Oh great! Dad had not told me I had a leopard cub to contend with! As the cub charged toward me, I reached for the chain in order to bring it up short. (I had no idea if it had been de-clawed or not, so I wasn't taking any chances.) The cub was wild and playful and didn't like the idea that I could resist its movements or its access to my calves. It wasn't de-clawed, either, I soon saw. Great. Just great.

While I was trying to get to know my new, feral friend, intruders appeared on the property. They were grifters, it seemed, not armed or dangerous, just sleazy. As I was trying to handle them, I also had the leopard cub to contend with --- an angry cub. It didn't like having its territory invaded by strangers or my attention being taken away from it. This was a problem. The cub slipped the chain I was holding and tried to maul one of the men. I pulled it away before it did major damage --- just a few scratches, which put the men on their guard --- but the cub was nearly uncontrollable in its rage.

I took it outside of the fence and tried to reason with it. But its claws and fangs were bared now and it was tough going. All I could do was let it rage until I could restrain it, its hind paws clutching the fencepost, it's forepaws gripping my arms.

"This is not the way," I told the young leopard. "You can fight and rage but you have nothing to fear. Go ahead, get it out of your system if you need to. But those people are no threat to you. You belong here. You will never lose my love or my attention.

"There is another way," I said. "Do you want to just be angry and dangerous or do you want to feel good? Why can't you accept that you belong here and play, instead? Wouldn't you just like to run free and enjoy yourself. It's much easier than wasting your strength on fighting for something you already have..."

I took him back inside the fence. And he ran free. He gamboled and played with me.

Then there we were in a room in the back, part of the house still being built. The intruders were there, but they now knew the power of the cat. I made a joke about how I was still getting him under control, fighting to keep him from baring his claws. "It's like dealing with a wild animal," I said. Everyone laughed at my irony, even the leopard cub. The men left. I walked the cat to another part of the new construction, explaining to him that he could not be as wild with my father as he was with me. I explained how my father was not in good health, the heart-attacks my father had suffered during my childhood.

I told the leopard cub that he had no need to show either his strength or his danger again. "And most of all," I said, "you must try not to do any harm..."

They say that everyone in your dreams is a representation of yourself, so I woke up this morning wondering what the leopard cub had to teach me about me...

In the Glass House

Meredith, in Florida, responded to the poem from Matthew Osborne, a boy in Detroit, featured in this space last week by actually contacting me in this physical world via "snail mail." I was touched.

That seems to have been the lesson of these last few months: People care.

Last year at this time, when I was "in the chips" by most people's estimation, I was convincing myself that no one cared and that I probably had no (significant) reason to go on living. No reason... It was only this magazine, this mind emission, this expression of my soul that kept me going.

The Black Dog was not just at the door, it was right here in my living room eating my ass.

The truth my soul was trying to pass on to me was that I was selling out to The Dark Side for material comfort. Mammon. How could I both rage against Babylon and compromise myself for stock options and a false premise? Well, I couldn't. Doing that was turning away from The Love.

We humans have two major motivations for our actions, fear and love. I had succumbed (again) to responding from fear.

Now the Love door is opening again. I actually write for organizations I can respect instead of revile. And write not for the money, but for the integrity. Oh wow!

The kicker is that instead of reaching tens of thousands of readers, I now reach millions. (Stop laughing! I'm a slow learner.)

So the thought of moving to New Orleans is starting to look more and more right to me. The Big Easy...

I'm asking all of you to do me a favor: START VISUALIZING ROD HAPPY IN NEW ORLEANS. There must be a courtyard in our shared visualization, lush with oleander, magnolia, and maybe even a few roses. There must be moist moss hanging from the crenulated gates. It must be near the river.

There's Something About You Girl That Makes Me Sweat

She knows who she is.

But I can't imagine each of you, when I do this, the way I've always imagined her... even if she is NOT the same person any longer.

It has just seemed that --- when I picked up my pen or sat down in front of a keyboard --- there was only one person who would care to read what I had to say, who would understand my Dreamer point-of-reference and who might even laugh at my jokes. That hasn't changed over twenty years of "serious" writing. I just wanted her to be proud of me. I imagine her in my mind laughing, or nodding or saying, "Flame on, little boy!"

And that's what a Muse is supposed to do, isn't it?

Here in my Glass House, where some of you visit me every week, I'm sure you feel the shadow of this woman. She is always with me.

She is not The Last Woman, but The First Woman... That has been a haunting problem for me. Even my ex-wife knew that my Muse lived with me as soon as I locked myself into whatever room in our house was my "study."

As soon as I sat down to write The First Woman and I were locked, joined at the ankles and wrists, in that other world where I live when writing.

The world of the writing is as REAL for me, you see, as your "real" world is for you. Between dreams and writing I sometimes feel as if there are three lives going on, overlapping and sometimes intersecting. And she lives in them all...

The job of The Last Woman is supplant the woman of my dreams...

I'm finishing the magazine early this week! Yayy!

That is by design, in that I have new writing chores to deal with and making the adjustment of writing for Greenwich Mean Time (GMT.)

For KEVIN CAREY fans, I believe his DAY ONE piece this week is a special treat... BOB POWER's 99th POWERSSOUND music article gives you a chance to win a box-set of jazz CDs. I encourage you to take a chance on this one, meant to commemorate his 100th POWERSSOUND article... And the ever-controversial CHARLIE THE TUNA outdoes himself this week, in my view, with a revisionist history of the world in THE SEX COLUMN.

GO PLAY!

It's time to spread our wings and fly
Don't let another day go by, my love
It'll be just like starting over -- John Lennon

THINGS I LOVE 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 is now 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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