I�m sorry but Identity is just one sillyass movie, my friends. It was fun to see with Frances, which is what I did, but only so we could giggle and make predictions about what was coming next and listen to what the other people in the audience (the whole place was giggling) were saying because some of those folks were pretty funny. The last lines of the movie were extreme in their silliness, although I suspect they were meant to be creepy, and one fella in the audience said, "mmm...that's deep." It was so damned funny everybody just started laughing. Good way to end, I say. I had fun.

I drove Frances back to the house where she and Jeff and Buddy are staying here in town. We were sitting out in my truck talking about multiple personality disorder and repressed memory therapy and ritual satanic abuse and planted memories and the 1980s and how fucked up all that shit was. I just reread the last sentence and I think maybe that our conversation sounded a lot heavier than what it was. I think a lot of that repressed memory and hypnotherapy was really dangerous and fucked up a lot of people and families and most of these ideas have been debunked and aren�t used by reputable therapists anymore. And also MPD (multiple personality disorder), they�re saying now that it�s mostly a creation of this kind of therapy, like having this kind of therapy created that disorder and that when the folks suffering from it get out of that world�away from their therapist and away from the idea of MPD they find they�re ok. Like Sybil�she was a creation of therapy. Here�s an article about some of this.

Anyway. When we were talking about this stuff, a woman in a powder blue sweater suddenly popped up on the side of the road from behind Jeff and Frances�s big truck and it was so unexpected and she, the woman, she was so out of context there, in the night, on the side of the road, in her powder blue sweater, and after that movie, that I got scared. The silly movie we just saw, with all the out of context strangers stranded and MURDERS, that was what made me freak out. And I said something like, whoa that freaked me out, and a motorcycle roared by and Frances said, what? That motorcycle? And I said, no and I looked pointedly out the window to her left where the woman was walking by and Frances looked to her left and she and the woman were practically touching, they were so close and they both yelled out, oh my god! Because neither one saw each other. It was funny.

The woman had run out of gas and Frances brought her inside to use the phone to call her husband and we told her all about how we got freaked out by her because of the movie. Everybody had a good laugh.

After she left, me and Frances and Jeff and Buddy Black sat out in the grass in the warm night in a circle and talked about spirits and dreams and the voices we hear and don�t hear. Buddy Black was our sentry, sitting at Jeff�s back or at Frances�s side. I wish I had the whole conversation on tape because I want to play it back for myself so that I can feel that deep safety and goodness there in the circle outside at night with my friends.

I get frightened sometimes with talk of ghosts and spirits. Anyone who knows me knows that�s true. I got a little bit scared, I have to admit, last night with Jeff and Frances too. The thing is, I have never felt the presence of ghosts or spirits the way I�ve heard them described. I�ve never heard anything that I thought might be ghostly or anything like that. I like to play at being scared with that stuff sometimes in that ooh scary ghost story sort of way, but I think what really scares me is that I never have felt anything that could possibly resemble that kind of spirit world. It scares because it makes me feel like I am way way out of the loop. Like there�s an entire world existing right now where I am and I have no awareness of it and I never will either. That sort of thing scares me the way time scares me if I think about it too hard. Like the ground beneath me is shifting and maybe, any second now, I�ll fall into some deep chasm.

When I talk about the holy joy moving in me, that�s different. It�s not the spirit of other folks, it�s the spirit of connection, of the deep mystery, of the stuff of the universe, of love. I get that. I get glimpses of it, of knowing that I�m part of something else, not just isolated little old me. But it�s not like the spirits of people or beings or anything. As I have said, it�s impossible to articulate. Which means I am now going to shut my trap about it.

Um a lum lum. I have to get out of this entry but immediately. Too much to do and not enough time, as usual, indeed. I still feel that I have only said maybe, maybe, 1/20th of what I�ve got percolating in me after last night�s conversation. The whole part about dependency and dogs and pack mates and trust. I really want to talk and think about that more. Later dudes.