Funk: A Declaration of Independence

when in the course of history it becomes necessary for one person to dissolve the emotional bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of Mother Earth and the Divine Wow!, the separate and individual station to which the Laws of Nature and of The Funk entitle them, a decent respect to the differing opinions of humankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to separation.

i hold these truths to be self-evident, that all of Creation is Good in the eyes of the Funk, and that all of Creation are endowed by the Multi-Versal Jiggy Snake certain unalienable Rights, and that among These are the rights to Freedom, Love, and Funktastic Ecstasy --a Happiness so huge it's like an environmentally friendly, psychedelic mushroom cloud in the center of your brain.

and i, the representative of my Self as the Bootylicious Delena of the Funkywild, in lone congress and assembled on every plane of existence, appealing to the Supreme Funk of the Multiverse for the kick-assness of my Will and Word, do, in the name of the Funkalicious Jive, and by the authority vested in me by the Inner Demon Wranglers of Babylon, the Pomegranate Priestesses of the Menstrual Temple of the Funky Grail, and the weird guy next door, declare:

i am Passion.

i have always been Passion. i shall always be Passion.

i am as i have been, as i am, as i always shall be. so the fuck mote it be.

further. . .

i declare an abdication of the feeling of responsibility and obligation to those who have heretofore felt it necessary to lecture, warn, wheedle, guilt-trip, beg, convince, or otherwise influence me as to the perceived negative effects of my Passion. i recognize their concern and give them joyful thanks in all the orgiastically ecstatic enthusiasm of which i am fully capable.

however, i still declare no further obligation to listen or otherwise pay attention to their fear and lack of understanding. i am Passion and these things are my essence. nocturnal mistress and spirit lover, my mouth of wine and woodsmoke taste.

on my lips sparkle tumescent intentions,
upon the tip of my tongue is the beast
inside of you,
goddess of the violet twilight.

i can leap from the dizzying heights, and where others gasp and stare at their own mortality...i only laugh. and however merciless is my fall, have i ever failed to land on my own two feet?

i declare a resounding "FUCK YOU!" is in order for every single time i've heard someone wish i would be more careful, for every single time i've heard it said my passion scares someone. because, for every single time i've heard thus, i've also heard the wish that someone else's life were as colorful as mine. i've also heard the yearning for half as much guts and gumption as i possess, and yet i've seen no willingness to get up and possess that passion. they watch on the sidelines. . .

. . . and yet i am called the fool.

i declare myself sick and tired of it! i declare my ears henceforth deaf to the dispassionate and fearful! i declare myself blind to the disapproval and misunderstanding --though well-intentioned-- caution! i declare i have had ENOUGH!!!

i declare that i dare someone to stand up and match me, passion for passion.

i declare myself Passion, gods damn it all. i declare myself free to walk around naked in my own home should i so choose. i declare my right to thunderous, neighbor-waking sex, and ice cream whenever i want it. i declare uninhibited access to prudent recklessness and unrestrained providence. i demand total immersion in trust, and affectionate euphemisms which inspire mock performance art in trickster rock stars with soulFunk.

i have spoken, godsdammit.

may the Funk be with you.


[ps. admire my picture. it took me two freaking hours to make it because photoshop was a fucktard. *nod*]

delena's confessional

perhaps there's still a little bit of the catholic school girl in me after all, because i swear every title i could come up with for this entry had the word "confessional" in it. i suppose i have to wonder from whom i'm seeking to receive absolution.

and there's really only one answer for a good little witch like me, because we can forgive others, but it does us no good without forgiving ourselves.

i recently joined a virtual circle called rainbow dreams because mich is an absolute sweetheart and i adore her, i love her blog and there's always something there i can take with me for the rest of the day. like boho mom and me, she has very much rocked into Oneness with her own inner Funk, she just calls it by a different name.

her drummer's got a different beat, too, but it's gorgeous. sometimes i wish i could be as classy, poised, and elegant as she is but, alas, "queenly" is not one of my defining adjectives. i'm more street rat and funky, but that's okay.

anyway, every week mich draws us a card from her absolutely funktastic and vivid inner child tarot cards. i'm totally in love with the art on this deck, i swear.

this week she drew the Two of Wands, the card of inner transformation and the beloved self. "what does your original face look like?" she asks. "who is your true self? are you radiant and glowing?"

now, i could say that all a person needs to do to see delena's original face is to read iGoddess. my true self is plastered everywhere for anyone with internet access to read. and after marinating in the Funk for as long as i have, would i be anything other than radiant and glowing? of course i'm radiant and glowing!

but that would be a cop out. especially after the realizations i had yesterday. y'know, a part of me has always kinda wondered why i do a double take whenever i look in the mirror. it's almost always been that way. i look in the mirror, but i only glance, and i never look into my own eyes at first glance. but the feeling is overwhelming that i've overlooked something, that there's something else there, so i look again.

sometimes there's still trepidation whenever i look, a part of me wondering if i've dreamed the last year and the differences i remember seeing yesterday are going to be suddenly gone. it's fleeting, but sometimes it's there. i like what i see, though, when i look. in fact, i like looking. there's something there, though, and i'm not sure quite what it is. i have an inkling.

as for my true self...

she's quite a fluid concept right now. i'm not what i once was. the delena whom my southern californian family knew growing up is not the same delena whom my friends have grown up knowing for the past fourteen years. and she is not the same delena *mj* and *cc*, *ds* and *ks* and *kas* have come to know and love. and even that delena has grown into a completely different creature, transmogrifying before their very eyes, almost.



so i suppose the best i could say is that my "true" self isn't done and maybe needs to adjust a few more settings on the transmogrifier.

there are a few things that will never change, though, as much as i wish they might. this, i think, is where absolution comes in, because every single bloody day i try my hardest to be something i'm n--

well, that's not entirely accurate. i should've said that i try my hardest not to be something i am. which, i suppose might look like simple semantics but makes a huge difference. and every single day there's a little internal struggle as i fight to be smart and strong and slow and steady. but the fucking truth is that i'm adventurous and reckless and a hopeless romantic. the fucking truth is that once you're in my trust, there's no difference between you and any other member of my family. no more "delena lite," but the whole orgasmically delicious, totally organic delena in her entirety.

this is not always a Good Thing. just ask the people who've known me for ten years or more. and just the other day, *t* texted me and pretty much begged me not to be myself. "i'm trying," i texted back. "omg, you have no idea." i suppose there's a certain irony and fucking hilariousness when you realize that your true self is a detriment to yourself sometimes.

'tis the Year of Secrets, entering the last semester of my last year before graduation from this chapter in the Delena Saga of Funky Wowness. and if memory serves, in both high school and college, the last semester was always the killer. i have a feeling the things i'll be facing pretty soon will be more difficult than i thought.

unless i'm going about this in entirely backwards fashion. is my true self truly a detriment to myself? in the Funk According to Delena, the answer is most assuredly a resounding No. my judgment might have been flawed, but my nature was always above reproach. as it is with all of us.

so how does this fit?

how does my true self fit this without fucking up?

brezsny-on-the-blog

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Welcome to Part Two of your outlook for the second half of 2007. We're checking up on how you're progressing with the long-term tasks you were assigned six months ago. By now you've probably figured out that it's the Year of Secrets. Truths that have long been hidden from you are emerging, and if you keep on probing, the rest will spill out between now and December. Certain feelings you have been concealing from yourself are also bubbling up into your awareness. Fuzzy understandings that have previously hindered your ability to see the big picture are finally coming into focus as well. Don't fear or resist these developments, Capricorn. They will free up a lot of blocked energy.



well, i was kinda getting this vague feeling it might --possibly-- be the Year of Secrets. </understatement> i mean, look how many things i came out about:
-- i'm not bipolar (thank the Psychedelic Funk)
-- i was co-dependent (thanks bio-mom, thanks bio-dad)
-- the Summer of Funky Kali Love was something i both needed and deserved
-- i didn't really love *j*
-- in fact, i'd never really been in love before, at all. not really.
-- i want more children (after seven years of vehement protestation and serious consideration of getting myself spayed)
-- i wanted to be someone's "little girl" just once more
-- the Funk
-- i went outside, met my demons, and invited them in for a cuppa tea
-- then i fed and fed and fed them until they ate themselves to death, kinda like arsenic and old lace...

for the next month i'm not at my regular salon, but another one that's actually a little bit closer to home. and there's a girl there that i get along really well with, so we went to dinner together, then we went swimming, and we watched dances with wolves and i stayed overnight. i don't actually get to hang out with other females that aren't *cc* very often, and between you and me, it actually feels really good to get out and be a girl every great once in a while. i hold myself in such tight control the rest of the time that after a while it gets hard to let loose.

yes, even Delena of the Funkywild is still learning how to let her hair down. the past few years --and especially after my Kali Summer-- i've slowly (and then not so slowly) been petrifying inside.

like the redwood trees in arizona

i know, i know. how, you ask, can Delena of the Divine Wow be so funkalicious and orgasmically ecstatic and heart-petrified at the same time?

well, quite frankly, she can't. and here is yet another tribute to the Year of Secrets, something i've only come to realize in the time i've taken to sit down and write this blog entry. i've been a big, fat hypocrite, and i hate hypocrisy. i've been in love with the world, the universe, the entire damn Multiversal Jiggy Snake and saturated myself in pronoiafunk and crazywhacked, jubalicious phantasmagoria and i'd completely shut off that part of me that loves in the opposite direction.

i skipped a step. from macro- to microcosm, you can't be pronoiac without loving the Whole. and you can't skip a step, otherwise you're not loving the whole. i love myself, my past and present and whatever my future may be. i love my work, my salon, my town, the whole freaking state of oregon, my country, my hemisphere, my world, my galaxy... i love the entire freakin' multi-verse.

but i stopped loving the individual. "i die every day," is a pronoiac mantra i put into practice. every single day, i try to find a small way in which to die to myself so i may live brighter, fuller, more incredibly me. but there's been a part of me dying every single day which i've held onto, and disgusting as it is, dead flesh still attached to the self is called 'necrosis.'

i'd been avoiding love between myself and an individual, keeping it abstract and at arm's length

i've been carrying around a dead part of me for years, ever since i left li'l *c* with his dad. even though i know it was the best thing for him, and the best thing i could've done in the name of motherhood, my heart and soul and the part of me that is "mother" is bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat every single day.

so i turned off that part of me that was "mother." (and after big *c*, quite honestly i also shut off that part of me that was "lover.")

and after my own bio-mother looked me in the eyes --drunk, freshly filed for divorce-- on the night before my handfasting, and told me to my face her divorce was my fault, that i was never and will never be fit to be a mother, and it's good that li'l *c* is not with me...i've hated her ever since.

i thought i let go of that hatred, but yesterday over dinner with my friend from work, she happened to ask me about it and it all came spilling out. i'd just buried it so deeply even i couldn't feel it anymore, and it had festered and rotted and now i can't help but feel it eating away at me like some bubbling, supperating flesh-eating virus. i hate her.

i hate her because she should have left our bio-dad and saved us from his terrible reign, but she was too cowardly. she hid behind her god and her catholic dogma and played the good, mexican wife who takes all and is silent. she threw us to the lion so he wouldn't yell at and hit her as much. she hated and resented us because she never wanted to be a mother, and she regretted having us. she told me this.

and she did all of this in the name of "motherhood" and then would dare to tell me i'm unfit to be a mother. i left my baby son --my own flesh, the heart of my heart and joy of my joy-- so i wouldn't turn him into the very same thing my bio-father turned me into. i was turning into my bio-father back in those days and i saw it happening. it horrified me. the one promise i made the day i found out i was carrying li'l *c* was that i would never be my bio-father.

never.

so the day i crossed a line was the day i knew i had to leave, for the sake of my son. it killed me. but in the name of "motherhood" i did it, and i don't regret it even still.

motherhood is about silly songs and kisses, macaroni art and the unrestrained pure love of a child, yes. but it's also about pain and sacrifice, about baring your breast to the world and taking all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune so your offspring can step into their own, fresh and pure and secure in themselves. after that, the blood and tears and scars don't mean a damn thing. sometimes motherhood is being a naked human shield, sometimes it's being a vicious she-bear protecting her young. sometimes it's being invisible, sometimes it's being a hero. it's being up to your elbows in the shit and mud and blood of the world, but it pales beside the kisses goodnight, and the hand print in clay painted green for mother's day, and cleaning up the whole gallon of milk that got spilled, and listening to their laughter as you push them on the swings at the park, and, and, and...

my own bio-mother dodged out of the way and let us get hit with things we should never have known existed at that age, and she dares to tell me she's glad my precious boy isn't with me anymore. she has the nerve to judge me.

i hate her so much, and i hate that i hate her. i've forgiven my bio-father, and i've even forgiven *jd*. why can't i forgive my bio-mother? honestly, i don't know. until yesterday, i didn't even realize her words still hurt me as much as they did. i didn't realize i hadn't forgiven her yet for abandoning us as children.

right now, my entire chest hurts --my heart hurts-- just thinking about it. i don't feel any better having gotten all this out here. i don't feel tired, or wrung out, or sad or angry. to be quite honest, i don't know what i feel. maybe what i'm feeling is disappointment in myself, for feeling hatred at all. maybe it'll just take some time before the petrified parts of me begin to break loose.

how un-funktastic of me.

suddenly i'm reminded of something *m* said to me a few nights ago, something i didn't take very well when he said it. in fact, i felt really defensive afterwards but i joked it off. he said he's exactly the chaos i needed in my life. and damn him for it, but i think he's right. greggo's told me plenty of times that he's sure that i was finally ready for someone in my life, and i have to admit he's right.

(damn, all these men in my life being right. what is wrong with this picture???)

but *m*'s taken that petrified part of me and with a simple touch has begun to soften it all, breathing color back into it with that romantic, trickster heart of his. he pushes me almost every damn day out of my comfort zone, but it's fun when he does it.

if i wasn't so damn pronoiac i'd just run with it, but damn me, i can't resist taking a good, hard look at myself every day and doing the work that comes with it. but now i'm just throwing a tantrum, because i really don't mind. it's just really damn hard sometimes.

what's the word?

from the oxford-delena dictionary

wild
adj.

1. living in a state of nature; not tamed or domesticated
2. growing or produced without cultivation or the care of civilization
3. uncivilized or barbarous
4. unrestrained, untrammeled, or unbridled (as in by reason or prudence)
5. (informal) intensely eager or enthusiastic
6. delena


pronoia is all about making the oxymoron an intimate beloved. the art of pronoia is about a lot of things, the basic idea being the universe is conspiring to shower you with blessings. that the universe is wildly and innocently in love with you. that an infinite number of secret helpers are working right now to help you become the phenominal masterpiece you are destined to become.

i work with exhilarating beauty, crazy wisdom, outrageous goodness and generous freedom. my secret allies are benevolent pranksters, lyrical logicians, chivalrous rock stars, macho feminists, lunatic saints and mystical scientists. and we all work with insurrectionary love to overturn the world rightside up so "love one another shall be the whole of the law" shall Be What Is.

sacred janitors, wild humility, joyful solemnity, bohemian revolutionary freedom fighter. it's all oxymoron and a totally crazywhacked, funked-out mindjob.

and it works.

a few weeks ago i resolved to resort to exotic measures to rip me out of a rut. one of the things i promised to do was make a collage of all the neuroses and negativity i've had the un-pleasure to sample over the years and on midsummer have myself a merry little bonfire. and i did. i wrote a list and printed it out, then cut up the phrases and placed them in a box. i then wrapped and decorated that box with big, fat black letters:

***ACHTUNG, BABY!***

DELENA'S

F.L.A.M.I.N.G.

inner

APOCALYPSE!

then i bunched up a whole freaking wad of newspaper --the irony not lost upon me-- and set it on fire in my hands. only when the flames grew dangerous did i drop the entire thing into the fire pit. and on top of that, i cast my Old-Delena-in-a-Box upon the flames and watched it burn, baby, burn.

burn to a fucking char! ashes, ashes, we all fall ecstatically in blinding love!

i let it smoulder.

i let it cool.

then the lid was removed and i let the wind carry the ashes far and away from me.

and actually, it didn't even take that long. as it was burning, the box filled with the old me bubbling and blistering and turning black and illegible, i could feel its last feeble grip on me lose its hold and slip away. there was no thunderous breaking of chains, no sudden burst of freedom. it was like spider silk softly coming apart, like the last trace of fog fading beneath the strength of the morning sun, like the whisper of a door opening as you let someone in.

i breathed deep, and sighed, and smiled. "feel better, hon?" said *mj*.

i laughed to myself. "i do, actually. i do."

this afternoon i finally wrote that Funky Love Letter to those loose ends i promised i was tying up this coming week. i wrote it in wild and euphoric gratitude. i gave heartfelt apologies for soul-ache or heart-sickness i may have imparted, without explanation or expectation. i sent it without ego, but with everlasting thanks and joyful, pronoiac gratitude. i love them more than i love them. their harsh lessons and ostracism was exactly what i needed, exactly when i needed it.

for the first time in my life i truly understand what humility really means. "without ego," as in with no trace of delena pride, and i found a fucking wealth of treasure just waiting to be discovered. through love --ecstatic, wildcrazy, Funky LOVE-- i am freer and truly wild.

unbridled.

irrepressible.

lady godiva on her horse galloping through coventry, her loose hair flowing behind her.

ecstatic.

orgasmic.

aphrodisiacal and pardisiacal.

gorgeously genius.

wealthy anarchist.

lyrical liberationist.

Funkywild, crazywhacked, fiercely tender, ironically sincere, magically Funkalicious Me.

love actually...

Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. Seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls of the people on board were messages of hate or revenge. They were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually. . .

. . . is . . .

. . . all around.
-quote from the movie "love actually"


i just finished watching one of my all-time favorite movies. it's not one i've memorized; i don't know all the lines. i know some, though, and of course i know all my favorite moments. it's the movie love actually, with a whole slew of big names.

but that's not why i like it so much.

it's not huge and jam-packed full of action. it's not life-changing or world-saving. in fact, it's quite ordinary, with quite ordinary people (well, except for the british prime minister...) leading quite ordinary lives. the plots are small and, well, ordinary.

a man lost his wife and helps his son work through his first serious crush.
a mousy-yet-adoringly sweet woman chooses her priorities.
a man, hitting mid-life, faces temptation, slips, but nothing happens at all.
a man and woman, who can't even speak to each other, fall in love rather quietly.
a sweet and starry-eyed young bride realizes someone's loved her from afar.
another young man --young, dumb, and full of cum-- goes to america to get shagged.

i mean, they're nothing. and yet they're everything. it's not about the first crush, or the fact the kid's a bit young to be "in love." it's not about getting laid. it's not even about romance and falling in love. it's about being validated as a person with feelings. it's about choosing what really matters in life. it's about being true to yourself. and it all comes together in the end.

like it always does.

of course, there's also the simple fact that i'm reveling in my ability to watch chick flicks with impunity right now, since when *m* comes back i'm going to be bombarded with guy flicks and action and sci-fi and i'm going to get laughed at for wanting to watch my one vieja movie. ha.

y'know...i've been called a coward for a little quirk of mine, speaking of love and being true to myself. whenever it's something really important, i will refuse to say a word. i know, i know. i talk a lot. i talk all the freakin' time. i even talk when there's no one there. i'm mexican. sue me. we talk all the time, and we talk with our hands. people tell us to stop shouting, and dios mio, we're just talking! que la chingaso, i swear...

but anyway, i do. i'll shut right up and sit down to write. writing is the thing i do best in this life, above all other things. some people have said it's cowardly that i can't say a thing to someone's face, but i say it's the bravest thing i can do to write something so personal and allow someone else to read it. besides, anyone who knows me and has talked to me knows i babble like an absolute cretin, and when i'm nervous or embarrassed --as i get when talking about personal things-- i tend to run off at the mouth and go off on hundreds of tangents and just embarrass myself further.

which makes things worse, of course.

and yet...there's something to be said for my words on paper, or on a blog. right here, right now, you have opened my heart and are reading each and every word imprinted upon it. you are reading down into the deepest part of me.

to me, nothing says "of highest importance" than me writing a letter, or a blog entry, or a note...whatever...and allowing it to be read. when it's too important for spoken words, or too deep a part of my soul for sound, i write.

i write because i don't want to mess it up, these things i need to say. i know i can express it beautifully, eloquently, and lacking my usual graceless and accidental comedy. most of the time, i know, i'm a bit of a punch line and taken none too seriously. i'm the dear fool you keep around and pat on the head and tell to go sit down before i hurt myself.

i know this, too. i've cultivated this because i love to make people laugh, and it never does any good to take one's self too seriously. so, of course, those times i do manage to say something serious, and intelligent, and insightful, someone else's reply is along the lines of, "yes dear, whatever you say."

and yet, if i write it...?

honestly, i know full well if i were to actually open my mouth and say half the things i say here on iGoddess it would sound so hokey, happy, hippie-shit nonsense no one would ever let me operate heavy machinery or drink alcohol ever again. i'd be signed up for Fucktards Anonymous faster than you could say, "well THAT was fucktastic..."

and yet even more honestly, there's so much i hold back from iGoddess that sometimes it makes me sad. my one and only rule is "no censorship." it's been that way since the first incarnation of iGoddess, back when it was "haven" five years ago. a part of me feels that i'm just not ready to share it yet. i would be ready, if. . .

but no. i won't be stupid. i won't. half the time i'm using comedy as a shield and i know it, but that's just so people won't see how deep the feeling really goes. it's my own fault, but i can't seem to stop myself. i make them laugh so they won't, y'know. . .

. . . laugh.

i suppose even wonderiffic, bootylicious, Funktastic and pronoiac Delena of the Divine Wow's still human and feels uncertain sometimes.

milestones

. . . .last time, on iGoddess. . . .

every once in a while i go sifting through my old writing just to see where i was, how my writing's changed, how i've changed, and just to spend a little quality time with nostalgia. my favorite is when i dig through some of my really old stuff and pull out something i don't recognize, read it, say to myself, "holy crap, this is awesome. who wrote this?" then i look at the bottom and see my little sigil, and i go, "oh wow, i wrote this..."

it happens every so often, and i love it.

but this afternoon i was digging around in brezsny-on-the-blog and found this:
your sins are pretty mild, capricorn. still, you have from time to time violated some of your own highest standards; you have on occasion failed to live with impeccable ethical integrity. that's the bad news. the good news is that in 2007 you will have the best chance ever to atone for past mistakes. if done well, your corrective actions will win you a permanent vacation from the hell that those mistakes have sometimes trapped you in.

that was back on 12.26.06.

i had written how there would be no fat fucking chance in hell that i would turn right around and lick the shiny, shiny leather boots of the fucktards of the world. never again would delena be a doormat, no! poor old delena. she had so much anger in her way back then. but Delena of the Divine Wow sees things a little differently, and mr. brezsny wasn't talking so much about bending over backwards or being penitent so much as he was talking about going back and fixing those things that were inherently wrong.

those things that scratched the lenses on my Funk-colored glasses.

he was talking about those patterns i didn't even know were there, the ones that kept me trapped in the quagmire of past soul-injuries. it was time to get my heart out of traction and, if i succeeded, i'd win my happy ass a first-class ticket out of that hell i didn't even know i was in.

at first, i started this blog entry because i wanted to say that it just feels so magically funkalicious to know i'm on the right track, and to know i'm almost done with this particular chapter in the Delena Saga of Funky Wowness...but it just doesn't seem like enough.

instead, i want to point out that so many people who've been reading iGoddess have felt the delirium of passionate pronoiac pyrexia and are letting it seep into their lives only to discover, like the boy at the dike with his finger in the crack, there's no stopping the flood, baby! my darling dizzy-girl has rediscovered herself after too many years suppressing everything wonderful and funktastic about herself. kota-bear's even gone and admitted that this is way too farking contagious and told my sweet, adorable, FREAKING BEAUTIFUL and wonderlicious boho mom to "find her happy, like iGoddess."

and, of course, bohemian mom herself is just the awesomest kindred funky, bohemian spirit i've ever met and i SO wanna be her when i grow up...

just...look how many people the Funk has brought together! look at how it's already touched their lives just because they simply let it in. dizzy called me her "guru" and, while it made me smile and gave me warm fuzzies and i LOVED that she's brought herself so far up, i can't take credit. i simply found and surrendered to my inner Funk. i finally decided i really wanted to change, i was tired of the same old crap, and i wanted to feel the sunlight on my face and really live.

i decided i wanted to be happy. and see how many people happiness has touched already! and what's wonderful is those people go out and touch others every single day. it's only a matter of time before the Funk spreads, grows, explodes in a orgasmically blinding fountain of coruscating FUNK in all directions to the furthest reaches of the multiverse!!!

the Funk will go BOOM!

...and the Jiggy Snake will go, "Wee!"

it'll be the best bang since the Big One, ecstatic and crazywild and ephemeral and every single off-the-wall adjective you can never think of.

and it's all thanks to all of you. look how far you've come! you're gorgeous, and i love you. you're funkalicious and i love you more than i love you. may the FUNK be with you, dammit!

miracles, marvels, and magical remedies

we lost another girl at the salon today. she didn't call, didn't show up for the second day in a row, and poor manager lady's so fed up with crap like this that the poor girl's gone. i have no idea what the circumstances of the new-yet-soon-to-be-gone girl's situation is, and frankly i really don't care.

her being fired makes no difference to my workload.

the miracle is that an older couple asked if there was any job for their seventeen year-old granddaughter at the salon. the manager lady and i both perked up our ears, and she couldn't stop gushing about how we need help while i couldn't jot down our website fast enough.

also, we've not only been severely shorthanded at the salon lately, but some of our most vital equipment died three weeks ago, and we haven't been getting in our new supply orders for the last month or so. we've been having to borrow from other stores, or take inventory off our own floor. it's been a nightmare. and i've been coming in a half-hour early (off the clock) to prep the back because of our broken machinery, which means having to mix every single soap we have by hand, and making sure there's a fresh bottle at each station, in addition to everything else i do to open the salon. frankly, i really have to wonder how we've been pulling off the work we have, since all of us have been running out of orifices from which to pull out miracles.

and yet we do, every single day.

so someone from the pet care dept. discovers, "hey, what are all those boxes up on the steel rafters?" turns out our orders had been coming in, it's just that no one in supply (night shift) actually did what they were supposed to. they're supposed to stack it all in our salon and let us unpack it, but nooooo. instead they just took the forklift and put it up in the rafters and didn't tell anyone, didn't label anything, and let it sit there while we worked our asses off, running around like decapitated poultry with no supplies and less-than-adequate staff.

so the other day, five weeks' worth of supplies were stacked up along the wall. it felt like freakin' yule in there. and somewhere in-between sepuku sunday and yesterday, our equipment was repaired. i can go back to taking my time opening up shop again.

and poor *v*. she had that tears-pressing-behind-the-eyes look she gets when she's stressed out. she's really emotional, and you barely have to scratch the surface to get tons of emotion out of her. but once i learned how she needs to be handled, she's great. but she was leaving for a break and turned back to me. "if i seem a little snappish today, i'm sorry," she said. "i really don't know what's wrong with me, but i think it's pms."

me: "eat chocolate!"
*v*: "i've been eating lots of chocolate, but i think it's just making it worse."
the manager lady: "what about a nap after you get home, or something?"
*v*: "no, i got my daughter. plus, i haven't been sleeping well."
me: "buy a vibrator!"
all of us: *falling in a heap of giggles*
the manager lady: "hey, yeah! y'know, you could get one of those wallet-sized ones. oh, dang, what are they called?"
me: "the bullet!"
the manager lady: "yeah, that's it! go buy a bullet. they're so awesome..."
*v*: *blushing and laughing* "oh, delena, that's the first time i've laughed all day."

hey, welcome to the wonderful world of vibratory magical remedies, baby, yeah! i know when i bought johnny west it was great. cheered me right up, even though at the time my (then) husband and i hadn't seen any action for two years. i suppose he just found his socks far more interesting. but i bought johnny, and WOW! it was great!

endless hours of harrassing the stupid-ass big *c* cheered me right the fuck up. i'd turn it on and stick it in his ear, or poke him in the ass and shriek with laughter as he freaked out, oh, all sorts of things. i'd stand it up right in front of the alarm clock so when it went off in the morning, johnny was the first thing big *c* grabbed.

oh, it was great.

and yeah, leave it to me to know exactly what the manager lady was talking about and call it by name. i've actually been thinking about buying a bullet for a while. it just seems too practical a "just in case" item to have stashed in the purse, y'know? except...i dunno. i never use them for their original intended purpose. i guess i'm just not really that much of a manage au moi kind of girl, and i've never had an... *ahem* ...open-minded playmate who didn't feel threatened by toys. i'd rather wait, and let the anticipation build until "business" has me knocking over my headboard to the Shrine of Sci-Fantasy Goodness and i'm scraping my brains off the ceiling.

but hey, that's just me.

mama always said life is like a big fat blow job

this is so absolutely kickass awesome that i had to share it. you ready?

my life sucks!!!

it sucks! isn't that great?! i mean like phantasmagoric, orgasmic, mind-blowing SUCKAGE!! my life sucks! it absolutely sucks!

i cannot contain my blinding excitement like a cosmic blast of kundalini lightning from the top of my cute and adorable head down to my funky, pink-and-glitter polished toes.

so i'm sitting here having my weekly conversation with mr. brezsny when he suddenly up and tells me, "if you choose to become a practitioner of pronoia, your life will suck. it has to suck."

and i was like WTF?

"let me explain," he said. "as you cultivate the arts of gathering and bestowing the blessings that the universe is always conspiring to send your way, your life will suck in the best senses of the word."

"first, your life will suck in the same way that you use a straw to compel a thick milk shake to disobey gravity and squirt into your mouth. metaphorical translation: you'll work hard to pull toward you the resources you need, perhaps even exerting yourself with a force that goes against the natural flow."

hard work, determination, and an excited sense of anticipation of sweet and creamy rewards are the inspiration i use to draw toward me those things i truly want in life, as stated in my heart's resume: to reside in happy, healthy, and functional surroundings which offer greatest potential for my freedom and well-being with the most room for personal growth. and i suppose i've gone against the natural flow. pop nihilism, as mr. brezsny calls it, is nothing more than the same Dry Cynical Infrastructure of the Evil Trickster Phallocrats which boasts all the geometrical symmetry of a constipated nazi general. HA!

but what do i keep saying? cynicism is NOT insight! sticking feathers up your butt does NOT make you a chicken! love, peace, and beauty, man! be a revolutionary freedom fighter! a macho feminist! a chivalrous rock star! go out and marry yourself, kick your own ass, and float rubber duckies and lotus flowers at the sacred pool of the Menstrual Temple of the Funky Grail! give yourself a good, hard poke in the third eye and go find a sacred cow to tip while singing the hokey pokey naked with native american war paint smeared all over you!

FIND your FUNK, dammit! go against all the laws of the phallocratic nations of humankind and fucking LISTEN to the orgiastic cries of the freakin' cosmos, already! then you'll have all the sweet rewards of your life sucking great big gobs of milkshake into your life like an ice cream party in your mouth.

"your pronoiac life will suck in a second way," he said, "like a powerful vacuum cleaner that inhales dirt from the floor and makes it disappear. you will have a sixth sense about getting rid of messes that are contaminating your clarity."

now, since last year when i told *axe* to go away, i've been cleaning out the shit in my life that's contaminating not only my clarity, but contaminating every part of me like some Hazmat nightmare. but i remember a post that the lovely and splendoriffic boho mom wrote about boogie woogie feng-shui and how once the inertia's going, the momentum just builds until you find yourself in a frenzy of clutter-tossing and feng shui fiesta. but it's so true! once i got started, it only got easier until now i've got the hang of it and it doesn't really feel like work. not only that, but it's like magic.

like remember in mary poppins when she's with the children singing about spoonfuls of sugar and all that, and at one point all they have to do is look or point at the mess and it gets itself gone? yeah, it's like that. contaminants get rid of themselves, the whole world is shinier, customers are more polite, co-workers are more understanding, stupid ex-boyfriends email out of the blue to say i'm still wonderful and they were total jackasses. obstacles that don't move themselves out of my way with a, "begging pardon, miss!" instead happily show me the secret to conquering them. letting go is now as easy as, well, just opening up my hand and letting go. the more chi and magic and sparkly funk i foster, the more i can contain. the more i give, the more i find.

he went on. "here's a third interpretation: once you commit yourself to the art of pronoia, you will most likely develop an unusually dynamic form of receptivity. whether you're a man or woman, you'll be like a macho male with a willful intention to be like a welcoming female. as a result, you'll be regularly sucked into succulent opportunities you would never have come upon if you had let your pop nihilistic conditioning continue to dominate you. your openness to uplifting adventures will make it easier for serendipitous miracles to find you and draw you in."

oh, this one's too freaking easy. i'm the type of person that's middle-of-the-road when it comes to New Ideas vs. Tradition. i love tradition. i'm mexican, after all, and a huge part of me still believes the woman belongs in the kitchen, showing love means walking a half-step behind your man, and a clean and happy home is a reflection of a woman's integrity. y'know, all that mrs. cleaver crap. not that i'm not open to new modes of living, because honestly, my dad rules the kitchen and he is my guru. and it totally rocks! i also believe in equality in all things, communication always, and him taking his turn washing the dang dishes.

but i'm also open and receptive to new things. hell, this blog is all about exploration of the new, the fantastic, and the crazywhacked funkywild world of pronoia in which nothing is as it seems and everything is what it's not.

i find myself sucked into succulent opportunities i never would have found had i allowed my phallocratic propaganda machine programming continue to rule me. i'd never have been open to finding *m*, never have been willing to shed all my armor and just been vulnerable enough to experience the orgasmic wowness that happened when i let him in. already i've shared countless events with him that i've never experienced before, whether alone or with someone else. those are his, and his alone. he's my uplifting adventure and serendipitous miracle that happened simply because i was willing to let it happen.

that's so freaking awesome.

"let's take one more poetic leap of faith as we meditate on the metaphor," mr. brezsny finished up. "as you devote yourself to the art of making yourself available, your life will suck in the way that movements of the mouth and lips and tongue during close encounters with intimate partners stimulate pleasurable feelings."

oh dear Funky Cosmic Jiggy Snake, my life is as awesome as a freaking BLOW JOB!!

c'mon. put down the cynicism and take the feathers out of your butt. dreams are not crocks of shit. our bodies are the crude matter that contains our second-generation star stuff selves in the same way dreams are the crude matter that contain the larger and more ephemeral presence of Hope. so take pronoia with both hands --it's really easy!!!-- and get ready for the universe to shower you with blessings. get ready for sweet and ice creamy parties in your mouth, boogie-woogie feng-shui, serendipitious miracles, and life that sucks like oral sex, baby, yeah!

brezsny-on-the-blog

CAPRICORN (Dec 22-Jan 19): We're almost halfway through 2007. Let's take inventory of how well you're capitalizing on this year's unique opportunities. Are you exorcising the ghosts that have messed with you for so long? Have you been wrapping up all unfinished business and resolving every ambiguous pain-in-the-ass that has sapped your energy? I hope so. By your next birthday, I'm rooting for you to finally graduate from the lessons you've been studying for years. Then you'll be primed and receptive for the fresh teachings that will begin flowing your way in 2008.


bring it.

by the Orgasmic Yayness, bring it on. bring it all on, baby!

the ghosts are long gone, and the ambiguous pains in my ass are either resolved or well on their way to being resolved within the next seven days. the only thing i have left is to take care of a few loose ends, but i have one thing to say about that:

i'm on it! i've been thinking about it for a while and entertaining the idea of emailing a few people who were key characters last year in my Summer of Funky Kali Love, back when certain events colored my life an interesting shade of fuck. back when i was still riddled with guilt and a vastly unealthy amount of self-recrimination, i was debating writing a "letter of ownership" so to speak, taking the blame for everything and creating a literary version of a kiss on the boot.

once upon a time, delena was suuuuch a doormat. egads.

but lately i've been entertaining the idea of a funky love letter. sure, i'll apologize for those things that are my responsibility, but no more than that. i also have a healthy dose of understanding for the simple fact that when an abused dog bites its handler, it's the handler's fault, not the dog's. it's their fault they got bitten when trying to handle me, since they knew where i came from, and expected far too much without the equipment or education they realistically needed to have before trying to "heal" me. but i don't need to tell them that. i just need to personally remember it. if it's not mine, i'm not picking it up.

i'll love them more than i love them. i'll give and expect nothing in return. i'd be happy with them, but i'm just as happy without them. in fact, i shall always keep in mind the simple fact i've found ecstatic and funky happiness the likes of which i've never known...without them. i found my true path, solidified my true beliefs, and have been free to explore the universe as i see it without them telling me where to look, what to believe, how to behave. when we met each other, we were exactly what we needed exactly when we needed it. but now?

they thought they were punishing me when they ostracized me, but it was the greatest and most phantasmagoric blessing they ever could have given me. the lover of irony in me wonders if they would've been so eager to try and hurt me in that fashion if they'd only known the treasure they were leaving in my lap? there are on-ramps and exits everywhere on the great highway of the universe, and their exits were a few miles back, and that's okay. but i got a few loose ends to tie up, and the last words shall be mine.

"i apologize, and i love you more than i love you."

the Funk is mine, mr. brezsny. 2007 was my year. i'm finally graduating from the lessons that have been mine for years. funny as it may seem, only a few weeks before the Summer of Funky Kali Love, i said a prayer to the Funky Wowness (whom i called "goddess" back then) and declared myself ready for the next step. lo, my life falls apart right down to the quick. i was pruned to within a millimeter of my life --literally-- and look at the result. i'm bigger, shinier, funkier, and more beautiful than i've ever been and i know it.

the rest of this year will be used to finish up and close this particular chapter in my life. i'm ready for something funkywild and new. so i say again:

bring it!

"propaganda, my dear. vicious propaganda."

thus were the words of my last misadventures with magpie, but perhaps i should back up and explain.

i was sitting in the exam room at the dr's office waiting for the doctor lady to peer at my finger, poke it a little, and tell me what i already knew. there was a book sitting there next to the obligatory box of kleenex and fake plant in the stereotypical wicker basket, and i already had a book in my hands i was loath to put down (*m* gave it to me, after all) but the title of it caught my eye.

it was something like, "150 little meditations for busy women," something like that.

i got this crazywild streak in me to try a bit of bibliomancy while waiting for the doctor lady. i don't do this very often because my own divination exercises center more around the events in my life, listening to the universe, and mr. brezsny's little tidbits of cappylicious pronoiafunk every week. but i like to think i've fostered a healthy habit of following my bliss, and if the Funk moves me to divine from a text some interesting tidbit that'll rock me into Oneness with the state of iGoddess, then who am i to blow raspberries?

now, for those of you who have actually tried this little technique, i imagine it works differently for everyone. for me, whenever i pick up a book for the purposes of divination, it immediately comes alive in my hands. i'm instantly more alive than i am at any other time, channeling so much energy i can hear myself humming with it. i close my eyes. the pages feel like they're moving, shifting in their binding and pushing one another so that some pages protrude more than others, making it almost too easy for me to find exactly what wants me to find it. the page burns beneath my fingertips, while the other pages grow ice cold the further away i get. it's the ultimate game of "hot and cold."

if i'm using a large book, like the televisionary oracle, once i've opened to the page that wants me, the lines themselves grow hot and cold beneath my fingertips until i'm pointing at the very words i need. when it's a smaller book that fits easily in my hands, i open my eyes and all the extraneous words grow blurry and what i need stands out in sharp relief.

most of the time, however, the practical kitchen witch in me sees no need for things such as this, but every once in a while it can be fun.

so what did the book say? only this:

"...on letting go."

i had to smile. i laughed. i laughed at myself, because at that point i'd been so bombarded with every imaginable version of "delena, let go!" that i finally just had to toss up my hands and say, "all right! all right, already!"

there was some quote from some english guy, something about how sometimes we are so weighed down by what we carry, and the peace that comes when we finally let it go and are suddenly free to enjoy life. something like that, but i couldn't quote it exactly because i didn't write it down.

either way, i get the point.

i'm practical. pragmatic, even. ten years ago, i made it an extreme practice, turned my insomnia into a discipline to push my body to its limits. i would fast for weeks at a time, also to push my body. no matter what it was, i could get the job done better, faster, and more efficiently because i wasn't slave to my body's needs. it was simply practical.

somewhere along the line, i forgot that i was human and built as much for softness, pleasure, and laughter as i was for work and excellence and practicality. "you're not a machine!" *m* said once. yeah, but if i can get it done, why not? as long as it's only me i have to concern myself with, i find it difficult to justify my humanity sometimes, if that makes sense.

not very funkalicious, i know, and not exactly the spirit of a revolutionary freedom fighter. call it my inner apocalypse, the place in me where the phallocrats have planted their little flag and sold beads to the natives. call it my flaming inner narcissist, what jung calls the shadow self which i must defeat with daring ecstasy, kill with kindness, and slaughter with saucy passion.

i called in sick this morning. my finger was so swollen i didn't have much of a grip, and my left arm was slightly weak and trembling from where they gave me the tetanus shot. but mainly, i was still just very tired. my alarm went off, and i lay in bed and seriously debated with myself for ten minutes on whether to get up or stay home.

however, i finally had to be honest with myself and admit calling in, and resting, was really what i wanted to do. practicality aside, pragmatism and blind devotion to an outdated discipline notwithstanding, there was simply no sense in doing something just because i could without thinking of whether or not i should. so i let it go, and called in.

[and post script: it turns out i was looking at the vicious propaganda answer wrongly. it wasn't that freedom, independence, and eros were not mine to have this year. i simply had to let go of the vicious propaganda. turns out i was still searching for the phallocratic smoke and lies and thinking it was real because, wow. before this year was halfway done, lo and behold all three have fallen into my lap.]

tag! i'm it!

it seems i've been tagged by the buddhalicious boho mom to list 8 random facts about myself. i love random...

1. most of the time i get so focused on whatever it is i'm doing that it's almost ridiculously easy to sneak up on me and scare the ever-loving crap out of me.

2. sewing intimidates me to no freaking end, but i wanna learn sooooo badly

3. when i was three years old i had the entire musical "annie" memorized and would perform it upon request.

4. also when i was three, i had a pair of turquoise corduroy pants i hated with the hot, thermonuclear passion of a thousand suns. i took my bio-mom's pair of good sewing shears and demolished them, then blamed it on the dog.

5. when i was sixteen i would sneak out of the house in the middle of the night to go joyriding with tim mcdermott. the bio-dad thought i was having sex, but that would've been gross. i was just a speed demon.

6. i waited until i was seventeen to lose my virginity to tim, and i did it purely because i knew it would piss off my bio-dad to no end.

7. every minute of every day, i'm casting some sort of magic or other, and no one can ever tell.

8. i can fit my entire fist in my mouth. don't ask how i found this out.

now, if you're reading this and are up for the fun...consider yourself TAGGED!!!!!

what's the word?

from the oxford-delena dictionary

dreamer
n.

1. one who dreams
2. a visionary
3. someone guided more by ideals and higher aspirations rather than practical considerations
4. someone delena met today


i spent my day off with a friend of mine from the salon, *v*. she's been "one of the other groomers" or "one of the other girls at the salon," on iGoddess, but today she's earned a name. we've always been friendly, and from the very beginning she reached out and tried to make me her friend. of course i was open to it, and she's absolutely great.

she invited me to her house and we played videogames, ate chinese takeout, and drank energy drinks and watched movies. i brought my xbox 360, MY baby. i bought a new game, an extra controller, and signed up for EB/GameStop's card just because of today.

it was worth every shiny penny.

she let me into her life, and i loved what i saw. she was excited to show me what she'd only shared with her husband, her life of dreams and goals and passions. i met a family of huge dreamers. shel silverstein's lilting words kept singing in my head as i spent my day in her home and her life, as i listened to the glorious trilling of her daughter's small voice, as i joked and laughed with her and her husband. . .

if you are a dreamer, come in. if you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, a hoper, a prayer, a magic-bean-buyer, if you're a pretender, come sit by my fire. for we have some flax-golden tales to spin. come in, come in...

she's certainly a dreamer, a wisher, a hoper, a prayer. and they're not afraid to dream BIG! like, BIG big! she created a scrapbook, a work-in-progress, of all the dreams and wishes she has, all the things she sees for herself and her family. all the wonderful places she wants to see, the health she wants to be in, the "financial freedom" she talks about with diamonds in her eyes and glitter on her tongue.

but she believes.

it was beautiful. and she has faith she can touch and hold and smell and taste and live and sleep those dreams in their waking life. and he believes it, too. they're so perfectly matched in their dreams and aspirations, and in their fearlessness to believe they can dance along the milky way.

"i want a lamborghini!" she said in the car as we were driving me home, and started talking about what color it would be. she couldn't decide between two colors. it was all but already hers, and her husband smiled and said, "you can have both."

i smiled to myself. i want a 1970 VW squareback, navy blue. or that awesome 1970's pea green everyone hates but i love. or a 1967 chevy pickup, canary yellow, because yellow is such a happy color. that's as far as my thoughts of cars has gone, aside from one day regaining my status as a BMW owner, because by the gods how those cars handle...

but compared to *v*'s dreams, mine are so modest, and as we sat on her bed looking at her scrapbook, i realized the components of my dreams are the stuff of her reality.

as is.

she has a loving relationship with a man who values her. they're so good and generous to each other, and yes it takes work, but it's there. being her girlfriend, i'm let in on those confidences women share with each other about their lives, so i know it takes work. but work accomplished in love is not work, it's a gift given freely. and they give, every minute of every day. she has a beautiful little girl full of life and energy and those bright, shiny things that children are made of. she knows where she is, what she wants, and she has a family she helped build herself.

family is my passion. i've yearned for a family my whole life, even going so far as to dream of the picket fence, toys in the yard, family dog in the backseat with the children and little league gear. i tried so hard to foster that with big *c*, but he would have none of it. my bio-parents knew nothing of family. i changed my last name in order to solidify a sense of kinship with people who had built their own family together. i adopted my parents as wholeheartedly as they adopted me. i take my honor as a sister and daughter seriously, and love my family with joy and passionate belief.

as much passion as *v* has for her own dreams. but there was something about her family that made me ache inside, if only just a little, in that little place in my heart that still kinda dreams about that sort of family of my very own. i miss the excited treble cry of, "mommy!" ringing like bells and birdsong in my ears as a grinning bundle of three year-old comes tumbling into my arms. i miss it with an ache i hesitate to go near, because i know if i touch the tip of it i'll feel the entire submerged iceberg. i know it seems backward, but it's the reason i don't call li'l *c* as often as i want to, because that excited shout --"mommy!"-- hurts exactly as much as it heals.

my dreams are very modest. i want freedom, which i have. i want love, which i also have. i want to be surrounded by a family who loves me, supports me, and builds me up --which i have. i want happiness and the Funk, which i have in spades. as of right now, dear Funky Yayness, my life is perfect and only getting better every single day.

you could say i've accomplished my dreams and i hold them and live and breathe and taste and sing them every moment of every day. i thank the universe a dozen times every day, and a dozen every night, for the blessings it showers upon me every moment. it gives me exactly what i need exactly when i need it. so. . . i hope one day i need a family of my own like *v*'s.

it's this little dream i have. . .

sepuku sunday

yes, i know it's monday and i'm posting 'sepuku sunday,' but as it stands, i'm a little behind in my blogging. i've spent the last few days working, and sleeping. literally. i've come home and slept ten, twelve, fourteen hours at a stretch and it's been the most beautiful experience of my life. i finally hit a point where i just couldn't handle trying to run normally (since i was far from normal, and shaddup with the jokes i *know* are coming...) and between messing up at work as badly as i have been lately, and *cc* blowing up at me, i know i've been running on Empty for far too long.

those of you out there who have experienced total physical exhaustion will understand. for those of you pampered individuals who only think you know what it's like, it's beyond your worst nightmares. of course, after my intensive training living in the House of Oppression, i have a great poker face and can appear pretty much unruffled no matter what's going on around me or being done to me. . . unless you know what signs you're looking for.

my bio-mother remains the only person who can take one look at me and Know.

luckily, if it wasn't for the fact the manager lady knows she's worked me to the bone and understands, i'd probably have lost my job over some of the mistakes i've made recently. i've just been so exhausted my mind was pretty much fried. and since *cc* has a very low tolerance for small shit, apparently forgetting i had my laundry basket in the laundry room for a couple days was enough to send her over the edge. oh, and i forgot she was making ghee and put all two pounds of butter in the freezer in a random act of consideration.

stress at home's one thing. stress at work is another. i can handle both. i canNOT handle both together. home is supposed to be haven, damn it all. of course that's when exhaustion, stress, and being emotionally raw hit me all at once at work on saturday, and for a minute i actually just shut down. i hadn't felt such bleak despair in a very long time, but then my pronoiac mind asked, "what is the universe trying to tell you, delena? you're being given exactly what you need exactly when you need it. so why do you need this?"

that's when i realized: i needed something to push me over the edge to finally say, "ya 'ueno. estoy lindo, chingaso!" in other words, I'M FUCKING DONE.

people around me usually get frustrated at my situations long before i begin to feel impatient. i suppose i just have a higher tolerance for shit. you'd have to, living twenty years in the House of Oppression and another three being married to big *c*. i'm sorry, but it's true. i learned a greater sense of inevitability, and vast patience. i also like to be absolutely certain there's shit in a situation to really get worked up over before i respond to it. i'd much rather test it out, and work through my own feelings and perceptions, before making a judgement call now.

however, *cc* plus what a wreck my body's in now? yeah, i suppose that can finally equal Shit. i drew the line and told off one of the floor managers later that saturday. you paged us on the intercom telling us there was a call for the grooming salon holding on line 21. you don't need to drag your fat ass into the back room just to tell me again. shut up, let me do my job, and have a little patience. i will get to the phone as soon as it's safe to do so. oh yeah, the manager lady heard about that one, but all i got was a great, big hug and, "poor delena, she needs a vacation."

i was like, "DUDE! gimme days. i'll take my happy ass to idaho."

i wrote *cc* an email basically telling her i didn't appreciate the egoism, and she needs to fucking talk to me before exploding on me. when she responded, i held my ground. she didn't respond.

and yesterday? HA! oh my fucking god. so i get slammed first thing in the morning with three heavy duty deshedding projects and haul ass getting the first two done in an hour. that's pretty sweet. i'm overbooked already, but i open up one more slot at 11:00 because i knew i could. we have certain money goals we need to hit every month, and last week we were only a hundred dollars shy. so why not?

the third dog of the early-morning trio decided to struggle when i was working with him. he bit one of the other groomers who was helping me try to calm him down. so i go for a muzzle and handle him while someone else tries to put it on. the dog twisted in my grip and clamped down on my finger. i had to pry his jaws open to get my digit back. well, of course i put on bite gloves and jump right back into it, because a biter has to be muzzled at this point. however, when we finish, the girl helping me saw my hand covered in blood and immediately ran for the manager lady.

well shit.

so i spend an hour on the phone with a workman's comp nurse filling out paperwork and being interviewed, and all i can think is, "dammit, i'm an hour behind now." she says i have to go to the hospital. my response?

shiiiiiiiiit.

with no guarantee i'd be back in time to finish my shift, let alone go to the parents' house for dinner (which is my priority, thanksverymuch), i said i'd go in the morning. i had 24 hour clearance anyway. so i'm typing this with my carpally gimpy finger, but apparently it's not too bad. swollen, like any injury would be, and oozing plasma because i accidentally broke the scab this morning washing my hands, but otherwise i'm great. my mom and idaho boy got all hen-peckish and fuss-budgety on me about it (and i found it quite cute *m* being all fussy and threatening to drag me to the dr's in handcuffs kicking and screaming if i try to pull that shit with him around. made me wonder what else i could do to get the handcuffs...), but oi vey! 'tis a flesh wound! i've gotten worse in the kitchen cooking! like when i sliced my knuckle off. yeah, that was fun. reattach the flap of skin, butterfly stitch the fuck out of it, and immoblize it with a tongue depressor and lots of gauze. after cleaning it with rubbing alcohol because that's all we had.

yeah, whoever said the phrase "blinding pain" is a metaphor was lying through their teeth.

but hey, i can barely see the scar now. no harm, no foul. it's JUST a bite! wash it with soap, keep it flushed. that's all they'll do at the medical center anyway, jeez.

so yeah, that was my sunday. dog bite, dog fight (another vicious sonofabitch went for my face half a dozen times), slammed up the ass, and i was behind on all my dogs. but i STILL got out of work on time.

goddamn, i rock...

brezsny-on-the-blog

CAPRICORN (Dec 22-Jan 19): "Women are much more willing to talk about both their delights and disasters than men," says poet and workshop leader Robert Bly. I hope you men refute his assertion in the coming week, because it'll be a favorable time for Capricorns of all genders to spend quality time testifying and singing and wondering about the most vivid experiences from your past. You're liable to attract a variety of blessings if you come to new understandings about your disasters and delights. The best way to do that is to revisit them and revision them with fresh language.


have you ever had a glass of water that was just so clarifying and sensuous that you couldn't help but smile and sigh with quenched satisfaction afterward? that's exactly what this is, mr. brezsny. a clarifying and sensuous glass of cold water on a hot, glorious day.

ahh. . .

funny as it may seem, i decided to wait before writing this week's brezsny-on-the-blog. something told me i'd have fresh material if i approached it well-rested come morning. as it is, i've always had a strong intuition but no confidence, so i rarely listened to it. but the more i used it (and the more i kicked myself for hindsight) the more i realized it, too, is an ability that only grows with practice. now it's pretty unfailingly dead-on when it decides to speak.

this morning, i found a gem.

of course, my head and heart are filled with an extremely vivid experience from my freshly recent past so it's a little difficult to extracate myself from that experience enough to plunge myself into this gem of a morning, but i shall do my best. it's just that the idaho boy, who shall henceforth be forever known here at iGoddess as *m*, has blown my mind and given me a phenominal and earth-shattering experience of a lifetime and i'm still kind of reeling from the impact.

this is a Good Thing, btw.

so anyway, i logged in to my myspace account this morning and found an anonymous email from someone who had no profile picture. the email was titled "i'll be honest," and it was from someone whose name was "someone you know."

now, while i never reply to these emails i receive (because i'd get nothing else done all day), i always open them and read them so i can then share the humourous stupidity of fucktards with *cc*, because hey, sometimes a good chuckle at a fucktard is just entertaining. for the most part, they're always some version of the same:

"hey, i checked out your profile and saw you like pink floyd/anime/whatever. holla back and we'll chat." or,

"i saw your profile and you're absolutely gorgeous. then i saw you like pink floyd/anime/whatever, and that's awesome. i've never met anyone so amazing. plz write me back and get to know each other." or,

"hey, iGoddess. be my goddess, and i'll be your god."

*rolls eyes* i'm not joking. i've received messages like this, and many, many more. i delete them all.

as it stands, the song on my profile used to be "comfortably numb," but after nineteen consecutive emails from guys on myspace, anonymous or otherwise, i've since changed it to morcheeba. not many people have heard of them, they're freaking awesome, and i stopped getting so many come-ons from pink floyd fans. sheesh. can't a girl like pink floyd and not be randy for whatever comes along?

anyway, this letter was different. i opened it, and it had only one line: i can't get over you. how's that for a kick in my ass.

my first thought was *j*, actually, which i immediately dismissed. he'd never be such a coward as to hide behind anonymity, and he'd never use myspace. so it wasn't him. and even then, he'd never admit whether he could get over someone or not. he'd just bottle it up until he imploded, as he's done with so many things over, and over, and over. he never learns. in retrospect, i'm dang lucky i narrowly avoided that disaster. that poor man's got no Funk, but i hope he finds it one day.

so i opened up another window and checked out the profile, even though i knew what i'd find. it was a generic profile hastily built, with only Tom in the friends section, no info, no "about me," no pictures. the age was 29 years old, the location "somewhere, oregon." status single, zodiac sign pisces.

the oregon location was bogus, but someone with lack of imagination enough to hide behind anonymity wouldn't have enough imagination to conceal their age. and as for pisces, i'd only ever been with one pisces. but my brain couldn't wrap itself around the concept of that person emailing me out of the fucking blue after ten years to tell me this. and i'll explain what i mean.

of all the men in my history, there is one who comes second only to my bio-father in his cruelty, abuse, and heartless, egocentric destruction of my fundamental spirit which i've since had to rebuild. that was *jd*, my first love. it's true. until we learn otherwise, we always fall for someone similar to the same-sex parent in our lives. *jd* was my bio-dad, only tall, blonde, and blue-eyed, and the more he destroyed me, the more i felt i had to earn his love.

well, we're all young and stupid at some point.

so anyway, i write back about the pointlessness of emails with statements such as this without knowing who the person is. of course, i get an immediate reply about feeling uncomfortable revealing their identity. "you're still gorgeous as ever, though. you still have that 'look'," they wrote.

now, as much as i love a good intrigue and my romantic heart can't resist mystery, i have no patience for drama. my time's far too valuable, and i'm not going to beg. but this only strengthened my belief it was *jd*, because only he ever used the phrase "gorgeous as ever" with me. but, of course, i wasn't going to presume. someone as self-absorbed as he is couldn't possibly hold a torch for someone who is still too bullheaded not to tell him exactly like it is, exactly as i see it. he could never handle that about me.

last year, i did get an email out of the blue from him apologizing for hurting me all those years ago. i didn't respond, and his wife emailed me, of all people. ironically, she and i became fast friends, and we still email back and forth. she's a total sweetheart, but i also can tell she's someone more suited to his ego. very unlike my tell-it-like-it-is, no-surrender-no-retreat stubborn independence. but after a few emails back and forth with him (since, as i'm always inclined to do, i gave him a second chance), i realized nothing ever changed. he's still the same narcissistic egoist, so close-minded he had to resort to insulting my paganism and name-calling. so immature.

"i'm terrified to tell you. it's risky for me to even be talking to you," said the next email. oh christ on a crutch, enough with the drama and manipulation! i'm not going to beg. besides, i was getting hungry, and i'd already spent ten minutes on this. so i wrote, "*shrug* you'll tell me if and when you want to. until then, i've got lunch to start making, so i'll talk to you later, maybe."

when people try to manipulate you and are seeking for you to beg information out of them, the best thing to do is not care and walk away. see if they don't trip over themselves and their own tongue to tell you what they're dying to tell you anyway. they just want to have the power, to make you beg. don't give them what they want, and you hold all the cards.

yeah, baby.

so i go and make myself some lunch. forty minutes later i return to find i'd actually received an instant reply. like, as in the very same minute. myspace emails have time stamps. at 09:00 i wrote that i was gonna go make lunch. and at 09:00 i received a reply.

it's all about power, and refusing to be manipulated.

sure enough, i was right. it was *jd*. i laughed out loud. so i asked him why. just...why tell me now, after a whole freaking decade, unless something's happened and he just has to ease his own conscience. i mean, i was finally over him completely (i carried around the pain of his abuse for years) when i realized that, talking with him, nothing ever changed. he was as big an ass as ever, and we still broke our skulls butting our heads together. why waste my time giving someone like that validation, carrying around the pain he caused as if he mattered?

so i dumped the baggage, and the Jiggy Snake went, "Wee!"

his reply? "it has been eating me for 10 years. i thought it would go away with time, but it just stays there. i'm sorry if i hurt you in our more recent exhanges. it doesn't matter much, but i had to get it off my chest. i'll probably never be over you."

now, pronoia is a path, a calling, a process neverending. and while i have much Funk and have come far as a revolutionary freedom fighter for truth, beauty, freedom, and love, i'm happy to report that i'm not so advanced a part of me isn't going, "GOOD! stew in it, sucker, just stew!"

but instead, i said i was long and well over him. and then, because i am a practiced pronoiac and am One with my Funk, i told him to get himself together and live well.

and so, let's revise my second greatest destruction with new language. if fear is a bad habit, despair is lazy, and all of creation wants me to succeed, then how does this fit in with the knowledge that the universe is a prodigious miracle created for my amusement and illumination and is always giving me exactly what i need exactly when i need it?

well, back then, i seriously needed a wake-up call. my soul was asleep, and the magic wand that put me under a nineteen years-long sleeping spell was the baseball bat held by my bio-dad. looking at it with a mythic eye, he struck at my legs. where better to paralyze me to keep me from escaping? he'd always wanted to keep me in a cage...

i've since learned that men in love with power have none of their own and tend to be threatened by those with free spirits whose very nature threatens their coveted supremacy. something about others having naturally what they must gain by force and keep with violence. i was wild and irrepressible as a child, and after the Baseball Bat Incident took me nineteen years to learn how to be so again. at fifteen years old, i was still struggling against my sleeping spell, and *jd* would have none of it. and thus, what my bio-father began, *jd* completed.

i forgive them. i mean, i forgave both of them a long time ago. they're just human beings, imperfect and fallible, good souls who just learned to search for and express the right things in the wrong way. i hope one day they both find their Funk. i pray it be so. i wouldn't be a revolutionary freedom fighter if i didn't.

but i misinterpreted what the universe gave me at the time. it was giving me a second chance, a resounding alarm clock intended to wake me up to the tyranny of my bio-dad, but my body-memory recognized it as reinforcement of the original attack.

even still, the universe gives us exactly what we need exactly when we need it. secret helpers are working behind the scenes to assist us into turning into the gorgeous masterpieces we were born to be. an ancient japanese proverb about patience says "if you wait long enough by the river, eventually the bodies of your enemies will float past you."

today, as i sat upon the banks watching sunlight play over the curious ripples and waves of a glorious river sparkling like diamonds, i saw *jd*'s body float right past me. interestingly enough, my first reaction wasn't joy. it wasn't vindication, nor was it satisfaction, or pleasure, or scorn. it was a sort of nothing tinged with sadness. how much it must suck to be him, carrying around all that baggage, being driven by some self-destructive need to tell me after all these years, thereby risking his marriage to a wonderful girl, his life with two children, a job, school... why mess that up? i wonder what the universe is giving him? something he needs exactly when he needs it, most likely, which to me sounds like a swift kick in the ass. after all, that's what he said in his first message, isn't it?

"how's that for a kick in my ass?"

now, having revisited that particular disaster, let's measure that against my most recent delight. 5'9, striking blue eyes, gentle hands and masterful wit, with a sharp intelligence and quick tongue to pose the challenge i've been searching for my whole life. a generous and subtle heart that shares many of my same values, and a sense of humor that only appreciates and encourages my own. he even likes my sanchez nose.

*grin* well, all i can say about *m* is that the universe conspires to shower us with blessings, and is always giving us exactly what we need, exactly when we need it.


[post script: speaking of stupid messages via myspace, i just now received one from some guy named kenny. "may i sex you?" he says. what a 'tard.]

the weekend in review

all i'll really say about this weekend is that it was phenominally, unbelievably wonderful. even sepuku sunday was a pleasure. it didn't even feel like work! and no, that's not because of the elation that kept making me smile for no apparent reason and kept my feet from touching the ground. it was just a good day.

but i'm sitting here basking in the pleasant afterglow of our time together, and i know something inside me is different.

i know the tenured readers here at iGoddess have heard me say "but this time is different!" before, but have you ever noticed i never got very specific? and i didn't say that it was different. i said that I was different. i won't gush. i refuse to. this isn't like big *c*, or *j*, and the last thing i want to be is stupid. by the Divine Funk, i will NOT be stupid! i've played the stupid female way too many times in my life, but not this time.

this isn't like all those other times, where i tried to fit life into the perameters of the Gospel According to the Vicious Propaganda Machine of a Phallocratic Nation. you know, the chapters on Romance, Love, and Happily Ever Afters. for one thing, not once have i been anything other than 100% home-grown, completely organic delena, neither pretentious nor arrogant like i was wont to do in order to test a man's mettle against the strength of my will and cynicism.

i've been completely honest, even risking the potential of a relationship (in my mind) because i want someone to love the genuine me. i mean, i'm pretty fantastic, yeah, but i wanted him to reach that conclusion on his own. i didn't doll up, didn't wear any more makeup than i usually do on regular days (a bit of eyeliner, some gloss when we went out to dinner), didn't put up my hair in anything special or out of the ordinary. 100% pure delena, not from concentrate, with no artificial colors or flavors.

and dinner with my parents was phenominal. it blew my mind how quickly daddy warmed up to the idaho boy. my parents loved him. at one point my dad got me in the kitchen and just nodded. "he'll do," he said.

i glowed.

and at the end, i asked the idaho boy what he thought of my life now that he'd seen pretty much everything. he said, "i think it's groovy." the perfect word. he does that all the time, y'know. says all the right things.

there were a lot of new experiences this weekend, things i never thought were possible, things i never thought could be so easy, and things i didn't think existed. i wasn't afraid to look stupid in front of him, i wasn't afraid to be wrong. i lost a wager (the stakes being a good foot rub) and admitted my loss gracefully. i was human and fallible, and that was totally okay. life didn't revolve around him (completely, anyway), but life is certainly exciting and more vibrant with him in it and i don't think i could very easily go back.

i let him in.

it was so easy.