September 15: Sabbath, Rest, Writing

Welcome to the end of my Sunday.

Usually, one of the first things I do on this day, after I go to church, is sit down and pound out a sabbath post, because I usually have so much to do on Sunday to get ready for the coming week.  Instead, I did my day in reverse.  I got all of my class prep/work prep done first.  Now, at 8:20 in the evening, I'm sitting down to pound out my sabbath post.  Don't hold any high expectations for what you are about to read.

Generally, I don't get a whole lot of rest on the sabbath.  I move from one task to another, without too much of a break.  In fact, most of my days are like that.  Mondays, I work and teach and write and plan.  Tuesdays, I work and plan and clean my church (that's my fourth job, if you're counting).  Wednesdays are the longest for me.  I work and teach and office hour and teach.  It's usually about a 15 to 16 hour day.  Thursdays are my lightest days, usually.  I work and then go home, unless I have some poetry thing in the evening (which has been happening for the last couple months).  Fridays, I work and then clean.  My weekend doesn't usually begin until about 7:30 at night.  Saturdays, I do my house cleaning.  Plus, I pick out church music and play the 4 p.m. Mass.  Sundays, as I said, are reserved for getting ready for the upcoming week.  Church in the morning.  Classwork and work/work in the afternoon.  In the evening, I'm brain dead.  Which brings us back to Monday.

Put the above paragraph on repeat, and you have a little idea of what my life is like.  If you saw any actual sabbath rest time in there, let me know.  I haven't been able to squeeze that in yet.  I have to think that the ancient Israelites didn't really follow the whole resting of the sabbath, either.  I mean, they had crops to tend, sheep to shepherd, cheese to make.  If they took a day off, people didn't eat, livestock died, and feta spoiled. 

I guess "rest" is a relative thing.  For example, typing this blog post is not a chore for me.  That's why I decided to do it last.  It's my reward for doing about five hours of lesson planning and grading and e-mailing.  Some people would think of writing as a chore.  I don't.  For me, writing fills me with joy, unless I'm so tired that I can barely focus, which is the state I'm approaching right now.

In the best of worlds, I would write these blog posts in the morning, when my mind is fresh and unclogged from the day's worries and trials.  That would be ideal.  I find I write better in the morning.  However, I do not live an ideal life.  I work.  A lot.

So, right now is my sabbath.  About two hours of relaxing writing before bed.  It may be one hour tonight.

Saint Marty is fading fast. 

September 7: Being a Cop, Passions, Secret to a Happy Life,

Zaphod and crew have a run-in with some interstellar cops in the middle of an identity crises . . .

Near them on the floor lay several rather ugly men who had been hit about the head with some heavy design awards.

Half a mile away, four figures pounded up a corridor looking for a way out.  They emerged into a wide open-plan computer bay.  They glanced about wildly.

"Which way you reckon, Zaphod?" said Ford.

"At a wild guess, I'd say down here," said Zaphod, running off down to the right between a computer bank and the wall.  As the others started after him he was brought up short by a Kill-O-Zap energy bolt that cracked through the air inches in front of him and fried a small section of adjacent wall.

A voice on a bullhorn said, "Okay, Beeblebrox, hold it right there.  We've got you covered."

"Cops!" hissed Zaphod, and spun around in a crouch.  "You want to try a guess at all, Ford?"

"Okay, this way," said Ford, and the four of them ran down a gangway between two computer banks.

At the end of the gangway appeared a heavily armored and space-suited figure waving a vicious Kill-O-Zap gun.

"We don't want to shoot you, Beeblebrox!" shouted the figure.

"Suits me fine!" shouted Zaphod back, and dived down a wide gap between two data process units.

The others swerved in behind him.

"There are two of them," said Trillian.  "We're cornered."

They squeezed themselves down in an angle between a large computer data bank and the wall.

They held their breath and waited.

Suddenly the air exploded with energy bolts as both the cops opened fire on them simultaneously.

"Hey, they're shooting at us," said Arthur, crouching in a tight ball.  "I though they said they didn't want to do that."

"Yeah, I thought they said that," agreed Ford.

Zaphod stuck a head up for a dangerous moment.

"Hey," he said, "I thought you said you didn't want to shoot us!" and ducked again.

They waited.

After a moment a voice replied, "It isn't easy being a cop!"

It isn't easy being anything.  I'm sure a nurse would say that it isn't easy being a nurse.  A college student would say it isn't easy being a college student.  Ditto a heart surgeon.  Ditto the school custodian.  In my working life, I've learned that most people think their jobs are the most important and most difficult.  Doesn't matter the job.

For example, I could say that it isn't easy being a contingent college professor.  No health benefits.  Working semester-to-semester with no guarantees of re-employment every four months, and the full-time faculty get paid twice (sometimes three) times as much as you for teaching the same class.

Or I could say that it isn't easy being a church organist.  The compensation for all the hours spent planning, practicing, and playing is minuscule.  And, come Christmas or Easter--the high holidays--the stress and demands triples or quadruples.  Plus, you have to work EVERY weekend, sometimes playing two or three services. 

Every person in every occupation has similar tales.  The truth of the matter is that a job is a job.  It can be stressful or stress-free, tiring or energizing, sad-ful or joyful.  A job is what you make of it.  A person who works at McDonald's can take just as much pride in his labors as a brain surgeon.  That's the simple truth.

I'm lucky, in a way.  I get to do what I love--teach writing and literature and film.  I don't do it full-time (which would be my dream job), but I still get to do it.  I love being in a classroom full of young minds.  Love feeling the weird, funky energy they impart.  I can honestly say that teaching is what I was meant to do with my life.

I would say that most people stumble through their lives, never really knowing what their purposes are.  They never find that one thing that fulfills them.  It's not about money or fame.  It's about passion.  Most people I encounter have no idea what their passions are. 

Me?  I'm passionate about poetry and writing and movies and books.  My mother was passionate about quilting.  She loved it.  My father was literally passionate about plumbing.  He truly loved what he did.  He kept the tools of his trade in his trucks up until the time he couldn't drive anymore.  I think the people who are most unhappy and dissatisfied with their lives are the ones who have no idea what they're passionate about.

When you don't know what puts a fire in your belly, then you turn to other, unhealthy preoccupations.  Addictions even.  Because the addiction fills that void.  Temporarily.  But pretty soon the drug wears off, alcohol transitions to hangover, sexual partner of the day goes away.  What's left?  The same emptiness that you were looking to fill.  So it's more drugs or more alcohol or another sexual partner.  It's a pretty vicious circle.

I count myself lucky.  I know my passions.  And, because I know them, I'm a better person.  That is the real secret to a happy life.

This message has been brought to you by Saint Marty.  Husband.  Father.  Brother.  Poet.  Teacher.  Organist.  Blogger.  Thinker.  Friend.

November 23: Velvet Draperies, Happy Thanksgiving, Many Directions

So Billy read it.  He knew where Montana Wildhack really was, of course.  She was back on Tralfamadore, taking care of the baby, but the magazine, which was called Midnight Pussycats, promised that she was wearing a cement overcoat under thirty fathoms of saltwater in San Pedro Bay.

So it goes.  

Billy wanted to laugh.  The magazine, which was published for lonesome men to jerk off to, ran the story so it could print pictures taken from blue movies which Montana had made as a teen-ager.  Billy did not look closely at these.  They were grainy things, soot and chalk.  They could have been anybody.

Billy was again directed to the back of the store, and he went this time.  A jaded sailor stepped away from a movie machine while the film was still running.  Billy looked in, and there was Montana Wildhack lone on a bed, peeling a banana.  The picture clicked off.  Billy did not want to see what happened next, and a clerk importuned him to come over and see some really hot stuff they kept under the counter for connoisseurs.

Billy was mildly curious as to what could possibly have been kept hidden in such a place.  The clerk leered and showed him.  It was a photograph of a woman and a Shetland pony.  They were attempting to have sexual intercourse between two Doric columns, in front of velvet draperies, which were fringed with deedlee-balls.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Until I started transcribing this section of Slaughterhouse, I had completely forgotten about these little passages about the adult bookstore.  So, yeah.  Certainly, Billy doesn't really have any interest in what is being sold.  He was drawn inside by the Kilgore Trout novels, and he picked up an old porn magazine because Montana Wildhack was on the cover.  Ditto the movie machine in the back of the store.  Again, it's all about the different parts of Billy's life connecting in one particular place.

I just returned from Thanksgiving dinner at my sister-in-law's house.  Turkey and mashed potatoes and dressing (with cudighi sausage) and sweet potato casserole and corn, among other things.  It had a little of everything, and it was delicious.  And, of course, there was a whole bunch of family.  Lots of laughter and jokes, some a little inappropriate.  They are, after all, family.  There are always inappropriate jokes.

My wife and I have been married for 22 years.  We dated for five years before that.  So, I have been a part of my wife's family for close to 30 years.  To steal a line from Citizen Kane, I know where all the bodies are buried.  In some ways, these holiday dinners are like Billy Pilgrim's life--all these different memories and people intersecting and manifesting.  Of course, there was no pornography involved, as far as I know.

Last night's Thanksgiving meltdown has passed.  I have resigned myself to the fact that my December is going to be insane, with events and readings piled on parties and workshops.  I can't avoid it.  This weekend, some time, my father is going to be transferred to a local nursing home.  Hopefully, one that is close by.  In a few minutes, my sister and brother will be back from Grand Rapids, where my brother had an external defibrillator implanted.

Am I feeling thankful?  I suppose so.  My father will be well taken care of.  My brother is still kicking, with a little less force than before.  My kids are healthy.  Ditto my wife--and she's getting healthier all the time.  And I'm doing well at work.  Teaching award.  Poet Laureate.  Writing.

His life might be going in many directions, but Saint Marty is a blessed man.

May 29: Dream of Giraffes, Memorial Day, Writing

Under morphine, Billy had a dream of giraffes in a garden.  The giraffes were following gravel paths, were pausing to munch sugar pears from treetops.  Billy was a giraffe, too.  He ate a pear.  It was a hard one.  It fought back against his grinding teeth.  It snapped in juicy protest.

The giraffes accepted Billy as one of their own, as a harmless creature as preposterously specialized as themselves.  Two approached him from opposite sides, leaned against him.  They had long, muscular upper lips which they could shape like the bells of bugles.  They kissed him with these.  They were female giraffes--cream and lemon yellow.  They had horns like doorknobs.  The knobs were covered with velvet.

Why?

One of the reasons why I love Slaughterhouse Five is that it constantly surprises me.  Part memoir.  Part history.  Part science fiction.  Part surrealism.  Vonnegut is able to bring all of these elements together in the book.  This passage, where Billy, under a cloud of morphine, transforms into a giraffe, is a little Kafkaesque, without the cockroach, and a little Naked Lunch.  It is so wonderfully strange, especially when Billy starts having a menage with two female giraffes and their long, muscular upper lips.

I have spent most of the day being a writer, which is something that I don't get to say very often.  I went to a Memorial Day parade this morning, and I attended a Memorial Day service at a local cemetery.  My family and I brought some flowers to a few graves of relatives (including my sister's).  Then, I went home and started working on an idea for a piece that I've been thinking about for quite some time. 

I wrote for close to six hours.  It's in a finished form, but I'm not really sure what it is.  I envision it as a prelude to something much longer.  By itself, it could be a prose poem or a short lyric essay.  It really felt great to write without interruption, to allow myself the luxury of being a Vonnegut for a little while.  I didn't write about giraffes having tongue sex in a garden, but I was definitely outside of my comfort zone as a writer. 

Now, at the end of a three-day weekend, with a week of work and grading ahead of me, I'm a little depressed.  I know that I won't have another extended period of writing for quite some time.  With this new piece, I have about three projects that I'm working on now.  That's my writing process.  If I get stuck with one project, I turn my attention to another for a while.  I got this idea from the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. 

When I was a teenager, I read an article about Asimov.  The article said that Asimov's writing space contained three desks, and on top of each desk was a typewriter.  Asimov told the journalist that he always had three different books in progress at the same time.  When he reached a roadblock with one book, he would swivel his chair to the second desk and start typing on the second typewriter, which contained the manuscript for a completely different book.  When he got stuck on the second book, he swiveled to the third desk and third typewriter and third manuscript.  Asimov was brilliant.

My problem is that I don't often have days like today.  During the week, I have to steal ten minutes at a time for writing.  Sometimes during lunch.  Sometimes when I'm waiting for my daughter at the dance studio.  Sometimes right before bed, after I've corrected four or five student essays.  I don't get pages written.  I get paragraphs, if I'm lucky.  Usually, it's one of two sentences.

Therefore, today was a blessing.

Saint Marty is thankful for being able to write for six hours.

January 14: A Calling Much Higher, Writing, Chipping Away

"Why didn't you answer me when I called?" Barbara wanted to know, standing there in the door of the rumpus room.  She had the afternoon paper with her, the one in which Billy described his friends from Tralfamadore.

"I didn't hear you," said Billy.

The orchestration of the moment was this:  Barbara was only twenty-one years old, but she thought her father was senile, even though he was only forty-six--senile because of damage to his brain in the airplane crash.  She also thought that she was head of the family, since she had had to manage her mother's funeral, since she had to get a housekeeper for Billy, and all that.  Also, Barbara and her husband were having to look after Billy's business interests, which were considerable, since Billy didn't seem to give a damn for business any more.  All this responsibility at such an early age made her a bitchy flibbertigibbet.  And Billy, meanwhile, was trying to hang onto his dignity, to persuade Barbara and everybody else that he was far from senile, that, on the contrary, he was devoting himself to a calling much higher than mere business.

He was doing nothing less now, he thought, than prescribing corrective lenses for Earthling souls.  So many of those souls were lost and wretched.  Billy believed, because they could not see as well as his little green friends on Tralfamadore.

A higher calling.  That's what Billy Pilgrim believes that he has.  His job is to open people's eyes.  Life on other planets.  He's a prophet of sorts.  In his professional life, he corrected vision problems.  Now, after a series of personal tragedies, he has made it his crusade to make the world understand the secrets of time and, concurrently, happiness.

I hear people talk about their "calling" all the time, from pastors to priests to teachers to nurses.  It's an undeniable urge, usually to better the world in some way.  I work in a medical office.  Just sort of fell into that job, and I enjoy helping the patients.  But it's not my calling.  I teach college English.  I love opening students' minds to new ideas.  That sort of sounds like a calling.  I'm a church musician.  Enjoy it a great deal.  It's a way to crack open people's hearts and souls.  I suppose that's sort of a calling, as well.  And, of course, I'm a poet and writer.  That, I think, is my true calling.

Blog posts, my poetry and essays and stories, public readings--all of these things really fill me up, energize my mind and spirit.  I think that's what a calling does.  It doesn't empty the "called" out.  It fills him/her up.  I don't know if my writing has changed anything.  I send words out into the world, like putting a note in a bottle and throwing the bottle into the sea.  I don't know ever know where that bottle lands or if my note makes a difference.

But this, I believe, is my true calling.  Writing.  Chipping away at the injustices of the collective universe one syllable at a time.

Today, Saint Marty is grateful for words.

May 23: "Midnight in Paris," Obsession, "Star Wars"

My friend, Keith, has been telling me for a few years that I needed to watch Midnight in Paris.  I believe his exact words were, "That movie is un-be-liev-able."  Last week, I had lunch with him, and he mentioned the movie again.

So I ordered it.

And I saved it for tonight.  Well, I watched it, and my friend was right.  It is an unbelievably great movie.  I'm watching it again right now with my wife.  I have a feeling it's going to become one of my obsessions for a while.

I once spent an entire Christmas break watching the film Stranger than Fiction every day.  It drove my wife crazy.  I do that.  I become a little . . . crazy about moves and books.  I've read a thousand-page Charles Dickens biography by Peter Ackroyd at least four or five times.  When I was a kid, I went to see the original Star Wars 27 times at the movie theater.  Obsession.

I'm obsessed with writing this blog.  That's why I've written close to 2,000 posts.  I want to be read, liked.  I want to write things that move people.  Help people.  Excite people.  I'm not sure if I'll ever get to that point, but I'm obsessed with the idea.

Maybe Saint Marty really does need professional help.

Care to join me in a little stroll down lunatic lane?

May 9: Weaving Something, Writing, Fairy Tale Rough Draft

Charlotte tore quite a section out of her web, leaving an open space in the middle.  Then she started weaving something to take the place of the threads she had removed.  When Templeton got back from the dump, around midnight, the spider was still at work.

Yes, Charlotte's web is a metaphor.  My favorite passages in the book describe Charlotte at work, tearing out threads, weaving and dropping and spinning words into something amazing.  It's no coincidence that the very next chapter after the above passage is titled "The Miracle."


I have been thinking, cogitating, meditating on the poem I'm going to write for my brother's funeral.  Ideas are starting to coalesce.  I don't want to do an elegy.  Nothing with lines like "Death, be not proud" or crap like that.  I want something more uplifting.  It's going to be difficult enough without me adding to the tears.

I'm hoping to have a rough draft by tomorrow night.  A new web.  Or at least the start of one.  That means I need to start weaving by tonight.  The writing process will certainly help me get through this weekend.

Speaking of rough drafts...

Twice Once upon a time, a carpenter baker chiropractor sculptor named Guenther Bob Fritz lived by a lake forest rock.  Fritz dreamed of carving the rock into something small ugly amazing.  When he looked at the rock, he saw an angel a gargoyle a unicorn with a huge penis tail horn.

Fritz worked on the rock every day, slowly chipping away at the marble until something shitty beautiful started to emerge from the heart of the stone.  For one two seven years, he worked on his masterpiece.  Then, one May night, he made one last chip, stood back, and saw that it was done.

Word soon spread throughout the crack house slum kingdom that Fritz had finished his sculpture.  Visitors started coming from far and wide to see it.  Then, one day, the Royal Prostitute Exterminator Engineer appeared.

The Royal Engineer slowly circled the rock, inspecting it.  Then he turned to Fritz.  "The demolition crew will be here tomorrow morning," he said.  "Your rock will be destroyed by nightfall."

Fritz was pissed shocked.  "Fuck you!  What?!" he said.  "Why?"

The Royal Engineer smiled.  "We are going to be constructing a new biohazard dump brothel road through here."

The next morning, the demolition crew arrive, and by the afternoon, Fritz's unicorn was gone.  Within six months, a new road and Walmart and Red Lobster Olive Garden Dairy Queen were finished.

Moral of the story:  People like buying cheap shit killing themselves with fast food shopping more than art.

And Saint Marty napped ate French fries lived happily ever after.

Sometimes a horn is just a horn

April 3: Trying to Remain Positive, Thoughts About Jobs

I've been thinking a lot today about writing and publishing and teaching and trying to remain positive.

It really seems that the only way people get hired at the English Department full-time is if they have tons of publications (or at least one or two really impressive ones).  Most of my non-academic friends don't understand that it's not just a matter of submitting a cover letter and vita and landing an interview.  There're phone interviews.  There're portfolios.  There're campus visits with presentations and classroom teaching demonstrations.  Plus, there's always three or four other candidates with more impressive vitas than yours.

My good friend who was just hired this year by the university has four books under his belt.  He just had his fifth book published last fall.  Really impressive.  Also really depressing.  I wouldn't stand a chance against a guy like him.

However, I'm trying to remain positive.  About writing.  About publishing.  About jobs.  I've got my new book of poems submitted to another contest at the moment.  I'm just waiting for the rejection letter/e-mail to come my way.  (For some reason, receiving a rejection by e-mail is the most esteem-crushing experience I've had.  It says to me that I'm not even worth the cost of a first class postage stamp.)  I still might win.  I might.  There's always a chance.

Saint Marty is trying to remain positive.

Right now, it's perish for me.

December 22: Saint Chaeremon

I owe my readers a huge apology for my prolonged absence from my blog.  My list of excuses is long and really unimpressive:

1. I got caught up with end-of-semester teaching and grading.
2. I got caught up with holiday preparations and responsibilities.
3. I  got caught up with other projects, including teaching a spiritual journaling workshop and writing my annual Christmas poem.
4. I got caught up with my duties as a church musician and worship leader.

Are you buying it yet?  Am I forgiven?  If not, I'll add one more excuse to the above list.  While my other excuses were true, the following one cuts closer to the real reason I haven't blogged in over a month:

     5.  I got caught up with being lazy.

Especially with writing, it becomes very easy to find other, more "important" tasks to accomplish.  I can think my way out of any writing situation.  My line of reasoning usually follows this pattern:

I really need to sit down and write a post for my blog.  It's been way too long.  But first, since I'm at the computer, I should check my e-mail to see if anyone is trying to get hold of me.  Hey, look at how cheap Kindles are now.  I should go to Amazon.com and see about ordering one.  Wow, they're offering free, 2-day shipping for Christmas.  I wonder if the stuff I ordered on Monday has been delivered yet.  I should track my package.  It's out on the UPS truck right now.  It'll probably be there when I get home from work.  I should check to see if my syllabus needs to be updated for next semester.  I should...

You get the idea.  I could go on and on about the shiny objects that distracted me from the business of writing.  It's easy to become distracted  because, despite the pleasure I derive from writing, writing is hard, time-consuming work.  And it's lonely.  When I write and post blogs, I know there are people reading them.  For the most part, however, it feels like I'm stuffing notes in bottles and tossing them in the ocean.  The conversation, for the most part, is pretty one-way.

Again, I am making pretty lame excuses for my lack of communication in the past month or so.  So, I will just say I'm sorry.  I am not dead.  Or ill.  Or angry.  Or in rehab.  I just fell out of the habit of writing, and now I have to teach myself to love writing again.

In some ways, my relationship with writing is sort of like my relationship with Christianity.  I get lazy.  I start making excuses.  I get tired.  Cranky.  Worn out.  I become distracted by shiny objects--books I want to read instead of devotions, movies I want to watch instead of worship videos, naps I want to take instead of praying.  I'm easily distracted from two of the things that are very important in my life:  my faith and my writing.  I'm not proud of that character flaw, but I know it exists.  And admitting that you have a problem is the first step to recovery.

I'm in recovery right now.  Even as I write these words, I'm thinking of all the things I need to accomplish before Christmas Eve.  Shiny objects abound.

So, I'm trying to get back into blogging on a regular basis.  It's a struggle right now, as I've said.  I feel unfocused, uncreative, and uninspired.  Granted, I can't always wait for inspiration in order to write something.  If I did that, I might as well burn my journal, donate my fountain pen to some poetry half-way house, and start watching reruns of Little House on the Prairie.  Inspiration is actually a small component of the writing process, maybe 4%.  The other 96% is all hard work and dedication.

Chaeremon, today's patron, was Bishop of Nilopolis during a time in the third century when Christians were being hunted, killed, and driven into hiding.  Chaeremon, who was a "very old man," fled into the mountains with a friend and was never seen again, despite extended searches by fellow followers of Christ.  Chaeremon simply vanished.

This saint's story is not quite as gruesome as other martyr's stories.  He wasn't burned alive or drawn-and-quartered.  He wasn't decapitated or fed to hungry bears.  He just disappeared.  My guess about most saints is that the majority of their accomplishments are the result of 4% divine inspiration (visions of Jesus or the Virgin Mary; prophetic dreams; levitation; miraculous healing) and 96% hard work (climbing mountains; building churches and schools; begging for food for the poor; being tortured).  In other words, it's just like writing.

Sometimes grace will guide what you do.  Most of the time, you just have to disappear into the mountains and hope some bright star appears to light your way.

I'm looking up, waiting for my star to appear.  I haven't vanished into a cave.  I have my pen.  I have my paper.  Just add water and inspiration.  I'm heading down the mountainside, one rock, one crater, one cliff at a time.

February 22: Saint Margaret of Cartona

As a college writing teacher, I know about the healing power of putting pen to paper, fingers to keyboard. During my years in the classroom, I've read student essays about binge drinking, drug abuse, sexual violence, eating disorders, and gender confusion. (I've also read essays about gutting deer, fixing pickup trucks, killing goldfish, and kissing grandmothers. It ain't glamorous, but it's a living.) Above all, I've seen the expressions on students' faces when they share something painful or embarrassing. It's a combination of relief and fear, as if they've just revealed to me a vestigial tail or hermaphroditic sex organ they've kept hidden their whole lives. Baring yourself in all of your broken glory is like volunteering to be Zuzu the Ape Girl in a carnival sideshow.

Today's saint could be the patron of all the Zuzus of the world. Margaret of Cartona's story has all the ingredients of an 11th century Girls Gone Wild video. As a teenager, she ran off with a guy from a neighboring town, got knocked up, and had an illegitimate son. She lived in unwedded bliss for nine years, until her Tuscan stud was murdered. After returning home to her father and being rejected by him, Margaret and her son ended up receiving asylum at the Friars Minor at Cartona. Even living with a bunch of monks didn't curb her sexual appetites. I'm not Dr. Phil, but I would diagnosis this girl with seriously low self-esteem coupled with the possibility of abuse at a young age. (Cue the dramatic Law & Order: SVU chords. Dah-dum.) Eventually, Margaret went home on a Sunday and tried to "mutilate her face" to atone for her sins, according to my book. Saved by a priest, she became a Franciscan nun, nursed the poor, established a religious order, built a hospital, and had ecstatic visions in which she spoke directly with Jesus Christ. (Talk about an over-achiever.)

The fact that astounds me the most about Margaret's tale is how really fucked-up her life was. I got the feeling as I read about her that there's quite a few juicy details that the circumspect publishers of my Illustrated Lives of the Saints chose to omit. But that's human nature, to gild the messier side of life or ignore it altogether. That's especially Christian human nature, unfortunately, as if the last Judas in the world was named Iscariot. (I've always had a soft spot for Judas in the Bible. It might be my co-dependent nature, but I just think that a few home-cooked meals and maybe a couple of visits to Nazareth's red-light district might have made him less cranky.)

The kind of open-book quality of Margaret's life and the cleansing power I've witnessed of student essays makes me want to throw open the closet doors in my house and drag every last femur, tibia, ulna, rib, and skull into the light of day. My wife read Margaret's story and said, "I guess there's hope for me yet." Honesty is a mighty force. It can purge the soul of a lot of infected and broken crap (like cleaning out the attic in anticipation of a move).

When my wife and I were separated, I spent a lot of long evenings thinking about sex, sex addiction, sex addiction and the Internet, sex addiction and the Internet and pornography. (I also spent a great deal of time missing sex and the close, sweaty proximity of another human being.) I've always had an obsessive nature. So, during those endless nights of naval gazing, I started searching on the Internet. At first, I told myself I was only looking for my wife, trying to find her, connect with her, protect her, hurt her, whatever her. Those searches led me to adult websites. Those adult websites led me to more adult websites. Those adult websites led me to hardcore porn sites: blowjob.com, ratemenaked.com, titsandass.com, eatmeraw.com, pussygalore.com. Some nights, I would logon at 9:30 at night and logoff at 2 a.m. (Keep in mind, I leave for work at 5:30 in the morning.)

I knew I had a problem. My rational mind knew I needed help. But the abandoned part of me, the part that felt like the ragged socket of a tooth in a five-year-old's mouth, was not willing to give up the empty pleasure of cyber connection. Then, one night, I spent over eight hours pointing and clicking. I dragged myself into work and knew I couldn't continue.

I didn't try to mutilate my face. I slinked into my counselor's office and confessed the whole shitty, sticky business, expecting judgement and disappointment and shock. (My counselor is a good friend, and I truly carried a load of shame the size of a blue whale into that session.) What I got from her, instead, was understanding, compassion, some tissues, and a hug. (Pretty much what Jesus would have given me.)

I would like to say from that day forward I never clicked a mouse in an inappropriate manner again. Like any broken person, however, I have to take it a day at a time. Some days are easier than others. Some days are harder. That's the nature of brokenness, I guess. This blog is just another step on the road to wholeness.

So, I stand before you today--Zuzu the Hermaphroditic Ape Girl With the Vestigial Tail. Show times are 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. Drop by the tent for a visit. The bearded lady in the next stall makes a mean blueberry muffin, and the Alligator Penis Boy across the midway always has the coffee pot on.