CRIME SCENE

Something terrible had happened here; I just wasn't sure what.

I walked into the room and Kenny was sprawled out on the dingy carpet. His demeanor was aloof and uninterested: "nothing to see here, move along". I, however, didn't believe it. I've known him long enough to mistrust that glazed, slightly evil gaze that he fixes upon me when he is trying to feign innocence.

I suspected that the corner of the carpet by the stairs might contain a clue to the commission of the crime, since I noticed it was slightly turned up. I peeled it back, slightly ill at the thought of what I might find there. "Are these bug parts?" I asked him, knowing as I said it that he would not respond. A few shiny, black, hairy legs lay in a random, yet somehow lovely, pattern. Is God's plan revealed in the disposition of these cockroach legs? Who knows . . . for stranger truths are contained in far stranger places.

No, this was not it, not the evidence that would incarcerate him. I continued the search. There was a thin, yet active, line of ants leading to the cabinet where we keep sheets and assorted holiday items. I opened the shutter-style doors and peered inside. The ants had swarmed, forming black, moving masses of insect hysteria in pursuit of something hideous, something nameless. The stench hit my nostrils at about the same time my eyes were struggling to reconcile the horrid sight with the pleasant contents of the cabinet: lavender soap and Christmas bears, utterly defiled by mobs of biting ants, moving in a chaotic yet preordained direction. They were sharing information with the Head of the Hive, the Queen of the Nest, the Intelligence behind their stunning and terrifying assault on the innocent bag of gifts, the sweetly scented pillow cases. "What is in there, Kenny?" I queried, knowing as I said it that no answer would be forthcoming. He rolled on his back and yawned. It was going to be a long night.

I knew that I had to pull the items out of the cabinet, risk the wrath of thousands of ants soon to be disturbed, distracted from their single-minded pursuit of the Thing Without a Name. I pulled out the back of gifts, running to the back door to throw it out on the cedar chips before the tiny ant jaws ripped off particles of my skin and injected their painful venom. I then rescued the pillow cases and sheets, watching as the ants' hysteria increased exponentially. I was bitten. There was no way to avoid their panic as I relentlessly dug towards the Source. It was then, on my third incursion into the cabinet, that I saw IT: a pile of organic matter so covered in orgiastic ant life that I could not make out its true nature.

I ran upstairs and put on the thick rubber gloves reserved for only the most vile jobs. I grabbed the Windex and a roll of paper towels. I returned to the scene of the crime, spraying the ants with wild abandon, watching them slow down as the ammonia overwhelmed their lust, their lives. Finally, I was able to tear off some paper towels and grab the offensive pile of organic matter, now reeking of Windex and . . . cat crap. Kenny had crapped in the gift and pillowcase cabinet.

I whipped around, ready to face the criminal and watch him realize his colossal error: underestimating by ability to seek and find the ultimate truth. Instead of the expected look of contrition, or a grimace of deep emotional pain, or even an expression of mild remorse, I saw nothing but the back of his head moving rhythmically as he cleansed his testicle sacs. As the dying ants were crawling off the crap and biting me one last time before they expired, I decided to walk upstairs, dispose of the evidence and ponder the punishment.

But of course, there is no punishment for such offenders; like serial killers, they have no conscience, no flickering of remorse. Later that same evening, Kenny crawled into his Grime Box. As the filthy heating pad kept him warm, he stared at me through slanted eyes.

"You can't prove I did it," he said, "so why don't you just go write about it in your 'blog' and let me sleep."

And so I did; but there would be a next time, there always is. Next time, I'll be watching.

SARAH PALIN MAKES ME WANT TO HURL, and thoughts on the nature of reality and perception

Let me start this with a link that I think you might all find of interest: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-neffinger/the-nightmare-vp-debate-s_b_131113.html

Now let's talk. I'll begin by saying that the picture below, my total proof of the paranormal, is not a ghost, but a picture of my hand reflected in the glass. A trick of the light convinced me that I had discovered an alternate reality, which, if others only saw what I did, would change the world. It turns out that I was wrong. My perception was colored by what I wanted to see, not what was actually there.

I watched the Vice Presidential Debate tonight, and I had the occasion to ponder the issue of reality and interpretation yet again, and to question the very notion of "truth" in all areas of human inquiry. What matters, as I have discovered both in myself and in the world of politics, is not reality or truth per se, but the perception and creation of reality and truth.

Did it matter that Palin was barely able to put together a sentence? Did it matter that she refused to answer many of the questions that were posed to her? Did anyone care that she botched her facts on numerous occasions, and generally seemed unable to think for herself? She repeated the lines that had been fed to her, with no indication that she had thought in any depth at all about the issues at hand. At one point, I had to walk away: it was too painful for me to watch Biden destroy her on every single major point in the debate. It was a train wreck, I thought, and surely everyone would be lamenting her awful, pathetic performance.

But no. They barely had time to mill around on stage with family members before the talking heads and media celebs were declaring this debate a triumph for Sarah Palin. I blinked in disbelief: did these astute critics of the political scene actually WATCH THE SAME DEBATE I DID???? It simply didn't seem possible; as they gushed praise for Sarah, I felt ill. The same kind of ill I feel when someone radically disagrees with my sense of what is real. After this debate, I felt as if I had been told that today wasn't really Thursday, I am not really married, my three cats are really large hamsters, and my father is a Russian spy.

My interpretation of reality was blown apart by Mr. Tom Brokaw, a man who I thought was at least moderately objective. I trusted him to tell it like it is; and then I had to ask myself . . . do I really understand "how it is"? Is this just another case of self-delusion? When I saw the ghost in the glass, it was real--so real that it defined an entire world view for me, if only for a few weeks. Then there was that night, that fateful night, when Ty looked at the picture again and saw my hand. He traced the outline of my fingers on the computer screen, and then I saw it, too. When it became clear to me that my ghost was simply my hand holding the camera, reality shifted again--this time, away from me. My new belief, based on what I thought I had seen, dissolved so quickly it seemed never to have existed at all. Perception can change in an instant. Reality then follows; then, one's entire understanding of the world.

It occurs to me that my perception of Ms. Palin's performance tonight was not based on the reality that a huge percentage of Americans experience every day. I am watching Ms. Palin from the standpoint of someone who has a Ph.D., someone trained in critical thinking. Whereas my ghost was an exercise in lack of critical judgment, I was overly analytical when arriving at my conclusions concerning Palin. For Sarah, I am just another elite, intellectual Leftist who doesn't understand a darned thing about real Americans like her. The reality? People like Palin don't trust people like me; there is something suspicious about my education, something that distances me from the "meat and potatoes" folk that "sit around the kitchen table wondering how to put the kids through college". Of course, that entire notion of the home-spun, Main Street, common Joe is a political myth used to cover up the rampant greed for money and power that drives our politics.

Or is it a myth? Maybe I am still seeing ghosts where there are justs hands. Perhaps the hand in the window, the truth of all this, is simply that it doesn't matter if you're smart, or well educated, or know the issues that affect all of us, every day: all that really matters is that the "average Joe" looks at Sarah and sees someone they could hang out with at the hockey rink or the bar on that much-lauded Main Street, someone who thinks No Child Left Behind was a big success, and that the 4,000 + men and women who died in Iraq were necessary losses so we could "win" the "war". The words don't even make sense anymore.

If she represents the average American, then I have no idea who the average American is. If she "won" that debate, then I am the ghost in the window and no one will ever see or hear me, for truly, I do not exist.

WHAT DO YOU SEE?

I won't tell you what I see. Tell me what you see. I took so many pictures through windows that night, and nothing came out even remotely like this, not even the picture I took before and after through the same window.

Paranormal phenomena are doomed to be interpreted differently by everyone. It's very hard to convince people that something truly fantastic, unusual or inexplicable has happened, and even if they DO believe you, or come to the same conclusion based on the evidence, the inevitable "so what" issue creeps in and destroys all possible consensus.

I am frustrated that people don't experience what I do, or don't see what I see, or don't interpret reality the same way. Then I think, well, no one interprets reality the same way, and not even "scientific" results are universally accepted; the "lab test" that determines what is true and real often falls apart when someone else disproves it, shows the results to be tainted somehow, or it simply is ignored because no one knows what the hell to make of it.

If 20 people saw a ghost, it would create a sensation for awhile, and then all interest and curiosity would vanish; we always return to the status quo, always take refuge in what we know and understand. That is just human nature, it appears. We don't change our world view because to do so would require a new relationship to reality. That is too frightening for most of us.

I am not pretending that the above image in anything but an odd reflection in a window. I say that, but I don't believe it. I was there and I've looked at all my other pictures, and I can tell you that what I see, if it could be verified by anyone else, would change my world.

What do you see?

The Crow

I watched the crow struggle to free his foot. He was high up in the eucalyptus tree, and he could not fly away. He was entangled in some kind of netting that was placed there to prevent golf balls from landing in the neighboring mushroom farm. Two enormous birds--I later discovered that they were Great Horned Owls--were flying at him, and the crow was screaming. I had never heard such a sound. It was the sound of suffering, of desperation, of impending death. The owls were ripping him apart with beaks and talons. I stared in horror as the crow continued screaming, trying to free himself with the last of his energy. Finally I walked away, leaving Ty to observe the spectacle. The screams of the crow turned raspy, breathy; then an ominous silence.

The death of the crow stayed with me for days. At night, as I was trying to fall asleep, I would hear the crow cry in pain, see the enormous wings of the owls as they circled their prey; the image of the frantic crow replayed itself again and again in my mind. We returned to the Olivas Adobe and the tree where the drama had played itself out, and was continuing to torment me. We were on a tour, a very pleasant tour, and all I could think about was my crow. I stood on the balcony overlooking the courtyard, contemplating the eucalyptus tree. The sadness I felt was reflected in the gray sky, the still air, and the scent of tired, damp dust. Everyone else was inside the adobe, and I was just about to join them, when a crow appeared; he was flying just above my head in the courtyard. He drifted in gentle circles, coasting close to me, allowing the breeze to lift him. I watched him with a sense of awe and peace: this was my crow, back to comfort me and remind me that his death was simply a passage to another life, another chance to float and dance on the currents of the ocean air. He stayed just long enough for me to understand this, and then he disappeared. The tears overflowed from behind my dark glasses, and then I felt no more pain.

The spirit of the crow had never died, nor suffered, nor vanished from the Earth. He was transformed and renewed, returned to give me the gift of his beauty, his life. Thank you for the sign. Faith should not require it, but my trembling heart thanks you all the same.

Is There Anything Out There?

What Are You Looking For?
As I wandered around La Purisima mission in the dead of night under a full moon, I was graced with some insights: I enjoy trespassing onto land that is not privately held, and therefore should be the patrimony of the curious public; I love ruins and abandoned places; I think that something/someone is often walking with me, or with the group, but I have no idea as to the nature of it. People react differently to not knowing the nature of certain phenomena. Some are content to think that after we die, God and angels and heaven await. The stereotypical view of Heaven strikes me as infantile and silly. Who, after the beauty and complexity of Earth and life on Earth wishes to spend eternity in a place that sounds something like a delusion of some crystal gazing, New Age, post-hippy bourgeois who now drives a mini van with a bumper sticker proclaiming that their kids were all Students of the Month at the local gifted school? Please, don't let me become one of the Angels on Key Chains crowd. I am also not the dedicated atheist/professional skeptic who delights in ripping apart all mysterious or unexplained phenomena with a wave of the Materialist wand, or the sneer of the scientist/philosopher who knows what is possible, and what isn't. Such misplaced pride is repugnant to me, since no one can presume to know what happens to the soul after death. And don't tell me that I have no soul, or that my spirit is a creation of my brain, and that when my brain dies, everything that I am or was will cease to exist in any form. I don't believe that, and my lack of belief is directly related to my experience and my research; it is not a result of rampant wish fulfillment. However, it is also true that I cannot explain what it is that I am experiencing when I wander around a place such as Camarillo or La Purisima. Members of the team send me their EVPs, and now I have a couple of my own. Often, Ty and I can't get past issues of interpretation. I hear "you can hear your voice" in a snippet of a recording that was taken while we were at La Purisima and listening to the echoes our words made when we spoke next to a certain wall. He doesn't hear it, and I do; if he did hear it, he would insist that one of us had said it. Even though I KNOW none of us made that statement (the voice sounds nothing like the others), I cannot PROVE that one of us did not. Therefore, it ends up on the dust heap of useless evidence. Another one: I say, "are you still with us?" and right after, a whispered "no". Again, not my voice or anyone else's, since we have a policy of silence between requests for communication. In Camarillo, there is the distinct sound of a child singing behind our talking. I have the audio file. Anyone can hear it. We all agree that none of us was singing, and that we do not sound like small children anyway. So there is the rub: there is no way to convince everyone of the authenticity of these voices. Even if I were totally alone and recorded a clear voice that was not mine, who would really believe me? What would I have proven? There lies the more serious rub, if you will; even if everyone, even hard-nosed academics and scientists (to whom we have given the authority in this culture to make such decisions on truth and authenticity) were to all say, "yes, that is not a voice emanating from any human or radio transmission in the area" what have I proven? Only that I have a recorded a voice for which there is no explanation. The question is, of course, WHO or WHAT is speaking to me? The skeptic will always reply that I have picked up a stray radio wave, or some freak echo effect has occurred, or simply that we don't know what it is, but that doesn't mean it's paranormal. It doesn't mean that the dead are talking. Yes . . . but . . . when a member of the team announces on his recording that he is leaving the building and some voice (not belonging to any of the three of us that were up in the abandoned building 26 in Camarillo) responds "coward" in a whispery hiss, I know something. I know that it wasn't a stray transmission, an elaborate trick by some clever voice thrower; I know how it feels to hear something like that. It sends off every alarm in your body, raises your hackles (whatever those are) and chills you to the bone. What makes these recordings so amazing is the CONTEXT in which they occur. They are often responding to YOUR questions, making relevant remarks according to the situation at hand. How do I feel about that? Conflicted. When I told my parents about these excursions and the resultant evidence of something strange going on, the reaction was interesting. My sister doesn't want me to send her any of these recordings. My parents don't want to hear them either. Why not? They are afraid of whatever it is that is responding to me. I wonder about that, too. I don't know the nature of this communication. I cannot identify the source, and I don't know what any of this means about life after death. Who is talking to us? Are they actually human? Can one still be human after death, or is humanity defined by life? What are we after death? A collection of strange voices and quickly vanishing apparitions? Are we simply a disturbance in the electrical field? What does that mean about the afterlife? Why would some of us NOT LEAVE these places? How do we perceive ourselves after death? Do we feel as real and whole as we do in life, or are we aware of our apparently tenuous reality and our vastly diminished ability to communicate with the living? Are we not SUPPOSED to be in communication with the living? Is this a dangerous interest of ours? Perhaps those who are still lingering around mental hospitals or old missions are unhealthy and unhappy souls who are not progressing, not transforming themselves into something else, not reincarnating, not enjoying a higher level of consciousness, but stuck in time and place unable to figure out what the hell happened. I don't wish to be meddling in something that is forbidden, but I don't know who would be forbidding it, or exactly why. What I do hope to learn is what is left of consciousness after death. It is a fascinating question, and I think it would give me a new perspective on the nature of life itself. Yes, it is frustrating that the answer to that question is so elusive, mysterious and difficult to interpret. I also think that many times the answers are right in our face, but we are too afraid or limited in our thinking to accept the obvious; and I do think that it is obvious that something persists of us all after death--what we can't do is define it for everyone, once and for all. That leaves us wandering in the dark asking questions to spirits that can only communicate in quick, odd sentences or strangely intoned words that appear to be traveling vast distances to reach us. Perhaps they are not "at" these locations at all; in fact, what sense does it make to say that something like a soul or a spirit "is" anywhere? They certainly can't be bound by location, or at least I don't like to think that they are. The fact that I am having such difficulty expressing myself is proof that my subject matter is ethereal and very hard to capture; and if I did somehow 'capture' the ultimate truth about the nature of consciousness, who would believe me? What would it change? Humanity would surely continue its rampage across the planet, plundering and destroying our temporary home. I doubt that we would become miraculously transformed. I fear that proof of life after death--that all could somehow accept--would only make us disregard even further the life that we have now. We would value it even less, thinking that we had infinite second chances. If we knew life was forever, why bother to cherish and value it? After all, it would be an endless commodity. We would lose what little restraint and control we possess regarding our respect and love for life, like the child who knows that there is an eternal trust fund that will pay for his every whim and caprice. It would be so wonderful to know that we'll live on and on, except that if we humans didn't fear death and nothingness, we would destroy ourselves and each other. There is, therefore, an important reason for our denial and refusal to acknowledge what we are figuring out in our little ghost hunter groups. The less we know for sure, the better for all of us. So I will "hunt" the ghosts and they will hunt me, but we have made a secret pact: I'll pretend I'm not sure you exist, and you'll pretend that you just might be a stray radio transmission. We'll all be better off for our little deception in the end.

The Ghosts of Camarillo

The visit to Camarillo was intended for pleasure; not a full-fledged ghost hunt, just a sort of unauthorized tour requiring trespassing and breaking and entering. We arrived at our destination in high spirits (so to speak): Louis and Allison, the "jefes" of their respective paranormal groups, Chuck, Grant, Mike, Ty, and Leila. We scurried around what is now CSUCI, avoiding detection and cursing the camp that decided to screen "Finding Nemo" in the middle of a courtyard, thereby potentially damaging our EVP sessions (that's electronic voice phenomena, for those of you not addicted to this odd . . . hobby?). We wandered in to the first open building, one of two yet to be restored and converted to dorms for the university students. The two buildings are all that remains of Camarillo State Hospital, where the mentally ill were housed and underwent infamous treatments designed to break their will and whither their souls . . . at least until the 1980s or so, when conditions and treatments improved.



It was dank and dusty, a maze of hallways, rooms, bathrooms and larger meeting rooms or auditoriums. The overhead florescent lights had not completely died; they cast a sickly yellow glow, occasionally blinking or brightening, almost alive in their struggle to illuminate the dreary, abandoned rooms. I could smell the dirt and mold, feel and hear the broken glass under my feet, and perceive the occasional odd echo of an unidentified sound in a distant hallway. There were random items strewn about: a chair in one darkened room, with a single, dry rose reposing on the torn vinyl seat; curtains ripped from the bars over the windows; a rusted sink with water stains from 30 years ago; a sign that had fallen to the floor, its message no longer decipherable.

Some of the rooms were so black that I was overcome with vertigo, trying to orient myself in time and space. The small glow of the digital camera gave me a few seconds to figure out entrances and exits; yet there was no logic to the place, no organizing principle. It appeared to me as a jumble of rooms with obscure or forgotten purposes. What, exactly, happened here? Who was trapped here? Why was there a courtroom in the far corner? Why was the largest room painted a nauseating blue? What was the horrendous smell, acrid and overwhelming, permeating the mail room?

Our band of ghost busters wandered around from place to place, rather unsure how to proceed. Some of us stuck together, attempting to formalize the process, others wandered off alone, not disclosing their plans or intentions. I ended up in the courtroom with most of the others, conducting an EVP session and feeling both vaguely frightened and slightly silly. I wanted so badly to "catch" something: a voice, a strange shape or figure, or any anomaly that would defy rational explanation. Ty's camera was running, we all had our digital recorders at the ready, and every now and then someone would take a picture of the darkness in front of us. Knowing that the police could catch us and toss in jail for multiple infractions added to the general atmosphere of apprehension. After sitting in silence for a few minutes, Louis tried a "Frank's Box" experiment (a device that picks up all radio, cell and CB waves, creating a medium for spirit communication to occur--a controversial notion, to say the least), asking "who is here tonight". We all heard clearly the name "Mike" emanate from the box before the frequency skittered off to pick up more fragments and flashes of random transmissions. There was indeed a "Mike" with us that night, listening intently in the dark. That was all that the box revealed.

Eventually we made our way out of the first building and convened in the courtyard. I had experienced some odd sensations: a freezing cold spot in one hallway, and chills all over my entire body before I entered the courtroom. I also thought I heard some distant, small voice attempting to articulate itself over, or through, the hiss of the pipes. However, it was all so subtle, so vague, so frustratingly out of reach that I couldn't quite convince myself that anything out of the ordinary had happened. One of us was telling the story of the second building--intended for the high risk patients, and very well guarded in its time--when Louis pushed the front door and watched in amazement as it slowly swung open. Unit 28 was unlocked and completely accessible. There was a flurry of radio contact between our two groups, and I volunteered to explore the black maze with Chuck, Ty, Grant and Layla. I made it half way up the stairs before I realized that this building was nothing like the first--I turned around, frankly terrified, and descended the stairs, ending up in the fog-encased courtyard where Louis and Mike stood guard. Moments later, I tried again. I had some idea that this was going to be a vastly different experience from Unit 26. What awaited me was more than I was prepared to handle that night.

There was a grate covering the open stairway so that patients could not hurl themselves to their deaths below. The upstairs hallway led to two portals, one on each side; pigeons were nesting in the rotten eaves and the smell of damp, rotting material was everywhere. The boiler was still functioning, and the pipes made odd, metallic pings and bangs as the air moved through them. It was oppressively hot, humid and so dark that you could actually feel it, as if the atmosphere were alive or electrified. We entered the door on the left, walking into a huge room with floor to ceiling windows on each side. The wood beams and floor were from the 1920s or so, maybe ten years later that that. I kept my digital camera on so that the feeble screen light would illuminate our path through the broken glass, boxes, draperies and rotting wood. As the group navigated a long, long hallway, I was drawn to a bathroom on my right--I don't know why, but even through my fear, I was pulled to a spot in the center of the room. There were mirrors on the tiled walls, and a seemingly endless series of smaller rooms telescoping beyond my line of sight. I asked if anyone was in the room with me, and I received a response.

It was not an intelligible voice; I could not understand what it said. It was not, however, the banging or pinging of the pipes. I asked again; again I received a direct response. It is difficult to describe how I felt at that moment--I will make the attempt--my legs felt weak and paralyzed; I felt both waves of heat and cold run through me, and an instinct to run away as fast as possible. I could not move. Something had responded to me, and I don't know why. I don't know what answered my request, nor do I know how to catalog or analyze that experience. Logic and reason disappeared after that, since neither one were offering me a way to understand what had just happened. As it turned out, the group had stopped just outside of that room when I walked in there, and as I finally emerged, they told me that they had all heard the same thing I did.

The independent verification of my experience did not calm my state of mind; if anything, my need to exit the building intensified. I allowed myself to join the group in the salon at the end of that maze of hallways and rooms, but I was so scared that I actually ran back through the entire labyrinth and ended up outside with Louis, Mike and Chuck. I downplayed my panic and fear, not wishing to appear vulnerable and unprepared, which of course, I was. We talked about everything and nothing as the other group made their way through Unit 28. They emerged about 30 minutes later, and we all wandered back to our cars and ended up at Denny's in Thousand Oaks. It all seemed so pleasant and fun at that point; but something had happened in that building, and I still don't know how to talk about it.

I vacillate between two extremes: on the one hand, we were simply a bunch of adults acting like children, running around dark, abandoned buildings and scaring ourselves; on the other hand, we had found something alive in a place that should have been entirely dead and forgotten. What that "something" is keeps me up at night.

Whatever I encountered that night had no face, no body, no light. What I really want to know is if it had a soul.

Friends

Now this saddens me. I had to search high and low for a picture of me with friends. This is from college; probably 1986 or 1987. Brigitte is on the left (she was my roommate freshman year, along with Michelle) and Sheila-V is on the right (she was my co-founder and co-editor in chief of The Ivy, the first school newspaper in 50 years).I am writing this at home on a Friday night, since Ty is on his Great Miniature Boat Trip and will not return for another nine days. I realized around 3:00 today that it was Friday night, and I had no plans. I wrote a plaintive email to my brother and sister in law, but to no avail. Ty had suggested to Luke and spouse that they call me, but they didn't. I was going to call Mike, but it was too late--and he doesn't like staying out late. And that, my dear reader, is the extent of my friend network. I have latched on to Ty's friends and family; my parents are in H.B., my sister and her husband in San Francisco, and my two old friends from high school are never available: Julie, because she lives six hours away, and Chris, because Chris is never available. Even when we were best friends, we only managed to see each other once every couple of months or so.

Six years ago, I had enough friends to throw a big Halloween party--really big. Everyone would come, too. There was Gwen, who had a smile and a laugh that made me happy no matter how I was feeling before. There was Zurine, a kind and genuine person who really cared about me; Francesca, best friend material through and through; Sara, who took a very long time to really know, but who was in the sad position of having to choose between my ex and me (she chose him); Shayne, the diva opera star with a heart of gold; Tim, who I truly loved; and others who came into my life with promise and the joy of a new relationship, and for one reason or another, vanished.

I shouldn't say "for one reason or another". I know exactly what happened. A divorce forces people to take sides; there are those who can make that choice easily, and there are those who cannot handle the pain and drama of their friend's life change. Many of my old friends could not make the transition; I was half crazy with trying to save my marriage and trying to save my soul. It was a lot to ask of anyone to stick by me during that time. In truth, most of them could not; those that were willing were sacrificed to my shame and depression. I just didn't call them anymore, even after they tried multiple times to contact me.

I decided that is was less painful to be alone when family is not available. I still hide out in my room, reading endless books on life after death, or I spend hours on the computer, sending emails or commenting on Flickr pictures, because that's about as risky as I can get. I'll watch some television, or clean the house, or play with the animals, and I can easily go for days without speaking to anyone. Luckily there is Mosca, and we comfort each other, since she also faces a long summer without friends; but when she's not here, and Ty is gone, I am completely isolated. Is this my choice? Is this what I really want?

Those that don't know me terribly well would find it surprising that I am actually quite shy. It's hard for me to establish friendships, and I don't know how to behave sometimes with someone I don't know very well. It's like starting a relationship, and while I am currently pretty good at picking great spouses, I don't know how to act with a potential friend. I either scare them off because I come across too strong or needy, or I alienate them because I appear aloof and uninterested. I know that I do need friends. I see my husband and his siblings thrive in their strong friendships; I am amazed at how often my parents throw large dinner parties; I am jealous of my little sister and her vast friend network. I have to be honest here: it hurts to be so alone.

It wasn't always this way. It's only been this way since 2003. If you look at the picture above, you'll see how happy I was with Brig and Sheila-V. We took care of each other. We had fun together. We counted on each other. Most of all, we trusted each other and we truly believed we would be friends forever.

I haven't heard from either of them in 20 years. Is that the fate of all human relationships? Is that why I hide and keep to myself? It's just too hard to expose myself to loss and rejection again; yet it's even harder to be here, writing this blog alone on a Friday night.