April

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain. - T.S. Elliot

OK. I don't wanna be a bummer. I know we're suppose to be making jokes all day. But. Things are bad.

I recently heard about a woman who had the surgery. She threw up almost daily. Now she has esophageal cancer. She'll be dead soon. But she's thin.

Ellen Goodman worked out with Jennifer. It's nice to have something good to put on the page.

This morning I'm just staring at the screen. I can barely concentrate. I've been in a CNN/MSNBC/KPFA trance for a few days. The rest of the time I'm on the Internet trying to find out what's really going on.

Sometimes if I do my morning blog crawl, I snap out of it and think of something to write. It's not working today.

When I was three months old, my mother and father separated and mom & I moved in with her parents. Mom had to get a job. I lived with the constant injunction, don't bother grandmom & poppop or they won't let us live here. And don't bother me, I'm tired from work. Don't bother anyone.

Yesterday morning I heard this on Democracy Now.

A 21-year old US Citizen, Suraida Saleh, is gunned down by Israeli soldiers in Ramallah, with her 9 month old baby on her lap. The state department knows, but does nothing. Her father buries her in the hospital parking lot, because the morgue is overflowing and under the state of siege no one can get to the cemetery.

Amy Goodman interviewed Suraida's father and you could hear the baby crying in the background. It just cut into my heart. I couldn't stop crying.

I couldn't blog it yesterday, since there was no news about it. Today there's a mention in the NYT's. The State Department has yet to contact the family.

I remember, in the days after 9/11, it seemed difficult to concentrate or speak. When I went to Green Gulch it was beautiful, peaceful. And I felt better. But I thought about the fact that while I stood there in all that peace and beauty, horror and brutality were occurring all over the world. It doesn't serve anyone for me to be in a state of misery. In fact I think the world is served by me finding a way to stay centered and peaceful. But there are days when I just don't have the emotional reserves. My own problems and the larger problems of the world seem to melt together and it's all too much. I feel helpless and hopeless.

Yesterday was like that. I got calls and e-mails and comments from my lovely friends. Thank you. I'm lucky to know you all.

Fingertips on ledge. Elbow up. Knee swings over. She's almost there ladies and gentlemen. Having plummeted into the valley of darkness I am inching my way back up onto the ledge. From there...well...one step at a time.

I can't really turn it all off. It's not as simple as wanting to be informed, it's like the time I spend learning about it all, is the least I can do. Having said that...I know I need to limit how much time I spend watching CNN. And even ...listening to KPFA. Although, yesterday was Caroline Casey day. And she can be pretty fun.

I keep forgetting to mention that there is a new poem on the MFA page. Now it's Kristina, Christine and me. And you can comment there too.

1. What are the first things that you do in the morning to start your day? Make coffee. Get some Cherrios. Turn on the computer. Read my favorite blogs. Write my own page. Publish.
2. What are the last things that you do at night before going to bed? Brush my teeth. Read (from a book).
3. What daily routine have you recently added to your day? I drank a bottle of water before anything else. But I forgot to do it today. So much for routine.
4. What routine do you wish you get rid of? I don't really have routines, other than the morning reading/writing thing. And I like that one.
5. What's the one thing that makes you feel like something is missing if you don't do it some point within your day? Read.

20/20 did an advertisement for the gastric bypass surgery. Nothing but pro voices. One of the things that I always marvel at is how the after surgery life is shown. People are always working out. So why can't they work out before they submit to this risky surgery?

The woman had a food addiction. She didn't deal with it. Instead she submitted to this costly and risky surgery.

"Long-term risks include stomach ulcers, problems with the connection between the stomach and intestine. And then there are the whole series of nutritional problems as well."

That's a quote from the doctor that does the surgery. Ultimately he says people have to change their lifestyle. Uhhuh. So...then...why not...change your life style?

Here's what I think. I think that fat hatred is so virulent and discouraging that fat people live in a constant state of depression and rage and they blame themselves for how bad they feel. Some choose to self medicate and some use food to do that. I wish I thought doughnuts would cure my depression. I don't. But people, who do eat doughnuts, in an attempt to feel better about life, accept the idea that they are bad people and they need to endure something punitive. This surgery is punitive. It is painful and risky. They lose weight because if they eat too much their bodies punish them. They puke. Punitive. I've mentioned hearing about a woman who had the surgery and vomited so much, for so long, that now she has esophageal cancer. If you were going to do something on a "news" show...wouldn't you mention that side of the story?

And guess what. Some people, who have the surgery, manage to eat doughnuts, puking and all, and they gain back the weight.

"After undergoing gastric bypass surgery, people need to have support systems, and need long-term follow-up and annual visits for the rest of their life."

The good doctor again. How brilliant. People need support. Oh...and I wonder who benefits from the need for annual visits? They lose weight because they can't eat and they exercise and they get support. Why not get support, work on your food addictions, eat for health and pleasure, and work out?

I was depressed this week. You know what helped? I have people in my life that love me. Many have noticed I'm fat.

I took Caltrain to visit Kristina. She told me what stop to get off at but I forgot. I only knew it had a funny rhythmic sounding name. So I was planning on getting off at Tamien, until I heard the conductor say Diridon. The minute I heard Di-ri-don, I knew I was wrong about Tamien. I jumped up and got off the train. And there was Kristina. Phew.

I released my first book. I had an extra copy because Kristina had purchased me one the same day I got my own copy. I left it in the Diridon station. My worse fear is that it'll end up in the lost n found. We'll see.

We went to a beach and walked around. And then she took me out to lunch. (Thank you) When I got up from the table, something in the back of my knee was just speaking to me. And it was not saying nice things. I hobbled to the car and took three Advil. It got better. I musta pulled something at the beach.

I forget I live in a city. SF has a small town feel to it sometimes. You travel on the same streets, day after day. But sitting on a train watching the skyline disappear, and then reappear, I remembered. It felt like a vacation. Being in motion is good for me. I remember that the world is big.

Write yourself. Your body must be heard. Only then will the immense resources of the unconscious spring forth. -H�l�ne Cixous

I was reading Mike Golby yesterday morning. I only read him when I have time to concentrate. He's an amazing writer and I love his perspective. He was angry/hurt about a comment that someone had left him. And he wrote a brilliant response. And then, there was a wave of comments in response to what he wrote, some of which took shots at the person who attacked him.

At first I was bugged. The person who attacked him has one of those blogs that is mostly fun, simple, personal. I've passed by it a few times and never book marked it. Mike's, on the other hand, I read often. But it bugged me that people were slamming this person.

One of the things I love about the net is the diversity. I love the mommy blogs, and the endless cat stories, and the goofy what-thus-n-such-character-are-you tests. I go to different blogs and journals for different reasons. And I didn't want this person to be jumped on by the "bigger,smarter kids."

But...Jeneane...added this comment. "Don't throw slurs around half-heartedly, and if you do, expect to be challenged."

Sigh. It's true. The person was careless with language. Mike is prolific and eloquent and care full.

We have leaders who put things in your either with us or against us terms. Lines are drawn everywhere. Sometimes I want to be in the debate and sometimes I want it all to stop.

I don't even know these people. I got caught up in a moment of their lives because of their language. When people ask me why I do my page and spend time reading blogs, I think about things like this. There is passion and humanity in abundance. This is a blog by a twelve year old. This is a story by Jeneane. And this...

I went to bed early. Woke up at 11 and could not sleep. Read until ... oh I don't know. I kept trying to sleep and when I couldn't I'd read some more. It drives me crazy when I can't sleep.

I may have emerged from this last bout of darkness with some new verve. It almost spooks me to write that - as if the minute I do I'll plummet again. But, I did some work on a writing project that I've had in the back of my mind for a while now, and did some writing for school.

It may also be owing to the fact that I'm reading a lot. I hadn't been able to concentrate on anything except the stuff that I read on line. Aaron told me to read The Song Lines and mentioned that he loved In Patagonia as well. Kristina bought me a copy of Winding Paths, a book of Chatwin photos. So, I've been wondering the earth with Mr. Chatwin. He writes some lovely sentences. In one section of In Patagonia, he write about the Yaghan language. Their word for depression was the same as the one used to describe the vulnerable phase in a crab's seasonal cycle. Works for me.

But I am trying to stay balanced. And, in my never ending attempt to eat more tofu, I made miso, tofu, kale soup and ate two big bowls of it. And drank water. And took my flax seed oil.

I wanted to like The Court. The first two shows were OK, despite a scene in which Ms. Field has a laughing fit that sounds like she's choking. It seemed like it might be a good show to wind down with after school. But last night they did a show on the death penalty. They seemed to be saying that yeah, innocent people are murdered by the state, but who we should feel sorry for is the poor folks in the legal system, the judges who follow the letter of the law and ignore the heart of the law. Yuck.

But I'm eating my tofu and burying my head in a book. Jeneane blogged this article on Blogsisters and it stirred up a bunch of thought for me. The central concept, for me, was that these women identify as deaf.

A few years ago I heard something about a poll in which folks were given a list of potential "problems" that their baby might be born with and asked if they knew ahead of time about the "problems" would they choose to abort. The poll tallied the numbers of - if your child had ____ and you knew, would you abort. One of the _____'s was fat. Many people would choose to abort their babied if they knew they would be fat.

I'm not a statistician and this is my web journal not a thesis, so I can't site it and I don't remember the numbers. I just remember the feeling I had when I heard it.

If you were born deaf you've never known what life without sound is like. How can those of us who can hear say that our experience is better? It seems arrogant. Obviously, I love my hearing, damaged as it is from my days in rock-n-roll. But I do not presume that my experience as a hearing person is better.

It brings up the debate in my own life - if I could be thin would I? My position on this is clear. No.

I've always been fat. The thinnest I've ever been was still fat. I've been thinner than I am now but I've always been fat. And since I live in a culture that hates fatness I've lived as a person with an attribute of physicality that the culture tried to convince me I should be ashamed of and try to change.

Much of who I am has been shaped (pun intended) by that experience. So, why would I want to work to reject that? If I knew my kids would be fat would I chose not to have them? And my kids would be fat, like my mother and her mother and her grandmother were fat.

I've learned a bit about deaf politics from my friend's Karen and Ari-Asha. Both are hearing women who do translation. I've seen many parallels in deaf political identity and fat political identity.

It seems to me that any individual life experience has its specific gifts. I don't know the gift of a deaf life, but I know the gift of a fat life.

Drat! Comments were down yesterday. I really can't feel mad about it. The guy that runs YACCS does it for nothing. But I wanted to read what people thought about deafness as identity. Comments were back up when I returned from school and I got a few.

I remember when I read She's Come Undone I was struck by the way the character refereed to her fat, as if it was something separate, not really her body. It's like women (and more and more men) have these mental exacto knives that they use to slice of the parts of their bodies that extend beyond a perceived line of acceptability. People do talk about their fat as if it's a separate thing.

For me, fat is an attribute of who I am. Being fat has influenced the way I am received in the world and so it has influenced the formation of my identity. I think it has given me the experience of being seen as "an other." Not normal.

I argue for a broader sense of what is considered normal, not because I think normal is that great of an idea, but because if things like fatness, or deafness, were read as normal expressions of diversity then we wouldn't look for ways to avoid or change them. We'd celebrate the experiences that they engender.

If you have a deaf friend you have to become more aware of how to communicate. You can't assume that they hear what is going on around them. If you are with them you notice the ways in which your experience is shaped by your hearing. You begin to hear with consciousness. That would be a gift of having a deaf friend.

When I was nineteen I was in an accident in which my foot was pulled under the wheel of a truck. It was pretty bad and I have a huge scar, but the doctor said that, perhaps, because I was fat, my foot was protected and not damaged to the extent that it could have been. That's a tangible gift of being fat. Other gifts are gifts of experience and a bit more difficult to describe. But they are about consciousness.

I think there is a way in which you can protect diversity and enjoy diversity but not read it as ... not normal. I'm all for throwing out the word normal all together.

I'm worried that all this sounds very abstract. It is about language and how we talk and think about things. But, for me, these women choosing to have a child who shared an attribute of their identity was not necessarily ... wrong. If they had been a deaf man and a deaf women choosing to have a baby who would likely be deaf I'm not sure they would get as much notice. Although, they might get some people telling them not to have a baby. I don't know. But these women had to get sperm from some where and they made a choice to get the sperm from someone in their community of identity.

Speaking of comments, I added them to the refrigerator door and the MFA page. Heh.

I was dusting. I have a collection of perfume bottles. Not as big as my salt-n-pepper shaker collection, but there are a few. And as much as I like all my little things...they are dust gathers. Anyway, I was dusting and I noticed the little perfume bottle that I bought for my mother when I was a kid.

It was Christmas and a department store (maybe Gimbals or Kaufmens) did a thing for kids. It was a little elf factory kinda thing and you went in and picked out the present that you wanted to buy for your parents. I found the perfume bottle and I was so excited. It's blue crystal, three sided, very sweet. I didn't have enough money and I went to ask my grandmother for more. She tried to talk me out of it and was all mad because they were selling a perfume bottle with no perfume. She didn't see the beauty. After much fussing, she did give me the money. My mom said she liked it, but I don't think she really understood a perfume bottle with no perfume. I come from practical women.

It wasn't a big trauma but I do remember it. I remember the feeling of wanting to get this beautiful treasure for my mom, and my grandmother's irritation with the store for selling a kid a high priced bottle, and mom trying to be happy about the gift. I was visiting her a few years ago and she gave it to me. She wasn't mean about it. She knows I have these perfume bottles and that I like that sort of thing.

My heart is blown open. I did a Day Pop search on Michael Lerner and Cornel West because I wanted to write about their demonstration in front of the State department. The only thing I had been able to find was this insulting Salon article. And I saw Mike Golby's page in the links. I wanted to see what Mike had to say about it so I clicked and ...there is my name and my words. Pow. I bit my lip. Felt a wave of worry that I had written badly and said something that Mike might have taken in an unkind way. But no. He writes about me in a way that I only hope I am.

Oh yeah...and Lerner and West did a demonstration in front of the state department. I'm still in a swoon from seeing my name on Mike's blog so I'm not even going to try to write much more except to say, in response to the salon article, who needs a microphone when you have a blog.

bobbi is celebrating her site birthday. Celebrating by giving us her amazing art. Thank you, bobbi!

I've been negligent. I shoulda talked about this earlier in the week in case anyone might want to go. There was this Examiner piece. I've been irritated by the fact that I couldn't find the poster on line. Big Dance has a site, as does Big Moves, but not with this poster. I'm never sure my scans work, since I don't take the time to understand pixel counts. But I scanned the postcard so it could be seen on line, even if only by the folks that stop by for my silliness.

Some of the comments about the poster, as read in the article, made me cranky. "Oh ...they're really fat!" Gee da ya think?

Oprah did a repeat of her whatit'sliketobefat show, featuring the women from The Size of It. I don't know why I watched it since it pissed me off so much the first time.

Can I just say one thing? (Why yes Tish, it's your page...you can say as many things as you want.) If every women who had ever been molested was fat...there would be many more fat women. Women don't get fat because they were molested. They get fat because 1, they have a genetic predisposition to be fat and 2,3,4,5 etc., there are a multitude of things that happen in a body. No one knows why people get fat. Diet and exercise are not the only factors. Even Oprah says diets don't work.

If you haven't read much of the health at any size material and only hear the surgeon general you may be scratching your head thinking what is she ranting about?

I just get so bugged with Oprah looking for "the reason" people are fat in their psychology. It may be a factor, but fatness is an attribute of physicality. People are tall and short. People are a gender. People have nose shapes, skin colors, eye colors, moles, toes that curl up in different ways. People are fat.

And the show was full of fat hatred that went unchallenged. A mother buys kitchen chairs that her daughter can't fit into and professes ignorance. A "best friend" is honest enough ( I'm choking now) to admit that she is embarrassed by her fat friend's weight. A mother says she is embarrassed by her fat daughter in public. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU.

I'm going to see the fat dancers tonight. I'm hoping it's going to be fat Xanadu. I'm going to watch fat women do art in a way that they have been told they can not do it...with their bodies.

The Dancing was great! The naked fat girl image from the poster was from a piece in which they strike a variety of poses and look like a live sculpture or a painting by Rubens or Titian. It was art.

Fat Chance Belly Dance was great, as always. And the group from Big Moves were wonderful. Marilyn was the cutest! I guess I could be more descriptive but ... it was just great to see fat bodies in motion.

How bout Venezuela? They have the president they want. Not the one chosen for them by the oil companies. Hmmm.

Elaine and Jeneane both wrote about not wanting to write about world affairs or take sides. I rarely feel incompetent to opine on these things but I do have strong feelings. When I came home last night I clicked on CNN and heard about Venezuela and Powell's visit with Arafat. I watched the video of the suicide bomber. It all enters my heart and I have strong visceral reactions. I run to the places I trust for insight, knowing that they have their bias. I figure I get the other bias on CNN. It doesn't seem as simple as taking sides. It doesn't seem simple at all.

It's hard to write about Tapas and dancers and not mention that while I have a lovely night in SF with lovely friends, the world is engaged in something large and horrifying and fragile. Mentioning it doesn't do much. It may be my way of reassuring myself. Imagining that being aware of it all is enough.

Shelly wrote about thinking about it all while waiting to cross the Golden Gate bridge.

One of the dancers from Big Dance, Terryl Atkins, went swimming with us. It was great having a chance to talk with her. She's very cool.

My head has been full of thoughts about fat identity. There is a moment in life when a fat person decides that they aren't going to go on a diet for the 800th time. They're going to attempt to accept their bodies and get on with life. But, generally, they still want to be thin.

I've talked about hearing the line "there will come a time when you won't even be ashamed if you are fat." in a Frank Zappa song. I was fifteen and it was thrilling. And there was Cass. Hippie culture gave me these kooky ideas about my body. My body was beautiful and loveable at any size. I didn't really belive them but I hoped they were true. But, I also hoped I could be be thin.

I had my rock-n-roll band, Fatshadow. I tried to be bold and exude self acceptance. But, I was still hoping I'd be thin.

I worked out in gyms, lived on pineapple, hiked though the mountains of India, shoved cocaine up my nose. I processed my inner pain. I wrote affirmations about loving my body. I stayed fat.

At a certain point hoping for a size positive world and pretending I loved my fat body became the louder voices and I started questioning my desire to be thin. And there was this inner click. It was decades in the making. I am fat. It is an attribute of my physicality. The reasons begin in my DNA and are layered with the effects of my attempts to be thin. I am not to blame. I am not ashamed. In fact...I'm proud.

It's an odd positioning when substantive parts of your identity form around an attribute of your physicality. Odd and essential for those of us who are shunted to the margins. We won't stay in those margins any more.

But those of us who come out of the margins bear a different kind of weight. The first dance company of fat dancers, the first fat Olympian, the first fat aerobics teacher. When people challenge the assumptions of popular culture, especially those assumptions that prop up a cash cow, those people become icons. The hopes of so many depend on their success.

Swimming and having lunch took an inordinate amount of time. I didn't really get much done when I got home. So today I must write and write.

So....hours ago...I finished writing a lovely little page... if I do say so myself.

I don't think I can reconstruct the original. I don't even know if I want to. I was writing about writing, since that's what I did most of yesterday and I was feeling pretty pleased with myself. But it was a little hyper meta, I suppose.

"When people are humiliated, and have no homes to return to because the homes have been destroyed by the occupying army, When people are humiliated, and have no family to hold them in their arms because they have been shot and unable to get medical care, When people are humiliated, and have no hope for the future, They see no alternative to violence."

"Nonviolence is also about not judging people as we perceive them to be � that is, a murderer is not born a murderer; a terrorist is not born a terrorist. People become murderers, robbers and terrorists because of circumstances and experiences in life. Killing or confining murders, robbers, terrorists, or the like is not going to rid this world of them. For every one we kill or confine we create another hundred to take their place. What we need to do is dispassionately analyze both the circumstances that create such monsters and how we can help eliminate those circumstances. Focusing our efforts on the monsters, rather than what creates the monsters, will not solve the problems of violence."

"How can working with the "dark side" help here? Again I submit that if you believe darkness is a given part of our nature, then denying that is meant to be a part of our lives can leave us unbalanced, less than whole. Everyone knows someone who has gone to extremes in their lifestyle or belief system; the pendulum swing from angel to devil -- from atheist to zealot. When all around us is evidence of polarity in the wholeness of nature, denying our other half can be neurotic folly."

All this came together for me as I faced the prospect of rewriting my page. One of my responses to the misery of listening to CNN is to make some kind of attempt at understanding my own violence. I'll let ya know how that goes.

There may be a person, or two, who stop by my page on Wednesday to see if I'll write about the lockjaw expression on my face from the night before. Or maybe they didn't notice. Maybe I masked it well. There may be a time when concealing your emotions keeps you out of jail. Heh.

Kelly Rock Hill sent some poems for the MFA page. You can leave her some lovely comments. Or send her e-mail to tell her how wonderful her poems are. So far the only people who send me stuff are the poets.

"This is what facile comparisons do--they nullify understanding the complexity of the observed phenomena by a rush of outrage heating the throat and staining the adversary with the vomit of borrowed or vicarious condemnation." - Breyten Breytenbach

In class last night we were discussing The Things They Carried. I found it difficult to jump into the conversation. For the most part, I agreed with everything people were saying. It's a well written book that, for me, accomplishes one thing. It sustains complexity. It neither glorifies war nor does it take an anti war position. It is an anti war book for me but that's just my reaction to hearing about young men with guns, far away from home, trying to stay alive. But the book is about telling a war story and the tenderness of that task.

So, how do we do this? How do I wake up and check for news from the front and then write about how annoying my bus ride to school was? The only thing that I want to write is the thing that makes it stop. But I'm not that inspired.

I support a two state solution. I support the right of return. I support the existence of the Jewish homeland. I can't imagine how these two peoples are going to live together after all they've done to each other. But someone has to imagine something.

I get nervous when things are divided by two. You're either with us or against us. You're pro Palestinian or pro Israeli. You're a war blogger or a peace blogger.

I was awake late reading The Song Lines. I'd was just about bored with it (which says more about my state of mind than the book) and then in the middle of the book Chatwin is temporarily stranded in the middle of Australia. He sits down at a desk and pulls out his note books. Then a section of the book is from those note books. It's pretty amazing. It's about writing. It never says...this is the way to write...but it shows the things that Chatwin thought important enough to make note of, and the ways in which he does that.

Chatwin is almost absent as the narrator in In Patagonia and The Song Lines. He's the one seeing and hearing and asking the questions and through those things you know a bit about how he feels. But, really, you are just seeing though his eyes and words and you are left to your own responses.

So entering into his notebooks is like entering into his heart. His concerns are about being perennially restless. He writes about being on the move and the metaphysical implications and the variety of things that one witnesses and how that all adds up and feeds a personal theology, or mythology, or pathology.

I've moved around a bit. It always felt like I was moving to avoid suicide. My helplessness became overwhelming and I moved. I put all my hope in the catalyst of movement. In the first days of travelling I feel free. I can feel the tension of who ever I have been slipping away and I feel free to recreate who I am.

But who I am has consistent patterns some of which I've deconstructed, some of which still tyrannize my heart, some of which I value.

Reading the Chatwin notebooks settled me into deep ruminations. And I noticed a synchronisity in his reverence for walking and Wanderlust. Since I don't drive I have always walked. But as my knees deteriorate I walk less and less. And I feel the loss. So I was determined to walk this morning.

Then, in the middle of the night, I rolled over and my knee popped. Gawdfuckingdammit. It hurt so bad. And I woke up having dreams that I had moved back to New York.

KPFA did a day of reporting on the Middle East, featuring reports from Jenin. I sat in paralysis listening to it all. After reading Mike's blog and because of some discussion in The Song Lines of Aboriginal notions of the land, their rights and song lines, I am rethinking my support for the two state solution. I think I just want some acknowledgment of the rights of both Jews and Palestinians to live where they live. And, sometimes, I am foolish enough to imagine that can be delineated by the demarcation of land. Clearly that does not work. I am still clear about the right of return. So, then how do that many people even fit in a small amount of space with limited resources? And how does the state encourage truth and reconciliation?

What's your favorite TV show and why? I like the West Wing. I like to pretend that it's the real White House. I like Dark Angel, (a fact that confuses me). But the truth is I mostly watch the Supes all week and Book TV on the weekend. I don't so much watch it all as I have it on in the back ground while I'm reading blogs. Heh.
Who is your favorite television star? Camryn Manheim.
What was your favorite TV show as a child? I watched movies on Saturday with Shirley Temple. And then I would dance and sing around the house.
What show do you think should have been cancelled by now? Uh...I don't have enough web space to start that list.
What new show do you hope escapes the axe this season? I...um...just don't care.

Television is a good drug. I'll be the first to admit that I enjoy zoning out with a little shiny story. And I often have the television on in the back ground, a particularly bad habit. I have the radio on in the morning and switch to the TV in the afternoon and evening. I do listen to many of those kooky meetings and C-SPAN. But I have a few shows that I watch just for fun.

I don't know why I'm into the chicks who kick ass shows, but I am. Dark Angel occasionally does some interesting things about genetic engineering. Max is a person who perceives herself as a freak. I can relate to that. Alias ... I dunno...there's some character development...I guess. But I really do like watching these women smacking down bad guys. So much for my pacifism.

Sunday nights is a TV night for me. I watch Sixty Minutes, Max Bickford, Alias and The Practice. There's really no other night that I watch that many shows in a row and I don't always get through them all and I'm usually either at the computer, or I have a book or magazine in my hand while I watch. It's a tragically American thing to do. Over stimulate.

Will and Grace is a great example. I watch the show. I have laughed out loud at the show. But they make fat jokes in almost every episode. Every time I see one of those Themoreyouknow things I wonder if they will ever tell the truth about fat bodies and not use fatness for a quick laugh. Teach tolerance? My fat ass!

I remember the first time I saw Alley Mc Beal. I had left a class early and was in a terrible mood. I thought I'd watch TV and chill out. I'd heard everyone raving about Alley so...I watched.

Ally is warned to be ready for Harry Pippen, a lawyer that she will trying a case against in court. Pippen is fat. Very fat. He has some kind of collapse and Alley "saves" him with mouth to mouth, only after she grimaces at the thought of putting her mouth on his. Pippen's fiancee Angela shows up to thank Ally for saving Pippen. He has angina because he's nervous about their upcoming nuptials. Angela is also fat. She cracks Ally's back when she hugs her. Grrr.

Pippen confesses to Alley that he's afraid he's marrying Angela, not because she is the one, but because she's the only. Alley says something about keeping the promise you make to yourself as a child to wait for true love. Pippen calls off the wedding. Angela comes back and tells Alley that "people like them...aren't going to get true love", or something like that. Ally tells Pippen that he should marry Angela because the worst thing for your heart is loneliness. Uhuh.

At the wedding, as the couple gets into the limo to drive off into wedded bliss, Pippen gives Alley one last look of longing. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

Maybe the worst thing for your heart is believing that because you are fat you should never expect anyone to love you, or want you sexually, unless it's because they are also someone who can't expect to be loved.

By the time I turned off the television I was a full state of rage and despair. The show is being cancelled. I could care less.

International Action and Reclaim the Streets organized demos yesterday in solidarity with events in DC. I tried to overcome my agoraphobia but...people scare me. Right after 9/11, I went to a few things. It was good to be with people and yet...too quickly things de-evolve into over simple bifurcation and rhetoric. Still, I'm glad there were folks out in the streets.

I did something completely ridiculous instead. I played with my SIMS. It's been months. They have a new expansion pack and I didn't run right out and get it. I wondered if I was done. It is way too much like life. You have to keep them fed, clean, employed, and the worse part, happy. There's always something going wrong. Floods, fires, pestilence.

It's impossible to describe the obsessive inner story telling that goes on when I play. It's exactly the way it was when I played with dolls.

The family that I played with is named the Kahil's. They are a combination of families. I made a group of different people with the intention of marrying them to other people in other houses. At first there was Lee, an Asian fellow. Aisha, a very pale white woman who wears an Oriental print dress. And twin sisters, Riz and Bertice, who are fat and black and wear sarongs. (Bertice wears a turban!)

Riz married and moved into the Hawaiian household. Bertice married and moved into the Jones household. Aisha courted a woman, Tina who wears raver cloths and has blue hair. She has a son, Lee. He's Asian. She left her girl friend (don't worry - she hooked up with one of the boys in the loft.) and moved in with the Kahil's. Lee married Mae Ling, an Asian woman who used to live with the monks. They had a baby girl, Leah, who looks nothing like them. I dunno how that happened.

Getting two people to fall in love and get married is fun, but not always easy. There's lots of flirting and eating and playing chess or watching TV. There's the proposal and the cute little SIMS wedding. And then ...life goes on. Work. Sleep. Eat. Poop. Watch TV. Try to do some self improvement and have a relationship or two.

After all the moving around, the story became that Aisha is Mae Ling's daughter and Tina is Lee's. (you know...from their former marriages) So, when Aisha married Tina, Tina and her son (named Lee after his grandfather) moved in, Lee met Aisha's mother, Mae Ling and fell in love! So now they all live together.

There are things that happen that you can not control. A bear comes in the middle of the night, on tip toes, and digs in the trash, which is so noisy that it wakes everyone up. Then the bear tip toes away. So cute!

OK, so I'm talking about television and computer games. Sigh. Does that make me a war blogger or a peace blogger?

Over the past several weeks, I have heard Muslim intellectuals use the word "humiliation" to describe how vast numbers of Muslims feel. Humiliation is a deeply cultural construct that cuts far deeper than economic or political terms like "impoverished" or "disenfranchised". To feel humiliated is to be denied consideration or respect. -Jeremy Rifkin

It's Earth Day. There's an interesting ecological foot print test on this page. I tried to take it but there were two questions I just didn't know about (like square feet of my apt) and there are two questions that assume you have a car. I don't. Never have.

I've heard Helen Caldicott on the radio a few times lately. She adds a layer of tension to the conversation about war or peace.

"Now, with unprecedented acts of terrorism fueling the American public's willingness to grant its government broad power to wage war, the constant pressure from weapons makers to use military force - and by extension, buy more of their weapons - poses the very real threat of nuclear war. Enumerating, as a physician, the medical consequences of such a war, Caldicott demonstrates conclusively that the notion of nuclear survival is a complete fantasy, and that nuclear victory is an oxymoron."

The planets are in a line. It feels like we're on a brink. And I don't want to give in to dark likelihood. But it's pretty scary.

There is a group of bloggers who I read everyday. They are listed on the Refrigerator Door. I stumbled upon them trolling aroung the Internet. Some of them seem to have a history together. And they seem to be having problems. All my war blogger/peace blooger references are about things I've read on these blogs. I don't think they actually read me that often.But just in case any of them are reading me today, I want to make a comment.

I'm new in this particular corner of the blogging school yard. And things seem to be getting very fractious. I suspect that I don't know all the details. And I don't want to know. And I have noticed that the bloggers who are drawing the war blogger/peace blogger line are ones that I don't read.

So when I read something, on one of the blogs by a kid that I like, that sounds like they got hurt by something that another blogger wrote, I get all pumped up and I go and read the other blogger.

Recently I did this and saw something about the people in Arab countries not being allowed to elect their leaders. Yeah. It sucks when that happens.

So, anyway. I get all pumped up and I go to the other blogs and I read the offending blogs and I want to jump in and start swinging. The next thing I know I'm making my bed, talking out loud, telling off someone who I've never met. Someone who I don't even read.

We're on this little spinning ball of clay. We only just figured out how to walk upright a minute ago. Now we have to figure out how to negotiate our own brutality.

I don't give a fuck about Google or Daypop. Most of the people who read me are my friends. They read me because I say, "Did you read me? Didja? Didja? Didja?" Heh. Right about now they're shaking their heads and thinking I've gone mad.

WE had meant to go to Europe this last summer, and Tish would have gone anyhow, war or no war, if we had not switched her off onto something else. "Submarines fiddlesticks!" she said. "Give me a good life preserver, with a bottle of blackberry cordial fastened to it, and the sea has no terrors for me."

My father named me. Patricia Ann. My mother added Princess Priscilla Penelope Pamela. Patricia Ann Princess Priscilla Penelope Pamela Parmeley. It wasn't actually on the birth certificate. She wanted to name me Kenya. She wrote short stories about a girl named Kenya. It had nothing to do with the country of the same name. But dad picked Patricia Ann. Patti for short.

It's kinda like that Johnny Cash song in which a father names his son Sue because he know he won't be around to teach his son how to fight and with the name Sue ... you get the idea.

When I was twelve, I changed it to Trish for about a week and it morphed into Tish. There was some resistance to the change. My mom calls me Tisher Ann.

I almost feel bad for Tammy. But the first time I saw her I knew this would happen. And that had nothing to do with melatonin.

The war against war is going to be no holiday excursion or camping party. The military feelings are too deeply grounded to abdicate their place among our ideals until better substitutes are offered than the glory and shame that come to nations as well as to individuals from the ups and downs of politics and the vicissitudes of trade.

So far, war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until and equivalent discipline is organized, I believe that war must have its way. But I have no serious doubt that the ordinary prides and shames of social man, once developed to a certain intensity, are capable of organizing such a moral equivalent as I have sketched, or some other just as effective for preserving manliness of type. It is but a question of time, of skilful propogandism, and of opinion-making men seizing historic opportunities.

I was reading Jonathon Delacour yesterday, as well. When I was reading the James I thought back to what Jonathon wrote about the Israeli soldier.

"I am not yet sufficiently cynical to believe that, in taking such a long time to formulate his answer, he was trying to recall a training lecture he'd attended on how to handle foreign journalists. Rather I believe that he was running through in his mind the catalogue of all the good and bad decisions he'd made, of everything he'd learned during training and since, before attempting to choose one fear out of a hundred or more. The interview could have been a setup yet he came across to me as the kind of soldier who stands as a credit to any army.

Strapping on explosives and blowing up yourself and others is pathetic when measured against the willingness to accept total responsibility for the lives of the men under your command while trying at the same time to minimize civilian casualties."

I'm not sure I agree. Because both the suicide bomber and the young soldier are doing the same thing, putting their lives into armed struggle. A struggle over land use and water rights and religious identity. One young man is trained and armed by a state and the other may or may not have training, may have been supplied with his weapons, or may have gathered them himself. And the second is using his own body to make his point.

But more than that, I thought about James and the task of coming up with something to unify people and Delacour and his argument that blogging may not be the most honourable place to take a stand.

"This privileging of words and feelings over meaningful action most resembles a kind of emotional pornography; it constitutes the most grievous insult to those who are suffering and dying on both sides."

And the I thought about the variety of blogs that I read and the ways in which they ( I ) struggle to make sense of it all on our pages, not so much take a stand, but rather struggle to engage with it all. Maybe it is all an attempt to feel good about ourselves.

I don't really think Delacour was talking about me, or many of the folks who write about it all. He was specifically resonding to something that was said by a few individuals. But it gave me pause.

I fall back again and again on trying to stay awake, learn more and confront my own war like nature.

I have a picture of a little girl from a time when her parents were getting a divorce. ( No, this is not really about me.) She has her arms around their necks and she's pulling their heads together, as if the force of her will, and her love, and her need will keep them together. It didn't. They had a relatively amicable divorce, but they did split.

When I look at that picture I think about how much will there is in love. I mean the urge to love is so intense. And the urge to live, the will to live is so intense.

I found the balloon hats site from stavrosthewonderchicken. His blog is sub headed with "cognitive dissonance' presumes the existence of cognition"

The Wild Writing Women came to visit us last night. They were nice enough women, doing nice enough writing.

Aaron asked them the essential question. Since you are Americans, how do you deal with your cultural imperialism? ( I'm sure that's not Aaron's precise language ... just the gist. ) The first answer was disturbing. It was a quick, "Easy." Then there was a small flurry of equivocation about traveling stripping away a person's prejudice. Uhhuh.

Most difficult for me was one women who said that when she travels it's as if she has no skin or gender. See, here's the problem. That isn't possible. The minute you enter any space, anywhere, you bring with you the meme of our body. And, although I would have to check with Cynthia on this, (she is my science source) I imagine we bring with us a host of bacterial and skin mites and all kind of things that travel with our bodies.

This is the way I read white liberal racism. You try to ignore the meaning that is embedded in your skin. You imagine that if you ignore it, it will go away.

But they were nice enough women doing nice enough writing. And some of them are involved in doing great works. I just wish that the first thing one of them had said, in response to the question of cultural imperialism, was something about realizing that they are privileged. Traveling into other cultures, for pleasure, is a privilege. If you do something that helps that culture, well, that's the least you can do.

I have a friend, Lynn. She is a gifted acupuncturist. I am her willing and happy pin cushion. I have another friend, Barbara. She is a gifted chiropractor. These two women have kept my body from crumbling. I am eternally grateful to them. Yesterday both my health care friends left comments here. It seems they both enjoyed something that I linked to yesterday. Now...my question is ...should I be worried?

The extreme and reckless pruning of this tree of life by a culture where television, advertising, media, academia and politics pander to the least common denominator; where people are not loved for their depth, but for their thinness, has left our dreams damaged. - Martin Prectel

OK. So sometimes I'm not so interesting when I'm doing the Friday Five thing. I guess I think the notion of a hobby is a way of thinking about your life in parts. So, I'm resistant to it. I do want to draw more. I could say I collect books and CD's but it doesn't feel like collecting. It feels like nourishment.

And clubs...see I'm just going through a weird time. I'm needing to be alone...a lot. It's partly because of this struggle to change my life that I began six years ago. I quit a job, went to college, had a little coffee cart business. Had my heart broken in seventeen places. And now...I'm just trying to get my MFA so I can find some little college and teach.

There are things I want to write about and I'd love it if I could make money as a writer. But I don't want to think about that now.

Caroline Casey has a nice Vernal strategy outlined on her site. She says if we can make it through May...we may be able to turn things around. She was interviewing Martin Prectel on her show yesterday. I was only half listening. I remembered reading this interview with him in The Sun.

My life has been in parts. I did music, but I never really made money at it. I had to pay the musicians. I cooked. And I loved it. It was a great job for me. But not any more. I thought I'd do something in Psychology. I still wonder about that, all the reading that I did to try to understand myself, all the workshops and processes. I value it all and there are ways in which it freed me. But I'm up against some midlife, menopausal, mind melt.

In so many ways, I just want to find a job, teaching in a little college, maybe in a little town, and read and write. And there are ways in which that's because of the hurt I feel right now. The a fore mentioned broken heart. I want to withdraw from the fray. So, that's not entirely good. I mean, I feel myself contracting.

There are new poems on the MFA page. Still no essays, rants or short stories. Hint.

And I was talking to Jo Ann and found out that she has two new poems on the web.

Maureen, on reenhead, wrote about not finding the Friday Five compelling. I understand and yet I like the ritual of doing the Five. There are more of these things out there. Monday Mission, Tuesday Two, there's one for every day. They're content generators (for those of us who come up dry) but they are also community builders. I do the Five because it was the first one I came across and I like the down-to-earthness of the questions. It's good for me to think in terms that I don't usually consider. Paul did a funny parody of the Five. So, Maureen issued this challenge.

If you could add one card to the Tarot deck, what would it be, and what would it mean? The Wand of Power. Upright it would mean: you are in control of your destiny. The choices you make determine how your life will go. Upside down it would mean: all your choices are made in the context of the culture in which you live. Ask yourself why you make the choices that you do and be aware that there are people making choices that will intersect with all of your intended actions.

The problem with writing about what I do everyday is ...well...it would be easier to write about what I don't do. For example, I didn't write. Not for school. Not on any of the projects I've had in my head. I didn't find a job. ( I did inquire about one ) I wasn't going to make the bed but just the fact that I knew I was going to write about it here kicked me into action. I'm so easy to shame. I did read blogs and do my page and check my e-mail twenty seven times and check for comments eighteen times.

Actually, there was a point yesterday when I turned off the news, put on music, straightened up the apartment, delt with some stuff.

I had been reading wood s lot, one of my favorites, but full of big chunky reads about things like exact uncertainty. He blogged about reenhead and I went there (thinking to myself - just this one more) and it was full of cool stuff, like the Haiku challenge. I knew I had to back away from the computer.

I actually went out the door. Yep. I went to Suzanne's house. We ate Mexican food and sang a little. I checked out my site on her computer and obsessed with how bad everything looked.

OK. It's true. Even when I went out of my house, away from my computer, I found a way to obsess about my site. Yes. Yes. Yes. I may need an intervention.

It started when I heard about The Free Words Project. Sal Randolph is a Harvard University graduate who lives and works in New York. She does projects In which she collects or produces objects that she gives away. This hearkens back to Marcel Mauss, the Situationists and Abbie Hoffman. It thrills my hippy chick heart. The only thing I ever stole was Steal This Book.

I hear so many of my fellow students talking in terms of writing that is selling. I know it's important. I need to find a way to make money. The reason I went to school was to try and position myself to make money in a way that used my brain and not my brawn. And if I had written a book I'd be trying to sell it.

But I don't want that need, the need for cash, to infect what I'm trying to do with writing. I'm still trying to understand what I'm trying to do with writing. Needing money drives me crazy. Of course I'm thinking about all this because it's the end of the month.

But I'm also thinking about it because I often see, on the bottom web sites, threats about stealing the persons stuff. So, I look at the page for what can be stolen and I see images and words. It could be about the design. But it seems so hyper. If I took a photo from someone's site and put it here and said ...look what I did...that would be stupid and wrong. But if I put the photo here and link to the person's site and said look at what they did...I don't know. I've read flap when a person thinks their site design is being copied. And I usually wonder how man ways can you do a site design? My design probably isn't cool enough to copy. Maybe that's why I think it's so over the top.

I took the Myers-Briggs test yesterday. You might wonder why I do things like this when they drive me crazy. But then I found out I was an iFNj ...well...maybe this test isn't so dumb. Ahem.

Since last weeks consideration of the relative value the Friday Five, I decided to do a week long tour of all those other questions. So, this morning I woke up and went to the Monday Mission.

Describe the last time you recall really feeling loved
(other than from children or pets). When I read my comments.

Has your use of the computer ever caused any arguments? What's the story there? No.

What's the most embarrassing thing your Mom ever did? She bought a little soap holder thing that was a frog. You know, the soap went in the mouth and the sponge went in the feet. Er somethin like that. But I was 15 and I we were in a hardware store. I was standing at the end of a long table full of sale stuff and two girls, standing next to me, were talking about how weird the frog soap holder thing was and asking who would ever buy such a thing. That's when my mom, at the other end of the table, held it up and said, "Tisher, look! Isn't this cute?"

I've met some adults who've never learned to swim, and others who never learned how to ride a bike.. Is there anything that you never learned as a child that you probably should have? Nope.

I have no idea who said it (and I spent all of two minutes trying to research it), but "someone" once said, a picture is worth a thousand words. Post an image that says more than words. Or instead, describe a picture you recall which touched your heart. I guess this guy thinks we all have digital cameras.

Yeah. I have the same problem with these that I often do with the Five. I don't relate to the idea of pampered. The questions are all over the map aren't they? Onward to Participation Positives. This, it turns out, is not questions, but a challenge to make a list of ...positive things... so that you start your week off on a ...positive note.

OK...so, next is The Monday Memory. Again, no questions, just a content producing idea. And there are mornings that I need a content producing idea. There is a whole blog devoted to this problem. The memory idea is a nice enough one. How bout I remember yesterday?

After swimming, Marilyn took me to the grocery store. Then we went to my apartment and she played with my computer while I made late lunch/early dinner. I made lamb chops, risotto with asparagus and mushrooms and fennel and apple salad with teleme toasts. It was great! I love cooking. I forget how much I love cooking. I do make myself meals like that sometimes but it's just easier when there is someone else to cook for. Then we went to see The Padded Lilies and some other syncro swimmers. Very cute!

I'm not sure how this question tour is going to go. It's starting off a little rocky.

Tell us about your most frustrating experience in dealing with the government, or some kind of authority and red tape.
Gee, there all so bad. I usually try to block the memory of tings like that.

Tell us your crazy kitty or, crazy dog, or crazy whatever story. This is tough. I have no animals. Oh, wait I got one...my father had a ranch where he raised quarter horses. I didn't really know my dad that well but I was visiting him one summer. I was standing beside a fence and one of the horses came up beside me and leaned into me. Well, I was a city kid and I was a little afraid. The horse moved closer and one hoof landed on my toe. I tried to push it away but it wouldn't move. I called out to my dad in a very calm voice ( so as not to spook the horse) and he came over and smacked the horse.

You've decided to buy a vanity license plate for your car. What does it say? I own no car. I do not know how to drive. But I guess I would try to get fatshadow.

I still do think these question things build community and are cool. And if you read the things folks write in answer to the questions, they produce some fun content. There was another Tuesday site that I saw listed but when I arrived at the site it was password protected. Oh well.

I did laundry yesterday. It seems to take all day. I got lucky in that Renee stopped by at exactly the right moment and she carried it all up the steps. Then we ate pizza and watched TV.

One of the fellows in a news group that I get e-mail from pointed to this article which is about Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health. I have a feeling that there are things about the book that I would like, much like Fast Food Nation. The problem for me, in these books, always comes when fatness is used to create the fear of death.

"As the New England Journal of Medicine recently editorialized: "The data linking overweight and death ... are limited, fragmentary, and often ambiguous. Most of the evidence is either indirect or derived from [studies with] serious methodologic flaws. Many studies fail to consider confounding variables, which are extremely difficult to assess and control � Thus, although some claim that every year 300,000 deaths � are caused by obesity, that figure is by no means well established."

Fat as a metaphor for unwell. Bugs me every time. And when you really dig into the science, you see the gapping holes in the reasoning.