Thank You for Flexuality

We are sensual and sexual beings.

We are beings who’s sexuality can be influenced by genetics, chemistry, environments, and personal experiences.

Our associations and contacts with others, male or female, contribute to gradually developing our experience of ourselves, our bodies, and our perceptions of intimacy, sensuality, and sexuality.

So many factors go into influencing the definition of our selves and developing  the characteristics that connect us or separate us from another human being.

We establish boundaries with one another —those boundaries are sometimes determined by things we cannot control or which we are not consciously aware of in a given moment.

Proscribed sexuality and culturally dictated rules around sexual expression can create all manner of confusion, self negation, and rigid judgment toward others to defend concepts that may not serve or enhance understanding and accepting ourselves or one another as a the sexual beings whom we are.

Today, I am wondering why we still segregate ourselves into categories of sexuality.

Any sexual act that victimizes or exploits another repulses me, and I contend that these acts have more to do with broken people than sexual beings to which I refer .

But healthy sexual beings are created through complex physical, emotional, and psychological influences.

We are all the same in this regard.

Again, we are all the same in this regard.

I can understand why some of my friends have created a lifestyle around their sexuality.

I think anytime a fear induced majority persecutes a perceived minority, the minority must find strength where they can, just to survive—sad as that may be, we have participated as a society in creating this defense mechanism through our own ignorance.

I believe every one of us has the capacity to experience our sexuality with someone of our own gender or otherwise, but our preferences and responses are not always consciously chosen.

Our sexual experience should not be a determinant factor in our roles as members of a collective or society.

Yet, we perpetuate separation, into sexual categories, and continue to behave as though an individual’s sexual preference defines all of who they are, and how we respond to them on so many levels, openly or otherwise.

I am not the only human to notice this, I’m certain.

Marketing companies, consumer research groups, extreme religious groups, and people who are afraid of reflecting on their own sexuality,  benefit much from our adherence to separating humans into categories to compartmentalize, manipulate, dominate, or deny.

Why are we still participating in this?

Why are we so afraid of our own flexuality that we allow ourselves to be put into categories that limit our experiences and undermine such an integral part of our humanness—the physical exploration and innate pleasure and development of our sexual being?

While we seem to be making social progress by passing condescending initiatives and patronizing laws, we have yet to understand that it is not about us and “them”.

It is about all of us that are sexual, flexual, and human beings.

Today I have decided to visualize other humans as androgynous beings with the capacity to love, feel, think, and behave exactly like me.

Today, I will create one less degree of separation between my own body and my own mind.

I give back the boxes and cages to those who have labeled me a heterosexual according to the needs of a church, a society, or a community designed to propagate followers, consumers, or self haters.

Today, I am experiencing my own flexuality as a human being and honoring others who, like me, have been influenced by complex factors into becoming who they are.

Today I am experiencing my natural flexuality and it feels good.

Thank You for Krafty Chocolate Thieves and Cads

I don’t usually pay much attention to the world of stocks and mergers and hostile takeovers, or anything that requires a financial investment of more than $4.99.

But this is serious. It affects me personally.

Somebody is trying to put on the Ritz and dip it into my chocolate nest egg without a shredded wheat of decency, oreo an intention to share .

What a cheesy thing to do.

Kraft Makes a Hostile Takeover Bid for Cadbury

Easter may never be the same.

What’s next, cheddar jelly beans?

PS

Do you know who owns your food?

Thank you for SHIFTing into a Higher Gear

Thank You for Divine Unknown Statistics

Divination: noun

The practice of seeking knowledge of the future or the unknown by supernatural means.

Folks love to explore their future and learn about themselves through various forms of card, chart, stone, body, and  psychic readings with mystic interpretations.

We love to know the unknown.

But here are a few ironic facts that Psychics will not tell you unless you specifically request statistics…

People that report out of body experiences and detachment from their physical bodies do not spend less on groceries and clothing.

Economic growth impact for out of body experiences =0%

Walking the Astral plane is not like Walkin’ in Memphis,—one’s feet are generally more than ten feet off the ground in the former and there are no guitars.

Odds of writing a pop country tune from the Astral Plane =0%

Odds of seeing the ghost of Elvis there: 50%

You can not see germs or the inner activities of a colon under a Horoscope.

Medical research contributions from the invention of the Horoscope =0 %

Oracles and Mediums can’t channel spirits with laryngitis.

The odds of a spirit guide getting bronchitis correlates directly to the number of germs seen under a Horoscope.  0%

Statistically, when a palm reader tells you that you are going to experience financial losses, she is always right.

Paying her fee proves her predictions — 100%

Statistics for Past Life Readings telling you that you were an insignificant slob in history, instead of an Egyptian Princess =98.7%

I did not have to research any of these statistics.

They came to me in a dream.

Thank you for A Life to Die for

If you are willing to die for these, and other things…

Love

Loyalty

Freedom

Beliefs

Family

Righteousness

Patriotism

Humanity

Truth

The Greater Good

Exploration

…are you also willing to live for them?

And which is the more difficult act?

 

Gustav Klimt   Death and Life

Thank you for PerMission Accomplished

Today I give myself permission to accomplish little things, and let go of the things I can not control.

I give myself permission to forfeit self judgment.

I give myself permission to do something fun in the midst of taking care of my responsibilities.

I give myself permission to eat whatever I want today.

I give myself permission to feel this day without rushing to get to it and through it.

I give myself permission to meet my obligations without letting them run over me.

Today I give myself permission to be creative without having to be organized about it or prove anything.

Today I have a note from myself to skip gym class, and I have permission from an authority figure to go outside and play.

Today, I give myself permission to be the authority figure in my own life.

Here, you can have permission too:

 

What do you need permission for?

Thank You for Not Driving me Crazy

If you can drive a stick shift, drink coffee, smoke a cigarette, talk on the phone, and tune your radio, simultaneously as you fix your hair in the rear view mirror and search for a map under your passenger seat, while brushing the crumbs from an Egg Mc Muffin off your center console and maintaining the speed limit…

You are probably reading this from your laptop on your dashboard.

Hi.

I’m the lady behind you, in the Jeep Cherokee, with red hair, grasping my steering wheel with both hands, wondering if this 4×4 Jeep is tough enough to swerve around a traveling sideshow without tipping over in front of oncoming traffic.

Yep, that’s me in the corner of your rear view mirror, behind your perfect hairdo.

You probably can’t hear me, but I can hear the music coming from your car— even with that diesel truck passing us both on the left.

Can you see me in your half turned rear view mirror, with my mouth wide open, yelling at the top of my lungs?

“Hey!  Your coat is hanging from the bottom of your car door!”

I hope you are getting this on your laptop, because that looks like an expensive coat.

Oh good, you’re opening the car door with your coffee hand at 60 miles per hour.

Ah, that nice coat is tucked safely back inside the door.

Now that I know you’re reading this, here’s what I really wanted to tell you….

I like your bumper stickers…

My Other Car is a Broom

and

Jesus is My Copilot

That other car is probably going to come in handy later—for your insurance company when they sweep you off the highway.

You probably should have let Jesus hold your coffee while you were reading this.

Thank You for Police Enforced Healthcare and Medical Marijuana

Two disabled senior gentleman had a very tough week.

They were roommates in a lovely apartment complex.

Both are in wheelchairs—one is a double amputee, the other is paralyzed from the waist down with muscular dystrophy.

Both men have legal prescriptions for medical marijuana.

Marijuana helps with severe pain for the double amputee who is also diabetic with serious health complications.

It helps the other man cope with medical conditions which other pharmaceuticals cannot safely address.

These men had individual prescriptions for medical marihuana and grew it in their apartment with special lights, with the acknowledgment of local law enforcement.

Last week, while these two men were in the hospital, one visiting the other who was admitted for serious medical complications, the police raided their apartment.

Law enforcement confiscated their medicinal indoor garden along with their expensive equipment that can not be replaced by minimal disability incomes.

The police raid inspired the landlord to evict the men immediately from their home.

They have put in a request to the police department to retrieve their confiscated belongings on legal grounds, but since they are already evicted and presently homeless, there will be no place to take it, if it is returned to them.

Neither of these men are being charged with any crime, but they are being punished in a terrible way.

Their medical conditions prohibit them from independent activities that we take for granted during a crisis of displacement.

A handful of friends helped to organize what was left of their personal effects and clean up the mess left behind in the police raid.

One gentleman must now move in with a relative who does not have wheelchair friendly access.

The other is in a motel which he can not afford.

It will take time, a lot of paperwork, and arduous visits to the police department in a wheelchair to clarify how and why this happened.

In the meantime, ambulatory paper shufflers and landlords have not given these men a leg to stand on with complicated laws in regard to medical marijuana.

Thank you for the Best Halloween Costumes in the Northwest

TRICK OR TREAT!

Singin’ in the rain…

Thank You for All the Holes in My Head

Okay, the average person has seven holes in their head.

I have an extra one and it is a magic hole that makes things disappear.

This extra hole is not like the mouth hole, which also makes things disappear, but more like the black hole in outer space.

You could barely detect it—even if you parted my hair in a hundred different places.

Yeah, it’s invisible to the naked eye hole.

So, this extra hole is causing me a lot more trouble at the half century mark of my life.

It has a magnetic capacity to pull all information from my environment into the center of itself to be annihilated and lost forever.

I sometimes stand on the rim of this vast hole in my head and call into it like it was an echo chamber…

“Helloooo! Where did I put my keys?”

“Yoohoo! What was the name of that guy that played Manix in the seventies?”

“Heeeeey! What was I supposed to do at eleven o’clock?”

“Pssst, Was that a left turn or right turn back there?”

“ Yodel ay hee hoo! What is the name of this person in front of me whom I have known for three years?”

Then…

Nothin’

Not a single response, no murmur of memory, no echo of Aha comes back to my ear hole.

I think the magic hole is growing exponentially with every fact I try to remember. The more I try to remember, the bigger the hole gets.

It’s very Star Trek.

I think the magic powers of that extra hole in my head is way beyond my capacity to navigate —even at warp speed.

 

Thank You for Internal Light

 

 

 

Among the dying flowers

With lantern, I abide

Under petals singed by life

My flame and I now hide

In the Spring of my own birth,

a flare illumined wide

And in Summer, challenged the sun

with all my foolish pride

Now this Autumn clings to me

like a loving bride

Dim your light, it whispers

and cannot be denied

Winter will not wait to call

and youth, it does subside

 

-Lea Kelley

 

 

 

Thank You for Cowboys

Thank You for 350!

350.org

Thank You for the Cat Walk

Thank You for People as Tug Boats and Destroyers

Tug Boats are community minded ice breakers and they’re built to handle a lot of interaction for their size.

They frequently maneuver waters that big, flashy boats can’t handle.

And they can really push a big pain in the butt around without causing much of a scene or being too obvious.

Tug Boats are strong and fairly low maintenance when it comes to maneuvering through the vast, unpredictable sea of Life.

But they are a little bit codependent.

They need a big boat to make them feel important.

Destroyers are folks with self guided missiles that can be aimed at others. They live to cause trouble.

They have to be very big to compensate for their tiny missiles.

Their agendas are obvious but they can’t really do too much damage if a tug boat doesn’t help them away from the harbor to aim those self guided missiles.

Most of them are pretty narcissistic and they don’t really notice the limitations of being a giant bully who can’t get out of a harbor on it’s own.

A Destroyer should never piss off a Tug Boat.

A Destroyer who aims missiles at a Tug Boat is lookin’ to be Beach Slapped.

Thank You for the Homebody Rescue Center

This is their new radio advertisement… (in a smooth English accent)

Do you work from home?

Do you leave your house only to buy supplies and get annual check ups?

Do weddings, funerals, graduations, and other social events drop off your calendar with flimsy excuses like “I need to stay home and watch Matlock”?

Have you ever wished there was a home delivery program for camping vacations, swimming with sea tortoises, or climbing Mount Everest?

Would you love to be at concerts, parties, cafes, and dinner with friends— without committing to leaving your home?

Would you enjoy having a crowd shipped to you by airmail, so you could mingle from the comfort of your sofa?

Do you want to visit the Smithsonian and the Grand Canyon from the safety of your front porch?

The Homebody Rescue Center provides a myriad of services to accommodate every budget and personal preference.

Our professionally trained Homebody Rescue Team can assist you with your social needs while maintaining your privacy and supporting your total lack of enthusiasm.

What we offer:

(Listed in order from our least expensive program to the Home Shebang, for which we are famous)

Package A:

For a minimal donation of one day of your life, we provide the following:

• A snapshot of you in a sombrero
• internet access
• a french toilette
• a tape recorder
• one packet of Sominex.

Our staff will arrive at 8 am on the designated day and guide you through an amazing array of visual options, while inducing a hypnotic trance that convinces you that you are experiencing real life while you piss away your time, talk to yourself, and dream of being anywhere else.

Package B:

Requires a two day notice and for the affordable fee of one week of your life, you receive:

• A gold plated telephone directory
• Unlimited Chinese food and pizza delivery
• Two specialized HRC staff members
• Access to more than 300 original excuses

Our staff will call all the friends you still have after you ignored them for a year, and make beautifully crafted excuses for you.

Our clinically tested excuses are proven to bring friends and family members to your own home for all social commitments without expectation of reciprocity.

Once we have corralled the intimate crowd for you, we create a  prescreened seating arrangement that puts you in a complimentary light and makes you appear to be out of your sweat pants and sitting up.

Bonus feature: This wonderful light also prevents others from noticing moo shu pork on your chin.

Package C:  wait for it…The Home Shebang!

For the rest of your life, Homebody Rescue Center supplies:

• A live circus that tramples through your house
• A Rock Band that smashes your windows with loud amplifiers
• A Meteorite that lands on your front steps
• A Criminal that steals all your furniture
• A well trained Electrician that wires your toaster to your kitchen faucet
• A professional Ranch Hand that runs a Herd of Cattle through your Bathroom
• A tactical response Explosive Handler who blows the roof off your house and leaves you exposed to the elements
• A prerecorded voice on a platinum record that repeats the same sentence over and over….

“Step away from that computer and go outside and play!”

Brought to you by The Homebody Rescue Team and their affiliates.

Thank You for the Recipe for a Lucky Headache

Take 1 rainy day with a publishing deadline to submit a photo layout.

Blend with expiration notices and bills that need immediate attention.

Add:

1 ex husband who’s father died last night

2 friends with the flu, 1 with a bad cold

2 friends experiencing severe depression

1 friend in hospital with inflamed pancreas

1 friend’s birthday

A juggled appointment that is eventually missed

2 submitted resumes

A neighbor who’s been missing for three weeks

Stir in:

One cell phone with a dying battery, a land line, a computer, a meowing cat that doesn’t like her new food, too much coffee and a lack of sleep

Mix well and go to bed feeling like;

You are one very lucky person to only have a headache.

Thank You for Nouveau Poverty, Goats, and Roses

Poverty is the condition of lacking basic human needs such as nutrition, clean water, health care, clothing, and shelter because of the inability to afford them. This is also referred to as absolute poverty or destitution.

Relative poverty is the condition of having fewer resources or less income than others within a society or country, or compared to worldwide averages.

Presently, I live below the poverty line.

In fact, I am clinging to the poverty line by my well groomed fingernails while my body dangles in the winds of change.

I have lived in many circumstances in my life, from absolute poverty as a child— to experiencing relative poverty as an adult while I struggled to educate myself and acquire economic stabily—to feeling almost guilty for associating with the Nouveau Riche and my decadence in having far more than any individual can need.

I have often said You are as rich as you feel, it has nothing to do with money.

I was not hungry when I said that.

I was not homeless when I said that.

I did not have children when I said that.

I probably had a job when I said that.

And probably, I had a credit card in my hand when I said that

I’m sorry I said that.

It suddenly seems like a trite platitude.

It suddenly seems like a completely oblivious statement as I look beneath the veneer of life in America these days.

Poverty is not always related to attitude, effort, intellectual capacity, or an outlook on circumstances beyond one’s control.

Sometimes Poverty is what happens to people who believed they were doing the right thing by adhering to a strong work ethic or believed they could participate in an insidiously rigged economy and be rewarded for their efforts.

Sometimes Poverty takes people by surprise.

We have been conditioned to think poverty looks like laziness, lack of education, mismanagement of one’s life, or something born on some other continent than our own—something we must exude compassion toward and toss spare change at.

Some of us have never felt the prickly thorns of poverty.

We have been very preoccupied, striving for the roses, and fortunate enough to pluck many of them, while avoiding those thorns.

Capitalism is loaded with dangling roses that encourage laborers to strive to be owners. It keeps the machine running.

But with the abuse of that same economic system, the roses start dying and it becomes one big thorny mess.

I do like a system that allows gardeners to own the roses they cultivate.

But American Bankers don’t appear to be very good gardeners and some of the prickly weeds have taken over.

Anybody got a weed eater that can cut a straight line?

Or are we gonna wait for the old goats to clear away the thorns, while they eat up all the roses?

Thank You for a Bad Dream Among the Living

A poem from my previous life…

In dreaming  when I come across

a beast from out of fabled land

I do not run for fear of death

but turn and offer it my hand

For in this land of shadowed quests

we hold the power to survive

and though we die a thousand deaths

when we awake we’re still alive

Henry Fuseli

The Nightmare c.1781-1782

© Detroit Institute of the Arts

Thank You for My Disposable Defects and the Substitute Teacher

I learn many of my life lessons at University in the Halls of Retrospect.

I frequently don’t quite assimilate the full impact of an experience until it is long past.

Recently I have been disposed of by a person I cherished, after five years of consistent interaction in a complex and illuminating friendship.

This friend offered a reason; “You are too difficult to get to know.”

I did not understand this statement.

My heart ached and I felt powerless to deny such an undefined accusation.

As I drove away I cried at the loss of what I had previously believed to be a genuine life long friend.

The air was so thick, you could cut it with a Lie.

Sometimes life is like one of those conversations you have with a verbal bully who catches you off guard where you lose your wit or communication skills.

Then, after you get home, while in the middle of brushing your teeth or taking off your shoes, you say to yourself, I shoulda said …or Why didn’t I… or Hey, they didn’t even…

And sometimes, something catches you so far off guard that you have to wait until a month or so has passed, and you’re in the middle of looking out your window and missing someone you thought you knew, and you say to yourself;

The only thing I shoulda done was pay more attention in class.

The Substitute Teacher

In a place where passion grows pedantic

and diatribe replaces inquiry,

I knew a man

A professor of the human condition,

An observer of his own

condition, which he pulled out of a hat

A teacher, facing the chalk board to profess to peer

at students in a tiny mirror pinned to his lapel

I knew a teacher there, in that place

where objects replaced intimacy

and honesty was merely intellect

The teacher always stood

at the head of Class

separated by demeanor from his lesson plan,

a plan left behind by a reflective professor

for a substitute teacher

Thank You for the Language of Alone and the Meaningful Crowd

There are very few people, no matter how much they love you, who are going to crawl into your coffin with you when you die.

And, unless you are a twin, nobody helped you find your way through the birth canal either.
There are just some things we’ve got to do alone.

There are also some things we can only discover alone.

I exchanged e-mails with a new pal recently in which he stated;
“The universe has emphatically insisted that I learn to enjoy life and find peace, meaning, and happiness, alone, as I am.”

This pal is having difficulty adjusting to aloneness after being in a twenty year relationship into which he naturally wove his sense of identity and meaning.

The transition through lonely, to lonesome, into alone is a very arduous journey for one’s psyche.

It is a path of revelation and discovery that can barely be put into words—it’s emotional and irrational and has a language of it’s own.

Anyone who has spent a lot of time alone, whether by a self induced circumstance, or merely by factors beyond their control, has whispered or screamed in this language of aloneness to themselves.

We discover most things about ourselves in the reflection of other human beings.

From birth through childhood, into adult relationships, we form much of our sense of belonging and meaning in the world through those in our environment.

We modify our behavior, adjust our perspectives, and grow into self awareness from the responses by those around us.
That is how we learn to walk, talk, and grow emotionally.

Through all of this we are alone.
Not isolated, but alone.

Some of us never experience our aloneness.
Some of us fear it.
Some of us are lost without being directed by the external road map of others’ response to our being.

While we are an interactive species with needs like touch, communication, and a sense of community, we don’t live in puppy piles.
And even puppies wander away from the pack at a certain point.
When they do return to the pack, they have better hunting skills to contribute to that collective.

The romanticism of “togetherness” that is instigated by survival needs, and promulgated into unrealistic ideals by poetry and cultural influences can contribute to our feeling abandoned or isolated when we are only alone.

We are still a part of the meaningful crowd even if we recognize our aloneness within it.

But there are so many factors involved in the language of aloneness.
This is the part where I post a link to a previous blog:

NETWORK OF SOLITUDE

Thank You for Opening your Eyes With Your Own Mind

I have been asked to photograph Erotic Nudes for a local publication.

I did a photo shoot with some wonderful models yesterday.

They were absolutely beautiful, and amazingly cooperative.

The male did not shave his body or flex steroids into the air.

The females were rounded, sensual, and well nourished with dimples, rolls, and gorgeous authenticity.

They all radiated REAL sexy and they represented Eroticism in the truest form.

It is so difficult for real people to feel sexy these days without buying into the visual stimuli that has locked us into the narrow scope of unnatural and unrealistic expectations and fantasies.

We have been herded into pushing thresholds further and further, inundated with marketing ploys that tell us what sexy looks like, feels like, and smells like.

And we must purchase to accommodate sexy, at the risk of altering our own bodies, our sense of self, and sometimes even physical harm.

It is time for us to take our bodies back from the media, the plastic surgeons, the distorted propaganda machines, and the deterioration of authentic human sensuality.

This is not going to be easy.

We have developed associations with the visuals that have been padlocked to our minds, through our eyes, like the ring through the nose of a mythological “Bull” with hardened steel.

Our collective sexuality has been held prisoner before.

Historically, churches controlled people with shame and fear of being ostracized.

They made us pray for their agenda.

Presently, corporatism controls us with shame and fear of being ostracized.

And they make us pay for their agenda.

Sexuality is one of the most basic and primal parts of our humanness—right up there with food, water, and safety.

It is easy to manipulate people when such things are controlled.

It is easy to lock them into a perspective that may serve an unhealthy agenda.

Humans will adapt to survive—physically, socially, and emotionally.

Sometimes they will even adapt at their own detriment, once the controlling agenda wheels are rolling.

This is how money is made.

This is how religions grow.

This is how power is wielded.

This is how humans become mental storage units with padlocks on our eyes.

I believe the key to unlocking these visual padlocks dangles from the mouth of Truth about who we really are.

It is whispering to us to open our eyes with our own mind.

Thank You for “Here For You” and “There For You”

Some people say  “I’m here for you.”

Others say “I’m there for you.”

Neither of these responses makes a better friend, they just cultivate different expectations, in regard to available support.

Well intentioned people are there for you.

Truly committed people are here for you.

“There” has the connotation of effort on your part, you have to go there.

“Here” seems readily available, more accessible, you already are here.

If you are telling a friend about a goal you have, an idea, a plan, or an event in your life, the friend may say I’m there for you.

That means they’ll be around later, once you’ve put things into action.

Or maybe they’ll be there after you did the work and they will cheer you on at the finish line.

That same friend may say I’m here for you.

That means they are willing to actually participate in your process or put some effort into helping you get to the finish line.

Sometimes it’s more comforting to have someone be there for me.

I can take the steps I need to take, and feel good knowing someone will be there for feedback when I get finished.

Sometimes—when I get overwhelmed, I need someone to be here for me.

You know, someone to tangibly help me with the process, or teach me something, or work with me on the little steps to there.

I am, sometimes, here and there with my friends.

But no one can be Here,There, and Everywhere at the same time.

No one can be in all places or be all things at all times for anyone else.

That can over extend and dilute one’s support capacity.

It can end up going Nowhere.

Thank You for What the Doctor Dis-Ordered

Is it just me, or does every human behavior find it’s way into a Disorder Classification these days?

We invent and toss around terms to describe behaviors, and compart-mental-ize feelings that produce behaviors, to a degree that we can no longer express an emotion, a habit, or a thought, without finding a picture of ourselves in the big clinical handbook of Diagnosis.

Any self reflective person can easily discover familiar symptoms in the Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders.

But the degree of the symptom is sometimes ambiguous.

You got your mental disorders, your behavioral disorders, your emotional disorders, your social disorders, and your thought disorders.

You got your attention disorders, your avoidant disorders, your personality disorders, and your dependancy disorders.

We live in a dis-ordered world.

I guess we are trying to order it by applying definitions to unpredictable humans.

Classification puts order in our lives, huh?

We like categories.

We like a good filing system so we can put our fellow persons into the right folders, in order, in our social cabinets.

It keeps us arranged in a system where it is easy for pharmaceutical companies to decide what drug to advertise most.

And it helps doctors order prescriptions to put us back in order.

I hope I’m not out of order here, but I think we’re getting carried away.

Thank You for Hoaxes, Initiation Rituals, and Mocking Cults

When I was a kid, there were three girls in the neighborhood who denied me access to their clique because I was not cool enough, not pretty enough, and evidently, not mean enough.

But one day they called me over with that sweet, manipulative voice that only girls are capable of producing.

“Heeey Lea, You wanna be part of our club?”

I was so excited to be offered a gesture of friendship, that I was very awkward in my delayed response.

I tried to sound nonchalant, tried to hold back my excitement, held my toothy grin prisoner behind a flip of my hair, and mustered up all the  coolness I could into one syllable.

“Sure.”

The oldest girl (thirteen) took charge.

“Okay, here’s what you gotta do.

Take this quarter on this piece of paper, draw thirteen circles around it with this pencil, and tell us when you’re done.”

I finished tracing the circles in seconds—just in case the challenge was about speed.

“Okay, I’m done. Am I part of the club now?”

“No silly, that’s just the first part.

Now you have to make the sign of the club initiation. Here, take your quarter and do what I do.”

The girl  took a quarter out of her pocket and ran it from ear to ear and forehead to chin, like a little wheel across her face, making an invisible symbol.

I took the quarter from the piece of paper and followed her instructions precisely.

All three girls chimed “You’re in the club!” and began laughing hysterically.

I laughed too.

I thought  they were laughing because it was so much fun.

I thought I was having fun being a part of the “club”.

When I finally went home and looked in the mirror, I saw the cross on my face left behind from the lead pencil that I traced the quarter with.

It went from ear to ear and forehead to chin.

I was humiliated. No wonder they kept laughing.

Cults can be kinda like that, huh?

They make you feel like an outsider until you draw circles around your money and alter your face to accommodate their agendas.

Then they sit back and laugh while you believe you are transformed into a new acceptable person.

Until you actually look into a mirror.