October 4, 2020:
Crowded circle of Marin County liberals, comfortable from book royalties, living in woods in huge houses with very high ceilings.
The hostess has her yule tree upside-down, hung from the apex of her own very high ceiling, the one which book royalties bought for her. Her books have allowed her to appropriate the wages of some good number of well-intentioned seekers. They're a miniature cult in print form, where chakras pay the mortgage and meditation heats the jacuzzi.
With her inverted symbol she's imitated the legend of St. Boniface, who is said to have proposed upside-down trees as invokers of the Trinity. That this might be her intention seems highly unlikely.
I make a sarcastic joke no-one understands. Someone has compared the hostess to a spiritual diamond; I therefore compare myself to a lump of coal. It brings down the house, though it shouldn't. I've just called the lot of them materialists, in the sense of graspers after shiny objects. Her guests don't know this, but the hostess does, shooting psychic daggers from very angry eyes.
I've neither asked nor consented to come here. I've allowed a woman to bring me here as part of a longer day, where she has the car and I practice patience. With perfectly symmetrical gender-reversal she throws me a towel, tells me to get naked for the jacuzzi. Like any other trapped guest throughout the history of sexual manipulation based on relative access to decision-making she thinks she's got me where I can't say no. I can, though. I'm really really good at saying no. If I knew where we were I'd find a phone and call a cab. Instead I wait, fully-clothed, feigning interest, for my ride to choose to leave. And while we do hang a few more times, I will never again allow a situation where I'm without my own transportation.