When I was sixteen, I probably vowed to be a "bad influence." And I've lived up to that vow, by the estimation of most people. Still....

I shared e-mails with Ric Williams, the Poetry editor at the Austin (TX) Chronicle today, my oldest friend; e-mails which reinforced how childish I remain. You would think, since Ric has known me longer than anyone outside of my blood family, that he would understand me.

He doesn't. Sadly, I don't understand him, either.

That's why I think nobody understands anyone else. It's impossible when we don't even understand ourselves.

So we share jokes. We share recommendations for movies, books, television --- mass culture -- in lieu of sharing more of our innermost secrets, which become boring after you reach 25 years of age...

Edward Albee, the playwright, said "Soul-searching is the lowest form of comedy." That only revealed (in my Not-So-Humble Opinion) how much Albee was missing the next Big Trend.) Ask Oprah.

Now don't act like I'm speaking in tongues. You know where this mind-emission of mine is going.

Baby, take off your coat
Real slow
Baby, take off your shoes,
Here, I'll take your shoes
Baby,take off your dress,
Yes, yes, yes!
You can leave your hat on... --- Randy Newman

Ric's very much into Jungianism and that notion of The Shadow -- which I don't discount (completely.) After all, I think the basis of our friendship is that we are each others' Shadows. He aspires toward spiritual enlightenment in ways that sometimes make me laugh out loud. I am what he calls an "earthbound spirit" because of my cynicism. What better Shadows for each other?

When we were young and foolish, even while collaborating and being a synonym for each other (in the minds of our friends, those clueless fools!) it was love/hate. Then, for a brief period, we openly admitted competitiveness. Two brilliants certainly can't ask which is the "most brilliant." We can both laugh about it now, Thank Providence, but it caused a great deal of sturm und drang between us.

He castigated me for marrying Debbie, for example. I called him a dilettante. (I regretted that attack. He took it personally and did not forgive me.) So we had hurt each other as much as close friends could.

It shouldn't surprise you that we've gone through sporatic periods of refusing to speak to each other (while everyone wondered why we acted like adolescent lovers. It has been no secret that, push come to shove, we'd give a left arm to save the other. Well, at least I would, Ric is a selfish bastard.)

I don't believe in magic
I don't believe in I-Ching
I don't believe in Bible
I don't believe in Tarot
I don't believe in Jesus
I don't believe in Kennedys
I don't believe in Mantra
I don't believe in Gita..
I don't believe in Elvis
I don't believe in Zimmerman
I don't believe in Beatles
I just believe in Me --- John Lennon

I've always like dancing. But I was confused when this woman came up to me on the street this week and said, out of the blue: "You look like you could be a good cat dancer."

Oh great! I thought, the Rod Curse again. Do I wear a sign on my forehead that says, 'Sucker. Easy Mark?'"

She must have seen that on my face. "No, listen!" she said. "You have the body for it. The look. You could be a great cat dancer."

"Lady, I'm poorer than a church-mouse right now. You might want to talk to somebody else."

"I don't want your money, mister," she said. "But I know you're a cat dancer."

This type of thing happens to me a lot. So I had to think about it afterwards.

Lessons in Cat Dancing

There is something in me that is asexual; celibacy seems natural to me. The long periods of NOT being involved with anyone have been more comfortable to me that those stretches of my inveterate rutting.

Stop laughing!

I know I've shared all my erotic interludes with you, my being a complete dog. And yeah, I've slept with A LOT of women, trying to get most of them to allow me to cheat on them... My hormones were raging AND I was trying to "fit in." Truth is, I'd be happiest with just one person who could accept my reclusive writing tendency, my neuroses, and think that was cool. I have this fantasy that a painter would be my perfect mate --- she'd need the time alone, too.

In spite of my internationalist bonafides, I know that I have internalized the very American tendency toward restlessness for the new and riding off into the sunset. Considering the value I place on things past, there's an internal conflict at work, n'cest pas?

Nonetheless, your old pal Butterfly Soul has been working on learning the lessons of cat dancing. Not quite like being a cat on a hot tin roof, but the same kind of jiggy-ness (Is that a word?)

I'm starting to see that the key to all of this is letting go. Letting go of pride, of ambition, of pain, of too much planning. I'm riding, again, across the Great Plains of our human experience as a cat dancer this time.

Keep me in your prayers. Nobody needs them more.

THINGS I WANT THIS WEEK

Rod was a columnist for the Andover News Network, where he wrote over two hundred articles on web design and development issues. He was also principal writer and Editor for IT Manager's Journal, where he reviewed technology issues weekly, producing 383 editorials. He became the Managing Editor for Electronic Mail/Newsletter Publications at Andover.net at the end of February, 2000, and left in September of the same year. He was a contributing writer for ACCESS magazine, which appears both on- and offline for 10 million readers in 100 newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Post, Boston Herald, Austin American-Statesman, Denver Post and Orlando Sentinel, among others. In January, 2001, Rod became the US reporter for Silicon.com, a division of Network Multimedia Television in London, UK, reaching 3.5 million European readers.

Rod lives in dreams and visions, edits the writing of people from six continents for The World's Magazine, and wonders if New Orleans is actually the next stop on the hejira.

He continues to be committed to integrity, chastity and a dose of humility.

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