Tag Archives: angels

October 25, 2012

the angels and demons in my bedroom

By arlynnpresser

it’s every single morning before i even open up my eyes.  the angel i always imagine to be sitting on the window sill.  the demon lounging in bed next to me smoking a brimstone cigarette.

my personal angel doesn’t actually look like this. maybe yours does.  angels exist in the muslim, christian and jewish traditions but are ordinarily depicted as males.  is this picture a blow for feminism?

 

the angel was particularly adamant this morning:  i have finished revising the book about my facebook adventures of 2011 and had sent it to my editor at tate publishing.  but i need to sort through thirty to fifty photographic images to include in the book.  i had sold yet another book to tate yesterday.  oh, and facebook — yes, but not actually mark zuckerberg himself — had contacted me to find out if they could do a story about me.  it was a good day yesterday and included other blessings:  a friend had been nice to me, it was sunny and warm outside, the coffee was good.  and so the angel asks of me the same thing as every morning:  get out of bed.

the demon, meanwhile, has other things on his mind.

you’re fat, you’re old, you drink too much, you have a social life that is largely conducted on facebook, you’re irrelevant, you could die today and nobody would notice so why don’t you stay in bed and watch korean soap operas on hulu.com? says the demon

for a number of mornings, the demon has been very persuasive.  and i’ve watched eight episodes of season one and four of season two of faith about a korean protector of the king who travels through time to find a twenty first century doctor to save the life of the queen and then the surgeon . . . . oh, forget it.

today the angel won.  but only after an hour’s battle while i tried to go back to sleep.  the battle occurs every morning and it’s sort of the same for other people i’ve been finding.   my friends describe the enormous effort it takes to get it together every morning.

yesterday was a good day for angels watching over the facebook enterprise.  after opening at a stock price of $38 months ago, the company has lost half its value, closing at less than twenty dollars per share at one point.  the demons definitely were feeling pretty sure of themselves.  but this past wednesday, prices shot up an astonishing 19% to close at $23.  i betcha this morning when mark zuckerberg’s angels and demons were discussing whether mark should get up or declare a sick day, his angel had something wonderful on his side to motivate him.

do you have a conversation between demons and angels in your head?  is it mostly in the morning, like me?

12 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Uncategorized

March 7, 2012

the most beautiful present from a facebook friend and angels make their intentions known

By arlynnpresser

in the christian, muslim and jewish traditions, the archangel gabriel is often responsible for relaying messages to mortals, such as when gabriel told mary that she would bear a child and his name would be emmanuel. this picture is not of that moment.

my cracked windshield has been repaired although i’m not supposed to drive for a while to allow the glass to “cure”.

as angels so often take many forms, it is possible that the archangel gabriel, or some sort of messenger, has taken the form of a slow moving geico insurance claims system and a really slow safelight glass repair shop. because my son joseph has been saying "you need to stop traveling and sit down and start writing a book about what you did last year." maybe the only way it can happen is if my car is disabled and my airplane slush fund emptied.

but i’ll be on the road tomorrow visiting facebook friend #304. . ..

last night, as i drifted to sleep, i believed that the angel gabriel and a few others had come to fly over my head. nope, it was bats, i think three of them, i was pretty hysterical at the time. swiping the air with a broom didn't intimidate them and crying left them unmoved. maybe i could ask these bats to guard the house, intimidating any robbers while i am away.

tomorrow i start to make plans for trips to new york (with a side trip through pennsylvania) and nevada.  but i think there is something to what the angel gabriel and my son joseph have been telling me. . . i need to write a book about last year because it was the most wonderful experience of friendship.  if you know a publisher who would want a book with embedded videos and photos, or an agent with imagination, or ryan gosling (i just want to meet him, okay????)  tell me all about it.

yesterday, i did receive the most wonderful present from f2fb (face to facebook) friend  #301 brenda jeffries.  she is the gal who has agoraphobia and lives in detroit with the help of her surviving children (her daughter raven was murdered several years ago).  i picked up that her oldest son in particular felt that physical exercise and the experience of the “high” you get when you’re really working out would be good for her.  i sent a present.  this is the result:

a lot of people who have agoraphobia feel comfortable outside so long as they are with a "safe" person. my two safe people are my sons and brenda feels safe with her children. tim and brenda are going bike riding. i'm so happy for them. if you're in detroit and you see her tooling around on this bike, wave to her!

thank you brenda, you MADE my day, my week, my month!

16 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Uncategorized

January 25, 2012

the three angels of my trip. . .

By arlynnpresser

i am guarded and guided by angels everywhere.  okay, maybe they’re not angels but they’re close.  they are three facebook friends who are making a real effort to help me in this year’s facebook new years resolution.

last year, in 2011, i visited 292 of my then 325 facebook friends.  i went all around the world, all around the united states, covering an estimated 60,000 miles.  i would have liked to visit the remaining ten percent of my friends but circumstances got in the way.  this year, i have committed to seeing at least ten (maybe twelve?) facebook friends who need me.   because i sure needed my friends last year!  every one of the 292 were generous with their time and their company.  and they often cheered me on as i made other stops along my journey.

for instance, tommy chang was f2fb friend #102 which means he was the one hundred and second facebook friend i saw last year.  he roared into my back driveway in a black sports car.  he had brought his galpal rachel li (now his wife) and they whipped up a wonderful chinese dinner.   i had never had chicken hearts before and it took a little goading to get me to try.  they were delicious!

this year, tommy noticed i’m flying to boston on sunday.  i am meeting with a facebook friend whose anxiety attacks have kept her from experiencing life the way she’d like to.  in fact, her attacks have prompted several job losses and she’s worried she’s about to lose her present position.  the attacks often happen when she’s in elevators so we’re going to do some playing with going up and down and back up again.  tommy emailed  me and asked if i would like to use his frequent flyer miles to be upgraded to first class.

pan am went out of business and flying isn't as glamorous as it used to be but who wouldn't want to go first class? it means i get to jump the line at the t.s.a. maybe they won't dare to feel me up because i'm. . . first class!

 

thank you tommy!  and thank you also to mary mcmanus, who was f2fb friend #168.  my anxiety attacks were so bad that when my older son joseph went to boston to attend boston university, i never once visited him.  last year, mary took me around the campus so i could see where he ate, where his dorm room was, where he took his classes, even where he went to church.  i was surprised to find out he went to church.

mary emailed me and asked me if i had made hotel reservations for this trip to boston.  i said i hadn’t.  she said she knew of a cute little hotel that had some cats.  was i allergic to cats?  i am, but not that bad. . .

turns out the hotel she's thinking of is hotel mcmanus, her home. i'll be sleeping in her daughter's room. if there's a diary tucked under the pillow, i'm reading it! i love finding out what teenagers are doing, especially if they're not my kids!

 

and then there was another angel–this morning i leave for ohio to drop off eastman at college and then swing north to aim for coldwater, michigan where i’ll see my friend molly parshall.  this will be an interesting trip.  i’m a little nervous.  i’m a lot nervous.  oh, just let’s be honest–i’m quaking.

but then this angel–hazel cameron warren, whom i have never met–emailed me to offer to extend reiki healing.  i don’t know much about reiki healing but apparently it can be done without the healer and healee being in the same place.  hazel has offered up her intention that i be safe, secure, healthy and happy.  thank you angel hazel.

angels figure prominently in the christian, jewish and muslim religions. my favorite archangel is michael the warrior. but just for this moment, i think angels hazel, tommy and mary are just dandy!

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Uncategorized

September 15, 2011

you will be assumpted into heaven in a lincoln town car. . .

By arlynnpresser

. . . driven by a man named robert who will call you ma’am. well, at least he called me ma’am.  and he let me change the channel on the radio and turn it up real loud when pink was singing “raise your glass” and let me turn it down when the news came on.

of course, i took my fiance william clark (f2fb friend #60)!

i have mentioned many times over the past nine months my conviction that i will go to hell after i die.  about how anxiety attacks and fear for me are wrapped up in the certainty that this event is happening right now!

but what would it be like if i believed i were going to heaven?  the angel of death came to my house around one o’clock and his name was robert.  he drove me in a lincoln town car down to a television studio.  i was shown into a dressing room where a feast was laid out and two very beautiful producers asked me if i needed anything and told me i was just great.  then a makeup man did my face and a gal did my hair.  because everybody wanted me to look my best.  and then we waited.

when i was told by the stage manager that it was my turn i realized i had almost forgotten why i was in this place.  she led me into the back of a stage area.  i could see through curtains a couple of hundred people.  cameras at every angle.  lights full on the stage with such ferocity that i was sure i would be blinded.  the stage manager told me to go forward, into the arena.  all by myself.  i was afraid but i remembered the letter to the hebrews which scholars believe may have been written by paul, barnabas, apollos, silas, aquila, pricilla or clement of rome.  whoever it was had to be an athlete, possibly in training for a marathon.  because at one point the writer says “where seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us and let us run with confidence* the race that is set before us.”

i realized my biggest fear was that i would trip in my heels.  i held out my hand.  a very nice person who seemed to be in charge of women who are afraid of tripping in heels took my hand and guided me to a chair next to the chair of a very nice woman who asked me how i was feeling.  i said great.

the cloud of witnesses quieted.  we watched a short video about the f2fb project.  after the video, the woman seated next to me asked some questions.  i realized that everybody wanted me to succeed–from robert the angel town car driver to person in the last row of seats.  there was no accusation in the questions the woman next to me posed.  there was no derision or judgment from the audience.  i had been paralyzed with fear for two days just thinking of this very moment but i had no need of that.  there was a great sense of “this is kind of fun and maybe interesting”. . . . and there were three f2fb friends there as well!  that was the most astonishing part.

paddy seymour (f2fb friend #214), cathy jacobson (213), me, and cindy clohesy (214) i was so amazed that they were there!

 

cindy clohesy (f2fb friend #212) is a personal trainer and she had cancelled some client time just to be with me–she’s the brunette with the blue blouse.  cathy jacobson (f2fb friend #213) is wearing pink.  she is on her way to las vegas lucky gal!!!  and paddy seymour (f2fb friend #214) is on the left–she drove home with me.

suddenly, it was over.  the woman beside me shook hands, kissed my cheek and the world was awash with goodbyes and “great segment”!  i think heaven, should i ever be so lucky and blessed, would be a review of one’s life and deeds without the criticism and angst i bring to things.  and then i shall be part of a cloud of witnesses.  i don’t think this “great segment” will ever air but i believe it taught me so much about how silly i am.

i came home and fell asleep well before eight thirty because i had invested so much unnecessary fear and anxiety into the enterprise.  i woke up thinking it was time to start my day, thinking my phone was broken because it said it was only one a.m.  but it really was one a.m.  it was time to drink the last half of the beer i had started at eight fifteen and very quietly, without any cloud of witnesses save for that of angels, think “okay, i can do things i’m afraid of if i ask for help from my friends” . . . .

*some translations use the word “patience”  instead of confidence. what-evs!

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Uncategorized

July 31, 2011

an angel appears in aisle five and then there’s an anunciation

By arlynnpresser

 

 

the archangel gabriel reveals the results of the home pregnancy test to mary


angels show up all the time and i don’t even think they are full time.  maybe it’s a part time gig.  i’ll have to ask my f2fb friend #184 rebecca cohen when i see her next.  like “what are your hours?”  this is important because i met not one but three angels in the grand food store last week.

it was a rough time.  i had returned from los angeles and san diego and while i had wonderful meet ups with f2fb friends balbinka, josh and brian, i had been awfully confused by my interaction with f2fb friend #180 andru and one facebook friend blew me off altogether.  i returned home on my birthday and my house was pretty destroyed by a flash flood.  and i thought everybody has forgotten my birthday, which isn’t any better when you’re fifty one than it is when you are five.

so i was in the grand food store.  crying in aisle five.  that’s when the angel appeared.  the first one.  that would be rebecca who is known by most people as becky but she says she’s old enough to be called rebecca now.  she put her arms around me, told me everything was going to be all right and somehow i believed her.  she then invited me to dinner.  i don’t recall a single instance of angels inviting people to dinner in the bible.  but there was that part in genesis eighteen where abraham was visited by three angels.

this is what f2fb friends rebecca cohen and larry barkley look like (with lynn sanders who is also my facebook friend whom i will be seeing soon!)

 

then facebook friend lynn sanders and f2fb friend #83 larry barkley told me to buck up.  and i did.  then i went to dinner at the cohen house.  sometimes all it takes is a friend being good to you to make all the other stuff disappear.

most houses in winnetka have polished lawns and hostas, but becky cultivates native prairie plants

 

we had a lovely dinner with her husband jeff and two of her three children.  after dinner, we were talking and she reminded me of something i had forgotten about her first husband.

i was put up for adoption when i was just shy of my third birthday.  recently i came across my adoption certificate.  it was laying on top of some papers in my safety deposit box and i was surprised because i don’t recall ever seeing it before.   i wonder what angel put it there.

when i think about my adoption and becky’s husband’s adoption, i wonder if we share a strangeness, an inability to form good relationships.  or maybe rebecca was anunciating (announcing) that it’s possible with great effort or grace.  or maybe you just get older.  but you definitely don’t have to cry about it in the grocery store all by your lonesome!

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Uncategorized