The other day I started reading Desire: The Tantric Path to Awakening by Daniel Odier. I don't have it with me right now, so I can't quote it, but it's been giving me crazy-wisdom dreams. There are a few things I'd like to write about it.
- Frank (not the cadaver) vs me in our approaches to life and meditation: Frank is the Zen type, I am the Shambhala type.
- Me as a vector/figure for awakening the senses.
-Ralu saying some of the most interesting relationships are short lived, like the person on the dance floor at jackie 60.
- My troubles and discomfort don't come from the fact that life isn't how I want it to be deep in my heart. They come from the fact that life is that way, but I'm not allowing myself to fully recognize it.

After reading an article in which Lady Gaga said "I want to strap a penis onto my vagina" or something like that, I dreamed that Hugh and I were dancing in a kitchen somewhere and he whispered in my ear, "I've been thinking about it." I said, "You should go for it!" So he had this surgery done where he had a tiny vagina opened into his perineum.

Then last night I dreamed I was on a bed with a sister figure from my childhood, her baby who was around the age of 8 months or so, and a man who was the husband of some other woman. In the middle of the night I was awakened (in my dream) as if called by a higher purpose, and I very directly and without a single moment of nervous faltering, initiated what can only be called an orgy between us three adults. This was intermixed with some of the most intense and deeply satisfying baby cooing and cuddling I have ever experienced, and though the sensual directness and joy of these moments were very connected and unified, there was a clear delineation between the interactions with the adults and those with the baby. In the morning of my dream, society set in and was very angry with me for having sex with a married man. The era became the 1800's and I was in a small coastal Canadian town. The townspeople were setting out to lynch me and I was on the lam. I was also fluidly switching between being a man and being a woman as I ran and hid from the mob.

I felt you coming, girl, as you drew near.
I knew you'd find me cause I longed you here.
Are you my destiny? Is this how you'll appear,
Wrapped in a coat with a tear in your eye?
Take that coat, babe, throw it on the floor.
Are you the one that I've been waiting for?

As you've been moving surely toward me,
My soul has comforted and assured me
That in time my heart it will reward me
And that all will be revealed.
So I've sat and I've watched an ice age thaw-r
Are you the one that I've been waiting for?

I exist in a world where the pulsing sap fills the trees with passion and they reach their branches out to me, calling these lyrics. The snow balancing on a tall branch glitters like an aerialist and then dives toward the earth, longing to delight my eyes.

You have Me.

Dear Zoe, I hope this cheers you up.
Love,
Len

I have you.

Thank you, dearly Rosa. You always know how to cheer me up. Little moments of beauty all around.

"It's opening you to your world and you feel a tremendous tenderness for everything."

Eyes and lips seem brighter. This cadaver's name is Frank. The past two labs we've done things to his head that aren't fit to repeat here, but suffice it to say we're on the inside. I ran my fingers over his smooth teeth. Frank. Lab makes my body rebel, it makes me assert myself as alive. It gives me a painful and nauseating hunger. I was overcome looking at my professor's necklace as she explained the pterygoid ganglion to another group of students. Just then, I felt two hands on my shoulders and turned around to see Ben, smiling brightly. We each carry around so much history. I overheard someone say, "You look so beautiful! You must be a woman in your thirties!" I thought I was defiled before, but I keep getting more and more defiled, fuller and fuller of experiences stretching and pulling and tugging and shredding. It fills me with anxiety to hang onto it, but when I let it go I am an explosive river, Saraswati overflowing her banks. I don't have innocent optimism, but I do have a tremendous tenderness for everything.

Kitty Wales

Rosa hadn't heard of Kitty Wells, but he introduced me (literally) to Kitty Wales.

Dear Diary,

Instead of writing in my journal, here goes:

Saturday, watched the train go slowly by while the pigeons of White River Junction flew overhead.

Two nights ago, I dreamed of you, Zoe. You had designed a special contraption for looking at people so it placed them in the room with red curtains from Twin Peaks. I knew you had made it and you asked me how I knew. I said of course I can tell everything you make, because I just can. I believe this to be true in real life, as well.

I've been thinking about bonsai. I am drawn to things that keep me in place, but I agree with you, it's probably not a good idea. I don't want it to be a symbol of love only to let it die because I want to visit a friend for a precious long weekend. On the other hand, I am drawn to it, and I like to follow myself where I want to go. I like to accompany myself there. I go there alone.

So I stopped to look at bonsai trees. I decided to wait. After I left, I noticed that the whole landscape looked like a bonsai tree. Angular and curved and balanced.

Then I had two intense up flares of jealousy. Was I tremoring? Or just caffeinated?

I feel so many things throughout the course of one day. I can't deal with it all on my own! I have to talk about it, I can't just let it sit there...can love and friendship help with that? Does anyone really want to hear it, to help with it? Can anyone really handle it? Is anyone else like that?

After class I took a walk with a friend and then went to a workshop about helping people make a plan to quit smoking. There were a bunch of people there who smoke and were willing to let us practice smoking counseling with them. My classmate and I ended up with a young woman I often see outside the med school smoking. It was amazing to talk to her! She totally wants to quit! She's moving to NC to start an MD/PhD program this summer.

After zooming home for just a few minutes of QT with Moondog, who has been so charming and loveable (grabbable) lately, I drove to the hospital for an OB/Gyn skills night. We split up in two groups, then spent half the evening with an ARNP and an OB who I worked with at the Feminist Health Center talking about contraceptives and abortion, and half the evening in the Birthing Pavilion with a midwife and a nurse midwifery student talking about how babies come out. My classmates asked me a lot of questions after each session, and it felt good to recognize how much I carry with me. It was also amazing to see the raw emotion in my classmates, male and female, as we talked about water birth, placenta-eating, fetal monitoring and ultrasounds. It was a loaded conversation and I ended up continuing it on the phone with one of them after I got home. Our deepest, scariest desires for ourselves and our lives come through in everyday interactions. It takes daily maintenance to stay clear, alert, to keep it all moving. It takes introspection, calm, support, friendship.

With this on my mind, I thought back to Jay-Z's 100th problem. What does it mean to have girl problems? What does it mean to need love?