Where does one thing end, and another begin?

Humans love order, and we need a good measure of it to be able to accomplish significant goals, but when it comes to borders between countries, nomenclature, and the very passing of time, somebody at some point had to make some decisions that were, at least in some small way, arbitrary.

After my Solstice ceremony which I conducted virtually with the help of a friend who I’ve known and loved since I was 3 years old, I went out back and watched the sunset over the Columbia.

 

As with every sunset, it was extraordinary in its own remarkable way, and when I took photos of it, I was struck by these clouds, so deeply representative of the ambiguity of what is, and how it always, eventually becomes, as demonstrated by the perimeter gradient of these clouds, what is no longer.

As someone who goes with nature, not against it, I simply must love the impermanence of everything, the blurring of the lines between what is and isn’t, the shifting gradients between them, and as an Existentialist and Stoic this acceptance includes appreciation for the brevity of our very lives.

This truth about how I position and present myself in relationship to the world makes it so that, everywhere I look, I see proof of how very me-neutral nature is, and how it-biased it continues to be, in spite of us and the enormous burden we bring to it. I love how it shows me exactly what helps me see more clearly the value of the work I’m already doing, and in this way, how deeply connected I feel to it as my everywhere-teacher, as my constant guide, as the powerful authority that outlasts us all.

Every day, I start and end in completely different places; deep inside myself, in my body and brain, in my capabilities to face yet another glorious day of being alive.

The sky at sunset on Summer Solstice held all this magic for me, and through me telling you about it may I also bring it to you – here it is, it’s right here, yours for the joyous taking, right where it’s always been, and always will be!

I love you.
Thank you.

On the Tonight Show, Johnny Carson used to do a bit using classified ads from newspapers, and one that I’ve never forgotten went something like this:

Lost Dog, 3 legs, has mange, missing one eye, answers to Lucky.

Time, circumstance, the cumulative impact of one thing that becomes many things, is all very real in all our lives, it’s just we may not realize it, or care to realize it. For absolute certain, in the biological, neurological, and practical domains, many things are happening to us, it’s our awareness of, or interest in them that varies.

As I have learned about consequential aspects of my health and injuries and conditions, and as I trial-and-error my way to learning to live with and strategize around them, there are infinitely more things happening inside me that are unknown to me, and that are, in fact, unknowable. This is always true, for all of us; no matter how much we know or think we know, we know so very little.

It is in this very existential reality that we find one another, none of us knowing much about where we’re headed, and most not caring to figure out where we’ve been and why. In this way, time is the only unifier among us.

How difficult is it to face this stark truth? To escape it, Bezos wants to colonize Mars, and many other Multi-Billionaires actively work very hard to extend the life span – theirs, not necessarily ours – and it’s mostly because they cannot bear the thought of not living their unprecedented-in-human-history privileged lives. How do we know that? Some come right out and say it, but we can also realize it in contrast when we think of all the other high-wealth people like Steve Jobs and Paul Allen who’ve come and gone before now, who faced the reality of their own mortality with practical acceptance, and used their awareness of it to finish as much work as they could, and set up perpetual access to the value of their work beyond their own lifespan.

Time laughs, and eventually takes us all.

And as time unifies us by alternately pushing, dragging, and lifting us forward – all of us together in one enormous mass of energy hurtling toward our eventual death – there are simple things we can all do that reliably slow things down and allow us to claim significance for ourselves, including and especially in the tedium of building self-care daily habits, without discipline to, we yield what micro-authority we have over our own positive outcomes, and the joyous journey of being present for our own experience in being alive.

For me, I do this by carrying with me into my many daily therapies the awareness of my own ignorance, the responsibility we each inherently have to capitalize on our own truths and knowns, and as I seek the common place where you and I might meet, in my mind and my heart and my soul, I run to that intersection where we can stand, together, certain only of the moment at hand, and letting, for now, all else go. I carry this awareness with me as I do my vision drills, my hip therapy, my balance work, my osteo bone loading, my cardio to build new neural circuits to replace those lost to 2nd-order-to-hip-injury illness.

I use adult coloring books for my vision convergence therapy, and as I work at my easel with 10000 lux light streaming into my eyes, every pencil stroke is a directive to my brain to  properly organize my eyes so I can color within the lines, and every pencil stroke is a prayer for you, for us, that we’re all together in helping ourselves be whole and happy with what we’ve got, with where we are, with who we are right now. As I finish one drawing, I start another, confrontational in its blankness, and for me this replicates the choice of how I approach each day; each day is blank until I fill it in, my mind is blank until I fill it in, and if I don’t have responsibility for filling it in the loudest, most aggressive information will flow right on into it, unimpeded, and that information will change my circuitry in real ways that are harmful to me and difficult to reverse.

In this way, me being disciplined to my various therapies inoculates more in me than the narrow purpose of each separate practice. Taken as a whole, my discipline to my daily therapies becomes a transcendent ritual of glorious awareness and connection, where in my mind I commune and rejoice and honor God and all my loves, helpers, teachers and guides, who have helped deliver me to this very moment in my life, and this happens in my mind as if it were real, this happens in my mind even though I’m super isolated, even though you have no way of knowing I’m doing it, even though it doesn’t directly manifest in a benefit beyond my own psychology, and ability to persevere.

But it builds into something more than its day-in-day-out parts.

I’m counting on me sticking to my trial-and-error process to figure out which therapies will help me, I’m counting on me figuring out how I can get myself stable enough to become self sufficient again, I’m counting on me coming back to meaningful service to others, I’m counting on my daily therapies to aggregate up into making my whole life matter, no matter how much of it remains. In this way, I experience micro-victories, all day long, almost every single day. Even though I’ve lost almost everything, when I am disciplined to my own self-care, I’m winning.

For now, I continue to Answer to Lucky.

I love you.

 

Sunday, March 21, 2021

Finally, I’m above water & able to catch my breath. I’ve missed you.

Here’s what’s been happening with me, I hope you’ll let me know what’s been happening with you.

 

Brain: The size and location of the masses in my brain remained stable between my November and January MRIs, however the January MRI showed a loss of white matter which, as directed by the surgeon caring for this part of my brain, I’m trying to rebuild and thicken through daily aerobic exercise. White matter loss could be because of years of pain from my hip, years of my brain marinating in toxic death hormones, or just because I’m old. The loss of white matter is not the cause of my cognition problems, and it’s not nearly as serious as the loss of gray matter which does indicate dementia. My next brain MRI is in May and, since early February, 6 days a week I’ve been getting in a solid 90 minutes to 2 hours of no-impact aerobic training. I’m work out on either my craigslist rebound air or my $15 thrift store gazelle edge elliptical. Hopefully, the May MRI will show that my white matter is rebuilding and, of course, I’m also hoping that it will confirm that there has been no change in the location or size of the pituitary and pineal masses. If I string together 3 or 4 consistently stable/improving brain MRI’s, I’ll only need to have one every year unless symptoms return or worsen.

Hip Rehab: I nailed my strength and ROM tests last week and as a result, I’ve been discharged from physical therapy, and I’ve been fully cleared to continue with my more aggressive strength work. I see my surgeon in July at the 1-year post-surgery anniversary for a final set of images to confirm the thicker, longer implant shaft from surgery #2 isn’t in mashed against the cortex of my femur, and to make sure my capsule has healed well enough so that compound movement restrictions can be removed. At that point, all treatment from this injury will be completed. My ongoing strength training includes daily work on an incline bench with 8, 10 and 25-pound weights, all of which support from my GFM has funded.

Vision: The eye exercises I was given in November made my vision so much worse that by the time they retested me in January, my left eye drift and resulting double vision had gotten so frequent that I was on the verge of having to patch my left eye. Between November and January, I also lost what little remained of my depth perception. They asked if I was willing to try a different set of eye exercises that work on the brain in a different way, I didn’t think I had much to lose so we gave it a try and, February tests show a rather remarkable improvement in my brain’s ability to align my left eye. It still drifts but not so much as to produce a double image and, amazingly, it’s not glassy and all dead-fish-eye looking anymore – I’m counting this as a miracle. The exercises are to train my brain’s convergence skills and once my brain gets good enough at converging both my eyes onto a single target, the hope is my depth perception will begin to train back up. I perform convergence and depth perception exercises many times every day, I keep a spreadsheet on frequency and duration, I’m tested again in April.

Vision, Part 2: My insurance only covers medically-necessary eye care, it does not cover the type of eye care that results in glasses or contacts even if the reason I need new lenses/glasses is because my vision is impacted by a medical condition. My eyes are so supremely complex that it’s really hard to find an ophthalmologist willing to do the work to understand my histoplasmosis and how it has damaged my vision; I’ve always been the practice’s only histo patient. My doctor and I agree that my convergence exercises have everything in my optic nerves all juiced up and that’s making my everyday vision so unstable that, even within a single day, I change between 3 different strengths of multifocal lenses. My eyeglass lenses are almost 3 years old; they’re way out of tune. Thank you to those who’ve donated to my GFM – your support has paid for me to get this care, and to buy these 30-day trial sets of experimental contacts.

General Health: Bladder: I’ve finally gotten in with a urologist to help with overactive bladder symptoms that started almost 4 years ago, just this week he started me on some medication that’s supposed to help, my $1400 a month medical plan didn’t cover over $200 of the prescription cost. The support from my GFM makes it so I can still get the drugs I need – thank you if you’ve donated. In April I’m seeing a physical therapist to learn some muscular start-stop triggers that will hopefully holistically help control urge/frequency. I can close the strongest resistance gyne-flex and I can also “lay an egg” so my problems aren’t from lack of pelvic floor strength or hypertonic issues.  Skin & Hair:  Last week I also saw a dermatologist to help with the rash, welts and hives I’ve had for months, she thinks it’s related to my compromised immune system and the ton of allergies I have. I’m on some prescription creams and she’s got me taking 4 antihistamines a day to try and get the itch under control.  My hair is regrowing where it fell out! I look a bit like a Dr. Seuss character.

Live/Work situation: Thanks to the GFM, it’s warmer and brighter in my amazing space, I’ve paid several months ahead on my utilities and I paid my car insurance for the year. I’m stable enough to be able to make some progress on putting together a workout “set” where, once I recover enough to be consistent in teaching, I can begin to film/live stream classes, courses and meetups. Hopefully, when Apple comes out with its new MacBook models in mid-2021, I’ll be able to replace my circa 2011 laptop with one that’s able to handle the post-production of what will become my new digital body of work. I began digitally sharing my work back in 2003; I am the Pilates industry’s original NFT.

That’s all I got for now, I’ll be back here when I have more news but until then, and always, always, always, please email or call if you want to connect, I’d love to hear from you, I am always interested in your life and what you’re doing, and I would love to hear your voice and see your beautiful face.

[email protected] 206-963-0755

PS The annual Rainier sea lion load out has been going on since February, 25/8 they just wail and bark and rumble, with their massive heads up, mouths wide open, screaming exuberance at the heavens. I’m in love with them, I’m in love with you, and thanks to the help of so  many, little by little, I feel myself falling back in love with being alive.

 

I’m not doing great, but I pray you are.

First and most importantly, regardless of how much time has passed, please know that I’ve never forgotten about you, about us, about all the places we’ve been together and the many places we’ve hoped to go. This post is titled “Aftershock” because that’s what one of my brain docs suggested I might be experiencing, medically, but, honestly, over the past 4 years and across all aspects of my life, my personal richter scale has been registering a sustained 9.0.

The next most important thing for you to know is that nobody thinks that any of the things wrong with me have anything to do with cancer, or are life threatening or even life shortening. It’s just stuff that makes you sick and less able, but it’s not stuff that makes you dead.

Another thing I want you to know, up front, is that overwhelm is very real for all of us and while I want you to know, and hopefully learn from and maybe even be inspired by what I’m going through, it would break what’s left of my heart to think the process of learning about it would burden you. I invite you to receive this information by mirroring my emotional and psychological pre-set. Word: I believe it’s entirely possible that my medical problems stem from not being able to use my body for over 3 years, and the life-imploding stress of that opened wide the death-hormone production valve in my brain that didn’t get shut off until friends stepped in, late 2019, to ensure my access to care. Consistent with this theory, this most recent uptick in symptoms is caused by my August – September hotel-homelessness when the prospect of finding housing seemed most dire. Now that I am so completely relieved to have housing, even though my space is not ideally appointed, my symptoms are abating and I believe my next brain mri (Dec 13, 2020) will confirm stable masses and my next cortisol tests (Jan 2021) will show normal levels. If you’re able to join me in that belief, you’ll be part of helping to soothe my psyche, to close my brain’s death-hormone valve and to help me get strong in my physical body again. And because of the way human brains conspire, you’ll receive what you give. Hallelujah, everybody – for me, for you, for all of us!

The story lines of my life the past couple of years – hip, brain, vision, loss of income – crisscross and blend and build, it’s impossible to talk about them separately and I know that makes them difficult to follow – I’m sorry about that.

Ready? I’m not sure I am.

Hip: After blowing out my left hip labrum in September 2016, I didn’t have insurance to cover a replacement, I couldn’t walk well enough to continue to travel to teach, my revenue dropped by over 80% for the next 3 years when I became too ill to work at all.

Brain: In addition to limited mobility and constant hip pain, my body started changing in 2017, I started feeling sick in 2018, and by the end of 2019 I was seriously ill – I had put on over 40 pounds of central obesity, my face had distorted to the point that I was unrecognizable, my skin had thinned such that the backs of my hands were broadly abraded by friction from fabric or upholstery and the frame of my eyeglasses opened the skin on my nose and above my ears, muscles in my limbs atrophied to the point I could encircle my thigh in the ring of my thumb-to-thumb-index-to-index, I had recurring cognitive problems, severe fatigue to the point where I slept for 14 – 16 hours at a time, some days not able to get out of bed or stop sobbing. I still didn’t have insurance but I sought care at the local public health clinic where, unfortunately, their mission to serve does not include diagnostic pursuit or treatment for the types of things that were wrong with me. As a result, I was without care and my symptoms continued to worsen until November 2019 when friends stepped in to literally save my life.

Financial saviors: Friends Neil & Jojo and John & Andry paid for me to have the preliminary tests and scans that confirmed the presence of a metabolically raging pituitary tumor. I wasn’t well enough to live alone anymore so they paid for me to move to Oregon where another friend offered to take me in. My friends paid for medical insurance coverage so I could finally receive surgeries and treatment, all of which has been at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland. The Oregon housing offer proved to be not-well-intentioned and when it came to an untimely, unexpected end, it triggered a chain reaction of costly and health-compromising problems that I’m still convulsing through. When I had no other housing options, my friends paid for me to live in a hotel two different times for a total of over 2-1/2 months. They’ve paid for my unmet living expenses for over a year. Their help has been an extraordinary act of kindness and support, and one I’ll never be able to fully repay.

Most people think that getting care leads to getting better, but sometimes it’s not that simple.

Brain: My tumor went into “spontaneous remission” in February, the data suggests it can take up to a couple years for symptoms to completely reverse out of you but for me, it happened more quickly. By April my cortisol and ACTH levels had normalized, and by May the inflammation was gone and I was back to my normal weight. I looked like myself again too, my skin thickened right back up, and I began to build back muscle in my limbs. Unless symptoms returned, I wasn’t scheduled for a follow up until the end of this year. After being hotel-homeless August – September, symptoms returned in October – 10 pounds of inflammation came back, my face changed again, my skin thinned. A November 3rd mri revealed 2 new masses on my pituitary and a pineal cyst.

In case you don’t know it, our brains are the consistency of soft serve, so having masses in there isn’t like trying to close a walnut inside a book, it’s more like putting a cherry on top of whipped cream. Lots of folks have masses in their brains and don’t even know it.

I do not assume the new masses are symptomatic because my surgeon said symptom aftershocks can happen because past cortisol poisoning damages the entire brain, not just the part of it pumping out the hormones. That means symptoms can be caused from past high levels, not necessarily because levels are currently high or in the process of building back up. He said these aftershocks can last and recur for any length of time. Or only once and never again.

The story I’m telling myself is that this is an aftershock, that it will pass quickly and it will probably be all the way to never before I have another one. In the meantime, we’re watching the masses to chart any changes, I expect my brain mri on December 13th and my January 2021 cortisol saliva tests to come back showing stable masses and normal levels.

My cognition issues are episodic; catch me in a bad-brain-moment/day and I glitch, struggle with word-finding, go completely blank and resort to charades, but in a good-brain-moment/day my words flow without hesitation and I’ll sound like I did before all this started. I can tell when the transition is happening – sometimes in mid-conversation – and it’s weird as hell, it’s almost like I’m seeing my ability to organize my thoughts ride off into my mind’s distance. I’m also newly, severely dyslexic, writing or typing anything takes an excruciatingly long time.

Because not all of these changes can be reasonably attributed to the normal aging process, I’ve been referred to a cerebral cortex neurosurgeon for cognitive testing but that department was completely closed for 6 months due to covid so I’m at the bottom of a wait list that’s been building since the early summer. I believe these cognition episodes are linked to the stress I experience when I don’t have stable housing. Autonomy is a critical component of mental health, and I’ve had very little of it for several years running.

Hip: I was originally scheduled for hip replacement in April but the surgery got covid-pushed until June. The surgery went great and my recovery was well ahead of schedule when, eight days after the surgery and while on a therapy walk, I was charged by 2 large, snarling off leash dogs and in the process of running backward to get away from them, the implant sank about 1/2 inch into the shaft of my femur. That meant that there was now almost 1/2 inch of space between the new ceramic ball of my femur and the new ceramic socket in my pelvis – my brand new hip that I’d waited almost 4 years to get now clacked like billiard balls on the break. I had to wait another 5 weeks to recover enough from the first surgery (anterior approach) to have them (posterior approach) saw out the first implant and put in a new thicker and longer shaft, and a new socket.

I stayed awake for both surgeries, I watched most of the first one and all of the second one, I have my femur ball from surgery #1 in the freezer and I also have the original implant that was removed in surgery #2. After both surgeries, I managed my own at-home care. I made audio recordings, daily, of my post-surgical experience, and have captured 100% of the details pre- and post- surgery, all of which will be included in my “Total Hip” bundle which I do not yet have pulled together but hope to by mid-2021. I have all the contraindications of both anterior and posterior approaches, and virtually every provider has told me I’ve asked questions none of their other patients have. As a result of my background plus my injury and the delay in getting help, I definitely have a unique perspective on hip injuries and replacements, and I can’t wait to offer that perspective to you and through you, to your community.

As far as continuing care for my hip, I’m in physical therapy to try and balance out my strength which was extra skewed from 3 years and 9 months of limping and not being able to extend my left hip. We’re also working on rebuilding the strength I lost to the muscular atrophy of cortisol poisoning and we’re focusing on my balance which is tricky because of my left eye going wobbly. I’ll be in physical therapy until July 2021 which is when we’ll know if my joint capsule has healed to the point where I’m cleared of all movement restrictions.

Vision: I started losing muscular control of my left eye in November 2019, and when my left eye goes wandering it causes me to see super blurry and sometimes double. I’m being cared for by the kind of eye surgeons who can correct for the drift but I may not be a candidate for the surgery since I have histoplasmosis-caused retina damage (subfoveal) in my left eye that complicates their calculation for which muscles to cut. When I see double, the fix for it is to close my left eye, and I’m getting better at remembering to do that. The 2 specialists who are helping me with this – orthoptist and strabismus – have designed some vision exercises we hoped would supercharge my brain’s uptake of data through my left eye and thereby motivate greater muscular control of it. We were going to repeat in another couple months the measurement testing to figure out if the exercises are helping but unfortunately, the exercises began provoking double vision so, unless we come up with something else that doesn’t make me see double, I’m not able to do anything actively to try and save the placement of my left eye. I hate that.

My next eye doctor appointment is December 22nd, and to give you an idea of what I’m facing as far as medical expenses go, his fees are between $300 – $500, per eye, and neither my medical insurance nor medicaid covers his treatment. I believe 100% of my vision problems are from the normal progressive deterioration of my histoplasmosis damaged macula, and I don’t think there’s any brain mass contributory issues in play.

If and when the time comes that my left eye is so googly that it distracts me because it distracts you, I’ll patch it.

Housing: Finding housing during a pandemic is hard enough, but trying to find housing during a pandemic when you haven’t been well enough to work for a year is a whole other level of impossible.

I’ve moved 6 times in 7 months.

For 2 weeks before and for 4 weeks after hip surgery #1, I was hotel-homeless but, every day of those 6 weeks of hotel living, I scoured online listings for rentals and I finally found a landlord on craigslist who was willing to take a chance on me. He spent hours on the phone with my friends who assured him they’d cover my rent, so he approved me to rent for $1200 a month one of his 5th-wheels that he had on acreage outside Rainier, Oregon.

There was no hot water when I moved in, the electrical had been ripped out of half the trailer, I learned from the county that the entire trailer was against zoning and land use laws, the power and septic were unpermitted. What’s worse, the wiring was so unsafe that the county, citing a “life safety” issue and giving less than 2 hours notice, had the power shut off. Throughout all that, the landlord remained unconcerned and unresponsive.

You don’t really get an optimal outcome from a third attempt at fixing the same hip, so I was 100% compliant with post-surgical restrictions and I micromanaged my recovery from surgery #2. When the county shut off the power at the trailer, it was too soon after hip surgery #2 to risk a fall by staying there without lights, and I didn’t have anywhere else to go so my friends paid for me to move back into a hotel. I was still using a quad cane to walk and was still on lifting restrictions so I wasn’t able to take much with me from the trailer to the hotel. With the trailer dark and unoccupied, someone broke into it and stole a bunch of my things including my checkbooks and most of what I’d need to restart my life – my video camera and some of my other tech. They caught him, he had an arson 1 warrant pending – that’s school, church or someone home – and because of that arson 1 charge, he spent several weeks in jail before they covid-released him. Through the help of his girlfriend, I recovered some of what he took, including my video camera. Now that I’m completely unpacked in my new place, I’m discovering more missing things. I don’t think I’ll ever know for sure what all he took.

It was at about that point that my dear friend Trina Furgerson, acknowledging how utterly hopeless my circumstances had become, said she wanted to start a fundraiser for me. We asked for help from our other dear friends Jennifer Hildebrandt and Merianne Paul Haug, and, after working on it since September, the 3 of them together are responsible for launching my Go Fund Me. Regardless of how the fundraiser goes, I am so very grateful for their concern and their help in getting it launched, and my gratitude for any contributions is really just indescribable.

Current Housing: After the county pulled the electrical service to the trailer, I spent another month in a hotel, the whole time again searching for a landlord who would consider renting to me but this time, I found one who is full of integrity and grace and kindness.

It’s the first stable housing I’ve had in over 2 years and it’s more spacious and historically gorgeous than anyplace I’ve ever lived – and I’ve lived a ton of places. .

I was never a fancy person or someone who attached my personal happiness to wealth. I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for simply having a safe, quiet place to live, to be renting from a kind woman who sees beyond what I currently am to what I might be once I’m better, and, mostly, for my friends who have saved me by paying for me to live and get care. When I have a safe place to sleep and rest, it provides me with my best shot at recovering enough to be able to get back to work. And about work, I have extraordinary plans for what I hope to create as “work” in my future and, as I hope you agree, these challenging experiences provide extremely rich nutrients for the ways I’ll be able to help others in the future.

Having space large and private enough to create revenue producing work is one thing but I’m also an artist, and I can make any place or anything beautiful. I’m piecing together a gorgeousness right here where I’ve found myself. I’m doing this in honor of myself, my friends who’ve sustained me, and my landlady who has so graciously welcomed me. I’m claiming it all in service to those I seek to serve – you!

I’m in full renaissance mode. Most of my belongings sat in a wet barn in Astoria for 9 months and many of my soft goods were ruined. To illustrate how filthy and hostile the environment was, in my framed photos, there were dead bugs and mold between the glass and mat and print. I have had to take everything apart, clean everything and put it all back together again. There is no carry over, I assume nothing. I’ve had to begin completely again, and again, and again. And again. What remain as usable belongings are enough, are more than enough, and out of them will come immense value in ways I can’t even begin to understand.

Last thing on housing. Let me be clear, I’m not too proud to be unhoused; I’m immune-compromised and I’ve been too injured and too ill for too long to be unhoused without putting my health in seriously increased jeopardy.

About my Go Fund Me: In case you’re wondering, the fundraiser target is enough money to secure my access to medical care, cover the costs insurance doesn’t cover, and to secure my housing and housing related expenses for  2-1/2 – 3 years which is the length of time we anticipate it will take for me to fully rebuild myself, assuming no more serious setbacks. If there’s any left over, it goes to homeless shelters. It’s our hope that the Go Fund Me will establish autonomy for me until I’m well enough to re-establish it for myself. Like we used to do in my Seattle studio, I’m hoping that some of you consider hosting fundraising classes so that the joy, and burden, of helping someone financially can be shared even more widely.

Of course, there are prizes. Any donor of $1000 or more will be entered into a raffle where winners can choose anything they want from my educational archive, it’s full of hundreds of hours of educational and “turnkey” programming content that will spice up any teacher’s repertoire. There’s also a raffle for donors of $5000 or more, the prize is collaboration for a limited series, featuring the donor, on my streaming channel that I cannot wait to be well enough to launch. I know that’s nothing more than vaporware right now but please trust me when I promise you that my instability has proven to be rocket fuel for my creativity, ambition and passion. Let’s. Fucking. Go.

I’ll write again soon to share the words from some of my colleagues who I asked to support me by explaining directly to potential donors what I’ve done for them, my colleague, in the past. But something unexpected and quite lovely happened as a result of their written testimony. As a giver, it’s been my greatest humility to learn to receive – the fixer needs fixed – and while their words were intended to influence you, their words helped me get to the point where I could accept help without practicing self-recrimination for needing and receiving it. They helped me accept that I simply got hurt, then I simply got sick, then I simply couldn’t work. They helped me recognize the pure blessing of having the help of Neil & Jojo, John & Andry, and of anyone who is able to contribute, in any way, to securing my care and stability. When I recover from the effort of writing this, I’ll share with you what they had to say as a way to help remind you of how powerfully our acknowledgements of each other can help transform situational angst into emotionally -neutral acquiescence. For certain, what we say to and about each other has all kinds of crazy, stealth, positive power.

So that’s what’s been going on with me. I’d love to know what’s been going on with you and,  if there is anything that I can do to help you, I absolutely will.

Here’s how to reach me if you want to reconnect; 1-206-963-0755, [email protected], and my mailing address is Post Office Box 866, Rainier, OR 97048.

Lord God, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit, all our angels, guides and all other benevolent deities whoever and wherever you are, help us all, help us now and help us help others. Prayers, blessings, virtual hugs and kisses all desperately wanted, appreciated and returned a thousand times over.

I love you.

Thank you.

Fundraiser: gf.me/u/zb2287

 

 

 

 

Since Thanksgiving Day, I’ve been in Seattle where I lived for 24 years and where I’m visiting my dearest friend, Jimmy.  If you’re familiar with the tv show Will & Grace, Jimmy’s Jack and I’m Karen, and you’ll understand why we refer to Jimmy as my Gay Husband, or “the Gay” for short.

In the late 1970’s Jimmy and I met in Florida, I left Florida to live in Bend, Oregon for 10 years before moving to Seattle and, although it took him a while to get around to it, almost 20 years ago, Jimmy followed me to Seattle and has lived here ever since.

It’s pretty crazy when somebody moves across the country to live near you.   It’s kind of a big responsibility, even though the City of Seattle definitely had my back, because Jimmy not only moved to Seattle to be near me, he moved into the same building I lived in so we essentially recreated the living arrangement we had in Saint Petersburg – neighbors/roommates/neighbors.

Even though I moved back to Saint Petersburg over 5 years ago, Jimmy’s not going to follow me again because he has MS, thank God it’s controlled and it’s not worsening, but if you know anything about MS, heat is the enemy and Florida is nothing but heat so while Jimmy occasionally visits in our “winter” – when highs are in the 80s – he stays put in cool, wet Seattle where his heat-related MS symptoms are a non-issue.

Back to how we met.

In the late 70s, Jimmy was my downstairs neighbor at Coquina Key Arms where I rented 222H and he rented 222A Pompano Drive SE.  Although we’d seen each other in our everyday comings and goings, we formally met one fateful night when I’d been out on the town and, through no fault of my own, I became separated from my pants,  and, in the driver’s seat of my pimped-out white Honda Civic, I’d made it all the way across town, cleared the scrutiny of the security guard at the entrance to my complex, had parked and was sneaking into the common entry hall of our building when Jimmy came out of his flat, saw me in my panties and with a single look, it was on.

He invited me in, I put on pants, we started drinking and we’ve pretty much never stopped.

Jimmy’s short term memory is for shit but he remembers everything from the way-back when we were young and, together, were ruling our world.

He remembers my mom and dad and since both my parents died a long time ago, that means more to me than I can say.

Jimmy and I travel the world together and when we do, we like to set up house and stay for a while.  We’ve rented flats in Venice, Florence and Paris.  Even though I prefer Italy, Jimmy prefers France, specifically Paris, and so much so that after he retires from Macy’s in less than 2 years, he’s going to live there full time.  For his next trip to Paris in April ’17, he’s rented the wheelhouse of a barge.  He can’t swim and I’m certain he won’t float.  Stay tuned for updates on that, m’kay?  I’ll catch up with Jimmy in Paris in April, his wheelhouse sleeps 2.

My life is full of loving friends and I’m grateful for every single one of them but there’s something unique about Jimmy that separates him from everybody else.  And it’s huge.

My whole deal about being alone, about being single, about never wanting a relationship, is because I’m never more interested in anybody else than I am my own interests and the pursuit of my own work.  I’m happier alone than I am with anyone, no matter who they are, no matter what we’re doing.

It’s me, it’s not you.  I orbit, I don’t dock.  And it doesn’t have anything to do with me not loving you or caring about you.  And although it sounds totally selfish, if you know anything about me, you’ll know I’m the opposite of selfish; I’m super generous.

It’s just that I’m a true loner.  I’m a true introvert.  No matter how much fun we’re having, being with other people slowly drains the plasma out of me and I have to recover in solitude.

I have to be alone to recover from not being alone.

Except.

When I’m with Jimmy, I feel like I’m alone.  And I love to be alone.  With Jimmy.

 

Our dear friend David Gould took these pictures of Jimmy and I yesterday after our extended, boozy lunch at Pink Door.  I’ve been in love with David for over 30 years, he’s an enormously talented artist and if you find him on Facebook, you’ll absolutely love the photography he shares there.  I promise.

 

 

 

Sports psychology is fascinating.

From this New York Times article on the World Series match up between the Chicago Cubs and the Cleveland Indians, we hear the Cub’s manager Joe Maddon talk about what’s on his mind, and the Indian’s 2nd baseman Jason Kipnes talk about how he feels being a Chicago native, playing for an opposing team in the sport’s ultimate competition.

“Cubs Manager Joe Maddon likened his drive to work, spent weaving around cars and pedestrians, to a video game.

“Thank God there’s not another round after this, I’ll say that,” Maddon said. “I’m ready for the family vacation. But it’s spectacular in all the best. Hyperbole definitely suits right now — whatever you want to throw out there, it really matches up to what’s going on right now.”

And now they threaten to provide another chapter of disappointment for the Cubs, breaking many hearts along the way.

“I love it.” Kipnis said. “Good. I hope I break all of them. I hope I break every single one of them. I hope I come home at Thanksgiving and the off-season, and I want to have a smile on my face when I look at all these Cubs fans.”

See the difference?

I’m not surprised that Cleveland is up 3 games to 1.

Are you?