Velcroing Divided Cells

My oldest boy shares a birthday with the McCaughey septuplets born November 19, 1997. The McCaughey septuplets were lauded by most and lavished with everything needed to make a family of three, then instantly ten, squarely middle class and wanting for little, other than a good night’s sleep. Gifts of time, helping hands, and tax deductible durable goods flowed from the kindness of strangers, neighbors, and corporate marketing departments. MSNBC continues to follow the septuplets year after year. Gee, they’re a feel-good story.

How ironic it was the other night to see my son demonstrate his invention for the mother of octuplets born January 27, 2009, who said she would breastfeed her eight babies. Breastfeed! Eight babies!!! His invention followed the twentieth century American assembly line model with a little Velcro thrown in.

It is a simple concept full of equity and logic: papoose-wearing babies will be Velcroed to the wall, each baby positioned on the wall to meet mother’s nipple, two babies sucking simultaneously, of course. Mother sets timer and babies suck for 30 seconds . . . re-a, re-a, re-a, re-a, re-a (sounds like Maggie Simpson sucking her pacifier). Babies release mother’s breasts, mother moves to awaiting two hungry babies. Suck, release. Repeat. Suck, release. Repeat. (Never mind the wailing sobs from the babies released who didn’t get their fill, nor those babies who had fallen asleep, were not quite hungry then, or who had trouble latching.)

I was amused and touched by my boy’s interest and concern for these eight tiny, hungry mouths. His invention and demonstration would continue to amuse me if I didn’t know the surfacing details of this young woman’s life that includes 6 children waiting at home for her. The baffling reveal today was that the mother of eight had had the embryo’s implanted into her uterus, expecting only one to survive. What doctor did that to her? Where does he practice and why is he still allowed to practice?!

I heard on the radio on my ride home tonight that it takes over $2 million to raise a kid which doesn't include Barry teaching him the Ode to Joy. What was this single mother thinking?! No media corporation, benefactor, or neighbor has come forward with the offer of a larger house or a billion diapers or a helping hand. We will all pay for this crime and most of all the eight babies will pay the biggest price, followed by their six siblings.

Simple Gifts

Barry came for lesson-number-one while I was at work and spent equal time with my boys on their keyboard. After dinner, I enjoyed a recital for dessert.

My younger boy, having had only a handful of keyboard lessons before school in the first grade, started from the beginning. Barry taught him the Three Gs. My boy played with focus and enthusiasm, showing me how he could slide on the keys at the end of the piece. Barry is already teaching him tricks.

Barry asked my older boy what kind of music he would like to learn to play. He told Barry “classic”. I would have expected him to say “classic rock”, but Smoke on the Water is so second grade, apparently. My older boy sat in front of the keyboard, flexed his fingers, laid them on the keys, and Ode to Joy filled the room.

Three Gs with a side of Joy. How sweet!

Bow-wow-wow Revisited.

Bike path.

Me on bike path.

A sign!

Big Dog.

Little dog.

One short dog out.

Two tall dogs in.

"A dog party!

A big dog party!

Big dogs, little dogs,

red dogs, blue dogs,

yellow dogs, green dogs,

black dogs, and white dogs

are all at a dog party!

What a dog party!"

~P.D. Eastman, "Go, Dog. Go!"

~ ~ ~

I went out searching for my joy today and I found it at the dog beach. I didn't know where I would find it, but there it was romping in the shore and chasing thrown objects. There is nothing quite as infectious as a dog's smile. I felt my cheeks stretch from my own smile from watching and remembering Emma. This was her kind of scene. I missed Emma today, yet felt her with me. She's running with my other smiling dogs, deep in my heart.

Green Fly on Blue Cauliflower

Unholy Humiliation

I knew Gene Robinson was thrown a bone, but I was eager to help him put a shine on it. That’s how desperate we gay folks are for recognition, acknowledgement, and a seat at the adult table. I watched the Obama Inaugural Celebration for Robinson, for his prayer, and to feel a part of the Hope. Where was Robinson today? He was there, right on time and on cue to deliver the kick-off prayer, but the cameras and audio engineers were on a different schedule. The humiliation stings almost as much as much as it did on election night and the passing of H8. Does Gene Robinson feel played and humiliated? I want to stop caring about equal rights for LGBT people. I want to unplug and not give a shit, but I can’t. I feel obligated and bound to what’s right. I am not alone, but I feel no comfort in this crowd.

Unabashedly Bitter

Bow-wow-wow. What more can I say after being thrown an inaugural bone called Gene Robinson? Oh, and it’s the Sunday, kick-off event, mixed some where in with Bono, The Boss and Beyoncé, and the five thousand other events leading up to the main event on Tuesday.

Bishop Gene Robinson is the warm up band for the main event on Tuesday, Rick Warren. I’m so happy Bishop Robinson is tickled to give a prayer in front of the Lincoln Memorial to kick-off inauguration season. I wish instead that he could have tapped into his own bitterness and said, “Fuck no! I will not be an afterthought to fix your damaging mistake!” And if he couldn’t have tapped into his own bitterness, I would have welcomed him to tap into mine.

I am wallowing in my bitterness until Wednesday, January 21, 2009. Then, I will rise above, because bitterness is corrosive and I refuse to let "them" rot me from the inside out. By the way, there is plenty of bitterness to go around. Check out the comments from this Concord Monitor frontpager today.
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N.H. bishop invited to D.C. to give prayer
Robinson to speak at an inaugural eve
By ANNMARIE TIMMINS Monitor staff

New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, an outspoken, international gay rights leader, has been asked to give a prayer at one of President-elect Barack Obama's first inauguration events at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The announcement follows weeks of criticism from Robinson and gay-rights groups over Obama's decision to tap the Rev. Rick Warren, who's likened committed gay relationships to incest and polygamy, to pray on inauguration day.

Robinson, an early Obama supporter, said last month the choice of Warren left him feeling as if he'd been slapped in the face. In a telephone interview this weekend, Robinson, of Weare, said he doesn't believe Obama has included him in response to the Warren criticism. But he said his inclusion won't go unnoticed by the gay and lesbian community.

"It's important for any minority to see themselves represented in some way," Robinson said. "Whether it be a racial minority, an ethnic minority or, in our case, a sexual minority. Just seeing someone like you up front matters."

Warren, author and high-profile pastor of a California mega-church, will still give the invocation at the Jan. 20 inauguration, shortly before Obama delivers his much-anticipated inaugural address. Robinson will share his invocation prayer Sunday afternoon on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during an inaugural kick-off event.

Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden will be there, and Obama is expected to speak, Robinson said. The event will be open to the public and run on HBO. Robinson doesn't yet know what he'll say, but he knows he won't use a Bible.

"While that is a holy and sacred text to me, it is not for many Americans," Robinson said. "I will be careful not to be especially Christian in my prayer. This is a prayer for the whole nation."

Robinson said the Obama team has given him no direction on what to include in his remarks.
Clark Stevens, spokesman for the inaugural committee, said he could not disclose the rest of Sunday's program because it was still being finalized. He said the committee extended the invite to Robinson because Robinson had offered his advice to Obama during the campaign and because of his church work.

"Bishop Robinson is one of our nation's most prominent religious leaders," Stevens said.
When asked whether Robinson was included to calm the Warren complaints, Stevens repeated himself. "(Robinson's) an important figure in the religious community," he said. "We are excited that he will be involved."

At home, Robinson was long known foremost as a gifted and devoted priest. He gained international attention after New Hampshire Episcopalians made him their bishop and, as a result, the worldwide church's first openly gay bishop.

His election has divided the church here and abroad. Despite his insistence that he wants to be "the good bishop, not the gay bishop," Robinson has sought out a high-profile role as a gay rights activist while also leading his congregations here.

He signed on to the Obama campaign early during the New Hampshire primary, saying he liked Obama's commitment to uniting people of different viewpoints and lifestyles. When Obama invited Warren, who has campaigned against gay marriage in California, to give the invocation inauguration day, Robinson shared his disappointment.

"I actually have a lot of respect for Rick Warren, amongst evangelicals," Robinson told Beliefnet.com in late December. "He's taken a hit for his compassionate response to AIDS, his commitment to alleviating poverty. He's done some good things. The difficult thing is that he's said, and continues to affirm, some horrendous things about homosexuality."

In other interviews, Robinson said Warren deserved "to be at the table" but not in such a prominent way. And he wasn't alone. Gay rights groups chimed in with their own complaints.
Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, told one interviewer that the Warren selection was a "genuine blow" to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Americans. Frank Rich, a New York Times columnist, called Obama's choice a "glib" use of political capital and accused the president-elect of cockiness.

Still, when Robinson got his invite from the inauguration committee two weeks ago, he said he didn't connect it to his criticism of Warren. "I don't think the campaign balanced this out," he said. "It wasn't their thinking."

Instead, he was "honored, stunned and also very excited," he said. The committee has also invited Robinson and his partner, Mark Andrew, to participate in some other inauguration events, both private and public, he said. They leave for Washington, D.C., on Saturday.

Robinson said he's particularly glad he will speak on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, his favorite of the Washington, D.C., memorials.

"What is particularly moving for me is that I'll be standing on what I consider to be holy ground," he said. "It's the site of the 'I Have a Dream' speech, and I've always been moved by the Gettysburg Address. All of it will be pretty overwhelming."

He will spend the time until then drafting his prayer. He'd like it to be a surprise and reflective of the times, he said. "I think these are sober and difficult times that we are facing," Robinson said. "It won't be a happy, clappy prayer."

Robinson will wear his purple bishop's shirt and the gold cross given him by the church after he became bishop. It's made from pieces of gold - treasured rings, necklaces and pins - donated by members of the church and others who've become supporters.

The Road Already Traveled

A Bible-thumper came to my door today. I was still in my sleep clothes, but opened the door anyway. The Thumper was an elderly man with a tie as wide as a boulevard and teeth as yellow as the traffic signal controlling the cars. He was friendly and upbeat as he pressed his four-color pamphlet into my hand. He quickly shifted gears and spoke of the virtues of the Bible as soon as I took his paper. He spoke quickly and deliberately.

When Bible-thumpers have come to my door in the past, I have taken the pamphlet, thanked them, and wished them “God bless” before I shut the door, but not today. I told the friendly old man out canvassing for the Lord, that I don’t believe in the Bible. I pressed the paper back into his hand and wished him good luck. That’s the best I had for him. He was a bit taken aback and thanked me. I shut the door almost in his face.

I have always known that the Bible was written by men for men to control us all, but I have also believed that there were grains of truth embedded in the Bible’s pages that transcended manipulation. Like the selfless stuff Jesus did on behalf of lepers. Today, I heard myself, and I was a bit shocked, but not because I gave the old man the bum’s rush, but because I felt empowered to do so.

“I don’t believe in the Bible.”

Call me a “Christophobe” if you must. Hell, Rick Warren would. The irony is that, as a lesbian, I live more of a Christ-like life than Rick Warren.

The passing of Proposition 8 and President-elect Obama’s choice of Rick Warren to lead the country in the hopeful prayer for the next four years has at once crushed and emboldened me.

I feel the marrow-stinging pain that macro-oppression and homophobia can inflict. I’ve felt it in degrees over the past 27 years, since I came “out” at age 21. I’ve been called a fag, had a hotel worker sweep dirt on me as I’ve walked back from a Pride festival, and lost a promotion because I’m gay. So what?

I’ve managed to rise above and persevere and continue to fight the good fight and donate my time and money for what I believe is a worthwhile cause: equal rights. The sting in my marrow since November 4th and the December 18th Rick Warren pile-on is seeded in empathy for my children who must also, through no choice of their own, experience oppression and homophobia through me. No one wants to see their parents treated as second class citizens, especially the ones who live a Christ-like life.

So the battle line has been scorched into the earth: Religion vs. Homosexuality. Okay then. Fair warning. You don’t want to piss off the gays. Just ask Rodney King.

“The gays was out marching that day. For some kind of gay rights. I get my ass kicked just in time the day before so it's already a lot of people at the courthouse. They started protesting against what the police did to me, the gays was like it was almost like they flipped their sign around and said "No Justice! No Peace!" And you know how the gay people are, they fuckin go off, you know what I mean? So the cops got scared as fuck, you know what I mean? That's what I like about gays - they bring flavor to the world. They some real people, you know what I mean?” ~Rodney King, Celebrity Rehab.
~ ~ ~
Photo above: Participants marching from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in protest of discriminatory voting practices, 1965.
~ ~ ~
Like shouting in a canyon, without the echo
. . . my post on http://change.gov/page/content/contact/

Dear Mr. President-elect,
I campaigned for you. I gave you money. I voted for you. I had hoped that change would come with your election. Your announcement of Rick Warren to give the opening invocation at your inauguration, shocked, appalled, and insulted me. You could have chosen any fundamentalist pastor to represent another voice, but you chose a bigot who campaigns against gay rights and excludes homosexuals from attending his church. “What would Jesus do?”

Clearly, Rick Warren could care less to answer that question and instead chooses to preach hatred. He actually does more than preach. He is a highly political leader of a mega-church who has compared abortion to the Holocaust and opposed marriage reform in terms equivalent to the bigoted plaintiffs in the 1967 civil rights case overturning anti-miscegenation marriage laws. In an era when gay rights are the epicenter, Rick Warren is a widely recognized voice arguing against those rights. By comparison, if this were Lincoln's inauguration, Rick Warren would have been the equivalent pro-slavery pastor giving the invocation. If this were Wilson's inauguration, Rick Warren would have been the equivalent of an anti-women's suffrage pastor saying a prayer. For FDR, he would have been the same as inviting a pastor opposed to rights for the poor. For Kennedy, he would have been the same as inviting a pastor who spoke out repeatedly about the dangers of desegregation. And now for you to invite a voice known for arguing against progress is stunningly disappointing.

Kicking gays to the curb has been the American political standard. When is the change coming for us, Mr. President-elect?

Six Degrees of Happiness Transformed

Make a wish, baby!

Hi-ho, it is Thanksgiving here in the United States of America once again! On the brink of past Thanksgiving long weekends, I have posted about what makes me happy. Happiness, like control, is an illusion, and I am happy to understand that truth. I am grounded in reality here on earth and therefore happy. As a fellow rider on the blue orb, I would rather tell you on the eve of Thanksgiving 2008 what I am thankful for, in no particular order . . .

1. irony
2. being comfortable in my own skin
3. my conservative financial values that have insulated my family during the global financial maelstrom
4. my partner of 23 years (who might be my spouse some day) who has the same values as me
5. to be a contributor and participant in THE civil rights movement of the 21st century
6. my two boys who pop me out of my internal debris and make me a better human being
7. my love of people and human potential
8. my curiosity and potential for creating
9. slouchy Friday nights with homemade vegetarian pizza
10. Santa Barbara Syrahs . . . have you tried them?

Happy Thanksgiving to all and to Thivai Abhor in particular.

Redefining the Hood Ornament

I am confounded by the goat that has taken root to my neighbor’s roof. It has spent some time with the taxidermist, and for that, I am thankful. Large, living animals inhabit my neighbors’ roof tops, so a living goat would not seem farfetched. Most mornings, I watch forty-pound raccoons waddle across the composite roof next door, practically flipping me the bird as they pass by my bathroom window.

I have wondered how much longer my neighbor’s cloven-hoofed stationary weather vein’s woolen coat will look so white, with the air pollution in the Los Angeles basin being at cancer-causing levels. Not that the stuffed goat would get cancer, of course, but he is sure to start looking grey and then sooty-black.

Then it will rain.

It's a blessing that I won’t have to smell my neighbor's soggy, stuffed goat. I am fearful, however, that the goat will be adorned with some kind of green and red reindeer kitsch around Thanksgiving. There is really nothing worse than a sooty and soggy dead animal trying to pass as a decked hall. Talk about a kill joy at the most wonderful time of the year. Oye!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
What I've learned about goats:
Goats are extremely curious and intelligent.
Goats are very coordinated and can climb and hold their balance in the most precarious places.
Goats are clean animals, according to the Bible .
Goats have trundled through the White House.

For Aunt Connie

Aunt Connie died today and my ten-year-old son wanted to roast meat in her honor. He expected to be shut down, but I surprised him by supporting his need to grill.

He grilled what meat was in the freezer – chicken legs and a boneless chicken breast -- on the rock-and-mud pit he manufactured with his brother last February. He wanted to marinade the meat and asked me for my citrus recipe. I sat with him while he grilled and basted the chicken.

While he worked, my son asked me to go backpacking with him and live off the land. “No cooler, Mommy.” I told him I didn’t think I could do that, but I didn’t tell him why. After a day of backpacking and living off the land, I am certain I would require a cold beer at the end of the day. He basted and turned the legs and told me of his plan to build an adobe oven near the roasting pit. “We can bake bread,” he told me. “Indeed we can,” I said.

My son set the tables with candles and laid the feast he had prepared. He went to his room and returned wearing a dress polo shirt. We all went around the table and spoke of Aunt Connie and then toasted her memory. The chicken was spectacular. Basted with love, it could be nothing less.

Where have I gone?

Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” ~ Alice

I wish I had a tale to tell to explain where I have gone. I am here. I am still here. I will always be here. Where else would I go?

The nuance of my hereness is that I have turned inward. When I was outward-facing I was here, writing about what resonated within because I was compelled to write about it. I saw people, shapes, colors, situations that made me itch until I captured it all in words.

What I see inward can barely be spoken, let alone written about, even for my own viewing. Things I see that used to move me to a key board, get little of my attention now. I have thought that I should write about that but I don’t. I am indifferent to what I see and bored by my own vision.

My inward journey has been necessary and personally productive. But I miss my Zone. I miss the electric feeling from transcribing what I see or how I experience something into words. I miss the outward me and wonder if I am in for good.

What I saw today

I saw daylight through a woman’s ear lobe today. She was in a grocery line ahead of me. I saw sunlight illuminating a portion of her neck that should have been in the shadow of her pony tail. I discretely shifted my weight to the left and forward and saw the 3/8 inch stretch ring in the young woman’s ear. Then I saw the braces on her teeth. Aesthetic contradictions, I thought.

I a saw a brown man selling oranges from a purple shopping cart at the 710 Freeway terminus today. If I could have, I would have bought a bag of oranges from him just to taste the color.

I saw my mother in a photograph of myself today. I was holding my soon-to-be eight-year old on a too-big bicycle on a gravel road near Santa Barbara during a recent Spring Break get-away. I was in the background, but still, it was her! It was my mother holding my son. Where was I? I had to magnify the photo to see that it was me. My mother doesn’t own a pair of blue Crocs.

I saw a Jaguar cross three lanes on the 710 Freeway today to dislodge unfurled paper towels that had wrapped around the Jag’s grill and fluttered over the hood to impair the driver’s vision. It reminded me of a smartly dressed woman exiting the Ladies’ Rest Room walking confidently back to her dinner companions with toilet paper stuck to her $400 shoe. If only her eyes peered over her shoes. Tisk.

Everything else is a blur.

Corrected Vision

“Is that because you didn’t see her when you saw her?” my partner asked.

I blinked my eyes, unable to answer. Why was I repeatedly watching Ani Difranco on a YouTube Tonight Show clip from a few days ago?

My first viewing was when my partner had played it for me on Saturday morning, the day after we had seen Ani perform at the opulent Orpheum Theater in downtown Los Angeles. A bobbing guitar playing figure on the stage sang Ani’s songs and I believed it was her.

I wore my Harry Potter’s to the concert on Friday night, as I am wearing them now on Day 5 of an eye infection I seem to get every two years. A coworker said that I looked like Harry Potter during Eye Infection 2004, and while I felt hurt by his remark, I adopted that name for my glasses.

Harry Potter and I only share the shape of our lenses, not the prescription. The prescriptive lenses to correct my astigmatism, compounded with the little extra correction for my near sightedness, distort my eyes and make them appear ferret-like. At least that’s how I see it.

I couldn’t read the freeway signs on the ride in to Los Angeles which wasn’t great since I was driving. It was already dark and my fair night vision had been reduced to poor. The street lights, stop lights, well, any light or lit sign looked like an illuminated blob. I’ve neglected my eye exams over the last few years and there was no amount of squinting that would make up for it.

“You’re going to have to help me navigate,” I told my partner, as we approached a freeway exit. “I really can’t see.”
“Then why are you driving?”
“Because you are having trouble with your eyes,” I said. (My partner is on the upswing from several eye surgeries.)

I laughed. It was a little too loud and a little fake and it fit into a key hole that unlocked my vanity. Not my physical vanity, but my emotional vanity. I’m used to looking at my physical vanity during these eye infection bouts.

It’s as if a vinyl record is placed on a turntable when I wear my glasses for an extended period of time. The needle finds a groove and the old message plays through the dust and scratches: “You’re not the pretty one. You’re not the pretty one. You’re not the pretty one.”

I'm mildly amused to see something so obsolete still playing inside me, yet still have enough emotional power to make me turn my head to hear the message through the dust and scratches.

My new digitized vanity looks like emotional arrogance. It’s new to me, and indescribable, so will require my patience to let it come into focus. It’s presentation is completely digital – On/Off. Driving virtually blind showed me that I think I am bigger than I actually am. Good intentions are good, but reckless endangerment is bad. On/Off. I’m sobered to see how I've overestimated myself.

32 Flavors
By Ani Difranco

squint your eyes and look closer
I'm not between you and your ambition
I am a poster girl with no poster
I am thirty-two flavors and then some
and I'm beyond your peripheral vision
so you might want to turn your head
cause someday you're going to get hungry
and eat most of the words you just said

both my parents taught me about good will
and I have done well by their names
just the kindness I've lavished on strangers
is more than I can explain
still there's many who've turned
out their porch lights
just so I would think they were not home
and hid in the dark of their windows
til I'd passed and left them alone

and god help you if you are an ugly girl
course too pretty is also your doom
cause everyone harbors a secret hatred
for the prettiest girl in the room
and god help you if you are a pheonix
and you dare to rise up from the ash
a thousand eyes will smolder with jealousy
while you are just flying back

I'm not trying to give my life meaning
by demeaning you
and I would like to state for the record
I did everything that I could do
I'm not saying that I'm a saint
I just don't want to live that way
no, I will never be a saint
but I will always say

squint your eyes and look closer
I'm not between you and your ambition
I am a poster girl with no poster
I am thirty-two flavors and then some
And I'm beyond your peripheral vision
So you might want to turn your head
Cause someday you might find you're starving
and eating all of the words you said

Larue Redux

My cryptic account of the clipper ship running aground has piqued some interest in Dr. Larue. He cannot adequately be described, but must be experienced. I wish everyone I have met was like that.

I was trying to remember when I met him and I’m still not sure. Maybe it was 1987. He was dating Robin, my partner’s best friend. The first meeting, or my memory of what I think was the first meeting, was at a wedding at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles for Robin and my partner’s mutual friend. At one point at the sit-own reception, Dr. Larue flung a dinner roll at Robin who was standing half way across the room. Apparently, he really didn’t want to be there.

I got to know Dr. Larue after that wedding reception over the years and watched him learn when it is appropriate to throw a dinner roll at the woman you are dating and when it is not. He learned social etiquette after the window for such education has gracefully closed for the rest of us. Yet, he can be a warm host when he wants to be. I have been the guest of honor at his studio where he has microwaved Potato Surprise for me on my birthday.

If the good Doctor wants to learn or experience something, anything, he will. He does not broadcast in his appearance or demeanor the creative, ingenious, zany, insane potential he has for manifesting his ideas. He simply does.

He has strolled with me through the Philadelphia Museum of Art when I was 8 months pregnant. He hates babies and most young children and isn’t ashamed to say so. He has done significant home improvement projects with me when he was merely a willing participant with power tools. He has kept rats as pets, beat his hand on a cement block for his martial arts practice, and slept in the same industrial studio since I have know him.

He holds his compass steady and stays true to his North. That's Dr. Larue.

The Doctor Makes House Calls

(Dr. Larue sans nose adhesive)

The good Dr. Larue made an unscheduled house call today. I was bent over in the prone weeding position and didn’t notice his arrival. No matter. Dr. Larue quietly left one of his calling cards in the next planter from where I was weeding. Then he cruised my street, watched from the quiet comfort of his unadorned Prius.

His red nose was spotted by my partner who bellowed, “Larue!” My children and the neighbor boys chased him like dogs. Dr. Larue parked and admitted to leaving the clipper ship that we were gathered around. My oldest boy claimed it as his own and immediately began repairs.

Dr. Larue had damaged the ship and inflicted the sails to lit cigarettes for some creative piece he was working on. This is the same Dr. Larue who pickled vintage 1950’s Barbie heads, motorized a pram and rode it around a dry lake bed, photographed a hitching post black jockey from San Pedro, California to Laughlin, Nevada, photographed the contents of willing women’s purses, sewed hand bags out of truck tire inner tubes, and, well, I lost touch with the good doctor for a while. I know there is more.

I always want to know what the more is. He makes me feel like free spirits don’t have to finally conform just because they are graying at the temples. He’s the type of doctor I want in my life because he’s a self-proclaimed doctor. He makes it all up as he goes and reminds me about how serendipitous life becomes when the house calls are unscheduled.