April 25, 2006

• MEMOIR LINKS

  Below is a partial narrative summary of my memoirs that have been published on this Xanga site, with links to the various episodes.  I stopped updating this page during the spring of 2007.  A more complete list can be found in a sidebar headed, “Those who ignore the past are condemned to repeat it,” on my main Xanga page.

  This entire bloggy trip down memory lane began with my story of the late 1960s, starting with how I became an expert shoplifter.
  In part one I told a bit of the back story about marriage when I was 14 and about the love of my life showing up when I was 17.
  Part two is about love, lifesaving, fear and ESP.
  I finally get to the shoplifting in part 3.
  Then, in part four I don’t quite make it to South America, but end up in jail and then in the cuckoo’s nest.
  After that, I look at my psychological state.
  In the next meandering piece I’m stabbed with a fork, paid for ironing money; I drink too much vodka and experience date rape and probably gang rape, too.
  The saga continues as I get Marie out of foster care and she leaves with Bobbi.
  Then I write about remembering pain.
  At age nineteen, I learned to shoot craps at Rusty & Dusty’s Pad, assisted by PK and precog.
  Next I tell Statch’s Story, weaving in bits about prostitution, VD, and JFK’s assassination.
  After that, an emotional basket case, I meet my second husband and have my first son.
  Then I start a career in nursing, leave it to go to Japan, meet another soulmate, end up in another loony bin, temporarily die, and say goodbye to my son.
  Back
  on my feet, probably too soon, I get a great job, relapse and lose
  it.  Then I meet Jim Rose, go to work in a couple of bars, almost
  become a Saigon bar girl, screw up another relationship, overdose, and get to hear a shrink describe the whole course of my life in one succinct phrase.

  The next series covers the years I rode with Hells Angels and two other One Percenter motorcycle clubs.
  I started with a historical
  and cultural sketch
  of outlaw bikers.
  Right at the start, I was almost a Hells Angels Mama.
  Saved from that by being ripped off for VW’s ol’lady, I learn to show class, and I meet Janis Joplin.
  I build a trike and ride it to The Magic Mountain Music Festival,
  and adjust to life as the captive gourmet.
  Then, during the move from California to Oregon, I am turned out by Gypsy Jokers.
  I discuss my feelings on rape next, and tell about the show bike I helped to build, and my first acid trip.
  Some special people show up in the next episode, and I tell about a wild week of ripping, running and gardening with Little Carol.
  The best weekend of my biker years comes next.
  Then I take another look at my psychology and make a desperate break from VW.
  It failed, but finally I get the the help I need to get away.

  Then, after an interval of terror, I’m not a biker broad anymore.  Suddenly I’m a speed freak!
  Fast and frizzy, with mirrors on the ceiling, I’m threatened with an axe by Mrs. Ken Kesey.
  Then we have fun with meth and intense psychic experiences before things fall apart.
  After some time in jail, I’m free again and homeless, but my first Tarot reading reveals a way out.
  In a flashback episode, I tell some of the details of that homeless period.
  Then I start building a reputation as a psychic, impress some naive kids as a “human encyclopedia,” manage unwillingly to stay off speed, get involved in Vietnam War protests, develop a foolproof plan to keep from being separated from Hulk, and end up in the (little) big house.

  When the bus delivered us to Oregon Women’s Correctional Center, Mrs. Burt met us at the door with a red rubber douche bag.
  After a piece on how my life experience changed me,
  I wrote about the ways in which prison changed me.
  O.W.C.C. and confinement in a community of women, gave me a new perspective on my sex.
  I suppose it comes as no surprise that I had a few clashes with the unwritten rules in prison.
  In response to some complaints from readers that there was not enough sex in my blogs, I agreed and offered in my defense the excuse that
  there was not enough sex in prison.
  Music and meditation were important in prison as elsewhere.
  In a segment that started out to be about feminism, I wrote about violence in prison, practical jokes, friends, breast reduction surgery, and my Tree of Life bedspread.
  That brought questions, which led to a blog about Kabbalah.
  After a prison riot, some OOBEs, and two trips to the Parole Board, I’m free.

  When I was first out of prison, I went to college, where I met Stony.
  We lived in a haunted house,
  then went on the run and had adventures, taking me eventually to Boulder, Colorado, and leading to a full pardon for my crimes.
  Two entries I had written earlier fit into the time period after OWCC and before Boulder.
  They tell about my freight yard epiphany and
  the loaf of lettuce and head of bread trick.
  A hippie family passing through gave me Mr.Coon.
  We went farther up into the Rockies and squatted in a ghost town, and then lived at Colorado’s oldest ski area until the end of my pregnancy.
  In the next episode, I tell the story of how Princess Celeste helped me through one of the toughest days of my life.
  After
  that, we have to move; Stony breaks Bill’s arm with a fart; I plow
  through where snowplows spin their wheels; I party with the ladies; the
  real Stony pays us a visit; and then I’m on the road to Alaska.
  The old truck got me as far as Salt Lake City, where I learned to evade perverts, Stony caught up with me and we drove a repo to Seattle.
  We hitchhiked on a crab boat to Kodiak where
  I needed an armed guard to go to the outhouse.
  Then I described a dysfunctional relationship and
  the metaphysical forces that led me to Alaska.
  After an interview by a roomful of inquisitors, I start work at Open Door Klinic, and Stony comes back for one final blow.

  With no significant other in my life for the first time since puberty, I throw myself wholeheartedly into crisis intervention counseling, and into the middle of a knife fight.
  Mostly to keep Stony out of my life, but partially from grief, I fly to Seattle for an abortion and continue my work at Open Door.
  Then we meet my co-workers Mollie and Steve and Steve finds me a second job.
  That first autumn in Anchorage, I did crisis intervention on weekends and helped jailbirds return to the streets Monday through Friday.
  Considering my ignorance and ill-preparedness, it’s amazing that I survived my first Alaskan winter.
  Adequate foul weather gear helped, but what really saved me was group therapy.
  As spring arrived, I was audited by the IRS, found a couple of great restaurants, paid an official visit to a local jail and met another soulmate.
  Then I explain how he got there.
  Around the time I’m getting to know Charley, wannabe shrink Harvey examines my head and I join Mensa.
  Then I send plane fare to Hulk and we’re a threesome.
  Around the same time, I find an old friend and Stony comes around asking for help.
  When I had resigned from one of my jobs, I hit a snag on the other one.
  Suddenly jobless, I set out to explore Alaska.
  When I get home, Hulk moves out.
  While I was looking for a new job, Stony got married, Charley made a perfect gift for me, and I worked a bit as an astrologer.

  This is essentially where the narrative’s continuity comes to an end, but it is not the end of my story.   Links below are to stories of events that occurred between where the narrative ends above, and the present time.

  my “last” brownie binge (mid-1970s)
  my first winter off the power grid (early 1980s)
  I was poisoned by the Wintersgate Assassins’ Guild (mid-80s)

  In ’89, I kill Rocky, wound Bullwinkle and rescue Cow-Winkle in the “moose winter” story.
  Another entry displays a close-up photo I took of a black bear cub and tells several bear stories.

  A more recent wildlife encounter happened in January, 2005, while our computer was down.
  Greyfox left a bulletin here when Doug shot the moose.
  When we got the comp back, I wrote first about my initial emotional reaction to the moose stomping my dog.
  My next entry had pictures of us butchering the moose in our front yard.

  Autobiographical snippets from a few decades appear in a blog from 2002 about what I do for a living.

  When I was new to Xanga, I was asked about my Old Fart.  I responded with an abbreviated version of my entire matrimonial history.
  In response to another question about Greyfox, I went off on a tangent and told the story of our meeting.
  Then I gave a bit of our karmic history.
  That led into the honeymoon,
   the “white man” in-joke,
  and our homecoming.

  Another,
  more recent, thread of my memoirs involves a 28,000-mile road trip that
  my son and I took during the school year when he was supposed to have
  been in seventh grade.  I started with a backstory blog before getting into the Big Field Trip itself with Part One, Part Two…. (to be continued– )

  • 3:13 pm
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