Today's unexpected Joys:

The weather!! Fucking beautiful!!

Watching re-runs of The Newlywed Game on the Game Show Network. I know the seventies were cheesy and backward, but watching these fresh-faced, upbeat, less-than-perfect-looking couples frankly and guiltlessly discussing their sex lives and relationship dynamics . . . I wonder . . . has our "cooler, more sexually and culturally aware" society gotten perhaps a little overly self-conscious, or even - dare I say - pretentious in its public discourse?

Finding $100 in an old Christmas card that I completely forgot about.

Finding a copy of a letter I wrote twelve years ago to a friend, Rona Figueroa. We had both just started college, and neither of us was very sure where our lives were going. I promised her in that letter that I would never "grow up." I'm proud to be able to say that I've kept that promise. (A few months after I sent her that letter, she was "discovered" and became a big, fabulous Broadway Star . . . giving our high school production of "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown" the great distinction of being listed as a credit in the program of a Broadway show! I should try to track her down . . . send her a copy of the letter . . . see how she's doing these days . . . see if she's grown up.)

Today's unexpected Terrors:

Seeing a commercial that described a maxi-pad as being "More secure than an e-mail password." Whaaaat?

Hearing a "news update" about THE WAR on an all-music radio station, and feeling disconnected and removed and generally apathetic . . . like it was the new season of Survivor, and I missed the first few episodes, so, you know, what's the point of trying to follow it now?

I've gotten some great things e-mailed to me by friends lately . . .

For example, Gothic Martha Stewart. Some folks at alt.gothic.fashion realized that Goths actually have certain elements of their aesthetic in common with Martha Stewart, and that with just a few color substitutions, many of her decorating techniques and "Good Things" could be easily adapted to fit a Goth's home.

First you have to decide what kind of Goth you are. (I've excerpted some category descriptions here because the GothCode website seems to be down.) Then you determine a decorating motif suitable for your particular brand of Gothdom. Complete instructions are outlined for decorating your Goth home within your given budget. Step-by-step directions are also given for particular projects . . . my favorite being the Goth Angel, suitable for perching on top of the Goth Christmas Tree.

If I were a Goth, I think I'd be a TrashyGraveyardGoth. And I'd decorate in a Cemetery Motif. Which Goth would you be?

You know, I loved Tracy's story a while back about how someone told her she looked just like Britney Spears. She immediately felt flattered, but when she told friends about it, they were a little less positive. The question arose: Is being compared to Britney Spears good, bad, or a little of both?

It's been a while since anyone has compared me to a celebrity. But for a period of time in the early nineties, it happened a lot. And it didn't usually feel flattering.

I used to be skinnier. My complexion was a little paler, my hair darker. My cheeks would bulge out a certain way when I smiled. And sometimes I would let my hair get pretty long. (Not, like, down to my shoulders . . . but sometimes down to my collar.)

Shopping in used record stores, the clerks would say I looked like
Beck. At first I thought, Cool! I mean these people liked Beck's music, so it was a nice comparison, right?

But then I wondered . . . is Beck really that good looking? Or is he more like one of those famous people who's known for NOT being good looking? I guess it depends upon which picture you look at and your personal taste. But I started to get paranoid. Were they making fun of me by calling me "Beck"? Were they saying I looked awkward and maladjusted? That I was a Loser, Baby?

Then came a longer phase where people said I looked like Mike Myers. And then when Austin Powers came out, I was actually offered paying gigs to impersonate Austin Powers for corporate functions and stuff. (I didn't take any of them, but they were offered.)

Again, I initially felt flattered. Because, you know, Mike Myers is famous. And Austin Powers was a cultural phenomenon. But then, again came the paranoia. Mike Myers is famous because he's a freak. And are people really laughing WITH Austin Powers, or AT him? Are my teeth that bad?

Ultimately, I guess I'm glad to just look like myself. It doesn't pay to measure yourself against anyone else. Because if you look hard enough, you'll always find something wrong.

So the truly amazing thing about get-togethers like the one last night at Casa del Min Jung y Jhames is . . .

Well, you have to understand, I was an avid reader growing up. No, beyond avid . . . I was obsessive. I often couldn't sleep until I read first. I would read during family events, in the car, on camping trips, in the bathroom . . . . anywhere, really. At recess and lunch in grade school, I would sit in a corner by myself and read.

It wasn't that I was anti-social . . . I just found my books way more interesting than whatever else that was going on around me. But ultimately, my parents and teachers conspired against me and - get this - I was actually threatened with PUNISHMENT if I was caught reading during recess.

That strikes me as pretty lame when I think about it now.

Anyway, one of the most amazing, intense and emotional experiences of my young reading life was when I would get so attached to a character that when I closed the book after reading the last page, I would get a knotted, unhappy feeling in my stomach - sometimes I would even cry - because I knew there was no more to read. The character with which I had spent so much time, to which I had developed such an attachment, was gone . . . disappeared into whatever sad void fictional characters are relegated to when no one is writing about them.

I think that's why reading blogs makes me so happy. They go on and on. If you fall in love with a "character," you can pretty much be assured that every day or three, there will be more "story" to enjoy.

But beyond that, you get to enjoy the surreal experience of actually meeting your literary fascination in the flesh. Imagine walking into a party and finding, say, Frodo Baggins or Aslan the Lion sitting on a couch, drinking a coke.

It's great!! You get to ask them all the things you've always wanted to ask, you can appreciate all the many wonderful facets of their personality that are only hinted at in the stories you read about them, you get to hug them, and interact with them, and suddenly the world seems not so one-sided and lonely.

Even more surreal, imagine that Frodo tells you that while you've been in your world reading about his adventures, he's been in his world reading about yours. And he's so glad to finally meet you!!

Its almost too much joy, really.

The absolute pinnacle of the night was hearing Min Jung channel her father singing Patsy Cline's "Crazy." Or, to spell it phoenetically the way she sang it, "Clajy."

Oh, my. You SO had to be there.

On this day when War Was Supposed To Be Declared But Kind of Wasn't But Probably Will Be Very Soon . . .

I'd like to offer you my favorite Discordian parable, called "A Sermon on Ethics and Love":

One day Mal-2 asked the messenger spirit Saint Gulik to approach the Goddess and request Her presence for some desperate advice. Shortly afterwards the radio came on by itself, and an ethereal female Voice said YES?

"O! Eris! Blessed Mother of Man! Queen of Chaos! Daughter of Discord! Concubine of Confusion! O! Exquisite Lady, I beseech You to lift a heavy burden from my heart!"

WHAT BOTHERS YOU, MAL? YOU DON'T SOUND WELL.

"I am filled with fear and tormented with terrible visions of pain. Everywhere people are hurting one another, the planet is rampant with injustices, whole societies plunder groups of their own people, mothers imprison sons, children perish while brothers war. O, woe."

WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH THAT, IF IT IS WHAT YOU WANT TO DO?

"But nobody wants it! Everybody hates it.''

OH. WELL, THEN STOP.

At which moment She turned herself into an aspirin commercial and left The Polyfather stranded alone with his species.

So, friends and neighbors, I'll be off at a psychic convention all weekend.

Watch the news for something interesting over the next few days . . . big, strange things seem to happen when this many psychics get together.

That's probably just a coincidence, really. But, you know, one person's coincidence is another person's certainty.

So here I sit in the Kaiser pharmacy, waiting for my drugs. It's kind of a funny story how I got here.

Y'all know I've been ill. And today, I was actually feeling a lot better . . . mostly. Except for the breathing thing. Sitting still in a chair and breathing shallow, I'm fine. But if I try and breathe deeply or do anything strenuous (like, um, walk down the hall to the bathroom) I go into a proxysm of wheezing coughs.

So a co-worker sent me this great e-mail. You may have seen it. The "Department of Homeland Security" has designed these great new terrorism warning icons, you know, to educate us public-types.

(Aside: Has anyone noticed that the acronym for Department of Homeland Security is DOHS. As in, the plural of the sound Homer Simpson makes when he does something particularly stupid. Does no one think of these things when they name government agencies?)

Anyway, some beautiful person took the time to come up with alternative captions for these new warning graphics. Here are some of my favorites:

I'll link the complete list tomorrow . . . I left it at work. I wish I knew who wrote these captions, because I'd like to see that person get credit for their genius.

Anyway, reading these made me laugh really, really fucking hard. And with the breathing issues, it sounded very weird . . . all raspy-gaspy, as if I were some mutant offspring of a seal and a Hoover industrial-strength vaccum cleaner.

Not long afterwards, I was talking to my fabulous Hawaiian girlfriend, and I repeated the sound for her (because I thought that it, too, was pretty fucking funny in it's own way).

She said, "You sound like a dirty old man looking at pictures of Britney Spears."

This inspired me to repeat the sound several more times.

We both agreed that when a thirty-one-year-old homosexual starts sounding like a dirty old man looking at pictures of Britney Spears, medical attention is definitely warranted.

So the diagnosis, it turns out, is that the viral nastiness which has been engulfing the entire Bay Area has activated my long-dormant asthma.

How exciting!!

Am I allowed to blame both the terrorists AND the Department of Homeland Security for this??

Note that yesterday's entry was written before I took Thera-Flu. Had I been coherent enough to write AFTER I took the Blessed Potion, the entry would have gone something like this:

Fluffy puppies are pretty.

La la la la la.

Green. Everything is so satsisfyingly green.

What a fascinating living room carpet I have!

Is monumentaliciousness a real word?

So I find myself afraid today.

Being psychic during times of world conflict can have its ups and downs. As a consciously sensitive person, it's easy to get wrapped up in the intense feelings of others, and forget that they aren't really yours.

It was very interesting being part of a psychic community during the time before 9/11. See, people always say things like, "Well, why couldn't you psychic people have forseen something that major, and maybe saved some lives or something?" or, on a lighter note, "Why didn't Dionne Warwick's Psychic Friends Network warn her about her impending drug bust?"

To me, these questions are unanswerable, because they assume certain things about reality that I don't believe to be true. These questions assume that reality functions according to strict and simple rules of cause and effect. Kind of like a movie plot. Act I: Conflict develops. Act II: Suspense is generated. Act III: Protagonist does the right thing at the right time, and crisis is averted.

I don't see it this way. When I look at reality, I see a giant ocean of chaos. There are waves and currents and storms and whirlpools. It is not linear or finite in any way. Nothing is resolved in two hours, or two years, or . . . ever. There is no right or wrong or success or failure.

There is just the ocean.

Being psychic, to me, is about navigating the currents . . . not changing them. And I can only navigate for myself, for my own life. And watch others do it for themselves.

If Dionne Warwick gets herself into a "drug bust" current, no psychic or anyone else can help her. Because Dionne herself is a powerful spirit, and can effectively make every one of her Psychic Friends - every psychic in the world, in fact - completely blind to her habits of transporting illegal substances.

It's her drug bust to have. No one can reach into her life and take that drug bust from her.

And if a country gets itself into a "war" current, I really can't do anything about it.

We didn't see 9/11 coming . . . specifically. But we were very aware of the current. As a matter of fact, starting in mid-August of 2001, many of us started to fear very strongly that WE were going to be blown up. We thought someone was going to plant a bomb in our building in Berkeley, and that some of us would be killed. Also, people got physically ill and couldn't quite get well for weeks. (This is pretty unusual, because psychics as a rule are pretty darn healthy.)

We saw all the pain and destruction that was coming, we got wrapped up in it, we even let it affect our health and our bodies, and we forgot - or didn't even notice - that it wasn't really ours.

And what did we do about it? We did what we always do. We laughed. We went about our business. We played our games and did our spiritual work, and each of us navigated the currents for him or herself. That's what psychics do.

Today I'm sick and I feel afraid that something nasty is right around the corner. I feel like the boots of North Korean soldiers are stomping on my lower back, and I'm reminding myself that this pain and this fear are not mine.

I'm swimming in another direction.

It takes two to tango. War consumes all who have a willingness to fight, no matter what their goals or motives.

I am not a fighter. I'm a psychic and a healer.

I will not be consumed.

Musical theater, really, teaches all the secrets of the universe. There's a great lyric in the musical "Rent" that's very important to remember these days:

"The opposite of war isn't peace . . . it's CREATION!"

So fuck all this War & Peace noise.

Let's create.

My husband said it very eloquently the other night . . .

It really is the end of the world.

Witness:

We are on the verge of war.

Europe has teamed up with Russia against us.

Mr. Rogers is dead.

No one is singing or dancing on Broadway.

And Nell Carter isn't even around anymore to "Give Us A Break."

Yes, it's the end of the world as we know it.

But, hey, I'm OK with that. Because I have six boxes of Girl Scout Cookies stashed away, and a copy of the SIMS.

That oughta see me through Armageddon.

(P. S. Blah. I've been sick the last few days. Blah.)

The best pickup line anyone's actually used on me?

"That's an awfully big book."

I was twenty-three, sprawled out on the ground at a BART station, waiting for a train. I felt like my life was falling apart . . . no particular reason, I just felt that way. And I had decided that reading challenging literature and philosophy might help me find my way. (It didn't, but oh well.)

I had checked out this big old book from the library. It was like some compilation of fragments of "Great Works." Probably published for use in some college general ed class in the fifties.

And so I sat there reading it, ignoring the world, and this guy just came up next to me, inserted himself into my reality, and said, "That's an awfully big book."

I looked up at him from the floor. He was probably about thirty. Blonde, a little stocky, dressed kind of . . . funky thrift store retro pseudo-stylish. I think he was wearing a vest. And one of those brimmed caps that you expect to see on London chimney sweeps and turn-of-the-century newspaper boys.

I believe he was an academic . . . some kind of grad student. The book somehow connected us. It was like a secret we shared, something the other people on the BART platform couldn't appreciate the way we could.

I stood up and tried to explain what the book was, why I was reading it, and the fact that I was ambivalent about it, I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. Which pretty much summed up my whole life at that point.

And then the BART train came. His, not mine. He climbed aboard, maintaining eye contact with me the whole time. And he stood there, like it was a scene from a movie. The train door was open. I stood on the platform. We looked into each other's eyes.

I felt the invitation. I should have just climbed aboard with him. But I was confused. And I didn't.

And the door shut. And his eyes seemed to become a little sad as the train carried him out of my life.

So what's your best ever pickup-line experience?

Well, for the record, scrollbars are definitely the Drama Queens of the html/css world. They are so goddamn needy!!

You have all no doubt noticed the various phases of scrollbar drama here over the past week. First I set them up so they looked fine on Windows, but they were all screwed up on Mac . . . the text would crawl up under the right-hand scrollbar, becoming illegible (and no doubt causing some unpleasant chafing for the scrollbar).

So I fixed that, but the new scrollbar configuration "broke" my graphics in Windows, so that the sides of the green boxes didn't completely connect to each other.

Then I fixed that problem, but the only way I could manage to do it was to pull the scrollbars about 15 pixels out from the right-hand side of the display area. This was functional but looked kind of . . . stupid.

So for the record, scrollbars are now my BITCH. I have totally forced them to shut up and submit, and now they do exactly what I tell them to . . . they appear in a reasonably aesthetically pleasing manner on both Mac and Windows.

In Explorer, that is. Netscape apparently doesn't believe in inline scrollbars. Oh, well. Netscape is a whore.

And that reminds me of one very important design credit I neglected to mention before . . .

My Laptop.

This website was designed almost entirely on public transit, with my fabulous new iBook. I was even able to run the php scripts through the iBook's local OSX server while I was riding underneath the San Francisco Bay on the BART train . . . no live internet connection or remote server upload necessary.

Pretty cool.

One problem, though. I have owned my iBook for almost two months now, and it still doesn't have a name.

I've considered a few names, but I haven't found one that really fits.

So I appeal to the creative genius of my readers. Help me out! What do you think my iBook's name should be? What name would befit the beautiful instrument that is William Ted's digital sidekick, the Robin to my Batman, the Tonto to my Lone Ranger, the Macaulay Culkin to my Michael Jackson, the . . . uh . . . Snoop Dogg to my Jimmy Kimmel?

(OK. Forget those last two examples.)

Save this talented laptop from nameless obscurity!! Give it your best shot.

If I end up using the name you suggest, I promise to let you touch it.

The laptop, I mean.

Earlier today, Vince wondered if maybe he saw me in the Castro on Sunday. It's funny, because I was nowhere near the Castro that day. I was having a very pleasant married suburban day, attending my husband's Church and seeing some friends in a show miles and miles away from San Francisco.

BUT . . . this is not the first time this has happened. Every so often, someone will swear that they've seen me in the Castro when I was really on the other side of the world. I have no choice but to conclude that there is some guy out there who looks remarkably like me who spends much more time in the Castro than I do. He's like my Gay Mecca Doppelganger.

It's kind of a cool thought that I have a Virtual Twin out there somewhere, and that since we're both in the same city, we may one day run into each other. (Although hopefully such an encounter wouldn't cause too big of a rift in the space-time continuum.)

It can cause problems though. About once a year or so, someone will get pissed at me because they swear they waved at me in the Castro and I acted like I didn't know them. The most extreme and awkward example of this happened about eight years ago, when I was single and I was sleeping with this friend of mine who was in a long-term partnership. Supposedly, he and his main squeeze had an "arrangement" about these things, and supposedly it was all OK and we were all being very civilized and very mid-nineties about the whole thing.

But in reality, their relationship was disintegrating and - completely unbeknownst to me - I was the straw breaking the camel's back. So one day I get together with my buddy and he says, "My partner saw you in the Castro the other day and he says you totally snubbed him."

I swore up and down that it wasn't me. I mean, I didn't really know his partner. We didn't all hang out together or anything. But I'd met him a couple of times, and he seemed like a good guy. And I really felt that I owed him some gratitude, you know, since he was essentially letting me borrow his man every so often for recreational purposes. Had I seen him in the Castro - or anywhere else - I would have hugged him. I would have smiled, and I would have tried to convey to him my appreciation for his generosity.

But even though I presented an airtight alibi which absolved me of the alleged snub, the vibe of it hung in the air. Those few days of (erroneously) thinking of me as a Castro Shade Queen had somehow transformed me in the partner's mind from a harmless diversion into a homewrecker, a rude interloper into their domestic partnership.

And then they broke up. And then I was in the awkward position of reminding my buddy that I had never intended to be his "next boyfriend."

Anyway, despite dramas like this, I'd still like to meet my Castro Alter-Ego someday. As a matter of fact, I offer a reward to anyone who runs into him and manages to find out who he is and how I can get a hold of him.

Because I'd really like to know for sure if I'm the good twin or the evil twin.

Haircuts are one of my favorite things about Blogs. I love hearing about people's haircuts. Like Cyn's most fabulous haircut ever, given to her free by one of her readers. Or Christine's potentially-disasterous-but-turned-out-OK cut & color.

Haircuts are the kind of initimate detail that makes me want to read blogs. And they entice some of the more photo-reticent bloggers to post pictures of themselves.

I have a new project where I'm trying to become aware of all the little details in my life that tend to disappear off my radar screen. Those lost hours of time . . . the money that just seems to disappear from my bank account . . . the habits that are so deeply ingrained that I don't usually notice them.

At any given moment, I can't tell you when my last haircut was. And the Supercuts ladies always ask. So I lie. I say, "six weeks." Even though I know it's probably been longer than that.

Fortunately, I've been getting cosmic wisdom from my Supercuts ladies lately. (I highly recommend the Supercuts at 18 Battery Street in San Francisco for both styling and enlightenment.) So last time I got a haircut, I wrote about it.

Mid-September was my last haircut. FIVE AND A HALF MONTHS!!!

I would never have guessed. I would have said three months at the outside. But see, I get my hair cut pretty short, and then it just grows forever and gets kind of long. And I guess it's just a detail I don't pay attention to.

See how great blogs are for self-awareness?

So when I got my haircut the other day, the Confucian Supercuts Wisdom bestowed upon me was as follows:

"Some people look really funny when their hair gets long."

(Pause.)

"You should really keep your hair short."

So this is my reminder to myself. Supercuts and I have a date in mid-April.