Adam Ant and my Obsession with Men in Makeup

30 Jan 2013 Leave a comment

by signsofsomething in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

My very first concert was Adam Ant on his Strip Tour. I was maybe sixteen at the time and pretty sheltered, so when I saw the gorgeous metrosexual performer strip down to his tight black skivvies, drop himself into a tank of water and swim around, well…I was pretty excited. I think that I went through my psychological puberty right then and there. This of course may have been due to the fact that water, partial nudity and some black eyeliner were involved.

I still love Adam Ant. In fact, like my lust for Marlon Brando, which is a subject for another day, my affection for the man who made being a goody two shoes something that I’d be willing to give up, has only grown as he has. His recent years of physical transformation from sexy dandy pirate to looking strikingly like Brando’s film version of Dr. Moreau, hasn’t caused my giddiness to wane at all. I suppose this is due to the fact that I do still have a thing for men in makeup.

I should probably see a shrink about this. Oh I have many different types of men that I’m attracted to, like most women, I have a range of interests and my sexual preferences are no different. One day I want to date a serious conservative suit wearer and the next, I am checking out a construction worker…before he’s showered. However, no matter what guy it is, what his look is, how old he is or what his job is, as soon as a man puts noticeable black liner around his eyes and a dab of tinted gloss onto his lips, I am undone.

There is still a fascination for androgyny, so I suppose that I could be able to explain it that way, that I love androgyny, but it’s not that. I like being able to tell the difference when I am flirting with a girl or a guy…as anyone can tell you, it’s a completely different approach.

No, I think that it’s something else. I think that it’s a breech of unspoken rules. In today’s society, men don’t wear cosmetics, frills, or anything which a woman might wear. In fact, I would hate to be a man! I would hate to not be able to change my costume from day to day, and I admire those guys who pull off that visually defiant beauty trick.

Now this would be acceptable back in the 80s, when I was a younger woman, when it was the popular thing to do, but now, now that I am older, a grandmother, I am really not sure that I’m going to find guys who are within my dating age range who still have a stick of kohl hiding in their bathroom cabinets. Of course, we do have Eddie Izzard, who is on my list of future ex-husbands, but he’s already happily married and I don’t think that marrying a famous person would be conducive to the privacy that my job somewhat requires.

So I guess I will just continue to look around at the guys who break the rules in fashion, who make a statement not for shock value, but because they know how gosh darn sexy they look.

Fear

30 Jan 2013 2 Comments

by signsofsomething in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , ,

FEAR The word has to be written in bold here. Primarily because a bit of fear grants us some armor against what might hurt us. Let me give you an example.

Years ago, I was a bartender in a small neighborhood bar in the Midwest. I enjoyed my job, I was good at it and I liked that it wasn’t a club, where I would be too busy to take bathroom breaks. Now on a night close to April first, three men came into the bar, holding guns out, aiming them at my customers and then at me. My customers, being sensible drunks, immediately dropped to the ground. I stood behind the bar and started laughing at the tall men wearing ski masks during a warm night. I asked them what they were doing, my own mind immediately believing that they were playing a practical joke on someone, being that it was a few days before April Fools Day. The man closest to me aimed the gun away from me and toward the ceiling before firing off a shot. As I watched the stucco from the ceiling fall, all that went through my head as I said, “uh oh” was that they were in big trouble for ruining the ceiling. I still continued to smile as the gunman demanded the money. I giggled as they yelled at me that the didn’t want the coins. Finally, I walked over and handed them the stack of money and smiled as I said “Okay, here you go.” as if I were handing him his change on an order. Then something strange happened. The three gunmen stood at the bar, staring at me as if something was on my face. I smiled at them and the customers later said that it seemed like forever that they stood there, their guns aimed at me, no longer looking around at the customers sprawled on the sticky floor, no longer paying attention to the time, only staring at me, unsure of what to think of me. I, my customers later said, simply stood there, continuing to make eye contact with my robbers, smiling sweetly, genuinely, at these men who might have swiftly taken my life. The men then turned, not concerning themselves with what was going on in the bar behind them, and at a calm and slow pace, walked out the door. The robbers were found, identified by what they had on them from various other bar robberies that night, and convicted. I never saw the inside of a courtroom and I never thought another moment about it…except when my customers started teasing me about having no fear.

Is that a good thing though? My customers, as I said, being the sensible people that they are, knew that they had a better chance of surviving the night if they did what the robbers said to do. After all, it was obvious that they only wanted money. I can explain away my immediate reaction to their entrance, I do tend to think the best of people, including thinking that robbers would be guys playing April Fools Day pranks, so that makes sense. However, once the gunman fired a warning shot into the ceiling, you would have thought that some sort of fight or flight instinct would have kicked in and I would have been at least perspiring or something to exhibit that I can actually feel fear, to show that I understood the severity of the situation, but it didn’t. I treated the robbery like it was a transaction, the robbers like they were customers and the situation like it was an action film, giggly at the excitement of it but separate from the danger of it.

Later, my customers, well a few of them, said that the way that I had behaved was heroic, turning the attention of all three gunmen to my odd behavior in order to keep my customers safe. Now…being a fan of superheroes, I would love to claim that as true, but the fact is, I just wasn’t scared. I should have been, I am afraid of the dark, afraid of cruelty, afraid of the loss of my family, afraid of breaking mirrors, walking under ladders and hypodermic needles when they aren’t in a tattoo gun. So I understand fear, I possess the ability to fear and for some reason it just doesn’t kick in when it’s supposed to.

Fear is part of our natural protection. Fear of what might hurt us can be useful in life, keeping us safe. Too much fear of course is terrible and can limit or impede how full our lives are. Then too little fear makes it more likely that we will behave in unsafe ways during dangerous situations.

The trick is to find the perfect balance, the perfect amount of fear. Enough to turn a common man, woman or child into a hero, because as we all know, a hero absolutely has to feel fear, but not so much that it turns them into balls of flesh, hiding in a closet, avoiding life.

With Spies Like These

30 Jan 2013 2 Comments

by signsofsomething in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , ,

I am growling right now. It’s true, I am growling like a dog, an enormous, vicious, rabid dog. Think of Cujo, on steroids.

You might be wondering why I am growling on such a lovely rainy Wednesday morning…well I will tell you. I will also do my best to remain calm while telling you.

Often, in my line of work, I will run into an issue with a young man or woman…no even the older men and women do this as well, who come to me and say “Oh he or she ended it because I was looking through their email, phone, pockets, etc.” I then have to decide if I want to say “good” or show a bit of professionalism and kindness by dealing with the issues that led up to that moment when we are sitting across a table from each other, me handing the client a box of tissues and nodding my head. Like I have said before, I am not that quick thinking usually.

Why? Why do you need to know everything about the person that you are in a relationship with? I, for example, do not need to know how many lovers someone has had, I only need to see the printed results of your STD test. I do not need to know who you are talking to, I only need to know that you are talking to me when I want to talk. I don’t need to know if that girl at the nightclub slipped her number to you, I only need to know if you felt good that someone was flirting with you.

It’s not that I am more confident than my clients, in fact I am blessed by the ever present appearance of stunningly beautiful people in my life, including my clients who are all gorgeous. Of course my daughter does say that I am guilty of thinking that everyone is beautiful. It is more that I don’t want to mother my lovers, treating them like kids going to porn sites. No, I want to be an equal with my lovers. I want their respect of my privacy, their trust of my honesty and their understanding that I do have a life outside of my relationship with them. Because this is what I want…no, what I demand from my lovers, and because I want my lovers and I to be on an equal level, I do this for them.

Oh I understand that a little bit of jealousy is cute. It’s nice to get a bit of a reaction from your lover, just to express that he or she knows that you are desired by others, but then that little bit of jealousy has to remain just that…little.

Instead, what ends up happening more often than I like to see, is that one or the other, or both in some cases, that jealousy becomes that legendary monster, that green-eyed beast who rears her ugly head, spits on your relationship, tears her claws through your self-esteem, confidence and even through your sensibilities and says “You should totally check his wallet. Isn’t he acting strangely?” That green-eyed monster tells you that you need to know e..v..e..r..y..t..h..i..n..g that is going on with your lover. She hides behind your lovely eyes, opens her howling mouth and destroys what is, by nature, already delicate…she destroys your pride.

That’s right, even more important than the fact that she goes after your relationship, she goes after your pride. After all, if you feel the need to go through your lover’s personal things, where is your pride? Have you no pride in yourself, in your ability to keep your lover happy, in your skill at being such a wonderful mate that if your lover were interested in someone else, he or she would come to you and express that, so that the two of you could figure out where to go with that information? No, you don’t. You have no pride once you behave like that. You are caught up in the idea that “if he or she loves me, then they should have no secrets from me, nothing about him or herself that I don’t know.” Why? Why should your lover have nothing for him or herself? Why would you not want to have that for yourself and allow your lover to do the same? Love is not supposed to be symbiotic. We aren’t actually supposed to be joined at the hip, but that sneaky, snakey, sorry, silly, and ultimately evil demon of jealousy does that. She destroys that knowledge, that inner wisdom that even if your lover is doing something that you wouldn’t like, your pulling a Cold War spy game on him or her is not going to change that. In fact, all that it will do is turn that person into a better and more prolific liar. Or, they will just dump you. You showing by your actions that you don’t trust them, is no different than saying to them that they need supervision, that their own devotion to the relationship is not as strong as yours, that their morals and values are questionable and that you have no faith in their honor and nobility.

Yes, I think that is an ideal way to succeed in a relationship. Definitely.

That of course was sarcasm. In fact, a relationship cannot thrive in that element of suspicion. Love, friendship, intimacy, like certain plants, require sunshine, they require the light of trust and confidence. Suspicion, fear, anger, are more like those plants which grow only in the shade, in the dark recesses of the forest. Suspicion, fear, anger…they are fed by that ever present jealousy. She waters them, she hides them from the sunlight, she feeds them from the bowels of her own mouth, and waits for them to grow into the poisons which they will inevitably be.

Pride is a big deal to me. I grew up with very little of it. I know what it’s like to live without it. It isn’t something that I want to live without again. In fact, it might just kill me to have it stripped away, so why in the world would I just give it up to jealousy? Why would I voluntarily trade that for the insecurity that jealousy offers?

That sounds to me like a very crummy deal.

What if I Were Your Child’s Teacher?

30 Jan 2013 4 Comments

by signsofsomething in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , ,

My family is primarily Baptist. Now you would think that we would be Catholic, not to make a generalization but being Mexican/Irish, it would just have been cute as a bug’s ear to have grown up attending mass, or even a Catholic school, and I must admit, the whole schoolgirl costume is just too cliche for me not to love it. Unfortunately, I was raised Baptist…far less ritual than Catholicism. Now as you must realize by now, I have broken out of the mold, embracing ancestral deities and pretty much avoiding organized religions, whether traditional or not, as if they were the bringers of the black plague.

This has not stopped my family from accepting that I simply don’t believe the same way that they do. Some wish that I would return to the flock but most find that I am much more loving now that I am not shoved into a box which I never really fit anyway.

The strongest believer in my immediate family, of our childhood religious teaching, is my sister, the fourth in a gaggle of six daughters, she herself is the mother of seven wonderful children. She is a hard-core, Bible-thumping, conservative, Republican southerner. She is also one of the most heavenly creatures on Earth. She has answered more often than I’m sure that she’s liked, what she thinks of my practices, beliefs and spirituality. Her answer has been, for the last twenty years, the same thing. She has always told her friends or in-laws that my faith is as strong as hers, as holy as hers and as impenetrable as her own, and that because of that, we accept each other. She doesn’t really care what I have faith in because whatever it is, it makes me whole.

My sister home schools her children, primarily due to her desire to keep them away from secular socializing. She used to be a proponent for teaching creationism and prayer in public schools…that is, until one day when she and I had a conversation which included me asking her “Would you want me to teach your children?” She told me yes, that I would be a wonderful educator. I then asked “Would you want me to teach them prayer and creationism?” She laughed her beautiful laugh and agreed that she wouldn’t.

You see, unless of course we want even more regulations than we have already allowed others to place on us, there would be nearly no way for public schools to discriminate against hiring teachers who were not of a Judeo-Christian faith. So…that means that when Mrs. Jones taught creationism, she would teach the myth behind the Nordic belief of how the world began. Or when Mr. Clark teaches prayer, he will teach meditation in Buddhist tradition. Or…there will be a teacher who is like me, and each day we would worship a new deity, a folk saint, or even some nymphs and earth spirits.

No matter how much many parents may want their children’s teachers to be more responsible than the parents themselves, the fact is that the teacher is there to teach what the parents may not be able to. Parents, godparents, grandparents and even Sunday School teachers are the ones responsible for the child’s spiritual upbringing. They are the ones who are designated guides for what they want their children to believe in…at least for now. When we place the responsibility on public schools, we then will have to decide what kind of prayer, what kind of religion, what kind of myth of creation we will have taught. What we are doing at this point is giving over the power to someone who may or may not share our own beliefs.

So what’s the answer? It’s easy really. If you want your child to learn creationism or any other faith based education, send your child to private school, or home school them. Or you can always allow our country to become the type of country that our forefathers were escaping, one where religion is required, policed and removed from the spirit…where it belongs, and placed into a regulated lock box. Then again, you can always do what many families do…leave the religion at home, teaching your family whatever traditions you might cleave to. Your children will have the benefit of their connection to their parents’ faith, while still learning their science, math, writing, history and so forth, from the people who are trained to teach those subjects.

“Oh, But You Don’t Look…”

29 Jan 2013 6 Comments

by signsofsomething in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , ,

Throughout my adult life, I have heard, far too many times, “Oh but you don’t look…” Now the word look would be followed by words such as Mexican, grandmother, mother, African American, Irish, lesbian, minister, fortune teller, etc. Now…this of course should not really be an issue. People have their preconceptions of what one type may or may not look like. However, it’s said like a compliment, like I should be excited that they don’t recognize that aspect of me. So let’s for a moment take a look at these things which I do not look like.

Mexican: This is actually one that I receive often. This backhanded compliment is usually from someone whose knowledge of Mexican or Hispanic culture is limited to Taco Bell. The person most often is under the belief that Mexicans in all of our glory are only represented by the beautiful Indio features and coloring, whereas the truth is far simpler than that, since those of us who belong to the ethnic group know that we even lay claim to blond haired, blue eyed beauties and red headed macho macho men.

Grandmother and Mother: I have been told that I should feel flattered about this specific compliment since people are simply saying that I look young. Since I am proud of being a mother and a grandmother, as well as being proud of my age and the signs of my aging process, it usually ends up with me spending the day in a tiff, thinking of ways that I can look more like a grandmother, such as buying ridiculous t-shirts with the word grandmother scrawled across the chest. Does this mean that more people end up looking at my breasts? Sure, but I have less of a problem with that than I do with being told that I don’t look like a grandmother.

African American: Okay, I admit, as far as I know, I do not have any Black heritage. However, one day in Indianapolis, while waiting for a bus, a young man came up to me and asked me why I was wearing a head wrap when I’m not a sister. He went on to say that it was rude of me to wear a cultural representation that doesn’t belong to me. He of course did not say it as nicely as I just did, and I am rarely this quick thinking, but I responded by asking him what made him think that I was not in fact African American. I explained to him that he was mistaken in believing that his race was made up of only people of his own skin color, and by believing that, he contributes to the negativity by separating his own race into categories based on skin color or even shades of that color. I then gave him a lesson in the history of the greatness of his own race and that indeed there are those who are lighter as well as those who are darker and that he should be proud that his magnificent race does in fact have such an enormous range of appearance. I also pointed out that head wraps have been used by cultures all over the world and that it was arrogant of him to think that only his culture has utilized them as symbols of beauty, marital status, religious beliefs and even simply to protect against Mother Nature. He apologized, smiled, hugged me and walked away while the elderly woman next to me waited for him to leave before saying “I know that you aren’t black but that was great of you to explain that to him.”

Irish: This has been a difficult one for me, because I don’t identify on an average day as being Irish. This is certainly not because I have an issue with my maternal lineage, rather I am comfortable with what I look like when I see myself in a mirror. I did not inherit anything from my mother but her big feet and her freckles, so on the occasion when someone asks me what a specific tattoo says or means, and I tell them that it is the Irish word for prophetess, I am bombarded by statements that I don’t look Irish. Well, since I have dated four different culturally and genetically Irish guys and each of them have looked different from the next, I’m not sure what Irish looks like but I imagine that this too can run the range of appearance.

Lesbian: Okay, yet again, I am not a lesbian, although I have dated women. During these times, it has been difficult to get past the arguments of labels and categorization, some never being happy with my response of “I love who I love at points in my life. I don’t need a label maker to print out a specific title for who I am at each point.” Besides, this still makes me wonder…what exactly does a lesbian look like? I imagine the idea of a lesbian is the stunning butchy types, but then again, I have known some stunning butchy types of women who in fact have been as straight as boards.

So I guess I can stop with the examples right there, I’m sure that you catch my drift. After all, don’t we limit ourselves by assuming that everyone of a certain community will appear similar to everyone else within that community? Don’t we shame ourselves by feeding into presumptive prejudices? Why does the comment or response need to be “You don’t look like, sound like, eat like, dance like…” Why is that even a thought in our heads? Perhaps we don’t understand the insult that comes along with that statement. We are, in essence, saying to the person that they don’t belong in the community to which they identify with. We are telling them that they are not enough to belong, a mutation of what the community is known for. We are placing them into a state of limbo, a place in between, a place of being an outcast. We are saying that they aren’t good enough to be a part of the group which they have belonged.

These are not compliments. They may be said with good intentions, but like many good intentions, they can pave the road to Hell. It is a Hell where they who feel shunned send themselves. These statements of “you don’t look…” create a line between the recipient of the words and their family, friends, religion, gender, sexuality, community, peers and so forth. From that moment on, especially when it is repeated from time to time, the recipient of those compliments questions themselves when looking at the other members of their circles. They can begin to ask themselves “Do I belong?”

That question leads to joining cults, gangs, and so forth…all in the quest to belong, to have a part of you that you know is connected to others.

However…if you’re feeling like you don’t belong, you can totally belong to my family. I’m just not doing your dirty laundry.

Until The End of Time

28 Jan 2013 1 Comment

by signsofsomething in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , ,

Last night two clients stopped by for a quickie. Oh you dirty birds, not that sort of quickie! No, this visit was for a quickie handfasting. They wanted to have a private ritual in which they would be able to express their devotion to one another, their promises to one another, rather than legally marrying. This could have been due to a number of reasons, including the one that the husband is still legally married to another woman. Now you might wonder why an ethical practitioner like myself would agree to spiritually bind two people together when one of those people is still legally bound to another.

It’s actually a simple answer. I don’t care. It’s true. I just don’t really care that he is still legally married. More than a year has passed since the legal couple ended their relationship, sharing nothing in common but a piece of paper. Once upon a time, they valued each other, mind, body and spirit. Once upon a time, they were in love. They respected each other and shared their dreams for the future. They once thought that their love would last until the end of time.

The end of time, however, is a far off idea. It’s a vision of flying cars, an end to disease and the reign of harmony. The end of time…well it’s a fantasy.

Personally, I don’t like the idea of loving just one until the end of time. this is primarily due to my understanding that we change, we evolve, hell, we even devolve throughout our lives, and well, I doubt that the person that I adored at twenty would still be as interesting to me now that I am in my forties.

What of the legalities? Well, I don’t care about that either. Don’t get me wrong, had they asked me to marry them legally, I would not have, I have no interest in losing my license because I perform a ceremony which leads this lovely man into a bigamist. I am however interested in supporting his decision to move on, to make a statement to the gods that this woman is the woman who he wants to make his immediate future with. He wants to place his previous marriage into the past where it belongs, a sweet memory of previous love, while continuing to allow his legal wife to move at her own pace through her new life as a single woman.

I know what you’re thinking, why don’t they just get a divorce? Ha! I asked the same thing. His answer was adorable…she, the legal wife, isn’t ready for it yet. Her own personal demons don’t allow her the peace of resolution, of distance, of an ending. She knows that it is over, she knows that it’s been over since they started living apart, yet she doesn’t want to lose the benefits of being legally married to him.

We are both cynical and hopeful. We believe that we know what love is, what we need in a partner, what the future will bring in our relationships, and yet the truth is a harsh slap to the face. The truth is that there is no way to be sure. We try to figure out which path, which speed, which turns and which stops are on the road ahead, but there is no road map for the future. Love is not everlasting, its potency remaining, written in stone. It ebbs and flows, it fades. Sometimes it is etched deeper when the lovers recognize the fading, sometimes someone figures it out before it is too late and digs deep into the marble. This doesn’t happen as often as we might like.

Oh sure, it would have been beautiful if the two could have worked through their differences, moved toward a future together. After all, we all love those stories of centenarians which have been together for eighty years and their love is still as strong as the day that they married. Nicholas Sparks has made a living playing on our dreams of that end of time sort of love. What if we looked back on a series of true loves and were able to recognize them for the beauty which they are? Is it so disgusting, so disreputable to have loved that deeply numerous times? Are we so caught up in the fantasy of forever that we devalue love in its many fickle ways? Or are we simply so brainwashed by the politics of love that we fail to recognize that none of us can be perfectly compatible for an eternity. This of course would mean that we never change.

Which is why I still love the concept of handfasting. After all, living as a married couple, doing everything that every other married couples do for a year, and then doing it all over again, agreeing to remain married, each year, agreeing that life is still good with your partner around, until the moment that you realize that it isn’t…well that just makes more sense to me.

Like our homes, our hearts require regular cleaning out. We should evaluate whether our relationships are contributing to us being better people, or worse. A yearly trip to the second hand store to drop off old clothes, shoes and knick knacks is refreshing, it leaves our closets with more room for the new and updated. With each year, with each cleaning, we see that we have changed, adapted, evolved and grown. We go from panties which are worn to impress the opposite sex, to those which are more function than form. The same can be said about relationships. The bff may still be living la vida loca, while you are needing at least ten hours of beauty sleep, and the wife may be wanting to sell all of the belongings and join a nudist colony while you are still happy with the white picket fence.

We are human. We adapt. We change. This includes our relationships or our needs within those relationships. This doesn’t make us bad, it doesn’t negate our previous loves, it doesn’t erase them. It shouldn’t erase them. They are reminders that we have changed. It’s up to us to know if those changes have been positive.

So whether my client and his current bride makes it a year or two, or they make it through to the next decade, it doesn’t really matter. They, like he and his legal wife, will have made it until the end of their time.

Survival of the…What?!?!

24 Jan 2013 2 Comments

by signsofsomething in Uncategorized Tags: , , , ,

In 2011 a woman was brutally attacked by someone that she met on Match.com. Now she is suing the website for ten million dollars because they failed to warn about the possible dangers of online dating. Now, of course it is awful that she was attacked. In no way am I negating her pain and suffering and I personally hope that demons take her attackers soul and do awful things to it for at least a hundred years. Because he actually is dead, this may already be happening. However, I wonder how Match.com is responsible? Did they intentionally set this woman up on a date with a serial killer? Were they negligent to not tell adults who are members on their site that we must ALWAYS be responsible in dating practices? Should adults need to be told that? The victim of this horrific crime says yes, that they are responsible for having a warning similar to tobacco and alcohol labels, “Any dating practices, including internet dating can bring dangers, including but not limited to…someone may have an STD, someone might be the father of fifteen children by fifteen women, someone might be a rapist, murderer, child molester, thief, arsonist or IRA soldier. Match.com leaves it up to you as an adult of dating age to be as safe as possible when dating and even when marrying, and assumes no responsibility in whatever may occur, including marriage. We thank you for your patronage. Sincerely Match.com website guy”
This actually may give me nightmares. I don’t want to be treated like a child in any part of my life. One primary reason that I only spent a year in marriage. The woman suffered and I am sorry for her suffering. This will never leave her, and I do not put the blame on her at all. However, I do not put the blame on the website either. I put it on the criminal. I put the blame where it belongs. Should beaches have signs that say “You could drown”, or should your faucet say “You could burn yourself”, should your blanket read in big embroidered letters “you could smother yourself” in order to warn adults to use each thing properly but certainly be responsible for their own use of the product?
This woman was in her forties when this occurred, she was already a mother of two, she obviously lives in this world, in our society, and has seen, probably within her own life, as many of us have, that not everyone is nice, not everyone can be trusted, when dating, when bringing people into your life, we each need to be responsible for our own safety. She may have even done everything right and this still could have happened. She could have met him at a bar, or at a library, or even at church and this could have still happened. Predators are everywhere.
When we date, we take into consideration that we are getting to know someone, we don’t already know them as well as we could. I have told many of my friends that I am insane when it comes to researching a person before I bring them into my life. The internet makes it much easier than when I was younger. I have however, had friends who allow the other person to know where they live, or don’t know the other person’s last name prior to meeting in person, get into the car with another person that they don’t know that well, and nearly all of my friends do not do something which has been a habit since I was of dating age. I tell everyone. Even when I have had roommates, I write down the name, phone number, everything that I know about the person which I will be out with is written down for my loved ones. I have safe words which I will say “I will text this word if I am in trouble and need the police.” This word can be as simple as watermelon. Yes, I am somewhat paranoid. I am paranoid because I do have a family that I need to keep safe, I have friends that I need to keep safe and I have myself, my most sacred self that I need to keep safe because it is my right and my responsibility to do so as a fully functioning adult.
Should we be responsible for others as well? A resounding YES! There are those adults who need some help with their own safety and security and I am right there to do so. However, most of us get that we need to be safe when dating. We know that, we don’t need another stupid warning label that most of us are going to treat like fine print anyway.
I wish the woman in this story more blessings than she can even think of, I wish her a future that is so beautiful that the memory of this becomes just that, a memory, I wish her a future of love, a beautiful and ethereal love that seems to nearly wash away this horrific incident. I can not however hope that she wins this because what else then do we need to be warned about?

The Beauty, Splendor, the Wonder of my Hair

24 Jan 2013 114 Comments

by signsofsomething in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , ,

I have noticed that within many families, long hair on the girls is a given. It’s a source of pride and a sign of beauty. There are pictures of me, a young girl with a heavy dark hair hanging down her back, miserable with the weight of it. I remember having to adjust how I sat down in school, so as to not sit on my own hair and give myself whiplash, a suffering which happened frequently.

When I was in the sixth grade, we were struggling financially, my father was away for work and my mother said that I could choose one big but inexpensive gift for my birthday. I told her that I wanted my hair cut. She panicked, this would not go over well with my father when he returned home, but she agreed, cutting inch after inch off of my hip length mane, until I was left with a blunt haircut which fell to below my shoulders. I loved it.

My father did not.

I kept that length throughout school, finally cutting it to a short boy-like cut when I was in my last year of high school. This short cut remained, small adaptations over the years, until I started to wear the more traditional Mexican clothing, consisting of primarily ankle length skirt and loose fitting, embroidered blouses. Then I began to grow my hair out. I became known for my intricate braids, unusual buns, even head wraps and scarves became accessories for my thick hair, but I kept it traditional and long.

As an adult, I didn’t have the problems with sitting on my hair or even brushing it as I had in my youth. In fact, my hair never has grown past my waist again. I have colored it, layered it, given myself bangs, twisted, teased and tortured it. My hair has been through hell and back…all by my own hands.

However, now I am trying to decide whether I should cut it. I miss the ease with which I can get ready when my hair is short. I miss the weightlessness. Then on certain occasions, when I have my hair up or under a hat, my father will say “DID YOU CUT YOUR HAIR?” and he sounds like an ogre about to attack an unsuspecting traveler, so I reassure him that I didn’t, and life goes on. I am not looking forward to the day that I say “yes” and have to hear a lecture on women having long hair and that it’s a sign of beauty and femininity and that I looked better with it long. I suppose that if I do decide to cut my hair, I could just avoid seeing my father in person for a little while.

But really, what’s the big deal? It’s just hair. It isn’t really a sign of anything other than how much you might spend on hair products or professional cuts and color. In reality, it’s nothing more than insulation and a sign that I’m a mammal. It shouldn’t be a big deal if it’s short, long, braided, wrapped up in a scarf, kinky, straight, blond or black. I am not going to lose my strength if it’s cut and I’m certainly not going to lose my femininity.
So why is there such an emphasis on it? Why are we so vested in what happens with our hair?

I remember going to a friend’s chemotherapy appointment with him many years ago and seeing a stunning woman sitting near us, a completely bald head and full makeup, along with the most gorgeous earrings I’ve ever seen. I suppose it should have been a shocking sight, to see a woman with a completely bald head, yet all I could think of was how powerful she looked, sitting there, not hiding her hair loss, but wearing it like it belonged, wearing the side effects of her illness and the treatment, as if she had nothing to be ashamed of. Without her hair, I could see her features on their own, without a frame of hair. She certainly didn’t need to express herself with feathered bangs, layers upon layers of highlights.

So who knows, maybe I’ll cut it, maybe I’ll wait. Either way, I guess I’m going to have to explain to my father that hair does not make the woman…the woman makes the hair.

Scientology and the Science of Fiction

24 Jan 2013 2 Comments

by signsofsomething in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , ,

I don’t really like organized religion. It wigs me out in a manner which is more frightening and more nightmare inducing than most anything else that might wig me out. The idea that a man, woman, child, or council thereof, could come up with a specific dogma and path which others are supposed to take wholly as the word of a higher power or entity creeps me out. It says to me that the members are unable to think on their own, or perhaps they just don’t want to search for their own truth.
Speaking of truth, that’s another thing that wigs me out about organized religion. Whose truth are you accepting as gospel?
The reason that I am on this train of thought is because today is the anniversary of L.Ron Hubbard’s death. Now, prior to actually realizing that I don’t need to be a member of an organization to have my own faith, I actually read Dianetics. It was interesting. It certainly didn’t diverge too far from Hubbard’s history as a sci-fi author, but apparently there isn’t anything wrong with that…according to Scientologists.
A few years ago, I went to a psychic fair with some friends. There, between the booth for crystals which heal relationship issues and the booth which sold cupcakes with zodiac signs frosted onto the tops, was a booth for Scientology. There were three very nice looking men at the booth, two young and one who looked like he was in his forties. There was a box which had two metal bars attached to it, a dial on the wooden box itself, and stacks and stacks and more stacks of the hard cover copy of Dianetics. My friends and I walked by the booth, one of the young men stopped us and explained to us that Scientology and Dianetics can clear your pathway of the troubles and illnesses that plague it…or something to that extent. My friends decided that it would be fun to test to see their levels of plague, so first my male friend sat down, followed the young man’s instructions and held on to the metal handles. The needle on the little wooden box went wonky, back and forth, all the way over. Then my female friend went, same thing. At this point, there are other attendees at the table, watching us, listening to the Scientologists talk about the problems caused by our plagues, and that their way can clear those plagues away, for only the low price of $19.99 for the book to get started. Then the young man asked me to sit down. I told him that he really didn’t want to test me in front of anyone else and he reassured me that this is what they do. I told him again that it should wait until there are less interested people near the table. He laughed sarcastically and said that it would be fine. I sat down and held the handles as my friends had done. The young man adjusted the dial yet again, personalizing it for me. The needle doesn’t move…at all. He adjusts it again, still nothing. He looks up at his young friend as people are whispering to each other and the other young man walks over and adjusts the dial, asking if it was even adjusted correctly. The two continue to converse and adjust, even having the older man come over and check. At this point, there are more people standing there, trying to watch while glancing over at the books. The older man says “Think of something that causes you stress.” I do. Still, the needle doesn’t move. He then says “Think of a person who seems to cause you the most distress.” I can only think of my daughter, since of course we can’t decide whether we like or dislike each other from one day to the next. Still, the needle only jumps slightly, a little gasp before returning to its resting position. The older man shrugs his shoulders slightly, looks at the other two and says “I don’t know what’s wrong with it. She just doesn’t register on it.” Now of course, I do know what’s wrong with it. It’s not as if I am a reincarnated alien spirit who has no plagues in her path. The little box which tests those blockades, the so called E-Meter, is a modified lie detector test and sphygmomanometer all rolled into one. The truth is, which I already knew prior to sitting down in the chair, that I knew that the machine would not bleep on me. Not only do I have ridiculously low blood pressure, I also have Ataraxia. Yeah I know, I shouldn’t exactly be announcing that I have a mental illness, but since it’s an unusual one, I don’t mind so much. The fact though, is that I don’t actually stress about anything. There isn’t anything that I consider to be so stressful that it’s worth the wrinkles, the gray hair and the high blood pressure. I knew that I wouldn’t be a good test subject for their display because it would prove that there are those who don’t have a need for these supposed clearings and audits.
After all, if I am one with my life, with all of the negatives and positives, at peace with the decisions and consequences, actions and reactions, and entirely accepting of whatever may come, each moment, each day, each year, then what could I possibly need auditing for? To remember a past life? To know that I am the reincarnation of an immortal? Hell, I already know that some of my quirks come from past lives, and I already know that the soul is immortal. I don’t need someone who is following the teachings of a science fiction writer to explain that to me.
Plus, I just really don’t like that the followers don’t want to admit to themselves that Hubbard wasn’t this great inventor of this cool religion. They want to believe that he wasn’t an enormous liar, a horrific racist and liked the young girls. Now, if they wanted to admit this, that he simply created this religion in order to make some money and be a big fish, then I’d be a little more understanding. After all, there are many religions that were created by folks who weren’t that great of people, or who may have lacked the holiness that we usually look for in our prophets, and their followers recognize that and follow them anyway.
I would just love to hear one of the more famed Scientologists say “I know that he was a fraud, that he just created the religion to make a buck, to become a big fish and to have a bunch of people follow him, but the religion is fun so I’m sticking with it.” I would totally get that.
Unfortunately, that probably isn’t going to happen, so instead, I guess I will just say that since the E-Meter did not respond at all to me, it must mean that I am already enlightened, already entirely audited and recognize my own holiness and ascension and therefore…
I FUCKING RULE!!!!

Elva Zona Heaster and Her Ghostly Testimony

23 Jan 2013 Leave a comment

by signsofsomething in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , ,

In 1897, Elva Zona Heaster was murdered by her husband. This murder may have gone unnoticed, in fact it did go unnoticed for a month. She was buried, her hubby was off doing whatever widowers do, and her mama was off mourning the death of her daughter. But then, Zona as she was called, came and had a little sit down with her mama, explaining that she had been murdered and her neck broken. Mama tells the prosecutor, the prosecutor has the body exhumed and autopsied and trial happens, letting Zona’s mama testify to a somewhat superstitious jury that her daughter’s ghost wants justice. Hubby is convicted. It is the only time that a ghost has been a party to a murder conviction although it may have been more due to the fact that Zona did in fact have her neck broken and that hubby had lost a previous wife to strange circumstances.
As a fortune teller, you would think that I wouldn’t have a problem with a murderer going to prison due to a ghost or spirit saying that this or that person committed this or that crime. I deal with spirits all the time and recognize the validity of what they say. However, this makes me a little uncomfortable. After all, when superstition enters the legal or judicial system, then are we paying attention to the facts?
I mean, scientifically speaking, dreams, or visions, or even auditory messages can be due to medication, hormonal imbalances, even things that we have recently heard or seen can influence our spiritual or psychic health. Yes, they can also be genuine messages from the spirit world, from gods and so forth, but do we always know the difference? Are we willing to risk a person’s future on whether or not we can tell the difference?
I’m not. Unlike some famed psychics who regularly do their tours of the casinos and concert hall circuit, I don’t like the idea of readers being heavily involved with the law. It’s one thing to help where you can, counseling the victim or the family of the victim, but when we as interpreters of supernatural and spiritual visions can definitely not guarantee accuracy of the message, it brings into play all sorts of difficult situations and calls into question the validity of everything else that we have been helpful with.
A number of years ago, someone who I did not like very much and in fact was not a client, came and asked me to read for her. Her teenage cousin was missing and the family was in an uproar. The police had been called in, friends had been called and apparently the young man had simply disappeared. I told her that I don’t get involved in police situations and that she should let them handle it. She cried and begged and I cannot stand crying and begging so I gave in. All that I could see was that his girlfriend’s best friend knew where he was and I could see planks of wood as in on a wall which had not been finished with paint or primer. I also saw woods, a thick forest looking area. I couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead, if he had been kidnapped or had run away, and I couldn’t see anything else. Well a few days later the acquaintance called me, the girlfriend’s best friend had not actually known where he was, but her family had an unused and very poorly made cabin-like shelter out in the back area of their property, the family recognized the description that my acquaintance gave them, gathered some flashlights, walked out there and sure enough there was the young man was hiding there with some booze, pot and cigarettes, hiding out from his parents after he had received some bad grades. This was proof that I should stay out of the legal scenarios. This could have gone very badly, had I been sure of my visions. After all, the friend really hadn’t known where he was. In fact, it was a fluke that the boy even knew that her family had that little hideaway. It wasn’t the woods, just an overgrown area of their property. My interpretation of what I saw, was my own.
Science and magic work together. The supernatural is not really the supernatural at all, since all of it is entirely natural. Though I counsel and teach that magic is certainly all around and within us, and that it definitely makes life more magnificent, I also know that there are those who want to ignore the science, the facts of things. The superstition of religion and spirituality cannot negate the scientific facts of things. A ghost may give information leading to its killer, but when it comes to the actual facts of the case, it is going to be science and hard evidence that is going to prove the case.
I wonder if it is possible that Zona’s mother was so grief stricken by her daughter’s death, as well as following her own intuition that Zona’s husband had not been a very good man, that she herself created the spiritual apparition within her mind, manifested it herself in order to give validity to her own inner fears and suspicions.
The spirit world can guide, our psychic abilities can give us a leg up in situations, but we cannot rely upon them 100% because that is where we run into problems of spirituality becoming superstition, of religion becoming a heavy weight on the shoulders of science, and of the world returning to the Dark Ages and becoming once again, imbalanced.

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