Significantly, in the Aztec calendar March 6, 2024, was the day Ome Acatl (Two Reed) and my 115^th birthday in that ceremonial cycle of 260-day years. In our western calendar, I’ve recently celebrated my 81^st birthday, wrapping up nine cycles of nine Gregorian years and starting in on my tenth cycle. The nine include a first inchoate period of childhood and eight discrete personas. For lack of a better description, I’m calling this new ninth persona the venerable iconographer, researcher, and/or historical theorist. We’ll just have to wait and see how that pans out.

Here’s an illustrated summary of my nine cycles for easy reference.

Inchoate Childhood in almost rural Indiana (9 years)—Little can be said about Dickie except that he was the bright but spoiled son of Yvonne and Ray. You can read about him between the lines of my memoir-biography “Ms. Yvonne, the Secret Life of My Mother.”

Cute, clueless kid in the backwoods of Arkansas (9 years)—At 15 with a stylish flattop hairdo, Richard was an outstanding student, accomplished loner, and an avid rock’n’roll dancer, usually solo. He had the misfortune of being raised Catholic and being futilely in love with Annette Funicello. You can read about my adolescent traumas in my semi-fictional novel “Bat in a Whirlwind.”

At 21 in the House of the Rising Sun

Wild faerie slut in New Orleans’ French Quarter (5 years)—Shown here in 1963 in his apartment at 387 Audubon Street, Rick had just turned 21, was majoring in Russian at Tulane University, spent nights dancing in Latin and Greek sailor bars, and had urges to art and literature. In this photo he’s stunned by frenzied sex with a football-player named Tom. Such sordid adventures are described in my second semi-fictional novel “Divine Debauch.”

Reluctant father and Slavic scholar in northern universities (6 years)—Richie is pictured here in early 1968 at 25 with younger daughter Aimée in apartment on East Kingsley in Ann Arbor MI. On my marriage to Barbara and birth of older daughter Jacqueline, read my first real memoir “There Was a Ship.”

Hippie poet, footloose and feckless (2 years)—Photographed in December 1970 at 28 in his Bellevue apartment in Milwaukee by his mother on a visit, Richie was again stunned, first by the welcome shock of being divorced and second, by a passionate affair with a ballet dancer named Kenny. These two years of that and other love affairs are detailed in my second memoir “Lord Wind.”

Courtesan in a Victorian mansion at Logan Circle in Washington DC (9 years)—Shown in 1978 at 36 in publicity photo for performance of his translation of Tchaikovsky’s opera “Joan of Arc” by the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, Richard was now a professional arts administrator with OPERA America. My libidinous lifestyle in the 70s, DC’s golden age of gay liberation, is celebrated in my third memoir “Gay Geisha.”

Mature gay gentleman working in various glamorous cities (16 years)—Taken in 1982 when Richard was 40 at the Denver Gay Freedom Parade in a Denver Post front-page picture—with his partner Ernesto. He’d been working for the Central City Opera House and later would work in other arts organizations. Recent exposure to ancient American earthworks eventually led to my first nonfiction book in 1992, “Remember Native America!” Discovery of the Aztec Calendar in the late 80s led to my second in 1993: “Celebrate Native America!”

Grandfatherly gay character, the Used Plant Man of Santa Fe (16 years)—Taken in 2006 at 64 for an article in The New Mexican on Babylon Gardens, Richard had now become a grandfather four times over. I’d also written another nonfiction book, “Getting Get,” was still an avid disco dancer, gave shows of my sculpture (found-object assemblage), and was working on the above novels and memoirs.

Widely unknown elder writer and artist (10 years)—Pictured here in 2020 at the age of 78 in New Orleans for a new production of “Joan of Arc” (by the New Orleans Opera), Richard was retired from business and now spent his time in (Aztec) drawing and finishing the above novels and memoirs. In the later 20-teens, my show YE GODS! (Icons of Aztec Deities) enjoyed seven venues across NM before being closed down by the pandemic. It also hampered my ecstatic dance activities, but the solitude facilitated my blogging and artwork on Aztec themes.

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