My Life, In Switchbacks, Ahead Of Me

I had my past lives read once, when I was ten years old at a psychic fair held at a Ramada Inn with my mother, her friend, and my friend Melissa. The man who read my palm told me many things, the things that everyone wants to hear -- you're a descendant of Cleopatra, you're an old soul, to things that were, shall we say, more esoteric -- you were Frederick Nietzsche's mistress. I'd heard of Nietzsche and thought that was pretty cool until I saw a picture of him a few years later that gave me considerable pause about having sex with him, even in another life. It doesn't surprise me that I chose to have the past read -- my mother gave me five dollars (the largest amount of money I'd ever had up until then!) and told me I could choose between the past and the future. The future room looked a lot more intimidating -- more people milling about, brighter colors, complicated card readings. Even without much past to my life, I felt more comfortable there almost always. Even though I desperately wanted adulthood, I felt sick with each passing year, suffused with a longing that I did not understand, the knowledge that this would never be again exactly as it was and to attempt to hold onto it would only make the feeling more acute.

Since that time, much of what I feared would happen and then some. Even so, I've made the switch to the room of the future -- when I have my cards read, that's where my attention drifts. After all, there's less of it with each passing year, the dream of what is to come gets smaller. The worst dream I ever had involved a baptism in which I came out of it with my face cut into ribbons. In reality, I have been baptized twice -- once in the Brazos River by Brother Buddy (I saw the head of a snake bob by --Satan, I suppose, is never far) and once in the Catholic Church as an adult (no snakes, heated full immersion tank, and Deacon John laughing when he couldn't get me to put my head back). When you are done, you shiver for a long time. After all, your new life awaits. The past, though, is never far behind, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"Hell is empty and all the devils are here. " William Shakespeare

Cocktail Hour

Drinking movie suggestion: Faces John Cassavetes

Benedictions and Maledictions

In the news -- in a Jim Bakker-like scandal, Ted Haggard, head of the largest Evangelical group in America, has stepped down because of allegations that he's been having sex and snorting crystal meth with a male escort every month for three years. Haggard admits to at least some of the allegations (the escort has lots of smoking guns -- Haggard's recorded voice asking for meth, sex, etc.). Haggard was one of the most virulent critics of gay marriage, calling sodomy one of the worst sins of all time. All right then. Good to know.