Why I’m Begrudgingly Voting “Yes” on the CSU/CFA Tentative Agreement

I’ve spent the last week outraged. For the last four days, I planned to vote “no” on the tentative agreement (TA) and then leave the union. Before I rationalize my change of heart, I first want to distinguish between my two primary sources of grief. First, I’m unhappy with the terms of our TA. Second, I’m disgusted with our union’s machinations. I’ll first explain why I think the union shot itself in the foot with its messaging, then make a case for why I’m now leaning toward a “yes” vote, despite the union’s TERRIBLE maneuvering. 

One thing that’s puzzled me this week is why the CFA made a 12% GSI the FOCAL POINT of its messaging. The bargaining team knew that “me too” clauses meant we’d never see more than 5%. So why center 12%? My guess is that they were using 12% as a bargaining chip to secure other goals, like raising the salary floor for lecturers. The strategy is nonsensical to me given the union’s refusal to budge from 12% when the CSU tried multiple times to compromise. You can see CSU’s and CFA’s back and forth here: https://www.cfabargaining.org/proposals Each CSU offer in 2023 was met with, “5 is not 12.” But they always knew anything over 5 would trigger a “me too” for multiple other unions, so why not negotiate on OTHER terms and avert a strike? Rank-and-file members are rightfully pissed because many terms of the TA were included in previous CSU offers (e.g., retroactive pay for ’23-’24, a 2.65% SSI), then taken off the table in CSU’s last “best and final” immediately prior to the strike, only to be brought back in the TA. The bargaining team is now trying to paint these OLD elements of past offers as NEW gains. They’re playing a shell game, which has enraged membership. CFA’s 12% messaging played with the hearts and minds of its membership. Future strike authorizations will be an uphill battle. People will leave and have already left the union. So much of this could have been sidestepped had the CFA 1) tried to compromise with the CSU in earlier rounds of bargaining, 2) been forthright about how anything over 5% would trigger several “me too” clauses that rendered more than 5 impossible, and 3) not treated a full-week strike as a performative instrument, wherein rank-and-file were used as pawns and disrespected. That Monday night email to return to work Tuesday was gross, especially after the CSU tried to get students to rat out striking professors. I’m tempted to vote “no” just to stick it to the CFA and its terrible leadership. 

On the other hand, I don’t want to cut off my nose to spite my face. After ending the strike on day 1, CFA made it virtually impossible for us to get more than we got in the TA. I agree with the resounding sentiment that we likely would have secured more had we been on strike for four days. But I have to deal with the reality the CFA manufactured rather than a world of “What if?” If the TA is voted down and we go back into bargaining, we definitely will not get over 5% due to “me too” clauses, likely won’t get retroactive pay, and might (over may) get the CSU to eventually budge on other issues. Unfortunately, the CFA already squandered its opportunity to effectively bargaining terms for ’23-’24. So why vote “yes” when I was going to vote “no”?

First, CFA sold me on a pipe dream that anything over 5% was attainable. I’m disgusted by their lack of transparency about “me too” clauses. The union’s now pivoting as if “me too” is new information. But that’s always been the reality of our bargaining situation. So the question becomes if I want that 5% to be retroactive? Yes.

Second, I was hung up on July’s contingency because, as an 18-year CSU employee, contingencies have burned me twice: in 2008 and last year. Then I learned that, per Clause 41.3 of the 2022-2024 agreement, the base-funding contingency was ALREADY PRE-BAKED INTO THE CONTRACT. Here’s the clause:

Any term(s) of this Agreement that carries an economic cost shall not be implemented until the amount required therefore is appropriated and made available to the CSU for expenditure for such purposes. The CSU shall make appropriate requests for financing or budgetary funding in amounts sufficient to meet obligations set out in this Agreement. If less than the amount needed to implement this Agreement is appropriated in any given year of this Agreement, and made available to the CSU for expenditure, the term(s) of this Agreement shall automatically be subject to the meet and confer process.

In other words, the TA’s language about ’24-’25 is redundant. The contingency for ’23-’24 isn’t explicit in the TA because the state has ALREADY provided base funding for the academic year. I’m not optimistic that we’ll secure base funds for ’24-’25. People (myself included) have been circulating a fiscal outlook from California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office that predicts underfunding the state’s schools. This document specifically addresses Prop 98, which establishes minimum funding for grade schools and community colleges, not the CSU. Still, the LAO’s fiscal outlook is prophetic and fuels my pessimism regarding what’s to come (or NOT come) in July. Either way you cut it, the CSU will not guarantee a raise that’s not connected to base funding. From what I NOW understand, a base-funding contingency is already baked into our contract and should act as an enthymematic presumption for all raises. 

The thing I hate most about the TA is the non-performative language about mental health counselors. The CSU “agreed to move toward at 1500:1 student-counselor ratio”? How does one measure “move toward”? I fully understand how anyone might vote “no” based entirely on this bullet point. The language is nothing more than a commitment to NOT commit to student mental health in the WAKE OF A PANDEMIC, and it’s appalling. This is a classic non-performative, or speech-act that does NOT describe what it will (or won’t) do. Both the CFA and CSU should be ashamed. 

The most heartbreaking part of this week is how the CFA torpedoed its credibility. I no longer have any faith in our union. My plan is to leave the CFA if we don’t receive an additional 5% in July. I don’t blame anyone who votes “no” on the TA, whether it be for the agreement’s terms or to send a message to our terrible statewide leadership. I also appreciate why some have already left. I’m not persuaded by those who say, “No, stay! You can help change a fundamentally broken system.” My mental health is more important than being a radical agent of change in an organization that manipulates and disrespects its rank-and-file members and lacks this much transparency. I may have had the energy and patience to do so in my 20s and 30s. Closing in on 50, my energy is better spent on projects that bring me joy. 

Trapped

Trapped. I don’t emphasize that word enough in my posts. My middle-aged malaise is rooted in feeling trapped–trapped in a job I’ve outgrown; trapped in a 1-bedroom apartment I outgrew a long time ago; and now trapped in California because my rights are so utterly in peril in most other states. A year ago, I applied for a job in North Carolina. I’d never entertain that sort of move now. I can’t possibly move to a state where I’d have to hold my breath each time my rights are on a ballot. For all its faults and there are many, California at least isn’t backpedaling on LBGTQ people’s humanity. The irony of all this, of course, is that tenure, rent control, and progressive laws ensnare as much as they liberate me.

Case Study: Los Angeles Bubble Bursts

Today, the CA Association for Realtors reported a massive 4% MoM drop in CA median home prices from May to June. https://www.car.org/en/aboutus/mediacenter/newsreleases/2022releases/june2022sales

This is huge, especially when put into historical perspective.

-First, MoM price declines in CA aren’t singular events. They happen in BIG CLUMPS, or multiple consecutive months of declines.

-I have Case Schiller data that goes back to 1987. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LXXRSA The first MoM decline in LA home prices was May 1990. It was only .5%. It was followed by ELEVEN more months of price declines, ranging from .2% to 1%. Three months of TINY growth are then followed by 36 months of MoM declines, ranging from .03% to 1.3%. The market again saw TINY MoM increases for two months followed by SIXTEEN consecutive months of Mom declines in median price, ranging from .02% to .7%.

-The LA housing market saw MoM declines from May 1990 until February 1997–with a few months of minuscule appreciation thrown in the mix, only to be negated by countless consecutive months of value depreciation.

-This is a good time to remind you that CA MoM decline from May to June 2022 was FOUR PERCENT!

-Now let’s talk about the Great Financial Crisis. Case Schiller notes the first MoM decline in LA emerged May 2006, when home prices feel .05%. Over the next three years (5/2006-5/2009, all but THREE months saw home prices decline. MoM declines ranges from .05% to 3.6%.

-April 2006 was the peak; we might compare it to April or May 2022, which actually reflects deals made in the real-time top market (March). Median home prices dropped in LA by 4% one year later (March 2007). By November 2007, LA median home prices dropped 15% from their peak. By June 2008, prices were down 29%. By June 2009, home prices had plummeted 41% in LA. From July 2009 until May 2010, the market began modestly appreciating; then, boom, prices tumbled again for 20 of the next 24 months.

A few take-aways:

-California is one of the most volatile real estate markets in the country.

-A MoM dip in price foretells upcoming months (and likely years) of MoM price declines.

-CAR’s 4% number is nominal, so I’m not sure how it will translate once adjusted for inflation. Either way, that statewide 4% figure is meteoric–but the kind of meteor that’s plummeting to earth and about to crater RE real estate in its path.

Why I’m Confident the Housing Bubble Will Burst

1. Tech stocks continues to implode. Implications: 1) Layoffs. People can’t pay mortgages when they don’t have income. 2) Some people rely on securities-based lending for their mortgages. In other words, they use their financial investments as collateral. Stock valuations plummet. This leads to margin calls. 3) This will have the greatest impact on people who own 2nd homes because why not sell a superfluous home?
2. Investors purchased 1 in 5 Los Angele homes in Q4 2021. (They purchased much more in Sunbelt cities.) In May 2022, ROI (return on investment) for a low-rise apartment in LA is 9% and -9% for a mid-rise and high-rise. ROI is 1.32% for a SFH. Why keep a real-estate investment when you can liquidate near the top and look for a more lucrative return, like value stocks?
3. AirBnB is taking a beating. There’s evidence of this all over Reddit. The market is saturated. Many of these investment property owners will sell after consecutive months of losses, especially as interest rates rise and you can now get better yields in safer investments.
4. Broken contracts. People signed contracts when rates were in the 3s and 4s. But supply-chain issues delayed construction. This has resulted in wave of broken contracts. Banks can no longer qualify buyers with rates in the 5s. New construction is at its highest point since the Great Recession. New home starts were at 1.7 million in April 2022. Plus, there are 250K new spec homes without buyers.
5. There’s a ton of new construction hitting the market and it’s sitting there. We haven’t seen this sort of spike in new homes since the Great Recession. New home prices have to come down, which has a cascading effect on the rest of the market.
6. Doubling the interest rate has priced multiple layers of buyers out of the housing market. Homes are sitting longer, which improves supply. Prices are being cut, although just modestly right now. The era of COVID bidding wars comes to an end. Just wait until August when sellers see data for May, June, and July sales. Many sellers currently rely on April data to determine comps. The problem is that April data reflects deals made in February and March when rates were in the 3 and low 4s.
7. Inflation has gobbled away at purchasing power. More than 20 million households were behind on utility payments at the end of February. For the first time since the Great Recession, personal savings ticked below consumer debt. Gas and energy prices continue to spike. Food is more expensive. 36% of people earning over $250K now say they’re living paycheck to paycheck.
8. Houses are ridiculously overvalued. LA’s median household income is $65K. The median home price in LA reached $998K. In Phoenix, the median household income is $61K but the median home price is $475K. Housing has become totally unhinged from fundamentals.

Why You MUST Care About Walmart’s and Target’s Q1

The stock market’s down 20-30% and having its worst start since 1939. Crypto is down 30%. We’re experiencing inflation not seen in over 40 years. But inflation’s hitting essentials, like food, rent, homes, and gas. We can’t cut out those expenses. What takes the first hit? Consumer goods. Target just reported at 52% drop in profit last quarter. Walmart’s performing as poorly as Target. But here’s the kicker: Both Target and Walmart have reported record high INVENTORY GROWTH (upwards of 44%) just as consumer demand has plummeted. In other words, retailers were understocked when COVID hit. They purchased a shit ton of inventory anticipating strong demand in 2022. Inflation’s walloped demand. Prices on consumer goods will have to deflate (despite all this inflation). Guess what all this means. Major retailers purchase fewer good because they’re currently overstocked. This causes a ripple effect of demand. Good producers are laid off. In a year (maybe less), you’ll get a great deal on a TV but you may not have a job. We are on the heels of an EPIC recession. Tech is collapsing but tech is just one domino. So many companies are going to let people go. If you haven’t appreciated the significance of the current tech bust, let TARGET be the canary in the coal mine. Don’t buy a home. Put off major expenses. If you don’t have a recession-proof job, make sure you’ve got solid emergency funds in your savings account. Make conservative investments that are virtually guaranteed a modest return.

Prediction: How the “Everything Bubble” Bursts

The market is freaking out because of the end of free money.

This article is important, especially as it relates to the current bust in tech stocks and what is now only JUST THE START of tech layoffs.

Current dives in the market aren’t transitory and are not limited to tech. I focus on tech because tech stocks are the most artificially inflated; it’s alarming how many tech companies don’t turn a profit. The Fed has enabled tech companies to continue what’s essentially a Ponzi scheme. Bernanke and Powell have used quantitative easing to reward risk (e.g., investing in growth stocks that rarely result in profit). When the market dipped, they lowered interest rates and made cash easier to obtain, which took much of the risk out of riskier investments. It’s like going to Vegas with my rich stepfather. I LOVE gambling when he gives me a $100.

Let’s look at Uber as an example. Uber was created in 2009. The company made headlines in November 2021 for announcing its FIRST EVER profitable quarter. Given Uber’s ubiquity, that’s alarming, right? How was Uber able to stay in business for 12 years bleeding as much money as it did? Through quantitative easing, the Fed provided a safety net for risky investments. Unprofitable companies saw their stocks shoot to the moon because the Fed gave free money to investors, who could speculate and borrow even more money against artificially inflated financial assets (i.e., stocks).

Here’s the magic trick: There’s a difference between using a house (or gold) as collateral and a financial asset as collateral. Your house may go down in value but it’s REAL. If a tech company hires you and partially pays you in stock, those financial assets are overwhelmingly IMAGINARY. Why? Because in today’s market, those stocks represent POTENTIAL FOR GROWTH, not ACTUAL PROFIT. The “potential for growth” carrot only moves the donkey in an environment when the Fed will bail out investors when their risks fail.

Inflation not seen in 40 years forced J-Pow and the Fed to end the fever dream known as quantitative easing. The Fed can no longer bail out bad/risky investments without doomsday inflation.
What are the implications? The machine that filled tech growth stocks with helium is out of gas. Investors flooded that market with money, which kept countless tech companies financially viable despite not earning profits. That well is about to run bone dry. That’s why tech stocks are plummeting and we’ve only just seen the start of significant layoffs in this sector. These companies literally can’t pay employees once their stocks crater for an extended period. How do you pay employees when artificially inflated stocks no longer fund your day-to-day operations and your company doesn’t turn a profit? Spoiler alert: You can’t pay salaries and have to lay off people or entirely fold.

Now consider the effect all this will have on cities largely driven by tech: SF, Los Angeles, Austin, Seattle, Boston, etc. Let’s say you moved to SF after a startup offered you $200K a year and stocks in addition to your salary. A Bay Area broker helped you make a competitive offer on your grossly over-valued home. You used your financial assets as collateral. Fast forward to spring 2022 and tech stocks have tanked. The Fed can’t use quantitative easing to save the day. Margins have been called. Your investment portfolio has been bleeding for months. If you sell now, you won’t recoup any of those losses. Oh, no; you’ve just been laid off, just like thousands of people have already been let go in your industry.
During the Great Recession, a belly-up housing market torpedoed the stock market. Expect an inverted relationship this time around: the stock bubble popping will transform a housing correction into a full-on crash, especially in tech-heavy cities.

Here are are some important ideas from the article:
“Many themes will be different going forward to what we’ve been accustomed to,” Reid wrote in a Monday note. “One such theme is the relentless march of U.S. equities. The last decade was noticeable for record long periods without a correction, a don’t fight the Fed mentality, and a buy the dip narrative.
Reid noted that last week marked the first time the S&P 500 has fallen for five consecutive weeks since June 2011, ending the longest run without five consecutive down weeks since relevant data first began being tracked in 1928. Now, with the Fed raising rates and ending QE, it’s a whole new era, one that might not be as kind to risk assets. But investors still can’t fight the Fed. It’s just that the central bank is no longer pushing them toward high-flying tech stocks and cryptocurrencies. Instead, it’s making other, perhaps less risky, assets look more favorable. Assets that typically perform during rising-rate environments, like short-term government bonds and value and dividend stocks, may outperform in this new era. Don’t fight it.”

OCD, Reading, and Page Numbers

One of my all-time favorite students lent me a book so I could read one of his favorite short stories. For the first time, I flagged an OCD behavior in which I’ve engaged my entire life but only today recognized as OCD. Whenever I read, I tend to fixate on page numbers. I’ll think, “I’m going to read 10 pages and then put the book down.” That preoccupation has historically inhibited my ability to enjoy casual reading unless a text enthralls me. I often don’t let prose take me on a journey because I’m worried about how many more pages I’ve committed to reading. Another perhaps more productive manifestation of this emerged in graduate school. At the start of each semester, I’d mark up course calendars and write down how many pages I’d commit to reading each day of the week. This obsession over page numbers centers text COMPLETION rather than in-the-moment enjoyment of reading. I caught myself doing it today and used CBT techniques to correct course. I look forward to sharing this observation with my therapist.

Scabies: 8 Months of Misdiagnoses & Agony

In May 2016, I spent my 40th birthday in Puerto Vallarta. The first several days of the vacation were a blast. Here I am with my buddy Phil living the life:

40th birthday in PV.

Things began to unravel on the last day of my trip. I got a HORRIBLE case of traveler’s diarrhea, which lasted for a brutal week. A month after my trip, I also started to itch in the folds of my body: armpits, testicles, upper and inner thighs, and base/web of fingers. I hadn’t had sex with anyone but I had shared a room and bed with one of my close friends who came on the trip complaining of an itch that couldn’t be soothed.

This itch was unlike any itch I had ever experienced. You know that grand feeling you get when you scratch an itch and it goes away? This itch was different. Scratching only made the itching WORSE. The itching was particularly awful as the day progressed. I typed my symptoms into Google and immediately discovered the Wikipedia page for scabies. The scabies wiki includes a picture of common areas where the mites typically make a person itch.

Boom! Wikipedia nailed all my itching zones. I had scabies. I immediately set an appointment with a dermatologist named Dr. Jeremy Robert Man via Kaiser. I’m intentionally naming this guy because he was terrible. He convinced me that I didn’t have scabies, despite all my symptoms being consistent with the illness. He performed a skin scraping, which didn’t indicate mites. Turns out, skin scrapes are not a reliable way to diagnose scabies. He made me believe that I had pruritus (skin itching) likely caused by atopic dermatitis, or run-of-the-mill skin allergies and sent me on my way.

Rash in the webs of my fingers.

I booked an appointment with an allergist. We performed allergy testing. I began taking medications, despite no other indication that I had allergies. Things got worse. A month later, I returned to Dr. Man and explained that I was about to take a trip to NYC to see my infant nieces. “Would there be any harm in prescribing me medication for scabies in the off chance I had it? I don’t want to infect babies,” I pleaded. He assured me I did not have scabies but said there would be no harm in me applying Permethrin, an ointment that kills mites. But he never explained the nuanced protocol one most follow when trying to eradicate scabies. I applied Permethrin from head to toe and left for NYC a few days later.

Armed with containers of Sarna (an anti-itch lotion), I braved my way to NYC. The itch diminished as my trip progressed. A week later, I was more or less itch-free. Dr. Man had done such a great job convincing me that I didn’t have scabies that I was CONVINCED at that point that my itch had been caused by some other culprit.

After I returned to Los Angeles, I got Botox. It had been roughly 6 months since my last dose, so I was due. A week later, the itching returned with a vengeance. I rationalized that Botox likely caused an allergic reaction. My last dose of Botox had been roughly six months prior, which is about the same time I started itching. Once the chemical left my body, the itch went away. “It’s got to be the Botox,” I thought. I reasoned that I would have to just suffer with this unspeakable itch until the Botox worked its way out of my body. Another 6 months of pain. Great!

Five months later, I was in utter agony. To get to sleep most nights, I had to take a combination of Benadryl and Ativan. I took upwards of 5 freezing cold showers a day and constantly applied Sarna. Desperate for help, I posted pictures of my upper thighs on Facebook. My cousin is an MD and asked if she could re-post the picture to a FB group of MDs to which she belongs. “Please do!”

My thighs eight months into a scabies infestation.

My cousin quickly got back to me and told me the overwhelming consensus was that I had scabies. “No, Laurie, it can’t be that,” I shot back. “I’ve already been to a dermatologist who has repeatedly assured me that I don’t have scabies.” Dr. Man had really done a number on me. Luckily, Laurie’s diagnosis stuck with me. I returned to the Wiki, reviewed the listed symptoms, and was once again CERTAIN I had scabies.

I booked another appointment with a Kaiser dermatologist but this time demanded to see one of their top doctors. Turns out, I had scabies for EIGHT MONTHS. The new doctor was amazing. She talked me through the protocol for getting rid of the mites and I was scabies-free a couple weeks later.

I share this story for a couple of reasons:

-First, scabies is notoriously difficult to diagnose. I wish I would have trusted my embodied experience more than Dr. Man’s reckless assurance that I was scabies-free. One of the things I learned after reading tons of online testimonials is that it often takes people a long time to get the correct diagnosis.

-Second, I heard horror stories about how difficult it is to get rid of scabies. Many people online claim they’ve tried using Permethrin several times to no avail. Here’s the deal: Permethrin is basically insecticide. It fucks with your skin. Multiple treatments mimic the symptoms of scabies: itching, sores, etc.

-Third, my scabies returned because I didn’t properly treat my house after my first Permethrin treatment. My itch subsided when I went to NYC because the Permethrin WORKED. Remember how I returned from NY and the itching started again a week later. The itch wasn’t due to Botox. The itch returned because Dr. Man never explained to me that I had to wash all of my bedding and clothes in hot water and put items that couldn’t be washed into plastic bags. I became re-infested when I returned to Los Angeles because my HOME was still infested.

-Fourth, I needlessly suffered unspeakable misery for EIGHT MONTHS because I had a shitty dermatologist and didn’t do a better job being my own advocate. Listen to your body!

-Fifth, the experience was the most miserable one of my life. Seriously! It’ll take your skin some time to recover from scabies. Your skin will take months to eject dead eggs and dead scabies from your skin. It’ll also be a hot minute before your skin recovers from the Permethrin treatment. Don’t expect to take Permethrin and be fine a week later. As long as things get GRADUALLY better week to week, you’re on the right path.

Videos to Supplement my Big Brother Scholarship

In 2013, Critical Studies in Media Communication published my autoethnographic investigation of CBS’s Big Brother. If you assign the essay in a class you teach, you might consider showing your students the videos embedded in this entry. The first video features a montage of crying scenes I detail in the first half of the article. The second video focuses on themes explored in the second half of the paper, like the tropes of gay contagion and the gay pretender.

Trope of the Crying Gay Man

Trope of the Gay Pretender

Pamela Ribon

Last night, I ate dinner with my friend Pam Ribon. Pam and I met over 15 years ago at a UIL one-act play competition. I was Gary/Roger in Cy-Fair’s production of Noises Off; she was Kate in Katy’s rendition of Taming of the Shrew. The first time I saw her perform, I was completely in awe. Her performance was hysterical, subtle, and nuanced. I knew I had to become friends with her. That year (1993), after UIL was finished, my high school staged Theatre Night, an evening in which our theatre department parodied all the plays we competed against in our district. I coordinated the event and played Jean Brodie in our Prime of Miss Jean Brodie parody. Pam and several of the kids from Katy attended Theatre Night. I, in turn, went to Katy’s dinner theatre production of Taming. Before I talk about the great success of Pam, I’d like to share a few interesting facts:

1) Renee Zellweger also attended Katy, although a few years before Pam and I were in high school. All three of us also went to UT, Austin. If only Pam and I had worked at Sugars, maybe we could have been in Chicago.
2) Pam and Wammo knew one another when Pam lived in Austin.
3) Pam’s friends with Anna, a woman who directed me in a play at UT and whose apartment I used as a sublet in 1994.
4) Pam was part of a sketch comedy group with Genevieve Van Cleve.

Hello, parallel lives! Seriously, if you connect our dots, Pam and I are a fucking parallelogram.

About four years ago, I noticed a woman named Pamie Ribon of pamie.com won a lifetime achievement bloggie. I did the math and discovered that Pam of pamie.com is the same Pam that I became friends with in high school. We exchanged a few emails and promised to get together when I moved to West Hollywood. Fast forward to 2007, I get hooked on Samantha Who?, and notice that (dun, dun, dun) Pamela Ribon is a writer on the show. Again, I do some research and discover that Pamela Ribon of Samantha Who? is the same Pamela Ribon of pamie.com who is the same Pamela Ribon of Katy’s production of Taming of the Shrew. I take a mental note and tell myself I have to reconnect with her. The note flies out of my brain until, a few weeks ago, I’m looking up random people on the internet and rediscover pamie.com. I immediately send her an email and ask her to dinner. Allow me to share some of Pam’s amazing accomplishments. Along with her award-winning blog, she’s responsible for the following:

1) A hugely successful play called the Anne Heche Monologues. The play is a staged reading of Anne Heche’s 2001 autobiography in which the one-time lesbian and actress claims she is an alien and that, WHEN SHE WAS ZERO-YEARS-OLD, her father stuck his penis in her BABY-SIZED PUSSY and gave her herpes. This is ACTUAL material from her book! The play was a huge hit. And Anne Heche even crashed the play. There are so many layers to this onion, that I can’t possibly peel them all in one blog entry. To be continued.
2) She is the author of multiple books, including Why Girls are Weird (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743469801/squishy) and Why Moms are Weird.
3) And so many of my readers will LOVE this (especially mrpunk2u), she co-authored the Buffalo Bill blog: http://www.pamie.com/butterfly/ in which s/he writes lines like, “I love NOTHING MORE than to connect with you guys. (Well, that’s not true. I love doingthe tuck dance. I feel so pretty. I also really enjoy poking Catherine with a stick. And cooking a nice souffle.)”

Last night, Pam and I finally reconnected. We ate a 3-hour dinner at BLD. We laughed, we cried, we reminisced. It was so nice to, after such a long period of time, see a person I care about and pick right back up where we left off: no pretense, no judgment. We talked about the death of our fathers, our respective times in Austin, relationships, high school, and our careers. Not for one moment was there anything but love and admiration at our table. Well, that’s a lie; there was terrific food and yummy wine.

This morning, out of the blue, my HS pal Cali sent me the Jean Brodie photo. Stars aligning. Signs from higher powers. I feel so blessed to have so many wonderful, creative, kind people in my life.