#god they really made a show about the love a working class community in 18th century west yorkshire have for each other

[grenewoden]

hi i'm still not over the fact that tgp just proved you could so easily make a r.obin h.ood adaptation that was good actually instead of all the shit we've gotten over the years.

[lemonii-love]

So this project represents a lot for me. 

I haven’t seen it or touched it in months; I can’t even remember the last time I worked on it. 

Originally, it was intended to be a gift for my partner. Her favorite color is purple, and since she lived across the pond (I’m in California, she’s in the UK), I wanted to knit her something to make her think of me - not that that was ever an issue, as we talked everyday for the entire length of our friendship. 

Even though we never met, we had this plan that eventually we would, we would get married, find a house in the country side, live the whole cottagecore dream. It made sense; there’s no one I’ve ever clicked with more than her. We were a perfect match in so many aspects, and to this day, I don’t think anyone has ever understood me the way she did. 

But in February of this year, she broke up with me. 

I use that phrase very liberally. We were never actually dating, at least not from my point of view. But during the end of our friendship that was a constant point of stress; she wanted more, but I didn’t want to tie her, or myself, to something that couldn’t happen until years into the future. And to make matters worse, during our time together I realized I may be aromantic. I wish I’d known going into it, then I could have saved us both a lot of heart ache, but I’d never had a serious relationship before. 

In the beginning she tried to be supportive. I started to realize I may be aromantic about a year before I actually told her, and the realization was crushing. I didn’t want to be aromantic. I wanted to be normal, to have the life we dreamed of together, and this made me feel like we never could. It was months and months of me trying to prove to myself I couldn’t possibly be aro, and then even more months of me talking to other aro people, trying to come to terms with it and understand what it meant for me. And, more importantly, what it meant for Her. 

I think one of the worst part of being aro, as opposed to being ace, is how She reacted to it. If I had been ace, she would have been fine. Ace means no sex, or maybe only sometimes, and that was something she could respect. What she couldn’t live with was the idea that I didn’t love her enough. And it didn’t matter that that wasn’t true - I’ve never loved anyone like I loved her. For two years, I talked to her what felt like all day every day. I told her anything and everything about myself, things I could never tell anyone else. I poured so much of my life into Her. 

But it wasn’t enough. Because I was aromantic, and she couldn’t see the difference between how I felt about her, and how I felt about my best friend. I tried to explain it everyway I knew how from my little bit of experience, I showed her the split attraction model and tried to make her understand the difference, but she just... couldn’t. And it was awful. It made me feel awful, for hurting her, and for the way she hurt me, made me feel like my love would never be enough for her, even when I gave her all I had to give. 

For all her talk about love, how there are so many different kinds, she really doesn’t understand it at all. If she did, she wouldn’t have grown to resent me, she would have seen how much I loved her, even if it was different from the way she loved me. 

But I think the biggest tragedy, is that it never had to happen in the first place. We didn’t need to break up because we were never dating. At least, that’s what I thought. And whenever it came up, I made sure to gently remind her that I saw us as friends, and that I didn’t want her restricting herself to only me. it wasn’t fair to either of us. She always insisted she knew, she wasn’t stupid, she just didn’t want anyone else, but the pressure of knowing she was entirely devoted to me was suffocating. 

I realized later, long after the final fight that ended things between us permanently, that she spent the last several months of our relationship lying to me. I could pinpoint the exact day when her resentment began to fester and build, until it finally culminated on February 17th; ironically during aro awareness week.

It was October 18th. Half an hour before my Statistics class, we were talking as usual. She mentioned her mother who asked if the two of us were dating, and I made some comment I don’t even remember, but I’m sure you can guess meant something along the lines of, “You know we’re not together.” She agreed, but her tone was completely different, and then she stopped talking to me all together. For the rest of the day, and the next. I tried to continue messaging her here and there, but she ignored me, until I finally gave up. She agreed, but in February, she put the final nail in the coffin when she said, “I was only telling you what you wanted to hear.”

And that completely shattered my world. Months of our relationship had been built on lies. She told me that from the day I told her I thought I was aromantic, she knew we wouldn’t stay together. Long before that she told me that whatever happened, romantic relationship or not, we would always be friends. And then she destroyed that too. 

Sometimes I wish i was ace instead. People in our community are so much more willing to accept that over aros. Because it’s fine to not want sex, but God forbid you don’t feel love. At least, not the way someone else wants you to. It doesn’t matter if the love you feel is everything to you, it will never be enough to them. To Her. 

I loved her so much, for so long, that when she left, it felt like she took all of me with her. I gave her everything and there was nothing left for me. I’m nothing like who I was before. 

It took me months to scrape the pieces of my life back together. I went to school, I somehow managed to pass my classes, I even started making a few friends, before the quarantine. I managed to finally start working in May with the job I’d been working towards for two years. I’m not the same, and I doubt I ever will be - the first major heartbreak will do that to you - but I’m getting better, 

And then she decides to drunk text me out of the blue, and it’s like I’d lost all of that progress I made. As soon as I saw her name flash across my screen I felt my stomach twist up in knots. I was cold and shaking with the worst anxiety attack I’d had in months. And all it took was a single text. I didn’t even have to read it, just see her name. 

There were more, of course, she couldn’t leave it at just one. I somehow found the strength not to respond, even though I’ve thought about texting her every day since our break up. In the beginning I wanted to apologize - even though I didn’t know what for, aside for being who I am - and then I wanted to hurt her the way she hurt me, and then I just wanted to know why. But I didn’t. Because I promised her I wouldn’t. And then she decides the fragile rules that she set between us, didn’t apply to her. That she has the right to come in and out of my life as it suits her, with no regard for how hard I’ve had to work to get over her. 

But I didn’t respond, and she deleted the messages, and I still don’t know what, if anything, to say. I want to ask her if she’s trying to hurt me. I want to tell her not to drunk text me, because I hated it before and I hate it now, and it was her drunk texting that started this all, long before I realized I was aro and she realized she couldn’t live with it. 

I gave her everything I was and more, and now all I have is this half-finished blanket in Her favorite color, and I don’t know what to do with it anymore. 

[grandhotelabyss]

So fascist. I’m joking, sort of. When I was trying to make the ‘gram work, I hashtagged a picture of a bookcase I’d fished out of the trash with #cottagecore—and then actual #cottagecore people liked the post. This proves that a hashtag cannot be used ironically. As for #darkacademia, I gave my thoughts a few months ago in my essay on Donna Tartt’s The Secret History:

I am too old, and I have seen too much, to fall in love with the novel that helped to inspire the #darkacademia trend. Granted, as a student who spent four years reading Shakespeare, Dickens, and Joyce under the high, dim vault of the Cathedral of Learning’s commons room, I had the most #darkacademic experience possible at an urban public research university. But then I spent seven years in graduate school, and seven years after that as an adjunct professor; I have seen the true darkness of academia, and it has very little to do with the Gothic trappings of Donna Tartt’s classic 1992 thriller.

What is #darkacademia, really, but a response to this genuine darkness? Such Poe-like airs as Tartt and her contemporary devotees put on are an attempt to reenchant the life of the mind after its exsanguination and despiritualization by the increasingly rationalized bureaucracies of the contemporary university. Despite attempts to bring the trend in line with social justice, #darkacademia represents a conservative backlash against both academic leftism and corporatist neoliberalism in our time, with these two tendencies’ routinized subversions and mandatory inculcations and profit-seeking administrations. In reaching back a generation to canonize The Secret History as the inspiration of their aesthetic, today’s gloomy ephebes chose wisely, since Tartt’s novel belongs to the last backlash, coming as it did between The Closing of the American Mind (1987) and The Western Canon (1994)—a black blossom between the Blooms—and deriving some of its emotional impetus, however disavowed, from the same sources as those jeremiads against the leveling of humanities education.

I enjoy issuing such vast historico-aesthetic declarations—it comes from the Marxist side of my education, and anyway, what else can you do with popular fiction?—but I take them very lightly. 

What is the Cathedral of Learning? It would be a place of pilgrimage for the darkly academic, the academic darklings, if only they knew about it. You could always look up pictures online, but I’ve always thought “a picture is worth a thousand words” counted as dispraise of images: pictures don’t tell you anything at all—you literally need one thousand words to understand even one! So I give you a couple hundred words from my unpublished manuscript The Class of 2000, both the great Pittsburgh novel and the great turn-of-the-millennium novel, as the world will someday learn. I include, for the #darkacademic fans, the description of the Cathedral of Learning (sorry for the repetition between the Tartt review and the novel of “high, dim vault”—in my defense, it’s a high, dim vault) and a subsequent short dialogue on architecture that reflects a trending controversy of today. All you need to know is that this section is about my narrator and his religious friend, both high-school students, on a field trip. Please enjoy!

from The Class of 2000

Lauren and I were on a lunch break from an art-class field trip to the Carnegie Museum of Art. In a rain-presaging fall wind, we wandered around Oakland.

She had brought a pack of strawberry-flavored clove cigarettes—I don’t know where she got them—and we smoked to try to blend in with the students from Pitt and Carnegie Mellon. Despite the massing clouds, some of them still lounged on the lawn of the Cathedral of Learning, asleep with Plato or Marx propped open on their faces. We circled the Cathedral and stared up at its sooty limestone mass rearing into the clouds—the tallest building for miles.

We put out our cigarettes and walked through the high, dim vault of its first floor. Students at weighty wooden study tables, strangely unaffected by the anachronistic grandeur that rose around them, sighed in frustration over chemistry or French textbooks; their sweatshirts and jeans affronted the solemn Gothic atmosphere.

Between classes, we ducked in and out of the nationality rooms. To promote cultural understanding and civic investment in the university while this vast structure was under construction in the 1920s—I quote from memory the brochure we read that day—the Chancellor had invited the participation of the many immigrant communities who’d raised this city, and the University continued its outreach since then, from the 18th-century English who’d fought off their brethren at Fort Pitt to those who came from Eastern and Southern Europe at the turn of the century seeking work in the factories that made the world’s steel to the recent arrivals from Africa and Asia who wished to compete in the global economy. Representatives of said communities were tasked with proposing, planning, and funding the construction of classrooms to commemorate the nations they’d left and the cultures they carried. We saw samovars, stained glass, calligraphic screens, menorahs, nationalist liberators, bodhisattvas, and Yoruba gods. We discussed the glory of studying human achievement in vast tower consecrated to the genius of all the world’s cultures.

We left the Cathedral and its grounds, lit two more cloves, and walked deeper into the neighborhood, where campus buildings mingled with banks and bookstores and restaurants.

On Fifth Avenue, we found ourselves in front of an odd sight: the bell tower of an old church, a sepia stone spire, stood alone, though the rest of the church had long been demolished. In its place gloated a modern university building, all glass and steel, curved at the edge where it would have abutted the bell tower, as if to avoid a contaminating touch.

“I like the church tower better,” Lauren mused.

We regarded our reflections in the glass of the new building.

“So do I.”

“You know, since you don’t believe in God, you really aren’t entitled to like the tower better. Its purpose is to lift your vision, to point the way to heaven. The modern, godless building just shows you”—she pointed forward, in the flesh and in the glass—“your own small self.”

I pointed to the space over my shoulder in the glass where the Cathedral of Learning hovered behind us in the distance.

“That’s a secular structure,” I said.

“Please,” she said as she turned away in dismissal. “If what I said wasn’t true, would they have to call it a cathedral?”

[ekmekandwater-blog]

Thirty Eight Years and Still Going

38 years ago today I made a decision that would forever impact my life.  Here’s the story:

I thought I'd take this time to re-post my own story of how I decided to follow Jesus. In other words, How did a guy like me end up writing a blog like this?

I was raised in a non-religious Jewish home.  I emphasize the term “non-religious” because I don’t want you to get the wrong impression.  No side curls, no Hebrew classes, just an occasional Yiddish phrase and matzo ball soup.  I had no idea about any of the reasons for some of the holidays we celebrated.  I thought Passover was a food holiday – “Pass over the matzos please.   Pass over the bitter herbs!”  Seriously, I had no idea.  I just knew we didn’t believe in Jesus because I asked my mom several times after watching Davy and Goliath or something like that.

The God issue wasn’t something that we discussed much, but I had thought about it some.  I remember early on thinking it was kinda silly to believe in God.  I understood later, that people believed in God, as I saw it, to help them cope with life and mortality or hardships or whatever.  I didn’t really have a problem with people doing this if it helped them cope.  When I got older though, I met people who didn’t just casually believe in a divine coping mechanism (the invisible friend for grownups) but who were making life choices as a result of this belief.  These people were choosing to not do some of the things that I was doing – they were choosing not to have the kind of fun that (it seemed to me) high school kids ought to have because of this concept of God.  That seemed ludicrous to me.  It seemed to me that Christians were being stupid about this and so I saw it as my duty to let them know.

I was that guy in high school – the outspoken skeptic.  I wouldn’t have called myself an atheist because I thought to speak authoritatively that there is no God seemed equally foolish.  My argument was that it was impossible to know.

During my senior year in high school, my buddy Chet and I applied to work at The Happiest Place on Earth, Disneyland.  We got accepted and shortly after my 18th birthday, we began to work in “Outdoor Vending.”  My job title was a “culinary host” which meant that I sold ice-cream, popcorn and balloons.

On day 2 of my employment, I was assigned a trainer for the day to learn the art and science of ice-cream sales.  It’s a complicated science that requires 8 hours together with a trainer.  You take the order, take the money, open the lid, pull out the desired frozen treat and smile.  It’s very complex. So the trainer assigned to me for the day was a young woman named Cynthia.  Cynthia had a personality as big as life.  She laughed loud, smiled big and just seemed to get a lot out of life.  It turns out, and I found out quickly, that she was also one of those enthusiastic, life changed, born again Christians – but like I said, she had a pretty engaging personality and we became friends in spite of her deep convictions.

So during that summer if she was working at a nearby popcorn or ice cream wagon, and I was on a break, I would stop by to visit.  And every single time, I kid you not, she would start to tell me something about the God she believed in.  She would have Bible verses on 3X5 cards that she was using to actually memorize portions of the Bible!  And she would show me what was on her card and say something like, “Mike, look at this.  Look at how much God loves you.  Isn’t that amazing?”  And I would respond with something like, “That’s great for you, but it’s not my thing.”  Undaunted, we would have a similar conversation the next time we met.

I think it was her consistency of her life and message (and for those of you wondering, no, I wasn’t really interested in dating her or anything) and she seemed so earnestly convinced of this God stuff that I started to re-visit the whole God question in my head.  Is there a God? If there is a God, is he somebody I need to worry about?  Does it ultimately make a difference?  Who could I ask about this?  Who’s been talking to me non-stop about God since the day I met her?

So I was working on Main St. at popcorn wagon #2 and I decided to send a note to Cynthia to come and chat with me when she got a chance.  As a sidelight and a bit of Disney trivia, when popcorn venders want to communicate with each other in those days, we of course couldn’t leave our wagons.  We were stuck in one place and so we would use the sweepers.  They were mobile and they were the pony express of the Disney world.  So Cynthia got my note and came out at the end of her shift and I told her what I had been thinking about.

Literally, just at that moment, a sweeper came by.  “Hey Joe,” Cynthia called, and Joe came sweeping over, “You still have that Gospel of John on you?”  Joe said, “Sure,” pulled a gospel of John out of his breast pocket and handed it to me.  Cynthia said, “Mike, if you want to know about God, the best person to ask is God.  Say, ‘Lord I want to know you and I want to know more about you.’  And then sit down and read this Gospel of John.”

I said, “okay” and I took that book home and I probably prayed that prayer 100 times (by the way, had I known I was praying, I probably wouldn’t have done it).  And the more I prayed, the more I thought, “Yeah, God, if you are real, I want to know you.”  So finally, I sat down on our couch in the living room and read the book from cover to cover.

Now I’d heard about Jesus before this time, mainly as something you yell when you’re really frustrated, but I’d never really known any of the story.  This was my first encounter with him and I have to tell you, he impressed me.  There was something to this guy - something, dare I say…spiritual?  Something was happening to me as I read it – for the first time in my life, I began to believe in God.  I still wasn’t sure what to do with Jesus and how he fit into it all.  There was a verse in John 14:6 where Jesus claimed to be the only way to God and I remember thinking that was a pretty narrow statement and it excluded my people – even though I wasn’t an observant Jew, that seemed like a big hurdle.

But I went off to Whittier College as a freshman and I started to enter into the God discussion as a participant rather than an antagonist.  This was a new experience.  I remember being surprised at how many people believed in God as I met Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Mormons and every Joe blow with their own homespun theology.  And as I compared notes, I realized all of their theologies had complexity to them.  All of their gods had personality and ideas and history and values and the God I believed in was empty and void – he needed help and so I enhanced him.  I began to construct God out of the conversations I’d been having.  A little of this, a dab of that and voila I had my god.  By the end of the school year, he had become more complex and I was proud of him.

On June 15 of that year, I stepped into The Raven bookshop in La Canada and ran into one of my Christian friends from high school who I used to pick on.  I said, “Hey Denise, how’re you doing?”  “Praise the Lord,” she replied, “I’m just serving Jesus…” and blahbity blahbity blah about Jesus and I replied, “I have my beliefs.”  “Really,” she exclaimed, “I’d love to hear them.”  And so in the next 30 seconds, I unpacked all of my complex theology (I remember thinking, “Is that all?” I guess I hadn’t developed my theology as much as I had thought) and Denise shook her head and cleared her throat and said, “we need to talk.”

So there we were right in the middle of the bookstore, talking about God,  “In our culture, Mike,” she continued, “Wouldn’t you agree that if we’re talking about God, then more often than not, we’re probably talking about the God of the Bible.”  I thought about it – if there wasn’t a Bible we probably wouldn’t know much about God and so I replied, “sure.”  She said then, “It seems to me that if we’re claiming to believe in the God of the Bible, we should believe what the Bible says about the God of the Bible.”  I agreed.

There is a verse in the New Testament book of Romans – Romans 10:9,10 which says, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that He is risen from the dead, you will be saved.”  Denise explained to me a lot about the God of the Bible.  She answered a lot of my objections and I knew that I needed to quit avoiding the inevitable and I needed to start following the God that Denise followed whatever that meant.  And I really had no idea what that meant.  But I also knew that I didn’t want to be a freak and so I was going to keep that decision to myself.  I wasn’t going to confess that with my mouth before anyone.

As it turns out, God knew what I was thinking.  And so just a few hours later, that same evening, I was working at Disneyland.  I wasn’t actually working in the park itself but rather was blowing up balloons for the evening in the balloon room.  I was only able to interact with guests in the park for 15 minutes when I was giving a balloon vender a break.  So there I was, standing with a bunch of Mickey Mouse balloons under the people mover when this guy walked up to me.  I had never seen him before and I have never seen him since.  But he walked up to me and said, “Excuse me.  I’d like to know if you’ve accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior.”

I thought for a moment and replied, “Yes, as a matter of fact I have.”  He said, “okay,” and took off into the crowd (and who knows? Back to heaven?).  That was that.  I went back to the balloon room where a # of my Christian friends were working and I told them what happened, that this weird guy came up to me and…They got very excited and word got out among the believers in outdoor vending and we started a Bible study with the sweepers and the vendors.  And I got a good strong start to my Christian life.

That God was in such obvious pursuit of me is something that still moves me.  And the events of June 15 following my freshman year in college 30+ years ago still wow me.  But that was just the beginning.  More stories to come soon.  I’d love to hear yours!

[daddyconfessions]

daddy’s journal: 2/26/16

previous entries: daddy’s journal: 2/17 daddy’s journal: 2/10

Tuesday Feb 16th “You’re a very handsome man,” June was telling me. “Your wife is lucky.”

I love this nail salon. They have some of the most beautiful Asian chicks I’ve seen. I swear they must have a prerequisite for being attractive to work there. They all have simple names like Mary, Janet, Stacy & June. June’s been flirting with me for the last 20 minutes. Mary, the owner, walked over and said, “I love your car. I can’t believe your wife let you buy a car like that.” I chuckled and we spent the next few minutes cracking jokes about it.

A few hours earlier I was with Firecracker. I didn’t get to see her for Valentine’s Day. I had wanted to take her to get a mani/pedi, as well as some shopping but she had other plans with her friends and fuckboy. When she walked in to the room I had 2 dozen roses lying on the bed. She jumped on the bed and picked them up, smelling them. Happy af. Told me her boyfriend hadn’t bought anything. Didn’t even show up for their date, blah blah. I tuned her out. I was just happy that she was happy. Nothing like making my Princess smile.

I hate giving gifts after the fact but I couldn’t get the roses before or on V-Day because I didn’t see her. I couldn’t send them to her because, like most of my SBs, I’m not allowed to know where she lives.

She told me she had cleared her afternoon in the hopes that I could deliver on all the spoiling I wanted to do. I decided to manipulate the situation to my benefit. First, I told her I couldn’t get off and that I was busy at work. Next I told her she could accompany me out of town and we could do all the shopping she wanted. I’d been wanting her to go out of town with me for awhile but she’d been too busy. We’ve been out of town before and I was ready for another trip. With the new boyfriend, school, etc., she simply wasn’t making the the time, though she gave other excuses. So again she said she was too busy for the trip and probably couldn’t go.   But I could see the temptation in her eyes. So I left it right there.

The sex was good that day.

I had plans to meet Muffin for the first time the next night. So I wanted to be looking good. After leaving the hotel with Firecracker, I’d swung by the mall to re-up on some D&G cologne. Kind of old but goes good with my body chemistry. Then on to the nail shop.

“You have such beautiful skin,” June tells me when she finishes. “I love your how do you say com, com, com…” She frowned. “Complexion?” I offered. “Yes, yes that’s it.” I smiled and pulled out my wallet. All this ass kissing was had me wanting to tip. I paid out and dropped some extra $$ for June’s tip. “Oh, “ she smiled and clasped her hands in front of her. “Thank you so much.”

A few hours later, my barber had finished my haircut and was lining up my goatee. I was officially ready for the trip out of town. Unfortunately, an hour later I was on the phone with Muffin. She had changed her mind. At first, it sounded like she wanted more money but things were more complicated as I would later realize. In my openness with her, I realized I had talked too much. I had been too transparent.  Babygirl wanted more than to just be another chick. She wanted to know that what she was building with me was worth her time and effort, and potentially I might be replacing her current SD. I just couldn’t give her that at the moment. I didn’t have it to give.

So Muffin ended it. Too many bitches.

Wednesday Feb. 17th

The sugar gods must be looking out for me. It was a good thing I didn’t go out of town Wednesday. The day turned out to be crazy. All the fucking off at work had caught up to me. Even my personal clients I take care of were blowing up my phone. I spent the day catching up, and then ducked out early to make my rounds to my clients. Yes, I have job, but I also do some consulting on the side. It’s quite lucrative and I’m hoping to become a full time consultant working for myself.

As it were one of the ladies at my client’s site pulled me to the side and told me that her cousin worked for a prominent local museum and they needed some consulting. I gave her my number and later that evening, her cousin called me and we spent 30 minutes discussing me doing some work for them. She also requested a quote.

This wasn’t going to be some high dollar deal, but this wasn’t about money. This could put me on the map, giving my business the notoriety and prestige I needed to launch. There’s always a certain prestige to servicing non-profits. I’m hopeful but I won’t get my hopes up.

By that night I was dog tired. Too tired to even post my journal entry. But not too tired to talk to Bubbles. :) She hit me late as I was about to go to bed. With all the excitement around Muffin, I’d forgotten about her. We were supposed to hook up on Thursday. We exchanged a few texts and the date was set.

Thursday Feb 18th

But the next afternoon, she wasn’t feeling it. Neither was I really. We wanted to see each other but having dinner beforehand was out of the question. Instead, we settled on just getting a room. She was worried about not wearing makeup but I was cool with it. I told her we could cancel but she wanted to see me. She just didn’t want to get all dolled up.

When she showed up at the room I couldn’t believe it. She was still beautiful, though not the glamour goddess I saw last time, but close enough. The energy between us is amazing. We immediately started kissing and undressing each other. I went down immediately and started licking that pretty pink muff. She likes it when I suck the clit while simultaneously thrashing it with my tongue. She must have cum in less than a minute. After the second orgasm, she was sitting up on her elbows looking down at me biting her lip. She grabbed the top of my head as I relentlessly licked that clit like there was no tomorrow. “Fuck!” she yelled. “You eat pussy better than my roommate…”

She was so loud I’m pretty sure the neighbors heard her. I made a mental note to circle back to that “roommate” comment. I kept on licking that kitty until she could take it no more. She pushed my head away and pulled me up so that I could be on top of her. We kissed. Well, she licked my face and sucked my tongue. I swear she’s fascinated with tasting her own pussy. I’m just the middleman. She tells me to lie down and takes her turn on me. Her allergies had been bothering her which is why she hadn’t wanted to go out and get all dolled up. Trying to give me fellatio wasn’t all that easy either. She stopped after a moment. I knew her allergies were killing her. It’s that time of year.

We switched to missionary and once again I slid into some of the tightest kitty I’ve had in years. This time was different. I could barely get him in this time. It took a few moments before I could get at least partially inside her. Then I went slow and steady, trying to open that muff up. Babygirl was getting mad. Not at me, but more so because she couldn’t enjoy me more. It was cool. Her attitude and willingness to please is like an aphrodisiac to me. After a few minutes, she asked if I could finish in her mouth. God I love the way she asks that. Like she’s doubtful if I want to.  

We switch again and she spent the next several minutes sharing her knowledge. She stopped a few times because of the allergies but like a true trooper she marched on. When I came, I sounded the alarm and Bubbles kept on. I swear she started sucking harder as I came, extracting every drop of the ivory cream. She locked eyes with me and kept sucking until there was nothing left.  When I was done she rose up and smiled. I thought she was going to go to the bathroom but she did no such thing. She licked her lips and then went back to Bartholomew and licked the head just in case there was any dribble.

I like Bubbles. I’ve been trying to get her off this per meet bullshit. Get her on a real allowance. Get her to commit to something. But she has friends. Strippers, current sugar babies, etc. These are some real bitches. These girls aren’t sitting around reading Tumblr blogs all day. Chicks with names like Diamond and Piper…Pushing 6-series and E-class whips. Condos downtown. 30th floor overlooking the city. And worst … they’re advising Bubbles. I got my work cut out for me. Might have to cop the Celine bag. But this game isn’t won by money alone. I need to run game. Put on the charm….Cultivate the relationship.  My works cut out for me.

As we get dressed, I circle back to her comment.  I ask about the roommate. She tells me her roommate’s a girl and “…occasionally we play.”

“Hey come on,” Bubbles smiled. “You should know I’m not fucking another guys. As tight as my pussy is.”

Friday Feb 19th

Friday, I get a text from Ms. Butterworth. She’s just saying hi. Asking me how I’ve been, etc., but it’s all code for “When can we hook up?” I’m not interested in Ms. B anymore. We did hook up after my last post on her. She’d gained weight…hair wasn’t quite together. I think she was just having a bad day but the on-again, off-again communication had taken its toll. I sent back a few low interest responses. I was meeting with Firecracker again, so I was distracted.

Looks like my plan might have worked. As Firecracker and I got dressed after sex, she said, “Hey I think I can juggle a few classes if you still want to go out of town.” I smiled and say, “ Oh really? You sure? I mean I know you’re busy.” Blah blah. I hated to resort to devious tactics, but I wanted to spend time with princess and she’s letting other things get in the way.

“No, I’m good,” she smiles as she pulls up her jeans. “We can work something out.  I can do 2 days so you can take me to that mall you were telling me about.”

Thought she’d see things my way. Still we didn’t set a concrete date on when it would happen. I’m pessimistic.

Saturday Feb 20th

As the weekend begins, I get busy again. The wife and I are closing one of our locations for our business. I hadn’t blogged about it but we’ve been in the middle of lease negotiations. We lost on our last bid and as the month ends, we’ve been cleaning and clearing out. All day Saturday, I moved. By Saturday night, my body was aching. I had used muscles I hadn’t used in a long time. As I sat in my recliner, feet up, I got a text from Kim, the stripper. Hadn’t heard from her all week. She wants me to come see her at the new club she’s working at. I’m too tired to go. Not sleepy, but my body is not feeling it. Then Kim sends me a pic of her before she goes out and dances for her next set

Now I feel like going :)

But I can’t get out. Wifey isn’t having that shit. She’s like “Nigga where you going? Thought you were tired?” I didn’t have anything good comeback other than the thought of Kim’s pic in my head. No way I’m getting out on a Saturday at 11:30pm.

Fuck it. I tell Kim I’ll hook up with her next week.

[punchlinesf]

Stretch It Out With Shawn Pelofsky

Ronn Vigh: Hey Shawn! How are you? It's been a long time!

Shawn Pelofsky: (singing) Reunited and it feels so good.....

Before I continue on, let me tell you that I've known Shawn for many years before this interview. I ran a comedy show at a gay bar for 10 years that Shawn would regularly perform at. We've shared stages and a few after-show drinks together where I would stare at her perpetually flawless hair as we would discuss all sorts of things. One night, a big topic Shawn fixated on was how I was in a two year relationship and still had not seen my boyfriend's apartment. Cut to 2018, that same boyfriend now lives with me and I never did see his apartment. After a week-long game of phone tag and email exchanges, we are finally on the phone together to chat about her upcoming shows at Punch Line. 

RV: Let's start with the basics. How did you become a working comedian?

SP: I didn't have a choice but to become a standup comedian because I grew up Jewish in Oklahoma.

RV: So, was it your upbringing that cultivated your sense of humor and dictated your career choices?

SP: My father went to medical school at Oklahoma University and my mother is from Brooklyn. My family had a good sense of humor and I was always an extrovert. I loved performing at a young age and making people laugh, watching SNL, the different characters and I really loved watching Bette Midler. She inspired me and made me want to be an entertainer.

RV: You perform for a variety of audiences but you're straight and have developed a very large gay following. Why do you think that is?

SP: You too can break your nose three times and look like Barbara Streisand and the gays will flock to you!

RV: Yea, but you just don't perform for a bunch of gay men. You really seem to be a part of the community.

SP: Well, In sixth grade, I became friends with the only guy who came out in class. I was always fascinated by gay men. Growing up, every Sunday in Oklahoma, my dad would pack up the Mercedes wagon and we would all go to the Chinese restaurant as good Jews do. There was a guy there named Sean which was weird because he was a "Gaysian." He managed the restaurant and loved my dad and would always float out to greet him as Dr. Pelofsky. I was obsessed and loved everything about him and his energy. I figured out early on the magic and honesty and loyalty that gay men and the community as a whole have. They don't pass judgment, anything goes, you can say anything and they will listen and laugh at a time where people are so sensitive. It's a time where you make the wrong step and say the tiniest wrong thing and people hold that against you forever. The gays don't judge, well at least they don't judge me.

RV: The hardest part for a comic sometimes is to figure out what their crowd is and often they will unfairly get pigeonholed into a one dimensional label such as "gay comic," "urban comic," "Jewish comic" and so on. That really hasn't happened to you though? 

SP: I'm lucky that I really do a lot of different gigs for different people. Yeah, I've performed for a lot of gay men and women on cruises and I really enjoy it. You get to travel in style and have fun and great experiences like none other. It's very different from other types of gigs I've done. I performed for our troops in the war zones. That's what I love about my life, one minute I'm performing for the military and the next I'm at a bear convention. People are people and you just need to assimilate to what person you are standing in front of. Cancer patients. Children. Masons. You've just got to be fast on your feet.

RV: You mentioned that you're Jewish. Do you do a lot of Jewish shows?

SP: To be honest, I try not to. I'm pretty sure they are all waiting for Shecky Greene and Mort Sahl to come out and I will just be a big disappointment.

RV: From what I've seen, you have a very loyal following and when someone sees you for the first time, they too quickly become a loyal follower. However, have you had any instances where an audience member wasn't quite as hospitable toward you or your comedy?

SP: Oh yeah, many times. I was performing at a base in Japan, entertaining the troops and within 20 minutes of my routine somebody pitched a cherry right at my face and it hit me hard. I went right out into the audience and threatened a six foot man's life while wearing Manolo Blahniks. They were drunk and rowdy and didn't care that I traveled 18 hours to perform for them after 9-11 but that's just another crazy experience.

RV: Good job! Despite all the successes, isn't it funny that sometimes it just takes one show like that to make you question all of your choices as a comedian. I used to get really down after a shit show like that would happen but now I just look at my comedic influences and some situations where they overcame adversity as an inspiration to keep going. So, is there anyone like that for you? Who are your current comedy crushes?

SP: Oh well, there's a few. I love to watch Vicki Barbolak. She is someone who I really admire and was just a finalist on America's Got Talent. She's incredible. Not only is she off-the-cuff funny and a great joke writer but she's a very beautiful person and someone who I aspire to be as good as. Also, Bobby Lee because no matter how the room is going, he will be that one person that brings everybody to their feet. Oh and Bryan Callen too because he's eccentric, random and different. He can do characters and voices and morph into a different person and make you believe that character is standing in front of you. It's hilarious. 

RV: You do characters too, don't you?

SP: Yeah, my biggest character is playing a 25 year old woman. Ah, Ronn, really I think I'm character enough. These days on stage, I'm into improvising with the audience more than I have been in the past and I just like to test myself and see how I can work on my feet. In comedy, bringing everybody together is the real art form. 

RV: Since I have known you for a while and follow you on Facebook, I do know that you have had a lot of highs and lows recently. For instance, you got married but your mother also passed away.

SP: Is marriage really a high Ronn? That sounds like two downers to me.

RV: Well, I ask this because when major life events occur I pretty much notice that comedians do one of two things. They either shut it off and ignore it and just do comedy as usual. Or, such as Laurie Kilmartin did with the illness and death of her father, they really incorporate it into their performances and find comedy through tragedy as a way to cope and entertain. I was wondering how these experiences have affected you as a performer?

SP: Comedically, it doesn't keep me from saying what I want to say. Thank God I had comedy during a time when my mom felt very ill. The only solace is getting on stage and finding the funny in those dark moments and I will never hesitate to talk about the experiences I've had. When your parents get older- it's really hard to see. And then there's my marriage- who knew that I would be married and to a Brazilian. Also so many people are surprised that someone actually married me. I proved everybody wrong. It's been such a juxtaposition, from my mom getting sick and passing and now feeling even more pressure to do well because she was my #1 fan. My special just came out and I shot it when she was alive. She actually opens it up. My mom is the funniest thing about my special and I'm so happy that she will always live on that way and the world gets to see her.

RV: By the way, your special which is available now on ITunes, Amazon, On Demand and more is called Stretch It Out. I've heard you say that so many times in your act but I never understood what it actually means?

SP:  "Stretch It Out" is a tag line that I've used for years. It means nothing. A lot of the gays have been asking for years. There's been so many times when a group will come up to me at a show and say, "Shawn, We all discussed it at dinner and we think it means that or this." It really means nothing. It's my own rim shot. It's just one more moment to kind of stretch out that joke I guess.

RV: And, you will be "stretching it out" at Punch Line San Francisco October 18th, 19th and 20th. Are you excited?

SP: Oh yeah, I love the political correctness in SF and that I will be the one to deface it.

RV: Since I've know you for years, I want to make sure that I didn't accidentally gloss over anything.. So, before I let you go, is there anything else you would like our readers to know?

SP: Yea, that I'm much skinnier now Ronn.

Shawn Pelofsky At Punch Line San Francisco on Oct 18, 19, 20. One show Thursday. 2 Shows on Friday and Saturday. Tickets are $18.50 - $24.00 in advance.

[strengthenedbyyahweh]

From Valedictorian of his class to Homeless teen to Business Entrepreneur

"How did I end up here?" a newly homeless Ramond asked himself as he looked around Southern California.  Just a few months prior, he had graduated at the top of his class.

As Ramond and his girlfriend packed up their things in Tennessee, they set their hopes and dreams on a new life in Southern California.  But when they reached their desired destination, daily life was far from the expectations they had. They spent one day in a hotel, the next were spent in shelters, some nights back in hotels- this was the cycle for 3 months. They had no money, no jobs and no idea what to do.

This is just a brief and heartbreaking snapshot of 17-year-old Ramond's life; to understand how he got here, we have to go back a bit and get a better picture.

Ramond was raised in Memphis, Tennessee with his sister in a single-parent home. They lived in an impoverished area where he tells me, "I witnessed drug deals every day, I could've easily gotten sucked into that lifestyle." But he didn't. He recalls, "I loved academics and this helped raise me above the situations (of my life)." Growing up he faced a lot of rejection from peers who bullied him for being overweight. "I got a certain amount of respect for being smart but I didn't feel accepted at all," he tells me. He also felt abandoned by his father who wasn't there for him. His dad's abandonment and his treatment at school fueled a lot of self-hatred and insecurity. This left him in a place of desperation, wanting to be in a relationship so he could he could feel loved and valued.

Life just so happened to bring him this opportunity at the age of 16. He was involved at a local church and there he found a girl who was interested in him. She also had her own issues, but Raymond says, “she looked at me for who I was," and that was enough for wounded Ramond. They had big plans to graduate, sell everything, and move to California. This culminates to where we find Ramond asking himself "how did I get here?", homeless in Southern California.

The rejection and bitterness grew to new depths in the midst of their homelessness and unhealthy relationship.  He was "trying to figure it out" as he was doing whatever he could to survive, traveling all around Orange County in hopes of something better. He spent his 18th birthday on the street, homeless.

One day, as he realized he'd had enough, he said, "Okay, God, I need you." He had given up a full scholarship to a college in his home town. He felt so much shame... "how could the number one guy in the class end up homeless?" he thought to himself. In the running and in the midst of sin, Ramond recalls that he was so marveled by seeing God's hand uniquely in every situation.

In search of better opportunities they departed on a Greyhound bus and traveled to Ohio, where things started to change for them. When they moved, they started off homeless but a woman had compassion on them and took them in for a few days after a brief, chance meeting at a McDonalds. She connected them to Salvation Army and they were able to live in a transitional shelter for a time and then eventually move into an apartment. During this time they began to realize that their relationship was growing more toxic and both moved back to Memphis at different times.

For Ramond, returning home was painful as it was a time of despair and regret at the decisions made over the past few years. He found a mentor at church who spoke truth into his life and helped both see aspects of their relationship that were toxic to them. The revelation of truth ultimately ended the relationship, leaving Ramond feeling as though he didn't know who he was or what he wanted in life. He stated, "I believed I had thrown away everything about me that made me successful." He felt as though "he could never bounce back" from the horrible decisions he had made.

Ramond began working little jobs from Mcdonalds to Dollar General. He worked hard at dead-end jobs for a while and felt this was all he was “good enough” for. Ramond's now God-mother entered the scene at this low point in his life. She began speaking life and truth into him and inspired him that he could do more and that there was much more for him. He began to really believe that he could do greater things and told her about his desire to return to college. She responded with enthusiasm and helped him with the application process in the summer of 2006. He got accepted to Oral Roberts University (ORU) in Tulsa, Ok in the Fall of 2006. He left Memphis with a bag of clothes and $200 to his name, not knowing a single person or family member in Tulsa.

He actually chose to go to ORU because his God-mom had encouraged him to go there. He remarked, "ORU is where God began to completely transform me." His dorm room became his home, a place he could finally call his own, a place to reset from the chaos of the past 3 years. God started to reveal to Ramond his deeper issues of rejection and abandonment that he had previously been blind to. He began to learn his identity in Christ and the transforming power of God to forgive himself and his dad. Men entered his life as mentors and they showed him what it meant to be a man of God.

Following graduation, he utilized his design and marketing degree to enter the field, but found that he was searching for something more. That something more was connecting with people. Ramond realized he wanted “to help empower people not just as a person, but as a career." He realized that he wanted to create something to allow him to connect with and empower minority entrepreneurs. In 2013, Ramond launched a Dreamstart Entrepreneur Conference and when the main speaker unexpectedly cancelled, Ramond  ended up speaking at the conference. He recalls, "It changed my life forever." He realized his love for teaching and public speaking that day. He thinks of himself now as "a dream champion" as his passion is to empower people to rise above, especially for under-served individuals, as he knows what it is like to be in poverty.  For his contributions to the Tulsa community, he was awarded an Urban League award.  Ramond now trains, develops, and speaks to under-served men and women to empower and equip them in their chosen career fields.  You can find out more on his website at http://mydreamstart.com/

[kacydeneen]

Former President George H.W. Bush Dies at 94

George Herbert Walker Bush, who as the 41st president guided the United States out of the Cold War and led an international coalition into the Gulf War, has died. He was 94. 

In a statement from former President George W. Bush reads: "Jeb, Neil, Marvin, Doro, and I are saddened to announce that after 94 remarkable years, our dear Dad has died. George H. W. Bush was a man of the highest character and the best dad a son or daughter could ask for. The entire Bush family is deeply grateful for 41’s life and love, for the compassion of those who have cared and prayed for Dad, and for the condolences of our friends and fellow citizens."

Former First Lady Barbara Bush Dies at 92

Bush was a World War II naval pilot who survived being shot down over the Pacific, led the CIA and spent eight years as vice president before taking the Oval Office. He was the father of the 43rd president, George W. Bush.

His wife of 73 years, Barbara Bush, who used her time as first lady to advocate for literacy, died on April 17. 

Laughter, Tears As Barbara Bush Remembered

George H.W. Bush became the first former U.S. president to turn 94 on June 12. The nation's 41st president was receiving calls and taking it easy at his seaside home in Maine eight days after being released from a hospital where he was treated for low blood pressure, said Chief of Staff Jean Becker.

Bush's office shared a letter from the president in which he said, "My heart is full on the first day of my 95th year."

Live: Viewing of Former First Lady Barbara Bush

"As many of you know, for years I have said the three most important things in life are faith, family and friends. My faith has never been stronger," the former president wrote in the letter.

Several of his children were in town, including former President George W. Bush, who posted a smiling photo of the two of them on Instagram.

"I'm a lucky man to be named for George Bush and to be with `41' on his 94th birthday," wrote Bush, the nation's 43rd president.

Another son, Neil Bush, called on people in a newspaper opinion piece to volunteer and "to become a point of light."

Bush, a Republican who served as President Ronald Reagan's vice president for two terms, was elected to the country's highest office in 1988. He beat Democrat Michael Dukakis in an electoral landslide and with 54 percent of the popular vote.

In his inaugural presidential address, Bush spoke of "a thousand points of light" across the country, community organizations that were doing good and with which he promised to work. He pledged in "a moment rich with promise" to use American strength as "a force for good." 

A member of a longtime politically influential American family, Bush led the United States during a time of intense international change, including the fall of Communism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and turmoil in the Middle East. His public approval rating soared to 89 percent after he presided over a U.S.-led coalition of 32 countries that drove Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army from Kuwait in 1991. After signing a strategic arms reduction agreement to reduce nuclear weapons with the Soviet Union's Mikhail Gorbachev, Bush accomplished a second agreement in early January 1993 with Russian President Boris Yeltsin after the USSR collapsed. 

"Even as president, with the most fascinating possible vantage point, there were times when I was so busy managing progress and helping to lead change that I didn't always show the joy that was in my heart," Bush said in his final State of the Union address. "But the biggest thing that has happened in the world in my life, in our lives, is this: By the grace of God, America won the Cold War." 

Despite his strength in foreign policy, Bush was ultimately limited to a single term as president over a sputtering U.S. economy. The unemployment rate, at 5.3 percent during his first year in office, rose to 7.4 percent in 1992. Confronted with rising deficits, Bush famously signed a bill that raised taxes despite the Republican's earlier campaign vow: "Read my lips: no new taxes." His public approval, once sky high, plummeted in his final year in office to below 50 percent. 

While he lost re-election to Bill Clinton in 1992, his work laid a foundation for his son George W. Bush to win the White House in 2000.

"Two presidents in one family, that's pretty good," George H.W. Bush told his granddaughter Jenna Bush Hager for a "Today" interview on his 88th birthday. 

Another son, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, lost a bid for the Republican nomination in 2016 to Trump. Bush even saw his grandson, George P. Bush, enter politics. The Fort Worth resident won the position of Texas land commissioner in March 2014. 

Bush was born June 12, 1924, in Milton, Massachusetts, the youngest of five children. He was raised in Connecticut by his mother Dorothy Walker Bush, and his father, Prescott Bush, who served as a U.S. senator. 

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Bush enlisted in the military on his 18th birthday and became the Navy's youngest pilot at the time. He flew 58 combat missions in World War II before being shot down by the Japanese in 1944. Bush was rescued by a submarine and awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery in action. 

Back home, Bush married Barbara Pierce on Jan. 6, 1945, and the couple went on to have six children; George, Pauline (who was known as Robin and who died as a child of leukemia), John (known as Jeb), Neil, Marvin and Dorothy. 

Bush was accepted to Yale University before enlistment, and once stateside, enrolled in an accelerated program that allowed him to graduate in two and a half years instead of four. While at Yale, the left-handed first baseman played in the first College World Series. 

In 1948, Bush graduated from the university with a bachelor of arts degree in economics. He moved the family to west Texas and achieved success in the oil industry, but like his father, he was drawn to politics. 

After an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate in 1964, Bush won a House seat in 1966 representing Houston. He was re-elected in 1968 but gave up his seat two years later to run for the Senate again, and lost to Democrat Lloyd Bentsen.

Bush was appointed to a string of government positions in the 1970s, including: United Nations ambassador, Republican National Committee chairman, envoy to China, and CIA director. At the CIA he was credited with boosting morale. 

In 1980, Bush made a run for the White House, but the Republican Party nominated Reagan, who selected Bush as his running mate. The match was a good one. The pair went to Washington in 1981 and won a landslide re-election victory four years later.

As vice-president, Bush traveled the world, pushing his anti-drug programs and became the first vice president to stand in as president while Reagan underwent surgery in 1985. Bush spent most of the eight hours on the tennis court. 

Then, after eight years of loyalty, Bush tried again for the Oval Office. 

Bush chose Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle as his running mate. At the Republican National Convention in New Orleans, Bush made the "no new taxes" pledge that would spark a backlash among some Republicans when he later reversed course.

In 1988, Bush defeated Michael Dukakis and his running mate, Texas nemesis Lloyd Bentsen. He was sworn in as president on Jan. 20, 1989. 

Bush’s high popularity in the wake of a decision to send American troops into Panama to bring General Manuel Noriega to face drug charges in the U.S, and later the Persian Gulf War, would prove ephemeral. 

Bush described his defeat in his re-election bid as having given him a "terrible feeling, awful feeling."

"I really wanted to win and worked hard. And later on people said, 'well he didn’t really care', which is crazy," he told his granddaughter Jenna Bush Hager on "Today." "I worked my heart out and it was terrible to adjust. Well then you figure life goes on." 

After leaving office, Bush returned to private life by splitting his time between Kennebunkport, Maine, and Houston. It was not uncommon to see Bush 41 at a Houston Astros baseball game.

In 2005, he teamed up with his former rival, Bill Clinton, to raise money for relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina and the Asian tsunami.

His son George W. Bush published "41: A Portrait of My Father," in 2014, a wide-ranging and intimate biography of his father. In an interview on "Today" with his son and his granddaughter Bush Hager, the elder Bush talked about the intersection of family memories and key political events in their lives. 

Asked about his presidential legacy, Bush said that he'd banned use of "the legacy word." 

"I think history will get it right, and point out the things I did wrong, and perhaps some of the things we did right," he said. 

In recent years, Bush was hospitalized because of various ailments. He broke a bone in his neck when he fell in his home in Kennebunkport, Maine, and suffered from shortness of breath and a bronchitis-related cough and other issues in Houston.

Bush also made headlines in recent years for skydiving on at least three of his birthdays, according to The Associated Press, the last on his 90th, when he made a tandem parachute jump in Kennebunkport, Maine. In the summer of 2016, Bush led a group of 40 wounded warriors on a fishing trip at the helm of his speedboat, three days after his 92nd birthday celebration.

And he made headlines in July 2013 when he shaved his head in support of a little boy — the son of a member of his Secret Service detail — battling leukemia. Later that summer, he was honored at a White House event celebrating volunteerism. 

Bush put his presidential library at Texas A&M University in College Station and his name now is on the CIA headquarters, Houston's largest airport and a North Texas tollroad.

There is also an aircraft carrier that bears his name. In 2009, Bush 41 and Bush 43 attended the commissioning of the USS George H.W. Bush, the 10th and last Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the U.S. Navy. 

Bush had the distinction of being one of only three U.S. presidents to receive an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II. He was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, by President Barack Obama in 2011. 

Bush is survived by his five children, 14 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

He told Bush Hager that he was happiest while spending time with his family at sea. 

"Aging is all right," he said in June 2012. "It's better than the alternative, which is not being here."

Bush is survived by his five children and their spouses, 17 grandchildren, eight great grandchildren, and two siblings. He was preceded in death by his wife of 73 years, Barbara; his second child Pauline Robinson “Robin” Bush; and his brothers Prescott and William or “Bucky” Bush.

No word yet on funeral arrangements.

Photo Credit: AP, File Former President George H.W. Bush Dies at 94 published first on Miami News

[loislaneinvestigatesauthors]

Rising to a higher plane: Bill Copeland’s Cosmic Swan

You draw upon a wide variety of themes and inspirations here: allusions to international forms of spiritual practice, geology, ecology, political and international relations, biology, etc. How did you develop the concept for this story?  ==> The Cosmic Swan story evolved over many years.   Growing up on the edge of desert, the usually clear sky over our part of southern California became a prominent part of my daily experience.  For much of each year clear skies and warm evenings invited us to enjoy being outside.  When I was a kid,  I started noticing how the sun position changed throughout the year, the moon went around the sky once a month. Most stars marched around the sky locked together as if printed on moving sheet.  Some bright stars were not fixed on the sheet but moved along the background stars.  What made them do that?   

A real mind blower for a kid was the huge vision of a comet that appeared about 1955 in the evening sky.  It spread from the horizon to the top of the sky with a tail that pointed away from the setting sun.  As it moved away I wondered where it was going.  Nobody I knew could or would try to explain all that movement in the sky.  So I went to the library and got some books on astronomy.  

I found the moon goes around the earth and the earth goes around the sun, and the stars that moved against the background sheet of the sky were actually hosting other planets like the earth. When I looked at the sun as it was going down I came to see the big orange ball was the center of most of the movement in the sky.  I pretended I was very big so I could reach out and grasp those planets and watch them from different places.  I loved the experience of seeing and moving in the three dimensions.  Finally putting the moon, earth, planets, comets, fixed stars together in one connected 3-D picture was, and still is, a thrill. Of course the explanation I got from church and the Bible contradicted a lot of the picture I developed in my head, but early on I realized that the old testament explanation was the best the ancient people could do with their limited scientific heritage.  Rather than becoming cynical, I realized their understanding of the sky served them well enough to manage their farming, hunting, harvesting, traveling, and birthing babies.  I enjoyed the spiritual feeling I got when I sang, so I joined the choir.  What I got from church was the feeling that the sky created a sense of wonder in ancient people.  All those objects in the sky suggested a commanding cosmic consciousness, a spirit beyond us, and the human events on the earth seemed to be related to what goes on in the sky.  I love the feeling that there is a deep spirit which we all share.  No matter how much I have learned about the physics and math of astronomy, I have kept the feeing we are all a part of a spirit. Hiking around the county I explored hiking trails, rabbit trails, even very narrow little bug trails that snuck through the grass and roots of the chaparral.  In our dry climate I discovered how the fragrant chaparral, grasses, and animals coped with the long dry seasons and the occasional wild fire.  The rock forms showed me clearly the layers over time of sand, cobblestones, and deeper layers of sea shells, and hard rock.  An older boy across the street studied geology and had a great collection of rocks.  He was quite ill for years but finally was well enough to go on hikes. With the help of his geology books, we tried to understand what the hills, cliffs, and stream beds showed us about how different eras created different layers in the earth. When I went to San Diego State College, I started out with a major in astronomy and took geology and a lot of history.   I was particularly fascinated with ancient history, 18th century England, the American Revolution, and the process of creating the US Constitution.  As a science major I took a full load of math, physics, biology, and of course astronomy.  When I finished my first year, I sought out the lead professor in astronomy for advice.  I caught him in the observatory working on a government project to photograph certain stars to discover their movement, and what they are made of.  I didn’t get the advice I expected.  He said, if I really wanted to study astronomy, I should take math.  Astronomy and physics are mostly math, he advised.  What they could teach at SDSC was descriptive astronomy, not astrophysics.  So I changed my major to math and still keep up with the physics.   At the suggestion of my uncle, went to SDSC before me, I took computer programming classes on the computer he helped to set up.  When I graduated with a BA, I had three different big computer companies offering me a job.  So I went to work at Univac.  After a year I was offered a job at the Univac site in Houston at the Manned Spacecraft Center.  We worked on the Apollo communications system.  While there I helped fix bugs in the software, but also saw early pictures of the Moon and Earth from the spacecraft.  One series in particular of the earth rising over the limb of the moon sort of blew my mind.  The earth looked like a marbled blue and white egg.  What kind of bird would hatch out of that egg, I wondered.   I came back to California and settled in Silicon Valley.  I worked for various computer companies while working on an MS cybernetics degree program at San Jose State College.  For my masters project I recruited three other student in my class to work on the four-part design for an interstellar ark that could fly to the nearest star system.  I worked on the spaceship design.  For the rocket ship motor, I selected the interstellar ramjet.  It inhales the sparse hydrogen from space, compresses it and uses it for fuel.  A woman student worked on the social organization and genetic diversity issue since travel for many generations would be required.  She described the required for a minimum of 10,000 people, so genetic drift would not result in freaks, monsters, and other undesirable companions.  A student of government wrote the section on how to govern the people on the ship.  The final section described the infrastructure, living space, animals, food production and other accommodations. While working over the years I also traveled.  I traveled with two guys to England and Scotland, where I explored where my family came from.  I traveled to Spain to study guitar and took a side trip to Morocco.  Silicon Valley was pretty intense at times so I looked into a Zen Buddhism meditation group.  A friend asked me to sit with a group following the teachings of swami Muktananda.  I became more self aware of ways to be calm and explore how to be more creative and productive.  When Muktananda ‘left his body’, I went to his home Ashram in Ganeshpuri to see his shrine and study.  On a recommendation from a swami, I took a trip Muktananda had taken and went to Kashmir.  I wanted to see the area just south of Tibet in India called Little Tibet.  I saw the glaciers, Himalayas, the people, their food, yaks, camels, and so on.  I wanted to go farther, but the Indian Army had hot operations in northern Kashmir.  I spent a lot of time in meditation and learning about the spiritual paths.  I was noticed that Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and other spiritual groups regard Mt. Kailas, which is shaped like a pyramid, as the Crystal Mountain in which the God Shiva resides. I noticed that such spiritual groups attracted a lot of wealth.  I started telling a story of how a guru felt she needed to be closer to God when meditating so she sponsored the development of an orbiting meditation ship with a dome that allowed her to see only the stars.  She was launched and while meditating, the knowledge came to her of a catastrophic threat to earth.  She convinced her devotees to build an ark.   I traveled to India five times.  I visited a dozen ashrams and learned practices in Delhi, Kerala, Srinagar, Udaipur, Ganeshpuri, and Menar.   I was invited twice to weddings of family members.  Kusoom was the name of the first bride.  Asha was the second and her brother, Jagdish is the magistrate of Menar and a good friend.  I visited Pune on company business. Despite the poverty in the tribal areas and inner cities, I found the Indians to be very civilized and ready to take care of each other, no matter what the circumstances.  I followed the conflicts and territorial issues over the years — especially with China and Pakistan.  How did real science play a role in this story? I know some of the story is real and the rest is possible given what we are pretty sure we know at this point about our planet.  ==> Yes.  I merged well-established science with more speculative physics and astronomy.  One key conjecture that I got from Halton Arp and other scientists is the development and structure of our galaxy.  The alternate theory is that the universe did not start with a big bang but is infinite in time a space.  Dr. Arp is a famous astronomer who published many papers describing what he saw and recorded through the biggest Mt. Wilson and Palomar telescope.  Mt. Palomar and Mt. Wilson are in southern California.  I visited both and truly felt like I was in a temple to heaven in each.  

I visited Mt. Hamilton many times over the years while I worked in Silicon Valley.  Dr. Arp did an extensive study of unusual galaxies, their quasars, stars, their black holes.  He helped discover that virtually every galaxy has a black hole at its core and ejects jets of plasma and clumps of extremely dense matter. This led me to consider that black holes are the engines of cosmic evolution, sweeping in matter and energy, concentrating it in the core, and feeding the black hole until it spits out protogalaxies into space.  The protogalaxies serve as the core of new galaxies as they fly into space. So I imagined a creature, a Cosmic Swan, that lives for billions of years and flies and explores around the galaxy.  They lay their eggs on planets in the comfort zones around stars.  The eggs hatch and carry animals, plants, and comfortable habitats on their backs as required symbionts.  They closely monitor the black hole.  When it is ripe to send out a jet of material that will become the seed black hole of a new galaxy, young cosmic swans fly with the jetted material and live to become residents of the new galaxy.  Of course the interstellar birds can fly faster than light by my physics (which scientists object to) and I have a good rationalization (conjecture) about how they can do that. I love to imagine what can live in the atmospheres other gas giants like Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune.  There is no end to where imagination can go in our infinite space. Of course Star Trek is one of my favorite TV programs. How did you decide to set the story in part in Tibet?  ==> Mt. Kailas is in Tibet close to the border of India.  It plays a central role in many Eastern religions.  I didn’t make it to Mt. Kailas, but I got close. I took a bus from Srinagar into the Himalayas north toward a region call little Tibet.  Because of Indian Army activity had to stop at a high pass near Sonamarg but took a walk out on the nearby glacier.  The landscape is spectacular. Are you a fan of sci fi and fantasy in general? Who are some of your favorite authors?  ==> Yes.  Of course.  I have watched most of the Star Trek movies and TV programs.  Here are a few favorite Sci-Fi authors I have read:  Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Gene Roddenberry, Frank Herbert, Asimov, Orson Scott Card, Tolkien, LucasFilm, Heinlein, Sir Arthur C. Clarke. Do you think that our world could come together to solve a planetary challenge? 

The world could come together only if the source of information on the planetary challenge came from a credible source, and the defense group set up to save us was lead by an internationally respected scientist diplomat who is also an excellent speaker, and inspiring leader.  I believe world organizations such as United Nations, major religions, and economic blocks would have to sign on.   Years ago I participated in an online forum about astronomy.  The topic came up about the threats from asteroids, comets, and other events like a plasma burst from the sun or even a nearby star.  I was surprised that virtually all the people on the forum thought the chances were so close to zero that it wasn’t worth troubling ourselves about.  I asked how much do we actually know about the risks. I was very certain that such threats were serious risks over time — centuries.  We have to plan way ahead to handle world risks.  I asked them to do trade-off analysis.  How much do we value a city, a whole nation, the whole earth?  Most came to agree that we should at least monitor the near earth objects closely.  We do that now, and have a few scientific studies on what a planetary defense project would cost in terms of money, manpower, and research.   But as I mention in Cosmic Swan, there are many different world views, cultural and religious beliefs about God’s will, heaven and hell, and who is worthy to survive.  An announcement from the United Nations of a credible threat from a large asteroid, for example, would initially create chaos and anarchy, but I believe if we had enough forewarning, then wisdom would prevail.   What do you think it would take to inspire that level of cooperation?  ==>  I hope a world-class scientist-diplomat would gather enough credibility and supporters to lead us to a humanitarian solution that did the greatest good for the greatest number.  Such people are rare.  They would find themselves the target of suspicion, misunderstanding, merciless attacks, and disbelief in his or her motivations.  Someone like Gandhi.  I don’t know of anyone today on earth who could or would take that role, but often such people arise to meet the challenge. Such persons would have to be able to understand the science of the threat and be able to articulate the actual facts and risks to general earth population.  He or she must be able to manage a very large project.  They must wisely, kindly, and diplomatically convince the leaders who control critically required resources to work together to design and implement the agreed upon strategy.  

Bill Copeland’s The Cosmic Swan can be ordered here.  =======================