A few years ago I asked Max what he’s been up to, I can’t remember if it was in a dream or just in my head. But I remember that he answered, “Just chillin.” He sounded relaxed and content.

Today is his birthday and he’s chillin in paradise. The force is with him and so am I, always and forever.

Let us all follow the Christmas tradition* of reading  The Story of the Lesbian Stick.

~

* Heartfelt atheist blessings to all you people who come here and especially you special ones who have given me so much. xo

Max loved butter. It started with toast, which turned into Toast Parties, meaning a a large quantity of buttered toast eaten in one sitting.

Bread was merely a vehicle for butter, he told us. Then what’s the butter knife? his little brother wanted to know. The knife was the concierge.

Max loved pesto, chocolate, burgers, pasta, ice cream, ribs, and cheese. He loved  condiments. He loved dogs and babies. He loved cashmere and velvet. He was very tactile. He loved reading and his writing impressed all his professors.

He loved Henry Miller, Derrick Jensen, Don DeLillo, Shakespeare, Matt Taibbi, Martin Amis and Poe. He loved philosophy. He was an atheist who read books about religion. He loved art. He loved nature. He loved honeysuckle and often stuck a little flower behind his ear when he was out taking a walk.

Most of all, he loved music. Loved isn’t a strong enough word. He loved the Stones, Pixies, Velvet Underground, Beatles, Surf guitar, Gogol Bordello, Dresden Dolls, Hank Williams, The Ronettes, Beach Boys, David Bowie, Dengue Fever, Os Mutantes, The Kinks, a million ancient blues singers and the Ramones. He loved his first guitar, a Strat, and he finally acquired his holy grail, a Hummingbird.

He taught his friends how to play guitar. Some of them wrote to me with memories of this. They wanted me to know he’d been an important figure in their lives.

Max loved prank calls and was an inventive practitioner of the art. He loved pranks in general, the more subversive or absurd the better. He liked to annoy people but he couldn’t hold a grudge. He liked to sing in funny voices, unable to believe he could actually sing. He loved Mac the Knife when he was a kid, and patiently transcribed the lyrics, stopping the record over and over to do it. He wrote down every Huh! Huh! I’m pretty sure I have it somewhere.

We liked to compare top ten lists of books, movies, and desert island records. We shared a hatred of cheesy rock bands. In a perverse response to a thing I wrote about stuff I love, he made an exhaustive list of every band he hated:

Getting back to hatred for a minute, i coincidentally just compiled my own list of classic rock bands I hate. Before making this list, I thought of myself as a classic rock lover (Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Love, Doors, Velvets, Beach Boys, David Bowie, Neil Young, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, etc.) But now I am not so sure. I wouldn’t mind if the work of these “artists” was erased from existence:

grateful dead
the who
the eagles / don henley
steeley dan
santana
jethro tull
king crimson
billy joel
sting
U2
Rush
Chicago
America
Kansas
Journey
Aerosmith
bob segar
steve miller
tom petty
alice cooper
frank zappa
supertramp
styx
eric clapton
ELO
earth wind and fire
blood sweat and tears
bad company
iron butterfly
robert palmer
deep purple
doobie brothers
crosby stills & nash
grand funk railroad
the guess who
mountain
thin lizzy (except “whiskey in the jar”)
allman brothers
lynard skynard
peter frampton
the cult
steppenwolf
heart
Emerson Lake & Palmer
zz top
ted nugent
bon jovi
humble pie
hot tuna
ten years after
j geils band
little feat
robin trower
badfinger
genesis / phil collins / peter gabriel
yes
tower of power
nrbq
three dog night
john cougar mellencamp
spirit
brian adams
acdc
sweet
carole king
leon russell
carly simon
sugarloaf
meatloaf
jimmy buffett
wings

I love how thorough he was! And I love the Maxness of “getting back to hatred for a minute.”

Max was funny. It took a lot to make him laugh aloud, but he was hysterically funny.

I forgot to say that he loved Andy Kaufman.

After eight years, it terrifies me to think what I may have forgotten. The part that doesn’t change is the love and the grief. Every fucking night, it’s goodnight sweet prince. Tomorrow I will light another candle and speak to the little flame until it goes out.

Maybe if you aren’t American, 2017 was about something other than Donald Trump. I can barely imagine that. Here in the US, we wake up every morning in a state of dread. What did he do now? Who has he insulted? What inch of progress has he dragged back by a yard?

Some of you are able to go about your day without watching the news, and I envy you. I know I could wait until evening to find out the latest breach of decency but I want to get my hit asap, while it’s still fresh. I want to see the modulated horror on the pundits’ faces. I want to see them try to contain their disgust. I like knowing that I’m not alone in this.

My personal life seems inconsequential, and it literally is, more and more. I have lost friends to distance or apathy or Because cunt. My community is a long way from where I used to live, and I’ve stopped driving. I feel like a shut-in even though I do get out occasionally. I’m not expecting anything to happen, like a new job or relationship or project or vacation. I’m just coasting.

I’m trying to learn how to stop ruminating about the same old shit. Walking backwards is supposed to help. I’m taking probiotics and calcium when I can remember them. But in general, I don’t feel present in my own life.

Politics is another matter.

The Trump situation is an all-consuming and immediate vortex of fear and rage. Why can’t anyone make it stop? Why has the Republican party gone crazy en masse? Why aren’t they terrified of that fucker destroying the world in a crazed nuclear strike, just to distract us from his Russian business ties? Why do we have to go around embarrassed by his blustering stupidity and childish outbursts? Why do we have to see that fucking hair????

In 2018, I hope to march against my government to show solidarity with sane people. I think that’s my only plan.

Last week I had a three-hour phone conversation with a dear friend who told me that meditation would cure my depression. We both grew frustrated but we kept at it. He insisted that his depressed friends had found relief through meditation. The ones who didn’t were to blame for not trying hard enough. If only everyone would listen to him! he exclaimed. At one point, I sneered that I was further than ever from wanting to meditate.

He was proselytizing because he believed he had the answer. I resisted his belief-system because, in his words, I can’t surrender. Depression is complicated. Surrendering to a higher power is just not for me. I will surrender to medication or trans-cranial electric stimulation or a guiding philosophy that makes life less painful.

I reminded him that the universe is indifferent to us, clearly. I mean, it’s obviously not benevolent. He found this line of thinking exasperating. “You’re just like Max!” he said. And despite everything, I was proud to hear that. I’m going to drink a toast to Max tonight, to his beautiful stubborn soul and his loving heart.

Goodbye to 2017 and the horse it rode in on.

The second time Max killed himself it was too surreal to take in. He was lying in his bed with one knee up and his headphones in his right hand, next to his IPod. When he wouldn’t wake up, I yelled his name sharply in a parental tone, the one I used when he was little. I was so sure I could bring him back. I breathed into his mouth and continued to call his name. By the time the coroner guys arrived, I was getting panicky. I didn’t want them to take him away. I cried and argued with a hulking red-faced man who followed me when I got a scissors to cut a piece of Max’s hair. I looked up at the red face and demanded, “Do you believe in god?” I was planning to issue a mother’s curse, foretelling an eternity in hell. But he threw me by answering “No.”When they wheeled the gurney into the living room, Max was in a blue body bag, unzipped just enough to show his face. He looked peaceful, but white fizz was coming out of his mouth. I kissed his lips and told him that I’d see him on the other side. I once heard him say this to a friend, one of the times he was off to rehab.

The first time Max killed himself was so shocking and traumatic that none of us could get over it, especially Max. I told him later that when he jumped, he took everybody with him. His family and friends, all his loved ones. I thought this would increase his efforts to recover, because he owed it to us. What a stupid and heartless thing to say to a man whose failed suicide attempt had left him with so many physical disabilities. I would like to take it back, along with so much else.

That first time began at six in the morning, with his text message: “Going to jump onto PCH. So sorry.” It took just a moment for me to understand that “jump” didn’t mean jump into his car and drive. I was flooded with horror and adrenaline. I woke up my husband and called Max’s cellphone.

I can’t remember what happened in the next two hours. I think we made some frantic phone calls to Max’s friends. We didn’t think of calling local hospitals. When I got the call from UCLA, the woman on the phone said that they had my son and that he was hurt but alive. She urged me to sit down. She told me that at first, Max wouldn’t give them permission to call his parents but finally he had relented. She was great. You need great people when your son kills himself. You need people who are experienced with trauma.

We found the ER, where Max’s dad was waiting, jingling his keys. He turned to me and said, “It’s just like September 11 only this time it’s real.” On September 11, Max was working at the World Finance Center, next to the twin towers. A morning with a better outcome: Max was fine. Max’s dad, Nick, had grown more repressed and robot-like over the years. His tone was almost jaunty. I fucking hated him. It would only get worse as we moved through this tragedy, mirroring our bad marriage and again trapping Max in the middle.

After a few hours, we were directed to the Intensive Care Trauma Unit, where Max was in an induced coma, with tubes and machines everywhere. I felt only relief. UCLA seemed like a heavenly safety net designed to save my son and nurse him back to health. I didn’t know about the internal bleeding or the broken sacrum or anything else. Max was alive. He was meant to be here. How could he have doubted that?

By nighttime, everyone had gone home except for me and Duncan, Max’s cousin. They were like brothers. A nurse offered us juice and we fell in love with him. His name was Tim. We grew to become seasoned connoisseurs of nursing staff. The good ones, like Nurse Tim, earned our sincerest adoration.

That first night was endless. The blood transfusions and flashing monitors and complex web of tubes seemed reassuring to me. I inhaled the acrid odor of stomach acid that flowed through a tube into a large bag. It was fragrant with life, with Max, like the sour milk he spat up as a baby or his filthy socks as a teenager.

The next day, Max was being prepared for surgery. His attending nurse refused to speak to me and handled Max like a tire she had to rotate. She stood staring at the drip bags as if trying to decipher ancient wall drawings. I complained to the nurse in charge, who scolded me for complaining. I wrote a desperate letter to the head of the hospital, begging for a different nurse and explaining that Max was my firstborn child who meant everything to me. I must have sounded crazy but the nurse disappeared and we never saw her again. It was the first of many times I would beg, threaten or manipulate people whose decisions, to my mind, could either save or kill my child.

Every night at 7 o’clock, visitors in the ICU had to leave during the change of shifts. The hallways at night were dimly lit and mostly deserted. Duncan and I would sit together in one of the tiny waiting rooms. If he left me alone, or if I tried to sleep, my mind would fill with dread. What if Max died? The thought was literally unbearable. He had to live. My world depended on him. Why would god take him from me? I don’t believe in god but I believe in his vindictive streak. Maybe he was mad because I once lost Max at the beach, when he was only three years old. God wasn’t going to let me get away with this unpardonable sin, even though Max himself had officially forgiven me.

One night Duncan left me alone to make a phone call. I could see his reflection in a waiting room down the hall. The silence was broken by the horrible sound of a woman sobbing. The sobbing rang of uncontrollable grief and I wanted it to stop. When Duncan returned, I asked him if he’d heard that woman sobbing. He paused for a moment and said, “That was me.”

I don’t know how to tell Max’s story without lingering on his time in the hospitals. The hospitals became a progressive nightmare. The ineptitude and carelessness were terrifying. At one point, we took turns sitting with him so that he was never alone with a nurse or a doctor who might kill him. I had absolute faith in my ability to save him, and even boasted about my various triumphs, like getting him moved to a bed near a window. I was the one person who could comfort him. But I had no understanding of what he was going through. I thought it was the story of a heroic mother. I remember stroking his hair and whispering, “Don’t worry, honey. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.” He answered, “It already has,” and he cried for the first time.

At UCLA, Max became delusional. I walked into his room and thought I’d made a mistake. A sweaty old man lay trembling in the bed with his mouth open, not my handsome 34 year old son. I actually said to my husband, “Oops, wrong room.” But it was Max, jerking spasmodically and staring up at the ceiling with wild eyes. He jabbered nonsensically and didn’t know who he was. At one point, he began singing “I’ve been working on the railroad” in a comically strong voice. Maybe he was back in first grade. He waved his hands in the air and clawed at something invisible. Eventually they tied his arms to the bed after he pulled out an IV.

They tried sedating him but his body continued to jerk and spasm. I sat with him in the dark, watching the monitors. I could see that his heartbeat was climbing. A doctor from the psychiatry team stopped by and ordered two mgs of lorazepam every hour. A neurosurgeon came in and expressed concern. He asked me what drugs Max had been given and I sputtered, “Don’t you know? I’m just the mother.” I told him the latest theory, that Max was in withdrawal from klonapin, the drug that had landed him in rehab. “I don’t like the way he’s breathing,” he said darkly, and left.

By morning, Max was deeply sedated. The shift changed and a nurse named Sarah Spendlove was alarmed to find he had no gag reflex when she inserted the tube to clear his lungs. She looked at the clock and hesitated. She announced that she was going to make a decision she wasn’t allowed to make, overriding the doctor’s order. She stopped the lorazepam and slowly Max began to rise toward consciousness.

I remember all the times I thought about sending flowers to Sarah Spendlove to thank her for saving my son’s life. Now it’s too late. I don’t know how to thank her and then tell her that he’s gone, that he took that life because he found it unbearable.

The only other time I saw Max cry as an adult was the day he revealed that he was a heroin addict. He was 20, home from college for the summer. It was a confession made under duress. A friend had given him 24 hours to tell me, and then she would spill the beans. She was the only friend willing to rat him out. The code of silence in his circle was as strict as the Mafia’s.

Heroin addiction was alien to my world. It was still something that William Burroughs did, coughing and spitting in the junk-sick dawn. I had no idea that half the student body at Sarah Lawrence was strung out on heroin. I was shocked to the core but I felt no anger, only concern. “It’s been so horrible,” he choked out in despair. All I could do was hold him and chant, “It will be okay. I’ll help you.” Over and over. For the next fourteen years, I tried to help. I insisted on helping. Keeping Max alive was my engine, humming in the background of other struggles. I didn’t believe in the concept of Tough Love and I scorned every parent or professional who espoused it. The one and only night I practiced it, Max drove himself to a cliff and jumped.

Max’s delusional episodes in the hospital were mystifying to the doctors and nurses. They all offered different theories. Some of them stuck with Klonapin withdrawal; one suggested an imbalance of potassium. Seeing someone you love staring into space and smiling insanely is profoundly upsetting. His agitation was heartbreaking. Duncan had the most success at calming him down. There were times when we laughed, during his imaginary phone conversation with Michael Moore or his mic check for a gig with his old band. Duncan was the only one who could get Max to put his arms down when he thrashed them helplessly in the air. Duncan was the Max-whisperer.

The delirium passed and Max was serene but confused. A voice from a speaker called for Doctor Something to report somewhere. Max turned to me and asked: “Am I him?” I began to write down his questions and comments, finding his confusion adorable. When he asked, out of the blue, “Does God have any greater insult?” I had no idea how to respond. It never occurred to me that he was serious and rational. “Oh, I’m sure he does,” I told him. Max nodded and said, “Yeah, probably, because he’s God, right?”

Max’s dad came to visit the ICU at exactly 6 pm every night. He is a man who lives by routines. For the first few days, I would confront him outside the security door, and elaborate on how this was all his fault. I made no attempt to contain my rage. I blamed him for screaming at Max on the morning of the night he jumped. I blamed him for every bad decision he had ever made, all leading directly to Max’s broken body on the other side of the door. I sobbed and shouted in his face that every one of his instincts had been wrong. I still believe this but it gives me no comfort. I hear from my family that Nick is a broken man, a ghost of his former self whose life feels pointless. “Then let him blow his brains out,” I always tell them.

I don’t know why I married Nick except as a way to opt out of my own life. He was a daddy figure who would take care of me. I wouldn’t have to make my own way in the world. I had no ambitions beyond the wish to avoid anything difficult. He was controlling and emotionally constricted. There was nothing about me that he appreciated. Later, I would have affairs just to hear someone say that he loved my hair or my hipbones. Meanwhile, I kept a journal and ranted there about my empty marriage. Then Max was born. He was my savior and my gift to the world. He was indescribably beautiful with huge solemn eyes. An old soul, everyone observed. He was so sensitive that he covered his face when a contestant lost everything in Final Jeopardy.

Growing up, Max was physically timid, an observer. He sat and watched as other kids performed risky maneuvers. He was exceedingly gentle with his stuffed toys. He loved books and he loved to sit by the fireplace and watch the dancing flames. When Mr. Rogers said “Goodbye, friends,” Max would cry out fervently “Goodbye, Mister Rogers!”

What am I supposed to do with his baseball card collection? Heavy binders filled with rookie cards, boxes and boxes of random cards and unopened sets. For several years, they were his life. He and his friends would spend entire afternoons bartering for cards. I learned to love baseball because Max did. I came to love the avuncular voice of Vin Scully and wished he would run for President. Max joined a small baseball league and earned a reputation as a reliable pitcher with a masterful poker face. Maybe that’s how he learned to keep everything inside. When he discovered music, he began to ponder the dilemma of becoming either a baseball player or a rock star.

Last night I dreamed that Max was alive again, after being dead for two years. It was some kind of medical miracle. I was telling everybody how miraculous it was, emphasizing that he’d been buried all this time and now he was alive. He was in a hospital where his health was being monitored. I told him how great he looked: he looked so healthy, young and fresh-faced. He was pleased. But the next thing I knew, I was desperately trying to make my way to the hospital, fighting my way through detours in a heavy rain. When I finally got there, a nurse told me that Max had died. I was devastated. It was an upsetting dream and yet I got to see Max, and to tell him how happy I was to have him back.

Before the dream, I had been sobbing hysterically, reminded by someone on TV of Max’s taste in music. It hit me with unbearable force that he is gone and not coming back. My husband sat with me and handed me tissues. It hurts him to see my pain and it frustrates him, too. He thinks there should be a time limit to this grief, that I should be ready to resume some kind of purposeful life full of activities. He can’t understand that my light has gone out. I’m not coming back, either.

I went to the cemetery today to mark another year. It’s the most barren, godforsaken cemetery you could imagine.

Across the way, there are great big headstones and grass, with benches to sit on. On our side, the side for indigents, there is no grass and no benches.

You have to sit in the dirt, wipe off the flat gravestone, and pay your respects the old-fashioned way, on your knees, with tears.

One year, I went to visit with my best friend. Have I told this story before? Anyway, it was around 100 degrees, the gate was locked, but a gardener for the Nice side let us in.

The gravestone was dirty, with what we thought was a footprint. My friend pulled off her shirt and began wiping the dirt away. I was stunned to see her in the harsh sunlight, bending over in her black lace bra. I took off my shirt to help  I will treasure her gesture forever and ever.

Today we kept our shirts on, and my husband used some napkins to wipe the gravestone. It says “Max is King,” a proclamation he used to write over and over when he was a kid.

My husband left a purple guitar pick and I left some stones I collected since last time. I almost forgot to show Max my new tattoo, but I remembered! It’s a piece of toast with butter, his favorite thing besides music.

And I imagined I felt his pleasure.

Max is King.

Late in 2012, I became Facebook friends with a famous writer. I considered him one of the most talented writers around, a truly unique and brilliant voice. His novels are dark and disturbing but also hilarious.

He not only accepted my friend request, but he sent me a message to say he liked my blog. It was like being blessed by the Pope, only better.

We started to write messages back and forth and exchanged email addresses, We shared a depressed but cynically amused world view and had many of the same literary heroes. We even shared a love/hate relationship with weightlifting.

We decided to talk on the phone. I loved his deep voice and I loved his ideas. Here he was, a living god, and he seemed to really enjoy talking to me.

Our conversations weren’t sexual or even suggestive, but it was like a love affair based on a mutual sensibility. That’s how I saw it.

We talked about suicide and his experience helping a deeply depressed friend. I told him that I was struggling, and his insights were comforting and useful.

He told me about a crazy girlfriend who had shattered his belief in his own judgement. She had bailed on him without warning and married some other guy. I agreed with his diagnosis of her and we spent many hours going over the awfulness of dealing with Borderline Personality Disorders.

We talked about the reasons I haven’t tried to tackle a serious writing project. He encouraged me to take the plunge despite my fear of failure and all the usual bullshit that people who can’t write a novel like to use as excuses for their lack of effort or talent.

Then, he offered to be my writing mentor.

It was like a beautiful dream where everything you ever wanted plots right into your lap! I was beside myself with excitement. And even hope. Now I would write something long, something that needed to be expressed in words, in order to both ensure my sanity and justify my worthless existence.

I started to write the story of Max.

I started with the end and worked backwards. I recounted every detail, trying to capture everything. the terror and shock and grief and remorse and most of all the love.

I sent him the six pages and he was supportive, although not exactly bowled over. He reminded me that you can’t just report things, even in a memoir. You have to create a whole world.

And then he disappeared.

He didn’t respond to my phone messages or emails. There was only silence.

I began to worry that he thought I was a stalker, that’s how many messages I left. I became paranoid, wondering if someone had turned him against me. I regretted writing the six pages of complete shit. How dare I have such an inflated opinion of myself to try to write something that mattered!

Then he reappeared. He was sorry about the long silence but things had been rough. However, now he had exciting news. He was deliriously in love with a much younger women but everything was perfect. She was incredibly talented and beautiful and was about to move in with him. They had only just become lovers but they were picking out name for their children. He would support her while she wrote her masterpiece. I think he even gave her a diamond ring.

I was stunned by his story, especially after the long silence. I tried to be happy for him even though I was pretty sure the romance would end badly for him. After another long silence, he called me to let me know that she’d disappeared. She left the ring but took the high-end clothes he bought for her.

We laughed about the clothes. I felt terrible for him. Two crazy girlfriends in a row, and I mean crazy.

Then he disappeared again. And I decided to forget about him. Maybe he was like my own crazy girlfriend, the one whose red flags I refused to notice.

I didn’t try to finish the Max story. I guess it’s a story to carry in my heart until I see him again.

Let me start by telling you how mad I am that I can’t have a pair of limited edition Converse sneakers with little lions on them.

I wish I’d never seen these fucking shoes but unfortunately for me, I subscribe to a couple of fashion sites for cutting edge men’s street-wear. If you recall, I am a gay man in a woman’s body.

A few months ago, one of these sites showed me an overpriced Japanese jacket meant to look like a souvenir jacket from Korea or Vietnam, the kind with embroidered tigers and maps on them. When the jacket sold out, I was mad that I’d passed it up.

So the Converse shoes reminded me of the jacket and even better, they were affordable. But they were sold out everywhere by the time I clicked on the email. The more unattainable they are, the more they promise the key to perfect happiness.

But just a few days earlier, I was horrified to learn that the Rihanna Puma Creepers I already have in black were released in pink. How could this happen without me being notified?? I found out from a girl in the mall who was showing me some cheap make-up, and she must have been amazed that a 62 year old woman wanted those fucking shoes as much as she did, if not more. We bonded in our sense of thwarted desire.

After a tense search of the entire internet, I found a pair on eBay. Problem solved.

But not really. Not at all.

This obsession and longing for material goods is the foundation of our economy but it serves a deeper purpose, for me, anyway.

It’s the ultimate First World Problem, in that it masks other First World Problems that I simply can’t handle.

Those problems are grief and loss. They are persistent like a toothache. I can’t bear the reality of them, and when I can’t distract myself with more superficial problems, I have to take myself to bed. When I take myself to bed, I know I would give anything to not wake up, but just blotting out a few hours usually gets me through the worst of it.

Last year, I became Facebook friends with a guru from Tibet. I liked his wisdom and his sense of humor. So I asked him how to cope with grief. When I told him that I’d lost a son, he replied that mortality was high in Tibet; families are used to losing children.

I felt he was chastising me but perhaps he was merely being factual.

Why was I making a big deal over my loss? Families in Tibet lose a child but still have to worry about typhoons and lack of plumbing and hunger and disease. They expect life to be hard and it is.

The guru directed me to a philosophy than might help to redirect me but like everything else I have tried, it was a hurdle beyond my capacity. Mindfulness, Dialectic Behavior Therapy, Tonglen, support groups, grief studies, Radical Acceptance, nothing matches the force of this unspeakable grief and loss.

I have spent most of my life saving baby teeth, book reports, handmade crafts, mother’s day cards, school photos, birthday party photos, baseball cards, rock collections, and I have lovingly organized them or displayed them.

I have boxes of Christmas ornaments, many hand made by my sons, but no sons to hang them on a tree or to open presents with.

Christmas will pass, so the sense of deprivation will be less acute but it will take a lot of limited edition sneakers to pull me away from the fucking abyss.

In Chennai, India, there is historic flooding, the worst in 100 years. Three million people are without basic services and 269 people have died in this epic disaster. I can’t imagine how desperate these people must feel because I only know First World Problems.

Feeling ambivalent about living is a First World Problem, and I guess I’ll have to wrestle with it in my White Privileged manner, wearing my pink Pumas if they ever show up.

Last night I went to see Amanda Palmer, aware that I might feel emotional, since Max loved Amanda and introduced me to The Dresden Dolls in the fist place.

I couldn’t get as close to the stage as I’d hoped, but we managed to find a pretty good place to stand. Before the opening act started, a girl directly in front of me felt compelled to dance  theatrically  to the piped in music. I turned to my companion and said: “This is a test from god. He put her in front of me to see if I can take it.” I added that all I really wanted was to not get my nose broken by her flailing elbows.

We managed to move closer to the stage and away from the dancing girl. In a break between the two supporting acts, I got something in my eye and asked a big friendly girl to hold my drink for a minute. She was adorable, like an enormous puppy but I can’t remember her name. She works at Trader Joe. I felt happy about our  camaraderie  and excited about seeing Amanda.

Suddenly, I experienced the shock of being whacked in the face by a plastic bottle that some fucker had thrown in my direction. The people next to me had seen it coming and I turned to see them cringing in horror. I felt my nose to see if it was still there. I wanted to cry but decided not to. You can’t believe the force of a flying plastic bottle! When I got home, I saw that there was a small bloody cut on the bridge of my nose. (see above)

Why did I have a premonition about my nose? Did I manifest a blow to the nose by Putting Out a negative thought? Does everyone get hit in the nose if they go to enough concerts?

Amanda was terrific, as always. Her embodiment of both male and female energy is so mesmerizing, and luckily, marriage has done nothing to tame her.

One of Amanda’s rituals is to answer personal questions from fans, selecting them randomly from a basket. She started reading one that didn’t make sense. It was just a name, like Quinn Something. She  threw  it aside, but someone in the audience yelled that Quinn was asking for a middle name. She said “Oh, sorry, I guess I didn’t read the whole thing.” Then she paused for a moment and shouted: “MAX!”

Suddenly everything became surreal. I expected Max to appear, summoned by Amanda Palmer. My jaw dropped in wonder. It was only a second but it was amazing. I was thrilled, freaked out, then tearful.   She added. “It’s one of my favorite names.”

Was it a sign? Say yes.

And what about my nose?

Community gardens in all of New York City’s five boroughs, many begun in the late 60’s and early 70’s, were the product of grass-roots activism. Residents who were unwilling to wait for the city to clean up abandoned lots, moved in themselves and created cloistered, vernal retreats in the middle of some of New York’s worst neighborhoods.

However, under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, the city finally decided to do something with these lots. The city began the process of bulldozing many gardens and auctioning off the land to developers. Giuliani argued that the city needed the lots for additional low-income housing, and that while the destruction of the gardens would be be distressing, in the long run area residents would benefit.

The residents didn’t want to wait for the long run, and pulled together to protest.

The city moved forward with plans to auction off 112 garden lots to developers on May 13, 1999.   On May 12, Bette Midler in cooperation with the Trust For Public Land, purchased all 112 of the lots from the city, for a combined total of $4.3 million.

‘Today I’m prouder than ever to be a New Yorker,’ said Midler, who moved to the East Coast after an earthquake in California. ‘We’re thrilled. This is a joyous occasion and means that these gardens will stay in perpetuity.” You can learn more about her work here.

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With this in mind, please enjoy blasting the anthem “Thank You Bette Midler” by the great Max Wolf :   ThankYouBetteMidler.