WonderBlog

Ah, look at all the nice people!

Thank you all, for your nice comments. I will not do away with comments, despite the nasty spammenters...

I have several posts I want to write:

* a bit about Proust, who is substantially difficult to read, but has devoted fans (I read one of his books for my book Group)

* this cool piece about classism and the habit of murder (and a book that actually validates my theory!)

* a review of "A burning house" which is stories about people living and dying with AIDS

* this COOL COOL new organization method by Kepner Tregoe that rocks

But I have too much to say and not enough time. I discovered that one of my major problems right now is that I have not been getting enough sleep

No sleep makes it hard to think. And thinking makes it hard to sleep. The last few nights have been full of half waking thoughts. Which is a problem.

maybe if I stop and write out some of the things that I want to post about I will sleep better.

last night I went home and fell asleep right after dinner. At about 6:45 I feel asleep in front of the TV playing "An American in Paris" and then Chris woke me up to send me to bed.

I feel a little rested. But more sleep is needed.

I'll keep you informed. Thank you all very much for your attention.

another thing...

It is wonderful when I get a comment from a reader. They are not frequent, but they are incredibly welcome. Thank you for your contributions, my readers.

However, in spite of my huge delight when I get a relevant comment, i am really thinking about turning off the comment function on this site.

I get thousands of spam comments every week. This means that I am on my site doing maintenance every day, but I am not always able to add new content because my time is used up in sorting through horrible spam.

Lately, the spam has been mostly medical and gambling sites. Previously it has been porn. So I guess the tone is improving, but the quantity is increasing as well.

I just don't know what to do about this. There are probably solutions out there...I just love the few comments I do recive so much, it has been worth sorting the spam for it...

there is a lot of spam out there, people.

SIGH

the blog is languishing.

I'm sorry. I have a lot on my mind. So much, really, that I have about a half dozen really long and very interesting and intelligent blog posts that I would like to do.

But I am a little depressed about the lack of interest on my blog. I should not say that, because those of you who DO read it might take it personally. I thank you all, dear readers, for your faithful interest.

But...well...I guess being smart and erudite wears thin. Or maybe I'm not as erudite as I wish I were. SIGH.

I met someone, and she is funny and interesting. She also has a blog:
Little Miss Can't Be Wrong Ever

her blog is amusing, mostly about her personal life, little funny stories. Exactly the sort of thing that I usually DON"T write about, because I want to be a little more universally appealing.

Well, she has a larger audience for her blog than i do. Hmph.

Maybe she just has a larger circle of aquaintances than i do.

...this does not make it better...

So, this is a whiny post about how nobody pays attention to me.

I am very tempted to delete it, because i should not have something so self-serving and unflattering posted.

However, I am not sure I will have time to write something better in the near future.

SIGH

Valley of the Shadows

Fight the powers that be! I'm talking about non-conformity!

But I'll tell you the truth I'd like to be an undercover non-conformist. A little conformity is a comforting thing. Enough to get through the door.

'Cause I always think I'm a little off. Not quite like all the other non-conformists. As if I am unaware of the three sheets of toilet paper dragging off my shoe.

Somehow, if I start talking about what's on my mind, people give me a blank stare and say, "Whatever."

But I've got the floor, and you don't, so I'm going to speak my mind.

I got this new job. And I've moved to a new place. Okay, I’ll be honest I bought a house--one that June Cleaver would be proud of, with a lemon tree in the front and roses on the side.

This freaks me out a little. Because I do not want to wear a twin set and eat off the kitchen floor. I want to be that creative artist type that stays up all night drinking and toking with their other creative friends and being REAL.

Isn't that what the L.A. life is all about? Except I don’t' drink much and I don't like drugs. And I get really sleepy around nine thirty, so no one would hang out with me.

I guess that's the life in West L.A. I live on the East East of L.A., and I am just like everyone else here. We get up early and speed to beat the sunrise, speed to the screeching halt of the bumper in front driving 5, 20, 10, stop and then start again with the miles per hour for the hour or the hour and a half that it takes to finally stop at the parking lot and the padded cell walls of the cubicle.

It's not so bad. I like mornings. And maybe this is the real L.A. after all. Maybe you crazies from the West are going to crash and burn back to where you came from while we east enders drop the grains of sand into our 401Ks 'til our time runs out, the mortgage is paid or we retire--whichever happens last.

Maybe this is the real L.A. Los Angeles is full of Valleys, did you know? Any dip between these many hills is a valley.

Quite honestly, I love my commute. I drive a short jaunt on the 10, exit left and downshift my manual transmission down to 3rd so I can power up the crest of the 57. Below me, just at sunrise, the North Horizon is a range of green tree and gray rock mountains, which, when hit by the slant light of dawn, get pink or orange or purple mountain majesties.

This is the San Gabriel Valley. Yes, the Holy Angel Gabriel, the mouthpiece of God. And I hear it every morning, the messenger of God proclaiming that I am redeemed.

But that is the second valley of my daily journey. I had to climb to enter the Angel's valley. I asked around and discovered that I live in Pomona Valley. Pomona is the name chosen for this place when it had few houses and more fruit trees. Pomona is the Goddess of the harvest. I dwell in the Valley of the Goddess. Which is most excellent, because I am the Queen of Pretty Things. It's a long story, but I've been the Queen of Pretty Things for almost seven years now, a position which carries a lot of responsibility. As the Queen, I am pleased to find my dominions in the Valley of the Goddess.

As to be greeted by the Valley of Voice of God, traveling through it every day to the very end. I know it is the very end of the San Gabriel Valley, because my cube window faces a big Rock. The rock is part of a mountain, and where there is a mountain, on the other side is a Valley. This valley is well known: the San Fernando Valley.

Fernando...OOooo Fernando...ABBA? This is the Valley of the Dancing Queen.

I travel there less frequently. I suppose that's just as well.

Quote for today

Taken from a play "An Immaculate Misconception" By Carl Djerassi

"oh, everything? for a scientist that's a meaningless word. You can never know everything. but you can learn when to stop looking for more."

It is not such an easy thing to learn when to stop. The uneasy balance of progressing without knowing everything is something we all must learn.

It's maybe like learning to ride a bike--except the inverse. If a person never forgets how to ride a bike, then one always forgets how to keep their balance on incomplete knowledge.

or perhaps it would be better to say, incomplete ignorance. Since the greater percentage is on the side of ignoance

thinking

You know, I've been doing a lot of interesting things that take up time.

I've been trying to solidify some thoughts to right down a good blog entry, but I've been on the move.

Let me see what I can think of to say here.

I have been trying to pick up Spanish. I live in a place where it is truly possible to totally immerse myself in a language that is foriegn to me.

Since I moved to LA, I have felt bad that I don't know spanish. In Europe, citizen pick up the language of their neighboring states. It seems to be a sign of willful ignorance to not learn how to communicate with the people who live next to you.

But, Americans do not really make the effort to learn Spanish. The line often taken is:
"This is our country. They should learn our language if they want to live here."

Interesting. This is not the same attitude of the Europeans. I suppose we Americans either do not assume that we will be visiting Mexico (or Quebec, for that matter) to encounter native speakers of a non-english language, or we assume that any of such non-English speakers are here in America permanently and are therefore obligated to make the effort to learn the American language.

We just don't really make the effort to learn Spanish.

But that is the Gringo attitude, basically. There are a number of American citizen who could have been raised in a spanish speaking household, but they have differing degrees of fluency.

Now, I have met a lot of Spanish speaking people as I've lived here. What I have not found are people who are willing to speak Spanish to ME.

It's a thing very close to the heart. Knowing spanish, and speaking it with a person at work, someone outside the home culture, are two very different things.

I have found a guy here at work who will talk with me. He was born in Mexico, and has become an American citizen. He has family here and in Mexico. It seems to me that he is very generous with his language. Other people are more hesitant, as if they have something to prove or something to hide regarding the language proficiency.

This is fascinating. It makes me all the more anxious to gain literacy en espanol.

Health

I'm sick again. I'm trying hard not to be, but since I have to go to hospitals and hospitals have a lot of germs, they stick to me.

This one isn't so bad, it's mostly the sniffles. I hope it goes away.

I may have to learn a lot more about germ-repellent activities.

okay, so it's been a week

I'm trying to organize myself. It is sort of daunting, as anyone who has tried to get organized knows.

The thing is, it is easy to START getting organized. It's harder to finish getting organized.

as a matter of fact, it is darn near impossible to finish. You can only continue.

Happy New Year, Everyone!

It seems like almost everyone I know has had a mellow new year's celebration. It was raining a flood over in my neighborhood, so maybe that had something to do with it.

Chris and I had a nice, very relaxed time together.

It occurs to me that staying up until midnight to catch the absolute first minute of the new year is kind of silly.

Why not just go to bed, and wake up to a new year, with a full night's sleep?

Something to think about.

Naming Conventions

I met Chris for dinner after I went to the bank about some of our money matters. We were catching up on each other's day:

"The guy at the bank kept calling you my husband. I told him you weren't..."

"Old habits die hard."

"I guess 'significant other' hasn't quite caught on. It's kind of formal, anyway."

"What would you want them to call me?"

I smiled adoringly at him. "You would be my 'old man'."

"Oh right. Then would they call you my 'old lady'?"

"I prefer to be your 'queen'....I guess they could call you my 'prince charming'."

Chris got that funny look on his face, the look that means his funny bone is clicking into place. "...do you think that if a real royal family, and you had a son...?"

"NO!" I said. "That's not allowed."

"Why not? there could be a prince charming the first..."

"No, it's against the rules."

"What rules? If you were King, you could do what you wanted."

"You could not! The same rules that let you be King would dictate what sort of names you could use to name the princes."

"...and then he would grow up to be King Charming..."

My turn now. "Of course if it were an Emperor...maybe in China..."

"The Ming Dynasty?"

"Yeah...Emperor Char Ming."

Christmas eve dinner

It never occurred to me before, but there are some people who do not celebrate Christmas Eve. For some people, it's just the day before Christmas.

In my family, there has been a big set of traditions regarding Christmas Eve.

First of all, we open our gifts on Christmas Eve. It has to do with my family's rejection of Santa Claus, based on religious grounds that he takes away emphasis from Christ. I think my oldest brother was permitted the myth, but by the time I came along the religious fever had pitched a battle against the jelly bellied father of Christmas.

Not given the opportunity to believe the story, I didn't really miss it. The fact was, we opened the presents a day earlier than some others, and that seemed a good trade off.

Since we did not do away with the stockings, I felt that it drew the festivities out nicely, to have presents on Christmas eve and then extra little presents in our stockings on Christmas morning, and candy!

The stockings always had a mandarin orange in the toe, to weight it down, and the rest was filled with candy and little toys. Naturally, we ate the candy for breakfast. And we'd eat the orange too, to get something healthy in there.

We could also eat any leftover cookies or anything given to us as Christmas treats for breakfast. Mom would make a real breakfast too, but that would take a long time to actually hit the table. The cookies, candy canes, and fudge would be the first course.

That's not to say that there were not non-sugary traditional Christmas goodies in the mix. But those types of things would be served as appetizers after Christmas Eve dinner and then later, before Christmas dinner itself.

That was part of our Christmases; we always had lots of hors d’oeuvre-y things sitting around to snack on. Our appetites were never in danger of being spoiled; my family could always eat.

This Christmas I spent away from my family. But I take my traditions with me.

This year I made Christmas Eve dinner for Chris's family. They had no Eve tradition. So I made our traditions for their dining pleasure.

Of course, you can never go home again. Things have to be changed with the times.

First of all, Chris's family is not the gluttons mine are. The have appetites that can be "spoiled" for dinner.

No hors d'oeuvres.

But there is the traditional Caesar salad my mother always use to make. I can rip up the romaine myself and mix the dressing, and grate the hard boiled eggs and fry the bacon crumbles.

Wait. Maybe these people don't like the eggs, and I'm sure one of them doesn't eat pork. Better put the good stuff on the side.

Okay, I can still make the clam chowder. Clam chowder, very American, very familiar food. Hey, even Marie Callendar's serves Clam Chowder. These people will like it.

My family's tradition of clam chowder is a modification of a previous tradition. Apparently, in the "Old County" (I don't know if that was supposed to be Germany or England, my grandmother had a mix of both) the tradition was oyster stew. Mom made it for us once, and us kids were horrified at what appeared to be a boiled eyeball floating in broth. After rejecting the instructions to swallow it whole, I cut a slice off. Black gritty stuff oozed out.

We talked Mom into creating a new tradition of clam chowder, as an alternative shellfish soup. It took, especially since my mom and brothers enjoyed going clamming. We would often have clam chowder made of the clams we had caught and gutted ourselves.

But with Chris's family, when this menu item was revealed as the main course, someone asked if there would be 'something else--in case I don't feel like clams."

Great. So, I'll need another course for these delicate appetites. What can I be sure that these people will actually eat? They are a foreign culture to me, really. What do Middle Americans eat?

Hamburger Helper?
Some kind of Velveeta product?

I went for Shake 'n' Bake, green Jell-O, and white rolls. I do want to respect their traditions.

As it happens, there is a tradition of green Jell-O from my mom as well. For many many years, mom would always make green Jell-O with shredded carrots. It wasn't until my brother married, that my new sister-in-law finally asked the question, "If you never eat this stuff, why do you keep making it?"

It was true. We never quite ate the shredded carrot Jell-O. It just comforted us with its presence. We switched out the carrots for pineapple, and voila, a traditional comfort food became edible.

So we have soup, we have salad; we have a main course, and two side dishes. But we still need a dessert.

My first impulse was to make plum pudding. I have a really easy recipe for it, and many people are surprised to discover this much mentioned and seldom seen traditional food is actually cake.

But I am in a warm and gentle climate; L.A. in December is citrus country. People have been shoving grocery bags of grapefruit, oranges, tangerines, lemons and pomellos at me all week.

It is not an option to refuse these fruits. People feel guilty that they cannot consume the fruit of their yards, and feel strongly that if only everyone could do their part, the fruit would be eaten no problem.

So, I came home on Friday with about two dozen lemons in three varieties. What do you do with so many lemons?

Since it was 80 degrees outside, lemonade seemed like a good choice, but then, I thought a lemon meringue pie would be perfect.

I took special care with everything, and spent a full day and a half, making the soup and the salad and raising the dough for the rolls, and shaking the chicken and whipping meringue.

The piecrust took the longest, I will confess.

In my own mouth, everything tasted glorious. Except the shake 'n' bake, but some things are acquired tastes. I got to use herbs from my own garden in the chowder--sage, thyme, and marjoram--and I used smoked clams for extra deliciousness.

We opened a bottle of Riesling that I had purchased on our last trip in Germany. It was yummy, even if the flecks of burnt cork floating in my vintage wine glasses were blamed on dirt from the poinsettia centerpiece.

Never fear, there is enough in the bottle to pour the offending dirt speck/cork fleck-tainted liquid down the drain and get a new glassful. I choked back my objections to such waste, and things proceeded apace.

The final result came in, with no one audibly complained or making those little breathy noises that indicate disgust. Everyone ate something of everything, too. Chris himself, as instructed, told me everything was good.

I responded, "Once more, with feeling."

"It's good, baby."

I think it was a success. Truly, my only regret is that there were not more leftovers that I could enjoy later.

Merry Christmas, Everybody!

I broke the Christmas tree

I didn't mean to.

Last weekend, we decorated it all pretty. We had lights from a previous year, Red and White like a peppermint.

Chris and I wrapped the lights around the tree, and then hung up decorations his Grandmother had given us. We put up red and green balls around it too.

On the top, I hung my traditional icon of Saint Nicholas. He looks very nice up there. THe tree was beautiful.

On Monday, Chris told me that he wanted to have his mother over for a special birthday dinner on friday. I thought that was a marvelous idea, and started to clean things up to be ready for the event.

I got out the vaccum, and I plugged it in to the outlet on the top of the string of lights. It was most convenient for my cord. I vaccuumed everywhere, and the floor looked nice.

But the lights stopped working. It turns out that the electricity drawn by the vaccuum fried the fragile christmas lights.

We had to buy more.

We looked everywhere, but the red and white christmas lights are not available. There are blue and white. There are green and red. But no red and white.

We went with green and red.

"Chris," I said. "Most people only get to decorate their christmas tree once a year."

"Are you saying we are getting to decorate it twice?" He smiled at me. "Sit down, I'll hang the ornaments."

I watched him put all the ornaments back on the tree. It looks nice, but I am sorry I broke the tree.

Love is....

Love is setting the timer on the thermostat to turn on the heater before your sweetheart wakes up in the morning.

That's the kind of love you can stick a fork in.

Happy December

It is a new month.

this is the month of many things.

We have the solstice, on the 21st

We have christmas, and new year's eve.

We have the birthday of Chris's mother.

Many things, which require much preparation.

Plus, it's pretty dark. And cold. Both of those being relative quantities.

I wish you all a marvelous December.

and they all rolled over and one fell out

Good things have been happening. I mean, really!

How fabulous that I have a great new job with nice people and even more fabulous that I have purchased a home with the man of my dreams.

okay.

Well.

I just kind of wish that it hadn't happened all at once. I am in the position of not having anything quite where I need it or want it.

My rhythm is off. There are things I need to do everywhere I look.

It makes me tired.

My Brother!

I was listening to this history lesson in my car, and the professor was talking about Socrates.

He was going on and on, relating how Socrates would ask people questions, and lead them on with more questions.

I recognized this.

I have found a SOULmate, a brother, in Socrates. It is so clear to me! I do exactly the same thing. And I also piss people off with my incessant question.

I have gotten in big trouble for asking questions. I have what appears to be a very unusual outlook on life.

Socrates got in trouble for his questions. But, as I have recently come to conclude, over that last few years, he and I agree that it is dangerous and foolish to consider yourself wise...Meaning, don't think you know all the answers. There are always more ways to look at a thing, another question to ask. So, no, you don't know the answers.

I feel so great to realize that Socrates had the same question disease--condition--that I have.

I may have to spend a little time getting to know this guy.

One sad thing, he ended up being sacrificed, being sentenced to death because of his questions.

hopefully I'll avoid that fate.

It's your duty to uphold tradition

Once of the things that parents must do when raising their children is give them a sense of right and wrong, and a sense of the values of their culture.

This is important! If kids are not guided and molded, how can society maintain its vital traditions?

Parents, I say to you now, it is your DUTY to take your children trick or treating. Haloween depends upon it.

In years past, there were hordes of costumed waifs parading down the block after dark. It has slowed! It is merely a trickle when once it was a mighty flood.

But we, the childless members of society depend on the children to uphold the tradition. Where would we be if the children abandon Halloween?

Do not go only to the businesses and the malls to gather candy! Fie on you, you parents who deem it convenient or 'safe' to do so!

No, we depend on the children to provide us with a reason to buy large quantities of our favorite candies.

It is your DUTY, parents and children, even if you don't feel like it. Even if you don't like candy or aren't allowed to eat it.

You are the carriers of the torch. If you do not pass it forward, we are lost.

Can you imagine the grim future, the barren and dry future of an America with no more halloween? No sweets, no costumes, no flirting with evil or badness?

Let it not be so! Keep halloween thriving! Dress your children and yourselves!

It is your unhallowed duty.

photos of the bristlecone pine forest

This forest was truly amazing. It was magnificently old. You could tell that it had a sense of presence. It was a forest that knew how to wait, and enjoyed the passage of time.

It was named after it's own seeds:

Of course, that is just the tiniest part of the forest. The forest has huge time-scarred trees.

These trees have learned to live in the hardest of circumstances. The rocks they grow in are not soft nutritious loam. They are rocks. And there is hardly any water.

But these trees learned how to roll with it. They grow as little as possible. Their philosophy was just to remain alive. Which they do. Better than any other living thing on earth.

When the wind and the freezing and the utter lack of water over comes them, they let pieces of themselves die. And then the wood, which is super hard, stays and weathers the weather.

The forest was very hard to get to. It was very quiet.

The altitude was substantial, too. I had a hard time keeping my breath.

But I would love to go again.

Happy Halloween

It is the day.

My new home is one block from an elementary school, so we have hopes for some cute trick or treaters.

I'm excited.

There are a lot of halloween decorations up. We did not decorate. Chris kept lingering over the fog machine, and various other scary stuff.

"Buy it!" I told him.

"Let's wait and see how many trick or treaters come..."

He says that people are more into decorating than he remembers. We see a lot of fake spiderwebs on hedged. I see a lot of christmas-style lights.

Apparently, the witches have become much less skilled broomstick drivers. There are flattened witches all over fences and trees and doors.

I bought the tootsie roll combo pack. I hope it will be enough. I've snacked on it a bit, but there is a big bowl left.

Happy Halloween every one!

'Tis the season

Watch out, friends. It's flu and cold season

I got the flu shot, but right now it's colds going around. One is encircling my head. I hope it passes.

Transplanted colors

It's been rainy and cold. Now it's just cold.

Of course, cold is a relative thing. This is Los Angeles, after all. Cold means it dips below 70 in the afternoons.

But I'm glad it finally feels like fall. Protracted summer is wearing. I am ready for the season change.

People say there is no change in seasons here. Probably other people have missed the changing colors of fall, because there are more than a few cultivated maples and other such trees that change color and drop their leaves.

I was kicking some of those leaves across the sidewalk yesterday. I thought, This is really an artificial fall. This tree isn't from around here. It was brought here to drop it's leaves.

And then I realized my disdain wasn't really fair. I'm not from around here either. Why can't the trees be validated as transplants? A whole lot of the people are.

So, happy fall everybody. Whereever you are. Even if fall is long past for you. Enjoy the seasons.

a decade

America...since...Gosh, I don't know...But we started to think in decades.

The 50s...the 60s...the 70s...the 80s...

The 80s are coming back, don't you know?

But, what's up with the arbitrary emphasis on the '0'? the 80 to the 90. Or the 1950 to the 1960.

We have an extra zero now, and we hardly know what to do with it. We don't have a cute term for the now...The fifties, the eighties, the nineties...and two thousand five...or worse, two thousand and five.

We're kind of drifting until we get to call it the teens. Then it's back on solid ground, the twenties, the thirties and the forties.

But at this moment, we are half way. 2005.

And for me, that concludes my own personal decade. On October 15, 1995 I flew from the Anchorage airport to Sacramento California.

My first decade of California living has passed.

I have a geeky reason for remembering that it was 1995. That was when it went from Windows 3.11 to Windows 95

A big year, to be sure. And the decade that followed has been justly monumental. I am so happy to be where I am and to have the skills that I have.

Bill the Chimp!

I know Bill! I lived in Eureka from grades 2-5. The zoo was free, and Bill was a great favorite. He would throw his poo at you.

"EUREKA, Calif. — An escaped chimpanzee is back at the Sequoia Park Zoo after a jaunt through a residential area that provided quite a sight for the Neighborhood Watch.

Bill wandered off Thursday night after vandals cut a hole in his cage, officials said.

The Eureka Police Department received a call about 10:45 p.m. from a neighbor who said the chimp was in a backyard on Glatt Street. Zoo staffers arrived with police to take Bill home.

"He was extremely stressed and excited," said zoo supervisor Gretchen Ziegler. She said changes to zoo security would be made immediately.

The 59-year-old chimp came to the Sequoia Park Zoo from a European circus in July 1957."

Welcome to October

It is fall, or so they say. I does not feel like fall to me. The weather is in the nineties. Most of the trees are very green.

But, it is october, which is not summer anymore.

Chris, who is used to uniform trees, want to go see the colored-leaf trees this weekend. Which is great by me. Every single trip we have ever gone on has been wonderful.

We are going up to Mammoth, and we are going to see the oldest trees in the world, the bristlecone pines. They say they are 6 thousand years old.

Wow.

I'm taking monday off, since my sweet new job allows for the occasional day off. I am so looking forward to it.

It will be cold there. I will have to bring scarves and sweaters, and it will be lovely.

At last

So, this weekend, I have some serious plan.

I am going to catch up on my nothing. I am frighteningly behind on doing nothing.

It's been exciting, I can tell you. Selling, moving, new job, new city, everything. Yikes.

Every time I turn around or turn in bed, there is a new thing that needs to be done.

Chris was become a very intereste home owner, full of projects. Organize this, repair that. It's wonderful, really. Right now, he is waging war on the ants. It's a dead heat; they have numbers on their side, but he has an innate skill at strategy.

But I am not going to do anything this weekend. I am very behind on my nothing.

Work has settled into a new groove. JEEZ, I was waiting for to find the groove. So, I can finally concentrate on relaxing.

It's going to be great.

weekend

By sunday afternoon, I had finally located the source of the foul smell in the refrigerator. It had been eluding us for days.

I didn't know bacon could smell like that.

Anyway, I enjoyed my time with the parents. They stayed for the weekend to check out the new house. We were going to go to the county fair, but then again, we didn't.

I was exhausted. The week included a marathon inventory trip for work, and I just had no energy. Mom didn't either, since she had been working like a demon on her student-teacher meetings for next week.

That was fine. I made them good dinner, and Chris was an excellent host.

It was nice to be a hostess for the first time, in my new house. It is feeling like a home, really, finally

limitations

You know, I have had quite a year. SO MUCH has changed. I quit one job, neary completed writing a book, remodeled my condo, bought a new home, and got a new and better job.

All in the space of six months.

I am in the throes of moving. And I am trying hard to understand the nature of my new job, which is not readily apparent.

And I am frustrated at how slowly the writing of my book and the settling into the new house is going.

But...

I am coming to terms with my own limitations. I think that is something I took away from my last [hideous] job.

It turns out I cannot do everything. At the very least, I cannot do everything AT ONCE.

And there is nothing wrong with that.

I hope I am learning to have a little patience with myself. Some things just take time. There is no way around it.

Chateau Joie

I am loving my little house. I love that I have a dining room table, with a window in front of it.

I love that Chris and I often sit down to eat at that dining room table.

I love the living room and my new couch.

I love my bedroom, with TWO windows.

There are a lot of windows in this house.

I love that i have a patio and a tree that I can go sit on and under and enjoy the sound of crickets

Crickets are really loud here.

I love that I have hedges to trim and things to organize.

I have started doing a lot of cooking. Meatloaf, Marinaded chicken, interesting salads.

No soup yet. It's been a little hot.

But I bought an ice cream maker. I want to make my own ice cream, instead of buying it. I eat the stuff nearly every day, so...You know. I would like to:
1. not spend so much on it
2. have some control over what ingredients are in it.

I will let you all know about my discoveries of ice cream making.

I just love my new house.

silenced

I've had so many things to think about with this tragedy of the hurricane Katrina. It has left me speechless.

I had so much to think about, that I couldn't quite untangle it to blog.

I'm going to try to get out of that.

I like to write, and I want to keep at it.

So, sorry for the silence.

Human brotherhood in the hurricane

My heart is breaking for the victims of the hurricane. I am seeing more and more examples of how we work, together and against.

I would ask everyone to think hard about what they can do to help.

Shouting can take longer than you think

There was a post...how many days ago? it seems so long ago.

I posted "It's all over but the shouting."

Shouting takes longer than I would have expected. I finally closed escrow on my new Claremont home. I will have the keys tonight.

WHAT a lot of drama. Oh my goodness. All this back and forth and this crisis and that mislaid something or other has convinced me of one thing:

I do not want to make my living with real estate.

No thank you. There are too many things outside the sphere of your control in real estate. NOT my comfort zone.

I am quite happy to take on systems with lots of layers of complexity. I like to dig deep and thoroughly learn the systems so that I can quickly navigate between them all.

But, the precision factor is totally lacking in real estate. There are not enough expected outcomes. I mean, there are too many people involved.

And people are not precise.

So, leave me with my machines. I can have patience with them. But I have lost patience with the people.

And just in time. I've sold the one and bought the other and NOW, i just have to move all the stuff.

My whole body is a sigh of relief to have it done.

All over but the shouting

So all the papers are signed and the movers are scheduled. We are now just waiting for the keys exchange.

Chris and I will be moving into the house next week and officially, I will be a Claremont resident. Gulp.

We alternate between telling each other that things are mostly packed to saying that there is way too much left to pack. We are certainly chest deep in boxes. But then again, we keep tripping over all the loose stuff that is not packed yet.

Soon. Soon.

I've been at my new job for two weeks yet. It seems to be a good one. There is enough to keep me busy, but also the people are supportive and pretty nice. What more coudl I ask for?

I am wanting to get back into writing my book, which is gathering a layer of dust.

But there has been a lot of change going on. I know I will get back to the book, and I should be able to finish it next year. But there is a little bit of chaos in my life, so the muse if hiding.

It will come back.

..."that's nothing. Wait till you get to ALGEBRA..."

You know, when I tell people that I have three older brothers, I get this reaction a lot:
"You must be so tough, with three older brothers who beat on you."

Or sometimes, people will say:
"You probably ran the roost and bossed them all around."

I suppose this might be true if the situation happened on some kind of 70s sitcom, those two situations might occur. They bear no resemblance whatsoever to my life experience.

Basically, with three older brothers, a ittle sister was even less than an afterthought. Three boys could have a lot of fun together. My brothers had very little interest in me.

And I...Well, I didn't enjoy getting dirty or other 'boy' things. Not that my brothers were so testosterone laden; they were fairly bookish. But , and I made my own friends.

And that was all years ago, when we were little.

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine. She ony has a sister, no brothers at all. Naturally, we were discussing men in general. And through out the conversation, I started to realize that she had a very different view of what men were about than I did. Just things about what men like and what they are like.

I guess I never realized that having brothers helped me get aquainted with the clay feet of the male. I have never felt the need to put them on a pedastel. That's something to thank them for.

But my life has always been my own. I have always been so busy and full of my own life. I've writeen about it before, I am so full of ambition that I can't seem to stop.

I had a conversation with another friend last night, and he was talking about his own ambition. That he was frustrated with his job but he just couldn't move on. He didn't feel like he had bested it.

This triggered a response in me; I'd been thinking some similar things. "Are you the youngest child?"

"How did you know? that has been such a huge part of my life, competing with my older brother."

Huh. I have just been realizing that aspect of my relationship with my brother.

It's amazing that it took so long for me to figure it out. I guess because I always felt like my brothers had nothing whatever to do with me.

But when I think about my brothers growing up, I remember this sort of exchange:

"Oh, man, long division is so hard...It takes so long...."

"Shuh! You think long division is hard? That's nothing. Wait till you get to ALGEBRA."

And my ten-year old self was set up to compete with my four-years-older brother. There was no way to get ahead. I had to scramble the whole time to catch up.

It was like I was conditioned to always try as hard as I possibly could. I always believed that I could catch up if only I tried harder.

And...I think my ambition and drive comes from that. In a lot of ways. I have this belief that was instiled and reinforced when I was little, that I had to catch up, and that I would catch up. Of course, I would eventually get to algebra. Of course I would.

And in fact, there are things I have charged into and taken on, that quite possibly I should have been more daunted and less sure of my success. But somehow, I just knew that I would take those on too, just the way I took on Algebra.

Now, I just have to learn to turn it off a ittle...When I need to back off from taking things on. That's maybe the next algebra...

what I know about my grandfather

I should begin this all by saying Opa is doing pretty well, all things considered.

More than a week ago, Opa's housekeeper Sylvia come by for her regular appointed time and found him in a pool of blood on the floor.

He was rushed to the hospital and put into the Intensive Care Unit. I guess his liver decided it was done and was sending the blood back out somehow. Just when they got that under control so he could leave te ICU, he quit breathing. Back into the ICU with a new breathing tube. Oh yeah then he got a blood infection of some kind.

My Opa is 80 and has had a lifelong love of liquor and cigarettes. He smoked 4 packs a day and drank more than the equivalent volume of liquor. I honestly can't believe he's made it this long.

Now, I don't know him very well. Things I remember about him from when I was little:

Mom cried when she talked to him on the phone and felt compelled to explain her relationship to 'Dad' to me in incomprehensible sentences

Once, while driving in a car with mom and Opa, he explained that he didn't want to be anyone's grandfather, it didn't feel right to him. So, that's why he would rather be called Opa...Opa means old man, and he didn't mind beign someone's old man. We had never called Opa anything but Opa, so this was another incomprehensible explanation

Once, at his apartment in Vallejo (or was it livermore?) the family was fed on waffles made by mom and lemon sauce that Opa made..."his specialty"

As far as memories of Opa when I was a kid, that is kind of it. Of course I remember how Mom was always upset about him and how he unsettled her.

His drinking caused her the most consternation. She always wanted him to stop drinking. She tried to make a deal with him:
"I will come see you, but you have to promise me that you won't drink that day."
And she would go see him, and he would have been drinking. So she would turn around and leave.

Fortunately, this didn't happen often. We lived to far away. There were four years of my childhood that we lived in the same state, but even then, we were about an 8 hour drive away. So, naturally, we didn't see him much.

Mom was the oldest. My Grandma and Opa had married, and their little daughter remained their only daughter for a long time...I forget.. I think 10 years before my aunt Donnie appeared. And then next my uncle Marty.

But those were the days of Avalon. Swords had been melted into refrigerators and lawn mowers. The ones who fought in the war deserved their ranch-style with all the modern amenities. They had fought for it, hadn't they?

And then after all, it turns out they deserved to get divorced. The way mom tells it, everyone up and down the street broke up. And when Mom was 16, her dad, my Opa, flew the coop.

Everything was shiny and new then, they had just invented divorce. People hadn't worked out the kinks yet. I don't think "visitation rights" were part of the general vocabulary.

My grandmother was a pretty lady and enough of a charmer to find a new husband since the old one was a dud. And Aunt Donnie and Uncle Marty called Granpa Jess 'Dad'.

But my mother didn't. She was already in college when her little brother and sister were learned to call this new man "dad". Grandma and Grandpa Jess were the ones who send birthday cards and Christmas present. I called them Grandma and Grandpa. Mom called them Mom and Jess.

She is really the only one who remembers Opa as "dad". She is the only one with any reserve of good memories, of good times together with this man.

Hey, it was the 60's man! Freedom was in the air! Free love on the lawns of Berkeley or Frank Sinatra in Vegas with the liquor and loose women. Take your pick!

He was an aerospace engineer of somekind. He was making good money and saving the world from communists and space aliens. He was riding high.

But I don't know. I don't know what Opa was like before he become too dessicated to walk on his own. I don't have clear memories of him from even the 80s. Anytime I saw him, I was too distracted by the force field of fear and throbbing of wounds that sprang up around my mother.

Opa was like some elemental, some force of nature. Fascinating to watch in it's raw state, but like a tornado or hurricane, you couldn't stay out in it too long or someone one would get hurt.

When I became an adult, I had the desire to reaquaint myself with the extended family I'd never known. My own parents were certianly out of reach, self-exiled to Russia.

I was (and am) intensely curious and somewhat wary about all these cousins and relatives who look and sound eerily like myself. The older ones were the ones who had the missing puzzle pieces, too. They were the ones who might help untwist the thread. So many incomprehensible choices had been made by my parents. The people who knew my parents before I did would have some insight. Or at least maybe they would confirm my assesment that my parents were crazy.

But I needed to know these people.

Let me tell you something about my immediate family. We are very literal. Do not ask if something is possible. If something is possible, it is possible. At high personal cost, death or dismembership, that wasn't the question. So we will tramp ahead and do the possible thing, when we believe it must or should be done.

When I first came back from Russia, it was possible, though barely, for me to go to California to see my extended family. I saw almost everyone, but I didn't see Opa.

He had been more or less cast to the wind.

I eventually moved here to California and felt bad about ignoring Opa. He landed in the hospital then, so I went to visit him. He hadn't seen me since I was 9.

So. Nice to meet you Opa. Yes, this is me, all grown up. And Opa stepped out with inappropriate anatomical comments. SIGH. And there were the recent studies of anything in particular that he had read that he had to tell me, and there was his disinterest and frustration with any topic I might bring up to talk about. Of course, if a man were talking it was different.

And always, the alcohol.

I tried a few times, but after spending one particularly drunken afternoon during which he suggested that he might get a free drink if he pimped me out to the bartender, I just stopped visiting.

I thought, I should not visit him alone. What point would it serve? I'm not even sure if he's clear on who I am; he's always confusing me for my mother.

Except last week he was found in a puddle of his own blood. And he's 80, and maybe this was it. It has been 6 years since I last visited him.

I talked with mom for a while about it. "What do the doctors say? Is he really in danger?"

I thought if there was a funeral, I should go. And I thought, "It would be nice to see everyone." Which is not such a nice thought. Because, he wasn't dead yet. And really, if he was still around I should make the effort to go see him.

It would make the funeral easier to enjoy.

So, I drove to see him. And he was doing much better by Tuesday, and even more by Wednesday. We talked for a bit. He was weak and tied to tubes. The alcohol wasn't there, but he was still inappropriate.

And yet....I actually could see through what was left of him to catch glimpses of who he might have been.

It occurred to me that we have a similar sense of humor. When I told him that my cousin Dallass was having a girl and naming her Adelaide, he started singing a song about Adelaide.

I had thought that too, "Isn't that a song?" He knew the song and was singing it, which is exactly what I would have done if I'd remembered the song.

He also made silly puns and goofy comments whenever he could.
"Why do little ducks walk softly? Because they can't walk hardly"

and his favorite (He told it twice)
"Why don't worms have balls? Becuase they don't like to dance!"

He also had quirky little things to say in response to people; he liked to twist around the meaning of words. When I told him that I thought mom was crazy for working in Newark and living in Sacramento, he thought for a while and said,
Your mother's center of gravity is closer to the edge than other peoples'

And then quoted "The road less travelled"
He tried to tell me about a study regarding the mining of helium from Texas (inspired by the balloon I brought him).

It wasn't much, but I began to see a little bit of the person he had been. I thought, if he had been someone I met, someone my age, I might have really had a good time with him. I always like the smart boys, and have a lot of male friends that I love to verbally spar with. Yes, I could see that he might have been prickly in just that kind of way.

There were a few times when I fired back at one of his retorts. He said, "You catch on. Things don't get past you."

That made me feel good. It was then that I realized that feeling, the familiar teasy back-and-forth that I have with some of my friends. It's the first time I really felt like I got a sense of this man's personality.

I wish he didn't make it so hard. I wish that we'd had a chance to know each other. Most of the time during my visit, he was uncertain of exactly which granddaughter I was even though he was glad to have the company.

But I'm glad I took the chance to go see him.

Killing with Kindness

I worry about Africa. I really do. They seem to be in a lot of trouble. There are a lot of horrible dictators there. There are a lot of famine and droughts, and people seem to be constantly starving.

Why are they contstantly starving in Africa? America doesn't seem to have famine like that. I mean, has the United States ever had a famine?

When was the last time that Britain had famine? Or France? Or Germany?

Why should Africa be so full of famine? What's the deal with that?

Here is one Kenyan economist's explanation:
"the Europeans' devastating urge to do good can no longer be countered with reason...We can buy these donated clothes cheaply at our so-called Mitumba markets...Why do we get these mountains of clothes? No one is freezing here... Instead, our tailors lose their livlihoods. They're in the same position as our farmers. No one in the low-wage world of Africa can be cost-efficient enough to keep pace with donated products. In 1997, 137,000 workers were employed in Nigeria's textile industry. By 2003, the figure had dropped to 57,000. The results are the same in all other areas where overwhelming helpfulness and fragile African markets collide."

I recommend reading the interview. He makes some incredibly valid points. We need to let the African countries take care of themselves. They are much stronger than we have let them be. They deserve the chance to be truly independent. We just have to get out of the way.

Farewell, Our lady of the black robe

So, Sandra Day O'Connor is retiring from the supreme court. I never met her, but I hear she is an amazing woman. I will always respect her for being the first female on the Supreme court

This means a job is open.

I checked the supreme court website. It's a very utilitarian website, no flash, lots of PDF whitepapers. I am proud of the businesslike character of our justice system's page.

However, the webmaster is a tad behind. THey have not posted the open position for the Supreme court justice. I checked.

You can make almost 20 bucks an hour as a part time telephone operator at the Supreme court. Not bad for part time. And if you have a post graduate degree, you can do well as a Supreme Court Fellow (is that sexist?). They make 110K a year, with all the bennies.

Makes me wonder how much a supreme court justice makes.

That sort of salary information should be public knowledge. But I'm having a little trouble finding it.

Oh wait! Here's an old article from 2001:
Supreme Court justices $178,300 and the chief justice $186,300

hoo...They might have some trouble getting someone to take the job. That's not much for all the schooling you need. I know that real lawyers spend that much on their vacations, just about.

Kinda cheap, aren't we?

The canadians pay their supreme court judges 235K. That's canadian shekels, but still....

well, hey, if you are unemployed, and have some law experience, send in your resume. Who knows? Good luck to you.

Not from around here

I need to talk for a little bit about where I come from.

I come from Alaska. I did not live in the absolute wilderness, but then again, the wilderness is never far from anywhere in my motherland. Moose wander through the streets, and the streets are literally ice for many months of the years.

The brand-new subdivision that I lived in as a teenager was virgin forest. I mean to say, a lawn was something of a futile absurdity. It made much more sense to leave the trees and bushes alone, and 99% percent of the homes in our area left their acre+ lots in their natural state.

We had a natural well that gave us water. It was 'hard' water which meant that the minerals coated our bathtub and left a funny taste when we drank it.

We lived outside a munincipality, the only police where the state troopers and they were seldom seen.

There was a lake full of fish a half mile a way, and our front window showed us a forest reserve that stretched for hundreds of miles long. We liked to pick berries and mushrooms there in the summer.

My parents drove to Alaska. They went their twice from their motherland in the golden rolling hills of California. First, in the 60s before Alaska was a state. Then again, for much longer, in 1972. During the new year's party, Mom went into labor and produced me in a now-defunct Anchorage Hospital.

Now I live in the golden rolling hills of California. And only very recently, I realized:

Mom and Dad thought Alaska was exotic.

I never never never thought it was exotic. It was home, with all the boringness and familiarity that means. But for them, it was almost like living in a foreign country. It was exciting and new and unexpected almost every day.

Now, Mom and Dad live in Sacramento. They talk a lot about remembering different places around there. Things are the same for them. Things are a lot like how they left them when they went away. Not exactly, time takes its toll, but enough the same for them to remember.

But me, I feel like California is a very exotic place. With its short snowless mountains and lush vegetation, fruit trees and warm nights, its population density and freeways, California never quite fits. It's always not home.

Not to say I ever want to live in Alaska. I am a permanent ex-patriate.

But I chafe at the expectations. I demand to know "WHY?" and resent every rule or expectation as irrational and irrelevant.

When I bought my condo, as part of the forest's graveyard of paperwork required, I was given the Rules of the Condo Association. Chris read them with me.

"WHAT?! I can't put my bike on the balcony."

"No Pool parties? Who do they think they are?"

"No dog over 40 pounds? Why is that their business? IF I want a dog, it's my problem."

Every rule was an imposition. I was buying the home, I should be able to do whatever wherever I wanted. Every rule made me suspicious.

Chris told me, "That's the price you pay to live in a condo with other people. If you had your own home, you could do what you wanted."

I signed, muttering and rebelling, but I signed.

Now, I am looking to buy a home! HOoray! I can paint the outside, I can have a BIG dog, I can put my bike wherever I like and all the rules are gone.

Chris and I are buying it together, so, he wants to live in his hometown Claremont. A little tiny city that gives me the jeebies. Back to that in a moment.

We've picked a house, made an offer, and are waiting. Chris was telling me what to expect from his home town.

"Claremont does not allow parking in the street overnight. Between 2 am and 6 am, you can't be on the street without a temporary permit."

What is this? WHAT?! THEY ARE PUTTING RULES ON ME AGAIN.

See, I am feeling crowded about this already. This town is full of all kinds of customs and ways of doing things. Where I come from, independence is prized and conformity is despised. There is no set way that everyone should be or do.

And yet, this little city has all sort of rules and permit requirements.

But here's the creepy part that gives me the jeebies:
Everyone from there or associated with that city, thinks that the city is great. They all say what a nice place it is, how wonderful it is for kids and for creative types. It is a college town after all.

And even more than that, everyone I've met from there is excruciatingly nice. I mean it! They are smart, and kind, and usually benignly humorous.

Is anyone else hearing the jeebie music in the background? I'll admit, I'm probably scarred by too many church youth groups. They specialize in niceness, while holding the dagger hidden until your back is exposed.

But I'm uneasily assured of the Claremont niceness. I mean, Chris is more Claremont than anyone, and I've been in daily observation of him for more than 5 years. He remains nice.

I just am afraid I will tresspass on the customs or BBQ the sacred cows of this little town of Trees and PhDs. I know there are all these expectation that I am oblivious to, like being colorblind. And I value my independence. I cherish my non-conformity.

They expect me to wash my car whenever dirt is visible on it. Hey, where I come from, you are ahead of the curve if both headlights are working. What do they expect from me?

They will expect lawn maintenance. Lawns! And if there are weeds, I would have to pull them up. I've never had anything to do with a lawn. I will probably fail at this.

I could offer lots of advice on removing a car after it's high-centered on a snow burm. But that is not useful in my exotic new home.

I recognize, intellectually, that with all these people crowded together on paved streets and highways, some rules are needed. But I don't like it. Rules feel categorically repellent.

It will take some time. I'm not from here.

what were they thinking?

I remember learning about church history in my protestant church school. The time line went something like this:

God created the earth
God picked Abraham to father the jews and be the chosen people who wrote down what he said
God send Jesus to die and save everybody from the mess humanity had gotten into
The disciples became the apostles, started the church and wrote the new testament
Martin Luther wrote the 95 theses

Sometime after I learned history that didn't come from born-again-authored textbooks, I realized that things had happened in the church between the first century and the 15th.

The protestant revisionist history had the catholic church sort of erased. As if, before the "real" church, the protestant one, there had been this big empty dark spot.

As I learned more I realized, that's not true. There were all kinds of things happening, acts of faith and struggles. There were hundreds of years that the faith was preserved by the faithful. I was kind of surprised to realize that.

Now, from 1917 to 1991, communism was in charge of Russia. It was a totalitarian government, and here in the Democracy-loving west, we saw them as gray and robotic. They produced propaganda, and their biggest newspaper was called TRUTH, and they made it the truth by stamping out any other voices.

But I found this amazing book in a used book store: Writers in Russia: 1917-1978
This book explains what the writers were thinking. It talks about how they were excited and embraced the Revolution. That at first, they were inspired and producted good writing regarding their hopes and dreams for the new order.

And then, well, things got funky. All the intelligentsia revolutionaries had envisioned a utopia, a place where everyone would have everything they needed and be free to create.

As it turned out, people sort of had what they needed but they were less and less free to create.

But creative people will create. Their creativity compels them. And what things were happening behind that iron curtain?

THe official story was lockstep uniformity. But unofficially, the Russian people were as hungry for beautiful culture as ever.

This book tells of a really healthy underground publishing community. They would sent out the stories, the poetry, type up multiple copies and mail them out like chain letters. In this way, one officially unpublished poet was once able to pack out a soccer stadium to hear him read his poems.

PACKED OUT A STADIUM FOR POETRY.

I remember how we would hear of the strength of the first century Christian. HOw they were so vitallly involved with their faith. They went to their death in the jaws of lions.

The lack of something makes it so much more precious. THe lack of freedom makes the desire for it unbearable.

Here, we have so much freedom. And what do we do with it? We hardly know what to do with it. We are dilletantes with our freedom of speech. Toying with it...Childishly experimenting.

And yet, would we have it any other way? Freedom means contempt. I can toss off the most foolish nonsense with my power of speech, because it is free. Free is not important, doesn't require any thought.

The Soviet writers were not automatons. They had truth that tortured them to be told. THey had the highest of formalism to deal with. Leave iambic pentameter aside, try working within the bounds of a capricious and murderous dictator. Stalin was no joke.

And yet, they did it. They worked and crafted and wrote. What an amazing history. It's blowing my mind to get a glimpse of all these creative minds struggling with their surrounding and how to express themselves.

At last

It is finished.

I have completed all the house beautiful. We were kicked out of our home to let others wander around and decide if they want to buy.

So now...We wait.

And always clear up our dishes.

not for the faint-hearted

Well, the light is peeking through every once in a while at the end of the tunnel.

I got new linoleum in the kitchen and bathrooms today. Sure looks different. The condo is slowly losing it's 70's funk.

I'm very very close to finishing now..Soon we'll be able to show the place. I'm looking forward to setting everything up all pretty like a model house. It will be like I don't even live here.

I already unpacked my dresser and put it all in a suitcase. I have to make the bedroom look large and spacious, so my dresser goes into storage. CHRIS's dresser stays because HIS dresser came from his grandparents who probably bought it somewhere expensive in Wisconson. MY dresser came from a garage sale and cost 40 bucks.

but the bedroom looks pretty good now.

Now there is most just the little things. I am dearly hoping this whole thing will be over soon...Soon SOon SOON. please...

Not much longer, I know that.

When I go out to my balcony, I tell my plants that they will soon have full free dirt to spread their roots it. They seems to look forward to it too.

scraping the bottom

Let's just say, I don't want to pursue a career in home painting

WOW.

I have NEVER been so consistently tired. It's been several..How many? I don't remember...weeks that I've been working on making my condo beautiful.

I've never had a baby, but I suspect that just after having a baby feels a lot like how I feel now...

I usually am a morning person. I usually wake up with all kinds of plans about what I will get done on that very day. Not right now. I have plans, but they are not cheerful.

It is better now that Chris is back from New York...His trip was very successful, which I am glad about. And even though he is neck deep in his preparations for his trip to Germany next monday, it is still great just to have him around.

I know that this is a good thing to do, that it will pay off, but BANG it's tough.

Therefore, I apologize for the lack of content on my website.

life is full of changes

So...We have a new plan.

Everyone knows that the real estate market in America has shot upwards, for all kinds of reasons.

And I seem to have lucked out on my purchase of a condo here in the middle of LA. It was something of a fixer upper to begin with, but even so I almost didn't buy it.

See, Chris and I were getting more and more serious...And I just wasn't sure. "Maybe I should wait until he and I have made some plans about our future together before I commit to a mortgage."

I stewed about it for a while, eventually deciding that I might resent him for not making a move on a timeline that was entirely invented by me...Etc.

So I bought, and after a year he moved in with me. We are very happy.

And we are both very happy that I bought the place. Because now, it's worth practically a gazillion dollars more than i paid for it. yay!

So...Chris and I have spent a lot of conversations talking about future plans. And we talked about a little house by the mountains.

He grew up by the mountains.

Me too, but different mountains. His mountains are about 50 miles away, and little houses there are rather reasonable.

When we were talking about getting a little house there, we thought I would have to become employed again. When thinking about what kind of job I would have to have, I got all worried about it.

So I called to find out. Turns out they'll let anybody borrow money.

AND WE"RE OFF! We've run the numbers, we can afford it and everything looks good.

So I'm painting and packing a learning about how to sell a home. Chris is learning about buying a home. It's all very exciting.

And very familiar. The moving, I mean. I hadn't realized I'd been here a full two years. Well, two years come August.

Moving is the constant in my life, it seems.

"Chris? How many places have you lived since you became an adult?"

"I don't know. Why?"

"I've lived a lot of places. If you don't count after I moved back home, because that made me not an adult again...Wait! That wasn't my choice, so dammit, I'll count it."

"Sure, that counts"

"Let's see..."

There was the commune that first summer.
Then back home for the fall
then the Mirnyy one-room flat
then the two room flat
Then Yakutsk, with the other teachers,
then with Lena on the outside of town.
then back to anchorage with my brother
then in Muldoon with crazy roomate Cheryl
Then the next roommate near midtown
then the first place with Jack, for a month
Then the second place with Jack...23rd street?
Then on Spenard
Then to Cupertino to stay with Bryan again
Then we found the place in Sunnyvale (a residence i remained in for tge longest period of my to-date adult life..a very nice place)

then the other place in sunnyvale..Where my brother Chris and Suzanne tag-teamed as roomates...and from which I finally gave up on Jack

then I stayed with my brother Bryan until I got the hot-box in Mountain View

THen I found the place on Taylor in Sunnyvale...where I lived happily as a highly paid consultant and then a college student and then GRADUATE!

And then I moved to LA, to Los feliz. That place was nice. Lived there a whole year

Then I bought this place.

And this summer I will move under the mountains.

Okay, here's the count:

14 years of adult life
20 residences

That's a lot of boxes.

gotta get away?

Sometimes you just have to get away. This urge strikes me frequently. Though not so much lately...I'm very happy right now.

However, there have been times when I wanted so badly to get out of the country that it was dangerous to get behind the wheel of a car. I would drive and drive and not want to turn around.

I've been seized with the need for snow, to see cold in this unrelenting sunny california weather. I've been in the grip of the NEED to hear people speaking another language.

My friend Lenny, a congenital programmer, feels that need too. He has made a tool to satisfy the need.

Check it out:

FarePrice

Pretty cool, man.

been awhile

boy, it's been a very exciting few weeks.

Christ is Risen! Eastern Easter was just last Sunday and we celebrated in style with my godmother in Mountain View.

And Just before that, Chris and I realized that our dream of buying a house with a yard is possible now that my condo has increased in value so much. So we got approved for a mortgage and are preparing to sell this place.

And now I think I'm going to get a job, because I think someone wants to give me one.

It sure has been exciting.

But that means that the blog has been bare. Sorry guys!

Trying to imagine...

Well, I'll be honest. I'm sitting in a coffee shop and I am supposed to be organizing the writing I've done recently on my book. I am pleased, it's going well.

But writing is not easy. I remember when I was in the middle of working LONG HARD DAYS, I would write on the bus. Or sometimes on the weekends. I couldn't manage to do it every day, and there would be weeks at a time when I didn't work on it at all. But I remember it as a joyous thing. Writing was my release.

Now, I guess I don't have anything I need to be released from. So, it's tougher. Not that I am not pleased, but it's different.

So, my release from writing has been painting. Sounds toity, doesn't it? But no, I just mean slapping white paint on my cabinets in my kitchen, and now my walls.

I am trying to imagine a time when I will NOT be working on covering the dark black walnut color of my kitchen cabinets with white paint. It has been more than 6 months that I've been working on it.

"You're really almost done." Chris is hopeful. Notably, Chris has not painted stroke one. To be fair, his job is the bathrooms, which are frightening all by themselves.

For variety, I bought some paint for the walls. THAT task will happen like lightning in comparison to the cabinets.

I already painted one section. I meant it to be a light yellow. It is VERY VERY light. Looks just white at the moment. But, too late. I already bought the paint, and white is not such a bad color. It is a vanilla-ey white. Maybe after I paint the whole place, it will be more obvious.

We'll see. The point is, once the things are all done, we're going to sell the place anyway. So, it's not for our aesthetic enjoyment. Realistically, it's about cash money.

Ah, the cold facts of life.

Which brings me back to the fact that I should be organizing my work. SIGH. My favorite organizing tool, the table of contents, has started to go wonky on me. It's still there, but when I look at it on my monitor, it shows

{TOC/0 "1-3" \H\Z }

It prints the chapters, but I can't see them on the screen. I don't want to kill trees everytime I re-order the dang thing. Anyone have advice?

Oh, I'll figure something out.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Kitty massage

Well, it's been 3 month of living at home with Chris and the cat. We are rubbing elbows (and fur) more than usual, but I am finding that I like my family very much and it's been wonderful.

One of the thing that Skellig does for me is give me what I call I kitty massage. He'll sit on my tummy and push his declawed paws against my chest. Sometimes he will get into my face, too. He seemed to aim for my mouth, but maybe I am mistaken.

Cat are weird you know. My greatly increased presence has given the cat an excuse to be weird. And..Well...He has decided to take his piddle to various areas that are not piddle approved.

I HATE cat pee...It's as bad as skunk for staying power. I got some books from the library about cat behavior.

Well, look out. According to many authors of cat books, Kitty is just the most amazing smart and incredible creature to ever hit the earth. And any human who does not understand this is obviously far below the intelligence of any common cat.

That would be 'overboard.' I think my cat is smart, I think he has feelings and all that jazz, but come one.

These authors have all sorts of recommendation. "My cat loves being massages. Sure, at first he was skittish, but now he comes up and begs for a full-body massage."

Massage? I thought my cat massaged _me_, not the other way around. But I thought I might give it a try. I was always scratching Skellig's head and neck anyway.

He has a pretty big knot on the side of his neck. Who would have thought? I guess sleeping with his head curled around really can give him a stiff neck.

He loved the massage, though. He gets all half-lidded and purry.

Learn somthing new every day.

Things I didn't know about Yosemite

So I celebrated my parents 40th year anniversary last sunday at an open house. They were very happy to have all their friends and relative come around. It was the first time that Chris had met a lot of the cousins, and we had fun.

Since we were up north anyway, we had planned to take a trip up to Yosemite. It's so nice to have time to enjoy life.

Now, Chris does not understand things like camping. He has a philosphy of life that includes private bathrooms and daily showers. So we got a motel inside the park.

It's not such a bad thing, to have a hotel room inside the national park. One of the amenities is TV, which you're not really supposed to have when roughing it. But they actually have two Yosemite channels.

Back in the 50s, they used to send down a shower of coals down along the waterfalls. Amazing! Everyone would stop and sing the Indian Love Call while they did it.

Apparently the workers at the restaurant and the camps were very social. A lot of people fell in love. I can believe it.

It's a great place.

Do or Do not. There is no try

When I was about 14, I fell in love with satin pajamas. Actually, I fell in love with the idea of satin pajamas.

I didn't see them anywhere, I just thought about how pretty and nice they would be.

Buying them was not within my reach. You have to understand, we did not place the purchasing of new clothing from stores within our grasp. It was part of how we dealt with being poorl; just don't even entertain the idea of wanting something you can't have. Buying new clothes was outside of what we could do, so why think about it?

This was before I was able to make my own money, so I didn't even think about finding out what it would cost new. If we wanted clothing that didn't appear in the hand-me-down closet that our church kept, we would have to make it.

I found the satin on sale, a beautiful champagne color, and then I found the pattern. I worked hard on it. I'd never made a shirt with a yoke, and many other things.

It took a long time, but time was the only thing I had too much of. In the middle of it, I was talking to an excellent seamstress from our church about the double french seams I was trying to do.

"Don't you think that satin is a very difficult fabric to work with?"

The idea had never once passed through my mind. Difficult? This was the only way to get the pretty pajamas that I wanted. It was not a matter of difficult. It was a matter of possible.

I am very binary that way. Can it be done? Yes or No? Difficult is not on the map. Not for me. And not for most of my family, come to think of it.

Consequently, I tend to bite off a lot. Then drive myself into the ground trying to do it.

Then again, I also manage to do some amazing things.

I am staggering right now under the difficulty of writing the book that I am trying to write. Sure, when I first thought of it, I just thought of the whole. I thought of the finished product, some vague notion of this story.

Now, I am in the details of it. I am staggered with the enormity of the subject. I tell everyone "It's a book contrasting the religious tyranny in America with the political tyranny of Russia, and it tracks how the main character comes away from her tyrannical religious upbringing at the same time that Russia is trying to come out from it's political tyranny."

Honestly, I think even Shakespeare would have been a bit staggered with that subject matter. YES, it's true. It really happened. No way could I write this if I hadn't lived it. It is too big to make up. I believe that it would be a very good book to have in the world, to show up how that kind of thing happens, and that it happens to all of us.

But wow. This is a huge project. And ME, I have to make it the first book I write. No baby steps for me. I have to start with Mt. Everest.

Man on man.

Well, some day, somehow, it will be done. I kind of feel like I am halfway up this mountain, and it's too late to turn back now. But I just realized how hard it is, and that I might not be up to the task.

But someway or another it will have to get done.

HOOO boy

thoughts from the road

So, I am on a trip. I decided take a trip down the road UP north.

I always say "Go down to see you" from whatever place I am. People will correct me. "You're coming up to see me"

Whatever. I always call it down.

Anyway, I came out here to hit up an old professor about book writing/publishing ideas. She was awesome. Gave me a big chunk of time and really talked with me. She didn't know any agents to sign me (one can hope...oh well), but she gave me some great ideas and feedback. Plus she had a very cute cat.

It's so great to go on a trip for ME, not for the stupid law firm. GEEZ, those trips...they took so much.

I'm glad to be able to see who I need to see and think lots of thoughts about what I am trying to accomplish with myself.

I am finding that corporations offer a lot of infrastructure that individual persons don't get, though. The B.ig F.at L.aw F.irm (BFLF) offered me a hotel, usually a fancy one, when I would travel. They would also give me an internet connection.

Don't really miss the hotel. I am honored to discover that I have lots of friends who love me and are excited for me to sleep on the guest bed/couch.

They love me! :)

But DAMN! internet is vital. I am at the library right now. In my own town I know where to get jacked in. Here, I can't find a spare wireless connection to save me...I know they are here, but if I don't have a connection, how do I look them up to find them?

Anyway, it's been a great trip, now that I renewed my library card (act casual and pretend it's no big deal that you don't actually LIVE in Mountain View when you renew) and paid my overdue fees ($5.60 all told).

It's interesting. The Mt. View library card had a smartchip in it. I remember those being introduced back when I worked at Visa International (up the road..San Mateo). NOW they are in the library card. Yay for technology!

They let you be online for 90 minutes, but you can also load the thing up with money to buy copies or print pages off the 'net while surfing.

Good handy little thing, that smart card.

Well, I am sure this is of very marginal interest to you, my readers, BUT I just spent the last hour clearing off 1500 spam comments
from my webpage here. I felt like posting something, and it's my page so there.

I wish the spammenters would leave me alone. SIGH But it's the price I pay for leaving the door open for comments on this space.

I appreciate comments from readers very much, so it's worth it.

Have a great weekend, folks, and let me see if I can cook up the next episode of Miriam for you by monday.

Is anyone paying attention?

Since I've been at homr during the daytime, I've gotten familiar with daytime TV programming. But I have cable, so I'm not stuck with Jerry Springer.

I've really gotten into West Wing. They show it on Bravo. Let me explain, I'm not the kind of person who sits still and watches TV or movies straigt through. I like to have it playing while I do other things.

So, Bravo has been playing the same set of episodes of West Wing for a while. I catch snippets as I've been writing and emailing and doing other things.

Chris declares that he hates the show, because it always takes place in the dark. I ignore him, and he goes into the bedroom to watch the history channel on the occasions I refuse to relinquish the remote.

Anyway, I was getting confused about what was happening. And right about this same time, my friend Jenn started talking to me about how she liked the show. This whetted my appetite.

I wanted to dig in and figure this show out. Break out the library card! the LA county library has the first two seasons of West Wing avilable on DVD.

So I've spent the last two days...okay, including today, three days, wathing 22 episodes. I'm on the last episode.

Watching them all in order, and paying attention, has dramatically increased my respect for the crafting of the show. Oh, and hey, the WRITERS are impressing me.

Thr pilot itself was bombastic. The characters that I had already come to know from reruns were not really the people I had come to know. They were new, and not really who they were yet.

But watching the show in order...There were stories that had been started, then laid to rest, then brought up again. It was like a nice tapestry.

And they have this device, where they say, "Previously on the West Wing.." and then they take clips from other episodes that give you the setting of what you are supposed to think about before they go into the current episode.

Very smart. They respect the viewers to follow what is happening over time, and yet they still give the Cliff's Notes for it.

Smart. I am very impressed. I liked the show before, but now I am a real fan. It made me want to go to a chat board and talk about the different characters and the way the story evolved.

But I realized quickly that discussion of that sort was not the kind of thing you'd find on an internet chat board. And really, it's in season 6, I'm late to the game.

And I thought about what the people who do the show were dealing with a vrey distracted audience. Their craft would not be noticed by people who maybe tuned in once a week. Most people who encounter the show would not be able to grab onto the good stuff they were putting out there.

And it made me feel a small sense of kinship. I have this blog, that is not usually paid too much attention to. My audience does not read everythng I write.

This is not to say that I am crafting this graffitti board. But I sometimes think about putting more effort into it. Maybe even spell-checking.

Sometimes I think about writing long posts with links to prove certain opinions I feel strongly about. And then I think, It would be a waste of time because no one reads this blog.

But then again, they do. I have upwards of 50 readers a day. Why they heck anyone would read this stuff, well...Hard to say, if they were total strangers.

I do know that my homemade popcord recipe is consistently in the top 10.

But anyway, I was inspired that the writers took so much care to make the show good, even if noone was going to notice.

I congratulate you with the 8th of March- International Woman's Day

Celebrate the women in your life!

Daytime programming

So it's coming up on the two-month anniversary of my last day at work. I confess, I have come a long way. A long way from the hippie credo of my no-tv family.

There is a lot of choices on my cable network. It took at least a month to be totally sick of everything on TV. At last, I am availing myself of my boyfriend's DVD library. And when I want to see something in color, the LA library let's me have them for free.

So I've been watching a lot of movies. The trick to watching movies, for me, is to watch ones that you've seen before. Because I just want it on while I'm doing other stuff. Folding laundry, writing, emailing, taping packages.

But that means I have to see them the first time. So here are the movies I've watched lately:

Meet John Doe
Network
One Fine Day
Lust for Life
Intruder in the Dust
Muppet Movie
Babe

When I list it out like that it seems like a lot. I don't usually watch that many movies.

Movies are a lot different from writing on paper. And paper writing is what I've been doing. So, I want to appreciate the movies and understand them for what they do.

I want to understand what they do, so I can learn to do that do, but also to do what only writing can do.

People are very used to movies, and they expect excellence from them. That's changed what people expect from books too.

I think movies show external action, dialogue and visual images very well. Obviously!

But books can pop open the heads, show the thoughts and the psychology of the characters in a way that movies cannot. And books can carry a scope that is much larger than the two hour time frame of a movie.

Even if I were the master she was, I can't write like Jane Austen. Things have changed. The dendrites and synapses of readers have realigned themselves and I have to use a new roadmap.

It's exciting, I tell you.

Traveling perspectives

When we were in Belgium, President Bush came through. This was covered on the news there.

I know it must have been covered on the news here, too. Knowing what I know about the people and news coverage here, I can assume that the tone towards the president was rather negative.

But there, no one seemed to care that much. As much as we'd seen footage of people protesting the president.

But we didn't see that there. No one really cared. The news, and there were about 2 channels of news in English from Britain, didn't have anything particularly to say about it. They projected what sort of things might be said, but the tone was not particularly negative.

The news was actually more concerned about a recall of food that had a possibly cancerous dye.

There were a lot of things in the news that were very different than what we get here. This makes me trust the news even less.

The thing is, it takes a lot of work to keep up with current events. You have to read several newspapers every day.

But for the news you read to make sense, you have to have a body of previously acquired knowledge to rely upon to interpret what is beign said.

And NOW, it seems that the news we read is unreliable, anyway. That we have an america-centric media is no surprise. But even that media seems to be letting us down.

Dan Rather has retired in a scandal. His motto: False but accurate.

Sure, he can determine that his opinion is accurate based on hunches and invented proof?

I don't appreciate that the people in charge of portraying facts have already interpreted them before they get to me.

And the other latest scandal...Eason Jordan resigned from beign the CEO of CNN. He went to the EU and made allegations about the military killing the embedded journalists while at war in the middle east.

WHAT?! Actually, we don't know what exactly he said, because the transcript has been supressed.

What we do know is that Eason Jordan has resigned, without addressing the allegation. Also, there has been barely a peep about why he has resigned.

SIGH

As I walk around my town, hearing political talk, I hear about how we can't trust the government.

BUSH IS HITLER!

I hear things like this as a matter of course, and they are met with cheers and applause.

But I am much more concerned about the media that seems to be 'deciding' what we need to know.

We can change what is shown on the networks; we get to take our viewing attention away from different channels. What can we do to protest the mockery of news that is being shown?

I am disturbed by the attitude of "we know best" coming from the news media. I would rather they report the news without these hideos slants.

It's very discouraging. Frankly, it makes me want to avoid the news altogether.

Belgium is the center of all kinds of trade

We just got back this afternoon from Belgium. Our most prominent souvenir was one I picked up on Monday, and that Chris picked up today.

_I_ thought I ate a bad waffle. Turns out it was bigger than that. The flu has been going around.

Poor Chris didn't know he had it until we were landing in chicago. He tried to make it, but he ended up projectile vomiting in a corner of O'Hare.

The crew there was incredibly good natured about it. The guy came by and said, "Don't worry about it; Don't worry. It happens every day. Now today it's over. Don't worry about it."

Chris felt bad that he'd messed up their hallway. But I think he felt worse that he still had to travel from Chicago to LAX.

Poor thing. He is sleeping.

oiu wheee!

My friends! Blog readers! I am leaving for a European vacation tomorrow! I'll be in Belgium for a week.

And my blog will be blank. I'll have lots to say when I get back though!

See you!

Happy Valentine's Day- I'm in love!

I know it's late...And the day is over for many of my readers. But happy valentine's day, everyone!

I am happy and in love. I hope that other people have felt love today, too.

1 Corinthians 13
Love
1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, it profits me nothing.
4Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

11When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

13And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Devin Brown- may God have mercy

This Sunday, in Los Angeles, 13-year-old Devin Brown was killed by 10 police bullets.

"Police said Devin ran a red light then failed to stop when police tried to pull him over for allegedly weaving between lanes in a Toyota Camry they later found was reported stolen. After a brief chase, the car ran up on a curb and stopped. Officer Steve Garcia, a nine-year LAPD veteran, got out of his cruiser, then fired 10 shots into the Camry when it backed toward his vehicle, officials said. It is unclear where Garcia was standing when he fired the shots."

I heard an interview with a representative of the police department. He admitted that at the time of the shooting, the car was not reported as stolen. So the police officer shooting did not know that it was stolen. All that officer knew was that the car was backing towards him. And he shot to kill. Shot 10 times to kill.

This saddens me deeply.

When I first heard african americans making noise about America being a "terrorist state" for blacks, I thought they were being over-dramatic. But I stopped to listen.

The more I see and learn, the more I believe they are right. What's going on around here is wrong, it's evil, it's nearly unbelievable.

We are not supposed to be like that. American values are directly the opposite of these kinds of actions.

And yet, this particular incident, which seems to call for city-wide mourning, is not even on the front page. It's too common-place. Many people in the community are thinking, it happens too often to get upset about it.

I find it interesting that in this article, many people are asking, 'Where was his mother? If he hadn't have been out he wouldn't have been shot.'

What? Are we supposed to assume that uniformed authorities have the right to shoot people for being outside after dark? That thought chills my blood. Fact is, we don't have to assume anything. We have proof.

We have some cleaning up to do at home. Sure, there are troops in the Middle East. But charity begins at home, and we have to get our house in order.

The Rainbow flag needs to have black and white

THIS IS TOO CUTE!!!

Bremerhaven Zoo in Bremen ... found that three of the zoo's five penguin pairs were homosexual.

Director Heike Kueck said ... that the birds had been mating for years and one couple even adopted a stone that they protected like an egg.

Maybe they should let that couple adopt?

Walmart and Unions

Walmart is notorious for union busting. They've taken measures to keep all unions out of their stores. Today, I heard on the radio that there had been a union finally formed in a Canadian Walmart, but that Walmart would be closed rather than allow a union to form.

Walmart has the pleasure and the pain of being the best at what they do, the first in the crowd. I don't think that other stores are so much worse than walmart.

Walmart got to its level of prominence because it gathered together its buying power and leveraged it to get prices and products that were beneficial to it's goals. They get the most amazing prices across the board.

That's why people shop there.

Now, in a huge ironic twist, they want to keep that leveraging power all on their side. Unions are about a group of laborers, who individually might be insignifiant, banding together to demand things beneficial to them.

Guess what? That's not fair. Walmart needs to know that what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Whose budget items need to be changed? Store managers make more than the greeters do. And the corporate people are not making 7 bucks an hour.

There has to be a way. A way that is equitable. I challenge the corporation to find it.

if the pen is mightier than the sword, why are words so impotent?

1992-Yeltsin ends supremacy of Communist Party, privatizes state-run enterprises, guarantees free press; businessmen, mobsters begin to take over economy, massive corruption sets in

that's ehat i found. that's what this internet timeline had to say about life in russia in 1992.

those words seem so small and inadequate. I know that historical timelines that begin in the 800s have to be small and inadequate.

Everything they say is true. But it was so much more.

Thinking about the big stuff I couldn't see

So I've been working hard on my book. There are two basic sections to it: the first part where I am a pathetic teenager trying to be a grown up in my hometown in Alaska.

Yes, Alaska is America. Very much america, even if it is as weird a region as Faulkner's south.

And the second part is in Russia, post-communist Russia.

The first part took a long time to write, and i learned a lot aboiut how I write things that are longer than 10 pages.

In pieces, more or less.

But I knew all along that I had to finish the part that was in america before I could move onto the part that was in Russia.

It was a whole new world. I couldn't even think about it until I was done with the part in america.

I realized so many things about my life in my hometown. Because I'm not 18 anymore. I could see things taht were completely invisible to me at the time.

And now that I think about my time in Russia, I am terrified by what we did.

I realized that we walked into a time bomb waiting to happen. The people in the town had literally not been paid for 5 months. NO ONE IN THE TOWN HAD GOTTEN A PAYCHECK FOR FIVE MONTHS AT THE TIME WE ARRIVED.

Imagine a company town, in this case a communist town where the employer is the government, and the company just stops paying everyone? and they don't say, hey, we'll pay you soon. THey say, "We're going to go over to new management. Only, we don't know who these new managment will be. We only know for sure that they don't have any ideas for the short term. Longer term, we don't know either."

No wonder they were warning all the americans to leave. If that had happened in a small american town there would be violence.

But in RUssia, they just kept going to work. They would talk about the situation over their vodka,cognac if they were educated class, and then laugh and lift their glasses again.

I have so much respect for the Russian people. They amaze me more and more the more I think aout it.

took a break

For my readers, I took a break wednesday and today...I went to DEATH VALLEY!

It was beautiful. All the rain has made the flowers bloom.

I'll be back with more Miriam tomorrow.

age of heroism

The story of Miriam and it's inspiration source has me feeling bad right about now. How sad that small-minded pettiness and intentional blindness should be so prevalent.

I am watching the Lord Of the Rings series to believe in courage and selfless heroes again.

They are not all in stories, I will believe that.

How I went to college

I started college when I was 17, after I graduated from high school. Jr. College. I had no idea what college was, honestly, except that it was supposed to be more difficult than high school.

So I was worried. High school was easy, but this was the big time. I told my mom I would only take 12 credits so that I didn't overload. She thought that was stupid, that i needed to take a full load, 15 units, or it would take me forever to graduate.

Forever to graduate.

Let's see. Jr. College the first semeseter, the University the next.

But then I dropped out to get ready to go to Russia for a semester.

The semester away turned inot a year and a half, three semesters. and when I got back I was flat broke with no parents to mooch off.

I took some night classes. Then I broke free and took a WHOLE SEMESTER of classes. 18 units! Bliss!

THe deal was, I had gotten married to Jack. He said he'd finish his degree in a year, and then I would get to do mine. So I worked and he went to classes.

But he dropped out in the middle. This didn't make me happy. I wanted my turn! I went to the school to get a definitive answer on what he really needed to finish.

Turns out he wasn't enrolled in the university. He'd been failing since I met him.

Wow.

Time for a regroup and re route.

We moved to California, because my goofy brother thought we could start a video game business. We didn't know anything about video game businesses, but we needed to do something different. And I heard that California had good schools. I'd be able to finish my degree there.

Well, the video game thing didn't go anywhere, but Jack got a good job anyway. And I started to get ready to go to the University of California.

Did you know that you have to apply to enroll in a University?
I didn't. The University in Alaska did not require such things. California even had deadlines and things, essays and huge forms.

The UC had all these requirements before you could go there. Courses you had to have completed in High school.

Courses I had not completed in High School. Because I was home schooled.

Mad as hell, I went back to the Jr College in California to complete these classes. Deep in a Statistics class, I missed the deadline to apply

ANOTHER year lost.

man, I was depressed. My sister-in-law said, Hey, why don't you try out for this internship-it's for NASA!

That sounded pretty cool. I thought maybe I could be a technical writer. That's what english majors do, right? Write? Or maybe I could be a software tester. You didn't have to know anything to do that...

I got hired to be a desktop video conferencing tester. The boss later told me he hired me because I knew absolutely nothing, so I would be a good guinea pig to test the software. Then he said I had proved him wrong, and learned a lot.

I really liked it. It was fun and exhilerating to have a real job, not McDonald's or Wherehouse or in a mall. I was learning things, solving problems, and writing operating instructions.

In the middle of all that excitement, I did finally get accepted into UCSC. I was so excited! And then I was unsure.

I wanted my english degree. Nothing would change that. But I knew that I didn't want to be a teacher, and that's the only thing you can do with an english degree.

I had learned to be a techie. I had this hope, that maybe I could go get a real job doing this. Maybe I could make good money. Pursuing my english degree would not pad my wallet.

I decided to look for a real job, and take classes at night. Later.

Later took a while. I had to find another school with night classes.

I took one big corporate job. Then I didn't feel like I was doing all I could, I found another, and another. In the middle of all that, I lost the husband. Shouldv'e seen that one coming.

I did take night classes. I did. But it takes a lot of nights to make a full year.

So, that last big corporate job I took was a consultancy. I was beig consulted on how to run the system. I was consulted and not informed. This, then that, then the other. Your end date is now, no wait! we need you!

It dragged on, more and more frustrating. At last, my end date came. I reminded them that they needed me.

But I was thinking. I was thinking about what to do. What other jobs were available? none and getting fewer every day. What would happen to me when it was finally my end date?

It was september. maybe I would go to school. i looked to see. It was really possible! What if I went to school full time for a semester? I had enough saved to live on my own. I could do it, if I wanted to.

Boss man says, "your end day is coming. But we need you...Can you stay a few weeks? maybe..."

And I say, no. Not a few weeks. I have to go.

So I went. A semester. And then partway through, I figured out that I only needed one more semester, and I would graduate. I would be done.

It was just that fast! I was done. The right time came, and I weighed the choice. It was what I really wanted. More than a couple more week's consultant's pay.

Sometimes, you have to keep your eye on the true goal. It took me 12 years to graduate.

Once I graduated I was free to move away. I didn't have to stay in the area to finish. I moved away, and lots of other things-good things! are happening.

But I am right now keeping my eye on the goal. Let go of the little stuff to grab the big, you know?

got story, will travel

National News: Amber Fry book tells all

Jan 3, 2005 (AXcess News) Reno - Amber fry, who says she still thinks of Scott Peterson, has released a new book telling all, or at least enough to make it pay.

The headline running through the press says "I wonder if he still thinks of me". A comment supposedly leaked from Amber Fry's book that's due out this week about Scott Peterson, her former lover-turned-killer.

Didn't mention the title, but I propose I Didn't have a Clue

Bobo the Clown

I spent this Christmas in the Inland Empire. I've spent a lot of time there, because Chris's mom lives in Upland. Most of the time I've spent there, the entertainment options have pretty much been going to malls.

But isn't that what L.A. is supposed to be about? Not the best feature in my opinion, but when in Rome...

In the spirit of the season, on the 26th, I woke up early and bought a paper so we could scope the ads and see what was on sale. I knew we would go shopping because Chris's family tradition is to return most of the presents recieved the day before.

But I saw the Book Review section, so I had to look. On the last page there was a review: Bohemian Manifesto by Laren Stover. The reviewer tells us, "She wore a 'yellow thrift-ship hat and a fuchsia jacket I found in a trash can on Christopher Street" to her first job interview."
It goes on," 'Bohmians...create new work and change paradigms.' When Starbucks and the Gap move into the neighborhood, 'Bohemians move out.'"

Oh, yeah. Thrift store shopping and treasures from the trash. That's my background. I write a lot about growing up in Alaska, because Alaska is so weird. But the truth is, we were wierd even for Alaskans. It finally clicked for me. That's why this guy at work jokes about me being engulfed in clouds of Patchouli (a scent I enjoy, but do not own). It's the idea of patchouli that surrounds my way of life. Mom and Dad were definitely Bohemians.

I talked this over with Chris. He said, "What does Bohemian mean anyway?"

It's a way of life. It's being dedicated to the meaning of things, of ideas as more important than the moment. That the idea, of art, of social activism, or something, is more important than living the life of a philistine.

In fact, avoiding the life of the cushy bourgeouis philistine type of life is quite possibly the idea that a boho is trying to follow. Being open-minded and ready for new experiences that life has to offer...That's basic bohemianism.

Chris; "What's wrong with a middle class life?"

Me; "Chris, I've told you this before. It's exactly that kind of question that almost make me leave you when we were first getting to know each other."

Chris walked into my life, with his wonderbread dedication to name brand foods-it must be Coke, it must be Nabisco, it must be Kraft, or it is unacceptable.

He loves Disney.
He loves beef.

He will not eat at a Thai food restaurant, an Indian restaurant or any other type of ethnic food. When we eat out, it's three choices: Italian, Mexican, or American cuisine.

All of which are basically American foods.

He wanted to go to Hawaii, not Europe.

These are against the grain of my bohemian lifestyle, my upbringing. My father and I used to peruse the foreign food section at the grocery store, marvelling at all the interesting foods and languages written on the packages.

I have never aspired to go to Hawaii. Hawaii is not old enough.

"Don't you want to see architecture and art and history in Europe? I've never wanted to go to Hawaii."

He answered: "But it's pretty. You will like the flowers."

And you know what? he was right. It was pretty.

But having to buy BRAND NAMES for him still rubs me the wrong way. Corporate clones! I don't want to have anything to do with that!

It was a huge struggle. I seriously considered that we might have nothing in common. If our very philosophical basis was opposed, then we were doomed.

He challenged me: "Why are we so different?"

Saying that he liked Kraft and Nabisco seemed not enough of a reason.

I wrestled. Would I be giving up my ideals to be with this man? What kind of open minded student of life would I be if I were tied to bourgeous boychik?

My ideals. I had to be open minded.

And that was the point. I had to be open-minded. Was I really living my philosophy if I was judging Chris based on outward appearances and not on his heart?

Chris liked Coke because much of his grandmother's retirement fund was Coke stock. He always thought of his grandfather and his grandmother when he bought the 24-pack of Coke.

And he loves his family, and he loves me. He doesn't worry so much about my philosophy (which is admittedly a little vague), he is deeply concerned with whether or not I am happy.

True, he does not enjoy my open mike poetry readings. He doesn't want to go to the parties with my artsy friends. But he meets me when I come back with a kiss, and often makes me a cup of tea while I tell him all about it.

No, he is not open-minded about trying the new sushi bar. But he was more open-minded about my hippy-dippy ways than I was being about his white-bread background.

And, as it happens, he makes me very happy. So...Different cultures, even when they live next door to each other, have things to teach one another.

Happy Holiday!

This is the day!
THIS is the day!

This is the day that the sun dips lowest, and after this it will start to increase in strength.

The winter solstice is upon us, the shortest day of the year. People say it is the beginning of winter. No, it's the last day of winter. After this, the sun gets stronger, little by little, every day!

The actual day of the solstice has changed a little. It's drifted, because our man-made calendars are not perfect.

The solstice, long ago, used to be on December 25th.

This, my friends, is the true holiday. This is the day that no one can deny is special.

I checked the almanac. The sun, in my time zone, rose at 6:55.

I made sure to take the time to be near a window, to watch the sunrise. But you know, the almanac has this to say:

"Sunset occurs when the upper edge of the Sun -- called the upper limb -- sinks just under the horizon; sunrise occurs when the upper limb rises just above the horizon."

And the 6:55 sunrise time is for sea level. What if my horizon is the level of a bunch of 50-foot tall skyscrapers getting in my way?

Sunrise was view from around the skyscrapers.

I still toasted it. With my coffee.

Celebrate with creation today!

the language of...

Last week was the work holiday party. I didn't go the first year, but I went last year.

I was very concerned last year about creating a good impression and being circumspect. I wanted to check it out and see what it was all about.

Now that I know, I decided this year I would be myself. Which is not entirely circumspect. I got together my outfit, which was really great. And I made sure I had very high heels that were still good for dancing.

And I got a hat.

Now, I would like to talk about clothes for a minute. On a very basic level, clothing is for shelter from the elements and for modesty.

We're way past the basic level though. And now, it's all about the message. I've read Dress For Success; and I see all the magazines with Best and Worst dressed.

Dress to Kill.

Or maybe to get laugh. Or to turn heads. There are a lot of little strings you can pull with the right outfit.

I think of dress as a whole language, and I like to make jokes with my outfits. I like to make people think, "hmm...That's interesting. I never thought of that before."

For example, my party outfit had two major elements:
a huge hat
a red feather boa

Now, the boa spoke for itself. It was a lot of fun to wear a red feather boa to a work party. Stopped a lot of folks dead.

But the hat! _I_ was thinking New Orleans. Chris told me I looked like a pimp. I was willing to go along with either.

However, all the people who commented on it (more than the requisite 'what great hat!') said it looked like Ascot.

English. Horsey. Interesting.

I had used the hat previously for high teas. Of course, for this occasion, I had added a tiara to the front, a red scarf, a puff of curly gift ribbons and it's own little fluffy white feather garland. I thought all that made it something else.

But the language of the hat spoke England to a lot of people.

Of course, the outfit had it's moment during the first half of the night. THe second half, the band was playing.

And that is when a different language took over.

The language of dance.

I love dancing, and I think it also has it's own message. And no, that's not what I mean. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Certain movements evoke responses. Ever hear of physical humor?

It's funny when a group starts doing the electric slide. And of course, the Travolta pose when "Stayin' Alive" comes on is necessary.

But throw in a little Pee-Wee Herman dance, and see if you can get a smile of recognition...? Eh? I like that one.

I've taken the time to learn a lot of dances, thought I've never had a decent partner stick around long enough. I know that pretty much no one but me is gonna get the riverdance moves I throw in. And then there is the old hollywood 7 brides for 7 brothers one I do every once in a while.

Swing moves slip in very easy.

Once, in San Francisco, I had a great time with a very happening gay guy. He would call out the dance. "Riding the bus!" And everyone would do some kind of dance in the stance of holding a strap while on the bus. "Shopping cart!" and we'd all boogie around pushing a cart and throwing our invisible purchases in.

How much fun was that! It was great.

And that's what I like to do, with my dancing and my clothes. Make little statements. Surprise people, make them happy. Just be silly. It's worth a little effort.

Say what you mean and mean what you say

I went home early on Wednesday. I only was at work for 8 hours, and I decided that my feelings were hurt.

I'd asked for help and the answer was:
"You should manage your time better."

HMPH

manage my time better! Well, I would manage my time better by going home after eight hours, that is what I decided. So I went home and was reading a book in bed.

The phone rang. I let it ring. I enjoyed my shrugging of responsibility at work earlier, and I thought I would ride the train a little further.

But Chris didn't know that, and he answered the phone.

"It's for you."

I gave him a withering look and said, "Hello?"

"Hi, this is Jane, your neighbor down the hall. Umm..Are you planning on attending the board meeting this evening?"

"I don't know. Was something happening?"

"Well, they are discussing the CC&Rs for the complex, and this is the time we are supposed to bring up any questions we have. We are supposed to vote on them next month."

"Oh, I didn't know that."

"Yes, they didn't make it very clear. I am bringing an attorney friend of mine, because I'm very concerned about some of the changes."

Now, I only knew Jane from the last time she called about this same thing. I had no intention whatsoever of going to this meeting. I was busy nursing hurt feelings, remember?

But I had to be polite.

And I had to get off the phone.

She was still going: "...because they have made changes that affect our lives. They have given themselves a lot of power. And the last time I tried to talk about it, they just cut me off. I don't think that's right."

"Wow. Well, I'll have to read over the notes again and take a look."

"Yes, because we need to have the ability to speak up."

"Thank you for calling. I will take a look."

It took about four more exchanges before I could hang up.

And while I was trying to find a way to hang up, I knew I had to say things that would give her the impression that I might come to this meeting.

Which I wasn't going to do.

This sort of verbal smoke and mirrors is a part of my life now. Maybe it comes with working in elevator buildings. But I often have to give answers that are noncommital and reassuring.

Maybe this should bother me. Sincerity is a commodity, to be used sparingly. Is that how I ever envisioned my life?

How much is integrity tied to sincerity? Integrity is one of my cherished values. I will be the one to keep my word, I will be the one not to drop the ball.

But a big part of that is not picking up the ball in the first place.

I have this theory about communication. You cannot simply state the facts that need to be used. You have to have communications overhead. You have to say:

Hi, How are you?

...

That's great. Hey, I wondered if you could go to your files and
check for this one thing.

...

Yeah, I was looking for the numbers from the New York buildout.

...

You have them? Oh, good. COuld you give them to me?

...

Yeah, just forward them on.

...

Thanks!

All of that could have been done with ONE sentence, 30 seconds. But humans don't work like that. In fact, that was a rather succinct interchange, comparatively.

But the message had to be wrapped in soft exchanges, to be recieved properly. The content had overhead. Yes, we could say, "Forward me the numbers from the New York buildout" and leave. But the likelihood of even getting a response would be lowered, because the person could say, "How rude! If she really wants that information, she can come back and ask nicely."

We have to feel cared for, we have to know that there is kindness and goodwill involved in the exchange of information.

That's why, there is a kind of relationship that has to be built between people who interact.

But then, maybe you can take it too far.

This guy at work, who is really a mover and shaker, has an intensely good-natured attitude. He very seldom complains, and when something is upsetting, he just laughs.

And this makes him very approachable, etc.

But then, he also makes sure to tell people what they want to hear. Once, when we were working on a project, we got a price for a particular piece of it. I said, "hey, that's not as expensive as I thought it would be." He nodded and said, "yeah."

We went over to the guy who could approve the purchase, and that guy said, "Wow! That's expensive."

My guy pulled a face and said, "I know."

Which is it? I noticed he does this a lot. He appears to empathize with whoever he is speaking to.

Which makes me wonder if anything he says is true. And I feel a little bad wondering that because he's a very nice guy, works very hard, etc.

But at the same time, how can you sincerely agree with two opposite opinions?

Where is the line in sincerity and integrity? Do we sincerely have to care what our fellow humans beings did over the weekend? Why do we ask?

There are so many times when I have to paste on a smile so that I can get my job done. But getting the job done is part of my self-respect, my sense of integrity.

So when I say what I don't mean, like "that's alright, it's no big deal, I'll take care of that" that lets me mean what I say when I say (to myself at the very least) "I am really damn good at what I do."

Funny, that sincerity should have to be sacrificed like that.

Let me introduce you to my oldest friend

That is, my oldest friend since I moved to California.

Suzanne

Yep, it's pretty much a know-where-the-bodies-are-buried kind of friendship.

And right now, I'm very jealous of her. She is living in Korea, teaching english to a bunch of mostly cute kids. I wish I were in a foriegn country right now. I really do.

Being in another country is a great excuse. You are suddenly allowed to be confused and not quite fit in. You are allowed to enjoy all the trivial tasks in life as if they are and adventure. Going shopping, heck, taking a CRAP can be a mind-broadening experience.

And Su has that blog. She also has free time.

I have a blog, but I do not have free time.

I really really wish I had free time. I feel like I am being swallowed alive.

I already feel like I am confused and that I don't fit in. But I don't have an excuse, because I am supposed to know what I am doing and fit it. I just don't. So I have to cover it up.

Running away to a foreign country has always been my fantasy escape. I usually say "Poland."

What do I need with all these responsibilities? What are they for, after all? Just to torture me, apparently.

I wish I were living as an ex-pat. It's just so much more interesting. Then I could torture myself with existential questions and new experiences.

Well, now you all can share my envy by reading Su's adventures.

...that's not what I meant...

As I was leaving work TOO late on friday, I met this guy in the elevator. I had never seen him before, as far as I knew. But he knew me.

He said, "I happened to go to Alaska after I heard your story."

"You did? How did you like it? I'm glad I inspired you to go."

"I saw a moose, but I thought it was much different to see a moose from the outside. Much less bloody."

I had ready my story for Diversity Day at the workplace, last spring. I prepared a speech beforehand, about diversity:

"This is a day we are taking to celebrate diversity. Leaving all stereotypical prejudices aside, diversity is just about different kinds of experiences. Experiences are like the tools of life. And the more experieces we have, the bigger the toolbox to solve our problems."

And I read my story about the moose.

I know that's what this guy was remembering. My story about the moose.

When I look at these people at work, with their suits and their college degrees, the gap between their experiences and mine seem vast.

I wonder if any of them got beyond the description of the butcher knives to understand that the story was about food.

That food is not always a given.

But this guy in the elevator told me about his vacation to Alaska, and his sightseeing experience about seeing a live moose.

I am amazed that he remembered the story. But I don't think he got it.

I figured out why I don't like movies

I was sick for the last two days. Technically, I'm still sick. But I'm at work so it doesn't count.

While I was sick, I watched a bunch of movies. I don't watch movies very often. I usually don't feel like sitting still that long.

Which is funny, because I can read a book for hours at a time.

But when I watch a movie, I either fall asleep or I pause it and get up to do something else.

I watched I am Sam, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Cold Mountain.

Chris said they were all chick flicks. It's true, I cried my eyes out at I am Sam. THREE kleenexes.

But I was most looking forward to The Unbearable Lightness of Being, because I've read the book. I love Kundera.

The movie was pretty good. Very sexy.

So I picked up a Milan Kundera book, The Art of the Novel.He repeats again and again, The raison d'etre for a novel is to do what only a novel can do.

And what is that, but to stack up words across a page, words to tell about life, what is and what might be?

I think movies don't have enough words. That's why I can't love them the same way.

John Wayne and Jack Kerouac

Geez, there are so many movies around here. They are stacking up. Movie pollution.

Okay, maybe it's not that bad. But here in Hollywood, everyone is into movies. And I'm not. I like books.

Yes, I'm feeling a bit resentful. There is no one to talk to about books anymore. Just my beloved book club.

Okay, so a friend at work gave me a book to read. It was good timing, because I was running low. I had finished Devil in the White City (I'll talk about that later), and I hadn't started House of Mirth (almost done, I'll try to review it for you).

So my friend gave me this book Ask the Dust by John Fante. As soon as I opened it, I smelled Beatnik.

And I hated the main character.

When I read On the Road, I also hated Sal Paradise for his selfishness. But at least he was going stuff, moving around.

Arturo Bandini was doing nothing.

I hated him violently for most of the book, but then the book turned out to be worthwhile in the end.

I hadn't read more of the beat genre that Kerouac, really. I kind of like what they stood for, even if I don't like the aimless and self-centered way they went about it.

But I had a flash of insight. Arturo Bandini talked in poetic terms about his thoughts and experiences. Even if they were kind of annoying thoughts and experiences, he did talk about them in a pretty way.

And when he is coming from the 50s, that was a big deal.

The 50s was the time when John Wayne was the ideal of manhood. At least for a lot of people. John Wayne annoys the freckles off my face. I hate that he is such lump. He never talks about what he thinks or feels. He never says why he does stuff. He just shows up and rides horses, shoots things and gets the girl.

Chris has foisted different Westerns on me, including many Wayne films. The last one I watched, I only watched on the condition that he never make me watch another John Wayne movie again.

It was "She wore a yellow ribbon". Every once in a while, I will bellow out "CALVARY!" in memory of the film. It was memorably bad.

But anyway.

IF men were walking around behaving like John Wayne in the movies...

THEN any expression of the internal thought life and emotions of men would be welcome.

ALSO the beats' way of talking about their feelings was kind of pretty.

SO even though they were self-centered and shallow individuals in many ways, it must have seemed like a shaft of light down a dark hole to get a little bit of masculine expression.

When "Howdy Pilgrim" was the alternative...

Political bling bling

I live in LA. This place is so strange, with the fact that so many people CARE about brand names. DESIGNERS are the thing.

I have a friend who is an even bigger thrift shopper than I am. She has the whole town scoped out. Really, there are so many cute outfits to buy, you kind of have to go for the cheap to stay afloat.

I asked her for tips on non-thrift stores. She said, "I never really buy things new. You can always find clothes for cheap."

But I saw her looking for a designer purse. She thought it was a deal to find one for 200 dollars.

This is almost beyond my comprehension. But she explained that people knew that these bags were expensive, and she wanted a little bling bling.

I have heard of this before. When you see ads for Jaguars on TV, it is partly to sell the cars to the few who can afford it. But it is also to educate the poor slobs who can't afford, to let them know that the Jag oo ahr is the car to admire, the one that says you're rich and have arrived.

Okay, so whether the car is actually a good car, that's of lesser importance. Sure, it's probably a decent car, I guess. But I hear that they don't last very long...They say that if you have to worry about that, you can't afford it anyway.

Yeah, well. I myself like to know what I'm getting and whether it's worth my investment.

Mabye I'm wrong...I haven't looked that closely into the quality of a jag.

Yesterday, I was listening to NPR talking about the Democratic party. 'What can be done to broaden the appeal of the Democratic party?'

Somone suggested that Democrats should adopt part of the libertarian platform. Others had all kinds of suggestions about how Democrats could appeal to a larger group.

Because, you see...Being a democrat is so Coool. It's the hip political party...IT's the one that cares about Women, about the underpriveliged and the arts and all the COoooOolest stuff!

Hmm.

But what are we getting for our investment? what have the democrats really done about the stuff they purport to care about?

I think that the democratic party have bought into their own empty brand too much.

Maybe that's why the faces and celebrities of Hollywood are backing the party with the cachet.

"dahhhling. Don't bother me with such trivialities. Budgets and such things are all just fog. Simply everyone who counts is democratic."

Politics is hard. It's difficult to find solutions to problems. But if your focus is to help the less fortunate, why don't you listen? Why dont you stop and look and see what they problems are?

I don't think selling a brand name serves anyone's purpose.

Maybe I'm wrong. I haven't looked into it so deeply. But...

I'm so embarrased

My site's been naked all day!
Maybe even longer. I"m not sure what the constaints on Movable Type are.

How embarrassing.

But people are still coming to see what might be there, or maybe to see what old stuff there's been.

I appreciate your readership. I'll try to think of something interesting and post it tonight. RIght now, I'm slipping into a coma because I'm tired.

"Equal pay for equal work"

Listening to the debates tonight, I heard Kerry say, "women are earning 76 cents on the dollar compared to men." This is shocking! I wasn't sure it was true.

Wireless to the rescue. I looked it up. I don't see women so much in that role. Unless the guys were making way more money than I thought, I figured it was not quite the story.

But I looked it up. It seems to have some figures behind it. Man, I was hoping that we'd gotten a little further than that.

But this story puts a little thought into the figures. According to her, when you take some important factors into consideration, the wage gap is more like 98%.

Whoo hoo! and Ms. McElroy makes some very good points. I've thought about this, in these terms, for quite some time. Leaving aside the prejudicial and sexism stereotypes, what is the major difference between a man and a woman? A woman is the one who bears the children. It takes nine months for gestation. And it takes some time to get over the process of shoving this little person out of your body.

After that, mothers may want to take time out of their career to spend time with the child. A choice that she can make. That is, the lucky ones who have the economic room to not work, or work less for a while. Many women make the choice to have less responsibilities in their career, so that they can be available to pay attention to their child.

This does not diminish a woman's capacity to perform any of the duties her career may have demanded. The fact is, a choice like that, one that takes a woman out of the running, off the rat race and into the baby track, has wage consequences.

If a man took several months or years out of the prime career growth time of his life to do another project, it is fully expected that he would not be able to walk away with no ground lost. It doesn't work like that.

And a women should not expect that she can hit pause and step right back in where she left off. That wouldn't be fair.

If we were to embrace the capacity that women bring to the table, it would be wise to find ways to change the culture of the workplace. Why do we have to work 24-7? Geez.

It would be good to have a jobs that allow for a balance and a challenge. We need that, so that the children don't get left behind.

But it seems like women are not being left behind so much anymore, and for that I rejoice.

BLOG stuff

I love my blog. It is so much fun. I am not as diligent as I used to be, writing practically every day. Now, I kick one or two out a week.

But people still come. People are checking it out.

Of course, in silicon valley, I was so behind the times for not having my own website earlier. When I moved to LA, everyone was like "You have your own website?"

It's just a blog, I would answer.

"A what?"

never mind.

BUT NOW! Blogs are everywhere. And I have one. Even if it's not particulary political. Anyway, it makes me happy to see blogs mentioned on TV, and advertised everywhere as a matter of course.
Yay blog!

The only question is, will i ever get to go pro? not anytime soon...But Lets stay hopeful

Oh, Canada! our dream come true drug supplier

Watching the vice presidential debates. I was mostly doing other things, until I heard Edwards say something like

'This administration voted against buying drugs from Canada. The current administration sided WITH the drug companies. We will bring drugs in from Canada. We are for the american people.'

This started me yelling.

'YOU'RE STUPID! YOU ARE SO STUPID! HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT?'

this drugs are cheaper in canada dealy drives me crazy. Are these guys so short-sighted? Let's think about this...

Drugs in Canada are cheaper. The same exact drugs! Isnt' that great! We can just get the same exact drugs from the same exact companies, and just FOOL them into giving them to us cheaper. Because we will get them from Canada. And the drug companies can't do a thing about it! How great is that! We'll save SCADS of money.

Maybe this is just an indication that politicians are not very good businessmen. But I think the drug companies of the world, who operate in a free market, would find a way to cover their costs.

Why does canada have cheaper rates? THey've taken pains to keep then that way. Canada has a different idea of government prerogatives in medicine.

Is America willing to put caps on the prices of drugs the way that Canada does? Is America, meaning american lawmakers and policy creators, willing to do the hard work of coming up with a workable, sustainable plan for medicine that reflects our american values?

It looks like America isn't willing to do either. We want the wal-mart approach. Don't ask what it took to buy sneakers for $6.86, just buy then for all your kids and congratulate yourself on a good deal.

Taking drugs from Canada has major implications. It skews up a trade balance, and puts the drug companies in a new and potentially unprofitable position. Pharmacuetical and biotech companies are some of the few sectors that are still doing okay. Do we need to F* with that, all oblivious of the consequences? aren't we a little concerned about the health of industry and job generation in america?

Not only that, but all this great research and new treatments for all kinds of things are paid for by the red white and blue. Ask any drug salesguy. Are drugs expensive here? Sure, Some of them are. Are we living longer and being stronger than before? Yes, Decades longer. Do we want to cut off this system that has resulted in amazing advances?

Going shopping in Canada for drugs is a sorry excuse for not taking care of business at home. It's big deal; the need for medicine is not going to go away. We need to face it and come up with a good plan.

The Debates

There is a lot of noise around here, Hollywood and LA, about how much a lot of people hate Bush.

The whole Michael Moore thing got everyone talking. Farenheit 911, and all that.

Now, the last Presidential election captured everyone's interest only AFTER the votes were cast. This presidential election seems to have a little more interest for the public.

Now, I may be wrong, it may be that I am only just now hanging out with people who care about politics. But I am seeing a lot of people, including myself, who are interested in the debate.

Kinda cool.

I watched it, and then I watched it again when it went on the second time.

It was very interesting to see the facial expression and the tones of voices between the two men.

My prediction still stands. I think Bush will win.

This does not mean that I will vote for him, but I have a feeling he will win by a little bit.

I will have to watch the next one. I'm glad that people are interested.

fools!

How many fools does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Fools always travel in ships.

There are the fools of Gotham.
There are Shakesperean fools.

There are people who are surrounded by fools.
Imbeciles.
Idiots.
Nincompoops.
Morons.
Incompetents.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Foolishness!

Today, I have the phrase for me:

I am a sad fool.

I cannot escape my own ignorance. I can choose many actions, and all of them seem foolish to me. No choice appears to be a wise one. There are times when this is so, situations when you cannot come out like a hero.

Not everyone is the hero. The rest of us are Rosencrantz and Gildenstern, bit parts, left confused and out of the major action.

I love that play, "Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are dead." It brings up all kind of questions about what the HECK we are trying to accomplish in this big wide world that has big important things happening that WE CANNOT AFFECT very much.

Then there's Billy Joel's song "We didn't Start the Fire." We are left with the result of a history which, through hindsight, we would not have chosen.

And it doesn't matter. Remember the Jeff Goldblum character in Jurrasic Park? Chaos theory...Just one drop of water can move across a person's skin in different ways, moved by invisible, imperceptible pulls and tugs.

Choice is so powerful! That's what Tony Robbins says! That's what Viktor Frankl says.

And it is still not quite powerful enough. It is certainly not all-powerful.

So I, like King Lear, can rage against the storm and affirm the choices I have made. But that doesn't mean they were right. And it doesn't mean they affect as much as I want them to.

But that doesn't excuse me from trying and trying. And trying and trying.

And that is what makes me a sad fool. Sad, as in pathetic. What hope, what importance have I, in the scheme of human history?

Just as much as anyone else. Maybe. And that isn't very much.

But at the same time, it's everything.

Every day is the day to get up, in spite of what seems to be futility. That drop of water might be affected by my striving, by my will.

And yet, it's good for me to know that my choices are not that powerful. That I should be humble, knowing that I am a pathetic slob trying to make something of myself and leave a little scratch on the planet that makes it better, not worse.

And it's good for me to know that I am a fool, so I can laugh at my foolishness, and have patience with the pitiful effects of my scratching.

For we know, from the beginning, what good does pride do anyone? never has. So, I'll be the hopelessly hopeful. I'll be the optimistic pessimist. And I'll laugh and my sad foolishness, and in laughing, I'll find the strength to keep on.

Metro - Para Coquetar

That's what posted in the bus. It's an ad for the bus itself. I don't read Spanish, but I am pretty sure it means "The Metro Bus-For Flirting"

Must be in the air. Either that, or I'm pheremonal. Today, as I got off the bus, a young man jumped off with me and came up behind me. He asked me what my name was. He had a thick accent. I thought he said he was Roumanian. Turned out he was Armenian, and I mean REALLY Armenian. He had just gotten here in American from Armenia.

Through the course of our conversation, I discovered this. And I discovered his name was Artur, that he's studied Russian language and Biology. He hoped to become a doctor, but was working as a jeweler in his family business until he could get his working papers.

That was all just an aside. What he really wanted to tell me, as we Manhattan-style powerwalked to my workplace, was that he was in love with me. He was quite persistent, and quite distressed that I did not return his love.

He asked how old I was. "31," I said.

"21?"
"No, 31. How old are you?"
"I am 30."

Yeah right.

So, a long conversation discussing love, and college and the status of my availability was carried on at high speed, in three languages I think. I understood some of his Russian. He understood some of my Russian, and both of us didn't understand a lot of each other's english.

I suspect he was throwing in some Armenian here and there.

He begged me to admit that I found him attractive...And that he was in love with me.

I told him there were many beautiful women in Los Angeles, and that if he fell in love so quickly, it would be quite easy to fall in love the next time. He followed me for about three blocks.

I had to accept his phone number before he would leave me.

"Tbi pozvonish? pozvonish menya?" [you'll call? you'll call me?]

"Povidyemsya." [we'll see]

"Abyezyatilno!" [you must!]

"Chastliva!" [Cheers!]

and I walked off. Must be something in the air. Last friday, when I was waiting at the bus stop, some guy in a toyota truck kept circling and waving and honking at me.

It makes me laugh. But maybe I should shop for some pepper spray.

Pepper Spray - Para Coquetar

I've been saying it...Haven't I been saying it?

Now I have proof:

News about Military Blunders at StrategyPage.com's How to Make War.

THE WAY THINGS REALLY WORK: Home Schooled Kids Can't Hack It

September 12, 2004: Discipline can be learned, and it must be practiced. That's the findings of a recent Department of Defense study of whether kids who graduated from "alternative" high schools, or were home schooled, did as well in military service as graduates from traditional high schools. Turns out that the home schooled and alternative high school students did not last in the service as well as high school grads. One thing you learn by finishing traditional high school, is how to get along in a group, a discipline yourself to get things done in a group, and to persevere as a group.

In fact, kids who spent four years in high school, but did not pass all their final exams, did better. The Pentagon did not release the percentage differences, but is advising recruiters to take these factors into account when deciding which prospective recruits to spend their time on.

A disproportionate number of children, whose father or mother are in the military, are home schooled. It is not known if these kids, who are regularly exposed to military people, were a large enough part of the study sample to show if they, too, had problems completing their military service."

Study by the federal government now shows that homeschool kids are weird.

two foreign countries

Yesterday at last, I managed to get to Mexico. I have been ashamed of myself for never having been. What kind of traveller/adventurer can I claim to be if I haven't even been to Mexico? It's a short drive away. A day trip.

And so I took a day trip and went. My favorite traveling companion was most unwilling. Chris reads newspapers and has decided that Mexico is a place of unrelenting corruption and danger. People are stopped, and thrown into jail if they do not bribe the policemen properly.

"So, make sure to budget in some bribes," was my response.

He objected to the idea, on moral grounds, of bribing a policeman.

"Hey, that's their culture. It's not great, but they are hardly the only country that does bribing. In fact, I think that Americans are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to international business. We should require Bribing 101 for MBAs."

He was not amused. So, with the threat of incarceration and the deep fear of Montezuma's revenge, he drove us down to San Diego to catch the trolley to Tijuana.

He refused to drive , stay overnight, or eat while we were there.Honestly, I was sorry for him, that he had all these fears. But I was proud that he would accompany me anyway. He said someone had to keep me out of trouble.

I wanted to shop and have a Margarita. Actually, I wanted to try the other yummy foods, too. But I had some constraints with Mr. Worrywart at my side.

He was marvelous, though. We went in, and he kept track of where were were going and how to get out.

We got there about 2:30. It was hot and muggy as hell. I was very glad that we had not driven. Walking in took no time at all, and the line of cars out of TJ was enormous.

It was beautiful. It was so colorful, I liked it very much. I was pretty much focussed an the shopping, and it reminded me of all the other open-air Markets I'd been to- the Arbat in Moscow, the various markets I'd stumbled across in the UK and Ireland.

The Mexicans called out to you though, asing you to come into their stores. The men used their charm as liberally as they could, "Mija! Curly! Come inside to my store, I have beautiful purses and jewelry you will want."

I was called curly rather frequently. It made me smile. Chris was not addressed at all. He had his arms around me, or was holding my hand the whole time.

"Half Price for the honeymooners!" they would call out to us.

You know, at the malls here, it is sort of amazing to get noticed at all, let alone with that kind of detail. I loved it.

The first man that called me Curly, I fell for. "Curly! Come look here! Mija! I have some earrings just like the ones you are wearing."

I know it is a sales tactic, but it was very sweet to be called Mija at every turn.

"Your hair is so curly. Is that natural? It is so curly. You should give me some, I would keep it with me. Look at these bracelets...Do you like them? Here are some more for you. I got these at a discount, very good price for you."

I should have bought something from him, just because he was so charming. Most of them were like that though. Imagine! A lock of my hair. Most men in America have probably never even heard of such a romantic favor.

It was nice.

Of course, like I said, Chris was entirely ignored. Which was fine with him.

There were a lot of pretty jewelry, although not as delicate as I usually like. So I passed on most of it. Then I was stopped by the beautiful pottery. They told me it was from Oaxaca, the black pottery they are famous for. I saw a cheerful skull of black pottery, it had lacy flower cut-ous and two slits for the nose.

I passed on it, but then I kept thinking about it. I have a friend who loves the day of the dead. It was perfect for her. I finally found another one and bought it for her.

The sales man told me it was meant to have a candle inside it, and that the light would flicker from the cutouts. That made me want one of my own. But not a skull. I just wanted a globe with the flower cuts.

I kept looking, thinking I might find leather or something I liked. I stumbled into a shop that sold the most beautiful lace. Bobbin lace as well as the crocheted type. I had been thinking I wanted a tablecloth. Those can be expensive.

But oh my, they had such lovely ones. Bobbin lace! And embroided with more cut outs (hmm...Is this a theme?) I found some beautiful things. THey got the majority of my TJ money there. I spent about fifty bucks on table cloths and napkins and lacey settings and doileys. A bargain, in my mind.

I then insisted that I stop and get a margarita. I could not leave without that. "It's tequila. It can't hold germs, it can't make you sick."

"The ice has water. Montezuma can still get me."

I enjoyed my margarita, and half of his. Mine had too much salt in it, but his was okay.

That put me in a very sweet mood for a little while. We were sitting next to a brick wall, and some men in tight pants with designs up the side were singing to guitar music.

We looked over the map, and decided to take a look at the cathedral which was supposed to be nearby. It was respectably old, the map said, so I thought we should take a look. We got a little bit lost, but on the way I found a Churro vendor. Yum..I bought a bag of churros.

We found the cathedral, which looked much newer than we expected. We peeked in, but didn't stay long. Outside there were a lot of vendors selling religious objects. There were also a lot of vans, and I think they were practicing santeria in the vans. They seemed to be offering services of some kind.

On the way back to the main shopping area, we passed a few rather bored looking prosititutes. I wouldn't have thought they were prostitues, they were demure by my standards, except for the shoes.

We went on to try to find some black pottery from Oaxaca and maybe some jewelry. It was a very uncrowded day, really. It was hot and muggy, but at least we weren't crushed.

We looked at everything, but we didn't find my black pottery until the very end. And then I was still without new jewelry. I stopped at every stand on the long corridor out. I finally bought a small ring, then we made better time through to the border. Chris was getting hungry.

Basically, I had the best time. I would like to go back, maybe with some girlfriends. Chris was a little over concerned. But it was a romantic wonderful day trip, and I have at last been to Mexico.

On the trolley out, Chris said "Now you've been to two foriegn countries this year with me. Canada and Mexico"

W

I have wireless internet now. I love it. I can look up things that I see on tv.

So now...I'm watching George W. Bush at the republican convention. My companion and fount of knowledge, Chris, was telling me how the republican convention gave the bloggers real press passes, letting them sit with the radio people.

Excellent.

So, in the middle of his speech, W gave out his website. I was excited to hear a president give out his URL in a major speech. and My laptop was there all connected to look it up!

I typed it in, just to see.
www.georgewbush.com

It was SLAMMED. no connecting. I looked it up in google, to get their cached version.

ALSO SLAMMED.

I guess everyone else had the same idea.

I love the internet.

I was able to get on about a minute later, and they listed that they had a blog. It was not a real blog...It was more of a website scrap book of pictures...not a lot of commentary.

But hey! I just like that my current favorite medium is getting some attention.

Yay!

History channel and the answers to things that bother me

I've been wondering about why America was so paranoid about communism. I have read about McCarthyism and couldn't believe it was true. Why would America, a country based on trying out new political ideas, be so FREAKED about communism?

And McCarthy, by most accounts, was this cynical guy using communism as a political lever to get power.

I just couldn't see how the lever worked. What was in the minds of the populace that gave this fear purchase? Why would people who had gone through the depression let someone's political opinions keep them from having a job? A job was a precious commodity. But the blacklists did just that. It was almost the meanest thing that anyone could think of, during the context of that time period.

I just couldn't get it. What was so threatening about communism that people came up with this idea that there were spies everywhere, and that a communist message could be hidden in a movie script that would INFECT the whole nation. The pen had to be ripped from the hands of people who even knew people who knew communists.

BAD BAD BAD communists.

And yet, when I read the communist manifesto, I never got why it was so scary. Sure, for monarchies, it seemed pretty harsh. But we were voters here. We were a democracy. And if the majority thought there were good principles in communist philosophy, then it was our policy to let those have their sway.

I just couldn't get it.

But I was watching the History channel this Saturday. I usually can't STAND the history channel. Chris loves it. I have to groan and complain whenever he turns it on. It's a joke now.

But I turned on the TV, and it was on the history channel and they were talking about the BOMB. The A-bomb.

I remembered, I remembered reading and thinking about nuclear war. It was the scariest thing anyone could think of. My mom told me she had been taught to hide under her desk if a bomb was dropped.

I laughed "What good would a desk do against a nuclear weapon? How ridiculous is that?"

But this show said that the A-bomb was a puny little bomb compared to the Hydrogen bomb that was invented soon after. Maybe a desk might have helped with the A-bomb.

They showed clips of the films like the kind my mom must have watched. "Little Jimmy has dropped to the ground, and he is covering his neck. That way he will avoid being burned."

Oh my God! How scary!

Of course, WW 2 was when America raced to complete the A-Bomb, thinking that Germany had one in the works too. Germany surrendered before we got a chance to use the bomb on them. Whew.

But Japan didn't. And we got to use the bomb on them.

I cannot describe my horror and sadness at the destruction caused by the A-bomb. The show said that it caused two deaths a week for 20 years after it was dropped. That's a long time to keep bringing death. I hope that keeps the warmongers in check.

And on one hand, it has. No one has used a nuclear weapon since.

But check it out...There were Russian Spies who leaked the information of how to make a nuclear weapon to the Russians!

The Russians were on our side in the war, but that means nothing in geo-politics. Russian spies had infiltrated our military research operations and gotten the secret.

And the Russians had the bomb. And the Russians were busy taking over Europe, which showed a will to expansion.

And the Russians had the bomb.

And two people a week kept dying in Japan.

And maybe we were next.

THAT's when America made a bigger, nastier bomb: the H-Bomb.

and I suddenly understood why we were so afraid of the Russians, and what purchase McCarthy had on the fears of the people.

That was the scared senseless part of America that he tapped into, and used to his advantage. When you have the scariest Mother of all bombs hanging over your head, freedom to try out new political theories seems to drop in importance.

SO that's where all this "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the communist party?" comes from.

But the strangest thing about it. The Rosenbergs were put to death for their role in the spying activity. THey were couriers. The guy who was on the inside, Fuchs, was in prison for nine years and then went on to lecture in East Germany.

Only nine years.

Stunning how things work out sometimes.

But the history channel gave me the last piece of the puzzle, despite my derision. I may watch it once in a while, now.

Full up

So this weekend was really exciting-in a completely internal way.

The prior week was great; I've got some things going on a work that are keeping me very sharp. It's cool, I love a challenge, and it kind of spills over.

And then I got in this discussion...It was the start of a very long discussion with a pup here...I shouldn't have, because it was about religion and we didn't agree. And he trips my triggers, because he is so much like a lot of people I used to know.

But it was a very hieghtening conversation...About the meaning of meaning, as held by words and the laws of God and man. AND because I couldn't finish it, it left me all restless and feeling like I should pace and talk to myself.

So then the next day, I saw Spiderman 2. A very cool movie. Also left me thinking about a lot of things. I really appreciate the heroic ideals that superheroes and comics show...

Which leads up to the NEXT day, sunday, where I got to actually meet and talk to one of the writers for Superman comic books. wow.

he had written this graphic novel "It's a Bird..." about the problems with superman. The character in the book was semi-autobiographical. He was trying to deal with what it meant to be superman, and why anyone should care.

And we all went on about creativity and humanness and writing and MORE stuff that practically made me want to jump out of my skin with excitement.

There is so much to think about and do!

And I AM doing things. I am working hard, every day, on this book that I want to finish. I have a long way to finishing. hmmm....it just takes time.

One of the things about my heightening discussion...The meaning of meaning...It is hard to talk about it...I know what I know now. I don't have to talk about it anymore. I can, and it is exciting to talk about it, but because I know what I know is true, I don't require validation. I don't HAVE to talk about it.

And on that same note, I know that what I am writing [my book] is worthwhile. I don't require validaton. But the getting it out there, doing it justice, is tough. It takes some perseverance.

Which is to say...Pacing and restlessness are fine, but I'm in this for the long haul. I have to be careful not to burn myself out...

Homeschool people

I go to this amazing coffee shop for open mike night. Psychobabble, in Los Feliz. GREAT forum for original work of any kind.

I shared this story about homeschool last time.

After I was done, I was kicking it with the MC, Jocelyn and some of the other writers there. I was telling Jocelyn this engrossing story.

One guy there, who had sung bluegrass that night, interrupted me. "I'm trying to Tell you!"

I stopped my story and listened to him. He is fascinating to watch, because he has a vampire fetish. His canine teeth have been replaced with fangs. Not huge, but just enough to keep you looking at his mouth when he talks.

"I homeschooled my stepson and daughter! And when you were talking about rabbits, we almost had rabbits! That could have been us."

A homeschool parent.

Another person asked, "You got rabbits?"

"No," he said. "My ex-wife wanted rabbits, but we were living in a van, so we couldn't have them."

"I'm sure your kids were perfectly adjusted," I told him.

"It was great! We travelled around to places like NEBRASKA."

...need I say more...?

The 'B' word

I had to go an another flight this week. As I was getting my laptop out and putting it in the gray tub, the guy in front of me was taking off his tennis shoes.

He had two cute little boys, maybe three years old, with him. The TSA said, "Take off all shoes". He was a dad, alone, which probably had him panicking in the first place. Small children with no female present makes many men nervous. His face was very red.

So he had to take off the little ones shoes. He wasn't happy about this. He said, sarcastically, "Yeah, because there might be a BOMB in them."

The TSA guy who had mechanically told him "Take off all your shoes" became excited. "Did you hear what he SAID?" he gestured to the supervisor.

The supervisor took him out. He got extra searched.

Don't say the 'B' word at the aiport. Not even kidding.

The fate of Feta

Feta-I loved it the first time I tasted it. White, salty, and a taste unlike anything I could describe. It became part of my pantheon of cheeses. I discovered it was healthier than a lot of other cheeses, too. Lower fat.
When I moved to Sunnyvale, I found a local deli (Attari) that sold a ethnic type of feta that put the supermarket Athenos brand of feta to shame. This deli feta was so much more powerful, the difference was like the difference between american cheese and sharp cheddar. Wow! I found out that the feta I was buying (because it was the cheapest of the three the deli sold) was BULGARIAN feta.

Attari sold Greek, French and Bulgarian Feta. I tried them all, and the Bulgarian remained my favorite. Of course, two years ago I moved to North Central Los Angeles. There is an even bigger ethnic market here. It's big enough to be a supermarket chain: Jon's. The Eastern meditterian population here is such that can maintain a chain like that. Even the gas station snack counters have olives, feta, and Halvah for sale. These folks know feta.
Now, at the deli counter at Jon's supermarket, they have more than Greek, French and Bulgarian feta. They have Roumanian, and I think 2 other varieties too. What a selection! I've been sticking to my Bulgarian, but I thought maybe the others might have merit.
I bought a half-pound of the Greek once, but my previous opinion was confirmed. It was chalkier, drier, and certainly not as powerful a flavor as the Bulgarian. I didn't even finish the half pound.
With that disappointment in mind, I thought I would find out more before I wasted money on the other types of feta. I looked up feta on the internet to find out what some other cheese-lover might have to say about feta from different regions.
This is the first thing I found. It's about feta, written by Bulgarians. Naturally, they agree with my assessment about the deliciousness of their cheese.
But this didn't tell me about the other varieties of feta. I looked further and was surprised to find that feta was a source of international conflict.
Now, this is interesting. The French, the Danes and the Germans are all arguing with Greece about who gets to make feta. Or at least who gets to call it feta. Where is Bulgaria, the winner of my taste test, in this debate?
Exactly nowhere. Bulgaria is not part of the European Union. Nor is Roumania, one of the feta varieties I have not tried yet. They have no place at the table for this debate.
Now, if I were to give my two cents to the cheese beaurocrats at the EU, I would say that it would be nice to know where the feta originates. The taste is completely different, coming for different palces. I haven't tried German or Danish feta, but I am sure they taste different. I'd like to know where my feta comes from, since it affects the taste. Naturally, you shouldn't tell those countries that they can't make feta at all (that seems to be what Greece wants to say). But if their feta is not as good as the others, then it will naturally not do so well as the other varieties. Free market will dictate the winner.
Except there is a problem. Free market isn't the market we are using over there. The purveyors of the tastiest cheese are excluded. They aren't part of the EU. They were part of the Eastern Block, with a history of a socialist market.
Now, I'll tell you. I worry about the intellectual property rights of the former communist countries. They do not have a history of protecting the ideas of geniuses who come up with them. I've seen this go to work in Russia when I lived there.
I knew this guy in the town I lived in. He was a geologist. There were a lot of geologists in that town, because the town had a diamond mine. This geologist had a breakthrough in how to extract diamonds from the ore. He found this solution that would extract (according to him) 90% more diamonds than current methods. Holy Crap! That's a lot more diamonds. Sounds too good to be true. But he and his geologist buddies had the proof.
They took their new method to Mother Russia, the owner of the diamond mine. Mother Russia said she couldn't be bothered to change everything now. Don't rock the boat; things were going along fine.
Now, even if Mother Russia approved of their genius idea, you have to realize, this giant leap in production would not have resulted in additional money for the geologists. No extra bonus to buy diamonds for their mothers and wives. Just maybe a commendation at the yearly review.
So the geologists were stifled. But this idea was too good to just leave alone. They wanted to see it implemented. They called Debeers. Debeers took a little more notice than Mother Russia did. And actually, the geologists had a chance to make some money on the deal if they took it elsewhere. Except they were relying on the lawyers that Debeers brought with them. There were not any copyright or patents lawyers in the town. Or anywhere in Russia, as far as I know.
Now, I don't know the end of the story because I left Russia and lost track of this geologist. But this story, along with a lot of other things I saw and experienced in Russia, made me realize how foriegn copyright and intellectual property rights were to this country.
I worry about the former communist countries. I think they need to get on the bandwagon with selling ideas.
And this whole feta thing brings that up again. Those Bulgarians have the best way of making this cheese, but the rest of the world is missing out. Free the feta!

0847815994,0486411443,0028642201

Write On

I've been working steadily on writing a book. It is not a novel, which is what everyone assumes. It is a memoir. I'm trying to write about what it was like to be with my family and go over to Russia to teach English in a private school with a Christian curriculum in 1991-1993.

I started out, and in January, I had about 100 pages written. THen I realized that I had to stop TELLING the story and I had to start writing the experiences. What I had been doing with the first 100 pages was being my current self, the ironic cosmopolitan with PERSPECTIVE on what happened back then.

Absolutely NOT the way to tell a real story. If I distance myself from my own story, how can I expect to draw in a reader? But the fact is, I didn't want to dive in. To call these memories painful would only be the tip of the iceberg. Nothing is just as simple as pain. Pain is such a flat word. I needed to dive right back in to THEN and write what it was like to live it.

It is not easy to do that. I've now re-written to the point of having 140 pages.

AND WE STILL HAVEN'T GOTTEN ON THE PLANE.

My mind panics when I think about (think about writing about) going to Russia. And that is exactly how I felt during the time I was getting ready to go. That is the time I am writing about, that getting-ready period.

Right now, I am filled with those feelings I had then. And I am missing those people I knew then. I am SO missing them.

I had to do a little cyber-stalking. God bless Google. What's Dean up to? What about Alex? Tommy Piper?

They say you can never go home again. I say, you can never go anywhere again. Some things never change, but I am not some things. It's very sad to me, to realize that I can't ever recapture the closeness of a friendship. Or realize the closeness that I once wanted.

People change. I change. It makes me sad.

Not that I would have it any other way. You couldn't pay me enough to stay the way I was back then.

Anyway, I am surprised at how real these people are to me. It is like they just walked out of the room. I've had to struggle to remember their personalities and their speech patterns. I have to try to create dialogue with them...I say create...But it is more like remembering...And I remember up scraps of things I've done and said with them...And there they are. Like I could reach out and touch them. Like I could give them one more hug goodbye.

And I wish I could.

Welcome to July

How're we all doing?

The year is halfway gone. I have gotten my paycheck, which gives me YTD totals...

That gets my calculator finger itching. If present trends continue, I will have worked 560 hours of overtime in 2004. 32 of those hours will be counted as double time, because they were in excess of 12 hours in one day.

Working hard. Getting paid.

That's what the 30s are about, aren't they?

"Prime of your life"

Maybe. So, subtracting the 2 weeks and 2.5 days I was out on vacation and illness, I have worked 9.88 hours every day I was at work.

That's sort of interesting to know.

Also, for the 6 months of this year, my company has paid out 1590 bucks in health & life insurance and stuff for this single, prime-of-her-life healthy person. That's going be 3180 for the year. Holy smokes.

Naturally, though, that's not my money. It's benefits. I could get a better deal on my health insurance if I paid Kaiser directly, but the company won't give me back the money if I said I would bargain shop.

Of course, the minute anything went wrong with me, Kaiser would no longer offer the $125 a month deal they'd give me now. If I suddenly got diabetes or some wierd disease, forget me! "That will be $900 a month please, and you understand we won't cover the treatments for the illness you've disclosed to us."

I once was denied Kaiser coverage, on a personal plan, because I told them I had back problems when I was 18 and worked at a bagger for Safeway. Groceries are heavy if you don't carry them right.

Lesson learned:
Lie.

These sorts of things roll around in my head as I consider other ways to spend the hours of my life's prime. I can think of some alternatives to the current routine of 9.88 work hours plus commute time. But I have to say, insurance considerations put a big damper on my entrepenuerial and creative plans.

Anyway, just some thoughts on the half-year mark. Happy summer everyone!

The day after

Finally and completely, Chris has moved in. All of his things and all of my things are now in OUR condo.

He has a different moving philosophy than I do. I'm all about getting a truck and doing it all in one weekend. HE decided he wanted to move it over the course of a month. I practiced letting him have his way, and it actually wasn't such a bad way to move.

It took a long time to get it all there, but we were able to put things away kind of slowly. On Saturday, when we took the very last things up, it was moderate chaos.

Now we just have to figure out how to make everything fit.

'Living together' is not something I ever thought I would do. But life is strange; the unforseen is always ahead.

After my divorce, which is also something I never thought would happen to me, I had to take it one day, or one hour at a time. Living in the moment had to be learned.

So, thinking about a long future with someone was nearly impossible. I sure didn't think I would be with Chris this long. I didn't think it when I met him. I didn't think it a few months later, the first time he kissed me.

I wouldn't have stuck around if I had thought we would have been together this long. I would have wanted my future to be determined by me. And a committed relationship, with future plans, sounded to me like I was signing my life away.

But...Chris is very good at giving me space and room for my dreams to grow. He has never gotten in my way.

Poor guy! Anytime he tried to talk about long-term togetherness, I would cry. That can't be easy on the ego, to have your girlfriend cry when you tell her you want to be with her.

So, I finally yanked my head out of the sand and told myself I would HAVE to deal with this. Chris deserved better from me. So I tried. And I cried.

Finally, laughing and crying, I told him that it would be easier if we made up some OTHER people and talked about THEM. Maybe I would be able to distance myself enough to have a conversation.

He said, "Let's give them the silliest names we can think of."

He's wonderful.

So Prudence and Sloan were invented to be our avatars. We didn't always need them, but they were there when we did. When we'd be talking along about our lives and goals and what's important, every once in a while I'd stop being able to breathe. I would inhale and not stop. BEFORE, I would start to cry at that point. But now, I could gasp out, "Prudence is a little concerned about that."

You know, whatever it takes to get you through. The path to true love never runs smooth.

The american dream

About a million years ago, I took a few martial arts classes. It was fun; I wouldn't mind doing it again. I just have to find the time...

Anyway, one time, the teacher, while dismissing us, brought one new guy forward. Turns out he wasn't new:

"Jeff...Come up here jeff! I need to take a moment. Everyone, you should congratulate Jeff. You used to be a lot bigger...How much weight have you lost?"

Jeff was a little shy. "About Sixty Pounds." He was proud, though.

"THis is an accomplishment!" the Teacher praised him. "This is a big deal! I had to take some time and give you kudos."

At that time, I was in sore need of some weight loss myself. I was amazed at the big deal made over this guy. 60 pounds, that is an accomplishment.

How much time do we spend thinking about losing weight? here in america, I think it is always on our minds. The American Dream. Just to lose that 10..15...50...150 pounds we need to lose.

My older brother Mark has been on a diet. He's inspiring. I don't know how much weight he's lost exactly, but he came down from looking sort of substantial to looking how I always remember him.

He'd always been fairly slim. I think it was because he had been a perpetual student for so long. One of his remarkable achievements was living off a 25 pound bag of dried pinto beans for a year.

He'd been given the bag from my oldest brother. Like a great number of people, Bryan had been attracted to foodstores. For emergencies...the end of the world that was supposed to happen on y2k, or some natural disaster or the tribulation that comes right before the second coming of Christ...You have to be prepared!

Except he also had to move. And all those food stores didn't fit neatly into the Uhaul. Which is how Mark got the sack, and was able to afford the fulfillment of another american dream: a college education.

My brother Bryan is not alone in his gut need for self-sufficiency. All those bags of beans...where they really belong is in a cabin in the woods, you know?

Chris took me to see Hearst Castle this friday. As I was driving with Chris up the highway one, through all these lovely remote places, I was seized with a desire for a cabin in the woods.

"Chris, wouldn't you like a little cabin somewhere? A getaway sort of place?"

"Like at Whitney Portal?"

He and I like hiking in mountainey places. So we dreamed a bit.

"Wouldn't you like to build a log cabin? If we bought a piece of land without any building on it, it would be cheap!"

"What about electricity?"

"Psh! We dont' need electricity! We can get a generator! Solar power!"

He kept driving. I thought about all the things we can get away without.

"Except we HAVE to have water. That's important." I knew someone who built a whole gorgeous house on a patch of land that didn't have a well. Water is key. "Maybe we should get it on a lake, or a river or something."

That's another American Dream. Your own land. Self-suffieciently. The shotgun and the "NO TRESPASSING" sign.

Well, maybe not the sign. I would like a cozy place where people would not be easily able to find it. Needley trees cushioning the space around small walls.

Mark, newly skinny, was telling us more about his self-evaluations. He was working the Color your Parachute book. He was trying to find the right sort of career for his talents.

Another dream-the career dream. Chris is an entrepenuer. Just enough to make me freak out. Work for the man? Get a pension? Not for my man.

I am nervous to be self-sufficient in that way. But Chris makes it happen. God bless him. His American Dream is his own business.

Folks at work here are constantly making pools for Lotto. Buy 100 dollars worth of tickets and split it if any of them win.

I ask them, "What would you do if you won?"

They seldom get past the first month...A big party, a big trip.

But what then? Life is long...How do you fill the hours without a dream? And if you make your dream come true too soon, where are you?

Mostly, they say, "If I won, you wouldn't see me around HERE anymore."

I remember there were people who won the dot com lottery. 20 something millionaires. And they showed up to work. What else would they do with their time? They liked their jobs. Some of them, anyway...

Hmm...I wonder. I know for sure what I would do with a lottery windfall. Go back to school. But you know, that might only be the first few years. What would the dream be then?

William Hearst had the windfall. Well, theoretically, he worked very hard for it. He had a lot of businesses. But he had all the money anyone would want.

He spend his free time shopping. And throwing parties.

The American Dream. Is that what we're about?

*cough* UGH

i am unwell. I have a cold, and I am weak as a kitten.

But I'm at work. I'm bored with being home.

I don't have that much to say, but I know i've neglected my readers a lot lately.

Not only was I sick this week, but I was low on interesting books. I'm in the middle of Brothers Karamazov, Vanity Fair, and The Saga of the Vatnsdal people.

All of which are pretty weighty. The saga is actually the lightest reading, which is why I took it up, even though I was in the middle of the two others.

The Vatnsdal people are actually some founders of iceland, and the saga is part of a kick-butt book called Sagas of the Icelanders.

I read Egil's Saga and became a convert. What a guy!

So, there were several more sagas in the book I hadn't gotten to yet.

Someday, I really will go there, Iceland impresses me. A major part of my identity is being a stubborn, get-out-of-my-way-and-don't-tell-me-what-to-do pale-skinned Northerner.

Which is exactly what these Icelandic peopple are! So I dig their stories. Chris, that love of my life and fellow adventurer, bought me the book. I might not have bought it for myself, but the rightness of the gift shows that sometimes he knows me better than I know myself.

But the Vatnsdal people are not quite as cool as Egil was. They seem more like local heroes than cosmic ones...Which is still okay, but...Not the exact right spot I was hoping to hit with my reading this weekend.

The reason I started to read Brothers Karamazov was because of my love of Russian Novels. One of the great things about them is they take so long to read. It's like living an entire life in a novel.

But they also have a great effect of helping you sleep. You read a couple pages, and bam, you're asleep.

HIGHLY recommended for insomniacs. If you read carefully, you can enter into the Moscovsky countryside and forget all the problems of the 21st century that keep you awake.

Anyway, I was going on trips that required me to conquer time zones and still get a good night's sleep. Dostoevsky helped with that.

And Vanity Fair...Well...They were starting to annoy me...Selfish greedy judgemental victorians.

I will get back to finishing Thackeray, but...Well...We needs some sensationalism, like the Brontes or Dickens...Can't he drum up a ghost or a spontaneous combustion or an excaped prisoner to move the story along?

I've misplaced the story I wanted to read...The Autobiography of my Mother by Jamaica Kinkaid. That one looks good. Light enough but interesting.

Anyway, I ended up renting movies. I wanted to see Finding Nemo or Ice Age or some cartoon I hadn't seen yet.

Chris was NOT feeling like a cartoon. He got Matrix Revolutions, which actually seemed like a good one. I got Nemo and Johnny English.

Love Rowan Atkinson.

Turned out the Matrix was the best of the lot. Even though I was hard put to stay away through the battle scenes...It was a lot for my sick senses to take in. It took itself too seriously, but at least it was entertaining. I was glad to see Trinity die, because I never believed that they loved each other that much anyway. But it was engaging.

Finding Nemo was such a disappointment. I have no idea why everyone was raving about it! Okay, maybe if your daddy left you, you would find it irresistably charming that a fish daddy worked so hard to find his son.

But there was no bad guy! The only bad guy was the distance between them...Not much drama there. And the "transformation" of the major characters Nemo and his dad was so insipid...Nothing like the better disney cartoons.

Johnny English was moderately funny...But I've decided that Atkinson is best in a shorter half-hour format. Mr. Bean left me purple with laughter when he visited the church. And Black Adder never fails to keep my smiling, but his movies are just a bit too long for extended silliness...

Okay, I guess that's enough. I hope I will get better soon.

Take care of yourselves!

Then and Now

There's a new movie coming out, Vanity Fair, based on the book. It inspired me to read the book, which I started long ago and didn't quite finish.

One of the things that is so interesting about Victorian novels, and which makes them so enduring for today's readers is the struggle for POSITION. These girls who are trying to marry a man with money, so blatantly struggling to bag a husband with 5 thousand a year, or 80 thousand a year, or with a hundred a year and a title, they are struggling so hard to attain status in their "society."

The victorian era was all about the rise of the middle class. The Middle class, the newly rich capitalists, rich off trade and business rather than inherited estates were struggling in their world to be what they felt they had a right to be. They wanted into the higher eschelons of "society" and it was a constant struggle to fit in.

The Victorian prudery and extreme care for the chastity and reputation of the ladies was a huge part of that. The lower classes were the only ones that were supposed to engage in imorality. Or, I should say, the lower class WOMEN were the only ones supposed to engage in immorality.

A new standard for women had been introduced, that the unmarried women had to be pure as the driven snow or she could be rejected by that man of X thousand a year.

Why? Because women did not have earning power. They did not have economic rights to the same degree as men did, so their earning power was their marriageability, for the most part.

But that's really a side note.

What struck me in this novel was again, as I have seen so many times in other novels, was the the focus on CREDIT. Apparently, a young man of nice clothes could ring up bills and bills and bills and no one thought anything of it.

This is so completely contemporary that it makes me wonder.

We've got all kinds of new formality in place, that allows a much more egalitarian debt system. You don't have to "cut a fine figure" as those novelists say. You just have to fill out a mean form.

Bill collectors coming after you? Like they did to Captain Crawley and Rebecca (the Heros of my novel)? Rebecca was praised for her ability to persuade them away.

The 21st century way of dealing with it was to consolidate the debt, transfer some funds and get back on the road.

Here's the next snapshot in my train of thought:

I saw another ad for a different movie. This one is called "The Corporation"

It's a documentary. I really want to see it.

I've previously complained about my life in elevators. That's one way I describe the life of a corporate corpse. But I also admit that it can be exciting to work in a large structure.

I get to point at my corporate logo, and the corporate logo on the many tall buildings and in the marble lobbies with the huge expensive flower arrangments and say, "I am a part of this. This is the glory I contribute to."

And I get to build a little home from the blue paychecks.

Do you remember the story of Babel? The tower of babel? They wanted to build a tower to the heavens. They said, 'We don't need God anymore! We will climb to heaven ourselves!"

And God looked down from heaven to the people he had created and said, 'oh shit! They can do it, too!" okay, he actually said, ""If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them."

Then he made all the humans who were working together on this tower speak different languages from one another. Suddenly, they couldn't work together any more. The tower faltered, and was abandoned.

What's happened since then? A couple more towers have sprung up. A few more very tall buildings have come into existence. Is this a deferred dream we are realizing or a nightmare once averted and now awakened?

The documentary about Corporations seems to be showing how corporations are bad, and how insidious they are to our culture. Granted, take everything I say with a grain of salt because I haven't seen the movie.

BUT, i've seen some other things. I've heard the cries for "back to the land!"

You know that commercial where the alternative-hippie-looking kids are hitchiking and talking about majoring in ceramics? But they they see a cool SUV and decide to minor in ceramics so they can afford this shiny car?

THAT"S what I'm talking about. Yes, we know about our desire to be close to the land and the rhythms of the earth. To have our hands in up to the elbows in the act of creation and the practicing of our art.

And we..the american culture...still want the SUV. Which is it?

I wonder. Which half of that equation is the most hypocritical? The pat answer is the side that wants the SUV. I'm not so sure.

I am not in love with corporations. But let us assess.

Did you know that during the victorian period, that marvelous rising of the middle class, there was a huge "back to the earth" movement too? Back to nature?

Only then it was THEIR version of nostalgia. It was for peasant hood (Carlyle is who I am thinking of). 'Go back to being a peasant! You wil wake with the sun and grow your own food, and live life in the ebb of the earth's seasonal pageantry! Give up this pursuit of life in the city and ...

CAPITALISM

oh yeah...capitalism...That famous economic tome"Das Kapital" by Karl Marx is from the Victorian age. The Communist manifesto came out of that time too. Remember?

...Communism vs. Capitalism...

The words are still used today. Even though communism is widely described as dead, and capitalism has changed so much that Marx's theories no longer apply.

What are we up to? We want all the good things, we want all we can get. Then as now. Vanity Fair was the description of London society. Couldn't it just as well be a description of New York society? Or Beverly Hills?

We have built some pretty big towers. And if we didn't want them, why did we bother?

What it all a big misunderstanding? Did we really want to live close to the ground, but the architect looked at the plans sideways? Did we have a meeting and someone scrawled the minutes so they build a 105 stories instead of 105 foot garden?

Maybe we don't recognize this world because after the vision came the revisions.

Did we all get caught in the close at hand and forget the future results? Did our parents and grandparents look only at that weekly paycheck and not know what would happen when all their toil piled up into accomplishments?

I can't believe that we didn't know. I think many many of us learned to put aside our different ways of talking and worked together very very hard to get the world that we live in now.

But this final version, this present version of life2004 (brought to you by Microsoft~!) or Reality or however you want to see it contains ALL.
The conversions, reversions, subversions and perversions are all a part of the final version.

This version keeps all that. no pebble turns without reshaping the universe.

Maybe we are amazed at our small selves affecting so much change.

The monuments we've constructed changed the warp of gravity. We've altered the universe slightly and our environment mightily. We are what we have worked diligently to become.

And that bring it all back to Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy..."Are you sure you asked the right question?"

Are we sure we worked toward the right goal?

Let us deal with what is here and now. You cannot begin your journey in a different place than the one you are in.

'Do you work outside the home?"

That's what the guy in the shuttle to the airport asked me. It was sort of stunning. He OBVIOUSLY worked outside the home, because he was there in his briefcase, starched white shirt and tie.

And I was there in my corporate casual, with my laptop bag embroidered with the corporate logo.

When he asked me that question, a big ol' whiff of Promise Keepers came out of his mouth. Now, I realize that SOME women, those that do work inside the home with children and things, might find it consoling to hear that question. They would appreciate that he did not assume that the only work that counts is the kind that you have to drive to.

But to me, it sounded a lot like "You should be at home, but you're not. So why are you here? Account for yourself."

In support of this impression, as soon as I told him I managed the conferencing services for a global company he lost interest in talking to me and began to call people on his cell phone.

Now, since his expectations of females seemed to be the barefoot-and-pregnant variety, he may have found a reason not to talk to this inferior human (me!) anyway.

But the other guys in the shuttle were quite interesting and talkative.

I still feel the slight from Mr. "Traditional Roles"

I personally have learned not to assume that people work outside the home. But it has nothing to do with gender. Most of the people I know who work at home do so because they have found a way of generating income in their own home. I SO wish I could do that too.

At the same time, I have respect for mothers (and fathers) who work on family and home things without generating income. They have found a way to team with their partners and keep their lives in balance with what they think is most important.

But I don't ask that condescending 80's question. I say, "What do you do with your time?"

A radio host, from the show "What do you know?' asks "what do you do in life?" That's a good one too.

Come on now, dude! Try not to let your stereotypes spill out all ugly like that.

more household chores

I've been home rather seldom for the last two months. I went to New York and DC at the beginning of April. THen I came back for a week and then went on vacation to Seattle and Canada. I came back, and four days later flew to New York AGAIN.

I got to be home for almost two weeks before I flew to Denver. I was in Denver for Four days and then I came back. BACK.

I have no plans on the calendar for travel. Thank God. I was forgetting what it was like to be home.

Because I've been needing to complete all these projects. I started to re-caulk my bathtub. My other sink needs a washer replaced because it leaks. I have half painted my office. I have mostly scraped my office ceiling.

And I've started re-finishing the cupboards in the kitchen.

Walking around often feels like a construction zone. I want to COMPLETE some of these tasks.

finally, I was able to recaulk the bathtub this weekend. THat seemed most critical since a lot can be ruined by improperly sealing a bathtub. Now I just have to wait until monday before I can use it.

THEN I bought a lovely lightest blue green to paint the office. The goal was to find a cactus green...The kind of blue-silver-green that cactuses can be. I fear, however, that as time goes by I will instead think of it as toothpaste.

ButI painted the whole office! Ugh! It was tiring and I was EXHAUSTED afterwards. I took three naps and I think I may take another one.

It's hard to paint a room thoroughly. I missed a couple spots where the paint is not quite thick enough. I'm going to wait until it's dark so i can see the contrast better, then I'll mark all the places that need a little touch up. I'll finish in the morning. I have BARELY enough paint (I hope) to finish.

As I was painting I listed to an old nostalgic (for me) CD. It is from when I was 18, and it makes me remember how frustrated and hopeful all of us were right then. Remember Nirvana? Dude had to off himself; I guess he was more frustrated than hopeful.

This one was P.M. Dawn's debut album. It was full of abstract spiritualism and philosophical musings. It made me think a lot about what I'm doing. I hope a lot. I am frustrated a lot because of my hopefulness.

Every day I come up with a hundred and one ideas of how to make the world better. Then I come up with one hundred and two ideas of why it won't work because people won't let it.

Except I managed to caulk my tub and paint my bedroom. My grand visions are frustrated by the smallness of those world improvements. And yet they are quite real and true.

Those two things I did by myself. It seems to me that larger improvements take cooperation from other people. And I have so much trouble getting cooperation.

I admire the large buildings that I work in and the people who have created these monuments. And yet...I work in those monuments. I work ON those monuments, in the capacity of assisting communications.

I love that I assist communications all over the world. I am proud, because communication is a true tool for making the world a better place. But for the very reason that I assist with communications, i know how poorly it is done.

It's sad and frustrating...I remember how hopeful and stupid I was when I was 18. I know a little bit more now, but I also realize that the amount of my knowing in the face of what needs to be known is about as pitiful as the impact of my painting and caulking in the face of all the things that need fixing in the world.

Yes, it is good that I have learned things. It is good that I caulked my bathtub. I guess it's the little things that add up. That's what I have to tell myself.

No USAToday after all

Looks like I got the interview but not the mention in USAtoday.

Oh well. At least I had a nice chat with the book reviewer. Maybe I'll chat with her again.

So don't rush out to buy it, if you were going to. I'm not in it after all.

Tomorrow's USA Today

I'm gonna be quoted in USAToday tomorrow.

YIKES!

For a cool thing, too. Apparently the book reviewer, Jacqueline Blais, decided to do a review of the 20th anniversary edition of The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

She found MY review of that book. And she liked it. So we had a lovely phone conversation. She is a very nice woman!

AND she is going to quote from me in the paper.

I'm stunned. It absolutely MADE my day.

pretty

The jacarandas are in bloom.

I like the name jacaranda, but the tree is even prettier. Blue puffs of prettiness.

I have a lot of them near my house.

I'm glad they are in bloom because the pink puffs of rhododendron bushes have gone back to green.

it's kind of a rainbow progression of spring.

I wonder if Summer here has as many flowers as spring. I suspect not. We'll see. I will try to pay attention this time.

cocktail of life

right now, it's amazing, how great life is. I don't know why, but all the pieces are fitting. I've got so many pans in the fire, but things are working.

I spent a week in Manhattan, pretty much on times square. I was working 12-14 hours every day. Then I would stagger out to find something to eat and write a little bit.

Every day I felt grateful. I felt like I was blessed. I am in LOVE with the man I"m with, and he's in love with me. I'm working hard at work, which is actually a good thing. I can't stand not to have a challenge. I have some good friends who are great to me. My creativity is very high right now, my writing is pouring out. My home is so comfortable, but I'm working on a bunch of improvement projects there too.

How great is this? Why all of a sudden? Maybe it's spring. I hope this feeling stays. It feels like a good balance...Like riding a bike fast on a flat stretch. Maybe it's what it feels like to fly.

Happy Sunday, everyone!

Central Park in Spring

In the unrelenting asphalt and dressed stone of Manhattan, Central Park in spring appears as an ethereal Eden.

Looking at the old trees with thick, far-reaching branches, I think about the natural tress that were here before the conquering of New Amsterdam. Fitzgerald wrote about that, in Great Gatsby he talks about the green breast of untouched land that was here before the dutch landed. When the Dutch arrived, the came "face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder. "

Perhaps the ambitious conquerers in this great city come here to remember how to wonder.

New York City

I just got back from my trip to Canada, not long ago. I barely finishe unpacking, and now I'm called off again to New York city.

I went to Canada to see my Aunt Lola. Lola is my dad's oldest sister, oldest of three. She told me, "I went to New York City once. For one day...It was a long time ago."
"It's probably not that different. It's an old city."
"Well, they didn't have they Twin Towers when I went."
"THey don't have them now either! It's exactly the same!...But there's a big hole, so maybe not."

My three aunts, Lola, Pat and Zelpha, AND my dad are having a reunion of sorts right now. They all decided to go see Zelpha, the youngest sister, in New Mexico.

Lola is a nurse, and Pat is a nurse-an R.N., and Zelpha was a stewardess. Zelpha told me that she became a stewardess because she wanted to travel and see New York City. She did, for sure.

I guess it's New York where she met Uncle Bill. She told some good stories about it, just how it seemed to her as a small town girl.

So I'm going to New York again. This will be the third time I've been. All for work reasons, so it's a little different. I'd love to go and live there for a while. I can tell it would be a very inspiring place to be.

One of the things I like about it is that you are powered by your own feet. I have a strong attachment to walking. MY feet can get me places, but machines are suspect.

Well, maybe this trip I'll get to look around between all the work requirements. We'll see.

Oh Canada!

I'm on vacation, which is lovely. A whole week, 5 working days, our of my usual schedule to get away and see new things.

I love seeing new things. It's easier to see new things when you are far away from home. And I like to see new and DIFFERENT things, things that make me think different thoughts. It is not so different to see a new McDonald's, for example. It may be new, but it's not that different from the usual McDonald's near my home.

I like to visit other countries, because they give opportunity to see different things. Chris has an incomprehensible attachment to America. Maybe it's because he never wants to be too far away from a Coke supply.

HIS preferred vacation is to see Nature, some kind of natural phenomena or vista-that makes him happy.

Nature is okay, but I like to have a lot of people around me.

This trip was about seeing a North American rain forest. The only one is found near Seattle. Rain forests are cool, I was excited to see it, but it sounded like an excessive amount of Nature to me. Seattle is near Canada, so I compromised, and said it would be a successful vacation if I got to see a foreign country, and Canada would do in a pinch.

Also, my Aunt Lola lives in Canada, on Vancouver Island. We could go see her!

After a little more thought, I decided we should see more of Canada, and bop over to Vancouver.

Vancouver is where I am right now. It's a beautiful city!

The rain forest was amazing, Vancouver Island and Victoria was pretty nice.

We giggled a lot about Victoria. "I wonder if they will advertise places as being 'Victoria's best kept Secret'?"

I was totally reduced when I saw an advertisement with a lovely woman in a bubble bath drinking champagne. It was for a motel: "Making Victoria Affordable"

But double entendres aside, the ferry was fun, and my Aunt Lola was so nice and hospitable. I was so glad I went, even though it was out of my way. We talked about family things, and she gave me a lot to think about.

And then Vancouver.

There is a Sun Run today in Vancouver. 50K people running 10K. Fifty thousand people is a lot. They will definitely clog up the streets.

But it's a beautiful day for the run. Man! Sun is shining, but it's a little brisk out there.

I'm not sure what we're going to do today, I fell asleep before Chris figured out how to avoid the crowds. He hates crowds.

Funny. I love crowds, but I grew up with none. He grew up with all kinds of people, and can't stand congestion.

You just never know.

I've already started to be sad, because tomorrow the vacation ends. I'm always sad when a vacation ends.

But I miss my cat, and I am full of plans for things to do when I get back.

The days are longer. We will have so much we can do with the daylight.

April is here

April has arrived.

Yesterday was april fool's day. I wish I knew something about how April Fool's day became foolish. But I don't.

I am pushing onto my 12th day straight of working. All 12 days were GRUELING. ALL of them.

The first 5 days of the 12 were spend at home in Los Angeles. But man oh man. Hard hard days of work. On wednesday (or was it thursday?) I had so many fires to put out that I spent 12 hours rushing from one thing to the next. On the way home, my skull felt like I had a drill going through it directly above my right eye.

I was thinking of the movie "pi" as I drove home...It is not unusual for that side of my head to ache. I call it my brain tumor. But the reality is, I cracked open my skull in a car accident when I was a kid. That part of my head is the seam it healed on. And it aches sometimes.

But this was substantially worse than ever before. I wondered why it was so bad? Maybe I was hungry...When did I last eat, anyway?

I'd grabbed leftover catering in different rooms...A bagel here, a danish there. But I hadn't stopped to eat any real food all day!

No wonder.

But then on Saturday, at 4:30 a.m. my alarm went off so that I could drive myself to LAX. Had to get to New York City.

Had a whole mess of work and a whole mine field of political pitfalls to avoid. People to please and appease.

Managed that, only set a few mines off. Well, I guess I'm entitled to one or two mistakes. As long as their are far enough between.

Then I went to the next stop, Washington D.C. This is the original war zone. Mine field, nothing. Dodge the live fire. "Friendly" fire.

But as my brother says, I'm nuetral like Switzerland. Smile and commit to nothing, that's all I say.

But in addition to dodging political entaglements, I had to actually get some work done. Yes. I stayed here till nine p.m. last night. Still wasnt' done.

I was staying 4 blocks away, and was looking forward to the walk. But no.

"I'll call a car, " the receptionist said. "It's standard procedure. If you are from out of town, you don't know what streets to cross to the other side."

Imagine. Danger and harm does not cross the street. Amazing. Safe on the proper side, but you don't know which side.

Danger lurks everywhere, but it won't get you unless you walk within easy reach.

Maybe those who wish you harm are lazy.

So...last night I ate frog legs for dinner, which was marvelous. And I fell asleep at 11. Woke up this morning at 4:30

Worried about the last day in dangerous territory. Because this is that last last day. Today, I return to the my home, my cat, and the one person who makes sure I sleep very very well.

I have only a few more hours.

Social circles

This weekend was really busy. I had a birthday party on Saturday night, but that afternoon I had to go shopping for a function later in the month.

Then I had my writing group, which met on Sunday, and a coffee shop thing in the evening.

Busy busy.

Which is QUITE unusual for me. I have been here a year and a half, a littl more even, and I have been having trouble making friends. THis is not new. I am understanding the rhythm of friend-making after a move.

You know, friends are a tricky business. I think army brats, the ones that have to move every two to four years understand this. When you go to a new place, you have to find a way to connect with the people there.

Data, on Next Generation Star Trek, once had a line that said something to the effect that Frienship had much more to do with just being around each other than emotion.

I think there is a lot of truth to that. And I think that sometimes people you spend a lot of time with, such as co-workers or bar friends, can feel like friends when in actuality, they are merely co-existing in the same space.

A friend is someone who will make an effort to come see you or have you see them. Because they want to. That means taking time to talk on the phone or go do an activity or something. Something that is personally for you.

That personally bit is the part I've been missing. I haven't done very many one-on-one things since I've been here. Very, very few.

I have book club, I have writing group, I have movie club. I have church, I have open mic night at the coffee shop. I have work, and I have my sweet boyfriend.

I am actually very busy and very seldom completely alone. And yet...I haven't had the personal time with a friend very often.

It's a tough leap, that from being a member of a group to being an individual personal friend. How do you really manage it? How do you know it's okay to make a move.

I find it much more difficult than a date. Maybe I'm pretty good at dating. But just getting someone to go out and play...

I admit, I'm kind of shy. If someone is not willing to email me, it's hard. Phones are a little scary to me. I don't know exactly why. I get shy about calling someone on the phone.

So that's probably a handicap on my part.

And then, I get very tired after work. I just want to sleep. So that makes me not want to get up and do things with friends that I feel nervous about calling.

But to make friends with someone, you have to be around them a certain amount of time. You have to make contact, and keep up the contact for a period of time so that you get to know each other's lives. If you don't do that, it falls flat.

It's a little complicated.

100 pages

So...I've been pulling back from writing so much on my blog because I've been trying to work on a larger project. I want to write a whole book. I know what I want it to be about, too. It will be the story of how I went to Russia with my family in 92-93 to be a missionary school-teacher.

I personally think it's a great story, one that a lot of people will be interested in. But I've never written anything so ambitious. Or so LONG.

I had been figuring that it would need to be 650 pages. That's 650 courier font, double spaced pages.

But I just finished reading a book that's 361 pages. That's printed in the book.

I wondered how that would translate into my format. So I averaged out the number of words on the page. About 481.

That means the entire book had 173.641 words in it. Approximately.

I figured I had 216 words to a page. That means, if I had 650 pages, I would have 140,400 words.

That's a bit shy.

I would have to write 800 pages to get close to the length of the book I just read.

That's very daunting.

It makes the fact that I will hit 100 pages today a somewhat hollow celebration.

..yay...

only 700 pages to go....

gulp

Life is Short..Life is Long

My friend Kisa has this to say about living life to the fullest. I definitely give her credit for living by this credo.

But I'd also like to posit the idea that life is long. Yes, life is short, and grab the moments.

But life is also very long, so don't forget the long things too. Long friendships, even long love relationships (marriage?). Living for a long time in one home, one that you spend a long time making into a beautiful for yourself to live in.

After a while, all the fleeting moments can add up to one long evening at home wishing for something else.

So yes, live like it's your last moment, and cherish each moment you are given.
But many things that are worth doing take more than a moment to do. They take consistent effort. A "body of work" for an artist takes a lifetime to build up. It takes commitment and consistency to do a large project.

If you don't embrace that life is long, you can overlook the big things that might be worth doing.

working hard

So, I've had this condo for a little while. I bought it last august, and being a home-owner has allowed me to contemplate things that I could not when I rented.

I said contemplate, not do. I COULD do them, but I pretty much haven't yet. My home improvement have consisted of painting one wall. That turned out to be a failure.

Except lately, I have decided to attack the kitched cabinets. The cabinets are what I like least about my home. They are a black walnut color, very very dark. I like wood tones to be more reddish, and lighter. Not too light, but not a black hole.

So, after I had run out of other things I felt like doing, I unscrewed one cabinet door, and looked at it. I bought some stripper and stripped the stain off it. The wood underneath looked pretty good.

Since I had the stripper now, I took off two more cabinet doors. I've been working on stripping them, too. It is not an effortless task, stripping the stain off wood. But I've been at it.

HOWEVER, the proof is in the finished product. I bought some stain. I wanted a reddish color, so I bought a reddish stain. I got a good hardy one, that would stand up to the abuse a kitchen recieves.

According to the direction, I sanded it, I washed it and I let it dry. But as it was drying, it occured to me that I had a problem.

How could I paint this cabinet door without leaning it against something? And if I leaned it against something, it would mess up the wet finish.

There are two little square cut-outs on the side of the cabinet. I realized that PROFESSIONAL cabinet makers probably use those holes in a special device that suspends the door in the air to dry.

I did not have a professional cabinet making device. I had to improvise.

I cut two clothes hangers and pushed them into the holes. THen I suspended it between two chairs. Voila! the door is suspended.

I let it finish drying, and with great excitement and trepidation, I applied the stain.

It looked fantastic. A lovely rich, but not too dark, red color emerged.

Hooray!

I left it to dry and went to see Chris. I was telling him all about it, and then I said, "You know, this really is going to be a lot of work. Maybe this is an example of my usual M.O., figuring out the hardest possible way to do something. Maybe it would be easier to pay someone to do this for me."

Chris looked it up. "It says here in the expo catalog, that they will do your cabinets for $267 a linear foot."

Holy crap! He looked further. "THis kind is $543 a linear foot"

Well. "I guess it's not such a bad thing to do this work myself."

We both agreed that Expo is not the cheapest way to redo your cabinets, thought. But as Chris said, "You pick the evidence that suits your argument."

I'm fine with that. The cabinet really does look beautiful.

Storytelling

I went to see a storyteller at the library yesterday. He's a storyteller, and he makes a living at it. That little fact to me is far more riveting than any of the stories he told.

Which is not to say that his stories were not riveting. But the idea of getting paid to tell stories stretches the world of the possible for me.

Maybe I lack faith. I feel like I have been dangling my feet off the high dive for a long time. I want to take the leap off, to trust the my talents as a writer, as a creative person, will be the water to catch me.

But I really believe that jumping off will kill me. I believe that if I let go of the stable, traditional job, I will be homeless and hungry.

So I sit, with my feet dangling over the edge, looking at the water below. FAR below. Sometimes, I see people run past me and leap off the high dive. They plunge into the water and are fine. But I can't believe that the water would be there for me.

Like last night. Joel ben Izzy, professional storyteller, jumping off the high dive every day. Doing cannonballs, jackknives, perfect tens. Makes me drool with envy.

I wonder if my water might be there after all.

Feeling good!

Hey, it's good to feel good.

I've been sick, as my incomplete previous blog entry told. But it's been taking a long time to get better. But this weekend I feel like I turned a corner.

I had labrynthitis. Cool sounding disease, huh?

Meant that I had to re-learn my sense of balance. That, in combination with the general malaise of recovering from a serious illness, made me very weak and SLOW.

But I'm able to move around now. I feel really good! My optimism is getting a little higher and higher.

All during my recovery, I didn't feel like writing. Well, actually, I did feel like writing, but I thought I really needed to concentrate on RESTING. Sleeping, napping, etc. So I gave up doing a lot of things I would normally do in order to SLEEP.

Chris, who rescued me, told me I needed to rest. I felt I owed it to him, since I feel like he practically saved my life, to listen. I don't always listen.

But I have been listening, and it seems to be paying off. I am looking forward to being my usual ENERGETIC self. Soon. But I can't push it yet.

Quote

"Pride is faith in the idea that God had, when he made us. A proud man is conscious of the idea, and aspires to realize it. He does not strive towards a happiness, or comfort, which may be irrelevant to God's idea of him. His success is the idea of God, successfully carried through, and he is in love with his destiny...Love the pride of God beyond all things, and the pride of your neighbor as your own."
-Isak Dinesen from Out of Africa

hat

Today I am wearing a hat.

If I can't BE fabulous, at least I can look fabulous.

It's taking a frustratingly long time to regain my strength after my illness. But I should not push it.

It is very hard for me not to "push it". I think I was born a pusher.

But, I look fabulous today, in a cute hat and a very cute jacket to match.

February rode in on an ambulance- CONTINUED

sorry everyone...I am having to tell this story in pieces, because I am remarkably weak still.

So I gathered all the strength I had, and propelled myself to the front door, dragging my trashcan behind me. I thought I was going straight down the hallways, but the wall came right at me again. I used all my strength to get to the door and flip out the chain lock.

Then I sat in spinning, sweat-soaking misery until Chris arrived. I was getting cold because I was so wet.

It wasn't very long, but every moment took a lot of concentration. When I heard chris turning the lock I called out, "Watch out, I'm right here."

I didn't want him to hit me with the door. I needed to maitain my sense of space in order not to spin out again.

He stopped entirely. "It's okay," I said. "Just don't hit me with the door."

He came in carefully and leaned down over me. I tried to open my eyes. I really wanted to see his face; but the room started spinning again and i had to shut them again.

"What's wrong?" he asked. He had no idea.

"Everything is spinning! It's spinning and it won't stop. It's making me sick."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Umm..." It was hard for me to think. "I need to see a doctor. I need your help."

"Yes, you need to see a doctor."

I was shaking from cold and sickness at this point. He looked at me and said, "You need to get to bed."

"I have to go to the bathroom." It was true. I had had to go since I first woke up. But it didn't seem possible. At the different stations of the apartment i had ended up in, I had contemplated this situation among the other dilemmas before me. How could I possibly take care of this? While vomiting, it's hard to remain in control of my bodily functions. I contemplated going in my pants, but thought I should save that for a last resort.

Good thing. Chris helped me to the bathroom. He got me on my feet. At first I lurched way over to the side, but he got a firm hold on me, and helped me to the toilet. I pulled my pants down, sat down and vomited into my faithful trash can some more.

There is a lot of vomit in this story. I am sure it is not that much fun to read about but it was less fun to be the protagonist.

You can, in fact, relieve yourself and vomit at the same time. I gave myself fully over to being sick, but the other just sort of took care of itself. Then I breathed for a while. Breathing was a very deliberate activity.

Wiping myself seemed impossible. But I thought about it, and decided that I must. I could move my hand and feet slowly without disturbing the stillness. But my head couldn't be moved. Raising myself up to complete this task took some courage. But in the end I leaned into the can again and simultaneously took care of my needs.

But puling my pants up again was realy beyond. As soon as I could talk, when the sickness subsided, I called for Chris. He helped me to my bed, although I collapsed half in and half out. I was shivering, and he immediately covered my with an extra blanket.

That bed felt so good, but I was cold. Chris was trying to call Kaiser, and was on hold for quite a while. He said I had to get under the blankets in bed, because I had to get warm. He helped push me in.

Even while I was being sick, the bed felt so good I never wanted to move again. The pillow was heaven, the blankets felt so good and warm. Still on hold, Chris stuck a thermometer in my mouth. "that can't be right...."

He took my temp again..."94.7..This must be malfunctioning..."
I said, "I'm cold."

He could see I was shivering.

He finally got through to the doctor. "Baby?" he said. "I've got an appointment for 45 minutes from now. Do you think you can make it if I drive you to the doctor's in my car?"

There was a challenge. I didn't know. This pillow felt very nice."I don't know."

"What should I do baby?"

"I don't know." I thought some more. Maybe..."Go get the car ready, and I will see."

I concentrated very hard. I had made it to the phone because I had to. I'd gotten to the chain lock because i had to. What would this involve? I would simply be sick the whole way. Could I throw up for the 15 mintes it would take to drive there? But what about in the waiting room? Doctors always made you wait. Did they give precedence to vomiting patients? i suspected not. How long would they make me wait?

Oh this pillow felt good.

I envisioned the path to the car. I would have to ride in the elevator. How would I do that? If I had to concentrate so hard on keeping a still room from moving, how would I do in a room that actually was moving?

It seemed unlikely that I would actually be able to do this.

Chris came back. He saw me with my eyes screwed shut, shaking with chills. "I don't think you can make it in the car."

"I think you're right."

"I'm gonna call 911. After all, they did say that I should do that if this was an emergency."

He went into the other room to call 911. I lay there and imagined being magically whisked off to someplace that would make me feel better. I pictured a helicopter, with me being strapped into a bed and swaying at the end of a rope.

Swaying made me start to feel spinny again, so I concentrated on feeling still. No, there would not be a helicopter. There would be an ambulance, and a gurney. They would lift me onto the gurney.

Oooh...Moving. That would be bad. Riding in a car. Maybe they would give me morphine or something. What did they do, anyway?

Just breathe. THink of peace. Peace. Still. Still.

I heard the sirens. "Hear that baby? They are coming for you." Chris was taking good care of me.

They were coming.

February rode in on an ambulance

I've been sick all week. Actually, I've been sick even last week.

I was feeling woozy, and extra tired. The bus ride made me especially ill, and then it seemed to last all day. Friday, I was feeling motion sick all day long. By the time I was ready to go home, I began to think, "something is not right. There is something wrong going on."

I almost asked Chris to pick my up from work. But I hate to do that. Then i almost took a cab home.

Then I thought, "Maybe I'm jsut really hungry."

So I ate something, and that made me feel better enough to take the bus home.

But saturday, I was supposed to go to Palm Springs. I just didn't feel up to it. I felt like lying around and resting.

Sunday, I took myself to the doctor and got a prescription for antibiotics to cure a supposed sinus infection that was messing with my sense of equilibrium, and hence making me feel woozy, motion sick, all the time. I called in sick for Monday.l

But Monday, I dreamed that I had collapsed at the bus stop. I woke, and had to throw up. But while crawling to the toilet, I realized that I had no sense of balance whatsoever and that i was completely sick. The world would NOT stop spinning., The walls reached out and smacked me when I tried to move, because i didn't know how to stay upright, even while crawling.

The sweat poured off me as I retched intot the toilet. I had to do something. This was bad. I needed help. But I couldn't move! How would I get help?

I concentrated as hard as I knew how on believing that te world was not spinning. I closed my eyes and breathed very hard, pressing my head against something solid and immobile. "You are STILL, STILL, you are STILL"

Finally, I could gather my thoughts enough...i needed to get someone to help me. But I couldnn't move at all without vomiting...

I made my plan. I would launch myself back to my bed, where my cordless phone was, and on the way I would grab the trash can to barf into. I would either call Chris or 911.

But I really wanted Chris. I would call Chris. He would help me.

I made it, with my eyes shut to keep the room from spinning. After throwing up for a while, I contemplated how to dial the phone with my eyes shut. I didn't figure out a way, So I had to open them for a few moments.

I got Chris's answering machine, like I knew I would. "Chris! Chris! Help! I need you help!"

He picked up right away. "Murphy!"

"Chris! I need you! Come help me!"

"I'll be right there!"

"okay"

and then I sat there, dripping sweat and vomiting some more. But I was thinking. I had put the chain lock in place. Would chris be able to get in without my help? Is there a way to unlock a chain from the outside?

I decided that i had to go unlock it.

love talk

Chris came by to see me yesterday. I was having a rough day, and he was worried about me.

It wasn't particularly difficult, I had just lost my sense of humor. You HAVE to have a sense of humor over here, or you grind out.

So, he helped me feel better, just by being there. As I was getting sleepy, we had this conversation:

"I have to be up very early in the morning. Tell me something."

"What do you want me to tell you?"

"Sleepy things. Tell me a story."

"I don't know any stories."

"Well, tell me what happened in the world today."

"Let's see....Do you know about Skull and Bones?"

"...other than their literal meaning, I couldn't tell you. What are Skull and Bones?"

"I was listening to the radio today, and this talk show guy was talking about Skull and Bones. They are a secret society at Yale; this guy claimed they controlled everything."

"Oh yeah...I remember hearing about them. They control everything?"

"That's what this guy said..."

"If they control everything, I want to talk with them. There are a few things that need some improvement. How do we get a hold of these people?"

"This guy was claiming that they orchestrated the Kennedy assasination, and the Mars landing."

"We need to find these guys and put them to better use. If there is somebody controlling everything, I say good. Too many things are out of control."

Pause

"Chris..You're going to become that guy, aren't you?"

"what guy?"

"That guy who works from his home and listens to talk radio all day and turns weird."

"I do NOT listen to talk radio all day! I only listen to it in my car."

"WHATever. Next thing you know, you'll be staying up late listening to that one talk guy."

"Oh...Yeah...that guy...But he's not on anymore. You mean Art Bell. They have another guy doing his show now. He only comes on for special occasions."

"See? This is what I'm talking about. You already know all this stuff. You are gonna be that weird extremist right-wing guy."

"I am not. What about you? you listen to NPR all day. Are you gonna be a left-wing extremist."

"NPR is not extremist anything. They are all about the money. Do you know they play different songs depending on how the market is doing?"

"They do?"

"Yeah. If the market is up they play, 'da da dedada'."

"'We're in the money'..."

"Yeah. I don't remember what song they play if it's down. I don't pay attention to stocks."

"Yes, you put your money into your condo."

"Right. But that just shows how NPR is all about the money. Whenever they do bring up some social cause, it's so far away you could never do anything about it, so you don't have to be distracted from worrying about your stocks."

"Well...What's the left-wing equivalent of the talk shows?"

"Pacifica radio. They are the ones who incite the peace marchers."

"oh yeah. They're weird."

"I don't listen to them very often."

-----

I had a very good night's sleep

"Don't pick THOSE flowers!"

I already mentioned my new flower baskets. I love them! It is marvelous to have a living display of pretty flowers right out my window.

When I went to the nursery to pick out these flowers to fill my baskets, I chose out all different kinds of random flowers. I thought I would have some sort of theme, but them I figured, what the heck? I'll jsut pick whatever i like.

As I was happily browsing the flower aisles, I came across these most interesting plants: they had a hairy stem and a hairy bud. They were iclandic poppies.

As soon as I saw them, i flashed back to 4 years old. Back in Alaska, we had all kinds of flowers, wildflowers, everywhere. Of course, I loved to pick them and present them to my mother. She loved it too.

But once, I picked a new kind of flower, a very pretty flower different than any I had seen before. It was growing by the side of the new freeway, and I couldn't resist picking it and showing it my mother.

"Oh! Oh no!" She laughed. "You shouldn't pick those flowers."

"Why not? Isnt' it pretty? Don't you like it?"

"Someone planted that flower. You should leave it tere for everyone to enjoy."

Well, I had never heard of that. Someone planted a flower? Flowers sprung up out of the ground. Why would you plant one? They were everywhere.

It turned out that the new freeway had been planted with Icelandic poppies to beautify it. This was the first landscaping I had ever encountered, and it confused me very much. Flowers were for picking. I couldn't resist picking them, and only afterwards I would remember that THESE flowers were forbidden.

They never actually took off that well, anyway. A very few poppies dotted the banks of the freeway. They were rare enough to cause excitement when one was spotted.

But when I saw those poppies in the flower nursery, I remembered the feel of the hairy stem in my young hand. I had to buy some right away.

I bought the one that didn't have any blooms on it yet. I wanted to watch it unfold and pet the furry blossom pod for a little.

Spell Check

Bill Gates...Or whatever Microserf took care of this...

My windows 98 spell checker tells me the "holy roller" must be capitalized.

Holy Roller

My obscure childhood is recognized by Microsoft, the gatekeeper of language for the 21st Century.

I find that astounding.

pretty flowers

I found some lovely window boxes (well, balcony boxes) for flowers at Big Lots. I'd been looking for a while, because I thought it would be nice for me to have a lot of flowers hanging of my balcony. I discovered that such boxes are mostly expensive, in the 'ridiculous' category.

But Big Lots is never ridiculous about prices. So I found some, and lined them all up. Then I bought some flowers.

It looks very pleasant.

San francisco

I'm in san francisco again. For work. Again.

But I managed to run out and see some friends. Even some friends I didn't expect to see (Hi Jay!).

I am staying in the kind of hotel that I only stay in when someone else is paying for it. The Omni, right off California. It's beautiful. Gorgeous marble, expensive chocolate mint by the bed. I even got complimentary bath salts. Very nice.

The work I had to do here was not easy, unfortunately. A lot of pressure, so I didn't sleep as well as I could have wished. But I finished the hard part yesterday, and I took myself on a walk through the city.

Down to Market street, and to Union Square. I love this city. I love it so much I always cry, or at least feel like crying, when I come here. It is so beautiful. I love the rain here, and the fog here, and the sunshine. And when all three happen at once, which they do sometimes, I can't stop looking at the sky.

I walked along, looking at all the amazing buildings, and the people dressed in black. I passed all kinds of shops, Macy's and Loehman's and the Gap. I was not interested in seeing things that are made in hundreds. Those pants and sweaters can be seen all over the place, but the building that holds them can't.

Then again, the Virgin Megastore pulled me in. They were playing some music. I forgot to pack CDs. I went inside to see if they had different kinds of music for sale than in LA. I had barely started to move around before A huge crowd of people started clapping. I hadn't noticed the stage.

"...INTRODUCING EPIC RECORDING ARTISTS...PHANTOM PLANET!"

hhaaaahhhh

The crowd went wild. And the drummer kicked in.

A really awesome little punk band, I have to say. They looked very young, which probably means I am getting older. But I haven't heard that kind of tight energy in a while. I may buy the album.

After a little bit of headbanging, I moved on into the street again and I found Union Square. A true delight for the eye. I couldn't stop looking at all the buildings and signs and the big interesting lines of the palm trees. I walked up onto the main square, and a new salsa rhythm was coming from the cafe. I slinked my hips across the top, thinking that I love cities because you can dance to all the beats.

But I was hungry. At Kearny and somthing...Stockton? I found an alley of restaurants. They looked so inviting! Christmas lights were strung over the top, making an airy ceiling over the white tablecloth seats.

There were four of them. I picked the one that looked the tastiest. Tiramisv it was called. The one next door, called "plouf" had a very flirty waiter trying to get me to come in. He was young and cute, but the menu wasn't what I wanted right then.

I was tired and hungry, so it was very welcome to sit down. The meal was marvelous, especially the dessert. Mmm..Profiteroles with hot chocolate and butterscotch dipping sauces.

I finished it all off very pleasantly and walked home slowly. My belly was very full after my hard day. I thought about how my life is now filled with elevators, and I wondered if that is the sort of thing an artist should be worried about.

Perhaps artists should avoid places where people live and work stacked up on each other. Perhaps artists should not go for slow rides among those who follow dress codes and wearing routines.

Perhaps.

But then again, I like the places that elevators can lead to, and I like the energy that bounces off the tall walls and gives these cities that j'ne sais quoi that makes me want to cry when I see it.

My expectations did not include elevators. But expectations change. Maybe one day I will leave elevators behind for narrow roads and small, hidden buildings.

Creativity

More creativity this new year! Yes yes!

I got the use of a sewing machine, and it sure it nice. I went to the fabric store and bought a pattern, and some fabric, and some thread. Then I had to go back and get some "notions". Sewing notions, isn't that a romantic name?

It means buttons and bobbins and needles and Mrs. Wrights twill tape, etc.

So I went back and got some notions.

I used to sew a lot, back when I had more time than ways to use it. I sewed satin pajamas, and formal dresses and less formal dresses and flowing rayon pants and circle skirts with lace and swimming suits and anything.

But I haven't sewn in a long time. I bought the pattern, very thankful that it was on sale. I think that patterns must always be on sale somewhere. The list price is phenomenally high! Holy moley!

But this one was on sale, and it had darts. Darts are officially tricky.

I went to buy the fabric, and there were two fabrics that looked the same, one was a whitish natural color and one was a beigish natural color. But the beige one I liked better, and I couldn't tell it it was on sale on not. The white one was on sale. I hoped it was on sale, so I brought it to the cutting table to ask.

Turns out the beigey one was NOT on sale, because it was linen. Oh. Better not take it then. So she cut the whitish one, and I was feeling cheapskate's regret about the beigey one. Then she asked, "How much of this?" and I took the bait. Now I have both. I am not sure what I'm going to do with the Whitish one.

I cut the skirt, but I forgot what half of those little marks meant. I forgot to mark the darts and things. But I got it figured out.

Look me about a week, but a finished a very sweet little skirt. It's not perfect, but I don't have someone coming up to me with a microscope, so it will do. I am very proud to wear it.

I feel very creative. It's fun to sew things again!

Lessons for a new homeowner

So I've been in my new condo for a while. I seem to be getting a some pressure from a few sources to do some decorating. I really have a lot of ideas, but it has been hard to take the first step.

Yesterday, I had some free time and I decided to bite the bullet and finally paint the wall.

I had thought long and hard, and determined on a very nice color, "Dusty Apricot" as the perfect shade to bring all the elements together. I had gone down to Home Depot and asked them to mix up a small bucket, just a quart, so that I could try it out and see. I asked the guy if I could come back and get another can and whether it would be exactly the same color. He said, yes yes, exactly the same color. "THe formula is right there on the label. It's no problem to mix you another can."

They mixed it, and as is apparently their custom, placed a little dab of it on the lid just to demonstrate the color.

It was not the color on the little swatch card. No. It was not apricot at all. It just looked tan.

I had heard that the colors never quite come out the way you see them on the swatch. But in my disappointment, I did not actually apply the paint for a long time.

But yesterday, I felt inspired. I had part of the day off, and I went to work. I got a little brush, I prepped the wall and I PAINTED. It wasn't too hard, but it was very satisfying. The WHITE walls look horrid now, not at all attractive. I was so pleased with the paint, I painted with a will. There was an AC duct along the wall, I painted that. Then I got down on the flat expanse of the wall, and I ran out of paint. Whoops.

I stopped and looked at the color. No, it wasn't as apricot as I liked, but it was a very pretty cafe au lait sort of color. I really liked it. Mmm. But the wall was only halfway done. I went to the store to get another can. THis time I would get a gallon. so I could do the whole room.

Back with the gallon of paint, ready to go. Opened up the can, and oh my goodness. This was where all the apricot that wasn't in the first can went to. This can of paint was practically the color of a terra cotta pot. Wow. Orange and more orange. There was no way this was going to "blend" in with the first color.

I painted the rest of the wall anyway. It is distinctly two colors. I will put some tape up tomorrow and create a vertical line between the two, that way it will be a straight divide at least.

SO!

Lesson learned:
No, you cannot just run out and get another can of paint.

Also, that paint and color are lovely things. I like them very much and am yet more inspired to continue this painting thing.

The little bit of ceiling that I had scraped free of the popcorn painted very nicely too. I will also be doing the rest of the ceiling. No, it's not perfect and smooth, but it still looks a bazillion times better than the nasty popcorn.

Live and learn.

6.5 they said

SO I just experienced an earthquake in a skyscraper.

It was very weird. I was just sitting there, eating my christmas cookies, and I started feeling very dizzy. I thought, "Have I eaten so much sugar that I am dizzy?"

It went on for a long time, and as I was trying to figure out what was happening, the exclamations of my co-workers peirced my consciousness. "You didn't feel that?"

It dawned on me that that's what people say when there is an earthquake. Why were they talking about earthquakes. OH my GoD! I was feeling an earthquake!

It felt like the whole building was wobbling. OH man. I didn't like the idea of being on the 10th floor of a 26th story building that was wobbling.

And it kept wobbling. At this point a lot of people were jumping up and decided what to do. I jumped over to my friend's cube.

"It felt just like vertigo!"

I said, "I don't like this. This is very scary."

"It's worse at home, trust me."

I thought, What is she talking about? Home would be way better than this! I am in the middle of a wobbling building!

"I've never been scared by an earthquake before" I told her.

It did pass, thank god, and we all rushed to find out how big it was.

6.5, they said.

happy solstice

Hey everyone! It is the winter solstice today. This is the original, uncontested holiday for all the whole earth.

today is the darkest day of the year, and after this, things become brighter.

Do something to honor the day. Notice the changing of seasons, in the world and in yourself. Be grateful for the richness of the earth and the progression of things.

Happy solstice!

The real home made microwave popcorn recipe.

Awhile back, I did some postings about homemade popcorn. I posted them because I often post about any random thing that catches my interest.

Maybe you readers didn't know, I have ways of telling how the traffic on my website gets here. There is a detailed report, most of which is boring. But the report also tracks what kind of search strins people use to find my site.

And consistently, people come here looking for how to make homemade microwave popcorn. I get a lot of hits for that.

My last entry on the matter was not quite accurate, so I wanted to set the record straight.

To Make your OWN microwave popcorn you need:

brown lunchbag
popcorn kernels (whatver cheap kind your local store sells)
stapler with staples

1. Open the bag
2. Cover the bottom of the bag with popcorn. Some kernels may rest on top of each other, just make sure that the entire bottom is covered with corn
3. Fold over the top of the bag and staple it. Yes, the staple is metal, but it won't spark.
4. Place in the microwave on its side
5. Cook for however long your microwave takes to cook pre-bagged popcorn.

NOW! I have used this method on two different microwaves. One was pathetic and had very little power. The corn in that case took 3 and a half minutes to pop, and was very DRY and stale tasting by the time it came out.

My new microwave is more peppy, it's 1000W. It takes one minute and 45 seconds to pop a full bag. The corn is much fresher tasting, probably because the water is still mostly there. The corn itself sometimes leaves moist marks on the bag, from whatever water content the kernels have in them.

For myself, I like butter on the popcorn. So i microwave a little butter and pour it on. When I'm trying to eat light, which is most of the time, I cook a little Brummel&Brown in the 'wave and add some water. THe water gives it more pour power, letting the butter flavor cover more of the corn.

The "I can't believe it's not butter" spray is really good too.

You can re-use the bag too, if you feel especially frugal. As i'm typing right now, it occurs to me that a plastic paper clip might do the trick just as easily as a staple. That would really prolong the life of the bag, and eliminate the need for a new staple every time. Perhaps I will try this and let you all know.

But that's the skinny! It really does work, I've done it consistely for about a year now. It's much cheaper and far eco-friendlier than using all that packaging. Plus, if you are watching calories or sodium, you can be in charge of what goes on the popcorn. I've seen the low-sodium microwave popcorn for sale, it is even MORE expensive.

Comment if you have anything to say.

Theremineuse

In my new house, right after thanksgiving, the oven broke. Since I am a new homeowner, this is my problem. I had to call the repair man and wait at home for him.

He said he'd come wednesday, so I had to miss some work to meet him in the afternoon. Since I was missing work anyway, I thought I would try to get some other home things done.

My piano needed tuning. I did a search on google for "piano tuner" and my area code. First guy that popped up I called, and he was free.

So my oven was fixed. Kitty loved him, I don't know why, but Skellig rubbed all over him while he was on the kitchen floor. He told me that the oven is good for a long time now. Nice to know I don't have to replace it. I like it.

Then the piano tuner came. I was talking with him, and he let out that he was a Theremin player.

EVERYONE ought to know what a Theremin is. If you don't, do your homework!

I confess, I only has superficial knowledge of the Theremin before I met Roger Ballenger. I knew that it was used in the Beach Boys "Good Vibrations", and that it was a standard Halloween instrument. Also, that it is the first electronic music instrument.

What I didn't know was how cool Mr. Theremin himself was.

I asked Roger what a person who plays the theremin is called.

A Thereminist? That's what he called it, but he confessed that he didn't know if it was the official name.

I had to think about it a little. He said that the way you play the Theremin involves moving your hands across the radio waves to interrupt the inaudible frequency and create an audible sound.

"Like Massaging the radio waves?" I asked.
"Kinda.."

"I know! A person who plays the theremin is a Theremineuse!"

Long and short of it is, I learned a lot about Theremins and also got my piano tuned.

I've been playing it a lot lately.

Holiday traditions

Holidays are a time for special tasty treats. We get to eat and drink things that aren't even around the rest of the year.

I know that I look forward to drinking eggnog out of a punchbowl. This is a generations old tradition.

And also, some hereditary memory lurks, reminding the four-footed in the household of how very tasty it is to drink Pine Water from the tree stand.

WRITING

Man, I haven't written a thing in my blog all week.

Sometime, it's just too much.

I had to do a review (actualy two reviews, but who's counting?) for the newspaper I write for. Now, to tell you the truth, I am really happy that I write for this paper, although I have some feelings of ambivalence about it's quality. Even so, I feel like my ambitions are still burning when I have this place I write for.

BUT IT WAS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to write the review. It's not that hard to do, normally. I just have felt under so much pressure. I felt completely incapacitated, like I oculdn't write One single word. A sentence was too much.

"What?" you, my dear reader may ask. "You've just popped out several paragraphs right now, without a single whiff of agony."

Indeed. This blog has no pressure at all. No discipline is required. There are more kinds of writing than one.

I finally finished the review, and it was a scanty one. I said nice things, but i just couldn't quite hit the 400 word mark.

Isn't journalism supposed to be concise?

Yikes. Well, I did finish it, and I did get the main points across. Some times, even doing the things you love, takes more effort than you can muster. Now that I've finished it, maybe i can beat back some of the panic that seemed to be overtaking me about all the things I have to do.

I think I am looking forward to january already. I think some things will ease off. I sure hope so.

Well, I will get through it. I'll be stronger for it too.

I Drather

It is getting dark, and I am still at work.

I woke up this morning to the sound of my cell phone ringing in the wee morning. Someone in a different time zone needed my help. I sprang out of bed to answer it, heading out of the bedroom and into more cell-friendly areas of the house.

But I immediately hit my head on the door.

I didn't know I'd closed it.

And the man in Uraguay is telling me that he can't make a connection because no one is there, and I am trying to ask him how he knows that no one is there if he hasn't made the connection.

And I can't seem to figure out how to open the door. Is it locked? I lock and unlock it several times before I realize that I can't open it because I'm leaning against it.

But at that point, the cell reception fades entirely and the phone connection is lost.

I sit down on the couch and call the other person whose time zone it is and tell him what he needs to do to take care of Uruguay's problem. Problem solved.

And I'm awake. And my head hurts a little. Might as well get over to the office.

I've got to find a better way to make a living.

SONG FOR THE MTA

YAY! THE BUSSES ARE BACK!

People get ready
The busses are running
Don't need no picket signs
Just get on board
All we needed was patience
To hear the diesel's running
If you run out of health insurance
Just Pray to the Lord

Reasons why I don't like our school system

"As long as learning is connected with earning, as long as certain jobs can only be reached through exams, so long must we take the examination system seriously. If another ladder to employment was contrived, much so-called education would disappear, and no one be a penny the stupider."
-E.M. Forster _Aspects of the Novel_

creative

I am feeling the urge to spend most of my life energy on being creative. Most of my life energy right now is spent on my job, which is no longer creative.

I know that I should be practical, but I would rather be doing those things that burn in my breast. I am not excited by anything I do at work anymore. Challenged, just a little. It's good to use the ol' brain muscle every once in a while.

But there is a better use of my head than what these attorneys are using it for. I have my own ideas of how to use my head.

There are a number of creative types here. We all share that look-down-at-the-floor-and-raise-your-eyebrows-while-you-sigh realization that the bills come every month regardless of the burning in your bosom.

One guy is an actor, really with parts in things and stuff. He works early mornings and weekends. He has a SHIFT and does not have to stay beyond it.

One other guy is a musician. He was working and working so hard he finally put his foot down. He said, "I cannot work these hours. Change it or I'm leaving."

He left.

But they negotiated, and he came back, part-time and paid hourly. But the hours are more and more not-so-part-time.

I am thinking of something like that too. Yes, lucky me, I am paid hourly. At least I am paid for every minute this job takes me away from myself.

But the hours are getting too long for doing something I don't care about. 50+ hours a week. And with the bus strike, I am having to DRIVE to work. There is not enough head space to let my creativity reach critical mass and release itself.

It seems like I am gonna have to start getting creative about finding a way to get creative.

I watched the sun rise

It was a work induced viewing, but a beautiful sight nonetheless. Through the smog, the entire flaming circle is visible, with streaks of smog making it darker.

It seemed like somehting that couldn't be real.

Dia de los Muertos

Today is All Saint's Day. All Hallow's Day, which comes after Hallowe'en.

Today is the Day of the dead, a mexican Holiday. My friend loves the day of the dead, she and I are going to go to a celebration this afternoon, a dia de los muertos party.

"This is pretty much my favorite holiday!" she told me.

I had been reading websites she'd sent me and asking questions about this whole celebration. I am still taking it on faith somewhat, that this is a joyful occasion. I tend to prefer joyful occasions to sad ones.

After her little outburst, I paused. Her favorite holiday?

"Do you know anyone close to you that has died?"

"No, not really," she answered.

"I have," I said. "I actually know a lot of people that have died."

So yesterday, in preparation for the celebration today, I tried to remember everyone.

How many is a lot? I asked another guy I know if he knew anyone that had died. He was from Ireland; I thought maybe he'd had some friends die in the troubles.

He told me this story:

it's kind of funny, you know? My teacher, in the equivalent of what would be high school talked to us about this. He stopped us, and told us that statistically speaking one of us would be dead before we reached 30.

And you know, it was only a year later, that my classmate Sean was in America and he was caught in a fire and killed. So what the teacher said came true, almost right away. It's kind of amazing like that.

That was his story. Statistically speaking, we tend to drop off. I wonder if his teacher wanted them to be more careful?

THe day of the dead is supposed to be a day where you remember and tell stories about the ones who have passed on.

THere are so many, but maybe I can try.

My first brush with death is something that happened when I could concievably be so young that I don't remember it. And in fact I don't. But I do remember the effects of it.

I was three years old, maybe four. My parents had loaned our car, I don't know why, but they had loaned our yellow VW bug to a family that lived up the street. They got in a car accident. The mother and the oldest son died. THe car was totalled.

I remember little Heather, the youngest daughter, who was a year younger than me. I remember my mother bringing her over to play with me a lot. And I remember my mom telling me to be nice to her.

But what I remember most is the new car we got out of it. The father of this family bought us a huge station wagon, the kind that's made to look like the sides are made out of wood.

I clearly remember the arrival of this car, and my amazement that someone would give us a car for a present. Later, thinking about it, I put the pieces together.

I remember when the grandmother of that family died, several years later. I remember I was maybe ten, and they were describing the kind of cancer she died from. It made me think of stalactites on her insides, that grew until she was completely filled and had to die.

We had left to move to California for a little period of time, and then moved back to Alaska. During the California stay, I made friends with this great girl, she was a little older than me, but we were very silly and had lots of fun. Back in alaska I wanted to find her, have her address and write to her.

I found out she had died, but in this bright-flame-soon-put-out kind of way. It had a huge impact on the community, saved her sister from some awful dysfunctional relationship, etc.

That made me feel very serious inside for a while.

Grandma Mary died in there somewhere. I remember my father getting the phone call. That was it. That one was very mysterious. I like Grandma Mary. She was really nice and gave good presents, like fun board games. But we were far away and didn't see her very much. But she was dad's step-mother, since his mother had died when he was five. Mary had come into his life when e was 11 or 12, and I really don't know his feelings about her. I think the animosity was towards his dad.

But that one was remarkable only for it's lack of impact.

Who's next? let's see...THere was the baby that died at birth, my friend's mother had this little baby. THe family was so sad and devastated. They seemed like nice people. The mom was pretty nice. My friend was a little weird. As I later figured out, the mother had been a prostitute, and the daughter, the oldest had been involved. Don't get me wrong, the daughter was well under 10 years old when this was happening. She had some trouble adjusting to the new life in church that the family became involved in.

Us girls, ages 12-15 or so, had a little trouble knowing what to do with Tara's stories of her mother sending in the men to her room to "do what they wanted". None of us were allowed to kiss the boys we liked, and Tara's stories seemed incredible.

The poor little child, the baby dead at birth seemed to weigh Tara's mom down with immense and almost unbearable grief. THe family had three or four children at the time, and i watched her with amazement.

I remember asking Tara, after the funeral with the very small coffin, "Are you sad?" I didn't know what I felt. I was wondering what she felt.

But the most popular girl in our pathetic little group turned on me with a veangeance. "WHAT KIND OF STUPID QUESTION IS THAT? Her sister is DEAD, what do you think she feels? OF COURSE, she's sad."

I tried to defend myself, "Well, she didn't have very much time to get to know the baby."

That did not fly at all. I just kept my mouth shut the rest of the funeral.

Then there was that other time, that the church held a funeral for someone that only came Christmas and Easter. There is a saying about faithful churchgoers: "At the church whenever the doors were open."

Boy oh boy, that was us. The doors were open, and even though it was a funeral for someone we didn't know we were there. It was a most interesting experience, everyone sayign nice things about this woman. I don't know how she died.

There were a lot of people. Maybe the pastor asked people to show up and pad out the seats, I dont know. But there were a lot of people that knew the poor woman too. It turned out that the ladies who taught me ice skating very briefly, for the short period of time we could afford it.

"Did you know her?" they asked me. They had been talkign to one another and beign very somber and sad.

"Not really, I'm just here because it's my church." This seemed an incredibly inadequate excuse for my presence. "But from listening to the service, I really wish i had known her, " I fumbled.

TO BE CONTINUED

Ideology and fires

You know, way back when Darwin first came up with the idea of survival of the fittest, he categorized humans as an animal like all the other animals. Bears, pigs, monkeys and humans. We all eat, breathe, sleep, defecate and scratch where we itch.

The idea was hugely controversial. The church of the time wanted to believe that man was only a little lower than the angels, that animals were completely different from us altogether.

Now, we say that man is an animal without thinking about it. Yes: primate, vertebrate, whatever you call it, that is us.

And this classification brings us into greater relationship with our surroundings, our environment. Like cows, we eat grain. Like tigers, we eat meat. At least some of us do. And we grow grain and meat, using our environment to create food and do all the things we do.

As the smoke builds up in my city, we are saddened by the destruction of our environment. For some people, it is their whole environment, their home, that is destroyed. For some, like me, it is the beautiful outdoors, the natural environment that has been destroyed.

The fire was set by human means, there was arson which involved matches, and also a flare set by a lost hunter.

But the reason the fire became so huge is because of some bark beetles that killed the trees. They were standing timber, just waiting to be ignited. And we knew about this, we knew this would happen when the beetles first infected the trees.

This fire was inevitable. Perhaps the vast destruction was not inevitable, but a fire had to happen. Nature was doing what it does.

And we as humans, were decided what we wanted to do about that nature. Mostly, the idea that we should leave it entirely alone was the prevailing ideology.

For many years, most of which are in living memory, America with it's democratic capitalism fought a war of ideology with Communist Russia. This war was called the Cold War, but it was only cold inside the two countries. It was hot as hellfire in some places.

Because we were using our ideologies to justify various actions in different parts of the world. Like one side or the other would prove themselves more RIGHT by having more little countries pick their ideology to govern with.

Lots of countries got caught in the middle. Remember Vietnam? Cuba? Zimbabwe? Tanzania?

Well, not all Americans are capitalists. There were and are a lot of lefty-type americans who were rooting for the communists, or at least socialism abroad. They, and socialists from other countries, were happy to see the so-called 3rd world countries embrace socialism.

Alright. I would now like to present Tanzania. Tanzania tried socialism. It tried it really hard. Socialism didn't work in Tanzania. Nyerere, the president of Tanzania, and seemingly a very nice guy, admitted that it did not work and that Tanzania was pretty much impoverished by the experiment.

Tanzania was trying something out. It didn't work, so maybe they ought to try something different.

Russia, the motherland of communism, is also trying this 'something different' themselves. Smart. If it's broken, fix it.

NOW,
back to the fires in Los Angeles.

These fires, as I said, were naturally ocurring. We kinda knew they were coming. Fires come every year.

There is an ideology of conservationism that says, "Don't touch it! We have to pretend like we don't exist! Humans should not touch nature, we'll screw it up!"

Alright, I think the experiment of pretending that we are angels who float above the surface of the planet and don't make any marks has come to a failed conclusion.

If we are indeed part of the ecological system that we inhabit, it is impossible not to interact with it. Denial is more than a river in Egypt. The time has come for the conservationists to realize that we should direct our interaction with the planet in a useful way.

Let's use this human intelligence to choose wisely. Let's cut down and use controlled fires to protect the environment, WHICH INCLUDES OURSELVES, from these kinds of uncontrolled acts of nature.

Let's be wise and careful, and let's use our smarts to protect the environment. This whole "Don't touch it!" ideology has hurt my state.

It also hurt my home state Alaska, with people who want to treat the beautiful interior of Alaska as some kind of pinned-down insect. It's not a dead, static thing. It's a living place, and getting some people up there to get the oil out and spend a little attention on preservation will do a lot more to help the area than leaving it alone.

It's time to change when we've been proven wrong. Don't cling to outmoded ideas.

One Stressful Day

You know, I already wrote about the movie One Fine Day as being sweet and romantic. But the whole premise of that movie is that two single parents have to ddeal with their children and intense pressure at work.

For both of them, there was no tolerance for mistakes. How harsh is that? Is this how careers are everywhere? Does every culture demand perfection as much as America does?

The cost for one mistake, at least on the day portrayed in the movie, was so high. I wonder if there is another way. For me, i can't deal with that pressure. That's why I always try to be early when it's something I care about.

Just makes me think...

Burning down the...city

The ash continues to fall. The fire is getting worse.

I looked down the block as I was walking to work. I tried to figure out exactly the point where the smoke haze began. Usually, it's to far to be so precise. But right now it is a thick batting around us.

Two Blocks. That's how far it takes before things haze like a romantic movie shot.

People are beginning to get sick from it. I can taste it in my mouth as I am walking outside.

You shouldn't be able to taste the air.

I wish we'd all been ready

My new hometown in the middle of Los Angeles looks like a scene from the apocalypse today. We've had our troubles with grocery store strikes; we've had the buses come to a halt for a mechanic's strike.

It is extremely hot, unseasonably hot-reaching the 100s. And the Santa Ana winds, the ones Raymond Chandler blames for murders have begun to wake up.

The heat, the wind and I believe the discontent have resulted in many fires in our surprisingly brambly metropolis. One in particular is out of control.

45 miles away, where I work and breathe, white ash flecks were raining down. I walked through the grand opening of disney hall, with red carpet and velvet ropes mutely broadcasting BY INVITATION ONLY. And just in case you didn't get it, there were cadres of police security to remind you that YOU were NOT invited.

The cloned waitstaff lined the street in a military at-ease position, their red-vested backs to us, the unininvited. The huge metallic hall, more modern than the day after tomorrow is blurred by the thick air.

The commuters walk in lines to their cars, and the cars file in lines to the freeways, which are far from free at this time of day.

Some self-employed commuters in unwashed clothing hold cardboard signs for the cars driving by: "Hungry. Homeless. Need Help. Need Food. God Bless."

At my space in the wavy asphalt, my sedan gathered small drifts of white ash.

Full up

SOmetimes I don't write because I don't have anything to say.

More often, it's because I don't know how to say what I've been thinking about. Life throws a lot of experiences at me sometimes, and I have to ponder them a while before I can get a fix on them.

Impressions and thoughts and ideas.

I remember when I was living in Russia. That first year was so hard. I was tired a lot, and excited, and doing so many new things and getting used to so much. In a lot of ways, I am realizing how parallel my experiences here are to my first year in Russia. There is a lot to get used to.

This weekend, I went to the housewarming party of a new friend. There was a point in the evening that a passionate discussion about the tastes of different kinds of bottled water occurred. The relative tastiness of Arrowhead, Ralph's brand, Aquafina, distilled vs. mineral-all were discussed.

I come from a place where many people do not have running water.

Yes, this is culture shock. I try not to be judgemental. These different types of water are all available. Why not have an opinion about them?

I remember in Russia, the only tooth cleanser was a powder. That was it. When my friend came to visit me in America, she about dropped through the floor, looking at all the different varieties of toothpaste.

I suppose that's not so different from different varieties of water.

Back to basics has a different meaning in different places.

The best and the obscure of L.A.

So I've been here more than a year now. I still feel like I have no idea what's going on. But the truth is, I 've seen through a glass darkly what it is I have no idea about. I know more about what I don't know about.

As I was walking to work today (yes, you read that right. SATURDAY. This is why I haven't had time to explore my new city..bloody attorneys), I saw a "Best of 03" publication in the LA Weekly newpaper dispenser. I snagged it.

Thing's the size of a phone book! Holey Moley! I'm keeping it, it is giving me all kinds of ideas of things to check out.

And it's inspiring me to make my own list of random stuff. Here goes:

BEST HYPED PLACES IN LA THAT EVERYBODY HAS BEEN TO BUT ME:

Pink's Hot Dogs
Canter's Deli
The Beach (aka Surfing)
Hollywood Bowl

BEST HYPED PLACES THAT EVERYONE TALKS ABOUT BUT DOESN'T ACTUALLY GO TO, THAT I HAVE BEEN TO:

Getty Museum
Free Shakespeare in the Park
Norton Simon Museum
Central Library
The Symphony (including the new Disney Hall)
Swing Dance lessons at the Derby
Museum of Contemporary Art (Twice!)
a bus
A night class at UCLA

BEST COOL THINGS THAT EVERYBODY DOES THAT I'VE DONE TOO:
Farmer's Market
Concerts at the Greek Theater
had an extensive conversation with a dicey used merchandise store owner about said merchandise
the Soda Pop Fountain (mulholland fountain on Los Feliz Blvd by the 5)
Bought FOR PROMOTIONAL USE ONLY cd's and movies from used cd stores
Bought vintage and obscure designer clothes from vintage and obscure shops
joined a book club
Celebrity sightings
done open mike performances
Had highly abstract conversations with just-met strangers about pursuing creativity and staying centered
Seen a Laker's Game (Go Fisher!)

BEST STUFF I STILL WANT TO DO

see original live theater ( oh wait, I did that...so do it MORE)
Drive to Mexico
go to hear authors and artists talk about their stuff
Drive to Vegas
Go to a dance club on Sunset Strip
Go the the H.O.B. Gospel Breakfast
Take a Yoga class

Just for starters.

I guess I 've done a lot of activities that have a hushed-voice environment...the museums, the symphony...That's due in part to the fact that my honey likes calm, contemplative places of beauty. He doesn't feel like doing the loud and crazy stuff. I do that with other people.

There's a ton of stuff I still want to do here. I suspect that there is no danger of running out of kick-ass fun stuff to do in Los Angeles. One of the biggest differences between LA and everywhere else I've lived is the willingness of the people in LA to do stuff.

The difficulty I've had in trying to start a group to do almost ANYTHING...Lord...Everyone seemed to just want to talk about doing cool stuff, but not actually start it.

HERE, I meet tons of ambitious motivated people who are willing to show up and do it. Maybe this place is the place where people come to make their dreams come true. They arrive with their sleeves already rolled up.

Maybe. I don't know. What I do know is that I LOVE that about this city. You say, "Want to start a writing group?'
YES! and they do it.
"Want to work on a project with me?"
YES!

I love that kind of YES.

So I say YES to this city too. YES, let's go do it!

More on the Bus strike

A Long Beach Newspaper
Press-Telegram - Opinion

Back then, the lines were clear: On one side were the working people trying to ensure decent wages and basic safety for the dangerous work deep in the earth. On the other side were the heartless thugs brought in by the fat cat bosses to break the strike.

The current Metropolitan Transportation Authority strike by mechanics and drivers and other workers brings to mind the story of striking coal miners -- only in this case the roles have been reversed.

This time the MTA strikers are the thugs, using political blackmail to shut down public transportation for nearly half a million people. And the workers are left by the side of road. Like the coal miners of yore, those who can least afford it are those who will suffer the most.

---
This is not helping. Almost everyone I know has had to tighten their belts and deal with the downturns in the economy. If the union-managed Pension and Health Care fund has lost money, well, almost everyone else's pensions have been reduced.

These mechanics are not going to be very popular going forward.

0671723650

The bus has come to the end of the line

I am forced to fall back on using my car. The bus mechanics are striking, so all the busses are stopped in solidarity.

Now, I think it is important to band together to be heard, but you have to pick your battles.

The public transportation system is something that many city dwellers rely on. There are some that use it exclusively.

the MTA website has this to say about the strike:

MTA Media Relations - Press Release

The biggest issue dividing MTA negotiators and union leaders is over contributions to health benefits. MTA deposits $16.8 million annually into a trust fund administered by the maintenance union which buys medical coverage for 2,000 employees plus retirees. An independent audit of the trust fund shows the union has wasted millions of dollars in recent years through duplicative coverage, poor record keeping and other problems.
Among other issues, the audit faulted the union for transferring $36,000 a month into union operating funds but union officials refused to provide documentation for how the money is spent. The audit also noted that the union has been paying a consultant up to $15,000 a month since 1998 to automate their record keeping but the task still has not been accomplished and the data is kept manually so the union has no real time information about how the trust fund is doing.

--

We already know that the last bus strike lasted for more than a month. It is a crisis, really.

LA has been coming to terms with it's Metropolitaness, and creating public transportation systems that were approaching usefulness. A lot of my co-workers have been learning to rely on busses.

But this is not a step forward. In addition to the massive inconvenience, this same MTA article repeats a figure I have heard elsewhere.

The bus strike costs the local economy 4 MILLION bucks A DAY.

I don't know that I'm terribly supportive of this strike.

Go girl!

Iranian Wins Nobel Peace Prize

"Ebadi, who is the first Iranian and Muslim female to receive the honor, has maintained that democracy and Islam are compatible. A devout Muslim, she has fought against conservative Islamic rulers on behalf of women and children, in particular. Her efforts represent a radical change in a country where clerics maintain strict rules."

I am very pleased about this. Iran, and all the middle east needs some brave women to stand and be heard.

This woman literally risks her life to do what she is doing.

Bravo!

Top 5 reasons to love the recall

5. It didn't drag on forever.

Regular elections seem to go on and on, allowing for a HUGE amount of junk mail a mudslinging. This one got straight to the point: JUST VOTE

4. I got out of work early to vote.

This might not work everywhere with everyone, but it worked for me so I don't care.

3. With this number of candidates, no one argued with me about "Throwing my vote away" if I vote Green.

It's not possible to throw your vote away on a governor. Actually, it's not possible NOT to throw your vote away. Which of these candidates could possibly be taken seriously? Which brings me to my next point:

2. We can debate about "the principle of the thing" and completely ignore the principles of the people

Yeah! Should we be allowed to recall a governor barely a year after we've voted him in? there are pros and cons, and it may have NOTHING to do with Gov. Davis's personal principles. Or any of the candidates morals. "It's the principle of the thing!"

AND THE NUMBER ONE REASON TO LOVE THE RECALL:

It's fun! Look at the turnout!

Fat Cat

So my cat had a little disorder last weekend. I made an appointment for him at the vet, and even though he seemed better by the time the appointment arrived, I thought I'd better keep it.

I'd been meaning to talk with the vet about my cat anyway. He's fat. About 18 pounds of cat.

YES, he's big boned, YES, he a very muscular, and YES he's a little fluffy.

But he's FAT. I've been buying him this high-fiber diet cat food for forever, and it seems to do no good. Therefore, I wanted to discuss the situation with a vet.

The vet looked him over, agreed with me that he's fat and told me to put him on the ATKIN's diet. Well, to use the ATKIN's principles anyway. All meat for the cat.

Cats are carnivores, supposedly. My previous diet cat food choice was high in fiber 'n' stuff, and may well have been working against him in his need to lose weight.

He seems to like his all-meat diet.

Gregory Hines

I was very saddened a few weeks ago when I heard the news that Gregory Hines had passed away. He was so young, I really didn't expect it.

He was a kick-ass dancer. Wow! I am a fan of him. He can MOVE. He is so smart about it, he can do all kinds of things.

I don't know what his last role was, I last saw him in Waiting To Exhale. He did not dance in that movie, which is a shame.

My FAVORITE Gregory Hines movie is White Nights. This movie is one of my favorites in general, because it goes into the communist life of Russia. It treats Russia very, very well. Meaning, it gives a really good view of what it was (is?) like there. Some of the things in that movie are difficult to grasp until you've actually been to the country. It was so, so real.

Except the KGB parts. I couldn't tell you about that.

But the part where Barishnikov and Hines dance off, where they are talking about dance and freedom and poverty and culture, is my most most most favorite part.

It is worth seeing. The movie is a treasure.

I am sorry that I will not get to see Gregory Hines dance again.

naturallycurly.com

Some of the people who know me have heard me talk about this site.

It's a great site.

My OWN curly headedness has began to be spread around the 'net. The lovely ladies at naturallycurly.com have contacted me to ask if they can put up my Curly Top story on their site.

I said yes, and I am pleased to be part of their outreach.

Check it out, they really are great!

You've come a long way, Baby

I'm on a business trip right now. LONG days here at the sattelite office. Last night I was having a rather late dinner, relaxing in the hotel restaurant and enjoying my meal.

Yes, I was alone. I have read older books, references in outdated magazines to a stigma attached to a woman eating alone in a restaurant. Some women used to feel uncomfortable and pathetic to eat alone. Some restaurants would not welcome solitary females.

But I can find a lot of pleasure in a good meal eaten alone. Especially when the meal is really worth savoring, conversation is not missed because I can focus on how delicious the food is.

Last night i had a lovely soup and salad, with interesting textures and flavors. I was delighting in my meal. I took my hair down and rubbed my head a little.

"I like your hair down." The man from a nearby table leaned away from his other companions to tell me this tidbit.

I smiled and said thanks. I was interested in my meal.

Later, he felt the need to call over to me again.

I answered, somewhat amused. Until he said, in reference to his companions, "These guys have no idea, but you and I know what's going to happen later."

I said, "Well, you're going to think whatever is in your head, and I'm going to go to bed."

"That's what I mean," he said with a leer.

When I used to explore the streets in Russia, I remember I had a rule of thumb. I was worried about the safety of walking around, an American in this foreign city. I took note and realized that there were three levels. When I walked in the company of a male, any male, I was invisible. I was safe and no one paid me any attention. If I walked in the company of one other female, I got a little attention. Lots of stares, a few loud comments.

But when I walked alone, it was as if I was the property of everyone. All the men would stare, and anyone that felt like saying anything to me just when right out and said it. "Devushka..Hey girl, where are you going?"

It's true here in America too. One male person, no matter how physically insignificant or bland, stopped all potential harrassment. It was like it never even existed.

I started to call them magic amulets. If me and some girls were gonna go out somewhere, I would ask them "Should we invite a guy to be our amulet?"

It depended on how much hassle we were willing to put up with that evening.

So, I was remembering that with the guy in the restaurant. I hadn't thought about my harrassment formula for a while.

But my god! This was the Four Seasons, not some back-alley Russian construction site. You would think that up-scale establishments would have a clientele with a greater degree of enlightenment.

The men at that table had been talking about how much money they made earlier. It was somewhere around the million-dollar-a-year mark. At least that is what they were telling each other.

In between my delicious bites, I wondered about having that much money. I wondered if they were enjoying their meals more than I did mine. Or if they enjoyed their lives more than I did mine.

I thought about what their wives might be like. As I unerstand, men who make scads of money usually have a stay-at-home wife. It's an agreement, just like the old days: Man makes money, women gives man anything he wants.

That how it had to be, before. Before women had equal (or mostly equal) access to employment and could pay for their own homes and sustenance.

And restaurant meals.

But I can afford my own home, and I have a job that supports me. The job even sends me out on trips and picks up the tab at a nice restaurant for me.

But my troglodyte neighbor hadn't seemed to move into the new feminist reality, a reality that says women belong to themselves. We now have made way for women to live with dignity, and not have to tolerate male rudeness and lewdness to make their way ahead.

Jackass millionaire man had said loudly to his buddies at the table: "Look at that! There is nothing more delightful than watching this young woman here butter her cracker and take a bite with absolute enjoyment."

Perhaps he didn't understand that the bite I took was for MY enjoyment, not his.

I had no need of him. He started out as amusing and moved to annoying.

Feminism had meant the whole world shifted. Women no longer find men necessary.

What does this mean? I remember my mother discussing the Equal Rights amendment when I was a teenager. It was up for vote in our state, whether we would ratify it or not.

She said one important argument against it was that it would give women the same wages as men and then women would no longer be interested in being good wives and mothers. THey would abandon their families.

I told her that the argument in favor of it was that it was fair and made sense.

"It's very complicated, " she replied.

As it happens, she may have been right. How has family fared since the advent of economic feminism? How are marriages and children doing?

We have a high divorce rate. Higher than the 60s. How are children? That's tough to say, but it is true that there are a lot of single parent households.

What does this mean? Should we go Taliban and turn back the clock? I don't think that two wrongs make a right, but we still have a problem here.

How do we keep a relationship intact when niether party needs the other? When they are equally able to survive without the other? It would seem that a lot more effort and desire to make it work is necessary.

That is a huge challenge to our moral character. What kind of determination and will can we bring to the table in a relationship? And also, no matter how much you try, there is always the factor of how much the other one is putting out.

Things are changing. According to Ronald B. Mincy, Columbia U professor of Social Work Policy, there are a couple areas to look at:

... There are three broad factors that are affecting marriage trends: the increasing independence of women and the deterioration in the economic status of men. Women are increasing in terms of their educational attainment. They're increasing in terms of their occupational status and their earnings.

Men, on the other hand, are reducing their college graduation rates. They're also reducing their earnings. The only men who've experienced increases in their earnings since the 1970s are basically men who have gone to graduate school. So you put together improving economic conditions for women, deteriorating economic conditions for men, and then the removal of this moral imperative for marriage, and I don't think that we should be surprised that marriage rates are falling. ...

So what is the imperative? One of my dearest friends said to me:
What about a public commitment of love to one another?

Hmm..In our cynical and self-reliant world, we want to bring up love?

Maybe all we need is love. Maybe that's the whole point. If we take away the "have to" side of it, and focus on the "want to" we are left with love.

I think that may be one of the greatest legacies of feminism. We have yet to realize it. But we have made some progress.

Dancing Queen

Oh baby, I went dancing this weekend! I had so much fun. I was so sore I could barely walk afterwards.

Me and my girls were out, and we were wiggling and giggling. One of the fun things about going to a big club is watching what everyone else is doing. There were these two amazing girls that managed to writhe and sway their booties all the way down to their heels, and them work their way back up again.

And they did it again and again. Go!

Of course, we all had to check out everyone else's outfits. These two girls walked in, one of them all dressed in a sort of cheerleader thingy.

"What, is she trying to be Paula Abdul?' my friend said to me.

But I was looking at the other girl, all in white.

"I cannot wear all white," I said back. "I'd be kicked out of Abba first thing."

It's true. I'd spill something on it right away. I'd be like, "Oh, that's stain is gonna need a sequin. A lot of sequins."

Mysterious quote of the day

Why don’t you eat your cutlet, man? Eat it with pleasure and joy. Love your wife. Make your babies. Love your friends and have the courage to tell those who seek to diminish you that they are the devil and you want no part of them. Courage, man, courage and appetite!

-George Blecher “The Death of the Russian Novel”

I don't know what "The Death of the Russian Novel" is. It may be an article from some random magazine or something. I just found this quote on my hard drive, and thought I would share it.

Tea hee

Someone brought tea to share at work. I love tea.

It is Oolong tea.

I went over there at about tea-time yesterday, and decided to have a cup.

As I pulled the finished-brewing bag out of my steaming mug, I thought to myself:

Me love Oolong time.

More ANWR ranting

Casting a Cold Eye on Arctic Oil

After rafting and backpacking through this wilderness for a week, weighing whether Congress should allow oil drilling here, I've reached a few conclusions. One is that both the oil industry and environmentalists exaggerate their cases.

Naturally. He knows all about it after a week.

I have my Alaskan-born opinions about this. People who are not FROM there will just not get it. It takes longer than a week to shed the expectation of some touch of man being just around the corner. People from crowded areas don't get how VAST the Alaska wilderness is.

They forget how small we human beings are. Remember Jack London? "To Build a Fire"? It's just one teeny human animal against the whole forces of nature. You have to work hard to make a dent in it.

But this is what NY Time Journalist has to say about it:
The argument that I find most compelling is that this primordial wilderness, a part of our national inheritance that is roughly the same as it was a thousand years ago, would be irretrievably lost if we drilled. The Bush administration's proposal to drill is therefore not just bad policy but also shameful, for it would casually rob our descendants forever of the chance to savor this magical coastal plain — and to be slapped in the butt by a frisky polar bear.

My face curls back from this facile, unsophisticated answer. WHAT?! If we put a little oil drilling town in the primordial ooze (and it is oozy) of Alaska, this prevents our CHILDREN (think of the children!) from seeing the primordial ooze.

What is the point of preserving stuff, anyway? Yes, it is nice for lots of people to get to see the primordial ooze of alaska. They might begin to have a respect for nature that seems to be utterly lacking in paved-over areas. So yes, let's save it so that people can look at it.

But observation changes that which is observed, right? you have to build ROADS for people to be able to get out there to observe that primordialness.

And why not have the road be built by the oil companies, who could take advantage of the oil while they were up there?

While they were at it, they could get some money to the native alaskans who could use it. What's wrong with that?

Nature is vast up there. It will be just fine if we take a patch to drill for oil and make some roads to check it out.

Kings in the Corner

Games are fun. I like to play games. And let me say again, I like to PLAY games.

Some people take games very seriously. I know a great number of people (why are they always men? I know no women into these...Speak up if you know of any) who play these crazy complicated games. Games that make RISK look like "Go Fish." Avalon Hill games, I call them. Avalon Hill no longer exists, it was bought out by someone or other.

But the games go on. Complicated moves that can take a WEEK. Forget it. I want to play a game.

On a search for a pack of UNO cards, I ran a across Kings in the Corner. Bought it too.

It was fun! I liked playing it. Chris and I played a couple games while we were watching TV. The perfect kind of laid-back game playing. I suppose we could have paid more attention to the strategy if we'd wanted to. But we didn't have to.

It would work well for kids too. Check it out.

Aren't they cute?

On my bus ride home, they were all cuddled up in the first seat. She was a large woman in a blue dress; he was a man in a short-sleeved plaid shirt with a hearing aid. His arm was all the way around her, as far as he could reach. She was giggling, and speaking in a kewpie doll voice, and his hands seemed to be wandering towards sesitive places.

They were old. She was very wrinkled, and so was he.

But they were so cute! They were flirty and giggly and terribly glad to be together.

Our culture says love is for the smooth-skinned young. Especially if you want to be publicly affectionate.

But culture doesn't know everything.

This was my idea!

Business 2.0 - Magazine Article - My Makeover

For more than two years, McClelland has run Geek Boy Services, a one-woman makeover consultancy. Her target: the army of ungainly men who write our code and keep our servers running -- many of whom, alas, now have a lot more free time on their hands than they used to and are in desperate need of outside interests. Or, at the very least, a date. Even in these lean times, McClelland says, her phone is ringing off the hook.

---------

This was my idea! Well, the idea of me and all my girls in Silicon Valley back when I was still there.

Those of us who were single (and we all were at various times) really wished we could get those boys to clean up and open up.

Half the time, it was really a problem with the opening up more than the cleaning up. Just get comfortable with yourself! It was tiring running into the same dufusses with the same lines at the clubs. A shy smile from across the room was a huge attention-getter. Really.

But they had to speak when spoken to. Eye contact is critical too. Most of us have encountered the geek boy who cannot actually look directly at a female and speak at the same time. Or just look directly at a female. Or just speak.

Actually, I think I could do a better job than this woman. I've done a few freebies, and there are better ways to give men a "look" than just shoving your taste at them.

What's your name?

You know that club of girls on the cartoon "Recess"? all of them are named "Ashley"?

That is so true! That happens all the time, when somehow a name gets mysteriously popular with EVERYONE for a year or so.

The government has a site about it. Alas, it only goes up to 1990, so those of us over the age of 13 will have to look elsewhere for our birth year.

My (nick) name Murphy does not hit the charts. My REAL name, Elizabeth, is WILDLY and enduringly popular.

No wonder I don't use it.

But something else struck me. The most popular girls names have less incidences (girls named that name) than the most popular boys names. So, there are vastly more, like more than 10 THOUSAND more boys named the most popular boys name of the year than there are girls named the most popular girls name of the year.

The girls names are also substantially weirder. Did any of us see "Madison" becoming the rage? Suddently, it was everywhere.

But for males, Christopher, Michael and Joshua are inescapable. John has dropped off the top ten in the last decade, thank god. But not the top 20.

Anyway, I find it intriguing that males have far more name conformity than females, and their names are far more conservative, less risky. They don't seem to get tricky or different names.

I wonder what implications this has. I wonder what it says about parents' expectations for the roles that their male children and their female children will fill as they grow older.

I thumbed through the top 50 boys names, being struck by how vastly status quo all the names were. That is until I saw 2002 bringing in a new contender:
Angel

at number 46 in popularity.

You think that Buffy had something to do with it?

Asbestos can kill you!

I have a new set of things to worry about as a home owner. One of them is quite pleasant:
How shall I redecorate?

My condo is not new, so I have to be careful of old-school carcinogenic building materials. Which are probably lodged in the popcorn covering that is blighting my ceiling.

I want to take it off! One of the guys at work (who also told me how to replace a toilet) told me it's really easy: just spray it with water and scrape it off.

"But what about asbestos?" I asked.

"Psh! You don't need to worry about that."

But I do worry. I had to research it.

Know what I found out?

He was right!

The EPA and osha basically say that if you keep it sufficiently wet, asbestos-containing materials cannot become airborne, so they can't be breathed in and give you asbestositis, which is basically asbestos induced lung cancer.

They don't even say you have to wear a mask; just make sure the material is sufficiently wet.

I'm gonna have to pick the color to paint the ceiling now!

Summer's Over

So this is it. The first day back at work after Labor day. Most kids are in school, and it makes the rest of us remember when we WERE in school and we feel like buckling down and getting some work done.

But where did the summer go?

What did YOU do with your summer vacation?

I went to 2 free shakespeare plays, that was wonderful. I took a trip to Germany, also wonderful.
AND I went to the state fair.
The biggest thing I did this summer was buy a condo.

I guess that's about it.
There were a lot of things that I wished I could have done.
I wish I had gone to the beach.
I wish I had hiked more.
I wish I had gone to a raucous rock concert. I did go to the symphony, but that is a different thing altogether.
I wish I had danced more. I dont' think I danced at ALL. wow. that's not right.

But this is not the only summer I have. I can do all those things in the fall as well. My time is pinched by earning a living, so I have to enjoy the other good things in life in between.

Maybe I"ll get down to the work of having fun this fall.

walking in the garden

I finally visited Descanso Gardens. Chris has been bugging me to do this for a long time, maybe the entire year I've been here. It's not that I didn't want to, it's just having the time and energy.

For both of us.

Today, we went at last. It was so beautiful! The Rosarium, and the Camellia forest, and the Japanese tea house with Bamboo. We saw so many flowers! There is also an audobon bird observatory, where they provide a telescope to look at birds that are far away.

We looked to see an Egret, with long black, knock-kneed legs.

There was a waterfall, in the middle of the redwoody and ferny part. Later on, we saw some extremely placid deer, who kindly let us take a lot of pictures of them. We were respectful and did not make sudden movements, but even so, they were extremely patient.

at the end of our three or four hours there, we decided to join. That way we get in free for a year. We had to pay their fee, but it is so close to where I live, that I think it will be worth my while.

We didn't even see half of it.

Politics

This recall of the California Governor has us thinking about the ridiculousness of politics.

I have other reasons to think about politics:
PERSONAL politics

Things can get so scary so fast between people. Misunderstandings build up and then become an impenetrable wall.

Sometimes you can walk away.
Sometimes you can't.

I try to go back, chase the tangled ends of the thread. What happened? What went wrong? What did _I_ do, so I don't do it again?

HOW can I fix it?

When I was younger, I was convinced that I would be able to fix these things. That I would work HARD and FIND the problem and MAKE IT RIGHT.

As I get older, I realize that what I had formerly thought of as apathy in those around me was not quite that. To state it right out:
Sometimes, you just have to let things go, do nothing and let time ease you past.

Because that can really work sometimes! Amazing how so little effort can actually result in a big payoff.

But it doesn't work all the time.

So I'm back to pulling on the threads of the knotty problem.
Do I leave it alone?
Or do I worry it a bit longer?

I don't know.

What I _do_ know is that I've run across this problem before. And I also know that if you see a problem twice, the thing that is the same about those two problems is YOU. So what have I done to cause this problem?

was I just worrying it again?

These things make me so uncomfortable.

The State Fair!

I spent the weekend at the California State fair. I love the fair! I was a little 4-Her when I was young. I had pigs, cows, rabbits and a big dog.

Not all at the same time.

But I would take my animal to the fair and put it in the show and see if I could win something. When you take your animal to the fair, you have to stay and take care of it. So I would be there all week long taking care of my crittur and seeing all the sights.

I got to see everything, since I was there all week. Because I was exhibiting, I got it free!

Fairs are pretty much as good as the community they are in make them. I thought that the state fair would be much larger than the Los Angeles County Fair, which I visited last year.

It really wasn't, but it was pretty good. I saw a 600 pound performing pig, I learned how to milk a cow or a goat. I saw bunnies and cows. No pigs or sheep though. They were the week before.

We were all looking for the Deep Fried Twinkies, but they had vanished. My brother saw Deep Fried Oreos, though.

I settled for Funnel Cake.

The food at the fair seemed to be anything "on a stick." There was Catfish on a stick, frozen cheesecake dipped in chocolate on a stick, chinese food on a stick.

This made us consider how you could put other kinds of food on a stick. I thought that a yarn-like skien of noodles would be good.

Then, the problem of how to make nachos on a stick was tackled: make it a thick stick, with a plunger that could be used to push up the cheese sauce onto the tortilla chips, which would be arranged around the stick like a pine tree.

Next year, we'll need a booth.

Can I get a witness

My new bus route is a little scarier than the old one. It starts out in a nice area (the area where I live..Imagine! me in a nice area!) but then heads off into the hinterlands of silverlake and echo park.

There are more interesting specimens of humanity on this route. Last week, there was a pungent gentleman with a huge growth on his thigh. I'm sorry, but it made me ill. I couldn't even look at him. The thing was, though, he was yakking up a storm with the driver. Hard to ignore.

Yesterday, on the way home, the bus was really full. People were getting on and off, and sometimes people had to stand. There was a beautiful older Asian woman holding onto the rail at one point. I thought, Maybe I should stand up and let her have my seat. But then I realized that the seat next to me was empty anyway. She could sit if she wanted to.

And then she did. She sat right next to me. And she turned to me, trying very hard with all the small bit of English she could muster, asking if I knew Jesus.

I stifled a spasm of laughter, and told her yes, I did.

"Are you go to Heaven when you die?"

"I hope so," I told her.

That was chink enough in my armor! She plunged in with her evangelical message. God Bless her, she was extremely earnest, if rather unintelligible.

Don't you love that evangelical certitude that they are hell-proof? 100% inspected, guaranteed brimstone- and hellfire-free, just sign on the dotted line. Extra credit and jewels in your celestial crown if you can shed a tear or two.

I remember beginning those witnessing classes when I was 14. Evangelism courses at the church on weekday nights, teaching us to be brave and uninhibited about butting in on people. They had pre-fab answers for ALL the possible excuses people gave for not asking Jesus into their hearts.

Each excuse had a folded tract explaining and dismissing it. Things like, "What about all the pygmies in Africa who haven't heard about Jesus? Are they going to hell?" Of course! and here's a tract about it.

Most of the questions in the set of tracts were ones I'd never thought of. I was a little worried about them, for a minute or two. But then I had much bigger things to be worried about-I actually had to approach strangers and wrangle them into saying the Jesus prayer.

Years later, I would run into these "Are you going to Heaven?" roadblocks. I thought I should give them a little thrill. Ever hear of a secret shopper? The random customer that goes to the stores and checks out the customer service? I was the secret sinner!

I'd give these evangelical wannabees a line they shouldn't be able to refuse, "So, if I wanted to become a Christian, what would I have to do?"

They would wig out. "Umm...Um...You should read this..!"

"Well, okay, but can't you just tell me?"

"You should come to our meetings, they could explain it a lot better."

Both these things went along with the same training I'd recieved: push out literature, and get them to come to church. But I was disappointed, why didn't they try to move in for the kill? It was humiliating to know that I was probably as inept a missionary as they were.

I had actually realized this at the time. In the middle of trying to evangelize my hometown, I figured out that this was not the way to do it. Mostly, my efforts were rebuffed, and the very few times I managed to "lead someone to the Lord," we would smile blissfully at one another for a moment afterwards and never see them again. "Hey it was nice to meet ya! See you in Heaven!"

It was so not fair! How did they get off so easy? I had to go to church and give up worldly things all the time. THEY just got off scot free. Happy on their merry way.

I had my doubts about that being all there was. Did it count, if you just said a prayer once, and then lived your life no different?

Besides, it seemed wrong to just walk up to strangers. Shouldn't we be friends with people? Show them love and be involved in their lives? Why should they listen to a total stranger? We lacked credibility, I thought.

The evangelism class instructors admitted that "friendship evangelism" was the most effective kind. But that put me in a bind-I wasn't allowed to know anybody that wasn't a Christian.

Back to the mall with my wallet of tracts. That is, until I gave up on the whole idea as flawed. Tracts weren't in the bible! Knocking on the doors of people's home and staying completely uninvolved with their lives was wrong.

That still didn't mean I was allowed to make friends with them. Because they would drag me down into their sinful ways. One bad apple makes all the rest rotten! Despite my protestations, I was defenseless before the evil lure of the world.

It's been a while since I've been witenessed to. I almost thought it had gone out of style. I asked the woman on the bus where she was from.

"Korea!" she said.

"Where do you go to church?" I asked.

"Presbyterian."

"Which presbyterian?"

It took a while for her to understand what I meant. She at last told me it was a presbyterian church on Wilshire.

After a moment more of her discussing the perils of sin and death, I tried to let her off the hook. I told her I'd known about Jesus for a long time, ever since I was a child.

"You go to church?"

"yes!" I said.

"Presbyterian or Baptist?"

I wonder why she picked those two denominations in particular? I told her Orthodox, which did not satisfy her. She gave me a japanime-looking cartoon tract which spelled out exactly what I needed to do to go to heaven. She had a selection of several languages.

I read it as she sat next to me silently. It was hard not to laugh out loud. The girl and the boy and the talking dog were pretty funny. The dog really was rooting for the boy to go to hell. And the girl wouldn't get "involved" with the boy until he got saved.

I finished it before she got off, and I was thinking I should maybe hand it back to her. But I thought she might be offended.

She handed the bus driver another one as she got off.

Great weekend

I seem to always want to do more than is humanly possible to do.

If you asked me, and I didn't think about it, I would tell you that I spent a very quiet weekend.

But then, If I think about it, I did a LOT!

On friday night, I was exHAUSTEd. I had been up since 3:30 am dealing with the blackout on the east coast. I staggered home from the bus stop at 4:30ish, I think...and FELL into bed.

But I didn't want to stay in bed. I wanted to be up and about. So I woke up, tireder than when I fell asleep, about an hour later, and slapped myself awake.

Oh yes! My friend had sent me a really good book, "Arranged Marriages". I had an Amazon box waiting for me at the door. In my dazed state, I was trying to remember if I had ordered something lately. Then I thought, "I bet Bonnie sent me a present!"

She did, and that was a wonderful thing. I will write about the book later. Suffice it to say for now, that I really like it.

But I woke up all groggy, and forced myself out of the house. I needed to buy a microwave. It's hard to make food for one person when you don't have a microwave. I had priced a good one at Walmart. Barely 50 bucks, and the right color and wattage.

But I live in a walmart desert. It was 13 miles to the nearest walmart.

I have to say, 13 miles means something different here. There is SO MUCH in between one mile and the next, it's an ordeal to get through it. 13 miles should only take 15-20 minutes, right?

WRONG!

Man I don't undestand it, maybe I never will, but with this many people and THINGS in the way, miles are farther. It is like an obstacle course. In big cities, cars are not always the advantage you think they should be.

In any case, the great deal on the microwave had sold out by the time I got to Friday. I shopped again (thanks, mysimon.com) and found one at Kmart. Kmart is closer.

So I shoved myself out the door, in pursuit of a microwave. I woke up pretty fast when I started driving. And I went down the main drag which is right my my new place, and saw the Salvation Army thrift store. I peeled to a stop. Well, not really. But I was very excited to stop and look at this place. I'd known it was there, but I'd never had a chance to look inside.

Oh! Thrift bliss! I bought two pretty shirts and two pretty dresses for 12 dollars! I'm so pleased. I love thrift shopping. All the stores near my old place were RAGGEDY. ew. This one was perfect. You can bet I'll be visiting it at least every week. I love clothes, but I need to save money now that I have a mortgage.

Then I ran off to the Kmart, and found my micowave. It is a GOOD microwave. Amazing what proper wattage can do. My old place had a LOW power microwave. It took 4 MINUTES to make popcorn, and the corn always came out stale and half unpopped. This one takes less than two minutes. It's beautiful.

All that was just friday.
Saturday, I went to a invitation only designer clothing sale with a friend, bought and read a whole book for my book club, had dinner with Chris, went grocery shopping, and in between put more boxes away. Sunday, I went to church, took a nap, read more, went hiking in a beautiful park with Chris, had ice creams afterwards, watched a Gene Kelly Marathon ( i LOVE musicals!), made dinner FOR chris, ironed and fell BAM into bed.

It was wonderful. I am starting to feel more like myself.

BLACKOUT

The whole east coast practically is DARK!

This is a problem for my time-zone striding profession. I have a feeling that we won't be doing video conferences tomorow.

I'm worried about New York City. I just had a very pleasant blackout at my home in Glendale on Tuesday. I am afraid that NYC is not having such a nice time of it.

NYC has had two other big ol' blackouts before, one in 1965 and one in 1977. The one in '65 was a widespread one like the one right now.

"At 5:27 p.m., November 9, 1965, the entire Northeast area of the United States and large parts of Canada went dark. From Buffalo to the eastern border of New Hampshire and from New York City to Ontario, a massive power outage struck without warning. Trains were stuck between subway stops. People were trapped in elevators. Failed traffic signals stopped traffic dead. And, at the height of the Cold War, many thought Armageddon had arrived. One pilot flying over a darkened New York City stated, "I thought, 'another Pearl Harbor!'" By 5:40 p.m. that evening, 80,000 square miles of the Northeast United States and Ontario, Canada, were without power, leaving 30 million people in the dark.
...
Despite the confusion and disarray, New Yorkers spent the night in peace. There were no riots or widespread looting. Instead, New Yorkers helped each other. Some directed traffic. Others assisted the New York fire department as they rescued stranded subway passengers. In many cases, New Yorkers just shared extra candles and flashlights with neighbors, reveling in the opportunity to get to know the people who lived across the hall.

By 11 o'clock, the power was restored in 75 percent of Brooklyn, and by 2 a.m., the borough was fully equipped with electric power. By midnight, much if the Bronx and Queens were lit. And, at 6:58 a.m., almost fourteen hours after the massive blackout struck New York, power was restored citywide. "

The one in 1977 was just the city:
"On a hot July night in 1977, the lights went out in New York City. The purr of air conditioners, cooling millions of New Yorkers, was replaced by stultifying silence-and then the sound of breaking glass. Faced with the second blackout in twelve years, New Yorkers responded with resilience as well as violence. Many stories emerged from the night of July 13th that revealed New Yorkers' divergent feelings about the city in which they lived. In some places, neighbors helped neighbors, and strangers helped strangers. Yet, at the same time, neighborhoods throughout New York exploded into violence. Stores were ransacked, looted and destroyed. Buildings were set ablaze. And the police, for the most part, stood helpless. In these stark contradictions, an unusual yet definitive moment left its mark on New York history-the night the lights went out.
...
In other parts of the city the experience was starkly different. News broadcasts reported outbreaks of violence, looting, and fires. Areas of Harlem, Brooklyn, and the South Bronx experienced the most damage, where thousands of people took to the streets and smashed store windows looking for TVs, furniture, or clothing. In one report, 50 cars were stolen from a car dealership in the Bronx. The police made 3,776 arrests, although from all accounts, many thousands escaped before being caught. 1,037 fires burned throughout the City, six times the average rate, while the fire department also responded to 1,700 false alarms. Regardless of where you where when the lights went out, New York's streets teemed-and sometimes burned-with life.
...
While the lights would not be turned on in some neighborhoods for another twenty-five hours, the blackout led many to question the reliability of New York's power system. Ironically, this attitude was partly the result of unusually high expectations for power reliability on the part of metro area consumers; Con Edison had (and still has) the least interrupted electrical service of all utilities in the nation. "

walking in LA

So, from my new house, I take a new bus. My old bus stop was directly in front of my apartment complex, and it dropped me off almost exactly in front of my office building. My new bus is 5 blocks from my house, and five long blocks from my office.

Well, 5 blocks is not exactly a marathon. I am still willing to walk that far. It takes about 10 minutes to walk it. Well, 15 to the office. Not that long, not that far.

Except when you add it up, I'm walking 40 minutes every day.

I'm gonna quit my gym! This is serious exercise!

I don't know how I will feel about it when it is raining, but right now, that is not a problem.

The real problem is that there is MAJOR construction on the downtown end of my walk. Two very long blocks of dust paths and broken concrete, tall gravel piles and pipes and ditches. That is when I think of the song "NObody walks in LA."

But i'm walking in LA. Downtown LA, where the courthouse and my big tall office building is. Guess who else is walking in LA?

Suited men with expensive neckties. A single-file ant column of them, walking purposefully and swinging their briefcases through the dust and ditches.

It is so surreal it makes me smile.

Homey thoughts

So, I spent time unpacking all my things yesterday. As I was getting things put away, a "click" sounded, and everything went quiet.

And dark.

The power went out. It was about 6:30. uh oh. It was still light enough to see. I thought I remembered a little flashlight in one of my boxes. Oh good, here it is! While I was there, I unpacked some more of that box.

I remembered a candle too. But I didn't remember where the matches where. I wondered for a little bit whether my car would be locked in the garage if the opener didn't have power. Hmm...

But then I thought I had better put together my bed before it got dark. I didn't want to sleep on the floor. I put the bed together...Where is that dust ruffle? Oh well, I'll find it later. It was nice to lay down on the bed for a moment.

Chris came by later with his dinner. By that time the power was back on. He and I worked to get my home stereo/theater system set up. We used my old shoe rack, a piece that is essentially narrow shelving made of nice red wood. It matches the rest of my furniture, so why waste it in the closet? That garage sale I bought it from has been good.

We racked everything on the shoe rack. Then came wiring. Bless Chris's heart! He sat down on the couch and said, "I'm glad my girlfriend is a video conferencing expert. You know what to do."

How many guys would step aside and let their girlfriends wire the stereo? Wiring this stuff is my JOB, but still, most guys would shove me out of the way. He is very secure, thank heavens.

When I was almost done, he pointed to the window. "Look!" he said. A beautiful flaming pink sunset was all across the sky.

That was MY view.

Chris and I sat on my couch for a moment and looked at the beautiful sky. It faded quickly, I was glad we stopped to see it.

Hooray! I'm a homeowner!

So, I got the keys to my new place on thursday. What a big thing huh?

It had been an exciting week. This was the week my boss hit the panic button, which means that he took me into his office for the last hour of every day to rip into me. Thursday was the worst day. He took special aim and let loose with a scattershot volley of conflicting and irrational statements about my abilities, my intelligence and my unwillingness to do work.

Just run-of-the-mill stuff for offices in tall buildings. But that doesn't mean it doesn't get to me. I spent thursday evening in tears. ALL thursday evening and part of early friday in tears.

BUT! I got my homeowner keys on thursday. And I had it all planned out: I would grab the keys and rent a Rug Doctor, and get to work on those "as-is" carpets I'd just bought.

My honey-sweet boyfriend met me at the building. He took a photo of my bleary self opening the door with my own keys for the first time. Isn't that wonderful? Then he gave me a long extended hug as I wailed.

But I had cleaning to do! The doctor is IN.

I filled up the big red machine with soap juice and water. Chris (did I mention how sweet he is?) ran out to get some food for dinner. Me and the Doctor were going into consultation.

Fire that puppy up. Here we go. Pull and squirt, Push and suck.

Stupid Boss! How dare he talk to me that way.

VRRRRR

I don't know what he expects from me, he wants perfection but in the next breath he admits that it's not possible.

VRRRRshlllp

What am I going to do? I don't have the time or the resources to stop the failures from happening, but his solution is just to give me more work!

SHLLLmmmm

I DON"T EVEN WANT TO BE THINKING ABOUT THIS! I SHOULD BE HAPPY TODAY!

RRRRRRRR

Man, I feel totally hopeless. I'm the one that has to face the users and be on the front lines when conferences fail. I am the one who is bringing attention to the problem in the hope that it can be fixed. But I'm not getting any help, I'm only getting blamed.

MMMMmmmmm

SIGH
My back hurts.

I finished most of the rug, I had blisters and a sore back, and very red eyes.

My darling man brought me a yummy McDonald's salad, so I ate a little dinner, even though my stomach was still upset.

I had to come back the next day to finish that last little bit. Friday. I wanted to stay there that night, but I had no energy.

And i needed energy, because MOVING DAY was approaching.

AS SEEN ON TV!

Man, there are a million crazy things for sale on TV. We are crazy crazy shoppers. And we watch a lot of TV. What a better marriage of ideas in American culture:
shopping while watching TV

I personally have a rule:
Never buy anything on TV while watching the infomercial.

Hence, I have never bought anything I've seen on TV. Sometimes I think about the stuff I have seen, though. Because that's another rule I have:
If I see something I think I want, walk away. If I think about it later, maybe then I really did want it and I will go back and get it.

But a lot of the time, there are things that you may be very excited about while under the spell of the infomercial, that you really have no earthly need for.

There are some things I still would like to try. That Epil stop 'n' spray stuff...Does it really work? Or does it peel the skin off the sprayed area right after the camera stopps rolling?

And that REVO hair styler...It looks so cool. But there is NO WAY that would actually work. I mean, the mechanics of it probably would take the curl out of my hair. But then I would be left with highly staticked fly-away hair.

Maybe straight-hair people don't realize that most curly-hair people are blessed with very fine hair. They associate curly hair with pubic hair, which is usually coarse. But curly HEAD hair is usually very fine.

Anyway, the seductive REVO hair styler is doomed to fail. The hair-dos would be destroyed with the first breath of air that hit them.

Those Minwax commercials make me start eyeing my furniture. Hmm...Does that need to be refinished? It's SO EASY!

And there is a commercial for a STEAM BUGGY. Wow, what a great device! Not only does it clean all your entire house without harmful chemicals, it can iron your clothes. That one really had me fascinated. I am against harmful chemicals. First, because they kill us and make babies come out funny. AND because they cost so darn much! The power of STEAM can revolutionize the world.

Man, that was hard to resist. But the almost $200 price tag helped me out.

What else?

Oh yeah! The FOOD SAVER! This is really the coolest thing. I may eventually buy this, really. Really!

Of course, this is the last infomercial I saw.

It VACCUUM SEALS the food in your whole house, keeping it safe from all kinds of buggies, and worse from going stale. You can make up a plate of food, stick it in a FOOD SAVER baggie, suck all the air out of it, and then freeze it for a whole year. Homemade TV dinners!

All the money I could SAVE with this $120 device.

I don't know. I'm gonna wait a little while longer. We'll see if I'm still excited about it after I see the next infomercial.

Too long

It's been too long since I've written. My hours at work have been too long, too.

Doing too much packing, trying to do too much that keeps me from being creative.

But soon it will be over. I think. I hope. I don't have to work such long hours for the rest of the week.

Thank God! Sheesh. Twelve hours is just too long--packing breakfast lunch and dinner for work. What's wrong with eight or nine hours? I can do that. I don't mind that. But no. Not this past week.

I am getting ready to move next week. My life is in boxes. Yuk. That's not so pleasant. I will be glad when the boxes are in the new place.

My sweet boyfriend is making all this hard stuff much easier though. I love having him nearby. It amazing how much you appreciate little things when you don't get to have them. We had nearly a year of NOT getting to see each other more than one day a week.

Now that i can see him almost any and every day, its like I am getting handfuls of gold dust.

So...things are so busy, but things are good. I'll get back to being creative after I move.

Really though, not even being able to write for my blog is a low ebb. I don't like that. So I won't neglect is anymore if I can help it.

Queer Eye for the Straight Guy

THis is a new show on Bravo. 5 gay guys get together to spiff up a clueless straight guy, and give him a makeover.

It is hilarious! I love this show. I tell you what, the sarcastic over-the-top gay culture is really MADE for TV. I mean it! These guys learned their moves from imitating the imitations of female glamour from Hollywood, so they are practically cartoon-like in their ability to quip and move things along.

Yes, they are extremely catty sometimes. But they aren't actually mean, they don't want to make anybody feel bad. They are there to make their straight guy's life better.

I would have thought that some of the straight guys would have gotten the willies, what with the gay guys pawing them and making little flirty comments, but they all seemed very comfortable and having a good time.

I have to say, I look at my house differently. What would Carson say?

Wank on, my son!

ThisisLondon

"Far from making you go blind or your palms go hairy, self-abuse can protect against prostate cancer, scientists claim. In fact, the more you do it, the better it is for you. Men who pleasure themselves regularly between the ages of 20 and 50 have a far lower chance of developing the disease, a study found. "

Men have felt this intrinsically for a while. But this study shows that benefits of choking the chicken are not for the casual salami slapper. 5 times a week is the threshold they cite.

I think though, men could slip it often enough. Make it a priority, I say!

Courrielez moi!

Blogcritics.org: 'E-mail' banned

From the "The French are bored again" file, France has voted to ban the use of the word "e-mail" because, well, they just don't like it anymore. In its place they've chosen to use the term "courriel," a combination of "courrier electronique" in an effort to apparently sound even snottier than they already do. Yes, that's right, the government, specifically the "Culture Ministry," actually put forth an initiative to remove the filthy, foul, and, most importantly, foreign-tongue derived "e-mail" from the entire French language.

I am THRILLED! I think it's fabulous that the French have a whole division of their government devoted to snootisms.

I was getting tired of the word e-mail too. Now i have an official french word for it! I can throw it around and be FABULOUS.

but how does one conjugate it?

Oh, for the 90's!

SO, I'm reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Geniusby David Eggers. I'm not done yet....

You know, I am always most excited about a book when I'm not done with it yet. Maybe I should always write the review about 3/4 of the way through. I would be a lot more excited than at the end, when I have already started another book.

Anyway, one of the parts of the book is how he is making a magazine in the ultra-hip San Francisco of the early 90's.

Oh my god...Oh my god...Oh, the San Francisco Bay Area in the 90s...Was there ever a Nirvana or Shangri-La like that one? Oh, how wonderful it was!

I moved there in 95. It was ELECTRIFYING ! It was INCREDIBLE! everything was possible. the world was about the be flipped like a pancake, taking us from the gooey-sticky, bubbling side to the beautiful, crisp brown smooth side!

Start-ups, all kinds, money coming from the SKY (aka venture capitalists). I think I would have gone the entireity of my life and not known what a venture capitalist was, if I had not moved to the Bay area.

Oh it was wonderful! We were riding the wave, and the wave had no end. There was no limit.

Of course there was no limit! I thought I told that we won't stop thought I told you...What...why are you stopping?

Because it did. All those highly paid consultants that were my friends, the ones who swore they would never "drink the kool-aid" and become an employee are now employees.

IF they are lucky.

random navel gazing

Maybe I should read books twice. Maybe that would be the thing...Take notes and stuff. Nafisi, the professor in Reading Lolita in Tehran rad books again and again, making notes.

She's a professor. One of those people who get to tell others instead of being told.

Well, maybe she has the right idea.

The thing about books is that they have a beginning a middle and an end. They are contained. They are a system, a closed system.

And a closed system is one that can be experimented on. You know what's there, you can work within the system, and it remains.

Once, a long time ago, I closed a book because I was working too much within a system. I had been a very very very religious [in the meaning of unfalteringly regular, as well as the other meaning] Bible reader.

And I had done this for years. For several reasons, all of which someone or other will fault me, I stopped.

The reason I told myself at the time, and I still believe that it is the main reason, is that if the Bible is true, and I choose to believe that it is, it is a system that is fully integrated with the universe.

And if it is fully integrated with the universe, any understanding I have about ANYTHING [because anything and everything is part of the universe] will enhance my ability to understand and interpret the Bible.

I could feel in my bones, like a draft of wind or a change in air pressure, that I was not interpreting the Bible right.

And I knew without a doubt that I knew less than nothing about the world around me. I was 21. I consider this precocious of me.

So I thought, I need to work on the one part and get back to the other. Because I had a feeling that I was propping up a failing system.

And since I believe that the failing system could not be the Bible's system, the system that was failing was my understanding/intrpretation of it.

So I needed to work on my understanding.

NOW, this is only an anecdote to illustrate my point about books. The Bible is a book, after all.

so, do I need to dig deeper into the books? OR back off the books?

This begs a question. What purpose are the books?

If the books are part of my lifelong quest for enlightenment, then they are important. That takes me back to the conclusion that I need to maximize my reading and the quantity/quality conundrum I mentioned before [previous post].

If the books are just for my amusement, though, then all this is nonsense. I should just read the books in whatever way I like.

If, however, the books are purely for my amusement, I am become a hedonistic pleasure-monster.

Which doesn't make sense, because I seem to only enjoy books that challenge me.

And this leads to ontological and epistomological tail chasing.

It's a moot point. We don't know.

Which could lead back to that book I put aside when I was 21.

Some people do this. They choose a religion, accept it as a closed system, and devote their lives to it. Inside a hermitage or not.

"This" they say "is the source of the answers. I will bend myself to the answers this system provides."

This seems like a good idea. It has the appearance of truth. Perhaps in many many cases it is the truth.

Except it is dangerous. I believe, as I did when I was 21 and even earlier, that true religion cannot be a closed system.

Because, who would be closing it? WHo would say, 'We understand everything now, no more!'

It would have to be people. People who came to the conclusion that they understood everything.

That would be impossible. It's not that I believe everything cannot be understood, I just cannot concieve of a human mind being able to do it.

Therefore, closing the system will result in it's falsehood.

I love truth too much to do that. I will risk a lie, risk being wrong, in an open system. I feel like there is a chance in the open system. But the closed system is a lie from the beginning.

All this, because I am thinking about my reading habits.

I think too much.

Scratch me, and I bleed philosophy. I never stop.

I should be less responsible

I am wretchedly sick. Yuk.

I began to be ill yesterday at work. It got worse and worse, and I was in so much pain, I called the doctor. Missing my dinner, I rushed over to Kaiser to wait for an hour.

Ugh.

They gave me pills, which stop the pain. Antibiotics, maybe that will kick it in the pants.

THe phenomenal relief of not being in pain made me feel perfectly well.

Until I had to come to work this morning.

Why am I here? What is wrong with me? I am FAR too responsible for my own good. I should be at home, lying in bed and moaning, instead of here, typing on my computer and moaning.

Yes indeed. Why am I here?

I am here because the boss is gone. Like Kirk on the Enterprise, he took all his officers on the away team. Absolutely no one else would have been here to cover for me at 7:30 a.m.

Is this my problem? I am sick.

But I was raised that excuses are not reasons to shirk your responsilities.
So here I am.

4th of july nostalgia

So, when I was getting ready for the parade and fireworks last friday, I had to pick out my outfit. It was ragingly hot outside, so I needed something cool.

A couple months back, I had picked up this truly adorable vintage 50s sundress. Perfect! With some bike shorts underneath so my thighs don't stick together, it was the coolest cutest ensemble.

And, it felt right to be wearing vintage on the 4th of July.

So I bopped around getting ready, listening to the radio talk about the founding fathers. THinking about them, thinking about us today. What was this holiday really about? I am against unthinking nationalism. What is the best way to celebrate Independence Day?

Then I wondered...WHY is it appropriate to wear vintage on Independence Day? Must our patriotism be rooted in the past? Shouldn't our sense of civic duty and patriotism be looking to the future?

Yes, the day commemorates an event that occurred in the past. But the idea is one of a nation by the people, for the people. And we is the people.

I wish that our sense of patriotism would extend beyond wearing T-shirts
with American flags or getting a red-white-and-blue manicure (Yes, I saw this. I really did).

At least, can more of us vote? That's all I'm asking.

wow, I haven't written in a while

Hey everyone!

I have been so amazingly busy that I haven't even had time to pontificate over here.

THe big news is that I am pursuing the purchase of a condo. That has me at a high state of excitement and nervousness. I'm pleased that I am such a grown-up, and yet I'm terrified that I won't be able to handle it.

I will send all my friends my new address as soon as I can.

Also, I've been doing other kinds of writing. You know, not all writing works well as quick posts of commentary. That's blogging. But I've been working on longer stuff.

So everyone, thank you for reading, and that's what I've got for today's update.

Come back later!

Too sad...

XMCA Mail 2000_12: Alan Peshkin, r.i.p.

>>Alan Peshkin (Buddy) died yesterday after a yearlong struggle
>>with a particularly aggressive brain cancer. Until two weeks
>>ago, he was meeting his classes at Stanford, conferring with
>>students and colleagues, and actively collecting source
>>materials for his projected book on Muslims and their schools
>>in America.

I've been reading Peshkin's book God's Choice, about the culture of christian schools. It stirred me so much, I thought I should find out more about Peshkin.

I was so pleased to find he was a professor at Stanford! Stanford! That's close! I was just fantasizing about talking with him, and telling him how much I appreciated his fine work.

But then I find the above postint. He's dead. Too young, really. Only 69.

I mourn him, even though we never met. His book reveals an extraordinary man.

I hope his students are able to produce some more works in the tradition he taught them. The world is a richer place because of what Alan Peshkin accomplished.

Sourdough Waffles

It certainly does happen very often, so when the spirit moves me to bake, I go with it. It is hot here right now, and absolutely not the weather for such activities. More like smoothie weather.

But I wanted to bake bread.

And really, the only kind of bread worth baking is sourdough bread. Those of you who have not experienced REAL sourdough bread, I can only pity.

Sourdough is associated with gold rushes, and my home state of Alaska is associated with gold rushes too. During the Alaska gold rush, it was practically illegal to enter the state without sourdough. It kept you alive.

In fact, old-timers in Alaska are called "Sourdough." Well, old timers that know what they're doing. You can be an old-timer and still not have a clue. Those types would not be sourdoughs. Even though I was born in alaska, I would not be an old Sourdough.

Allman's book, Alaskan Sourdough, explains a lot of this. She gives some lore, and more importantly, she gives the right recipes for how to make and cook sourdough.

Let me tell you, that frenchbready stuff they sell in the store is NOT sourdough bread. It's more like sourdough flavored bread. And flavored wrong, actually. Real sourdough is not sour to the taste, it's a very unique kind of sweet.

Now that I think about it, the subtlety of the flavor reminds me of good wine.

Unfortunately, most peopleare unaware of the many OTHER uses of sourdough. In my opinion, the pinnacle of sourdough excellence is the sourdough waffle.

Fortunately, it is also the easiest recipe to make. Once you have the starter, the waffle recipe is hardly any more difficult to make than bisquick.

It is the lightest, fluffiest, tastiest waffle you will ever have. I have never met anyone outside of alaska that has even heard of this delicacy, let alone tasted it.

If anyone reading this is an adventurous cook, you really MUST try this stuff. It's the coolest thing in the world, and very worth the work.

Well, look who's back!

First Newborn Bald Eagles in Years Seen in Southland

I grew up around Bald Eagles. THey ate the salmon in the river near my home in Alaska. The little Susitna River was fed by hot springs, and so it never froze all the way in the winter. The Eagles could have their eagle convention down there in the winter, with the river serving up the snacks.

I was surprised and horrified when I learned as a child that Bald Eagles were an endangered species. It seemed like a terrible thing, to have our national symbol die out.

They didn't seem endangered where I was. It made me proud of my home state.

Well, the eagles are apparently recovering from the DDT poisoning that California inflicted on them the last century. Some babies have been born near my near home in L.A.:

If the 9-week-old eaglets survive, federal and state wildlife officials say, they will have begun repopulating the southern end of their historical nesting range before bald eagles were all but wiped out in California by coastal development and the manufacture and use of the pesticide DDT.

Good luck to them!

Iranian Blogs

CNN.com - Prostitute diary tops Iran Web hit - Jun. 16, 2003

Looks like Iran is enjoying the same freedoms blogging brings:

"An Internet boom has caught officials by surprise and prompted them to draw up rules for the largely unregulated sector. The number of users has jumped by 90 percent in the past year. Still, only about three million of Iran's population of 65 million -- half of them under 25 -- have access to the net. "

But they have the same problem we americans do. It's a small niche.

I'd like to find that prostitute's website, actually.

Who me?

Right away back from Philadelphia, I had to go do a story about an artist for my off-line journalist gig.

Urartu cafe was having an opening for their new art installation.

As I was sitting outside, bopping to the excellent jazz combo, this guy asked me what if I was doing a story.

Why yes, I was.

He had heard of me. He reads the newspaper that I write for.

!!

Somehow, it had not actually dawned on me that people read this stuff. He knew my name! He knew my stories.

I am still astounded.

Below average

So, I just got back from this cool wine-'em-and-dine-'em conventiony user group thingy for Video Conferencing.

I had a fun fun time! And YES, I was working. It was a lot about tech stuff and strategies.

But the people that work for this company are so young and fun. Plus, everyone is having babies...
But that's a different story.

I got back on Friday night, and the first thing that I took away from this conventiony thing was:
"I need new shoes. CUTE shoes."

'Cause those young fun females were all sporting their lacquered toes in hip little sandals. In PHILADELPHIA!
LA is even more of a naked toe environment.

I have been bashful to try these kinds of shoes. I admire them, and i do think I have attractive feet.

But I am of below average coordination.

FAR below average.

These ladies with their little teeny straps holding the shoe to their foot....I don't think so.

I like something FIRMLY attached to my foot. I tend to be very absent minded. I am very likely to leave my shoe behind if it is not fully fastened.

And if you add HEELS to the equation-well...i fear for my ankles.

But what is practicality in the face of cute?

I went shopping.

I got some GREAT shoes. Some super high boots, with the new thin but wide heel. Very sexy, in a art deco macintosh pattern.

But these are not the CUTE shoes I am looking for. They are very hip and sophisticated, but not CUTE.

Perhaps I fear cute. I want to be taken seriously. But I want to be surprising, too.

Cute shoes. I must persevere to the cute.

There were some incredibly cute sandals for sale. They had beaded staps, and a big gem flower between the toes.

But I couldn't decide which color. Hot pink? Electric Blue?

I chickened out.

Naked toes.

But there were some other sandals on sale. They were a comfortable black, but they were studded with red stones.

They were pretty.

But they only had one little piece of leather over my foot. And they were about 3 inches of heel.

scary.

I'm wearing them today. Cute feet at work. It's a little difficult, trolloping around in my strappy shoes, trying to remember to walk in such a way as to keep my feet in my shoes.

I'm catching myself, just as I slip off the edge of the shoes, or teeter on the verge of snapping off my ankle.

Beauty is hard. I wish I were a little more coordinated.

Maybe there's a class I can take.

But i still feel very cute.

In Praise of Preserves

I would like to take a moment and discuss the deliciousness of Jam.

What with all the new marketing campaigns and new products out there for everything anyone can think of, it's easy to lose site of old favorites. "to thine own self be true" as the bard wrote. Don't forget where you came from!

Jam has been around for centuries, and there is a good reason why. Berries and fruits are some of the most interesting and full flavors you can find. jam was a way that people preserved the berries for storage.

People would take those preserved fruits and make all kinds of yummy baked goods out of them: Pies, Cookies, Cakes with Jam fillings.

But who has time to do that anymore? Even those of us who do enjoy the process of cooking don't have the time!

But jam, even without the surrounding baked item crust, cookies, whatever) is really good! My friends in Russia (who DID make their own jam, store-bought wasn't an option) taught me to just stick in a spoons and chow down.

Yes, jam does have a lot of sugar. But other than that, it has a lot of good things in it's favor. No fat, no cholesterol, tons of vitamins and an incredible amount of flavor.

I'm tired of bland pre-packaged flavors. I am reviving the habit of spooning up jam in my life. I encourage you all to try it too!

Pick a flavor that you really like! Except grape jelly. That's nasty.

Personally, I like jams with some heft. Jellies are too smooth; I want to feel the berries pop in my mouth.

Raspberry and boysenberry have seeds with add interest. But if you don't like seeds, try the apricot or plum. These have incredible zing and still retain some texture in the chunks of fruit.

If you are worried about the sugar, you can get the 100% fruit spread that are everywhere now. I ate just a tablespoon last night with a hot cup of black tea, and I was extremely satisfied.

Check it out! See if you don't rediscover an old-fashioned delight.

An Award for acting

I just heard on NPR this morning about a woman who was trying to save her sons from Saddam Hussien.

It's just like Anne Frank, really. Except the guys make it.

This mother of her two sons put on a huge act for the soldiers who came to her house to arrest her sons She would demand to know where they were.

Of course, she knew they were right upstairs. All the soldiers had to do was go look. But she acted so convincingly that the soldiers never did seach.

Eventually, she went down to THEIR station to demand to know where they were.

To get rid of her, they finally told her that the men had been executed.

For 20 years, these men did not leave their home's upstairs. Two decades.

What a mother~! She saved her sons.

NPR interviewed the sons and the mother. The mother told them it was difficult to act for the soldiers when she knew they could put her to death.

But she also said she was pretty good at acting.

Gathering Impressions

Tamara Kobilkina, a dear friend from Mirnyy, had that certain turn of phrase. She spoke English very well, but there are ragged edges in the overlap of languages. One idea can be expressed beautifully in one language, perhaps because it is a concept widely understood by the culture. But that same idea is awkward in another language.

Tamara liked to ask me what my impressions of Russia were, what I thought of different things and places that I have seen.

I had forgotten about her "Impressions" question until I went to Germany with Chris. I was full of ideas and new sites, sounds and tastes. I turned to Chris, to ask him what he thought of everything.

I had to grope for the right phrase. "So what do you think?" did not adequately cover the ground.

"What are your impressions of this place?" is just right.

If I ever see Tamara again, I will thank her for that beautifully fitting question.

I have so many many many many impresssions.

I loved the trip. I have been LONGING to go to a foriegn country. I have been to the UK and to Ireland in the past decade. But they did not feel foriegn.

Because, you see, we speak the same language. How foriegn can we be?

And I remember the HIGHLY foriegn country that I spent a year and a half in.

Anyone that knows my family, not just one or two individuals, but my whole family, knows that some part of us is frozen, like Han Solo, around the impressions we got in Russia.

So, I wanted to try a new flavor of foriegn country. Russia was so tremendously exciting.

Tamara told me that I understood the Russian soul.

I don't think so. Maybe just being impressionable is the Russian soul.

Right now, I am full to the brim of impressions of my trip to Germany. I am very sad to have left.

Yet, here I am talking about everything but Germany!

well, there is a lot to tell.

One of my huge impressions is of the contrast, how INCREDIBLY TERRIFYING my stay in Russia was.

and how incredibly ignorant I was. I did not even know enough to be afraid.

My mother told me that she was really scared to be in Russia.

To her, she said, Russia was the bad guys.

In school, she said, we were taught to drop under the desks to be safe if Russia dropped the bomb on us.

Well, I didn't go to school. I had VERY little TV, or Movies to tell me who the bad guys were.

Because, you know, you have to be told.

It has been ten years since I lived in Russia. That's pretty much the span of my adult life.

I've seen a lot of TV and Movies since then.

And most of those TV and movies pointed to the Germans as being the bad guys.

When I was in Germany there were a few moments of feeling illogically afraid.
I have more sympathy for my mom's fears, now.

The right map makes all the difference

I just got back from my vacation to Germany.

Chris had never been on a driving tour of a foreign country. I told him, "You know we are going to fight over the map."

Peaceful, considerate man that he is, he said, "why? I don't want to fight with you."

I said, "Trust me. Driving in a foriegn country means that you will have a fight while driving. It may mean that you fight the entire time you are driving."

He is a good man. We really didn't fight that much. Yes, there were the moments of tension when the directions we were given ceased to bear any relationship to the signs posted.

We made it through okay, and I think it is due in large part to the superior map we had. I recommend this one.

Michelin Germany/Austria/Benelux/Switzerland/Czech Republic Atlas
by Michelin Travel Publications, Michelin

hissy face

That's what Bryan calls Martha Stewart.

After my last post about Martha Inc, the TV movie I watched last night, I went to check out MarthaStewart.com

I'm gonna break out in hives.

You know, i watched her show once, I think. "Living". But you have to say "Living" in that certain pear-shaped, sighing tone.

I remember that she was telling her viewer that she liked to make home-made marshmallows for smores on the picnic that was the theme of the show.

Homemade marshmallows.

What kind of masochistic woman flagellates herself about not making homemade marshmallows for picnics with her family?

Is this an East Coast thing? Are they so snooty over there that they have to invent ways to feel simultaneously class-superior and personally deficient?

The woman was not raised in California.

And let's not even talk about what kind of homemaking show would originate from Alaska. I can just imagine Martha coming up with cute ways of using natural fibers for toilet paper in the outhouse when the family is snowed in and low on supplies in the winter.

She wouldn't last a winter in Alaska. The woman would have been mysteriously dead come spring.

I think that some of her ideas are kind of neat. I would make home made marshmallows once, to try it. It would be interesting.

But I cannot hold myself to that kind of standard. Good god! I enjoy my life too much to impeccably clean up after myself.

Mirror, Mirror, on the wall...

In
One week
Seven days

I will be on vacation in Germany! I will, to be exact, be in the very same town that the Brothers Grimm lived in while they were gathering their fairy tales.

I love the Grimm Fairy tales.

Kindermarchen, they call them.

Skazki, also.

I read all of them when I was a kid.
I immediately recognized that Disney had not told them right. They are much scarier and bloodier the old way.

I guess we liked the scary parts.

I wish that we still told one another stories. I fear that story telling is dying out. We read now. Or we watch it on TV.

We don't tell.

Mind your nouns and tenses

Yesterday, as i was riding the bus home early because I was coming home sick, a young man got on the bus. He handed the bus driver a ticket, and then made some gestures like he needed to say more.

After trying to understand him for a moment, the bus driver said, "I speak six languages, but I do not speak American Sign Language."

The young man gave up and sat down.

He had been motioning that he wanted to write something down. But he didn't have any paper. I happened to have a pad on me.

I took it out, and wrote down:

What do you need?

I handed him the pad and pen:

I told him that I did paid ticket at the metro rail transfer to bus should give me ticket is some

You want another transfer?

I gave him my ticket need to change a bus ticket. also i paid ticket at the metro rail machines

You need another tranfer or what? a 'transfer' is a ticket that lets you get on the next bus.

I need a ticket because my grammar isn't good. but most of time I using on american sign laguage.

Well, if you need another bus pass, you need to pay for it. He will give you one.

I did gave him of my ticket. I was paid a ticket machine at the metro rail, can rail transfer to bus don't need I another to pay a ticket just I gave him give me one a ticket. if I not paid only metro rail it mean i can't get another a ticket

Do you need something else? You are riding the bus now

Just forgot about that I'll pay other but I knew depend on the people force to the people to pay but i knew about rule MTA

Then it was time for him to get off the bus. He blew me a kiss and held his hands to his heart, mouthing the words 'thank you.'

He was very nice, I thought. A nice deaf young man.
I really wish I could have understood what he meant.

All this, I write, to illustrate the
IMPORTANCE OF GRAMMAR

There are times when it is very important to be understood. Constructing sentences with subjects, objects, verbs and prepositions really helps out with being understood.

I wish that boy luck, but man, he needs to study his grammar.

Civilization is one missed lunch away from bedlam

Rank and file workers in America are not doing so well lately. Apparently, the UN cafeteria workers were striking for promised wages.

Those folks over at the UN are supposed to be the world's best diplomats, right? The ones chosen from all over the world to reasonably work things out fairly and equitably. Force is for savages; we are all civilized here.

Hmm...That works until they have to give up their after-school snacks. With the workers on strike, the cafeterias were closed.

...count the seconds until someone storms the kitchens and the looting begins...

TIME.com: Food Fight

"The decision to make the cafeterias into "no pay zones" spread through the 40-acre complex like wildfire. Soon, the hungry patrons came running. "It was chaos, wild, something out of a war scene," said one Aramark executive who was present. "They took everything, even the silverware," she said. Another witness from U.N. security said the cafeteria was "stripped bare." And another told TIME that the cafeteria raid was "unbelievable, crowds of people just taking everything in sight; they stripped the place bare." And yet another astonished witness said that "chickens, turkeys, souffles, casseroles all went out the door (unpaid)." "

That is the result of the world's best experts in diplomacy being left to their own devices.

Be very afraid.

writing or writing?

I have not been writing so much on my blog lately. I feel dully guilty about this.

But not too guilty, because I have been trying to write a lot in other places. Places like my hard drive, which are not published.

I like publishing my writing, and I like my blog. Before I had my blog, I spent a huge amount of time writing emails. Emails are at least read by ONE person, I hope. I enjoy the attention, I have to say.

My email style tends to the ponderous, however. I think what I say is generally interesting, but it can get really long.

I guess I'm an e-conversation hog.

A few years ago, I noticed myself getting embroiled in long and involved, complicated e-conversations. I found myself composing the emails in my head as i went about my life: "...and this illustrates my previous point..."

This began to worry me. How much of one (or two or three or four) people's attention could I monopolize? I thought that my emails were no longer really working well in the medium I was using.

But I was impressed by what I had written, I felt that I had reached some new understanding through the discourse. I didn't throw them away.

But I realized that the effort I was putting into these writings was inefficient. I should put my creative energy into something a little more universal than a RE: subject line could encompass.

I thought I should spend time writing for real, not emails.

But I missed the audience. I missed knowing that it would be read.

It seemed empty, words not read like a tree falling alone in the forest. Did they really matter?

I was very pleased with the arrival of blogs. I have tremendously enjoyed my blog. Recently, I have been pushing really hard to write and post and post. I enjoy posting. And I really like posting on Blogcritics, because the readership is even larger there.

But I am brought up once again. I have the same problem with the blog that I had in email. My blogposts are somewhat ponderous. The popular blogs, it seems to me, are not as wordy as mine. People don't want to spend a half and hour reading something on a computer monitor.

Well, it depends what it is. Maybe if it's REALLY GOOD, then they might.

So. Then I have to be REALLY GOOD if I want to follow my inclination to ramble on and on.

Or maybe ( and here we are at the same place again) the blog is not the proper medium for some of the things I feel like I need to write.

Blogs seem to be an Extrospective kind of writing. People are commenting on politics, on popular culture, movies, TV, music, whatever. Toss off an opinion, a fact, a perspective, this seems to be what blogs are good for.

I can do that. I throw out my take on various subjects, books and movies especially. I think I do it reasonably well, although one commentor recently gave me the distinction of writing the worst movie review ever (it was for Waiting for Guffman).

But what about introspective? This particular posting is introspective. I'm not apologetic about it, but I realize that it invites a different readership with a different mindset than the extrospective stuff.

And maybe that mindset is not engaged by the computer screen.

AND

maybe the type of writing that I am trying to do needs a little more room than a blogpost can comfortably give me.

Interesting tangent:
I wonder how large MT allows posts to be? Hmm...

Blogposts have to achieve some kind of completion at the end. But writing, the kind that you get up and do for 2 hours every morning, does not need completion before you stop. The point is, it's bigger than you can accomplish at one sitting.

And maybe that's the next rung.

I admit, it is very satisfying to write a blogpost and finish it. It takes more discipline and organization to work on a long story and finish it.

I'd like to write longer stories though.

And I've been trying to work on it. Which is why my posting has slowed a bit.

It's a shift of focus.

McMansions are popping up

In this new place I life, LA, appearances seem to be pretty important.

Homes are a part of that. Here's an article for the LA times about the zeitgeist:

Keeping Up With the Jonesing

"Having the time and money to build your own home used to be one of the perks of wealth. McMansion buyers, by contrast, are the working wealthy. Many of them labor long hours to pay the massive mortgages on their massive houses. For them, it's more practical to buy a previously designed place that projects an aura of wealth, prestige and personal achievement—off-the-rack opulence, if you will—rather than create a unique architectural symbol of high culture and refinement. If you want individuality, you can always sink some bucks into unique landscaping or remodel that useless formal dining room into a private pool hall."

This makes me sad. Individuality is important. It's one of the things that makes a neighborhood charming. Heck, it's what makes people charming.

It seems wasteful to have a huge rattley home that doesn't suit your family's needs. You shouldn't live your life for other people, and you shouldn't buy a house just because other people will be impressed by it.

Especially the cost is so high, it takes you away from your family.

It's important to pop your head up for air once in a while.

I remember a friend saying that people will spend a lot of time reducing discomfort, but don't spend very much time increasing comfort.

Tantek's being clever again...

My friend Tantek put up this very interesting post a while back.

He came up with some categories for organizing his life:

grow
restore
maintain
prune
close

You should read the whole post to get his thoughts on it. But I found this framework to be really thought-provoking.

Sometimes, a new perspective, a different way to approach the problem, can give you a place to begin. So, I've been trying out this new categorization idea. Taking a look around my life, it becomes apparent to me that there are some things I want more of (to grow), some things I want less of (to prune) and some things I really want to get rid of altogether (to close).

It is one of my life-long habits, to look at the shape of my life and try to adjust it to what I really want. It is very easy for all of us to get into the cog of doing what is next on the list.

But what about evaluating the list?

So these categories give some tools to evaluate the list.

Thanks, Tantek! You have inspired me to get closure on cleaning my patio.

Polite requests bear fruit

Someone wrote to me and asked if I could add a link on my site to their site.

I am quite impressed with this request. I checked out the site, and it does not seem to suck. I am happy to link to his site.

He already linked to mine.

I am pleased to see politeness on the internet. It seems rare.

Here's a tip: Pizza Veggie Burgers

These things are very tasty!

I had a coupon, so I bought these things in a fit of eat-betteredness.

But they ARE veggie burgers, so they were diligency freezedrying themselves in my freezer.

Until supplies got low.

I had to rush to pack a lunch for work (yet another fit of eatbetteredness) and threw this patty on top of some spaghetti for protien.

After I had microwaved the lot, so that it was all steamy and nice, I took a bite.

Wow! That burger was really good! They had mixed in the mushrooms and the basil and stuff, which was great by itself.

But then they had mixed in some cheese. Wow, that made a difference! It made it juicier and sizzlier. Those are hard to find in a veggie burger.

The patty only has 130 calories, and 3 g of fiber. That makes it very point-friendly for the weightwatchers. And it's just good for anybody.

I thought I would share.

Creativity takes SOME sleep

I've been working kind of hard the last two weeks. It's getting in the way of posting.

I've got a huge backlog of things to review, but...I get tired and braindead.

I need to have a certain amount of sleep a night to be functional.

You know, I figured out, by trial and error, a formula.

I can function for a day, or two, on 5 hours of sleep per night. I can make it, barely.
But I will get sick if I dont' catch up.

I can go for extended periods on 6 hours of sleep a night. I won't be happy, but I can make it through.

7 and a half per night is really optimal.

But I can't dip into the 5 hour range without getting sick.

This was in my early, wow, EARLY 20s, so maybe it's not the same now that i'm 30.

But I like the symmetry.

I have been Spammented!

I wish I had an emoticon for sputtering!
That is exactly how I feel about this situation.

I did a piece about "Daily pay for Daily work-$$$" I was not looking for daily pay, or even thinking favorably about it.

But 'Steven' from http://www.dailycashpay.com had to leave a comment on my post about how I could start such a business.

A Spamment! on my blog! I would delete it, but all comments are artifacts, a thing I wish to foster on my blog.

Are other bloggers getting spamments? Is this an isolated incident?
I hope that 'Steven' is anomalously creative. I would hate for blogs to be infected with spam, too.

Just leave the URL!

ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US
In Sturgis, some jokesters had to remind everyone of that simple fact on April fools day:

"An April Fools joke has seven young men in Sturgis explaining a punchline that the police say was no laughing matter. They put up signs that read "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US, YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO SURVIVE MAKE YOUR TIME." "

I think it's funny, personally. But maybe they should not have chosen that particular part to quote..."You have no chance to survive" does sound ominous in these times.

Of course, if they'd only put up the URL, the whole thing could have been avoided.

LINK your posts, man!

this one's for me

As a kid, nothing seemed out of my reach.

There weren't any challenges.
Well, there was one. I wanted to be able to run 5 miles. My legs didn't carry me that far. But I wished they did.

Everything else was not a matter of "Am I able?" but a matter of "Am I allowed?"

So little was allowed. Music was suspect, Movies were suspect. Books were kind of suspect. Education, friends, people I might meet, life goals, all these things were suspect.

They might get in the way of "God's will for my life."

God didn't want me to learn at a secular school. God didn't want me to watch movies that Jesus wouldn't watch. God's will was not for me to saturate myself with "worldly" music or expose myself to the influence of non-christian friends.

Eating, talking on the phone, what clothes i wore and where I visited were all to be weighed in the scale of "What would be the Christian thing to do?"

The christian thing to do seemed to be to always be telling my non-christian friends to become christian.

But, as it happened, I wasn't supposed to have non-christian friends.

This situation left me with a lot of time on my hands.

I read a lot. I had no guidance, really, so I just galloped after whatever caught my interest. Lots of austen, dickens. The entire shelf labeled "Young Adult" at the library. I discovered I liked those best.

But I had no one to talk to about what I read.

There was no challenge, really.

When I moved to Russia, I knew nothing. NO one expected me to know anything. I learned Russian when I was there, but that was the extent of the challenge.

THe trip was an exercise in gathering impressions.

It wasn't until I moved back to the states, and got married that I started to really try to challenge myself.

I finally ran 5 miles. It wasn't that hard. I just kept at it.

Then we moved to California. The bay area.

HERE, at last, the bar was raised.

People knew things. There was a challenge in the air. People my age had jobs, and careers. they had interests and specialties. Intellectual pursuits.

whoa. What the heck is this? I felt incredibly inadequate. My little bits of stuff, my little interests and areas of knowledge were pathetic!

it took me quite a while to rise to the challenge. I felt so frustrated, because I knew that i was capable, I just hadn't actually DONE any of these things yet.

My self-evaluation left me really lacking. I had to compensate.

I started to. I got some stuff happening. I wasn't at the top, but I got in the game. I got some self-respect, I got going.

By the time I left, I felt pretty good about myself. I felt like I was making progress. I had something to show.

Now i live in LA.
I feel back at the bottom. Whoa. There is so much going on here. I have so much I want to be doing, want to have DONE already. There is a rushing torrent of creativity going through this town, I want to be swimming in the middle of it.

I am not there yet. The bar just took a big jump.

I want to be part of it. But I don't want to lose myself, either.

I have to take it slow, but I have some serious ground to cover.

I guess I just have to keep at it. A little every day.

Learning german

"Haven't you been studying german? Can't you tell me anything in German?"

"Ummm....I can tell you where the German Dictionary is..."

"You're supposed to be learning to speak German!"

"Uh...I'm gonna do that tonight.."

"Well, you have to be able to speak it if you want to go there!"

"Um..yeah...Ja! Ja! I can speak it...

"OH sure...Nien!"

"Ja ja!

"Achtung!"

"Gesundheit!"

"I know you are, but what am I?"

When I first heard the French called "Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys" it made me laugh. I wonder if that little epithet is widely known in France though?

Who knows? It's hard for anyone to have perspective on themselves.

But this article is from the Moscow Times. It gave me a little perspective on how others view America:

"It was believed that the Americans were afraid of close hand-to-hand encounters, they would not tolerate the inevitable casualties, and that in the final analysis they were cowards who relied on technical superiority"

Basically, the Russians were convinced that Americans were ultra-sanitized technowusses.

It's interesting to see that the same article goes on to say that the Russians were wrong:

"The worst possible outcome of the war in Iraq for the Russian military is a swift allied victory with relatively low casualties. Already many in Russia are beginning to ask why our forces are so ineffective compared to the Brits and Americans; and why the two battles to take Grozny in 1995 and 2000 each took more than a month to complete, with more that 5,000 Russian soldiers killed and tens of thousands wounded in both engagements, given that Grozny is one tenth the size of Baghdad."

Interesting. The Russians mocked America for not wanting to get it's hands dirty. I imagine some kind of mental equation, the Russians seeing a direct corellation to how dirty the hands are to the likelihood of winning the war.

As it turns out, the Hands-dirtying may have nothing whatsoever to do with winning a war. But Russia doesn't want to admit that:

"The Russian media is generally avoiding the hard questions and serving up anti-American propaganda instead. It is alleged that the U.S. government is "concealing casualties" (like its Russian counterpart), and that hundreds if not thousands of U.S. soldiers have already been killed. Maybe this deceit will become the main semi-official excuse for disregarding the allied victory."

Very Interesting.

Thanks to Jamie for bringing this article to my attention.

COLOR HUNGER

This morning, I woke up and I had to wear something colorful. The need was so intense, I could not ignore it.

Even though I was swept along on this wave of lust for bright color, I was confused b it. This has never happened before. It easy enough to recognize that--there is nothing in my closet that could fulfill the need.

Recently, I've stepped away from all-black-all-the-time to embrace colors such as beige or muted greens. Blue, there is a little navy or discreet blue in there.

As a teenager, I was very enamoured of the deepness of black. Black was so all-ecompassing. Black was simple, black was stark. This was the era of neon colors, so I had a few pieces of Red or Electric blue. But I loved to wear black and the other colors, becuase it set off the contrast. It was another kind of starkness.

Living in the San Fracisco area encouraged the my love of black. Black pooled in my drawers, and sulked in my closet. I laughed about it being difficult to find a particular item of clothing, because the black all blended together.

I learned to avoid cotton dyed black. It faded. Wool, or other fabrics held the deepness of the color better.

So where has this lust for color today come from?

It has been coming slowly, I recognize that. I've been lingering over the patterns and flower shades on the sales racks. Not quite taking the plunge, but thinking about it.

Why now?

Am I the pawn of fashion's will? Have the designers dictated that Colors are now the thing, and I pant after them like Pavlov's dogs?
Am I being influenced by this palm-tree and porsche city? The flowers growing year round, the huge billboards shouting for my attention with bright splahses? The dabs of mandatory paint on the feminine toes everywhere through sandals?Or, to be Alanis about it, had I finally come to a healthy place where I was comfortable with complications in my clothing? Maybe the huge numbers of people in my new city were intimidating, and I wanted to stand out.

These thoughts sifted through the cracks of my consciousness as I single-mindedly shopped for the brightest, loudest piece of color I could fasten to my body.

I wanted something that would announce my prescence boldly without me saying a word. I wanted to stand out and make heads turn.

I found the most amazing little red dress, with purple and orange and hot pink palm leaves in a pattern all over it.

And I really don't care. I love it.

Annette and Lizzie...Hmmm..

Disney Channel - Lizzie McGuire

I confess, I've seen the show but barely.

I did, however, notice the big billboard of Lizzie Mcguire as I was riding the bus downtown.

I noticed that she was rather developed for the age she is supposed to play.

Then I remembered Annette Funicello in the Mickey Mouse club.

Is it just me? I think Disney is working it.

60 minutes talks about Civil Rights abuses

CBS News | Guilty Until Proven | April 6, 2003 23:45:04

I certainly agree with the authorities fulfilling their responsibilities to question anyone and everyone that might be able to shed light on terrorist activities.

But it is necessary to hold people for so long?

"The government was able to hold Omar and hundreds of other Muslim detainees by charging them not as criminals but as visa violators. The law says criminals, even murderers, must be charged with a crime quickly – usually within 48 hours – or released.

Immigration laws used to work the same way, but after 9/11, the justice department rewrote the rules so that suspected visa violators could be held in jail as long as the government wants – without any charges filed against them. "

Generally, America has a great system in place to protect citizens from government abuses.
This Afghani-American citizen believed in the system:

"Shokriea says she wasn't worried when her husband was picked up for questioning. At least not right away.

“I knew the US justice system. You're innocent until proven guilty,” she says. “I just thought, you know, he would be questioned and just released.”

But her husband was held for 10 months in solitary confinement at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York. He later told his wife that "innocent until proven guilty" was not how it worked here. "

I think vigilance is in order.

Thank you, Steve Rhodes, for pointing out this story.

What was that about habeas corpus again?

Friends Plea for Release of Arab-American

Looks like there are some problems with this American citizen being able to get his civil rights.

What's going on here?

"The government won't give any details publicly about the case, including when a grand jury will convene or when Hawash will appear. His attorneys can't discuss the matter because of a federal gag order. His wife, Lisa, won't talk about it because she fears repercussions."

Some people are getting together to do something

Bullets fired..On Californians

Yahoo! News - Rubber Bullets Used on War Protesters in Oakland

OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - Oakland police fired rubber bullets to disperse about 750 anti-war demonstrators on Monday in what was believed to be the first use of the projectiles against U.S. protesters since the American-led war on Iraq (news - web sites) began.

I wish there were less shooting going on in the world right now.

The photo of the lady who was shot in the face looks painful

PANDA LOVE!

Message in a Battle By Holly Bailey

"Finally, coverage of the war in Iraq nearly overshadowed a major romantic development in Washington this week. As the WP reported yesterday, Tian Tian and Mei Xiang, the National Zoo's giant pandas, mated for the first time on Friday—though zoo staffers almost missed it. The encounter lasted just 15 seconds, forcing curators to study an instant replay of the exhibit's security cameras to confirm it actually happened."

Sounds more like a failed attempt to me. Ms. Panda shoved him off and said, "No way! They are going to play this clip on the internet, you perv!"

Iraqis want a normal life; So do Americans

Professors Protest as Students Debate

"Irvine Valley College in Southern California sent faculty members a memo that warned them not to discuss the war unless it was specifically related to the course material. When professors cried censorship, the administration explained that the request had come from students."

Yes, professors...We know you are really excited about the war. But the students know that they need to make it through class to graduate. And they need to graduate, so they can get PAID.

For those not tenured, these things are a consideration.

The Caribou like the oil companies

Stevens Speaks on Senate Floor in Support of Opening ANWR

One of the things that was not given a lot of attention, because of the war, was the opening of ANWR beign discussed in the Senate. There is an oil field in Alaska that has

Ted Stevens, the perennial Alaskan Senator, argued passionately for this development. He put it all on the line.

' "People who vote against this today are voting against me and I will not forget it," Stevens warned his colleagues just before the Senate roll call vote began. As chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Stevens can influence funding for a senator's pet project or cause.'

That's about as much pressure as he can possibly put out there.

It's interesting that the vote was so close. 52-48 voted it down. Some Republicans went against party solidarity to vote against it. Some democrats went against their party to vote for it.

I am sure Stevens had a VERY stiff drink after that vote.

If I had a million dollars...

Okay, kids. I started my night class yesterday. UCLA! A REAL university. I was so worried that I wouldn't get there on time, with traffic...I was afraid that I wouldn't find parking...And I don't know what else.

This is a creative non-fiction class. I have NEVER taken a creative writing class. I was so excited all yesterday. I was like that stupid "I lowered my cholesterol commercial."

After my knows-everything-about-LA co-worker Eydie gave me some tips on how to get there from here (take surface streets), I made it. I asked a nice college looking kid...I must be getting old when COLLEGE kids start to look very young...where i could park. I descended into the belly of parking garage. Everyone was nice.

Everyone in LA is nice.

Then I walked up the steps onto the main quad, right below the Janess steps (for those of you who might know the campus).

I saw the grass and most of all the tall dressed-stone and brick buildings. It hit me bodily that I was a student here!
I started to cry, I was so happy.

I remember, Chris and I were talking a few weeks ago. He asked me what I would do if I won the lottery.

"Go back to school." I said it without hesitation and surprised myself.

Just like I surprised myself at how strongly I reacted to being an on-campus student at UCLA.

Class was great. The teacher was funny and not snootish at all. I am a little nervous, not because I think I won't be able to write anything. I've been having NO TROUBLE writing lately.

I'm just a little scared that I have to suffer criticism. I desperately want it, I want the feedback, that's why I want this class. BUt I am afraid that I will be too sensitive.

I'll have to make sure that I prepare myself beforehand.

I was so excited about the class afterwards, that I promptly got lost on the way home. I do that, when I get too deep inside myself. I should have been aware that I would do that, I know myself enough now.

At least I recognized it before I got too off track.

Anyway, there is more to come. I am sure all you readers will benefit from this class.

Community Protests Cutbacks to Community Colleges

On Friday March 28, thousands of protestors gathered at Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles. Unlike other recent protests, this one was about a very local problem. California community college’s budget has been reduced by Gov. Gray Davis. According to the California community college website, “Governor Gray Davis signed the mid-year budget cut bill for community colleges (SB 18X) late Tuesday evening, March 18.”

Although the state’s budget crisis demands that sacrifices be made, the belt-tightening is not equal. The same website goes on to say, “The cuts equate to a 3.3 percent decrease for community colleges - in comparison to a 1.7 percent decrease ($60.9 million) and a 1.5 percent decrease ($59.6 million) for the California State University and University of California systems, respectively.”

Members of the Los Angeles community came together to protest the cutbacks. Chris Covault, one of the volunteer event coordinators explained: “This event is permitted as a march and rally pertaining to the budget cuts coming from Sacramento.” A full range of people, of all ages and ethnic backgrounds, gathered to protest the reduced funding for community colleges. Groups from many local colleges banded together. Glendale College, Pasadena City College, and LA Trade Tech Community College and others were there holding banners and signs.

“No way! We won’t pay!” Shouting slogans, protestors carried various signs to make their point. “No Raised Fees-Equality and Access.” “Keep the doors open. Stop the Cuts. No Fee Hikes.” “I had a dream: Community College.” The people filled the entire breadth of Hill street and stretched on for more than four city blocks.

Many Los Angelinos have come to rely on the availability of community college programs. Tippy Briggs from Los Angeles Harbor College said that community college meant a lot to her: “Community college means a better education, a better job to support my kids. I’ve been a secretary for 20 years. Now, for me to be advanced, they’re telling me I need a A.A. or a B.A.” She is particularly worried about her daughter, who is approaching college age. Tippy is not sure her daughter will have a chance to get the education she needs without the availability of community colleges.

Staff workers as well as students are concerned. Tino Manzano, an administrator at Los Angeles Valley College was there “just to remind Gov. Davis that community college students matter.” According to a flyer passed out at the event, “Community Colleges are already canceling entire academic majors and job-related training programs and community college students needing to transfer to universities are forced to delay their education.”

Covault went on to say “Democracy requires education…Access to self-betterment is key.”

Not all rallies are for peace

Imagine my surprise!

THe rally i was checking out not about peace. It was about community colleges.

I'm a returning customer of community colleges. This was interesting to me.

I'll post my story.

investigating peace

There is a peace protest near my work. I am going to check it out. This is a peace hotbed, over here.

I plan to tell you all about it when I come back.

News from the absurd front

I never get a newspaper, like, on paper anymore. But this one was in the plastic wrap and sitting at my bus stop bench. Who could refuse

The front page was grim and scary. But a little deeper, in the California section, I found this story. Here's the headline:

MUSTARD COMPANY DOESN'T RELISH ANY ATTACK ON ITS NAME

The story goes on to get to the main point:

"THE ONLY THING FRENCH ABOUT FRENCH'S MUSTARD IS THE NAME!" screamed the press release from French's PR agency. "Recently there has been some confusion as the the origin of French's mustard. For the record, French's would like to say there is nothing more American than French's mustard."
This comes a a great relief.
If it's true.

At last! They legalized it!

Appellate Court Rules Media Can Legally Lie. - SierraTimes.Com

This is what happened:
"On February 14, a Florida Appeals court ruled there is absolutely nothing illegal about lying, concealing or distorting information by a major press organization. The court reversed the $425,000 jury verdict in favor of journalist Jane Akre who charged she was pressured by Fox Television management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false information. "

This is yet another reason why I mistrust all the things on the news right now.

Thanks for this story, Tantek.

There nothing like a little competition

I've been posting almost everything I put on here on Blogcritics lately. Eric Olsen, the founder and nagger of blogcritics has this list of the side bar of top posters. To my surprise, I was on it. I was on the top 20! I had no idea.

WELL, I am not one to lose ground. I started making a huge point of posting on that site. I'm now number 7.

I am very inspired by things like that, measures of how I'm doing.

It's been fun, just making myself post.

I decided that I should stop worrying about being perfect, and just kick out reviews. I think it's actually improved my writing. Imagine!

I have also been spending a lot of time reading other people's entries, and commenting on things.

People comment on my stuff there, too. I get very few comments here, mostly because I get very few visitors here.

What can I say?

But there, I got TOTALLY flamed for my Catch 22 review. Imagine! People can be rude.

And we've been having a big ole discussion about the top 100 novels list.

Makes me want to publish more lists.

But it also makes me feel like I have to be careful. I don't like being flamed. But that's the risk you take when you put your stuff out there. Not everyone is going to like you.

I still like doing it. It's worth it to me.

War Protestors--What are they good for?

I am a huge fan of peace. Destruction, oppression of peoples, killing, people getting hurt or going hungry are usually part of war. I don't want any of those things to happen to me, and I don't want any of those things to happen to ANYBODY.

However:

Those sorts of things happen outside of war, too. And war can be necessary.

Not everyone agrees with me. I have been friends with Mennonites who believed that it was never ever right to take another human being's life.

"That's is God's right alone," they said.

"But what if a criminal were holding a gun to your wife's head, and you could step in and kill him before he killed her?"

"I would have to let God take care of that. It's wrong to take a life."

I've lived with Quakers who had similar beliefs. I think that is a beautiful thing. I have tremendous respect for their determination to live by their values. I'm sure the world is a better place because they are in it.

I myself would blast the living crap out of anyone that threatened my loved ones. I would be so angry that someone was trying to hurt them.

This is so much of what I hear from peace protestors, too.

ANGRY ANGRY ANGRY

whoa.
Back it up, people. What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?

I like peace. I WANT to be on your side. My heart says, Don't hurt people!
But the wiser grown-up part of me also knows that it takes hard measures to set things right after they have gone wrong.

And something has gone wrong. Saddam did stuff he shouldn't do.

So did America.

So did the U.N.

And what do we do now? We can't go back in time and make a better choice. We are now, we are here, living with the consequences of everything that went before.

What type of consequences do we want to live with in the future? THe consequences of war? Or the consequences of not-war?

I say not-war, because I am not sure that the state of things in Iraq were what I could call peace.

Or the state of things in America.

I am not sure about it. I don't know. I wish I understood. I wish that I had been reading things all along and learning about the situation before it had come to this.

Now, it's come to this. And what am I to think? War is not a good thing. What can we do to not have war?

How can I know what is the most important?

I can't devote my whole day to studying it out. Most people in America cannot do this.

BUT!

We have thought of that. This smart for-the-people-by-the-people place I get to live in, we came up with freedom of speech, and then later came up with University systems. We, taxpayers, pay to have people sit around and study important things out so they can get back to us and tell us.

Sometimes, it is in the form of a classroom, this telling us. But when something is so broadly important, I think that these people that I pay to study things should get the information out to more people.

I'm not saying tell me what to think, but laying out the options might be nice.

I feel very let down by the people who are supposed to be our intellectuals.

I think they are not doing their jobs.

Tenure was set up to give professors the security to be daring in their thoughts, to reach farther than others might with safety. I think its a good idea.

But all those people are not putting it out there.

Give me a break! If I can get 4 spams of Michael Moore's stuff, why can't someone whose opinion is vastly more informed give me an email that makes some logical sense?

This was first made clear to me with the "Not is our Name" petition that went around the 'net after September 11.

The statement is one of great weight. I want to resist the bad things they talk about.

But I was not given one shred of evidence of the things they accused the government of doing.

If it is happening, why don't they point to it?

We are only told to "resist."

Oh, wait. We are also told to post little globes everywhere.

I feel betrayed. Many of the people who signed that list are people I admire.

Why haven't they given us a better argument?

Truth shouldn't be difficult to prove. The fact that no evidence is given makes me wonder if it's true.

For the times...

The Theory's method of signing out made me think of this.

I do hope for peace.

This is my favorite
MIR-
The russian (and generally slavic) word for peace. If you write it like this:
MUP
It looks closer to the cyrillic letters.

I like it because the same exact word, same exact spelling, same exact pronunciation means
WORLD

So,
MIRA MIR

or
MUPA MUP

means "peace for the world"

mirnyy
or
MUPHUU

means
"peaceful"

this is the name of the town in Yakutia, Russia that I lived in for a year.
It was peaceful, and I am grateful that it was peaceful when I was there, in 1992.

Moscow had just been less peaceful.

That is my personal favorite word for peace.

Mir, mira mir, dla vcex

peace, world peace, for all.

A good definition

My new blogfriend, NathanNelson, wrote a great post about what blogs are and where they came from.

I know that a lot of my readers (hi mom!) have asked me about the word blog and been quite confused by my explanation.

I think if you're confused, you should go read Nathan's Post.

It might clear a few things up.

new friend

I have a blog friend. PURELY from the blog world.

He's kind of funny, check him out:
Nathan Nelson

But you know what else? He actually took the time to help out with the search for Elizabeth Smart. I am impressed. I have never done anything like that.

He gets the good neighbor/Samaritan award of the day.

Elizabeth Smart

Abducted Girl's Relatives Say Her Captor Brainwashed Her

"Meanwhile, Elizabeth is playing the harp so much that she has blisters on her fingers, said Angela Smart, her aunt, adding that her niece has a new goal — to go to New York City and study music at the Juilliard School."

I feel so much for Elizabeth Smart. I feel it in my heart, I can understand how she could have been kept with this man Emmanuel for 9 months and not escape.

Don't abused children protect their parents? "I fell down the stairs." And I know that when I was married to an abusive husband, I was very careful to explain away suspicious noises and defend his treatment of me.

how hard is it to believe that Elizabeth Smart turned around to defend her captor? He was supposed to be an emmisarry of God! According to himself.

Your logic is a little crazy when you are fourteen years old and kidnapped at gunpoint from your home. This man talked in the same type of language as all the respected men in her family. THose men who got up in church and talked about God will and the lost sheep and such.

It would be so comfortable for Elizabeth to believe that her captor was acting benvolently towards her.

And now, she is home. And she has to find a way for life to make sense again.

I understand how music must be such a comfort to her. Not words, not talking. Talking is too concrete and frightening. But music can give her some expression.

I pray that her family can give her the kind of support she needs.

Really real

I don't watch reality tv too often. It just doesn't interest me. I'm mildly annoyed by it, but not to the level that others I have heard.

I always thought, How real can this be? These people are walking around, trying to act normal while they have huge camera crews following their every move.

That's got to be distracting. I mean, how do you 'act' natural? kind of an oxymoron.

Well, today I understand better than I ever have how annoying those cameras can be.

My favorite coffeeshop, the Psychobabble on Vermont has it's open mike night sundays. I've been going. It's a very cool, laid-back, accepting kind of environment. I like it.

A couple of weeks ago, a cute newcomer came, her name was Jett. She sang a few songs to her guitar, and she wasn't half bad. She was nervous, and young, so she seemed endearing.

Well, as it happens, Jett came back tonight. Jett is a member of a sorority. And guess what else? Jett is on that show, "Sorority Life."

My open mike night was completely invaded. They were redoing everything, re-miking, re-lighting, wandering around with release forms. I was trying to be a good sport, I let them use my face.

But the camera guy was SO intrusive. He wandered around everywhere...On the stage, behind the performers, everything.

I like Jett, and I welcome to join the lineup, but I really wish that the fake little enactment scenes and camera crew could have not screwed up my stomping ground.

kinda like french fried twinkies

I have been admiring the new IHOP stuffed french toast from their TV commercials. They sounded yummy to me.

So when we were in the middle of Saturday's downpout, me and Chris decided comfort food was in order. IHOP popped to mind.

We looked over the menu carefully, but they weren't listed. We did, however, find out that the International House of Pancakes is a California company, started here. That made me like them slightly better.

I do try to maintain a snobbish avoidance of chain restaurants, but the fact that it is a local chain is slightly better.

Chris would prefer to eat at the same three chain restaurants every day of his life. Fortunately, our relationship is more than just what we eat.

We asked Maricela, our waitress about the stuffed french toast. Apparently, there is a separate flyer-type dealy that explains your stuffed toast options.

There is the regular option, and then the Big option which has two extra pieces of fatty meat. The Super option included a total of six pieces of various fatty meat.

I thought two pieces was enough, so I got the regular. Cause I was mostly interested in the toast, anyway.

Well, the toast was like two pieces of bread sealed on all the edges. You might think it would be difficult to seal two pieces of bread. It is. IHOP's solution was to deep fry it shut.

They must have deep-fried it, and then warmed in up again on a grill, because one side had an extra browning on one side.

Well, they had fruit and whip cream on the top. THe filling seemed to be cream cheese with a lot of powdered sugar mixed in. Mine did not have a lot of filling, which is probably good, because it was very sweet. Since there wasn't too much, it tasted pretty good.

It reminded CHris immediately of the State Fair's deep-fried twinkies. We hadn't actually tried the deep-fried twinkies, but we could imagine.

It was good. ALthough the grease sat on my tummy the rest of the day. I'm glad I didn't opt for the 6 pieces of fatty meat.

There can be only two...

Green and Red.

These are the traditional jello colors. And jello, strange food that it is, is surprisingly traditional. American as apple pie. Or green jello.

There is a rumor, though I couldn't find a website for it, that green jello conduct brainwaves.

What does this mean?

I first encountered jello as an abstraction when I visited North Dakota. That's jello country. My youngest brotehr was attending the university there, and he had a lot of anthropological observations.

"There are only two acceptable colors for jello: Green and Red."
"Why?"
"I don't know. But there's more! Jello can be either a side dish, as in 'salad', or a dessert."
"How do you tell when it's which?"
"When it's dessert, it has whipped cream on top."

The reason I bring this up, is that I've been rediscovering the joys of jello in my own life. I use whip cream on it, so it must be desert.

I like orange.

And yellow jello. This same brother, when he was in the hospital getting his tonsils out, was offered jello.
"Yellow jello?" he asked the nurse hopefully.
"No, we only have green or red jello."

He turned them down. If it wasn't yellow, he didn't want jello.

I have some yellow jello waiting to be made. But as I was at the grocery store, I thought I ought to give green and red a chance. Maybe they were popular because of innate qualities, not merely blind tradition.

Green jello is simple. It's lime.

But red jello could be many flavors. Cherry. Strawberry. Raspberry.

And there was a new one. Cranberry.

I thought I would try it.

It wasn't as good as I hoped. Not tart enough.

Just thought I'd let you know.

It's the right thing to do, but we have to do it right.

Thomas Friedman was on CSPAN2 last night.

The show was really compelling. Friedman seemed to have a compassion for the Arab world that led to understanding of the situation.

I think compassion is really important in times of war...Actually, it's important right before times of war. Which would be now.

This has been one of my difficulties in discussing the Iraq situation with folks. I know for sure that no one I have met understands the situation even fundamentally.

Yes, we know about non-compliance of resolutions. We know about the possible consequences of mass-destruction weapons.

But before you engage someone, it seems intelligent to understand their motivation.

Calling Saddam insane, which W. essentially did in his State of the Union address, is simply lazy diplomacy.

Just saying "He's crazy! He might do anything!" is a very weak strategic position.

I don't know if I agree with everything he said, because I haven't checked it all out yet. But he's the first person I've heard that I had initial respect for.

I just keep thinking that we haven't really sat down and LISTENED yet.

embrace the inner nerd

Which OS are You?

So. I took the test. I am OS/2 Warp.

That's pretty cool.

Colombo’s: the Melting Pot of Eagle Rock

This is a story I did for the Highland Park News.

Colorado Boulevard has the spot for good food, friendly smiles and amazing entertainment. Colombo’s bar and restaurant, open 7 days a week, has been around since 1954. It has become an Eagle Rock institution. Regular Mary Duffy-Petersen says, “It’s almost like a party every Friday night.” Autumn Hays, who works in Glendale, comes in with her co-workers for lunch several times a week. She says her favorite night is Monday. There is a lot of excitement about coming in to Colombo’s any time.

It is true; Colombo’s has great food. The original owner Sam Colombo is the one who developed their hand-rolled lasagna recipe, along with the other Sicilian-inspired Italian dishes. Chef Raul Villasenor has been serving the people’s favorites for 16 years. But Colombo’s is more than just food.

When entering the restaurant, the smoky-mirrored walls and romantic gold-framed paintings on the wall invite pleasant relaxation. The red overstuffed upholstery and crisp white tablecloths bring to mind the glamour of Hollywood. Pretty beaded lamps light the booths, and management makes sure to put fresh flowers on every table.

The evenings are filled with music—jazz music. Every night features a talented line-up. As manager Vic Parrino said, “One of the things we are trying to offer is entertainment that you don’t have to pay for. We don’t have a cover…We hope people will be willing to drive a little farther than they would otherwise just for dinner.”

They have live music every night of the week. On Thursdays, the Fiaumara Armbrewster Quartet takes the floor. Friday and Saturday nights Linda Lopez tickles the ivories. Eric Exstrand’s trio plays Sunday and Monday, and Wednesday is the performer wildcard, featuring various local talent.

Customers love to hear the band play, and often join right in. Linda Lopez has a steady stream of vocalists coming to the mike stand at the piano. Eric Exstrand leads his band in a jam session, with all kinds of drop-in musicians joining. As one patron said: “You don’t have to be a great singer. You don’t even have to be a good singer. Everybody’s part of the party at Colombo’s.”

For those who might not be swept away into the music, or those who just want a place to talk and laugh with friends, the bar has a lot to offer. Separate from the dining area, it is a place to belly up and socialize. Tony the bartender is generous with the liquor; he makes a mean key lime martini. The TV at the end plays sports, and the painting of a lounging female nude behind the bar reminds everyone to get flirty.

Mrs. Ann Colombo still comes to the restaurant every day. When her husband Sam passed on about 5 years ago, nephew Vic Parrino took over the business. He is proud to be part of it: “It’s a tradition my aunt and uncle worked very hard to establish. There aren’t a lot of family owned businesses.” His pride is evident in the way things are done.

When Vic came to Colombo’s he brought Yolanda Nagueira in to assist. She is the one who started the entertainment line up. She made a lot of nice touches to the décor, and her friendly smile really lights up the place. More than one person can tell how Vic and Yolanda have done great things at Colombo’s.

Colombo’s is located at 1833 Colorado Boulevard in Eagle Rock. They are open 7 days a week. Monday through Friday, they are open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. On Saturdays, they open at noon and close at 11 p.m., and Sundays they are open from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.

HIGH-PUR-BUH-LEE

Hyperbole:
"A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect, as in I could sleep for a year or This book weighs a ton.
"

I finally figured out what's wrong with L.A.

I've been here six months, and I've been having a little trouble making friends. I have gone out and systematically met with people. I take advantage of the opportunities that are out there.

But somehow, it's been falling flat. A lot of people don't really want to get together again, and I'm not that disappointed.

I haven't really met anyone that I made a connection with.

I went swing dancing a few weeks ago for the first time at a place called the Derby. I was worried about going alone, I thought people wouldn't be friendly.

I couldn't have been more wrong! Lots of people were there, lots of nice men asked me to dance. Some people even sat and talked with me.

But I came away feeling a little flat. At the time I was thinking, "L.A. boys are too nice."

Boy that is not something I would imagine myself thinking. I'm not the "bad boy" type. I really enjoy respectful, intelligent well-dressed men.

Something was wrong.

My brother Chris came to visit me yesterday. He just got back from a world tour of Orthodox monasteries.

I was really worried that our conversation would be really heavy.

I did not want to spend the evening being very serious.

So I made a point of poking fun. There is a hell of a lot that is funny about monasteries, once you stop and look at it.

And my brother has a great sense of humor! There were times when I had him cracking up. And he made me laugh, too.

I woke up this morning, and I figured it out.

NO ONE IN L.A. HAS A SENSE OF HUMOR.

That's the "too nice" I've been running up against.

I love to laugh and make fun of things. The aforementioned "Hyperbole" is one of my favorites...To exaggerate something to show how ridiculous it is..I toss those little hyperboles off all the time.

And I've been met with blank stares and nods.

"No! It's funny! I didn't mean it literally!"

You can't explain a joke. Everyone knows that. I couldn't defend myself.

Things that are bust-my-gut funny are taken totally seriously by everyone I've met.

It's starting to make me feel like a crazy person. Stupid little jokes at work, like "Boy, this coffee is so strong I think it just walked out the room and asked the boss for a promotion" don't even illicit a groan or an eye-roll.

When you say outrageous things, and laugh uproariously ALONE, you look imbalanced.

But I suppose it's not a surprise. Being funny is a career in Los Angeles.

Anyone that can crack a half-funny joke is locked in some dungeon somewhere churning out one-liners for That 70s Show or The Simpsons

All we are left with here in the main populace are incredibly earnest and serious peace activists, vegan animal rights people, weight lifters, motivational coaches, yoga instructors and failed actors.

Anyone that wants to laugh has to watch reruns.

This morning was the season of my discontent

This morning I was cranky.

And for no good reason.

It was the kind of mood where I would think, "I wish I were listening to my favorite CD right now."

Then I would realize that I already was.

Sometimes I drive myself crazy.

Brotherly Wisdom

This COULD be giving fuel to the argument that he's forgotten more than I ever knew.

But my brother once spent a good hour, explaining to me that raw sugar was in need of enhancement in order to reach it's taste potential. His examples were that while things like cotton candy and rock candy were good, the sugar was barely altered and therefore not reaching it's highest taste potential.

But CHOCOLATE was more substantially enhanced and therefore the sugar could achieve the a higher level of deliciousness.

Now, he claims it was my theory all along.

I just don't suffer from early senility, and I reMEMber this conversation.

As I recall, it took place in 1993, and was the first dialogue of the Candy Traditions.

The results of which will be published here at a later date.

Unless Bryan beats me to it.

add to the list

She started it. But I only know about her because he was all twitterpated. And I only know him because I'm all twitterpated...

Nonetheless, I have a contribution to the list...

"Make Jokes Not War"

With a graphic of a person pointing and laughing hilariously at some deadpan military types.

not always for the asking

I have been quite disciplined this evening.

I ate a healthy dinner. avoiding my usual dive for the snack food upon coming home.

I made a new recipe involving Eggplant, a frypan, and practically no fat.

I ran on the treadmill for 20 minutes.

I then sat down with my files and papers and started making my papers into files.

Now I have cleaned up those files and papers, proud because I've taken a good bite out of this procrastinated job.

THe next task on the list is to sit at my computer and write something clever, insightful and sure to bring me international renown.

I'm tired!

All I want to do is sit in my hot tub. I think there may already be people from other apartments in it, but that doesnt even deter me.

Creativity doesn't seem to lie on the desk underneath my papers, waiting for me to pick it up.

Too bad.

I'm off to be steamed and gurgled.

I've been accepted!

Chris asked me a few weeks ago what I would do if I won the lottery. I immediately answered:

Go back to school.

Fortunately, I don't have to win the lottery to attend the occasional class. I already tried the community college nearby. It was kind of disappointing.

I am a GRADUATE now. This high horse has a nice view.

So I thought I would pay real money for a class, and take an extension course. UCLA was calling.

UCLA seems so cool! The campus is beautiful, and they have so much going on all the time.

My class is very short, eight meetings of "Telling on Yourself: Self-Revelation through Memoir Writing"

That's what I seem to be doing lately, in my reminiscent pieces about Alaska.

I fear, however, that this class will be full of blue-haired women wanting to tell their life story. We'll see.

It doesn't start until April, but only 20 people were allowed in. First come, first served. I got in.

Plus, it's for credit. Maybe I'll work my way all the way to a masters eventually.

Now all I need to do is figure out how to park without paying for it.

Just like a movie!

My good friends came down to L.A. and stopped to see me. We were going to have dinner here.

I was excited to have them come, so I wanted to pick a nice place to eat. I am a restaurant reviewer, after all. I ought to know places.

Well, maybe.

I thought it would be fun to go to the Tam o'Shanter. The place looks like it could have been dropped straight out of Stratford-upon-Avon.

The Tam o'shanter is a fairy tale looking place. Walt Disney used to hang out there.

But when I called, they didn't have room for us.

So I decided we should go to the Dresden. I hadn't been there before, but I had wanted to go inside and try it out.

It was beautiful. "It looks like it's from a movie!" they said.

Cream-colored booths arching in an art-deco swoop filled the room. There were wooden beams reaching from the floor to the very high cieling, and lights that spiralled up through the middle of them.

To our surprise, the Dresden served Italian food. It was pretty and we had a very good time.

I LOVE YOU ALL!

Happy Valentine's Day!

For you, my readers, loved and cherished by me.
I don't know all of you, but it is a tremendous delight to know that you exist