I know the breadth of my friends and their takes on spirituality (and lack thereof), and I know that this season can be a little bit chafing for mixed-faith families sometimes.

But a little memory from a long time ago popped up in my head today, and I had to go look it up, and I'm not scared to admit there are tears in my eyes as I'm listening to the song. It struck a chord just right.

Dar Williams, "The Christians and the Pagans" (Embedding disabled, but I do hope you follow the link.)

It's a solid example of the "girl with a guitar" folk song, but well-performed and sincere. The basic gist is Mom and Daughter have separated due to spiritual disagreements, but Mom calls Daughter and says, "Listen, it's Christmas. I don't care about all our differences, I just want you here at my table again, with all the family."

And yeah, it hits me beneath any armor I've built up. Sometimes a good song will catch you off-guard, but it's exactly what you need to hear at the moment.

Allow me a moment of rage at the father figure.
( Do not mind cry for help behind cut. Father says it is only milking for drama purposes. )

But a wiser man once told me... "When you've had a really bad fight with your old man... Let him win, then just wait 'til he goes to sleep, then go watch a movie while sipping a single shot of his most expensive liquor."
So yeah, I could really use a couple days out of here.

I'm going over my con schedule, and realized that I played my viola for four full panels, not counting extra time just fiddling about in the hallway, "accompanying" the thump-beats at the dance, etc.

And when I was in the shower tonight, washing off the last of the hard-earned con-sweat, I realized that my subconscious can be a sneaky bitch with suggestions for songs to play.

One of the songs that kept popping up during the furry convention, at least once per hour: West Side Story, "Somewhere."

There's a place for us,
Somewhere, a place for us...
Peace and quiet and open air
Wait for us, Somewhere...

Don't mind me, listening to pretty Broadway aria, will return when tears clear from eyes.

I have decided that this song MUST be a standpoint of the MFF Music Jam. It's a four-chord song, it's catchy, it's loony, it's wonderful, I shall drag it out of the dustbin of nostalgia. I've already googled the chords.

(if you just want the song, skip to 2:20 and I won't tell your weird Uncle Frank.)



So, like, twenty old people will be laughing their asses off, and we introduce all the young furries to this wonderful weird stuff. I also plan to bring up Start Wearing Purple, from Gogol Bordello. And the requisite video game themes that everyone knows. It's gonna be awesome.


I should see if someone can bring a whiteboard or an overhead projector, so we can write down chord series.

I was responding to a friend's f-locked post about her feelings in a polyamorous relationship. I don't have an overwhelming amount of romance in my life, but that which does stumble into my ken tends to be treasured. Even so, I guess I don't make a big point of announcing my tendencies toward open and/or poly relationships publicly. Which is no surprise, considering that all my relationships have been pretty much de facto vanilla for the most part, heh.

The closest thing I've actually had to the open, poly relationship that's my mind's-eye ideal was when an old girlfriend took on a second boyfriend for a time, then he insisted that she choose, and she chose him. (For those of you who know me more personally, that would be the girl who later re-emerged in my life as the 'psycho redheaded stripper,' a few years later when I didn't know her untreated bipolar had reached critical mass, heh.)

Anyhow, the way I generally try to explain my mindset to the people who care about me is that I'm like a bird in a cage. If you leave the cage door open, I'll know that I -could- leave at my pleasure, so I'll generally sit quite comfortably where I am.

But if you lock the door shut, I'll bash my head open against the bars trying to get out. It's just part of my contrary nature.


Translation into less metaphorical terms: I'm most comfortable in a relationship that is technically "open" and/or "poly-friendly." But knowing that I'd be allowed to stray (within the rules, of course), I'm generally satisfied with what I have, and enjoy nurturing the relationship I've already got.

It's an odd way of explaining things, but for some reason it seems to be a good way of telling my mindset to a lady who's not quite ready for a fully open or poly relationship. Basically, if we set the boundaries wide at the outset, I don't have a reason to "test" them.

I'm watching the inauguration. Watching the passing of a torch, the birth of a new era; on live television, while discussing the matter with people all across the nation and the globe, connected on PCs, laptops, cellphone text messaging, and telephone. This truly is the birth of a new era.

First off, a link because Universal prefers not to allow embedding, and that's cool with me because they're putting the videos up on YouTube in the first place. Anyhow, there's a long intro to this video, but it just makes the scene for me, because I've been that musician in the park doing my thing when somebody amazingly talented comes along and sets up beside me without a word.
Willie Nelson sings The Rainbow Connection.
I think I'm adding this to my open mic night songlist.


Second, Mister Rogers' television farewell.

For all my shameless dark and evil humor, I still cannot bring myself to say a single thing negative about Fred Rogers. He was one of our modern-day saints, in his own way.


And if you needed an inspirational speech, here's one from Al Pacino.

Those who have had to fight for inches, will gladly fight for yards. And we will GET those yards. 'Nuff said.

God Jul, God Jul, och gott nytt år!




Now I'm having happy nostalgia for many years celebrating Christmas and the fest of St. Lucia with the Swedish Glee Club. "Nu är det Jul igen" was always a standby for the children's club.
The only thing we're missing from those in our home's celebrations is the Glögg. My father's father used to make that each winter; he'd take orders, and make batches in huge pots. And naturally, you have to taste each batch to make sure it's good stuff, right?

For those without Scandinavian heritage: Glögg packs a punch. Depends on your recipe, I believe ours contained Whiskey, Vodka, and Madeira (strong sack wine) as the liquids. Then mulling bags of cinnamon, raisins, almonds, lemon peel, and cloves. Then, it's all mulled over a medium flame in three-gallon pots, and served warm.
Heh, even my grandmother, who was a member of the Women's Christian Temperance Union and stayed upstairs, would get tipsy just from the fumes in the house.

My father and his sister were sitting around our Christmas dinner table telling the tales of my grandfather making the Glögg, and the poor dog Flicka getting so shnockered on the raisins that she couldn't even make it up the first step to get to bed.

I went to the friend's house early, brought some instruments and some wine, and chatted with the girls from high school. Then Agram and his husband showed up, the party became very gay, huzzah!

People trickled in, not as much as we would have liked, but the recent weather has killed many travel plans. We still had a good twenty people show up, easily, though. The instruments were ignored but the wine flowed freely, everyone else brought a dish to pass, so spirits were quite merry and nostalgic.

Among us we had six high school yearbooks flipping pages and poking fun at pictures, and they all stayed open the whole time everyone was there.

I did have a little moment where my filters failed me, and I just had "lots of people, lots of words," so I went to calm down in a back bedroom. A few minutes of quiet meditation and I was back on the outside circle, listening, and tossing the occasional line.

Along the lines of the evening, I managed to sneak my CD onto the DVD player so it was my music in the background, and got my business card with contact info on it into everyone's hands. Yes, the one that lists my employment title as "Eclectic Eccentric," at least it's accurate, dammit.


I had a hard decision to make for planning tonight. I left behind both a Messiah concert and my own extended family's Christmas party to go to this reunion, but I feel fairly certain that I made the right choice.

So yeah, I'm getting ready to go meet the old gang at my high school "second chance" reunion tonight, since it turned out that I'm not the only one who didn't get a call. There are a bunch of us who are throwing our own party to gather the people and have teh lols.

I've found my old high school yearbooks, got a few instruments to drag along for the orchestra geeks, and a couple boxes of wine to share. We're holding it at a classmate's home who's just a few blocks from me here, so it should be all good.

OH AWESOME! Turns out that my old hangout open mic has resurrected itself at the Greentown Tavern! Now to see if I can get a ride in the winter...

Also, December 20 a bunch of my high school pals are getting together for a "We missed the reunion" party. This is good, because evidently the people who were supposed to organize our ten-year reunion were so completely incompetent in terms of actually finding people, we just did this ourselves.
Yet again, the geek credo: "First you won't let us do it because you're scared of new stuff and you want to run everything. Then you try to rip off our ideas and do it yourself, and you fuck up and complain, because you don't have the talent and/or skills necessary to pull this off. Finally, the geeks come together, ignore the failures of the other folks, and create an elitist utopia for at least one night."

Sound familiar anyone?
I am SO there. If I can find someone with trunk space, I'll even bring along all my spare instruments, including the didgeridoo.

A Decade of Internet Superstars: Where Are They Now?

Anywhere from Chris Crocker to Tay Zonday to Gary Brolsma to Mahir fucking Cagri, the original who started it all. I would have complained about the lack of All Your Base, but this article was all about face shots and live people, so that can be forgiven.

(Sworn not to tell the truth, the whole truth, just at least let a little bit of color into the story by rosencrantz23)

If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now (even if we don't speak often or ever) please post a comment with a completely made up, fictional memory of you and me.

It can be anything you want - good or bad - but it has to be fake.

When you're finished, post this little paragraph in your LJ and see what your friends come up with.

It was inevitable... Sociology means that our stupid amusement is their cultural science studies.

Here is a dynamic Flash-based timeline of the most popular internet memes.


Note: This month marks ten years of HAMSTER DANCE. w00t!

kittikattie posted a story about how she felt when giving five dollars to a homeless woman after a night on the town.


I have been homeless, living on the street and sleeping in bus shelters while still working, waiting until I could find an apartment of my own. I have been lucky enough that being homeless and being jobless have not coincided in the Venn diagram of my life.

I have also found myself stranded in a city far from home, having lost my return trip ticket. The kindness of strangers kept me safe that night.

I have found myself so desperately jobless that I took one of the few marketable skills I have - my music - to the streets of my hometown. I was harassed in a double-bind by a cop who threatened to arrest me for busking without a license, and a town hall who had no license to sell me. Once again, the kindness of strangers allowed me to take the burden of my survival off of those who housed me at the time.

When I'm out walking the streets and come across a homeless person, I remember my own experiences, and remember how deeply it wounds your dignity to be reduced to begging for the spare leavings of passersby. How much it shames you not to be able to support yourself even just to pay some rent on a simple room. And then, other people who do have jobs and homes and support come and verbally poke at that festering hurt, or even worse - not even consciously recognize your existence. People will stroll right past you as though you were statuary art, placed on that corner for the local color.

I try to give them, if not money of my own that I honestly cannot spare, at least a few moments of my time and attention. That I have plenty of, and it can truly make a person's day. When you look them in the eye, acknowledge them with a smile and a word, stop and talk, you get the damnedest stories out of folks.


Hell, last summer there were a couple times I stumbled across the Hobos' Picnic. That'll be an experience I won't long forget. I was bicycling my way home from a shopping trip. I took a cut through Hinkston Park, and spotted some of the local homeless guys sitting in the picnic shelter. I went and said hello, and they invited me right in.

Four or five of these guys would meet up every Thursday or so and play potluck picnic. There's a huge Jewel/Osco just a few blocks from the park, and each guy would bring something. They'd gather deadfall twigs to start a fire in the barbecue grills, slap on some meat, and just shoot the bull for a whole afternoon. No families were bothered, nothing was asked even though a playground with children was just twenty yards away.

We sat, traded stories, I helped myself to their meat, shared my bread for sandwiches, and cheapass generic cola all around. Even got a few jobhunt tips from a couple of the guys.


Basically, these are people. They are not just statistics, not necessarily criminals, please give them the benefit of the doubt. I've been there.

The hardest hurt, though, is to be truly alone. Yes, you can make it through another day, and you've become self-sufficient. But to have nobody left to whom you can reach a hand and say, "I need some help, I need a hug, I need somebody to talk to, I think I'm hurting myself, I don't know where to go..."

---

The music that evokes this sense of loneliness is Black Johann. It is my composition, meant to accompany an old-school folk tale with a tragic ending, also of my own authorship. Hit me up on AIM or Yahoo sometime, and perhaps I'll spin you the tale of Black Johann.

unclehyena did his latest round of movie reviews in his little corner of the blogosphere. He mentioned good things about the new Incredible Hulk movie, and likened it to the classic Werewolf myth. I responded in kind.

Hulk, Werewolf, Jekyll/Hyde, the dual sides of man's nature separated means that the passive will not be able to rein in the aggressive once its face is finally allowed to be shown.

What many miss in the Jekyll/Hyde and Hulk and Lycanthrope tales is that the split is not between good and evil - it is between rarified cold rationality and rarified passion.

The moral that one (at least one who is minded as I am) may take from these stories is that the rationality must not attempt to completely submerge the animal passion, else it shall find its own venting, perhaps without the benefit of a thinking mind at the reins.

I myself have had to deal with this very involuntary split of personae. However, it wasn't between rational thought and animal passion. My willfully submerged portion of psyche was that part of man's mind that allows him to practice irrational faith, spiritual satisfaction.

I spent so many years carefully trimming and honing my mind, actively paring off the thought processes that are the skeptic's nemesis. I'd turned myself into an analytical machine, so to speak.

But a few years ago, I came to find that my full psyche does indeed require, not just want but need, some sort of faith base to feel fulfilled. It came not knocking at the door of the consciousness, but Big Bad Wolf huffing and puffing and blowing down the boarded-over wall in order to claim its proper place in the mantel of my mind's masks.

When this happened, I was troubled, yes... But not overly disturbed. I agreed to give it some playspace, a bit of exercise here and there, and add a touch of spirituality to my life while still being able to let my scientific half shrug it off with a nod and a wink. Thus, I've taken on the mantle of Shaman, whose spiritual wisdom comes from his own dreaming and teaching of his people; and Fortune's Fool, beloved of the Roman goddess Fortuna - who showers me with whirlwinds of luck in both directions, while making no completely overt gestures that would give away her hand in shaping reality.

My twin minds of Skeptic Scientist and Trickster Shaman still don't allow themselves to merge - I can only wear one of their masks at a time. But I've brought them at least to a more symbiotic "Odd Couple" situation, and they seem more ready to live together in my head these days.

brownkitty has a few words for Monday's memorial, and for those who still serve.

I know staying safe isn't always an option. Stay as safe as you can, my friends. Come back to your loved ones. Hell, come back to your hated ones: just come back sound and sane.

Don't make those of us who love you as you are remember you on this day as you were.

I'm taking another risk here.

I thought I'd healed all the old wounds with time and striving on.

I'm applying for a job at Radio Shack again - and they're interested in hiring me.

And I'm scared shitless. Half afraid I'll come off as a worthless hobo who can't get any other work, so he asks for his old job back.

Half afraid that my teeth will do more damage to my appearance than all my technical knowledge.

Half afraid that Joe will be like my father and see me as I was eight years ago when he hired me in the first place.

But I have trust that because he was willing enough to at least interview me for a rehire, that he will see me as a different man. I worked with him as a sheltered, frenetic geek at first. Now only one of those words still applies.


I did get Part-Time Salesman of the Month, September 2000. Joe taught me how to work a sales floor and make the customer your friend. That went on to help me in my music career as well, and in life altogether.

But I still have to walk up to Joe Cortina and tell him that I am worth hiring again.
Joe Cortina can smell bullshit from a mile away, so every word I say must be true and honest.

And the true and honest words are, Working at RadioShack is a natural fit for me, and it made me a better person.

I did my tax returns just about on time.

On the little boxes to check for nonprofit research, that I usually just skip over and ask for my money back... This year I checked the one that said Alzheimer's Research, and my state refund went full into that.

And I cried a little.

And that's okay.

This is the music that I chose for her memorial service.

Most recently seen on flutterbychild's post:

Take a look at your LJ friend list, then list up to ten things you want to say to ten different LJ friends. Do NOT state who these people are. DO NOT confirm nor deny any “comment speculation”. (Oh, now you want to take all the fun out of the game.)

1. You were just getting to be a good friend, then you disappeared. I hope you show up soon so we can hang out again.
   
   
2. I'm proud of you for dumping him, but now you're poisoning his life with your repeated slander. Shut up and let him do some good for the community we all love.
   
   
3. I wish I didn't want to ask you to use your status as a friend of a friend to spy on their locked posts. I never would, but I wish I didn't want to.
   
   
4. You're growing up so much more emotionally stable than I was at your age. You wish you were me... I wish I were you sometimes.
   
   
5. I only know you through LiveJournal, yet you've been one of the few voices I trust to tell me my music is worth it.
   
   
6. I really did want to hop a freight train and run away with you that one time. If you hadn't broken your arm and canceled the trip, I would have lived a completely different life by now.
   
   
7. You've invited me to come visit. I'm afraid you'll be boring and annoying in person, but I'm so eager to meet new friends in real life that I'm willing to take the chance.
   
   
8. You drew art for me as a present. I actually didn't like it, but I didn't want to hurt the emerging friendship we were starting.
   
   
9. Even though I tease you about your religious faith, I envy the spiritual peace you've found.
   
   
10. I would gladly share a kitchen or a bed with you. Even if we've only shared the kitchen thus far, and you've told me it's not going to happen.