The gig was a thirty-something birthday party for a lady who decided at one of my Brushwood lectures that any women's party worth having really should include henna .... and whom am I to argue.  She sent out 100 invitations for her "Hammered and Hennaed" party .... and her ladyfriends began arriving at 8 pm with the intent of getting blitzed, stoned  and hennaed, 
in a way that  only thirty-something-vaguely-pagan-
employed-in-dull-beurocratic-jobs-in-rust-belt-industrial-America women can do with such
perfect 
determination and efficiency. 

I started hennaeing immediately, on a woman who knew exactly how busy I was going to be, and I didn't have a chance to get up thereafter.  By 1:30 am I was having a difficult time keeping the henna lines crisply professional, as the bed was bouncing with several very stoned women drying their henna and trying to sing "Sweet Transvestite" and "We are the Champions".  I don't imbibe when hennaeing, because I try to respect the art by doing only excellent work, but ..... between the inability of a baked client to hold still, friends falling over backwards laughing and me doing my damnednest to concentrate in a room full  of pot smoke  (wheee .... no chest pain!!!) ....well ... some of those were NOT my most delicate and precise hennaes. 
Oh well.
The wasted were so enraptured that they didn't seem to notice .... 
It was a fantastic party! 
I got my second wind about 2 am and hennaed properly again until  past 4.

One lady kept trying to start up the "ahhhh this is all sooooo sacred" rant with me, and .... if I ever have any tact with blissninnies devoid of authentic scholarship, I certainly have none when I have just hennaed for 8 hours straight and have been breathing in  second hand pot smoke for most of that time.  (Torqued and trashed: a brilliant combination for no diplomacy whatsoever....)

 In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have said "Your body is sacred?  And, just how self-congratulatory is that?", nor should I have said, "When people claim a behaviour to be sacred, do watch and see if it's an excuse to act like an irresponsible asshole." However, I will stand by, "There never was any sacred prostitution.  That's just a misreading of old texts and artifacts by prim academics who had to sanctify sex in their interpretations because they couldn't cope with the fact that fucking is fun, and well organized pussy for hire was a great source of tax revenue."  If I see her again, I'll see if she remembers enough of the evening to require 
an apology from me. 

Gotta love a party that makes you feel that full of fun!
 

When I finally finished, and  packed the boxes into the car, looking across the street at a vast, empty, derelict factory that used to be the "Gospel Press" publishing headquarters for church hymnals and such, I was really grinning about the cosmic implications of people's absurd vanity about 
"Sacredness" . 
 

I fired up the rusty Nova, and the radio hit the the first notes of  "Won't Be Fooled Again" by the Who.  So I grinned larger ...... and, it was just one of those great transcendental moments!  I went flying down the freeway, buzzed from 8 hours hennaeing, radio running the 9 minute version of " ....Fooled Again ",  on high overpasses looking down on  the huge stacks from the steel mills spewing blue fire columns into the night air ..... high decibel bravado rock in  the darkness .... Damn, it was good! 
I giggled, thinking, that though this may be an infinitely meaningless existence, and the notion of "sacred" may be nothing but vanity, 
some nights, 
there is, 
sure as shit, 
MAGIC! 

.... and with Pete Townshends' apocalyptic scream, I came around a curve to a huge billboard lit up saying "GOOD-YEAR" ..... 
... yes, indeedy! 
So it is!
 

What I henna on myself keeps coming back in echos lately ...... 
I'd hennaed up a verse from the RgVeda  in Sanskrit on my leg as resume' for the gig, 

"By Thy art, O Spirit, You overcome / the cunning withering of Death".

It did work as syhchronicity for all the crabapple trees bursting into bloom out of industrial winter, and  getting out and defying middle-aged grimness with a rightously rowdy women's henna party.
 

The henna on this foot and leg is from Castle Art and Imports

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