Projected Heartbeat

Roto Rootering the Insides

2009-10-20T12:50:00.000-07:00

So I am doing a cleanse. Yeah Yeah. No sunshine or laughter either, come on. It's not that bad. I am simply not allowed 5 things: animals, sugar, gluten, alcohol, and caffeine. SO EASY!

My head hurt all afternoon yesterday and the little meditation that went with the first day did not help the pounding subside. The lack of caffeine hurts. I am a three cup a day gal. Actually, three cups and a shot of espresso before my shift. Drinking this detox tea instead is like giving a heroin addict a lolly pop.

So the caffeine thing is hard... but so is the self helpy new agey feel a cleanse has. Ever since my mother went through her Namaste bowing outside of yoga classes phase my reaction to self help books or notions has become relatively violent. So when this book I got tells me to "Lean in" I have to wrestle my own arms to keep myself from flinging the book across the room.

Why do I find Self Help so freaking annoying and obnoxious? The book says I'm supposed to nod at the headache when it appears. Can't I take out my metaphysical gun and blow it away? no, no. I have to acknowledge it. Accept it's existence and move on. There are no footnotes saying I'm not allowed to hold up the middle finger as I walk away but the me that actually wants this whole process to work says it's a bad idea. And rude.

Self help reeks of weakness. There I said it. I feel like I should be able to handle this world just fine without reading something that wants to hold my hand, tell me I am okay, and give me a gluten free cookie. I want to be the person that can handle all the pain, all the misery, all the glory, all the torture of all the wonderful and horrible things we do. We are so messed up. Not me though. I am just hopping and skipping. Which is a lie. One that most of us tell ourselves all the time. Everyday with my cup cup of coffee I say "this is easy." Some of it is. I pretend the rest is too.

I guess that is why i'm doing this cleanse. It's not so easy and I need stronger coping mechanisms. So I am reading the damn book. Namaste Mom. god damn it.

Dear Cancer, you suck.

2009-10-14T13:50:00.000-07:00

As I have said before, I would prefer a world where Cancer could get jumped and stabbed in a back alley. No offense Cancer, but you really just screw things up. Really, I am very mad at you. You've taken someone I adore and admire and turned her into someone she is not. She's brave. She loves life. She fights. She gives. She believes that people are good. She is excited to live. She smiles. Cancer, you have done dark things here.

I am so sick of you making her tired, sapping her inspiration, and above all hiding her spark from her. I mean fine, steal her milk money. Bankrupt her, fire her, break up with her. These are all things someone can recover from. But stealing her spark? How do you get away with that kind of crap? Why aren't you in a cell in San Quentin? Why haven't you gotten the death penalty? You've done worse things. Why can't I just beat the crap out of you?

Yeah so maybe I am using you as a scapegoat. So what? Am I not justified? Without you she'd be doing fine. Right? I mean you are why everything is so messy. She'd be fine. She'd cope like a normal person. She'd get up and out. Well, she'd be better off anyway. Make her a better person? Hah. That's like saying hitting someone with a car will make him a better pedestrian.

Anyway, I am just writing to let you know I'm pulling out the big guns. I am getting help. I am telling someone that everything is not fine. I am saying that I am mad as hell and I want to gunfight you downtown at high noon. Since I can't afford jail, I'm gonna fire something other than bullets. Something. I don't know what yet, but I'm giving you a chance to make a run for it. Get out of here so we can pick up the pieces. Get on.

On Developing Meaningful Relationships

2009-09-18T14:21:00.000-07:00

I have been doing this all kinds of backwards. I have many MRs. With both men and women. But I tend to avoid having them with the people I am seeing. I just felt like it was too much to bare my soft skin and complicate situations. Something happened though because suddenly, it's electrifying when the possibility of intellectual and emotional intimacy arises. How do I do this? I mean, really... SHOCKINGLY I don't know what I am doing. I know how to operate with my heart in my glove compartment. But in my chest? on my sleeve? Oh damn. I mean it sounds so contradictory because I love all of my friends with all of my heart and would give them anything... but the bottom fell out of my world when I committed to sharing my life with a man. I had finally believed someone could care for me as well I as care. And he didn't. And so for a while, I haven't cared either.

I guess I am getting to a place where I feel safe enough to risk a little more. Still scared that when I put this heart back in my chest for someone I won't be able to keep it from cracking my rib cage again.

I've been tasting little bits of trust. Engaging in more emotionally honest experiences. I still have oceans of feelings for someone who I had such a potent connection with but doesn't feel like traversing those seas. I think he's still stuck in a dingy with one oar. Happens. I think I've got two oars.

But I'm moving forward. I am trying an experiment in Developing Meaningful Relationships: I am reigning in my wild run for instant gratification. Had my first wrestle with control the other day. And it worked! My favorite part of the interaction? The eyes. Oh to make eyes at someone again. THE FIRST extended eye contact is one of the most amazing moments in connections with people. I. Love. It. And we had some good hazel on hazel moments. It's so different when you pass through the first glances and get to see deeper in. Usually I stop looking. But I might not this time.

I've come to the conclusion that despite my man eating ways I am a complete and hopeless romantic. I guess I am an exacting romantic. I will fall hard and fast and intensely if it is right. If it's not I'm bored. All or nothing kind of girl. Hopefully All.

Square on the Jaw

2009-05-02T19:37:00.000-07:00

I have never taken a punch. I mean a real punch to the face. Or stomach for that matter. I know I like to brag about my old street fighting days, but mostly I just shanked and ran. I tend to be a bit of a braggart. More words. Less Punching. I've thrown down words that a beating for so and so may be a severely good idea, but the image of me throwing down has done enough to quell fevered females. Most of the time I can get out of scrapes with words and dagger eyes. Most of the time.

In the fifth grade I nearly got slapped. I'm not quite sure why the girl wanted to slap me, other than she had slapped my friend and I was next on the short list. I got wind of this on Monday. This news was quickly followed by posturing phone calls for a few nights. Let me set the stage. I am a lily white, dreamy eyed, science fiction reading 10 year old. She was a tough Samoan with a violent record and a sister in middle school that would have killed us all. I was @#&$#ed.

I was baited in some phone calls from an ultimately slimy friend. She's the kind of fifth grader that would have tricked you into trading your Pringles for celery and acted jealous as she devoured the BBQ goodness and smugly smiled and shook her head as she wiped her hands on her jeans and walked away. She did the whole "You think Ali is a b#@&*, don't you?" thing. I tried so hard not to fall into the giant hole those crazy b@)#$es dug around my favorite double dutch game.

But the ditches were deep. Thankfully, my Salvadorian babysitter hauled my ass out. After a call during the early days of evil three way calling I broke down and cried to Claudia. Being the best Catholic and the toughest 17 year old EVER, she picked up the phone the next time it rang. She ran those b@(#&$es up and down. Threatened their lives, promised torture and endless after school tauntings. SHE WAS THE BEST EVER.

By the time Claudia's threats had spread we were well into second recess on Thursday and my teacher stepped in. She took me aside and mentioned that I had perhaps hired some more than serious guns for an after school shoot out. I explained that it was only my baby sitter... and really she just loved me so she didn't want to see anything bad happen. She nodded and nothing else was ever said to me. I think a call to my mother might have been made. But as my mother usually does, she played it cool and let me have my moment in sun as the fifth grade Don I was for five minutes. It was the sweetest Friday of my elementary school life.

By lunch time I had them turning tail. There is a small piece of me that wishes I had actually gone fists to cuffs. I would like to know how I react in a slap off. I think, however, it is a strong mark of character that I would have someone willing to go fists to cuffs for me, just to spare a sweet thing like me some minor bruising and major humiliation.

Watched a boxing match tonight that ended at 2:59 in the second round. Poor Hatton. He was so excited. So raring to slap Pacquiao's face off. Perhaps he should have called in his Salvadorian baby sitter. He might have stood a chance.

My Goodness

2009-05-01T18:18:00.000-07:00

Well. Back on the writing wagon again. I feel all tumbled with hay in my hair, an empty bottle in my hand, with no idea where my clothes or car keys could be. Keys under finger tips at least. Step one completed. I need to revamp my blog's headline. I fell out of OZ on my head. I'm upright now, and walking in a semi straight line.

Funny what heartbreak does to a person. I lost all sense of sense and right and wrong and where I was what I needed how I could get it. Been slowly waking up out of the haze. Starting to see straight. Not really speaking in complete sentences but I'll get there soon. The pain is seeping away. At first I felt like I had tire tread on my back and I was going to bleed out in a dirty dirty crosswalk. Roller coaster from sad to mad to sad made for unbelievable moments of emotional vomiting. Ride slowed down and I am done hating him and wishing him nothing but venereal diseases and $200 dollar parking tickets.

Harness is out and ready to reign in these wild horses for some productive emotional channeling. Forgive me if I throw up on your shoes.

Things that give me magical powers.

2008-04-06T13:28:00.000-07:00

So. Again. Silence for months and now a repentant "I shall write again blog" fueled by coffee and a hot shower. Almost nothing better than perhaps proceeding those two things with hot sex. Or combing all three into one moment. It can be done. Trust me.

But this time I am serious. I am straightening up. New leaves are turning. With an MFA application process in motion I have to move these fingers with new found virtuosity. Much depends on this. I have a short time so I thought I'd do a little warm up list of things that give me magical powers. Those things that are my muses, my fuel, that light fires under my ass and get me moving, that give me the will power to save lives, fight fires and other superhero duties.
1. Hot coffee.
2. Sideways grins.
3. Tangled hair.
4. Simpatico.
5. Muir cats.
6. Accordion music.
7. A salty neck.
8. A hip shaking thigh clapping base line.
9. ... uh oh. out of time.

a biological fact

2007-12-05T12:24:00.000-08:00

An english teacher of mine handed this article out in class. It hit me in all the right places. Still does.

Monday, Nov. 06, 2000
"I Am Writing Blindly"
By Roger Rosenblatt

Besides the newsworthy revelation of Lieut. Captain Dimitri Kolesnikov's dying message to his wife recovered last week from the husk of the sunken submarine Kursk--that 23 of the 118 crewmen had survived in an isolated chamber for a while, in contradiction to claims by Russian officials that all had perished within minutes of the accident--there was the matter of writing the message in the first place.

In the first place, in the last place, that is what we people do--write messages to one another. We are a narrative species. We exist by storytelling--by relating our situations--and the test of our evolution may lie in getting the story right.

What Kolesnikov did in deciding to describe his position and entrapment, others have also done--in states of repose or terror. When a JAL airliner went down in 1985, passengers used the long minutes of its terrible, spiraling descent to write letters to loved ones. When the last occupants of the Warsaw Ghetto had finally seen their families and companions die of disease or starvation, or be carried off in trucks to extermination camps, and there could be no doubt of their own fate, still they took scraps of paper on which they wrote poems, thoughts, fragments of lives, rolled them into tight scrolls and slipped them into the crevices of the ghetto walls.

Why did they bother? With no countervailing news from the outside world, they assumed the Nazis had inherited the earth; that if anyone discovered their writings, it would be their killers, who would snicker and toss them away. They wrote because, like Kolesnikov, they had to. The impulse was in them, like a biological fact.

So enduring is this storytelling need that it shapes nearly every human endeavor. Businesses depend on the stories told of past failures and successes, and on the myth of the mission of the company. In medicine, doctors increasingly rely on a patient's narrative of the progress of an ailment, which is inevitably more nuanced and useful than the data of machines. In law, the same thing. Every court case is a competition of tales told by the prosecutor and defense attorney; the jury picks the one it likes best.

All these activities derive from essential places in us. Psychologist Jerome Bruner says children acquire language in order to tell the stories that are already in them. We do our learning through storytelling processes. The man who arrives at our door is thought to be a salesman because his predecessor was a salesman. When the patternmaking faculties fail, the brain breaks down. Schizophrenics suffer from a loss of story.

The deep proof of our need to spill, and keep on spilling, lies in reflex, often in desperate circumstances. A number of years ago, Jean-Dominique Bauby, the editor of Elle magazine in Paris, was felled by a stroke so destructive that the only part of his body that could move was his left eyelid. Flicking that eyelid, he managed to signal the letters of the alphabet, and proceeded to write his autobiography, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, with the last grand gesture of his life.

All this is of acute and consoling interest to writers, whose odd existences are ordinarily strung between asking why we do it and doing it incessantly. The explanation I've been able to come up with has to do with freedom. You write a sentence, the basic unit of storytelling, and you are never sure where it will lead. The readers will not know where it leads either. Your adventure becomes theirs, eternally recapitulated in tandem--one wild ride together. Even when you come to the end of the sentence, that dot, it is still strangely inconclusive. I sometimes think one writes to find God in every sentence. But God (the ironist) always lives in the next sentence.

It is this freedom of the message sender and receiver that connects them--sailor to wife, the dying to the living. Writing has been so important in America, I think, because communication is the soul and engine of democracy. To write is to live according to one's terms. If you ask me to be serious, I will be frivolous. Magnanimous? Petty. Cynical? I will be a brazen believer in all things. Whatever you demand I will not give you--unless it is with the misty hope that what I give you is not what you ask for but what you want.

We use this freedom to break the silence, even of death, even when--in the depths of our darkest loneliness--we have no clear idea of why we reach out to one another with these frail, perishable chains of words. In the black chamber of the submarine, Kolesnikov noted, "I am writing blindly." Like everyone else.

only cohen

2007-11-06T08:20:00.001-08:00

Began my day yesterday by watching Perfume. Afterward, I could only listen to Leonard Cohen. Last night I saw the Darjeeling Unlimited. Laughed a lot when no one else was laughing. Maybe reinforced LC as my man. For now.

gushing

2007-11-01T11:20:00.000-07:00

I AM ALL GUSHY THIS MORNING.

There was a praying mantis, a pile of leaves, two scrabble super heros (saving the world one scrabble play at a time), and a ridiculas amount of being caught up in the spirit,

On Tuesday I didn't want to do it at all. I wanted to curl up and hide under the sheets and watch a movie by myself. I somehow got completely humbuggy. Happens. I went to the packaging store anyway, bought a 23 dollar box, set Sebastien loose on it, spray painted it gold, parted my hair down the , and TADA... The Mona Lisa got down.

And I liked it.

New and Improved!

2007-10-09T09:34:00.000-07:00

So I am starting this cleanse, a week long cleanse with Amber. And I bought a latte. She is shaking her head at me. She doesn't know yet, actually. But there will be much head shaking.

Why? I am tired of my insides not working properly. I am not going to go to go too far into it here. I don't want complete strangers angry with my intestines. They demure far to violently already . I will say that when I lived at the ranch I was doing fine. I, out of habit not so much conscious thought, didn't eat white flour or dairy. I am returning to that habit. I just can't fight my insides. Too much pain.

The hardest part of the cleanse? No coffee... we are switching to green tea. A poor substitute for my lifestyle but I will make do. A friend suggested a cocoa nibs smoothie. That will require some serious research on my part.

In other news, I am meeting with my future landlords on Thursday morning!!! My extended homelessness will soon come to an end! I am moving to a two bedroom cottage about ten minutes out of town. I am so excited I can barely sit still while I type about it. I'll have a lawn to mow, a garden to weed, a washer and dryer, a room with MY OWN stuff in it! A friend brought up some dressers for me (THANKS DUANE!) and threw in a TV just because he had too many lying around. It has been...three years. I moved from Oakland to the ranch three years ago. THree years since I have had my own place. Maybe THAT will fix my intestines!!

I am so grateful for the generosity of my friends. Amber and Kat let me stay with them for a long time– in a two-bedroom house, with three girls! They love me. Then Jessica and Sebastien opened their home to me. I don't know if I will have a dry face when I PACK UP AND LEAVE.

Looking for Large

2007-10-04T12:07:00.000-07:00

This small, small town makes me giggle. We move here for big open spaces and find ourself swimming the the tiniest fishbowl.

Back on The Ball

2007-10-03T11:33:00.000-07:00

I've been taking my vitamins. I've been doing my laundry and folding my clothes. I've been wearing sunblock. I've been eating breakfast. I've been using quicken. I have a storage unit. I opened a savings account. I have three pens in my purse. My calendar is up to date. I own a juicer. My Jeep has all new tires. When it rains, I won't die.
My car is still my closet. There is something going on with my intestines. My parent's garage is still full of clothes, books, cooking appliances, and a sewing machine.
I am back in Healdsburg trying to get back on the ball. For a while the ball seemed like one of those giant canvas covered earth balls we played with as kids. The ones that were discontinued because of the increasing number of broken faces, arms, and necks. Lately, it's more like a yoga ball. A nice blue one.

So, my faithful, I will be writing more blogs. I need to keep that tick tapping going. We are just warming up here.

Oh! I've found my purpose: Projecting My Heartbeat.

Tweedy Dreams

2006-12-09T11:36:00.000-08:00

Is this blog becoming a dream log? Maybe- aside from researching bird imagery in victorian novels and studying sentence( not to mention verbal clauses and phrases) diagrams... sleep is all I have! Sleep and my last cup of goat coffee, which I am drinking right now, (by the way that clause is an appositive acting as an adjective because it modifes the noun coffee, and its a clause because a subject verb relationship exisits) keep me sane. The insantiy prevails in my mind once I slip from consciousness.
Last night I made out with Jeff Tweedy, then talked with his mother as I helped her clean. He initiated one of those medias res kisses- you keep trying to talk but you know someone is going to kiss you. As someone leans into you, you keep babbling while his or her face draws closer and closer. We were sitting on grass looking at the stage, talking about why I did what I did. I explained that I loved being able to watch amazing musicians and be paid for it. I began describing the philosophy of why music matters and suddenly there were lips on my lips. We made out. A lot. The dream then shifted to me cleaning a bathroom with his mother. Freud?
"Es ist einfach! Sie sind verrückt und Sie sind in der Liebe mit Musik!"
Gut! But what about his mom in the bathroom??

Bang Bang Bang

2006-11-02T08:23:00.000-08:00

This morning after's mirror seems to reflect back to me a sheepish grin. Yeah. I look a little silly, maybe not silly just not like myself. I’ve done the side swept “oooh I’m so sexy because my eyeball is being stabbed by my bedroom hair” bangs. I haven't had straight up bangs since I got breasts. These girls and these bangs just don't go together. Unless I am going for a big change with a charge towards rockabilly hot. Without a doubt, I'll be wearing more black eyeliner.
I know there are songs out there that sing of haircuts that are more than just hair in the sink. Breakups, life changes, asshole comments, disappointments, frustrations put scissors in hands of people like me. I am one of those girls who tries to exercise personal empowerment through cutting hair, my own hair. My freshman year of high school I broke up with my older boyfriend, the one that went on a four-day speed freak and stood across the street from my house for an hour, staring into the living room smoking endless cigarettes. Standing in my mirror, I pulled my ponytail up over my head and whacked off three inches from it. I quit drinking and smoking after my sophomore year, quit rowing and cut my hair to below my ears. Again when I graduated high school, I had the sense to go to a salon to have my grown out hair to below my ears again. When it hits the fans I hit my hair.
At least I have grown enough to know that I am never cutting my hair as short as I used too. I love my hair long... but something still overpowers my common sense and I catch myself whacking at my hair with paper scissors. At least I only cut bangs this time. I think they are crooked. I better see if anyone can even them out for me. Glad I own a lot of hats.

Get a Job

2006-10-26T13:37:00.000-07:00

So. It's coming down. The count down is on: I will need cash in about 2 months to pay bills that I am unwilling to sell my eggs to cover. So, no eggs = get a job. It's all very well I can't do the egg thing. Imagine: your future kids could find some unexplicable draw to one another, fall in love, and then find out that the draw is due to the pull of familial strings? Creepy. And gross.

Fuel for Fire

2006-10-20T13:46:00.000-07:00

Duane set me this strip. He said it reminded him of me. I wonder if it explains my current euphoria. I have my flying goat coffee every morning and then I tap dance on clouds. Maybe the end is looming. Maybe I like myself more than I thought. Maybe Athens is all right. Maybe my happiness flows from a big cup of hot, black, goat flying coffee. So long as it flows I'll be fine.

I got a shock in the mail. A bill. A cell phone bill. A cell phone bill that may require the selling of my future first, second, and third born child. Sorry 1, 2, and 3. I am sure you'll understand someday... when you sell children of your own. 1000 minutes over my daytime minutes is a lot of dollars.

Thank goodness for friends that love me. Kat saved my butt and Alan is currently driving from Nashville to pick me up for a weekend in Nashville. I find it hard to believe I really only have 7 more weekends here. I will write some kind of "Oh the lesson's I've learned" at some point. I'm still upset about the hour my creative writing professor spent reading a short story outloud. And the fact that my American Lit professor finishes 4 out of 10 thoughts during lecture. I don't hold it against them... but I suddenly understand why our classrooms are devoid of sharp objects. Once I get some distance on those eye stabbers I'll get something deep out about a blue girl keeping her head above water in the red sea of East Tennessee.

“I’d like to dream all my troubles away on a bed of California stars…”

2006-04-22T14:01:00.000-07:00

“I’d like to dream all my troubles away on a bed of California stars…”

I woke up this morning after an odd dream. I was having sex with someone named Paul when “Lana Naymard”* walked into the room. Apparently a group from my school was also using the cabin that I rented with several friends. She gloated in catching us mid romp. The look on her face was that of a cat licking its lips while watching mice at play. She reported Paul to the group leaders, I don’t know any Pauls by the way, and he was tormented by the discovery. In the dream Lana couldn’t get to me so she tried to get to me through Paul. She knew he would end our relationship. He felt guilt where I never would.
The dream housed an insecurity of mine. I feel like people watch me, searching for any flaw that could be exposed. I am guarded because of it. I have some shallow relationships because of it. There is always this one part of me I keep from others, and it is rare that someone gets all of me. Sebastian called me on it at New Years. He asked “When is this shell of your going to crack?” I told him I’m trying. And I am. I am trying to let people in. I’ve got to get over the fear of not being liked.
After Lana caught us, in the dream, I was walking the streets of Healdsburg trying to find someone I could tell my story too. I couldn’t find any of my friends and the goat was filled with people wearing gossamer capes. I felt like I was a visitor in my own town and that saddened me. I woke up and felt alone and isolated. No more gossamer capes. They don’t allow for meaningful relationships (more on the meaning of a gossamer cape in the near future).

*Some real names have been changed to protect the innocent, the innocent being me.

I should in your general direction

2006-04-22T13:30:00.000-07:00

I should be packing. I should be writing. I should be doing laundry. I should be saving food money for my drive. I should drink less coffee. I should clean my room. I should on myself far too frequently. I try to motivate myself by injecting some guilt into my blood system.
My mother taught me something about guilt. She said to a friend one day, a friend who put herself through college the way Heidi Fleiss flung herself into fame, “can’t I offer you something? You make me feel guilty.” The woman replied “I don’t make you feel anything. Guilt is something you choose to feel.” My mom recounted that story to me more than once. I think she wanted to help me. She wanted my motivators to stem from a sense of desire instead of guilt.
I projected that point of view into my life with a vibrancy that blinds me sometimes. It helped me get over some of my A-type obsessions. So why do I still should on myself? I still do it, say what I should be doing, and then I scorn that sense of should like the little kid whose mother says ‘don’t you dare take another step’ and he lifts up his foot and dangles it over the next step. I purposely taunt my shoulds trying to prove something. I just don’t understand it. I suppose if I did I would be writing my papers that is due in a few days. BUT I AM NOOOOOOOOOOT!
Should and I face off, her eyes narrow while I open a new document and say “Take that Should! I’m doing what I Should Not. HA! You have no power over me” and then I start to think about the movie the labyrinth and wonder if I can pick it up at blockbuster and the next thing I know it’s 9pm I have a paper due and Should is sitting in my chair with her head tilted back and peals of laughter pouring from her perfect throat. All I did was put myself further behind and out of a sense of I don’t have to do what you tell me I have to do. Odd thing is I’m having this argument with myself. I shouldn’t be so ridiculous. There is no point in having a power struggle with one's self. At least not before finals.

Pretty soon Should is going to morph into Have-Too. And Have-too has some pretty mean claws.

Sprung

2006-04-12T08:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday 77 degree weather kept me in a green mini dress while I stared at my computer screen. I have been procrastinating writing this T.S. Eliot first draft. I cannot get a hold on that man.

I returned from my Western Lit. class with a hitch hiker hanging out on my shoulder. I named the Lady Bird James Joyce. JJ deserted me when I asked for his help with Eliot. I think he was jealous.

Thankfully, for the most part, spring is in full southern swing. Crickets are starting to sing again. Every tree has flowers. Trees I didn't think would flower are flowering. I get caught in petal showers on the way to class. Bronzer is on the faces impatient for the sun. Every week there has been a killer thunder storm- nine people died last week. Pollen coats cars. I discovered affrin and I am addicted. I can breathe at night again. I need to consider putting in a work order to have my airconditioning fixed or I'll end up writing papers naked. Luckily they can't fine you for nudity during room searches.

Craned Neck

2006-04-11T09:17:00.000-07:00

There is a hitch in my throat, or maybe it’s lower- that place where my chest starts to widen- because my heart lept up into it, danced around, then slipped down for a visit to my stomach before returning to its place. Its beating quickened. And I am smiling.

So I opened a window

2006-04-11T08:55:00.000-07:00

I have felt the bible belt, especially tight here in East Tennessee, constricting around my head and heart. The confusion of people missing the point, ideas perverted to justify fear and loathing, being accepted when my vocabulary matches, the quietness of my voice, pulled up the tap to my mettle. I have splashed around in the puddles of poured out convictions. I opened a window to let some air in and maybe dry this mess out. And then, instead, I climbed out. I left the belt on the floor. My pants too. My fervors are Godless, and nameless. People are so afraid of being naked.

Who am I to complain?

2005-11-19T18:13:00.000-08:00

So you know I was thinking... if I was riding a bus (think bart) and weeping (on bart) here in the south (like I did from sf to macarther bart station) someone would ask me whats wrong and I'd be invited to seven different houses for casserole and pie (instead of being avoided by down cast eyes of my fellow passengers). And I like that.

quick and dirty.

2005-11-02T19:39:00.000-08:00

So here I am writing a blog instead of my paper when I can barely hold my head up to look at the too white back round my words are popping up against. Why am I so TIRED? Pfft. I used to laugh in the face of tiredness. Although I did have exciting things happening that helped my flout these heavy eyes.
LETS SEE… I’VE BEEN REMISS IN MY BLOGGING SO HERE I AM QUICK AND DIRTY:
1) Went to DC, spent the ENTIRE weekend in Dupont circle. HA, take that Mr. Secret service man.
2) Ate at Ben’s Chili, best I’ve eaten in weeks: chili cheese fries should be a staple… price subsidized like milk.
3) Drank. Thank God. And Jesus. Thank You Jesus. But not Mary, because that would be like the Catholics who are idolaters.*
4) Saw Capote: Reactions people? My brows were furrowed for at least 2 hours afterward.
5) 2 grad schools visited, 6 more to go.
6) Came back and went to Nashville and Death Cab For Cutie (and Starz), felt old. Weird.
7) House sat and didn’t do a bit of homework.
8) Tried to kick open a door and fell out of my residence hall front door face first. My knee is now scabbed.
9) Ran into the Red on my Bank Account… stupid having to keep a local bank, as in local HEALDSBURG bank.
10) Realized how weird my life is. Sometimes good weird, sometimes bad weird.
And that’s me. Plus I’m exhausted. Okay, so there wasn’t anything dirty, I know some of you are disappointed. Ready? I have NO CLEAN SOCKS. I’m so screwed. G’night folks.
* if you don't get sarcasm go home. If you are home, i'm too tired to think of anything clever to tell you to do, so be creative.

My Southern Rear...

2005-10-19T06:56:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know, it's self indulgent to spend a post talking about my backside, but it has been on my mind lately. There is so much sugar in the south... sugar and fried food. Now, because I am on a college campus I am a captive of the dining hall. I am sure that were I to have my own place my rear would not be as outgoing as it has been lately. I just want a hard-boiled egg in the morning... and I asked about it. The woman frying omelets with American cheese said, "I don't think they are going to let us do that...” I almost teared up. Silly I know, but many of you know how picky I am. My eating is highly influenced by my mood and you know well that if I am hungry I will cry if I can't eat what I want. I love fresh food, but it is near impossible and since there is no stove of kitchen that I can use... My but has reaped the consequences. I think I resorted to comforting myself with sugars: cokes, which I rarely drink, cookies, and pastries. The women in the office always bring in some ridiculously good southern treat and I "have to eat some! Take a cookie. Eat some of those fritters. This 5,789 calorie muffin is SO GOOD, Have two."
I noticed that because I had been eating more sugar than I ever had in my life... I felt REAAAAALLY weird: light headed often, energy in short sharp bursts, afternoons filled with yawning, short attention span, pants began to argue with me when I pulled them on, weird stuff.
So here I am, a California girl to the core who misses her avocado and organic protein sources (by the way I have been stymied trying to find a healthy non fried protein source during 3 or more meals a week), growing a southern rear. ARRG. Yes I have options, except they aren't financially viable this semester. A chunk of my scholarship pays for me to live on campus, so I can't afford to get off campus. Okay. I'm done with my bitching. I had to get it out.
Now, I’m getting up off that sweet southern ass and taking it to the Y.

SF people go see this!

2005-10-18T14:52:00.000-07:00

Joan Didion: In conversation with Dave Eggers, a benefit for the 826 Valencia Scholarship Program. City Arts & Lectures Inc. 8 p.m. Nov. 1. Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. www.cityboxoffice.com; (415) 392-4400. Didion will also appear 12:30 p.m. Nov. 2 at the Mechanics’ Institute, 57 Post St., San Francisco. rsvp@milibrary.org; (415) 393-0100.

"Stay away from Dupont Circle"

2005-10-16T17:41:00.000-07:00

"Stay away from Dupont Circle," said the hulking former secret service man to me,
"it's where the Gays hang out."

Luckily I didn't catch flies while I sat gaped mouth and staring at him. The corners of my mouth, that had been smiling seconds before, drooped in disappointment. Life can be sliding along here when all of a sudden someone says something that jerks my head around to recognize a face of fear and hatred.
I worked homecoming all weekend. I registered every attendant so I met almost every one of the 300 people who came to our school for reunions and awards ceremonies. I met two of our oldest living active alumni, a man from the class of 1937 and a woman from the class of 1939. The man pulled out a picture and showed me his mother standing under the arches with a group students who had been in the class of 1914.
Being a friendly young lady, required to remain stationary all day at registration, meant that I was a magnet for those who came without friends and who were more than willing to pour stories into my ears.
One man talked about his first visit as a GI to the south after WW2. He had gone into a cafeteria thirsty and realized, as he leaned over a water fountain, the cafeteria had suddenly gone dead. He looked up and found all eyes on him. He looked back to the fountain and saw “Colored” marked above it.
He had grown up in Massachusetts but was taking advantage of his education benefits in the south. In the south he “saw a hanging, crosses burning.” He said “the past is past. There’s not a thing we can do about it. Just learn from it.” He talked about something I wondered often myself. He said he visited his cousin in California. His cousin had told him : “You people out there are all backward. We aren’t racist like you. Things are equal here.” And when he walked around he noticed that blacks were more equal than they were in the south (which still isn’t equality) but the Mexicans “were up to here,” and with his hand, measured to his knee their status.
One man honored had worked near or at the school for over 40 years. He ran the “Slop Shop” or a soda bar, or for a time the dining hall whatever job allowed him to work with students and food. Almost anyone who you meet on campus knows of him, or goes to visit him at Jackson Street Café. He had said to the dean back in the fifties “I am staying until this school is integrated.” He did.
Are we really that much more ahead in California? Or is racism more insidious, so cunning that it slips into places we don’t notice, or choose to gloss over? Here it is in your face. How can we even argue a better form of racism?

The saddest part is when I find bigotry in places I felt so comfortable and warm in seconds before comments are made. I was really enjoying talking to the man with huge arms who had retired and became Mr. Mom and volunteered at local schools to read to little kids. He was off the day Regan was shot. I told him I would be going to DC for the first time in my life. He used to love giving tours of the White House to friends. But things change. He loved visiting the Smithsonian, and told me I could spend days there. “Just stay away from Dupont Circle.” It hurt to hear.

"To be a woman in Africa," Dr. Waaldijk said as he stitched her last sutures, "is truly a terrible thing."

2005-09-28T13:15:00.000-07:00

Just as I get situated to throw myself a little pity party, with a pout pointed at southern hostility and ignorance, I remind myself I am not in Africa.

"To be a woman in Africa," Dr. Waaldijk said as he stitched her last sutures, "is truly a terrible thing."

I take for granted my voting rights, my educational opportunities, the love and support of my family to create a life of my own choosing, the ease of life my social status allows, the amazing medical care available to me, the respect of women in this country by a majority of the male sex, and the list runs on.

I cannot believe that there is so little done to help the women of Africa. When I say so little, I do recognize that there are multiple organizations working to help... but it is still so little when compared to the need.

I sit next to this guy in my world religions class. During our section on Judaism he asked if "in a way, didn't the Jews bring it on themselves." He was referring to years lived in diaspora, ghettos in the 18th cen., and the holocaust. I suddenly realized I had thought people only said that crap in movies, or TV shows, or in the paper. And I turned to him and answered him: "Just as much as you have brought this senseless beating upon yourself," and I punched him in the face. I was hoping to suddenly cure him of ignorance, unfortunately I just gave him a black eye visible only to my eyes.

Athens is still wack. But not as wack as Africa.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/international/africa/28africa.html

: September 28, 2005

KATSINA, Nigeria - Dr. Kees Waaldijk began surgery shortly before 10 a.m. one recent Saturday in a cement-walled operating room in this city near Nigeria's northern border. More than five hours later, orderlies carried the last of four girls to the recovery ward. In the near-90 degree heat, Dr. Waaldijk's light blue surgical garb had turned dark with sweat.

"We are finished for the day," he barked.

It was the last thing the dozen girls who squatted in the open-air corridor outside wanted to hear. Leaping up, tracking wet footprints and soaked skirts across the floor, they besieged the towering, white-haired surgeon, holding out orange case files, their names scrawled on them in black marker.

"Big eyes, with a question mark: 'When is it my turn?' " he said later in his office, filled with medical books, suture-filled suitcases and damp socks and T-shirts hung on chairs to dry. He held up his hands. "The eyes are following you everywhere you go. I tell them it is one man, two hands and many women."

What brings the girls to Dr. Waaldijk - and him to Nigeria - is the obstetric nightmare of fistulas, unknown in the West for nearly a century. Mostly teenagers who tried to deliver their first child at home, the girls failed at labor. Their babies were lodged in their narrow birth canals, and the resulting pressure cut off blood to vital tissues and ripped holes in their bowels or urethras, or both.

Now their babies were dead. And the would-be mothers, their insides wrecked, were utterly incontinent. Many had become outcasts in their own communities - rejected by their husbands, shunned by neighbors, too ashamed even to step out of their huts.

Until this decade, outside nations that might be able to help effectively ignored the problem. The last global study, in which the World Health Organization estimated that more than two million women were living with obstetric fistulas, was conducted 16 years ago.

Nor has a recent spate of international attention set off an outpouring of aid. Two years of global fundraising by the United Nations Population Fund, an agency devoted in part to improving women's health, has netted only $11 million for the problem.

The number of new cases is far outpacing repairs - not just here, but in other sub-Saharan nations like Kenya, Malawi and Uganda. Despite recent strides, said Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, the Population Fund's executive director, "at the current rate of action it will take decades to end fistula."

Few doubt that the problem is most concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa, where poverty and rudimentary health care combine with traditions of home birth and early pregnancy to make women especially vulnerable. In Nigeria alone, perhaps 400,000 to 800,000 women suffer untreated fistulas, says the United Nations.

Dr. Waaldijk , a 6-foot-4, 64-year-old Dutchman who rides a circuit nine months each year from his home in the Netherlands to Babbar Ruga Hospital here and others in rural Nigeria, says he has operated on 15,000 fistulas in 22 years here, repairing nearly all of them.

Obstetric fistulas are easily prevented by Caesarean sections. But in sub-Saharan Africa - excluding the region's richest nation, South Africa - the average doctor serves 6,666 patients and villages are often linked by little more than dirt paths. Many rural women labor fruitlessly for days before being taken, sometimes in a cow-pulled cart, to a road leading to a hospital.

Dr. Waaldijk remembers one patient well. She managed to push out only her baby's head before collapsing from exhaustion in her hut, he said. Her brother carried her, balanced on a donkey, to a road, where a bus driver demanded 10 times the usual fare to take her to a hospital. She half-stood, half-sat for the trip, her dead baby's head between her legs, her urethra ripped open.

"This is what is happening," the doctor said. "Nobody will believe it." The fistulas point to the broader plight of millions of African women: poverty; early marriage; maternal deaths; a lack of rights, independence and education; a generally low standing. One in 18 Nigerian women dies during childbirth, compared with one in 2,400 in Europe, the Population Fund says. A larger share of African women die in childbirth than anywhere else in the world.

Were it widely available, the United Nations agency states, a $300 operation could repair most fistulas. But Mozambique, with 17 million people, has just three surgeons who consistently perform those operations. Niger, population 11 million, has but six, the organization reported in 2002.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous country with 137 million people, has eight fistula repair centers, and Dr. Waaldijk, a Health Ministry employee, said he had trained 300 doctors in fistula surgery. Once trained, though, many leave for better paid jobs in wealthier nations.
Nearly 600 women showed up, some arriving in busloads, when international and Nigerian officials staged a 14-day treatment campaign at Babbar Ruga and three other hospitals in February. Three hospitals ran out of beds. The youngest patient was 12.

The oldest, more than 70, had been incontinent for a half-century.

"The health care system is not coping with it," Dr. Waaldijk said. "You go to a hospital and they have no working facilities. You say, 'You need this, this, this and this.' You go back. No water! No water in the whole hospital! You go back again, no lights!

"So where do you start?"

Dr. Waaldijk started here at Babbar Ruga Hospital 22 years ago, after a misspent youth followed by a lucrative surgical practice in Europe mixed with public health stints. Only when he came to this dusty town of open sewers and fickle electricity did he find his life's calling, he said.

With help from government and private donors, he slowly built Babbar Ruga into one of Africa's two biggest fistula centers, a small city of yellow concrete wards and hostels that typically houses 200 patients.

Those recovering from his surgery walk awkwardly about the grounds, catheters emptying between their legs into plastic buckets in girlish colors of pink and purple. Relatives camp by the dozens under the trees amid cooking pots, straw mats and tea kettles.

Dr. Waaldijk still hauls sutures, needles and anesthetics in big black suitcases from Holland to be certain of a reliable supply. He operates partly by the sun, wheeling his surgery table across the room to catch the best light, and personally logs his results on a laptop protected by a backup generator.

More than a third of his patients are 15 or younger; another 30 percent are between 15 and 20. His records indicate that most were married at 11 or 12, before menstruation. Nearly all bring with them tales of hardship, suffering and rejection.

Safiya, 23, was in the post-op ward after living for a year in the hut of a traditional healer who tried to cure her by stuffing potions into her vagina. Daso, 23, said she had leaked urine and feces for five years. Her husband divorced her.

Rumasau, 16, unluckily began labor on a Saturday, when her local hospital had no physician for her. She had to wait until the following Tuesday for an emergency Caesarean section - not an uncommon delay here, Dr. Waaldijk said.

For the few who get help, fistula surgery is life-changing. Zainabu Ado, 19, said she had leaked urine and feces for a year before coming to Babbar Ruga.

"People ran from me, even members of my own family," she said during an interview in Sululu, a tiny village hidden on a barely passable dirt road across the border in Niger. "My husband abandoned me. Nobody talked to me. Nobody visited me. For that whole year I stayed indoors."

At an impromptu gathering this month, Ms. Ado arrived resplendent with beaded jewelry, and her neighbors made room for her on straw mats in the sand.

Problems linger, she said. Her husband never bothered to divorce her, leaving her unable to remarry. She suffers a slight limp from lingering nerve damage. But compared with a fistula, such troubles are nits. "I am completely healed," she said, flashing a smile.

Her village is too small to appear on any map. Yet she is neither Sululu's first nor last fistula patient. She heard of Babbar Ruga Hospital from a neighbor who had undergone fistula surgery there. Ms. Ado, in turn, told Gide Gero.

Four feet 10 and nut-brown, Gide arrived at the hospital in September and spread her mat in the corridor outside the operating room. Her eyes were lively, her smile gap-toothed. She looked perhaps 12, but said she was 16.

Isolation and the traditions of her Fulani tribe governed her upbringing. She never went to school. Once she reached puberty, each suitor was allowed to specify that a decorative design be carved in her face as a sign of his interest.

She said she had fallen in love with one, but her grandfather had insisted that she marry her much older cousin, whom she did not meet till her wedding day. At 13, her grandparents decided, it was high time that she settle down. "Two reasons," her grandmother said in an interview. "She had started menstruating. And she had developed breasts."

Early this July, she started labor on a bed of bound sticks covered with a straw mat. For two days she struggled. Finally it took five hours for two cows to pull her family's wooden cart to the nearest hospital, 10 miles away.

There Gide labored for two more days before managing to expel a dead baby boy. When she discovered the next day that she could not control her urine, she said, she was dumbfounded. As a solution, she learned to wait as long as eight hours before allowing herself a sip of water.

Her fistula, it turned out, was a small one. Twenty minutes after she climbed atop Dr. Waaldijk's operating table, she was stretched out in the first bed in the recovery room, her grandmother by her side.

"She will be fine," Dr. Waaldijk predicted. Fine, that is, unless her next labor begins in the same village, far from medical treatment, as is all too likely. In which case, he said, her affliction will simply repeat itself.

"To be a woman in Africa," Dr. Waaldijk said as he stitched her last sutures, "is truly a terrible thing."

Pope Joe Buck

2005-09-27T20:10:00.000-07:00

The image of Jon Voight as the Pope made me giggle. Mixing Tex and Jon Paul some how holds truth for me tonight… maybe I am bleary eyed and minded from studying Judaism… maybe I am trying too hard.

Well, I'll tell you the truth now. I ain't a real cowboy, but I am one helluva stud.

Awww.

2005-09-27T14:41:00.000-07:00

This is awful; do it.

http://www.crush007.com/love.cgi?id=1127851391xyr

Okay, editing the post:

This has caused enough pain! only do it if you like beet red cheeks.

A Vow of Some Sort

2005-09-24T16:14:00.000-07:00

Never again will I allow extreme emotion inspire radical experimentation with my hair color. Foolish, Foolish girl.

Let's Make Out In Alley Four

2005-09-22T21:02:00.000-07:00

Testing my new blog.
By the way I think im so tired i may pass out.
Toast.