getting my head examined

On a local newscast this morning, they did a piece on cell phone dependence and addiction, which elicited a chortle from me. Everyone who knows me knows that I’m not a big fan of cell phones. I don’t think they’re completely evil; in fact, I even own an ancient ghetto TracFone that I keep in my car for emergencies (not that this is something I advertise in pride, mind you; every time I see the phone in my glovebox, it looks the ’80s are stuffed in there). Cell phones are, of course, fantastic for emergencies, as well as being great for situations where, say, you’re supposed to meet someone for dinner and you’re running late (and since I live in an area that currently has, according to Forbes.com, the third worst gridlock in the United States, running late is always a possibility), or when you’re supposed to meet someone but can’t quite find them, and so on. And for some lines of work, they are quite important and sometimes even essential.

So yeah, cell phones come in handy, and I don’t blame anybody for having them. But what really frosts my cookies (™Melissa Leeper) is how phone-dependent people have become. We survived for eons without instant communication; why are so many people suddenly unable to do this now? Have silence and aloneness become taboo? Heaven forbid you’re out of reach for a few hours! Or that you simply devote yourself to shopping at Target or walking down the street without the aid of a cell phone at your ear! Because, really, it seems like every time I’m out shopping, everyone around me in the aisles is chatting on a cell phone. A dozen one-sided conversation fragments swoop and dip around me like a bothersome cloud of mosquitoes. Recently I even encountered a woman gabbing on her cell while we were in the bathroom at work. Is no place sacred? And why do people have to be reminded to turn off their phones in libraries and cinemas? Shouldn’t that be instinctual? Apparently that’s not the case anymore.

I don’t want to hear other people’s one-sided conversations when I’m trudging through the supermarket or eating at a restaurant. I’m not a crotchety old person screaming for kids to keep it down and get off my lawn, and, living in a busy, sprawling suburban area, I have to be okay with a landscape of inevitable noise, but at the same time, I’m also a big fan of silence, even if it only comes in pockets. Why make that landscape of noise worse than it already is by adding a greasy veneer of cell phone chatter to it? Also, a person can miss so many things when constantly using a cell phone! Just like light pollution has blotted out the stars, so too has cell phone pollution blotted out simple aural pleasures: bird songs, leaves, silence.

I think what bothers me the most about the pervasiveness of our cell phone culture is that it is indicative of a larger problem in society. We’re expected to always be connected with other people. Solitude is bad, socialization is good. As Anneli Rufus remarked in her book Party of One: The Loners’ Manifesto:

“The mob thinks we are maladjusted. …they assemble the troops and call us names. Crazy. Cold. Stuck-up. Standoffish. Aloof. Afraid. Lacking in social skills. Bizarre. Unable to connect. Incapable of love. Freaks. Geeks. Sad. Lonely. Selfish. Secretive. Ungrateful. Unfriendly. Serial killers.”

Don’t believe her? Check out pretty much every news article ever written about a serial killer, school shooter, etc. They all focus on the person’s solitude, as if that explains why the person was crazy enough to burst into a daycare center and open fire. Aside from the occasional sensational piece about the serial killer who was an active member in his local community (such as the BTK Killer in Kansas), no article ever points out that the killer was sociable. Because that is beside the point. But the fact that the killer was a loner apparently isn’t beside the point. Double standard.

I’m biased, I know. If you’ve ever cruised through my quotes collection, then you know how much I cherish and celebrate solitude. But, bias aside, I really do think it’s a damn shame that there is so much pressure put on people to socialize and to constantly be in touch with other people. And, on top of that, society is becoming increasingly enamored with multitasking and always being on the go—another manifestation of the same disease that spawns excess cell phone (and BlackBerry/Sidekick/etc) usage. Modern kids are often over-scheduled with play dates, activities, this and that. Adults are encouraged to do as much as possible and have it all. If you’re waiting for a train or walking to your office, you’re expected to be doing something constructive with your time: firing off an email, making a quick call. You can’t just…think. Ponder. Admire the sky. Zone out. Notice the sunlight quivering on the sides of buildings. Those things are considered wasteful. And it’s like leisure is okay only if it’s a) kept to a minimum, and b) filled with activities. Loafing and vegging are sadly becoming lost arts.

This has nothing to do with cell phone addiction, but I’ll mention that I have applied for inclusion in a medical study currently being conducted at Johns Hopkins University. A researcher there is studying nonsyndromic craniosynostosis, with the ultimate goal of identifying genes and environmental factors causing this condition. I hope I’m accepted, because I’d love to find out more about what may’ve caused the CS, as well as what my chances are for passing it on, should I ever decide to have kids. The study would involve the researcher getting blood samples and possibly DNA samples from my parents and me, as well as having us fill out detailed questionnaires. I can provide copies of my medical records, but have no idea if Hershey Med still has copies of my head x-rays on file, since we’re talking about the passage of 30+ years. It’d be interesting to see them if they do still exist, though!



song heard most recently before posting: Paint a Vulgar Picture—The Smiths

here comes the flood

Today marks five years since my cat Shoah died in a freak and tragic accident. His brother Plath and I miss him every day.

Although the period of mid-1995 through late 1997 was pretty rough for me, I do rank the year 2001 as being my annus horribilus—the year that should be stricken from my record books. My dad was diagnosed with cancer, Shoah died, I faced massive car repair bills and also had to buy a new car (it sounds shallow, but when you’re living paycheck to paycheck, immense and unanticipated expenses can really throw you into a dark tailspin), half of my beloved department got laid off, 9/11 happened, my apartment was struck by a tornado and I had to move into temporary ghetto housing for a few months afterwards, my heart got broken, and a work trip to San Antonio was ruined when I unexpectedly got seriously ill.

The year did have a few perks, though: adopting my cat Freyja, celebrating my birthday with a long weekend in Rehoboth Beach, spending Christmas with extended family in Massachusetts, kicking 2001’s hateful ass out the door with friends on a beach in Delaware on New Year’s Eve.

Today’s weather is appropriately gloomy. The entire east coast—and especially the mid-Atlantic region—was struck with violent storms and record-breaking rainfall amounts yesterday, and the flooding is expected to continue over the next two days. I haven’t had much luck with bad weather in recent years: in 1999 the house in which I was staying in London was struck by lightning; 2001 brought the tornado; in 2005 a freak storm hit my neighborhood and dropped a tree onto my car; and I had numerous episodes of flooding in my last and current apartments. Because of this, and because my apartment is half underground, I was quite nervous during yesterday’s downpours.

When evening rolled around, I nervously checked the drains by my front and back doors. The front drain looked fine, but the back drain had gotten clogged with leaves. I think the roof gutters must’ve gotten clogged with leaves again, because water wasn’t being diverted from the roof into the yard; instead, it was just pouring straight down as a waterfall into the alcove by my back door. With the drain being choked with leaves, I knew that flooding was imminent, although there probably wasn’t much more than a quarter inch of rain sitting in the alcove. So, I got out of my pajamas, changed into some old clothes and flip-flops, grabbed a flashlight and umbrella, and ran around the side of the house to my back door (the back door has been jammed for eons, which is why I didn’t simply exit through there). I cleared the drain and sprinted back inside.

A bit later I surveyed the alcove again and found that, once more, the drain had gotten clogged with leaves. This time water was rapidly filling the alcove, and maybe 1-1 ½ inches of water had accumulated. Again, I donned my old shirt, boxers, and flip-flops and ran to the back door with the flashlight and umbrella. Well, the umbrella was pretty much useless in rain that intense, and I quickly got soaked. As rapidly as possible, I scooped up leaves and piles of mud, tossing them into the yard, frantically trying to clear the entire alcove before getting struck by lightning. I mean, after all, I was standing outside during an electrical storm, holding a metal umbrella, and electrocution seemed like a viable threat. Since I was soaked anyway, I should’ve just ditched the umbrella to slightly decrease my odds of getting electrocuted, but I would’ve been blinded by the torrential rain without the umbrella, so I held onto it. I was out there for a few minutes, and then, satisfied that the alcove was as clear as possible, I darted back inside, completely drenched, while lightning spasmed constantly above me. But at least I avoided flooding! And a painful death by electrocution!

In less dreary news, Saturday was Olivia’s birthday party. She was as adorable and charismatic as ever!

song heard most recently before posting: Gloomy Winter—Bonnie Rideout

see you at the crossroads

This morning on the Beltway I was driving behind a flatbed truck that had port-o-potties strapped to it. It looked like they were lashed fairly tightly, but I nonetheless thought, “Oh god, with my luck, one of those things is going to get loose. That would be one fuck of a way to die. I’m just driving to work, minding my own business, blasting the a/c and a Puccini CD, and then suddenly a port-o-potty comes hurtling—in a slow, languid, twirling motion—through my windshield and kills me instantly.” It sounds like an urban legend. I don’t want my death to be so absurd, people mistake it for an urban legend. I don’t want my death to be something that elicits snickers when people read about it in the Washington Post. Also, I don’t want to die in a pandemic (bird flu!), because I don’t want to be shoveled into a mass grave.

Last night, on the heels of finishing the 689-page rollicking medieval novel The Decameron (which was delightfully dirty), I decided to shift gears to the modern era and began reading The Brief History of the Dead. It posits something that is apparently believed by some African tribal societies; namely, that after death comes a period where people stay somewhat alive, in a different plane, so to speak, because they remain in the memories of the living people who knew them. After the last person who knew them has died, they leave that half-alive plane for a permanent state of death.

I myself have no definitive theories on the afterlife. Being raised Catholic, I was always taught about the big three components of life after death: Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. I don’t really recall my CCD teachers describing those three arenas in much depth, so my young mind filled in the blanks with stereotypes: fluffy clouds, harps, flames, pitchforks, etc. I prayed for the souls in Purgatory every night and feared ending up in Hell for my silly little misdemeanors (but that still didn’t make me embrace the concept of Confession; I absolutely hated Confession, and much literal kicking and screaming ensued every time my parents forced me to go to Confession at Easter and Christmas).

Now that I’m ex-Catholic, agnostic, and areligious, I don’t really know how I view the afterlife. Part of me subscribes to the atheistic belief of consciousness simply ceasing to exist upon death. It’s a bit of a hard theory for me to wrap my mind around, mostly because I can’t comprehend absolute nothingness (even though I descend into it every night when I fall asleep, minus the delightfully bizarre dreams that I periodically retain upon waking). Another part of me digs the theory of reincarnation and the nirvana that you reach after you’ve learned all the lessons you’re meant to learn during various lifetimes. Still another part of me prefers the dreamy heaven that appears in The Lovely Bones. Needless to say, I’m not losing any sleep over my lack of a clear afterlife theory.

Anyway. As you may have heard, last week the FDA announced the approval of the HPV vaccine Gardasil for sale to girls and women aged nine to 26. (Why such a young cutoff? Do they think that women stop having sex when they hit age 27?) In clinical trials it was 100% effective in preventing infection with HPV strains 16 and 18, which together cause about 70% of cervical cancer cases. The trials showed that Gardasil was also about 99% effective in preventing HPV strains 6 and 11, which, together with strains 16 and 18, cause about 90% of genital wart cases. Gardasil also protects against vaginal and vulvar cancers, which are also linked to HPV.

When I had my annual physical done last week, my doctor mentioned the vaccine and dryly mused that she was surprised by how quickly the FDA approved Gardasil. I asked her why, and she said something like, “Well, because HPV is a sexually-transmitted disease, and you know how our government loves promoting abstinence and buries its head in the sand when it comes to admitting that unmarried people have sex.”

Oh.

That hadn’t occurred to me, honestly. As cynical as I can be, I guess I was being a Pollyanna by optimistically thinking that, gee, the FDA would actually put women’s health issues ahead of their government’s moral issues. Silly me!

Dr. K. had a good point, though. It is rather surprising that the FDA was so quick to get this STD vaccine on the market. But thank god they did it. This is the first cancer vaccine ever developed, and is thus a medical breakthrough. And as a woman who knows several women with HPV and HPV-induced cervical dysplasia (no surprises there; 20 million people in the US currently have HPV), I am thrilled that the FDA saw fit to make Gardasil available.

In other news, a 14-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted by another user of MySpace sued the Website earlier this week for $30 million, claiming that it didn’t take sufficient steps to protect its underage members.

I don’t know how I feel about this. I mean, obviously I feel horribly for the girl, and I’m thrilled that her attacker has been nabbed by the authorities. I sincerely hope that he gets a nice, fat jail sentence and gets a taste of his own medicine at the hands of jailhouse thug with a gleam in his eye. But I don’t think I agree with the lawsuit. From what I understand, MySpace does have security measures in place to protect its younger members, and, frankly, there’s only so much they can do. I’m not trying to let them off the hook and give them a license to be lax; I’m just stating what seems to be obvious common sense: security is a two-way street. Like MySpace’s chief security officer said, “Ultimately, Internet safety is a shared responsibility. We encourage everyone on the Internet to engage in smart Web practices and have open family dialogue about how to apply offline lessons in the online world.”

Yes, MySpace’s attempts to keep out pedophiles and sexual predators are far from perfect. And because of that, it’s up to MySpace users (and Web users in general) to exercise extreme caution and distrust when dealing with strangers. It’s sad that modern society forces us to be this way, but that’s the hand we’ve been dealt. If the Internet had been around when I was in high school, and if my family would’ve had a computer, I’m sure my parents would’ve kept it in the living room and would’ve kept tabs on my online movements. Yeah, I’m sure I would’ve bitched and moaned in my very special angst-ridden way. However, my parents’ job would’ve been to say, “Screw you. This is for your own good. You’ll thank us one day.” And they would’ve been right.


song heard most recently before posting: Signore, ascolta!—Giacomo Puccini

Rest in Peace, Muffie Mills

Muffie Mills
1992? - 6/22/06

There is no death. Only a change of worlds. –Chief Seattle

You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us. –Robert Louis Stevenson

If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons. –James Thurber

song heard most recently before posting: What If You—Joshua Radin

Happy 2nd Birthday, Olivia Rose Errera!!!

Olivia shortly after birth

May 2006

Today is also Summer Solstice (although that wasn’t the case the day my fabulous niece was born; Solstice fell on June 20th that year). I’ve got a little Celtic devotional that offers a greeting to the Summer Solstice:

Glory of the Day-Star, hail!
Lifter of the Light, Burnisher of the Sky.
Gifts of love to earth are bringing,
Summer’s shimmer, dew’s delight.
Dancing be the heart within us,
Open be our souls to bliss,
Courage vanquish every shadow,
Greet midsummer with a kiss.

The authors then suggest some spirit-enriching activities for the summer months, none of which I’ll do, because I’m going to spend the season buried under a mountain of work. I must confess, summer is my least favorite season, because I really mind the heat and humidity. My perfect summer weather would be three months of temperatures in the high 70s, with an eye-wateringly blue sky, no humidity, and a lovely little breeze. But in this area? I ain’t gonna get it. It’s hot, it’s humid, the sky gets bleached out by rags of haze, and the calendar is peppered with Code Red days (when the heat and pollution make it inadvisable to wander outside if you’re young, elderly, or have breathing problems). Summer can be a nasty, clammy, stagnant glimpse of what it might be like to be slowly buried alive.

However, it does carry its perks. Although I eat ice cream all year round, it never packs quite the same wallop of magic as it does on a sluggish summer day. Other perks of summer? How the sky looks before a thunderstorm. Gardens. Swimming in the ocean. Ice cream at the Jigger Shop. The glorious shock of walking into an air-conditioned building on a hot day. Having a few hours of daylight left after I leave work. Those splendid days where—after a long stretch of humid, hazy, disgustingly hot days—I wake up and the sky is bright blue and there is a perfect breeze and the sun is warm but not blazing, and I can throw open all the windows and I just want to roll around in the grass. Being barefoot outside. Sleeping naked. Light, airy clothes. Wearing sandals and going to work with bare legs. Dining al fresco (when it’s not too hot!). Fireflies. Heat lightning. Shimmering roads. Explosive greenness. Warm, soaking rains. Three federal holidays. Skinnydipping (I’ve only ever done it 2-3 times, but it was always during the summer). Bare feet swishing in a lake. Driving with the windows down.

Last night I picked up Heather and her kids at BWI, after their week in Washington State. I realized that exactly one year had passed since I was the one arriving at BWI, my hair still matted with silica from a pre-flight jaunt to Blue Lagoon. Maybe I should start a tradition of being at BWI on June 20th?


song heard most recently before posting: To Let Myself Go—Ane Brun

six quirks/weird habits

I’ve seen this darting around the blog pond like a frisky little minnow, and thought I’d dip my toes into the water.

1) I hate getting my neck touched. Like, to a degree where I come close to freaking the F out if anybody even attempts to get near my neck. I tense up and instinctively protect my neck. I can’t wear chokers or turtlenecks, either, and I’ve been this way my entire life. In my defense, during my hospital stints as a baby, doctors often had to withdraw blood from my neck, so my neck issues most likely have a legitimate genesis.

2) I can’t stand sirens—they make me very tense—and I have to plug up my ears whenever I hear them.

3) I’ve got texture and fabric issues. I can’t get wool anywhere near my body and can’t stand sitting/lying on pilly or torn fabric. I can’t bring myself to sit on torn leather seats. I think tagless shirts are the greatest invention of the 21st century. (Yes, I realize how insane I sound right about now.) The texture issues extend to food, which, I’ve been told, isn’t overly uncommon among congenital anosmics. I love hummus but hate how chickpeas feel in my mouth. I like eating nuts but hate how they feel when mixed with ice cream and baked goods. I hate how minestrone beans feel when I encounter them in soup. Back when I still ate meat (albeit a limited range of it, because I wasn’t a meat lover at all), I hated the texture of crumbly meat, like Hamburger Helper and sloppy joes. I won’t touch even the vegetarian versions of those items. I hate how raw onions feel in my mouth. I despise the texture of coconut, cheesecake, pumpkin pie, and crumbly, graham-crackery crusts on cakes and pies.

4) I’ve never been drunk and have never gotten anywhere close to trying drugs. In today’s culture, this elicits raised eyebrows (the drunk part, not the drugs part), but what are you gonna do.

5) I freaking love disaster books, movies, and documentaries. Everything from stories about the end of the world to freak disasters like the 1986 Lake Nyos tragedy in Cameroon.

6) I’ve got bad luck in the bathroom. Oh, shush, I’m not talking about that. What I mean is that even though I’m not really a klutz in regular life, I’ve had a series of klutzy mishaps in various bathrooms. The first occurred in a Rome hotel when I was 17. I lost control of the shower hose and blew up three of the four lights over the sink (across the room!), causing glass to spray everywhere. In the past two years I: lost my balance and fell out of Heather’s dad’s shower, slamming my ass cheek onto the porcelain lip of his stand-alone shower as I crashed to the floor, leaving a bruise the size of Detroit on my ass; lost my balance and fell out of Mom’s shower, taking the shower curtain and curtain rod with me; and accidentally scalded myself in Papa’s shower, causing me to rip one of the faucet handles out of the wall in a blind panic as my skin burned.


song heard most recently before posting: A Man and a Woman—U2
x

for DC area denizens

This is one of those cute email forwards that always makes me chuckle because it is so very, very true.

How to know you live in the DC area

• Speed limits are just suggestions.

• You say you’re from DC, but you actually live in VA or MD and are too embarrassed to admit it.
  

• You’ve never told someone you’re from Virginia without putting “northern” in front of it.

• It’s not actually tailgating unless your bumper is touching the car in front of you.

• A yellow light means at least 5 more cars can get through.

• A red light means 2 more can.

• Despite the fact that Virginia fought for the south in the Civil War, you are NOT, under ANY circumstances, a “southerner.”

• You are amazed when you go out of town and the people at McDonalds speak English.

• You can cross 4 lanes of traffic in under 30 seconds.

• There are at least 3 malls within 20 minutes of your house.

• There are at least 6 Starbucks within 20 minutes of your house.

• There’s an inch of snow and schools are closed for 3 days.

• A rich white kid driving a BMW while blasting rap music is a common occurrence.

• When you were driving on the Beltway at 2:13am on a Tuesday there was still traffic.

• Crown Victoria = undercover cop.

• A slow driver is someone who isn’t going at least 10mph over the speed limit.

• You understand the meaning of “If you don’t get it, you don’t get it.”

• They just tore down the old farmhouse across the street and put 12 new houses in its place.

• The word HFStival actually means something to you.

• Someone has honked at you because you didn’t peal out the second the light turned green.

• You’ve honked at someone because they didn’t peal out the second the light turned green.

• Rush hour lasts all day.

• For the cost of your house, you could own a small town in Iowa.

• Helicopters and airplanes flying above your neighborhood is a normal occurrence.

• 9:30 isn’t just a time, it’s a place.

• If you stay on the same road long enough, it will eventually have 3 new names.

• You have to dial the area code to call your next door neighbor.

• You know at least 3 alternate routes to avoid sitting at a stop light.

• You can’t pull up to a 7-11 without seeing at least one cop, and usually there’s another cop sitting not too far away.

• You refer to distances in minutes, not miles.

• When you put on your turn signal to change lanes, the people next to you speed up.

• You don’t consider exploding manhole covers to be an unusual occurrence.

• You know where the Pentagon really is but never bother to correct anyone about its location.

• There are at least 15 ways to get everywhere and you know which way to go based on the weather, time of day, current political climate, terrorism road closures, and whether you are coming or going.

• “Finding a parking space” is actually an appointment on your calendar. (e.g., 7:00-8:00 - gym; 8:30-9:00 - find a parking space; 9:00-10:30 - dinner reservations.)

• You’ve never once been to Wal-Mart and don’t even know where there is one.

• You elbow tourists out of the way on the Metro escalators to ‘gently’ remind them to WALK LEFT, STAND RIGHT.

• You actually block out time in your schedule for the escalator ride at Dupont Circle, Rosslyn, Wheaton, or Tenleytown.

• You don’t bat an eye at 500 politicians and businessmen in suits running like their lives depended on it just to catch a Metro that will be followed by another in 90 seconds.

• You know that Washington National Airport is and will always be “WASHINGTON NATIONAL,” not “Reagan National.”

• And you know it’s in Virginia and don’t waste time trying to explain that to out-of-towners.

• You meet someone else who says they’re from the DC area and you realize they live two hours away from you.

• You notice that there’s been construction on the same stretch of highway for the past 5 years and you never see anyone working on it.

• The few times you have gotten lost in DC you have somehow ALWAYS ended up in Anacostia and every road out somehow leads back to Anacostia.

• Snow means rain to you.

• There are at least 5 gas stations on each intersection.

• When you are driving at night and you see 5 police cars pulling someone over, you know it’s just for a routine stop.

• When you drive on a road you haven’t been on in a few weeks, you see a brand new shopping center being built and aren’t surprised.
  

• You can parallel park like it’s your job.

• You don’t pull out your wallet to pay when you enter a museum.

• You laugh every time you see the “Surrender Dorothy” continuously painted over and repainted on the bridge over the Beltway approaching the Mormon Temple.

• You realize you utter the phrase “damn tourists” entirely too often.

• You realize that you have to drive a long way to find some nice woods or a park that is safe and healthy.

• You know where and what the Secret Safeway is.

song heard most recently before posting: Habanera—Georges Bizet

oh, that krazy government

I heard on the news this morning that there’s a new government advertising campaign saying that breastfeeding is not only natural, but that not doing it could actually harm your baby. Um, okay. So when did this become a government issue? They don’t offer national paid maternity leave or nationally funded childcare, but they think it’s okay to scare women into breastfeeding their babies? Where’s the sense in that? Shouldn’t the US government focus its money and energy on solving other issues first, like, say...oh, I don’t know...ending the war in Iraq? Eradicating poverty, hunger, and homelessness? Making college affordable for everyone? Finding fuel alternatives? Continuing the fight against AIDS? Making sure every citizen has freaking healthcare coverage? (The fact that so many people in this country have to live without medical treatment because of a lack of insurance is positively shameful.) All of those things—war, poverty, hunger, homelessness, dying fuel sources, AIDS, a paucity of suitable healthcare—affect babies and children to one degree or another. So if the government is that concerned about the health and wellbeing of babies, why aren’t they directing some of those pro-breastfeeding advertising dollars toward issues like healthier school lunches, top-notch healthcare for all children, and affordable childcare?

Breastfeeding is a personal choice, and women who opt to forgo it shouldn’t be vilified or bullied into changing their minds. Although I know babies who were breastfed and turned out fabulously, I also know babies who weren’t breastfed and turned out fabulously (including many people who harken from eras before current advanced nutritional formulas existed). No mother who chooses to forgo breastfeeding should be criticized for her choice. No, I don’t have kids, and I don’t know if I’m ever going to have them, but as a woman, I know I wouldn’t want the government guilt-tripping me if I did have kids and chose not to breastfeed them. Plus I’m at an age where more and more of my friends, colleagues, and relatives are starting to have babies, and I would hate to see any of them getting browbeaten into breastfeeding by bureaucrats!



song heard most recently before posting: Wrong Man—Amanda Ghost

I am a haochi-lanzuo*

*Chinese for “to be fond of food and averse to work”

I just polished off a delectable little book called The Meaning of Tingo, which takes a look at strange and wonderful words, phrases, and concepts from around the world. I highly recommend reading it. Some of my favorites:

• slappare (Italian) — to eat everything, even to the point of licking the plate

• ngaobera (Pascuense, Easter Island) — a slight inflammation of the throat caused by screaming too much

• neko-neko (Indonesian) — to have a creative idea which only makes things worse

• ulaia (Hawaiian) — to live as a hermit because of disappointment

• abbozzare (Italian) — to accept meekly a far from satisfactory situation (that’s the story of my life, yo)

• kopuhia (Rapa Nui, Easter Island) — someone who disappears instead of dedicating himself to his work

• bettschwere (German) — without the energy to get out of bed

• goyang kaki (Indonesian) — relaxing and enjoying oneself as problems are sorted out by others (literally, to gulp down flies)

• viajou na maionese (Portuguese) — to live in a dream world (literally, to travel in the mayonnaise)

• umudrovat se (Czech) — to philosophize oneself into the madhouse

• samlermani (Danish) — a mania for collecting
  
  
• dragostea e oarba, dar casatoria îi gaseste leacul (Romania) — love is blind, but marriage finds a cure

• boketto (Japanese) — to gaze vacantly into space without thinking or doing anything

• bosabosa (Japanese) — to sit around idly not doing what needs to be done

• gorogoro (Japanese) — to spend time doing nothing
  

• guzuguzu (Japanese) — to vacillate, procrastinate, or to stretch out a job

• bura-bura (Japanese) — to wander around aimlessly, looking at the sights with no fixed destination in mind

• bawwal (Persian) — one who pisses in bed

• osurgan (Turkish) — someone who farts a lot

• jerrkjerrk (Wagiman, Australia) — diarrhea

• chiasse (French) — diarrhea induced by fear

• fisselig (German) — flustered to the point of incompetence

• scheissbedauern (German) — the disappointment one feels when something turns out not nearly as badly as one hoped (literally, shit regret)

• dialogue des sourds (French) — a discussion in which neither party listens to the other (literally, dialogue of the deaf)

• mokita (Kiriwana, Papua New Guinea) — the truth that all know but no one talks about

• yerdengh-nga (Wagiman, Australia) — to clear off without telling anyone where you are going

• o ka la nokonoko (Hawaiian) — a day spent in nervous anticipation of a coughing spell (Hehehe….I had one of these on Monday when I was waiting for my plane at the Atlanta airport. I treated myself to a chocolate and peanut butter milkshake from Ben and Jerry’s, but milkshakes often make me cough [yeah, I don’t get it either], and I was so nervous about having a coughing spell, because I was afraid that my fellow passengers would think that I had bird flu and wouldn’t let me on the plane!)

• puangi (Cook Islands Maori) — the sensation of the stomach dropping away (as in the sudden surge of an elevator, plane, swing, or a tossed boat)

• dokidoki (Japanese) — rapid pounding heartbeats caused by worry or surprise

• in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni (Latin) — we enter the circle after dark and are consumed by fire

• viande à pneux (French) — reckless pedestrian (literally, meat for tires)

• ichigo-ichie (Japanese) — the practice of treasuring each moment and trying to make it perfect

• pulaka (Tulu, India) — hair that stands on end with ecstasy

• katahara itai (Japanese) — laughing so much that one side of your abdomen hurts

• uttori (Japanese) — to be enraptured by the loveliness of something

• yugen (Japanese) — an awareness of the universe that triggers feelings too deep and mysterious for words.

• termangu-mangu (Indonesian) — sad and not sure what to do

• mono-no-aware (Japanese) — appreciating the sadness of existence

• emakou (Gilbertese, Kiribati) — a secret sorrow

• bel hevi (Tok Pisin, Papua New Guinea) — the heavy sinking feeling that often accompanies extreme sadness (literally, belly heavy)

• kummerspeck (German) — the excess weight you will gain from emotion-related overeating (literally, grief bacon) (note: although I can’t sing or play any instruments, I desperately want to start a band called Grief Bacon)

• mukamuka (Japanese) — feeling so angry one feels like throwing up

• harawata o tatsu (Japanese) — to break one’s heart (literally, to sever one’s intestines)

• mahj (Persian) — looking beautiful after a disease

• bakku-shan (Japanese) — a girl who appears pretty when seen from behind but not from the front

• mamihlapinatapei (Fuegian, Chile) — the shared look of longing where both parties know the score yet neither is willing to make the first move

• rainen no kono hi mo issho ni waratteiyoh (Japanese) — this time next year let’s be laughing together (ie, a pick-up line)
  

• einfühlung (German) — an understanding so intimate that the feelings, thoughts, and motives of one person are readily comprehended by the other

• biodegradabile (Italian) — someone who falls in love easily and often

• alamnaka (Ulwa, Nicaragua) — to find one’s niche, to meet a kindred soul

• menggerumut (Indonesian) — to approach somebody quietly in the night for sex

• jalishgar (Persian) — to be addicted to sexual intercourse

• narachastra prayoga (Sanskrit) — men who worship their own penis

• batuta ni Drakula (Tagalog, Philippines) — penis (literally, Dracula’s nightstick)

• folterkammer (German) — a gym or exercise room (literally, a torture chamber)

• fucha (Polish) — to use company time and resources for one’s own purposes

• gorrero (Spanish, Central America) — a person who always allows other to pay

• gusa (Japanese) — to decapitate with a sword

• rejam (Malay) — to execute by pressing into mud

• ostranenie (Russian) — the process by which art makes familiar perceptions seem strange

• Pif! Paf! Pouf! (German) — the sound of Rice Krispies

• Cric! Crac! Croc! (French) — the sound of Rice Krispies

• Knisper! Knasper! Knusper! — (Dutch) the sound of Rice Krispies

• Cris! Cras! Cros! (Spanish) — the sound of Rice Krispies

• sunasorpok (Inuit) — to eat the remains of others’ food

• shitta (Persian) — food left at night and eaten in the morning

• ruttlin (Cornish) — the sound of phlegm rattling in the bronchial tubes

• paggiq (Inuit) — the flesh torn as a woman delivers a baby

• chigobami (Japanese) — bites inflicted on a mother’s nipple by a suckling baby

• kahala (Arabic) — to be an old fogey at the height of one’s life

• Torschlusspanik (German) — the fear of diminishing opportunities as one gets older (literally, gate-closing panic)

• bodach (Scottish Gaelic)— the ghost of an old man that comes down the chimney to terrorize children who have been naughty

• wewe (Indonesian) — an ugly female ghost with drooping breasts

• kuntilanak (Indonesian) — a ghost masquerading as a beautiful woman to seduce men who are then horrified to find that she actually has a large hole in her back

• jaaaarne (Estonian) — the edge of the ice

• gvbrdgvnit (Georgian) — you tear us into pieces

• wamadat (Persian) — the intense heat of a still, sultry night

• gumusservi (Turkish) — moonlight shining on water

• isblink (Swedish) — the luminous appearance of the horizon caused by reflection from ice

song heard most recently before posting:
Life is a Pigsty—Morrissey

old school

This morning I got the evil eye from a crossing guard. As I was trying to edge my way through an intersection, the light turned yellow. Having no room to shoot forward, I just stayed where I was, with a few inches of my car’s nose poking into a crosswalk. As the crossing guard ushered people through the intersection (what, suddenly adults are incapable of safely crossing the street without the help of a crossing guard?), she glared long and hard at me. Okay, first of all, when I began trying to work my way through the intersection, I didn’t know that the light was going to change and leave me stranded there. Second of all, does it really kill people to have to walk five inches out of their way to walk around the front of my car? I don’t think so.

This got me thinking about the Safety Patrol in elementary school (I never joined; I couldn’t be bothered, and besides, the only perk was an end-of-the-year trip to the circus, which didn’t interest me), and from there I began mulling over something I noticed maybe a year or two ago: the replacement of most of my elementary school’s metal playground equipment with dumbed-down plastic versions. The rocket ship filled with years of scratched names and insults is gone. The giant wobbly disc thing that I was too scared to jump from is gone. It’s always sad to see a part of your childhood disappear, but it’s even more depleting when you realize that those disappearing childhood elements fall into a larger societal pattern. There’s this push to swathe modern day kids in a cocoon of safety so thick, they can barely move. Y’all know what I mean. Gone are the days when kids could race around on bikes and skates without wearing helmets and kneepads. Gone are the days when they could scramble across the playground equipment that was probably quite deadly.

Oh, safety is important—I know that. I certainly don’t want to see my two-year-old niece get injured while playing. But I lament the fact that modern kids won’t get to ride around untethered in the back of a pickup truck, like I used to do in my dad’s truck, and play on swingsets that are so poorly affixed to the ground, they lift into the air when the kid swings high enough (as was the case with my backyard swingset). I never wore helmets or kneepads or anything and I was fine. One time I got injured while playing chicken with a bunch of neighborhood kids (Doug Peiffer mowed me down on his bike), and my knees were so ripped up, I was unable to kneel in church (causing me to fret that I would burn in hell for being unable to kneel properly). But I survived. I fell off my bike and fell while rollerskating and I survived. I pitched off the front of my sled and subsequently got run over by it—and my best friend—but I survived. My sister and I had tank-like bikes—huge metal monsters that were ferociously heavy (quite a change from today’s light models)—and one time she fell off her bike and subsequently got run over by it. She was so battered, our lackadaisical school actually took the time to rein in my parents for a conference, to ensure that they weren’t beating their child. Note that this took place in the days when teachers were allowed to slam kids against walls and build cages for them out of desks in order to control them (this actually happened to a kid in my second grade class). My fourth grade teacher never even spoke to my parents about the disturbing stories I so often wrote, which involved murder, blood, knives, and dead children. She never felt the need to say, “Hey, are you subjecting your kid to satanic ritual abuse? Because this ain’t normal.” So that’s how you know my sister’s bike-inflicted bruises and bumps were big: the school actually did something about them. But hey, she survived.

Hell, my family’s car—the one we had until I was 12 years old—didn’t even have seat belts in the back seat, and the front seat only had lap belts. And we survived.

I just feel sorry for modern kids who, while better off than my generation because they’re less likely to die of a playground-inflicted head injury or whatnot, won’t really get to know the freedom of hopping on a bike without first having to adjust a helmet, or ride around in the back of a pickup truck, or swing so high their swingset lifts off the ground.

And in a ridiculously different vein, many thanks to Debbie Stultz for pointing me in the direction of Lancaster’s annual Whoopie Pie Festival. How I could grow up in Lebanon County and not know about this festival remains a mystery. Yesterday, on her foodie discussion board, she and I had to defend the honor of the humble whoopie pie's origins, since so many people insist that New England, and not PA Dutch Country, spawned these devilishly tasty treats. As I wrote on the board:

I’ve heard whispers of the New England thing before, and, as a native PA Dutch(wo)man, I am inclined to believe that it is all a filthy lie. The pies may have gravitated to New England (although I’ve never seen them there), but I truly believe that their genesis lies in southcentral PA.

Look, we PA Dutch don’t have many claims to fame beyond the Amish and Hershey chocolate. Our accents are ridiculous and our language is bizarre. Even our name is a big fat misnomer (since PA Dutch culture comes from Germany, not the Netherlands). There are clumps of horse shit on our roads. We’re home to the worst nuclear power accident in American history. As a state we have produced the frightful Rick Santorum and infamously bad roadways. So please, don’t take away our baked goods. Let us remain in spirit—if not in fact—the sole progenitor of whoopie pies, shoofly pies, funnel cakes, and fasnachts. Please.

song heard most recently before posting: I’m On to You—Neil Diamond

seeking the Holy Grail

There’s a British indie film that I dig, Greenwich Mean Time, and I’ve been trying to track down a copy of its bone-shatteringly good soundtrack for around three years. It must be that only, like, five copies of this soundtrack were ever produced, because it is impossible to find, which means that it has become the Holy Grail in my eyes. Occasionally a copy surfaces on eBay, but there is always a fierce bidding war over it, and since I’m not willing to spend, say, $100 on a single CD, I always lose the war. I keep my eye peeled for copies on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, etc, and thus far I’ve been unsuccessful. If I could just download the individual tracks from the internet, I’d be happy doing so, but unfortunately, most of them aren’t available, probably because they are unique to the movie or just really obscure. If you have a copy and wouldn’t mind burning it for me, I would owe you for life!

This morning when I got to work I found a voicemail message waiting for me from the Department of Homeland Security. I almost had a stroke before I realized that it was someone in their PR department trying to get me to cover some issue or another in one of the newsletters published by my office. For a second I honestly thought they were calling me to say, “Pack your sunscreen—you’ve just won an all-expenses-paid trip to Guantanemo Bay.” Why? I don’t know; it’s not like I’ve done anything specifically wrong. But I’m a liberal Independent who does’t like organized religion, has marched on Washington, works for an animal protection organization, loves the books 1984 and A Handmaid’s Tale, and has a page-a-day anti-Bush calendar in her cubicle. And last year some of my library books (which, as we all know, can be monitored by the government, courtesy of the Patriot Act) included books on 9/11, the history of plague, and the history of the Gulag. So, if the Department of Homeland Security ever calls me at work and tells me that I’m Cuba-bound, after I finish freaking out, I won’t exactly be surprised. I’d like to think they have better things to do than throw me into the slammer for being liberal and having a fond taste for dreary books, but who knows.

Yesterday I got back from three days in Georgia. My birthday dinner was held at the dazzling Athens establishment The Grit, where I fressed on samosas, hummus, and vegetarian chili cheese dogs. Score! Did you know that curry samosa sauce tastes really damn good when mixed with hummus? Neither did I, but I do now. Afterwards I shoved a big piece of yummy chocolate and vanilla birthday cake into my groaning stomach and watched a slew o’ Tori Amos videos, courtesy of the DVD collection that Annida gave me as part of my birthday present.





song heard most recently before posting: Pancake —Tori Amos

32

Happy birthday to meeeee!

And to Angelina Jolieeeee! And Noah Wyleeeee!

Tonight I turn 32 years old. And it really doesn't bother me at all. I've felt for a while that good things lay in store for my 32nd year. Perhaps that's just wishful (or delusional, if you will) thinking, but hey, if it keeps me from spending my birthday fretting about the passage of time, then it's okay with me.

I am in Athens, Georgia, and it's pretty hot outside, and tonight we are going to The Grit, a vegetarian restaurant, for my b-day dinner. That's all I can really say right now.

hyvää syntymäpäivää means happy birthday in Finnish--which is where I was one year ago today!




song heard most recently before posting: Happy Birthday —Weird Al Yankovic

remembering

Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of when I departed for a truly kick-ass 2 ½-week vacation in Finland, Estonia, Russia, and Iceland. Oh, for the love of Shiloh Pitt, a year has passed already?? It’s hard to believe. This was a trip that required much financial saving, much planning, and much hoarding of my vacation hours at work, but it was worth it all.

On June 2, 2005, I flew out of BWI on Icelandair, landing in Iceland on the morning of the 3rd. From there I headed to Helsinki and met up with my friend Richard, who is another good pal of mine from my Goldsmiths days.

Richard and I were in Helsinki until June 6th, at which point we took a 90-minute hydrofoil trip across the Gulf of Finland to Tallinn. On June 10th we took a 9-hour bus ride from Tallinn to St. Petersburg. On June 14th we traveled by train from St. Petersburg back to Helsinki. On the 17th Richard returned to England I headed to Iceland, where I stayed until the 20th.

It was an amazing trip on so many levels. It wasn’t perfect—we hit some snafus here and there, which is par for the course when traveling abroad—but in the end, I really wouldn’t change a thing. Should you be inclined to do so, you can see a few of my Finland pictures, Estonia pictures, Russia pictures, and Iceland pictures online.

Also, I wrote some restaurant reviews for the top places I ate in three of the countries; you can read them here on my friend Debbie’s fab foodie website.

Right now I’m in the beginning stages of sketching out a plan for my next two tentative trips (all of which could change if/when I finally manage to buy a house, because god knows that will drain me dry). The first trip would involve spending two weeks driving the perimeter of Iceland (sticking to the Ring Road, for the most part) with my dad. The second trip entails spending a few days in Prague or Budapest with a friend, then taking a train or bus to Krakow, spending a few days there (including a day trip to Auschwitz), and then traveling to Kiev by train or bus. We’d take a day trip to Chernobyl (several Chernobyl/Pripyat day tours operate out of Kiev) while there. From Kiev we’d return to Prague/Budapest and fly home. And since I haven’t been back to my beloved London in seven!years!, I am tossing around the idea of blowing a freelance check on a long weekend in London. I’d go off-season to get a cheap flight, then stay in a grotty hostel to save even more money. I’d hit my old stomping grounds in SE London and swing by all the things that have only sprung into existence since the last time I was there; namely, the Tate Modern, Princess Diana’s memorial, the animals in war memorial, and the London Eye. And of course I’d have to skulk through Camden Market, too, mooning over all the items I can’t justify buying! Last, but most certainly not least, I’d like to return to Scotland and drive around as much of the country as possible: coast, islands, everything. I got a delicious taste of it in 2003 and I’m salivating at the thought of returning.

In other news...my department at work had a b-day party for me this morning. We indulged in a dreamy chocolate and peanut butter cake from Whole Foods, which I gobbled up even though I’m doubled over with cramps (priorities, man). My group card was funny (it shows, like, the Virgin Mary standing in flames, looking angry, holding a knife in one hand and a human heart in the other, and it says “Mary, Mary, quite contrary. Holy Mary, Mother of God! Another birthday!”) and my gift from my boss was awes (a black t-shirt that says “01-20-09: Bush’s last day”). Yeah!!


song heard most recently before posting: The Walk —Imogen Heap

the devil went down to Georgia

I’m recovering from a huge bout of either food poisoning or stomach flu. The last time this happened to me was July 1997, and I’m hoping that another nine years pass before it happens again. Throughout most of Monday and all of Tuesday I was a miserable mess.

On Tuesday morning there was a slender window of opportunity when I felt semi-human, so I decided to take advantage of it and hit the Safeway down the road to buy some ginger ale, vegetarian broth, and Pedialyte. There’s an apartment complex for physically and mentally disabled people across the street, and a bunch of the mentally disabled guys were waiting at the bus stop right across from my house. When I stumbled out to the car, they pointed, hooted, and hollered. If I hadn’t been so sick, and if it hadn’t been 20 million degrees outside (I really hate the heat), I would’ve laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation. Once I got to Safeway, the old dude manning the express aisle tried to chat me up, which slowed down the whole checkout process—a luxury I really couldn’t afford to take, because I was exhausted and weak and didn’t know if/when another bout of violent sickness was going to hit. I don’t understand why he was interested in me; I was sweaty, with disheveled hair, a face as white as paper, and I surely reeked of vomit and shit. How very sexy!

Anyway...on Friday I am heading to the Deep South for the first time in my life. When I studied abroad, my closest, attached-at-the-hip friend was Annida, a first-year Cypriot Brit who, according to half our dorm, was rumored to be my lesbian lover. And I can’t say I blame them for suspecting this, because she and I were always together. In 2001 Annida married an American and has been in the States ever since. They are now living in the funky, quirky, progressive city of Athens, GA. And because I haven’t seen Annida since she visited me in January 2000, a reunion is long overdue. Actually, this was originally intended to be a three-way reunion (mind out of the gutter, please!), because during our second term at Goldsmiths, we were also glued at the hip to our American friend Jorge, who we haven’t seen since we all met up in London for New Year’s 1995-96. However, Jorge is now unable to make it to Georgia this weekend, so it’ll just be me darkening Annida’s doorstep.




Here is a photo of the three stooges at Stonehenge during our time at Goldsmiths.






And here we are during our New Year’s reunion, at Waterloo Station, just before we bid Jorge adieu (he was studying in Spain that year and needed to catch his Eurostar train back to Seville). I love how I’m rocking the vagrant look. That coat—my dad’s coat from his Air Force days—weighed like 800 pounds, but damn, it kept me warm!

So, I’m looking forward to spending a long weekend—my birthday weekend, no less; I’ll be 32 on Sunday!—with my much-missed Annida in the South. She was the first person to expose me to Greek food and should be venerated for that reason. Imagine a life without dolmades!




song heard most recently before posting: Crazy On You —Heart

Joyeux Anniversaire!

Happy Birthday to
Angela Wagner
and Kristen Carter!!!

song heard most recently before posting: To All of You—Syd Matters

school’s out!

Today is my 10-year anniversary of graduating from the University of Scranton. Yes, part of me is inwardly screeching ohmigod I’m so OLD! Still, whenever that voice kicks up, I just have to remind myself of what’s important: namely, the fact that I was lucky enough to graduate from a good school. It’s not like my parents could afford it; I relied solely on scholarships and student loans. In fact, if I continue making only minimum monthly payments, I’ll be paying off the last of those student loans until I’m 45 (literally). However, without my parents’ support and my mom’s diligence with filling out endless student aid forms, I wouldn’t have had the strength to get my ass into college. I would’ve been overwhelmed from the sheer task of completing an obscene amount of paperwork, dealing with the stubborn folks in the student aid office several times a year, etc. Not all people are lucky enough to have families help them get student aid and apply to college. Not all people are lucky enough to take off four years after high school. I didn’t have to get a job immediately after high school to support my family. I didn’t have to worry about spending my high school years dodging bullets and drug dealers, thus causing me to get shitty grades that kept me out of college. I was lucky to get an education at a fine university, and that’s what I should be thinking about today. Not, Eeek, I’m so old, I’ve been out of college for ten years, but Today marks 10 years since I was lucky enough to complete my higher education.

In honor of the big day, here is a photo of me on my very first day of college, snapped amidst the grueling task of moving into my freshman dorm. (Actually, it wasn’t too grueling. Scranton has peppy upperclass volunteers move in all of the freshmen every year, so I barely had to do any of the lifting and carrying, which is good, because I was on the third floor and I had a lot of shit.) Note that I had some hot tri-colored hair action going on (long story), and I really knew how to rock those gigantic glasses.

Four years later—medicated, devirginated, and with unicolor hair and normal glasses—I graduated cum laude with a BA degree in Communications and a minor in English. Here’s me giddily snatching my diploma away from then-University president Father Panuska, thinking School’s out, suckas!!!

My glee stemmed from the fact that I was actually quite unhappy at Scranton and I couldn’t wait to escape. I did escape my junior year, when I studied at Goldsmiths College in London, but my remaining three years at Da U felt eternal and rather miserable. It’s a great school, but it was a bad fit for me. Think of the old analogy of square pegs in round holes and you’ll catch my drift. I could say that I regret picking that particular university, but if I hadn’t gone there, I never would’ve met my darling friend David!

Last night I attended an amazing fundraiser in Alexandria, VA, which was cosponsored by Found Magazine and PostSecret. It was 10 different shades of wonderful. Frank Warren (creator and curator of the PostSecret phenomenon) premiered a half-hour film montage of a huge range of secrets, and it was accompanied by a shiver-inducing dazzling score by local organic electro ambient musician Yoko K. and other local musicians Koli (flute, tenor sax), Lucan (violin), and Tom P. (percussion). The violin in particular rocked my world because, well, strings in general rock my world. This was followed by a Q&A with Frank (book signings took place before the show began). The second half of the show was owned by they hysterically funny, charismatic Davy Rothbart, creator and publisher of Found Magazine. He read aloud some of his funniest and most touching finds, and his talented musician brother, Peter, with whom I’m now madly in love, performed three of the songs he wrote about various finds. I desperately wanted to buy his CD but I didn’t have any cash on me, so I’ll have to snag it from amazon.com. The brothers Rothbart portion of the show was hysterical, and the perfect accompaniment to the PostSecret side, since, in a way, they are both sides of the same coin.

Meanwhile, I’d like to give a shout-out to my mom, who is getting back surgery today. It’s a new laparoscopic procedure which will drastically reduce her surgery and recovery time. Basically, if you’re going to get back surgery, this is the procedure you’ll want. And, after much wrangling, her insurance company finally agreed to pay 100% of the costs. Finally, some justice in the HMO world!


song heard most recently before posting: Dice —Finley Quaye, ft. William Orbit & Beth Orton

I spent last night in a frantic dervish between the American Idol finale and the Lost finale. The former was bloated, as usual, yet still ultimately satisfying (I’ve hearted the Silver Foxxx since Day 1), and the latter was as brilliant as ever. With Lost, there were several WTF moments, of course, and the episode wasn’t pitch-perfect, but it still featured storyline movement, a few answers to major questions, and a few creepy moments peppered throughout. This show will have to jump some major sharkage before I abandon ship.

The Television without Pity boards for Lost have been on fire today. And naturally I can’t stop reading. My favorite comment so far:

“I was really worried when Eko whipped off Charlie’s belt. Thought he was going to go on a tour of Charlie’s chocolate factory.”

AI had a few WTF moments as well; namely, David Hasselhoff crying in the audience (!!) and Meatloaf’s has-he-or-hasn’t-he-had-a-stroke performance.

Meanwhile, PostSecret and Found Magazine—two of my favorite websites/community art projects—are teaming up in Alexandria tonight for a live performance. I’m going and I’m psyched! Especially since it is serving as a fundraiser for a suicide prevention charity. I tried to see the first-ever PostSecret exhibit in Georgetown a few months ago but couldn’t get anywhere near the gallery because the line was so ridiculously long!


song heard most recently before posting: Fools in Love —Inara George

There are a few arguments that never cease to fill me with R-A-G-E. One is Tom Cruise’s all-psychiatry-and-psychotropic-meds-are-evil spiel, and another is Sen. Bill Napoli’s delightfully misogynistic claim that the only “acceptable” form of rape that should merit an exemption from South Dakota’s abortion ban would be a woman who is “brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated.” So if you’re not sodomized, or if you’re not a religious virgin, you’re shit out of luck. Nice.

The argument against gay marriage also makes me seethe. This morning on the Today Show, Sen. Bill Frist was spouting off yet again about how gay marriage is wrong and should remain illegal in all levels, in all states. Like so many others on the religious and political right, he claims that the “sanctity” of marriage can only be sustained in heterosexual unions.

Okay, first of all, don’t confuse religion with laws. Just because your religion says that homosexuality and gay marriage are wrong doesn’t mean that they should be illegal. Um, separation of church and state, anyone? Yes, there are other things that are condemned by both religion and the law, such as murder, but the act of falling in love with a person of the same sex—and wanting to marry him/her—is in nowhere near the same league as the act of murdering someone, although many right-wingers would beg to differ.

Second, I hate the way so many people ignore the wretched state of heterosexual marriage. How do celebrities’ one-minute marriages show sanctity? Where is the sanctity in a man hitting his wife, or a wife cheating on her husband, or one spouse kidnapping the kids from the other spouse? Do heterosexual marriages never brim with emotional abuse, deceit, and unimaginable levels of horror and dysfunction? Of course they do! There are so many wonderful, productive heterosexual marriages out there, but for every healthy union, there is an unhealthy union that makes me want to run for cover. That’s par for the course. No institution is ever going to be 100% perfect, and that includes the institution of heterosexual marriage. Yet these people on the right are constantly complaining that only straight people can honor the sanctity of marriage and only gay people can dishonor it. I hate black-and-white thinking. Plus I’m a big Golden Rule gal, and I think that more people should to do unto others as they would have others do unto them. In other words, if you don’t want a lawmaker or a religious leader to come to you and say, “Sorry, you’re not allowed to marry that person,” then you really shouldn’t have the right to turn around and say that to someone else.

Would all homosexual marriages be utopist unions serving as shining beacons of healthy, sacred love? No, of course not—a generalization like that isn’t reasonable, just like it’s unreasonable to say that all heterosexuals preserve the institution of marriage. So I wish that people who are against gay marriage would just admit that it’s because they don’t like gay people, rather than hiding behind the bollocks of “Oh, it endangers the institution of marriage!”

Also, if the entire institution of marriage can be destroyed by an “invasion” of loving gay people who want to spend their lives together, then it’s a pretty weak institution. I said the same thing recently about the whole Da Vinci Code film brouhaha. Some religious folks are freaking out and saying that the film dishonors Jesus, threatens Christianity, and will shake people’s faith in the dogma they’ve always been taught. My response:

It dishonors Jesus. Okay, granted, I’m of the mindset that if Jesus lived at all, then he was simply a man. An historical figure. A good man with a lot of great ideas and a lot of charisma, but in no way divine. So it’s easy for me to say, “How does this film dishonor him? It portrays him as being a man, and that’s all he was—a man.” But even if I were a believer, I’d like to think that I’d be okay with Jesus’s depiction in the film. Is it shown that he was a rapist or a killer? Uh, no. It’s shown that he fell in love with a woman and wanted to spend his life with her. It’s shown that they had sex because they were in love and they made a child out of love. I’m sorry, but there are worse accusations to level against Jesus than that. As my gal Tori Amos said, “Because Jesus maybe had a sexual encounter with a woman, did that make him less? Was he soiled by it and what does that say about women?” Exactly. What does that say about women? Nothing good.

It threatens Christianity. A movie will not bring down an entire religion. Not even a film helmed by a talented director and a multi-Oscar-winning lead. The religion has been around for 2000+ years; it ain’t goin’ anywhere.

It will shake people’s faith in the dogma they’ve always been taught. To that I have to say, “Well, then, your faith must be pretty weak!” It’s one thing for your faith to be shaken by a terrorist attack, horrific natural disasters, illness, genocide, etc, but it’s another matter entirely for it to be shaken by a film. A summer blockbuster. Starring Tom Hanks. I mean, really! And if your own faith is strong but you’re worried that Joe Blow sitting in the pew next to you will have his faith shaken by the movie…well, why is that any concern of yours? If his faith is weak and he therefore drops a lifetime of religion because of a freaking Dan Brown novel, that’s his business—not yours. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with questioning dogma. Thomas Jefferson once wrote “Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.” That’s the kind of god/dess I’d want to believe in—one who wants his/her followers to ask questions. Buddha himself allegedly said “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” Questioning dogma doesn’t mean that you can’t continue believing it. And it doesn’t make you a heretic, just like questioning the tenet that the world is flat didn’t make early scientists heretics (well, in the end, anyway; initially they were considered heretics).

Wow. How did this post veer from gay marriage to Jesus?


song heard most recently before posting: The Freshman —Verve Pipe

In the beginning...

I will anoint this blog by regurgitating my first-ever journal entry, written on January 1, 1983, when I was 8 1/2 years old. I will maintain all the spelling and grammatical errors.

Dear Diary,
Today we took down our Christmas tree. I was sad because it was pretty. Today my family and I we were going to my great ant’s house (for new years day). We just got home from Becky’s. She got a guinea pig named buttons. Krissy was a lump there.
I have to go now.
Bye-bye
Jennifer

Now that’s a beginning!

Today I donated blood at the National Institutes of Health, as I do every eight weeks. One of the phlebotomists totally remembered me and my tiny, rolling veins. “I never forget a difficult vein,” she exclaimed, before asking another phlebotomist to do the venipuncture, because she was too nervous to tackle my wee, flighty veins. Awes.

I used to donate for transfusion purposes, but in 2001 all donors who spent six months or longer in the UK were indefinitely deferred, because of fears that they could transmit vCJD (the human variant of mad cow disease). Because I’d studied in England during my junior year of college, this meant that I was deferred, even though I’m a vegetarian (as far as I know, even vegans are deferred from donating). Later this deferral spread to cover anybody who was in western Europe for three months or longer. This means—especially in an international area like DC—that a shocking amount of donors were lost. Thankfully NIH still wanted to use my blood for research purposes, and five years later, I remain a faithful research donor. It’s one of the few charitable things my lazy ass does.

I will say this, though: if you’re able to do so, please consider giving blood, because shortages are very common. It bugs me how everybody rushed out to donate blood after 9/11, but they won’t do it at any other time. What, people who are injured in a terrorist attack are more worthy of blood than people with leukemia or car accident injuries? I don’t buy it.


song heard most recently before posting:
Say You’ll Be There —the Spice Girls. (Oh shaddup. Like you never drove to work while blasting shallow British ’90s pop music.)