I love a little mood-perking synchronicity. My sister Nancy was telling me yesterday that she and my brother-in-law Brian had a session with this psychic medium, Concetta Bertoldi, and it was supercool. Extra nakayoshi! Our mom died on Novemeber 23rd four years ago and Brian�s mom died on Christmas last year. So the imminent holiday season has been looming full of real joy, man, big and full of HAPPY, as I�m sure you can imagine. I don�t want to be a big Scrooge McNasty because I�ve always loved the holidays but I�m starting to truly understand why people get so depressed at the erection of a lit tree. But anyway, Joann and Jeanne came through, as it were, and said hellos and threw love around and all that. My mom said when she got there her mother-in-law was there to greet her and apologized to her immediately�which is something my mother always wanted. Nanny, my dad�s mom, was kind of a dick to my mom from the get-go; purposefully displaying sunny pictures of my dad and his ex-girlfriend Snowy at the Enchantment Under the Stodgy Weirdness of Connecticut Dance. Nanny had a stiffer upper lip than any Brit I could ever hope to meet. And a bottom lip too. Defined �sourpuss.� I never dreamed of a mouth so rectal. And she had, understandably, a strange hold on my dad and he�ll even do shit now, at 72 years old, that makes me look up to the heavens (or wherever) and say, �Nanny, what the fuck did you do?� I love her, of course (<--- Note Catholic guilt creeping up on me like a cheap TJ Maxx thong). So it was nice to hear that she had some �splainin� to do when she got �there.�

Also notable on the psychic-medium front was that my mom said she�s been trying really hard to help my dad from there. I was glad to hear that because it�s the one thing I ask her to do. When I�m at my angriest with my dad (plastic girlfriend excluded) and frustrated that he hasn�t allowed the grief through him causing a great deal of familial emotional constipation and ironically a whole lot of shit as well I sort of pray that she can drill through that bull head a little bit and put some sort of positive and real thing in there, Wings of Desire style.

She also said she was glad that my sisters and I all have her things and that she liked how nicely we went through them. She had some fantastic jewelry and clothes and I always feel good when I�m wearing one of her scarves or a watch or something. She also mentioned that one of our sisters is a bit of a �pickle� and that we�ll work it out, but she just wanted us to know that she saw it. It�s true. One of my sisters (though I�m the actual baby of the family) tends to display a bit of entitlement when it comes to things (honey, if you�re reading this, I�m sorry, but it�s true) and has a tendency to say, �I Want That.� And because She wants it, She thinks She really ought to get it. Simple as that. It�s sort of a foreign thing to me, yet I�ve spent a great part of my life so concerned with other people�s realities that I don�t enforce my own strongly enough. Yes, I�m working on that.

At the end of their reading, Concetta told Nancy and Brian that Joann said to give her love to Francis, and then my mother chimed in and said to give her love to Pat. Francis and Pat are their best friends (how androgynous!).

So Nancy and I conversed madly yesterday and discussed the whole �we need to make our own traditions for the holidays now� thing. After I hung up I went outside and got my mail, and another package filled with nostalgia had arrived from my dad�cards I had received from my family and friends on my second (!) birthday and other things, including a letter from my granny to my mom, dated November 22, 1977. My granny had enclosed a sweet poem that reminded her of me, about a little girl before she was born, being kissed by angels and other Precious Moments�. It was really sweet. And yes, it is dorky. But it�s just the sort of thing I need at this time of year and the synchronicity of it is what makes it really insanely comforting.

I�ve already done all the skepticism shit. Yes, being skeptic is a good tool to have as a human. I find, though, that I need more skepticism toward other humans doing human things than towards anything metaphysical. It�s quite nice to allow synchronicity through. Scary at times, yes, because it comes like the giant rolling boulder in Indiana Jones and Raiders of Harrison Ford�s Lost Personality.

In an attempt to finally plug in my scanner and see if I can get the damn thing to work, I misread the plug and used the wrong thingy, I�m thinking, like the wrong voltage output or some shit and smelled that flat grey electrical burning odor. I hope I did not kill the scanner. I may have just turned it into some sort of Super Scanner, and now I will be able to send pictures into the future. But no one will be there to receive them (In the Year Two Thousuhnd... In the Year Two Thousuhnd!). Oh shit. No such luck. I killed it. Bastard electricity and my ignorance of you, I shake my fist at you!!!