Ain't no party like a West Coast party
or
Napoleon Dyn-o-mite!

I'm three days back from my Gold Rush and already the panic and crisis of child welfare is trying to blot these good times from my mind. While sitting at Juvenile Court yesterday--waiting for someone to hear the case of the Girl the System Forgot--I tried to revisit the stretch of highway between LA and Santa Barbara. The waves crashing against the cliffs, the Huntington Tea Garden, that ridiculous museum, sunshine for no reason all the time. I can recapture only seconds at a time before 1) someone pages me or 2) I remember my role in some crisis or another or 3) I remember to hate LA, she stole my Sister.

Los Angeles has become my nemesis, you see. She is a smutty temptress, rich and trashy, Armenian on her mother's side, and her wealth and low-level fame have stolen my Sister. Jesus teaches that I must be humble and loving. Offer her the other cheek, or sister, as it were. And since I have another sister, I say to Los Angeles: take them both. Try and take my Cousins, too! I am not alone. Chicago is a cold and cruel lover, but he is also brilliant and Irish on his mother's side, and he will provide me with all of the self-righteousness and needy children and Old Style I can handle.

So there.

Despite being a terrible, Sister-stealing place, Los Angeles has an unexpected spiritual depth. Two friends and I visited a Japanese garden and were struck by a deep sense of beauty and serenity. Both women are brave, but afflicted--the young lady to the left has been blind since birth, while the hottie to her right is kind of a jackass. She approached this sweet Buddhist, quietly meditating near the water's edge. No joke, he was levitating. So Hottie Jackass went to hit on him (you see what I mean?) and we took this cutesy-pie picture.

Half and hour later the blind girl could see and Hottie Jackass has decided to pursue service to others through Chinese Medicine.

Friends, look around you. Wonders will never cease. Miracles abound. Seriously unnamable tragedies are survived every moment. Despite her siren call of hot women, spontaneous healings, and stylish men, I say to Los Angeles: I am staying put. Staying put is my Rushmore. I have heard it said--I have read it written down--that to love Chicago is to love a woman with a broken nose, ugly and fierce. There is no place for perfection here. I can go visit it, though, in California, along with my whole family and every friend I have ever loved.

Like selling cotton candy at a cruxifiction!

That's what I'm going say now when people ask how I'm doing. "Like I'm selling cotton candy at a cruxifiction!" which, I think, expresses both a harried hardworkingness and an upbeat sense of the absurd.

This year's Pilsen Passion was just alright. Two years ago it was much colder (bad) but the Roman soldiers were on horses (good). It also seemed like less people were involved, despite the weather. If that were the case, then it conforms to my theory about the American religious experience: everyone was at the mall, getting happy, ignoring the Reaper and the naked fact of pain in human life. Which would also mean that American consumerism zapped the spirituality out of the Mexicans of Pilsen in two years: blame the new Target on Damen and Archer. Maybe there were more people there, hell, how would I know? I can barely count.

First you walk down 18th, where children soldiers whip Jesus.

Grandpas, kids. A little boy grabbed my hand in the crowd and I was instantaneously pleased; then we looked at each other and realized I am not his mommy. His mom thought that was the funniest thing; little boy and I were sad. Later, an older lady grabbed my arm, laughing, and I think maybe she had grabbed me while tripping, or something; I need to learn Spanish, but was pleased by all the touching and laughing, regardless.

I went with my former roommate. While we walked in the procession she discussed her man hunt, the lack of good men for dating, those kinds of things. I can barely tolerate thinking such things. I am certainly too cool to discuss dating, Cathy-style, at a reinactment of the central mystery of my faith. However, I am currently reading "The Last Temptation of Christ" wherein the whole town is gearing up for the weekly Jewish zealot-cruxifying. Historically speaking there were probably some spinsters moseying along, bitching about the lack of good husbands, and having epileptic fits, which also happens in this book all the time. It's nearly Russian with all the sweating and convulsing and digging of fingernails in faces. I digress. Suffice it to say the experience was not particularly holy, but it was nice, and topped with a tasty chile rellano meal for $3.

Boys that smell like salami and boys that never apologize

Happy Passover! It is a time to appreciate the little things, like when your boss feels sorry for you all holed up in your office and brings you a mochiatachino with whipped cream. It is also a good time to remember that I live the greatest city in the world, not desert bondage.

This last week was a killer, less involvment in the extruciating pain of women and children but more paperwork. Ugh. Despite the anxiety and sleep deprivation, despite shocking revelations and meetings that made me cry, my righteous indignation and self pity just would not stick. For instance, it was all smiles and elation while driving through the South Shore in the early spring weather, listening to my official Herald the Coming of Spring Album. In 1996 I had one of the best spring time walks of my life to the Cap N' Jazz album. I didn't like myself much, but I loved my friends, my walk home, my yellow Sports Walkman and being, you know, 19. My Heralding of Spring ritual allows me to recapture that precious time and yet still be all up and down thankful it has passed.

On the way down I got to drive behind "BLK MAN" in a burgundy Monte Carlo. And then I trailed "CHIDIVA" 's Rio on the way home. People in the know gave me a perfect Avoid the Dan Ryan Route and it was all smooth and beautiful driving on rails. Oil is bad and everytime I drive my sister's Cabrio I am effectively running over an Iraqi child but sometimes...it's soooo good.

Tomorrow I try to hustle lower interest rates, get out of my student loans, and find the perfect part time job. In order to maximize my productivity I depleted this desperate vortex of time tonight. Unlike the great puzzle that is this life, the some computer nerds have given us the sweet relief of an answer key.

Shalom!

Oh, it gets so lonely when you're walking

and the streets are full of strangers

Ten or so times in the last month I have woken up in the middle of the night with thoughts of some client the first thing on my mind. By the time I realize I have woken up there are only bits left of whatever brought me there. Right now it's 4 am and I woke up thinking about a certain mom and "I can't. I can't. I can't."

The St. Renegade moving through the waking world is all love, all positive, all feeling, but apparently Sleeping St. Renegade is not as convinced. I honestly don't remember what, specifically, I was thinking I can't do. Is it as grandiose as "I can't help this woman"? Or as concrete as "I can't write that damn report on time"? Both of which are true, by the way.

While no one around the office has mentioned waking up in the middle of the night to an internal soundtrack of failure and bad luck, the problem of excessive worry about clients has been discussed. The answer is vacation. And thankfully, thankfully thankfully, another round of paid Jewish holidays is coming. I will spend two whole days sewing and napping before Easter, work for two days, and then off to California, where I am going to lay on the beach and have the sun bake all of this out of my head.

I say we go to Venice Beach with some bongos and hair beads and just see what happens, you know? I know some bluegrass songs, Cheese can sing them lazy SoCal indie rock ballads, and we can rollerskate in caftans like Fletch in the movie.

Right now I am going to change my noise machine to "waves." I am going to take an antihistamine. I will be cruising the beach in minutes, and listen up, internal sense of self hatred and failure: you can't stop me.

Baby Mama Drama

or

Mary is a dirty ho

We named our cat "Mary Full of Grace." We loved her and protect her from the dangerous sexual practices of these mean Logan Square streets. She is an angel, a virginal heart, pure and simple. Come to find out that she is a knocked-up dirty tramp.

Under the impression that she was unsullied, we gave her a full round of booster shots. After announcing that she was most like pregnant, our vet recommended that Mary be spayed "regardless"--meaning, abort the most likely damaged...fetuses? Kittens? Cellular forms?

All the sweet Puerto Rican vet techs celebrated the news. "Oh, she's pregnant!? Mary! Mother Mary!" Our Catholic hearts constricted in our pro-choice chests. Sister whispered, "We need to schedule a spaying." "Oh. Okay! Schedule an abortion for tomorrow morning!" Sister began to cry. Sister said, "But we're Catholic!" Sister, normally an ice cold pragmatist, was inconsolable on the ride home, that whole night, all morning. She felt bad.

Your sainted Renegade, usually a weepy mess of empathy, was crystal clear. Sometimes you feel bad. The assumption that what feels bad is wrong and what feels good is right is idiotic. Life feels bad. Everyone suffers. Joy and pain, people, sunshine and rain. I do not want to raise deformed kittens. I do not want to give deformed kittens to lazy bastards. I don't want to contribute to the 33,000 cats euthanized each year in Chicago. Listen, I tell her: you eat meat. I put gas in your piece of shit car. We all have blood on our hands. I feel guilty all the time; I have made it a part of me, and despite it all, am rather buoyantly happy.

Your favorite Irish twins find ourselves in new territory: we have surprised each other. Sister marvels at my cynicism. I cannot believe how much she cries for the unborn kittens. After leaving Mary at the vet this morning, Sister is told that the procedure will cost her an unavailable $150. She calls me, certain that $75 is a price I will not pay, shocked when I say that I will. Truly, as Mary's mother and the one sobbing all the time, this decision is hers. I only wavered when my Best Friend sent an ecard congratulating Kitty Mary.

Of course, Sister did what she wanted to do. We have returned to familiar territory. She purchased a book, we are preparing a 'kittening' box. I am struggling to see Mary as a mother, a placenta-eating lioness. She was our kitten for so short a time! Where did our baby go? Why are her nipples so ginormous, and what is she doing to that pillow? Sister wants to prepare a manger. This never would have happened if we named her Squeakers, or Ragamuffin. Let this be a lesson to you all.

Cry yourself a river, it won't take much to drown.

When my good buddy was here a couple weeks ago we went to the movies and saw a trailer for ATL. We had initially bonded, all those punk rock years ago, because of a shared love and respect of 'urban'--you know what I mean--culture and music, amidst the white belts and zines attacking white belts and all that hoopla in Columbus, Ohio, 1997-ish. So after the trailer he, once a poor righteous teacher, now a not-as-poor-nor-as-righteous-administrator, leaned to me conspiratorially and said "How many kids do you think will get shot outside of that movie?" It had that icky stick to it, something wrong, but I wouldn't define it, because this is my friend, and why am I so self-righteous all the time?

Dammit, a boy died at Ford City this Saturday, after seeing ATL. Not like in the Ring, where the movie killed him. He was shot, by a person. My Girl was there, too, had a gun stuck in her face and confronted her own death. As a child rape victim she has experience with confronting death. Rape has that effect on people; it is a physiological fact, which is why the term 'survivor,' when used about abuse or rape, is genius on all sorts of levels. I personally think the whole gun-in-face thing is why she wigged out today, with some street fighting and talking crazy. This wigging out led me to sacrifice what I am certain was a good dessert, probably some nice wine, and certainly good conversation at book club tonight. She probably sacrificed another foster placement.

I am ill suited to crisis management. I react like a poorly-trained, clumsy, and sissy Marine, because I'm all like "I validate your feelings" and "I just want to know that everyone is safe" and since I am a hippie I don't have my own car so I do crisis work on the train home when in the end, I didn't have to drive all over the South Side looking for my Girl at all. I just had to listen, listen, listen. I also took some of this pain into my head, where it is lodged behind my right eye. Which, I believe, is the Drama Chakra.

I am so sad for this and yet not sad enough that I am going to DO anything, like chain myself to her in order to stop the adolescence fueled train to trauma that she is riding. Part of me wants to be so sad that I just die from it: not just her, because she is actually pretty funny and adorable most of the time, but from the aggregate of hurt in the world, beautifully represented by Chicago foster kids. I am a bit disgusted by my vibrant joyfulness. It is vulgar and undeserved.

I have to remember all the time that I am not really going to save anyone but myself, and probably not even that. It is a difficult balance to strike, and not helped at all by an agency with the motto "To Save the Life of a Child...Whatever it Takes" stamped on the mugs. Actually, it's not stamped on the new mugs, so I got one of the old mugs special, because I want to remember the impossible goal that I tell myself I am not even trying to reach. In this way, the mug holds both coffee and spiritual confusion. It is also kitschy.

So Bill Moyer says to Joseph Campbell: "Unlike the classical heroes, we're not going on our journeys to save the world, but to save ourselves." And Joseph Campbell, in his tweed and warm respectability, says: "And in doing that, you save the world. I mean, you do. The influence of a vital person vitalizes. There's no doubt about it. The world is a wasteland. People have the notion of saving the world by shifting it around and changing the rules and so forth...the thing is to bring it to life. And the way to bring it to life is to find in your own case where your life is and be alive yourself, it seems to me."

Will do, Joseph Campbell.