Wal-Mart does not save you money.

Family gatherings have had a lot of Wal-Mart arguments lately. One of my cousins saw the documentary on them and pissed off his mom by coming home with "Wal-Mart is evil," and now it keeps coming up. And a couple of people say, "Give me one good reason not to shop at Wal-Mart." And I start, and never really get to finish, because, hey, it's my family. I usually get as far as "Well, you pay for health care, don't you?--" before things break down.

So. Rather than compulsively continuing the conversation in my head, as I always do, I figured I'd write it out. I find myself making a lot of economic arguments for what I think are good social policies, these days, because for a lot of people, something just being the right thing to do by your fellow human beings isn't enough. Maybe they don't feel like they've got enough time or care to go around, and I can understand that. Maybe they feel like the world just works that way, and there's nothing productive to be gained by worrying about it. Times are tough. But I think this stuff makes sense even from a perspective where one's own economic considerations are the only considerations at all.

We want a viable system, don't we?

We don't want to get screwed for other people's mistakes, do we?

So. Part one in what will probably be a very infrequent series of what could probably have a very pithy, divisive, fun left-right kind of name that wouldn't help matters but which for now will instead go by the more unwieldy title "Rational, economic, long-sighted arguments for things that are generally dismissed by those concerned chiefly with those criteria as only of interest to the irrational and economically restrictive or short-sighted" follows.

Wal-Mart does not save you money. (This also serves for "Why shouldn't I shop at Wal-Mart?" or "Why should Wal-Mart have to pay its employees health insurance?" or "Why should I buy local when it's cheaper to buy otherwise?")

(1) Wal-Mart employs a lot of people--a lot. They employ the vast bulk of them at about 34 hours--just under the amount at which they'd be full-time employees, and thus mandated to receive any kind of benefits or health care. Or extra pay for overtime.* This means they do have to employ more of them than they would if they actually let anyone working approximately full time be full-time in name as well as deed (which inflates all situations to be detailed ahead far beyond the "necessary" amount). Now, that makes Wal-Mart's costs even lower than they would be, a savings which they pass on to you. How does that cost you money?

If you pay taxes, you support Medicare, public hospitals, and in CA, Medical. You support "Workfare." You support public health clinics. Wal-Mart employees, being almost full time and very low paid, are eligible for all of these programs. These programs don't work very well, as far as getting preventative care is concerned, so when employees have gotten what benefits they can from these programs and still wind up in the emergency room or under hospital care they can't pay for, you pay for their medical coverage a second time.

Wal-Mart has a lot more money than you do. Wal-Mart could pay for it. And they could pay for it a lot more cheaply--decent insurance in bulk cuts medical costs vastly, with access to preventative care--a doctor's visit and some antibiotics now is a lot less expensive than treating a systemic infection from the ER, where care is more difficult and rates are inflated to cover cost.

But they don't. You do!

Edited to add: the estimate is that a single 200-employee Wal-Mart costs an excess $420,750 per year in federal taxpayer dollars, just in the government footing employee public services costs. Now multiply that by the number of Wal-Mart stores. . .

(2) Wal-Mart buys its products in the cheapest ways it can--from outsourced labor overseas. They can then pass those savings on to you, still at an egregious mark-up that makes them fabulous sums of money in profit over their overhead. You buy those products more cheaply than you would if you were buying from local production. How does that cost you money?

You pay all of the middle men who make money transporting goods across the globe. You pay for their trucks, their ships, and the oil that it costs to send them--so you're paying more for those goods than you could. They have much looser environmental regs than the rest of us, so in the more global, spiritual sense, you're paying for it with a hell of a lot more emissions, higher medical costs for people with athsma, environmental damage, higher gas costs, etc. But if you pay taxes, you also pay for unemployment, health care, prisons, etc. And anything that used to be manufactured here but is now being manufactured somewhere else at a lower wage has left a vacuum of jobs. All of the people who had been in those jobs get six months of unemployment benefits and access to poor quality (but expensive to the state!) state services. They generally were performing unskilled labor, so they cannot readily transfer to a new sector. And as all manufacturing is being shipped out, there are no other manufacturing jobs for the newly unemployed to take.

So you are paying for them, too.

Furthermore, a system wherein you import goods--that is, spend money--and do not export--that is, get money--is not viable. Not everyone can own the company whose labor and supplies are coming from outside of the system, or sell their products. So you get things like recessions. Like economic depression.

And then costs for everything else in the society goes up. You pay for all of that, too. And state services you normally enjoy are cut, so your quality of life goes down. And if you don't want that to happen, you get to pay extra to the private sector to make up the gap.

Which costs you still more money.

So. You have saved money on your day to day products. And your taxes have gone up, your costs for services have gone up, your costs for gas have gone up, your state services have been cut, and your quality of life has gone down. Your economy is tanking, unemployment is skyrocketing, and these are all problems that feed themselves.

Wal-Mart is not, by any means, the sole offender, the sole cause, of all of this. Not by a long-shot. But they're a perfect example of the behavior, and they're one of the largest and most egregious offenders. And they have the added benefit as a target of having a bad record where civil/human rights are concerned. The HRC (studying companies and their policies concerning GLBT persons) has ranked them as one of the worst in the country. Women make up disproportionately small numbers of management, and anecdotally are treated very poorly in the workplace. So are minorities.

So while I understand that when it's the difference between not being able to afford basic items you need at all and getting them from Wal-Mart (or Sam's Club, their sister company) there's no question (though I like to think I'd hit the swap-meet and go more second-hand than I do, first, myself), I think there are good, rational reasons to not feed this company. If it's not going to be regulated, and not going to be subject to the same laws of interaction that the rest of us are, then we're reduced to voting with dollars. The more their business grows, the bigger the problems they create are. The less business they get, the less they'll have to buy/employ/grow, the smaller the problems will be.

So Wal-Mart doesn't save you money. And it makes sense to not purchase from them.

I think I feel a little better, now.

*Charming true anecdote: friend who used to work there used to be locked in the building with the rest of the closing shift until as late as 3 am (when they should have been out by midnight), at the regular wage, without breaks, until management deemed their work done. They have since stopped locking the doors, at least.

EDIT: Just wanted to mention, Chris was a jewel and found some numbers for all these things, and linked them from the comments. I was lazy; he is joy.

I somehow feel better than I did before.

Somehow, I forgot to cross-post St. Patrick's Day posts over here. Ah, well. I've decided to keep it in my heart ALL the year long, so if I do it later, it'll still be topical. Right? ...Right?

Things are going to be hectic and in-and-out for a while--family-ing, catting, dentisting, etc--so I thought I'd forewarn, for once.

But before I go:

I just finished reading a transcript of Obama's recent speech in its entirety. Here it is.

You've probably heard a lot about it, seen plenty of headlines, heard little clips. But you really should read it yourself (or watch it, there's a video link, there, too), if you haven't already. It is so, so much better than deserves to be relegated to a redux on the news (or even the Daily Show). It deserves more than a report of how good it is.

It is so much better than that. It is, really and truly, worth the time it takes to read it.

And how often can you say that about a political speech?

Please, please let this man be my president.

Puebla, finally.

So it's been a crazy year.

I'm sorry I keep disappearing, but it seems like one thing after another. I've got stress issues with anything online as it is, and add any particular worldly stress and I'm gone. Alas! But I've missed you.

Now, finally, a relatively brief bit about Puebla.

Gorgeous. Beautiful old buildings, very Louis XVI. Open courtyards internally. Cobbled streets. More cathedrals than you can shake a stick at (if that's your idea of a good time). The food is amazing, very French. And very cheap. So are drinks. And travel and accommodations. The building we stayed in was built originally in the 1500s--seriously. FABULOUS. People were very kind. The streets were very clean. Chris's Spanish? Actually really good. I kept blanking and stammering, but I was mostly able to get by, and everyone was very patient with my attempts (people at the conference took mercy and tried out their English on me--their English was a lot better than my Spanish, I need to get studying, again).

On food and drinks again: I tried to try things I hadn't had before. And if you're from the United States, the Mexican food you've had probably doesn't bear much resemblance to typical Poblano food. Sometimes you can still get a molé (unsweetened-chocolate based with some 28 ingredients) or a pepian sauce (AMAZING, involves pumpkin) here, but they're not the same. I tried both and was delighted. Lars (one of our fellow friendly conference goers) tried cow's brain, and was subsequently razzed about Mad Cow (and mooed once or twice, for our benefit), but said it was good. I tried a bone marrow soup (which, much to my surprise, was not just stock made from marrow bones--there were actually long, eerie ropes of marrow in it). I had kind of a lot of soup, actually. It turns out I really love soup. I tried two drinks that were new to me, too: Alfonze XIII and Media de Seda (sick stocking). I am in Love with the Media de Seda. It's pink and fluffy and full of tequila. (If you want the recipe, lemme know.) I also had the best piña colada ever. I think there was actually crushed pinapple in it, and maybe proper coconut. Amaaaazing. And a lot of Chilean red wine, and a pretty froo rooftop party while the sun was setting. (Also amazing.)

I found out I don't really like fresh papaya.

The conference was really good. Academics can be really beautiful sometimes.

There were no stray animals.

There seemed to be relatively little poverty in that part of town, but the class divide showed where it was--everyone who seemed to be homeless and begging was darker skinned. Most of the people busking and selling trinkets on the street were, too.

PSA: You cannot--I repeat, you cannot--flush toilet paper. I didn't know this, and wished someone had forewarned me, so I'm forewarning you. This is also confirmed to be the case in several other places in Mexico, most places in Chile, and in Egypt (and probably a lot of other places). It saves water, they empty the waste baskets frequently, all is well. It just... takes getting used to.

I want to go back. We're hoping the conference will be held there again, relatively soon. Or else we'll just have to go on our own. We didn't get much time to do extra exploring, or to see more of the artisan's mercado (but the pottery and onyx were also really cheap and beautiful). The mercado, by the way? was the only place you could find any "traditional" garb. It seemed to be there solely for the benefit of turistas. Ah, well. The Zocalo was very cool, too, but there was someone there each night with a truck with a wild animal caged inside of it. It was like all of a sudden it was bearsploitation time. And there was also a lot of U.S. fast food. :\ Globalization, thy name is Big Mac.

Anyway. It was gorgeous. If I figure out one of those photo sites, I'll upload some. Chris put up some on his blog, and I'll come back and link later, maybe. I may also post any of the 8 memes I've done and then just saved and put away, but maybe not. I may post some about how heavy things have been lately, but maybe not. I WILL post the St. Patrick's Day feast recipe, since I never remember to post it BEFORE St. Pat's, and it'd probably be more useful, then. Since it's a Monday, we're going to revel tonight, instead, and have a smaller, leftover version after Chris gets back from class and before I have to go to choir, on the day proper. Silliness and heavy drinking will be primarily taken care of tonight with Christina and Guerin.

...It's been a really busy month. Did I mention that? Okay, good. I'll try to update again, soon. LOVE.

¿Donde estoy?

Hi, everybody, I'll make a proper post soon, but I've been in Puebla, Mexico for the last several days and haven't had internet access. And like the inconsiderate person I am, I didn't actually manage to find time to forewarn y'all that I was going. But I'm back at my mother's, and then it's back up to Turlock, and then I'll do the proper update. Everybody's safe and sound and well fed.

Puebla, by the way?

Fabulous.

Something different.

I don't drive, but a while back, I asked Chris if I could put the license plate cover I got from the blood bank (it says "2 gallon donor" on it, and the name of the blood bank) on Eddie Jetta. He was embarrassed and shy about it, because he's not a donor, himself, and felt bad about seeming to take credit for it, but after enough needling, I got him to put it on, for me. A little of why I wanted it up was probably just because I'm basically a crow who collects pretties, but mostly my case was that if someone saw it, who can donate and just doesn't tend to remember to, it might jog their memory and get them back out there. Maybe, you know? If it even happens once it's better than nothing.

Well. The most kind and wonderful thing happened to me, today.

We were out running errands, and leaving the supermarket, Chris noticed a little folded piece of paper on Eddie's window. When we stopped, he pulled it out and told me it was for me.

It said "Blood Donor" on the front.

Inside was this:

Our son is alive today because of people just like you. He had leukemia in 1993. He used about six quarts of blood while he was in the hospital. I've been putting little notes on cars ever since. He weighed 42 pounds then. Today he stands 6'2" and weighs 185. It is unlikely that he received any of your blood, but I'm sure that someone, somewhere is as grateful to you today as we were to those people in 1993. That person was not here today; I was. Thank you for donating blood. (Name and email appended.)

I have no filter, at the moment. Things have been kind of rough, you know? So I cried, and then I cried all the way back home. But things feel a little lighter, now. I just wanted to share.

...I needed that. What a beautiful thing to do.

Et tu, February?

Monday afternoon, while I was at work, Chris went and picked up our baby's ashes from the vet. It's... good, for closure. But it's hard.

Monday night, when I got to rehearsal, there was an announcement that one of the long time singers in the choirs, whom I was very fond of and have missed, because she hadn't been singing for the last two seasons owing to fighting cancer, passed away this weekend. She and her husband were wonderful to be around, kind, friendly, very sweet, and Chris and I ran into them around town fairly frequently. The last time I saw her was just before Christmas, and she really wasn't doing well. But I didn't think it would be the last time I would see her.

She will be very, very missed. I miss her a lot.

We also heard, that night, that one of our musicians in the symphony succumbed to cancer last week, too. I didn't know her personally, but most of the choir were very upset. I know she was very talented, and I know that concerts won't be the same without her.

I came home pretty bent out of shape. We stayed up late, watched some restorative silliness on TV, had a relatively calm time of it. Yesterday morning we got up and went and voted, been doing okay, considering. I went to work. I did a lot of work, it was nice, Lee kept me updated on the primaries, we had good music going, light. And when Chris picked me up, he let me know that our betta Sigfried, who hadn't eaten in almost two weeks and was very sick, died while I was away.

"Fuck." is just about all I can say.

This year is not off on the right foot, boys and girls. I've been hesitating to call it, because it can always get so, so much worse, but... I mean, really. Step it up, 2008. Spring, I'm looking at you.

Lancelot

Lancelot finally told us it was time, so we took him in this afternoon. I held him the whole time, and he just hugged me or stayed close.. He'd been having so many problems.... I'm having a really hard time with it all, right now. But I can't do any of that justice here, so I'm just... not going to try. But I thought I should let you know.



And I want you to know how wonderful a cat he was. I can't find words enough for that, either, but I have to try. There will never be anyone like Lancelot again. I only got to know him for the last three and a half years of his fifteen, but I love him very, very much. He was so deeply wonderful, and loving, and bright, and sweet. Lancelot the brave, the loyal! And for the last few days we were closer again than we'd been in a long time, since just about the beginning, and it was very special. I'm very grateful for it.

I miss him so much, already. I kind of can't believe it. I was there, but it's not... real, somehow.

He was so soft. He had wonderful red fur, and a strange tip to his tail, where one of the bones at the end was misshapen, and soft, soft paws he didn't want anyone to touch, and bright, huge eyes, and perky whiskers, and he was beautiful. And he was so sweet, when he wasn't being a total grump, and loved new people, and was friendly. He got me through the few weekends Chris had to be away, and I got him through them, too. He loved fellow redheads (lucky me!) but hated classical soprano singing ( =the source of a lot of our problems). But he didn't mind me singing "Old Deuteronomy" in my deepest voice while holding him (he didn't like being picked up, either, but that was okay).

He loved cheezits, and tried to steal them, even though they tended to make him sick.

He was pretty pukey all his life, to tell the truth. Nobody could figure out why.

He had a wonderful motorboat purr. He would trill his meows, by kind of purring through them? Like "Prrrow? Brr, brr, BrrrrAWow." Sometimes if he was trotting down the stairs, he'd make a little "Prrt, prrt, prrt" when he hit the steps. Especially if he was excited. He'd trot or stand with his tail straight up and bushy--fluffy, fluffy tail--and just trill. It is the sweetest meow you've ever heard.

He didn't like the song we wrote him, but we did.

A lot of nights, especially in the last handful of months when he hadn't been feeling as well, we'd all sleep like this: <<< Chris behind me, Lance curled up by my stomach. I never had the heart to move him if I needed to move the covers or anything. He also liked sleeping up on my hip, or up on my butt if I was on my stomach.

There's a lot more to say. I just don't know quite what all at the moment. But Lancelot had more nicknames than we could count, and I'm going to try to catalog as many of them as I can. He tended to respond--I don't think he knew them all (how could he?) but he knew us and he knew when we were talking to him. You'll see some themes--they were all said with love (even the ones you're not sure about).

Lancelot, Lance-without-pants, Lance with No Pants On, Lancelot-sans-culottes, Lance-apot, Lance-apotamus, Him, Bunky, Himapot, Bunkerpot, Bunkertot, Stinky, Stinker, Shtinker, Shtinky, Shtinkertot, Shtinkertoy, Bunkertoy, Bunkyboy, Lance-a-bunk, Lance-a-maphone, Bunk, The Bunk, The Boy, Our Bunky Boy, Our Bunky Baby, Hey My Baby, Bunker, Mr. Him, Mr. Bunk, the butt-cat, Mr. Stink, Mr. Butt, Shpoongy, Spunky, Shpunky, Spunky Winnebago, Nummy-Muffin-Cocoa-Butter, Butterscotch Pudding, Circus Peanut, the puppy-cat, My Whumpa, Whumpum, Bumpa, Stinkum, Stinkus, Wumba, motorboat, Lancey, Sir Lancelot, Sir Pukesalot, Sir Bunksalot, Punk, Punky, Punker, Binky, Monkey, Minky.

And there are some I'm forgetting. And there were some that rose and fell in moments.

But this is why his song says "and hold and love and cry out, all my names--many names" because we did.

Edit: Link to the wonderful entry about Lance that Chris wrote a couple days ago, about his younger life.

A Snapshot in Nerdery

I'm having one of Those times. You know, where everything around me is addressed via nerdishness.

Knitting
Knitting is entirely a process of making slipknots. This delights me. For about a day and a half, I was going to change the name of my journal to "A Million Little Slipknots." Needless to say, I'm a little obsessed. I've made two scarves, wristbands for Chris and I, I'm a third of the way through a very stripey purse, and I'm in the midst of two different throws. I can only go in straight lines, but I know the two most basic stitches, I can change skein and change color, and that's a good start.

Politics
Bravo, Iowa! Now New Hampshire, take the hint and behave. This is the first time, in all the presidential elections I've had a chance to participate in, that my candidate's doing well, and has actually got a good chance of still being in it by the time I get to vote in the fucking primary. (Let's hear it for the 12 state bang-up to come on Feb 5th! Fingers crossed! California may even get a say, for once!) I actually sat up and watched Caucus-coverage, and I will do it again on Tuesday. I am actually feeling Hopeful.

Weather
I'm also watching storm progress, because we're finally getting rain--and more importantly, we're getting snowpack in the upper els. Which means: We May Not Die of Drought. This is very exciting! Also, I've been out trying to scrape under a foot of water for whatever's blocking the drains in our complex, so that maybe our garages don't flood, now that the street's a river. I've braved it further to set a couple dozen houseplants out (waste not, &c).

Musicals: Reefer Madness
I have watched this probably in the neighborhood of 18 times, over the last few weeks. Certainly parts of it. I think I have most of it memorized, and I catch myself singing it pretty much incessantly. My continuing to be alive is a miracle of Chris's amazing patience. The making of and the commentary I've watched twice each, and I was about to go for a third run through when Chris got home and spared us all. It has to go back soon (so I'll just be left with my VHS copy, which has no extras); this is especially fortunate for my love, since I made him sit through the bloodfest (which I quite enjoyed) of Sweeney Todd, and I think he's probably up to the gills in musicals, and he deserves a little break.

Sci-Fi
In addition to the lovely Cats-and-Tin-Man-fan I've met, I've been giggling like a geek over the fact that I met two--TWO--other people, right there in the Tin Man fandom, who are fellow Lexx and Farscape lovers (although still no Bab5 love). And a nice thing about leching for Tin Man is that there's no shortage of Firefly love around there, either. Thank you, SciFi channel, for bringing us together. Now start running the goddamned reruns.

And have I mentioned knitting? What about Reefer Madness, and other assorted Alan Cumming obsessions? (His novel was a raging marvel of excess, by the way, and I loved it.) And my own smutty writing? (But that's a tale for another blog.)

So, that's pretty much life right now. Sick kitty, back to work on Monday, nice holidays, our favorite dinner-and-movie buddies moved in across the street--on balance, things are good. I hope all of y'all are doing well, out there. LOVE

P.S. Additional Blogspot-Only nerdery: This is my 64th post! 64 is, if I haven't told you 800 times, my very, very favorite number. (Everything I'm knitting I'm knitting from 64 or 36 stitches. Seriously.)

Friend of Dorothy, and Jelly Beans

(Usually I'd leave this fangirl stuff on the Other Journal, but...)

Why, all of a sudden, am I in love with Zooey Deschanel?

My first time through watching Tin Man (wherein she played Dorothy Gale) I could have done her bodily harm. I thought it was a weak performance, and I was completely bugged.

The second time through, I decided that in 90% of that miniseries she's actually absolutely delightful (and only just a little flaky in a couple spots), and that provided she wasn't supposed to express deep pain, I'd gladly see her in just about anything else later. And now I'm wondering if it's just a matter of weak spots in the script that she had to deal with, and (once) a different sense of what was going on than I had.

I'm craving her stuff, now. We downloaded a version of her singing "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with Leon Redbone, and now I'm googling her with vim and vigour.

Wtf?

Once upon a post-Easter clearance sale, I bought a bag of jelly beans for like a half a buck, and took them home. They were a special promotional bag, that had websites for the Naughty Naughty Pets on them, and they had not sold well, so they were in one of those carts in the back of an aisle marked %75 off, or something, and I wanted jelly beans. The first ones I had tasted funny, and I went "Eh," and even a little "bleh," but once I'd had a handful more, I found myself nibbling steadily down the bag. A few hours later, I was addicted to them, and they were Delicious. I went and checked out the websites, and sat staring at them for hours. I made an icon for my instant messenger chat out of one of the characters.

My theory, later, ran that there was some kind of addictive and slightly psychotropic substance in the jelly beans, and subliminal/hypnotic influences in the website. (It was preeeeeetty strange, people.) But I still think back on them with little delighted bounces and worries that they've done something unwholesome (and permanent) to my brain, and I watch for them eagerly at after-holiday-clearance sales.

ZOOEY IS THAT JELLY BEAN.

...That is all.

Year in Review meme.

Just kind of interesting! Take the first sentence from the first post of each month of 2007. That's your year in review.

(I've added the subject line, too, because generally that was more interesting. -_-)

Jan: Brief cross-post: I am alive.
Feb: Mine eyes have felt the glory of the Chloropicrin burn. . . I was going to try to make a whooooole parody off of that, but I have not the power, today.
Mar: For my love, this morning, while he's away. You in Bloom
Apr: Hear the glorious tones of the air filter. . . We're back from Arizona!
May: Well, that was fun, wasn't it? Let it hereby be known that I am a hypochondriac.
Jun: (No posts in this journal in June.)
Jul: I am wearing guitar-pick earrings. Hi, folks, just a brief update.
Aug: I'm having a very odd moment: I've just done four hours, unbroken, of fairly mind-melty work (researching contact info and sending out 8 million personalized emails), and I haven't really come down from it.
Sep: False October We had an Autumn day, yesterday.
Oct: Lee, my birthday, NESsT, Love For my birthday, Lee (my lovely boss) brought me back Goodies.
Nov: Solidarity! Take a minute and read this, if you would, for the sake of unemployed and hungry writers: a good write-up about what's actually at stake for the writers in the guild strike.
Dec: Update. I figured I should take time out of letting America's "Tin Man" and Elton John's "Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road" (theme? Yes.) eat my brains to give y'all a brief update.

The other journal differed only in this way:

Dec: I don't care if they DID take your brain out, I would still eat you. Did anybody else out there watch SciFi's Tin Man?

Update.

I figured I should take time out of letting America's "Tin Man" and Elton John's "Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road" (theme? Yes.) eat my brains to give y'all a brief update.

First: I love you.

Second: I love work.

Third: I love kitschy Christmas music.

Re: 3: The choir/symphony/ballet/random community members/etc are all getting together and putting on a Holiday Pops concert (which has been sold out for two weeks, with some tickets going for $70+! EEK!) and that means I've been getting my Holiday Season On pretty hard, preparing music. "We Need A Little Christmas" makes me cry. FYI. ("For I've grown a little leaner, grown a little colder, grown a little sadder, grown a little older and I need a little angel, sitting on my shoulder. . .") Parts of "Little Drummer Boy" do, too, but I think that's mostly because my dad used to listen to it with my brother every night, when he was little, and this was my dad's favorite time of year.

"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" makes me cry, too, since we're on the topic ("Someday soon, we all will be together, if the fates allow; until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow..."). But we're not doing that one--I just can't keep it out of my head. It really looks like some of the family are not going to be coming for Christmas, and not for any pleasant, easy-to-deal-with reasons. And, my dears, I'm not going to lie to you, I'm having a really, really hard time with it. I've been trying to keep a handle on it, on account of everyone else involved is having a really hard time of it, too, and I've got it relatively easy. But, still. I miss and love them all a lot, and it's tough. I am literally unable to do anything about it.

So, I'm trying to keep the old spirits up. Mostly, it's working. We've got the place full of warm light and draped in Mardi Gras beads, I'm throwing myself into the kitschy Christmas music, we're looking forward to having our Christina and Guerin move in across the street. I'm making green gifts, I'm writing, I'm having a good time of it.

I made Chris a recycled train, out of soda and cat food cans, and the tins that tea lights burn in. Oh, and a little used tin foil. It's.. . really, really cute, actually. I'll try to get a picture up, one of these days.

I hope y'all are well, and surviving your semesters/holidays/work crunches/etc. ::HUGS::

LOVE

Gurglegleh.

Hi, guys,

I know I've got a lot of email I should respond to, but I've been really sick for pushing a week now, and though I felt a ton better yesterday, I'm having a bad relapse now--just in time for us to fly out to Chicago, tonight. To go to a conference. Where it's snowing. In a city I want to see and have never been into, before. i.e., where I am probably going to go ahead and get sicker rather than better.

I feel crap.

I will email/catch up/all that once we're back and have settled in and all. I just can't muster enough brain power, right now.

LOVE

Solidarity!

Take a minute and read this, if you would, for the sake of unemployed and hungry writers: a good write-up about what's actually at stake for the writers in the guild strike.

What I found most shocking in this was that the number the AMPTP has been putting around (trying to make this group out to be fat-cat greedy types) about writer's average yearly income being $200,000 dollars? is figured only from whoever in the guild happened to be employed at the time, ignoring the vast majority of the writers who are most of the time NOT able to find paid work, and are barely squeaking by on what residuals they've got, but including the few outlying multi-millionaires. Imagine how different that number would look if everyone in the guild was counted for the averaging of income of guild members--that is, if there was a useful, accurate number here at all. That number would be tempered by the vast field of $0 income-at-any-given-times, and it would plummet.

This is intellectual property, people. This is about getting to see at least a little more return from their creative work, when studios and producers are exploiting them to the fullest and getting paid for what the writers have done over and over. If you wrote something, and weren't even allowed to keep a copyright, and someone else was making buckets of money off of it while you were at it, wouldn't you want to see more than a half a percent of that?

CONCERT!

We went to the Bridge School Benefit concert in Mountainview (near San Jose) with some friends, this weekend, and it was a blast.

Some notes: Neil Young (who puts the concert together every year) is probably a little crazy, so is Regina Spektor, Tegan and Sara think you shouldn't wear shorts and sandals while rocking out, My Morning Jacket were an interesting choice of last-minute replacement for Eddie Vedder and Flea, John Mayer does a great "Freefalling" cover, Tom Waits + Kronos Quartet = Big Awesome, Jerry Lee Lewis is NOT dead, and the Metallica fans present mostly seemed to have a problem with their boys going acoustic-cover-band.

I enjoyed everyone a hell of a lot, myself, and as most of them were new or nearly new to me, I've got plenty of new people to look up! It was $50 for a spot on the grass a really long way away, as the temperature dropped down into the 40's, but we got there at 5 pm and didn't leave until after midnight, and it goes to the school for disabled children and music ed and such, so I think that's well worth it. We heard 61 songs--everyone did 6 or 7 or 8 each. I took notes enough to be able to figure out what all but two songs were, afterwards, but I only knew 12 of them, to begin with. I think I officially recommend everyone I heard, though. Go to it.

Here's the playlist, as best as I could figure it (I *'d the ones I was particularly hot on, in case you're interested):

NEIL YOUNG
"Sugar Mountain"*
"Beautiful Bluebird" (as a duet with his wife, Peggy)

REGINA SPEKTOR
"That Ain't No Cover"
"On the Radio"*
"The Flowers"*
"Ghost of Corporate Future"
"One More Time With Feeling"
"Fidelity"
"Samson"*

TEGAN AND SARA
"Call it Off"
"The Con"
"Walking With a Ghost"
"Where Does the Good Go?"
"Like O, Like H"*
"Nineteen"*
"Back in Your Head"
"Living Room"*
"I've Got You"

MY MORNING JACKET
"The Way That He Sings"
"What a Wonderful Man"
"Gideon"
"Golden"*
"Bermuda Highway"*
((Can't figure out what song this was! :( Thought it had the phrase "feel so wonderful" in it, but no luck in finding it))
"Anytime"

JOHN MAYER
((Missed one due to craziness in finding bathrooms))
"Slow Dancing in a Burning Room"
"Waiting on the World to Change"*
"Gravity"
"Deeper and Deeper"((I *THINK.* This is highly questionable.))
"Free Falling" (Tom Petty cover)*

TOM WAITS and the KRONOS QUARTET
"Way Down in the Hole"*
"Cold Cold Ground"
"Little Drop of Poison"*
"The Part You Throw Away"
"God's Away on Business"
"Day After Tomorrow"*
"What Keeps Mankind Alive"
"Diamond in Your Mind"

NEIL YOUNG
"The Way"
"Winterlong"
"Spirit Road"
"Oh, Lonesome Me"
"I'm the Believer"
"No Hidden Path"*

JERRY LEE LEWIS
"Roll Over, Beethoven"*
"You Win Again" (Hank Williams cover)
"Hadacol Boogie"*
"Midnight Blues"*
"Your Cheatin' Heart"
"Before the Night is Over"*
"Great Balls of Fire"*
"Whole Lotta' Shakin' Goin' On"

METALLICA
"I Just Want to Celebrate" (Rare Earth cover)
"Please Don't Judas Me" (Nazareth cover)*
"I'm Only Happy When it Rains" (Garbage cover)*
"My Brothers in Arms" (Dire Straits cover)*
"Disposable Heroes"
"All Within My Hands"
"Turn the Page" (Bob Seger cover)
"Nothing Else Matters"

Okay, I don't want to inundate you with comments, but just a couple more things:

Barring a couple of electric basses, everyone played acoustically, and almost everyone played a social commentary/anti-war kind of song, at some point. If you don't know Tom Waits' "Day After Tomorrow," you should--I cried and cried, because that's how I am at concerts. (I heard it first when Tom was on the Daily Show, but we snagged up the album soon after--it's absolutely beautiful. It would have been more beautiful if the assholes behind us would have stopped bitching about his voice, but hélas!) Metallica were very warm and generous (hometown heroes, and all), Young spent a ton of time basically jamming and obviously having a really good time. Jerry Lee-fucking-Lewis rocked really hard, and, say what you will about serious song-writing, his was the only set where people got up and danced. He was snarky, and actually got his sexy-bastard on (the lyrics of "Before the Night is Over" are awfully raunch for a 70-ish guy), and I loved it. He and Neil Young now join the Eagles, Crosby Stills and Nash, and Richie Havens as the people I'm fucking lucky to have gotten to see, because--frankly--they could stop touring any day, now.

It was just... it was wonderful. Good company, great music, good long walks between the hotel and the concert site, good food the whole weekend and drinks. If you're ever out this way, I'd definitely suggest this, there are new people every year, it's a good cause, it's a ton of music.

Dumbledore/Grindelwald = Canon.

No shit, check it out. Here's the blurb from IMDB:

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix author J.K. Rowling has shocked fans of the boy-wizard series by stating that character Albus Dumbledore as gay. The writer revealed the truth of the Hogwarts school headmaster's sexuality at New York's Carnegie Hall on Friday as part of her American book tour. When asked by an audience member if Dumbledore had found "true love," she replied, "Dumbledore is gay," adding he was in love with his rival Gellert Grindelwald, who he once beat in a battle between good and bad wizards long ago. She says, "Falling in love can blind us to an extent. (Dumbledore was) horribly, terribly let down."

For a longer story, here is the article from the Guardian. I just love her more and more all the time.

Edit: Here's another good article, from AP.

Risk factors.

I was reading a little article on judging your risk of/genetic predisposition towards breast cancer, involving how many blood relatives have had it, or have had "related" cancers, etc.

What I want to know is, can there be a genetic predisposition towards cancer? That is, not just one particular form, but towards cancer in general? And, even if not, outside of breast and ovarian cancers being related, are other forms of cancer that are related to one another? Which?

My father's sister died at 53 of pancreatic cancer. Their father died of (admittedly environmentally related) leukemia, and their mother of brain cancer. Her brother died a handful of years ago--I think that was cancer, too, but I'm not certain of it, or of which kind, if so--and their sister had tumors (non-malignant) in her breasts. So did my mother's mother. And another blood relative (either mother's father or mother's mother's father, can't remember which) died of cancer, too, on that side. Kidneys, I think, but maybe it was liver.

My father, like his sister, died when he was 53 (of everything, apparently), but sometimes, in full blown paranoid mode, I wonder if he didn't have cancer, too, and just didn't tell us. He was very proud, he didn't talk about things that were wrong. He saw plenty of doctors for all his various problems, got sicker and more beat up as time went on, and would come home sometimes with his head shaved completely bald, and have his hair grow back softer and whiter than it had been, before. Maybe he just decided to do that? And maybe it just coincidentally coincided with his follicles giving out in their melanin-producing capacity? But shaving it off would certainly cover up hair falling out from therapy, too.

But even not relying on that, there's still a pretty heavy dose coming in from his side. And that's not getting anywhere near the heart attacks and strokes, depression, alcoholism, and other potentially genetically pre-disposing trouble on either side. (In case I haven't mentioned, I'm not having children. The fact that they'd be doomed is only a small part of that, but it bears mention.)

So. What I wonder is, do all of these disparate cases of different kinds of cancer amount to a general predisposition for it? Can there be that?

Just something I think about. Y'know. Sometimes.

Boy-oh-boy.

So, hey, have you guys heard of Google Alert? If not, it's a way that you can keep track of who is writing about you/your company/whatever on the web, and what's being said. So, if you're signed up for it and someone writes an article about your company, Google Alert will send you an update, with the link and the article in it.

Can you see where this is going, yet?

If you guessed "Your work has Google Alert, of course, and found your journal!" you win the cupie doll. Now, try for two: Can you guess which of my two nearly identical journals came up on the alert? Here's a hint: one had the picture of me I used for my work's homepage and a cute little purple pig, and the other has an icon of three, clinging hockey boys labeled "Sordid Love Triangle." One is always pretty Safe For Work, and the other is, well, not.

Ah, well. The narrative imperative has to be obeyed, right? And there is a very bright side. (1) Lee gave my description of the company a ringing endorsement, and was very pleased (and thought the whole situation was really funny--I agreed, once the red face died down). (2) After going back through my last twenty entries of The Other Journal, I find there is actually no smut posted on that main page, right now. Oh, links, sure, and a little HP fangirling, but right now it's actually SFW. (3) He said he didn't go through the rest of the journal, anyway (though I have no idea about the other two people the link went to).

So, I linked this one from that one again, and cleared out links to that one from this one. So if anyone followed it over and is checking in, here, hello!

This one's really the same as the other one, only without the potential for embarrassment. And you're welcome to either, I suppose, but if you'd rather not run across smut (rare though it is), I'd recommend sticking with this one.

Lee, my birthday, NESsT, Love

For my birthday, Lee (my lovely boss) brought me back Goodies. I frequently get a little bit of swag (who knew the UBS was big on giving out mints?), but this was especially cool.

So this is actually a good opportunity to describe a little of what NESsT does.

Lee gave me a bottle of wine, in a cool woven bag, with a cool little notebook inside. The bag and notebook were made by one of the non-profit NGOs in Budapest that NESsT is working with.

This group employs the mentally challenged, letting them be productive and creative, and bring in an income, which would otherwise be a very, very remote prospect. They weave everything by hand, themselves, on small looms--tapestries, rugs, bags, scarves. They also hand-make the paper for the covers of the little notebooks, which are sewn together. The art on the covers is theirs. It's beautiful, it's colorful, it's doing a lot of good in their community.

Now, NESsT comes in this way: NESsT does a lot of fundraising, then, rather than just dispersing funds out for one-time gifts, the money goes into infrastructure for these community groups. NESsT does what is basically business training for these groups (business professionals donate time to help in this), and gives the groups technical assistance to keep up and running, and helps them find venues for the products they're making. NESsT helps them with the marketing, and in learning how to do all those sorts of things on their own. And when it's all together, these non-profit non-government community groups have solid infrastructure and a steady source of income that they can use to employ locals and give back to their communities in whatever way their communities need. They get to be self-sufficient (NESsT stands for Non-Profit Enterprise and Self-Sustainability Team). And all that without having to compromise themselves in whatever way private corporations or donors would require before giving them any funding, and without having the unsteadiness of highly variable incomes, or anything else most small charities have to suffer through.

It is really, intensely cool. NESsT takes (in my opinion) the best stuff from the business world and the best stuff from the philanthropy world, and helps people make really wonderful things happen.

It's the panacea, for me, too. I'm not doing much that's big or grand, I'm not working full-time or doing heavy lifting and fund-raising or donating or marketing, but I help with every little thing to keep NESsT running smoothly that I can. I'm putting numbers in spreadsheets and keeping track of business cards and doing research and mailing letters and loading software, but it means that I'm helping (if in just a remote, small little way) to keep small communities in South America and Eastern Europe from starving.

Isn't that amazing?

Maybe I'm PMSing, but I'm about to cry.

I LOVE my job.


P.S. In case you were wondering: the wine is Joe Blow Red.

Help!

Hey, folks, I've got a link for you to follow.

Contact Governor Schwarzenegger.

I know most of you aren't residents, but As Goes California, So Goes the Nation, right?

...Please?

See, if you go to that link, and click "Have a comment," put in your name and email, and scroll down the "choose your subject" menu to "Gender-neutral marriage/AB 00043" it'll take you right to a handy page where you can send our gov an email. If on that page you click "Pro," and leave him a nice little note asking him to sign--not veto--our run for redefining marriage without gender pronouns (i.e. legalizing same-sex marriage), it would be a very awesome thing of you.

The text of the bill can be found here, and it's very, very good. It makes the argument well.

Please. As wonderful human beings, would you do this?

LOVE!


P.S. I would consider it a wonderful birthday present, if you did.

Jury Duty? Really?

I have to start checking to see if I have to go in for jury duty. I'm scheduled to be on call this coming week.

I don't want to do it.

Now, it's not that I begrudge a civic duty. If they wanted me to, I'd direct traffic or file papers or do something like that. And it's only partly that my partner's Ex-Wife works at the courthouse. But, I mean, really. . . you want me to help decide someone's fate? I don't want to. I'd gladly sit in the court all day for a week, it's just the responsibility of it that I don't want.

Part of it is that I couldn't, in good conscience, recommend that anyone be sentenced to waste in our prison system, whether or not they're guilty of whatever crime, so I'm not going to be able to take the weigh-only-the-facts oath. I am, in fact, a budding prison abolitionist.

Do you think that if I tell them that they'll let me go? Will I have a chance to tell them that?

I'm hoping they'll just dismiss me without cause. I'm 24*, I'm very visibly a total hippie, I've got a nice fat summa cum laude degree, and I'm a secretary for a Fucking Non-Profit™. I'm signed up for newsletters from Unmarried.org, the Human Rights Campaign, the Organic Consumers Association, the Arbor Day Foundation, and the National Home Gardening Club. I've gone to protests, signed petitions, and go to union meetings for fun. This afternoon it's going to be writing-my-state-representatives-time, to try to encourage them in this whole moratorium-on-the-death-sentence thing.

One side or the other is going to consider me a liability, you know?

Here's hoping.

LOVE

EDIT: Called in, and I am off the hook! But you all knew that.


*In five days. Happy birthday to me. . .

False October

We had an Autumn day, yesterday.

There's something I'd like to point out, about the Summer we've been having here in lovely, moderate, seasonless California. Namely, the Central Valley thereof. Namely, Turlock. That is this: Turock has had 25 days at or above 100˚F (the usual was 10-14 days of 100˚F+, until Madness set in). There was one week, late June, where the temperature was in the low nineties, but since May, that's it. It's been upper nineties and above. We have broken 4 records, this summer, and that's only the ones I'm sure of and checked, not the ones I suspected. We've had half the normal amount of rainfall, and only a quarter of the regular snowpack. So we're also headed for a drought, to complement all of our wildfires.

And the wildfires bring us here, to Autumn.

After a week and a half of no day where it was under 78˚ by midnight, or after 10 am, and where the high temperatures ranged from 101-106, it has all of a sudden not broken 90 for two days. Yesterday morning it was fucking cold, for August.

The sun was bright, the sky was hazy, it was 62˚F, the sky was hazy and the air was crisp. And smoky.

Because the valley is On Fire.

But at least I could pretend it was because it really was Autumn, and people were building fires in their fireplaces, and the joys of October were just around the corner. It was a very good day, apart from the ash in the lungs.

Wedded bliss! And accosting the flower arrangments.

This was supposed to be the summer for weddings, but everything exploded. One wedding was postponed 'til I'm not sure when, and the site for the other is on fire, so it got moved.

I went to the latter one this evening. It was absolutely beautiful--Liz and Doug, may all the best come to you!

I danced with anyone who stayed in the same place long enough, including two disabled children, my man, the bride, and biology students. I also got completely drunk on wine and champagne and the absence of water.

...Well, not completely. I'm typing, aren't I? (I just got home, you know.)

However, on the way home, I ate half of the rose I pilfered from the arrangements.

...So I'm probably fairly drunk.

That is all.



P.S. This was apparently my fiftieth post for this blog. Such an honor.

I'm having a very odd moment:

I've just done four hours, unbroken, of fairly mind-melty work (researching contact info and sending out 8 million personalized emails), and I haven't really come down from it. That makes 10 hours, this week, which is more than usual, for me. I feel pretty productive; it's one of the big items checked off my list, and it helps with the guilt that's come of slacking off while Lee is on vacation.

It is also my very good friend Michelle's birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!), which is a joyous occasion.

And in something like 3 or 4 hours, my Raechel and her beau will be here, in my house, which is equally joyous. I haven't seen her in months, and I miss her. I've gotten the place cleaned up and settled with appropriate sleeping places for guests, towels, etc, found suitable food, all of that.

I've been reading and writing a lot. I've been making goodies for a bridal shower gift for yet another loved friend. It's 103˚F outside, but it's nice in here, the cat is quietly curled up next to me, Chris is playing guitar upstairs. I'm hungry, but things are otherwise nice, and they're calm, and I'm in one of those states where my mind won't settle down to match, but rather is humming white noise at me and I can't actually think about anything or focus on anything or reflect or enjoy or anything.

My father has been dead ten years to the day. Ten years and about thirteen hours.

I feel odd.

So, Day Two.

As some of you may know, I am home alone this weekend, because Chris is at a conference-thing in Reno. Well, Thursday morning to Saturday night, not exactly the weekend. But this means that I am moping about without my Love. I should be potting plants and getting air and sunshine, but I'm potting around online, instead.

This also means:
(a) I cannot get to the Midnight Ball at Borders (oh, you know I would have been there).
(b) Consequently, I have to wait to get my HP 7.0 until Saturday morning when I can catch the bus or bike over there, meaning like 20 more hours of waiting.
(c) Furthermore, I'm going to have to read like hell to finish it before Chris gets home, because I'm not going to be able to put it down and I'm not going to want to put him down when I haven't seen him in three days, and this presents a conflict.
(d) I'm finally, finally reading a little Online Fiction again (if you know what I mean, wink wink, nudge nudge)
(e) I've watched more bad TV in a night than I usually do in a month.
(f) I'm not behaving like a rational human being in general. Forgetting to eat/sleep/wash/etc, keeping odd hours, and so on.
(g) And last but certainly not least, it means that (in the immortal words of M.C.A.), it's time to get nice. In my time-honored tradition of dealing relatively unhappily, unintelligently, and harmlessly with our brief separations, I am hoping to be utterly potted within the next few hours.

Now, before I check out to hide from potential unintentional spoilers online, some brief announcements:

- Food is good for you.
- Mint, in baking, can hide a variety of sins.
- My laptop's hinges are about to break. I can FEEL IT. So stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of "My Six-Year Old Overused Laptop."
- My Chris gets killed off in the last HP book.
- During his trip, however, he has not yet shot a man, just to watch him die. (Corollary: When he hears that lonesome whistle, he does not hang his head and cry.)
- One of the main offices of the group I work for is in Santiago, Chile--and I am reading a story by someone in Santiago Chile. Coincidence??!?! (Experts agree: yes.)
- I am currently, inexplicably wishing I had non-metallic, very saturated, bubble-gum pink nailpolish. Experts are baffled.

And this just in: the bed's too big without you.

And they're still picking up the bodies.

I have officially completed my first pay period, for work. And you know what that means: I'm about to become a taxpayer.

It's very exciting.

I am wearing guitar-pick earrings.

Hi, folks, just a brief update. Mostly because I haven't given y'all any update.

So: I am alive and well and flourishing!

Work is fantastic. I made it through my first full week, and got two months worth of finances in order and sent off in just a few days. Chris and I have been writing music like mad, and it's good. The cat is eating again, finally, and taking antibiotics at a lower rate (and still doing okay--knock on wood). I am off antibiotics again (I was on them again), and this time, the root canal* seems to actually have stopped the problem. My tomatoes and basil are finally booming, and we've gotten an FT of both. This is because it has been hot. In fact, it has been fucking hot (104˚F, today, for instance--40˚C), but we were able to borrow a lot of movies from the library to keep us busy, keep us inside in the cool, and sate my newfound Peter O'Toole obsession. We've seen, very recently: Lawrence of Arabia, The Great Escape, Lion in Winter, Some Like it Hot, Bright Young Things, How to Steal a Million, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Sweet Charity, Annie Hall, 1408, and Wilde, as well as re-watched Blood and Donuts, Peter's Friends, and a fair bit of Eddie Izzard standup, recorded Lord Jim and a lot more Eddie Izzard standup to watch soon, and still have Triplets of Belleville, Time Bandits and Awakenings awaiting. We read Orlando, and are working through How I Became a Nun (and I am reading Mansfield Park and Guards! Guards!). We had a cheesey indoor 4th of July feast, today, and tomorrow is our THREE YEAR anniversary of moving in together (the really important one, we feel). We've had lots of good sex and good food, which I seem to be digesting,** and I have been happily and thoroughly exploring the Cocktail book my mother gave me (along with the 501-Must-See-Movies book, which has been aiding in other pursuits mentioned above). We're*** getting Petr Sykora, and getting to keep Christensen and Whitney, though we wanted Hannan, as well. I feel like I'm actually getting better at playing the piano, again, on account of having the freedom to actually sit down and play one. T-minus-9 days to Order of the Phoenix, and T-minus-17 days to Deathly Hollows.

I think that is probably enough to digest all at once. I love and miss you all, and I will sit down and catch up on all of your journals soon. Very soon. I hope. I am, unusually, currently more available by email than by journal-commenting, so try it out if you wanna'. I'll try not to be too much of a flake. I hope you are all WELL.

LOVE.


*This is the third root canal. My teeth were the Communism-Domino-Theory in action, but they've now been cut the fuck off at the pass. No more horrendous aaaooowh in the teeth, TYVM.
**Not always the case. If it's a digestive fluke with an acronym, I've probably got it.
***This contraction stands for "The Penguins, of whom we are fans, are"

Joy-bombs come in 3's!

1. The concerts were fabulous. Chris came on Saturday night, and Saturday night went even better than Friday night. There was plenty of teasing by the lovely choir director, and the choir director's lovely partner, Lee (MORE ON LEE IN A MOMENT), who were in the wings next to me (I was on an end), which loosened the mood a lot. I was beaming like a friggin' cartoon, after I hit (excuse me, nailed) those B's, and I had an absolute blast. We were really good. :)

2. We're inheriting a piano from our friend, Val, who won't have room for it after she moves. We get it just for the cost of having it moved, and we actually managed to work out a way to fit it into our living room (which is shocking on its own). It looks like it's not going to be too bad to move it, even, considering it's an upright, there are only a couple of entry steps involved, and it's only going about 15 miles. I'M GOING TO HAVE A REAL PIANO AGAIN! EEEE!

3. This is where Lee comes in: I HAVE A JOB.

ME. Ms. Won't-Work-for-Wages, unpaid, home-making hippie goddess.

And do you know why I have a job? Because Lee, who trusts my qualities as a fun human being to work with and a fast learner enough to make up for my inexperience, said he needed someone to help organize his life, input numbers, file, run errands, make copies, etc., for his fucking non-profit, developing-community-infrastructure-in-impoverished-areas, supporting-the-earth-friendly, supporting the human-rights-respecting, liberating-smaller-non-profit-NGO's-from-the-clutches-of-corporate-donation-begging NGO. At 8-10 flexible hours a week. For $10 an hour.

In short, the only thing I'd be willing to do, aside from sell flowers or groom dogs. (Trust me, it's a seriously privileged position.)

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEIHAVEAJOBIHAVEAJOB!!!!!!!!!!!!

I go in this afternoon to hang out and get a feel for what the gal I'm replacing is doing, see what's on the table, get some training, and then (once he's back in town after mega traveling binge), I'll start properly on June 19th.

I am so. . . . so. .. . You have no idea. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIEEEEEEEEEEE!!

::collapse::

LOVE

The concerts are over.

Washing my face, just now?

A spiritual experience.


All the make-up (I do not wear make-up, any other day of the year) smeared on to make my general features visible from the audience, despite blinding white lights and a black house.. . all the sweat and all the tired and all the bobby pins and big, goofy, I-really-hit-those-B-flats-hard grins, the a-a-a-a-aaaaaaaa-men!s. . . gone with the cold cream.

I'm almost clean.



...I can't even quite remember what my face looks like. But I know I had a good time, and I know I did well, and I know I had a good time, afterwards. And the Moose-damned concerts are over.

I don't really know what to do with that, or what to say. Except that I'm clean, and the concerts are over, and people paid up to $50 to see us, and they gave us wine and cheese and strawberries with cream, after, and I'm tired, and there's still the smear of eyeliner (or else I'm even more beat than I thought), and there's a little Monty Python waiting for me downstairs, with my beau and maybe some more sweets. And sleep. And I think I like those people. And. . . and I'm really tired. And it was good.

Goodnight, my loves. I'll see you another day. LOVE

Well, that was fun, wasn't it?

Let it hereby be known that I am a hypochondriac. Or, at least, I'm paranoid, and prone to flights of fancy concerning some root cause of whatever is going on. And I'm easily psychocomatically influenced.

Basically, a hypochondriac.

But putting me on a drug that makes being out in the sun for a while a serious potential danger, which requires avoiding calcium (and several other ubiquitous minerals) in the eight hours surrounding taking the drug, and which Nearly Killed my Aunt (owing to an allergy to it), doesn't help. It represents easy danger. It is especially tantalizing to my worrying when possible side effects and signs to look out for include the plus-ubiquitous-que-calcium nausea, dizziness, drowsiness, joint pain, and irregular heartbeat.

And when potential (rare) side effects include seizures, destroyed intestines, and occasional thoughts of suicide, to name only a few, since those make it a really attractive treatment to worry about.

An hour before I took the thing, reading the warning sheets, I was drowsy as sin. And getting refluxy, because I'd misread the warnings to say I couldn't have antacids until 6 hours after taking the damn pill (it's only two--you just can't have taken one 6 hours before). But I've been getting a lot of sun, and not enough water; I haven't gotten enough sleep; I'm experiencing a certain amount of iron loss, and just gave a pint of blood a few days ago. I have every reason to be a little drowsy, and to get a little light-headed when standing suddenly and all that.

But you know I'm setting myself up for a week of this.

The cause of all this charming anticipation and excitement is the biological-warfare-level antibiotic, Ciproflaxocin, which my dentist prescribed (in his infinite wisdom), since we're trying to avoid me needing another root canal. I'm also stocked up on anti-inflammatories, to try to join with the antibiotic to knock the little bastard tooth out in a more peaceful way than drilling its inner and outer tissues away, leaving, literally, a mere shell of its former self. And nothing else has worked, to date. And I'm getting sick of the throbbing on contact with floss. So, here's hoping, hey?

And I had the first dose about 45 minutes ago, and seem to be fine. I could be drowsy, but it's hard to say. Anyway, I'm not going to push it with any heavy lifting, but I'm betting all's going to be well.



Unrelatedly, I resent blogger's forcing me to switch to its new template. What since I can't use it, with my ISP. Or with most ISPs I can get my OS to play with. Not even long enough to switch to New Blogger--that's how bad its failure to work is.

I guess I'm switching to Firefox, after all. Goddamn Blogger/Safari-1.0 feuding.

Hear the glorious tones of the air filter. . .

We're back from Arizona!

We first got to see Chris's sister, Pam, and her mate Chris (yes, it is) as well as their gaseous guinea pig Howard and their tortoises Tommy and Oreo, in Tempe. Then, we stayed with the lovely Rae- "It's in my eye!" -chel and her cat, Monstrosity (given name: Zitarra, common name: Cat), and temporary beta fish, Mo, in Chandler. We had a fabulous time everywhere, went to the Tempe Arts Festival, had a movie day, played more hands of the card game Phase 10 than your mother (unless your mother played a lot of Phase 10), got a nice visit from Raechel's brother and his wife, and had a go at a couple of great restaurants (the Middle-Eastern Haji Baba's and the Thai Thai Rama).

As usual (apparently), I got sick. My love drove 11 hours there and 10 hours (good time, btw) back, and you can imagine what that much car travel is good for. We had far more restaurant food than to which we are accustomed. I was around a furrier, darker cat than usual (I begin to suspect allergies). I spent more time in close contact with a furry cat than usual (that cat wrestles/kills). I breathed plenty of that fabulous Pheonix air, which has been known to give Californians respiratory failure on contact (useful information!).

So I've brought back what I can only imagine is a dandy sinus/respiratory infection (useful for choir practice tonight). But we also brought back wonderful illegal grapefruits from Pam's tree, a table and bowl that she made (because she's amazing), a few cool ceramic pieces from the Arts Festival, goopy glops of Raechel's love, a great and abiding love for her cat, and my new need to read Pride and Prejudice and Cyranno de Bergerac.

All that love and fun was well worth the little troubles of it. It was a fantastic trip. If you're reading this, my various Arizona loves, THANK YOU.


P.S. And Raechel: I've just realized, it's in my lungs. Sticking up the tubes. I thought it was pollution and dander and death, but no: it is Your Love. <3

P.P.S. For those of you who are not familiar with me and Rae's relationship, don't worry about the P.S. This is common.

For my love, this morning, while he's away.

You in Bloom

I build my day on your kiss
my hope scaffolding up from your arms like little vines
building up and on, stretching--
up into blossoms, consuming--
mighty with bliss in the sunlight!

And if I could stand minute on your shoulder, hiding in your hair
(warm in your shirt collar)
to whisper my love and your worth to unbelieving you,
I would. All the day,
I would.

And the world would wonder at
the blooming of you,
in the fat blue morning glories of my love.

And I'd almost caught back up on the blog world. . .

Nausea: thought it was from the acidic food.

TERRIBLE HEAD AND NECK PAIN: thought I'd aggravated the pretty-much-healed sprained neck by hanging over the sewing machine for five hours.

Terrible body pain: see head and neck pain. But the tablecloth is all kinds of gorgeous, I am telling you.

Horrible wracking cough: just thought I had one lungful too many.

...But that wouldn't explain why I was still coughing--and coughing worse, with a mighty BURNING AND ACHING which jostled the head and aggravated the headache--this morning, and am also congested. Or why, on retrospect, my voice was excessively sore/tired after choir practice, Monday. Or why I've been randomly and lightly coughing for, oh, a week, now (thought it was just the great local air quality), and have had occasional stabbing pains through the ear. Or why I woke up with a 102˚F fever, this morning, after the dream where I'm trying to produce the great new spiritual doctrine on a triangular tablet (..Idunno).

.. . I swear. I've never been properly ill THREE TIMES in TWO MONTHS before. And I'm worried that this one's a doozy. I don't remember the last three hours.

...Four hours.

Hm.

Well, Chris is walking over to the store for chicken soup, for me (I think). I obviously managed to move, but now I'm going to crawl back into the nook where I presume I have whittled away all this time since I woke up. I'm going to fall behind, again, on your journals and lives, and I will quite probably STILL not be around for the emailing/messaging/etc. I'm sorry. :(

This sucks. But see y'all again when I come out of the coma? :) LOVE

Update: Mischief Managed

Boxlid harvest managed--handful of underaged carrots for the devouring, handful of cooking greens (was able to dig up the chard and trim some leaves off of the kohl rabi), a handful of the lettucey greens that might be okay despite having been frozen a few times. Transplanted the kohl rabi and some unlikely-to-survive-but-I'm-giving-them-the-benefit-of-the-doubt carrot babies, and (as mentioned below) a fistful of cilantro into a pot. Tomorrow or the next day, the extra dirt and a couple feet of compost go into my spot, and I get to get plotting.


Whoof. I feel good, I tell you. And I deserve. . .


2 oz Creme de Banana liquer
1/2 tsp Triple Sec
2 tbsp milk
1 fat or 2 regular drops of red food coloring


...which = Bubblegum. Because I got tired of waiting, and got started with the mixing. I Am Triumphant.

Cilantro is the Überlord.

Cilantro is like. . .

- Cilantro is like paratroopers, bravely dropping down into the jungles and planting itself down behind the lines until it's established a base camp from which to send runners and do battle.

- Cilantro is like Rasputin: It will not die, no matter how many times something tries to kill it.

- Cilantro is also like morning glories, in this way: You believed that it was dead, but it's just moved fourteen feet from where it was with no explicable means of having gotten there, surviving, or reproducing, and there's more of it, now.

- Cilantro is thus like cochroaches, and termites: You never actually have just one.

- Cilantro is like carrots, too; at least, it looks enough like carrots that when it's hidden amidst carrots, you don't necessarily realize that you no longer really have a row of carrots so much as a field of cilantro with some carrots in it.

- This is because cilantro is like in vitro fertilization: It wants to be sure it reproduces, so it tries 16 times, and instead of getting one healthy baby, it gets septendecaplets.*

- Cilantro is, finally, like a good thing: You can never have too much, until you do. And then comes madness.



If you hadn't guessed, I'm taking a brief break from working in my garden. We hit the nursery (awww, babies!) and the OSH a couple of days ago, and I've planted hollyhock seeds, parsley seeds (in with my parsley), a ton of pansies (food plant--really!) and some stock (which smells like jasmine and clove--I'm in love, ell-yoo-vee). I also planted all the spider plant babies I was rooting (my house plants went with us, away from this wicked poisoned place), and we indulged me in a gorgeous little fern called a Single Maid (a type of Maidenhair fern, adiantum), with which I am in love. Today, I've been pulling down the chicken wire the former residents had up, and which I thought would be useful, but is turning out to bother me. I staked the bouganvilla without it, and rehung all my windchimes and hanging candle-holders, and am going to hang my copper lanterns soon. I cut down, with great regret, my poisoned peas, and dug out the poisoned chervil (got the rest of them yesterday), and trimmed down the poisoned lisianthus, which hopefully will recover. I've also been trying to resurrect parts of the veggie garden, and have been most recently thinning my volunteer cilantro a little bit. I would like to make it clear that I planted none of this cilantro; I inherited one plant, and I believe its properties, as I have illustrated in simile form, above, will give you a good idea of what happened since then.

Now I'm going to go back out and see if I can remove what's left of the few veggies that survived the trampling, so that I can work in more dirt and new compost. And then hopefully get some of the poor things back into the healthier dirt. I've got seeds for sugar snap peas, a different kind of carrot, a different kind of swiss chard, and the same lovely kinds of lettuces (Grand Rapids and a nice spicy mix), and about twice as much space, now that I've cleared out the cinder blocks that were housing all those Black Widows with dime-sized abdomens** (which I've cleaned, bleached, and am soon turning into media shelving--the blocks, not spiders), and the large pots on top of them. And this year, I intend to have some freaking bell pepper plants. .. .. Maybe even a lot of them. I want to spoil myself on bell peppers. I want to roll in peppery goodness. Mmm....


*Cilantro is also like magic.
**Not an exaggeration.

Mine eyes have felt the glory of the Chloropicrin burn...

I was going to try to make a whooooole parody off of that, but I have not the power, today. So I'm just going to lay it out. Have patience: this will be long.

So, I have been gone for a few/several days, now. Dress rehearsal, concert, and then leaving the place because they were fumigating it (against our wills, I will remind). The place we stayed at, through the deep kindness of a friend of Chris's on campus, kept us warm and dry and allowed us to cook for ourselves, watch Babylon 5, and keep the cat in a safe, friendly, larger-than-his-office place while we were waiting for the fumes to leave our house, on the last day (had we been at a motel, we'd have been screwed--check out at 11, and hope they let us in before 5--charming!). It did not, however, have a phone, phone line, or internet--someone nearby had an unprotected network that we were able to catch for the first morning, but we suspect they were the ones who we saw move out that afternoon, leaving us internetless. Thus, my radio silence/near silence.

On to the fumes we had to wait on to clear:

So, apparently the company subcontracted to by Clark (Clark was the company who had actually sent someone to talk to us, who had seemed competent and sensitive, who was available for questioning, etc), which was not Clark at all (but Your Way Fumigation), gave the all clear around noon, tested the levels of the sulfuryl flouride (trade name: Vikane!™) and they were fine, etc. So, we were glad--we found out around 3, so we booked it over there, cleaned up the place we'd been staying at (forgot the frozen vanilla vodka and corn--but we'll go back for them), settled back in at home. I didn't feel comfortable about possible gas levels, yet, so I opened everything up again, to let more air blow through.

This is when I went out to check on my garden.

The representative from Clark had given me a warning of "one foot from the house." Because they'd need room for the sandbags. So, I moved my potted plants, my seeds, my potting soil, my gravel, my pots, everything, about a foot and a half to two feet from the house. I stretched the house away (couldn't get it unhooked) and set the mass of it some three feet from the house. Everything was away. I'd transplanted what I could from my garden that was that close to the house, and put up some of my garden stakes to give the rest of it a little border, as protection against stray feet, tent, etc. I moved the racks away from the house and fence, and tucked them at the edge of the patio. I left the grass clear, because this complex has people come through most Tuesdays to mow, and I thought they might still. I watered the dirt near the house within an inch of its life, because the gentleman from Clark had said that that should keep much of the Vikane™ from penetrating the soil, as it's not water soluble. (The big problem would be the sandbags, if there was vegetation in the way, he said. Not to worry too much, he said.)

So, imagine my compliant surprise when I came out to fine my nice away-from-the-house square separated, shoved out in two different directions. With most of the plants towards the house--and the dirt, the seeds, the pots, and the rocks--and the other half outside of it, the patio furniture on the lawn, and the hose disconnected. See, the house makes an inverted corner there, and rather than go in along the corner, they cut the diagonal across my patio. With most of my outdoor potted plants under the tent. With the gas that will kill bugs, mammals, plants, etc, and penetrate . . . everything, really, inclusive of medicinals and food, so it all had to be protected or moved out. Verily, a miracle technology, meant to be able to get into the pores of the wood to kill the poor buggy bastards (which I'd like to remind you, we had no signs of--it was one or two of the other units connected to us).

Well, apparently I'd watered most of it pretty well, because some of the wildflower brush survived (but the Columbines and chervil sharing a pot with them were dead as little whispy doornails). The (Corrected:)lisianthus (Echo Blue strain!) sort of made it, though it's looking a little. . . well, beige. A little of the cilantro looks okay. The snow pea plants were okay, though they looked funny. The shallots look all right. . . But the mint was a crispy brown dead brush.

. . . Now, hey: did you notice a theme to most of the plants that wound up under the tent?

Could it be "food"?

Well, the peas haven't grown on the plant, yet, so I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. But the cilantro? The shallots?

They poisoned my fucking food plants. And have put pesticides into my dirt. Though, Vikane™ is supposed to dissipate completely! Maybe it'll be okay!

Maybe.

All right, all right, you say. it's just a some cilantro and shallots and mint you're really losing. At least the garden's okay, right? The veggies? The mums?

Except that when they disconnected the hose, they threw it onto my fragile little vegetable plants. Not onto either of the spaces of open dirt next to it. Not onto the patio. Not onto the lawn. Onto my little rows of vegetable plants. All 20 feet and several pounds of hose. And they took more than a foot, with the sandbags, so there went more of the carrots and cilantro. And some of it was under a boot print. The little stakes were knocked over and crushed down so far that they were buried inside the dirt. And they apparently had some reason to heave another shovelful or so of dirt onto the little transplants (three feet away) that I'd tried to save from near the wall, because they were, little tops and all, completely buried. Oh: and they had to throw my mop bucket and more dirt at my just-barely-planted mums, too. And completely sever the one plant. And crush another of the others.

In short, my rosemary is unpoisoned. And the pot of snow peas that was fifteen feet from the house, and a little parsley (and some still more cilantro and a shallot.) Some more flower plants and one of the cacti seem to be relatively okay, and a few of the hardier clumps of mums.

But of all the food plants. Of all the root vegetables in the ground, and the herbs, I've got some leggy parsley and half of the peas I started with unscathed.

My kohl rabi is mangled probably beyond repair, but I suppose there's a chance for one of the heads. The chard is snapped and mashed. The tiny little carrots are crushed (maybe a few will make it..?). Maybe the mangled greens and lettuces will seed, maybe they won't.

But in even shorter short, they destroyed my garden. They destroyed my fucking garden. My localest of local food. My formerly pesticide free, home grown with love in season, food.

But it gets better! Really!

Remember the heading to this monster?

Well, we finally closed everything up, after we'd done various things and I'd called my mother to sniffle and bitch about my garden. We went to pick up Chinese food and sat down with the movie Capote. We turned on the heat, because it was 55˚F inside, from the windows being open and the wind blowing through.

After the movie ended, I reported conversationally to Chris (though it had been bothering me for about an hour): "Wow, my eyes really hurt."

". . . Mine, too," he says, suspiciously. ("Oh, really," I think.)

"Thinking what I'm thinking?" I say.

"I thought it was just the hot" (spicy) "food. . . " he says.

"I didn't have the spicy food, and mine are really angry," I says.

So we open back up the windows, and let the fan for the heat keep blowing. And as I look at the informational materials Clark gave us, and the paper Your Way Fumigation taped to our door, I see mention of the "Warning Agent"--Vikane™ is odorless/colorless/etc, you see, and will kill you horribly and instantly if you get a big lungful, so it's important to have something more immediately unpleasant to alert you to its presence, in case you get near it.

The warning agent in this case is chloropicrin. A tear gas. That is, a caustic agent that will make your eyes burn, and follow with your sinuses, upper respiratory system, and finally (with enough of it), your gastrointestinal system. So we look up chloropicrin, and find that it is also a pesticide. And that it IS water soluble. And that it is mostly a soil fimugant. So even if the sulfuryl flouride isn't in my dirt, the chloropicrin is. And the fuckers SAID NOTHING ABOUT THIS.

But more importantly, for the moment, the fucking chloropicrin is in my fucking eyes.

Our theory runs like this: As they opened up the place to air it out but didn't turn on the fan for the AC/heat, and as this stuff penetrates everything, some of it was left in the ducts. When we closed the place up and turned on the heat, the last vestiges of it were pushed out into the air with us. Hopefully it was just the tear gas poison rather than the swift and terrible death poison. And the tear gas poison will cause eye burning at terribly low levels--that is, levels at which it won't do you lasting damage, or cause your respiratory system to collapse, or cause vomiting and diarrhea and so forth. And at such low levels that if the swift and terrible death poison won't cause you a swift and terrible death. The early warning signs on the other are difficulty breathing and lightheadedness and strain of that sort, which--of course--I was experiencing, but I suspect that was just being so fucking stressed and so fucking upset and SO FUCKING READY FOR THIS TO BE OVER.

So. My eyes are still burning on and off, the next morning. Especially when the heat has just come on, and when I've gone more than an hour without flushing them out with water and putting drops in them.

I bet irritability is a sign of these things, too, just because irritability is a sign for everything. But it's also a sign for PMS (I hope that's part of this, anyway) and being fucking pissed off.

So. I will probably not be around today. We have no food, pretty much, so we need to go out for Big Market trip, so it's going to be the Big Modesto Trip, to hit Trader Joe's and BevMo and whatall. And I wouldn't be good company, anyway. Because my food plants, my babies (and I'm not going to hear any more criticism over being emotionally attached to them, okay? Please?), have been mangled and I have got poisons in my system and my eyes still fucking hurt.

P.S. I don't want to hear about me being neglectful, either. At least not today. Good natured razzing can resume next week.

UPDATE: Manager (sweet Candie) gave our number to the guy from Clark, who called us and was very nice, but.. confirmed that, yes: the tear gas can hang around. His advice: air it out some more. Aaaaaagh. He also wanted to set up an appointment for me with someone from the other company, so that they could go "look into" the damage, and asked about a dollar amount.

I'm like, ". . . ? I grew it all from seeds, it didn't hardly cost me anything, it's just. . ." . . . Gah, I don't want to have someone tromping back through it again. And I don't actually want any money. And I want to get it back together and heal it, not have to sit there with it. I've already started in on undoing this damage, what of it I can. I want to get my garden back together. I want them to be a little more fucking careful, in future. That's all.

Also, the Clark guy says to toss the food plants and seeds for food plants that were inside the tent. All of them. So. It's off to OSH, tomorrow.

I suppose I'll start clean. I feel officially defeated, so, it's up from here, eh? Feeling much better since the trip out and about. No longer irritated wth Every Human Being. Love to all.

I'm reduced to gibbering. Oh my FUCK.

AAAAAAAAGH

This is reprinted without permission from the local rag's Letters to the Editor section. Let me repeat that, in a different way: the newspaper actually printed this, as their top letter to the editor, today. I'll take it down or hide it or whatever, later, but I thought it might be helpful, for those of you unfamiliar with my little area of the world, to understand some of my feelings towards it.

The letter is as follows:

King encouraged racial violence

The only thing good about celebrating Martin Luther King's birthday is that it's a holiday for schools and some businesses. He was not a gentle man. Everywhere he preached, a riot followed. He caused a lot of people to get physically hurt and a lot of property damage was done also.

No, there should not have been bondage or segregation. We are all God's children.

But I know what happened. I used to live in Kentucky. We could not even let our children outdoors while he was there. Cars would go through neighborhoods and people in them would throw rocks and bricks at houses and break windows. If any whites would be outside, they would hit them also.

So please, don't glorify this man. He was not a saint.

[Witholding Lady Fuck's Name]
[The bigger town just north of here]


AAAAAAAAAAGH.

Right. Of course. Because the foremost American activist for peaceful protest and passive resistance should be held personally accountable for violent acts committed by others.

Now, I'm making my own assumptions, here, but, given the demographics of the valley, the content of the letter, and the woman's name, she is 9 chances out of 10 a Caucasian Evangelical Protestant Christian, and I'm sure she'd love to hear about how, for an example, Jesus should be blamed for the many lynchings committed by his devout followers, in our modern era. And how the Prince of Peace wasn't "gentle," because, feeling they were following his example, some people have decided that "turn the other cheek" means "bomb someone."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH.

...I want to go back to Long Beach. :(

How I spent my early evening (cross-posted.)

I am pissed.

In the, ah, UK sort of sense.

This is because I played a joint State of the Union address/NHL All-Stars Skills Competition Drinking Game. See, we heavily modified Adam Felber's 2007 State of the Union Drinking Game: Lame Duck Edition (which you should read). We modified it because we were playing with just the two of us, rather than a group, and rathered to drink heavily (listening to Bush requires some kind of numbing agent) than compete against one another, and we added in the caveats of: if any of the boys in the NHL fell on their face during the Skills Competition, or made the four targets they were trying to aim their pucks at in four shots, we'd have a shot (we listened to the speech on the radio and watched the competition on TV). Well, Ovechkin fell on his face, but the most of it was our Commander in Chief.

We drank if. . . :

...the President referred to something/someone as "evil"
...there was a package referenced that was $1 billion or more (unmet!)
...the suggested fix for a problem was a tax break or tax incentive (this was based on the "Fuck the Future!" section of the game)
...the President mentioned Iran in some kind of dangerous capacity (or referred to a use of force against Iran)
...the President mentioned one of those out-of-nowhere fixes that we were confident he'd never bring up again and had not brought up previously (the "Hyodrogen Car" section)
...he said "noo-kyah-luhr", instead of "noo-klee-uhr"
...he said anything about "bootstraps" (unmet!)
...he said "Nine-Eleven"
...he mentioned NCLB (FUCK YOU BUSH MAY YOU DIE AMIDST THE UNDEREDUCATED YOU ARE HARMING DAILY)

And, so, I'm done in. My Love was drinking first bourbon, then vodka (he sipped very lightly, each time), and I was drinking a mix of Rum, buttershotch liquer, and creme de cacao (in gulps). So you'll have an idea of the speech, if you didn't see it. I have a pretty high tolerance, and I can hardly see, now.

...It was, ah, pretty bad. But at least Sidney Crosby made a few pretty sexy goals...?

Ah, well. I am underfed, and shellfish await me.

"Chowchilla: A Unique Way of Life."

(So I'm late. I'm sorry!)

The drive back up from Los Angeles on New Year's Day was the least painful one we've had, at least as far as scary meth addicts, rude people in trucks, rubbernecking at the inevitable pile-ups, and "OHAAAHOHMYGODTHERE'SACURVE WHATDOWEDOOHNO" are concerned. But, perhaps because of the gentleness of the ride, I was noticing more of the charming roadsigns that start turning up north of Bakersfield.

The first set I noticed (at least, after the "I Am Thy Lord and God, Repent. --Jesus" signs) were buy-a-home signs. "Say goodbye to rent, say hello to a new home!" and "Break the rent cycle, buy a house!" which cleverly featured a man trapped inside of a front-loading washing machine, pressed desperately to the glass.

Yes! Yes, low-income, under-educated, likely-to-be-given-a-bad-loan with no information locals! Say goodbye to the days of scraping together your monthly rent check on minimum wage, and say hello to a mortgage! For more than what you're paying for that apartment, each month! Oh, and hello to homeowner's insurance! And the inevitable smear on your credit score that you'll never be able to get rid of, once the interest-only loan you've been sucked in by shifts into paying-down-the-principal mode, doubling your monthly payments and leaving you with no equity in the house when you have to default, move, or take out a new loan, and things go to hell! Hello, bankruptcy!



My next favorite sign was this: "Labels and seals on the outside don't change what's inside. Milk is Milk: why pay more?"

Hey, guys, do you know any elementary school teachers? Ever talk to them? You should! Go talk to a fourth grade teacher. Or, hell, try third! You know, people who teach eight and nine year old girls. Now go on, ask them about their students. You know, how interesting it is that the little girls are already on their periods, and have breasts bigger than the teachers do, when the average age for sexual maturation used to be 14--you know, an age slightly more likely to be associated with some actual maturity. And when sexual selection leans towards women who are tall and lanky--attributes far more likely to occur in women who matured later (that is, didn't start diverging from the more unisex path until later, and thus went further in the way of upward growth and the dissolution of baby fat than other girls).

Let me put that another way: in a culture that values willowy women, suggesting that those with the genes tending towards later sexual maturation will have had a somewhat stronger chance at breeding than those who don't, there is still a backwards trend in maturation. The likelihood of a girl maturing between 9 and 11 now far outweighs the likelihood for a girl to mature later.

It couldn't be that the hormones in our food are affecting children, though. Oh, no. Those "no rGBH growth hormones" or "Cows raised with no rBST" labels are meaningless!

And all those stories? You know, the ones that Monsanto sued American media outlets and reporters to repress the dissemination of, about how cows being treated with hormones are overwhelmingly ill and puss-ridden? Please. Whatever. Or how that little rule the FDA has, about how a food animal has to be sick to be given antibiotics, has led some to believe that cows raised in mass feedlots on corn they can't digest--the ones producing almost all of the nation's milk and beef, who are all being given antibiotics so their livers don't completely rot away from the impossible, grassless diet--are literally sick? You know, the ones whose organs and waste are actually toxic, and whose manure, thanks to agricultural farming runoff, has poisoned water and food supplies (silly little E. coli epidemics!), remember them?

Fah. Who cares? Why should I want to know these critters haven't been on antibiotics? Or have been fed grass, and allowed exercise? What effect could that possibly have on me?

Those studies on how the increase of antibiotics in our systems, and being used in our day-to-day lives, are actually destroying our natural ability to fight off disease on our own are probably useless, too, come to think.

So, right. Of ways to economize, the food we eat should be number one. Not smaller cars or fewer cable channels or fewer cigarettes or cheaper booze, no. Let's save by drinking the milk squeezed out of puss-filled udders. Cow-puss has plenty of health benefits just waiting to be discovered, I bet.



"Chowchilla: a unique way of life" is a long-standing favorite, but in a different way. It just gets my imagination moving. Mostly because when I called my mother from there, one day, she said, "Like the Chowchilla Massacre?* Where the guy drove the schoolbus into a ditch and buried all the kids?" I thought, unique, indeed! This time, the sign that caught my eye was the one advertising all of the amazing, affordable antiques in Chowchilla. You know, all the neat things abandoned, in good shape, by dead people.

*But to be fair, there was no massacre. Everyone came out safe and sound. Just a little buried!

Brief cross-post:

I am alive. I am back in Cali. I am, in fact, back at home base. I have spent so much hectic, broken-up time in Los Angeles and Holland, Ohio (next to Toledo). Celebrated so many holidays in various ways. Gotten so many hugs. Had a frickin' nasty cold. Which I got from (I think) Andy, in Long Beach, and passed on to Chris's dad in Ohio (and who knows how many others), but which is getting better. Met the gorgeous little angels that are apparently now my great-neices, and the people my age and several years older who are now basically my neices and nephews (Chris is much younger than his eldest brother, and his eldest brother's wife is older than him, and started early, to boot--some of her kids are Chris's age). I was pinned Tinsel Princess/Tinsel Fairy by the aforementioned angels (they were sticking tinsel in my hair), and I am absolutely in love, 'kay, thanks. I walked (well, ran) and washed dogs, I have comforted the cat, I have played more hands of cards than your mother, and probably more rounds of a domino game, too. I read, I sang, I danced, I flew more hours on more planes than is legal, and was identified nervously ("Byerly?") by one of the flight attendents, which may have to do with my likelihood-to-be-a-terrorist score, as the young man in front of me was also identified, and had been particularly harassed going through security (and attributed his own check-up-by-stewardess to the same). It's a possibility, anyway, fun fun.

I am partway through the catching up phase, but only partly. I'm considering putting on pants and going over to the movie store to rent Little Miss Sunshine, to make an attempt on liquifying my brain into some kind of calm.

I have laughed a lot. And had a very good time.

And I love my moose. Chris's folks gave us this little fellow they picked up at a grocery/farm-equipment/candy/kitsch/etc. store near them, and he has not left my side since. And I have been on an unholy streak of game-winning terror since (attempts have been made on the well-being of my moose, in fact!)

I love him, and loved him just as vibrantly before I whispered to him, "I need the blue nine, moosey" and drew the blue nine immediately after, and won three rounds in a row before anyone else had a chance to lay down a card. I loved him on sight, with his big soft nose and soulful black plastic eyes, and then loved him even more trying to find a name for him (loopy at 2 am). And it is as thus: His name is BonBon. Also, Super BonBon. But his proper name is Baba, BonBon being a nickname therefrom. Baba au Moose, or Baba au Moosey, the Moose, the Inimitable, Indomitable, Inabominominabable Snow Moose, the Moose [Stuffed]. (The end bit is read "Moose, Brackets, Stuffed, Close Brackets.") He is also sometimes called Moosey. And I sing him, "Teenage Mooseland! It's only teenage MOOSEland. . ." and "Super Bon Bon." I love this moose.

And as I have been long looking for some way to swear and express surprise without bringing someone's religion into it (OH MY GOD, Jesus CHRIST) or a neutering-to-avoid-blasphemy of the same (Oh my gosh! Jeeze! Jeezopeets!), I am officially taking to OH. MY. MOOSE.

There'll be something (in the blogspot journal) about "Chowchilla: A Unique Way of Life" and other infuriating/absurd roadsigns tomorrow, I think, once I've finished catching up on the wonderful smut what awaits me in the slash communities I adore. And then maybe I'll get around to finishing some smut (well, fic) myself.

Bleeding. And drinking very buttery mint-and-tarragon tea. And must find pants, for to go retrieve a movie.

LOVE.