Friday night I got home around 1am. Racing up the treacherous 3 story black metal spiral staircase that serves as entrance -- and deterrent - to my seaside attic I stopped suddenly, and nearly destroyed the universe, or at least one. It seems that somehow between 7:30 am and this time now, dodging deep and pounding rain, an ambitious and quite large spider had weaved a remarkable web that blocked my path completely. And she sat squarely in the middle. Her body was black and brown, about the size of a nickel, with legs that could easily take a quarter. Her sticky string made a kaleidoscope drama -- tangled parallelograms and baseball diamonds, a neater Chagall, a less pretentious Kandinsky. What a dinner she almost caught.

I stopped and stared, wondering, curious, unafraid, and more so, terribly excited. What little spots she had, what stillness, what purpose. I thought how I might go around her, somehow climb along the outside and scale like the superhero I have never quite managed to be. I resigned reluctantly to take it down. But how? First I tapped, you know, a warning of sorts that seemed to do nothing. I tapped harder. Nothing. I moved to the upper right corner, and slowly, so slowly, I peeled back shapes and lines. She did not move. I peeled further toward the center until she crawled left and down to the safety of the unsafe staircase. I stepped over the remains and apologized. It all seems somehow extraordinary. I wondered if she might chase me. I wondered if it was a big deal. Could a seventeen hour project be so monumental? Maybe.

And the questions I asked were not new. I ask them everyday, of what I eat, of what I buy, of what I wear and where I walk... what I choose to throw out instead of compost, what I do when I can't find a recycle bin. A strange tension -- of save and spend, of care and careless. And central to this tension this week -- oysters.

It is said that oysters and slightly more complex creatures of the sea do not feel pain. They do, however, feel fear. When they fear they release ‘stress hormones.' Fear, like pain, is a form of suffering. I've eaten maybe four dozen oysters this week. I love them; such tremendous pleasure. I forget they are alive. If you squeeze lemon on a fresh oyster it should move. The lemon is an irritant. This is disturbing.

But how disturbing is it? At what point does something uncomfortable become unbearable? And what cost does it take to deny? How much can I blame on myself as just a stupid loaf of an animal, unable to control my disgusting urges? Surely it must be genetic; surely I am not responsible. And what exactly is the pleasure? I can taste the ocean in seaweed. I can slurp the texture inside any woman. Why do I need to eat oysters? Could I say a prayer and make it go away? Could I ritualize the death like virgins tossed into fire? I apologize for the outward agony, but it is real and I don't understand it. Do you? Can we be more than human?

I can. We are. I am not.
We are slime, yet so less useful.

I told my mother today that I was having writers block. She teaches 6th grade English and has an exercise for her kids. She tells them to take a descriptive paragraph from a book they are reading (or she provides some starter food) and then tells them to make a poem. They can't change the order, and they can't add any words, but they can take any words out. It's supposed to help them learn to think about description but really it's just a powerful way to open thinking. She hopes that maybe what they make will be different than what they read, or make it more real -- that they might find the power of language through the context of words. She is wise. So here I go, for you and for my mother...

Let's try this.... To contradict my gothic life killing I am less than slime mood!!!! From Rabelais' introduction to Gargantua and Pantagruel, a scathing and hysterical account of life in the 15th century, full with the obscenities of gluttony, war, and pleasure and the absurd... also my favorite book, EVER.

Good friends, my Readers, who peruse this Book, Be not offended, whilst on it you look: Denude yourselves of all depraved affection, For it contains no badness, nor infection: 'Tis true that it brings forth to you no birth Of any value, but in point of mirth; Thinking therefore how sorrow might your mind Consume, I could no apter subject find; One inch of joy surmounts of grief a span; Because to laugh is proper to the man. Alas...

Good friends be yourselves affection
True, it brings value, therefore joy.
To laugh is proper.



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