Roll the bones

Whenever I find a playing card on the street, I assume that the Universe or whoever is sending me a message, and pick it up. Each card in a standard deck has a correlative card in the Tarot deck, so I read them accordingly. It's like this:

Diamonds = pentacles
Clubs = wands
Spades = swords
Hearts = cups

See? Like that.

Recently, while filling my car up at the Shell station, I found a card bearing the image of Scooby Doo, mid-gallop, with his tongue hanging out down past his collar, over a background of irregular green swirls. Each corner bore the numeral 7 next to a purple bone. Ah, yes... the old seven of bones.

I was going to chuck it, but instead, tossed it in the open window of my car, just to get it off the ground. It flipped up in the air, circled back around, and landed in my purse, which was leaning, nearly closed, against the back of the front seat. Clearly, that seven of bones was meant for ME.

Looking at the card and its loopy cartoon graphics, I suddenly remembered a dream I had about 15 years ago, in which David Letterman was performing a card trick, and invited me to choose from a deck he had fanned out in one hand. The card I chose was purple and green, and showed a gorilla. David was very enthusiastic about my choice. "The Ace of Grape Ape!" he exclaimed, and went on to explain how lucky a card it was, and all the good things it meant for me.

It's harder to interpret the Ace of Grape Ape, as there's no real corresponding suit in the Tarot, but the bones are analagous to clubs, I guess, so I could read the seven of wands for an answer to this particular Universal clue.

The seven of wands indicates being under attack, having to defend oneself, struggling for control. I can't imagine why the Universe, if it really does know all, would think that I would need a refresher course in feeling out of control. I get that part already. I want my Ace of Grape Ape.

Ask not what Tucson can do for you

There are days when I miss living in Tucson, and although they're admittedly few and far between, today is one.

I returned from two productive hours at the DMV to find that Lorelei had sent me a link to a site featuring photos of the holes at a particularly off-kilter miniature golf course. She had no way of knowing I would, but I recognized the place right away. It's in Tucson, Tucson, Arizona! and not only have I been there more than once, I was once there on Thanksgiving, by myself. I have the Polaroids to show for it. I reveal that to you now only to prove a) how far I have come, and b) that I do not care if you think I am a hopeless, friendless loser with no friends or hope. See? I've got Strength. Inner strength. It's what I went to Tucson to find, and look at me now! That's right, look.

Keep looking. You think I'm hot, don't you? I knew it. You probably wouldn't even know, looking at me, like you are, that I once spent Thanksgiving alone, with no friends, sobbing into a candle bearing a picture of St. Jude, kneeling at the Wishing Shrine all alone, wishing and wishing for even one friend, oh, please, Jeebus, just one. Would you? I didn't think so.

That is what Tucson can do for you, my friends. (See? Now I have friends!) Once you look into the heart of the desert, you will never be the same. Well, not the heart, necessarily, but like, the head and neck region. I never actually went into the desert, but I did glimpse the heart of the desert, reflected in the eyes of a fiberglass monkey guarding the first hole at Magic Carpet Golf on Speedway Boulevard in Tucson, Arizona, and it changed my life.

That was four years ago, and since then, I've made as many as three friends, sold my BMW, became the subject of a file at the FBI, quit my San Francisco graphic design job, bought a 1982 Volvo 240 at the Salvation Army, finally got that cat out of my freezer and buried him, and started a great new career as a secretary! Oh, I spent Thanksgiving alone again this year--don't let my high-flying lifestyle fool you into thinking my head has swelled--but this year, I did it with inner strength and heart, and everything I have, I owe to Tucson, Arizona.



Star of the day. . .
posted @ 2:50 p.m. on 12.15.04 before | after

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She lay awake all night,

zzzzzzzzzzz......