spoke to me and began to tell me what she was seeing by reading my aura. She saw things from my past life affecting me, issues with my parents that had come up recently, and negative thought patterns I was stuck in. Much of it rang true for me, and I surprised myself when, as she told me about a past life when I was a farmer and had been tragically widowed by my true love, my eyes started leaking tears unexpectedly. I was still wiping them away when I returned back to Angie and Danny to compare notes.
We each had a different student reading our auras and consequently, had very different experiences. My reading was quite intense, with sad past life stories. Angie has a passion for fashion, although she was not decked out in one of her usual crazy outfits that day, and was working at a costume shop at the time. Nevertheless, her psychic lady told her that she had been a famous and prolific fashion designer in Italy during the Rococo period, which was exciting for Angie to learn. Danny did not have a good reading and claimed the woman was making it all up. As we continued on our way, I marveled that I lived in such a city where psychic readings were handed out for free on the street.
It wasn't until years later, at the end of January 2006, just weeks after my best friend Tucker had been tragically killed in a bicycle accident, that I had my second encounter with the psychics. Many people had been in town for the funeral and burial, staying with me. It was Saturday, a week after the funeral and I had just said good-bye and put the last friend, Natalie, on the train for the airport. She was flying back to New York and suddenly I was alone for the first time in weeks. Forever. Forever alone without Tucker.
I had scheduled an eye doctor appointment awhile ago and decided to keep it, as it would be something for me to do. However, I soon came to believe it was a terrible idea as I sat in the doctor's office answering her routine questions. I never mentioned Tucker because the occasion never arose and it was the first time I had spoken with anyone without mentioning it since it happened. The doctor was very nice but I wanted to scream at her "I'm not a normal person! I'm going through a personal tragedy! I have been marked out for suffering!" But instead, I just said yes when she asked if it would be ok to dilate my pupils. Blind and weeping, I stumbled out of her office an hour later, back into the hustle and bustle of Mission street.
The eye store was a block away from my office, so instinct lead me up to Valencia street and I crossed the street in a daze. Being around people felt unbearable and I kept thinking about the strange experience Natalie and I had shared the night before. I had been reading her tarot cards in my room when the curtain string had started moving of it's own accord. The air was still, there was no draft, and the anchor of the cord banged distinctly against my wall three times. Natalie had looked terrified, "It's the wind," I told her. "There is no wind." She replied and all the hair on my body stood up.
What was that? I kept wondering. Was it Tucker trying to communicate with us? What was happening to me? I felt like I was losing my mind. What had happened to her? Where had she gone? I needed to know. Suddenly, my vision cleared long enough for me to make out the words of a sign being taken down off of a door "Free Psychic Readings Today".
"Are the psychic readings still happening?" I asked the woman who was holding the sign.
"They are just about to end."
"I need one now!" I shouted and ran up the stairs to the psychic college.
"You are the last one!" The woman shouted after me. Inside, there were a bunch of tired looking students sitting around eating snacks and I hastily wrote my name down on the list. "We have one more." Said the woman from downstairs who had emerged behind me. The students groaned but I didn't care, I needed my psychic healing. I was ushered into a room and two sat down in front of me and closed their eyes. They asked me what my question was and I told them that my friend had died suddenly and I wanted to know where she was and if she was ok. They told me that she had died in a car accident and was very shocked but she knew now that she is dead.
"She is doing fine," they said. "She is more concerned for you and everyone else in so much pain right now. She used to fear death greatly but now she thinks that's funny, because death is nothing to fear." I cried the whole time they talked, but the psychic ladies didn't seem to notice or care. They were very matter of fact and not sentimental about anything they were saying. The reading was only 20 minutes but they said I could come back for a longer session if I wanted at another time.
During the months of grieving that followed, I did return, twice actually, although it wasn't free, cost about $30. Each time they performed a healing on my aura at the end and I always left feeling better than when I came in. This was during a time when feeling better seemed like an impossible task, I felt like I was struggling to pull myself up out of a well of sadness that was trying to swallow me whole. However, just like everyone said it would, things slowly got better and my mind adjusted to the idea of living on earth without my friend. Even though immediately after she died the idea that I could ever adjust to such an unjust tragedy was repugnant to me.
I got rejected from every grad school I applied to but decided that didn't mean I still couldn't take classes. So this year, after the one year anniversary of Tucker's death, I decided I wanted to try one of their meditation classes. I have to say that so far it's one of the coolest things I've ever done. I now meditate everyday before I leave the house and whenever I have a free minute, like on the bus or in the dentists office. It makes time pass much quicker and the most amazing thing is that I really want to meditate!
I am in Step 2, and after step 3, they are 7 week classes, I can begin their 18 month clairvoyant training if I want. They believe that everyone has this ability, it just has to be cultivated, like anything, through practice. At the end of the training, I will be a minister through their church, the Church of Natural Grace, and be able to read other people's auras and communicate with spirits. Sounds a little scary but mostly awesome. Also, I can officiate weddings and funerals.
Being uncomfortable with organized religion, I don't like the title of minister. However, I am a spiritual person and when I was young, I was super pissed that I couldn't be an alter girl. So perhaps if I had been born in another time, gender, or to a different religion, I would have felt "called to God". I do feel called to God now too, but I'm pagan, so worshipping God to me is going into nature or meditating or now that I live in the Bay Area, hanging out around a bonfire with a bunch of hippies on a beach at solstice.
Growing up in a haunted house, I have always been really afraid of ghosts but I am learning to work through that and other fears. Getting rejected from grad school was super shitty and a blow to my ego, but I feel like I am supposed to be in San Francisco right now and I think this is one of the reasons. I am so glad that I decided to sign up for classes at the psychic college.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Picturas!
I finally uploaded most of the 150 pictures that I took on my trip to Mexico. I love photography, so there are lots of building and ruins shots, if these bore you, feel free to skip on to the next. To view my pictures, click on the link below and then click on the set called "The Yucatan".
http://flickr.com/photos/melvillecampagna/sets/
Looking at my pictures is weird, they are such an idyllic looking version of the places I was in and are devoid of any indication of the smell and extreme heat of the context. Although I tried to plan my trip to miss the rest of gray July, someone told me it was really nice at least one week while I was gone and it's been really cold and overcast since I've been back. Poop.
Friends on the East Coast have told me they feel cranky because of the heat, which reminds me of how much easier it is to feel and act chill when the weather is neutral. However, and I never thought I would say this, I miss the hot summer sun! At least when I have access to swimming I do.
http://flickr.com/photos
Looking at my pictures is weird, they are such an idyllic looking version of the places I was in and are devoid of any indication of the smell and extreme heat of the context. Although I tried to plan my trip to miss the rest of gray July, someone told me it was really nice at least one week while I was gone and it's been really cold and overcast since I've been back. Poop.
Friends on the East Coast have told me they feel cranky because of the heat, which reminds me of how much easier it is to feel and act chill when the weather is neutral. However, and I never thought I would say this, I miss the hot summer sun! At least when I have access to swimming I do.
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Harry, I miss you already
Warning: This blog loosely discusses the final Harry Potter book
Last night I finished the final book of the Harry Potter series, and I loved it. Part of me, a large part, wanted to skip ahead and read the end, because in the course of reading it over the past week my nervous anxiety about what was going to happen has been killing me. However, I'm really glad I didn't, because it was excellent and worth waiting for. Her books have gotten progressively more swollen and sometime I fell like she draws out the suspenseful parts, to the point where I feel like I'm in agony. So a few times I did skip ahead to find out how a particular sticky situation would turn out (Gringots, anyone?).
What I especially liked about the book was how Harry had to deal with the fact that the his heros and authority figures are just human. Flawed humans. That's a painful realization to come to. I don't know if its a universal human tendency, but its definitely my tendency to idealize people. I often put people I am impressed by on pedestals, eventually become disappointed by something they do, and then feel disgusted in them. I thought that was all really well played out in through Harry's relationship with Dumbledore.
Furthermore, I enjoyed her treatment of death, which is an inevitable fact of life, yet many people's greatest fear. However, in real life, people dont come back from the dead, and that was a hard part for me. I am glad that Harry lived and got to have a life, that is the only ending I would have been satisfied with, but I found myself crying quite hard when Harry was marching to die, because it reminded me of losing my friend Tucker, and she never came back from that, and she never will.
When I was in Mexico I started reading Carlos Castaneda's book, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. The books chronicles Castaneda's apprenticeship with, Don Juan, a Yaqui shaman. I didn't get to finish the book, since it belonged to a juice bar in Mahahual and we were only there for a few days, but in the beginning, Don Juan says that all life is leading towards death and that humans must accept this. I don't know why this is so hard for me, since it is logical and I have seen the proof in my own life, but it is.
Last night I finished the final book of the Harry Potter series, and I loved it. Part of me, a large part, wanted to skip ahead and read the end, because in the course of reading it over the past week my nervous anxiety about what was going to happen has been killing me. However, I'm really glad I didn't, because it was excellent and worth waiting for. Her books have gotten progressively more swollen and sometime I fell like she draws out the suspenseful parts, to the point where I feel like I'm in agony. So a few times I did skip ahead to find out how a particular sticky situation would turn out (Gringots, anyone?).
What I especially liked about the book was how Harry had to deal with the fact that the his heros and authority figures are just human. Flawed humans. That's a painful realization to come to. I don't know if its a universal human tendency, but its definitely my tendency to idealize people. I often put people I am impressed by on pedestals, eventually become disappointed by something they do, and then feel disgusted in them. I thought that was all really well played out in through Harry's relationship with Dumbledore.
Furthermore, I enjoyed her treatment of death, which is an inevitable fact of life, yet many people's greatest fear. However, in real life, people dont come back from the dead, and that was a hard part for me. I am glad that Harry lived and got to have a life, that is the only ending I would have been satisfied with, but I found myself crying quite hard when Harry was marching to die, because it reminded me of losing my friend Tucker, and she never came back from that, and she never will.
When I was in Mexico I started reading Carlos Castaneda's book, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. The books chronicles Castaneda's apprenticeship with, Don Juan, a Yaqui shaman. I didn't get to finish the book, since it belonged to a juice bar in Mahahual and we were only there for a few days, but in the beginning, Don Juan says that all life is leading towards death and that humans must accept this. I don't know why this is so hard for me, since it is logical and I have seen the proof in my own life, but it is.
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