| December It's World AIDs Day. I was thinking about it last night. I was thinking about how long it took before the medical industry paid any serious attention. And still there is no cure. Just people who are living with AIDs. I am happy that people are living but I can't help but notice the cost of their treatment and think about who profits. Meanwhile I get spam and watch commercials about the pills men can take to make sure they can enjoy sex. What medical researcher worked away on that problem while countries were being decimated? Third world countries. Women. Children. There is something about priority. Every year there's a new pill to help me lose weight but we can't find a cure and get the existing medical solution distributed for people with AIDs.
On Sunday I watched the show I love to hate. In this episode the family has a young son who has bones that break easily. They put cork floors though the house so that, if he falls he will land on softer ground. They put hand rails though the house. And they did things for family members, like make sure that the mom's spoon collection was displayed. It's one big commercial for Sears and yet, I cry. I cry when the families come home and they have a whole new world and things are better and more beautiful and new. And yet, I can hear the sound of a million anxious others, writing to the show, hoping to be one of the lucky ones. One of the lucky people with all new stuff. I don't think there is anything wrong with wanting to have a beautiful home. I just feel like we become drunk with longing. Longing for stuff. And in that drunken stupor we stop thinking about things.
And yet.
People really come out of the woodwork to make things good for these people. Fire departments show up to fill pools. Neighbor ladies bring dinner and work on sewing projects. It's all so "family values." But it is moving. I do cry.
People do show up for each other. Problems are solved Things do get better. People will work really hard for a common good. It's the ideas about common good. It's the lack of critical thinking. It's the lusting stupor in which we live. That's the part that bugs me. Because we ought to be asking more questions.
I like joy. I like abundance. I like too much of a good thing. But I long for the feeling that everyone is at the table. I long for a world in which there is no one living with nothing while families who already own homes and big screen TVs get made over homes with flat screen TVs.
We are coming up on the twenty year anniversary of Bhopal. And still no justice for the people there. There's too much wrong. I write in fragments. My thinking feels fragmented. I struggle to hold a center but the center will not hold. I cry when a woman sees her spoon collection in a perfect row on a wall. It matters. But it just isn't enough. I think of you when I least expect to, when you would least imagine me thinking of you, when I am watching a movie about a Cuban writer and I want to turn and watch you watching the same movie, when I think I would recognize your smell when I want to ask if you would like some coffee and you would want some and I would make us some. I am conjuring you. I am remembering a you that never existed. I return to the film. And wonder. Why now? My windows look onto another building across a small parking lot. Very small. One row of cars. Six. Maybe seven. The building is white stucco. Sort of. I can see into many of the windows and I imagine they can see into mine. Not that there is anything goin on up in here.
I have seen one set of neighbors getting amorous. Nothing too explicit and I looked a way.
There was a fellow living in one place. He sat in an a recliner illuminated by light from a television. I used to wish I could paint him. Framed by the window in all that blue light. The man who lives there now has his desk in the window. He sits at a lap top. Maybe he is writing a blog. Sometimes the laptop is there but he is not. Sometimes they are both gone.
One window is a bathroom. The glass is frosted so that only light and shadow can be seen. There is the always present shadow of something hanging in the window. Something with a shape too odd. Perhaps a wash cloth, or a towel. Or some hanging bag.
There are, in fact, a million stories. And some of them, in fact, are naked. I caught about ten minutes of Crossfire yesterday. I used to like to watch it but I got sick of people talking over one another, so it's been awhile. But I noticed that Patricia Ireland was on to debate Jerry Falwell about sex education in schools. More than once she said she wasn't opposed to teaching abstinence in schools.
And then Falwell said:
So they were pretty much in agreement but they didn't seem to notice and I suspect that there are details about which they would argue. But they couldn't really get to a detailed discussion because they kept stepping on each other and James Carville and another woman (whose name I didn't bother to learn) were also on the show. Now. I love James. I do. I love his passion. I love his politics. I love his accent. But he and the other woman were just shooting insults at one another. So after about fifteen minutes I turned it off.
I like spirited debate. Years ago I saw film of Germaine Greer debate William Buckley debate at Cambridge. It was smart and funny and dignified. They may have stepped on each other from time to time. It's been awhile. But I don't remember it being mean.
I've been thinking about my own reactions to the way people talk to one another in public forums since the thing with Cris because the debate was framed around the idea of civility. And many of the details were ignored. In the simplest way of describing the issue Cris shouldn't have told a member of the public to fuck off in a meeting at which he was sitting in a position of power. But looking at the details things read very differently. The guy was a lobbyist for landlords. People were being (and have been) hostile to Cris in no uncertain terms. The tone of the meeting should have been managed better by Matt (as he said himself) and there was no way it should have been brought to the floor as a reason for censure.
These days in SF you can really see the class war being fought at City Hall. Yesterday there were hearings about health and education. In public testimony you always hear the same thing. Business owners and property owners say it's too hard in SF. Poor people say it's too hard. And guess where my sympathies fall. And the real focus needs to be on corporate greed, which it was yesterday when Sutter Health was being called to task for the lockout at a special meeting being called by (guess who?) Cris Daly.
Supervisor Sandoval (another of my favorites) proposed cutting funds from the Convention and Visitors bureau and giving them to the Tom Waddel public health clinic. Works for me. He also proposed cutting funds from the arts. I'm less thrilled with that. And did Daly's public scolding have any impact on his style? Not so much.
I used to like words civility. I even liked the word moral. And value. I have values which I consider moral. I think people should have roofs over their heads and jobs and food and health care and education and access. I think some base line needs to exist. I don't care if people make money but at what cost and to whom?
And yes. I think sex education should be taught in schools. I'm not sure about teaching abstinence. I mean. Some of us learn about abstinence in the halls of rejection. I think it might be cool to have lots of classroom conversation about what it all means and why we feel what we feel and do what we do. I think we could think and talk about it all. Thinking and talking are good. And let's make sure people know how to be safe. And also know where babies come from.
Some time after my Crossfire turn off I got an e-mail from Kristina asking if I was watching Oprah so I turned it on mid way through. She was showing a bit of The Dying Rooms. Yes. We should know where babies come from. And we should know what happens to them. And the use of the words moral and value should be expansive.
Maybe things have always been this tense. Or maybe there are just moments when the tension feels more acute. And maybe public discourse becomes more hostile in those times. Sometimes I can handle it. And sometimes I can not. There must be a Sci-Fi story somewhere about a person who plays a computer game so much that they get sucked into the game and become part of it. If there isn't there should be. And I should write it. But I'm too busy playing.
The story telling in the first game was mostly contained in a specific house. You went out of your house to make friends but that was it. In the new game it's really about the whole town. People grow old and die. Their ghosts haunt the houses in which they lived. Kids that make friends in school fall in love as teens, marry as adults and have kids. I have read other players talk about how many generations they have played. I can't imagine how much they have to play to get to where they are. I have a fifth generation family but only because three levels of that family were already in the game.
And then there are the problems of continuity. These two sisters were once the same age.
But one of them moved out with her dad when he moved in with another woman. (Oh, it's all very Peyton Place.) So she grew up a little faster and is now married and has just given birth to twins.
Both parents were at the wedding. That's them with the white hair. The sister is there as well and the groom's parents are the other two. And the groom's brother was there. Kissing on her sister.
His brother and her sister are married now. This is the happy couple back when they were still teens.
I'm doing a terrible job of telling this story. I'm sure these are the issues of long fiction writing. How do you handle time? I also think I need to take closer pictures. I don't care so much about siblings aging in disjointed time lines but I have kids who are about to become elders before their parents do. I wake up thinking about these stories. What house do I play first? How do I keep everyone in sequence? Hours go by.
I am not a fiction writer. I have no desire to be one. And right now I'm not even sure I could. Ai Yi Yi.
There's a baby boom in my little community. The first wave of teens have had kids and that wave of teens have become adults and are having kids. But see the other couple in the picture of the teens making out? The boy had a crush on a girl but I didn't notice. She's long grown and married to someone else and close to being an elder. He's in a long suspended teen hood waiting for the girl he's kissing to grow up.
Time. What a concept. Larry Bensky did a two hour show yesterday from Ohio about the struggle to get the votes recounted. It was interesting.
I readily accept the idea that voter fraud in Ohio may have cost Kerry the election but I think that's about me self comforting in the aftermath. I appreciate the efforts of the people doing the work but it is hard to imagine that anything will come from it. Kerry's campaign joined the effort.
The most I've heard about this on the mainstream media is that Kerry got more votes than originally projected. It was tossed off as an interesting factoid and nothing to think too much about and done in the same news cast in which we talk about making it possible for Democratic elections to be held in Iraq. It's all very through the looking glass.
It's funny to listen to that kind of news while playing a god game in which all my effort is focused on getting teenagers to fall in love so that they can marry and start making babies. And then listening to Tom Wolfe, Barack Obama and then Bobby. Actually, I stopped playing to watch Bobby. I love him so. But I got the other teens in the picture launched into adult life and now I think I might not play for awhile. I am actually a bit tired of it.
Life feels very fragmented. I feel fragmented.
I keep thinking about a comment from Butuki, which I can't figure out how to link so I'll quote.
When I first read it I thought skinship sounded so sane in terms of how people relate to their bodies. I still do but I'm not sure that I think it adds up to more sanity as life goes on. What does lead to more sanity as life goes on?
I'm always thinking about the way we read our lives in terms of value and how we read other people's lives in terms of value. This time of year is fraught with that narrative. I watched The First Five People last night because Mom wanted me to watch it and I know there will be a quiz when she calls. I kept thinking it was It's a Wonderful Life with a few changes in scene, and character. I didn't like it or not like it in any great way. My sentiments are easy to manipulate. I cry over all meaning making. But I kept thinking about why we have this narrative at this time of year. Why is it so hard to believe that every life matters?
Tom Wolfe said something charmingly self deprecating about his white suit. He said (and I'm paraphrasing) people thought the suit was such a sign of an interesting personality that he barely had to have one.
I dunno. This is how my mind works. I'm thinking about the irony of fighting for Democracy every where except Ohio. I'm thinking about how we develop a sense of our bodies and how that impacts our sexuality. I'm thinking about what makes a life valuable. And I'm thinking about the next three teenage couple I need to get out into a simulated town. And I'm eating oatmeal with dried mango and orange blossom honey, a blueberry muffin and, yes, three strips of bacon.
It is a wonderful life. I threw away some leeks and mushrooms yesterday. I get so mad at myself when I let food go bad. I knew they were on the way out and I was going to cook them together and put them on some mushroom pasta. It seemed like a great meal for these cold, rainy days. But I didn't. I don't even remember why.
In the restaurant industry you throw away food all the time. You can't serve things that aren't REALLY good. But it often means you ordered too much or prepared to much. So it means failure. Even without that experience I hate the waste. Especially when I could have done something and didn't.
I am pretty frustrated with myself these days. Sometimes I listen to the inner chat and know that if anyone else said those things to be I'd be pushing back in a big way. I'm sort of chasing my own tail. A lot.
The issue of Yoga4Everybody with my article is out and this one has pictures of actual fat women. I'm in the back so you can't see me as well as some of the others, which is in part because I'm tall and felt like should stand behind people. And I got a little shy. This piece is full of quotes from my fellow yoginis many of which can be read on Sally's site. That's what the magazine wanted. I don't love it as much as I love the other one but it's OK.
Why does nothing ever seem quite good enough? It was thrilling to read that my other article was being read in Paris. (Thank you François!) For about fifty seconds I felt proud. And then I began the rest of the day.
I'm not one for easy metaphors. I know that I have to keep a sense of proportion and balance. I know that the good lives in one hand and the bad in the other. And I have both hands to look at, consider, accept, reject, wash away.
Maybe it's the thick gray of the day. Mercury in retrograde. My own funny way of being in the world. I watched Westwing as I am wont to do. I pretend it's the news. I pretend it's the real Westwing. In truth the Bartlett administration has been as disappointing as the Clinton administration was. And yet. Disappointment isn't as bad as what I feel now.
When the show was over I should have just turned off the tube. I knew there wasn't anything on. But I came across this show. I've been sucked into this show a few times now. It's just fascinating. I saw one in which a wife who was Cajun and who raised alligators for the meat swapped with a vegan woman. Oh the drama! The vegan woman came off as controlling, judgemental and self involved. And lacking conviction. Her big swing out was to taste alligator. It wasn't hard to understand that she would not want to eat meat. But she was so sanctimonious. And the Cajun woman was trying make veggie gumbo, which no one liked. But she was so sweet. She tried so hard.
Last night was a rock-n-roll pierced and tattoed mom and a bible totin strict mom. It was just amazing. The show demonstrates how entrenched people can be in their own sense of self and how small shift of perception can make so much difference in how they participate with their families. I saw one in which the husband was in tears when he realized how hard his wife worked. They do an after the show thing in which they go back to see if anything has changed. I've only seen a few times but it does seem like things change a little bit in some cases. Husbands help with the household. Mothers and daughters form better communication. Stuff like that. But some people stay in their groove.
One of the reasons I moved around so much was because I wanted to see if the person I thought I was the same everywhere. Maybe I wondered because I spent summers with my dad's family in Missouri and winters with my mom's family in Pennsylvania. There were always ideas about "how we do thing here". Things about my accent and my attitude and my clothes. So if all those things change, who am I?
There's a section in a piece I wrote.
If I signed on to be in show where I had to have a different spouse I would expect some new experiences. It is amazing how dug in people can be and more amazing how extreme we are in our differences. If you put me in Pro Bush military household I would have a head ache every day but it wouldn't bother me to wear khakis. Or what ever. And I would be respectful (or try to be) in my conversations. And. I would be happy when I got to go home. So maybe I'm a little entrenched myself.
This is the kind of thing that puts my head into deep spin. I've met lots of people with lots of ways of being in the world. There is a way in which it comes down to style and not substance. But there is also a deeper meaning structure. One in which we are driven by the same needs. And I like that we express those drives in different ways.
Only connect. Sounds so simple. So true. And yet. Impunity--the perception of being outside the law--has long been the hallmark of the Bush regime. What is alarming is that it appears to have deepened since the election, ushering in what can best be described as an orgy of impunity. In Iraq, US forces and their Iraqi surrogates are assaulting civilian targets and openly attacking doctors, clerics and journalists who have dared to count the bodies. At home, impunity has been made official policy with Bush's nomination of Alberto Gonzales--the man who personally advised the President in his infamous "torture memo" that the Geneva Conventions are "obsolete"--as Attorney General. - Naomi Klein (Because Mike says no blog is complete without it. )( And, ya know, because it's really smart and right on.) On Wednesday the fire alarm outside my back door began to beep and continued to beep all day. I was trying to get it together to call the guy who works on things around the building when one of my neighbors called and said she was calling him. A few hours later she called to say that maybe I should call to put pressure on him. Apparently she used his home phone and I have his cell number. So he didn't know there was a problem and it was a bit late in the day. He was just a wee bit pissy about having to come and deal with it.
I am a little too good at being able to tune out. Part of me knew that the constant beeping was bothering me but I just tuned out. And then when he was pissy I got really mad. Not out loud. I just walked around my apartment talking to myself for awhile. Well. Actually. I was talking to him. But in my head.
It makes me laugh. The amount of drama that I can call up with something like this. Sheesh. I was yelling at him (in my head) and yelling at myself for not calling and letting the neighbor do it and yelling at them both for not having the right number and yadda yadda yadda. It was just obnoxious. And maybe having listened to this shrill, rhythmic beep for eight hours put me in a mood. But then I had to listen to all that inner fussing. Much harder to tune out.
This morning, at about six, it went off again. Then it stopped. Then it went off again around seven and kept going for about twenty minutes. I usually wake up between 6:30 and 7:00 so it wasn't a big deal but I have already called him and he is on his way. I learn my lessons.
Some times. I had to walk up to the post office to pick up a package (thank you Karen). It was a nice day and I was glad to have a reason to go out in it. I decided that I would have a coffee while I was up there. When I first walked in the place was almost empty. I made a joke about it to the girl behind the counter. I sat down with my double cap and a brownie and a book. Perfect.
The owner of this place came in with a couple of guys and his father. I know him because I used to buy coffee from him for the big tourist restaurant I managed. He's a North Beach native. Well know. Nice enough. Always says hi when he sees me. The guys looked like salesmen. During my time managing the restaurant I met with so many of them. I recognize the vibe. They were all laughing and joking. Loudly. I smiled and went back to my book. But the conversation pushed into my concentration. One of the guys was saying something about having offered to give a woman an examination for breast cancer and they all laughed.
Having worked in restaurants and having been in a rock-n-roll band I have heard some crude humor from the mouths of men. I have a pretty transparent face and if I am annoyed it shows. But in a work environment I have not always been as confrontational as I might have been. Not out loud anyway. So there's a kind of filter that I have through which comments like that pass. And this guy wasn't saying it to me, he was saying it near me. Loudly. One of the guys said, 'You're bad" to him but there was lots of laughter.
The letters on the page in front of me began to swim. I thought about my two aunts who both died of cancer. Both having breasts removed. One having her uterus removed. Just body parts. Body parts that are labeled with meaning. I thought about a time when one of them made a joke about it being no big deal to lose her breasts because no one was enjoying them anyway. I was young and I wondered who it was that should be enjoying them. Was it her? Was it some unnamed man?
A woman walked up to the guys in the coffee shop and one of them complimented her coat and ran his hand down her arm. There was nothing licentious in his manner but the guy with the jokes said something about it being a way to cop a feel. He went on and on about it. And then one of the men pulled out an ultrasound of "his son" and there were jokes about paternity tests. It wasn't clear whether the man should want to have the test prove his fatherhood.
The man making the jokes was older. There was also some conversation about social security so maybe he was in his sixties. He was nice looking. It seemed to me that he was trying to make sure that everyone knew, that no matter what his age, he still had desire. He may have been this way his life. Joking his way to a projected virility. I don't have a problem with him wanting to touch women. It's good and alive and wonderful to want to touch. I just wish he could communicate that desire in a way that didn't sound like hate speech.
And they all laughed. Because boys will be boys.
If I could write anything that would make men like that guy understand how stuff like that feels to many women I would spend all my time writing it.
Last night I was listening to Benjamin Zander on Now. He talked about something his father wrote in 1948 about how the Jewish people building a homeland in Jerusalem should never forget the sacrifice they were asking of the people who were already living there. And in that simple act of acknowledgement possibility opens. It's such a powerful idea, the idea that if we really remember the experience of the other we can mediate some of the difficulty of the times when we are at cross purposes. I don't think remembering is enough. I think people need to make amends. But remembering the person, thinking about how it feels for them, is the only way we can make meaningful amends.
It's too east to just write the guy in the coffee shop off as an asshole. Not that I didn't have that thought. I did. But I keep thinking about the smiles on the faces of the other men. The pleasure they were taking in each others company. The way I never want to squelch the expression of desire. The way it feels to have breast cancer made into a punch line. A punch line.
There is hurt in the world There always will be. We are at cross purposes too often. We need to voice our own desire with no thought. No thought at all. And maybe we can have a time when we look at one another and talk about how it all felt. Maybe it's just a hope that I harbor. If you knew how it felt it would change the way you speak and act and it would give you the language you need to say I'm sorry. I keep talking about my fascination with the story telling nature in the Sims. Here's an example.
The game came with a few towns and a few pre made families with pre written stories, one of which was Brandi Broke. When you enter Brandi's house for the first time you see that she has a teenage boy, a toddler and she is pregnant. Her husband has died in a mysterious pool accident. (If you play the Sims you know that the way to kill people is to tell them to go swimming and then get rid of the stairs so that they have no way to get out. Why would you want to kill someone? To get a ghost, of course.) If you look at Brandi's relationships you see that she is in love with a townie. I could have had her marry him. But I didn't like him. I don't know why because later I did bring him into the game and I really like him but then I didn't like him.
So. Brandi met and fell in love with another pre made character, Nina and Nina moved in. Nina has romantic aspirations. Which means that she wants to have woohoo (Sims speak for the horizontal mambo) with as many people as possible. Brandi has family aspirations, which means she wants to be in one relationship and have as many babies as possible. I was learning how to play this new game so I didn't get it all right a way. When I did realize they were at cross purposes I had Nina move out and I made the perfect guy for Brandi. I made the nicest, sweetest guy, also on the family track and brought him into the game. I don't even remember how they met but they met pretty quickly, fell in love, got married and started making babies.
AND THEN. One day when Brandi was pregnant, she died for no apparent reason. Well. She didn't die because I didn't save the game. But when I tried to play with her she would die. Nothing I did changed that. So I went to a friend of her's house and had the friend call and invite her to move in. And she did. AND. She fell in love with her friend right on the spot. I guess that's how family aspiration track people are. The friend was also on a romance track and was happy to have someone to new to have an affair with but was never gonna want to get married. Or joined. Same sex couples in the game get joined. But now what was I gonna do? Her family was going to come home and there would be no Brandi. Should they have her move back in? Well. That's what I did do and it seemed like it worked out. She had her baby and then got pregnant again. She has seven kids all together and she's a few days away from being an elder. Her husband will be an elder a few days before she is. Her sons are married and have their own babies. It's all so cute.
As it turns out pregnant women dying for no apparent reason happens. Whether it's a glitch in the game or something Maxis thought was funny I can't say. But I saved her.
Her kids have always been in public school. Private school is easier on kids. But in my value system I want public schools to be better so I haven't been that interested in the whole private school thing. But the kids really want to be in private school. How you get in is to invite the head master over. He likes a home with expensive stuff and he likes good food and he wants to be talked to. If he gets in the hot tub you get extra points. But since I already don't like the whole private school thing I don't like him. I hate the invite the headmaster part of the game. But I want Brandi's kids to have and easier life so we make the call.
He likes the house better than I thought he would. Lot's of points there. He likes dinner. Lots of points. Things are looking good. And then he walks up to Brandi and says something and disappears. Poof. He is gone.
I go to the site and read that this has happened to other people. Another glitch? Perhaps. But it was so Dickinsonian. I mean here is this poor (she's so poor her last name is Broke) single mother who has had this interesting life, been rescued from death, worked her way to the top of the culinary career (almost) and will soon be an elder and it was like this guy was saying your kids will never get into our school. It's probably a glitch. We can invite him back. It might work out. But I'm just saying. this game is amazing. I like to think I am the one telling the story. I'm doing the clicking. But, whether by default or design the game is telling it with me.
Which is just so much like life.
Brandi will die eventually. Her husband will die before she does and it will make her sad. I'm not sure how I'm going to play that. One of her kids will stay in the house and raise their own family. So they may comfort her. Or maybe I'll have one of her lovers move in. We'll see. And then she will be a ghost. A ghost who will haunt the house. It's just so interesting to me.
I have one picture of Bandi and her family at dinner.
So cute. It seems like a long time ago. Jeanne had come to visit. We'd been out for dinner and conversation. When we got back to the apartment we thought we'd watch some TV. On every channel there was a car chase in LA. That car chase was the beginning of a national obsession with OJ but I was not interested. I turned off the TV that night and ignored it all to the best of my ability. It was everywhere so it was impossible not to see something about it. But I had no opinion about his guilt or innocence and I felt like the media frenzy was not a good thing.
I remained disinterested until the day the verdict was announced. On that day I couldn't get away from the TV. The news went from one place to another asking how people felt. In some communities of color there was jubilation. In battered women's shelters there was grief. In sports bars there was mixed reaction and comments about the cost of lawyers. For me, the meaning being taken from the verdict was heart wrenching and instructional. We see things through our own filters.
What comprises a jury of our peers? Is it possible to listen to evidence with an open mind? How does a verdict impact the body politic?
So it was with the Scott Peterson trial. I just didn't care. It's not that I didn't care about the loss of the families. Maybe it isn't really that I didn't care but rather that I felt the need to pull away from the media pounding about the case. And, again, yesterday was different. I was completely captured by the jurors and the reaction of people to the verdict.
The jurors seemed so worn. They spoke about being changed. They were clear, grounded, thoughtful and sad. And the reactions of the general public were brain splitting. People talked about being happy about him getting the death penalty because they were pro life. Huh?
There have always been people who have an interest courts and trials. I think court room proceedings should be open for public scrutiny. But the observation of things has an impact on them. And the media keeps us distracted with hours of focus on things like this and gives us little to no information on so many other things. While I was listening to the jurors I got an e-mail with news from Chile. No real mention of it on the news.
Any death is a cause for sadness. The death of a mother and an unborn child is a horror. But what is the political meaning being made by hyper-concentration on this case? How does the media use our humanity to form our politic?
I oppose the death penalty. Always. My opposition is based in what I saw in the faces of those jurors. When we as a culture ask people to sentence people to death we need to think about how it's going to impact them. And how does it impact the people who have to carry out that decision? Of course this case will go through such a lengthy and costly appeals process that Peterson will probably die of old age. But the impact on the jurors will be the same.
They did the job they had to do. I wish them peace. And I'm sad that they had to even think about the death penalty. I have no opinion about the guilt or innocence of this man. I didn't pay attention to the details. And I would never be in their position because I don't support the death penalty. I wouldn't be chosen for the jury. So my thoughts are for them. And the families. Kristina and I often talk about the impact of noise. Having lived in apartment buildings in cities I can tune a lot out. Most of the time. Sometimes the sea lions wake me up in the night. Sometimes neighbors have parties. But I tune out trash collectors and school bells and drunken party people stumbling trough dramas out side my window.
This morning I was woken by a loud thud and the engine sound of what ever was dropping it. It sounded like it was right out front. It sounded like metal being dropped. In one big thud.
It was about the time I woulda woke up anyhow. But I turned over and tried to go back to sleep. I couldn't. I knew I wouldn't be able to. I just lay there.
Seems like such a metaphor for who I am right now. I might want to wake up. I might not be able to sleep. But if something else is making gonna make me wake up I'm gonna fight it.
I'm just. So. How I am. If you go to Sally's web site and scroll down there's a link to a PDF of my second article about yoga. This one is quote driven and there are pictures of fat women. Real fat women. The photo that was used with the YI article was of a women who I wouldn't even call large and that was frustrating. I feel more ownership of the YI piece. I wish it was on line. The Yoga 4 Every Body piece was written toward the requests of the editor. Which is not to say that it's bad. I just feel more ownership of the first one. But. It is good to have stuff out there.
I did some yoga yesterday. My practice has been less than regular. It is always good to return to it. I am more given to stretching in general. More aware of tension in my body. This isn't so much about yoga as it is about age. My body doesn't rebound as quickly. It demands attention now. Which is good. I suppose.
There is this holly daze thing happening around me. And I'm just trying to ignore it. I have no funding. No energy. I'm not feeling all bah humbug. Although I'm not loving the pounds of catalogues I get every day. Mostly I'm just feeling out of the loop.
I dunno. I dunno. Let me speak let me spit out my bitterness So. Ya know. I've been sad. For a very long time. And I've been trying not to talk about it. Because. It is what it is. There are reasons to be sad. There are reasons for me to be sad. But you know there have been people who come here and tell me to quit "taking my emotional temperature". And other less than useful bits of (cough) wisdom. And I only have so much tolerance for that kind of stuff. So. I just haven't wanted to write about it.
And. Also. Too. There are people who worry when I write about it. And. No one needs to worry.
The problem is that I feel like blog is bloodless these days. I am pulled back. Not engaged. I think that if you are going to write your life on line you need to be able to deal with some slings and arrows. And I get far more sweetness than either of those. But I just feel tired.
Every day I expect to go on line and see that no one is stopping by any more. And I'm not as participatory as I once was. I feel. Tense. Braced. Somewhat paranoid. Er, sumthin.
Having said all that, I am sitting here in deep content. Kristina and Joe came up from LA and took me out for dinner at ...
...sigh. My favorite.
I went in a little early and Flora brought me a glass of champagne. I'm finally getting around to reading Reading Lolita in Tehran. So I read and sipped and suddenly one of the women who worked there, a woman I had never seen before, walked up and said hi. It turned out she knows a woman I worked with in NYC. So I got that small world feeling. Read my book and sipped my champagne. Smiling.
We ate and ate and ate. And drank wine. And talked. It was just so good. Deeply good. And I got home in time for most of Now. I even got a little weepy as Moyers said goodbye. But I was in such a good mood that I didn't get the tense jaw I usually get while I listen. Despite the fact that Moyers went out with a great and somewhat terrifying show about media.
Kristina's generosity is always overwhelming. There is a whole book case in my apartment on which I want to put a commemorative plaque with her name since she has given me most of the books on it. Last night she gave me something. Something that let me know that she reads me. Two bags of dried cranberries. For my oatmeal. It just makes me smile. Knowing that someone gets me in that way.
So I'm full. And the sadness is at bay. I mean. I've been sad most of my life. And I've always pushed at it. Poked it. Tried to understand it and reason with it and even accept it. Sometimes I listen to lots of Joni and wallow in it. And then sometimes it gets chased off by warmth and kindness and conversation. Someday, somewhere, somehow I'm going to meet Barry and I'm going to hafta hug him and I hope he won't mind. He's just so cool and smart. And cute. I've seen pictures. He has written some very cool posts taking about weight based discrimination and comparing being fat with being gay. I feel like I should jump into discussions like these but, as I've mentioned, it's been a tough year and I've been having a hard time being engaged. And as I read through the comments on the post my head begins to throb. Which is not to say that there isn't some great thinking in the comments. (194 comments on one of the posts. If that ever happed here I wouldn't know whether to laugh or cry.) But there is also the same old tired eat less exercise more and then you can join the ranks of the moral CRAP. It just makes me want to scream and yell.
But I'm in too good a mood today. Still high from all that love and pleasure last night. When I hear pop psychologists say that fat people use food for comfort I always wanna say: so? Food is comforting.
There is a woman in the comments over at Amp's who talks about her weight loss experiance.
She exercises four hours a day. I've met people like her. She does not seem to bragging about what she's doing she just talks from her experience. You can lose weight if you exercise more and eat less. How much more? How much less?
And then there is another women.
No desire to eat. What so ever. I find that tragic. And I know how it feels. It happens to me. A lot. When I was a smoker I would always choose smoking over eating.
But these individual stories are just two. There are many more. In a fat hating culture all fat people look alike. But if you take the time to talk to fat people and learn their stories you know that the simple eat less exercise more solution is simplistic and more to the point is an attempt to dictate life style. Barry makes this connection between being fat and being gay.
Well said. Right on. Just makes me want to hug him.
In my book I wrote about a time when I lost 100 pounds. I wasn't dieting, or exercising. But I was making an effort to eat, taking vitamins, getting regular massage and acupuncture. People kept asking me if I was losing weight and I made jokes about hoping not because then I'd have to change the name of my band. When Stephen was being my advisor on the book he asked if this wasn't just going to add to the idea that I could be thin if ...
Well. I wasn't thin. I was thinner. But I wasn't thin. I wasn't thin during the time I lived in NYC and went to a gym for an hour and a half five or six days a week. I wasn't thin when I lived on rails of white powder and glasses of JWB. My body has been through changes and will go through changes. I will live my life. MY. Life. My choices.
And don't talk to me about the rising cost of heath care. Talk to the insurance companies. I woke up thinking about Kentucky. I don't know anything about Kentucky. I know there's a derby. I have the idea that it's very green there. I don't know anyone who lives there and I don't think I ever have. But I woke up thinking I should move there. I've been doing web searches on Kentucky and reading blogs.
This may pass. I can't really imagine living anywhere else. But. I'm trying to be open. I've always had a loopy attitude about taking a pill for pain. Even during the days when I was doing illicit drugs I was unlikely to take an aspirin for a head ache. Instead I would talk about how it wasn't good to mask symptoms and a headache might mean that I needed to drink more water. Yeah. And it might have also meant that I needed to stop ingesting toxins. I'm still more likely to take herbs or beg Lynn to come and give me needles or call Barbara for health issues than I am to call an MD. Although I do know a very cool MD. So yesterday when the news was full of stories about the possible negative impacts of Alieve I felt a bit superior. Just a bit and not for long because I needed to take something for the pain in my knees which has been particularly bad the last few days. Of course I even have my alternative stuff for that pain.
Recently I had a conversation with a friend about my alternative health preferences and she said she would not take herbs because they weren't tested by the FDA..I was actually startled. More and more we hear about the failure of the FDA..
And then there was news about the dismissal of concern about AIDS drugs in Africa. Jesse Jackson said that sending these drugs to Africa was like the experiments in Tuskegee.
It's not that I think there are a bunch of evil mad scientist trying to do bad things to us all. I just think that the pharmaceutical companies are too interested in making money. I heard a pharmaceutical company guy say his wife was on one of the drugs that had just been pulled. I wondered about that as an endorsement. Are they really that committed to their product? Probably some of them are.
Democracy Now is going to do a whole show about this stuff tomorrow.
I still think we turn to pills for too much. But I keep thinking about the people who have been taking some over the counter something for the pain in their whatever and now wonder if they've done more harm than good. It's sad. Last night I was reading and I realized that I have not read Nabokov. I read about him. I have a sense of having read him. But I'm sure I haven't. There are so many books like that.
I have a clear memory of being on a Greyhound bus when I was twenty going from SF to Soda Springs where I had been hired to work as a maid and a waitress. I have a paper back of A Room of One's Own in my hands. I can't remember much about the book. Which says more about my state of mind at the time than it does the book. There were ways in which I wanted to be someone who was reading the book more than I wanted to read the book.
There are people who read far more than I do. My aunt, a retired teacher, someone who gave me a love of reading, reads stacks of books. Dime store romances. The kind with big hunky men and women in lace on the cover. She reads five or six a week. She likes the act of reading.
I like the act of reading as well. And yet, lately I've had as much trouble reading as I have writing. Some of that is because I've been reading beyond my ken. And some it is just a general disengagement with life.
But it occurred to me as I was poking around on the Internet looking for Nabokov that I don't have a list of books everyone should read. Any list I would make would depend on the person and why they want to read. I do how ever have a list of book I feel I need to read. And that one is long. Almost as long as the books I feel I need to reread. It's coming on Christmas For a variety of reasons I've been asking myself if I believe in love. For the most part, I've decided I do.
I don't believe love conquers all. I don't believe that love is blind. I do think that love can be surprising. And also ordinary. Obvious. I do think that love is mighty and healing. I also think love unexpressed can feel toxic. Mostly I think love is a shape shifter. Always changing in form and content.
It seems like the wrong question to be asking. It's like asking if you believe in air. Or water. Or fire. Everything that can be a source for life. Or for death. Both of which dance together. Always.
It's the time of long dark nights. A time for laying in bed asking questions with too many answers. There's a box of Christmas ornaments in my closet. I haven't looked at them for a few years. I was in school, or NC, or M & K were here. I was sort of looking forward to this year. I thought I would have a tree.
I like having things that you only see once a year. Many of which were given to me by Karen. I like decking the halls. But I don't have it in me. I'm no more grouchy than I usually am. I'm actually feeling kinda mellow. Which could be because I made a steak, potato and green bean dinner for my self and had some Sangiovese. I've been eating fancy cheese all day. And these macadamia nuts that Deb caramelised and then rolled in Sharffen Berger powder.
I was always very hyper about my card each year. This is the one I had the last time I sent cards out.
Which was a few years ago. I posted it last year and I'm putting it up again. This is where it's from.
All I want for Christmas is ...
...uh. You know.
But I'm OK. I have chocolate. And creamy cheese.
When I was a kid we had liver pudding for Christmas breakfast. Not a tradition that I have kept alive. I do eat tangerines and chocolate because that's what I got in my stocking. That's the taste of Christmas morning.
Merry is a peculiar word. I'm pretty far from merry. But I am mellow. And I hope this is an evening of whatever you want it to be. And I hope tomorrow is better than that. If there is ever a list of movies least likely to be shown on Christmas Crumb would surely be in the top ten. But that's what I was watching. It's an intense portrait of Crumb, his art and what happens to three extremely intelligent boys when they are raised by a brutal father and a manic mother. It's tragic. More to the point it's about the people who don't fit into the American narrative. The kids who aren't pretty enough and are a little too smart.
It wasn't that the movie bummed me out. I'm glad I watched it. I just kept thinking about all that peace on earth good will to men stuff that gets pulled up for the day and then tucked back in. And, because Crumb is such a social critic, I was thinking about consumerism. Perfect day for it.
Last night, before I went to bed, I checked in on the news. The first three stories were about the devastation in South East Asia, the euphoria in the Ukraine and then a piece on the day after Christmas at the mall. Americans shopping. And shopping. And shopping.
Some day I'm gonna have some money and I'm gonna buy so many people presents. I'm not beyond that desire to buy and give. But watching the news footage of people wandering through the sales racks I was just filled with the sense of something being very out of balance. In such a big way. And I felt like a cranky, character in a Crumb comic. One of his big butt women.
It is a marvel. In one part of the world people walking on the beach are swept away. In another they are gathered in the streets to celebrate their insistence on democracy. In another there is a war. A war of deceit and greed. And somewhere there is a mom and dad playing with their two year old son, happy to have time off of work to enjoy the baby they love. And there are people playing with their new toys. Bellies full. It's all happening at the same time. Horror. Pleasure. Indolence. Content. Every point on the spectrum is in play. The field of the lord.
Today is dark and cold and rainy. And it's still true that I'm not miserable. Just mindful and musing and preoccupied. Not even trying to make sense of anything. Just trying to stay warm. Yesterday I heard that the earthquake that caused the tsunami also caused the earth to shift on its axis. Just a bit. I am completely taken by that. Think of it. Our view of the sun and the moon is just a bit different. Not so much that you notice but maybe enough to make you feel like something has changed.
So many people swallowed by the sea. So many all at once. It has to have an impact on us. Even if we aren't looking at the pictures on the news. That much loss. All at once. We must feel it.
I really wonder about these things. When genocide and war and famine take so many lives all at once, isn't it likely that we feel it? Some how? And what is the feeling?
My spiritual sense of things is wobbly. It's not so much that I feel the need to mourn for the lives that are swirled into that unknown place we call death. I feel the need to light candles and wish them well on what ever it is that comes next. But their families and friends, now living with the loss tug at my heart. The now homeless and hurt and orphaned. The wail of need coming from so many.
And why weren't there early warning systems in place? And is this just a planet shrugging or is it a response to climate change? And how will the western world, in the torpor of holiday satiety respond?
Just a little shift on the axis. A perspective change so small that we can't quite track it. In the beginning of the year I picked up a pile of granny squares that I'd been working on for years and decided to finish the afghan. It was a very small pile and made a very small afghan. But it was good to work on it. I wanted to get more into crochet. I wanted to learn to knit. Because all the cool kids are knitting. I did manage to finish a hat and a baby blanket for Jan. But the cost of yarn and the limit of my ability slowed me down to a halt.
And then Willa started to post about her interest in Tarot and I started pulling a card a day for awhile. It was Willa who pointed me to the Trinity Doughnuts Tarot, which I adore. Happily I ended up corresponding with the maker of the Trinity Doughnuts Tarot. Amber Dorko Stopper. I almost always think of her with her full name. It's such a great name.
Amber and her sister have other Tarot projects. One of which is a knitting tarot.
It's just so cool. Amber has a printing press and makes book plates from her knitting tarot. Books. Knitting. AND tarot. It's just the coolest of the cool, I'm tellin ya. (More on all this on her knitting blog.) Where, if you scroll down far enough you will also see the earrings she knit for me. SO cool. It just all makes me smile.
It was Amber who let me know about Susan Sontag in an email yesterday.
I first heard Sontag giving a lecture about what she called decade speak. She was noting the way we had begun to talk in terms of the fifties, the sixties, and so on. I don't remember when it was but it was years ago when I was living in Boulder. The next time I saw her I was cooking in a small restaurant in Chelsea with an open kitchen. Lot's of famous people ate there. I was the only one who recognized her. I think she smiled at me. I guess she could have been smiling at the person across the table from her but I smiled at her. It seems like I regularly site Regarding The Pain of Others.
About an hour after I got the e-mail CSPAN was airing their In Depth with Sontag, which I'd listened to when it first aired and listened to again yesterday.
So it was a day full of smiles and tears. Like so many others. Talking to Kristina about the weather problems in LA.. Listening to more reports about the wave. Every time I hear a new report the death count is higher. My mind struggling to hold the numbers. My heart struggling to hold the loss of one life and the loss of so many.
Mark has some good Sontag links.
I did most of the work on the afghan during the week when my dad died. Hooking memories into yarn passing through my fingers. Loss and loss and loss. Hooked together.
But. I guess. Today. I feel more wonder than anything else. It all seems to swirl. And I'm in the center watching from the seat in front of the screen. Disabled. Or maybe just overwhelmed. Just as I was beginning my shower yesterday the sun burst through. It's been so dark here for the last few days. I'm so internal. I don't usually notice or mind days of clouds and rain. I even like it. But this sun was so sudden and so bright. I decided to get out in it and go for a walk.
I needed to go to Barnes and Noble to get another copy of Yoga 4 Every Body to send to my aunt. I knew other B&N's had it but this one didn't seem to. There were three yoga mags all in a row and no Y4EB. I looked at the shelf below but I didn't see it. So I asked. The guy said they did have it so I went back and looked again. It was on the bottom in the back. You had to be in a yoga position to see it. So I go back to the front to pay for it and I mention the placement and point out my article and say they need to display it more prominently since I am a local. He said blame the corporate headquarters because they tell them where to place things. I said something about living on the edge and shaking off the corporate structure. He took my money and that was that.
The sun was good. I never get to participate in Friday cat blogging. (Which Elayne says is ™ Kevin Drum) Because. You know. I don't have a cat. In three and half years of blogging there has never been a picture of cat on my blog. It just seems wrong. And so...
This is a picture of my friend Jane's cats. Sunshine and Reggie. She sent it on her Christmas card. It seems like everyone I know has cats. Or dogs. Or cats and dogs. I had a dog and cats when I was younger. But now I live in an apartment that doesn't allow animals. And I'm a little bit allergic. And. So.
All right then. Friday cat blogging. I'm in. I feel so complete.
Heh. It's about 10:00 as I begin to type. Rain is pounding against the windows.
K3 came over today with a pile of sushi and a bottle of wine. And presents. A book. And a book that Kara made. Purple. My favorite. And pictures of Janananda. Jan can walk. A little bit. Wasn't it just yesterday I was sitting in a hospital room holding him and he was the length of my arm?
Kara always made these cool cards for Christmas. She'd make a print and choose a word. This year they all put paint on their feet and made this.
It seems like a great message for the year.
Yeah. I wish that for you all. Great feats.
When they left I cleaned up a bit. Talked to Mom. Listened to the news. They were listing people who had died. Famous people. I remembered the lists in the New York Times after 9/11. I remembered a Night Line on which they listed the names of soldiers who had died in Iraq and Afghanistan. How do you list 150, 000 names? So. I have a candle lit. For 150,000 unlisted names. And I know there are more.
The TV is full of the parties. For so many tonight is about dancing and drinking. And that's OK. People should have fun. I had a sweet day with friends and a boy who is almost one. So tall already. And he can walk. Did I mention that he can walk?
One child born. And a world to carry on. Great feats. Yeah. Let's be inspired.
I ate a little more fancy cheese and finished the wine. I might save the split of champagne for tomorrow. I have left over sushi rice and some coconut curry and a piece of chicken and some green beans. That will be good. I am safe. Warm. Fed. Loved. Grateful.
I thought I'd keep writing till midnight. But it's 11:11 and I think I'll get in my pjs and go to bed with a book. Start again. Next year.
Heh.
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