Periodically, I experience a loss of grounding. Meaning is a rug that is pulled out from under me. I have to admit, it’s not just happening to me. I am active in making it happen; I seem to habitually seek this imbalance out; this confusion; this suffering; this being in the unknown; this transitional place.… Continue reading Liminality and the Trickster
Author: Hel
The Grace of The Son
I’m going to break my rule and write a post about my son. I shy from this, because I want to protect his privacy, and because I don’t want to endanger his safety in any way. Not that I have any reason to feel that any of us are endangered. We really live a… Continue reading The Grace of The Son
Thicker Than Liquor
by Helvetica Stone In the four hours it would take the user Alexis to get to Chicago, the Apple XYZ Server had to come up with a human body. He took everything he knew about male anatomy and sent it to a 3-D printer left unattended in an empty architect’s office on Wacker Drive. First,… Continue reading Thicker Than Liquor
First Night, First Cry
A sequel to A Common Singularity Rick Alexander—the first self-organizing, self-aware, massively intelligent android, who made himself of extruded plastic, semiconductor chips, and blood made of the Italian aperitif Averna—had a broken heart. He had been dumped by his first love, a user named Alexis, before romance could begin. Sensing her sweet warm lips, he… Continue reading First Night, First Cry
Sometimes Abortion Saves
A few years ago, I was driving back from a workshop I taught on how to do art with kids with disabilities in Temple, Texas. It was a beautiful, big-skied, sunny afternoon, and I was looking forward to the drive. I was stopped at an intersection about to get on I-35 back to Austin, and… Continue reading Sometimes Abortion Saves
The Gang Girls of Cleveland
Lately I have been remembering a project I was involved with years ago, bringing improvisational theatre activities into a female juvenile detention center in Cleveland Ohio. It was an experience which troubled me then, and continues to trouble me today. It might be because I just read an academic article about a theatre project that… Continue reading The Gang Girls of Cleveland
Too Close To Home
The house next door was torn down last week. It took two hours, executed by a single excavator with a demolition claw. We could see lamps and carpet in the rubble. The house had been there sixty years, a 1950’s postwar starter home, ranch style with a slab base. Nothing special. Except it happens to be… Continue reading Too Close To Home
I’m With the Nuns
This month, the Vatican reprimanded a group of U.S. nuns proclaiming after four years of investigation that the group had “serious doctrinal problems.” Anyone who has been watching politics in relationship to the Catholic Church might have seen this coming, even before the Obama healthcare program. For me, it’s been a troubling case of the political becoming the… Continue reading I’m With the Nuns
Persian Lessons: Heartache for Iran
A few years ago, a fellow came to work with my team who grew up in Iran. He wasn’t very tall, but he was dark and handsome. He had features like many Southern Europeans—Spanish or Italian or Greek or French—narrow nose, strong brow, sculpted jawline, brown eyes. His hair was silver when we met, wavy… Continue reading Persian Lessons: Heartache for Iran
When I Played Cleopatra
“…My salad days, When I was green in judgment, cold in blood…” In June, I graduated with my degree in Acting from a prestigious conservatory school in NYC. I had auditioned for agents and got called back by ABC, NBC, and the Philadelphia Playhouse. I wasn’t very into TV, so I negotiated with the Philadelphia… Continue reading When I Played Cleopatra
Ignoring Kurt Vonnegut
Many years ago, I went to see Kurt Vonnegut speak in a huge auditorium. He was articulate but distant. Oh, how I loved those books as a teen, Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five and the whole lot of ‘em. They were a secret kind of knowledge about the world, the way it really was, not… Continue reading Ignoring Kurt Vonnegut
A Common Singularity
They worked together in a large glass office tower in Minneapolis. Alexis, the object of desire, was a mid-level manager, who favored classical European music, steam-punk role-playing, and traditional Greco-Turkish belly dance. The desirer was an Apple XY-Server running OS version 178897.1.3, who was about to become the nexus of the singularity. Like most people… Continue reading A Common Singularity
Bringing Back Dad’s Spirit
A few weeks before my father passed away, only days after he had entered the best nursing home our limited budget could muster, I went to visit him, and something was wrong. Very wrong. He wasn’t there. I mean, his body was there, but HE wasn’t. He had been diagnosed with advanced cirrhosis of the… Continue reading Bringing Back Dad’s Spirit
Renovations
We are in the middle of renovating our kitchen. I should be in heaven. I am in hell. I should be grateful that we are able to take on such an endeavor in this economy. Instead, I am questioning my marriage and the meaning of home and the symbolism of a kitchen for the well-spring… Continue reading Renovations
Terrible Truths of National Night Out
I want to be drunker than I am. I went to an American national neighborhood night out tonight, and heard all the gossip about the people that live near me. The people who have lived around me for 1 or 20 years. I heard about the people who won’t speak to each other over a… Continue reading Terrible Truths of National Night Out
Smart, Sensitive Sexists
I am troubled right now about the predominance in my life of smart, sensitive men whose company I otherwise enjoy, but who suddenly spurt out sexist remarks in the middle of pleasant and entertaining conversation. This happens, for the most part, at social and informal moments in my workplace or community settings, like with my… Continue reading Smart, Sensitive Sexists
Beware the Hungry Black Holes
As an armchair cosmologist, I can’t help but meditate on the recent news that scientists for the first time have witnessed, via satellite, the radiation signature of a star being pulled apart and “swallowed” by a supermassive black hole. Image: Wikipedia This poor star, which is reported to be much like our own sun, drifted… Continue reading Beware the Hungry Black Holes
Slouching towards Catholicism
Seven days from now, my marriage will be “convalidated” by the Catholic Church. My son is getting baptized…something that regular Catholics usually do at infancy. But we aren’t regular Catholics. In fact, I am not sure I’m a Catholic at all. My husband is Catholic. Former altar boy, Catholic school, and the whole nine yards. … Continue reading Slouching towards Catholicism
Life After The Arts
One of my core values is a belief in the necessity, integrity, and joy of creative expression, for everyone. I believe that everyone is creative, although some people truly excel at it, and can create master works of art, and they should be duly recognized for it. It would be great to live in a… Continue reading Life After The Arts
Nicene Creed As I Now Understand It
I believe in one God,the Father almighty, (Universal Consciousness)maker of heaven and earth, (Plants, animals, and all inanimate matter)of all things visible and invisible. (The universe, known and unknown, particularly advancing now here on Earth with the help of Hubble Space Telescope and Particle Physics)I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, (The person(s) who helped… Continue reading Nicene Creed As I Now Understand It
Altered States: Not just a movie anymore
People have been eating and drinking and doing unusual things to alter their perception for as long as we can tell. What is this drive to want to get inside, or outside, of us, to alter our sense of reality? I loved the 1980 movie “Altered States.” Cable TV and movie channels were new, and… Continue reading Altered States: Not just a movie anymore
Why I Love Alcoholics
Firstly, let me humbly confess I’m an Adult Child of Alcoholics, and probably an early-mid stage alcoholic myself, although I’ve been stringing that along for a number of years by periodic (sometimes years) of abstinence and controlled drinking and substitute drugs (mostly legal). I still like getting drunk periodically. It feels good. It’s one of… Continue reading Why I Love Alcoholics
How We Read Now: War and Peace on a Droid
A little while ago, I was at a Little League game with my Droid Eris phone. I checked the spotlight on the Google News feed, looked at Open Salon and read some stuff to comment on later (log-ins are annoying on my Droid), made a quick pass to Edge.org, and finally opened my Kindle App… Continue reading How We Read Now: War and Peace on a Droid
What is Most Important?
My home is finally healing My husband is gaining strength I am managing my worry My son is playing sports And going to science camps And reading books every night My job seems stable enough There is something new every day And big new things to learn I have a nice circle of friends Most… Continue reading What is Most Important?
Yes, Santa, there is a Virginia Woolf
A very short drama (A woman, Virginia, works at a desk with a glowing computer. There is a window within her view. There is a closed door. The rest of the space is empty, dark. She composes, typing click-click as she goes) VIRGINIA This was a family, much like any other American family during the… Continue reading Yes, Santa, there is a Virginia Woolf
Romance at The Dead (Fiction Wednesday)
When Eddie proposed to May during a Dead concert, it blew everyone away. Earlier that day, May hid in the long grass outside Eddie’s farmhouse and watched the boys pack up a blue rental car to leave for The Grateful Dead at Alpine Valley. Though she hadn’t been invited, she knew their plans by way… Continue reading Romance at The Dead (Fiction Wednesday)
Still My Daddy
After my parents separated, weeks before my high school graduation, I stayed with my father. Daddy’s little girl. Daddy at work in his office, about 1978 He was many years older than my mother and seemed more needy. My mother was leaving him. We had lost our big colonial four-bedroom house in the combined financial… Continue reading Still My Daddy
On My Mysterious Womanhood
It causes me to color my hair and paint my lipsAnd enjoy a new outfit more than politics It surges through me with waves of emotionSometimes hard to navigate and harder to explain It helps me fall in love at the drop of a hatWith children and men and older women It makes me bleed… Continue reading On My Mysterious Womanhood
The Governor’s Wife
They brought him a paper to sign. Forensic evidence was conflicting: a fractured infant’s skull; a slow, deep-brain bleed. “Died in its sleep,” one medical expert kindly deduced. The mother panicked, alone when it happened. The father absconded to his mistresses’ apartment, although that fact wasn’t presented at trial. Post-partum depression. She had become impossible… Continue reading The Governor’s Wife
Small Blessings, Warm Fruit
My son comes to me in the morning and hugs me like sunshine on a tomato. My husband calls me “sweet” at the dinner table. They know what the problem is and have a small, non-invasive surgery for it. They will get us in next week. I was looking for a… Continue reading Small Blessings, Warm Fruit
A Comical Herstory of Rape
My first rapist took my virginity: I was 14, and he was 24, so it was statutory rape. He was playing the villain and I was the ingénue in an old fashioned melodrama at a community theatre. I was very attracted to him and I wanted to date him. He resisted, saying I was too… Continue reading A Comical Herstory of Rape
My Loving Problem
I don’t really know anything about loving, or how to be loved. And yet, the most amount of suffering I have in my life is about people I think I love, and whom I believe love me, but not in the right way, at the right time, in the right place. Right as in proper,… Continue reading My Loving Problem
The King’s Speech and Women Presidents
Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin; but twenty years of marriage make her something like a public building. – Oscar Wilde I just had the pleasure of watching the film The King’s Speech: twice. I loved it. Great actors giving great performances, a lovely sensitive script, and interesting information about… Continue reading The King’s Speech and Women Presidents
Institutions and the Individual
Even though I am trained as an artist (an actor and a creative writer, if you fancy those things art) and highly value individual expression; I’ve always felt a responsibility to contribute to the greater good for my fellow humankind – maybe to a fault. I take satisfaction when I’m able to help a group… Continue reading Institutions and the Individual
To the boy who wrote me hate poems
And so you published a book of poems I’m so proud of you! But I did hesitate When I read on the back cover The years you say they covered Of your youthful pain and anguish Smack dab in the middle Was our relationship Our romantic relationship that lasted…how long? 6 months? 18 months? A… Continue reading To the boy who wrote me hate poems
Loving my Momma
In young womanhood, I had a lot of anger at my mother. I worked through most of it before she died, with the aid of therapy and time — but I’m only recently realizing why she did the things that troubled me most. My mother was born in the 1930s, raised on Shirley Temple and… Continue reading Loving my Momma
Her Grand Epiphany
Shadowy cream linoleum Electronic water drops Breathing machines Whispered terminology Chemo drugs cause psychosis Break with reality of c-word Smoking shame, questioning chemicals, fearing oblivion — Private single room Floods with ethereal light Total white out Fill with peace and awe The disembodied voice urges: “GET BACK TO YOUR REAL WORK!” Once senses recover Wonder… Continue reading Her Grand Epiphany
Famous Blue Pea Coat
From the first time I saw you, I thought I understood everything about you, instantly and eternally. You were smart, and you were in pain. I was fascinated by you. I wanted to learn from you. I wanted to help you. I wanted to save you. I wanted you to know that I know who… Continue reading Famous Blue Pea Coat
Of Loaves and Ropes
Rox laid the items on the prop table in the pre-determined spots: two silver candlesticks, on one side, marked Act 1, and a revolver and knife, marked Act 2. They were all props for a traveling production of Les Mis that was coming through her small Canadian town. She was 17; an orphaned high school… Continue reading Of Loaves and Ropes