Old RedHeadDread

Shifting homes

2003-09-11T13:24:00.000-04:00

Ok, I have the new site pretty much how I want it. There is still some tweaking to be done, but it's more or less finished.

You can visit me in my new home at www.fullbleed.net/redheaddread. If things don't look okay there, please let me know.

Oh, and I'm having a hard time moving the posts from this site to that one. If anyone can give me clearer instructions than the ones MT provides, I would really appreciate it.

Move in Progress

2003-09-11T10:29:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Dru Blood, this blog will be moving to Full Bleed soon. No more Blogger drama for me. Yippee! Obviously, I won't be posting much as I'll be busy getting my new digs all comfy. Stay tuned for the new address.

Toddler mystery solved.

2003-09-06T19:32:00.000-04:00

Toddler mystery solved.

For weeks K-zilla's been walking around saying something that sounded remarkably like "disco." I couldn't figure it out. I mean I like Donna Summer as much as the next person, and if you wanna see me shake my groove thing just put on some "Funkytown," but it's not like I walk around talking about disco every day. If that was what she was saying, where did she pick it up?

Today the mystery has been solved. On ABC at 9 eastern (8 central), my current favorite Saturday morning cartoon comes on. Fillmore is basically a cop show set in X Middle School (I like to think it's X for Malcolm) where the officers are members of the school Safety Patrol instead of cops on the beat. Cornelius Fillmore is the star. His (goth) partner's name is Ingrid Third. His goldfish's name is Thelonius. I love this show. It is so witty and snarky and spoofs adult cop shows so prefectly, I can't help it. I watch nearly every week, rerun or no. My favorite thing about it? There is no white man in any real authority postion. They're all women, or kids of color, or both. I know it's up against Jackie Chan Adventures. I'm a big fan of that as well, but I flip to JCA on the commercials, I watch Fillmore.

This place is on grounds that all schools should have. The facilities are amazing. Yes, I know it's not real, but still. And the clubs they have! You name it, X Middle School has a club for it. I've told V. more than once, "I want to go to X Middle School."

So does this have to do with my kid's mystery pronouncement? It's Fillmore's catchphrase for when things go well. They find that piece of evidence they need to figure out who's kidnapped the school mascot? "Disco," says Fillmore. Ingrid's catchphrase is for when things don't go so well? Like when they had a little trouble catching the person who'd stolen all the books out of the (enormous) school library? "Crackers." Hmmmm.

K-zilla said it again just now, so clearly I couldn't be mistaken.
"Disco."
"What did you say?"
"Disco."
"Disco?"
"Fiwmore."
That's my girl.

Oh, and there hasn't been a better crime show themesong/opening montage combo since "Ironsides," and that's the truth. Saturday mornings at 9 (8 central), people. Don't sleep on my boy Cornelius. Or Ingrid, "the smartest kid in school."

Amalgamated Housing

2003-09-06T14:27:00.000-04:00

We sent in our application last week for the Amalgamated Housing. Please send us some "get a new apartment/home ownership" vibes.

It's not that I don't love it where we are. I really do, despite the old ladies who yell at us for not chasing K-zilla off the grass fast enough and for letting her draw with chalk on the walkways of the complex. It's a real community, which is sometimes hard to find in the big city. The rent is more than reasonable, it's convenient to public transportation and the highway, other than the lack of a korean deli, this neighborhood has great amenities. Which is probably why we're being priced out of it due to gentrification. This is the second time this has happened to us, and it's a common problem here in Manhattan. The complex we live in is owned by the same folks who own Stuyvesant Town, the apartment floor plans are identical and so on. Why? Well, because this was "the black Stuyvesant Town" back in the day when no black folks were allowed to live in Stuyvesant Town or Peter Cooper Village. This is true, despite the disbelief of certain privileged members of the younger generation when they hear it. My mom tells stories of getting chased off the grounds by the security guards when she would cut through there on her way home from school in the 50's. Of course it's integrated now, but for how long? In the last few years, Stuyvesant Town, long considered a key pillar in affordable middle class rental housing in Manhattan, closed their famous years-long waiting list, kicked everyone off it despite the protests, renovated the buildings and the grounds from top to bottom, and went to market rent. They now advertise as luxury apartments, and the rent on this exact same apartment only renovated and in a more desirable part of the city is about 3 times what we pay. If you go by now you'll see that there is a gated community in the heart of Manhattan. As a life-long New Yorker this really makes me angry. All the signs are pointing towards that as the future of this place as well, I think, though a good long way down the road.

We could stay and reap the rewards of "luxury apartment living," though even if they renovate up here I guarantee you it won't be as swanky as they made the apartments down there. Why don't we? Lots of reasons, but mainly because this is still just a rental, because of the herd of Young Urban Professional white men on cell phones I saw walking through the complex on their way to check out apartments while K-zilla was getting her play on earlier this summer (I guess it didn't suit them), because one of the signs of what's to come is that when I asked the office about transferring to a larger apartment the woman immediately answered, "We're not taking any internal transfers." Period. So we could stay, and raise our family in this apartment which is too small already, to say nothing of what happens whould we have another child. Or we could go and "realize the American Dream of home ownership" in a place where the community makes the decisions about what happens, where there is child care, where the community is really diverse, where my child isn't going to be woken up by rush hour traffic rolling down Fifth Avenue at 6:45 every morning (to say nothing of the particulate matter that collects on our window sills 8 stories up, from all those diesel engines. Yum). And did I mention that Van Cortlandt Park is right across the street from the Amalgamated? Oh yeah baby, don't say another word.

Light a candle or something for us, please. Okay?

When in doubt, bake.

2003-09-05T17:31:00.000-04:00

I love to bake. Whenever I find myself getting restless and anxious and wandering the house in antsy circles like I don't know what to do with myself, it's time to pick a recipe.

Cooking and baking are two different skill sets, though there is a fair amount of overlap. I know lots of people who are great cooks but can't bake, and a few who can bake but can't cook. Baking is about precision, usually, and a light touch. People who are good cooks, but don't bake are usually folks who cook by "vibration." They make it up as they go along, and most baked goods won't stand for that. It is rare to find someone who bakes by "vibration," who can just throw some ingredients in a bowl, mix it up, and have it be scrumptious. Me? I just know how to read and follow a recipe. I can make things up when I cook and I do enjoy doing that, but when that fuzzy restlessness comes on me, it's time to preheat the oven and start baking. There's something about following precise directions, in a particular order, and then licking the bowl that helps me zone out in a good way and regroup. And then of course, I get to eat whatever it was I made. Theraputic all around, no? I wonder what Atkins Diet people do when they have mental meltdowns? Make BLTs, hold the toast, maybe?

Today I made the carrot cake from Cooks' Illustrated, March & April 2003 issue for the first time. It's cooling now, and when I'm done writing this entry I'm going to make the cream cheese frosting (I usually don't bother frosting cakes) and then K-zilla and I will try it out. It smells very good. I suppose I ought to figure out what's for dinner as well, but if worse comes to worst, then we'll have cake.

2003-09-04T10:37:00.000-04:00

National Do Not Call Registry

Oh yeah. Five years of peace, baby.

2003-09-04T10:24:00.000-04:00

I have been deep down in the bones exhausted ever since the weekend and my blogging, and more importantly my mothering, is suffering for it. Last night I realized that K-zilla and I are probably fighting off colds, and that's likely why we're exhausted, cranky, and one of us wants to nurse and cling every damn nanosecond she's not demanding to watch a video.

Of course we're out of echinacea (how did that happen? I thought I just bought some... a year ago. Ooops!), and there's no food to speak of in the house as the long holiday weekend has thrown off our usual routine. Time to regroup.

Oh, and does anyone know how long that Do Not Call registry for stopping telemarketers from calling the house just as your kid's about to fling her dinner across the room is supposed to last? Is it forever, or is there a time limit and you have to re-up after that? Because in the last two weeks all these spanish language telemarketers have started calling my house like I'm giving away free tickets to see their favorite sex symbol shimmy live on Sabado Gigante, and they're confused by the fact that my spanish ranges from piss poor to non-existent, and although my husband's last name is Latino (though he doesn't use the accent-- tsk tsk) he doesn't speak much all that much spanish either. Go figure. And while you're figuring, please stop calling me, dammit, I'm feeling whupped here.

2003-09-02T16:55:00.000-04:00

Hey, remember all my gushing and raving about Nalo Hopkinson? Of course you do. Well, who knew she had a blog? Well, now I do thanks to Uppity Negro. Yippee!

2003-09-01T20:43:00.000-04:00

Travelling with a two year old can really wipe a mama out. Later I will write about all our adventures this weekend, or maybe I won't, but mostly I just want to say two things, very quickly before I fall asleep.

Danielle and Julio: you are the very best. Thank you.

Sarah: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, and many happy returns of the day! I've called and it's been busy so I'm assuming grand things are happening on your day. Mwah!

2003-08-29T14:46:00.000-04:00

If you're willing to suffer through the ad to get a day pass to Salon.com this article about books featuring black geeks is very good. I was drawn to the article as it refers to this book by E. L. Konisberg, which I read compulsively as a child.

2003-08-29T07:28:00.000-04:00

Mini Book Reviews for Small Fry!

When she's not in full rampage, K-zilla loves to "read" and be read to, just like her mama and papa. You haven't lived until you've heard her version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Apparently it's a very looooong story of "circles," "new shoes," and various foods, some of which she's never seen in real life, but has memorized from hearing the story. Anyway, I know how hard it is to find quality kids books among the dreck, I hate paying $15 for a crappy book with crappy pictures as much as the next mama, and I feel certain of the "classics," both new and old, can really chafe a mindful parent's ass, so I thought I'd talk about some of K-zilla's favorites. Some are well-known, and some aren't (yet).

The first book K-zilla started "reading" along with was Moo Baa La La La by Sandra Boynton. It's short, it's snappy, and it rhymes-- Bingo! Instant hit! She still shrieks out the animal noises as we read (this is not such a good bedtime book in this house, but you may find otherwise), and still refuses to say a word at the end when asked "What do you say?" Our version is a board book, which is good, because it's, um, well-loved. It comes in a spanish language version which I haven't actually seen, as well.

K-zilla learned all the noises that animals "say" long before she learned things like colors. She has priorities, after all. Books like Quick as a Cricket are always big hits as she loves to make all the animal noises, while we read text like, "I'm as quick as a cricket. I'm as slow as a snail. I'm as small as an ant. I'm as big as a whale." The pictures are nice, too. It's by the same folks that did The Napping House, but I prefer the Cricket book.

Owl Babies is an instant classic. It is much loved and the source of many dramatic readings around here (say it with me! "'I want my mommy,' said Bill"), because what could be more dramatic than the story of three young owls who wake up one night to find their mother gone, and while they're pretty sure she's out hunting for food, there's always that little kernel of doubt. Sarah is the brains of the operation, Percy's trying to follow Sara's lead, and Bill is just all about the mama love with no room for anything else. Bill Waddell, who wrote it, has teamed up with different illustrators to do other good ones like Farmer Duck with Helen Oxenbury, and The Pig in the Pond with Jill Barton. K-zilla has only read these books, we don't yet own them. The other Waddell book we own is Webster J. Duck. I'm sorry this link doesn't let you see any of the pictures because they're beautiful watercolors, and Webster is such a cutie as drawn by David Parkins. It's another tale of being separated from Mama, only this time Webster hatches while mama duck is out having a swim. He sets off to find her, and runs into other animals instead (yup, another one where K-zilla likes to make the noises). The recurring line in this book is "'You're not my mother,' Webster said. 'My mother would say,"Quack quack," like me.'"

People! Don't we read any books with people? Well, yes. Tar Beach is in heavy heavy rotation around here. I was surprised she was willing to sit still for the whole story given that she's just made two and we've been reading it for months, but there you go. Another long book meant for older kids she's really into is The Rainbabies, which she just got on Sunday, and has heard at least once every single day since. Red is a Dragon: A Book of Colors is one everyone around here likes to read, and Pedrito's Day is another.

I'm running out of time, and I haven't even scratched the surface of her shelves. More later, including books I can't stand that are "children's classics," and the reasons why. But before I go, I have to mention the best kids' magazines. When I was a girl, there was only Cricket, and the cover said "Cricket: The Literary Magazine for Children." Now there's a whole family of magazines that take a kid from 6 months to the teen years, and I just saw they have videos and a book club too! The magazines are pricey but oh so worth it, so maybe if someone is looking for a gift for your kid you could mention these? Also, lots of libraries carry them so keep an eye out. We're talking quality stories from all over the world, long before diversity became a buzzword. I always read my issue cover to cover the day it came in the mail, and then went back and read it again more slowly over the course of the month. K-zilla's Babybugs are chewed on and taped up. I caught her standing and bouncing on one issue and finally realized she was trying to get inside the picture. If that's not a recommendation, I don't know what is.

2003-08-28T16:23:00.000-04:00

Time for Mini Book Reviews!

Ok, I did a bunch of these and Poof! I accidentally hit the wrong button and erased them. So if I don't sound as enthusiastic as I might, it's just that I may have used it all up the first go 'round.

I've been reading Speculative Fiction out the wazoo these days. You know, Speculative fiction. It's not quite Science Fiction in that you don't have to have gotten an A in physics to enjoy it, and it's not quite Fantasy, in that there aren't necessarily any elves with 5 syllable names running around on quests in it, but it's still not set in the world you and I live in on a daily basis. Two of my favorite authors of all time whose work you really, really need to read if you haven't already, fit into this category, though they might disagree with me on this. Octavia Butler and Nalo Hopkinson will rock your world if you would just get their books and read them, already. I'd start with Kindred, especially if you think Science Fiction is not for you, and then once you're hooked (and I know you will be, in fact if you aren't impressed I'd love an email telling me why), you can dive into Lilith's Brood, and really get happy. After that you really can't go wrong, no matter which you choose, though Parable of the Sower is right up there with Song of Solomon as my all time favorite book ever.

For folks who need a starting point with Nalo Hopkinson's work, I'd start with Skin Folk, her short stories, and then go to Midnight Robber or Brown Girl in the Ring. She's also edited some collections that are worth your time, such as Mojo: Conjure Stories. But these are old favorites. I just have to put them out there on the chancce that you haven't read them, because I swear by all that is holy, you shouldn't live another day without these sisters in your life.

So, what have I been reading since the last reviews? Glad you asked.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. I love her work, but it's disturbing. V. asked me if I was enjoying this book the other day and I said, "Enjoying? No. I don't think her work is ever enjoyable, but this is very, very good." Of all her work (and there's a lot of it) it reminds me most of The Handmaid's Tale as she uses a similar device of looking at certain aspects of society/technology now, asking the eternal question "What if..." and then just running with it. Octavia Butler uses this device extremely well in Parable of the Sower, and I have always found it to be deeply disturbing when done well as Atwood and Butler do.

Near future dystopic societies seem to be a theme with me as I have just started Jennifer Government, by Max Barry and Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow. Actually I'm not sure the society in the Doctorow book is dystopic, though I sure wouldn't want to live there. So far, and I only just started them both today, they are enjoyable and interesting. The little I've read of the Barry book so far reminds me of William Gibson's Sprawl books, and that's a good thing if you ask me. If I wasn't writing this right now, I'd be reading that instead.

Ahem. Now that I've outed myself as a complete SF/F geek (if you have to ask...) I'll just throw caution to the wind. Every now and then a book pops up in front of me and I wonder why I haven't already read it. So how The Dalemark Quartet series completely slipped by me, I don't quite know. This is particularly surprising as they were all written in the 1970's when I was a girl reading things like The Chronicles of Narnia, and the Prydain books. They are young adult novels, probably aimed at middle school aged children. I found them very enjoyable and they reminded me of the Wizard of Earthsea "trilogy" (yes, a four book "trilogy." Newer editions call it a "cycle." Hey, why hasn't anyone made an Earthsea movie? I'd be first in line!) in certain respects, minus the dragons, crossed with The Dark is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper (possibly my favorite young adult fantasy series, despite the whole light=good, dark=evil thing). This is very good young adult writing. As an adult reading it, I never felt that the writing was dumbed down for kids, a common problem, or that it was anything other than entertaining and interesting despite the fact that I am a good deal older than the intended audience. In fact in the third book, The Spellcoats, I was completely at the mercy of the plot. I couldn't tell what was going to happen next to save my life, and I stayed up way too late one night finishing it. These books deal with class issues, a hint of labor organizing, fighting against oppression in ways that are relevant today, bias and accepting differences, and so on. A good book for adults may deal with themes that are just too much for kids, but a good kids' book can be enjoyed by everyone, as J. K. Rowling is doing her damnedest to prove. I think the Dalemark books may have been out of print for a time, which is a shame, but they're back now, so do yourself and any middle schoolers you know a favor.

Last but far far far from least, Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson. Nakachi was the one that nudged me to swipe it off my mom's shelf and read it after all these years and am I glad she did. I wish I could permalink to her post about this book because it was so much more eloquent than anything I could say here, but I'll try. Folks. People. Brothers and Sisters. The man was amazing. A truly beautiful soul. And it's all there on the page. His journey in these letters as angry young man, aware that something is just not right with the Way Things Are, is just incredible. You can see him progress away from sexism, trying to awaken his parents to what's happening with him and in the world at large, doing his best by his younger brother Jonathan, even though they rarely see each other. The few letters to Angela Davis are so beautiful they made me cry. You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist by any stretch to say, "he was too dangerous to the Powers that Be to be allowed to live."

2003-08-27T14:37:00.000-04:00

To paraphrase the NY Lotto people, all you need is an essay and a dream.

2003-08-26T19:42:00.000-04:00

More mini book reviews coming when I get a chance... It's a gotdamn whirlwind of activity around here, people.

2003-08-26T18:54:00.000-04:00

Two years ago today K-zilla the Lizard Queen made her glorious entrance into the open air.

I should have known she was gonna be a fiesty one. Before she was even fully born, only her little peanut head had emerged, and Gloria the Greatest Midwife Evah was clearing out her nose and mouth, when all of a sudden Gloria hollered, "Ack! It bit me!" I said something and K-zilla turned around, her body still in the birth canal, to see me because she recognized my voice. She looked me dead in the eyes, and we bonded right then and there. And then Gloria gently took the cord from around K-zilla's neck, I gave one last push and WHOOSH! out she came, and the nurses wiped her off and put her on my chest as Gloria called out "it's a girl!" and my sister M. ran into the room from the waiting area next door. I was flabbergasted. I just knew she was gonna be a boy. All everyone else in that room could talk about was the fact that I had pushed her out in 15 minutes (and it would have been less if I'd had time to get upright like I wanted to do, but after literally hours of not pushing despite the Urge to do so, I just said fuck it and growled her right out so fast I tore, though I didn't know it until Gloria said she needed to sew me up), and all I could think was "You little sneak, you tricked me! It's a good thing you're so damn cute... "

It was truly a great day. One of the very best I've ever had.

After two years I've come to the realization that I may have tricked myself. I was so afraid of having a boy, that I think I told myself she was one so that I wouldn't be disappointed. I had resigned myself to ugly boy clothes in boring colors, people trying to machoify my son, making comments about sports, and so on. I had no confidence in my ability to rear a son who defied society by not becoming a predator or some other form of asshole, despite V's point that it was more his responsibility to do this than mine. When she emerged in her girlness I was able to be delighted and surprised rather than anxious and surprised.

Now that I've experienced mamahood firsthand, I think I am ready to have a son. I have met enough mamas of sons who I respect (I respect both the mama and the son, that is) that for my next child I can truly say, I'll be happy either way. I think to have had a son first though would have been too much for me. Now that I am comfortable with the aspects of caring for a child that are gender neutral, I can take on the fights that are sure to crop up around society's expectations for boys/men, especially boys of color, versus my expectations for my children, regardless of their gender.

The whole day has passed since I started this entry. Auntie, Ti-Muk, and cousin Tristan came over to play and stayed for hours. K-zilla had a good day, the highlight of which was getting to bathe with Tristan, which she asks to do every single night without fail, ever since the time about 2 months ago when he took a bath with her. If that's not a great birthday present I don't know what is. They were very cute in there together, but I ran out of film on Sunday and haven't bought any more since. They have such cousin love, it's amazing.

2003-08-25T09:54:00.000-04:00

Ok, K's party went very, very well. Better than I would have dared to hope. V's response? "Of course it went well. You worry too much. These people all know each other by now. They met each other when we got married, at K-zilla's baby shower, and last year's birthday party." Oh. Right. Anxious? Who, me?

Most people followed the "no gifts" request, and what she did get was pretty wonderful (A beautiful tea set! A super soft stuffed monkey! A savings bond! Clothes! Nice baby dolls and doll clothes! Books!). The weather was perfect, and the kids played while the grownups talked and chased the little ones around the playground. We ended up with a ton of pizza left over as a few people didn't show up (yippee, it's all in my freezer and fridge!), the watermelon was seedless (hooray!). Unfortunately, I must've lost count of how many cups of water I added while making Grandma Hazel's lemonade recipe as it was a little too strong (and it was pulpy, much to Mike Jr's dismay), but we drank it all anyway and agreed that too strong beats too weak. The kids got bubbles and balloons as party favors, and the cake was good and they spelled K-zilla's name right (always a crapshoot). Next year I'll look into spill-proof bubbles. Who knew there was such a thing?

I sent the film into Shutterfly this morning so we should have pictures by the weekend.

We all slept well last night but I seem to be getting a cold. Post-stress illness? Who, me?

2003-08-22T10:15:00.000-04:00

Friday Five
1. When was the last time you laughed?
This morning with K-zilla.

2. Who was the last person you had an argument with?
K-zilla, about getting ready to go. If you can call it an argument. Her side was mostly non-verbal.

3. Who was the last person you emailed
MamaBandita

4. When was the last time you bathed?
Last night right before bed, and I'm about to shower again. Yeah, baby, it's a heatwave.

5. What was the last thing you ate?
A smoked Gouda soy cheese omlette and a big cuppa chai. Yum.

2003-08-21T16:39:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking about my party anxiety.

I think part of it stems from the fact that neither of us had big birthday parties as kids. V.'s family was Jehovah's Witnesses, and they don't celebrate birthdays, and my immediate family's version of a birthday paerty was you got to invite 3 friends to the beach (we all have summer birthdays) and/or choose what the family would eat for dinner, to which Grandma Hazel would be invited. My mom would make the cake of your choice, and then we'd sing and do gifts, one from each person. That was it. And it was good. I don't remember any of us ever complaining about a lack of hoopla.

But as I said, the family has grown since then, what with divorces and remarriages and so on. V's family will probably come, JW issues notwithstanding, and it's impossible to do a simple dinner at home with all these damn people, who will be irked if they aren't invited. I don't think K-zilla could tolerate a Chuck E CHeese type place. It would be sensory overload for her, though the idea of paying someone to take the whole thing off my hands is awfully tempting. And as someone (Sandra?) pointed out, she's only two this year. She doesn't even know it's her birthday, after all. Next year though, she'll know and I'll be able to say, "She doesn't want a party so we're not having one..." Oh happy day!

2003-08-21T11:28:00.000-04:00

I've sent questions to those who have asked for them so far. Any other takers?

2003-08-21T00:39:00.000-04:00

I don't know why Wednesday is at the top of the page, when I have posts for Thursday...

Blogger is getting weirder and weirder.

2003-08-21T00:22:00.000-04:00

5 Questions

Here are the rules of the interview game!

1. Leave a comment saying you want to be interviewed.
2. I'll reply and give you five questions to answer.
3. You'll update your LJ or blog with the five questions answered.
4. You'll include this explanation.
5. You ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed. And it just keeps going, and going, and going.

My questions are from DruBlood.

1) what method do you use for deciding what book to read next?

Oh, see, now you done did it.

*Ahem*

I read a lot. Simultaneously. If I kept that list on the left sidebar properly updated it would eat so much time I wouldn't really be able to get any reading done, and that still doesn't include things like magazines. And I read really fast. So I don't have to be terribly discriminating, because I don't feel like I'm wasting time when I read drivel, no matter how dressed up or down it is. Give me a couple of hours and I can knock through 200 pages without hardly trying. In fact, I think reading drivel can be deeply theraputic and soothing. And if K-zilla's not around to interrupt? Oh, look out, then I can really get some reading done.

So, right, how do I pick what's next? I used to read serendipitously, but now that I have a kid, I can't do that. I have to have a list. I still read the NY Times Book review every weekend, but now I add things to my list from it. When I get my mailer from the bookclub every 3 weeks or so, I go through it and see what catches my eye and it goes on the list. I get a lot of good recommendations from the mamas at MESSIRAP and Mama's Quilt. Also, from folks like Nakachi, Angel V. Shannon and you, Dru ( I liked The Monkey Wrench Gang, but I read it before I was doing the mini reviews so I didn't include it). Anytime someone says, "I'm reading this book, and it's really good..." my ears perk up. Then I pick an odd time, like 11:30 AM on a Tuesday or 9:15 PM on Saturday and I go to the NY Public Library catalog online, which I have bookmarked, and I add the titles to my interlibrary loan list. Once the books are in the house I pick by what calls to me off the stack first, and I try to be mindful of when things have to go back, so I don't keep pulling new things and have to pay late fees on anything. This can be problematic, as in cases where I've had to wait months for a book, and by the time it shows up I'm thinking, "Why did I want this again?" That happened with Drop City recently. It was good, but I would have whipped through it if I'd gotten it soon after I read the review. When it came it didn't fit with the other books I was reading, Soledad Brother and These Bones Are Not My Child, very well, so it was sort of, eh... I do recommend it though. Um, yeah, so that's how I pick. I reread a lot too, to recapture a mood, or to alter my mood. If I'm down I might pick something to cheer me up, or choose by the weather. Jane Eyre is good for February. The White Boy Shuffle is summery, or when you need a laugh-out-loud-oh-so-true book...

Sorry you asked now, aren't you?

2)Describe two of your most important accomplishments in life
Important? Hmm. Does K-zilla count? Well, her birth does, you can read about the accomplished aspects of it here, though it does leave out the part where I screamed, "I can't push that way!" and other unhelpful bits.

After a bit of thought I think I'm proudest of the fact that I managed to get through the worst phases of my depression, my adolescence, and my mid-twenties meltdown, without medication (unless you count self-medication which I don't). This is in no way to knock or slight anyone who needs/takes meds. By all means do what you need to do to get through the day and the night, folks! But with V's help, I realized that I needed to stop listening to the culture and its norms and expectations, and start listening to myself and my gut instincts, and voila! no more completely debilitating, can't-get-out-of-bed-in-the-morning depression! Getting rid of the teevee helped a lot too...

3) Do you fold your toilet paper, or do you bunch it?
Ha! Both. I fold then bunch. 4 squares please, waste not want not.

4) Describe a person or event that influenced your life.
I've had a lot of positive influences. And a lot of negative ones. I think my elementary school experience did the most to make me who I am. Having a bunch of 1970's hippy lesbians as teachers was influential in ways I have not even half made sense of and it's 25 years later... Now it's still an alternative school, but the staff has changed, and I don't think K-zilla would get the same things from it if she went there when the time came. It would still be good. She would still do well there. It would still encourage critical thinking in ways that most schools don't (though they certainly should!) and she would still learn things like how to run a 19th century printing press, and so on, but as the song says, "those days are gone forever, I should just let 'em go..."

5) If you did not have a child, what would you be doing right now?
Wallowing in misery, without a doubt. I'd probably still be working a job I hated, for not enough money, and be anti-social without the good excuse of a child. I'd like to think that I'd be breaking out of that life, but it would have been a much slower process without K-zilla. I have to model integrity for her, and that means no more swallowing my passions and calling it practicality.

Okay, next victim! Line forms to the left...

2003-08-20T11:42:00.000-04:00

I sent out the invitations for K-zilla's second birthday party the other day. I guess that means we actually have to have the party now, right?

These are the aspects of parenting that I loathe. The having to socialize in culturally prescribed ways. Feeling responsible for other people's good time makes me anxious and irritable beyond belief. I am thinking that it would be sooooo much easier to just ignore the whole party aspect and have a nice family dinner, until you consider that just family, her grandparents, aunts, uncles and first cousins, adds up to about 15 people, not including me, V. and K-zilla herself. I can't have, nor do I want, all these people in my house, so we're going to the playground downstairs, where I know they will ignore my note about "no gifts," and I will feed them pizza, juice, and soda, run with my girl through the sprinkler, and kick everyone out with a balloon after 2 hours. Two of the friends I actually want to come have already bowed out due to schedule conflicts, and so I'm just hoping we don't end up surrounded by just the people we were obliged to invite, and that things go well.

Hey, maybe it will rain and we can cancel!

2003-08-17T22:43:00.000-04:00

Mike at Move the Crowd had this link to the Gothamist that has some good pics of what things were like in downtown Manhattan last Thursday.

But that was downtown. Up in Harlem it just looked like we were having a particularly sweaty block party with folks wandering the streets with their glow sticks, flashlights, and water.

2003-08-17T22:29:00.000-04:00

Bishakh, this is just for you.

You are "Sheila take a bow."
You know that life hurts, and you've had your share
of pain, but that doesn't mean you can't still
have a good time. You know the importance of
not dwelling on your problems. You have a
generally positive outlook, and you are a
really good friend.

Which Smiths song are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

2003-08-17T22:21:00.000-04:00

"And the situation again underscored how with all our technology, we really are just upright animals that go into fight or flight mode when that technology fails. Few of our precious gadgets were of use."

This right here is just a taste of why you shouldn't sleep on Iris over at Unfurnished Brooklyn. She doesn't update as much as I'd like, but then we all know I'm just greedy.

2003-08-17T21:17:00.000-04:00

Though I have my issues with Adbusters ( fatphobia, anyone?), I am intrigued by this, especially in light of Nike's recent purchase of Converse.

2003-08-15T21:56:00.000-04:00

Oh! And my archive and permalinks should be working now! Finally...

2003-08-15T21:38:00.000-04:00

We're back! Today was like a snow day in the middle of the summer!

We're all fine. K-zilla now believes blackouts are adventures where you get to use candles and flashlights, bathe in the sink, and have Auntie sleep over.

I owe Patricia the Phabulous Physical Therapist big time. One of the things she does with K-zilla every single visit is walk up and down the stairs of our building. As we live on the 8th floor we only rarely go all the way down, instead we usually walk up to the roof which would be the 13th floor, and then back down to 8, or lower if she's not too distracted by then. Yesterday V. and I found out that the water pump for the building is on the same generator that runs the lights. No lights? No water. So when Auntie got to our house after walking here from her job on 65th street (about 3.5 miles, in her cute shoes, not her kicks!) we all went back downstairs to the bodega (do they have bodegas in other places? It's like a mini-grocery store/deli only found in the 'hood, usually run by latinos, but mine happens to be run by arabic speakers) to buy some bottled water. On the way back up it became clear that there was no way we could carry K-zilla and two gallons of water and a flashlight. So I told K-zilla she had to walk up the stairs like she did with Patricia. Other than saying "Dark! Dark!" whenever the flashlight veered and "Messy! Messy!" whenever it shone on some stairwell graffiti, she hiked up those 8 flights like a champ. She was perkier at the top than either Auntie or Mama, but then, we had both had a verrrry long day.

V. walked from Soho to 86th and Madison until it got so dark he was afraid he was going to get hit by a car and gave up to wait for a bus he could squeeze onto. That's about 7 miles (in his kicks, not his cute shoes!). He didn't get home 'til almost 10 PM.

2003-08-12T18:05:00.000-04:00

K-zilla strikes again. Another long post poof! gone.

I'm going to drink some tea, listen to soothing music and think about the many many many reasons why it would be bad to stuff my child in the freezer...

2003-08-11T11:55:00.000-04:00

I had a whole post pretty much ready to go yesterday, with mini-book reviews panning some of the drecky stuff I've been reading lately, but K-zilla swooped in when my back was turned, and in less than three seconds she had deleted the entire post and shut down the browser. Who needs thermo-nuclear breath to cause havoc and destruction? Not my girl.

I found a link to a new-to-me web comic today via boingboing.net, called Spiders. It is about as far from Bishakh's Paradise Place as one can get in terms of both style and content, but fangirl that I am, I'm still enjoying it. I've only read the first installment so far, but it reminds me of Frank Miller's Martha Washington series, and as another Martha would say, "That's a good thing..."

2003-08-08T11:10:00.000-04:00

Kathy Wilson is onto something here, though I would disagree with her that "Bugs is a brotha." No no no. Daffy Duck is a brotha, as I have said before. Bugs is more complicated. He has one foot on either side of the race line. He's a brotha when it's convenient.

Or maybe, as she goes on to explain, he's in "reverse drag" and I just don't understand the term as she's using it. Could that translate into "whiteface?" Hmmmm...

2003-08-08T10:40:00.000-04:00

Here is K-zilla in her super-clunky-oh-so-heavy new shoes. Note the L-shape of my poor child and imagine the workout those little chicken legs were getting lugging those all-leather-sweat-machines around.

No more, though!

Because this is her in her new lightweight-speed-demon-still-3-sizes-bigger-than-normal-still-very-L-shaped-breathable-canvas shoes. She is very happy with her "limousines for the feet."

The pictures of the orthotics themselves in all their Spongebob glory are on the other roll of film, so you'll see them in a few more days. Patience! The spot of blue in the top photo is the ankle portion of the orthotic, so you can see how they rise up to help hold her feet in place. The Chuck Taylors cover them completely so you can't see any of the orthotics in the second photo.

2003-08-05T17:40:00.000-04:00

This over at The Squeaky Weasel Gets The Grease made me laugh harder than I have done in quite some time.

2003-08-05T13:58:00.000-04:00

Hello, my name is RedHeadDread and I love comics.

Newspaper comics, comic books, independents, graphic novels, cover art, splash panels, even the occasional superhero story. I like getting swept into a story and waiting to see what happens in the next issue. I like how the art and words work together to tell a story that neither could tell alone in the same way. I'm really starting to enjoy webcomics though, because I don't have to brave the bowels of a comic shop to read interesting, entertaining stuff, nor beg V. to go and pick up things I want so that I don't have to go in and evade conversations with certain, um, less socially adept comic aficionados.

My friend Bishakh's new webcomic, Paradise Place, is up at www.serializer.net. That's an unrelated sample of his work up above.

I could gush on and on about the first installment here, but you should really just click on over and check it out for yourself. Bishakh's smart and talented to be sure, but mostly he's subtle and he tells a good story. It's just 18 panels thus far and I am so very impatient to know what happens next.

2003-08-04T15:31:00.000-04:00

I was perusing bOINGbOING.net this afternoon (and so should you when you're done here) and I ran across this post entitled "New Censorship: How scandals get neutralized." It's mostly a quote from the most recent Harper's which happens to be sitting in my living room, as yet unread by me. I was reading the excerpts posted at the site and thinking "Ugh. How true (except for the bit about suspecting that it's all going to work out in our favor in the long run)..."

I thought for a moment about getting my copy of the magazine and reading the article in it's entirety, but I think I'm at the wrong point in my cycle for that today. I'd surely end up on a rooftop somewhere with a weapon and a black beret giving my list of demands to the police through a bullhorn (can you tell I also have a copy of Soledad Brother in my living room right now? Thanks Nakachi!). Why is this bad? Well, my comadre small hands put it best when she said:

Cause you would die for: Die? And leave my children? None.

2003-08-03T20:36:00.000-04:00

So, I've been reading again. Actually, I never stopped. As usual, all my inter-library loans came at once last week. So here we go with more mini book reviews.

I read The Blue Place by Nicola Griffith. This was a very good mystery, excellent summer reading. I love mysteries, and especially ones where the main character is a woman, and is capable of taking care of herself. I particularly liked it as we spent a few weeks in Oslo (yes, Norway!) nearly a year ago, and I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that the second half of this novel takes place there. Griffith has written other books that I've really enjoyed (Slow River in particular blew me away), but they were SF books. It's nice to see that her skills are strong no matter what genre she's working in. She just tells good stories about people I find interesting. There's a sequel called Stay, that just arrived and I'm looking forward to it.

What else? I've started These Bones Are Not My Child but though it is every bit as good as I had been led to believe, I'm having a hard time with it. Why? Because I remember that summer of child murders, I was old enough to appreciate the fact that I was a kid in NYC, not in Atlanta. My family, hundreds of miles away from where those kids we did not know at all were disappearing, was freaked enough for me, sensitive child that I was, to pick up on it. But that's only a tiny part of why I can't finish this book at my usual blistering speed. The other part is that I'm a mother now, and it truly is, like some other wise person has said, as though your heart is walking around outside of your body. And, as if that wasn't enough, my kid is a runner. She loves nothing better than to walk off from where we are, despite the millions of repetitions of "We all have to leave to playground together. No leaving the playground without mama and papa." My mother spent our last trip to the beach telling me to relax, she wasn't going to go far, until of course, she did. She also disappeared in our one and only trip to Walmart for a good 5 minutes, as my heart pounded and the adrenaline surged. She truly hadn't gone far this time, but she had gone tricky, making a sharp left and doubling back, while my step-mother looked to the right, and I went straight to every mother's worst nightmare.

So, you can see how this book which starts with a child's disappearance might be slow reading for me. But I haven't put it aside, because it is good, good, good. The other Toni (Morrison, who edited the book, not Cade Bambara who wrote it), says that it is Bambara's masterwork. And I have to say that from what I've read so far, it surely is. So I recommend it, to anyone other than the parents of toddlers and adolescents, because they tend to be the ones who disappear and make their parents frantic with worry the most.

I've been reading cookbooks too. How to be a Domestic Goddess, by Nigella Lawson is such food porn I can't even talk about it. I feel like I'm back in Junior High passing around various trashy books with the "good pages" circled, only this book is far from trashy and every page could be circled. In short, if the photo of the chocolate cake on page 166 of this book doesn't make your mouth water on the spot, you're either allergic to chocolate (my condolences), or dead. Plus she writes the notes before the recipes with such enthusiam and verve you just want to run to your kitchen and start baking, even if it is 84 degrees F and 100% humidity. You can tell this woman loves food, no, adores it, that if it was a question between a great meal and a great roll in the hay she'd truly have to think about it. That a great meal is basically a great roll in the hay for her, both being comppletely sensual experiences that are best when shared, but can be enjoyed alone just fine. I got it from the library but it's going on my "things to request for the holidays from relatives with more disposable income than I" list, to be sure. I also read Jacques and Julia Cooking at Home, by Jacques Pepin and Julia Child. It was ok, but I didn't come away from it wanting to cook any of it right then and there, which is not a great sign. I got a few helpful tips, but no good recipes.

I started The Crimson Petal and the White, by Michel Faber, but then V. snatched it out from under me. I thought it was going to be sort of like Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, which I read a few months back and really liked. It's very good so far, and being set in the same basic era, there are similarities, but they are not the same at all. I like the way Faber sucks the reader into the book. He's got a little stylistic thing he does at the start that maybe some might find annoying, but I thought it worked. Sucked me in, anyway, and he drops it after all the main characters are introduced so even if you're irked, I'd stick with it. It's long, nearly 1,000 pages (good practice for A Suitable Boy!), and with about 200 pages left to go, I have no idea of where he's going with this, it's already taken several turns I didn't anticipate at all.

Since V. has stolen the Faber book, I started Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science--from the Babylonians to the Maya by Dick Teresi. The premise is interesting. Teresi started out in this subject as part of the backlash against the teaching of multi-cultural science. In particular he finds the Portland African-American Baseline Essays, developed by the Multinomah County, Oregon school board to be particularly... egregious, shall we say. I don't know anything about this curriculum other than what Teresi says. Though based solely on his description I'd have to agree that "the scientific portion of the curriculum was a disaster." I won't toruture y'all with the particulars, but I'd have to say that I don't think the ancient Egyptians used air gliders for "travel, expeditions, and recreation" either. However, I do take issue with the length of the knives, so to speak, that were sharpened for this backlash. And I do agree with those who believe that "the failure to acknowledge the sucesses of non-Western cultures derives not just from ignorance but from a conspiracy," although the C-word makes me think of a bunch of white guys sitting around a table twirling their mean little moustaches trying to think of ever more dastardly ways of keeping folks down.

So, yeah, the book. The review in the NY Times was positive, but they aren't exactly known for being great champions of the oppressed and downtrodden, at least not until after the fact anyway. I was a little leery when I got to the part about him being part of the backlash against multi-cultural science, but then I reminded myself of the title, and then I got to this, which is the crux of the matter for me:

This shall be a book of "unkempt historical details"-- a tale of the non-Western roots of science. I began to write with the purpose of showing that the pursuit of evidence of nonwhite science is a fruitless endeavor. I felt it was only responsible, however, to attempt to find what meager legitimate non-European science might exist. Six years later I was still finding examples of ancient and medieval non-Western science that equaled and often surpassed ancient Greek learning.

My embarrassment at having undertaken an assignment with the assumption that non-Europeans contributed little to science has been overtaken by the pleasure of discovering mountains of unappreciated human industry, four thousand years of scientific discoveries by peoples I had been taught to disregard.

Well, rock on with your bad self, Mr. Teresi! Implied apology accepted.

This book is written for adults, not scientists, but average laypeople. If you are home- or unschooling a kid you could read it and then show some of the nifty examples to the kids in your life, but it's too hard for most elementary school age kids, I'd guess, but obviously your mileage may vary. He starts with "A History of Science: Rediscovered," and then he's got chapters on all the "hard" (as opposed to "soft") sciences: Math, Astronomy, Cosmology, Physics, Geology, Chemistry, and Technology. There are extensive notes, if you like that sort of thing, and a bibliography, and a pretty good index. I'm only in the second section (Math) but it's very good and interesting so far. Or maybe I just like a white guy who can give a good implied apology, and admit he was an ass.

Ok, last time I did these reviews Zadie Smith was giving me fits. After more false starts than I care to admit, I got a couple of chapters into The Autograph Man, and then it was time to take it back and I couldn't renew it as there was a line of folks waiting for it after me. I had finally kind of hit my stride though, and I was even liking it, though it was too soon to give it a rave. I can't bear to get back on the library list for it, though, so it will have to wait until after I've run through the remainder of the holds I have waiting and A Suitable Boy. Then Ms. Smith and I have a date, so to speak. I'm gonna read that book if it kills me.

I think that's enough to hold y'all 'til next time, don't you?

OH! One last thing. Just because I use links to Amazon for the books, please please please don't think I'm suggesting that you actually buy any of these things there. Support your local independent bookseller, fer crissakes!

2003-08-03T10:29:00.000-04:00

Squawkbox is no longer free for me, so I dumped them. If you left comments for me anytime since Friday morning, I probably didn't see them. Feel quite free to leave a new comment or email me.

2003-08-01T12:30:00.000-04:00

K-zilla's new Chuck Taylors arrived the other day. They have made a huge difference. She doesn't sound like a herd of buffalo tromping through the house any more, nor does she walk like she's lifting weights with each step. Plus they're just the cutest things on her feet. Whew.

She's completely adapted and even likes them now. She talks about her "new shoos" all the time, a phrase she uses interchangeably for the braces and the kicks, and she looks forward to putting them on in the morning. She's been trying to put them on after her bath in the evening, which has led to talks about not having to wear shoes with pajamas. She also says "Sponge. Bob. Square. Pants. Sandy. Guitar." very clearly and distinctly if you ask her who that is on her braces. Does she have a clue who Spongebob is yet? Nope. But it's been the occasion for her to learn the word "guitar" and we're working on "ukelele" too. Educational, indeed. We're still not getting cable though, not even for Spongebob, no matter how yellow, absorbent, porous, or helpful in getting my kid to wear her braces is he, ha ha.

I sent the mailer off to Shutterfly earlier this week so pictures will be available soon. I hope they came out, though the flash was a little iffy on some shots. If all went well, you should get to see her in the "cement" shoes and the lightweight stylish ones, as well as Mr. Squarepants in all his custom molded glory. Are you on the edge of your seat in anticipation? Sit back, breathe, it'll be a couple of days yet...

2003-08-01T10:52:00.000-04:00

Finally, something I would actually want to watch on teevee!

Queer Eye For Straight Prez

Ellis Henican
August 1, 2003

That tortured Bush-family accent? Texas-meets-Kennebunkport? Puh-leeze!

Those boxy blue presidential suits? So '80s!

And why so hot and bothered over gay people getting married? Doesn't he know that sodomy is legal now? The Supreme Court just said so.

It's "Queer Eye for the Straight President," the secret White House edition of the hit Bravo show.

We have a president in screaming need of a head-to-toe makeover. And do I have the boys for the job, eager to take the tragically unhip prez from drab to fab! They're an elite team of gay New Yorkers, dedicated to extolling the simple virtues of style, taste and class, starting on the downright dowdy Straight-Guy- in-Chief.

Does George W. Bush even know the word "accessorize"? He will - and a whole lot more - when my Fab Five are done with him.

Gregory Wein, fashion director at Out magazine. French restaurateur (and Meatpacking District pioneer) Florent Morellet. Contemporary-design guru John Erik Karkula. Sizzling hair-styling phenom Dominick Pucciarello. And Michelangelo Signorile, the provocative gay writer and Sirius Satellite Radio host.

They're here to serve their country at this time of stylistic need. Five gay men, out to make over the world - one straight president at a time.

Dominick: "Cut that wig down to size. His hair is so coiffed. I would take it down to almost a buzz cut - not so short that it was buzzed off. Give it some edge. It would totally change his look. It would make him look more gay and friendly and fun. When you have all that hair, people think you have something to hide."

Florent: "Remember when he landed on the aircraft carrier, and he stepped out looking like Top Gun? Wrong! He should have gone over the top with gusto. Step out in a Swiss Guard outfit. Or better, a uniform from the Greek Army, the ones with the little skirts. That whole thing was a costume party. If you are going to do a costume party, just do it. Get the best costume that exists."

John Erik: "The pictures I've seen of the ranch in Texas, it looks like it's filled with early American reproductions, completely uninspired and safe. I didn't see any real personal touches. He needs some things of integrity, some things that actually reflect him. Something besides those cheesy, gilded picture frames."

Michelangelo: "Stop misusing cherished gay words. Calling Condoleezza Rice 'fabulous' is like calling a root canal exciting."

Gregory: "Maybe he should wear the new Stetson fragrance. They've just relaunched. They're aiming for younger guys. The Stetson brand would play off his Texas background. It would update him a little. Up 'til now, he seems more like a drugstore Old Spice guy."

Florent: "Invading Iraq was one thing. But if you are going to save the world by invading other countries, do it for the right reasons at least. Invade Iran for the caviar. Bring down the North Korean leader for atrocious hair. Attack France to stop men from carrying those little clutch purses."

John Erik: "Another idea would be word-of-the-day wallpaper for his bedroom. Each day, he would learn a new word. Just laying in bed, he could take a little glance."

Michelangelo: "We'll definitely want to send him for our own brand of gay-conversation therapy, which would include a month in the evil city of Paris. A day at Yves St. Laurent for a fashion update. He could take a course at La Verenne Cooking School and a course at the Academy of Wine. I guess he'd have to start drinking again. Then it's off to the Moulin Rouge to learn French kissing."

Dominick: "That slow-talking Texas accent is not working. We need to sit him down for a couple of hours and watch that European TV show, 'Absolutely Fabulous,' for some real fast lingo."

Gregory: "That Zegna tie Monica gave Bill - that was a great tie. That is a high-end fashion brand. Gosh, it would be nice to see Bush wearing monochrome tones once in a while. Maybe a black suit with a white shirt and a white tie. Something - anything - to add a little spark."

John Erik: "At the White House, maybe he should turn each room into a representative of a different culture. One room could be French antique flea market. Another room could be German Alps. Another a Turkish tent theme. You know, something from each of the countries he has been fighting with."

Michelangelo: "You know the expression 'a friend of Dorothy,' meaning a gay man, the whole Judy Garland thing? If he wants to be a true 'friend of Dorothy' he needs a new brain instead of Karl Rove's. He needs a real heart instead of phony catchphrases about compassion. He needs some true courage to stand up to the Christian right."

Dominick: "Five gay men can definitely help."

Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.

2003-07-30T10:31:00.000-04:00

Well, we've done our part for the economy over the past few days. Has anyone else ever noticed that there are cycles of breakage and replacement that go on in a person's house? Like 3 or 4 things all break at the same time and need replacing? I try not to buy things unless we need them or love them (FlyLady 101) but there seems to be a built-in obsolescence or lifespan to products these days. Nothing is built to last anymore. So when you buy things at the same time, they wear out at the same time. This stinks. I wonder what future generations are going to have to consider antiques from this time. No wonder folks from the US look to Europe when they want to see something old. (We'll leave the "antiquity of European artifacts vs. the antiquity of other continents' artifacts" discussion for another time...) I have never seen a country so disrepectful of its own past as this one. While I don't agree in the least with the Taliban's destruction of those buddhas in Afghanistan, I can imagine something like that happening here, only here they'd replace them with a Quik-E-mart or something equally essential to the march of progress. /snide tone

I can't believe how I used to adore shopping. I can't figure out if it's me that's changed or the shopping experience. Probably both. A combination of me becoming more aware of the impact and influence of advertising to create a "need" along with the full consequences of the production of all this stuff, and the changes that have been made to the way one procures this "stuff." I just can't take the sensory overload of malls, particularly on weekends. Thank heaven there are not really any true malls in Manhattan. But the standalone chain stores are doing their best to reproduce the mall experience in miniature here, and I can't abide it. I can't stand the prolific advertising on every available surface of the city. I can't stand the attempts to squeeze every last nickle out of the consumer. I can't stand credit card culture. I can't stand the homogenization of the US. The fear of difference that it reinforces makes my skin crawl, and that's probably no accident.

When I was a girl (uh-oh, bad sign, she's reminiscing...), my cousins down south had different ideas about what was cool, different slang, different fashion trends, hairstyles, music, and so on. There were distinct regional flavors. No more. A Gap is a Gap is a Gap is a Banana Republic is an Old Navy, and I can say that because Gap, Inc. used to pay my rent. I miss the differences. I miss having my cousins show me what was cool where they were from, and showing them what was cool where I was from, and laughing at how ridiculous we thought the other's up-to-the-minuteness was--until their fashion came to where we were and vice versa. K-zilla won't have that, and I'm sad for her. For everything our kids lose, they gain something else, but I wonder if it's a good bargain they're getting in this case.

2003-07-26T09:44:00.000-04:00

Blogger is buggy today.

Things have been supa dupa hectic around here. K-zilla got her AFO's the other day which she was none too thrilled about. She's tolerating them better now, but keep in mind, these braces have upped her shoe size from a 6 to an 8.5-9, so she's very L-shaped now. Poor thing. Plus the shoes we got for her to wear over them are leather, so between the orthoses, and the large leather sneakers, she's getting quite the lower body workout. Never fear, K-zilla, help is on the way!

Oh, and did anyone else hear the news that Nike, aka the evil empire of footwear, has bought out Converse? Say it ain't so!

2003-07-22T18:03:00.000-04:00

I was invited to consider the focus of my blog this weekend. What do I want people who are not parents to get out of it? What do I want people who are parents to get out of it? I found myself feeling defensive about this at first, which is what makes me think that there is something in the question that needs my attention. I don't know that I'll come to a satisfactory answer today, but I'm going to start working through it.

I suppose there can be something sort of self-indulgent about blogs, like navel-gazing taken to an extreme. Personally I started mine because I needed an outlet for writing and I wanted to start learning how to create and maintain a website, but I didn't have the option of spending a great deal of time (or money) on it. It's a journal and a journey. Sometimes it's entertaining and informative, I hope, and sometimes it's kind of grotesque and awful, I imagine. Sort of like dancing elephants playing brass instruments. If you want to come along for the ride, great. If not, click on by. I know I've gotten a lot of insights reading other folks' blogs and livejournals. I think I'm a better person, and I know I'm a better parent, because of things I've read in other peoples' blogs.

It's not always the things one might expect, the earthshattering, dramatic entries. Sometimes just reading a tiny thing like this from scratchmittens can illuminate so much. It might seem like a throwaway post. 14 little words: "Geeze. I have resubbed to flylady. I hate her. But I need her. Gah." When I read that my train of thought pulled out of the station and the next thing I knew I was thinking about all the jillions of things I really dislike in my life, but that I can't do without as things stand. I need them. Clothes dryers, for example. I hate these things. When I was a girl we had a clothesline my father hung out our apartment window. I loved it. I looked forward to hanging clothes myself when I got big. Now we live in a rental and clotheslines are forbidden. They are an evictable offense. Instead we have 6 electric dryers in the basement, which are often broken from overuse, and are the most expensive I have ever encountered: $0.75 for each 15 minute interval, and it usually takes 45 minutes and two dryers to dry all of our clothes. This is highway robbery, even for NYC. But I need them. Even if we walk the three blocks to the less expensive laundromat, I would still be using electric dryers. I hate them, but I need them. I hate needing them. I could give so many examples of things like this, and other little insights into my life that have been sparked by reading what average folks have to say when given a blank slate and the opportunity to reach a wide audience.

The point is, why blog? So you can connect, one human being to another. Being a stay at home mother is isolating. I need all the connection I can get. What do I hope parents will get from this? I don't know, I guess a sense of community. The comforting sense that I am here struggling with the same things that they are struggling with at their houses, and celebrating the same things that they are as well. What about people who have no children, what could they gain? I don't know, a glimpse of a potential future? I would like to think that whether we're parents or not, we have more in common simply as living, breathing, human beings than we do differences. Maybe I was unusual when I was child-free in that I was always interested in what people's kids were doing, but it's true I spent a lot of time working in child-related fields. I find it very surprising that so many people are uninterested in children, and frightening that many others are so very anti-child. But then I am not interested in much of what passes for popular culture, so who's the weird one?

Perfect timing! Talk about synchronicity! I just got a phone call from one of my oldest friends. We have not been in touch as much as we should be, which is completely my fault. She complimented me on this site. "It's kind of like being there," she said. So that's what one child-free woman has to say.

This is what's going on inside my head, and what life is like with me and mine. Is it interesting to everyone? Certainly not. But it's what I have to share. Want some?

2003-07-22T13:11:00.000-04:00

I went to the street fair portion of the Harlem Book Fair this weekend. There was lots of good stuff (and a fair amount of dreck, as you might imagine), and the weather was so accomodating. A good time was had by all of us.

The best thing I got was a copy of a fantastic magazine, Fierce. As soon as I saw it I just had to get it as it had the most beautiful photo of Cree Summer and Lilakoi Moon (aka Lisa Bonet) on the cover. It is really so very good, I mean, their thing is "Fierce: too bold for boundaries." The next issue comes out next month (it's a bimonthly schedule) and if it's half as good as the first I will be subscribing (assuming I can find a copy of the next one - lol!). I paid $2 for mine but cover price is $4.95, so it's pricey. Still, it's less than Vogue or some other magazine that's going to make you feel like shit when you're done reading, and so worth it. This is the magazine I always wished Essence was. They have a site which I haven't checked out thoroughly, but looks good. My first thought as I was reading this magazine was, "I have got to tell the mamas about this..." So now you know, whether you're a mama or not.

2003-07-18T09:09:00.000-04:00

I should have mentioned in my review of Across the Nightingale Floor in Tuesday's post, that it was a New York Times Notable Book of 2002, which is how it ended up on my library list in the first place. Having read it now, all I can think is that either someone at the Times has a hidden soft spot for literary potato chips, or else Lian Hearn (aka Gillian Rubinstein?) is their sister's kid or something. I enjoyed it immensely, but a Notable book? Hmmmmm.

The sequel is scheduled for release in September. It's going on my hold list at the library as soon as it drops.

2003-07-17T18:50:00.000-04:00

I received a copy of A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth for my birthday (Thanks B.!). I'm planning to dive into it as soon as I get my impending interlibrary loans out of the way (I'm next for the R. W. Emerson biography, but I'm number 153 of 205 waiting for The Piano Tuner!). I haven't started it yet because it's enormous, 1,488 pages and nearly 2 inches thick, and because I suspect that if it's as good as I'm hoping it will be, I won't be reading anything else for quite awhile. Basically, I'm tidying up all my loose ends bookwise so that I can start it with nothing else hanging over me.

Ok, you caught me. I'm also a little intimidated by it's size. I am the only person I know who actually finished Infinite Jest, so it's not big book phobia. It's just that I haven't read anything so long since before K-zilla was born and if there's anything out there that will make me neglect my child, it's a good book. And the Mama's Quilt boards, but that's another story...

2003-07-17T11:35:00.000-04:00

Rest in peace, Celia Cruz

I didn't know she'd been suffering from a brain tumor. She was so vibrant. She must have been ill already when I saw her picture on the cover of People en espanol, I think it was, with the blue hair and the wild dress a few months back. Well, a little thing like a brain tumor wouldn't have been enough to slow her down any. She looked beautiful as ever, of course.

This post from James, does a much better job of memorializing her than I could. I'm still in shock.

What an awful year this has been for the music industry.

2003-07-16T18:19:00.000-04:00

Here are a couple more mini-reviews while I'm thinking about it.

When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka was very good. It's about one family's experience in the internment camps the US set up for Japanese-Americans during WWII. The especially interesting part to me was that she didn't stop as soon as the war ended and they were finally allowed to come home and live "happily ever after," as most authors would have done. No, Otsuka takes it further and we see what happens when the family returns home and has to reintegrate itself into the old neighborhood. Very interesting indeed.

I also read American Gods by Neil Gaiman. What happens to deities after their followers die off, convert, or just stop worshipping and paying attention to them? Well, it depends. Sometimes they have to get jobs and start figuring out how to make a living like the rest of us. And then there are the new gods: Media, Technology, etc. They think the old gods should just step aside and let them run the show. In the words of Bugs Bunny, that Trickster of the new age, "Of course you realize, this means war," and our all too mortal hero, Shadow, is caught up in the middle. This is a fantastic book with a plot that defies my pathetic description. Gaiman is so entertaining to read, and so clever it sort of spoils one for so much of the dreck that is popular fiction these days. And did I mention that the main character is bi-racial? Gaiman's subtle about it, but with a bit of close reading, it seems to be so...

2003-07-15T20:09:00.000-04:00

Okay, mini book review time! Who's got time to write a whole big thing? This is just the high and/or low points, which is all you really want anyway, right?

Let's start with Drinking Coffee Elsewhere: Stories by ZZ Packer. I read Brownies, the first story in this collection, a while back when it was published in Harper's. It knocked my socks off, and although I think the book version might be a little different, it's just as good or better than I remember it. The first line is a knockout: "By our second day at Camp Crescendo, the girls in my Brownie troop had decided to kick the asses of each and every girl in Brownie Troop 909." This is the real deal, y'all. I haven't even finished the book yet, but I had to put it out there. Snatch it up before the books clubs get wind of it! You know you can't get your hands on a copy of anything after that happens! ZZ Packer is a sister to watch. I'm wondering if she's going to get into longer fiction, or if she's going to stick with short stories. Either way she's on my permanent "what's new at the library?" list.

I read some cheesy "young adult" fiction recently also. Gotta keep up with the hip kids, you know? Otherwise I'll sound like all those old aunts and uncles from when I was a kid who were asking about my favorite things but were so 15 years behind the times... "So, is Michael Jackson still your favorite singer?" (insert eye rolling and teeth sucking in offended disbelief by teenaged me) Besides, while good adult fiction is not appropriate for everyone, good kids fiction is, as Philip Pullman has demonstrated in the His Dark Materials trilogy. More on them another time (run out and get them, right this second! If the library doesn't have them, they're definitely worth buying, even for full-price at the giant bookstore chains!).

Anyway, back to the cheesiness at hand. I read two books by Annette Curtis Klause, Silver Kiss and Blood and Chocolate. I have to say that these books are about as far from quality literature as one can get, and still respect oneself in the morning. As I said to V. when he asked about them, "Well, they're kind of like a mix between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Laurell K. Hamilton, but with a target audience of 15 year old girls..." Trashy beach reading for the Tiger Beat set (don't front, you know you remember Tiger Beat--it's Word Up Magazine for white folks). Imagine a romance novel with a not-at-all-scary-enough-to-be-horror, supernatural bent. I read them in about an hour apiece, and it would have been less without having to keep K-zilla out of the cat litter. Know any I-hate-to-read 12 to 15 year old kids with a high tolerance for literary trash and a romantic streak five miles wide? Perfect airplane/beach/pool books for them!

Ok, so that takes care of the mental potato chips for the younguns, what about something for someone a little older, more mature, not necessarily any wiser? How about Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn. It takes place in a time and place that can only be described as "Not ancient Japan," because it is ancient Japan, except that there's no historical basis in this book, and there are magic-y, mystical-ish elements to it, but it's not completely over the top. It's the Japan that's across the Pacific from the America of John Henry and Paul Bunyan, and Garcia Marquez's village of Macondo. It's a real place, but no one real has ever been there. This is another quick and entertaining read, of a genre that I think of as sort of romance/action novels for men (though I'm sure that's not the technical term), and it's part of a trilogy (book two comes out next month). My only quibble with it is that it's remarkably similar to a book (also part of a series, because who can ever get enough of this stuff? Not me!) I read years ago and also enjoyed as pure fluff, Shike: Time of the Dragons, by Robert Shea, though the Shike books were more historical fiction than the Hearn book. Did Hearn rip off Shea? Read all three fluff novels and make the call yourself before the lawsuits start flying!

By now you may be saying, "Jeez! Did she read anything besides the Packer book recently with any redeeming social value at all or am I wasting my time here?" I like my brain cells enough to give them the occasional workout, and I did that with The Prisoner's Wife, by Asha Bandele. I enjoyed this book extremely, though in a weepy kind of way. Bandele met her husband while doing a poetry reading in a prison. He was serving a 20 years to life sentence for murder. They fell in love and got married, plain and simple, only love is never plain and simple, especially not under circumstances like those. She writes so beautifully and so frankly about her relationship with her husband, that it took my breath away. When I finished it I put it down, went to go make a cup of tea. As soon as I had the tea, I went back, sat down, turned to the first page and began it again. I got mine from the library, but this is another one that's worth the price. Thank you to Nakachi and the folks who commented on her post for the heads up on this. I mighta missed it otherwise, though it's been out for some time.

I have also been what I can only think of as "doing my homework." In the last couple of weeks I have read Adam, Eve, and the Serpent by Elaine Pagels, When God was a Woman, by Merlin Stone which was recommended by either Nurse Ratched or Zeebah, I'm embarrassed to say I can't remember who. I'm about to read The Origin of Satan, by Elaine Pagels, and I'm waiting on The Great Mother Goddess by Monica Sjoo and The Gnostic Gospels, by Elaine Pagels. All of this is related to my little visit last month. I'd link it if my frickafracking archives weren't still busted. Comments to come.

I also read and enjoyed the new Harry Potter, which I'm not even going to link to because if you can't find it yourself, I can't help you. It's nice to see Harry developing into a teen (especially since I don't have to parent him), and I think, as has been said by those with niftier resumes than I, that Rowling's becoming a better writer. Maybe not having to write at a cafe or with her kids running about has had some effect on the level of focus she can bring to her work now, a point I haven't heard those niftily resumed folks make. My favorite details? She captures that adolescent irritability nicely, as well as the interplay between clueless teen boys and emotionally savvy teen girls. She's got a couple of sentences in which she just nails that whole self-consciousness and negative body awareness that sometimes happens when walking around in a room containing one's crush perfectly. As usual, a big climatic ending, and more trauma for Our Hero. I can't wait for book 6.

There were a bunch of rejects too. This is new for me. I used to be unable to not finish something if I started reading it. I can't decide if it's a sign of the impending apocalypse and my attention span has shrunk due to overuse of jump cutting in the media, or if it's just that my borderline OCD has let up as I've aged and I'm able to make better decisions about how I want to use my time. Maybe it's a nasty combo of the two.

Books I started and couldn't get through:
WitPunk, edited by Claude Lalumière & Marty Halpern. I just wasn't feeling it, though at no point did I think, "jeez, this stinks. Get me outta here." It was more a case of given a choice between this and other things I kept picking up the other things, until it was time to take this back to the library. I'm guessing all the intriguing stories were towards the end...

Everything You Know is Wrong and You Are Being Lied To, both edited by Russ Kick. have valuable information in them, but I just read the parts that interested me. If an essay didn't hold me after the first couple of sentences, I skipped it. I skipped most of them. The new Disinformation site looks worth a bit of time though.

I finished The Gangster We Are All Looking For by Le Thi Diem Thuy. It didn't thrill me the way the reviews made me hope it would, but it was well written and interesting.

I've read the first page of The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith three times and misplaced it afterwards each time. I suspect I have a mental block about it and that secretly I'm afraid I won't like it as much as I liked White Teeth. This is particularly funny because I didn't actually read White Teeth. I read a section of it she had published in Granta, and was not bowled over. Then the novel came out and everyone ooohed and aaahed, and I was all, "ho hum, book hype." But then I saw the PBS movie and it rocked my world. I don't know if it was her writing style or the section they chose to print in Granta that turned me off, but that film blew me away and I never like the movie better, my two boyfriends notwithstanding. So I guess I'm just skittish on The Autograph Man. I haven't seen any reviews or anything else about it. I'm hoping to get through at least page 2 or 3 by next week.

Ok, that's all for now. Coming soon: Sexual Healing by Jill Nelson, various cookbooks, and who knows what other interlibrary loan may pop up in the next few days. Stay tuned!

2003-07-15T15:52:00.000-04:00

I'm a closet cartoon freak.

This or that?

1. Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck?
I love me some Bugs Bunny (and I agree with whoever said that Bugs is the Trickster god of American culture) but not when he's up against The Little Black Duck. Then I gotta go with Daffy, because Daffy Duck is Black America cartoonified.

2. Tom or Jerry?
Um, actually I like Jerry's nephew, especially in the musketeer episodes.

3. Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck?
Well, I didn't watch so many of the Disney cartoons, because they rarely came on when I was a kid. I guess Mickey.

4. Rocky & Bullwinkle or Boris & Natasha?
Ah, now we're getting somewhere. Sherman & Peabody.

5. Road Runner or Wile E. Coyote?
Wile E. Coyote, super genius. Especially the one where he talks, and explains why he's so determined to catch that damn bird.

6. Sylvester or Tweety?
Tweety is too cutsey for me. I like Sylvester's son best though.

7. Popeye or Bluto?
I like Olive Oyl. Girlfriend looked like she was all elbows and knees, but she had two sailors kicking each others' asses to get with her. Work whatcha got, girlfriend!

8. South Park or The Simpsons?
The Simpsons at it's best is very clever, but it's not always at it's best. The first season of South Park was watchable, but no more after that, please.

9. Jetsons or Flintstones?
Neither really did it for me. I liked the weirder Hanna Barbera cartoons like The Hair Bear Bunch, thanks.

10. And finally, the eternal question asked by all good Scooby-Doo fans: Velma or Daphne?
Jinkies! This is not a question we really need to ask, is it? Velma had the brains of the group, and more funk in the trunk. Nuff said.

2003-07-14T23:01:00.000-04:00

I have been reading like a house on fire recently. You know me (or maybe you don't), I read everything--the good, the bad, the trashy...

Coming soon: book reviews! Rants and raves! Guilty pleasures, beach reads, weighty intellectual tomes! It's all coming soon!

2003-07-12T14:36:00.000-04:00

Summer comfort

When I was a girl, on Friday nights in the summertime my parents would get chinese food from a restaurant on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. They always got enough food to get a free order of Sesame Noodles. Even though every time I've ever gotten them from a restaurant they've always been made with peanut butter, they always call them Sesame Noodles. My mother realized how simple these were to make and got a proper recipe for it from a friend of ours which called for sesame paste, sesame oil, and szechuan hot oil. I loved making and eating them all through high school.

The other day I got a taste for peanut sauce. I took a bunch of different recipes and fiddled with them until I found one I liked enough to call my own. You can do whatever you like with this sauce. It's good over grilled or broiled chicken, for marinating tofu, or as a dipping sauce (especially for shrimp), but I've been going back to my youth and making "sesame" noodles.

Noodles with Peanut Sauce:

1 pound of spaghetti

1 cup smooth peanut butter
1 cup hot (not boiling) coconut milk (I use the Goya stuff in the can)
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne powder
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
juice of 1 lime OR 2 generous tablespoons lemon juice

Cook spaghetti according to package directions. Drain and rinse with cool water until spaghetti is just above room temperature.

Whisk remaining ingredients together until well blended. If sauce is a little thick you can thin it out with a little warm coconut milk (or water in a pinch). Pour over pasta and toss, making sure pasta is well coated. This is nice with a little chopped scallion as a garnish, or for the authentic NYC takeout experience, a little julienned cucumber over the top.

If you're using this as a marinade, you'll almost certainly need to add a little more coconut milk to thin it.

2003-07-10T23:19:00.000-04:00

The Highly Sensitive Family

I was an anxious, highly sensitive little kid, and though I'm more functional now, I'm still anxious and sensitive. I've learned to see the sensitivity as a positive attribute, and I've slowly learned to keep the anxiety from interfering too much with my life, for the most part. I married a highly sensitive, occasionally anxious guy (similar issues, different presentation), and lo and behold we've produced a really sensitive kid. I don't mean just the sound and touch stuff that we're getting her therapy for, like her supa dupa tender headedness or her deep terror of vacuum cleaners and blenders. I mean, she is shy around strangers, just like us, or even people she sees often, just like V. She is always the kid hanging back in new situations, just like me, checking things out before she relaxes enough to participate in activities, just like both of us. She doesn't smile or laugh with people she doesn't know well, the way some kids do, just like V. She hangs back and takes things in her own time, just like both of us. She is very easily overwhelmed, just like both of us. I have no problem with any of this. She's just like V. and I were as kids, only maybe a little more so.

We knew this might happen. Two parents with this attribute, well, we sort of anticipated it. We didn't figure on the sensory issues, but the "shyness" and sensitivity to social situations we were ready for. The problem is, I blew it. Not irrevocably, but I dropped the ball this week. K-zilla's occupational therapist is not a great fit. She's a little too impatient and pushy. I had been trying to decide if it was a good enough fit. I couldn't tell if I had been spoiled by the fabulousness of the other people we'd been working with and so by contrast this woman was just average but felt below that because the others were so good, or if, in fact, I was going to have to make a change. I am not the sort of person who fires people easily, even indirectly as this would be. It's complicated by the fact that she's a good friend of the PT, who in fact recommended her, and they work together in other capacities, and so on. Also, I am trying to see that K-zilla gets exposed to various kinds of people who interact with her each in their own way, and that although so and so does things differently than I do, or V does, it doesn't mean it's not a good way, and she still has to respect their authority. The OT's style felt... off to me, but I wasn't sure if it was a difference in style or if it just wasn't going to work for us. I was observing and thinking throughout our sessions and afterwards. I really wanted to be sure about this, in other words.

Tuesday morning K-zilla went for her fitting for her orthotics. It was hard, but not a disaster. Anthony, the same extra-nice guy who did her casting, was there and he put them on, taped them to her feet since they aren't finished and don't have the velcro strap to hold them on yet, and asked us to help her walk around in them so we could see how they'll do. She cried. They're hard for her to walk in as the footbed is somewhat stiffer than regular shoes, though they'll loosen up over time. They needed to be trimmed down in front of the toes. The bottoms are slippery with no traction at all, as they're meant to be worn inside regular shoes. In short, it was like walking around with slippery flippers on. She cried and held her feet up for us to take them off, but we walked her around and sometimes got glimpses of Anthony peeking around corners to check on her progress and making notes about adjustments that needed to be made. We took them off and she calmed down enough to watch Spongebob, crying everytime she got a peek at Anthony. There's a special spot in heaven for that man, I tell you. He's cute as a bug's ear too, but I digress.

We came home, ate, she refused to nap, and then it was time for OT. We had started working on sounds, because she's made so much progress with the tactile stuff. She loves playing with the shaving cream and she's not so reluctant about the goopy playdoh any more, she'll get her hands all in it. She's basically fine now. Certain sounds though still send her completely over the edge. She still has a complete loss of control whenever she hears the vacuum cleaner up close, and small kitchen appliances terrify her. We'd started doing a little work witht he vacuum last week, but when the OT showed up Tuesday afternoon I said, "She had a really tough morning, and no nap at all. I don't think we can do the vacuum today." She said ok, she had something different planned anyway, and she pulled out a hand mixer, and some cake mix.

I'd like to say that it was the chocolate cake mix that made me weak, but I don't think that's a good enough excuse anyway. Instead of saying, "No, let's not do sounds at all," I deferred to her. Why? Several reasons. First, K-zilla hadn't been quite so freaked the last few times I'd used the mixer. I didn't stop to think about the fact that she'd been at the other end of the house and completely distracted by something else at the time. The things we do with the OT are nearly always things she brings with her. If we change the plan in the middle, she doesn't have much in the way of materials to work with. We could have found something with out too much trouble if we'd tried. I didn't want to be seen as a pain in the ass parent who prevents their kid from getting what they need because the parent can't stand to see the kid poke a toe out of their comfort zone. My obligation is to advocate for my kid to the best of my ability, not to have a good reputation with the therapist.

It was a really hard session. No, it was flat out awful. I squirmed at times during it, though I didn't let myself recognize it. Looking back, she was just plain mean to my kid and dismissive of her feelings, because she was frustrated at the depth of K-zilla's fear, impatient with her lack of progress, overwhelmed by how hysterical and out of control she gets. She didn't respect K's methods for calming herself, most of which involve me (though I see it as huge progress that she doesn't try to nurse during sessions anymore). It was torturous for everyone. K-zilla woke up twice that night with nightmares, and the next day when the PT, whom she loves, not the OT, showed up, it took her nearly 20 minutes to relax enough to play the simplest games with her. It took me several hours, and a phone call to my mother in her professional capacity as a Pre-K/Kindergarten teacher to process what had happened, and where and how and why I let things go so wrong.

I fucked up. Yes, parents do it all the time, and I don't think she's going to be permanently traumatized. So why am I holding on to this shame? Because it goes straight to the heart of my issues of growing up sensitive in a culture that doesn't appreciate the attribute. My experience as a sensitive kid was that I was surrounded by grownups who were supposed to advocate for me and protect me and didn't because they either didn't recognize there was a problem, or they thought I needed some toughening up. So it's a double kick in the teeth to me that I sat right there and blew it for my daughter.

That's why I've been frustrated and ashamed. I talked to the OT last night and told her about the nightmares and that we need to slow down, go back to the familiar. She agreed to this. We had another session today with her. It was better, but Tuesday, and some little things today have brought things to a head (and beyond) and I can see that it's just not a good fit, period. She doesn't respect the level of fear that we're dealing with, and she is impatient to solve the problem now. She keeps saying, "she's got to learn..." and I found myself thinking, "Maybe so, but she doesn't have to learn it today." She sees this as a behavior issue, whereas I see it as something else, I'm not sure what to call it. K-zilla is a little afraid of her, which is actually good, because I was worried she was going to be a lot afraid of her. We need someone different. So now I have to fire her. Wish me luck.

2003-07-10T12:38:00.000-04:00

The more things change, the more they stay the same...

The Reunion Upon a Hill

By LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV

LOS ANGELES
It was in July of 1951 that I made my first visit to Monticello,
Thomas Jefferson's house in the hills of Virginia. My father was about to leave for duty in the Korean War, and our parents wanted some time to themselves, so they sent my brother, Frank, and me to Charlottesville to stay with our
great-grandmother, Mary Walker Randolph, and our great aunts Aggie and Miss Moo, who lived with Gran in the woods in a cottage that had once been a speakeasy, and which they had grandly named Wild Acres.

I had just turned 4 and Frank was 2, and we were giving the elderly Randolph ladies fits, as they would tell us in later
years. Virginia in July was a steam bath with trees and insects. I can still remember Aunt Aggie collapsing in a chair
and reaching for her smelling salts when she felt faint from chasing us around.

Finally Miss Moo — whose proper name was Mary Walker, after her mother — came upon a solution to our lawlessness.
Frank and I were outfitted in short pants and starched white shirts and herded into the back seat of the Buick and
driven across town and up the winding dirt road to Monticello. Miss Moo parked the Buick on the lawn in the shade of a
tree by the front portico, got out and called as loudly as she could: "Wa-a-a-alker! Wa-a-a-alker!" Leaving the car door
open, she got back behind the wheel and fanned herself, waiting.

In a few moments, an elderly black man about her age walked slowly around the side of the house and approached the
Buick. "How are you today, Miss Moo?" he asked, resting his hand on the Buick's roof.

"I'm fine, Walker," I remember her saying. "But these boys are about to wear us to a frazzle in this heat. Could you watch them for us today?"

"I'd be glad to, Miss Moo," he replied, lingering for a moment to ask her about her mother's health. (Gran was in her 90's
at the time.) Frank and I scampered out the rear door of the car and onto the front lawn of Monticello. I, at least, knew
the big house was where our great-great-great-great grandfather had lived, because Frank and I had been taken to the
graveyard to lay flowers on his grave a few days earlier. But neither of us had any understanding of who he was, or what he stood for, or what it meant that we were descendants of the third president, which perhaps accounts for the fact that we tore through the grounds and house, jumped on the beds, explored the
attic and went out those little round windows onto the roof to drop pebbles on unsuspecting tourists, hardly catching
a glimpse of Walker until we were picked up by Miss Moo late that afternoon.

Perhaps Miss Moo and Aunt Aggie still thought of Monticello as the family house because they had been born and raised
at Edgehill, a nearby plantation given by Jefferson to Thomas Jefferson Randolph, his first male grandchild, who was
their great-grandfather.

Whatever the case, it seems reasonable to assume several things were true on that hot morning in July: the
groundskeeper who shared the name Walker with Mary Walker Randolph was at the very least the grandson of slaves
who had been owned by her grandparents. After slavery ended, Walker's family may have stayed on to work at Edgehill
as many former slaves did at other plantations. Walker probably called her by her nickname, Miss Moo, because they had
grown up together at Edgehill. They were tied to Edgehill and to Monticello and, more importantly, to each other in ways
that are difficult to fathom today.

I've thought a lot about that moment in recent years, especially as the turmoil among Jefferson descendants has
intensified. By now, most everyone knows the basics. Thomas Jefferson had a relationship with a slave, Sally Hemings.
Their union produced at least one child. The descendants of Sally Hemings and Jefferson have as much claim to
Thomas Jefferson as I do. Not everyone in my family agrees.

In 1998, after the DNA evidence was released linking Jefferson to Hemings, my sister Mary and I went on "The Oprah
Winfrey Show" with about 25 of our Hemings cousins. On the program, I invited the Hemings descendants to be my
guests at the annual reunion of the Monticello Association, the family group that owns and maintains the graveyard at
Monticello. (The group, which has about 800 members, was founded by three of my Randolph relatives, including my
great-grandmother.) Several dozen Hemings descendants have been the guests of my immediate family at our reunion
every year since then. They attended services for my parents when they were buried in the Monticello graveyard.
Friendship between the Truscott family and our Hemings cousins has grown richer every year.

You would think that we would not be alone, that after five years of family reunions the two sides of Jefferson's extended
family would have drawn closer. Instead, things have gone from bad to worse.

Hemings cousins have told me about racial epithets hurled at them by Monticello Association members. Last year, a vote
was taken banning Hemings membership and refusing rights of burial in the graveyard. Voting against the Hemings
were 75 Monticello Association members. Voting for them were six members: five Truscotts and Marla Stevens, a
Jefferson descendant with a long history in the civil rights movement.

This year, rules were passed barring guests from the graveyard and limiting to two the number of guests a member could
invite to the reunion. I did not attend the meeting, but my sister Ginny was there. When she rose before the crowd to ask the purpose of the rules, Nat Abeles, the association president, replied that I had abused the privilege in 2001 by inviting 26 guests, conveniently omitting to mention that all of them were Hemings cousins. (It's worth noting, too, that the association bylaws do not limit the number of guests one can invite.)

When Ginny pointed out that he didn't explain why guests were banned from the graveyard, another cousin grabbed the
microphone. What he said, according to Ginny and three other people who were in the room, was that he had no interest
in associating with the Hemings descendants in this life — or in death. (The phrase "their kind" was used.) Judging by
the amount of applause he is reported to have received, he blurted out what must have been on nearly everyone else's
minds.

The members of the Monticello Association have spoken clearly about who they want to associate with, and which
values they hold dear. They've made their choice, and now I'm going to make mine. I will not be going to the Monticello
Association's annual family reunion again.

Thankfully, there will be other opportunities to visit the house that Frank and I crawled through half a century ago. This
weekend will bring the first Hemings family reunion at Monticello. On Saturday, Hemings descendants will attend a
reception at Monticello. Jefferson's beautiful structure will be closed to the public but open to the family, including the
upstairs rooms and slave quarters, which are off limits to visitors. There will be drinks on the lawn, just as there are
when the Monticello Association holds its reunion. On Sunday morning, there will be a memorial service at the slave
graveyard that was recently discovered in a grove just down the hill from the Jefferson family graveyard.

Guests will be welcome at the Hemings family reunion. While I'm not going to be able to make it across the country this
weekend, my brother, my sisters and some of their children will be in attendance — and I plan to go next year. If there's
one thing we've learned, it's that the roots of slavery may be deep, but the roots of family are deeper still.

Lucian K. Truscott IV is a novelist and screenwriter.

Makes you wonder, why, if their illustrious forefather Thomas Jefferson wasn't above "associating" with slaves or the descendants of slaves, why certain of his descendants can't bring themselves to do the same. Slavery, and race relations in general, really is this nation's deepest unhealed wound.

2003-07-08T07:58:00.000-04:00

This or that.

1. Strawberries or blueberries?
Both, either, yes. I like berries in general.

2. "Legally Blonde 2" or "Terminator 3"?
Neither, but I'll probably see T3 on DVD eventually. Legally Blonde is the sort of movie I go out of my way to avoid.

3. Hamburgers or hot dogs?
Both, though hot dogs are more of a snack... Kosher only please.

4. Boating or hiking?
I guess boating, but nothing with a noisy motor please. I like sailboats. Hiking is fine by me too though.

5. Suntan lotion or sunblock?
Make mine SPF 15, thanks. I was at the beach yesterday with my mom and my sister who were using some "tanning oil" that claimed to be SPF 4. They are of the "skin cancer doesn't happen to people like us" sort but I've already told my mom I am no longer available to listen to her complaints that her skin is losing its elasticity. It's called sun damage, lady, and it can happen to anyone...

"Big Brother" or "The Amazing Race"?
Ick. Shows like this are why we were teevee free for over a year. Amusing Ourselves to Death indeed.

7. Beach Boys or Jimmy Buffett?
This is not a choice that POC would ever be faced with, unless we're in hell. Neither. Barry White or Luther Vandross? I take Barry White, and not because he just went to booty music heaven.

8. Grow your own produce or buy from supermarket/greengrocer/farm stand?
I have to buy mine, since I am deeply urban. My house fantasy involves a yard with a garden, but it's just a fantasy at this point.

9. Drive with car windows/top down, or with air-conditioning on?
It has to be very hot and humid indeed for me to put on any kind of AC.

10. Go away for vacation, or stay at home?
If we can go away that's what we do. If we can't, we stay home and just tell folks we went away so no one bugs us.

2003-07-06T14:45:00.000-04:00

I still can't figure out what is wrong with my archive links.

I've fiddled with the templates, changed the ftp path, flipped every switch in the blogger interface I can think of. Those links just don't work no matter what I do. If any of you tech-whizzes out there has any hints for me, don't be shy. Ok, I'll put it on the line: the solution will be rewarded with baked goods, and I think that's really saying something in this weather...

2003-07-06T10:53:00.000-04:00

I'm revisiting the issue of "surrender."

I posted about the need to surrender to motherhood some time ago, but it's a big thing and hard to learn in just one lesson. I imagine that as K-zilla goes through the different stages of her development I'll have to learn it over and over and over. Part of the difficulty of parenting is finding that balance between maintaining control and fostering independence. Maybe control is the wrong word. Maybe "order" is more what I'm trying to say. Much of parenting is "chaos abatement." And I say that as a woman who currently has two shelves worth of childrens books and the pieces of six different puzzles scattered across her living room floor.

The very first lesson of parenting, which one may begin to learn the instant the hormones kick in and the morning sickness shows up, is that this is beyond anyone's ability to control. Or maybe you're lucky and don't suffer from morning sickness. Or crying jags. Or swollen ankles. Or bizarre food cravings. Maybe you didn't experience any of those things and the lesson doesn't begin for you until labor begins and you realize that while those Lamaze breathing techniques may help a woman and her partner feel like they have something to do while the contractions are surging into heavy labor, they don't erase the pain for shit. Or maybe you have the epidural as soon as you check into the hospital, so you never experience the contractions in full tilt. Your lesson begins the moment you fall asleep after that post-birth endorphin high, only to have your newborn wake up what feels like 15 minutes later and every two hours after that around the clock for the next 6 weeks. Or when your kid discovers the power of "no," or of screaming, or of biting, or of tantrums in busy stores. Or maybe it doesn't hit until adolescence, but when it does it's a freight train. If you're the contemplative type you may begin to realize you were never in control to begin with, you just knew what to expect better before you had kids. No matter what, that perceived loss of control is inevitable. And it can be devastating.

I'm about to go set my kitchen timer for 15 minutes, clean up as much of the mess in my living room as I can in that time, and then take K-zilla out to enjoy the day. Whe we get back I'll do another 15 minutes worth of house cleaning, and then play some more, and so on. It will get done. She will not feel like she's being ignored. We will have some fun. I will not feel like there's a million things I should be doing to straighten up rather than playing with my kid. By the end of the day, the house will look better than it does right now, and we'll have had a good day together. Balance. Chaos abatement. Contentment.

Makes you want to run right out and become a parent, doesn't it?

2003-07-06T10:37:00.000-04:00

Another master passes. He was only 58. What a heartbreaker.

I swear, if folks had to name their kids after whoever was on the stereo when those babies were being made there would be a whole hell of a lot of folks in their late 20's named "Barry" and "Love Unlimited" running around. He was the first, the last, the everything of 70's booty music, as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye are certainly up there, but give me a panty-melting basso profundo everytime.

2003-07-04T11:21:00.000-04:00

These flowers are about as festive as we'll be getting around here today.

I have never been a huge fan of this holiday. My people didn't gain their independence today, now did they? We as a nation are still working out the kinks on that "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" thang. Fireworks are pretty but I hate crowds and the noise makes my kid freak out. V. has to work. K-zilla is getting over a mystery illness that made her feverish and crabby. It is hazy, hot, and humid again. All in all, a good day to avoid the masses of humanity and their celebratory firecrackers, and ponder the meaning of "independence" in a world where globalization is on the rise.

Happy Barbequeing, y'all.

2003-07-03T16:15:00.000-04:00

The US media has such a hard time handling any sort of racial complexities. I've known this since I was young, as does any kid of color who's halfway paying attention. With this in mind, could I be any less surprised by this little tidbit and its (lack of) coverage in the media? In fact, I actually feel faint from lack of surprise. Folks, give me some air here or it could get ranty in here...

2003-06-30T11:28:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was Pride weekend in NYC (and pretty much all over the US). Yesterday was the parade down Fifth Avenue. V. took K-zilla for the first time, and I had a mama day off. Despite my request, he did not come home with a "Future Dyke of America" or a "Don't assume my mama is straight" t-shirt, nor even a rainbow flag for her, but someone gave her a paper fan like black churches used to give out when I was a kid (advertising the musical "Chicago" instead of one of the local funeral homes), which she enjoyed. He reports that she had an excellent time being made much of by numerous drag queens and kings, waving to the people on the floats, and shaking her booty to the music. She had a great day without mama, and I had a great day without her, reading my book, replacing my worn out frillies, and parade watching on my own.

On the way home I was riding on the subway next to a woman holding her daughter who looked to be about 3 on her lap. We didn't speak much but we smiled and it felt friendly. At one point, the person on my other side got off so I moved to make room so the child could have a seat, but the mother kept her on her lap which turned out to be the more considerate thing to do as another woman got on shortly afterwards and sat in between us. I was feeling all Pride-ful and full of love for humanity, having just been to one of my two favorite parades (the West Indian Day parade in Brooklyn over labor day weekend is the other), seeing folks celebrate themselves and each other, having a day with no small person pulling on me, sitting next to two beautiful black women who looked like such examples of everything right with black women in general.

At 110th street three young, black, drag queens got on laughing big, deep, full-throated laughs over something that had happened on the platform before they got on the train. Talk in the subway car stopped dead, and someone at the other end of the car giggled. They were not by any means trying to pass as women though the tallest one could have if she'd chosen to, I bet. No, they were dressed in party clothes wearing nothing any more outrageous than any of us has seen dozens of young women-born-women wearing, though maybe not all at once. It was the wigs and makeup that put it over the top. I mean, they're drag queens, for goodness sake, there's no such thing as subtle hair and makeup to a drag queen, is there? They got off at 125th street. The nervous laughter started in earnest then, but not from everyone. The women next to me started talking about them. The second woman reminded the first woman, still holding her child on her lap, that it was Pride day, and that they might have been coming from the parade. "Oh, yes, that's right," she said, remembering. There was a significant pause and then she said, "It's disgusting." Unfortunately she was not talking to me, so I couldn't say in all innocence, "What is?" and start that conversation. To my even greater shame and dismay, the second woman said, "yes, it is" and they left it there.

The next stop was mine and I got off the subway with my feeling of pride in my city and my people deflated. I was proud of those young people for their courage in walking around Harlem, the mecca of Black folks, in full drag. 125th street, where they got off the train, is the center of everything. On any given Sunday afternoon it's full of people doing their shopping, coming home from church, or just styling and profiling. On a Sunday afternoon featuring beautiful summer weather the streets are more than crowded. The parade doesn't go up that far, so they would not have the safety in numbers that the (much more outrageously dressed) folks downtown had. It was a display of fierceness, and it was beautiful. I was so deeply ashamed of those two women passing judgment on them from the safety of their culturally-approved straightness, I can't even tell you.

2003-06-27T10:44:00.000-04:00

It's the end of an era.

Thank goodness.

2003-06-26T22:39:00.000-04:00

And one last thing, does anyone know what happened to Clothespins for the Revolution? The site's disappeared.

2003-06-26T22:32:00.000-04:00

Ok, I'm late posting this, but here ya go:

Call for Submissions: Mamaphonic

Do you have a toddler seat strapped in the back of the tour van? Do you write poetry while the baby naps? Have you discovered that becoming a mother has changed not only your daily life but the content of your creative work? Mamaphonic is an anthology of writing about mothering, the creative process, and reciprocity within the artistic community. The book will include confessions and conversations about the true, exhilirating, entertaining, and difficult aspects of remaining creative while raising kids.

We are seeking literary first-person nonfiction essays of 2,000 - 4,000 words. Queries are encouraged. We are interested in hearing from mothers participating in all aspects of art, writing, music, puppetry, performance, film, photography, independent publishing, or any other creative endeavor. We are seeking diverse views on subjects such as: children as muses, how an artist's daily life is changed after becoming a mother, how women balance their work and creative process with motherhood, and the specific influence of parenting on career trajectory and expectations. Although we are primarily concerned with the positive influences motherhood can have on the artistic process, we are also interested in the challenges motherhood brings to the working artist and how those challenges are met and overcome.

Edited by Bee Lavender and Maia Rossini and published by Soft Skull Press, the book will also include a compendium of practical resources for working artistic mothers. Compensation includes $50 and two review copies. The deadline for submissions is September 1, 2003.

Please forward this message extensively.

Hard copies can be mailed to:
Mamaphonic c/o Hip Mama PO Box 28870 Seattle, WA 98118

Email queries and submissions:
submissions@mamaphonic.com

2003-06-26T17:06:00.000-04:00

It is H3 here. That's Hazy, Hot, and Humid, yes indeed.

K-zilla and I went out to the playground yesterday armed with waterbottles filled with icy water, sunscreen, snacks, and a book for mama. We beat it back upstairs 40 minutes later because the sprinkler at the playground in front of the house was busted, as was the water fountain, and the other playground nearby with intact pipes was overrun with big kids celebrating the end of school. It was so hot the slide and other climbing equipment was too hot to touch, and someone had spilled what looked like red kool-aid all over the part in the shade. K-zilla was happy to walk around in the blazing sunshine and toss twigs down the storm drains but I got bored.

Lucky for her this morning V. took her back to the functioning sprinkler and she got drenched. She came home dripping wet and happy as a clam. Her papa said she was the only kid brave enough to go in all the way. Brave enough? Call it foolish enough, all the other kids would have gotten a whupping for getting their clothes so wet, and don't let any of the other little girls get their hair wet! Whooee! K-zilla, on the other hand, had no such restrictions. I could her the water squelching out of her kicks from across the room. They're drying out in front of the fan as we speak.

Mean Mama: the flip side of motherhood

You better check yourself before you wreck yourself

K-zilla is testing limits these days and it's bringing out the Mean Mama in me. She's learned to ignore me. She's learning that what I want and what she wants are not always the same thing, and that she really likes to get her way. As do we all. She's learning that just because I say to do something doesn't mean she automatically has to do it. For instance, if I say, "K-zilla, stop climbing up on the edge of the bathroom sink. It isn't safe," that doesn't mean she has to get down right then, or ever. My job as her mother, of course, is to see that she does for safety's sake. I do try not to say anything unless it's important from a safety standpoint or a personal space standpoint (no pinching mama!), and not just let loose with a million "no's" a day just because I like to flex my authority as her mother (don't play with the doll, come read a book). Still it is frustrating. I can't leave her alone for more than five minutes or she'll be doing some death-defying feat (climbing up on the rails of the crib and jumping the 18" gap to our bed, giggling as she lands and bounces).

So what does Mean Mama look like? Well, apparently a little too much like Pleasantly Excited mama. K-zilla laughs sometimes as I am furious with her, which sends me right over the edge and I have to walk away (but not too far away, or it's right back to whatever naughty behavior got us to this standoff in the first place). I find that over the last week or so as this new behavior of hers has cropped up I've been yelling a lot more. Not like calling yelling from across the playground, but like lecture yelling. I have to find another way. I feel like the yelling does help me to release some of the anger, so that I don't just flip out and smack her or something out of control like that, but I don't want to yell at my kid, and I certainly don't want to hit her. I have no problem with letting her know that her behavior is unacceptable. I have no problem with letting her know I'm angry. I just feel like the yelling is completely ineffective in getting her to stop and it's a slippery slope. If I'm yelling and she pushes it further, where does that take us? It's not like she's at the age of reason yet, though she understands a great deal of what we say to her. In fact, that understanding is an added factor in my frustration. I know she hears me say "Don't..." and I know she understand what I'm saying and what I want her to do. She's choosing not to do it, and that drives me batshit, because I feel like I don't say anything in the first place unless it's reasonable. I also can't use the "well, let her fall on her head a few times, she'll figure it out" method because as last week proved when I inadvertently put it to the test, and she fell and busted her lip and mouth, not once or twice but 3 times in one day, she still doesn't get that whole cause and effect thing. She's a toddler, she's supposed to fall. She's a toddler, she's not supposed to get it yet. She's a toddler, she's not supposed to listen yet. I know, I know, I know.

Another piece of the Mean Mama puzzle is that V.'s schedule is tricky. The nights he works until the store closes are very hard. It means I have to be the primary parent from the time he leaves the house at around 1PM, until she gets up the next morning at around 7AM. Considering that K-zilla goes to bed at around 9PM, and she still needs a fair amount of nighttime parenting, that's a loooooong shift. Depending on what time he has to be at work the next day I may or may not get a break in the morning. Tonight I'm not expecting him home until after midnight, and he has to be back at work at 8AM. I will have been the primary parent from 1 PM today until he gets home tomorrow evening at around 6.

I know all the single mamas out there are laughing their asses off at my wimpiness. I know the solution to Mean Mama is parttime childcare. I even found a provider I'm interested in contacting. The problem is, they seem to have disappeared. We used to see these two women who took care of a group of kids at our playground most mornings. I loved how the main teacher interacted with the kids, the assistant was really good too, the kids were really nice, and K-zilla loved playing with them. But since our 40 days of rain, we haven't seen them in nearly a month, and now it's been so hot I suspect they are either staying inside where it's cool, or going to a playground with more shade (and a functioning water fountain). I am hoping they aren't a daycare that closes for the summer. I'm hoping next week when the weather breaks we'll see them again so I can find out if there are any openings, and all the rest of the pertinent info. I'm hoping we've seen the last of Mean Mama around here for some time.

Meanwhile I would love love love to hear about how other people deal with Mean Mama or Mean Papa. How do you keep from losing your cool with your kids, especially when they are so very young?

2003-06-25T17:17:00.000-04:00

Three husbands and a lifetime of experience later,
you have realized that the best kind of love
comes only when you love yourself first. You
are Janie Crawford from Their Eyes Were
Watching God by Zora Neale Thurston.

Which Heroine of Classic Literature are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

2003-06-25T12:15:00.000-04:00

I was gonna post about the Supreme Court decision on AffAct today, because while it's not a total loss, it's far from a complete victory, and it's been bugging me. But now I'm not, because Ms. Shannon took her bat and knocked that sucker right out the park. Anything I said on the subject after that would be redundant, and not as well stated either.

Okay, we're going to the sprinkler now. It's just too damn hot to stay inside another minute.

2003-06-24T10:05:00.000-04:00

Thank you Mean Regression and Nurse Ratched.

Look what I found for K-zilla! She's gonna love them.

2003-06-24T09:52:00.000-04:00

This or That?

1. Surf sites at random, or have a set list of regular reads?
I read the list of blogs/sites at left daily. If they have interesting links I may indulge in some random surfing, but K-zilla doesn't really allow for too much of that.

2. Do you visit mostly blogs, or news or other sites?
Blogs mostly, but not exclusively.

3. Do you go online every day, or just a couple of days a week?
Oh, multiple times a day, most days. Occasionally I won't even turn the 'puter on, but that's a rare thing.

4. Do you allow comments on your blog, or not?
Of course! Comments are very very welcome! Don't be shy, y'all!

5. Do you shop online at all, or at regular stores?
Both.

6. Have you ever done online bill-paying/banking, or not?
I shudder to think what my credit report would look like without the joys of automated online bill paying. I don't remember the last paper check I wrote.

7. Which news site do you prefer... MSNBC.com or CNN.com? Or do you prefer some other one?
I like AlterNet and Unknown News.

8. Live chat rooms, or message boards?
Message boards. I'm too distracted and verbose to be a good chatter.

9. Instant messaging or e-mail?
I IM my sister when she's at school. Otherwise I'm an email person.

10. Yes or no: have you ever met, or at least talked on the phone with, another blogger? If not, would you want to? Why or why not?
Yes, I have met another blogger. In fact, I'm hoping to see her soon.

2003-06-23T17:43:00.000-04:00

She looked like a cross between these two images. Very kinetic. Like that scene in the new Matrix where Neo first sees Seraph, the Oracle's guardian, and for a moment he looks like a mass of radiant golden green sparks within the green and black of the matrix. That's similar to how she appeared, but not quite exactly it. I'm resigning myself to the fact that I will never be able to adequately tell or show anyone how this experience felt, looked, sounded, and so on. It's trapped in my head, despite my best efforts to free it. This is frustrating.

More frustrating is trying to be patient enough to allow the purpose of the visit to be revealed in its own good time.

2003-06-23T14:37:00.000-04:00

Last night V. asked me, apropos of nothing at all, "So, what did She look like?" and I knew he meant the Goddess. As I told him, she looked very ancient, fairly abstract, she had no face and no voice, she was sort of greenish gold and radiant and sparkly. She was beautiful and powerful and compelling. I wish I could find an image that better represents what I saw than the one I posted. We talked more about what she'd said and what I thought she'd meant, and I realized that I hadn't made myself clear on a couple of points in talking about this before.

Most importantly, when she identified herself in me it wasn't as though I was being elevated above any other woman. It was more like she was reminding me of something that we both already knew which is that I am her writ small, just like every other female being. If you're a woman, girl, mare, vixen, hen, etc, you are an aspect of her. I tried to use the example of a cookie in talking about this with a couple of other people before, but I don't know if it got through. Say you have a cookie, a sugar cookie. You put it down on a napkin while you pour your milk, and then pick it up to take a bite. Inevitably when you pick it up there are a couple of little crumbs on the napkin that were dislodged from the mass of cookie. Although we don't usually think of them this way, they are everything the big cookie is, just very much smaller. You can't quite make a snack out of the tiny crumbs, but they are no different than the cookie itself. Same component ingredients, same process went into their creation, etc. They are cookies, but tiny.

You, reading this, if you are female, you are the Goddess, just as she told me I was, whether you believe it or not. If you are male, you are the God, her consort, just as she said V. is. There is nothing special about us. We are the same as you, or any other person who has ever lived. She wasn't telling me this to set me or him apart from other people, but rather it felt like a reminder of something I already understood (thank you Joseph Campbell, may you rest in peace), with an expectation behind it. What the expectation is, I'm not certain. I think it has to do with particular title she used for V., The Horned God. I'm a little anxious because The Horned God is sometimes associated with sacrifice, though he is always reborn. Why did she choose The Horned God and not say, Osiris, Chango, or any of the other incarnations of this deity? I'm not sure.

2003-06-21T14:15:00.000-04:00

Ok, I'd meant to talk more about K-zilla's orthotics.

The casting was yesterday. It went fairly well, but she still screamed her head off through the whole thing. 90 seconds after we rinsed the plaster off her feet and put her shoes and socks back on, she went back out the the waiting area to play with their toys like nothing had happened...

Here's the process. The tech did an exam of her feet flexing them this way and that, watched her walk around a bit to see what her motion and stride is like, reviewed the recommendations from the PT, OT, and her pediatrician, and then asked me to pick out a fabric for the thing to be covered in (I chose Spongebob and Sandy with a blue background, but they had all sorts of fabric: solids, florals, sports, other characters, patterns etc). He called in a colleague to consult about how her super-flexibility will affect the whole thing. They also had a discussion about how high up the ortotics should go. I had thought it was going to be supra-malior (about 1/2way up the calf) but the prescription from the ped was for sub-malior (the PT's initial recommendation) so there was back and forth about that and a call to the PT. In the end it was decided that since she is fairly small and light the sub-malior will be okay, so they'll come up to her ankles like hightop shoes, sort of like the ones on the left in the picture above, but nicer, and not as high.

The tech got a bucket of water, some rolls of plaster coated gauze, a curved plastic strip about 1/2" wide and 6" long, and a scalpel. She sat on my husband's lap, the tech kneeled in front of them, and I was on the side to comfort her and hold her leg still at the knee. He laid the plastic along the top of her foot and up her leg, then wrapped the wet plaster rolls around her foot and up to about an inch above her ankle. She screamed and kicked a bit while he pressed firmly to mold it to her foot. This took maybe 2 minutes. Then my job was to hold her leg as still I could, while he took the scalpel and ran it up the plaster (along the plastic strip so that there was little danger of cutting her) and removed the mold. Then we did the other side and it was done. Entire time for casting? Just over 5 minutes I'd say. We rinsed the excess plaster off her leg in the sink, my husband flaked the little bit that got on his jeans off after it dried (2 minutes later) and it was all over.

The tech told us before it started that it would feel cold and wet at first then warm. I'd say she was more upset for the second one because she knew what was coming. They had coloring books and toys to distract her, and I brought books too, which was nice to calm her between the exams which she hates because she can't stand having her feet touched) and the actual process.

I'm just so glad she didn't have to be sedated. We go back in 2 weeks for the fitting.

2003-06-20T17:05:00.000-04:00

Friday Five:

1. Is your hair naturally curly, wavy, or straight? Long or short?
It's fairly long-- past my shoulders. I am happy to be nappy, thank you very much. Isn't it funny how nappy and/or kinky are never among of the options in these little quizes about hair? Just another layer of invisibilty for this Invisible Woman.

2. How has your hair changed over your lifetime?
It's become less of a toy more of a statement. Fashion is no longer a factor in my hair decisions, and I don't think it ever will be again.

3. How do your normally wear your hair?
Now that the weather is getting warmer I tie my dreads up so I don't overheat, I usually leave them down otherwise.

4. If you could change your hair this minute, what would it look like?
I'd touch up my roots. I dye it back to the auburn of my youth, except for the front which is very grey now. When the grey takes over a little more I'll stop dying it and have silver dreads like my mother. My mom is tres chic, yes indeedy.

5. Ever had a hair disaster? What happened?
Yes. It involved a rah-rah shady queen hairdresser, hair relaxer, and an easily intimidated me. Beyond that, I don't care to talk about it, thank you.

Later I need to talk about K-zilla's casting for her orthotics (orthoses?), which was today. I'm supposed to meet a friend in a little while for a late birthday celebration. To sum up, it went well, but I really need a drink now.

2003-06-19T16:09:00.000-04:00

Pretty flowers for a happy Thursday.

More rain, can you believe it? I feel like a Seattlite. Seattler? Seattlean? Whatever. I feel like someone from the Pacific Northwest. Though when you live there, this weather is to be expected and there isn't that feeling of, "when is this rain going to end so that summer can start?" It's the anticipation of better things to come that's making me anxious. If I wasn't looking for something else to start soon, I think I'd be okay with this. It sure does make all the plants happy and green, though, even as it makes my hair all wild.

I got a book on HTML & XHTML for my birthday (I didn't ask for it, it was a surprise, thank you very much. I'm not that big of a geek). I will start it as soon as I work through the huge stack of stuff I got at the library. As usual, all my inter-library loans came through at once, so I have 6 books out, plus I just got the notice that another one is there today, so I have to go back and pick it up. There will be book reviews to follow for the notable ones. Also, my sister called today to tell me not to buy the new Harry Potter, as she pre-ordered it for me as a late birthday present. She hates ruining surprises (I don't mind), but she was afraid I would go buy it for myself. As if! New hardcover books cost how much? $30 cover price? $18, plus shipping, if you get it at Amazon? *scoff* I'm the queen of $2 (or less!) books. I couldn't afford to pay full price for all the books I read. I want to support the authors, but I can't afford it. If I were rich my favorite authors and the independent bookstores would be the happiest folks alive. I could easily spend rent money at the bookstore, so I stay away.

K-zilla's up and sounding cranky, so more later.

2003-06-17T13:13:00.000-04:00

This or that?

1. Newspapers or magazines?
Magazines.
2. Books-on-tape or regular books?
Regular dead-tree books, thanks.
3. Paperback or hardcover?
Paperback is easier to carry around but sometimes it's nice to sit in bed witha substantial hardcover.
4. Fiction or non-fiction?
I am a fiction junkie, though as I get older I've been reading more non-fiction.
5. Sci-Fi/Fantasy or romance novels?
Definitely SF/F, though I have been known to read romances for medicinal purposes at certain times of the month...
6. Borrow from library or buy books (either new or used)?
I used to only buy books new, but I am a huge fan of the library and used bookstores now, as I can no longer afford my reading habit.
7. Subscribe to magazines or buy on newsstand?
Subscriptions are cheaper.
8. Current best-sellers or classic literature?
Current work? Yes. Current best-sellers? I'm not so sure. Would that include the Left Behind and Chicken Soup series? Ick. I am very interested in a lot of current fiction. I also really enjoy lots of classic literature. It's the best-seller bit in the question that's tripping me up.
9. Read books once, or re-read favorites every so often?
There are a whole slew of books I re-read periodically. I love re-reading, as there is always that moment of, "wait, who put that part in there? I don't remember that!" Also, depending on what's going on in your own life, certain aspects of the story take on a greater or lesser significance. It can be like a whole new book, sometimes.
10. Here in the U.S., we have two hot best-sellers...former First Lady Hillary Clinton's memoirs, and the new Harry Potter book (coming out June 21). If you had to read one, which one...Hillary or Harry? Why?
Harry. Why? To see how it all comes out, of course. Besides, I am not big on First Lady Books, though if I was ever going to read one, Hillary's would be it. I am neither a "rabid Hillary hater" nor a "Hillary, right or wrong" type. I did see her on Charlie Rose last week and was surprised at how very much she impressed me in that interview. She's a smartypie for sure, and I think that scares the bejeesus out of lots of folks, her stance on the issues aside. I voted for her as a senator, and I would certainly consider voting for her for president, should she ever choose to run.

2003-06-16T22:27:00.000-04:00

Ok, here's the weird thing.

Somehow my post from today has ended up under the Saturday heading, and I had to go retrieve the Saturday one and repost it so of course it's showing up as being from today. Sorry for the mixup folks, I don't know if I can fix it yet, but I will try. This is why the comments don't match up with the topic at hand on Saturday.

And still no images...

2003-06-16T22:24:00.000-04:00

Blogger is updating their user interface and there seem to be a few little bugs so we'll see if this even works. So far, it seems I can't quite upload the image I wanted to use today because there's no button on the window that pops up to allow me to accept it. I'll try again later.

Anyway, I wanted to thank all of you again for your kind birthday wishes. I had a very nice day yesterday though it was grey and rainy. And it was good to see L. last night. I am hoping to be able to see him once more before he has to go, but if yesterday was goodbye, then it was nice to have an especially good visit as a send-off.

L. and V. really helped me clarify my thoughts on the experience I had last weekend. L. thinks that it's a sign that I'm on the right path with what I'm doing. As he put it, "what does the Goddess do? She creates. So go create something." I had been thinking recently about a conversation I'd had with my dad when I was a few months pregnant, long before I started blogging. He asked if I'd written anything recently and I'd said no. I felt really awful saying no. The guilt just fell right on my shoulders as soon as I thought the word, before I even said it out loud. I said I hadn't written anything since I'd gotten pregnant. Inside the overactive, superharsh, mental critic who I haven't yet been able to evict from my head started gearing up to berate me about the need to write every day, etc etc etc. He said, oh, well when I started again to let him know because he loves to read my work which was nice to hear, but at the same time it just fed that critic. Everything can feed the critic when I'm not careful. I told V. about this at the time and he said, "well, of course you haven't written anything. Your creative energy is going elsewhere." I was reminded of this last night when L. said, "so create something. It doesn't have to be a baby. It could be anything." And then today I saw this at Angel V. Shannon's blog:

You know that they used to say a woman could either be a writer or have a family. Was that much of an issue for you? Finding the solitude that being a writer requires?

....It's hard. It will continue to be hard, because the energy comes from the same place. You give the same kind of profound engagement to the writing and the children. It's not like being a waitress and being a writer. It comes from a different part of your mind....

What advice would you give to writers just starting out?

...You have to have perserverence. It really takes a kind of nerve--not only in what you write. The whole act is very nervy. Sometimes you find yourself sitting there thinking, "What am I doing?" "How can I say these things?" And you somehow have to believe that it's worth it. --- Lynne Sharon Schwartz, author of In the Family Way, The Fatigue Artist, Disturbances in the Field, Rough Strife, Leaving Brooklyn and others.

I guess this is why the thought of having more children, for me, is a pleasant thought but nothing more. Nothing that I intend to act upon, let me say. The hard cold reality is, as the author states, the energy to write (create) and to mother (create, mold, shape) come from the same place. And the energy is finite. One only has but so much to give in the course of twenty four hours, in the course of a lifetime. And this is the same reason why, after working at this job, I have come to understand why most artists work as waiters and waitresses...fake it till you make it...because the energy is finite and most jobs usurp a tremendous amount of that the limited creative supply that you have.

(bold added by me, for emphasis.)

So perhaps it's not about babies after all. Maybe my hormones are misleading me, as hormones will do in their oh so selfish way. But then why bring V, as her/my consort, into it at all? I'm obsessing about this because I want to be sure I'm doing the right thing, that I'm on the right path. Poisoned creatives are toxic people to be around and I don't want to be one of them. I have to learn to trust myself to be able to recognize the signs that things are, or are not, going well and then I can adjust my actions accordingly.

It's so hard for me to talk freely about this. I mean, what would I do if I was presented with some one telling me that they had a divine entity come and tell them these things? The temptation to just eye-roll right on over to another topic might be strong. Depending on the person, one might be inclined to dismiss it out-of-hand. "You know, I'm not surprised she's talking this mess. She always was a little too (insert synonym for "hippy-dippy space cadet" here) for my taste. And talk about some cultural appropriation, she couldn't even be visited by someone out of her own cultural tradition. Some old indo-european, celtic deities had to come talk to her ass. Wait, were there illict substances involved? She does have those longass dreadlocks... Next she's gonna be running around like ODB wanting folks to call her 'Big Baby Jesus..." or some crazy shit." That nasty inner critic has been working hard, as you can see, and I've been hard pressed to shut her down even a little. At this point I've decided that if reading about this turns folks off, then so be it. bigfatmama said it best in my comments box from Wednesday, "...all I have to share is what I'm living." This is what I'm living, strange as it may sound, strange as it may feel. If you're interested in sharing in the ride, here it is. If you want to share what's up in your neck of the hood, you can email or post a link in the comments and I'll check it out, if I don't already read it regularly (see links at left).

2003-06-14T18:17:00.000-04:00

Still no images, phooey.

I spent a nice day up at my Dad's house in Westchester yesterday for Father's Day. It was nice visiting with him, my step-mother and my brothers. They enjoyed K-zilla, though the elder of my brothers had a spasm of jealousy over all the attention K-zilla got as the baby. I must remember to be extra smoochy to him when we see him next. It is so very hard to be 13.

V. didn't go with us as he had to work a closing shift. I made him a nice breakfast, and K-zilla colored him a card which he liked and hung on the bedroom door. Breakfast was insipred if I do say so. Cooks Illustrated has a recipe in the current (July/August 2003) issue for the Best Blueberry Pancakes. They aren't kidding, y'all. They are the best. They also have a variation for Lemon Cornmeal Blueberry pancakes, which were indeed yummy, but I think I like the regular blueberry pancakes better. I made the variation for V. for Fathers' Day, along with coffee (I cheated and made half decaf, half regular for him, and he didn't say a word about it tasting funny as he often does about the all decaf I make) and bacon, as our special treat. K-zilla loved the pancakes and turned her fingers and her whole mouth blueberry purple. He'll get the main part of his gift later as I totally forgot summer is basically here, even if the sun hasn't been. I couldn't get an appointment for a brazilian bikini wax in time. Ahem (Nudge nudge wink wink, who loves ya, baby?). Yes. Well. I wrestled with myself over whether this was similar to the time Homer gave Marge a bowling ball engraved with his name on it for her birthday although she doesn't bowl, but decided it was not in the least the same, as having your parts waxed is much more painful than buying a damn bowling ball, though the results are so much more fun.

I have decided to stick with the original plan with regards to another baby. By the end of the summer we'll be more ready. Right now everything's too discombobulated. I think the time is not quite right, and that if this is not the right thing to do, She'll let me know. Thanks for all the input y'all. Every little scrap of feedback is welcome.

2003-06-11T14:24:00.000-04:00

So much is happening around here all at once, that I can't quite keep up with it all.

A good friend of ours, actually V.'s oldest friend, is moving to Indianapolis. While I respect his reasons (it's for love, y'all...) I will still miss him more than he knows. We don't have so many friends that the good ones can just move away without us really feeling it. And I'm feeling extra sad about it because he only just got back here in the last year or so, from living in Chicago. Still, if it's for love, it's not like he just needed a change of scenery, and all. When I heard at first I panicked and hollered, but after I calmed down I was like, "Well, for love, all right. That's different." It's so hard to let people we love make decsions for themselves that don't favor us directly. It's hard to remember that when they choose what's best for them, that is what's best for us, even if it doesn't feel that way. He's coming to see us Friday to say goodbye. It's a combination going away/birthday thing.

Which brings me to my birthday, which is on Friday. Yes, Friday the 13th. I was born on a Friday too, which, if you believe all that stuff, makes Friday the 13th good luck for me, not bad. My birth was also in the middle of a huge electrical storm. According to my mother, this is because I'm a closet drama queen. I'm hoping that this Friday there will be no storm and no drama, just lots and lots of food, yummy cake, and maybe a gift or two. Just because I'm going to be an old lady of 34 doesn't mean I don't crave cake and gifts. I was reading Nakachi's blog, in which she is stressing having just turned 30. I can relate, because I have certainly stressed certain birthdays, though 30 wasn't one of them. 25 and 29 were hard for me. Both were ages I had a mental picture of what I would have liked to have going on in my life and the reality wasn't anywhere near the picture. But a funny thing has happened in the last few years. I started making choices based on what I really, truly wanted, rather than on what I felt I should be doing, and everything has just blossomed for me. I don't work a job I hate anymore. I feel freer to be myself, though I am not yet as free as I want to be and my Self is a work in progress. I am married to my soul mate (a man, whodathunkit?), who gives me permission to be even freer than I can yet allow myself. My blessings cup runneth over. Which is not to say I can't get a good whiny complaint going at the drop of a hat, but still. I am so very fortunate. And though certain seeds were planted in the years beforehand, and it's taken a whole lot of inner work, all of this really came together since I hit the big 3-0.

Something is swirling around me too, some threads of unfinished business with my past have recently come together, and I'm having to figure out what it is that needs to happen with them. Some of it's positive, and some negative, and I can't quite step back away from my own life enough to see if it's connected or if there's a pattern the universe is trying to make me aware of, but I'm working through it. I would post about this in greater detail, but it's not all my business to tell, so I'm sorry to be so obscure, but there you have it. If it was all mine, you'd have more details than you'd know what to do with.

Which makes for a nice segue into talking about another heavy influence on my blogging. I don't know if y'all have been clicking those links to the left there, but please please please, do yourself a favor and introduce yourself to the deep, abiding pleasure that is bigfatmama's journal. She is so strong and beautiful. After I read her journal I feel as though I know what it's like to be her for a moment. It's all there on the page, no erasing, no holding back. I have come a long way towards accepting my body (Hey! Have you read Fat!So? yet? No? What in the world are you waitng for? It's a whole 'nother revolution just waiting for you to help make it happen!), but BFM, is so far beyond this point I'm at that I can barely see her on the path up ahead, but it's so very nice to see that there are others who have walked the path before me. I know people complain/make jokes about bloggers/live journal users who write about their kids a lot. They need to shut that mess down. If nothing else, BFM's relationship with her son has made me think that maybe I could be a good mama to a boy, that I do have something to offer in that regard. That it wouldn't be all V.'s job to parent our son while I was stuck with the feeding and clothing aspects.

Which leads me to talk about my baby fever. Yes, believe me, I know K-zilla is a handful and a half, but hormones are hormones and mine want another baby. I had been resisting this, because we're already 3 people in a NYC 1-bedroom apartment, with no prospects of moving to anything bigger anytime soon. People certainly do have larger families in small apartments, but there's the overcrowded rat syndrome to be considered. Plus, I get very ill when I'm pregnant, to the point of needing to be hospitalized. I was admitted 4 times while I was pregnant with K-zilla, all for Hyperemesis, which is sort of like morning sickness on steroids. Who will take care of K-zilla while I'm in the hospital hooked up to an IV puking my guts out for 4-8 days at a time? That's a lot of time for V. to take off from work. These are all practical considerations that I shouldn't ignore. Still, we had talked about the end of the summer possibly being a good time to think about getting pregnant, and had sort of left it at that. But then on Sunday night I had an experience I have never had before, and that I wouldn't have imagined myself having at all. I'm still completely weirded out by the whole thing and I worry about talking about it here, for fear of coming off as some flaky, new-age, crunchy granola, hippy dippy freak. Which I guess I am, but I still worry about appearances too much to be entirely comfortable with this (maybe by the time I'm 40 I'll be past this).

So (deep breath) not to put too fine a point on it, I had a Visit from The Goddess. She didn't say what she wanted from me specifically, but she came to me, identified herself, identified herself in me, identified her consort in V. and left. Now, I'm not a follower of the european forms of paganism, but those were the terms she used. I found this to be confusing, like why wouldn't she choose terms which would speak to me as an african-american woman? I felt very odd telling V. about this. It took a day to even work up the courage, and I tell him everything. He took it as easily as if I'd told him the sky was blue, and we wondered what it meant. It was in the course of talking with him about it, and explaining her terms, that I realized that Midsummer, (a busy magical time, according to those european pagans) is next week, which just happens to coincide with when I ought to be ovulating. After a day or two of turning this over in my mind, I'm thinking that maybe we're not supposed to wait. Maybe the time is now. But then again, it's Midsummer, it's not like it's Beltane. Maybe I'm misinterpreting the information I was given?

Now I'm left hoping She'll come again, and maybe answer some questions this time or at least be a little more specific.

2003-06-07T21:38:00.000-04:00

Senator Robert Byrd gave another speech on the floor of the US Senate a couple of weeks ago that just rocked my world. You may remember hearing a great deal about a speech of his back in February that was also really good. My mother is of the opinion that this latest one is something we'll want to have a copy of stashed away for future generations. When you get right down to it, content aside, she just loves quality oratory, and I agree with her that you don't hear much of it anymore. To hear one that's beautifully written that you also happen to really agree with? That's the kind of thing that makes you wanna be a good citizen.

My favorite part? Maybe this:

What makes me cringe even more is the continued claim that we are "liberators." The facts don't seem to support the label we have so euphemistically attached to ourselves. True, we have unseated a brutal, despicable despot, but "liberation" implies the follow up of freedom, self-determination and a better life for the common people. In fact, if the situation in Iraq is the result of "liberation," we may have set the cause of freedom back 200 years.

Or this:

it is becoming all too clear that the smiling face of the U.S. as liberator is quickly assuming the scowl of an occupier. The image of the boot on the throat has replaced the beckoning hand of freedom. Chaos and rioting only exacerbate that image, as U.S. soldiers try to sustain order in a land ravaged by poverty and disease. "Regime change" in Iraq has so far meant anarchy, curbed only by an occupying military force and a U.S. administrative presence that is evasive about if and when it intends to depart.

Democracy and Freedom cannot be force fed at the point of an occupier's gun. To think otherwise is folly. One has to stop and ponder. How could we have been so impossibly naive? How could we expect to easily plant a clone of U.S. culture, values, and government in a country so riven with religious, territorial, and tribal rivalries, so suspicious of U.S. motives, and so at odds with the galloping materialism which drives the western-style economies?

Go on, Senator Byrd! Speak Truth to Power!

2003-06-07T17:15:00.000-04:00

More flowers for another grey, rainy day. K-zilla is whiny, snivelling, and clingy, all because we can't go outside and run around. I can't take a half a step without her being directly underfoot, and all she wants is everything she should not have and to be ooooon me. A mama could easily drop her basket this way.

Instead, I am eating peanut butter on toasted homemade bread while ignoring K-zilla's pleas to for me to read We're Going on a Bear Hunt for the 17th time today (that's no exaggeration, folks. I counted). When I am done eating, I will clear the few dishes out of the kitchen sink, turn on some warm water, find some plastic containers (not too big!) and utensils, and let K-zilla "wash the dishes." Afterwards I will no doubt have to mop the kitchen floor, but that's ok, it could certainly stand to be mopped. Anyway, it's a small price to pay for a couple of hours of peace, and no small person clutching at me. Maybe I could even finish reading my book.

2003-06-06T19:02:00.000-04:00

I should be making dinner but instead I am here. Naughty me!

Today was a lovely day. The weather was perfect, nice and sunny after all those dreary days. I was so glad we could go outside without worrying it was going to rain. But of course it's right back to it according to the forecast for tomorrow. I could accept this better if we lived in, say, Seattle. When you live there, this is the expected weather. This is not normal for the northeastern seaboard. I've been getting a little stircrazy, so today was a welcome break.

I saw some interesting links posted her and there today, but I really do have to go cook, so I'm just going to wrap up with a quick mention of the new recipe blog that Dru has started over at Full Bleed. I plan to be posting there regularly as well. I think it's going to end up called Full Bellies, which I rather like, and it's already got some yummy things up. I am still not sure if it's vegetarian or omnivore, but regardless, check it out folks!

2003-06-04T17:13:00.000-04:00

The weather has been so dreary it's making me feel dreary. You know things are bad when I don't even want to blog. I thought some flowers might liven up the place.

2003-06-04T15:25:00.000-04:00

This is the kind of weather that makes guys who want to be known as Ishmael walk around knocking other folks' hats off. It's been cold and damp, if not outright rainy for the last 3 weeks now, with a decent day sprinkled in here and there just frequently enough to keep the population from running off on long sea voyages... I can't stand this weather much longer. When it's this wet K-zilla can't go outside and get her rampage on, which makes for a miserable little lizard queen, and a miserable mama. There are a limited number of times one can read the same books over and over to a toddler whose appreciation of them is fading with each reptition. I refuse to allow her to watch more teevee than usual, just because we can't go outside. So it's up to me as supermama to figure out some way to keep this child entertained enough to distract her from the lethal areas and activities in the house from the time she gets up in the morning until she goes to bed at night. It's no small job now that she's a climbing lizard.

Yesterday was the first day of occupational therapy. K-zilla likes Jill, and so do we. Jill had a bag full of cool toys and it all got played with by the time she left. She also conveniently forgot a couple of things so K-zilla's been playing with them on her own, which is good.

Coincidentally, K-zilla had a major breakthrough yesterday, and has decided it's okay to let mama do her hair. This is huge. She used to seem to feel that a comb or a brush in her hair was the touch equivalent of hearing fingernails on a blackboard. She would not tolerate it at all. I've done it two days in a row now, and she'll let me braid it up at night too. Every time it becomes less and less of a struggle. I can see there are a couple of things at work here, which led to this happening. One is the swanky new conditioner I bought for her hair which detangles much better than the other stuff did. It costs way more too, but I think I can live with that. Also, I think the fact that I continued to brush and comb it twice everyday just short of the point of her falling apart has helped to desensitize her head. I was trying to establish it as a part of her routine, even if it didn't get done the way I wanted. So now that she will let me do it it's already an established part of her day, it just happens slightly differently now. Also, I still do the little exercises they recommended as she passes by periodically during the day. Or at least as much as I can to a kid with pigtails or braids blocking free access to her scalp. Today she undid her braids partway, but that's okay. I'm just so happy I got to do them in the first place.

There are so many things that come from all of this. No more dirty looks from folks on the street, thinking I don't take good care of her because good grooming is equal to parental love in this community. No more being mistaken for a little boy even when she's wearing a skirt. No more folks getting mad at me because they thought she was a boy. The very best part? After I finish it and I say, "You want to see yourself in the mirror?" she always runs into the bathroom for a boost up so she can get a good look in the big mirror over the sink. The first time she saw herself with braids she looked so very pleased and proud and happy I got all teary just looking at her looking at herself. Of course I made much of her, and told her how grown up she looked, but even before I said anything she looked completely delighted. I think the afro puffs I gave her yesterday have been her favorites so far, and they are quick quick quick.

2003-06-02T11:31:00.000-04:00

I woke up at about 3 in the morning last night and couldn't go back to sleep for at least an hour. I lay there thinking about all the things that have happened around here recently and all the things I have to do this week. I also thought about my previous post, to which I promised a response.

What I feel needs a response the most is the fact that this person felt that he didn't have to respond to my point that his statement, which I quoted verbatim, was racist, or ignorant, or arrogant in any way. Instead he says that I need to be careful not to allow "multicultural correctness" (whatever that is) to "constrain" me like a "psychic straitjacket."

Hello? This from someone who dismisses an entire continent as a sinkhole of "bizarre" disease and disasters on a "vast," "biblical scale." It seems to me that based on that statement Mr. Pinchbeck is no different from his friends who went to Africa as a place to "prove themselves." I wonder if he has thought about the fact that for a relatively modest sum by the standards of his country, he had a life changing experience in that very place he had never wanted to go. Will that village, based on his book's popularity, turn into the new destination for enlightenment seeking hordes, much like the Latin American town he describes in the following section of his book? And when the next Hot Place comes along will it be abandoned the same way? Would either phenomenon be a service to the people who live there? Would they welcome being a "destination" (a la Goa)? Did he talk to anyone about this possibility? Or did he assume? Are there no shamanistic aspects of his own ethnic tradition(s) he could have explored? Does he not see even the potential for exploitation in all this?

Maybe I should have finished the book. Maybe my questions would have been answered further on, beyond the 100 pages or so I got through before I gave up. Maybe I'll put it back on my list of interlibrary loans and wait for it to become available to me so that I can finish it and see if the conversion from ignorant bigot to enlightened free-thinker has taken place by the last page. But based on the phrasing of his comment, I suspect that he is still ignorant of things other than his own viewpoint, and no one I want to know or read about. It's a shame, because I do have an interest in his topic, and I do think that many people would benefit from a renaissance of shamanism. I think this is a case of agreeing with the heart of the message, but not the messenger.

2003-05-31T10:58:00.000-04:00

The Friday Five.

1. What do you most want to be remembered for?

Being a good person. Nothing too outrageous here. I don't want to make more money than Bill Gates or take over the world or anything. I mean, not unless y'all ask me to very nicely.

2. What quotation best fits your outlook on life?

I don't think I know clearly enough what my outlook on life is to be able to sum it up with a quote. Ummmm, maybe this one will do: My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness. - Dalai Lama

3. What single achievement are you most proud of in the past year?

Recent template troubles notwithstanding, I've become a lot more tech savvy in the last year. I hope to continue this. And to learn to drive already, sheesh!

4. What about the past ten years?

Ten years ago I was depressed and miserable most of the time. I was barely functioning as an adult. I mean, I made it to my job (which I hated) most days, and I had "friends" I went out and drank way too much with, and V. and I lived in a teeny-tiny, dark, dreary pit of an apartment which would have made Pollyanna a rage-filled, suicidal wreck. Now, none of those things are true anymore, except V. and I are still together. All of the postives from my life then are still in place or improved upon, and nearly all of the major negatives are gone or going. My life is pretty good now, which is something I certainly couldn't have said with a straight face ten years ago.

5. If you were asked to give a child a single piece of advice to guide them through life, what would you say?

Given time I might come up with something really profound, but off the top of my head I guess I'd say, "Love and kindness are the most important things, both to yourself and to others."

So. I gave up on reading Breaking Open the Head and took it back to the library yesterday, which was the last possible day before I had to start paying fines on it. It just felt like a chore because despite my interest in the subject matter, I couldn't get past my irritation with the author (Sorry, still no permalinks. See my post titled "Makes me wanna holler" from May 19th). I had struggled on for about 100 pages, trying to give Mr. Pinchbeck the benefit of the doubt, but it just wasn't sitting well with me, and finally I realized I was treating it like an assignment, rather than something I had picked up for pleasure, after waiting weeks for the inter-library loan to come through. I had every intention of picking it up again though. But then, while my blog was all screwy with template trouble I noticed this blog had come up in a google search for both the book's title and the author's name and then I got a comment on that entry from someone claiming to be Mr. Pinchbeck himself. You can see it if you go to the comments section of that May 19th post.

Part of my struggle with continuing to read the book was the feeling that maybe I was being too hasty in judging him, that maybe he put that section in there as a sort of guide as to how far he's come thanks to the experiences he's had and written about in this book. Sort of like, "Yes, I used to be a self-centered. ignorant, arrogant jerk, but now I've experienced these things detailed herein and I'm a changed man. Now I see clearly the error of my ways and I'm publishing them to help others." I could respect that, and I do think that was his intent to a degree. That is a brave thing to do, and I give him credit for that bravery.

However, he took a misstep in his recovery from arrogance when he made his comment, and I am so put off by it, I can't even articulate it clearly. Specifically: "Multicultural correctness can become a kind of psychic straitjacket, if you are not careful."

Mr. Pinchbeck, assuming this was indeed wrtten by you, I'm still so irritated by this statement I'll have to go calm myself down so that I can respond appropriately and get back to you. I don't want you to think I've forgotten about you or that I didn't see it. I haven't, I did, and I will respond.

2003-05-29T22:07:00.000-04:00

Ah. My secret is out. I scored 28.40237% on The Geek Test - enough to be rated a "Total Geek." And may I point out that only geeks would give you your score to the fifth decimal place...

2003-05-29T21:25:00.000-04:00

It's not over yet.

Ok. So we're all in agreement that the so-called POTUS is the center of an Axis of Evil called "the present administration," right?

What?! You want further proof? Well, if you insist, but I hate to have to spell it out this way...

I found that fantastic link at BlueR_oses blog. Check it out, why don'tcha?

2003-05-28T23:59:00.000-04:00

Question Authority!

You know you wanna ask...

2003-05-28T16:05:00.000-04:00

Ok, folks there are still a few minor changes to be made but this is basically it, new template-wise.

So, whaddya think? If my comments are up, and they should be, let me know or you can email me by clicking the link at the top on the left.

Oh, and does anyone have any insight as to why my damn archives won't stay down under the "archives" header like they're supposed to do? Thanks.

2003-05-27T17:41:00.000-04:00

Now we're getting somewhere!

I think the repairs to the servers must be incomplete because my most recent tweaks and changes aren't showing up yet, but this is a step.

Now I can stop whining and neglecting my child.

2003-05-27T16:17:00.000-04:00

They claim it's fixed.

We shall see...

2003-05-27T12:07:00.000-04:00

1. Do you prefer silence or do you like background sound (music, TV, etc)?

I nearly always have WBGO on at home in the background, but I am not one to get freaked out by silence. In NYC it's hard to get total silence anyway. There's nearly always ambient traffic noise from the street outside.

2. Bathe/shower in morning or evening?

Well, under ideal circumstances the answer is both, but now that K-zilla's a toddler the answer is, "whichever I can get."

3. Sleeping in complete darkness, or with a nightlight on?

I don't need either. I wasn't a nightlight kid, and I can sleep even if it's pretty bright. There's a lot of ambient light in NYC too, but I don't need those blackout shades or anything.

4. Lay out clothes the night before, or just grab what's closest in the morning?

If I were the FLYlady adherent I aspire to be, I'd lay them out the night before. At this point in my life though, I try to plan what I'm going to wear as I'm lying in bed, drifting off to sleep. Babysteps!

5. Hang up/fold clothes neatly, or just toss them wherever?

Put them away straight from the laundry cart, otherwise it's a race to see if the cats or K-zilla will strew them around the house first. If they're dirty they go in the laundry pile in the corner of the bedroom. One day I'll find a suitable dirty clothes hamper I like and we'll upgrade, but until then, it's a mound in the corner.

6. Work out at a gym, or at home on your own (or do you not bother with exercise)?

Um, who needs formal exercise when there's a toddler in the house?

7. Talk on the phone, or via IM/e-mail?

When I was a teenager I was a phone-a-holic. Then things changed and I was a complete phone-a-phobe, totally dependant on my answering machine. Now I'm in recovery, but I still prefer email.

8. Are you usually on time, or late?

I'm getting better about this too. I used to be at least 15 minutes late to everything. Now I'm usually on time, with the occasional screwup.

9. Spendthrift or frugal?

In the middle. I can spend gobs of money on things like books without even trying. However, it pains me to spend good money on things like toilet paper. I am a good bargain shopper, from a long line of bargain shoppers.

10. Thought-Provoking Question of the Week: You work with someone who is not in the habit of bathing regularly. The smell seems to be getting worse and worse! Would you: 1. try to do something about it, or 2. try to grin and bear it? If you said 1, what would you do?

Do I have any idea why this is happening? Is this person just clueless or does s/he have a reason for such lax hygenic standards? Am I friends with this person? Was there a sudden onset tied to a particular event? Sometimes it's not worth the argument and some form of air freshener is the way to go. If it's tied to an event and is a symptom of say, depression, then a good friend might try to broach the topic. If it's a statement against "society's facist beauty standards" or something similar (I went to college with a guy who refused to use deodorant for this very reason, but we were not friends and I was able to stay downwind of him), then it's a waste of time to even try to address this unless you have some sort of leverage like "No nookie 'til you bathe!" Under no circumstances would the words, "Dude, you stink" come out of my mouth, however.

2003-05-27T11:14:00.000-04:00

From status.blogger.com

Sunday, May 25, 2003

A hardware failure has caused the downageness of the API and bSTATS servers. A replacement is in the works.
posted by Evan Williams | 5:02 PM

Ah. Yes. Well, some of us suspected as much, didn't we? So, until their "downageness" is "upified" I'm stuck with this template.

And my online banking screwed up so that a "pending payment" mysteriously disappeared which lead to our cell phones being temporarily disconnected this morning. The bank will be paying that late fee, yes indeed. I'm getting the feeling I need to make an offering to the silicon chip dieties, before things get worse...

I hope this will do.

2003-05-26T22:27:00.000-04:00

Ok. I am thoroughly baffled.

Not only does the template I'm seeing in the edit template window not match the template I see on the site (no matter how many times I publish it), but Blogger will not save any changes I make to that illusory template whatsoever. So I can't even scrap the one that's there and make an new one at this point.

Looking on the bright side though, at least there's something in that window now, as opposed to yesterday when it was totally empty.

V. and I just watched a silly "love it or hate it" sort of movie: The Big Lebowski. It had Jeff Bridges, Steve Buscemi, and John Goodman among others of my favorite actors so how bad could it be, right? Under ordinary circumstances I would talk a bit about this silly movie, which we both enjoyed as pure fluff by the way, but what with all this tech shit going oh so wrong, I'm just going to go read a dead tree book as a sort of luddite protest. Bah. Fucking. Humbug.

2003-05-25T15:20:00.000-04:00

And thus ends Kenneth Patchen week on this blog.

There's something going on with blogger. My template edit page has no info there at all and a little note (not like an error message) in the margin above the template scroll box saying "object required." It won't even let me make any changes to my (seemingly non-existant)current template. Bah! A couple hours' worth of work, down the frickafracking tubes.

I guess I'll go watch cooking shows on PBS to drown my tech sorrows. Oh, and did I mention K-zilla's recovered from her roseola, only to immediately catch V.'s cold? She's taking a boogery nap as I type this. I might also mention that by staying home with soon-to-be boogery K-zilla yesterday afternoon and cooking a rather fantastic meal (if I do say so myself) while V. took his contagious self off to see the Matrix Reloaded with his best bud, L., and without me, I am hereby a contender for the Overly Generous and Compassionate Wife award. Grand prize is what? A doormat or something? I'm trying to be gracious, but it's never come easy to me...

2003-05-24T16:13:00.000-04:00

Frickafracking FTP and Netscape!!! I could kick myself for even beginning this little experiment in publicly displaying my technical incompetence and ignorance. ::sigh::

Your blogging enjoyment is very important to us. Please continue to stand by...

2003-05-23T11:02:00.000-04:00

The Friday Five

1. What brand of toothpaste do you use?
Right now I'm using Solidox Hvite Tenner which I got when we were in Norway (yes, it "hvitens" one's teeth!). I like it a lot, but since you can't get it here, when it runs out I'll have to go back to whichever brand using baking soda and/or peroxide is on sale.

2. What brand of toilet paper do you prefer?

I prefer the eco-friendly 7th Generation recycled, unbleached stuff, but I buy the cheapest 2-ply brand BJ's Club sells.

3. What brand(s) of shoes do you wear?

The shoes I wear the most are Pumas. I also have shoes made by Birkenstocks, Dr. Martens, Aerosoles, Ecco, Salomon, Merrell, Technica...

4. What brand of soda do you drink?

I don't drink much soda. I like a Dr. Brown's Cel-ray or Black Cherry on occasion. Sometimes I'll drink a ginger ale and I like to have a root beer if I'm eating pizza, but I don't pay much attention to brands on those.

5. What brand of gum do you chew?

I don't chew much gum any more, but when I do buy some I'm a Trident original flavor kinda girl.

We are experiencing technical difficulties, please stand by...

So yesterday I was feeling a little over-confident and tried to change my template to some thing a little swankier and more customized. Of course I completely wrecked it, so please bear with me as we undergo the renovations around here. Feel perfectly free to email me until I figure out why my comments aren't back online (or even afterwards), etc etc etc. The good news is there's a swell new look coming if I can figure out how to get it to work. The bad news is, it may take awhile with lots of fits and starts in between.

2003-05-22T14:35:00.000-04:00

Text of the Rockford College graduation speech by Chris Hedges as found on the Rockford Register Star of Rockford, Il.

I want to speak to you today about war and empire.

Killing, or at least the worst of it, is over in Iraq. Although blood will continue to spill -- theirs and ours -- be prepared for this. For we are embarking on an occupation that, if history is any guide, will be as damaging to our souls as it will be to our prestige, power, and security. But this will come later as our empire expands and in all this we become pariahs, tyrants to others weaker than ourselves. Isolation always impairs judgment and we are very isolated now.

We have forfeited the good will, the empathy the world felt for us after 9-11. We have folded in on ourselves, we have severely weakened the delicate international coalitions and alliances that are vital in maintaining and promoting peace and we are part now of a dubious troika in the war against terror with Vladimir Putin and Ariel Sharon, two leaders who do not shrink in Palestine or Chechnya from carrying out acts of gratuitous and senseless acts of violence. We have become the company we keep.

The censure and perhaps the rage of much of the world, certainly one-fifth of the world's population which is Muslim, most of whom I'll remind you are not Arab, is upon us. Look today at the 14 people killed last night in several explosions in Casablanca. And this rage in a world where almost 50 percent of the planet struggles on less than two dollars a day will see us targeted. Terrorism will become a way of life, and when we are attacked we will, like our allies Putin and Sharon, lash out with greater fury. The circle of violence is a death spiral; no one escapes. We are spinning at a speed that we may not be able to hold. As we revel in our military prowess -- the sophistication of our military hardware and technology, for this is what most of the press coverage consisted of in Iraq -- we lose sight of the fact that just because we have the capacity to wage war it does not give us the right to wage war. This capacity has doomed empires in the past.

"Modern western civilization may perish," the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr warned, "because it falsely worshiped technology as a final good."

The real injustices, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, the brutal and corrupt dictatorships we fund in the Middle East, will mean that we will not rid the extremists who hate us with bombs. Indeed we will swell their ranks. Once you master people by force you depend on force for control. In your isolation you begin to make mistakes.

Fear engenders cruelty; cruelty, fear, insanity, and then paralysis. In the center of Dante's circle the damned remained motionless. We have blundered into a nation we know little about and are caught between bitter rivalries and competing ethnic groups and leaders we do not understand. We are trying to transplant a modern system of politics invented in Europe characterized, among other things, by the division of earth into independent secular states based on national citizenship in a land where the belief in a secular civil government is an alien creed. Iraq was a cesspool for the British when they occupied it in 1917; it will be a cesspool for us as well. The curfews, the armed clashes with angry crowds that leave scores of Iraqi dead, the military governor, the Christian Evangelical groups who are being allowed to follow on the heels of our occupying troops to try and teach Muslims about Jesus.

Hedges stops speaking because of a disturbance in the audience. Rockford College President Paul Pribbenow takes the microphone.

"My friends, one of the wonders of a liberal arts college is its ability and its deeply held commitment to academic freedom and the decision to listen to each other's opinions. (Crowd Cheers) If you wish to protest the speaker's remarks, I ask that you do it in silence, as some of you are doing in the back. That is perfectly appropriate but he has the right to offer his opinion here and we would like him to continue his remarks. (Fog Horn Blows, some cheer).

The occupation of the oil fields, the notion of the Kurds and the Shiites will listen to the demands of a centralized government in Baghdad, the same Kurds and Shiites who died by the tens of thousands in defiance of Sadaam Hussein, a man who happily butchered all of those who challenged him, and this ethnic rivalry has not gone away. The looting of Baghdad, or let me say the looting of Baghdad with the exception of the oil ministry and the interior ministry -- the only two ministries we bothered protecting -- is self immolation.

As someone who knows Iraq, speaks Arabic, and spent seven years in the Middle East, if the Iraqis believe rightly or wrongly that we come only for oil and occupation, that will begin a long bloody war of attrition; it is how they drove the British out and remember that, when the Israelis invaded southern Lebanon in 1982, they were greeted by the dispossessed Shiites as liberators. But within a few months, when the Shiites saw that the Israelis had come not as liberators but occupiers, they began to kill them. It was Israel who created Hezbollah and was Hezbollah that pushed Israel out of Southern Lebanon.

As William Butler Yeats wrote in "Meditations in Times Of Civil War," "We had fed the heart on fantasies / the hearts grown brutal from the fair."

This is a war of liberation in Iraq, but it is a war now of liberation by Iraqis from American occupation. And if you watch closely what is happening in Iraq, if you can see it through the abysmal coverage, you can see it in the lashing out of the terrorist death squads, the murder of Shiite leaders in mosques, and the assassination of our young soldiers in the streets. It is one that will soon be joined by Islamic radicals and we are far less secure today than we were before we bumbled into Iraq.

We will pay for this, but what saddens me most is that those who will by and large pay the highest price are poor kids from Mississippi or Alabama or Texas who could not get a decent job or health insurance and joined the army because it was all we offered them. For war in the end is always about betrayal, betrayal of the young by the old, of soldiers by politicians, and of idealists by cynics. Read Antigone, when the king imposes his will without listening to those he rules or Thucydides' history. Read how Athens' expanding empire saw it become a tyrant abroad and then a tyrant at home. How the tyranny the Athenian leadership imposed on others it finally imposed on itself.

This, Thucydides wrote, is what doomed Athenian democracy; Athens destroyed itself. For the instrument of empire is war and war is a poison, a poison which at times we must ingest just as a cancer patient must ingest a poison to survive. But if we do not understand the poison of war -- if we do not understand how deadly that poison is -- it can kill us just as surely as the disease.

We have lost touch with the essence of war. Following our defeat in Vietnam we became a better nation. We were humbled, even humiliated. We asked questions about ourselves we had not asked before.

We were forced to see ourselves as others saw us and the sight was not always a pretty one. We were forced to confront our own capacity for a atrocity -- for evil -- and in this we understood not only war but more about ourselves. But that humility is gone.

War, we have come to believe, is a spectator sport. The military and the press -- remember in wartime the press is always part of the problem -- have turned war into a vast video arcade came. Its very essence -- death -- is hidden from public view.

There was no more candor in the Persian Gulf War or the War in Afghanistan or the War in Iraq than there was in Vietnam. But in the age of live feeds and satellite television, the state and the military have perfected the appearance of candor.

Because we no longer understand war, we no longer understand that it can all go horribly wrong. We no longer understand that war begins by calling for the annihilation of others but ends if we do not know when to make or maintain peace with self-annihilation. We flirt, given the potency of modern weapons, with our own destruction.

The seduction of war is insidious because so much of what we are told about it is true -- it does create a feeling of comradeship which obliterates our alienation and makes us, for perhaps the only time of our life, feel we belong.

War allows us to rise above our small stations in life; we find nobility in a cause and feelings of selflessness and even bliss. And at a time of soaring deficits and financial scandals and the very deterioration of our domestic fabric, war is a fine diversion. War for those who enter into combat has a dark beauty, filled with the monstrous and the grotesque. The Bible calls it the lust of the eye and warns believers against it. War gives us a distorted sense of self; it gives us meaning.

(A man in the audience says: "Can I say a few words here?" Hedges: Yeah, when I finish.)

Once in war, the conflict obliterates the past and the future all is one heady intoxicating present. You feel every heartbeat in war, colors are brighter, your mind races ahead of itself. (Confusion, microphone problems, etc.) We feel in wartime comradeship. (Boos) We confuse this with friendship, with love. There are those who will insist that the comradeship of war is love -- the exotic glow that makes us in war feel as one people, one entity, is real, but this is part of war's intoxication.

Think back on the days after the attacks on 9-11. Suddenly we no longer felt alone; we connected with strangers, even with people we did not like. We felt we belonged, that we were somehow wrapped in the embrace of the nation, the community; in short, we no longer felt alienated.

As this feeling dissipated in the weeks after the attack, there was a kind of nostalgia for its warm glow and wartime always brings with it this comradeship, which is the opposite of friendship. Friends are predetermined; friendship takes place between men and women who possess an intellectual and emotional affinity for each other. But comradeship -- that ecstatic bliss that comes with belonging to the crowd in wartime -- is within our reach. We can all have comrades.

The danger of the external threat that comes when we have an enemy does not create friendship; it creates comradeship. And those in wartime are deceived about what they are undergoing. And this is why once the threat is over, once war ends, comrades again become strangers to us. This is why after war we fall into despair.

In friendship there is a deepening of our sense of self. We become, through the friend, more aware of who we are and what we are about; we find ourselves in the eyes of the friend. Friends probe and question and challenge each other to make each of us more complete; with comradeship, the kind that comes to us in patriotic fervor, there is a suppression of self-awareness, self-knowledge, and self-possession. Comrades lose their identities in wartime for the collective rush of a common cause -- a common purpose. In comradeship there are no demands on the self. This is part of its appeal and one of the reasons we miss it and seek to recreate it. Comradeship allows us to escape the demands on the self that is part of friendship.

In wartime when we feel threatened, we no longer face death alone but as a group, and this makes death easier to bear. We ennoble self-sacrifice for the other, for the comrade; in short we begin to worship death. And this is what the god of war demands of us.

Think finally of what it means to die for a friend. It is deliberate and painful; there is no ecstasy. For friends, dying is hard and bitter. The dialogue they have and cherish will perhaps never be recreated. Friends do not, the way comrades do, love death and sacrifice. To friends, the prospect of death is frightening. And this is why friendship or, let me say love, is the most potent enemy of war. Thank you.

(Boos cheers, shouts, fog horns and the like)

Jeez, is this "what makes America great?" Our ability to shout down anyone who clearly says things with which we disagree? I'm so disgusted with the US's ongoing inability to face the truth about ourselves as a nation it makes me physically ill. I orignally found this story at Thought 4 the Day and the comment (only one so far) was so right on I'm just going to link directly to the entry.

I swear, between this and the recent story about the "rescue" of Jessica Lynch being basically a made-for-teevee movie (in addition to the other one to come), I'm so ready to emigrate. Any recommendations about a nice, civil, place with friendly people and a tolerance for discourse and diversity? All serious suggestions welcome.

2003-05-21T16:48:00.000-04:00

So I just finished reading this book. Before I go into how it completely rocked my world on so many levels and how it's now at the top of my "run right out and buy a copy for every one male or female I happen to know and beg them pleasepleaseplease to read it right this minute because it will change their lives so much for the better and be a good jumping off point for the revolution besides" list of reading material, I just want to fess up that I had completely resisted reading this book for awhile.

It is true that some of my most favorite women on this great green planet of ours had been all over it for some time now. And it is true that they had been very, very clear that this book was a Big Deal. But it's also true that I, like 99.9% of the rest of the human population of this great green planet of ours, hate being told what to do, even indirectly and I have this contrary thing where if everyone else likes it, I feel like I should not be too quick to jump on the bandwagon. I think it's left over from my youth where I was forever being deeply disappointed by the bandwagons mainstream America embraces. What I forgot is that these same women who were so vocal in their adoration of this book are at least as far away from mainstream as I am, if not way, way beyond where I could ever dream of being. Naturally, they were absolutely correct. I adored every page.

Oh, and not that I'm trying to tell anybody what to do, but why aren't you buying your own copy right this minute? I got mine at the library, but I am going to return it and buy my very own new, unused copy from a woman-owned bookstore just as soon as K-zilla's no longer contagious. And that's quite a statement coming from a used bookstore queen like myself.

2003-05-21T08:58:00.000-04:00

K-zilla has a fine itchy red rash on her body this morning. Thank you, cousin T for your generousity! There's no fever yet, and she's not particularly crabby, but this is how it starts.