Please, please keep Rick Majors in your thoughts. Do what ever it is you do to send energy…just send it.

Sitting on a curb, west coast
Caffeine and no sleep, the sun coming up
Telephone poles like paralyzed eye lashes
On down the line, small and away;

Vs—

Cold rain and car wheels
Parade of windshields and wipers
The slick inch of hair pressed to forehead
Drying out
The 10 and 2
The slow bus sludge through the strip into the yawn,
A city—

An eighth & the roof
Spirograph clouds, the spindle-splay
Of a snowflake body below
Shingles and initials
Laughing myself to saline
Making paths to ear pools
The rush of
I could be anything
The flight pattern wings
Coffee and cracked brown

Vs—

Wearing a red dress to my grandfather’s funeral
Watching my mother break down over his missing tie
The folded triangle of stars and stripes
From officer to matriarch the
Beautiful talk on vapors and unraveling
Easy speak of difficult, there is no holding
And I could not find the grave/I’d have to look
If you drove me—

The vast is a master of slight;
torn apart bedroom, smoke trickling incense

I fell asleep last night
While listening to my neighbor play the saw
Gin belly powderkeg mind
Van with little windows, open

I just want to take a moment to say thank you to all of the writers who have submitted work for the sex anthology so far. I’m going through them now and I have a ridiculous-sized lump in my throat–such beautiful, honest work, which is all I could have hoped for. I’m impressed with your courage. Tremendously.

Of course, there’s still room for more…I know many people are still “in process” of getting work to me, and so I have extended the submission deadline to December 31, 2008. Please take advantage of this extension. As I have stated before, feel free to submit work anonymously(I am more than happy to provide my street address so you may do so via snail mail). Feel free to submit up to 5 pieces of work–this work can be fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics, art, photos, one acts…whatever your creative mind can dream up.

Questions, comments, concerns, more info needed? Email me at: honeydunce@gmail.com — also check out the corresponding blog here:
The Living Room Handjob. Updates coming soon–right now I’m pretty fascinated with “sex in the news” so I’ve been posting a lot of found articles.

Anyway, yeah. Big, heartfelt thanks to all who have submitted work. Consider me moved.

November 23rd; the sky outside of Modern Formations.

composite of two photos. click here for larger version.

Lewis Carroll suffered from migraines, and many speculate that Alice in Wonderland stems from his experience with the pain/absurd world of this disorder.

Carroll first noted the appearance of migraine hallucinations in an 1885 diary entry, where he wrote that he had “experienced, for the second time, that odd optical affection of seeing moving fortifications, followed by a headache.” Because this phenomenon appears to have only happened once before, and because the ‘Alice’
books were published in 1864-1865, most experts had discounted the theory that the works were based on the often bizarre ‘dreamscapes’ of migraine hallucinations.

However, Podoll and Robinson believe they have found “two pieces of evidence” that might change experts’ views.

They first cite a sketch produced by Carroll sometime between 1855-1862. The sketch is dominated by an elf-like figure “meticulously drawn except for the fact that that he is missing the right side of his face, as well as portions of his right shoulder, wrist and hand.

This odd omission appears to suggest a “rounded border defect… similar to that seen in a negative scotoma,” according to the researchers. Negative scotomas, where patients cannot see objects that fall on certain parts of the retina, can occur in migraine auras.

The second piece of evidence involves a diary entry from January 1856, when Carroll wrote, “Consulted Mr. Bowman, the oculist, about my right eye: he does not seem to think anything can be done to remedy it, but recommends me not to read long at a time….” Podoll and Robinson speculate that the author consulted Bowman to find a cause and treatment for the negative scotoma that produced the defective drawing.

Both the drawing and the diary entry suggest that Carroll experienced migraine hallucinations (probably without accompanying headache) in the years leading up to his creation of “Alice’s Adventures Underground” and “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” The recurrence of increasingly familiar hallucinations over time
might “explain the otherwise inexplicable similarities between the experiences described in the two Alice books,” the researchers conclude.SOURCE: The Lancet 1999;353:1366

His books were heavily influenced by his Migraine experience. For example, a well-accepted interpretation of the Cheshire Cat is as a symbol of the Migraine disease itself. The Cheshire Cat has a tremendous influence on Alice’s adventures and only reveals itself to Alice. Remember: Migraine is an “invisible” disorder. “Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” thought Alice; “But a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life!” Like Alice’s Cheshire-Cat who sat in a tree revealing himself only to Alice, he nonetheless had great impact on her daily travels, as Migraines do on individuals who suffer from them. As anyone knows who suffers from this disease, Migraine, as aggressively debilitating as it is, is often not readily visible, and is often called the “invisible handicap.” Other references in Carroll’s adventures include Alice being blinded by the moonlight (Migraine sufferers are extremely light-sensitive), and the many references to hallucinations and drugs: “One pill makes you smaller, one pill makes you larger, the pills mother gives you do nothing at all,” observed the Cheshire-Cat. -from migraines.org

Vincent Van Gogh, the awe-inspiring Dutch impressionist, suffered from violent Migraines, or “sick headaches,” as they were then called. Migraines at that time were perceived as mild insanity. Therefore, treatment of his Migraines was both ineffective and debilitating, and, in fact, worsened his condition. Van Gogh’s famous painting, “Starry Night,” was painted at the St. Remy Asylum in France in 1889, where he was being treated for his “Migraine personality.”

As far back as grade school, award-winning fine art photographer and MA.G.N.U.M. founder Michael John Coleman recalls the beautiful, but ominous, storm clouds looming through the vaulted classroom windows at times when he was stricken with severe head pain from his Migraines, brought on, in large part, by the changing atmospheric pressure of the stormfront itself…Coleman noted that “After having Migraines monumentally disrupt my life on two occasions, namely an ended marriage and studio-closing, I decided enough was enough. I remember severe attacks that lasted for 19 days, and the acute pain was so intense that I couldn’t sleep for four days. These are nightmarish memories, and it became very important for me to fight back. The logical weapon to use was my art, and, as an artist, I intend to use visual art skill to uncover the stealthy nature of this invisible disease.” And allied with his best friend of the past decade, they set out to do just that.

“As a lifelong Migraine sufferer, and artist, I ponder just what role living with Migraines has played with regard to my work. I have always created imagery of women and it is clear to me that the figure is presented monumentally. She is massive and I wonder at my own need to create such an image of strength. Certainly, anyone who has experienced Migraines, or loved someone who suffers from them, knows how helpless you feel when they strike. Mine come in blinding strikes of pain, in two or three beats of pain, in one spot. They feel like lightening that has gotten trapped in my head and is trying to flash and burn its way out. During these attacks, motion is impossible because movement brings the flashes on, worse. The eyes react by becoming like sandpaper and my head heads downward toward by shoulder, for warmth, comfort, support, I don’t know why. When I was a child, a little girl, my family told me I had ‘brain fever’ when these attacks would come on, yet I was never taken to a doctor. I was told I brought my brain fever on myself because I did not like to wear hats in the winter, so I have felt since childhood that I was responsible for the pains I would get in my head. As I look at my work from the perspective of living with Migraines, I see imagery that appears impervious to many things. The subjects seem to be more than capable of preventing anything from hurting, altering or dominating them. Perhaps in some respects I’ve built them, whether in paint or clay, in the way I’d like to be, too powerful to be altered by many things, blinding ‘beats’ of pain being one of them.” -Janet McKenzie, artist

This is how my niece, Maddie, should learn her ABC’s:

Mystery Train

I boarded the Amtrak in Portland on my way
To Seattle and searched for an empty seat—
Hopefully an empty row. In Coach Car C,
I saw a seat next to a teen. The train swayed

As I approached him and asked, “Can I sit here?”
He wouldn’t look at me. His face was blank.
Asberger’s, I thought. “I must warn you I’m weird,”
The kid said. “I’m weird, too,” I said and thanked

Him for his kindness. I worried he would talk
Too much, and he did, but he was charming and rude.
He said, “You’ve got a big head and face, dude.”
He said, “I like rap music more than I like rock

Because I like blacks more than whites,
Especially when I play the royal game, chess.”
With Asberger’s, I knew the kid might obsess
Over certain objects or ideas, like

The boy I know who collects Matchbox cars
And recites the manufacturing history
Of thousands of them. “It’s not too far,”
The Train Kid said, “We are on a train journey,

But I take it twice a month, on weekends.
I’m sorry I’m weird. I don’t have many friends.
My mother and father love me, but they
Got divorced when I was ten. You could say

They hate each other as much they love me.”
He told me his father lived in Portland
And his mother in Seattle. “It’s kind of fun
To ride the train,” he said. “I like to see

The landscape out the window. Pretty soon,
There will be a yellow truck parked outside
A blue and red house.” Of course, he was right.
As we traveled north, the kid always knew

What was coming next. I asked, “What’s your name?”
He ignored me and said, “There used to be
A dog that lived in that junkyard. It’s a shame,
But I think he’s dead now.” Then he looked at me,

Made eye contact for the first time, and said,
“In seven years, I have taken this trip
One hundred and nine times. I have only missed
Two trains because I had the flu in my head.”

Jesus, the kid had become a nomad
Riding rails through the ruins of a marriage,
And, at first, I was eager to disparage
His parents, but then I realized that

His folks must love him as obsessively
As he loves them. They put him on the train
Because they need to see him. It was lovely
And strange. I wanted to ask this kid about pain

And what that word meant to him. I guessed
He could teach me a new vocabulary—
I was vain and wanted to be blessed—
But then he asked, “Are you old and married?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve been married for ten years.”
He nodded his head and looked out the window
At the sunlight flashing between tree rows,
Then whispered, “I have cried a lot of tears.”

I was breathless. Stunned. I wanted to take
The kid into my arms, but I knew he’d hate
The contact, so I could only smile
When the kid said, “In a little while,

We are going to see the Mima Mounds.”
And there were thousands of those things, six
To eight feet tall, dotting the South Sound.
Created with gravel, rocks, dirt, and sticks,

Those mounds escape explanation. They’re not
Indian burial sites. They’re not homes
For gophers or insects. They don’t contain bones
Or fossils or UFOs. They’re just odd

Geologic formations that will keep
Their secrets no matter how hard we try
To reveal them. When our train arrived
In Seattle, the kid walked beside me—

I had quickly become a habit, I guess—
Until he saw his Mom, short and pretty,
And pulled her tightly against his chest.
He said something to her, pointed at me,

And she smiled and waved. I walked home,
Chanted the first lines of this poem,
And committed them to memory.
And if a few strangers thought me crazy

For writing poetry, aloud, in public,
Like another homeless schizophrenic,
Then fuck them for wanting clarity
And fuck them for fearing mystery.

********

How to Create an Agnostic

Singing with my son,

I clapped my hands
Just as lightning struck.

It was dumb luck.

But my son, awed, thought
I’d created the electricity.

He asked, “Dad, how’d you do that?”

Before I could answer,
thunder shook the house

And set off neighborhood car alarms.

“Dad,” he said. “Can you burn
down that tree outside my window?

The one that looks like a giant owl?”

O, my little disciple, my one boy choir,
I can’t do that

because your father,
your half-assed messiah,

is afraid of fire.

both poems by amazing, amazing poet Sherman Alexie.

Marya Hornbacher is one of my favorite authors. She wrote her first book, “Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia,” in 1998(this book, by the way, is incredible. It is the most realistic depiction of ED that I have ever read). She also has a fictional book out there called “The Center of Winter.” I am currently reading her third book, “Madness,” which came out in April, 2008.

Deep breath. My god, this book.

First, let me say that Marya’s writing leaves me curled up in a chair for hours on end. She’s that kind of writer. Her style is hard to put down, and I love that about her. “Madness” holds true to this too….however. And yes there is a big however. The subject matter frightens me. I’ll admit that. Due to this fear I have to put down the book and walk away from it–for a day, two days. I have to be in a certain frame of mind, a quiet/alone time in my day, to pick it up again. It’s so strange to have such an intense reaction to reading material.

“Madness” is another memoir, written after Marya was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. If you are familiar with her work, then you know that she does not play nice–no corners are cut, no heavy stone spared. She will tell you, outright, what it means to descend into a personal hell. I’ve never read anything like it, which is a shame. It’s a shame that bipolar disorder is still this seemingly taboo topic. Marya puts the spotlight dead center on the subject. This is a very, very difficult read.

Reading about her early episodes, her experience with Prozac, reminds me so much of my hellish time with Paxil. We both had doctors that didn’t bother to monitor intake, and took it upon themselves to decide that “higher doses will help the problem.” There is a part in her book where she tells them, “I don’t think this is working,” and they respond with upping her dosage. My jaw dropped reading this, because I’ve been there. I said those exact words, and received the same answer.

I just read through her recount of seven different hospitalizations, and various electroshock therapies. This is where I had to put the book down again and catch my breath(seriously..I found myself holding it for most of the chapter). This woman has been through so much. I still have a good 70-something pages to go, and I know that there is no real resolve, not to an illness with no real “cure.” There are various methods, meds, and ways to “manage” bipolar disorder, but no real cure, no real send off. This is also the most difficult and beautiful part about Marya’s work(in regards to her memoirs). Loose ends are not tied. She’s honest. She makes it clear that there isn’t a real resolution.

In the back of the book, there are some facts on bipolar:

- # of american adults with bipolar disorder: 5.8 million (2.8% of the U.S. population)
- year the term bipolar was first used: 1980
- rate of alcoholism in bipolar men: 3 times higher than in the general population
- rate of alcoholism in bipolar women: 7 times higher than in the general population
- Year the Surgeon General gave his first report on mental illness: 1999

These are only a few of the facts listed.

This is such a difficult read, but so worth it. So very very worth it. I’m so thankful for Marya’s talent and intelligence–this book must have been so difficult to write, but I’m so glad that she did it. I’m so glad that she has chosen to share her struggle to educate others.