ETcetera...THE OTHERWORLDLY REPORT

In the beginning was the Word, and Microsoft did not create it. Our lives are being continually downloaded with words and data that are exponentially increasing in both volume and speed: Facebook, that narcissistic playground for adult children who no longer feel comfortable in public screaming “Mommy, Mommy, look what I can do!” and have three hundred pictures of themselves doing everything imaginable and inform you when they are baking a cake, having their coffee or a BM or thinking about having a BM, MySpace, the textspot for sexpots, Twitter, or how to be a narcissistic from any location on the planet, Farmville (whatever that is and all I can imagine is Old McDonald), forwarded emails and superstitious chain letters that forewarn my demise if I don’t pass them on, SPAM, celebrity gossip and “which celebrity do you look like?” (and who really gives a BM?) reality TV, iPods, texting, blogs, websites, advertisements, hard copy junk mail, and GPS systems which help us get to where we...

Many years ago I attended a very expensive workshop. The agreement for all of the participants (about 75 or more) was that everyone had to be present in order to enter the room to start each class. A few members were consistently late. Those who were angry that we couldn’t begin started to accuse and blame the others who couldn’t seem to make it on time. Those who were late gave good excuses. Neither side heard or acknowledged the other. This continued for forty-five minutes. We had been listening to lectures about being an example to others and yet the message had quickly been forgotten. I was reluctant to remind them, but someone close by overheard me mumbling to myself and raised her hand. “This person has something to say!” she yelled. And suddenly everyone stopped talking and turned to look at me. I was embarrassed and afraid to speak, but something inside of me gave me the courage that I needed. “We have all spent a lot of money and time and made the commitment to be here this we...

When I was a baby, Mom had a hard time keeping me still, and one day I did a back flip out of her arms and landed on my head on a silver box. The doc said that I was fine. The box, however, was not, which is a testament to the hardness of my head. I was a sleepwalker too. My Indian name was Walks with Diapers (kidding), but one night when my parents were sleeping, I managed to climb out of my bed, open the front door, and stroll off the property in only my diapers, headed toward the main drag where I would have been Gerber road kill if my psychic Mom hadn’t awakened and screamed, “The baby’s outside!” Luckily they found me in time, but they scared me awake and the diapers came in handy. So you can imagine how traumatic it might be for a little jumping bean to get stuck in the Alice in Wonderland spinning teacup ride with her Mom, trapped in the dark, ascending structure, the Mad Hatter jumping up and down maniacally during every painful, horrifying minute. They eventually had park...

Maybe there is something wrong with me. I am sure that there are a lot of folks who might attest to this. But I am sitting here in my Los Gatos studio listening to my thirty year old (or older) refrigerator compressor rattling on and off every five minutes (blowing its ancient dust all over my floor), yet my apartment manager doesn’t think there is anything wrong with it. He is one of those people who think it’s me, but I have told him that he needs to think about sleeping ten feet away from this thing every night. He says I’m “noise-sensitive” and without my knowledge, he put sticky rubber strips under all of the items on top of my refrigerator because he said that was what was making it rattle, but it still does. He and his wife announced that they just bought a new refrigerator. I’ll take their old one. I bet it’s quieter than my Hotpoint from Hell. My neighbor is idling his motorcycle right under my unit (which makes me want to idle his unit) and as I write this, another neighbor,...