I still go to Sylvia’s place every week anyway.  We hang out talking, and watch lots of movies and entire TV series on DVD, from our first “Xenafest” in summer of 1998 to Battlestar Galactica, Six Feet Under, Bablyon 5 — we’re currently doing NCIS.  It’s my regular Wednesday gig, so important to me that folks who want me to do other things on Wednesday evenings are almost always SOL.

But I mostly go there just on Wednesdays and the occasional Sunday.  The rest of the time, well, Sylvia doesn’t have the big bucks or the ability to get around much — so her main social outlet is via the Internet. It was therefore quite a blow to her when a fire in her apartment last December kicked her out of her home & into a hotel, computerless, for several weeks until her apartment was fixed back up again. Miraculously, her aging computer survived the fire.  But then, in early April, it died.  A friend helped get her to the library a couple of times to use the computer there, but mostly all she had time to do was to inform her online friends why it was that she hadn’t been online.  And her chances for getting another one very soon weren’t good.

A few days later I got an email from one of those friends, via a small email discussion list that Sly had created several years ago to talk about Hurricane Katrina, that no longer much discussion.  “Does this list still exist?” Kathleen asked. Her email described Sly’s situation, and went on to explain,

At least 17 people, mostly from 4MA, are getting together to raise approximately $500 toward buying Sly a computer.  If there is anyone on this list, particularly anyone in Alaska who could help us by finding out what kind of setup Sly has at home so we can try to duplicate it, or anyone with any idea where we could buy a computer.

Well, hot damn.  I got on it, & became 4MA’s Anchorage liaison.  Kathleen & another 4MA member, Lynne, would collect the funds & send them on to me, & I would take the money & help Sly buy a computer & set it up.

4MA is short for 4_Mystery_Addicts, a very active mystery book discussion list that has been one of Sly’s most important social venues for years & years.  I’m not a member — I tend more towards science fiction/fantasy, & in any case couldn’t keep up with 4MA’s high volume — but I’ve always had a strong affection-from-afar for the folks at 4MA because of all the warm and wonderful things Sly has said about them over the years.

I didn’t know the half of it. Neither, it turns out, did Kathleen — because in the end the funds that 4MA members (including our friend Cam here in Anchorage) donated toward getting Sly back online was — well, they say that pictures are worth a thousand words: how about 1,020 of them? — one for each dollar raised amongst themselves by 4MA members, and over twice what was originally expected.

That’s what I had in my pocket for a brief time yesterday after the last of the funds arrived, before Sly, Leslie, and I headed over to Best Buy to pick out a computer. Here Giovanni, the guy who helped us at Best Buy, is showing her some of the features of a Dell Inspiron, the computer we ended up getting for her.

Sly is a little blurry in this next photo because she moved her face just as I took the shot — but I still like this photo of her & Leslie as we were paying for the purchase.

Besides the computer itself, we set up an appointment next Wednesday for the Geek Squad to come over to Sly’s house & go beyond the basic computer set up I would do for her — teaching her some the computer’s features, setting up the printer I’m giving her (more on that in a minute) and her own little local wireless network, plus 6 month’s ongoing consultation, all for just $139.00. We also paid $139.00 for two years “insurance” so her computer can get fixed if there’s a power surge that fries her motherboard, or something. The $1,020 paid for all but $19 of that, but I was happy to make up the difference.

I’ll be really happy for the wireless network, because then I can check my own email on my iPod when I’m hanging out with her Wednesday nights, & both of us have a habit of looking stuff up in Wikipedia about the various programs we watch or stuff we talk about. As for the printer, I got a free printer from the UAA Bookstore when I bought an iMac November before last — but I already had a good printer, so it’s been just sitting in my office at work ever since. Sly will get it now.

Here’s Sly & me with Leslie & Giovanni outside the store after we loaded the new computer in Leslie’s car. Thanks for all your help, Giovanni!

Back at Sly’s place, Sly caught a breather at her desk before we got to work clearing it of old stuff so I could get her set up.

Here’s a slightly blurred shot of her old setup before we took it apart. The TV at left stays, of course, but the computer monitor in the middle is from the old dead computer, & must go, along with some of the other stuff.

There were a lot of cables and cords to sort out.

That’s when I told Sly the story of the Gordian knot. According to this legend, the person who could untie the Gordian knot would become the ruler of Asia. Alexander the Great tried to untie the knot, but it was too complex — so he pulled out his sword & chopped it in half. He went on to conquer big chunks of Asia… but he also died pretty young. Maybe because he cheated?

I only wanted to set up a computer, not conquer Asia.  But I was dealing with electrical and cable cords — so it seemed safer not to cheat. Besides, I don’t have a sword. In the end I got the cords all sorted out and the ones no longer needed got stowed away in a box.

The basic setup we did was easy, & didn’t take much time at all. And so… here we go: Windows 7 starts loading.

And here’s one happy Sly with her new computer.

The design of this computer is similar to an iMac in that the hard drive & DVD/CD player is all in one piece with the monitor, instead of having a tower off to the side. It makes for a far less cluttered desk. But I’ll probably make her a pedestal so the monitor can be higher off the desk (so she won’t get a stiff neck from looking down), & we’ll need also to figure out where the printer will go.

By the time I left at 9:23 PM, Sly was online writing her first email: a thank you to 4MA for making this possible.

And I caught my bus, and then had a very enjoyable walk home with a beautiful Anchorage sunset. It capped off a wonderful evening.

Thank you 4MA

When I told Sly on April 13 over the phone about what you the members of 4MA were doing for her, she said “I’m gobsmacked!” and, a little later, “Now I’m all a-twitter!” She was completely overwhelmed with appreciation for the kindness, generosity, and friendship of all of you at 4MA.

As indeed was I. I still am, especially because I know firsthand how important the computer and being able to talk with friends like you is to her quality of life. It means much to know that she has a huge pile of friends who care so very much about her.

Lynne (LC) sent me a list that she thinks is complete of those who contributed to this wonderful gift.  And so — Maddy, Jane B, Carl, David, Judy B, Julie, Ella, Barfly, Randy, Stacey, Annie C, Mary De,  Lucinda,  Judy W, Yvonne, Elizabeth R, Merrill,  Kim R, Fran, Jack, Karen C, Helen L, Don L, Donna, Lesley AS, Sunnie, Lourdes, Deanna, Peg, Kathleen H, LC (Lynne), Denise, and Cam — a heartfelt thank you.

As we left Best Buy last night, Leslie, Sly, & I were talking about you 4MAers, and Leslie remarked, “It takes a village.”  People like you make the village.  People like you make this world turn.

Related posts:

1. Happy wedding! (for John & Heather)
2. Same-sex marriage: A personal history
3. Who I sleep with every night

… when they look as cool as this, anyway.  I caught these clouds one morning on the UAA campus at the beginning of October 2003, on the first of what I still remember so clearly as a two or three-day period of some really remarkable skies in Anchorage.

Even though I was feeling pretty crappy yesterday, I like the cloud pic in my yesterday post too.  I took it from my dentist’s office a few months ago.  I take a lot of cloud pics, because — well, yeah.  Clouds are not really all about bleakness.  It just feels like that sometimes, when one is inhabited by grey.  But the grey I feel when I’m in that state of depression I call the grey is not full of lifegiving rain, or a blizzard of snow, or even the destructive force of Job’s Voice from the Whirlwind — like that Oklahoma tornado I posted last week.  The grey is just this featureless, lifeless, blah.

But when it dissolves away… ahhhhh.

Or aha.

The aha! experience — that’s what I call the thing that happened to me in August 1984, when self-hatred went away — one of the central defining experiences of my life.  (But it was my sister-in-law Linda who first called it that — thanks Linda! & happy birthday!)  I wrote a brief account of it a few years ago.  Very brief account, which leaves out a lot.

As soon as it happened, it’s as if I could feel all the universe flowing into me, breathing in & out with me.  That lasted a long time, & I can still feel it on my best days.  I later came to call it the cool breeze — another one of those phrases for my various feeling states.  But here’s the deal: I found I could feel it even when I was sad.

One day, not long after the aha, I had a big falling out with a friend of mine who lived in that big trailer court that used to be at the corner of Muldoon & Debarr in east Anchorage.  Bang! — I slammed out the door & left her, & I walked a long ways crying about it, until I stopped and sat on Russian Jack Hill overlooking traffic.  It was late September.  I was still crying, but at the same time I could see the Chugach Mountains just to the east of Anchorage dusted with their first snow — termination dust, we call it here — & it was beautiful, & I could feel that beauty inside me instead of just perceive it intellectually. And here I was still crying. And I suddenly realized: This is what sadness feels like. Not depression: but sadness. I had never known that feeling before.  It was like other feelings I hadn’t known before, like beauty that I could see with my eyes & recognize with my intellect, but not feel at all.

Now I could feel it.  Ever since then, I’ve been able to feel it… except when I take one of those dips, long or short, into the pit or the grey — but now those times are the exception, rather than the rule.

But it still always feels pretty damn good when the blanket of yuck slides off me. & I can breathe again.

Day followed day, the old stream of time,
just the same as before.
But each day I saw the mountains change –
one day growing gold in the afternoon sun –
one day dusted white by the season’s first snow –
one day touched by clouds as soft as white roses –
I could see them and breathe them and touch them and feel them.
Each day I saw the mountains change –

so did change find me.

– from “Alaska Love Poem” (1984)

That was half my life ago.  I thought at the time that the depression/despair gig & I were entirely quits, which of course proved not to be the case; but on the other hand, I never returned to the self-hatred; & it was a fundamental step #2 in having the stuff I needed to deal with depression/despair ever after.  (The first step having been to accept my lesbianism five years previously.)

So… I’m feeling pretty good now.  Heading over to my friend Sylvia’s for our normal Wednesday night get-together.  Tonight, we’re re-watching the pilot for “Caprica” as a refresher for its season premiere this Friday.  I’m stopping to get some Bear Tooth food on the way there.  Life could be better, life could be worse — life goes on.  And right now, that’s just about right.

Here’s some more clouds from October 1, 2003, with some Chugach Mountains thrown in for good measure.

Related posts:

1. Dissolve
2. Pausing under the clouds: A how-to guide for getting out of the grey
3. The grey