Isabel and Milla at Montjuic in Barcelona
I have noticed since being in Barcelona, and indeed I have noticed in all of our European travels this summer, a lot more men carting around children than I see in the states. And here in Spain I have noticed many, many sets of grandparents or a grandparent caring for young children. I wonder if instead of placing children with daycare centers, more people here utilize family for childcare. I’m talking about babies and very young children.
Today while swimming in the Mediterranean I was drifting in from a swim out a ways from shore, when a turd floated by. I immediately exited the water, packed up the baby, and went to take a shower. I just could not swim with turds. Call me particular.
There seems to be a proliferation of small, white dogs in this corner of Europe. We’ve seen many Westies, Jack Russells, Malteses, and Poodles. One even appeared to be a Maltipoo, which is the breed of our little scamp, Ava. Oh, I miss Ava. I miss cuddling her little fuzzy body and having her greet me upon entering every single room. We have also seen a number of Dachshunds, but they aren’t white. When I was last in Europe, there were lots of hairy Dachshunds. This trip I have only seen 2, but many, many short-haired versions. We also saw 2 greyhounds.
We spent 2 days in Düsseldorf, Germany. Actually, we stayed in a suburb called Ratingan at the in-laws of my friend, Anne. However we went into Düsseldorf both days we were there. The weather the entire time was pretty abysmal, especially for August, but this did not stop us from exploring. Sunday morning in Ratingan we were all soaked on our way to breakfast at a lovely bakery. Breakfast, while damp, was quite delicious. There was a lot of construction going on downtown, which Anne says has been going on for years. I’m not sure if this is a good or bad thing. I don’t know enough to judge.
In any case, we made it around the construction zone and wandered up and down lovely alleyways to the Rhine. At the Rhine, the sky in the distance looked quite menacing, so we beat a fast track back to the car. We seemed to miss the rain, which was a first for the trip.
I snapped some photos of my beautiful daughter along the Rhine and with her umbrella. Her smile is truly breathtaking.
Milla in Düsseldorf, Germany, August 14, 2011.
Ah, WordPress. Every so often you feel the need to change things, to switch them around a bit, move words slightly left or slightly right, make lilliputian adjustments. One might not notice if one had not spent some time in this place. I wonder about this need to adjust and mark.
I have been working so much on the book that I keep wanting to hit the save button on this like I do on my word processing program, but the code doesn’t work here. It’s a useful habit, this saving of documents every few minutes, but it’s weird when the fingers do it without the brain making a conscious choice.
For many days I have been the proverbial chicken with a missing head. I often feel as if the body is carrying on without me, a pinball chicken body, bouncing and careening from moment to moment. This exhausts me. I made the mistake of checking work email a moment ago. Oh, how I wish I had not done that. It pulls my head from my body and throws it into my office, and right now, I want my head at home, with the body.
While I feel like my head is operating without my body, I think I’m giving the impression of managing it all, like a circus performer balancing plates on sticks, one here, another there, one high, another low. From the outside, I appear to have all the marbles in a jar, but really, this is an illusion, a sleight of hand. Move closer and one will see that the marbles aren’t together at all. It is just a picture of the marbles in a jar, the light adjusted somewhat to give the appearance of reality. Look behind the picture and you will see a chicken running without its head and the head is nowhere to be found.
Our house smells like roasted sugar. Well, burned sugar actually. This smell is the result of a confluence of unplanned events. First, Milla turned over a plastic bear bottle of honey in the cupboard above the stove in an effort to extract every last molecule of the stuff from the bottle. Second, I forgot to turn off the burner on the stove this morning after making eggs. Third, after heating the stove and the air above it all day long, the honey in the bottle began to melt and drip down into the drip pan — hence the name, drip pan, although I doubt this is what the stove designers had in mind exactly. Thus, the result was burning sugar. There is now in the drip pan a pile of charred honey. It is the color of hematite. It’s actually quite beautiful. We’re lucky we didn’t burn down the house.
The interesting thing for me in finally finishing one of my books is how anticlimactic it has been. I finished it, then sat here and thought, Okay, it’s done. I will have to read through it and edit, but the bulk of it is complete. It seemed as if the occasion deserved something more, but it really didn’t. If there has been a sincere shift in my thinking over the last few years it is this: life is about the ride, not the destination. This book just proved to me how much this has sunk in and become a part of me.
Time to rouse baby and get her dressed. I love the smile she gives me when she awakens. This morning before I got out of bed, I was lying next to her and she wakened for a moment, then patted my chest for milky, and gave me her lovely smile before latching on and going back to sleep. Ah, baby love is the best love of all!
I love that when European hoteliers, and beds and breakfasts quote you a price, it includes all the taxes and fees and whatnot, rather than the lying American version that tries to make the price look smaller by leaving that stuff out.
I posted this a while back. See it here. I was responding to this moron the first time he opened his idiot face and let venom spew. Of course, since he’s still slithering around out there, the post continues to garner hits, over two years later. I reread what I wrote, and I can’t really improve on it. All I said is still true. So I’m posting it again.
Rick Santelli is an Idiot
I can’t believe this guy. I heard him spouting off about how Americans shouldn’t pay for their neighbor to have one more bathroom. I wanted to reach into the screen and slap his ugly head. What an idiot.
Here’s a clue, Mr. Smarty Pants: People who are in foreclosure are in foreclosure because the system is a mess, not because they are “deadbeats” and want a free ride from the government or their neighbors. Want to point fingers, idiot? Point them at the banks that overvalued properties in the first place to get people into questionable loans so brokers could collect bigger fees. Point those fingers at the lenders for telling consumers that their ARM loan wouldn’t be a problem because they would be able to refinance in three years when the rates change (and hey, rates have been going down forever, so why shouldn’t this continue? Your payment will be lower!) while simultaneously neglecting to point out there would be no way in hell any traditional lender would refinance property that is mortgaged for more than it is worth. And oh, be sure to keep it a secret from the borrower that refinancing will not be an option if you lose your job. How about pointing the fingers at lenders who convinced people to take out that second mortgage or a HELOC to “consolidate their debt” without pointing out that trading unsecured debt for secured debt would make bankruptcy pointless should the need arise? How about pointing fingers at the pathetic and useless Bush administration who drove us into an economic crisis and higher unemployment than we have seen in decades? Let’s just blame the victim for losing their job. They should have known to move to China or India ten years ago so they would be there when their jobs were shipped overseas.
I heard the jerk in an interview claim that buyers should have hired lawyers. Guess what? Lawyers aren’t free. And assuming someone could afford $225 an hour to hire one, a lawyer wouldn’t hire an appraiser to know that the bank overvalued the property. Plus hiring an attorney when you buy a house is theoretically unnecessary anyway. Mortgage brokers and lenders have a fiduciary duty of care to their clients. This means they are held to a higher standard of care in dealing with the public. They are expected to act EXTRA honest because it is expected that they have greater knowledge about the mortgage industry than consumers. How does this work, Mr. Santelli? Are the consumers supposed to suddenly educate themselves so they can catch dishonest bankers and brokers? Would you hold a patient to the same duty before going to a doctor? Am I supposed to go get an MBA before I go to a financial expert to ensure they are upholding their fiduciary duty? Should I get an MD before going to the doctor?
I can’t stand the mentality that we are not obligated to help one another. Guess what? We are all in this together. We can sit in our foreclosed bunkers with our guns aimed at our neighbors and barbed wire wrapped around our hearts to protect us from the enemy, ensuring we keep that property because, hell, it belongs to us, right? We don’t need to share. Or we can grow up and realize that society at its heart means social. It means taking responsibility for one another. It means what we do for each other we do for ourselves. It means we care for and protect one another and when someone is down, we offer them a hand up. Taking care of one another is the stuff life is made of. The alternate choice is to live like Rick Santelli, cold and alone with his gun pointed at everyone, dragging his loot into the afterlife. Good luck with that, Buddy.
P.S. Being a stock-broker might be a high risk financially, but it is not hard work.
Milla, desiring to become the next FooPet idol, sings bland, corporate lyrics over and over while washing dishes. I am grateful she is washing the dishes; I am not grateful for her musical choice while doing so.
Isabel slumbers, stirring quietly as she dreams. She likes to stand on boxes. Tonight the box she chose was minuscule and unsteady, which caused her to topple over on her back, banging her head and making her cry. Only Mama and milky could soothe.
My body does not want me to eat pancakes. It lets me know in no uncertain terms that eating pancakes is not an activity it will allow, and that if I do, I will suffer.
Why won’t Safari give me the option of saving my passwords? The box that offers such a convenience is checked. I don’t like typing them each time.
I am rapidly discovering that if you spend most of your time listening to Ella Fitzgerald singing, then listening to most other singers will be a most unsatisfactory experience.
Do you ever have a day where it feels like there is a burr in your ass? I didn’t start out the day feeling that way, but ever since I woke from a midday nap I have felt increasingly cranky. I’m sure a lot of it is that I did not get enough sleep last night, and the other part is that I’ve got a damn cold again, and my voice is nearly gone, and by the end of the day I’m frankly sick to death of squeaking rather than speaking. I finally decided it would not even be a good idea to work on my book because my attitude would more than likely worm its way into the text and I don’t need that.
All this said, I have the cutest, sweetest, most adorable baby on the planet sleeping next to me and just seeing her fills my heart with love and joy. She is perfection. Tonight in the car, she picked up her chubby, sandaled foot and held it to her head like a phone. “Lo?” she said into her heel, her toes to her ear. What could be cuter than that? Sweet adorableness. I’m in baby love. Older daughter was actually kind today too. She had me come in and cover her with blankies before going to sleep, then I cuddled her and accidentally poked her in the eye. This required kisses and loves. At least she didn’t snarl at me. I’m not in love with this snarly, surly age. I hope we get through it intact. I foolishly believed I would be immune from adolescent angst in my child. Oh how wrong I was…
I have believed my entire life that good will prevail, that the greed of imperialism and corporatism would fail, that eventually in the battle against those who seek power for its own sake, who destroy this lovely planet for their own narrow gains in the moment, would all lose in the end and we would embrace one another and our home as sacred. I have believed that the selfishness of the individual who isn’t at the top of the corporate or power ladder would somehow dissipate and there would be more balance between feminine and masculine energies. Even though imperialism has spread from one place to another and destroyed entire populations on every continent, leaving nothing but destruction in its wake, I thought ultimately, those who seek harmony with our earth and one another would ultimately prevail.
Yet I realize that it continues to get worse, as it always has–Europe stole Africa, North America, South America, the South Pacific, India, and Australia. Europe’s North American protege steals from Asia and the middle east. Imperialism has taken the entire planet. My country is killing people all over the world. My country takes what it wants and cares not for the consequences to the people from whom it takes or the planet from whom it takes. My country steals from this planet, all in the name of greed and power, regardless of the long term result. My country does all this while waving its flag claiming its superiority over everyone and everything. What a mockery of true superiority. What a mockery of all that is decent and good.
The reality is that imperialism and greed have won, are winning, will continue to win until there is nothing left. Our race learns nothing from the mistakes of the past, because we as individuals did not experience them. The last victims of the Holocaust are dying off even as new versions of it have continued, nearly unabated. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, America and its citizens continue to ignore global climate change, pretending it isn’t man-made so they can continue to live as they want unabated because making any changes beyond clicking a button on a mouse or sorting out some recycling is the limit of what they are willing to do. We take from the Mexicans through imperialism and corporatism, leaving nothing for them in their home place, then beat their citizens in whatever way possible to keep them from trying to escape. We take from China and southeast Asia through imperialism and corporatism, allowing anything that makes us more money, while ignoring flagrant human rights violations. We take from our oceans. We take from our land. We take and take, and on, and on.
I look around at the world and, while I recognize that giving up hope of stopping what we are doing to one another and to the planet would be akin to joining the dark forces, I simultaneously realize that those who wish for something different are fighting a losing battle. I suppose there is some miniscule percentile of a possibility that we can stop them, but reality is grim. I fear it is going to take a global Holocaust, not just of people, but of the planet, to force people to realize that the pursuit of wealth and greed will destroy us.
I’m a bankruptcy attorney so I am often in contact with collection agencies and whatnot. I have been doing it long enough that I have also seen a bunch of financial institutions come and go. It is amazing how many bottom-feeder, rotten-ass lenders turn around and change their name because they are such scum, even people with the worst credit ratings won’t touch them.
One of these is GMAC. They are now Ally! They announce it with an exclamation point on their envelopes and return addresses. Guess what? We changed our name so now you can pretend we aren’t the same law-breaking, loan sharks we have always been! Sorry GMAC, or Ally, or whatever. You still suck.
Another is American General Finance. Total loan sharks. Total bottom-feeder scumbags. Now they are Springleaf! Ah, how fresh! How springlike! How green and new! No. The only thing green about them is their diarrhea color. When I saw that they had become Springleaf, I actually exclaimed, “Oh, for cryin’ out loud!” Hence the name of this post.
People out there in America, if you happen to read this, don’t borrow money. If you do borrow money, only do it for a home loan. If you do that, don’t borrow it from a bottom-feeder loan shark. If you are borrowing from a bottom-feeder loan shark, you can’t afford what you are getting the loan for. Leave them all alone. They’re horrible and they don’t deserve your business.
I had a dental implant put in yesterday. It was fine as long as I was doped up on ibuprofen. Apparently though, that was keeping the pain at bay because it woke me up in the middle of the night hurting. I left the prescription ibuprofen in the car. Milla left the non-prescription ibuprofen somewhere besides where it goes. This meant I had to get up and go down to the garage and open the car in the middle of the night and get the ibuprofen. Just the act of rising and transporting myself to the car, retrieving the ibuprofen, and returning was enough to increase the throb to the point where I knew sleep would be futile. Now it is the middle of the night and I’m awake and this hurts.
I hope it stops soon.
The Gap is so dumb. Okay, I know my even saying that is dumb, but seriously, it is. I don’t love the Gap. I don’t like their business practices very much, plus some of their stuff is really expensive for what it is (although I realize their model is to price really high then get people to buy on sales).
Anyway, even though I don’t love them, I will go in there for t-shirts and things because they are one of the few places left that sell t-shirts that are not so thin you can see through them. I hate that trend. I think the stores want us to think we are supposed to layer them or something, but that’s a load of baloney. First of all, once a person is past 24, layering a bunch of t-shirts looks ridiculous, like you’re trying to be 19 again or something. Secondly, if you are more than 98 pounds, layering a bunch of t-shirts just makes you look bigger and if you’re already bigger than you want to be, why would you want to look bigger still? Finally, I think their pretending like that is what we are supposed to be doing is a load of crap. Retailers just want to charge the same price for a crappy thin t-shirt as we pay for one that is woven more densely, that way they make more money for less product. That’s the ultimate point, I think, to get us all used to thin, junky t-shirts so we think the thick ones are a luxury and they can charge more.
Again, anyway. The point of my saying the Gap is so dumb is that I bought this shirt at the Gap recently on clearance (their model, get you to buy on clearance because that is all their junk is worth), and it had this tag on it that read THIS FABRIC IS PURE SPRING, LIGHT AND AIRY WITH A SOFT SEXY DRAPE. Wow. Seriously? Having worked for my very feminine, gay uncle in his fashion designing business, I have to ask, “What drag queen came up with that bullshit, anyway?” Pure spring — seriously? Soft, sexy drape? Um, no.
Another reason the Gap is stupid is that lately they have been trying out this “sexy drape” thing on many clothing items by sewing in horrible folds and creases in places where there should be none. It’s like they want to permanently place an ugly wrinkle after wearing something to sleep in. For instance, they have these tank tops with straps that are bent, then sewn, then bent. Basically, it makes the strap not lie flat. I don’t want straps that don’t lie flat because they don’t lie in a straight line either, which means half the time my bra strap is hanging out. Now, there are tops I will wear with my bra straps showing because that is the look, but this tank top is not one of them. It looks like a dressy tank top only it has this ugly, weird twisty strap thing going on, and you can’t iron it out. Unfortunately, when I bought the shirt, I thought the strap was just messed up and needed to be ironed, so I bought the shirt. Unfortunately again, I bought it with some things I bought for Milla, she carried the bag, and she put the receipt inside the bag. This means that when we got home and she dumped her things out and I forgot about my shirt for a few days, by the time I remembered it and realized the strap was a big mess, the receipt was lost. This did, however, provide me with an opportunity to explain to Milla that she should place the receipt in my wallet from now on, so all was not lost in the cause, although I don’t think the lesson was worth $18.99.
In any case, I have this weird label here from another shirt I bought there on clearance. This shirt was only like $4.99, down from $78 — seriously, Gap? Seriously? Are you smoking crack? Do you think ANYONE in their right mind is going to buy this junk for that? — But I digress. The shirt in question is made from some kind of drapey fabric. It is made to wear under a suit jacket or something, which is what I bought it for. But it too has a weird flap sewn in that makes zero sense. When I bought it, I noticed the flap and examined it carefully to see whether I could sew or iron it into something normal. I could, and the price was right, so I bought it. I had also tried on many others with weird twists or drapes or whatever the hell that I did not buy because they were such big messes, there was no way ironing or sewing would work things out, but this one was okay. I also tried on some pants where they sewed in messed up, wrinkly cuffs. I don’t like messed up, wrinkly cuffs. I like my cuffed pants to have the cuffs lying flat and even all around. Ewww. Did not buy those even though they were only $7.99 or something on clearance. The ridiculous cuffs were probably why they were so cheap on clearance.
So I bring home this shirt and hang it in the closet, then take it out to iron the weird wrinkle thing and see this tag and have to wonder about the drag queen who wrote it. Actually, it was probably a committee of drag queens because corporations love committees to come up with stupid things to try and get people to buy. The drag queens are probably the kind who can’t get a job at Calvin Klein or Prada or whatever, so they are working at the Gap trying to break into the business. I don’t know. In any case, they come up with these stupid sewn in wrinkles and flaps then add a tag that says PURE SPRING, LIGHT AND AIRY WITH A SOFT SEXY DRAPE. Another aside, Gap, if you are going to use the one comma, why not go all the way and use them in other places too, like after the word sexy? But again a digression. I had to laugh. You think you can sew in weird flaps and the clothing item is now going to have a soft, sexy drape? No. It doesn’t work that way, especially on mass-produced, sweatshop from China crap from the Gap.
I’m just saying.
I have finished two chapters in two days, but now I have to work at the job that makes me money. I don’t want to. I’m burned out. I took a small break, but I think I need a vacation where I leave the continent. We are planning one of those, but it will not arrive soon enough. There are other things happening in the meantime that I look forward to. I just need to keep plugging away at the day job until I get over the funk. It will happen; it has before.
Isabel has taken to letting her dollies nurse on her, or nurse on me before she nurses. She is very generous, that one.
I have also been working on the second book at the same time as the first. Both are right there, in my brain, so when I want to work on one, I start typing and out it comes. The problem is that I want to finish both and there isn’t enough time in the day. But it will happen. I’m glad enough for the work that is coming.
Milla is getting taller and growing things like breasts. She complained about the bra I bought her so I just bought her some bigger ones. As has been the case since she was tiny she likes her clothing five sizes too big. I have to say that I prefer that to the opposite alternative.
Our next door neighbor is moving away. Ours has not been a cordial acquaintance. Mostly it hasn’t been an acquaintance at all, but what contact there has been has been unfriendly. She does not seem to like us, and we really don’t like her in return. We have vowed to take a pie to the new tenant, hoping that a beginning kindness will at least give rise to the possibility of a friendly acquaintance. We shall see. I am glad, though, that the neighbor who does not like us is leaving.
It is sunnyish today, which is an improvement over downpours. I’m glad that it is not brightly sunny or I would lament leaving work until the last day. As it is, I will get it done without grumbling that I’m doing it in exchange for good weather.
One of my several books is finally coming together. I have been plugging away steadily and actually making a dent in getting it done. The result though, is that when I have time to sit and write, it doesn’t happen here. Many days, like this one, the choice is eat, write, cello, or French. Usually only eat wins. Tonight I bought plant starts for the garden, and since it was not raining I decided to plant those instead of all my other potential projects, so I managed only eat and plant. Oh, and pull weeds. First I had to pull weeds out of the planter boxes in order to plant the vegetables in them. The ground was soft and loamy, perfect for pulling weeds and also for planting. Oregon’s weather today was as schizophrenic as ever, unable to decide between warm sun and pounding rain. I’m a bit dismayed by the rains we are getting. They are more like east coast rains than typical Oregon rains, but things are changing in the weather world, so I should not be surprised.
In any case, it was pouring rain when I bought the baby plants, but by the time we got home, I made dinner and we ate it, the sun had decided to come out and stay out until dusk when I completed the planting. This was quite satisfactory. I love digging in the dirt and growing things. It makes me feel centered. Isabel came outside with me and helped. She scolded Ava whenever Ava barked at the wind, or the walking neighbor, or the squirrel, or the cat, or the way her fur fell across her face. Isabel also made her hoo sound and showed me plants, helped me to pick weeds, and showed me how her coat snaps. She liked pulling out the old leaves from the flower bulbs that have already bloomed for the year. She stacked them in the stack of discarded plant parts and old rooty things. Then she watched closely as I dug holes and placed baby lettuce or baby corn into them. Adorable.
I finished this gardening project at dusk and my hands were filthy, so I figured it was as good a time as any to take a bath. However, taking a bath and getting baby ready for bed took up the whole evening, leaving me basically no time for cello, French, or writing. Now I should be sleeping but I’m typing this. Why? I have no idea. I just pulled out the computer and started to go. I can’t say what insane motivation drove me to it. I am going to overcome this motivation now and go to sleep because the only time I’m going to get writing done during the week is in the early morning, which means getting up early, and if I am going to get any sleep at all (which is necessary in my brain for coherent writing), I have to stop this now and turn out the light.
Described as “part biography, part music history, and part literary mystery,” The Cello Suites weaves together three narratives: the disappearance of Bach’s cello suites in the eighteenth century, Pablo Casals’s discovery and popularization of the music, and author Eric Siblin’s quest for the truth behind the suites today. Mr. Siblin graciously agreed to an interview, and we spent over an hour discussing his book, the music, and the beauty of the cello.
LG: I was fascinated by the Walter Joachim story. That was one of my favorite parts of the book. It was just timed so perfectly, and it seemed incredible to run into somebody with that kind of personal history. I was really curious about how that acquaintance went, how long it lasted, and what it was like to run into someone with his background.
ES: Walter seemed like the music fleshed out before my very eyes. It was wonderful to stumble upon him. When I heard about his story I was just amazed and spellbound that somebody living a few blocks from where I was living had such a profound connection to the music, and somebody who I was crossing paths with every week, but not knowing, had turned out to be such an embodiment of the music. It was just delightful to get to know him.
Unfortunately it happened late in his life. I think I met him in October and I think by Christmas he had passed away. So I didn’t get that much time to hang out with Walter, but I would regularly bump into him on the streets, the main street that he lived on, Monkland Avenue, and I would walk with him either to the cafe and have lunch with him, or escort him (because he walked with a certain amount of frailty) back to his high-rise apartment, and started to do some interviews with him as well with a tape recorder, but had only gotten up I think to 1938 or something, when he passed away. It was fairly short-lived my encounter with Walter, but it was really pivotal for the writing of the book because firstly, it just spurred me on and got me quite enthusiastic, and secondly, Walter urged me to take up the cello, so that also gave the idea of the book a shot in the arm.
LG: Yes, the timing seemed really fortuitous.
ES: Yeah, so it was wonderful timing and terrific to meet him at that stage. It was perfect to meet him period. He had a real joie de vivre, and he was a great raconteur who would regale me with stories of music history, his own life story, which was fascinating, and music gossip, cellist gossip. It was great. And he was right, by trying to pick up the cello, in a really rudimentary way, it was also gave me insight into the music and helped me, and helped the book get written, I think. I never sat down at the outset and thought, okay, what solid ground do I have to cover in order to turn this into a book? What activities can I do to make it readable? It was really an organic process that stemmed from own genuine curiosity.
I was really trying to connect-the-dots that comprised the music, and often it was by happenstance. The case with Walter, was one. There were other times. I was in Europe once doing other work and I would inevitably look around to see if there were other connections where I happened to be to the Cello Suites. Sure enough, often something would pop up.
For example, I was in Brussels a few times, and I would not otherwise think of going to Brussels to research the Cello Suites, but I was there for other work reasons and I would look around, and Brussels produced a few different scenes that made their way into the book. One, the first cellist I interviewed was living not far from Brussels in Belgium, Mischa Maisky, and I interviewed him. Then it turned out when I was researching Cello Suite No. 6 and grappling with the sort of mystery of the five-stringed instrument in Cello Suite No. 6, I learned of this fellow Dmitry Badiarov, a Russian immigrant luthier who was building violoncello piccolos, and had strong opinions about Cello Suite No. 6. In fact all the Cello Suites from his point of view were written for the violoncello piccolo. So I got to go hear him play and interview him. On another occasion I wandered into this store where I found a business card advertising a store called Prelude. Following my nose I had to go there. That was another serendipitous happening.
LG: Did you ever have imagine walking into some unusual little store and finding the actual Cello Suites?
ES: Oh, I suppose you could file that under fantasy. I’m not sure that I ever expected it to happen, but kind of operating at the fantasy level, I think when I felt it most vividly was when I was in the little shop called Prelude. I certainly didn’t set out to go to that shop with the idea of finding anything. But I had that sort of magical feeling that you’re sort of stepping into your own fantasy in a way and your own book where a 13-year-old Pablo Casals stumbles upon the Gruetzmacher edition in Barcelona in a second-hand bookshop. You know how that scene was so pivotal I think for Pablo Casals, for the history of the music, and in my case for imagining there was a story in the music. Here I was at sort of the end of my journey, kind of walking into, literally, a prelude of my own imagination. That was a really neat feeling. I can’t say that I seriously expected to personally find the manuscript. To do that, I think you would have to be rooting in castles and be very familiar with German history.
LG: And with the war, so much got damaged.
ES: Yeah. People do look for Bach compositions and things do turn up fairly regularly, but I never seriously thought that I would be the one to unearth it, beyond daydreaming. I did think that well, if somebody else found it while I was writing the book, that would have been interesting.
LG: While doing the research you said that you were often there on other trips, so was the book a sideline project you were working on while you were living your regular life and doing your regular day job?
ES: Yes, very much so. For most of the time I was a freelance magazine writer and an independent documentary film maker, during that period. It began when I was still writing for the daily newspaper The Montreal Gazette, but I quit that job while the book was being researched. I had a day job throughout the process and was writing in my spare time. [I’m glad the book took time to write] because there was such a learning curve for me that I think if someone said to me here is fifty-thousand dollars, write this book in one year, it wouldn’t have been a very good book. It certainly wouldn’t have been as developed as the book that got written, because I benefitted from having all this time. The ideas had time to marinate in my head, and I had time to just stumble upon people like Walter and accident upon business cards that advertised a shop called Prelude and make sense of what was essentially a pretty complicated story if you factor in eighteenth-century Europe and history and the slow unification of Germany, and the militarization of Prussia, and the Spanish civil war, and the life of Bach. There were a lot of dots to connect so I think it is good that I had a lot of time to do it.
LG: And Dimitry Badiarov, the fellow who believes the suites were made for a 5 stringed instrument, did he play all of them for you?
ES: No. I heard he has a recording out that just came out recently, but I haven’t heard it. No, he did not play them all. He is in Holland. He just feels that Suites 1- 5 were written for a 4-string violin piccolo, and the last suite was written for a 5 string violin piccolo. Part of his argument is that nowhere in the Anna Magdalena manuscript is there a reference to a cello. He could be right for all we know. It is one of the reasons this music works so fabulously well on so many different instruments. If you had only heard all the suites played on the lute, you would say, “Well, yes, this was a composition for the lute.” You wouldn’t even think of the cello if you didn’t know any better.
LG: I found especially interesting your description of taking cello lessons. It gave me a little boost to me in my own playing because to me so much of the time it just sounds bloody awful, and I wonder why am I doing this? But then I have moments where it sounds beautiful and I can feel it in my body, and I realize this is why I’m doing it. I was curious about your cello lessons, how much you learned, and how much you played, and why you stopped.
ES: I am a firm believer in amateurs. I think today society is kind of a almost instructing us to be spectators, not players or creators in life, and we get so taken up with the wizardry of virtuosos in all the arts that people don’t feel they can be good enough to play, or never develop the desire so I think picking up the instrument at any age, or any art form, is a terrific thing to do. I play guitar so I don’t play any other instrument, so learning the cello as you mentioned, as you alluded to, is kind of a daunting thing after a certain age.
I think the bowing in particular is a real challenge. It was kind of like a combination for me of calligraphy, golf, and archery, none of which I know how to do, and so that was tough, but my left hand was okay because I play the guitar. After getting over the trauma that there are no frets on the fingerboard, it wasn’t as bad as I might of feared. There is something really quite special about finding your way to the correct note, real or imagined, just intuiting the intonation. If you’ve never done it before and you’re used to frets, you would tend to think this is absurd, I don’t have a hope in hell of landing in the right spot, but you do, and it feels great.
Likewise, the great sort of rumbling and reverberations of this majestic instrument running through your whole body is a thing of great visceral pleasure, I think. So even though it doesn’t sound great at times, and you’re forced to play really Mickey Mouse material at the beginning, I think that the progress inevitably proceeds and it feels wonderful. That was my experience, and certainly when I got to the point where I could play some bonafide Bach ditties from this book called Bach for Cello, it’s great. However watered down and basic those pieces are you still get a sense of Bach’s music in the phrasing. The genius of Bach’s phrasing somehow comes out, and for me that was really exciting.
I didn’t stick with the instrument right to the end of the book, I think for reasons of time. I realized that I wasn’t going to learn a Cello Suite very quickly, and I at some point quite spontaneously got the idea that I could try to tackle this on guitar. I have just been a folk rock guitarist. I never played classical guitar. I took the cello notes and transposed them on the guitar. It was kind of goofy. I was playing essentially baselines on guitar, that mimicked the beginning of the first Cello Suites. And then it didn’t take very long to learn that in fact there were bonafide arrangements of the Cello Suites for guitar, so I bought some guitar tablature, which I don’t read, I don’t have facility for reading for guitar. I am used to doing what is called guitar tab, so slowly, measure by measure, in a real painstaking way, I was able to figure out the prelude of the first cello suite, so that sort of displaced the cello experience for me. Also I didn’t own a cello, I was renting a cello, and paying for lessons, and doing a lot of things in life, so that is how my cello lessons came to a close.
LG: How far did you get with them? Did you move out of first position and were you doing vibrato?
ES: No. I didn’t get beyond just those first few pieces in that book Bach for Cello. Ultimately it was a feeling that I’m a respectable guitar player, but I was really a beginner at cello, so I decided to devote what time I had in life to playing an instrument I was fairly good at, so that is what put me off. If I were ever to get a cello somehow, I would love to pick it up occasionally. I have actually dreamed about some of those Anna Magdalena notebook pieces.
I might get back to it someday in retirement. It was a case of spreading myself too thin. I don’t have that much time for music playing and I can do more with the guitar. I’m more ambitious with the guitar and I learned a few other classical pieces on the guitar. I still play popular music. It wasn’t a total irreversible conversion. After I wrote the book I found myself free to listen to all sorts of music which is what I do now, which includes Bach and the whole gamut of classical music.
Another thing I really liked about Bach was that if you try to get a sense of Bach, if you look at the people Bach was influenced by, and then Bach’s career, and his sons, and all the musicians Bach influenced, it is a pretty nifty way of getting a crash course in classical music. Also I had the career of Casals and the cello repertoire to add to that, so it was a great way of getting up to speed with something that I think intimidates people. How do I start with this colossal, sometimes intellectually intimidating, vast body of work, you know? People don’t know where to start. In my case I feel really fortunate that I had this really terrific, little spring board that I jumped on. I was just so genuinely and intrigued about the real story.
LG: The letter that Bach wrote to try and secure a position, and they are so obsequious, it grates against a modern mind. I thought it was funny too how he seemed to say, “This job doesn’t pay enough.”
ES: We have to be forgiving in someways because there are certain conventions that were de riguer, that were practiced and expected in those days. They are kind of unseemly. In fact, when you read about the life of Bach, he wasn’t some kind of wimp who was cow-towing to whatever authority happened to be around. He was kind of a rebellious type who really stood up for his own rights, particularly in the workplace, and his art.
He really knew the value of the currency that was used in those days. Some people have called him a bit of a cheapskate, but on the other hand, when you have 20 children and you’ve got a really demanding job that includes the music in a substantial city like Leipzig, and running the music of a Lutheran boarding school and churches, on top of busily cranking out what is going to be the greatest output of music for all time, you’ve got a lot on your plate and you have to check the bills and see how much money is coming in. He didn’t lead the sort of lackadaisical life of a sort of romantic and happily impoverished artist. I think that helps explain part of his genius. He wasn’t sitting around thinking what music is going to be popular or going to be considered a masterpiece. He was really busy in the here and now. He must have really been living in the moment, I think, he was so busy. It has a nice ending, his story. Even though he wasn’t considered famous in his lifetime, and he has been rendered ultra famous by posterity, a man who had his nose to the grindstone and was just doing his best on a day to day basis ended up producing this music that had such everlasting allure.
Your hatred implodes.
Who is left malevolent and inauspicious, veiled with portent, menace, and shrouds of peril?
No clemency for your fury, nor chastisement for your wretched mediocrity.
The only soul experiencing your anguish is you.
A couple of days ago I listened to a story on This American Life about prom. It got me thinking about mine because the people interviewed kept remarking just how important prom was. One person even went so far as to say it was second in importance to a wedding. Seriously? I don’t know that I agree with that. Prom is certainly a ubiquitous high school event, but it wasn’t anything at all life-changing for me, and it wasn’t because I was an anarchist or anything. I just didn’t really care. I thought it was a dumb dance. I was not one of those people who spent all of high school looking forward to attending. I did finally obtain a boyfriend by senior year so I actually had a prom date. If I hadn’t gotten the boyfriend, I probably would not have gone. I was much more concerned with acquiring a boyfriend than attending prom, and much more surprised and shocked that this happened than I ever would have been at getting a prom date.
For me, the story of how I got my first boyfriend was practically out of a high school movie. Every February, our school hosted a Valentine’s Day school dance. For some reason, one of the most attractive, most popular boys in school asked me to dance. A lot. We danced together all evening. This was a surprise to me. He was Mr. High School All-American boy. Extremely popular, he had attended the schools in my town his entire life. This meant something in our little town; it meant you knew everyone and everyone knew you. This could be a bad thing, but for a lot of people, it accorded them with additional status. Eric had this status in spades, plus he was captain of the football team and President of the Senior class. Seriously. He also had blonde hair and blue eyes, lovely chiseled features, and an athletic build.
I, on the other hand, was not Miss High School All-American girl. I had the blonde hair and blue eyes, but my hair was short, and for the dance in question, I had tried beforehand to trim my bangs. After cutting, I realized they were crooked, so I cut them again and made them crooked the other direction. By the time I was done, they were about two inches long and still crooked. I was also skinny as a rail, with no breasts to speak of. Certainly not curvy. I imagine I was prettyish, but definitely not a beauty and never one of the girls the boys talked about or wanted. I spent most of my time buried in books, riding my horse, or acting weird because my friends thought it was funny and I liked making them laugh. My parents lived like they never had money, no matter how much they had, so my clothes were not name brands, which I cared about in those days. (One nice thing about growing up was giving up that ridiculous delusion.)
In spite of my average appearance and lack of social standing, here we were at this Valentine’s Day dance and Eric was dancing with me. My friends couldn’t believe it. “He must like you!” said Marie. “He keeps dancing with you!” I didn’t quite believe he liked me. Deanna kept giggling every time he came near. “Stop it,” I would hiss to her in a whisper before heading to the dance floor. Kari just smiled her poker-face smile.
Over the weekend after the dance, my friends and I spent many hours on the phone deconstructing the dance and its portent. Did Eric like me, or was he just being nice? I could not believe that he did. They could not believe that he did not. On Monday, I was embarrassed and terrified at the prospect of seeing Eric. We had a class together the last period of the day. I spent most of that day a nervous wreck, wondering what would happen in that class. I was terrified.
Later that afternoon, we were all in Mr. Fisk’s class listening to him drone on about who-knows-what. Mr. Fisk’s stories were fascinating as sophomores and stupid by the time we were seniors. I don’t remember now how it transpired, but somewhere along the line in the class a note was transferred to Eric. I think it was supposed to be from me to Marie or Marie to me, or something like that, but it was about how much I liked him. He sent me a note and we agreed to both ask to go to the bathroom at the same time. A few minutes later, Eric got up, asked to use the bathroom, and left. Heart pounding, 30 seconds later, I asked to go to the bathroom as well. Mr. Fisk was none the wiser and let me follow Eric. He probably didn’t even notice we were out at the same time. We were the good kids, the ones who always turned in our homework and would never leave to go fraternize and cause trouble, so bathroom passes were easy to come by.
Eric was waiting by the bathroom. He was wearing his Levi’s 501 jeans, a pink polo shirt, and white sneakers. I thought he looked amazing. He said hi and then kissed me. Exhilarating.
We were going out after that. We never had a conversation where he asked me to be his girlfriend or anything, I just was. I adored him. Completely smitten, I would do anything he wanted to do or go anywhere he wanted to, just to be with him. Compared to stories of teenage activities I hear about these days, our actions were so tame. I would never have considered having sex with him, not in a million years. Honestly, we never made it past second base, but to both of us, this was a lot.
How is it that I managed to get the most popular boy in school for my boyfriend senior year? I mean really? I think about this time and I have to wonder. I know part of it is that this most popular boy in school was unique in some respects. So often the popular kids are so idealized that we have a vision of how they must be, but to become truly popular and liked by everyone (which Eric certainly was), that person must possess some characteristic of some sort that makes people like them. Eric was truly likeable. Plus he’d been in the same town schools since kindergarten. Plus he was handsome. Really. Blonde. Blue-eyed. Captain of the football team. President of the class. I mean, come on, was this for real?
It was. That is what is so remarkable to me. I look back now and for the first time truly marvel at it. I mean, come on! Do you think he could have been more of a cliché? And it’s even more amazing that I, with my background and thought processes, could have had him as my first real boyfriend. That alone is a feat in and of itself.
One night, we were making out in the backseat of his housemate’s ginormous 70’s automobile. The thing was a boat on wheels. I was supposed to be spending the night at Marie’s house, and a group of us had all gone and done something that evening. Eric and I parked the boat outside her house and started kissing in the backseat. It was cold out and the windows fogged up. At some point, I realized there was a round light moving along the back window. We both sat up quickly and pulled on our shirts (each other’s, as it turned out). Then we heard a tap on the window.
Humiliated, Eric opened the car door and got out. The officer took him aside and scolded him. He then stuck his head in the car and asked me my name and where I was supposed to be. Terrified and humiliated as well, I told him. He said I should go into my friend’s house and go to bed. It was probably only 11:30, but I was scared and obeyed without question.
I spent the next week completely terrified that the stop would show up in the local paper. A weekly, the local paper did not have much to report on, and therefore contained a section listing every petty grievance to which the police force responded. I was certain our names would be listed with our transgression for all–especially and including my parents–to see. Thankfully, this never transpired.
Because I now had a boyfriend, prom seemed like it might actually be fun. My friends were all going and I looked forward to hanging out with them. My mom is an excellent seamstress, and after looking and finding no dresses that I liked, she offered to make a prom dress for me. I picked out a pink satin and some pink tulle. She made a long dress with a fitted bodice, with a pink ribbon around the center and tulle around the collar, which sat off the shoulder on my collar bones. I liked it fine. Looking at it now, I think it’s kind of boring, but I enjoyed getting dressed up. Eric looked amazing in his tuxedo, and he arrived in the boat to pick me up, a pink corsage in hand to match the boutonniere on his lapel.
The best memory I have of prom is that my best friend Marie won as prom queen. She had a huge crush on a good friend of Eric’s named Gary. Gary had a girlfriend, but for prom king and queen, there would be a dance. When it was announced that Marie was queen and Gary was king, I was thrilled to death for her. She was able to dance with the boy she liked for an entire slow song. I could tell watching her dance, her head against his shoulder, that she was in heaven.
After prom, we went to a party at some friends of Eric’s and sat in a hot tub before he took me home. Most of them were drinking alcohol and this scared me. I didn’t find that part of the night much fun. I can’t remember when I got home, but I don’t think it was very late.
One other huge aspect of my relationship with Eric was that shortly prior to our starting to date, he had become “born again.” Over the course of our courtship, he became more and more heavily involved in the church. In an effort to please him, I went along. I had been friends for some time with another girl who was extremely involved in her church. I started going with her, mainly because I had a crush on David W. and David W. was in youth group. David W. would flirt with me at youth group and I enjoyed this. Also, my friend’s parents would take us for pie after church. Having grown up in a family that went out to eat maybe once every two years, this was an immense treat.
Interestingly, while I was attending church and trying to be a good Christian, I was discovering a lot of hypocrisies that bothered me immensely. One morning, the pastor described faithful Muslims praying to Mecca. He spent a good deal of time describing the scene, to the point I could practically feel the warmth of the sun on my back and the rug under my knees. Then he dropped a bomb saying, “Isn’t it a shame that all these millions of faithful Muslims are going to hell? I could not tolerate or believe this. This sermon was a turning point for me. I had serious doubts about Christianity and organized religion in general anyway, and that statement made me start looking for inconsistencies, which were not difficult to come by.
However, I kept my doubts to myself. Eric would drag me to youth group on Wednesday and church twice a day on Sunday and I would go with him because usually after we would make out in the back of his truck and I liked doing that. I went along with the church thing, even so far as memorizing the entire book of Romans because he did so as well, and I believed that he wanted me to. I would pray with him, and discuss the Bible with him. Mainly I just wanted to be with him and this offered me the greatest opportunity.
Our small town, like many, had started offering an all-night graduation party to the entire senior class. The point was to keep teens from drinking and getting hurt or killed as a result. I was not a drinker and looked forward to graduation and the graduation party. My grandparents had flown in from Kansas for the event and I was excited by the prospect of all of it.
The day before graduation, Eric took me out in the afternoon to eat at a nice restaurant. When we arrived back at my house, at the top of my parent’s driveway, he got out and gave me a hug. Then he said, “It’s been really fun hanging out with you, but we are going to have to stop. I’m going to college in the fall, and I am afraid our relationship is interfering with my relationship with Jesus.” There were more words, but I don’t remember them.
I was incredulous. I had not seen this coming, not even close. Heartbroken and numb, I stumbled into the house and into my bedroom. I spent the rest of the afternoon lying on my bed in a pool of misery. We were to attend a Baccalaureate dinner that night. I dressed in the new outfit my mom had bought for me, a knit yellow sweater and white cotton skirt. I don’t remember much of the Baccalaureate dinner except there were some speeches. Eric was there, but he ignored me. I stared at my plate all evening. My parents and grandparents could tell something was wrong, but didn’t say anything.
Later, after we arrived home, I went again to my bedroom and lay on my bed, trying not to cry. My family wanted me to come in the living room and visit, but I just couldn’t do it. Finally, my grandma came in to talk. I confessed what had happened. “Oh, honey,” she said, rubbing my back. “It seems so hard now, but you’re so young. It is for the best.”
I still remember her voice and the way she stroked my hair and back. I also remember that graduation and the party were a drag. My friends kept trying to get me to liven up, but I just couldn’t do it. Forever after, when I think of graduation, the memory is colored by the fact that the day before the ceremony my first love dumped me for Jesus.
It was the best decision of course. Eric became a successful missionary in Africa. He is still there, working on a Bible translation of some sort, I think. I saw him at our reunion and it wasn’t weird at all. Time heals all wounds and we had grown up. I was such a baby at 17. I am immensely grateful Eric didn’t do something stupid like ask me to marry him. I would have said yes in a heartbeat and it would have been the wrong decision. We would have been divorced by the time we were 20. I’m so different from that person, I can barely remember how I thought or acted. Most of what I remember about myself at that time makes me cringe in embarrassment. I certainly could never have been a Christian. The seeds of doubt in organized religion had been planted, probably before I knew the ground was tilled.
In any case, this was my prom and the story around it. Nothing spectacular, just an old memory. It’s funny, as I’ve been writing this, how much I actually do remember. Life is interesting and so much is forgotten. I’m glad I remember this.
Tonight I ran, pushing Isabel’s stroller, for a half an hour. Ava ran with us. We ran up and down hills and across sidewalks. Many of the sidewalks were bumpy because of large tree roots. I love the large trees; I do not love the large roots pushing up the sidewalk. However, given the choice, I would take the trees and the bumpy sidewalks over no trees.
Anyway. After I ran I came home, took a shower, and made dinner and washed the dishes, then Isabel was tired so I put her in jammies, changed her diaper, and put her to sleep. I lay there too for about a half an hour. It was only 9 o’clock. I could have completely stayed asleep, but I was still wearing contacts and had not brushed my teeth, and then Milla came in to kiss and hug me goodnight, and I knew if I stayed there I would wake up at 1 and not go back to sleep. I got up and started working on my book and now I’ve hit a wall, a tired wall. I can’t write anymore. I have to go to sleep. I still have not taken out the contacts or brushed my teeth. Ack. I’m going to have to do that before I can sleep. Instead I sit here and type this. Okay, I quit. I’m going to bed.
It’s raining again today, but it was sunny for three days in a row even though they said it would only be one, and I got to wear shorts yesterday it was so warm, so I can’t complain about rain today.
Apple took away my brand new MacBook Pro. I have to say, my apple products are on the shit list right now. I bought a new MacBook Pro. Immediately upon bringing it home it started having this issue where the screen would not light up when I opened it. It did not happen every time I opened the computer, but a lot of the time. I figured it was brand new and should not do this so I exchanged it for another one. What a mistake. The new one had the same issue, only it happened every single time I opened the computer, and it was difficult to get it to come on. So I called Apple. They said it was a “known issue” and told me some key fix while turning it on. It didn’t fix it. Every morning I have a tiny window in which to write before my baby wakes up. I spend most of that tiny window trying to make the computer wake up, so the other day, in complete frustration, I called Apple again about this issue. During the conversation with the Apple support representative, my ear touched my iPhone and hung it up. Ears aren’t supposed to hang up iPhones. I tell you, at that moment, Apple was at the height of the shit list and I was mad as hell. While on hold during my call back, the guy I had been talking to called me again. He apparently used my serial number to get back to me, which is a good thing because it was the only information I had given him before the call hung up. We spent the next half an hour working through a bunch of repair things behind the scenes in the guts of the computer’s programming.
Didn’t work. Yesterday I opened up the computer and the damn thing would not come on no matter what I did. Here I have been touting Apple products to anyone who will listen and I am having all these issues, although I can say I am typing this on my 3-year-old MacBook that still works just fine. I just wanted a computer with more space and RAM, which is why I bought the Pro. Maybe I shouldn’t have.
Anyway. In frustration, I made a Genius Bar appointment between court and my next client. I took it in there and left it with them. Of course the piece of shit opened up and worked just fine in front of the Genius Bar guy so I looked like a hysterical female. However, he looked at some history thingy in the guts and saw something that backed up my story, and agreed that they would do some tests and get back to me. They had not gotten back to me yet by late afternoon yesterday so I called, and they said it would not be ready until today. They said they “had not finished looking into the problem,” which means “We have not gotten to your computer yet.” Duh, I’m not dumb.
My small writing window is rapidly closing here. Isabel woke me up today, but she has been running around and is now eating the pancakes Milla decided to make for breakfast before school (I wonder who will do THOSE dishes?). It will not be long before I am the only person in the world with whom my baby would like to interact and there are other writing things I need to do that are more important than cheering the sun or complaining about computers.
I started watching Blue Valentine at the theater, but Isabel would not stay asleep and so I had to leave, but I wasn’t disappointed to be walking out. The thing was depressing and I could not get into it. I wanted to see what happened though, so a few weeks later I began watching again on video at the point I had left off, but stopped because I simply could not get into it. Finally tonight I decided to finish it so I could get rid of the video. I’m glad that I did.
Blue Valentine certainly captures the beginning and the end of a bad relationship. It brings back memories. Funny, they caught the things in the beginning that would go wrong later. Not all of the relationships in my life that have ended started in such a way that the ending could have been predicted, but the ones that have certainly seemed obvious in hindsight. The performances in Blue Valentine, especially that of Michelle Williams, captured that feeling of the beginning of a relationship you know is bad for you. You could tell that deep down she knew it wasn’t the best choice, yet she kept on anyway, living in magical thinking while simultaneously knowing she was headed for disaster. In my case, in the relationship that most closely mirrors that in the film, I knew. I knew and kept on anyway, compelled by some force within myself to try and make it work. At times I felt like I was living two lives, one experiencing and one watching mute and helpless as the train headed straight for the ravine with no tracks.
The woman in Blue Valentine seemed to know too. There were moments of pause before she smiled and responded to Mr. Disaster. She had that same silence about her that I did in the beginning. The scene at the dinner table near the end of the film, where she has brought him home to meet her family was a kind of personal deja vu. The man I introduced to my family wasn’t a high school dropout whose mother had run off with another man at age ten, but the way that he spoke to them and their responses left little doubt that they were just as shocked and wondering What the hell is she doing with this guy? What the hell, indeed.
There are some movies that are so bleak and without hope, I have no desire to watch them. However, there are often movies that hurt to experience, and I still think they are worth my time and energy. I am most certainly not one of those who only goes to see Pollyanna. I didn’t love Blue Valentine–I just could not get drawn in. Yet it is a good film and I’m glad I saw it. Even though one may know intellectually that everything experienced is also experienced by others, it does help to be reminded. For me, Blue Valentine was like that. I’m not the first person on this planet who knew going into a bad relationship that I was making a huge mistake, but I kept on anyway. One thing I know for sure–and I have reiterated it for myself having watched this film–I will never, ever compromise myself like that again.
I have writing ideas all the time and sometimes even start to write them down. Then my little bug comes and wants to crawl in my lap or wants me to get up and play or wants something, anything, and I get up and give it to her and don’t go back. I’ve lost the writing habit. It sucks. I love this time when baby is small, but sometimes I worry I will lose my ability to write because I don’t do it anymore.
Such is life.
This article can be seen on Truthout here.
(Photo: thaths [3])
It is dangerous to be right in matters on which established authorities are wrong.
– Voltaire
I have a confession to make: I have been on the fence about Bradley Manning as the drama of his detention and the Wikileaks documents have unfolded. While I believe deeply that those who leak classified materials are acting out of conscience and for the good of the people, I also believe criminal acts – even ones of conscience – must be met with punishment as required in any society that wishes to live by the rule of law. Arrest and detention are part of any illegal act of civil disobedience, and are to be expected as the natural consequence of such an act.
Chain yourself to a fence, and expect to be arrested for trespassing. Pour blood on the nose cone of a nuclear missile, and expect to be arrested for destruction of property. The threat of arrest, detention and possible conviction is part of the package that is civil disobedience, and those who take part in it must accept the consequences as part of their act of conscience. Indeed, it is the acceptance of punishment that lies at the heart of that conscience: they are breaking a law to highlight a wrong, are willing to be punished to underscore that wrong, and in doing so, demonstrate how far they are personally willing to go in order to end that wrong and inspire others in the process.
That’s where I’ve been with Bradley Manning – his was an act of conscience that broke the law, and the consequences of that act must be accepted – until now.
How wrong I was.
This situation goes far beyond such a simplistic cut-and-dried viewpoint. It cuts to the core of what we are as a nation, what we wish to be, and what must be done to honor the values we pay so much lip service to, even as we fail time and again to practice what we preach. What Manning has been charged with goes far beyond an act of conscience; they were, in fact, an attempt to save the very soul of these United States.
It is widely considered facile and weak to make Nazi comparisons in any argument, but unfortunately for every citizen of this country, the comparison here is all too apt. During the Nuremberg trials in the aftermath of World War II, accused war criminals were often heard to claim, “I was only following orders,” as a means of justifying their savage and barbaric activities. The excuse was rejected out of hand, further enshrining the idea that soldiers and officers are more than mere automatons who are expected only to do as they are told. Criminal acts, even in a military situation, are not to be condoned, coddled or tolerated. Men were hanged by the judges at Nuremberg to emphasize the point.
And here is Bradley Manning, who like every enlisted American soldier, swore an oath to support, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against enemies both foreign and domestic, and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same. That same oath requires the oath-taker to follow the orders of the president and superior officers, but if those hanged men at Nuremberg prove anything, it is that unlawful orders are by definition void, and should not be followed if the oath sworn to the Constitution is to mean anything at all.
Make no mistake: the documents Bradley Manning has been accused of leaking are prima facie evidence of illegal orders being given and executed all along the chain of command. This has been made even more abundantly clear with the recent revelation of some 700 pages of documents detailing the ongoing travesty that is America’s detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. According to various reports [4]:
The files depict a system often focused less on containing dangerous terrorists or enemy fighters, than on extracting intelligence. Among inmates who proved harmless were an 89-year-old Afghan villager, suffering from senile dementia, and a 14-year-old boy who had been an innocent kidnap victim.
A number of British nationals and residents were held for years even though US authorities knew they were not Taliban or al-Qaida members. One Briton, Jamal al-Harith, was rendered to Guantánamo simply because he had been held in a Taliban prison and was thought to have knowledge of their interrogation techniques. The US military tried to hang on to another Briton, Binyam Mohamed, even after charges had been dropped and evidence emerged he had been tortured.
The files also detail how many innocents or marginal figures swept up by the Guantánamo dragnet because US forces thought they might be of some intelligence value.
One man was transferred to the facility “because he was a mullah, who led prayers at Manu mosque in Kandahar province, Afghanistan … which placed him in a position to have special knowledge of the Taliban”. US authorities eventually released him after more than a year’s captivity, deciding he had no intelligence value.
Another prisoner was shipped to the base “because of his general knowledge of activities in the areas of Khowst and Kabul based as a result of his frequent travels through the region as a taxi driver“.
The files also reveal that an al-Jazeera journalist was held at Guantánamo for six years, partly in order to be interrogated about the Arabic news network.
(Emphasis added)
Also illuminated in these leaked documents is the shameful use of torture, described through the cruel euphemism of “enhanced interrogation,” that was rampant at Guantanamo Bay. Thanks to such disgraceful practices, the prisoners currently detained there now find themselves in a ridiculous legal limbo; they may be innocent or guilty, but because they were tortured, they cannot be brought to trial because evidence obtained against them was gathered illegally. The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before, refuses to let the legal process do its work, nor are they willing to release these prisoners, so there they sit.
In a filthy irony, Bradley Manning was exposed to a number of grotesquely similar “stress tactics” used against Guantanamo prisoners while detained at Quantico. He was deprived of sleep, humiliated and berated by his captors, isolated, exposed to cold, and made to stand naked for extended periods of time. Such acts are straight out of the War on Terror handbook, and like the prisoners at Guantanamo, were used against a man who has yet to be convicted of anything. The mistreatment tactics against prisoners that Manning allegedly exposed have been used against him, one more crime in a symphony of crimes.
Bradley Manning sits today in Leavenworth prison awaiting a hearing to determine whether or not he will face a court martial. The case against him seems as disorganized and specious as the cases against many of the prisoners at Guantanamo, but let us accept for the moment that he did, in fact, release those classified documents. If so, he should be thanked for his actions. As Glenn Greenwald so eloquently argued [5], “WikiLeaks is responsible for more newsworthy scoops over the last year than all media outlets combined: it’s not even a close call. And if Bradley Manning is the leaker, he has done more than any other human being in our lifetime to bring about transparency and shine a light on what military and government power is doing.”
Moreover, if there is actually justice to be found in this morally crippled nation, Bradley Manning should be cleared of all charges and released. His was not some casual act of disobedience, nor was it an attack against his country. Bradley Manning was fulfilling the oath he swore to protect and defend the Constitution. He exposed serial criminal acts perpetrated by his superiors, which is a moral necessity for anyone who has taken such an oath.
We know the truth of the acts made by both the Bush and Obama administrations in Guantanamo, and they are illegal on their face. We are a better nation today because we know this, and we have Bradley Manning to thank for it. By exposing war crimes, he has been labeled a criminal even before any hearings have been held. He has been mistreated in a way you would not treat a dog. He showed us the war crimes committed in our name, and has been crushed for it.
Justice demands his release. Furthermore, justice demands a wide inquiry into the criminal acts of both the Bush and Obama administrations as pertaining to the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. Justice demands prosecution for those acts against the real criminals responsible for them. They have driven our nation into the gutter, and to punish Bradley Manning for attempting to haul us back from that abyss is to admit, in broad daylight and with no shame, that justice has no meaning anymore.
Yet another day where it is over and I did not finish what I set out to finish. I did manage to complete one petition and start another, but that is all. I also made a pot of chickens soup, which is good since all of us are fighting some wretched sore throat that has gone on for days and days. I actually stayed home and slept half the day away because of it, which really cuts into completing all I wanted to. No Rosetta Stone. Nothing on the story I’m writing. No cello practice. Very little on the Eric Siblin interview transcript I need to complete. I played a lot with Isabel. I spent some time with Milla. I hope at the end of the day (figuratively), that this is enough.
This is such a perfect, whimsical celebration! The couple moves through the town, candles flickering, the cellist and drummer play, angel goat watches, drinking red wine, birds dance while couples embrace. What more could you ask for on your wedding day?
One of my favorite scenes from a movie is during Fried Green Tomatoes after Kathy Bates has rammed the little car that took her parking spot, the two young drivers of the car come out and she says Sorry, girls. I’m older and I have more insurance.
I love it.
The person I contacted at Groupon “passed on” the information to others in the company about Beauty Med Spa nee’ Pure Med Spa. We will see what comes of it.
My sweet baby holds a doll and rocks it back and forth and up and down exactly as I rock her, holding it in the same position as if it’s being nursed.
She then drops the doll with a thunk and goes and picks up the cat by the neck. There is a limit, I suppose, to the similarities.
Have you ever noticed that in movies that are “chick flicks,” billed and marketed to women, where there are women in a family going through something or women who are friends going through something, that the movie creators always throw in a scene of them dancing together, often on a bed, sometimes resulting in a pillow fight, usually for the montage of how special their relationship is, or sometimes it is to show how women who were enemies are now good friends, and then they use that in the preview to market the film? Damn, it’s dumb.
Isabel, have patience! Have patience, Mama? I’m only 1 and a half years old. How am I supposed to have patience? And then I realized, today Isabel is exactly 1 and a half. Happy 1 and a half birthday, Isabel.
Today Isabel also quacked at me. She picked up her new orange and white duck and said Wuack! We wuacked back and forth a bit. She is big into animal sounds. For the longest time it was only barking, but lately, meowing is the most popular sound in her repertoire. Maooooow, maooooow. And now the duck.
If we blow in Ava’s face, she tries to eat the air we blow at her. Isabel finds this completely amusing and has taken to blowing in Ava’s face as well, only she isn’t that great at blowing yet, so there is not a lot of air and Ava doesn’t respond quite as vociferously. Instead she licks at Isabel’s blows. Isabel, hoping for a bigger response, tries harder.
Have you ever gotten so buried in a book for days that when you’re through you’re in a daze? This is where I have been and where I am at now. It’s an odd feeling. I want to go to that world for a while and leave mine.
Ah well.
If Huckabee is to be believed, I am causing more damage to the world than bombs because I’m a GASP! single mother!! I’m uneducated (except for that doctorate–oops, don’t tell!), I’m poor (except for my decent income–better keep quiet on that one!), I am stealing money from the state in the form of welfare (okay, I have to concede on this–I get Oregon Health Plan because I had breast cancer. What a loser!), and I’m raising damaged children born out of wedlock who will fill the prisons because I alone ruined them since no man was around to keep me in line. My lovely, well-behaved, HAPPY daughters are destined for hell. What can I say? I should just lie on the floor and waste away because I’m so worthless and so are my babies. C’est la vie. I love them anyway.
I have stopped eating most sugar and for the most part, this works just fine. However, there are some nights (like this one), where I long to eat a giant slice of chocolate cake filled with warm, chocolate filling, or banana cream pie, or a brownie, or chocolate mousse, or vanilla cake with thick, white, creamy frosting, or something else with sugar in it.
My little daughter is perfect. I have moments sometimes, when I’m holding her hand or looking at her, when I think to myself that I am a human and she is a human, she is my cub, my baby. I held her hand tonight as she lay against me in the crook of my right shoulder. I could smell the warmth of her body wafting upward, see the tiny curls forming in the sweat along the base of her neck. She held both my hands with her hands, each of her fingers warm and soft. I picked at her baby fingernails with mine, catching the ends and pulling off the sharp places. This is my cub, I thought. This is my little human. Here we are, two humans, lying together in this bed in this house in the twilight as she moves into sleep. The moment was so basic, so contented, so perfect in its simplicity. I love my human child. I love every moment with her. She brings me grace and contentment. She is perfect.
I have got to do something to my brain so that instead of finding my job annoying, I re-appreciate the things about it that are so much more worthwhile than they could be. Probably a vacation would help. I haven’t taken one since I started a year and a half ago. I really want to go to Spain. Or France. Hell, right now I would love to head to Japan and help with cleanup efforts. Anything but the same old complaints from clients all the time all the time all the time. Gads, here I am wishing I could have a better attitude mainly because I’m wishing my clients had a better attitude. Not all of them, mind you. But the ones who drive me nuts obliterate the other 95%.
That said, I have several who are sweet, kind, and wonderful. One couple even baked me cinnamon rolls. That was good.
Life is so weird. It has a feeling of layering, piece upon piece, seeming to repeat in places. But really, each moment follows the other in a line, second after second after minute after minute after hour after hour and on and on. We have moments where we create something or achieve something and in that moment it is the highlight, but then that moment passes and the highlight is old and forgotten. Strange.
I weaned myself off caffeine. Then gradually, I would have a tea here, a tea there, to the point where I’m addicted to the crap again. It isn’t as bad as it could be; I don’t drink it every day. Yet I have gotten to the point that on the days I don’t drink it I feel like a rundown engine, like I’m in fourth gear heading up a hill, my parts clanking.
Today I haven’t had any, and while I have had a few uninterrupted hours while Isabel sleeps, I have not had the energy or spark to perform any of my creative tasks at all. I picked up the cello and played a bit. Blah. I sat down here to write. Nothing to say. I need to finish my taxes, which really won’t be difficult, but oh, so exhausting. I just want to lie around and watch a movie. It’s pathetic. I did manage a run this morning, and it’s a good thing I did it then, because I wouldn’t do it now.
Caffeine is insidious. It’s a drug, for sure. I’m debating just drinking some just to get over the hump. I need to work on my book. Baby is occupied. This is as good a time as any. But if I do, I’m just keeping the cycle going. When would ever be a good time? I just don’t know.
This post is about as blah as I feel in my caffeine-deprived state.
Pointless ramble of the day:
I have a feeling I might turn into a giant avocado. I have been eating at least one a day for over a month now. They are the perfect snack–they fill me up and kill any carb craving I might have been experiencing, and they are so delicious. Plus they are such a lovely, green color inside; sometimes yellow when not quite ripe enough, all the way to a deep, unripe apple green. Milla and Isabel enjoy them as well. I wonder though, what will become of the three dozen or so avocado pits we have tossed into the shrubbery next to the house, if they will sprout and become mini avocado plants that won’t bloom because it is too cold here, or if they will just die away.
I wonder why it’s called Mother and Child on the Brown Donkey when the donkey is purple.
I have been dabbling with the idea of buying a cello. I have been taking lessons for a while now and renting a cello that actually sounds rather good. The rental price applies to the purchase of a new cello, but only for the first year. With this in mind, my teacher and I decided to head to the luthier’s to try some out and see what could be had within my budget. Cello shopping. Shello chopping!
When one goes to purchase a cello, there are usually practice rooms in which to try out various choices. I called the luthier ahead of time and let them know I would be in with my instructor to try cellos. When we got there, the saleswoman brought in six to try. None of them sounded better than my rental cello. Even when my instructor played, they sounded screetchy and flat.
A note about the rental cello. When I originally went to rent it, my instructor had informed me that the shop had an excellent rental cello, with a lovely, full-bodied sound. She hoped I would be able to get this cello to rent, and indeed I did. Nearly every week she comments about its pretty sound. After having gone now and listened to many cellos, I can see what she means.
Since the first six were not worthy, we asked to see a few more in the next price bracket up. These did not sound any better than the rental cello, and cost over a $1000 more. So we asked to see some in the next price bracket.
Another side note. About a week before this shopping trip, I had been to the same shop to purchase a violin for my daughter. I told them my price range, and they brought in 8 for us to try. One of the workers in the shop came in to play for us. Two stood out, and one of those was obviously superior. When we went to purchase it, however, it turned out the price was about $2000 more than I had intended to spend. We sent that one back and got the second choice, which was in our price range.
I bring this story up because while cello shopping, something similar occurred. The saleswoman brought in three cellos in the price category that was at the top of what I could spend (and this was more than what I really wanted to spend, but I figured it would not hurt to hear them). These cellos were far superior to the previous lot, and one Czechoslovakian cello shone above all. It had a full, round, gorgeous sound. When I picked it up to play, I felt a welling of emotion through my body and my chest. It reminded me of a dressage horse, eloquent and beautiful. Even my playing sounded lovely on this cello. I decided to take it home for a week when it turned out the price was $1000 more than I had told them I could spend. I wondered then, whether this was their m.o., to bring in a batch of instruments with one far superior to the others in the hope that an unwitting buyer would fall so in love, that money be damned, they would buy the instrument. I’m not so easily swayed, and my budget is my budget because I don’t have any more to spend, and I don’t use credit. I decided to take the gorgeous thing home, but I knew the visit would be temporary.
Another big part of the trip entailed trying various bows. It was not until that point that I realized how much a difference a good bow makes when playing a cello. The rental bow I have is a piece of crap. It is a lot of work to balance properly and requires effort to run along the strings. I tried at least a dozen bows that day and discovered how much easier it is to play with a decent bow. I could feel the difference. It was amazing. And the better bows sounded better. Even I, rough and new, didn’t sound half bad with a good bow. I found the bow that best matched the lovely Czechoslovakian cello and arranged to take them home.
During the week, I played both the Czech cello and my rental. I played my rental with the nice bow and while it sounded better than the rental bow, the good bow was not the best match for my rental cello (bows sound different on different cellos, so one has to find a good pair). I loved the beautiful sounds I made on the Czech cello. However, I realized that it was outside my price range. And having listened to a lot of cellos, I saw that my little rental actually did sound pretty good. I decided I would try to find my rental a good bow partner and keep her for a while. In the long run, I might spend a bit more, but for now, the cello I have does just fine. If I ever get to the point where my playing wouldn’t make people want to hide under a rock, I will look again at spending more money, and who knows? Maybe the Czech cello will still be there, waiting for me. I can dream.
The devastation in Japan is heartbreaking. They got disaster times three, and it keeps on because of the increasing radiation danger. It’s even worse considering their history with Nagasaki and Hiroshima, like the horror has returned. I wish I could go there right now and start helping. I wish there were something I could actually do with my hands to make things better. I want to go start helping to clean up. I want to bring food, clothes, blankets. Yet I can’t. I’m here. Not only are flights in and out of the city not happening, I have a toddler and an 11-year-old. I’m a single parent. I can’t just pick up and leave them–I won’t. Every time there is a catastrophe, I reiterate to myself that I can never be so far from them that I can’t get to them on foot.
I saw a photograph of a rescue worker holding a baby he found. The next photo showed the child with her father, turning to escape a second wave of water. I hope they got away. My heart goes out to all of them. I wish I could do more.
A rare night when both children fell asleep early and I don’t know what to do with myself. I played the cello already. I cleaned the kitchen. I have now surfed the internets as much as I can bear. Yet I can’t think of anything clever to do or write. Mainly I would just like to go to sleep. How lame is that?
Isabel is strumming the heater vent like she strums her ukulele, Milla’s violin, and my cello.
I have said it before, but it is true. I used to be prolific. Go back to 2007, 2008. You’ll see. Every day, all the time. Now the most writing I do is an occasional status update on facebook. Whoopee. That’s life with a baby. I actually had a real idea last week right in the dawn space before waking. I lost it. Then this morning I decided to write about cello shopping…shello chopping. Now baby is kissing the mirror, biting the ball, kissing the mirror, biting the ball. She is a fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants kind of gal.
Time to get going again. I will watch Isabel strum, and oh, now she is shoving the ball into the mirror and singing to it. Fun times!
Whatever pitiful scrap of patience I maintain on a day-to-day basis is eradicated mercilessly by lack of sleep.
The sad truth is that rich, power-mongers have been stealing and raiding from the earth and the rest of us for thousands of years. It only seems more imminent now because of globalization and easier access to information. The Romans invaded and stole all of Europe (and others raided and stole on a smaller scale before that), then Europe expanded and stole the rest of the world. At some point, the rest of us are going to have to go much more global than simply Egypt or Tunisia or any other small uprising and say Enough is enough! If we do that however, we can’t rise up and take their place. That story is old too.
This is what humanity does. Are we going to ever actually change it or keep letting it happen and lamenting when it does?
As an aside, I keep trying to stop drinking chai teas from Starbucks. I get there for a while, stopping for months. Then I get cold or whatever and drink one. Then I think one more won’t hurt. The next thing I know I’m back craving the damn things all the time again. Like right now. Insidious crap, caffeine.
When I was 9 we lived in some apartments in Salem. I was not happy there. The other children did not like me and would not play with me. I spent most of my time reading. When I wasn’t reading, I was trying to get the other children to play with me. When they would not, I would hang out with local dogs and cats and imagine I had friends who were mostly horses. As might be apparent from this and has been mentioned elsewhere, I was somewhat peculiar.
Our apartment complex was surrounded by fields. A few years after we moved away, the fields were mowed to put in a GI Joe store, Bi-mart, and strip malls. Ugly places. But when I lived there, the fields did too, filled with scrub trees and brush high enough in which to make forts. Our apartment had a patio that faced the main road, which was lined with oaks. There was also a tall, thin oak in our patio area. On this tree, there were often buggy creatures.
One cool, fall day while sitting on the patio breathlessly discussing my latest gymnastic championship with an imaginary sportscaster, I noticed a movement on the tree. Always curious about things of this sort, I went over to investigate. The movement was that of a fluffy, brown-and-black striped caterpillar. She was crawling rapidly up the tree. Bump. Flat. Bump. Flat. On she moved to some unknown destination.
I was utterly enchanted. A friend! I picked her up and placed her in my palm. She rolled into a small circle, the two black ends of her body touching. I walked over to a lawn chair and sat down, waiting. Her fluffs were kind of prickly, but also kind of soft. She had a shiny, black hood for a head at one end of her oblong body.
Eventually, she wakened and began crawling up my palm and onto my arm. I picked her up to turn her around. She rolled back into a circle. We continued like this for several minutes. She would begin crawling until she started to get too far up my arm, then I would move her back to my palm. After several rounds, I placed her on the table on our patio and watched her inching crawl.
This caterpillar was fast! I knew if I did not keep an eye on her, she would soon be gone. She was so fast, I decided she needed a fast name and decided on the highly original Jet. I loved her. I wanted to keep her until she grew into a butterfly.
I went into our apartment and began to rummage around for a jar. I placed Jet into a bowl on the kitchen counter and located a small jar with a lid. I took the jar and Jet out back and looked for some nature-like things with which to furnish Jet’s new home. I found some leaves, sticks, old brush, and a few dandelion flowers, and arranged them carefully in the jar. Then I placed Jet inside and twisted on the lid. I then, however, began to worry that Jet would suffocate in her new home, so I reopened it and went back into the house to locate a hammer and nail with which to create a ventilation system. I found the tools and headed back outside once again.
A short time later, Jet’s home was properly aerated so she would not suffocate. At this point I figured she might also need hydration, and went in to get a cup of water, leaving Jet in the jar while I did so. When I returned, I placed some droplets of water for her on a leaf. Jet crawled around the minute space for a bit, and then just stood there on a stick. I thought perhaps the home was boring for her, and brought her out again to play. This went on for a couple of hours until my mom came home from work. I showed her Jet and Jet’s new apartment before she began making dinner.
That evening, as I sat and watched television with my sister, Jet sat with me in her jar. I would take her out to crawl, then return her to her house. Finally my mom pointed out that Jet might be tired. I agreed and took her upstairs to my bedroom window sill for the night.
The next morning, upon awakening, I immediately went to Jet and her jar. She was not there! I looked and looked, but there was definitely no fluffy, black-and-brown caterpillar in the jar. I ran hollering into my mom’s bedroom, sobbing. Jet is gone! She isn’t here anymore!
My mom looked into the jar as well. Then she pointed to a soft, brown cocoon. See that? She made her cocoon. So fast? I could not believe it. I looked skeptically into the jar. Lo and behold, there was a cocoon! In my frenzied excitement over the missing caterpillar, the cocoon had completely escaped my attention. Part of the reason may have been because the cocoon was much smaller than Jet had been, or so it seemed. It was about the same width, but only about half the length, and it was light brown.
I kept the jar in my bedroom for the next few weeks. At first, I checked it constantly to see if a beautiful butterfly had emerged. As time progressed though, I began to wonder if maybe Jet had died in the cocoon. The grass and leaves shriveled up, and the jar looked decidedly bleaker than it had when I created the nest. The cocoon looked so light and fragile, I wasn’t so sure Jet was still alive.
My childhood existed before there was an internet where one could go and look up the incubation time for caterpillars, or what kind of butterfly or moth would emerge. I had gone to the library to see if I could find a book about Jet, but was not successful. I had no idea how long it would take for her to grow. Little did I realize that Jet would be wintering with me for months.
One morning the following spring, upon wakening, I went immediately to the jar, as had become my habit. I never expected a change because it had been a very long time since she had moved into the jar and turned into a cocoon. But this morning was different. The cocoon was spliced neatly up one side. However, I could not see any butterfly inside the jar.
Having been fooled once into thinking Jet had left, I was not so easily deterred this time. I took the jar into another room where the light from the windows was much brighter than in my room. There, among the dried leaves, grass, and dandelions, was a brown, spotted moth. Jet was not a butterfly, but a moth! I thought she was beautiful. Her wings seemed still to be wet and not completely ready to fly, so I left her in the jar while I went to school. After school, I took the jar and placed it outside with the lid off so she could fly away. Later when I went to see her, she was gone.
Since thinking about Jet recently, I went and looked up this type of caterpillar on the internet. Somewhere along the way I learned they are often called woolly bears. I played with many more such caterpillars throughout my childhood. In my recent research, I discovered that the moths that grow from woolly bear caterpillars are called Isia Isabella, or Tiger Moths. I love it that these creatures who brought enchantment to my life as a girl share the same name as my youngest daughter. I also learned that I had created just the perfect habitat for little Jet to cocoon for the winter. They like cool, small, dimly lit spaces with dirt, leaves, and dandelions, and once they are ready, they will hunker down until spring. My cool window sill was to the west under some trees; the jar an ideal woolly bear habitat.
Interestingly, there are legends that the woolly bear can predict whether winter will be more or less severe based on the thickness of their stripe. Some believe that if the woolly bear’s stripe is wide, winter will be mild. If the stripe is narrow, winter will be severe. Others believe the narrow stripe arises from more moisture, while a wide stripe comes from dry conditions. Considering wet winters are also often severe, these two lines of thought seem in corroboration.
I don’t remember what the weather was like the year Jet wintered with us. I lived in Oregon, so it was likely a wet winter. Compared to the many woolly bear photos I have now seen, hers was a narrow stripe. If this one woolly bear’s stripe was any indication, perhaps the legends about the woolly bears are true. All I know is that she was an interesting companion and brought happiness to an introverted and often lonely child, and she gave me something fun to look forward to.
Here is a photo of a woolly bear. This one looks exactly like Jet did.
Little girls and horses. I think part of why girls fall in love with horses is to have someone big on their side, someone on whom they can fly. I fell in love with horses before I had a logical brain, then they just lodged there, between the myelin bulges. Later when I actually acquired a horse, they were my escape from a reality that was less than. Horses were my winged gods and goddesses, flying on four legs. I was naive, silly, and fearful, but with a horse I could forget all that and imagine anything. And I did.
Before a real horse actually came to live with me, I would ride my imaginary horse along next to the school bus in the morning and again in the afternoon. Galloping freely, jumping driveways, mailboxes, shrubbery, and drainage ditches; along we would glide. As the flattened shadow of the bus crawled in among the deep spaces, lengthening and shortening according to the landscape, I would fly over them, stopped by nothing.
When I was fifteen, my dad the auction-hound bought a thoroughbred off the track. He was handsome in the way of thoroughbreds, so we named him Prince. He was a nearly black bay, a Sam Savitt thoroughbred, with perky ears and an unruly mane. He watched the world sideways, as if to ask, You talkin’ to me? I love thoroughbreds; love their minds, their impossibly long legs, the way they are fretful because they can be, but give them an opportunity and they will prove what they are capable of.
As is often the case with thoroughbreds who have been racehorses, Prince was damaged goods. Something had happened to one of his legs–I can’t recall which one now–so he was not able to jump. However, he could still be ridden, and he could certainly run. I would ride him bareback, my skinny legs clinging to his slippery back, and canter around the field below our house.
One afternoon when Prince had only lived with us for about a month, I decided to take him for a ride down the driveway. Ours was a legendary driveway. We actually had to walk a mile, one way, to the school bus, regardless of the weather. Rain, shine, snow, sleet, you name it, no matter what, we did not get down that driveway by any means other than our legs. Down the long hill into the curve over the creek, up the steep curve, down the long, rocky stretch under oaks to the west and a pasture to the east, then through the gate at another bend in the creek, around the corner, and down the last flat stretch for another half a mile. This portion ran under a cove of cottonwoods. Once while walking to the bus a bird pooped in my sister’s hair. I imagined the birds up in the trees, taking careful aim and firing. We would see poop land nearby as we trudged toward the bus. I laughed hysterically when one finally hit. Melanie did not laugh. She was mad and she hit me in the arm for my glee. It was worth it because it wasn’t me.
The day I rode Prince down the driveway, it was severely overcast, but not yet the sort of gray where the clouds seem almost to meet the earth in their desperation to drain. The light was nearly fluorescent, and cold. I threw a small snaffle bridle on Prince, hopped on using an old tractor as a mounting block, and headed down the hill. We walked carefully along the rocks on the first part of the road. Prince was not wearing shoes and the rocks along the beginning of the driveway until it met the long flat place were large chunks, uncomfortable to bare horse hooves. Where I could, I guided him into the grass along the edges to protect the soles of his feet.
As we headed down the long stretch downhill, I felt the itch to run him, but I was also afraid. We hadn’t had him long and I wasn’t riding with a saddle. I did not know if I could get him to stop if he started to run. Yet I was an overconfident rider. I believed myself capable of so much when it came to horses and my family did nothing to disabuse me of this notion. Ignorance is bliss, obviously. If I had only any clue then what I know now. But I didn’t.
As we met the straight, flat place, I squeezed him into a real gallop. He was only too happy to oblige. I felt his energy surge forward, the strength of him move under my narrow thighs. Too late I realized just how fast he would run and what little I meant, perched there on his back like an organ grinder’s monkey. Wrapping my fingers into his black mane, I held on for dear life and screamed.
Rock. Cold. Fear.
The wind rushing at my face ate the scream right out of my mouth. It didn’t make a dent. I lowered my head and wrapped my arms around his neck. Wind lashed my bare arms icy. I had read of landscapes passing in a blur. Now I could see what this meant–the landscape really was blurry.
In spite of the speed, in my brain it was as if time stopped, like a narrator hovering above, watching a train veer off its tracks. First the engine, then the cars, and finally the caboose, whipping like a snake’s tail where it didn’t belong. There she goes, I thought. See the horse galloping? See the skinny girl holding on? I cannot fall from here. I will not live if I fall from here. I must stay here until this horse stops running. But how can I make that happen?
Yet the road at the end of our driveway was coming, and across the road there was a fence, then there was a field, and Prince could not jump, so at some point the train’s tail would whiplash and there would be a problem. On and on we thundered and I actually settled in. I was not falling off and had joined the rhythm. But there was an end. What if someone was driving on the road as I came to meet it? I controlled nothing. If a car was coming at the same time we were coming then there would be severe damage.
No car, just the road, hooves sliding on cement, then mud, grass, fence, and crash. I hit the ground with magnificent speed, I rolled over onto my shoulder, Prince rolled across me and up and continued to run, reins flinging wildly around his neck. I sat up and screamed and screamed and screamed. Prince slowed. I screamed and screamed and screamed. Only there was something about the cold light and the wide space that made the screams seem small and insignificant.
I could see far up the road, see a car, see it drive along, slow, then continue. It did not stop so I screamed again. Prince had trotted back over towards the fence, away from me, but not far. Another car moved along the highway. It slowed beside Prince, then sped along, then slowed as it saw me. I screamed and screamed and screamed. These sounds were so tiny, escaping me. I felt like I was putting all my lungs into the screams, but they were silent in the wind. The clouds moved closer. A drop of rain landed in my hair and then another. I realized my left shoulder was screaming too, in a different way.
The car cruised by, long and slow. Then it stopped and backed up. The people disgorged from all the doors. A gold sedan. I was rescued.
I severely bruised my shoulder that day, but other than that, I was okay. Prince was none the worse for wear. The only real difference was that for the first time in my life when it came to horses, I had fear. The next time I climbed on a horse, I remembered. I stayed on and kept going, but I could not ride bareback for a month. I would not go on the driveway. Over time, the fear faded. Horses came back to me as gods and goddesses, my protectors, my escape from a dismal reality.
For some reason, Prince came to me recently. I remembered the merciless run down the long road, the sharp, icy air, the cold, gray light. I remembered all of it except being afraid. In spite of everything, the fear was forgotten. In its place instead was this lightning god on four legs, flashing down the road at magnificent speeds.
No wonder girls love horses. They give us power and help us fly and they do so without brutality. Winged gods and goddesses, indeed.
Today I went in for my annual booby squishing appointment. Having been a “victim” of breast cancer, I have to have them every year. Compared to the one where the cancer was initially discovered, these are a cake walk. In that initial visit, the doctors could see some specks at the top of the film and therefore assumed the specks were in my armpit. They spent the next hour and a half attempting to squish my skinny shoulder into the mammogram machine. It did not work. It hurt. Finally they figured out that it was possible that the specks could be on the other side of my breast, towards the center of my chest. One try at that location and voila! Pay dirt. A lesson learned that day that has since been reiterated is that mammograms are easier if one is fleshier. There is more flesh to grab in the flat, plastic jaws.
Today’s mammogram was relatively simple. I knew from previous visits that mammogram appointments mean waiting around, so I brought some knitting. This visit was in the new “Safeway Cancer Center.” I hate it when medical facilities or sporting facilities or any facility that isn’t what is being used is named for some corporation. If I go into a grocery store and it is called Safeway, fine. If I go into an office supply store and it is called Staples, so be it. However, I don’t want to go somewhere that is going to squish my boobs and have it called Safeway. It’s too much of a non-sequitur. But as is often the case, I digress.
The new booby squishing center was clearly designed with the needs of women in mind. In fact, it looked like they got together a focus group from Lifetime television and Oprah to create a calm, breathable space, in calm, mellow colors, with calm, earthy tones. All of this is spoken in a calm, monotone voice. One enters a lovely, spacious lobby with a fountain. Let the deep breathing and Ohms begin. You are escorted into a high-ceilinged, glass-enclosed waiting area. Nearly immediately you are called back into the “guest space” –a nice name for another waiting room. But wait, there’s more! This space is lavishly furnished with low-slung chairs and sofas. Surrounding this loungey place are all the doors to the little rooms where one leaves one’s top attire and personal belongings in a locker. Each “guest” has a personal escort to show them their own special dressing room. This person then informs them that there is coffee and tea in the corner for them while they wait. Dutifully, the guests remove their top garments, lock all of it in the specially-designed wooden locker (nothing like the banging metal contraption I had in high school, these are sleek, wooden, and smell brand-new). One exits the personal dressing room to wait in the low-slung chairs. Calm, watery, pan flute music fills the air, further adding to the illusion that one is away at a spa, awaiting a massage and relaxation, rather than waiting to have one’s boobs squashed beyond recognition. All of it is an illusion to distract us from the fact we are squishing our boobs to catch cancer. A couple of the women, when they spoke, betrayed in their quivering voices the fear that this could be their fate. I wanted to let them know that sometimes, it really isn’t all that bad, even when the mammogram is positive, but I remained quiet, focusing on my knitting.
For me, nearly immediately upon sitting after changing out of my top clothes, my escort came to take me back for the actual booby squishing. She performed her duties, creating the ethereal, opaque half moons from my breasts. I find it intriguing that mammogram photos are so moon-like when the moon has long been considered the planetary body for women.
I had a mammogram a year ago. At that time, Isabel was about three months old. When the plastic plate slid into place on the top of my right breast, milk squirted out in about five different directions. I loved that. It seems so appropriate that my gland was doing what it was supposed to while taking the photos. Today, my breast was emptier, Isabel having just supped shortly prior to my appointment. No milk came out at all. When no milk flowed, I realized I actually had hoped that it would.
After the photo-taking, my mammogram technician escorted me back to the waiting area. I gathered up my knitting, grabbed a cup of tea, and waited. And waited some more. During this time, a dozen women came through in the same pattern. The escort brought them in, showed them their dressing room, they sat for a moment ensconced in their pond-green dressing gown, then were called away, only to return shortly to wait and wait. In the meantime, some who had been there were called into their dressing room for a “private discussion.” I say private in quotes because we could all hear what was being said, that the films were clear and we will see you next year.
I expected this, that my films would be clear. Then I thought for a moment, what if they’re not? What if they call me back to squish me some more? I imagined me telling them that I knew something was up because this is what happened last time: they called me back for more and more and more, flattening and pressing and prodding my flesh. I imagined that if this were the case then 2011 would begin as awfully as so many of the last years have, and I wondered if this is how life would always be, and then I realized I was going a little off the loony end and returned back to the spa room with it’s trickling music, low light, and women in green gowns.
And no, they did not take me back for more squishing. My escort called my name, called me to my dressing room, and let me know the films were fine and they would see me next year. All was well.
I liked this place, this woman spa space for boob squishing. I could have sat there and knitted all day. As I waited with the other women, the only thing missing was some womanly conversation. If that had been present, the illusion would have been complete. As it was, this missing piece kept it from being all it could have been, but still it was all right. Let some grocery corporation pay to keep us from contemplating why it is exactly we’re hanging out with strangers and squishing our boobs in a modern day female communal space, creating moons and attempting to avert disaster. Whatever works, right?
Perhaps part of why I have not become a pillar of the intellectual community, aside from the fact I’m not thick enough to serve as a pillar, is that while growing up, I did devour books, but I was mostly interested in stories, particularly stories about horses or animals. As a teenager, I expanded my interest to include books where girls chased boys, but not much really. I was only interested in those if there was something especially intriguing about the girl–like if she had a horse.
I especially loved horse/girl books where the girl was the underdog who wanted a horse and succeeded through grit and determination in getting one. I wanted to be like those girls, and I was to the extent I succeeded in getting a 35 dollar Shetland pony.
Once I acquired the pony, I had big dreams for us. We would win competitions and show everyone it did not matter if my steed was forty inches tall. I imagined interviews with sportscasters. I would ask questions then answer breathlessly, as if interrupted in an effort.
Actually, interviews of this sort also extended to my gymnastic prowess. It mattered not that by twelve, I was nearly five foot eight. In my mind I had achieved gold in gymnastic floor exercises. I would breathlessly answer these sportscasters as well.
So while I indeed spent my childhood buried in books, I can say without equivocation it was only towards the effort of avoiding other children and immersing myself in worlds far more desirable than my own. If I happened across a great piece of literature, it was always the result of happenstance. I had no illusions about reading my way to fame and fortune.
Ironically, if I think of it now as I seek to live so much in the moment, I absolutely did so as a child. My parents’ chief concerns seemed to be to first ensure we did all of our chores, second that we did not bother them with sibling arguments, and finally that we entertained ourselves so they did not have to. I was very good at the latter.
I did the chores grudgingly. We were promised allowances that never materialized and performed jobs I still consider beyond the necessary scope for children. The chores usually resulted in fights with my sister. We argued prodigiously over whose turn it was to do what, then raced to be the first one done, if only to prove our superiority over one another. The race to finish jobs served my primary purpose, which was to either read a book or ride my horse, and preferably both. Melanie wanted to play with her friends. I didn’t really have a lot of friends beyond the horses in my imagination, so rushing off to live in my head was my priority.
Before I got a horse I would pretend I had one. i once cleared my closet, opened one side, and strung a rope across the opening to keep in my stick horse. I shredded paper for her bedding.
She was lovely. Her stick was yellow, her fur head white. She had large, brown button eyes with long, plastic lashes. I called her Snowflake.
I spent the time creating this stable, enjoying every minute I did so, imagining the conversations I would have with my trainer over her care. Again, I played both parts. As myself, I explained very carefully what would be the best plan for my horse’s future. My trainer would nod and take notes, her head cocked to one side as she leaned in the stable doorway, loose breeches puffed around her hips, a cap pulled low over her brow, alá Mickey Rooney.
Snowflake stayed in my closet for months. I was attentive for about two days, feeding and brushing. Over time I needed my room for other things and the stick horse was relegated to the corner again, her home prior to the stable.
Finally, when I was twelve, I acquired a real horse. Of course, this horse was only 40 inches tall and therefore a pony, but I did not care. She was mine and I loved her. Her name was Rosie. She was a bright, red chestnut with a thick, flaxen mane and tail. But she was tiny. I rode her anyway. My best friend Jodi and I both rode ponies. We made plans together to start our own pony farm as adults, no horses allowed.
Man, it’s pathetic how little I write on this anymore. It seems like my days start so early and are filled to the brim until late and then I fall into bed completely exhausted, only to start it all again the next day. Work has been a living hell. I have been hating my job so much, trying to focus on what I like about it, trying to help people, but shit just keeps coming up that I have to deal with and it takes time away from the stuff that actually feels useful. Today a client told me she thinks I’m wonderful and that she knows I’m fighting for her, and that part is true, I do want the very best for my clients. But I’m not so sure about the wonderful part and I am barely keeping my head above water. It was nice to hear though. She brought a smile to my face.
My infant daughter brings the most smiles to my face. She is so happy and growing and changing so much. She smiles and makes a little hoo sound all the time about everything. She call me Maa Maa and says bye bye when she waves. She is the most adorable little person. She laughs all the time. She loved Christmas. She opened her presents one by one, handing me pieces of wrapping paper as she went. She and Milla are the reason for the holiday for me. They enjoy themselves so much and it is utterly delightful to watch them enjoy and experience everything.
I can’t believe how tall my Milla is getting. She has passed my friend Rita and is on her way to passing my friend Sara. She’s lanky and tall and completely gorgeous. Luckily she is also still very much 11 and into dogs and knitting and being as comfortable as possible so she goes around dressed like a hippie all the time, which is totally fine with me because I don’t need the boys chasing her yet. I think she will manage to be taller than they are for several years to come so by the time they figure out how amazing she is, she will be older, which can’t hurt. She is a smart girl. She knows how these things roll.
I have to go to bed. It’s 11 and I get to work all day tomorrow. Lucky me. I’m grateful to have a job, but I sure wish it wasn’t such a pain in the ass sometimes.
I think I’m going to have to install that application that blocks use of certain websites like facebook. To turn the site on again I would have to reboot my computer, and I don’t have any more time for that than I do to surf facebook.
Back to work!
Someone asked me how many times a day I have to change Isabel’s diaper, the implication being that I must change cloth more than I would change disposables. It should be the same. If someone is changing their child less frequently because the child is wearing disposables, that means their child is sitting around in plastic soaked urine. That is just gross.
It has been my experience that when one does something inadvertently or accidentally to another person and it causes harm, the person apologizes profusely. Perhaps it is a leap in logic to presume this is always the case, but I think in most cases, if someone causes harm unintentionally, apology is the appropriate and common response. Accidental action, unintended harmful consequence, apology. I can recall some instances where there was an accidental action, unintended harmful consequence, then acknowledgment of the harm, and acknowledgment of the action. However, I cannot recall any situations with accidental action, unintended harmful consequence, and defense of original action without an apology. If there was an accidental action that caused harm, there was an apology as well.
How common is it, do you think, that there is accidental action, unintended harmful consequence, then defense of the original action as accident without apology? For instance, I trip you accidentally, you fall and get hurt, then I don’t apologize, but instead say Ah well, it was an accident…? Considering cultural norms surrounding apology in this circumstance, it does not seem to be a stretch to presume that if I trip you and you fall and I don’t apologize, that the original tripping was not accidental. In this instance, it would be necessary to look to the surrounding circumstances to determine whether or not my action was intentional or inadvertent. For instance, I’m wearing big shoes that I’m not used to wearing and holding my feet out at a funny angle because the shoes feel odd. It would not be hard to figure it really was an accident.
However, if there is a footprint on the back of your leg in such a way that for that footprint to have landed there I would have had to have kicked you, and then you were harmed, and then I did not apologize, it would not be difficult to surmise that I intended to cause harm. I may have intended to kick and tripped instead, but the original intent was to cause some harm thereby negating the need for apology.
Ah, it is all speculation. I know it wasn’t an accident. If it were, there would have been profuse apology. The resulting damage may have been greater than predicted, but harm was still the intent. The fact there was no apology is just another factor that proves it.
There is something about blustery weather that makes me contemplative and odd. It creates within me a paradox of desires. On the one hand I wish to go be out, suffering the cold and sharp wind, delighting in its vigor. On the other hand I’m a wimp when it comes to the cold, and have trouble warming once it reaches my bones. However, I’m intrigued by the energy of it so when my baby awakens from her nap, I will likely venture forth and hang out with the swirling leaves.
I’m listening to Glenn Gould playing the Goldberg variations of Bach. Perfect music for a blustery afternoon. I love the light of a day like this. It’s sharp and cold, overly bright like a fluorescent bulb. Every so often today the sun peeks through and the light grows warmer, yellow.
Ack. I was sitting here working and writing some here, but my daughter came home with friends and I lost my momentum. This seems to be the m.o. these days.
“Work Harder to Earn Less” : French Fury in the EU Cage.
by Diana Johnstone
The French are at it again – out on strike, blocking transport, raising hell in the streets, and all that merely because the government wants to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62. They must be crazy.
That, I suppose, is the way the current mass movement in France is seen – or at least shown – in much of the world, and above all in the Anglo-Saxon world.
Perhaps the first thing that needs to be said about the current mass strikes in France is that they are not really about “raising the retirement age from 60 to 62”. This is rather like describing the capitalist free market as a sort of lemonade stand. A propaganda simplification of very complex issues.
It allows the commentators to go crashing through open doors. After all, they observe sagely, people in other countries work until 65 or beyond, so why should the French balk at 62? The population is aging, and if the retirement age isn’t raised, the pension system will go broke paying out pensions to so many ancients.
However, the current protest movement is not about “raising the retirement age from 60 to 62”. It is about much more.
For one thing, this movement is an expression of exasperation with the government of Nicolas Sarkozy, which blatantly favors the super-rich over the majority of working people in this country. He was elected on the slogan, “Work more to earn more”, and the reality turns out to be work harder to earn less. The Labor Minister who introduced the reform, Eric Woerth, got a job for his wife on the office staff of the richest woman in France, Liliane Bettencourt, heir to the Oreal cosmetics giant, at the same time that, as budget minister, he was overlooking her massive tax evasions. While tax benefits for the rich help empty the public coffers, this government is doing what it can to tear down the whole social security system that emerged after World War II on the pretext that “we can’t afford it”.
The retirement issue is far more complex than “the age of retirement”. The legal age of retirement means the age at which one may retire. But the pension depends on the number of years worked, or to be more precise, on the number of cotisations (payments) into the joint pension scheme. On the grounds of “saving the system from bankruptcy”, the government is gradually raising the number of years of cotisations from 40 to 43 years, with indications that this will be stretched out further in the future.
As education is prolonged, and employment begins later, to get a full pension most people will have to work until 65 or 67. A “full pension” comes to about 40 per cent of wages at the time of retirement.
But even so, that may not be possible. Full time jobs are harder and harder to get, and employers do not necessarily want to retain older employees. Or the enterprise goes out of business and the 58-year old employee finds himself permanently out of work. It is becoming harder and harder to work full-time in a salaried job for over 40 years, however much one may want to. Thus in practice, the Sarkozy-Woerth reform simply means reducing pensions.
That, in fact, is what the European Union has recommended to all member states as an economy measure, intended, as with most current reforms, to reduce social costs in the name of “competitivity” – meaning competition to attract investment capital.
Less qualified workers, who instead of pursuing studies may have entered the work force young, say at age eighteen, will have subscribed to the scheme for forty-two years at age 60 if indeed they manage to be employed all that time. Statistics show that their life expectancy is relatively short, so they need to leave early in order to enjoy any retirement at all.
The French system is based on solidarity between generations, in that the cotisations of today’s workers go to pay today’s retired people’s pensions. The government has subtly tried to pit one generation against another, by claiming that it is necessary to protect the future of today’s youth, who are paying for the “baby boom” pensioners. It is therefore extremely significant that this week, high school and university students massively began to enter the protest strike movement. This solidarity between generations is a major blow to the government.
The youth are even much more radical than the older trade unionists. They are very aware of the increasing difficulty of building a career. The trend is for qualified personnel to enter the work force later and later, having spent years getting an education. With the difficulty of finding a stable, full-time job, many depend on their parents until age 30. It is simple arithmetic to see that in this case, there will be no full retirement until after age 70.
Productivity and Deindustrialization
As has become standard practice, the authors of the neo-liberal reforms present them not as a choice but as a necessity. There is no alternative. We must compete on the global market. Do it our way or we go broke. And this reform was essentially dictated by the European Union, in a 2003 report, concluding that making people work longer was necessary to cut pension costs.
These dictates prevent any discussion of the two basic factors underlying the pension problem: productivity and deindustrialization.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the former Socialist Party man who heads the relatively new Left Party, is about the only political leader to point out that even if there are fewer workers to contribute to pension schemes, the difference can be made up by the rise in productivity. Indeed, French worker productivity is among the very highest in the world (higher than Germany, for example). Moreover, although France has the second longest life expectancy in Europe, it also has the highest birth rate. And even if jobholders are fewer, because of unemployment, the wealth they produce should be adequate to maintain pension levels.
Aha, but here’s the catch: for decades, as productivity goes up, wages stagnate. The profits from increased productivity are siphoned off into the financial sector. The bloating of the financial sector and the stagnation of purchasing power has led to the financial crisis – and the government has preserved the imbalance by bailing out the profligate financiers.
So logically, preserving the pension system basically calls for raising wages to account for higher productivity – a very major policy change.
But there is another critical problem linked to the pension issue: deindustrialization. In order to maintain the high profits drained by the financial sector, and avoid paying higher wages, one industry after another has moved its production to cheap labor countries. Profitable enterprises shut down as capital goes looking for even higher profit.
Is this merely the inevitable result of the rise of new industrial powers in Asia? Is a lowering of living standards in the West inevitable due to their rise in the East?
Perhaps. However, if shifting industrial production to China ends up lowering purchasing power in the West, then Chinese exports will suffer. China itself is taking the first steps toward strengthening its own domestic market. “Export-led growth” cannot be a strategy for everyone. World prosperity actually depends on strengthening both domestic production and domestic markets. But this requires the sort of deliberate industrial policy which is banned by the bureaucracies of globalization: the World Trade Organization and the European Union. They operate on the dogmas of “comparative advantage” and “free competition”. On grounds of free trade, China is actually facing sanctions for promoting its own solar energy industry, vitally necessary to end the deadly air pollution that plagues that country.
The world economy is being treated as a big game, where following the “rules of the free market” is more important than the environment or the basic vital necessities of human beings.
Only the financiers can win this game. And if they lose, well, they just get more chips for another game from servile governments.
Impasse?
Where will it all end?
It should end in something like a democratic revolution: a complete overhaul of economic policy. But there are very strong reasons why this will not happen.
For one thing, there is no political leadership in France ready and able to lead a truly radical movement. Mélenchon comes the closest, but his party is new and its base is still narrow. The radical left is hamstrung by its chronic sectarianism. And there is great confusion among people revolting without clear programs and leaders.
Labor leaders are well aware that employees lose a day’s pay for every day they go on strike, and they are in fact always anxious to find ways to end a strike. Only the students do not suffer from that restraint. The trade unionists and Socialist Party leaders are demanding nothing more drastic than that the government open negotiations about details of the reform. If Sarkozy weren’t so stubborn, this is a concession the government could make which might restore calm without changing very much.
It would take the miraculous emergence of new leaders to carry the movement forward.
But even if this should happen, there is a more formidable obstacle to basic change: the European Union. The EU, built on popular dreams of peaceful and prosperous united Europe, has turned into a mechanism of economic and social control on behalf of capital, and especially of financial capital. Moreover, it is linked to a powerful military alliance, NATO.
If left to its own devices, France might experiment in a more socially just economic system. But the EU is there precisely to prevent such experiments.
Anglo-Saxon Attitudes
On October 19, the French international TV channel France 24 ran a discussion of the strikes between four non-French observers. The Portuguese woman and the Indian man seemed to be trying, with moderate success, to understand what was going on. In contrast, the two Anglo-Americans (the Paris correspondent of Time magazine and Stephen Clarke, author of 1000 Years of Annoying the French) amused themselves demonstrating self-satisfied inability to understand the country they write about for a living.
Their quick and easy explanation: “The French are always going on strike for fun because they enjoy it.”
A little later in the program the moderator showed a brief interview with a lycée student who offered serious comments on pensions issue. Did that give pause to the Anglo-Saxons?
The response was instantaneous. How sad to see an 18-year-old thinking about pensions when he should be thinking about girls!
So whether they do it for fun, or whether they do it instead of having fun, the French are absurd to Anglo-Americans accustomed to telling the whole world what it should do.
Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions. Write her for the French version of this article, or to comment, at diana.josto@yahoo.fr
Dearest Shay. You have been found out. Get a life, girlfriend. Seriously. Move on.
Wow.
Integrity is an adherence to moral and ethical principles, a soundness of moral character, and honesty.
I really despise cowards. I truly, honestly, completely despise them. I know I should feel some compassion that they are living their lives in fear and can’t be fully human and all that blah, blah, blah bullshit, but honestly, most truly cowardly behavior, the kind where self-preservation based on fear overwhelms integrity really makes me want to pound the shit out of someone.
That’s my thought for the moment.
I have completed the article and begun submitting it to magazines. It is my goal to get the issue as much widespread attention as possible. I would also like to educate women about how to keep from getting taken by companies like Pure Med Spa. They keep opening (and closing) under different names so consumers can’t keep up with who is legitimate and who is a thief. There are steps consumers can take to keep from getting harmed by any med spa company, and especially this company run by these crooks.
Lara is staying up too late. It is her own damn fault; she fell asleep with her infant at about 6:30 in the evening and slept until almost 9. Bad idea. Bad idea, indeed. Now Lara is awake. But Baby finally fell asleep at half past midnight, so Lara can go to sleep too, after she brushes and flosses her teeth. Poor tired Lara. Let’s hope her infant doesn’t wake up at the butt crack of dawn.
Lara thinks she should change her name, but she doesn’t know what name to change her name to. She doesn’t like the name Lara. It is such a wimpy name. Plus no one can pronounce it properly in the United States. It’s always LORuh or LAIRuh, not LARuh, like car, or bar, or far, or tar, or mar, or even the letter R. It’s not hard (or the word hard), or difficult even, but people here can’t do it. And even when she spells her name for people, they still stick in the damn U. What the hell, people? There isn’t a U. It’s not the same name. Laura is the feminine of Lawrence. It is a Latin-based name. Lara is a Slavic name. It is not related to Lawrence. But try telling that to the morons who refuse to call her by her proper name, dang it. Annoying.
Okay, awake is going to win if Lara does not head to her bed. First to the bathroom sink and the toothpaste and the toothbrush, then to the bed. Sleep. Sleep. Ahhhh…
I love how every time I log in to my yahoo account there is some ad for online dating with all these photos of hot men. I’ve online dated before (NEVER again) and I can say without equivocation that the men on the online dating site were never as hot as the ads. If anyone thinks they would get what is on those ads, they are smoking crack.
Today it took too long to get one of the 8 dozen things I wanted done finished. I didn’t even get to most of what I wanted to do and now I’m really tired. I thought of a few things to write today while immersed in the aforementioned took-too-long activity. I don’t remember any of them, dang it.
Isabel fell asleep next to me. She is so dear. She sprouted a little tooth on the top today. So sweet!
I just want to brush my teeth and go to bed. I wonder if I should just skip all of the before bed stuff I usually do and go to bed, but I’ll pay for it if I do that so I won’t. Dang, again. Soooo tired.
Ahh, Lara never writes here anymore. I’m tempted to stop using this blog and use the other one I started some time ago. I like that one because the one person in particular who stalks me here doesn’t know where that one is at so I can say what I want without worrying I’ll get grief for it later. It’s the Pure Med Spa thing that keeps me keeping this blog going. I get a new note every few days from people screwed over by that company. It has gone through about four or five incarnations since being called Pure Med Spa, yet it keeps on ticking and stealing from the public. Seriously, the FBI needs to get involved.
My baby girl is getting bigger and bigger. I do write on her blog DaysofIsabel. I don’t keep it up as often as I envisioned in the beginning, but more frequently than I would have expected. I love my babies, both the 11 month old baby and the 11 year old baby!
This has been a weird week of running into and reconnecting with old friends. First, I ran into a lawyer friend I had lost touch with a few years back. Then I reconnected with a guy I dated so long ago, all the major grownup things in my life had not happened yet. Then I ran into my old paralegal from the toxic snake pit. Then yesterday I visited with a high school chum at his garage sale. It really has been interesting reconnecting with all of these people. I hope we can maintain better contact going forward.
We live in a neighborhood of old, lovely homes. They are high-end homes from the turn of the century. What I like about most of them is that they are sedate and solid, without being ostentatious or pretentious like so many of the disgusting mansions are these days. There are a few that are a bit too large, but mostly they are just really gorgeous older houses along a ridge that overlooks the city.
Apparently, one of our neighbors in one of these houses either passed away or moved to a nursing home. There has been an estate sale going on for the last three days. On the second day, after fighting yet again to get out of my driveway because of all the foot and parking traffic, I discovered what was going on and went over to investigate. It isn’t often I get to go inside one of these lovely old houses.
The surprise was how truly unspectacular this particular house is. It certainly has the potential to be restored back to its original splendor, but as is often the case with old houses, it has been bombarded by ugly from the last several decades. Hideous carpet covers much of the hardwood floors. The bathrooms are tiny, the fixtures old and nothing special. The kitchen is dated circa 1960, but not in a good way. And the worst transgression is that someone built a covered porch thing out in the back that blocks the view from the house. It’s hideous and large and seems not to accomplish much in the way of being a nice place to sit outside.
There were signs offering the house for sale at $632,000. If I had that to spend on a house, I would not buy that one. I think $400,000 is more its range, considering all the updating that will have to happen. I also overheard some discussion about issues with the plumbing. Of course, based on the prices these estate sellers were asking for simple junk, I’m not surprised someone is thinking they can get that amount for the sale price. There was a set of big, old speakers they had priced at $800. For some reason there was a lot of old stereo equipment and they wanted 100s of dollars for each piece. I have been looking for an older stereo and record player and based on what I have seen out there, those sellers were smoking crack to think an old set of speakers could bring $800. They had a couple of old amps similar to those I have seen at other sales for which they were asking $250 and $300. Nuts. That’s how most stuff was there. Some things were cheaper; they were offering 50% off anything under $50. I bought a Shaft record in perfect condition for $1.50, a ceramic pot from Italy for $6, and a stuffed bunny for Isabel for .50c. But most of the stuff was overpriced and nothing special. They are going to have to drastically reduce to get rid of a lot of it. Much will likely end up in a landfill. This is how it goes at the end of our life if we have collected a bunch of not much.
Today I have a lot to do. I have to finish some applications, pay some bills, finish an article, go shopping for baby party invitations, make a risotto, get the house ready for the busy week ahead, type a petition, and get some other petitions ready for hearings on Tuesday. Tomorrow I have “oral surgery,” what they call it when they inject bone into the hole in your head where a tooth fell out 15 years ago in order to make bone grow for an implant. Fun stuff. They say it won’t hurt as much as a filling, but we will see. I am not working though, in case it hurts more or for longer.
Isabel is up and crawling around. It is time to get started on our day. We cuddled for several moments when she first awakened. I love snuggling her. She is my joy.
I love my baby. I love my baby. I love my baby. My baby is the sweetest, most wonderful, happiest little darling in the world.
I love my baby.
It is normal and essential to proceed with our everyday life by utilizing perceptions that reveal only fragments of objects, the beginnings of action and bits of conversation, inferences as to another’s intent, and, as a rule, only a sketchy knowledge of his background. Such incompleteness of input leaves large areas of potential uncertainty. (Cameron 1974, p. 678).
Have you ever wished for someone’s demise? Have you ever hated with such intensity that if the object of your derision were to meet with an untimely accident you would have to hope there would be for you an alibi, because such an accident would draw suspicion upon you? I have been there twice. It is not a comforting place to be.
The first was the sociopathic girlfriend of my ex. She wanted to destroy me and in her attempts, I would imagine my revenge to help me cope. There were moments where I would fantasize her death, giving myself the satisfaction of picturing a silvery knife so sharp, its blade razor thin slipping along the surface of her neck, aligning with skin and veins, blood seeping and pooling around her nape. At other moments I divined her foot, uselessly pressing a brake line that had been cut, her car careening helplessly over a guardrail and smashing into a tree.
Eventually I learned to circle the wagons against this woman and she turned her attentions elsewhere, but not before making my life a living hell. After a time the revenge fantasies ceased and life continued not quite as before; I carried a little cloud about me for a while. I needed redemption. I’m not sure it ever came, but I did move to a new place where I could remove her from my head. She took up too much space there for a time.
In recent months I move in and out of hatred again. This one certainly takes more space than is deserved or warranted. For every moment it is in my head, I leave no space for love or creativity. It doesn’t come often, but when it does, it fills me with the intensity of a raging conflagration, burning and spitting and roiling. No wonder hell is described as fire; hating someone is a sort of hell and it blisters and scalds. I know enough pop psychology to know that such intense hatred only harms the one who is feeling it. On an intellectual level I understand its ramifications, and so I bend my body into yogi poses, pound my feet in Nike sneakers, force my mind away from conversations that can have no solution, breathe down into the soles of my feet. It works–most of the time. But then it doesn’t and with it I must contend again.
Into this hatred happened a very young, very naive and stupid girl. She was like some desperate and obsequious puppy, hoping to be liked, having no idea what the hell she had stumbled into. I wanted to kick her. I had no desire to befriend this naive creature trying so hard to be nice. I wanted to fold her in half, destroy her hopefulness, rub her face in the anguish and rage she could not know or understand. She tripped along, coy and carefree, like a puppy with her tongue lolling, tail wagging between her legs, hoping I would be friendly. Because she came from the one I so despised, I hated who she was and what she represented before she ever said a word. I wanted her to back away, to get out, to leave what she had found. She was not welcome. She had no business. I wanted her to go and to take her syrup with her. After I aimed several poison darts in her direction, she started to get the idea. For a moment I felt sorry for her and tried to warn her against where she was headed, but she wanted none of that, and nipped at me. For this nip, I bit. Hard.
I have been advised to write, to rend this vitriol from my veins. Write she says. Write. It doesn’t matter what you say, just write. If you can place this things that are in your head in a place outside of you then you will come to a place where they no longer matter. Write. Remove them from you. Link them to someplace else. And so I do. I have for today for this moment softened the edges of the rage.
Thai Noon uses the little square cut carrots and peas mix from the frozen section of the grocery store.
‘Nuf said.
Have you ever found yourself heading in a direction that you don’t want to go, into a thicket so dangerous and dense–danger ahead!–but to one side there are brambles, to another side is a bear, off to an angle is a sheer cliff, so you scramble and try to move back, but end up pushed forward, thorns stabbing you in the side, the bear’s teeth at your heels, stuck, unable to go anywhere except deeper into the dense thicket you do not want to enter? This is how things are right now. I’m cut and bleeding, but have no idea how to get to some stable ground.
I love the Cameo Cafe (8111 NE Sandy Boulevard). It’s kitschy, small, and in a sort of odd location, but the food is delicious and the prices can’t be beat. They always use fresh ingredients. They are only open during the day until 3, so breakfast seems to be the main thing for them, but they also have a delicious lunch menu.
Their specialty is a bread called Strong Bread. I’m not sure why it’s called that. Next time I go in I will ask. It is covered in poppyseeds, and buttery yummy. It is hard to resist. If you’re on a bread-free diet, don’t go there or at least make sure they don’t bring this bread to your table or you’ll be off your diet.
They have a salmon salad covered in fresh veggies and spinach. The salmon is generous and always cooked to perfection. I haven’t been to many restaurants, especially one like this that looks like a truck stop diner, that cooks salmon so well (see the next review I’m planning to do on Koji, for a place that can’t cook salmon).
The decor is odd, but it is unique and fun–sort of garage sale meets diner. For instance, there is a carousel about a foot and a half tall, with lights on it, that sits in the corner, spinning away as you eat. There are photos of Miss Oregon all over the doors. There are fake plants in various locations. The chairs are these metal things with heart-shaped backs. There is a long dining counter and tables along the wall. There is outside seating on the patio and a chicken coop near the front entrance by the street with cute chickens inside.
The service has always been splendid when I’ve been there. All the servers chip in to help. The service is definitely a big reason I like going to this place. If they had terrible service, it wouldn’t be as fun. The place is too small for grousy servers.
I recommend Cameo Cafe. It’s got personality. It’s not the biggest place in the world, so it isn’t the place to go if you’ve got a big party, but fun for a few.
you fit into me
like a hook into an eye
a fish hook
an open eye
“You Fit Into Me” —Margaret Atwood
It seems like whenever a movie cover has four or five wide stripes, with people in some of the stripes and words in the others, the movie is always crap. Whoever designed that cover style should know that it marks a movie as not worth seeing.
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Thanks so much.
This weekend Milla had a concert in Newburg. I realized after getting down there that I was imagining McMinnville when I was thinking of the city and deciding what to bring with me while I waited around three hours for her performance. Unfortunately, Newburg is a lot smaller than McMinnville. There was nothing to do. I regretted having no book or work or computer with me. Isabel slept a lot of the time, so I just sat in the classroom where Milla’s stuff was while she was in the green room until her performance. Boring. The funny thing is that when I arrived home I was so tired. I don’t know why driving a while and then doing nothing for several hours is so exhausting, but it is. I wish I would have had more time this weekend to accomplish something productive (like writing, or sewing, or cleaning the house). Ah well. It’s the end of the weekend and I need to go to bed.
As an aside, Milla’s playing and the symphony were both lovely. She played well and has definitely improved playing with this group. She also has a new teacher who has been very good for her. We are looking forward to the knowledge and skills she will gain working with this new instructor.
Lying on the sand.
He had been lying there so long that he no longer understood time. Focusing on each minute orb, he watched them rise and magnify until they were no longer tiny. One small grain seemed to speak to him with its shape, a thin brown line running along its edge. For a moment his eyes lost focus as the grain grew, a dribble of sweat creeping along his eyelid and out to the end of his lashes. It hung there, stretching and pulling, like a diver on a high board waiting to plunge to the dustiness below.
With all the horror happening in the gulf, how is it we can go on drilling in the arctic or anywhere else?
The people on this planet are killing it. The richest people do what they want. These things ARE connected. We are all suffering as a result.
I’ve heard from several sources that Pure Med Spa/Brite Smile is now Pinnacle. I’ll write more as I find out information.
Dear Mr. Tim Wise, You are a genius. You are so dead-on correct, I had to repost this for anyone who stumbles across what I write here. Readers if you find me, please read this, then pass it on.
The link to this story can be found here.
“Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black” — Tim Wise
Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead of envisioning white people as the main actors in the scenes we’ll conjure – the ones who are driving the action – we’ll envision black folks or other people of color instead. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were of color, rather than white. Whoever gains the most insight into the workings of race in America, at the end of the game, wins.
So let’s begin.
Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.
Imagine that white members of Congress, while walking to work, were surrounded by thousands of angry black people, one of whom proceeded to spit on one of those congressmen for not voting the way the black demonstrators desired. Would the protesters be seen as merely patriotic Americans voicing their opinions, or as an angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionary mob? After all, this is what white Tea Party protesters did recently in Washington.
Imagine that a rap artist were to say, in reference to a white president: “He’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on my machine gun.” Because that’s what rocker Ted Nugent said recently about President Obama.
Imagine that a prominent mainstream black political commentator had long employed an overt bigot as Executive Director of his organization, and that this bigot regularly participated in black separatist conferences, and once assaulted a white person while calling them by a racial slur. When that prominent black commentator and his sister — who also works for the organization — defended the bigot as a good guy who was misunderstood and “going through a tough time in his life” would anyone accept their excuse-making? Would that commentator still have a place on a mainstream network? Because that’s what happened in the real world, when Pat Buchanan employed as Executive Director of his group, America’s Cause, a blatant racist who did all these things, or at least their white equivalents: attending white separatist conferences and attacking a black woman while calling her the n-word.
Imagine that a black radio host were to suggest that the only way to get promoted in the administration of a white president is by “hating black people,” or that a prominent white person had only endorsed a white presidential candidate as an act of racial bonding, or blamed a white president for a fight on a school bus in which a black kid was jumped by two white kids, or said that he wouldn’t want to kill all conservatives, but rather, would like to leave just enough—“living fossils” as he called them—“so we will never forget what these people stood for.” After all, these are things that Rush Limbaugh has said, about Barack Obama’s administration, Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama, a fight on a school bus in Belleville, Illinois in which two black kids beat up a white kid, and about liberals, generally.
Imagine that a black pastor, formerly a member of the U.S. military, were to declare, as part of his opposition to a white president’s policies, that he was ready to “suit up, get my gun, go to Washington, and do what they trained me to do.” This is, after all, what Pastor Stan Craig said recently at a Tea Party rally in Greenville, South Carolina.
Imagine a black radio talk show host gleefully predicting a revolution by people of color if the government continues to be dominated by the rich white men who have been “destroying” the country, or if said radio personality were to call Christians or Jews non-humans, or say that when it came to conservatives, the best solution would be to “hang ‘em high.” And what would happen to any congressional representative who praised that commentator for “speaking common sense” and likened his hate talk to “American values?” After all, those are among the things said by radio host and best-selling author Michael Savage, predicting white revolution in the face of multiculturalism, or said by Savage about Muslims and liberals, respectively. And it was Congressman Culbertson, from Texas, who praised Savage in that way, despite his hateful rhetoric.
Imagine a black political commentator suggesting that the only thing the guy who flew his plane into the Austin, Texas IRS building did wrong was not blowing up Fox News instead. This is, after all, what Anne Coulter said about Tim McVeigh, when she noted that his only mistake was not blowing up the New York Times.
Imagine that a popular black liberal website posted comments about the daughter of a white president, calling her “typical redneck trash,” or a “whore” whose mother entertains her by “making monkey sounds.” After all that’s comparable to what conservatives posted about Malia Obama on freerepublic.com last year, when they referred to her as “ghetto trash.”
Imagine that black protesters at a large political rally were walking around with signs calling for the lynching of their congressional enemies. Because that’s what white conservatives did last year, in reference to Democratic party leaders in Congress.
In other words, imagine that even one-third of the anger and vitriol currently being hurled at President Obama, by folks who are almost exclusively white, were being aimed, instead, at a white president, by people of color. How many whites viewing the anger, the hatred, the contempt for that white president would then wax eloquent about free speech, and the glories of democracy? And how many would be calling for further crackdowns on thuggish behavior, and investigations into the radical agendas of those same people of color?
To ask any of these questions is to answer them. Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.
And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis.
Game Over.
Tim Wise is among the most prominent anti-racist writers and activists in the U.S. Wise has spoken in 48 states, on over 400 college campuses, and to community groups around the nation. Wise has provided anti-racism training to teachers nationwide, and has trained physicians and medical industry professionals on how to combat racial inequities in health care. His latest book is called Between Barack and a Hard Place.
I actually do sometimes get writing ideas. They usually occur when I first wake up and I’m sitting on the toilet or taking a shower. By the time I have left the bathroom and fed the baby and awakened the other daughter and fed the dogs and taken them potty and dried my hair and dressed and made the bed and eaten breakfast and straightened the house before leaving for work and gotten my stuff ready and left the idea is usually gone. No, it is always gone. The day happens and if I’m lucky a moment rolls around…
Below is the text of the order by the bankruptcy court in the Northern District of Georgia for Pure Med Spa:
On the 17th day of December, 2009, came on to be heard the Motion to Dismiss Chapter 7 Cases of Non-Operating Debtors (the “Motion”) filed on behalf of Edwin K. Palmer, duly appointed Chapter 7 Trustee (the “Trustee”) for Pure Laser Hair Removal & Treatment Clinics Inc. (“Pure”), John Street Holdings LLC (“JSH”), GRF Medspa Broadway Plaza, LLC, GRF Medspa Redmond Town Center Mall, LLC, GRF Medspa Santa Ana, LLC, GRF Medspa Santa Clara, LLC, GRF Medspa Southcenter, LLC, GRF Medspa Washington Square Mall, LLC, GRF Medspa Village at Corte Madera, LLC, GRF Medspa Clackamas Town Center, LLC, GRF Medspa North Town Mall, LLC, GRF Medspa Alderwood Mall, LLC, GRF Medspa Bellis Fair Mall, LLC, GRF Medspa Fashion Show, LLC and GRF Medspa Sherman Oaks, LLC (collectively, the “Jointly-Administered Debtors”).
Pursuant to the Motion, the Debtor has represented that the Chapter 7 cases for each of the Jointly-Administered Debtors are to be dismissed, other than the Chapter 7 cases of In re Pure Laser Hair Removal & Treatment Clinics, Inc., Case No. 09-62038, and In re John Street Holdings LLC, Case No. 09-62039 (collectively, the “Remaining Cases”).
After reviewing the Motion and the pleadings on file, the Court is of the opinion, and so finds, that no written objections were filed with regard to said Motion and that good cause exists to grant the Motion. At the time the Motion was called for hearing, no parties appeared to object to the Motion. Accordingly, it is hereby ORDERED AND ADJUDGED as follows:
1. The Motion is GRANTED as set forth herein;
2. The above-captioned Chapter 7 case of GRF Medspa North Town Mall, LLC; Case No. 08-85315 is hereby dismissed.
3. Upon entry of this Order, the Remaining Cases will no longer be jointly-administered and any future pleadings, motions or other filings that relate to either of the Remaining Cases must be filed in the applicable Remaining Case unless and until such Remaining Cases are jointly-administered or substantively consolidated by a future Order of the Court.
4. Notwithstanding this dismissal, all orders previously entered in this Chapter 7 case or any of the Chapter 7 cases of the Jointly-Administered Debtors shall remain in full force and effect.
I finally started the article I have been planning to write for over a year. Every two or three days another comment comes in on the company detailing further bad acts. Over and over people tell stories of failed treatments, closed doors, lost money, and injuries. I have been called by Jeff Nourse. I have spoken to employees and customers. An attorney general called me to ask what I knew about the company’s practices. A local Portland television station profiled a victim of Pure Med Spa and called to get my input. A financier in New York called because the CEO and CFO had contacted him to borrow money. Basic research led him to this site and to me. Along the way Pure Med changed to Brite Smile, and the stories continued. More money lost. More people harmed.
It is time to get the word out that this company is a public health hazard. When another story popped into my inbox tonight, I stopped reading my book, pulled out the computer, and started working on the story. The words are flowing. I am going to write about this disaster of a company who steals its customers’ money, disfigures and scars their bodies, and runs rampant over its employees. Then I am going to submit the story to every major woman’s magazine in this country. Hopefully one of them will realize that this story is a big one, and that in order to protect consumers, the story needs to be told so that no one gives them another penny and nobody else gets hurt.
Some people have asked me Why aren’t these people in jail? They are crooks! They hurt me! They stole my money! Why indeed. Something needs to happen to stop them before someone else gets hurt. If we can’t jail them, at least I can try and stop them with my words.
Gads. It’s getting to the point where I can hardly stand to read anything about the news anymore. The level of disconnect of so many citizens in this country is disheartening. So many people get all their information from one news channel and screaming talk radio. So many have zero knowledge about the issues they scream about. They know a few buzzwords, but have no idea what the hell it is they are talking about. And it seems that the typical response of these ignorant fools when presented with a logical, educated response to their ranting is to diverge off into another unrelated rant. Seriously disheartening.
On a personal note, too often lately I have writing ideas that do not get written down. I’m back where I was five or six years ago when I didn’t write things down and would lose so many good ideas. I do that all the time now. Back then, I decided to carry around a tablet to write on when I thought of something. Then I became good at writing every day on the computer (and especially this blog) and the ideas started getting captured. Then I took my life down a path and did not end up at the expected destination and stopped writing as much and the ideas are getting lost again. I think the notebook is going to have to return to capture some of the ideas. Disheartening too.
Isabel is lying on my lap asleep. Milla and I watched a movie tonight called The Private Lives of Pippa Lee. Sadly, I could identify with Pippa’s feelings of helplessness and despair. I loved it when she finally realized she was free from the cage of a life she created for herself. I wonder what is going to be my catalyst. Is there going to be one or am I stuck here forever because I made decisions I thought were the right ones and they turned out to be not so great? For years I went through life just kind of taking it as it came. Then I started living with intention, making decisions with some effort towards control of my destiny and things turned out worse.
Of course, here I am saying that with this daughter on my lap I would not trade for anything ever. With Milla I knew without question that I did not regret one second of my life up until the moment she was conceived because I would not want anything to have happened that would have led to life without her. Now I would not trade Isabel for anything, but I have regrets. I cannot reconcile these two perspectives. I do not know how I can want Isabel with all my heart, yet know that I hold so many regrets. Although come to think of it the strongest of my regrets are for after she was conceived. I could live with the choices up to that minute. I actually wish I had done things much differently after. So I suppose the two aren’t so different. Good to realize.
Today I bought a Kenneth Cole leather computer bag for twenty bucks. Not bad. Fits the new computer. My personal computer is a Macbook and it’s smaller, so the new computer would not fit in the bag. I was thinking I was going to have to get some ugly thing because I didn’t want to spend much, so this was a nice buy. I would have liked to find a yellow or orange or pink leather one, but that would have cost a lot more, so this will do. Black works. Plus it’s big enough I can carry files in it too.
Well I’ve wasted twenty minutes writing about not much so I’m going to stop and go to bed. I’m tired. Good night.
Oh brain of mine, where have you gone? Why have you deserted me? Is it because you have not been challenged lately with the things you like? Is it because I made you read that horrible book? I’m sorry about that. I thought it might turn better and, stubborn me, kept going even when I should have just said enough. Is it because I haven’t been running? I have been riding horses. That’s some exercise, don’t you think? Is it because I haven’t been writing? I would like to, I really would. But all I do is run and run and run and run and when it gets to the end of the day, you are tired and I have to let you rest. When you are tired, you really escape me. Now it is nearly midnight and baby is asleep but if I do not go to bed now, you will be a disaster tomorrow and desert me even further. So here I am, wasting time asking you where you are. La la la…
Ah, sleep. My lovely friend, you are my blissful savior. For months you have evaded me, trickling in and out like a stealthy lover. Yet tonight you arrived on my doorstep to spend the night, lolling beside me on my bedsheets, holding me close to your bosom. Each time you have graced me with your spiriting presence you removed my mind, carrying it off to unknown vistas. Your visit has restored my thoughts, revived my spirit. Please do not leave me again–my heart and mind will break without you.
I tried watching the Olympics on the internet tonight. Greedy NBC can’t even let you watch old stuff without inserting hideous commercials so I turned it off. Then I decided to try and watch it from another country. Canadian Television worked just fine without the stupid Proctor and Gamble ads. Gag. Commercials are one of the main reasons I do not own a television. That, and most shows are so inane I can’t stand to waste my precious time watching them. Life is happening; I would rather experience it (even when it’s not that exciting) than spend my time staring at some dumb television show. I think back to the shows I used to watch when I had a t.v. and none of them were worth the time I spent.
I do like some of the cable series and have watched them on DVD, Six Feet Under, Weeds, and Dexter. Unfortunately, though, whenever I get into one of these shows, they take over my life because I just want to watch and watch until I get to the end. However, I do look back fondly on them, like a good book, which is different than mainstream television shows I spent years watching (ER, Party of Five, and Ally McBeal). Years after I quit watching ER I tuned in. None of the characters I had watched before were left. I quit when they took the adopted child away from the gay doctor because she was gay. That just made me too mad and I didn’t want to hang around for weeks to try and find out what happened, plus they always took months long breaks.
I haven’t had a television now for years and I don’t miss it. Thought I missed it some when the Olympics started, but having tried to watch via NBC, I’ve gotten a clue how they run things and I would hate it. I’m not missing anything. NBC would chop the shit out of it all, ruin it with ads and cuts to other events right when things were getting interesting, keep out the athletes who aren’t their pets, and generally make viewing miserable. I can get whatever I need right here on the internet. I’ll log in to Ukranian television. Yeah, that will work.
I’m so tired. I did not sleep well early this morning before dawn and then baby woke up early. The two of us slept a bit after she woke up, but it wasn’t long enough for me. I had an active day and now it hit me. I’m exhausted.
Wasn’t this a special post?
Have you ever had the experience where simply communicating with someone is so much work that you end up not speaking much of the time just because you don’t want to deal with the effort of it? You find yourself silent a lot of the time or only speaking about nonsense that means not much in the scheme of things. Then when you spend time with another person who isn’t so difficult to communicate with, it takes time to remember what it was like to have a conversation of any consequence, so you’re silent for a while. But then once you get started you talk and talk and talk, as if you opened a dam letting the water move into the empty basin below. Weird, these conversations that are too much effort.
It’s so weird. Every time my daughter logs me out of my WordPress account and logs herself into hers, then logs herself out, her name is in the login field. I just logged myself out and back in and there was her username even though I chose keep me logged in. Hmmm.
Let me state from the outset that I have been examined by a physician and I am not clinically depressed. I have also seen a psychiatrist and she has also said that I am not depressed. I was. During my pregnancy, I suffered severe perinatal depression. I came to understand that perinatal depression is often intrinsically linked to one’s relationships and support systems. Pregnancy creates its own little hormonal time-bomb; bad relationships or lack of support can set the bomb off. In my case, I had both. My partner was fundamentally incapable of dealing with the mental demands of my pregnancy, and I was 3000 miles away from my friends and family. I got well, however. I went to a psychiatrist. She helped me to understand the physical changes and demands of my pregnancy on my brain, and provided the support I was not getting at home. Although I do not see her regularly anymore, I maintain contact with her and have continued taking depression screens. I am not depressed.
I open with that caveat because I have changed in a way with which I am not quite at ease., but the lack of ease is not manifesting itself as angst. Rather, I observe that I am how I am. I’ve become ridiculously unflappable, even when it seems flap might be in order. I observe people experiencing their emotions, particularly in relationships, and often I wonder what all the excitement is about. It isn’t that I don’t feel. Quite the contrary. I love my daughters so much it can bring me to tears. Yet I see how people get quite excited about things that seem so silly and I simply cannot feel it. I feel like I’m observing beings from another planet.
I have become remarkably disengaged. I used to feel a pressing urge to write and publish. Lately, I have the desire to write, but it isn’t quite so urgent anymore. Words aren’t tapping my brain. They are there. They swim in and swim out. But mostly now it’s like I’m a fish swimming along observing, with no desire to share it with anyone. Life is there. I see it. Now I see something else. It’s odd, this feeling. My head used to be so energetic. No more. So much of what I observe seems so unendingly ridiculous. Humanity seems destined for demise, at a faster and faster pace, and I’m just swimming along watching. This is part of why I haven’t found much to write about lately; nothing seems much to demand so much energy. So much of what goes on seems such a waste of time, and I’m busy taking care of my baby, my daughter, and myself. I’m not talking about the things that are important. I’m not talking about working hard on things that are worthwhile. But a lot of energy is wasted on a lot that isn’t important at all, and I cannot fathom what all the fuss is about. The whole world seems caught up in a lot of nonsense. A LOT of nonsense. Reality television, piss poor bands, sports, “Tea Parties” by uneducated fools who wouldn’t know democracy if it hit them in the face, which star slept with whom, and on and on. I know. I’m being judgmental. But so much of what is important is lost in the barrage of incessant noise, background constancy that distracts and distracts and distracts, numbing and pulling attention away from most of what is important.
The other day I pulled up in front of my house to wait for my daughter to bring something out to me from the house. As I sat there waiting for her, a person drove up behind me. They could have gone around, there was room, but did not. After about 20 seconds, the woman gunned her engine and drove up next to me, screaming and flipping me off, before driving on. I just looked at her. What in the world was that about? Why all the fuss over having to go around? People can be seriously deranged.
Some say if you aren’t mad, you aren’t paying attention. To some degree I agree. But I just can’t get fired up anymore. Over and over and over, hypocrisy, ignorance, and idiocy seem destined for superiority. So I observe. I feel like someone watching humanity as it drives itself over a cliff.
I’m ashamed to admit how much time I can waste on Facebook. I only signed up about a year ago. It was a nice tool for keeping in touch with Portlanders after we moved to New York. Then it became a nice tool for posting information about the baby. Lately I find myself surfing around friends’ friends and seeing if I missed any potential friends. I also respond to nonsense.
I read somewhere that studies have shown that surfing these sites releases some neurotransmitter similar to getting a drug. We keep coming back for more to get that neurotransmitter, but it doesn’t provide the satisfaction of a good, real conversation. I think I relate. I crave connection, but with all our running around, it’s hard to get together with people.
I was sitting here tonight, reading down the News Page again and thought to myself that if I’m surfing useless Facebook information, I’m not working on my article, I’m not working on my book, I’m not writing on my blog, I’m not sewing the Presidents Day dress I want to make for Isabel. I’m wasting time. So here I am, writing this useless piece of information about my wasting time. Such a better use.
Right.
This is happening and there are people who want to scream that Obama has a foreign birth certificate or bitch because they might have to pay some amount of taxes? Bankers take home millions? Good God almighty this country is FUCKED UP.
I’m so frustrated with this country. I wish I had never heard the results of the Massachusetts election. I can’t stand the stupid, short-sightedness in this country. If anyone thinks Republicans are going to do anything to fix anything, they are fucking crazy. This country would not be in this mess if it weren’t for decades of conservative thinking. It never works. People think the middle of the road Democrats need to fix things immediately or they will just vote in the bastards who created the mess in the first place, and things only get worse. Problems take years to accumulate and they want changes to happen in minutes.
Conservative thinking has made a concerted effort to make Americans believe government is the problem, then they set out to gut government in order to back up their goals, getting people to believe that laissez-faire, market-driven capitalism is in their interests. After their jobs have been sent overseas, their homes taken from them, no healthcare, no food, gutted schools, and no social programs to speak of, Americans blame government for the problem, rather than blaming the tiny elite who manipulated them in the first place using issues like abortion and same-sex marriage to get people to vote against their economic interests. It’s terrifying. In reality, governments work well in many countries, countries that let governments run effectively and don’t let big money run loose to do as it pleases.
I find it ironic that the same people who lament the giant banks and their big bonuses and corrupt business practices vote in the same people who ensure these policies stay in place and their actions will become even more blatant. It makes me crazy. People listen to uneducated fools like Sarah Palin, think she’s “like them,” in spite of the fact her bank account is nothing like theirs and she makes our nation look like a country of fools. They get caught up in the hateful ire of Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly, without considering the motivations of these very wealthy, very hateful men. They blame Obama for the bailouts, and he wasn’t even president when it happened! I’m so sick of the ignorance, I can barely manage to follow politics in this country anymore.
I know the people I admire urge me to continue to try and make the world a better place, that in giving up hope, those hateful bastards win. But seriously, how is one supposed to cope knowing things are only going to get worse and knowing I have two children for whom I want the world to be a better place, and for whom I want a planet for them to live on and prosper? It almost makes me ashamed for having brought them into this place. I love them more than life itself. I only hope there is a planet for them to live on that isn’t as bleak and horrible as it seems doomed to be.
This article can be seen here on Huffington Post. If you like it, Digg It or Buzz it Up.
Pat Robertson has been getting a lot of attention for his hateful, insensitive remarks about the victims of the earthquake in Haiti (and the victims of 9/11, and the Christmas Day tsunami, and Hurricane Katrina). This is understandable. Those of us with anything resembling a moral compass are shocked that he could believe such things and that he has the audacity to spew them in the wake of such tragedies.
Yet as horrendously mean-spirited as Robertson’s statements are, we should also be upset that his opinions receive national attention. Why? Because broadcasters choose to air his program. If broadcasters refused to air his nastiness, no one would have to hear about it. The way to keep him from getting national attention is to get broadcasters to stop airing his show.
Viewers can control what is shown by boycotting advertisers who fund his offensive program. If we want to stop hearing Pat Robertson, we need to make sure the broadcasters who air his program are not paid for it, thereby removing their incentive to air him.
The primary network airing The 700 Club is the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). Call the CBN and tell them to stop airing this show. Call networks and tell them to stop airing the show. Tell them if they do not pull the show, you will boycott their advertisers. Then call their advertisers and tell them you will not buy their products if they advertise on networks that air The 700 Club, or if they advertise on the CBN until the network pulls the show.
The CBN should drop Pat Robertson and The 700 Club. He does not espouse Christian values (or any values at all), such as compassion, kindness, generosity, humility, or selflessness. Let’s all do our part to ensure the next time tragedy strikes, Pat Robertson’s ugliness receives zero attention because none of us have to hear it.
Do we gain more as individuals if we face our darkest secrets, the parts of us we find so reprehensible, the parts that are truly unforgivable? Is there something to be improved by this? If we admit these things, if only to ourselves, do we cower in the face of them or realize and accept they are there and move on? Can we do both? What do you do if there is nothing you can do to make what you have done right except to never do anything like it again?
I’m reading this book about a man who prosecuted some of the worst criminals. He was able to interview many of them as potential witnesses in later cases. He said many of them were completely depressed, as if they were unable to face their own cruelty.
There are actions a person can take that may not violate any societal laws that are immoral nonetheless. We may find them so despicable, it is difficult to live with ourselves. What happens then? Is there a relief in confession? Does knowing another human being knows your worst make it somehow better?
I don’t know. I just don’t know.
Having a baby makes writing really difficult to get to.
I used to be prolific on this blog. Now I’m not. I wrote and wrote and wrote here. Now I don’t. It can’t do for me what it used to do, isn’t the place where I can write what I need to write much of the time. I have toyed with the idea of ending it, but nah, I don’t need to do that. I like its place. There is still stuff to be said here. I have other outlets I can use for the other stuff I can use instead.
I thought of a story while running yesterday. Often these running brain stories fritter away after I stop running. Last week I thought of one with a mailman and a person in their house and their conversations, but later it seemed stupid.
But the one I thought of yesterday I kind of like. It’s filling out, taking shape. Tonight I actually wanted to work on it, so I will. It might take more time from this blog, but I don’t mind. I like getting ideas that I want to write about; they give me something to look forward to.
I have also realized that I have gotten out of the habit of writing. I was in the habit before, and noticed when I didn’t do it, and I thought of things I wanted to say all the time. Now I don’t think of it, although I still occasionally think of things to say. Right now, all I can think of to say is that I have a cold and my head hurts. That’s all there is to say about that.
When Milla was a baby, I kept a diary of her first days in pen and paper format. Since she was born, blogs have appeared on the world scene. I started keeping track on this blog because honestly I had nothing else I was interested in writing about and this seemed as good a place as any to write about her. However, someday when I actually feel like writing about something other than Isabel, I would like to have this blog for that purpose so I set up a blog especially for Isabel. It is called Days of Isabel and can be found here if anyone is interested. In the meantime, this blog will continue to be what it has been. I will leave up the Isabel posts, although they are transferred completely to the other blog as well.
Fifteenth day of life.
Not much exciting to report. Today we went over to Gramma’s house for dinner because Daddy’s birthday was the day after Isabel’s. We had turkey dinner and Gramma, Aunt Sarah, and Cousin Caroline held Isabel. After dinner, Isabel and I took a nap that felt amazing. I’m so tired all the time, so any nap is welcome. Milla dressed doggy Ava up in baby clothes, then retired to the basement to play Rock Band and sing. Isabel and I slept through this. Other than that, we didn’t do much today. It was nice to relax. Isabel is beautiful. I took a lot of photos of her, but then left the camera at Gramma’s so I could not download them as I had hoped to do tonight. Ah well. I will get it done later.
Today Isabel is two weeks old. She had an adventurous day, of sorts. Considering she slept through most of it, I’m not sure how much of an adventure it really was.
First we went to Sauvie Island to the pumpkin patch. We were going to go to the main big one with the giant corn maze, but when we arrived at about 2 in the afternoon on a Saturday a couple of weeks before Halloween, we discovered that everyone else in Portland had the same idea. There was a line of cars a half a mile long on the road to the patch so when we got there, we just kept driving on past the patch. We told Milla we would come back during the week when things would likely not be as crowded. She was amenable to this when she saw the crowds and lines. We drove on around part of the island and in the process, discovered another, more unknown pumpkin patch with animals, caramel apples, a smaller corn maze, a hay maze, hayrides, orchards, and flowers.
Milla and Daddy went off in search of a pumpkin while Isabel nursed on my lap as I sat on a hay bale under a fruit tree. The sun was beaming and warm, and sitting under the heat nursing baby Isabel was quite pleasant. After she had milk I changed her diaper in the shade under another tree. By then Milla had found her pumpkin. She and I and the baby went to check out the corn maze and animals, I picked out a pumpkin for me, and Milla picked out a little one for Isabel. Milla pulled the wagon up to the checkout where we stopped first to buy caramel apples and cider before heading on our way. It was certainly an enjoyable afternoon.
Later in the day, Daddy was playing with the Portland Jazz Orchestra doing a tribute to Buddy Rich. Isabel and I went to watch him. The Jazz Orchestra is a 17 piece big band. I sat in the way back because I expected the music to be loud. It was loud, but Isabel slept through the whole thing. The only time she wiggled a bit was after a piece when the audience erupted in applause. She was not terribly fond of the clapping. The music was fantastic and the stories from the band member who played with the Buddy Rich band in the sixties were entertaining. It was a fun show.
After the show, right after I got Isabel strapped into her car seat, she pooped. I removed her from the car seat and changed her diaper in the front seat of the car, bundled her back up, strapped her in the car seat, whereupon she promptly pooped again. Silly girl!
Overall the day was lovely. Milla is looking forward to carving her pumpkin. I’m looking forward to sleep. Isabel is looking forward to milk. Easy goals, I think.
Twelfth day of life.
I love my baby. She is lying her on my arms as I type, completely sacked out. She is so cute. She just drank a bunch of milk and crashed. She loves her milk.
Today she had her second checkup with the midwives. They weighed her (8 pounds, 15 ounces) and pronounced that she would likely be back up to birth weight at two weeks after birth (this Saturday). They checked her belly button because it has been kind of oozy and said it looked normal and the ooziness would heal. They had to perform the second half of the heal stick test where they take blood to send to the state. Isabel did not like this but she didn’t flat out cry. Rather she whimpered. This was not fun for Mommy and Daddy.
I called a friend today who has been expecting a baby to adopt. It turns out his baby was born on the same day as Isabel! He and his wife have been waiting for a baby for nearly two years. I am so happy for them that they finally have a daughter to love.
I have been having baby loss fears like I had with Milla, where I worry about SIDS and other disasters taking my baby from me. I force the thoughts from my mind and do my best to avoid dangers, but the thoughts still lurk there, worries unbidden. I just love this little person so much and do not want anything to happen to her.
Today I bought her a night light for her changing table and some pictures of duckies to hang there as well. Cute stuff.
Oh, she just made me laugh. She is lying here sleeping on my lap and started to squirm a bit then pooted a big poot that made her jump, her eyes flying open in surprise. This made me giggle. Now that the bubble is out she is sleeping soundly again.
Isabel has more and more alert awake times. She coos and talks, waving her arms and making faces. She is a sweet baby. She is wonderful to sleep with. She wakes up to drink milk then falls promptly asleep. She hasn’t awakened to chat in the middle of the night in a few days, probably because she has been having an alert, awake time right before we go to bed. I am going to check and see if the next time she doesn’t have an alert, awake time right before bed if she wakes up in the middle of the night.
In spite of these mostly sleeping nights, I am still really tired and have been taking daily naps with her. I just can’t feel completely rested when the longest sleep stretch is three hours, but that will come later. I am enjoying having her this age. She is delightful. I love her so much and am so thankful she was born.
Tenth day of life.
Oh, tired. Tired to the bone. I sleep. I actually sleep many hours. I just don’t sleep that many in a row, so I’m tired. Isabel and I took three naps together today. I was falling over in my soup I was so tired. I had to just get up and go into the bedroom and lie down on the bed. Normally I tend towards insomnia and cannot sleep deeply without earplugs. Since my baby sleeps with me I am not using the earplugs and have learned to sleep without them. This is useful. The funny thing is when I had bad insomnia and was a walking zombie I could not fall asleep without them. Maybe it helps to be flooded with baby love hormones.
Isabel has a cold. I have instituted a no visitors policy. When visitors do come again, they cannot touch my baby without first washing their hands. She has congestion and this morning she had a fever. She is so tiny, I hate her feeling ill at this age. Apparently it is good for the immune system, but I still don’t like my babies to be sick. Breastfeeding helps, considering it has immunities in it she doesn’t have and won’t for a couple of years. She has been drinking a lot of milky.
Cutting the frenulum helped immensely with nursing. She gulps her milk now. I have also discovered that I basically cannot eat sugary things at all. It gives us both gas. Since making this discovery both of us have felt better in the gas department. I wasn’t even eating that much, just dessert after a meal. I don’t sit around forking candy into my face or anything. But the amount was enough to bother both of our digestive systems, so no more for me. I’ll have fruit for dessert instead. It’s healthier anyway.
Thoughts certainly fritter off into the ether when I’m tired. I had a thought about something I wanted to write when I was writing about fruit for dessert and by the time I get here the thought is gone. This is how it has been for me, but oh well, I have a baby to love so I don’t care.
Lara Gardner’s Weblog, so long full of angst and loneliness, heartache and concern, now a lovefest to her new baby. I’m giddy in love with this little person. She is lying here nursing right now and making these little hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm noises between gulps. Her little right hand is resting on her cheek, her left hand on her chest. She is so relaxed, so content, such a delightful little human. She sighs, then hmms, then takes another drink. Pure and utter bliss. How boring I must be to read right now! I don’t even care. How wonderful it is to be bathed in gobs of loviness. I cannot complain.
Today we went to the little shop where I bought her g diapers because I could not figure out how to use them properly. I bought a couple of newborn sizes, and received several small sizes from Daddy’s mom. The newborn ones didn’t work. The small ones were too big. It turns out that the cloth inserts really don’t work that well when they are really little. There are disposable, biodegradable inserts that work for these little ones. We went and bought some of these inserts and lo and behold, they work! I’m pleased because we have been using some disposable ones, but they just aren’t as soft. They are supposed to be biodegradable. Maybe that is why they aren’t very soft, but the non-biodegradable ones aren’t soft either, so that’s probably not it. They just aren’t cloth, which is softer. That’s all there is to it.
Our little dog Ava is very curious about the baby, but she is also very good. She sits a bit of a distance away and leans her head forwardly, cautiously sniffing. What is that thing? she seems to ask. She looks at the baby, then looks at me, then looks back at the baby, giving her a good sniff. Between Milla, Ava, and Isabel, we live in the land of cuteness. It is nice place to be.
Sixth day of life.
Tomorrow it will have been a week since Isabel was born. Wow. What an amazing week. The first days with a baby are so visceral, so present. I love it. I spend time simply looking at her, memorizing her face, her hands, her feet, her body. Baby love is wonderful. Pure bliss.
Today was an eventful day for Miss Isabel. She had her first pediatrician visit, and because she had a short frenulum, her first surgical procedure. I really like our new pediatrician. He is a naturopathic doctor, very practical and down to earth. I adore his bedside manner. He’s been a physician for years, and his relaxed manner and confidence is evident in all he does.
As I said, Isabel had a short frenulum. The midwives pointed this out the day she was born, but I didn’t think anything of it. After five days of nipple hell though, I decided to look up the ramifications of it. One of the most common is the inability to latch on properly. Isabel was doing her darndest to try, but it just wasn’t working. Her little tongue didn’t reach far enough. No wonder she was nursing all the time–she was hungry!!
All the websites on short frenulums (otherwise known as being tongue-tied) said clipping it was quick and painless. I’ll agree with the former, but to call the procedure painless isn’t quite accurate. The doctor takes a pair of scissors and clips the skin under the tongue, the frenulum. It is a cutting and it stings and bleeds. Isabel cried for a minute until she was able to get on my breast, but I have little doubt the mini wound was sore for a little while. I’ve cut that skin before and it smarts. Things seemed to heal up quickly though, and the differences while nursing are remarkable. The procedure was definitely worth it. Isabel gets tons of milk now and her constant nursing has stopped. The nipples appear to be on the mend, although they are still very sore. They had cracks and scabs on them. Ouch!
Later this evening my friend Sara came to visit, bringing her little daughter Leah and dinner for the two of us. Daddy had a concert tonight and Milla went to watch him, so it was girls’ night here with my friend and our daughters. It was a pleasant way to spend the evening.
Milla came home excited from the concert. She apparently fell asleep at the end of the first set and then danced through the second! Silly girl. She loves big band music. She also loves dressing up, so the evening provided her with pleasure on both counts.
Tomorrow it will be a week. This has been one of the best weeks of my life, filled with baby love.
Fifth day of life.
Today was fairly uneventful. Miss Isabel decided to be awake again last night, which was actually pretty wonderful. She woke and ate around 1:30, then woke again around 3:30 and was up for about an hour and a half. We went into Milla’s room to hang out because Milla has some pretty butterfly lights she leaves on at night. The light in her room is cozy and warm, perfect for a middle of the night Mama/Daughter hangout. Isabel cooed and kicked, waved her arms, stretched her neck, and looked directly at me, practicing using her eyes. Long-legged Milla snuggled next to us, the dog at the foot of the bed. It was a most pleasant manner in which to spend the darkened hours.
Once we went back to bed, Isabel awoke again around 7 for some milky, then fell promptly asleep until 11. We both slept until 11 actually. When she woke up she stayed awake for several hours. We went for a quick visit to the store and she slept the entire time in the front-pack carrier. We also had 2 visitors. My friend Rita came for an hour at 2 and my friend Kathleen came for a couple of hours at 6. Both times she slept through the visits except to have a small bit of milk. I guess those long stretches of being awake just wore her out.
Seriously? I am in love. I know I have said it before, but it is true. Baby bliss is truly blissful and amazing. I love it.
Isabel goes for a ride in the car.
Fourth complete day, starting the fifth.
Today Isabelle pooped. The funny thing about babies is that it is easy to be happy about things like poop. She has not pooped since the first day of her life when she pooped a bunch of meconium. This isn’t much of a surprise since my milk really didn’t come in fully until yesterday so she has only been eating colostrum, which generally doesn’t make poop. Today she pooped really early this morning, like 3:30 a.m. Then she did it again this evening. Sweet darling little pooper.
Last night was very different than the night before. Something I learned with Milla is that the only thing one can count on with babies is that the will always change patterns on you. Isabelle is too young to have developed any patterns anyway, so I’m just observing how she is. The night before she was awake for several hours. Last night she ate at 12:30, then woke up at 3:30, fell promptly asleep after, then woke again at 7:30 and fell promptly asleep after. She had a couple of days where she was awake a lot. Today she was asleep a lot.
Today was also her first venture into the world outside. I needed several baby things and also really just wanted to get out of the house so she had her first car ride and visit to the store. She slept the entire way to the first store and through the whole visit. I wore her in my front pack and she snuggled against me. Oh, I love her so much.
We then needed to go to JC Penney because we need a curtain to cover this high window in our room, the light through which really bothers Isabelle. It is in the wall behind our bed so when I sit and nurse the light comes right in at her face. I also needed some nursing bras. This trip was exhausting. I fed her in the car before we went in, but she did not want to be in the carrier anymore and was awake. I did not want her hanging out in the mall. I hate malls and especially did not want my tiny baby there. We sat in the curtain area and she nursed some more, but when we tried putting her in the carrier with Daddy, she got upset again, so I just carried her to bras. They did not have a bra with a normal fastener.
An aside here. Why is it all the maternity bra companies have gone to these horrible clips that cannot be opened with one hand? Is it a conspiracy by formula companies to keep women from breastfeeding? Damn annoying.
Anyway, I nursed her a bit again in the bra section, then just put her in the carrier. She fell promptly asleep. We decided to look for bras at Motherhood Maternity since we were already there, I was tired, and wanted to get something and get it done. The trouble is that store is at the other end of the mall. The walk there and back wore me out completely. Motherhood Maternity bras had the same unworkable clasp as every brand at Penney’s so I just gave up, resolving to look on the internet. I fell asleep in the car on the way home I was so tired.
Now we are home and Isabel is still asleep. After I get off the computer I get to snuggle and nurse my little baby again. Right now Isabel, Milla, and Ava the dog are sprawled across the bed sleeping together. I love my girls. They are wonderful.
I awoke this morning at 6:59 a.m. to a pain that hurt like a terrible menstrual cramp and ran down the insides of my legs. Considering how many false alarms I’ve had with painful contractions, I considered that this too might not be real. However, the pain was real enough I could not go back to sleep. I lumbered out of bed and went to the bathroom. In the bathroom, I started having very real, very painful contractions. I called out to the others in the house, but they were asleep. I was having gastrointestinal problems because the night before I made the mistake of eating cheese pasta with truffles. I knew better. I am allergic to milk. Not just intolerant, but allergic. This means that if I drink milk or get its protein in cheese or other things, I get allergy symptoms and severe gastrointestinal upset. However I had smelled the truffles in this pasta and they were so heavenly, I thought one small scoop would not hurt. It did.
As I sat there having contractions and going through the unpleasant side effects of eating cheese, I knew this was it. I finally was able to get up and go tell Daddy to set up the birthing tub. I then tried to straighten a few things in between contractions. At 7:30, I gave up bothering to try and time them and called the midwives. The contractions were hurting so much by then I couldn’t function when they were happening. The tub was filling slowly, but I decided just to get in.
The contractions were intense and painful, so close together there really wasn’t any breather in between. I begged anyone and everyone to make them stop. I was not one of those serene women, suffering in silence. I moaned and groaned. My hips were hurting because the muscles were so stretched from walking around pregnant for 42 weeks. I finally had the urge to push and at 9:19 a.m., September 26, 2009, Miss Isabel Lorraine was born.
I cannot stress enough the pleasure of having our baby at home. As quick as my labor went, I don’t know how we would have made it to the hospital without more torturous pain anyway. Yet after the birth, our experience compared to the birthing center in a hospital experience was so different, so mellow, so peaceful and wonderful. My little baby was with me the entire time. She was weighed and measured on our bed. She snuggled closely skin to skin with a blankie wrapped around her. She found my nipple right away and started suckling. Perfection!
Milla was so enchanted with the entire experience. She video-taped and helped keep the dog out of the way. She was right there the entire time. Mostly the midwives, Daddy, and Milla just stood to the side providing encouragement. I did not want to be touched, but was grateful they were there. After she was as delighted with her sister as we were and could not wait to hug and hold her. She is as in love as we are.
Isabel weighs 9 pounds, 1 ounce, and is 20.5 inches long. A big baby! She looks like a little peach. Her face is round and perfect, her hair soft and blonde. I am completely in love.
I got this comment on my post about television from some woman named Kristin who appears to think she is part of the morality police. She thinks my not being married causes my daughter more damage than allowing her to watch television. Riiiight…I am so damaging my daughter because I have actively chosen not to partake in an institution based originally in the ownership of women (I was married once, but we did it because the government would give my partner financial aid if he was married and would not if he wasn’t. Government likes marriage too)? I am worse because I do not follow her version of morality? All I can say is, it is nice for you Miss, that you can cut the world so neatly into black and white little boxes. Bad people don’t get married. Good people do. Where does television fit into this exactly? You’re probably one of those people who wanted to keep their children from watching television, but realized it was such a great babysitter, you found excuses to allow it and now you are jealous because I have managed to keep it out of my home when you weren’t able to. Sour grapes to you, Sour Puss.
I have made the choice not to be married rather than allowing people like you to dictate my morality. There are many reasons for this, chief among them the lack of necessity of having my relationship sanctioned by bigots like you. In addition, I refer again to my refusal to take part in an institution that was created by men to improve the likelihood the children to whom they passed their worldly possessions at death were in fact their children. Women were property and religions sanctioned it. I am not interested.
I also gather from your nasty comment about the child in my belly that you think I am a big, bad person for having sex (GASP!) before having a religion or the government sanction my relationship. Guess what, Chica? This is my body. It does not belong to the government or to any religious organization. If I want to have sex without a marriage certificate, I will! I am fully apprised of the risks and benefits in doing so and take action with full awareness of the consequences, including pregnancy.
So take your little version of morality and keep it to yourself. I don’t need for you to read my blog. If you don’t like what I have to say, go somewhere else. No one asked you for your judgmental bullshit, least of all me.
My daughter spent 4 1/2 months living with her father this last winter and spring. In our house, she does not watch television and movies are limited, nor does she play idiot, I mean video games, or ever listen to music on headphones. (She is a Waldorf student, after all, and I have followed these teachings as closely as possible.) At Dad’s house, she was given a television in her room. He let her play video games and bury her brain in headphones listening to true corporate crap. The differences since she spent those four months watching the stupid box are enormous. She was sold on corporate culture, began to believe most advertising (although she is also skeptical if the ad isn’t cute and geared toward selling to a ten-year-old), and generally thinks all the television that was left on at all hours of the day was entertaining.
I don’t know if I did her any favors keeping this shit from her if seeing it makes it so palatable. Yet I still would not change that most of her life has not been spent in front of the idiot box. The first couple of weeks after she came home she kept claiming she was “bored” and wanting me to entertain her. Then she slipped back into her home routine and started knitting and creating plays for her stuffed animals and reading, doing all those things with her mind she did not do when she had an idiot box to stare at.
It blows my mind that parents find the thing “educational” and “interactive.” It might present some content or ask questions the child answers, but the child is still sitting there on her butt, being told or asked by flashing movements, more loud and ugly these days. The child is not out making the discovery on her own, thinking and creating, truly interacting.
Milla proved to us her ability to create and design and think on her own, using her own mind. She planned and executed an amazing dog wedding between our dog and the neighbor dog, Luke. She designed and sewed Ava’s gown and veil. She made a marriage certificate with a shiny, glittery, yellow seal. There was a guest list for us all to sign. She wrote the vows and planned the ceremony. She chose the music for all aspects of the ceremony, including the processional, after the vows, the first dances, and the reception. She designed decorations and hung them in the yard, Ava and Luke Tie the Knot. All of it was thorough and amazing. She’s ten. This is what she does instead of staring at the television.
I was thinking about all of this this morning. There was an ad on Dan’s computer before something he was watching on Huffington Post. Milla saw it and said it was a funny commercial. She had seen it at her dad’s. She told us the premise. To me it sounded so damn stupid and ridiculous, nothing funny at all, and I felt sad that she found this shit she had seen on the idiot box amusing. However I long ago realized that her life is hers to live, not mine to control. I can provide certain influences, but so do so many other things and ultimately she will make her own choices. I can only hope that the influences I’ve provided help her to be a functional, healthy, and happy adult. That’s the thing about parenting, if we do our jobs, this is exactly how it should be.
Two tall, beautiful trees. Cutting them down. Nothing wrong with them. But the neighbors have paid some tree murderers to come and kill them. One is gone already. The other is on its way. Trees that must be over a 100 years old. I hate this. I wish they’d leave them alone. They make the street palatable. Our street has some dumpy little houses on it. With the tall, old trees, the street looks stately. Without the trees, it looks dumpy. Idiots. One of them has a bunker in his backyard and no plant life really. He has giant lights he leaves on all night. I say if you want to live in a parking lot at a military bunker, go do it, but don’t destroy a beautiful street because you don’t like the plants.
It’s just disappointing, these tree murdering neighbors.
No baby yet. Just kind of lumping along. I feel like a lumbering cow and must admit to being glad not to have gained any further weight since the last midwife appointment. Right now the baby is wiggling so much it is driving me nuts. She has not been this wiggly all at once in a while. I don’t know what is getting her going, but she sure is moving around. Want to come out, maybe?
My daughter is planning a dog wedding between our dog and the neighbor dog. She designed decorations, has picked out music, and sent out invitations. She certainly has a mind of her own, that one.
Anyway, still no baby. Too tired to write anything else, although I must say that I am ashamed of our country and the legislators who think it is okay to catcall the president during a speech. I hated GW, but I still felt his position deserved the respect of the other branches of government. We have turned into a nation of freaks and ignoramuses. Sad indeed.
Random Thoughts on Everything and Nothing 