IMAGINE MY SURPRISE

When I awaken to start my day, after I fire up the rockets on my PC and hit warp DSL, the first thing I do, of course, is visit Emailandia. Then spam dump. Then, most of the time, I hop on over to Orcinus or Group News Blog.

Partly this is because the two blogs I write for have a notification feature so if someone has posted a comment, I've been informed by email. And if I want to answer, I need to think about it a bit.

But mostly it's because what's a-hoppening at Orcinus or GNB is going to engage multiple layers of my brain, not just the political gecko but also my wobbly g*d interface, my funnybone, my "whoa I hadn't thought about that" child wonder, and my human gang loyalty. All at once. Their snark doesn't make you laugh meanly, and they have kickin' graphics.

I like waking up to my Lieutenant Ellen Ripley persona. Ripley rides my perimeter.

"I thought you were dead?" "Yeah, I get that a lot."

See, here's the scoop about me:

I don't take the pain meds prescribed to me. I don't smoke, drink alcohol, or use drugs. I drink caffeine once a day, if that, and chocolate maybe once a week.

I don't use terminology that others have told me is oppressive. When someone confides in me the ways in which they hate themselves, I am not persuaded that they are right in their self-doubt. I listen to children, always.

I have forgiven the people who failed me and tortured me as a child. I have forgiven myself for allowing them to fail and torture me.

I sleep eight to ten hours a night, when possible. I mute commercials. I buy halogen bulbs and brown eggs. I let myself cry.

When I masturbate, I don't fantasize about anyone I've ever known, even someone I haven't known personally. (Because I don't have their consent.)

I resist being pissed at g*d. I write my whole truth, but my ethic insists I try to inject balance and hope into it.

Somewhere early on, I decided to stay present, to move through this life awake and alert, and mostly I've stuck to that decision. Yeah, there were those episodes of leaving my body when he was lying on top of me, when I was 9, 10, 11. And a few tries at getting stinking drunk as a teenager. But those flights never became habit.

More than one person who believes in past lives have told me I am an "old soul" and that this is my last time driving down the block, this existence. First of all, I don't know how they can tell such things -- is there an expiration date stamped on my aura somewhere? And second, it's sad to contemplate. I like being alive and in a body. Yes, the ways we are oppressing each other is horrendous. Yeah, pain sucks. But being able to draw breath, to notice light and shadow, to feel air on the hairs of my arms, to speak a sentence out loud, to have a child climb confidently into your lap, to make pan gravy and then it over fresh biscuits -- heavenly. I want every second of it I can get.

As Terry Galloway once said, "It's a good life, if you can stand it."

My long-ago mothers left the trees and caves, exposing their small, fleshy bodies to savannah risk, building houses of clay and straw, planting grain, inventing grammar and nouns in unending torrents, and I feel like I owe it to them to keep on truckin', evolutionarily-wise.

So anything that bring out Ripley in me is a drug I allow myself. Those two blogs are Ripley friendly.

You can perhaps imagine, then, what it felt like to discover two posts referencing my recent post here about "My Knees, Part Three" and "Crip Ward Tango" -- amazing, eloquent posts, quoting me at length and going on from there to make dazzling connections. By Jesse Wendel and Sara Robinson (who writes for both those blogs).

Like Jesus, I wept.

What can I say? KTHX doesn't really cut it. I could sing something I bet Sara's heard often, "Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you will know", wo-wo-wo. But then what would I sing to Jesse -- "I wish I was Jessie's girl..."? Alas, I'm an unreconstructed bulldagger. And I don't believe in the divinity of Jesus.

Still, sloppy smooches to you both. Let's keep cross-fertilizing, shall we?

And ya'll, go read the posts there, give 'em some sugar. While you're there, be sure to read the Are You Saved? post and follow the link back to Sara's article at Orcinus about the good news for modern (hu)man. I was going to write about it, but she beat me to it and, as usual, did an awe-inspiring job.

See ya at the sockhop. Bring yr flamethrower.