It took me an embarassingly long to to time to realize that before hitting Oz, the Scarecrow already had true brains, the Tin Man a warm heart, the Lion courage, and Dorothy a home wherever she went. The realization came when I watched the film for maybe the third or fourth time. I was 18 and on acid.

This was the second of about four or five acid trips I took in the 1980s while in college. I liked to pretend I was a hippie, even though I was a Communications major with Farrah hair. A group of us dropped the hallucinogen in the living room of a friend's house that night. The Wizard of Oz happened to be on TV. We watched it with the sound down and the stereo blasting.

Something about watching Dorothy and Co. dance down the yellow brick road to Van Halen's "Running with the Devil" helped me really get the movie. Even though the ruby slippers were swirling puddles of paint, and the Cowardly Lion looked like a man who's had too many facelifts, and the munchkins' elongated arms undulated, I had an ah ha!

Ah ha! This movie is telling me something very important about life: That we already have what we think we don't.

*

I saw Mary Roach read last night on campus. She's hilarious, brilliant. Was thrilled to get to hang out with her at a reception afterward, to drink wine and talk about writing, sex and cadavers. No, not sex with cadavers, although one of her books does touch on the subject. If you've never read her, you must.
In an amazing event of serendipity, in my film class we just happened to be watching Milk this week. I hadn't planned it to coincide with National Coming Out Week, but it did. Not only did Obama pledge (ve shall see) to end DOMA and DADT over the weekend, but on the very day we watched the last part of Milk, our Governator signed a bill to create Harvey Milk Day. My classroom was electrified.

What else? At my I'm-Living-A-New-Life Open House, we drank 30 bottles of wine, untold amounts of beer and vodka, and danced on the furniture until the wee hours. I'm so blessed by all the people in my life. I looked around that night and realized it's because of these people I'm alive in this difficult post-divorce time. Alive and thriving. * FYI, here's a recent interview. Words are magic.