Demons Are Forever

 Left behind on Avenue B, the day after Halloween

Not to be a total Grumpalufagus, but I'm not that into Halloween anymore. I think it’s awesome for kids and (costume-loving) dogs, but even cats—who are naturally aligned to the magic and spirituality the day was originally about—find the manic, rusty lust let loose by those not enough in touch with their inner ghouls (i.e., the spoiled, rich white college students in my apartment complex who have to get totally sh*t-faced before they can put on their banana suits) scary in a really bad way.

(Or so Bing once said.)

What I’m actually saying is—I wish every day could be Halloween. It bums me out we deny our zombie selves, which could be, if you think about it, more pure and true than the non-zombie masks that people wear. I can still picture this woman I saw walking into the subway on Halloween just a few weeks ago, all in witchy black, her face and torso covered in glowy green paint. She was stunning and magical, like she was meant to have that color of skin and cast spells to make the 6 train faster.

So, maybe if it were Halloween a little more often, people wouldn't be so puritan and hypocritical (I still can't grok the outrage over Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, when the worst thing they did to Prince Charles was make fun of him for saying he wanted to be Camilla Parker Bowles' tampon). And maybe we wouldn't obsess over celebrities so much as a culture because our own fantasy lives would be more indulged.

And maybe some people wouldn't need to rely on alcohol drop their inhibitions, like the guy standing next to me in the NYC Marathon cheerleading section at the corner of 92nd and 1st (next year I don't stand nearby a block of bars, hello!). He'd shout out in a moronic greasy voice when any particularly curvaceous female ran by, and as the afternoon wore on he started shouting at runners who were walking, "C'mon, get moving! You're not supposed to walk in a marathon!" Honestly, you have to feel bad for a jerk like that--a drunk narcissist disconnected from the world around him. I bet he had no idea how stupid, inappropriate and mean what he said was. Missing the point, missing the richness of life and missing the joy that everyone else around him was experiencing, his zombie self so starved it's probably a serial killer right now…  Most people ignored him and I did finally tell him to shut up, but really, he should have been b*itch-slapped with the tiger paw.


A song for your zombie self:

Meezer Monday: Being & Binglessness

We're somewhere in between Bing's birthday and the anniversary of a year without him, and I've been thinking a lot about what to write here. I'm pretty sure that some may think this/I is/am nuts, but, well, it feels like truth to me. No apologies.

Bing was young when I started working with an animal communicator, and two of the first things she told me was he often felt lonely when I was at work and he rearranged the energy in the apartment every day. Who wouldn't want a cat who does that? Because he was so naturally contemplative, and because I'll believe in any idea that's beautiful enough, she suggested I do the following meditative exercise with him. I was to imagine Bing's energy, and then imagine my energy separately, and then these 2 energies coming together. Pretty standard visualization stuff, 'cept one of the main characters was a Siamese cat with half-a-tail. So I gave it a try, and I can't remember how or when I tweaked the exercise to include elaborate tableaux, like me and Bing atop an ancient stone maze, looking down at a snowscape alit with flame-red trees…  In a summer forest, on a path leading to a big baby bay… That didn't always happen, and I never forced it, but it became a sort of go-to exercise when I was away from home, on a trip or something, and missed him.

Since he died, I find myself doing this exercise a whole lot more. It's a lot harder, but I think that's cause it's a-whole-nother ballgame--he's not in a cat body, but something strong yet elusive in my heart. Every once in awhile, I'll be meditating and he just sort of appears in that every/nothingness, distinctly different than the way a standard-issue memory or thought pops up… you can almost hear the air twinkle, and it's like, "Oh, hey, Bing." It's him. And then I'll try to do the exercise and see what happens. Sometimes the thoughts go fast and nowhere, or I try too hard and it's just me writing the story, not in it. But a few times--just a rare few over the past year--it's this different state that redefines time and space and place, and it's game on--me and Bing, Bing and me.

Like a couple weeks ago, he and I were running fast and joyfully on a trail of very hard-packed snow, but we were both the same kind of animal--dogs, or wolves maybe, definitely canines. It's like I could almost smell the wet wild woofness.  And before that, he was sailing a silent mountain through a star-lit sea of clouds, like a captain slowly, so slowly, navigating a ship through the ocean … It's not like he's the Siamese-shaped Bing I knew… he's Binger than that Bing. It's hard for my human brain to imagine what contains his energy, or rather, what his energy is contained in. How can a light body remain the same for more than a moonbeam… Is it the shape of a bucket? A flower? A  sped-up, time-bending hour?

And if by any chance light bodies have tails, I like to imagine that his is still bobbed.

Wordless Wednesday: Sex Pistil

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer was allegedly a whoring misogynist who pushed an elderly lady down the stairs because he thought she was talking too loudly, but he wrote one of the most beautiful things ever about plants in The World as Will and Representation:

"For the plant reveals its whole being at the first glance and with complete innocence. This does not suffer from the fact that it carries its genitals exposed to view on its upper surfaces, although with all animals these have been allotted to the most concealed place. This innocence on the part of the plant is due to its want of knowledge. Every plant tells us first of all about its native place, the climate found there and the nature of the soil from which it has sprung."

Sigh-o-delic, eh? But I'm still noodling on the strange interconnectedness between the song featured here and the relationship between the parties behind it. Would Andy be a venus fly trap? I could see Lou as a vine of morning glories growing wild in a vacant lot where feral cats (a managed colony, of course!) fight and whine and meditate.

Oops, better make that LessWord Wednesday, peeps!

Watch this and find out where he got the idea for the song: