ETcetera...THE OTHERWORLDLY REPORT

“Mommy, Mommy! Come and see!” She had her hands full with an exuberant eight year old. “Look!” I screamed, as I pointed up to the sky. “What, Honey?” she asked. “Can’t you see the distance between the stars?” I asked. “LOOK!” I was frustrated. I could tell by the look on her face that she couldn’t. I had been stargazing again, something I did regularly with my blanket on the back steps of our house. But this particular night, something had changed for me. In one nanosecond, my vision had shifted and I had my first glimpse of infinity with no limitations. Mom shook her head, turned, and walked back into the house. I had done a back flip out of her arms when I was a baby and landed on a silver box. The box was severely dented, but the doctor said that I was fine. Maybe that bump on the head was a blessing and perhaps that is why I saw things a little differently as a child. And I always felt temporary. I always had a fascination with the moon, the stars, and the sky and I seeme

One of my readers wrote to me the other day and told me to stick to my dating stories and not rant about NASA. But every once in a while, I think something is more important than dating when someone decides to bomb the moon or someone dies and I have to attend the funeral. And although losing a dear family friend is tragic and heartbreaking, it forces me to take a break from the adventure and insanity of coupulation (my word.) So I was off to Arizona for the funeral that turned out to be more of a celebration and drunkfest which my friend Carl would have wanted. I could hear the words Carl would be saying in his southern drawl that I always loved hearing. “I’m gonna go run interference for ya’ll.” While I was in Arizona, I decided to take a short, but overdue vacation to Sedona, a New Age mecca for seekers and girls who have dated too much. I have always been a spiritual person, albeit a bit sacrilegious. I was raised Catholic and was taken to church in my mother’s arms. She coul

I once attended a writer’s conference in Maui. There had to be over a thousand people there, half of them men. And I was attracted to one of them. Just one: the most dysfunctional, admittedly maladjusted, bipolar one of them. I could feel it when he walked into the room. He wasn’t overwhelmingly attractive, but he was wildly intelligent and a great writer. He didn’t use his real name when he wrote which made him all the more mysterious and deadly. There was just something about him. I had found the needle in the haystack and got stuck with it. I had found something that hurt without even trying. Call it crazy. I tended to call it chemistry (and fireworks that burned.) So I am determined to figure this out. Is chemistry a physical attraction or is it more? It obviously doesn’t always work to our benefit. In fact, sometimes it hurts (a lot.) Is it real or is it imagined? Does he (or she) remind us of Daddy (or Mommy?) Are we finishing (or unfinishing) some business in our past? If I coul

Time is a funny thing. It means something different to everyone. Some of us spend it while others kill it. Some of us try to save it, while those of us who are coming to grips about our own mortality are trying not to waste it. Sitting in the waiting room of my doctor’s office recently (which seems to be a frequent event these days), I noticed an elderly couple sitting across from me. They were holding hands and he was playfully swinging hers back and forth. They looked like they were both in their eighties and it was obvious that they had been quite the handsome duo in their earlier years. “It’s so great that you are still holding hands,” I said. “It keeps her from slapping me,” the man replied as he grinned at me, his sense of humor still very much alive. “Wow!” I said. “Can I sit next to you guys? Maybe some of that luck will rub off on me.” Was it really luck, fate, hard work, commitment, or just Cupid with a good aim? They looked quite devoted and it appeared that time had treated

I hear voices. Well, it’s more like just one little voice. I'm sure it won't be long before I start seeing dead people. No. I'm not Sybill and I don't have a split personality. And I have never had imaginary friends. I'm not sure if it's God I hear, a little angel, my Higher Self, or a voice from another dimension. It speaks even when I don't want to hear it and louder when I try to ignore it. And I typically do until it's too late, at which point it says, “I told you so” while I’m putting ice on my head after banging it against the wall. As you will come to know, my little voice has a caustic sense of humor, but looking back, it always seemed to know better. I think we all have our own little voice. If we stop talking so much, we can hear it. It is (almost) drowned in our daily distractions, but has its own determined desperation that hangs on. Sometimes it is polite and stays quiet until we shut up and at other times it screams out and scares us