2009 started off so well. I was looking forward to Barack being president, Jaime and I were about to head down to Portland for a romantic weekend (my solstice gift to him/us), and I was feeling upbeat and motivated even though it was overcast outside.

Then I found out I was going to be on the emergency beeper for my work in a few days. So we canceled the romantic weekend. But still, it was easy, and I felt pretty good about life.

Then, at the end of five days on the beeper, I got sick.

And I was sick for two weeks. It seemed like a bad cold, but my father claims that anything that lasts more than 10 days is a flu. Whatever it was, it sucked. I got behind on work and didn't see any friends. Cabin fever set in.

In attempting to keep myself connected to the outside world (since we don't have a TV) I spent a lot of time online... on my laptop... in very bad ergonomic positions... can you see where this is going?

Hello, tendonitis! My wrists began to hurt, and there seemed to be no stopping them. The tendonitis laughed at ice, scoffed at pain relievers, snickered behind wrist braces, and made fun of my chiropractor. It is one mean SOB.

For some reason, as my wrists hurt more, my back started to hurt, too. I then embarked into the realm of back pain: first my low back goes out, then my upper back, and whichever one gets better first makes the other one hurt more, leading to a series of visits to massage therapists and the chiropractor, and including, so far, one set of x-rays ordered by my regular doctor, one set (of a different part of my spine) ordered by the chiropractor, and the suggestion (by said chiropractor) of at least 8 weeks of traction, 3X/week, to correct the fact that, apparently, my neck curves the wrong way. Have you ever seen neck traction? It looks like something that interrogators at Gitmo used to solicit unlikely confessions.

Oh yeah - and I got sick again last week. This time I was relieved to find myself getting better after only five days of fever and an alternating stuffy/runny nose.

So here it is, March, and I have a new desk and office chair (better ergonomics!), several extra pounds of weight (since my "yoga every day and walk to work" plan was nixed by my lower back), and 3 semi-major projects for work due in two weeks. To top it off, it is raining outside.

And my back hurts. Ow. Ow. Ow.

I promise I will try to write something upbeat and optimistic next. Although, current events (economy, anyone?) do seem to be working against me.

This is from http://dailykos.com/, and much what I imagined was happening around the country as I was dancing at the corner of Washington and 5th. I remember seeing this sort of thing on the news in other countries and never once did I imagine it would happen here.

( Dancing in the Streets )

J. and I left the Dems party at The Vault downtown after Obama's speech (and damn, what a fine speech it was!) and ran into a huge, impromptu dance party in the middle of an intersection! Someone put two huge speakers out of their second-story apartment windows and was blasting music--there were probably close to 400-500 people by the time we left, holding hands, dancing, making conga lines, waving signs, holding lighters and cell phones up in the air. The best part was that it was a really diverse crowd. I saw this tiny old couple dancing to a hip-hop song, kids running around, some older guy with a saxaphone, and an unusual mix of college folks in funky layers and middle-aged folks in slacks. Almost everyone was dancing, yelling, J. and I had noisemakers from the Dems party and were making a racket. A girl dressed in a spangled circus outfit brought huge, multi-colored flags that people were passing around, waving. I commented with a friend that it was strange to be at a street party in celebration of an election, instead of in protest. I prefer to dance in triumph!

We got a call from a friend in Berkeley who was at a similar event, and I've heard it's happening in Chicago and all over. And J.'s mom (also in Berkeley) called to say that after Obama finished his speech, she heard screaming and yelling so she opened her window to see who was outside and realized that all up and down her street everyone had thrown open their windows and was just yelling into the night. It went on for a long time, and when it began to die down she could hear the people on streets in neighboring blocks yelling, and she said it went on, like a huge wave of yelling that was rushing around the entire Bay area.

Wow.

From a NYtimes.com article...

Greenspan Concedes Error in Regulatory View

WASHINGTON (AP) — Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said Thursday that the current financial crisis had uncovered a flaw in how the free market system works that had shocked him.

Mr. Greenspan told the House Oversight Committee on Thursday that his belief that banks would be more prudent in their lending practices because of the need to protect their stockholders had proved to be wrong.

Mr. Greenspan said he had made a "mistake" in believing that banks operating in their self-interest would be enough to protect their shareholders and the equity in their institutions.

Mr. Greenspan said that he had found "a flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works."

Wow!

Note: After I copied this article to send it to friends, NYtimes.com posted a revised article with the same title. It has all the same info, but is somewhat better written, and a bit less forthright (the same info is there, but somewhat qualified, and further down the page.) If I hadn't emailed the copy to a few people, I would have thought I was crazy. Wierd. Anyway, you can find the full article on their homepage.

You may have already seen something like this via email, since it's floating around. But it's worth reading ( Read for more... )

On another note, I just don't know what I will do if Obama doesn't win the election. The McPalin camp has become so negative and divisive ("real Americans", "pro-America parts of America", not to mention all of the overt anti-Muslim comments) in the past couple of months, it seems like there is going to be some deep, hard feelings to deal with after the bunting comes down.

An insightful comment on the NY Times website, in response to the McCain campaign's spokesperson calling the Obama campaign "fussy" for pointing out McCain's misstep:


"Imagine if Biden had refered to Palin as “that one”. I wonder who would be all “fussy” about “double standards” and such.
— Paul F"


So true.

While procrastinating this afternoon, I read a thread at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/5/135615/843/574/620831 about the Sarah Palin/Pro-Life/no-abortion-for-rape-cases issue.

It seems like it would be easy for everyone--except for Sarah Palin and other fringe pro-lifers--to agree on abortions for rape victims (if a survivor chooses to have one.) But that gives us a false sense of simplicity that's hard to put into practice, as this poster notes:


"What is pro-choice?

It is the ONLY answer to women who have been traumatized by rape. Rape is the ultimate violation, it is the ultimate loss of personal control, you have avoided death, but not by a lot. Try it and see.

If abortion is only allowed in cases of rape, incest and danger to the life of the mother WHO will defines the RAPE?

Will the raped woman be believed? Or will they say it was the victims, fault. "what were you wearing?" "well, you're so pretty," "I would have fought him off tooth and nail...." "you shouldn't have been outside."

Who will she have to tell? -Like women who are raped find this easy to talk about at all. Even decades later.

Will she have to report the incident and get a note from the police, or her husband or her daddy, if conception occurred?

Will this permission only be granted if the rape was legally decided in a court of law?

Will women have to hope that if they are raped, it occurs in a progressive precinct, with kind and sympathetic law enforcement officers, instead of say, Wasilla.

Because if you were raped, at knifepoint, blindfolded in an alley and so can't identify your attacker-- but 'consented' to the rape rather than be killed, and managed to escape otherwise unscathed-- the police would have to believe you that you were raped.

And besides, it so statistically unlikely to be raped that way.

To carry a child conceived by rape has to be a CHOICE, there is no other answer. None."


Damn. That sure is a road I don't want to go down.

That's really all I have to say. I had an awesome party yesterday--an "indoor bar-b-que", since of course it rained--with wonderful people and family and little kids running around hitting each other with balloons and a huge, beautiful cake with flowers on top that my mom made. And Jaime cleaned our entire house by himself before the party, and then the last of my friends cleaned all of the dishes before they left!

That is, Joe Biden is Barack Obama's VP.

I can tell because a lot more men are staring at my breasts. Sometimes, it's just for a moment, and at other times I can watch them get distracted by my chest, pull their attention back up to my face (or their grocery list, or wallet, or whatever) and then get distracted again. Sometimes this will happen four or five times in a row.

There was a while, recently, when I was hanging around with my little (cute, younger) sister in Europe that I thought I missed the male attention that I used to get (when I was younger and also thinner.)

But I was wrong. This is just aggravating. Maybe I would be more flattered if they were looking at something other than my breasts. I mean, I appreciate other peoples' physical beauty. And I think I'm beautiful, and I like it when other people notice and appreciate that. But this is just about noticing the fact that I have big breasts, which is a different thing entirely.


I imagine myself returning the bra:


Me: I'd like to return this. I have the receipt.

Cashier: OK. What's the reason for return?

Me: Too many men stared at my breasts when I wore it.

Cashier: I have to check one of these boxes on the form. Should I check "item was defective" or "customer did not want"?

Me: Is there a choice for "bra is fine, society is defective"?

Cashier: Uh... I'll just put "customer did not want"


The thing is, I happen to like this particular bra. It fits me. (This is a minor miracle in itself.) But I have a sneaking suspicion that many of the reasons I like it are intimately related to the reasons that men are staring at my breasts more. For instance:

Why I like it: Firm support.
Why men are staring: Breasts are round and large.

Of course, the real reasons might be more like this:

Why I like it: Allows me to conform more easily to societal standards of beauty (round, firm breasts.)
Why men are staring: Society encourages them to view women as beauty objects. Also, society encourages fetish-like obsession with female breasts (particularly the round and firm ones.)

Of course, round-and-firm is a ridiculous standard in breasts that are my size. Without implants, breasts my size do not come in a round-and-firm variety. They come in various stages of floppy.

Hence, bras.

Here's the thing, though: I don't want to go no-bra feminist. I'm already no-shaving feminist. But could there be some middle ground? Could I wear a nice bra and be generally attractive AND still have men look at my face? I could make myself a button: "Actually, I'm attractive all over!"

But I don't think it would solve the problem.

I'm in the Amsterdam public library, and my feet are wet.

We got into Amsterdam the day before yesterday, at which point the overcast weather and wind was an exciting and welcome change from Rome's unending 90+ degree heat. But yesterday it started raining and, after a few brief breaks this morning, it has continued to do so. I gave up on my rain jacket (ha!) and J. and I both bought umbrellas. Even with my umbrella, though, my feet and the bottom of my jeans got soaked on the way to the library. It was more of a downpour, rally, than mere rain.

Still, Amsterdam is one of the coolest places ever. It has officially bumped Vancouver, BC from the top of my favorite cities list. Everyone here rides bikes, and people aren't as glossy and glamorous here as they are in other European cities. Yesterday morning there was a swap meet across the canal from the little room we're renting, and I went and pawed through huge piles of used clothing (some of it quite fabulous, like a long crushed pink velvet jacket with faux fur at the collar and wrists) with other Amsterdam-ers. I like the way people dress here--like Olympia, but with more of that European class and grace. And everyone rides bicycles. There are mad orgies of locked-up bikes at every street corner and lamppost, some of them decorated with fake flowers or painted in rainbow colors. Most are black or green though (or black with a green patina of mildew.)

Additionally, the food (in grocery stores, at least) is much cheaper here than in Italy. I've had a lot of fun wandering up and down grocery store aisles trying to figure out what some of the products are (or whether I wanted to try them--for instance, little pre-packaged snack-cracker sandwiches in the "cream cheese, tomato and onion" flavor.) But how can one go wrong with a tub of chocolate mousse (sold in the yogurt section) for €1? And they have this thing called appelpie, which is similar to apple pie except that instead of pie crust they use cake. Apparently, we are across the canal from one of the best places to buy appelpie. We had to wait until this morning to have some though, because all day yesterday (during the swap meet) there were lines out the door and around the corner.

Our actual room is very small, at the top of three (extremely steep) flights of stairs, and has a big window that looks out over rooftops. It's costing us €50 night, which is shockingly cheap for Amsterdam, but disturbing once translated into American dollars (and considering our shared bathroom is down a flight of stairs.) But it's in a great neighborhood--centrally located, but not overrun with tourists--and costs about the same as two beds in a hostel, so I'm happy with it. And I like to sit in our window and watch the clouds moving across the sky, and the little old lady across the next canal open and close her curtains in the morning and at night.

Until later, dear reader...

At around 7PM last night, I received this message from my father:

"Hey kiddo. It's about 7PM. I took a spill on my motorcycle and I was wondering if you could give me a hand when I get home, and probably a ride to the emergency room. I'm just getting on I-90 now, so I'll be back around 9PM or so..."

For those of you who may not know WA freeways, I-90 is the one that crosses the Cascade mountain range. I immediately called him back and left him a message telling him that he should stop and go to the nearest hospital rather than ride the rest of the way home, but he never picked up his phone.

9 PM passed.

10 PM passed.

I got worried enough that I called the state patrol to see if they had any news of single male motorcyclist accidents on I-90 (FYI: they can search for news of people in accidents by last name, in case you ever need to check on someone.) Finally, at 11:30, I get a call from my dad, who sounded terrible. I found him slumped over his motorcycle in his driveway. He wasn't passed out exactly, he just felt tired and couldn't get into his house by himself, so he decided to nap on his bike rather than the ground until I got there. He proceeded to make me even more worried by being unable to get his own keys out of his pocket (since he had hurt his left shoulder and his right hand) or walk in a straight line, and furthermore, the fact that he insisted that I turn on the power strips for his computers in his room before we went to the ER made me wonder about his decision-making capabilities. And then he started shaking, and got cold.

It turned out that he had slid his bike out from under him on a turn... in Merritt, British Columbia. Merritt, British Columbia, in case you didn't know (I didn't) is about 300-480 miles away from Olympia (depending on which roads you take.) My father took the long route, because he doesn't like to ride his motorcycle on big freeways. In other words, he rode for about 11 hours in pretty severe pain rather than getting medical care in Canada (where, by the way, said medical care is free.) In his defense, he thought he had only broken his thumb and maybe dislocated his shoulder at first, because his hip didn't start hurting until a few hours after the crash. By the time he got home, he was thought he might have broken it.

After five hours in the E.R. (midnight to 5AM, to be precise) we found out that he had not broken his hip nor had he dislocated his shoulder. However, he had broken his hand (below the thumb, in such a way that he'll probably need surgery to set it properly) and had such extensive bruising on his hip that he had lost enough blood (internally) to be anemic. Did you know that you can lose about two quarts of blood to bruising? (You only have about seven quarts, total.)

Since he also hadn't had anything to eat since his breakfast cereal the day before (!), we went to Sherri's for breakfast. Then I slept until 1PM, and went out to buy him groceries and pick up his painkiller prescription. So much for my day off...

On the upside, it is traditional to stay up all night on the solstice, and I figure that this was close enough to count.

The weekend before last, J. and I headed up over the cascades to look for morels in the Cle Elum/Roslyn area. ( We found a handful of morels and one Big Mad Mama Moose... )

As a public service announcement, here is ( what you SHOULD do if you meet an angry moose )

J's dad died last Monday, at home, surrounded by his family. We buried him ourselves the next day.

The cool part of this otherwise sucky situation? His obituary is in today's New York Times (above the fold, even.) Yup. That's how cool he was.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/19/education/19rossman.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries&oref=slogin

Bonus: Cute pic of him when he was younger. You can see why J's mom took up with him.

Jaime's dad stopped going in for blood transfusions yesterday. He's been getting platelets and reds every day for weeks, so it's likely that he won't be with us for long. I'm flying back down tomorrow.

Jaime and his family were talking about the six word memoir (more at http://www.smithmag.net/sixwords/.) His uncle came up with a good one for Michael: He turned over every stone, looking.

Michael liked it so much he decided to etch stones for people (a process involving painting on a stone with nailpolish and dunking it in acid--very cool, but requires a certain kind of rock.) On the top he wrote, "He turned over every stone" and then, on the bottom, of course, "looking."

Apparently, it takes visiting J's family, watching his father dying.






No newspapers, current events, if any
Stalled beyond our reckoning
Past the edges of our circle.
We dip in and out of turbulent
uncertainty, confusion,
our ties of blood and love
circling a disaster: nature
Turning what she does from
one circle to the next, the shovel
in her hands
slamming hard
thrusting up the old cracked
crust.
Beneath, dark loam
moist,
fertile,
raw
fleshed out to the light.
We can’t turn away. We’re involved
In mystery, the harsh turn
Of the universe, careless
And magnificent.
Untethered
from the usual wonderings,
We hold hands together as tightly
as any children gazing up at a night
they are young enough to know
they can fall into.

but I thought it was a neat little story idea and ought to be passed on.

This is from http://kiota.livejournal.com/. Unfortunately, I have to say that I found this because someone else just posted that this person committed suicide. I'm not kidding. But you should read the story anyway.


From http://kiota.livejournal.com/:

Let me tell you a story. This is a story about how God was born. Everything has a beginning - yes, even God. So gather around, boys and girls, and listen closely.

Once upon a time there was a universe. This universe was a wonderous place. It consisted of many things. It had many galaxies, many solar systems, many stars and planets. One of these galaxies, the Milky Way Galaxy, had in it a solar system, located in the section known as the Orion Spur. In this solar system was a star we call the Sun, and many planets, one of them known as Earth.

On Earth there were people. There were men and women and boys and girls and all sorts of animals and they all lived together, sometimes in harmony and sometimes not.

Now you must realize, these people were the result of tremendous evolution. These people were, in fact, the result of billions of years of evolution. You cannot imagine that sort of time, so don't even try. It is beyond comprehension. These people, at any rate, were extraordinarily powerful. Through tremendous intellect, they were able to come to entirely rule the Earth, despite being physically weaker than many of the other animals.

These people were also different than the animals they lived with in another important way - they had self-awareness. They were sentient. In other words, they had a soul. And a soul, boys and girls, is a very, very important thing.

These people were wise, and they knew many things, and among the things they know is that everything has a beginning, that nothing comes from nothing. They looked around their world and they saw how incredible and perfect it was; they looked within themselves and they saw their souls and knew that their souls came from something, their souls were forever, their souls were not of this world.

They thought and they thought and they came up with an idea: God.

And as they believed it, as billions believed it, as generation after generation believed it, as through life and death they believed it, as their souls believed it - God was born. For those people had tremendous power - with their belief, with their faith, with their souls, they could create such a thing as a God.

So God was born. And God was wiser than those people - infinitely wiser. Wiser, and capable of many things they were not. Capable of doing anything he chose to do. Capable of knowing everything. Capable of controlling past and future.

And so God did something that was very simple to him, though how he did it is incomprehensible to us. He went back. Back before his birth, for time means nothing to a god. Back before there were people. Back before the planet called Earth and its Milky Way galaxy. Back before the universe. Back before time.

And then, God looked around, looked ahead, and knew what must be done.

And God said, "Let there be light!"

And there was light.

Begin game:

Proceed to Post Office with two objectives: 1) Mail various boxes and letters; 2) Apply for new passport, since dog ate corner of old passport, thus removing renewal-by-mail option.

Stand in line at Post Office. Find out that you need to know both of your parents' birthdays and birth places. Helpful Post Office employee tells you that AAA will do your passport photos for half the price of the Post Office.

Proceed to AAA (on the other side of town), while calling parent on cell phone and writing down birthplaces and dates. Steer with knees.

At AAA office, find out their camera is broken and they can't take pictures. Helpful employee points out that Walgreen will do the photos for a few dollars more.

Proceed to Walgreen.

Find out that passport photos at Walgreen will take half an hour, because all twelve of their printer cartridges are empty and must be replaced. Wander around Walgreen for half an hour while waiting for photos. Pay for photos.

Return to Post Office with photos. Stand in long line. Get a third of the way to the front, and see sign telling you that Post Office only processes passports until 3PM. It is 4PM.

Return to start. Do not collect $200. Play again tomorrow. Good luck!

Around this time of year, with some regularity, I begin to desire the desert. I look outside: the occasional sunbreaks light the budding trees with flashes of gold and green then disappear, leaving shades of grey and brown. The crocuses are up, snowdrops gone, daffodils beginning to peek around the corners. It's not a bad time of year here, but like a longtime lover longing for something new, I want red sand, dry air, dusty roads. I want those light-light-blue skies that look like they start miles above my head, that leave room for wandering, and clear dark nights punctured by white stars circling. I want to run my hands along the smooth flanks of windswept red rocks and lie sunbaking in the sand like a snake, motionless, watching, listening to the wind brush the dry leaves of sage and Mormon tea and other plants I can't name but imbibe by smell. I want the weight of openness, the deepening of sound that comes far away from roads and radios. I wan to go now, on a plane, in my car, throw my tent in the back, pick up Jaime, and head south at ten miles over the speed limit, hands gripping the steering wheel.

At this time, I believe if you cut me I would bleed the color of those rocks.

It's rainy and grey outside. My back hurts. Jaime just left to go see his family for some uncertain amount of time (extra depressing since his dad's bone marrow transplant didn't work.)