Grandma Julia in 1915

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Above is the photo of my grandmother Julia, taken in 1915, which hangs on the wall above my computer. The book she is reading is 'A Woman's Hardy Garden', first published in 1903 and last reprinted in 1999.

I never met her, just as I never met her husband, my grandfather, Herman Aaron. Her son, my father, was 4 years old when that photographic portrait of his mother was made. I was born 40 years later. My father is shown below, as a young man, in a World War II era photo.

click on photo to view larger

The generations roll on, we come and we go, leaving behind dust that smells of time long gone, like the dust that floated out to tickle my nose when I removed my grandmother's photograph from its frame. I honor my ancestors as best I can, by placing their images here.

© 2007 All Rights Reserved.

Content Theft

Well folks, they say imitation is the best form of flattery... BUT... I am not feeling flattered, or at all amused, by the CONTENT THEFT that I've just been alerted to by a reader named Jason. (Thanks, Jason!) A website put out by someone who is apparently unable, or simply unwilling, to come up with their OWN posts has been wildly stealing content from this blog.


Now, while it IS acceptable practice to quote from another site, with proper attribution, this person has gone WAY beyond that. They are posting my photos, my drawings, my dead relatives images, for heaven's sakes!! I counted 30 of my posts, with the ENTIRE posts reproduced over there, before I stopped counting. Now, this content thief does say the posts were originally mine, and link back here, which is nice, but that does not negate the fact that this person never asked permission to use any of my posts on their site. They appear to be using content without permission from several other sites as well. Below are a few examples, with the link to the post here on my blog first, followed by the link to the SAME post on the thief's site:

Links have been deleted by Jaya, as my content has now been removed from the offending site. (See my 'update' below.) But I WILL be checking for content theft in the future. Two easy ways to do this are, first, to copy unique text from your blog into Google, and see if it turns up anywhere else, and second, to use copyscape to check for plagiarism.

Well... just as there are bad eggs in the 'real' world, and people without ethics, there are those same types here in the blogging world. Unfortunately one of them has found his way to my blog and decided to loot it. I can only hope that this person will read this notice and will honor my request that they CEASE AND DESIST from using any of my content on their website, and REMOVE all content of mine that they already have displayed on their site.

UPDATE: Good news! They have taken down the three copied posts of mine I refer to above. Yay!! Now I will go see if they are removing all the REST of my posts... YES!! It seems this post has had the impact I hoped it would.

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© 2007 All Rights Reserved.

Gamma Channels Elvis!

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© 2007 All Rights Reserved.

Goosey's New Glasses

My dog Lucy, also known as Goosey, or Lucy-Fur, was sent a new pair of glasses in the mail. A kind gift from my friend MaLu. But now Lucy refuses to take them off, even wearing them when she lies down to sleep, as seen below. The cats think it's because she is trying to be cool, like Karl & Anastasia over at The Cat Realm, because they are always wearing glasses. Lucy tried explaining to them that it's nothing like that, because Karl & Anastasia wear FASHION glasses, while her new glasses are SERIOUS glasses. The cats were not impressed with this argument. Lucy thinks her new glasses make her look more intelligent. What do you think?

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© 2007 All Rights Reserved.

Old letter: Temple 'In Recovery'

I've been slowly digging through a musty box I hauled out of the garage, filled with old letters from various people. Today I pulled one out from my now dead younger sister Temple, written a few years before she killed herself, from inside a residential drug & alcohol rehab facility in New Jersey. I've shortened the name of the place to 'The Lodge', just to maintain its privacy.

It's interesting to me to read this seventeen years after she wrote it, since I now work with youth who are 'in recovery' (or avoiding recovery, as the case may be), and so I recognize some of the language Temple is using as standard 12 Step terminology. Temple did actually stay sober for a while after being at this facility. Paige, who she refers to in the letter, is one of our older sisters. She was the one who helped Temple the most during the time Temple was trying to get sober towards the end of her life. While this is a private letter, I thought it might hold some more general interest for others... a peek into a moment in the life of a young woman struggling to overcome some of her personal demons. And Temple always loved the spotlight, so I’m sure she’d approve of her words being publicized on my blog. So, here's what she had to say to me on July 1st, 1990:

Hi! I'm sitting in a lecture (it's a very boring lecture) and thought about it being your birthday and so… Happy Birthday!

I’m sticking with things here, though it’s hard. Paige came by yesterday and we had a really nice visit! (The last one was a disaster.) She brought me some clothes because I’ve been yelled at for wearing ‘inappropriate’ clothes. We have a ‘look’ here- The Lodge look is pixie hair cuts, long skirts, long sleeved blouses, stockings and usually blazers. It’s scaring me ‘cause I’m wearing Paige’s old suits (blazer & skirt) and I’m starting to like them! My favorite is a lime green jacket/blazer with a long white pleated skirt. I look like Aunt Kate, or any typical rich Princeton society lady. I call Paige’s clothes my ‘sober clothes’.

Paige was telling me what we were like when Mom was dying. We sounded like real animals- spoiled rotten brats! I’ve been doing my life story – it’s something I’ve always said I’d do – but always gave it just a half assed try. It’s difficult – gives me migraines (and we aren’t allowed any aspirin here) but it’s supposed to be good therapy, let’s us see our behavior patterns. I notice character defects that I have, popping up as early as 6 years old. Maybe I’ll end up publishing my ‘memoirs’ someday. It could be a good book to teach addicts and alcoholics what to avoid. I’m just about to start writing about the ‘boat years’ with Kate & Tina. Should be interesting. I think the hardest part to write about will be the first Miami years, at 18 years old, when I was into free basing, etc… Oh well…

I’ve been trying to practice rigorous honesty because they say you can’t get sober without it. So I’m going to have to write myself up for writing you this letter during lecture. Mrs. D. has been in my face all fucking week and I’ve been feeling like I’m in reform school rather than at a rehab.

I miss my cats! We see deer here all the time – they are so beautiful. A guy & girl got kicked out yesterday for passing a note to each other (fraternization) and we all just found out that they actually had sex here! That’s virtually impossible to do here. Also 6 people have walked out in the last 2 weeks so the place is in a lot of turmoil now.

Did I tell you about __________ ? (Name of famous rock & roll star edited out by Jaya – Temple had met him in another residential rehab center she was in before The Lodge.) I just got another letter from him. Well… Write Please! Love ya, Temple

Temple Climbing Out Of Ruin
Ireland 1977

© 2007 All Rights Reserved.

God's Will is Boo

This is Boo. Isn't he a gorgeous kitty? His original name was God's Will, because he came to me in such a dramatic, unlikely manner that I thought it must be God's will that he be a part of my family.

It happened 9 or 10 years ago. I was in Taos, NM, getting gas at a big gas station on the main road south of town, Paseo del Pueblo Sur. I lived over the Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ) Mountains to the east, in a town called Angel Fire. As I was filling up my truck's tank, a woman over at the next fuel station began screaming- not saying any words at first, just shrieking at full volume. Then her screams turned into "Help! Help!"

I was just rushing over to see what on earth was going on when the screaming woman ran up to me, crying, and held out her hands, saying, "Please can you help me? Can you take this kitten? It just ran across the road! It almost got run over! Please, can you take it??"

I looked and saw she was holding a tiny little kitten. It looked to be about 5 weeks old, just the age of a litter of kittens I had at home. The kitten had just run across 4 lanes of heavy rush hour traffic. It was a miracle he had not gotten killed. The screaming lady had seen him dart across the road and caught him. He was obviously traumatized, and the lady's screaming was not helping to calm him!

I said I would take him, and explained that I had kittens his age at home, and their mother would probably accept him into the family and let him nurse. Then I went into my car to get a box to put the kitten into for the drive back over the mountains. This kitten was feral, and was struggling to get away. As I was quickly getting the box ready for him, he managed to bite the hysterical lady 3 times, which only made her cry more! I was wondering if he was going to be biting me as well.

I got him home, and he WAS accepted into the litter with the other kittens, one of whom was Rexie, who grew up to be my #1 Love Boy. But back then he was just a tiny grey & white fuzz ball, with a constant expression that seemed to say: "What's going on? How did I get here?"

Baby Rexie


Baby Boo

The new kitten, God's Will, never bit me, but he did remain partially feral. It's only in the past 2 or 3 years that he has let me hold him for any length of time, and actually began to purr as I pet him. And he has always been spooked by any sudden movements near his face. I figure that is from seeing those giant car & truck wheels coming at him as he ran for his life through traffic that day.

Since he was originally so very shy, his name quickly evolved into 'Boo Kitty', and then just 'Boo'. He is sleeping on a soft blanket to my left as I write this. And even though his name has changed, it still does seem that it was God's will for him to find his way to me.

Click on the image to see a bigger Boo!

© 2007 All Rights Reserved.

At Thirteen

Below is a photo from almost 40 years ago, showing me at age 13. It was 1969, two years after the 'Summer of Love', and one year before National Guardsmen shot into a crowd of student protesters at Kent State, hitting 13 and killing 4. The Vietnam War was raging, and was being served along with dinner, on television screens across the US.

The photo was taken by my best friend at the time, a boy named Dougal. The two of us had just gotten kicked out of the boarding school we'd been at for 3 years, as I discussed in this earlier post. While the school did graduate us from 8th grade, they didn't want us there during the last couple of weeks of the school year, as we'd been judged to be bad influences on the other children. In the photo below I'm sitting on an old couch that's been tossed out somewhere on the campus of Princeton University.

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Atlantis, As We Fell

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Above is a drawing about the end days of Atlantis, and below is a poem I wrote a couple of years ago, about an especially disturbing past life memory from that time period.

Wound of Isis Burning

Currents of life swirl by me
as I watch, with eyes closed,
trying not to see...

Trying not to see those
comrades from the past,
sent to death by you...

"Cut hard, and cut true",
you called to the executioner-
a swift, merciful death.
For that I was grateful.

But I did not see them die.
I did not honor their deaths,
because I was kneeling before you
as their blood was spilled out.
And I became yours for that life.

First, I would have killed you,
then I knelt before you, captive.
Then I watched you, grew to love you.

You desired eternal submission.
I refused, saying 'NO, this life only.'
'ALL time', you said-
'NO. This life only.'

We were to have killed you,
but it was you, who killed us,
each of us but me.

They were my brothers all,
and we were one,
united in purpose,
united against you.

Should I have died too?
Was I wrong to live,
wrong to love?

Ten thousand years have passed,
and still the answers elude me.
Still the shame burns in me.
Still your flame draws me near.

'ALL time', you said-
'NO. This life only.'