it's over. move to somnia.

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The Techno Cosmic Mass

OK, honestly, I don't even know what to say about this experience. I went with some Catholic friends to a banquet hall to watch a retired priest and various other speakers lead a few hundred (mostly game) congregants through every single New Age cliché one can imagine. We had our attention brought to each of the four directions, each of which represented an element (east-air, south-fire, west-water, north-earth), and for each of which there was an altar with masked attendants and a digital screen showing all sorts of images. (Whoever went out and found the thousand or so vaguely religious pictures we were shown over the next two hours was pretty thorough and eclectic, I'll give them that.)

There was ecstatic dancing to techno music. There were speeches and spoken word celebrating the month's theme: The Return of the Divine Feminine (happy Mother's Day!), with acknowledgements to the Divine Masculine (next month! don't miss it!). There was a severely eerie period of lamentation (the "Via Dolorosa") wherein the lights went down and everyone sobbed. Loudly. Rex (the organizer of our field trip) was having a ball. Lukas (the skeptic) had already left at that point, and we joked about his likely reaction. I was squicked out enough as it was.

The Award for Most Uncomfortable Moment would have to go to the exhortation to find a stranger, look deep into her eyes, and pronounce "All that is holy in me blesses all that is holy in you." Nigel and Margaret grabbed each other anyway (marital privilege?) and Rex was...game. Soon as I began looking for the bathroom, a ridiculously pretty hippie girl (they usually are; I don't know why) appeared in front of me and somehow I said it convincingly enough to get her to giggle, make a thanking motion, and scamper off.

What else to say? Check it out for yourself.
peachy as always, Mike at 5:25 PM

 
Good

It was a weird weekend. Friday was a no-boss day at work. Yeeha. Went to see the latest Star Wars installment after midnight. (OK, it was Saturday morning. Enough.)

Saturday afternoon I went to a graduation party for someone I've hardly seen in the past two years. Saturday evening I went to HP's place for dinner (skipping out on a co-worker's birthday drinkathon) (he cooked a chicken-pasta-magic thing that I'd personally never be able to accomplish) and found myself mentioning I didn't want to date...right before jumping in bed to snuggle...before then racing home to sleep.

Sunday morning I was up at five to run the Bay to Breakers. In the rain. With a distended bladder. After not running all week. Making my best 12K time ever. JOhn, Hao, and I were headed out from Footstock at 10. (Wait two-and-a-half hours to see Smash Mouth...or be warm and dry. Hmmmm.) Spent the afternoon making a map of the U.S. Interstate System. Evening at the Techno Cosmic Mass (it'll get its own entry, trust you me).

Monday: off. Because I felt like it. X-Files finale (on tape). Last night's Six Feet Under (also on tape: two VCRs make life sweet!). Ran errands. Read. Relaxed. Was informed that all my roommates will be moving out by August 1.

And I feel damn good.
peachy as always, Mike at 12:13 AM

 
Hey, I'm on Google!

...site #30 is my workplace staff list, but this is site #42! Wow, and to think there are other Michael Lockes out there polluting the Web with their artifice and un-genuine-ity. Or...unguence. Yeeugh.

Maybe I just should go by Sheridan. Ethno-chic, yeah.
peachy as always, Mike at 2:05 PM

 
Below Middling

Ugh. It hasn't been a good month when you've: found yourself perpetually exhausted (esp. while theoretically training for a marathon), decided to leave your job with no new offers in view, put yourself on bad terms with one roommate just as the other two announce they're moving out, lost interest in dating someone (but continued do it anyway), begun to spend more time on the web discussing TV than actually watching it, and been relieved to come down with a cold because it gives you a reason to feel weak and emotive. Not a good month, indeed.
peachy as always, Mike at 1:22 PM

 
Two Days Late, Because I'm Baaaad

OK, so I had an unsatisfying weekend and spend eight hours yesterday talking notes on public planning concerns in Yuba City (plus a two hour drive each way! hot as hell!) and my idiot roommate left the kitchen a mess and called my attitude "jerky" when I told him to put his shit away, so I'm kind of cranky right now, and I just wanted to share the joy of that with you.

I was going to write this whole thing about how isn't it funny that Mexico's legal system operates on the Napoleonic Code (a major tenet of which is that one is presumed guilty until proven innocent, as opposed to our good ol' American* habeas corpus) and hey, doesn't it seem odd that Cinco de Mayo, one of Mexico's biggest, most festive holidays, commemorates the thwarting of an attempt by the French Army under Napoleon to invade Mexico? Maybe it's just me.

But I'm just going to sit here and squeeze my stress-relief-thing for a while.


*OK, so Louisiana plays their way, too...is that really so surprising?
peachy as always, Mike at 3:17 PM

 
Touchy-Feely

OK, so last night I went to this open house thingy at the Acupressure Institute in Berkeley, 'cuz I been thinkin' about maybe getting myself massage-practitioner certified (for kicks) and a couple of weeks back I treated myself to a massage in Modesto and the masseuse mentioned that she'd studied at AI and thought it was great and I'm a sucker for a personal recommendation so I figured hey, an open house requires no commitment and offers a fat load of information and I could really go for that now. So I went.

I'd mentioned to John that I was thinking of going and he'd said he'd heard less-than-enthusiastic reviews. Whatever, I said to myself.

So I showed up a half-hour late as it was just getting started (mmm, Berkeley) and, apart from the staff guy at the front of the room, there were about a dozen people seated on chairs and futonny items around the room, explaining why they were interested in studying massage/acupressure. Apparently they all already had a much deeper acquaintance with the field than I did, but hey: I'm a dilettante and I make no bones about it.

The staff guy introduced himself (in an unnervingly high-pitched voice, not unlike one a comedian would use to portray a five-year-old speaking) as Michael Gach.

Oh, Dear God. His name rhymes with mine. Not good.

I thought I was interested over the next hour. I brushed off his tendency to overexplain where on the brochure certain information was. ("In the leftmost column, in the bordered box, at about the middle, just under the crease, under the heading 'Basic Classes,' that's where the basic classes are!") So what if he didn't give us credit for being adults (and adults with college degrees, no less, based on the introductions)? He wouldn't be doing all the teaching. There was a variety of options. Everything seemed doable. Prices were affordable.

However, I think about the time he said that he'd felt "so blessed that Common Ground [a free magazine/catalog featuring 'resources for personal transformation' in the Bay Area] chose to make its listings alphabetical 20 years ago, so we were featured prominently and gained a lot of attention that way" that my interest was starting to wane. Maybe it was his Muppety voice driving me over the edge. Adult men don't sound that way. Maybe it was just all wrong.

Then, of course, he moved on to the principles of acupressure and my eyes began to glaze over with all the talk of "meridians" and "elements"--"for example, if someone's neck is perpetually stiff, that person has a wood imbalance"--and...OK, so I hadn't stopped to think about what acupressure entailed as far as beliefs and worldview were concerned. I thought I'd be able to just focus on the act of helping people relax. Nope, no dice. Lesson learned. Sure, I could use an infusion of some sort into my spiritual life right now, I'll admit it, but for the record I just can't with a straight face talk about "transferring energy" from one person to another.

I politely (OK, speedily) excused myself at the "break" and was off (thankfully, I was not alone in my thoughts, as the expression on a fellow exiter betrayed). But dammit, they have my phone number. Gach.
peachy as always, Mike at 1:46 PM