Janna St. James

It doesn't matter(horn).

2011-07-20T21:14:00.001-04:00

The kidlets are here. We are going to have a huge family day. This matters. :)

Chicken Boy, ojo caliente & black seed longing

2011-07-15T16:55:00.002-04:00

"This eye burns."
"This eye burns."
"This eye has a burning sensation."
"Thie eye still burns."

"It's called a laser, and your eye feels burned because it was burned. By a laser."

For the first time the laser was scary. All the other times I think it wasn't scary because I felt I had nothing to lose. This time I did worry about losing all the progress my only eye had made. Like with a laser slip or infection or something.

Not to worry I learned yet again. My retina specialist doesn't have superpowers, but is a superpower.

The seedless watermelon is now pretty much the only watermelon around here. Back when you could still choose, I always chose the old-fashioned seedy watermelon because the aesthetic was perfect. Nice black seeds against red watermelon nestled in green rind.

I would like the black seeds back, please. Not only 'cause I miss the look of the "old" watermelon, but because there is little contrast with the white mini seeds against the red. I don't see them and they end up in my mouth. Bleh.

Big storm, good eye & the horror of smoked butt.

2011-07-11T19:15:00.003-04:00

Big storm this morning. Big wind. Heard Skilling say "bow echo." Knocked down a mature tree on our back quarter. Not my table. The considerably blind and chainsaws aren't a good mix.

Of course, I am actually significantly more sighted in one eye than I was. The other eye, forget about it. I can't even see the gargantuan E on the eye chart with it. It no longer gets tested. It no longer gets any injections of medicine. It's now just there for effect.

The other eye, however, has improved with regular doses of the anti-inflammatory drug and continued lasering of broken blood vessels. The medicine reduces the swelling and when the swelling goes down the best retina specialist in the whole world can then see and close the ruptures with laser.

It will never be my eye of old. I was blessed with 20/20 vision the majority of my adult life. So this is just my dues for all those great years so many others never get.

Thinking about getting an eye patch for the retired eye. And then bedazzle it.

My cheapest friend doesn't ever like to go home without staying long enough to score a free dinner. She's there right now, enjoying her free SMOKED BUTT. She thinks she should have checked the menu before she scored the gratis fare.

I think it's funny she's having to stare down the butt. I've never liked it myself. As a kid there was always a feeling of impending doom when opening the refrigerator and seeing the smoked butt sitting in there on a plate, waiting to be endured.

Could never get past the name. It didn't even matter how many times I was told the name was not literal. Or that it was a cousin of bacon. No butt if I could at all help it.

Only thing worse was jaternice, or "Bohemian bananas." They didn't look like any kind of bananas to us. They looked (and tasted) like cat tails.

I wish that Tilt-A-Whirl was still over there by the Depot Museum. It's really hot and a nice tilt would be good.

Tiny grapes, enough & birthdays.

2011-07-08T16:43:00.004-04:00

I'm not like one of those people who thinks they know everything, or says "Oh, I know" when you tell them something you know they didn't really know. Or worse, when they don't say "Oh, I know" and just proceed like they not only knew, but are an authority on the thing they just learned.

I like to learn things. I believe the minute you know all you're supposed to is the day you die. So bring on the opportunity to learn! Also a really good reason to not be a know-it-all, as that surely tempts the fates. :)

This week I learned about tiny grapes. The "champagne grapes" or "bunchette" grapes. I'm told they aren't found in "regular" markets, only the "specialty" or "upscale" ones.

They are very cute. I wouldn't have believed it. Actual tiny bunches of grapes that look just like big bunches of red grapes. I'm told they only come in red.

So we ate them with tiny cubes of cheese and chocolate chips, wee European.

While in the midst of the mini feast of minis, we talked about how food can bring on the end of conversation, but how just being there and not talking is enough. I think more than enough. I was very content to just be there, eating minuscule foods while enveloped in gargantuan love.

It reminded me of the Wayback, and one of my first boyfriends. We lived equidistant from railroad tracks. One of us would call the other when we were leaving the house, and we'd meet in the middle. The tracks.

These tracks were freight riddled, and often times we'd arrive and catch a glimpse of each other between the slow-moving cars headed into the yard. We'd wave. Or blow kisses. Or make faces. Or once, as there was no one around and it was the
'60s, I flashed him.

We couldn't talk. We couldn't hold hands or hug. We had to just wait for the train to pass. But in those moments what we had was definitely enough.

Today is J's fairygodson's birthday. In his tweets he says he's "either 27 or 37, depending on your source." That made me laugh, even though it shouldn't. He worries about the passage of time, of growing older. I never did when I was his age, and I don't now. Guess it's just a personality thing.

Just hope he has a great day and remembers what his Irish friends always say: "It is as long as it is, that's it and that's all. Then we'll either get on to Heaven for the weather or Hell for the company. Either way we win."

Gahgah, penguin redux & bulb issues.

2011-06-28T19:22:00.005-04:00

The young man who posted this picture was upset about Lady Gaga's alleged questionable Japan relief efforts, and was inclined to call her a "stunt queen."

I'm inclined to call her to tell her watching her walk in these shoes reminds me of an old woman with no knees and a bad back. The shoes look more or less amazing, but what they do to her gait is so < attractive.

This prompted my daughter to say "Look like an old lady walking? It means eventually she will walk that way, and not in those shoes and not by choice."

While we're waiting for Gaga to cripple herself, we watch the fate of the lost penguin of New Zealand. While there is no guarantee there, the surgery was deemed successful in the moment. I'm thankful I have a few friends who are on "penguin watch" with me, catching what I can't.

Today R called me from a stoplight. Generally not good enough for me. With me it's either hang up and drive or pull over and talk. The panicked voice made me override my hard and fast rule. Rules I fortunately share with like minds.

"I broke another one of those light bulbs!"

The bulb in question was one of those new compact florescent curly bulbs. The ones required by law come January, the day of the death knell for the old incandescents.

This isn't the first breakage. The last time the panic was as great, but the education was not yet in place. The only concern way back then was getting the bulb out of the house and to a proper disposal location, as you can't just throw them out.

We ended up driving like mad through the dark trying to make it official disposal location Ikea before they closed for the night. More than an hour away.

This time the bulb slayer was better versed in the dangers involved in such breakages. The rapid-fire stoplight speak revealed a need to immediately clear the premises for X amount of time, the need to wrap the battered bulb in a glass container, something else about amounts of time and other assorted hysteria.

Prominent was a worry about the house animal, who was well put away at the opposite side of the house before leaving the premises, and two apples on the kitchen counter.

Would they survive? was the question. Can I sleep in my room tonight?

My only choice for response was to remind R of the last time. Was that bulb given time to emit its poisons in private? No. Was it carefully sealed away in glass before being transported to Ikea? No. Were we given ample time away from it in a well-ventilated area for a prolonged period of time? No. We were trapped with it in a mere open plastic shopping bag in the confined space of a Honda for more than an hour en route to Ikea.

Are we still alive? Yes. Will be die a year earlier for the exposure? No way of ever knowing that would be why, so why worry? Oh.

Bad bulb is on the deck over there. I was tempted to get an apple, take a bite out of it and just lay out there looking dead. Decided my time was better spent pondering what the heck is going to happen with all these danger bulbs once everyone is required to use them?

I just can't see your average individual in this kind of tizzy over breakage. I can't see your average individual driving dead ones swathed in glass to official disposal sites. Why would the smart environmental choice for light bulbs include mercury?

Huh.

Tornado, phone & penguin.

2011-06-26T12:27:00.001-04:00

So community TV night was underway a mere 10 minutes and the torando siren started to sound. We'd already realized the sirens in our neighboring towns to the north and west were sounding. Since our house is the only one with an adequate basement, we all headed over there after collecting all animals.

We sat around for an hour, kinda forced to do nothing but talk. That was good in a lot of ways. I said I didn't like the siren. Most likely because my Mom was VERY shaken during the Cold War era. The weekly test siren was unnerving for her, and that translated really well to me. So much so that as a kid, viewing "The Time Machine" at the Villas Theater, I had to leave because...what was it, morlocks?...would sound the siren when harvesting some new...what was it, eloi? (Yes, I'm too lazy to look it up. Mostly because I don't particularly care.)

It was interesting to see that my fear of siren was interpreted as fear of death. Not so. I'm much more frightened of the siren than I am of death. In fact, it seemed to be a general acceptance of death among us. None of us are afraid, and we unanimously declared that if this is our time we were very content with the company.

Sometime during the week also learned my cellphone will speak my text messages to me! I've had this phone for four years. Because I can't see really well, I just bat at the buttons when trying to complete a call or open a function and hope to get lucky. In this instance, the batting yielded a voice telling me exactly what the magnifying glass and I had just read!

So NOW I know I can have the voice read my texts to me! Great, just as we are considering finally trading my phone up. "The Plan" allows for a newer phone every two years, but it seems I'm two years late in upgrading. Part of that is because I just don't care about "the latest" anything. Eh. Duh. If one just HAS to have it, I don't want it.

Bigger issue is that, as is apparent, I barely know this phone. What I do know took me forever to learn. I can do things with it without actually seeing it, and I don't relish having to start that process all over. As a friend observed, I'm so good at not looking at my phone I could probably dial from a dark car trunk were I kidnappped. True enough I guess.

The most distressing thing of the week was not the tornado bearing down on us or the talking telephone. It was the plight of that little penguin that somehow swam 2000 miles off course, away from its home in the Antactic and onto a beach in New Zealand.

The poor baby is only 10 months old, and has eaten sand to cool off, as it would snow in its natural habitat. Officials were going to just leave it be, hoping it would rest and then find its way to swim back home. Soon enough though, it became apparent the little penguin was not well.

They said they wouldn't fly it home because of all the time in warm water it could be diseased. A return would then expose the entire emperor population. So they let him be, on the beach, visited by people and dogs. They moved a truck in to provide some shade for him.

Ultimately it was determined the penguin was ill from eating the sand, so they moved it to Wellington Zoo. The whole tummy was full of sand, and two flushes later, well, now we wait. Surgery tomorrow. Fifty/fifty chance.

Happy Father's Day.

2011-06-19T22:29:00.002-04:00

This is my dad. Not sure when this photo was taken, but I believe he was already 80 or close to it when it was taken.

He died in 2004. I'd looked for him all my adult life, and finally found him about four months after he died, at 87.

What I wouldn't have given for just one adult conversation with him. I didn't want anything else. I just wanted a chance to look at him, listen to him. He was pretty harshly judged by my family. Oh there were moments when he was given credit for this or that, but mostly it was negative.

I couldn't ever just go along with what everyone had to say. I didn't know him, and I really don't want to form an opinion based only in things others have to say. Everyone has their own agenda, and unfortunately that too often colors choices, logic and decisions.

Not to say I didn't have any direct negative experience with my father. I was only five when he evaporated from my life. But I remember being taken out of my home for my own safety. Being at my grandparents house, being put in one of my grandfather's shirts for sleep and standing on their bed before lights out. Standing on the bed I could see in the mirror over the dresser, and I can still vividly recall turning around, lifting the shirt and looking at the red welts on my back.

I always chose to focus on the good stuff I remembered, and there was a lot of it. At the top of the heap was being across the street, in the tennis courts of the park there. My father was teaching me to ride without training wheels on my bike. It was 54 years ago, but I can still see his face after I'd turned around to talk to him yet again, only to realize he was yards behind me. Yes, I was flying. But no, he wasn't holding me up anymore. Not physically anyway. I was flying because he got me there.

Or being with him in some river in the South, him chiding my mother who kept cautioning about snakes in the water. All of a sudden we both saw the snake and he beat us out of that water SO fast.

Or when he gave my Holloway sucker to buy off a black bear in Yellowstone while we backed away.

Yeah, he never paid my mother a dime of child support. Maybe I couldn't get on the hater bandwagon once I got older because my mother and grandfather worked hard to make up for what he didn't provide. I never wanted for much materially. Ever.

My grandfather used to say "He'll come around when you're 18. He'll want you to help take care of him. Just watch and see."

At 17 I just couldn't see it. Why? He was in serious trouble for not doing what he was supposed to do, how could he have the cajones to actually show up?

Sure enough, right after I was 18 we got a letter via an attorney, saying he'd like contact with me, 18, and my brother, 16. I'd read the first part of the letter delirious with joy. Damn right I was going to make contact! Until I got to "brother, 16."

My brother is not two years younger than I am.

At 17, faced with this detail I considered serious stuff, I at least reached for a hater application. I thought "This man doesn't even know how old his SON is?" I passed on his request to see me. Us.

Just within the past few years I came to realize maybe the ages weren't dictated right. Or the ages were a typo. Maybe he didn't even make the mistake I'd used to judge him the most harshly.

I never got to talk to him, but I did get to meet people on his side of the family I'd only heard about. From them I learned a lot of valuable things, least of which is a medical history of "father's side." If you always knew those answers, the impact of finally being able fill in the blanks on forms after 50 years probably doesn't seem like much. It's huge.

I've always been secretly amused by the phrase "You don't know jack." His family didn't call him Jack. Or John. But my mother always called him Jack, and nothing could be more true than the fact I don't know Jack.

Don't know Jack. Never got to talk to Jack. I'll never hate Jack though. He talked about us, and still had our kid pictures in his things. Old. Faded. I learned he used to tell his neighbor with little kids that he, too, had a girl and a boy.

Don't know what ever went on in his head. Know what he didn't give me, because it was pointed out enough. Time. Support. Attention.

I do know two things. I'm not going to hate anyone for being who they are. No one. In situations beyond war or violent crime, if you have any sense of yourself (or sense period) at all, I believe what is said: "There are no victims, only volunteers." Just never want to officially sign on a hater brigade.

And, love him or hate him, he gave me the most important thing I could want. Life.

Guard monkeys, blood pressures & dreams.

2011-06-12T19:36:00.002-04:00

Don't know where this monkey is, but I'd like one.

The final birthday celebration was yesterday. This year they carried across two whole weeks. Pretty soon I'll just start gatherings right after the last ones. Kinda like the run for the presidency last time.

There was a lot of good stuff happening, but I think my favorite moment was the blood pressure event. I asked if anyone might want to take their blood pressure, as my little machine was right there and it was raining outside. Heck, it was something to do.

The ages of those in attendance ranged across decades, but everyone was a taker! Even better, the numbers were all good. My daughter and son-in-law took the high and low titles. His not being anything alarming by any means, just slightly over the "old normal." My daughter's was so low she decided to wait and take it again. The second one yielded both numbers under 100. She thought she might be dead, and wondered why the number was so much lower than that ones she gets when she takes her pressure at work. Everyone told her the key word might be "work."

Had two dreams with really good business ideas, one kinda iffy. Too bad I can't pursue any of them. Seeing and walking being instrumental and I fail. Usually when I have these kinds of ideas in dreams I learn they've already been done. Can't find anything on two of them. The iffy one is just dumb, so if someone actually was doing it and I'd know it and forgot about it, they're probably not doing all that well.

In the iffy one I had a cab company that offered riders the ultimate in aggressive rides to their destinations. It was called Attaxi. This is dumb, but funny on so many levels.

Questions, wonders and worries.

2011-06-08T17:54:00.002-04:00

My friend The Unicorn sent me this image made into a birthday card. Of course, simpleton that I am my first thought was to laugh and laugh. Then laugh some more. It's just so delightfully full of wonder for me.

My wonders included who is this woman? Why does she have a penguin on a leash? Why does she have a penguin? HOW does she have a penguin? And where are they; with all those weird, white row houses in the background?

The Unicorn didn't seem to share my wonders, except for where the picture was taken. Beyond that, being very young, he wondered when this might have been. He did know it was "vintage." And thus, so am I. :)

His bigger question to me was: Are you the woman, the penguin or the fish?

Young, but deeper than I am. I'm going to have to think about it.

In other news, my husband is having a health scare. This is certainly not less important than elated flying penguins, but I always try to keep things in perspective.

Also don't put a whole lot of stock in things like anger and worry. They get you absolutely nowhere. You spin and spin and spin and if you really look at it after the expenditure, all the energy produces nothing in the way of result.

Worry won't fix anything, solve anything or prevent anything. I am aware this place is one I've reached after years and years of observation and application, so I can't just wish it on someone else. And there are those individuals who covet and cling to negative emotions, and without them they are nothing or no one. My husband isn't one of those, but I know I can't make him worry less. So I'll try to worry less for him.

We've known each other for 28 years, and will be married 25 years next week. I don't know if he's the woman, the penguin or the fish either. I just know I'm not ready to do without him. In light of that, there are more positive ways to spend my time and energy for him than worry. Victor or victim comes down to how you choose to spend your life.

The Unicorn, purveyor of fine vintage images, also once quoted me a Jay-Z lyric for me to consider when contemplating a tattoo. That being his comtemplating a tattoo I should have, not my contemplating getting one. This individual is happy she's so old she missed the body piercings and tattoos peer pressure. Wimp.

I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one. Sayeth Jay-Z.

That "bitch" can come in many forms or with many faces, so it's a good stand to take. Just not particularly tat worthy. Ow.

Eaglet angst, stray bacon & bad blogging.

2011-06-04T13:29:00.002-04:00

Semi-sad stuff happening over by the eagle jam in Mooseheart.

The good news was the eagle pair return to the pastures at Mooseheart. Guess it was a good eagle locale. Pretty big lakes nearby. The river. Lots of squirrels and bunnies and mice in the fields. High pines good for making nests...or are they?

Last year was uneventful. The only action around the eagle's nest was the ticketing of people who chose to stop along Randall Road to create the eagle jam.

This year, on May 29, the big winds accompanying our moody weather knocked this year's next to the ground. Resident humans found two eaglets in the nest. Not big enough to fly yet. Experts were called.

It was decided to enlist the help of a cherry-picker and just put it back where it was. This was done and hope was high.

The adult birds did return, but they seemed to choose to just hover in nearby treetops. They never once returned to the tree with the nest.

After four days, because during this time the baby birds were not fed, it was then decided to remove the babies from the nest and take them to a raptor sanctuary.

I don't know anything about eagles. I don't know if the parents are actually sad. Or if the babies will be sad when they learn they, if they can actually learn, they didn't grow up like free eagles. Hope everyone who tells me they don't have the capacity to know or care is right.

In other news...I found another piece of stray bacon. This was the third one. I ate it, of course.

I learned how to say "I'm a very bad blogger" in French, but I already forgot. I'll look it up later. It's not all that important. I think it only applies to this blog. Think I do a much better job on my real blog.

Soldiers.

2011-06-02T16:28:00.002-04:00

My niece, 12 for two days now, and I were texting back and forth and it's always interesting to me as to where the conversation goes.

This one ended up talking about how the olden days, prison and Iraq can leave you feeling icky.

She knew prison doesn't offer a lot of opportunity to clean up. I knew that when we make care packages for our troops many ask for clean clothes. It's right up there with candy that doesn't melt.

Both of us thought the idea of living 100 years ago and maybe bathing once a week, if that, was gross. Clean is good.

She thought prison on the whole wouldn't be much fun at all.

And we both agreed soldiers are very special people. I told her I could never do what they do. I'd have a heart attack or a stroke if I was put in that situation. I'm one of those people who doesn't understand why there's not a viable alternative to war, because there has to be. It's just that people don't want there to be. Beyond that, I appreciate those who do what they do within the confines of "war" or "conflict."

This Sunday is the Chicago Soldier Ride.
http://www.sr.woundedwarriorproject.org/site/c.buISJ9NSKqLaG/b.6201801/k.BCD9/Home.htm

Good times.

My fuzzy nephew is a therapy dog and he visits veterans at Hines Hospital.

Anyone can do something for vets. Just type "wounded soldier" and your town and organizations and agencies will come up. I know everyone knows how to Google. :)

Another Coloradoddity.

2011-05-26T12:06:00.002-04:00

A couple decades ago, there was a guy in Nederland, Colorado who kept his dad's corpse in an ice house on their property. I don't remember the why of it. Eventually he was told to quit it.

Last week I learned there was some bodykeeping going on in the old 'hood Pagosa.

B had cancer. Those in his life watched him diminish in every way. Last week he died.

Very active in religious pursuits and member of an organized group that believes in resurrection, it was decided to keep B in his house. No one in my sphere knows if the end-of-the-world day of May 21 being just hours away had anything to do with the decision.

The body was kept on dry ice. No one in my sphere knows why dry ice over regular wet ice, except maybe for the fact dry ice evaporates and wet ice drips. The water in contact with a dead body then creating issues of its own.

The end-of-the-world day came and went. No one raptured. B did not return to the living either. But he stayed at home.

The health department did get wind of the situation they came a couple times to say you need to do something about this. Soon.

None of us ever want to tell anyone how to be or live. We feel the choices and actions anyone makes, minus a gun to the head or threat to another, is their own to own. We did fret a little bit about the fact there were fairly young children in the home with their father's body.

I learned some things about bodies. Like the fact they make noise. I knew about rigor mortis and other moving, but not about the degree of noise. R explained about the time D and Z were hired to transport the body of a woman who died in Pagosa back to Texas. Along they way, despite the fact the woman had been embalmed, her body made a cacophony of sounds.

That known, R suggested that a body left unattended to might make even more noise. K knew the body also would bloat somewhat. The idea of being near these things transpiring, it was just natural to wonder how the kids were doing with it.

A nice memorial service for B was held, with B in attendance. However, it was close to his last hurrah at home. The health department did come back, with the coroner and the police, and after eight days B left the building.

Once, as I came out of the nevermore City Market that used to be right in town, I looked to my left. The view afforded someone not on vacation, simply buying groceries and heading home, was so stellar it brought on aesthetic arrest. The place is so incredibly beautiful it perhaps needs its inhabitants to be a little less so for the sake of balance.

Bananas and battling blindness.

2011-05-23T17:38:00.004-04:00

Sometimes I wish Helen Keller could check out some of the tech aids available to the blind these days.

My eyes, well...eye, now sees maybe five colors on a good day when the light and contrast is just right. Just the major groups or the deeply saturated. Like many blues and greens now look the same. Bought something I thought was rose and was shocked when someone told me it was a burnt orange. To me, silver is gold and gold is silver. Actually the best I can usually do is "Is it metal?"

Well these incidents are over. Now there is a gadget that you place on something and it tells you what color it is! And, another device that allows you to barcode your clothes and then when you scan them it tells you "white T-shirt with blue stripes!" No more guessing!

Today's PSA is to say if you know someone who has lost sight to diabetic retinopathy, I hope you make sure they've explored all their options. While recovering sight lost to retinopathy isn't always easy or possible, but it's worth a shot.

My poor left eye is gone for good. It can't even see the big E on the chart. My right eye though, originally the one in worse shape, has made some very nice progress.

For the first year in treatment, we got nowhere using Avastin. Designed to reduce the swelling and fluid collected in the eyes, it didn't do much in my case. It wasn't until we switched to Lucentis that things started looking up. Ooo, kinda punny. Bad, since I always try really hard to never say "we'll see" when updating family and friends on monthly visits to the retina specialist.

Lucentis is very pricey, but worth every penny. Well, if you value being able to see. At my blindest, I was really sad about it. And mad at myself for ignoring my body to this extent. Early on, someone said to me "Aren't you just furious at your body for betraying you?"

What? My body didn't betray me at all. In fact, it was screaming warnings. As were family and friends. So there is nothing to blame here but me.

I feel fortunate and blessed to have the doctor I do. A thinker and seeker of alternatives who has helped me save, for the moment, some sight in my right eye. The combination of medicine and laser to shut off the ruptured blood vessels contributing to the problem, after a year, seems to have put the sight loss on hold.

Of course, key to all this is compliance. A diabetic who does not strive to keep their numbers as near to "normal" as possible, who doesn't respect the illness, isn't going to get anywhere with any of this help. Disregard for the need for proper eating and exercise will only keep the eyes blowing up, bleeding and leaking. Over time, it's definitely too late.

I'm very, very fortunate to have been able to apply myself before it was too late for me.

Greetings peekers.

2011-05-22T12:23:00.004-04:00

If you're here it's probably not for any healthy reason, so I thought maybe I'd at least offer some public service stuff to make the visit more worthwhile.

Not big into glorifying war, but very appreciative of history. And the Civil War is considerable, terrifying history. Therefore: www.give150.org

Beyond that, while gathering around the stunt Weber, we had some good conversation. Well, good by our standards.

Mud puppies are not frilled dragon lizards. From the description of the mud puppy, its having a "mane," I thought maybe they were. They're not. The frilled dragon lizard is kind of huge compared to a mud puppy. Way back, Colorado TV included a furniture store commercial with a running frilled dragon lizard. It was an attention getter.

The mud puppy / frilled dragon lizard debate rose from the fact K once accidently roasted her son's mud puppy. The incident was long ago, but he still reminds her of her transgression. She was actually just trying to help, as the mud puppy seemed lethargic and ill, so she decided it was cold. Sun lamp assist can kill.

We talked a lot about Colorado days, because half those present had lived there long enough to relate to the topics at hand. Like living in a vacuum.

I remember going home to Illinois once and hearing Elton's "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me." When I said "Oh, he's got a new song" everyone laughed at me. The song was five years old. I'd never heard it because in the mountains we had nothing but local radio, which wasn't exactly cutting edge. It also was the days before cable anywhere. The mountains not being very good for reception, we had two TV channels. One superstation out of Chicago and one very local effort.

The lack of media in general makes rural living not for just anyone. Many think they can live absent of what urban dwellers have, but just as many find out they can't. Even "nowadays" there are pockets of nothing that would kill by deprivation even a moderate tech head.

Our friend, K the Mud Puppy Slayer, took it all even one step further and lived totally off the grid for a dozen years. She said what we all know so well. That when you live without stuff, you think everyone has lived without stuff. Hence, things like announcing "new" songs.

Still, being only newly returned to civilization, the bigger world holds much more wonder for K than for the rest of us. For example, we were wrapping leftovers in Press-N-Seal cling stuff. Think it's been in this home for at least a decade, but she'd never seen it.

She had to come take a closer look, and had that kidlike "Do it again!" thing working. It was like when the explorers of the Amazon region pulled out a mirror and first showed the indigenous peoples their reflection.

Rapture Redux.

2011-05-21T12:25:00.003-04:00

Still waiting. If it started in Australia at 6 p.m. last night, well, it should be here by now. No one likes a tardy rapture.

Still very worried, much like these guys. (For the doltish: Photo use designed to punctuate hyperbolic sarcasmo.)

Rapture?

2011-05-20T18:18:00.002-04:00

So tomorrow is supposed to be the end of the world.

This will seriously mess up my pursuit of planking.

Unwise about whys.

2011-05-17T19:54:00.003-04:00

Today young people were telling me about plastic surgery and stuff like "freezers" and "fillers." They wanted to know why old people would do this kind of thing, and "what ever happened to growing old gracefully."

Had to tell them I have no idea why anyone would do this kind of thing. I like my sags and bags and wouldn't dream about puffing up or hacking off anything. Also pointed out this really isn't an "old person" choice anymore. From what I do hear of it, younger and younger people are partaking. So what made them think it was an old people's thing?

They acknowledged the presence of youth in cosmetic practice, that they actually know people in their late 20s who have altered themselves somehow. Their question was prompted by the fact they'd seen someone "old" who had "filler" shot into her earlobes to "make them appear younger." Earlobes?

Then the conversation turned to why anyone, young or old, would want to mess with their appearance. I have no answer. I could speculate, as so many people do about so many things, but I'd probably be wrong. I'm sure each reason is unique and individually if not realistically decided to be valid.

"It's sad," said one young. "They don't seem to know freezing their face won't really freeze time. That the absence of time on their faces makes them freakish."

In other news, I love Jon Stewart. I can't even count the ways, but this time for "selective outrage machine." The term was aimed at Fox News, or as I sometimes call it Fux News. Since I believe it can actually describe many things, I just know going to quote him often.

Bad hair, cowards and key issues.

2011-05-14T11:03:00.002-04:00

This week's post-pool chat focused on how weird a word it is when how Donald Trump styles his hair is a news story.

That and the "Facebook turns to PR to trash Google" story. Took in a lot of those stories, from the tech heads online to "Time." To me, they both do the very same thing. So it's kettle/black. I did like the one story calling Facebook a "coward" for the way it chose to "fight," trying to manipulate the press instead of calling out Google face-to-face. I think it cited some situation where Google did the braver thing, but I don't remember what it was. Or care, really. Schmacebook.

In my opinion, the most interesting topic was "how to hide a key outside in case you lock yourself outside." The schools of thought on this were vast and varied.

Lots of good ideas, but the most interesting exchange revolved around the "hide-a-key turtle" for the garden. The group was split on whether the "hide-a-key turtle" was a great idea of the absolute worst.

Proponents thought it the perfect solution. Cute and functional and worth the $9.99.
Opponents were convinced one's neighbors would instantly note any return to the turtle you might make. This opening the door to them opening your door, as they know your hours and can thus easily cruise your medicine cabinet. ( !? )

The largest debate centered around burglars.

The pro-turtle group thought the idea brilliant and would be known to so few, most of whom have gardens and are therefore trustworthy, that it would be the ideal, safe choide.

Those against the "hide-a-key turtle" scoffed at this, and argued burglary "is a craft." As such burglars routinely comb gardening magazines and catalogs looking for things exactly like the turtle. "Cuts down on search time, because the longer they search for a key, the more they could be noticed."

I learn so much. I had no idea burglars actually looked for keys.

Assorted pig heads.

2011-05-10T19:57:00.002-04:00

Lots of talk about video of bin Laden watching video of bin Laden. Don't understand why people are surprised.

Heard there was a pig head along Randall Road. It has cherry tomato eyes. Went to look for it, but it's location was being serviced. I'll wait.

Sandy, during sprints.

Mother's Day

2011-05-08T10:41:00.003-04:00

I'm not big on holidays. I always think it would be nice if everyone would just be as they are on holidays every day. Then again, I know that holidays sometimes bring on huge conflicts for some, so maybe not.

I do like Mother's Day though. Today will be a good one, again. Foodstuffs, my family and friends whose children are far away.

Mother's Day is something no one can ever take from me. The time 7:34 will always make me smile if I happened to see a clock at that moment. Without a doubt, the best minute of my life.

I know what they say. Every mother in the world thinks she has the most beautiful, the most gifted, the most talented, the most successful child in the world. That would include me in the realm of mother license. In the day-to-day, I know my child is beautiful, works hard, gives of herself, nurtures, teaches, studies, participates, thinks and laughs.

No child is perfect. No parent is perfect, but when I look at my child I know I did some things right because she is awesome. And that's not just my opinion.

I used to be so wrong in feeling bad for anyone who had no children. Those who could not, and even more those who chose not. It was wrong to think that way. It's not for everyone. Hardly. I get that now.

Being a mom is just another way I am blessed. The best way.

Talking heads, big chairs and blah blah.

2011-05-07T12:04:00.002-03:00

Birthers. Deathers. Moon Landers. Carkomatopaeatti. Having never surrendered my stock in the torch and pitchfork companies, I'm RICH!

I've never really understood the talking heads. Well, other than to think pretty much they are full of the proverbial "it" or of themselves. Sometimes, that's the same matter. Now though, I might understand it. Or understand more fully that I'm right.

Was listening to television. I can only listen because our 25-year-old TV is too dim for my blind eyes to make out much of anything. I often think people are sick of me saying "What was that?" Or "Why did he say that?" Or "What did it say?" The last in reference to type that appears on the screen. I had no idea how much of TV had to be read until I could no longer read it. Think the same is true about many things and many people.

So anyway, I was listening to some talking heads tell me what was going on in the Situation Room, in the real time during the take down of Osama bin Laden. Real news.

The heads are telling me that Obama complains about the cost of helicopters yet we (U.S.) can't afford a tape measure? We have to have a SEAL put down next to the body to gauge bin Laden's height? They tell me Obama is outraged by lack of tape measure. Clinton is a girl, she has her hand to her mouth so she is shocked? Afraid? Grossed out? She's a girl. And uh oh...LOOK! Obama is not sitting in the largest chair in the room and THAT certainly means he's weak.

OK. Whatever you say. What the heads were telling me could not possibly have even been close to the reality of what was going on and being said in the Situation Room. But, because they are the heads, and they know everything about everything and everybody, they have the what? Nerve? Cajones? Delusion? Whatever it is, they sit there and say this stuff with straight and serious faces and deliver it to the world as fact. Huh. You'd think they'd have careers bigger than what they're doing because this ability borders on a superpower.

This no longer astounds me. I've realized even people without network jobs, even people with no job, do this. Constantly. Absolutely. This fascinates me, and this week I've been studying the limitations of black-and-white thinkers.

My daughter says I should take all my notes and tapes and write a book. That thought always seemed ridiculous to me. Something for others, even for people who dream past their ability. Now though, I think I've been handed a platform, so maybe. I'd put a there but I'm already tired of negotiating the speak necessary for the < and > symbols.

Besides, they'll be someone out there telling me what I really mean anyway.

Maybe Obama LIKES the smaller chair because it's more comfortable than the big I'm-the-most-important-person-in-the-room/world chair. He's so not stupid.

Wednesday's child is full of whoa!

2011-05-04T21:39:00.003-03:00

It's been really interesting to watch the American public's assorted reactions to the death of Osama bin Laden.

Red Velvet Ice Cream, brought to you by Blue Bunny and Duff Goldman, sounds intriguing. I'd venture the 24 carbs allowed per snack, but alas I don't like cream cheese or cream cheese flavor. Maybe I'll just try it and see.

Big weekend. Two man birthdays and Mother's Day. I'm tired already.

Finding Osama's prom date.

2011-05-02T20:35:00.003-03:00

Last night, when the day was almost over, we were talking about back in the day. How if we heard late on a Sunday night that Osama bin Laden had been killed we would have contemplated calling in sick on Monday.

None of us actually did, and we couldn't remember anyone else actually doing it either.

It wasn't a fear of hard work of making calls, gathering information and writing stories. All the reluctance centered on high probability of "the round-up story." The news editor had a real liking for "the round-up story." She was probably right. They were no doubt well read.

Yet the process was not popular. One guy would go out, gather quotes and write his story. As one set of eyes in the edit, it always amused me to feel so comfortable with all those he interviewed. He had a wager-worthy habit of naming all his "sources" with mixed up measures of all the names of staff. Once he told me he'd actually been in Burger King's parking lot the entire time he was gone. Had breakfast and lunch there.

Most of the time I was kept out of the hard news loop. While I might help with the editing of big stories, I was rarely asked to write. If the story was big enough, however, I wasn't exempt. There are reporters who don't mind the ambush of individuals, maybe even relish it. Not me. Nor, it seems, of the three others I worked with still in my immediate sphere. It was a newsroom full of individuals who did not like "getting out there" much at all. A sedentary group who liked to dial, perhaps, but I understood their reluctance.

It was never fun to "get out there" and find the random someone with an interesting (enough)take on the current event. Opinions are one thing, but sometimes it was as specific as get out there and find someone with firsthand knowledge. For me, as human interest, that would mean today spelled "Get out there and find someone who went to high school with Osama bin Laden."

It is possible to comply with these edicts, sure. The headache came with the tandem curse of words like "time" and "deadline." In three days, OK. In three hours, much less so.

All that considered, a Monday in the wake of the death of Osama bin Laden without having to stare down a round-up story made for a really good day.

Plus, I heard the phrase "patently gauche" and I like it. Keeper.

Schmacebook.

2011-05-01T14:33:00.003-03:00

Spin it anyway wanted, I do everything by committee and advice.

And Facebook. Didn't like it before I was there. Didn't like it while I was there. Routinely called it Schmacebook. Particularly stupid when you're typing to people you just saw or will see soon.

I get the sharing of family photos and it being easier to put them in one place. So more space for that situation now. :)

For me, it was just kinda dumb. My Mom and I have talked repeatedly about just quitting it. I set my deadline for May 1, long ago. And had plans to stay up until midnight to do it ASAP. I did just that, but was actually too tired and too cripped up to dance around the imaginary End of Facebook for Me Maypole. Fate is so funny, isn't it?

Some people don't like to give it up because it would "insult" people you turn off. I don't think it would even be noticed on an account that includes strangers and robots, i.e. big number accounts. Do strangers and robots really care if you turn them off?

Me, I used to be soft. Not anymore. I never even answered David, Dimitri and Brandon, the total strangers who asked to be my friend this week. Yeah, only three. Who would be disappointed by only three? Not me! I thought about sending a message that said I only accept friend invitations from people and cats I actually know, and who know me. I have learned to stop and realize I don't have to pay attention to someone who chooses to pay attention to me. I always believed doing so was the polite thing. I still do, but I've learned to discern. Hence, much less soft.

Yeah, I only accepted friends and cats who are really friends and cats. Who know me, and know better. They were few, sure, in part because there are lots of people in my generation who simply aren't interested in "the Facebook." They actually talk to the people they know, by private means.

As do I. I did, and now I will again. I rarely said much on Facebook anyway. WhatI did say was totally pointless. I never even said what I was having for dinner.

I annoyed myself in it because I repeatedly fell for "like" requests from things I like. How many meatball updates do I really need? How much weird news is too much?

Then there's the game. The Bejeweled Blitz game I'm way too blind to even attempt. Not to mention these things are such huge life-suckers it isn't even funny. I made attempts "the game," but only by rapid, random blind clicks on the board. After awhile I became convinced that's really all it takes for anyone. I'm assured there is "strategy" and "skill" to be had. I guess. But once I clicked on something that sent it all cascading down and I got score that was not my stand 2,000something. It went over 200,000. I don't remember the number. I am not sorry to no longer be tempted to just go push buttons.

The Twitter thing is another story. That of conflicting advice. so for now it sleeps too and I like it. I wonder if anyone else spewing there ever feels self-conscious about their self-content. I did. Actually, dumber than Facebook. Or the same. Maybe. Whatever.

It's all gone and it's all good. Different, but all good.

From the Manitoba Post, to "The Goon," to "Boogie," to my better blog, to here.

2010-11-12T22:26:00.002-03:00

From the "Manitoba Post."

Canadians: "Build a Damn Fence!"

The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada
has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols to
stop the illegal immigration. The recent actions of the Tea Party are
prompting an exodus among left-leaning citizens who fear they'll soon be required
to hunt, pray, and to agree with Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck.

Canadian border farmers say it's not uncommon to see dozens of
sociology professors, animal-rights activists and Unitarians crossing their fields
at night. "I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a
Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield,
whose acreage borders North Dakota. The producer was cold, exhausted and
hungry.

He asked me if I could spare a latte and some free-range chicken.

When I said I didn't have any, he left before I even got a chance to
show him my screenplay, eh?"

In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, Greenfield erected higher
fences, but the liberals scaled them. He then installed loudspeakers that blared
Rush Limbaugh across the fields.

"Not real effective," he said. "The liberals still got through and Rush
annoyed the cows so much that they wouldn't give any milk."

Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers who meet liberals
near the Canadian border, pack them into Volvo station wagons and drive them
across the border where they are simply left to fend for themselves." A
lot of these people are not prepared for our rugged conditions," an Ontario
border patrolman said. "I found one carload without a single bottle of
imported drinking water. They did have a nice little Napa Valley
Cabernet, though."

When liberals are caught, they're sent back across the border, often
wailing loudly that they fear retribution from conservatives. Rumors
have been circulating about plans being made to build re-education camps
where liberals will be forced to drink domestic beer and watch NASCAR races.

In recent days, liberals have turned to ingenious ways of crossing the
border. Some have been disguised as senior citizens taking a bus trip to
buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After catching a half-dozen young
vegans in powdered wig disguises, Canadian immigration authorities began
stopping buses and quizzing the supposed senior citizens about Perry Como and
Rosemary Clooney to prove that they were alive in the '50s. "If they
can't identify the accordion player on The Lawrence Welk Show, we become very
suspicious about their age" an official said.

Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are
creating an organic-broccoli shortage and are renting all the Michael Moore
movies.

"I really feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy
just can't support them." an Ottawa resident said. "How many art-history
majors does one country need?"

All that matters in the grown child is fine. Period.

2010-10-31T13:07:00.004-03:00

Back in December 2008, the life of a friend I've had since childhood started to fall apart in a big way. The worst of it regarded her child, who seemed to be living a comfortable, accomplished life in a solid and exciting marriage. When her child (though definitely no longer a "child") did an about face to leave it all behind, it caused a great deal of concern.

Because the choices made included unfamiliar territory, my friend's request for "help" weren't easy to manage. The child was far away. The situation sketchy. She knew I have ZERO interest in spying on her child or anyone, and even if I were, by this time I was so blind my time on the Internet was nil.

Usually I'm the person to tell her she's overreacting, overcautious, overprotective and all other over things. Yet this time I could understand the concern. I wasn't sure whether these were choices made by choice or coersion, and as anyone who has children would most likely understand, there would be a need to know.

I enlisted the help of a young friend who was also much more familiar with the ins and outs of the child's new life than we ever could be. He agreed to follow her around a bit from the afar of online and just make sure she wasn't under duress.

Every "report" he gave us was reassuring. After a few months, certain in his own mind the child had not gone mad and was not being forced into a lifestyle against her will, he gave up the "spying." He said he had never been comfortable with it, but understood, having given his own mother reason for concern on more than one occasion. So it was "like some sort of penance."

No one wondered why I didn't do the checking up on this child myself. Even though it was exempt from my extremely strict rule of engaging NO ONE I don't already know on the Internet, being blind only made that resolve easy adherence. One of the very few upsides of being mostly blind is that people who don't really know me, or what goes on in my life, claim I do things that aren't possible. I take comfort in that.

While discussing all this stuff during the course of the "spying for safety" era, there was lots of talk about weirdness and the Internet. Many of my friends have the same "rageaholic" tendencies those who follow me around, sniffing, do. They are often infuriated with me, too, for not being upset by things they don't think are right. Or even legal.

If I were to be someone else on the Internet I would employ every secret stuff avenue offered out there.

2010-10-28T14:55:00.004-03:00

In December of 2008, life as she knew it began to fall apart for a friend I've had since childhood.

Her (grown) child, years long on the path to a professional career via receipt of a degree and years into a seemingly happy marriage, suddenly made an about face that appeared extreme. I'm the first always to point out my friend's tendency to fear the worst in every situation, but the sudden situation and subsequent choices did make me share her concern unlike ever before.

So radical were the life alterations it left a lot of people who love this grown child baffled and concerned. So seemingly extreme the changes, the thought of coertion crossed many of our minds.

By January 2009 there was a lot of havoc. A lot. Everyone close to my friend and close to me knew it. Most of the actual information we had about what was going on was coming from the grown child's estranged spouse. Many of the details lay contained in a world none of us knew much about, if anything. We weren't even sure of the source was accurate or enhanced.

I've seen my friend through a lot of things, and vice versa. This was by far the worst she'd ever had to stare down. She asked for my help. She asked me to help her check on her child. To see, to witness, to know things she couldn't bear to take in herself. This wouldn't be me. If I were her I'd want to do it myself, know it myself, but the fact we are so different is what makes us such good friends for so darn long.

Most of me wanted to trust this grown child beyond what mother was capable of. I believe people do know their own mind once they are beyond the 20somethings. Or maybe by that age they come to for choose things for their lives that doesn't agree with what their parents saw or dreamed for them.

Yet as much as I longed to cling to the belief this was absolute and finally the choice of the child, in the '70s I knew someone who followed their own mind to a life in Las Vegas. She followed her heart and wrote regularly of her good times, great new friends and fantastic opportunities. She stopped writing eventually, as is often the case. Except that three years later all that was found of her was her head in the desert. It took us a long time to find that out, and we did a lot of talking about what we should have seen or done to help prevent it. We believed there should of been something, and so I didn't want to repeat my mistake.

In order to be true to myself though, I didn't want to just say I'd do anything. For one thing, I was at the peak of my blindness by January 2009. This grown child was a long way away, but most everything "scary" was present on the Internet. Only if I was the one to find it, track it and report on it, VISION would be nice. It's hard enough to write an Email or do a Facebook or tweet. Not easy, time consuming and often a mess. It really is, and it makes me smile to know people who don't know anything about my life don't believe me. But those who do know me, do know. They can read it here and nod. One of the very, very few and tiny upsides to loss of sight. Those who clsim things about me are wrong. I enjoy that.

Even if I could have done it, I think this grown child would have known me despite the fact I've been accused of being 20 people at a time and even now, blind, I'm like five or six I think.

If I could see well enough to even entertain being someone else, even for the good of making certain my friend's grown child hadn't gone me, I'd be SMART ABOUT IT. I know about and would have used tools like anonymous Email services: anonymouse.org, guerillamail.com, hidemyass.com, hidetheip.com or countless others anyone wanting to be anonymous or someone else can find on Google. Anyone.

I know I can call anyone and make that call appear as if it came from YOUR phone on the recipients Caller ID by using "fun" services like Telespoof.com or PhoneGansta.com. Anyone can do it.

And I'd use reverse photo look-up before lifting anyone's photos, because every kid knows that exists I do too.

I could have done it, but I didn't want to. I'm very specific about what I choose to struggle through online. It's not easy, again, as anyone who actually knows me and is aware of my reality knows. I don't even consider my physical limitations enough, though. I run software that records my every computer move, like that used by companies to monitor the online behavior of their employees. So while new chapters in old sagas want to project on me, I'm not capable of driving to the all-night library somewhere in that fantasyland to use a computer not mine. You really need to be able to see to drive to the all-night library, or anywhere.

Nor can I utilize any of the countless, FREE deceptive tools available. However if I could and was inclined to, I would. I wouldn't do the incredibly stupid way I'm depicted. Sheesh. Speaking of stupid, that's not a word I like in anyway or would ever use to define my nemesis(es). Until now. Not by choice, but by no choice.

Since I was out as a mole, I discussed my friend's dilemma with a young friend. He really got the depth of "mother worry," having created some of his own over the years. He also knows full well of my situation, and often chastises me for not caring more, or doing more to have it "cease and desist." He is often my "watchdog," although I've never asked for that. I should have known though, that he'd offer to help us rest easy by finding out what he could about the strange turns of events. Or maybe I did know he'd volunteer.

He set to work, and his frequent reports were all the same. That it all seemed fine. That there'd just been an epiphany. That the situation was not as sudden or new as it had appeared, but rather had been something quietly and even secretly built over almost a year before it came to the surface.

I believe he did a good job, by us anyway. It was hard for my friend to believe that the choices were voluntary. I thought that odd, considering the reverse scenario, of her having no choice, was terrifying. Yet I understood that it all just ran contrary to what she'd dreamed for her child, what she'd enjoyed living vicariously through her child and what she had heavily invested financially in her child as to life and education.

I don't remember how many months later it was, but I don't remember it as very long at all. A few? It seemed soon that our young spy, perfect for the job for his youth and his shared knowledge of the grown child's chosen pursuit, came to us and said he had satisfied himself that the child was not in anymore "danger" than any of us who live life daily. That smarts were employed, and joy found. As such, he had reached the point of being creeped out by the task. Case closed.

Beyond that, I had no idea he'd developed relationships and intrigues of his own. Or that he'd decided to utilize the situations to teach me, also, about the severity of my own situation. In this he was successful too.

I do truly understand the definitions of cyberstalking and cyberharassment, and that no matter what the perpetrators of these acts tell themselves or others as to why they do it, even murder doesn't justify it. It's not only immature, it's illegal. But I've learned bullies/stalkers were wounded long, long ago; and what they do they have to do in order to address their own sicknesses. Their behavior is their only salve.

Our young spy and three of my other friends set out to "prove" to me I'm being cyberstalked and cyberbullied. Uh, I guess they don't listen to me, either. Because I've said I know it. They read a lot, and decided I needed to have the kind of direct "proof" I'd need to "prove" it. I might need that kind of proof, but that doesn't mean I'd want it.

My friends describe those to accuse me of things I'm not even capable of as "rageaholics." They should know. I think they're "rageaholics" much sooner than I am. They have the same capacity for hatred and loathing as the next bully, so I guess that at least made the "playing field" a fairer one. I don't condone labels like "Menopausal Mean Girls," but it did make me smile in my mind.

I've seen "the game" in action. My Misguided Friends, the MMF, versus the Menopausal Mean Girls, the MMG. The MMF set up three "Easter eggs" for the MMG to "find." Three victories should they all be found. Dropping bits of the MMG story, my story, their story, Shakespeare and some twisted Sparks here and there to be found. Did I ask for this? No. Do I condone it? No. Did I learn from it? Yes. I found it interesting.

The first "egg" was found last. The easiest one in the middle. And the last one found was the first laid. During the course of this cat-and-cat game people very close to me received "warnings" about me. I think the pinnacle of this behavior was when **I** received a warning about me! The MMF attached MY Email address to a "sock puppet," so when this "sock puppet" was "warned" by the MMG **I** received the warning from the "small but growing group" out to save the world from me. It was an odd feeling to realize I had to add the adjective "stupid."

At the end of the Easter Egg Hunt, the head of the MMF and I were talking about history and how the fact a grown person who fancied themselves pretty smart could blame me for the fact they wasted time on Internet escapades and cybersex. Time their dog then did not get scratched. This claim is what really set off the rageaholic tendencies in the MMF. To me, knowing the amount of other time spent on other things, it was just ridiculous to me and certainly not worthy of rage.

So as usual, I said I didn't know how that kind of claim could possibly be made. Or believed. That sans a gun to the head, I don't believe anyone can be forced to do anything they don't choose to do. Even hypnosis doesn't override a person's will. People do what they want to do. Especially bright people. Sometimes, they regret they choice is all.

So, the head of the MMF said, "Yeah, well we wanted to know how much time now is being wasted NOW chasing "you" down and sending out 'warnings.' How much time would be spent doing this stuff and not scratching the dog? We were successful and our answer was a lot. Poor doggy."

I know Working to Halt Online Abuse and Wired Safety say you should never address your cyberstalker(s) because that's their point. What feeds their illness. Lets them continue their saga and keep their "small but growing" audience interested. That the same old blah, blah doesn't help them keep a following because even the most like-minded need new chapters in order to remain engaged.

But I'm not really talking to my cyberstalker(s), although I learned long ago from someone else stalked by same, that no matter what you say it's interpreted to be about them anyway.

I'm talking to anyone who buys into what "the small but growing group" offers and invite that anyone to come live my life with me for a day to see what actually is. This is weird, I know, but I have little to offer but my reality, which is so decidedly different from my mythology it would be laughable if three "Easter eggs," The MMF's "three victories," didn't teach me otherwise.

Believe whatever you choose. Do whatever you choose. But if it looks like "me," it's not. I know saying stuff about me or "me" fills the lifelong holes torn in some people. It's my inclination to say if crap about me or "me" fills those holes in someone, then I've done a service. I can live with that.

All that matters to me is that despite whatever went on, my friend feels better for the begins of it. That her child is sound and as happy as any of us can be with the choices made. That my young friend did a good thing for us. That the MMF knows now that trying to help me doesn't always help ME within this realm. That I shouldn't even jokingly say "you can always blame it on me, others do" when someone makes a choice and it goes badly. Or offer anyone cover, for any reason.

Fact of the matter has been, is now and always will be: Be it real life or online, the only person responsible for the choices you make is you. That is fact, whether you choose to believe it or not.

That is all. Oh, except I admit to the guilty pleasure of not mind smiling, but actually smiling at the phrase "Stunt queens got clowned. Thrice." The phrase, not the fact.

Of X-rated waifs, smart young men, many mysteries and me.

2010-10-15T17:30:00.008-03:00

Once upon a time a woman picked apart for me, line by line, a blog entry by another woman. The premise was woman one showing me how precicsely woman two was blogging about woman one. She explained every detail as it pertained to her. It sounded OK to me. I guess.

Later I had the opportunity to mention this situation to the blogger, woman two. She said "Oh really? You don't know by now that EVERYTHING is about woman one in woman one's HEAD!" She proceeded immediately to counter the self-absorbed theory of woman one as to the meaning of her, woman two's, post.

Just as effectively she explained every detail as pertained to a male co-worker. It sounded seamless when she, the writer and firsthand accountant of the situation, spelled it out.

At that precise moment, woman two, one of the brightest people I've ever known, made me promise to remember that even if it has nothing to do at all with her, woman one will always make it about her. I do remember.

Most of the time, about any of this "stuff," my feeling is the same, summed up in two letters. Eh.

Yet I'm human, so I have moments. I'm never proud of them, because I'm taught those moments are the payoff for the entire effort. I'm giving in to my humanity today for a few reasons. It's been an interesting couple weeks.

Mostly it's because of something I was told long ago by someone with credentials.
Human beings will invest in anything that speaks to their own sickness.

Because I believe that, I also believe that whomever does whatever they choose to do to me, I know they're serving their own sickness in the process. If it helps them, then it has to be OK.

That's the way I look at everything that happens. Especially online.

And I'll say it again. Every kindergartener knows to be careful on the Internet, for years and years and years now. If you're not careful, you're an idiot and you have no one to blame but yourself. And, unless someone held a gun to your head, you're as much to blame as anyone else in any given situation. If that's harsh, so be it. A kindergartener did spell that out for me.

Me, I'm to blame. While I choose to protect myself via almost ridiculous means, including running software that tracks my every move on my computer and videotaping random days minute-by-minute...just in case someone cares to claim I did something I didn't. I'm just funny like that. Have been for a few years now. I'm covered.

Yet in protecting myself, I forget sometimes others don't have much sense. Or maybe it's experience or no, it's sense.

In the past couple weeks it's been claimed that "I" made an appearance, as someone else, of course, in an online fetish community. Some people thought this was contrived to humiliate me. Others might have thought it would humiliate me. It doesn't.

For starters, I don't have a problem with fetish communities or the people who people them. More power to them. More power to the people who provide a place for like minds to congregate.

So it would never humiliate me to be placed in such a place, not if I was actually there or whether it's just implied I am. It also didn't shock me, because I actually knew of the place as of January, 2009.

AND, I actually did send someone there on behalf of my extended family.

In this case, the pain and fear experienced by someone I deeply love was so great I decided to assist. Another illustration of operating against my better judgment. While I wasn't about to enter into the situation myself, most notably because the person we were bent on "watching out for" would most likely know me anywhere, I did know the perfect person for the job.

Young, more brilliant than not, quietly charismatic, quietly kinky, personable, a wordsmith. The perfect candidate, and a willing one, to help someone worried sick about her immediate family member.

The goal was to determine if the one thought to have gone astray was not feeble of mind or threatened of body. That no matter what had been sacrificed, and it was much, actually, the shift into "work in an adult industry" was by choice not coerced.

Our mole did a fine job, even if the messenger only brought news that didn't really support the primal fears of the primarily concerned. Our mole determined this person knew exactly what they were doing, had plans, felt in a proper lifestyle at last and so forth. As such, the mole was convinced things were good and safe as any of us can be, so he was not comfortable any longer "spying" on this person. Understood.

I wasn't about to pick up the gauntlet dropped by the mole, and everyone we know knew that. I didn't really believe in the spying in the first place, except for the fact I knew of someone who went to work "adult" in Vegas, back in the '70s, and all they found was her head in the desert. That knowledge allowed me to buy into this at all.

Oddly, the worried person I love very much couldn't pick up the gauntlet either. Not in the first place because it was "too horrific" to entertain. And later for simply "I can't look."

So I thought the mole was retired, and he had actually taken the worryee to the point of having direct and honest talks with the worrier. I thought mission accomplished and I forgot all about it. This was a year ago.

Lately I've been reminded that when the mole had initially asked "What should I do?" I said, in weird ill-thought jest, "You know what to do, and you get mess up you can always blame it on me. What do I have to lose?" He laughed, but he pointed out lots of stuff gets blamed on me and I should have more respect and resentment for that. Yeah, well, insert requisite "eh" because remember: Human beings will invest in anything that speaks to their own sickness. They're gonna do what they're gonna do, be it the gas company or online hijinks.

At the time I didn't realize how much he, and others in my life, resented my deflection of what attacks me. I know why they do it: Human beings will invest in anything that speaks to their own sickness. And I can't help them, or stop them.

In showing me evidence of cyberharrassment, a small kabal of my own did, for a brief moment in time, get me riled up about "cyberstalking." I did get it. I comprehend.

I came to recognize this more seriously via "three Easter eggs, three victories." Counterplots laid down to "prove" to me I am cyberstalked. Like I really needed "proof?" Yet it was interesting, I must say. Just further illustration of: Human beings will invest in anything that speaks to their own sickness.

Things I didn't realize was the our mole had begun to invest in his own intrigues while checking on our "adult industry worker" and although he ceased to "spy" on our behalf he had taken on relationships of his own. Continuing after ceasing to engage for us.

I didn't realize that until a year later. I was shown an online warning about "me," essentially sent to "me." Even funnier, two weeks ago I, ME, actually got a warning about ME! One of the "trap" names was established with my actual online address. An address very few know, so I knew this had to be "the elusive third egg, third victory."

It was kind of funny to be warned about myself, even if it was penned so smugly coy it sounded contrived. Yet I know it was sent because: Human beings will invest in anything that speaks to their own sickness.

I had a talk with the mole. Well, two actually. One a few months back, when I was told that there was still the "third Easter egg/the third victory" hanging out there. The first two having been harvested, if I recalled. I did. However, he told me the third "egg" was actually the first. He'd given it much energy for months and months and months. He'd garnered things he cherished from the experience while simultaneously watching out for adult industry worker and ME!

I guess if you are traveling over-the-top turf and have a relationship and other things to protect while finding some side of yourself, at some points you worry about it. Indulging your own kink while on a mission for misguided mothers and protecting someone too stupid to care about it herself, well, that's even harder if you have attention span issues.

Can I be angry, upset, vengeful, ridiculous on the mole because what was initiated by me and someone I love took on a life of its own? No. No one held a gun to my head. And while I kept myself out of it, I let myself in for it. I asked the mole to help us, and he did. He stayed on for his own reasons, ans says none of which he regrets. Not even borrowing heavily from my mythology. I have no one to blame but myself.

I've learned a lot, actually. An education money can't buy. Or maybe it can, I just wouldn't pay for it.

Of course, a long time ago I learned by someone's example about simply taking an IP address in another state or even country if you didn't want to appear to be someone else If I were going to be someone else, I would do that. At very least.

Of course, from our mole I've learned it's even easier than that. I learned about about places like hidemyass.com, guerillamail.com, anonymous.org and HideTheIP software. There is even easy-to-use software to build your OWN anonymous remailer If I were going to be someone else, I would do that, use those. Any of those. At least one of those. I mean, really.

Really, with so many options out there so easy the blind could use them, why don't I? I'm old, but I'm not old school. Belief that I don't is the only way to serve the want to believe I do what is done.

It's much like the "argument" that I'm a horrible, hack writer YET I write such compelling lines they bend the minds of the brilliant and hold fast their lives for years, based in nothing. Can't have it both ways. Just like I can't be a brilliant chameleon with 1000s of personalities and still be so stupid as to not do a better job of it. It looked like me as bait, and even stranger than that, it worked. I would have never bet money on it, even though I know
Human beings will invest in anything that speaks to their own sickness.

Actually, the only really difficult part of any of this stuff brought on by: Human beings will invest in anything that speaks to their own sickness. is trying to temper the emotions of those who love me. It ebbs and flows, but some people get really annoyed by things. When I ask them what good the emotions bring, they know the answer is zero.

I can't be angry or upset with our mole. Nor am I bothered by anyone out there. Keep sending your warnings, especially since now anything you "dig up" was not even left there for you to find. It's all completely in your head, beyond what you bend to make "me" because: Human beings will invest in anything that speaks to their own sickness.

No, I don't condone names like "Menopausal Mean Girls" or statements like "The blameaholic stunt queens have been clowned thrice!" Especially not on my behalf.

However, I do completely understand where that behavior comes from. For every action, there's a reaction. Always. Bait taken born of: Human beings will invest in anything that speaks to their own sickness., well, so be it. While the pitch doesn't surprise me, the swing does.

This past couple weeks, few months actually, have put to rest a lot of mysteries. So ultimately I'm glad for it, as I try to always be with every unpleasant thing. At least now I understand why, via my oddly-arranged fetish Web site messages, I get highly-detailed information about an elementary school teacher half a world away! Or a Canadian hypochondriac. Or finally get who "Laurie" is after having her on my ??? List for a year.

That's it for this round. The rest is up to what speaks to your particular sickness. The reality of it isn't half as sexy, or fetishy, as the fantasy spun of it.

I will now return to my regularly scheduled "eh."

It's dusty in here...

2010-07-31T16:50:00.003-04:00

Testing. Testing. 1. 2. 3.

It's been almost two years since I wrote anything in this blog.

Just cleaning it up here because I really, REALLY hate tweeting.

Plus, it will be ready for the day I feel like saying something outside the sweet cocoon that is my preferred blog.

That day will come, and I'll be ready. As it should be.

The Now.

2008-10-09T13:47:00.001-04:00

I got this catalog the other day and in it is a pendant that says "Nothing is more important than this day." I thought it was hokey. In the matter of mere hours, though, I've changed my mind. Not about wearing a pendant that says that, but about what the pendant says.

I thought about a friend who called from work to share an amusing, if frustrating, encounter she'd had on the job. In many, many years she'd never done this before.

I had lunch with my longest friend. She ate tuna and frozen custard. Her brother just died and among his things he had a picture of teenage her and the man she would marry, gazing lovingly at each other. I knew her then, but that fact was driven home to me just a few weeks ago, before I revisited the picture with her. In a state far, far away; in a strange hotel, I walked to the elevator and pushed the down button. The elevator arrived, the door opened and unplanned there stood my longest friend, also heading down. I knew she was in the hotel, as she was also in a strange hotel in a state far, far away for my child's wedding celebration. Yet I can't put into words how it felt to be in such an unfamiliar place full of unfamiliar people and have that door part to reveal the so very familiar. I know she will always be there.

While we were out, my child called and left a voice mail that told me just that she loved me. The best part about voice mail is that I can listen to it again for...21...days...before it goes away. I could save it again, for another...21...days...but I won't. I'll just put my faith in getting a fresh one.

In the morning, it rained and was cold and windy. What I like to refer to as a "Boo Radley day." Yet in the afternoon it was just-a-sweater weather and sunny, with shape clouds. The best of all weather in one day. Like it or not, the weather will always be there. Which reminds me of a postcard a friend once sent me from Hawaii. He wrote: "The weather is here. Wish you were beautiful." I wasn't very old then, and although not thin-skinned nor delusional about my beauty, I was miffed. It had to be more than a decade later that we talked about it, and he LAUGHED. I'd never realized he'd just flipped the postcard standard of: The weather is beautiful. Wish you were here. I felt like an ass because I hate to miss a funny. Especially an obvious one.

In the evening I did a "night crawl" with my thriftiest of all friends. I rode shotgun while she made a trip 7/8s of the way back to her job because on the way home she'd passed a station that had gas for $3.47 and didn't stop. She's also my hungriest friend. Our corner station wanted $3.59, so she decided the trek added up.

Once I came home, my husband happened to see me jerkily scroll up and down a page on the monitor. He said "Why don't you use 'the wheel?' " The wheel? He showed me that my mouse had a little wheel in it that makes scrolling up and down VERY easy! I never knew that was a wheel! I thought it was decorative.

This morning while I worked in my studio, our younger dog slept at my feet, snoring. For a very long time.

These are the things that are precious and important to me. They are in the "now." And were they somehow stolen from me, there would be new things tomorrow, because then that will be the most important day.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Karen Bennett Helfrich Lehmkuhl, Maryland
Suzanne Sortor Northman Matthiessen, Colorado

Silence is simply a choice.

2008-07-07T16:49:00.000-04:00

Silence is a choice, one I can generally choose. But, I falter now and then. Like now. I would't be writing my opinions and recollections here if Anastasia Savage hadn't chosen to not leave me alone, and address me first in her blog, suggesting untrue things about me and about her ex-husband, the late Dan Fogelberg. I guess this is Anastasia's idea of doing unto others.

I generally say nothing to this kind thing because I understand reaction is what's sought, and because I think the Internet is too cool a thing to be used as a weapon. I try very hard not to abide by that practice and for the most part I succeed. I know saying nothing is the only appropriate response to things designed to provoke. I don't care what virtual strangers and/or virtual strangers have to say about me. But Anastasia is no stranger. One of the most important things I've learned is that friends who are no longer friends were never your friends in the first place. I've also learned there has to be a limit as to what one will do for friends.

Addressing Anastasia line for line is pointless, as the answers are all the same as these. To to save time and energy I've chosen just her claims about my influence on her life as it applies to the status of her marriage to Dan; and Dan's influence upon his own death.

Anastasia says Dan's death was brought on by his "bitterness." That his cancer was somehow caused by how he lived his life. I found this appalling. As if he chose any of it. As if he brought on his own death by living the life he was given and what he could or would do to exist within it? I have to wonder why she did not forward to the world via the Internet her insight into the cause of his illiness upon his diagnosis, when he was still here to debate her.

I'm all for the concept of body/mind connection, but this notion of self-induced cancer reflects wrongly not only on Dan, but every other innocent who has suffered and/or died of the disease. By Anastasia's board brushstroke, what is true of one has to be true of all. So she claims every wonderful family member or friend who suffers with or succumbed to cancer...brought it on themselves?

If her theory be true would not Anastasia's very complaints, a dozen years and two husbands beyond me and/or Dan, not be considered a form of "bitterness?"

Above are some pages/paragraphs from one of five letters Anastasia wrote me from Argentina in the autumn of 1996. I didn't include all of the letter, as parts of it are just excited travel chat, and a few lines are too very personal. I did include the lines in which she mentions the men in her life at the time...Dan, Tim/Timeteo and Sonny; the lines where she reflects a bit on Dan and one of the problems in their relationship, as she saw it; and the final page, only because it bears her signature. I took out the actual box numbers in the return address lines to protect anyone who owns them now, but sometime between October 20 and October 26, while still in Argentina, Anastasia moved her residence from her life with one man in Pagosa Springs to life with another in Abiquiu, New Mexico. She'd left Pagosa only weeks before. Then just days after Anastasia's letters were sent, at Halloween, Dan and Jean had their first date. The end of that marriage simmered for years, but the final break happened very quickly.

There are other passages in other letters that better shine a light on truer details of Anastasia and the end of her marriage to Dan. But these are more descript, more revealing and more personal. This makes them, by my standards, less just for use in defense of myself. I don't think even these passages are anyone's business, but any pain my use of them to illustrate something other than what Anastasia claims was actually a choice Anastasia set in motion. I would put nothing here if she didn't choose to twist her history to suit a situation. Bandwagons driven by the unknown can be hazardous. Anastasia's recollection of events is not accurate, and while I would choose to say nothing I also hear those who say I should.

So I put the simplest portion of Anastasia's words here, in her own hand. They are precious words, much plainer but truer than any she writes today of those same events. I put her words here so they can be read, and perhaps pondered by thinkers as to how I could have put them in her head, her mouth, her marriage, her pen. Revelations of a woman who was restless and unhappy and believed she was no longer in love with a husband who did not always respond to her as she would have liked, or deserved. Just like many, many other women...and men. And her reasons are typical to so many marriages, so common. The same reasons apply to many "ordinary" couples. Real, simple reasons...like not being paid attention to, or heard, or appreciated.

Could I make Dan not listen to Anastasaia? Appreciate her? Not pay attention to her? Respect her? Anyone who knew Dan knew no one really got Dan to do anything, much less things that even Anastasia, his wife, could not make him do. Anastasia's written words...the flirtations with Sonny and Tim, her reflection on a couple of the many reasons she no longer wanted to be with Dan and for how long she'd already had that thought...were her words, her thoughts, her choice. The words are basic, but say things more clearly than anything I could level against her accusations here in my own defense.

I beleive marriage ends only via the two people married. I have learned people who lose want to find reasons beyond themselves for the loss. No one else matters in a marriage, or shouldn't. Choice is one's own.

I didn't know Anastasia or the man she would leave Dan for when they first met in the mid-'80s, just about the same time Anastasia was moving in with Dan. I had absolutely nothing to do with the long-smoldering appreciation Anastasia had for this man and his world. There was even a well-established joke between Dan and Anastasia that suggested every time she'd visit Santa Fe it would be the time she would leave Dan for this man.

Once Dan had gone to Maine that summer of 1996, faced with being alone for a few weeks, it was Anastasia who chose to invite her friends Sonja and Lisa up to the ranch from California. I wasn't there. I didn't see or take exception to what Sonja and Lisa saw and took exception to. It was Sonja and Lisa who desparately wanted to contact Dan in Maine, and settled for leaving their numbers with Dan's ranch manager. Though I had just met them days before, they called me too, but I felt it was not my place to relay their feelings.

They were desperate to speak to Dan, and wanted me to dial for them. I told them I wouldn't call him. I could have, but I knew if this were me I wouldn't want to be jarred out of my Maine reverie with a phone call. I did write him, which both took and offered time. I said nothing to the effect of "you should see what's going on here." I simply said I understood that he was where he wanted to be, doing what he wanted to do...but it was my opinion he might want to come home because his life was calling. He did come home.

Even prior to this visit gone wrong with Sonja and Lisa, many worried the marriage between Dan and Anastasia was waning, for several reasons. But an actual end to "Dan and Anastasia" was a complete surprise. Though once an accomplished and arresting "super couple," it was apparent they had been for quite awhile headed for that place of simply and commonly "growing apart."

A dozen years ago, now, or ever I don't think Anastasia could survive without the thin, dry air of The West. Or its landscape. Or people. Or animals. A few years before, in the early 1990s, The West had been a national fad. Clothing, decor, music, movies....all reflected a trendy interest in The West. Everyone was dancing with wolves. Much of the U.S. was pursuing, for the moment, the lifestyle Anastasia was and had lived her entire adult life. Including Dan. It was a halcyon era in the relationship, and if it wasn't it sure seemed like it.

Although Dan chose to live in Colorado for decades, he was not a consummate Westerner. His interests weren't that finite. But in the early '90s he was content to be a cowboy. So it had to be a shock for Anastasia when, after a couple cowboy years, Dan's tide turned back to the sea, to Maine, to sailing and interests closer to his own heart than hers.

It just seemed they each had reached the point where they realized days were not to be squandered. Not even for the love or pleasure of the other.

Is it wrong for two people to want to live the life they want and choose? What do you do when your spouse wants things completely different from the things you want? For Dan it was retreat, and if my blog is my opinion he did so expecting Anastasia to give in and just do things his way. If not expecting, then hoping.

Dan did make those calls to Sonja and Lisa, heard what they had to say. Made other calls, too. Of his own volition only, as it should be.

I didn't understand Anastasia, or why everything had to be so blasted hasty. So she explained to me the exit strategy she'd employed in her first marriage, that looking beyond her relationshipship helped her "prove it was over." She said in that case Jesus forgave her for whatever she needed to do. He had taken up her "load" when she asked for forgiveness. So, she said, she was essentially "covered" if she needed to convince herself once again. I did not understand this in the slightest. I didn't think faith worked that way, not to mention that Anastasia's logic seemed to considerably bend a Commandment or two in her favor. But someone who didn't like her once called Anastasia a "convenient Christian." A Christian who exercised only a self-serving and self-written gospel, laden with double standard that absolved her of the very same guilt she condemned others for. I always found Anastasia's holy connection to be one of her more intriguing and inspiring facets. I even believed she would indeed one day go to the Middle East and find the Ark she preached the project with such conviction. The proverbial "they" always says "the Lord works in mysterious ways." I just thought Anastasia was one of them. But I didn't understand the concept of Jesus' backpack at all.

So by the time Jesus was stepping up to carry Anastasia's load a second time, I was already in a precarious position. A position anyone who has ever been in the middle of a divorce can understand. It's truly the proverbial rock and hard place, the cliche no-win situation. You become necessary to both parties as a sounding board, but then you become dangerous because you know too much, and what if you tell the other? Or worse, others?. Neither side wants to respect any effort you make toward being Switzerland. They want you to pick a side. When you can't, or won't, sometimes you become the enemy. Neither Dan nor Anastasia were much wanting to look at anything from the other's perspective.

To Dan, I had no argument whatsoever for her postition after she left. There was no way to convince Dan that she didn't mean to leave for another man. Especially since she had actually left.

I did ask Anastasia, more than once, about her thought process regarding her marriage. Was she sure leaving her husband and home was what she wanted to do? She told me repeatedly, and twice in an extremely empathic manner, that she knew exactly what she was doing. From deep in her heart this was what she wanted. And she wondered if it wasn't always what she wanted, simply having made the wrong choice of men in 1985 or so. The man she was leaving Dan for was her heart of hearts, and she always secretly suspected she'd made the wrong choice more than a decade prior. Her happiness lay in this other man's "incredible hands." Was I not to believe her? And even if I thought she didn't know her mind, that she was perhaps simply frustrated or bored or confused within her marriage, like many, anyone who knows Anastasia knows no one tells her what to do, either.

I believed Anastasia when she said she was in pursuit of ultimate happiness, her true soulmate, the man left behind when she chose Dan, the man who was her genuine and constant cowboy who shared her love of horses and The West. Doubting her would not have helped. Or changed a thing. Dan and Anastasia, in those moments, were two wounded, and stubborn, people with incredible senses of self. To suggest I could influence either of them, or stop them from things they were doing, is just ridiculous and pathetic.

As is the suggestion that Jean, who would become Dan's wife after Anastasia, confiscated Anastasia's letter to Dan 12 years ago. By the time Anastasia was second-guessing herself and writing accusatory letters, Dan and Jean were well on their way to what would be the rest of his life. Jean would have absolutely no reason, even in 1996, to be threatened by a letter arriving from Anastasia.

I believed Anastasia and I believed in Anastasia. I was wary of the mischief that seemed to surround her interest in the man just before the man she ultimately left Dan for. But after him I totally invested in the magic Anastasia then spun around her pursuit of life with another man who was not at all a stranger. Not a fling. I wholly believed, with all my heart, the Saga of Anastasia and her Truer Cowboy. In the end, them riding into the sunset seemed right and just to me, too. I believed her. Her story of this man and her appreciation of him was not new, or sudden. It was already 1o years in the making by the time I came to know it. Part of my belief in her next life was her pointing to her willingness to give up what many considered a charmed life in a charmed place for a considerably different kind of existence. She asked me if I thought she would give all that up if she weren't sure? No one could accuse her of staying just to have the life she'd led. She said a truer life was what mattered to her. It was easy to believe that from Anastasia. And I'm sad if in the end she tricked herself about it.

It seems at some point she began to question her own choice, but the fact remains...Anastasia left Dan for life with another man. Period. For her own reasons. Not Dan's. Not mine. If Anastasia made bad juju by believing whatever she told herself about life beyond Dan, that started many years before. I think she was right in what she felt was deterioration in her marriage to Dan. I disagree if she chooses to own no part in those problems. There were problems, and that is universal more than unique to marriage. I also believe there was no hope there in the end. But their discontent existed long before Anastasia initially contacted me to write a story about a horse clinic she was holding.

By the time Anastasia was placing blame Dan had just had enough already. Especially since while Anastasia was trying to absolve herself, Dan had taken a cue from her and found a new love of his own.

A few weeks after Anastasia left, as Dan was about to head to Santa Fe for a getaway, we talked about history. We talked about things Dan had done in the past when he was hurt or angry. Or hurt and angry. About how in the past he, a solitary man by nature, had sealed himself off even further from others, from life. That the end of a marriage didn't have to be the end of life, of company, of love...but just might be a beginning. To lose and not blame. To not be a coward in the face of loss, but braver for it.

He said he would not waste any of his life this time, this loss. He would actually do the work, go out and find the person he was supposed to love. He would not dabble. Not be lazy. Not brood. Not grow a beard. It was just a talk, but a good talk.

He headed to Santa Fe wide open, and a week later our next good conversation was about finding Jean. There was so much beauty in it all for Dan.

Sometimes now I think that somewhere inside he knew he had no time to waste.

The vast majority of my memories of Anastasia are fond and funny. She can't change that or take it away, no matter what she says or does.

I'm sorry that the life great;u anticipated with the man Anastasia left Dan for didn't work out. I am thankful I wasn't there to be blamed for the demise of that marriage. I hope husband number four truly is all Anastasia wants, and deserves.

I'm also happy that Jesus never needed to punctuate His bestowal of "forgiveness" with a need to stone His forgiven, even though He alone has the credentials to cast a first stone. And I hope, for her sake, that Anastasia's claim that "bitterness" causes cancer also is untrue.

Interesting to me that many who actually serve in roles like "counselor," be it spiritual or secular, or "conflicts manager" or "life coach" are those who covet and coddle anger and blame as their way, the only way, forever. Chances are they don't include that philosophy within resumes, CVs or even basic qualifications or convey it to clients or employers. I doubt that's what they teach, preach or practice face-to-face in their everyday world. Hope not. But like silence, it's a choice.

Gone is a four-letter word.

2007-12-17T03:38:00.000-03:00

Can't sleep...1 a.m.

No matter how many times you read "Tibetan Book of the Dead," no matter how hard you embrace the fact no one gets out alive...sad is sad.

I remember with vivid and giddy detail. The infamous snail joke...

A man heard a faint knock on his front door, opened it, and saw a snail on his porch. "What the heck is this?" he said, and bent down, picked up the snail, examined it, and threw it across the street. Two months later, the man heard another faint knock on the front door. He opened it, saw nothing, then looked down. The snail on the porch said, "Hey! What was that all about?"

We all laughed really, really hard but didn't exactly know why. Now I think we all just wanted an excuse to laugh and thus a snail joke triumphed.

"She who has a why to live can bear any who, what, when or where."

Nice hat...

2007-11-22T16:16:00.001-03:00

A crocheted turkey Thanksgiving tribute. My favorite part is tie feet.

As always, every day not just this one, I am thankful. For people and events too numerous to mention, and for the spirit I've been given.

Je suis d'erte heureux juste comme je suis.

I am happy to be just as I am.

I cannot be absolutely certain what it is that bestows blessings, but I am certain I am blessed.

Love on the Idiot Box...

2007-11-14T16:44:00.000-03:00

The Rosenblatts were on television again today.

I saw them 11 years ago, when they were on television the first time. I never forgot their story, and I tell it every time an opportunity arises. I know some I've told tell it too, because it's so extraordinary...

Between the ages of 12 and 14 he was in a concentration camp. A Polish Jew, he was rounded up and sent there. His job was shoveling bodies into the crematorium.

She was a little girl, also a Polish Jew but her family moved to the country, to a farm right next to the concentration camp. There they posed as Christians to avoid persecution.

One day the boy's dead mother visited him in a dream and told him an angel would come, and she would help him. Within days, a little girl appeared outside the fence.

She called to the boy, and asked if he spoke Polish. She had no idea who he was, why he was there or what was going on. But she knew the boy looked and sounded frightened as they talked, and that he was very thin.

He told her he was very hungry. She pulled an apple from her apron and gave it to him.

Every day after she would bring him an apple and some bread, and these small things helped sustain him for seven months.

One day he told her not to come again, because he was going to be shipped to another camp. She cried. And as he turned to walk away from her he realized he was crying too, because he knew he would never see her again.

After the move to another camp, within TWO HOURS of the time the boy was scheduled to be executed, Russian troops liberated the camp.

Life went on. The boy became a man who left Europe for New York City.

Fifteen years after leaving the camp, friends set him up on a blind date.

As the couple rode in a taxi to their dating destination, the woman asked the man where he had been during the war, what he was doing then.

He told her about the concentration camps, and she said she knew something of them, as she'd lived right near one and had given a boy there apples each day.

He asked her if the boy was tall, and too skinny...and if he'd ever told her not to come again because he was being moved to a different camp.

They then instantly knew some force of fate had brought them together again. And that they'd never part.

They were married, and though now very old they are still together. Soon they will be married 50 years.

To commemorate that milestone, on television today the man got down on one knee and gave his bride and angel a new ring and said what is said about many a circle...that it has no end, just like his love for her.

What are the odds? Probably as great as those of the Russian adoptees, another amazing love story I like.

As eightysomethings, I don't know if they'll ever be on television again. I'm just happy some force of fate allowed me to see them both times.

They're no Patrick Swayze, but...

2007-11-06T11:30:00.000-03:00

My dancer child and I ventured to the big city last night to view the road version of television's "So You Think You Can Dance." I don't watch the wildly popular "Dancing with the Stars," but I do watch "So You Think You Can Dance." Completely different variety of "stars."

I'm not really certain the show is the "reality" it is billed, e.g. the voting or "plants," but the entertainment value is there. For us anyway.

The television show is slick, and popular, so I was essentially sure the evening would not completely suck. I was completely surprised it was as good as it was. Fast-paced and very entertaining, fleshed out and kind of fabulous, actually.

My first surprise was that tickets were hard to get. They essentially sold out a stadium in pre-sales, so there was little left the day tickets went on sale to the general public. If I was skeptical about that, it was borne out by the full house. In the end our seats were to the right, but very nice.

I won't go on about it too long. I realize it's one of those "you really had to be there" kind of things. I just write this because I am quick to criticize the entertainment world, so I wanted to yang the yin of that tendency.

In a nutshell:

Chicago likes them some Neil. He had the highest squeal factor.

It was comforting to be in an arena full of chair dancers. I know if these people had the space, they would get up and actually dance. I could not. I am relegated to chair dancing and I usually chair dance at home, alone. So it was excellent to have all those partners in the activity for a night.

Chicago likes them some guys dancing without shirts. "No shirt" rivaled Neil in squeal factor. I don't know...I did think it was interesting that everyone who danced with no shirt was shiny chested. That must be the norm for no shirt dancing, but I wondered if anyone with dense torso undergrowth ever dances without a shirt. Or if a man with a working hair farm would get the same squeals the shiny guys did. The guy in the black pants swinging the extremely large red satin cape to a passage from "Carmina Burana" did get my attention though. Maybe he thought a shirt would be just too busy with such an imposing cape?

Chicago likes an outtake.

Chicago buys the notion of "Sex" and his return. I'm not so sure. He's just too "good TV" to me.

I could have lived without the big screen running of the incident tape. Bigger than life they showed what amounted to the Top 5 Injury Incidents. Not once, but backed up over and over to make certain you caught the head-cracking action. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. And ow.

My child purchased a souvenir T-shirt and pants with "So You Think You Can Dance" printed on the ass. I'm not a big fan of ass pants, but they do kind of make a fitting "the end" for this post.

Calaveras Like Ham.

2007-11-01T11:44:00.000-03:00

Dia de los Muertos! Viva!

Truck or Treat.

2007-10-31T11:53:00.000-03:00

This truck was parked across the river from my house. It's chosen to be a pirate ship. The photo does no justice to all the fine detail...a swabable deck, crow's nest, sails, rigging and a skeleton hung from the stern. In a few weeks it will officially "sail" with a crew during a nearby community's holiday parade. Pirate trucks in my neighborhood, always good.

Halloween Eve: It's Psycheskelic.

2007-10-30T21:10:00.000-03:00

Some amazing stuff today.

2007-10-25T00:22:00.000-03:00

My child's wedding dress came in! It's very pretty. Very '40s glamour, but I can't say anymore because the groom can't know. I feel assured he couldn't picture " '40s glamour" if he wanted to. I hope not. I almost put the sketch I made up here and then remembered he can't see it anywhere.

They don't allow you to take pictures as you try on dresses, so I drew it for her so she could remember all the details. Of course, as we were paying for it the associate said "Oh you could have taken a picture once you bought it." Too late for work and too much dress to just slide into, so we didn't do it.

As amazing as the dress is, I found it as amazing that tonight a friend is going to be home alone all night the first time in her entire 57 years. Someone else has always been there.

While I can't wrap my head around that at all, I think it's beautiful in some way. Both the never being alone part and the fact she embraces the milestone in a playful way.

Tonight my sleep number appears to be 10:39. I'm ready.

I'm going to sleep on the idea of changing my name to Manna.

Sweet dreams are made of these...

2007-10-23T23:38:00.001-03:00

Jenny My Friend of 41 Years and I shop for shoes. Sometimes there are hats to try on. I have not forgotten the disclaimer: She is not my "oldest friend" but my "longest friend," because we need to milk the seven months between us for all it's worth.

This Halloween card Jenny sent arrived today. It has a lovely message inside. It has skulls on the front. I don't get the correlation between the image and the message but perhaps I'm not supposed to because when searching for a card for me the combination is perfect. I love a skull. Day of the Dead will be here soon.

And I do follow my heart. All the time, always will, no matter what.

She was off today and I had assorted lessons. The day was nippy and clean. Lots of fresh air and good food. And when I hear Jenny's voice rising and falling while telling me about all the asses she works with it's easy for me to just hear it as song that reminds me of the people who simply know better. Know what I do. Know who I know. Know who I am. For themselves, without influence. That knowledge is what sustains me. Real people in my real day-to-day life for a looooooong time afford me deep sleep and sweet dreams. And yes, snoring like a freight train.

Of course, all this is assisted by the world-famous Sleep Number Bed.

We've had it about six weeks now. I wanted a TempurPedic, mostly because I heard dust mites don't like them. "Northern Exposure" taught me not to resent dust mites or deprive them of our skin cells, because they have families to feed. But lately I've heard by the time you get around to replacing a mattress it is twice as heavy as when you bought it for all the carcasses of dead dust mites in it. Ew.

People who work with my husband told him TempurPedics are "hot." Not cool hot, but they make you too warm when you sleep. So he was off to the Sleep Number store for a test drive. He came home hooked, and insisted I go test drive too. It took him three months to get me there.

I was skeptical. I thought it would be like a super-expensive AeroBed. I couldn't imagine.

For the first time in a long time a salesman actually sold me. First he recited a history of the coil-spring mattress. He said there hadn't been a change in sleep systems (formerly known as mattress) in more than 150 years, when horsehair mattresses were replaced by the invention of coils.

Oddly enough, just last weekend my mother mentioned horsehair mattresses too. She said according to Martha Stewart horsehair mattresses are making a huge comeback, and they are very expensive. We wondered as to whether Martha Stewart actually sleeps on a horsehair mattress or not.

Anyway, I know the history is company party line, but he did a good job of presenting it. Informative and entertaining.

At one point, as we were going to look at my pressure points, I told him the bed just certainly has to be fabulous because a famous bionic Hollywood actress tells me so. Would she lie about the bed? The salesman said "If the check is big enough, yeah." We bought the bed.

The guarantee is 20 years. I'm not sure ours will last that long because my husband and our young dog think it's an amusement park. He lowers the "number" to 25 and then rides it back up to 100. And not once.

If it dies I will get another. When I allowed myself to rise above my skepticism I realized 150 years is quite a long time without new technology, and this is it. Strange, since everything else seems to advance every day.

On my Long List of Maladies, near the bottom, were shoulder pain and chronic unexplained pains on the outsides of both knees. All that is completely gone and so I've assigned it to coil pressure. I would have never known that pain was the mattress if we didn't change it.

The bed is so wunderbar I actually think about its comfort during the day. I have never given a second thought to a mattress.

Days off are good. Even this late sometimes Jenny is still at work. She's been in the same job for 24 years. She wants to go back to school. Her boyfriend is an ass. Her aged aunt just broke a hip. She knows and holds my truth. She deserves a Sleep Number bed.

Talk about yin & yang. AOL & Shula.

2007-10-23T00:58:00.000-03:00

I ventured into the AOL messageboards for the first time in about five years. Old dog, lots of new tricks. I could barely find my way around and I never did get it to look like the old one did. Where you could see all the posts at once.

Doesn't matter. I won't be going back. Prior to Tai Chai I got an E with a post Paula Bonhomme had directed to me there. Thought about it during Tai Chi and decided to answer, since I was the one who pointed her there last February. We disagree on the reason why, but it was a very busy day and I'm too tired to type it. Plus I'm just feeling so uninclined.

Yet for the record, I'm putting my response here, too, since this is supposed to be a record of my days.

It's raining, but I still stopped at Target to get an AOL trial disk. Fired it up, paid the money, made a name and only then did I learn you can make single AOL names now without even being on AOL. To think I thought I was special because they let me keep one when I left.

I didn't call Josh corpulent. A long time ago a very self-assured and outspoken woman from this folder was mixing it up with someone and the issue of fat entered the exchange. I wrote her privately with my take because that used to be a big button to push in me. She felt better about my raving once she realized I was writing letters to corporations about it all the time too. You can't use a Frito Bandito anymore but fat is still fair game. I would never call another fat person fat, by any term. I never even saw Josh as fat. I thought he looked and sounded like a better looking Penn Gillette. And I was acutally relieved to know he wasn't off somewhere dying of drugs.

I do know that "corpulent" thing came from a messageboard somewhere, where I think there were four negative opinions of Josh. It was sent to me, I think, to comfort me.

However, I probably would call him corpulent long before I'd ever comment on his writing ability. I'm not at all versed in it, so that would be unfair. Besides, I think writing is like art. Subjective. More a matter of taste. Who can really say what's good or bad for someone else? Like food.

Not everyone aspires to recognition. You can say I do, but that doesn't make you right. Recognition and success are like keys...every one a responsibility. Josh does need it and like it, and gets it, so what part of that is bad? My only question would be as to be how a truly accurate expose can be written from a single side. The Corpulent Caller has a point. Even a token nod to additional sources would have made that piece more comprehensive, and I think even more driving.

Not the jewelry! Or the handbags. Fat girls can't have fabulous clothes like you have, so we need our jewelry and handbags more than we need a lawsuit. Lawsuits are like adult tantrums.

My suit wouldn't be just the "LA Weekly," but the "LA Weekly" and Josh. The lawyer wasn't interested in "Audrey," which I found interesting but I think it had to do with responsibility. But you know enough to know I don't have a legitious bend even if I had LOTS of silver jewelry. Just like weddings and funerals. Why make other people rich?

I have talked with two libel lawyers and you are wrong, they aren't cheap. Even fewer of them are good. Or specialized. Unless $350 an hour is cheap and I just don't know that. This would easily be $50,000, probably twice that.

I don't think I'd retain a lawyer who takes PayPal. I know PayPal is just PayPal, and the money is still green, but there's something just wrong with that picture.

Technically the suing is easy enough because none of the burden is on me. It's on the "LA Weekly" and Josh to prove what they chose to say is true, beyond a resonable doubt of course. And I'm not talking about your word for it. Or anyone's word for it. Including anyone here because of that pesky statute of limitations thing. Hearsay, no matter how compelling or entertaining, is not good enough. He said prove.

All this online stuff both before and after that publication adds malice to the list, because Josh is connected to "Audrey," even though "Audrey" is irrelevent to the filing. Something also about scope and width and breadth of the online intent. Even though online is not always admissable as "proof" in court, repeated acts of intent no matter where they are, are? I didn't really understand. I do understand malice though.

It's not only the money. The boredom of due process. The driving, the sitting, the talking, the waiting. I'm just not up for it yet sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

The way I see it is we all do what we need to do to survive. If we don't do it, then we don't survive. I'm very interested in surviving. So are you. That's our right as free white women in America.

I will entertain the idea, and will proceed if I become convinced my husband and child need or want me to do something to clear their names, which were also used in the course of using mine. Trickle down hurts. I know you absolutely understand the need to protect your own because after all, you just took up for someone simply calling Josh corpulent...which, after all, is even true.

I have a year. You have a year if you want to call this "fraud," since this is all almost a year old, or more than a year old. Same with libel. In both Illinois and California.

However, both lawyers I talked to said there would be no "crime" in a claim like yours. What the one actually said is that the "case" would not see the light of day for lots of reasons, but mostly because you didn't use the key primary line of defense and protection...yourself. That's if you want to be regarded as sane and competent. If you do, you can't ask a court to do what you, yourself, did not do for yourself.

He said we'd file for summary judgement because it is so likely. A yay ruling would mean the plantiff would have to pay my court costs too. Geez, no jewelry for anyone.

All I know of Harlan is he's the one who said Josh was in some serious trouble back in February. I understand lying for the good of the whole, so I have no complaint. And that you're fond of him. I'm not inclined to delve into who he is and from what you said I'm sure he won't miss that.

This is a lot to field. The lawyer says this act, posting or blogging, isn't in my best interest until I make a decision. I think he just doesn't like stacks of printer paper. The therapist says post, blog, or not. Whatever moves me. The coping skills of assorted loved ones are either like you or me, so there is no general concensus. I can't even decide where to go for lunch, so it's a good thing I have a year.

Love ya too. Mean it too. Raise you a miss ya.

Janna St. James

As for Shula...

Last night on one of the lesser public television stations I caught the story of Shula Cohen. In the years before the Six Day War she was an Israeli living in Lebanon. She was a Jew socially mixing with strangers in a strange land, and she was suspect.

Shula was eventually arrested for being a spy, and indeed she was. Moments before though, she was able to squirrel away incriminating documents in her closet. Those ordered to search the premises did not find the hard evidence.

In place of hard evidence she was tortured to extract her truth. Taken to a courtroom, hung upside down and whipped until she passed out. Then they'd douse her with water, check to make sure she wasn't dead, revive her and start again. That was only one of many horrors she endured. The one they re-enacted.

Held for seven years; two and a half of those in a small, square, cold stone solitary cell filled with rats; she never gave herself up. Still, she was sentenced to death and was awaiting that fate, possibly a relief, when the Six Day War occurred.

An Israeli pilot was shot down during the course of that war. To recover him Israel entered a swap with Lebanon...hundreds of their prisoners for the pilot, and Shula Cohen. As she said, "They hadn't forgotten about Shula Cohen."

The things she had to say just blew me away.

Someone said I'm "flypaper for freaks."

2007-10-21T23:46:00.000-03:00

"Sometimes when you get way up at the top you could be in outer space and not know it."

* * * * * * * * * *

On the way to my trunk show yesterday my mother and I discussed the sad absence of color in the falling leaves. We agreed on the standard reasons why...too much heat too late in the leaf season, not enough water early in the leaf season...

We talked about living in beautiful places. Colorado for sure. I thought about where her cousin lives, because that place takes my breath away.

Then she said "I don't know if it's just nostalgia or what, but I think it's beautiful here. People in Colorado always say this is 'God's Country.' Well this is 'God's Country too."

If I hadn't been driving I would have run to the cellar to look for pods. I thought aliens might have done something with my actual mother because I'm not used to her waxing this way. I know she can and probably does, but I'm just not usually present for it. I like it very much.

* * * * * * * * * *

Yesterday was almost perfect weatherwise and today was a carbon copy. Tonight we went to the historic district to walk around, window shop and watch trains go by. Nice.

* * * * * * * * * *

For the record, yet again, I have never said I did not have anything to do with helping individuals beyond myself mask and protect their true identities from Paula Bonhomme. That was their choice and their right, understanding the nature of honesty and agenda on the Internet and the inkling of one of them.

It never crossed my mind to try to hide myself because I thought my name was all over the place anyway. In retrospect, I could have hidden and shouldn't have been honest about anything either.

I never question a person's right to not reveal any and all about themselves to a complete stranger right off the bat, no matter who and what they claim they are. And with each day that passes, in what happens to me, I see hiding one's identity from "Audrey"/Paula Bonhomme is wise. It's the you tell me everything, but I'm "Audrey" standard that has permeated this entire thing. A sense of entitlement does not make one entitled. People have a right to reveal themselves or not. Not respecting that speaks.

And everything Paula Bonhomme says about me, and how, says as much about her.

She's never once spoken to me directly. Just like last time. If I had all these issues with someone, I'd speak to them. She's a coward. She claims she "knocked it on the head and contacted my child." She stalked her online and sent her an Email. Paula doesn't have the spine to say anything to anyone without hiding behind something or someone, and ironically that includes aliases. My child's description of Paula was brief. "Predator."

I willingly helped people protect themselves from the unknown. The more known the unknown is, the more I value my decision.

* * * * * * * * * *

It's difficult to remain above any fray. Despite thousands of years passing since we actually needed to be scrappy, human beings still are. The "You can take the dog out of the fight but you can't take the fight out of the dog" thing. To varying degrees. It's even harder when the advice given you is vast and varied. Some people around you go nuts for you. I don't think that does any good. Going nuts and scrapping is best left to the pros. I think people who were bullied then bully, much like abuse. I think the support of a crowd; even a nameless, faceless one of complete strangers provides external validation to fill the hole. The hole is bottomless, so enough will never be enough. But I wouldn't know for certain. I just sometimes have to entertain the why of it.

I think a lot of scrapping has to do with attention. Playgrounds, prison yards, court rooms...the call of "FIGHT!" brings a lot of attention. If your stage is going dark and you need the spotlight, write a new episode full of vim and vinegar and you'll keep your audience. Doesn't matter how long in the tooth or how many versions of "Law & Order" there may be, flashy writing and fresh fights maintain the status quo. People love drama.

"Natural" isn't a word I'd ever use for an attempt to remain above a fray. It's not easy. It's so foreign a concept to many of the more scrappy it even seems wrong. I also think the number of scrappys far exceeds the number of fray naysayers. This also helps scrappys label fray naysayers crazy merely because the norm is to scrap. If you choose not to, well there simply must be something wrong with you! But, you know what they say...people are like tea bags, you never know how strong they are until they're in hot water. And, I know...this is my own form of scrapping.

* * * * * * * * * *

It couldn't be more obvious that we all tend to bond best with like minds. Sometimes that creates a fevered pursuit of havoc. Sometimes it creates Habitat for Humanity.

I don't ever want anyone to just blindly and rabidly be on my "side" of anything. I'm very round. I don't even have a "side." I can't worry about people who don't know me or don't care to know me. Life is short, and every day you waste you don't get back. I know you can't buy love, and even if you think you can influence it or manipulate it, you're wrong. Love is a quiet, strong and powerful thing.

I met my friend NoGrits 10 years ago, during my last fray. She once said she "just knew," which meant to me and others she was capable of using and trusting her own gut. Both a telephone confidante of the last fake man I supposedly was 10 years ago and a friend of mine, she knows it wasn't me she was talking to. I've never asked, but I believe she's remained in my life over the decade on the basis of our actual, reciprocal and three-dimensional relationship. We're both low maintenance. I was never conduit to a goal of hers, she was never a "victim" of mine.

She's one of the most centered people I know and that's not just my opinion. Her life reflects that as fact. She's grounded, constant, consistent. I've never experienced a single episode of drama from her. The best and worst things about her are the same. :)

She loves music. And words put to music. I think sharing the music she loves is as pleasurable for her as the music itself. She has turned me on to sound I would have never come across on my own in a million years. Friday she sent me these lyrics. Ten years is a long time, and once again she is there...

Let Me Be Your Witness

When your longest night is coming down
When pieces of you hit the ground
When every word they say about you is a lie
When they put your soul up for review
When they’re set on turning every screw
Call on me and I will testify

Let me be your witness
Let me be your witness
Let me be your witness

When no one sees and no one hears
Your secret heart
Your bitter tears
When it feels like you’re just sinking in the sand
When you can’t remember who you are
When you wonder how you came this far
Call my name and put me on the stand
Let me be your witness...

To your mystery
To your ecstasy
To the tears you cry
I will testify
To your longest night
To how hard you fight
To your inner light
A higher place
Your grace

To where you are
And to who you’ve been—
Jesus
Jezebel
To your heaven
To your hell
Let me be your witness
Let me be your witness.

As I was writing the last few paragraphs I worried as to whether I was using my friend. Her being stable and steadfast as some sort of defense of myself. I took everything but the lyrics out, then put it back in. Then out. Then back in. I decided to leave it all in because this is a blog, the purpose of many blogs being reflections of a life. Although some are blood sport and fiction. A blog is afterall, unlike a paper journal, a stage.

* * * * * * * * * *

And finally, fray or no fray, another quote because smiling is good.

"Noooooo. Not the fire breathing! Godzilla is the best monster because he has a nice shape."

It's Sweetest Duh.

2007-10-21T00:45:00.000-03:00

Today is "Sweetest Day," My husband and I went to breakfast yesterday in honor of the occasion. Not because I celebrate things like "Sweetest Day," but because he puts some kind of stock in the notion.

Nah, not really. He just knows how I feel and he just likes to watch me wind up. I'm not much for the standard holidays, much less those manufactured by Madison Avenue to separate people from their money.

It would be good if every day was "Sweetest Day." I should be. If it isn't, I think it's kind of like when people only go to church on Christmas and Easter. Save the money spent on the bear holding a "Sweetest Day" banner and the dust it collects and just be nice to your other all the time???

He wasn't disappointed. I did my speech. However, in the name of the purple bracelet "A World Without Complaint" campaign, I did amend it. Mostly because on the way home we saw a young family at an intersection selling flowers. They had big plywood signs that said: SWEETEST DAY.

OK. So perhaps there is trickle-down benefit to a Hallmark holiday. Perhaps the holiday serves like a rabbit's foot does to focus luck. Or a crystal is said to concentrate personal power. Perhaps someone who is a major asshole most of the year is actually kind to their other on this day. And perhaps that young family makes a little extra flower cash on the day declared as sweetest.

I told my husband I've ordered a "Sweetest Day" gift for him...his very own purple rubber "A World Without Complaint" bracelet. He said "Oh great. My first complaint will be having to wear it."

I'm not familiar enough with "Sweetest Day" to know if its just for lovers or if it's for anyone you love. I hope it's the latter, because I spent the day with my mother...the one who hates me and has no use for me.

I did a trunk show back in the old 'hood. I like to take her with me to shows. She's very personable at these kinds of things and she a fantastic merchandiser. She likes the people and people like her, so it's all good. I took a photo of the lovely and aromatic flowers and spooky stuff on display outside of the florist next to where we sat, but I'm too tired to take it out of the camera and put it here. It was a long day in a gentle wind, so even though we were under an awning I still have chapped skin and dry lips...or what we all call "dune eye."

No visit to the old 'hood is complete without a trip to an Eastern European eatery for some stick-to-your-ribs food. So much of that stuff has stuck to my ribs I haven't seen them since 1991.

My mother was tired from being up late with a friend who crashed at her house overnight between destinations, and getting up early to go with me. Nothing like a kolachek to pep one up. They even had a "mach" one for her after they thought they didn't.

Not me. I wasn't sleepy. I was all fired up after breathing fresh trunk show air on the promenade all day. So after my mother went on her way, we took up a mission.

On "Sweetest Day Eve" we got into a discussion about Cook County trying to impose a tax on all gadgetry. I could understand that being feasible for registered-use things like mobile phones, but how could they tax someone's MP3 player?

The article that prompted the discussion supposedly stated that the tax would be something like $4 per WEEK, per item...and that a family of four could pay as much as $500 a year in this kind of luxury tax.

All right. Cook County isn't relevant to me, but how does a county enforce or collect something like that? They can, I was told, that's what the story said. And we all know nothing wrong ever appears in print. Two words: Rita Cosby.

Out of the great luxury tax debate came discussion about how EVERYONE now has a cellphone. Even children. Little children. No longer does anyone have to go to the swimming pool with a dime in their shoe to call for a ride home.

In fact, could you even call for a ride home? When's the last time you saw a pay phone. Or a pay phone in service?

As often happens with life, one instance gets tangled up in another, so we decided to LOOK for a pay phone. I remembered 7-11 always used to have them at the back of the store, while White Hen Pantry had them outside in front. You can't find a White Hen much anymore, and the 7-11 we tried said their pay phone was removed a couple years ago. No one used it. A restaurant in town had two, but they were both labeled "Out of Order." The manager said they just put the signs there because the phones aren't serviced anymore.

We finally found one at a gas station and the man there said you can still find pay phones in bars. I was relieved. I was afraid we'd have to keep driving until we found one and end up all the way in Van Nuys. They have them there. That would have been a rough way to spend "Sweetest Day." I would have missed my trunk show. I need the money. Our child, the one who "ran away to some other locale to get away from her crazy mother," is getting married. I wish those bills were my imagination.

Sign # 4 and There is "Ow" in "Wow."

2007-10-19T13:12:00.000-03:00

Sign number four arrived yesterday and cracked me up.

I received this pick-me-up piece from another artist who makes art glass pendants like I do. There are probably a million of us. This is good because it pushes us to raise our bars.

Her work is lovely, including the solder. The soldering is the trick. Solder is a mother. Absolutely the most difficult medium in which I have ever worked. Tempermental. Idiosyncratic. Sensitive to everything. Yet, necessary.

It's hard to see, but in type above the image of the woman riding a shooting star are the words "L'etoile de Bonheur." I don't speak French, I just study it, but I know it means "Star of Happiness." Nice.

It was the note that amused me. A movie star name. I usually hear "That's a stripper name," so "movie star" is a step up. Or is it???

Doesn't matter. It's my name and I'm not changing it. I know someone who feels so strongly about name identity and woman identity that she thinks anyone who has ever changed their name, even for the purpose of marriage, is of questionable character. On the other hand, indigenous peoples around the globe often change names several times during the course of a lifetime for reasons of accomplishment or event.

I did not walk abreast with Al Gore at the birth of the Internet. I didn't come along until much later, and with absolutely no sense of "danger" experience would have given me and anyone one else I knew, we were naive. As a result my real name, addresses and telephone numbers have always been on the Internet. These days though, it doesn't even matter if I stupidly volunteered them. Anyone with intent and $19.95 can get data on anyone else.

I've never "hidden out," or tried to conceal my whereabouts. And I keep my name. I like my name, and no one is ever going to change that.

What I did not realize until two days ago is that people try. Astounding, I know. Not that people would try to shame my name. For crap's sake, people kill each other. But that I didn't particularly get that for what it really is. While some are adept in the assignation of blame, I'm adept in to the contrary.

It took a LOT of hashing and rehashing to get the fact through my dunderhead that one's own name is theirs alone to either to besmirch or polish. But if someone else sets out to do that by deliberate and calculated means, no matter what justification is used, that act at it's core is cruel, and criminal. I do get that, but I don't have to keep it. I'll just keep my name.

As to "ow" in "wow." My child has introduced me to a "guided movement" class. While it's always nice to do something with her, this, well...wow and ow.

It was not my beloved Tai Chi, during which I can do a form, rest, do a form, rest. This was all out for a full hour.

The music surprised me. I thought it would be all wispy and ethereal but it had more the driving beat of house music.

My fat, white @ss isn't all that fond of it because it prods. Yet I'm always happy to learn there really is nothing I can't do with the help of brief spells in a chair. There is hope I won't be "goin' straight to Hell at 3 mph." ~ "Seinfeld," which didn't make its millions with me as its lone fan.

Asked for a sign, got three...

2007-10-17T17:07:00.000-03:00

This font is called "Trebuchet." I'm not exactly certain what a huge catapult did to inspire this typeface, but I like it.

While not attached to any easily indentified deity, I do find myself asking the universe to "give me a sign" every now and then. Within the past 24 I received three, so I'm now back at the blog.

Signs, in reverse order...

1. Today is monumentous in that it is the very first time I have agreed with George W. Bush about absolutely anything. W held fast against the ravings and threats of China made in the face of the decision to award the Dalai Lama the Congressional Medal of Honor.

The only downside of this is that now I can no longer paint W with the same broad stroke I always have. I can no longer say I have found no favor in anything he did, does, will do.

2. Looking for Dalai Lama news I turned on the "Today" show this morning. At the moment they were doing a piece on this pastor from Kansas City who has begun a campaign called "A Complaint Free World."
He said human beings, particularly Americans, have raised complaining to an art form. And when you really, really think about it we're pretty pathetic in that considering all that's afforded most of us.

His premise features a purple rubber wristband, of the "Live Strong" variety. The idea is to go 21 days without any complaining at all. The payoff is that you begin to see the world in a completely different way for not having indulged in blame. If you, or someone else, catches you complaining you have to move the bracelet from one wrist to another.

The pastor said at first he was switching back and forth 20, 30 times a day. It ultimately took him three months to make the full 21 days. One woman took 50 weeks, nearly a year. Her husband, eight months.

The project has gone international and to date volunteers from the pastor's church have mailed out six million bracelets. They're free. You can offer a donation by credit card online or, they include a donation envelope with each shipment. You can order one online and see how far you get. Don't know if they come in extra-strength but they probably should. The reporter is on his second, and showed the one he broke over the course of time.

3. Yesterday I read this story, published on Monday. It says scientists define gossip as social information about a person who is not present. Well then, I guess it's best we all be present.

Gossip more powerful than truth, researchers say
By Michael Kahn Mon Oct 15, 5:01 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Gossip is more powerful than truth, a study showed on Monday, suggesting people believe what they hear through the grapevine even if they have evidence to the contrary.

Researchers, testing students using a computer game, also found gossip played an important role when people make decisions, said Ralf Sommerfeld, an evolutionary biologist at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, who led the study.

"We show that gossip has a strong influence... even when participants have access to the original information as well as gossip about the same information," the researchers wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Thus, it is evident that gossip has a strong manipulative potential."
In the study, the researchers gave the students money and allowed them to give it to others in a series of rounds. The students also wrote notes about how others played the game that everyone could review.

Students tended to give less money to people described as "nasty misers" or "scrooges" and more to those depicted as "generous players" or "social players," Sommerfeld said.

"People only saw the gossip, not the past decisions," he said in a telephone interview. "People really reacted on it."

The researchers then took the game a step further and showed the students the actual decisions people had made. But they also supplied false gossip that contradicted that evidence.

In these cases, the students based their decisions to award money on the gossip, rather than the hard evidence, showing such information is a powerful tool, Sommerfeld said.

"Rationally if you know what the people did, you should care, but they still listened to what others said," he said. "They even reacted on it if they knew better."

Researchers have long used similar games to study how people cooperate and the impact of gossip in groups. Scientists define gossip as social information spread about a person who is not present, Sommerfeld said.

In evolutionary terms, gossip can be an important tool for people to acquire information about others' reputations or navigate through social networks at work and in their everyday lives, the study said.

One example could be using gossip to learn that a potential mate had cheated on others, something which could make that person an undesirable match, Sommerfeld said.

My favorite Dalai Lama quote, since this is big day for him:
My religion is kindness.