April 2004

April 1 2004 Did you know The Restaurant is coming back? I will admit I fell out of love with it after awhile. Too much production. Too much product placement. But I'm psyched that it's coming back. And the story is that the restaurant is failing financially and the money guy is going to replace Rocco with managers!!! And really. When  you read the word mangers you should imagine the shark music from Jaws. I just can't wait to see how this goes.

My evolution was brief. I'm back to slithering reptile status. Was it something I said? Or didn't say.

Ari was at yoga. And then I got to hang out with her the rest of the day. Which was very fun. We ate lunch and then went to her apartment to watch the tape of Starting Over. I can not believe I watch this show. I can not believe how caught up in the show I am. I can not believe how wound up I get. We kept hitting pause so we could do our own analysis. Fun. And yet. Completely loopy.

Then we went to a yarn store where I bought some yarn with the idea that I'd make something for Jan. It's very cool yarn. Maybe a little bit too cool. It's this kind. Maybe most like the #10 or #20 color wise. It's fuzzy yarn, so it's really hard to tell where the stitches are. And I got some other yarn for ... uh ... I don't know what. Equally fun. (Mine is the Babe Didrikson color and the Elaine style.) I haven't tried it yet. But I think I have terrible judgement in yarn. It's pretty but it might be way beyond my skill level. Maybe not. We'll see.

And then it was late and we were hungry again. So we went to dinner.

It was a really nice day. And I needed a nice day. But I spent money.

EEK.

I also sent some writing out. Which is good. Right?

Ai. Yi. Yi. I just feel so ... loopy.

Then I came home and wound the yarn into balls, which is the only time I feel like I know what I'm doing. And I wasn't even sure about that when I was winding the Babe Didrikson/Elaine yarn. It was in a big pile that felt like it was becoming tangled. But I kept soting it out. I'm in the middle of it now.

So March came in like a lion. And went out like a lamb. Coz I was buying wool. Get it?

Heh.

                                     9:14 AM

April 2 2004 When I was at the yarn store I bought some knitting needles. Because, as Cleis once said, all the cool girls are doing it. The fuzzy yarn is hard to crochet because the fuzziness hides the stitch. I'm hoping it's easier to knit. But. I don't know how to knit.

I have a book. But some how the English wasn't plain enough. It was this animation that got me going. I now have a row of stitches on a needle. I'm using old yard to figure it out. We'll see.

I finished the Morrison-a-thon. There are good and bad things about reading all of one author. It is possible, even with a great writer, to get sick of the sound of their voice. I'm not really sick of Morrison. But I'm ready to be reading someone else. Kristina is in a class on Camus so I'm reading in solidarity with her.

                                     9:35 AM

April 2 2004 I watched Oprah. I'm not sure why. She was doing a show about weight loss surgery and someone told me that she wasn't really for the surgery. I was curious. I knew there would be things that hurt me but I just ... oh ... I just watched anyway.

And she did not seem very pro the surgery. In fact, the show was pretty terse, in some ways. Of course Oprah gets extra props for doing it the right way. She over came her weak character, doncha know. If you go here and click on the contract that she signed you can read about her character. The contract in and of itself doesn't seem too weird until it gets to the part where she talks about the strength of her character.

I will always give Oprah her props. She's done some great things. But her generalizations about fat people piss me off. Watching her during this show I was torn. When the doctor compared being fat to having cancer Oprah seemed to want to say something about the inaccuracy of that comparison. But she didn't.

There was a sixteen year old girl on the show who had the surgery. A sixteen year old girl. It just makes me want to weep. Apparently she'd gone into her sister's journal and read the sister saying hate full things about her. She credits that experience with turning her around. No one said a word to the sister about the hate full thoughts. No one said a word about the girl being afraid to go to school because of the teasing.

That's always the hurt full part for me. The way those things don't get challenged.

Oprah really seemed to want to challenge the wisdom of the surgery. I wouldn't say the show was positive. She never really says don't do the surgery. But there are things on her site that really seem anti surgery. Pro pro pro weight loss. Always pro weight loss. It's exhausting.

After the show I was so spaced out I put chicken in the oven but never turned the oven on. It just all makes me very sad. And mad.

The tone of the show was very much about this being an extreme choice and not for everyone. But there was no counter argument. There was no one there with a different view. The doctor made me the most angry.

The doctor.

It was sad. It was frightening. It was infuriating. And if you ask me why I watched I can't tell you. There is a part of me that needs to know my enemy.

                                     8:00 PM

April 3 2004 There was a man sitting on the bridge yesterday. Threatening to jump. On the news they talked about how it was backing up traffic. There was something about that. It seemed so ... wrong headed. A human being. A life. And all anyone could talk about was the traffic.

To be fair, the traffic was news. It was taking three hours to get across the bridge. People were pissed. But there was this guy, sitting on a brige, cutting himself with a razor. They talked him off the bridge last night. Maybe there will be more news about why he was there.

People seem to be snapping.

                                     11:10 AM

April 3 2004 I. Um.  Hmm.

I heard the guy who started Found Magazine on This American Life talking about a trip to Brazil he took with his mom. They were there to seek healing from a "mystical healer." It was a very sweet. If you can listen to it, I recommend it.

Earlier I'd heard a women on West Coast Live talking about street retreats. I'd taken a shower and had a good yoga practice. Eaten some chicken salad. I was just beginning to feel a little bit better about it all.

But then I went back to my lethargy, self pity, and disaffection.

Actually I went back to trying to figure out knitting but I'm not quite getting there yet.

Heh.

I think I've only deleted comments a few times. Once when someone asked me to delete comments that they had left. Comments, good and bad, are part of the deal. Not everyone is going to get it. The meaner someone is when they try to tell me they know me better than I know myself the less it bothers me.

But it does bother me.

There are some pretty intense things going on in comment boxes these days. I tend to think there are limits to the dialogue we can have in comments boxes. Which is why we sometimes write to one another on our blogs. Those of us who write blogs.

I have lurked on blogs where I didn't like the person. Not often. Not regularly. There are a few people writing out here and they get linked to and I follow links. But I'm not looking for a fight.

Or. Ya know. Maybe I am. Sometimes.

I really don't know.

It is true. I am unemployed. I did take the risk, at forty-four years of age to quit a fairly high paying job and go to college. I did work my way through my BA by running a small business while holding down a full time class schedule. I worked fourteen hours a day for the better part of three and a half years. I began this blog in the days after I sold that business and began my MFA program. And now I am looking for work during a jobless economic recovery. Work that I have no experience doing.

Do I sound defensive? Well. Yeah. I am. It strikes me as extraordinarily mean spirited for someone to throw my unemployment into a list of judgements about who I am. Extraordinarily mean spirited.

But I think there's a difference between a troll and someone who is just in disagreement and judgement. So. Lurk. Comment. Believe that you know me. Really.

Generally. I believe in language. I believe in the power of telling our stories. I belive that writing is a way to reveal. But language has limits. And I have limits.

                                     10:17 PM

April 5 2004 So I went swimming. It was lovely. Good to be in the water. Then I came home, baked some banana muffins and ate some chicken salad.

My crafting life has been frustrating for me. It was beginning to seem like Jan might be graduating from college before I got anything made for him. I do know how to make granny squares but I wasn't sure the yarn would work. It's tightly wound in some places but loose in others. It's a little bit hard to work with and I thought it might make lumpy squares. It does. But they're kind of cool. I made two last night. I'm not sure how big to make each square. Right now they're each five rows. I might make them really big and just make six. Not sure.

I haven't listened to Air America yet. Gotta get on that.

I think the best idea is for me to let go of all the hish and move on. The comment support from my fellow codependants is much appreciated. But. You know I just want to ... mmmm.... get into it a bit more.

I am accused of being disaffected. And I suppose I am. I am disaffected from the culture in which bodies are tortured so that they can fit into a limited idea of beauty. Tortured on television. I am disaffected from people who make assumptions about me based on the size of my ass. I'm disaffected from a political system that's sold to the highest bidder. I'm disaffected from a country that doesn't value education. I'm disaffected from spiritual communities that want to make love wrong. The list is long. Oh. My. I am so disaffected.

Lethargic. Well yeah. Sometimes. After the six year push to get an education, writing a book, the last two Decembers with M & K, the death of my father, menopause. Yeah. I feel tired. Sometimes.

Self pity. I've never understood where the line gets drawn between telling the truth about things that hurt you and self pity. And then there's injustice. Whether or not you want to believe that fat people should eat less/exercise more and fall in line with the body Mafia's standard - job discrimination, lack of access to health care, means of transportation, public facilities and culturally encouraged scapegoating is not OK. It's just not. Do I fall into self pity around the events of my life and hostility of the world I live in? Yeah. I do. Sometimes.

We've already talked about my unemployment.

And a basic inablity to be honest.

Yes. Well.

My life doesn't track the Puritan's Pride, Manifest Destiny, Just Do It, American narrative. It's not something I feel too bad about.

I thought Rodrigo raised an interesting question. What is a troll?  Is Beth a troll? Welllll....we know she doesn't like Matha and Green weenies. We know she knows how to spell Neflix. It seems she feels I have too much support.  And then there's the e-mails to people who leave me comments. She seems to fit the profile. Palaver is a lovely word though, isn't it? You gotta give her that. And it's true that her comment brought on so many lovely comments from my fellow co dependants. I wouldn't hesitate to delete really stupid stuff. But she isn't stupid. She's just a bigot. I'm thinking about the letter to the editor idea. But I've written letters to the editor. The paper chooses which ones to publish. Someone who leaves peckish comments and then withdraws when she feels criticized is ... trollish. But that's part of the freedom of the blog form. I can delete her comments. I can ban her. But she exists. And she's let me know that she's lurking.

I dunno. It is time to let it go.

It's Monday. The moon is full. I'm going to make a cup of tea and ... well ... we'll see.

                                     8:15 AM

April 6 2004 My dreams have been filled with funny scenarios. Last night people were taking my laundry out and doing their own. There is a way in which that makes metaphoric sense given recent events. And then, in the dream, I found a drawer full of clean underwear so I realized I didn't need to do laundry. I do, actually, need to do laundry. But I'm not too worried about it. Things do can get competitive in our little apartment laundry room. But. Really. I think I'll be OK.

I was listening to Air America for a while yesterday. Today my speakers don't work. It's enough to make me wonder. I've checked the things I know how to check. In order to make sure they're plugged in I have to move about eighty pounds of books. Which. Obviously. I may have to do.

I'd read something Elayne linked to yesterday so I knew about the Daily Kos hoopla. I thought Markos was very good on The Majority Report. I don't read him very often. As I was listening I thought about how hard it's gonna be for me to give a shit about the election. I'll show up. Cast my vote for whoever I have to cast a vote for in order to get rid of Bush. But. John Kerry delinked a blogger? There's something about that. Something lacking proportion and courage.

I'm struggling a bit to get a post written. I got a chance to read a few of the e-mails that were sent to other people from my comments. It's nothing I could have controlled. But.

I'll shake it off.

                                     12:19 PM

April 7 2004 As it happened, someone did take my laundry out of the washer and out theirs in. Maybe I'm psychic.

But I got the laundry done. The garden around the laundry room is beautiful right now. And fragrant.

And my little plant dropped the three leaves and then formed two shoots with three leaves on each one. They are green and shiny.

My speakers came back on yesterday. And then went off again. And then came back on. I guess I have a loose wire.  

                                     9:04 AM

 April 7 2004 Right before I left for yoga I read Kurt. There was a lot to consider in the post. But one sentence was so satisfying for me to read.

It was that awareness of the limits of binary thinking. Yes. No. Good. Bad. It is the way that never really seems deeply meaningful, or even real. Lately I've been thinking about notions of right and wrong. I'm always suspicious when things seem to come down to right, or wrong. Things are rarely simple. I'm always looking for context.

There's a dry cleaners right in front of the bus stop where I wait. A woman pulled up in front and got out to get her dry cleaning. I've seen this before. The problem for me is that the bus can't get to me and if I get on out in the middle of the street I have to pull up to get to the relatively high steps. It can be a drag. There's a huge fine for parking in a bus stop. I found myself hoping she'd get a ticket. But I was also thinking about Kurt's post and answers which are provisional, subtle, layered, imbued with shades of meaning. And right. And wrong. As I watched she came out with an armload of clothes and then went back for more. It was clear that she was going to be hauling a lot and no wonder why she wanted to be right in front. She was there as the bus pulled up and I heard her say something about "your bus" so she knew what was going on. The driver was able to pull in behind her. I got on with no problem.

Sitting on the bus I mused about the all's well that ends well outcome. And I marveled at how angry I felt with her while I waited for the bus, worrying about a less positive outcome. She was, after all, wrong.

In class Sally was talking in terms of balance. She does that. It seems very natural. It's not like she plans it she just talks about what's on her mind. Or that's how it seems.  We were doing Tree pose. For the record, when I'm in tree pose I rest one heal on the other instep. My leg isn't up as far as it is that picture.

In class, Sally tends to hold poses a few beats longer than I can really do them. But she makes it very clear that we can drop the pose if we're getting tired. In the beginning I couldn't even stand as long as she did. I couldn't hold my arms up for very long. As the weeks have passed I find that I can do more and more. When I'm home I know I don't hold the pose for very long. But I've been trying to do a little more every day. I'm more aware of little changes. I'm more aware of which muscles do what.

Today I really had a good class. I had more stamina. Sally came up to me when I was in a pose (the picture is not me) and complimented me.

It's funny. I love that she isn't fixed on ideas of the "right way" to do a pose and yet I thrill when she likes the way I'm doing a pose. Right. Wrong. So subtle. Such a dance between pride and dread.

Any way. I was in the pose and Sally was talking about balance and how the body, even when it's in balance is moving out of balance. It's a metaphor that fits my larger sense of how IT ALL is. We arrive at a place we call right. And even as we position there we are moving out of it. Life being what it is moves us out of it. And, for me, that's all about context. Something that seems so right can shift when read in a larger context.

Ari wasn't in class but she picked me up after class, as a surprise. I didn't know she was coming. We went to the new JCC to check out their pool. It's pretty great and the cost of a membership is good. But more than I have. I'm not bothered by that. It's kind of far away from me. I'd spend a lot of time getting there and back. If money were no object I might have signed up.

At home I turned on the TV and got the news. We bombed a mosque. And suddenly all my musings about duality and balance and posture fall away and there is only one word.

Wrong.

When I was in tree pose and Sally was talking about balance I found myself imaging holding the two extremes of right and wrong, good and bad, yes and no. I felt it in my body. I felt myself relaxing into a moment that felt wrong, knowing that movement was occurring even as I stood there.

Let me be clear. I didn't feel wrong physically. I felt kinda good. I felt balanced, strong, aligned, beautiful. But I was thinking about a way to be when experiencing something that feels wrong. Being in that pose is an active process. But you are still.

When I heard the news I felt my shoulders tighten. My chest cave. My face harden. It isn't about whether I feel good. Or bad. It's about those moments of falling. Which have and will come.

And then.

The last line in Kurt's post seems apt.

Sometimes life seems so precarious.

                                     8:16 PM

For more than twenty years of an insane history, hopelessly lost like all the men of my generation in the convulsions of time, I have been supported by one thing: by the hidden feeling that to write today was an honour because this activity was a commitment - and a commitment not only to write. Specifically, in view of my powers and my state of being, it was a commitment to bear, together with all those who were living through the same history, the misery and the hope we shared.     -Albert Camus

April 8 2004 The First Man is an interesting read. He hadn't finished it. The book was put together by his daughter and all the footnotes and appendix notes are intended to act as a reminder that what we are reading is a draft. Sentences stop short. Character's have more than one name. There are footnotes for notes he had written on the page. It is a draft. The only other time I enjoy reading footnotes is when David Foster Wallace uses them. In this case it's like getting to listen in on the writer's process.

The book opens like a novel but moves into a memoir. My thought is that he was going to edit and shape and carve a novel out of everything he was putting down.

When Renee was here she told me that it's common for books published out side of the U.S. to have the name of the translator on the cover. Readers know who the translator is and they have favorites. In my edition of The Last Man the translator is listed in the back, with a very nice little paragraph of information. Something I didn't notice right away, despite the fact that Renee made me aware of the practice. I am guilty of that particularly American obtuse centrality in which I assume English.

Perhaps the job of a translator is to be invisible. I've had conversations with Karen and Ari about how that works when they are doing interpreting for the deaf. And I've had my own experience of how problematic that can be. It seems like knowing who the intermediary is important. People have agendas, limitations, blind spots. There is no real invisibility.

I listened to the testimony. She is masterful. I think it's important to note how masterful, not as an expression of respect for the content of what she put out. In fact she put out very little content. She obfuscated and rationalized and ignored questions. She was masterful. She got a little shaky when pressed. A little. None of which was surprising.

There is no real invisibility.

                                     1:39 PM

April 9 2004 Kell is doing this interesting thing that I must admit I don't completely understand because in order to completely understand I'd have to read about the President's Challenge and I just don't want to. But I do get enough to understand that she's tracking her fitness along the described path of the challenge, or something like that. And it's going well. She is  46% bronze.

A woman I know works with kids at the YWCA. She told me a story about a young girl who didn't want to take a fitness test because she was fat. After some encouragement the girl took the test and passed every thing like the number of sit-ups and pulling herself up the rope but she didn't get what ever gold star thing they were handing out because she weighed what she weighed. It's the kind of story that pisses me off.

As a kid I could never compete in gym but I could dance for three hours without a break at the wee teen dance and be sad when it was over. And I always thought I might have liked gym more if the feeling of being judged hadn't been so overwhelming. I loved swimming. I've always loved walking. I'm not so interested in throwing or hitting balls around in any way.

Swimming might be the only exercise I can do that I don't find boring. I can swim until my muscles start to twitch.

Yoga works. I become preoccupied with the form. My mind becomes engaged.

I have hand weights by my desk that use. It's a good way to take a break when you're trying to write and it isn't happening. And I do like working with weights.

If I'd been a thin or averaged sized kid no one would have cared if I could climb a rope. My thin friends didn't care if they could do it. But for me it was a mark of failure that turned me off to all things sport like. Sad, really.

Kell linked up the Sandy Swartz article in which Sandy talks about the origin of the 300,000 deaths number and the misuse it gets. I was thinking about all the thin and average sized friends I have who drive short distances and just don't like to move around. They are also not helping their bodies with that lack of movement but no one seems to be worried about them.

But I also kinda think ... so what?

I was telling Kristina about how I saw myself as someone who didn't have any game in the world of the body. When I was young that combined with a sixties kid party mentality and a down and out identity and I drank and did drugs and imagined that I might die as a result but I just didn't care. One of my favorite memories is the late night too high conversations in which a friend would tell me that they loved me just the way I was and they thought I was beautiful but they were worried about my health. I would smash a cigarette into an overflowing ashtray, slug down a bit of bourbon, suck another line into an already crusty nose and laugh. My health?

So Kell is 46% bronze. And I'm shouting out woo hoo! You go girl! Even if I don't completely understand the calculations I understand that she is engaged in a process of physical well being. A process she is not suppose to be able to participate in. Being that she is fat and all.

Heh.

                                     3:46 PM

April 10 2004 Somewhere in another dimension there is a golden palace of gratitude constructed by my delight in every book Kristina has ever bought for me. She is responsible for at least two shelves of the books I currently own. Yesterday she told me that I would be receiving a Camus care package.

When a package is coming I become paralyzed. I can't do anything that might mean I'll miss the buzzer. By 1:00 yesterday the buzzer had not buzzed and I was feeling the need for a shower. I took the shower and just as I was almost done I thought I heard the buzzer. By 3:00 I figured I'd missed the package. And then the bzzzzzzz came.

Mom sent me popcorn for Easter. I was surprised and happy but it wasn't the books. By:00 I knew they weren't coming. But I was wrong.

Not only did she buy me the books she is reading for her class, all of which are now in my All Consuming pile, but she bought me two others. I'm in a paradise of riches and the golden palace has two new rooms.

I read Camus when I lived in New York. The Vintage edition of The Stranger talks about the translator, Mathew Ward, on the cover and he writes the preface. It may be my imagination but I think this one is better that the one I read years ago.

I also got my Year Of The Snake postcard. Some days the mail is better than others.

                                     10:54 AM

April 10 2004 I was going to participate in the Google bomb whenI first read about it at M's but I forgot. I just saw again at Alas. So here goes.

Jew.

Barry wrote it up very well but if you need more on why go here.

                                     12:23 PM

April 11 2004 I stumbled on Sound and Fury the other day. I missed a lot of it so I added it to my queue. I'd like to watch the whole thing. Karen and Ari have both talked to me about the debate in the deaf community. In the movie I got to hear a bit of it from deaf people. And both Ari and Karen have talked with me about the comparisons to the fat revolution.

As a hearing person I find it hard to not want deaf people to have the opportunity to hear. And I want to be quick to say that I don't know enough about the technology to have a really clear opinion about the implant. But I'll tell you what, when I was listening to the deaf people talk about identity I got it.

There isn't one kind of fat person. There's a spectrum of experience. When you spend time with fat people you hear a lot of similar experience but you also hear differences. The eat less/exercise more formula is not as simple as it sounds. And if you really talk to fat people you learn about that. For me size acceptance, or fat revolution, is not about trying to stay fat. It's about not using the food/movement parts of your life in a pursuit of an idea of physical perfection. And it's about understanding how being fat is part of your identity. I'm not a thin person in a fat body. I'm a fat woman. For all of the problems that holds there are also gifts.

I think there is a detox phase when you stop dieting. Some people get a little crazy around food. For me, there was some of that. But I had cooking. Understanding food as a craft has been a fantastic process for me. But I don't see that as part of my size acceptance process. It might be part of my personal process but not part of THE process. It's important to separate the food part of your life from your ideas about your body size.

Recently, I've heard two different fat activists talk about feeling bad because they have to be aware of their food in a diet like manner because they have diabetes. For me this is a fundamental misread of what the fat revolution is all about. Size acceptance should enhance a person's ability to care for their body. Hopefully if fat people free themselves from the goal of a limited form of beauty and a fear driven idea of health, they'll be able to forge a truly meaningful relationship with their bodies. But I think it's a difficult and maybe life long process.

The part of the movie I tuned into was when a deaf woman was talking about her anger and sadness for another woman's choice to get the implant for her deaf child. The mother said something about music. Being able to hear music.

Music.

The deaf woman said music didn't matter to her. It's not a part of her life. It never has been. She thinks she has a fine life. She resents the idea that she doesn't. And I understand. I also understand wanting a deaf child to be able to hear music.

We all make choices. The one thing I'm very clear about is that even if I don't understand a person's choice I need to try and allow them the dignity of their choice. And even that isn't easy. There are times when that might mean having distance between you and another person. And then there are the choices that people make for their children.

Very complex stuff. No easy answers. Just the need for open hearts. And minds.

                                     11:07 PM

April 12 2004 Jan's middle name is Kobina, just like his dad. So I now call them K3. And they were all here yesterday. I pulled the ravioli out of the freezer and topped it with sauteed yellow and orange bell pepper, some shallot and mint. And I made some crostini with roasted tomato spread on them. And some olives. We ate and played with Jan. He is pretty fantastic. I gave him the baby blanket. It was too small, as I feared. He's already pretty tall. But the colors are beautiful. It's one of those things that was better in intention than actuality.

Last night I watched Extreme Make Over:Home.  It's the second time I've seen the show. And again I had mixed feelings. This episode was about a family in which a son was in a wheel chair and the house didn't really accommodate him. They gave him a ramp to the front door, which they widened, one of those endless swimming pools, work out equipment, a bathroom he can wheel into, a studio kitchen in his own space,  and a mini music studio. They also took care of the rest of the family. The sister who had submitted the family to the show got a brand new bed room. They fixed up his younger brother's "play house" and his bed room. The whole house got fixed up complete with an elevator so he can get up and down the three floors.

It's impossible not to be happy for this family, especially the young man. He has access. He has the things he needs to make his life more independent. It all brought me to tears.

But.

I kept thinking about the people watching the show. People who are working two jobs, or have been laid off, or who are working and they can barely keep their bills paid. I've had two conversations with two different friends in the past few days in which they talked about how hard they work and how difficult a time they're having.

And much of what is happening is about run away inflation, corporate greed, economic policies that favor one percent of the population. And then we get fed fairy tale stories about lottery winners and television make overs. And we spend our time flipping through catalogues imagining what we will buy when our bag of money comes in and we lose our creativity. We wait and long for the big win.

And believe me. I am talking about myself.

The show isn't the problem. If I could have watched a Moyer's discussion I might have done that instead. But it was emotionally satisfying to see this family get the big gift. It did feel good to think about the ways their lives might get better. I just want more information and fewer commercials. And I want a deeper analysis of what makes life worth while.

                                     1:33 PM

April 13 2004 Blog tour.

Bobbi had her blog birthday the other day. Her blog is one of blogs I go to for beauty. But I was happy to read her make a political post. Not because I think everyone need be political. Just because it reflects how strongly people are feeling about how wrong things are.

Miguel writes about Tonio's absence. It's hard not to worry when someone stops blogging. So many times I've worried about something I said. Or didn't say.

Jill's posts about unemployment make me laugh. In that ohshitit'ssotrue kind of way.

Via a link in a comment box on a blog I jumped to from M's.

570 comments.

                                     8:17 AM

April 13 2004 Happy Blog birthday to Susan!!

Oh how glad I am that she is there!

She did the grab the nearest book meme today.

1.Grab the nearest book.

2.Open the book to page 23.

3.Find the fifth sentence.

4.Post the text of the sentence on your blog.

OK.

The traveler waited in the barely furnished little office, then noticed a map, which he was studying when the caretaker came in. - Albert Camus

                                     9:27 AM

April 14 2004 Danelle and Alena are in town visiting K3 and I got to spend some time with them.

We went to a show called The Art of  Aging. I'm not sure how to talk about it. We didn't stay for the whole thing, which was a little bit disappointing. There was a guy who opened the event. I thought he was cute. He led us in some singing. It went on a little bit long and was a bit ... oh ... I dunno. Abstract?

Then the Kairos Dance Theater performed. I loved them because they were all ages and sizes. Then there was Filipino American. musical group.

We were only half way through the first half of the event and we were kinda tired so when the musical group began their forth piece we bailed. We missed seeing Anna Halprin. And that was sad.

I think there's more than one mind set you hold when you view art. If you go to a performance of ballet, or even modern dance, a symphony, something where the people involved do nothing but what they are going to do that night, you look for a level of professionalism. A standard of sorts.

This was more like community theater. All around the idea of creativity in the elder community. So the standard is different. Not lower. Wider.

This event had quite a lot packed into one evening and it was a bit fragmented. I was there because Danelle wanted to go see something but I had heard about it on KPFA and was happy to be there.

It felt like I neither got to spend time with them nor got to see the event. Negotiating the needs of everyone, time and geography shaped our experience.

This morning I'm still trying to sort through the thoughts I had about art and standard while I was there. I think it's true that standard is reductive. Just like when you reduce things in cooking to make a flavor dense and specific. Less reduction and the flavor is still there but it isn't quite as vivid. And sometimes that's what you want.

                                     8:41 AM

April 15 2004 My brain is so full of thought right now it seems like I can feel the cells banging against my skull. I'm having trouble finding one thing to type about.

I was in a bad mood. But. Maybe I won't start there.

Yoga. Yoga was

No. Not there either.

I'll get back to all that.

I was back at city hall yesterday acting as language hawk for the task force on childhood nutrition and physical activity. Marilyn was there as fellow language hawk. Jennifer sits on the task force. As does Elena and Esther and a number of other folks who are not necessarily HAES folks. There were report backs from the small working groups. Nothing too egregious. Relatively speaking. I'm always gonna have issues. This lovely article had been sent to us all before the meeting.

There were two things that stood out for me as emerging images. The school district is pleased with itself because they've taken out all the soda and junk