dance / run / fight

2008-02-27T11:18:00.000-08:00

I hate doing this but I have to.

For the next two or three weeks, barring a miracle, I will be knee fucking deep in finishing my thesis. As it is, intelligencely, academically, personally, and time-wise, I'm spread micrometer thin. On the big List of Priorities, Graduating is number one. Everything else trails reeaaally far behind. To graduate, I need to finish writing my thesis. To finish writing my thesis, I need to concentrate on nothing else EVER, except writing my thesis.

This is how it plays out in my head: its a nighttime football game, flood lights on, fans are screaming, last quarter, the hometown team is down by three, they need to rush 40 yards in the last down to take home the State Championship (i know what you're thinking...whatever. I don't even want to know how I know how to say all that). And me? I'm the Roided-out coach, with his red polo stretched to the max over his insane pecs, screaming at his poor star quarterback:

Coach: "What kind of a man are you!? Did I raise a team of sissies?? GET THAT BALL IN THE END ZONE."
Quarterback: "Coach... we've been running the ball all quarter. We can't get through their defense... we just can't do it. We're exhausted. We need more time..."
Coach: "I don't give a shit!! I don't care what you do to get there! I don't care if you play dirty; if you stab their linebacker with a shiv to move the ball, I accept and encourage it! YOUR ONLY GOAL IN LIFE IS TO GET ME THOSE POINTS. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS."

I also picture him ending that tirade with "OR SO HELP ME GOD I WILL BREAK YOUR NECK WITH MY TERMINATOR THIGHS." but I'm not sure whether that makes my point come across better.

Ok, I know the above is full of crazy, but that's where my brain is at right now. I am an exhausted, sweaty quarterback, who just wants to go home and eat Mom's casserole and forget about his failure to take his team to the State Championship. But right now, it doesn't matter how much body mass I've lost in perspiration or how I think most of my groin muscles are ripped like silly putty from the bone. Or how much internal bleeding is going on. Right now, a homicidal Coach is screaming in my face to Get It Done or There Will Be Horrible Consequences. And unfortunately, there is no way out of this last 3:00 minutes of the game. I can't fast forward through it, or pass the responsibility on to someone else. The only course of action is to just forget about everything not in my tunnel vision, to suck it up, and make that play happen. And like Coach is saying, NOTHING ELSE MATTERS.

I mean look at this entry, seriously. I obviously don't even have time left to be sane, let alone to write comprehensive blog entries. So, for the next three weeks, I have to abandon this blog. Because this blog is Mom's meaty casserole and the big screen TV at home. And that shit is just NOT on my radar right now. It can't be. The only thing that is important is the endzone.

So while I feel like opting out of all the activities I like, the ones which make me feel human (writing... painting... responding to emails... speaking to my loved ones... showering...), until I see the receiver jump up and catch that beautiful, arcing, perfect pass, I just have to accept that I will be a shit head and sacrifice whatever needs to be sacrificed to make that happen. And apologize later.

See you at the after-party.

**Sorry this entry is full of football references. I... don't really know why. It must be an academic side effect, I don't know.**

something moves in me.

2008-02-15T20:14:00.000-08:00

-----------------------

1.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov7SmA0qIbw
Ingrid Michelson -- The Hat

2.

When you give me back to the world
and the world throws me over, I read Ovid’s
“Cures for Love”: one, love is better
than doing nothing; two, divert the mind
with farming; three, wine promotes sex.
For months I obsess over farm tools, then go to Italy.
But this is supposed to be a sad story,
remember, written in Finnish because
there is no future, there is no forever.
Here is your name crossed out. If you could
now go away from my heart. I’m in Rome
where the gods are lying around at Trevi,
and only the head of the fish on my plate
can look me in the eyes and stay there.
What would Ovid say about this?
The light inside the Pantheon makes me cry
inexplicably. The letter I imagine writing: it is blank.
We are stars as well as dust here. A man
throws fire, the doctor is cutting
my mother’s neck, I’ve lost my way.
Can there really not be any concrete
evidence of love? But this burning sky,
my hands like local relics. Someone
is coming near, someone is vanishing,
I can’t tell which I want
to be real. Now there are bells, now
there is singing, it’s forgiveness
we want. We want to press against
strangers & we want it to be rough.
How much would you pay for joy?
Grandma says nothing is worth
dying for, and in my dreams I can bring her
back to life anytime she decides to leave.
Love is that powerful. Just look at my eyes
saying reaper, spade, sickle. The wine in Rome
has never tasted so lovely. Even this table
you’re leaning on may not be there, someone says.
Even the Forum is all in ruins, and the people
are not sure if history has written them
out from under the rubble.

-- Cures For Love - Stacie Cassarino

3.

"Let me wear it in a locket over my heart," the proud father continued, pacing the room with his empty crystal goblet held in front of him, "and keep it forever, because I have never been so happy in my life, and will be perfectly content if I never experience half of this happiness again -- until the wedding of my other daughter, of course. Indeed," he said, hemming the laughter, "if there are to be no other moments for the rest of time, I would never once complain. Let this be the moment that never ends."

My grandfather squeezed the Gypsy girl's fingers [not his wife, for the record], as if to say, "It's not too late. There is still time. We could run, leave everything behind, never look back, save ourselves."

She squeezed his fingers, as if to say, "You are not forgiven."

Menachem continued, trying to hold back tears, "Please raise your empty glasses with me. To my daughter and new son, to the children they'll produce, and the children of those, to life!"

But before the father of the bride had taken his seat, before the glases had a chance to clink their reflected smiles against one another in hope, the house waws again swept with a haunting guest. The place cards were thrown into the air, and the centerpieces were again knocked over, this time spreading dirt over the white tablecloth and onto almost every lap.

The Gypsy women rushed to clean up the mess, and my grandfather whispered into Zosha's ear, which for him was the Gypsy girl's ear: "It will be OK."

The Gypsy girl, the REAL Gypsy girl, did slip my grandfather a note, although it fell out of his hand in the commotion, was kicked across the floor, by the nameless fishmonger -- to the far end of the table, where it came to rest under an overturned wine glass, which kept it safe until that night, when a Gypsy woman picked up the glass and swept the note (along with fallen food, dirt and piles of dust) into a large paper bag. This bag was put out in front of the house by a different Gypsy woman. The next morning, the paper bag was collected by the obsessive-compulsive garbage man Feigel B. The bag was then taken to a field on the other side of the river, and burned with dozens of other bags, reached into the sky, red and yellow fingers. The smoke spread like a canopy over the neighboring fields, making many a Wisps of Ardisht cough, because every kind of smoke is different and must be made familiar. Some of the ash that remained was incorporated into the soil. The rest was washed away by the next rain and swept into the Brod.

This is what the note said: Change.

-Everything is Illuminated -- Jonathan Safran Foer

it's the weight of the world, i know, as you were mine, and we will find: time will change; still the world remains the same.

2008-02-09T06:02:00.000-08:00

.

Biofuels Deemed a Greenhouse Threat, and could worsen Global Warming, via the New York Times.

Just another wrench in that debate.

It's not like this is the first someone is crying "foul" on ethanol -- National Geographic had a bang-a-rang article a while back, on the most common bio-fuels and their energy capacity, vs. traditional fuels and their energy capacity, vs. alternative fuels and their energy capacity. (Definitely illuminating, even though I don't get any of the physics/math intricacies, because I slept through that year in high school.)

EDIT: I actually did one better and found the National Geographic interactive Biofuel website. Check out the energy balance of corn. Miracle fuel, that.
Then check out its corn's CO2 emissions and retail price as compared to sugarcane.

Not to get all Mulder Sculley conspiracy theory, but Hi!, yes, there's a definitive reason why ethanol has been pushed so hard in this country and abroad, and it doesn't have anything to do with corn burning so fresh, so clean. It does have a lot to do with corn-lobbyists being one of the strongest political lobbying parties in the country, and their ability to grease a few palms on both sides on the debate. Corn is vastly subsidized by the American government, which I'm sure doesn't hurt.

Eco-friendly vs. government interests. Like Stephen Hawking vs. The Rock.

Just in case anyone was listening like 5 months ago, Nature was already talking about the Evil Axis of Corn.

[Note: Ok, seriously, I tried to embed this video for almost half an hour. It really bordered on David and Goliath. Obviously I'm the biblical figure with the glandular disorder, cause here I am posting the link instead.]

King Of Corn -- Two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop which drives our fast-food nation.

Fair warning, don't watch this if you are currently eating corn. Cause you'll be freaked out.

Fair warning number 2, if you are currently eating anything, it probably already has corn in it.

Corn, and biofuels in general, aren't a silver-bullet. The pit we're in, environmentally and fuel-wise, is so damn deep because we keep wanting every option to be a magical solution. Why biofuels in the first place? They require the least change in our infrastructure -- cars run on liquid fuels, the plants that make the cars run on liquid fuels, etc, etc. The problem is persisting, perhaps, because no one wants to give up the ability to tow eight tractors and an elephant with their suped-up Dodge Ram. We don't want to sacrifice the lifestyle we already have, we want to keep it, and simeltaneously, solve the problem that our lifestyle causes.

There is a great, dark divide between what humans have the capacity to do, and what they should do. Yes, perhaps Ford could make an 25 person S.U.V. with a portable kitchen, plasma T.V.s, and the ability to tow a circus up Everest, but that doesn't neccesarily mean they should.

I'm not sure humanity's capacity for greatness lies in the length of our reach, so much as in the delicate discernment with which we use our grasp.

at my golden age, to begin here | at the base of a twine knot at my back where she pinched, the gentle touch | and my need to cry and laugh and purge.

2008-02-06T18:49:00.000-08:00

I've been in a rut, a writing rut, so much so that even typing this entry seemed like medieval torture.

This is not because I can't think of anything to say. It's actually the complete opposite... I know exactly what I want to say, and somehow I can't find the means to say it. My writing is totally illegible.

I've started to think that this writing-gangrene has somehow infected the rest of my body, from my eyes, to my mouth.

This is the way the disease progresses, in case anyone else has developed symptoms and wishes to self-diagnose.

Symptoms: You lose the ability to say what you really mean. You find yourself not only saying things you don't mean, but meaning things you don't say, and even saying things without meaning to. The worst manifestation of this starts as truncated thoughts, abbreviated conversations, and ends with full-blown silence.

Case study 1 --

Class at run-of-the-mill alternative, liberal, rural, undergraduate private college. Small setting; 15 or so students present. A conversation about the political primary is started by the professor. A question is posed: How much faith do we, as students, have in the electoral process? Do we believe that we can actually create change through capitalist government processes? Several students, whom identify as anarchists, claim that they will not vote, because the primary elections cannot be used as fuel to power a substantial political revolution. At this point, a female student (white) begins to tell a personal narrative as evidence to support her view (how unique and unprecedented) that voting can help create positive change. In telling the story, she relays how she traveled to Cambridge, MA., to vote with her hometown friend. They exited the polling place, received their "I voted!" stickers, and decided to grab a bite to eat. They caravaned to a nearby town to eat, (EDIT: from this point on these are HER descriptives, not mine.) where in a convenience store, she came across a woman she described as "an Indian lady, who didn't speak a word of English". The woman grabbed her sleeve, and pointed to the sticker on the girls jacket. (at this moment, the storyteller launched into an exaggerated "accent" which she considered "Indian". in regards to its accuracy, i choose to defer to any basic high school geography class.) The woman, pointing, and according to the storyteller, started yelling "You vote-ay! I vote-ay! Bring me vote-ay!" The girl asked the woman: "Are you a legal citizen?" and the woman said: "Of course! Yes, I have papers! Take me vote-ay!" The girl, feeling personally responsible for the "poor, lost woman", took her back to the same polling place she had voted at, and waited for the woman to finish voting. She ended the the story by saying: "And just looking at her, she was so happy just to be allowed to vote. It was really inspiring. She was obviously so empowered by it."

I found myself suddenly unable to speak. If I could have, I supposed I would have found myself without the means to express at that moment why/how I felt the anecdote was so patronizing and offensive (and smelling a lot like ... subtle racism?). In fact, I found myself unable to identify whether it was appropriate to call the speaker out.

This is not the only Case Study which has presented itself in this area. Its also not the only manifestation of this same inability to communicate effectively. Saying too little. Saying too much. Speaking one sentence when thinking another. Entire verses speaking through eyes instead of lips. Wires crossed. It seems to affect more than once facet of the body(ies).

Treatment: Doctors used to apply leeches when they believed the blood contained toxins which needed to be let. Priests perform exorcisms to rid penitents of the devil's playthings. Surgeons drill holes into the skulls on their operating tables to relieve the brain of fluid pressure.
The only treatment is to relieve the pressure, to exorcise, to let it. (Out.)

This will not be easy. First, a diagnosis, and then, figuring out which treatments are optimal, and which just exacerbate the problem. Migrating to a warmer climate? A plan of attack? Ignoring the problem? (The last option seems like the least likely solution.) And how do you feel a change? How does a doctor know when the patient has the tools to continue therapies on their own? Can we relearn, regain the ability to speak; did we never know how to in the first place? Is there a prescription for silence?

I say this hypothetically.

2008-01-25T14:22:00.000-08:00

I came packed in oils, the residue of Eden.
Some said that grief made me.
Some said it was the death of a child.
Or a passion so dense no light escaped.
Some said it was sin.
They told me stories to account for the disease.
Of heavy elements that kept me from rising.
Of the ribbed wings of angels.
Of cells that changed.
I trusted the world to be natural. The voice
Of disease was the white noise I slept by.

What happened to me happened to you.
I ate too much or too little, the water was unclean.
I saw the face of illness mature in the mirror.
Everything that had been outside me
Came to be inside me.
I was unequally well and unwell.
I was my own medicine.
And now the endless remedies
Became the white noise I slept by, deeply.
For such and so many are the body's afflictions,
That to live is to die.

-- Marvin Bell, "A Healthy Life"

Please come here. Please come on over. There is no line that you can't step right over.

2008-01-14T13:42:00.000-08:00

This morning I woke up, glanced out my window like I do every morning, and did a major double take, because there was 8 or so inches of snow on the ground. Maybe there's more, actually, but I didn't really go outside with a yardstick so I have no concrete number to report.

Got dressed, put on some snow boots, borrowed the ergonomic shovel from our neighbors, and began to dig out my car, which the plowman had so kindly packed into the snow like a little shitty red igloo. I've actually never been in Massachusetts for winter whilst also owning a car, so by some short-lived miracle, I've never had to un-burrow my own car. I did the best I could, getting most of the ice out from under the wheels. I turned on my car to warm it up while I went back into the house for my backpack and my coffee. I felt very strange, however... there was this latent but nagging feeling that something integral was missing from the picture. Like there was a step I was forgetting.

I went back outside and sat in the car to think:
I dug out the wheels.
I cleaned off the wipers.
I have the emergency brake on.
There's no snow on top of the car.

But that feeling was still there, and now it was compounded by me feeling really dizzy. And nauseous. I felt pretty sick in general.

I opened the door and put my head between my knees to breathe. Then it slowly dawned on me... I turned my head to look at the back of my car...

I never dug out the exhaust pipe.

I had neglected to un-bury the exhaust pipe, which was packed into ice and snow.
What happens when people try to kill themselves in the garage? They slowly asphyxiate to death, because the carbon monoxide filters back into their car. Which is almost what I accidentally did this morning.
I like to think that I'm not actually such a complete moron that I qualify for a Darwin Award by just trying to drive. But my mom did mention that my grandfather's childhood friend killed his entire family in a very similar manner.
And recently in the news, a man quite accidentally began to drive, passed out behind the wheel, and drove into incoming traffic. His tailpipe had been blocked off.

Why would I forget such a critical step of such a simple series of tasks? Doesn't our memories serve to protect us?

Yes and no. But not always.

From the November issue of National Geographic, an article discusses Harvard psychologist Daniel Schacter, who has developed a taxonomy for the types of forgetting with experience. He calls these the "sins of memory". Yet each sin, he believes, is also a blessing -- they are "a price we pay for processes and functions that serve us well in many respects". For each thing we forget, we remember something which our brains have prioritized as more important. Not that there's such a limited amount of room, but for our brains to work most efficiently, its easiest for us to forget extraneous details. The entire purpose of our brains are, after all, to be highly developed "prediction machines"; we touch, we taste, we talk and hear and move. From every outlet we have, we take in as much information about world as we can get. All that information could drown us; its part of the brain's job to throw away what's not important. Whats left in our memories, scientists theorize, are five types of memories:

- Short-memory, immediate. (sensory)
We hold these for fractions of a second; a street light down the block changing, a far off church bell, a whiff of the neighbor's dinner. These are also known as things subliminal -- most of the time we don't even realize that we are sensing these stimuli.
- Working, short-term memory. (recalled)
You can remember what this post is about. After dinner you remember what you ate. Tomorrow you'll know it snowed today. Simple immediate information.
- Long-Term Memory, Facts and Events. (declarative, aka, episodic and semantic)
When did Columbus sail? Who wrote Lolita? What was the name of your first dog? Where did your father trip and fall on the ice when you were 9? How many broken bones have you had?
These are things we consider as integral to who we are, our past, the books we've read, the wars we've seen, the names of all fifty states and our favorite sonnet. There is a spectrum of fact and event long-term memory; you might have known a line or two from the Talmud when you were studying world religions in 10th grade, but I doubt you remember it now. Yet on the other end of the long-term spectrum, there are Jewish scholars who memorized the Talmud so completely that it was passed down orally for generations.
- Long-Term Memory for Habits/Skills (procedural)
Things you do unconsciously, like how to make coffee, or paint, how to read, etc. "It's like riding a bike", literally.
- Long-Term Emotional Memory
Related specifically to fear (so we can react quickly to dangerous situations), but also other things: what happiness is. How you felt when you were accepted to college. These memories are linked to events, but also trigger uncontrollable physiological reactions. The smell of a perfume, for example, might cause you to feel suddenly nostalgic and sad. Interestingly, what we would consider "love", is often not found in this category.

Forgetting is a more complicated business than remembering. Remembering is so much more understood that forgetting seems to baffle scientists and doctors alike. In neurodegenerative memory disorders for example, contrary to what doctors would expect, there seems to be a strange order of which memories begin to disappear. In fact, in slow, cruel diseases like Alzheimer's and Multiple Sclerosis, strange memories remain where others disappear. The date, unknown, but a perfect random day from the 40s remains. Feelings of familiarity come and go. Some eventually forget how to feed themselves, but remember how to fix a watch. Some memories evaporate forever. Some return with no warning. What this means, although understood to relate to neuron degeneration, still seems to re-complicate all we know about memory.

When we forget things, however, it is dependent on what it is, it relates to a different part of the brain. I forgot (or maybe was never handed the Rule Book of How To Function In Snow) to dig out my tailpipe. I never had to dig out my car, so this information was stored in my Procedural Memory. I don't have fond memories of mommy and dad gathered around the exhaust, so it was stored in my emotional memory banks either. And I didn't memorize that Rule Book that I received, nor was snow-based carbon monoxide poisoning covered in my high school AP Biology class. So my forgetting didn't seem to be dire; my brain did not see the information as critical. But what if I hadn't remembered in time? Did my brain evacuate one memory for another? Some event that I want to remember -- what lyrics someone was singing to me in a car, or what my aunt made me for breakfast when I was eight, or how long it takes to bake chocolate chip cookies, instead of this information which turned out to be drastically important to my well-being and survival.

So if we could improve our memories by erasing old memories, would we? Would that mean we would have minds which remembered everything, but only with no emotional attachment? Or would we remember only highly selective events, like a newspaper edited by an OCD editor? What would we be willing to omit for the sake of ourselves?

it's everything.

2008-01-01T21:57:00.000-08:00

Although I feel guilty for not having written a post either vaguely academic, politically based, or anything otherwise social/science/theory oriented in a while, I will forewarn -- this post, too, will be on none of those topics. I will, eventually, get back to writing less serious, (or more serious depending on how you look at it), and less personal posts.

However. It is the New Year. I said on my birthday that my New Year was beginning then. It did, in ways. But there's something about the entire world looking forward at the same time which makes today feel undeniably like another new beginning.

A long time ago, I visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem. I hadn't ever been a religious person, didn't really consider myself spiritual. But standing in front of this towering wall, stuffed with tiny scrolls of rolled up paper; every corner was being touched, and every crack and seam was overflowing with people's written prayers. The feeling of standing in front of that wall... was like dry heat. It just set waves up from the rock, from the pavement. You could feel this sway... every single person there believing so strongly in one thing. Everything was slow motion and I felt like I was swimming in holy air.
That was this feeling I have today, in another way. Everyone believes, truly truly and truly believes, that THIS day will be a fresh start. This day means something. Everyone puts their hopes on it, that this year will be better.

Every end of the month, or end of the year, I always say: This has been a hard year.

But its always a hard year. There will never be a year without some difficulty; I embrace this. I love living, but I love all of living, and if you truly love something, ya gotta love all of it. Life, death, birth, joy, pain... (apparently new years day also makes me Deep and Thematic).

OK, yes, this is cliche. So is dressing up in red and green for Christmas or handing out valentines, or celebrating anniversaries, or Falling In Love, or giving birthday gifts, or really thinking about any of this. But... what else is there? I mean, other than These Things... these weird trappings and celebrations we have and create... other than this, what do we have? How do we define our lives? Shakespeare was on-point -- it's all Sound and Fury. But what certainties do we have after tomorrow? Or after the big final sleep? I think the only things we have are what we create. So we create reasons for reasons, and seasons, and holidays, and arbitrary-time-thingys, like New Years. Or Resolutions. Because that's how we give our lives meaning. Markers, definition... it's all we have.

It's like looking in your fridge for whatever ingredients you have for dinner. Here's what you have. Dinner will come and go, and you can make it or not. That's up to you. But here's what you have. What can we do with these? Let's do the best we can with what we have.

I'm not good at sticking to resolutions. I have a resolution-rebound-rate of about three hours. Honestly. I made one this morning and I already broke it. Twice. Ha ha.

Never-the-less, there are some things I am working on. Maybe "working" is too much of an action verb; some things I am seriously contemplating and maybe verging on strongly-considering-action.
I am trying to spend more time Thinking. Not worrying and agonizing, stressing, or if-BritneySpeares-falls-in-the-forrest-does-it-make-a-sound kind of thinking. Thinking. I'm talking about legitimate knowledge.
I'm already thinking about things the majority of my waking hours, and also several of my sleeping hours already. But to be truthful, most of this thinking is fruitless.
I want to think to the point of learning. And think to the point of changing. And creating. And moving. And living. So I guess that would be: Thinking to the point of Living. Maybe at least feeling, at the end of each day, that I've thought about something and come to understand something about it, or resolved something, or come to a meaningful question, even.
Second is ... to stop thinking about other things. Permanently. Some of the worst and most fruitless thinking I embark upon is Wondering. I wonder what would have happened if Things Had Been Different. If I had said other things, stayed longer, done other things... this is not to say I regret. But I wonder if I had spent more time Thinking and less time Reacting, if I would still be wondering.
... See, right there, I just did it.
I think about what would happen if I could go back, and appreciate, or apologize, or maybe just leave way sooner. Do you ever think about what you would say to people now, if this You that you are now could go back and be the You that you were then? (I know, very metaphysical-stoner, this train of thought.) Or... do you wonder, at weird times, how things would be different if you could open your eyes in a moment? Sometimes I think people are non-committal to their own stories, their own lives. Like we're speaking but we're not really there. We're waking up, but somehow still in a coma. We're out there walking back to our cars, but we could really be anywhere non-specifically walking anywhere. I think back to moments like that and I kind of want to shake my shoulders and yell in my own face: "Commit!". And then, perhaps, there won't be so many of those moments where I look back and wish I said what I meant, did what I meant, or just really BEEN there... etc. There are fewer of these as time goes by, but still. No one can say they have none of them. Earlier this month I had a particularly grisly one. The thing is, we change so much... and then we waste time thinking about all the places where things went awry, for whatever reasons. Its not much help, that. Things are what they are, though I wonder how much more living I could do if I let go of the wondering.

I won't do a cheesy "But all in all this year has been great...", because that's not what this post is about. Of course there have been wonderful, beautiful, silly moments. In one year so much changes. We re-meet ourselves, in a way. There have been amazing discoveries and insane parties and dancing and skin-to-skin and love and rain and all the good shit. Also, there has been gut-wrenching awful pain, and the worst in people, and anxiety and stress. There will always be both. This post is just part of a life examined, a year examined, examining the examination... etc.

Where am I going with this?

Huh.
Well... I guess that's the question of the hour, isn't it.

everything that rises must converge.

2007-12-31T00:24:00.000-08:00

I recommend watching this video at night. By yourself. In the dark. With no one around.

Bat For Lashes - Whats a Girl To Do

stick with it, it only gets weirder.

and

just because its beautiful.

Sia - Breathe Me

and

Pharoache Monch - Push

How'd you ever get the Devil to dance.

2007-12-27T15:09:00.000-08:00

BBC NEWS South Asia Benazir Bhutto killed in attack

: /

Benazir Bhutto was assassinated this morning; the world is really just fucked sometimes.

I truly wanted to write a happy, light-hearted post, since it's the holidays. Unfortunately, the world does not stop for the Christ's birthday. The bad shit doesn't stop getting cranked out, even while kids are asleep in their beds, waitin' on presents, and a made-up man in a red velvet suit (hope there are no kids reading this, ha ha. SURPRISE!).

I don't think I'm a particularly negative or pessimistic person. I continually hope. I hope that things can get better, I hope that the world can find some spark of sanity, and that it catches and starts a three-alarm uncontrollable fire of human decency.

Last night, my 13 year old brother was talking about wanting to be a lawyer. I'm pretty sure I wanted to be a vet, or a scuba-diver or some shit when I was 13. What I mean is, next he'll want to be a genie or a spray paint artist or a monkey trainer or whatever rotating series of careers are desirable to a teenage boy (skateboarder? surgeon?). But last night he wanted to be lawyer, and was throwing all kind of prosecutin'-prefixes in front of his name:
A.D.A. D.A. Attorney at Law.
My parents asked him what he would want to do as a lawyer.
I don't know... be a prosecutor? Work with detectives? Some Law and Order stuff? Public Defense?
As soon as he said public defense my parents suggested corporate law...
Yeah, I guess I could do corporate law.
I don't know... maybe I'm the crazy radical older sister who goes away to college and ends up coming back with half a crew cut and 3 new piercings and a whole slew of impractical ideas about how the world works.

Dear Gabe,
Please don't become a corporate lawyer. I know you probably won't anyhow, but I want you to remember this moment, because this is the only decent advice I have to offer to you: Do something to help the world. You're only 13, but we've lived New York, so maybe you can kind of already see how messed up the world is and how many problems there are. I'm not trying to scare you, but there will always be unimaginable suffering and pain, and seemingly unsolvable problems, and things so fucked up that you want to look away from it. But please don't look away from it, look back at it, and decide that you want to at least try. You're one of those crazy-smart kids who is born genuinely caring about others without an ounce of selfishness. And that's so fucking rare. So please become someone who helps change the world, if that's even possible; don't be the gun-firer, the tank-driver, the 2.5 kids in the suburbs man. Please don't sell your soul to make it big in America. You'll regret it; maybe not right away, but one day you'll look back and wish you were Lot's wife. You don't understand what that means, but you will one day. I love you, please don't brush this off, but really listen to me. I'm asking you to make a hard choice. I'm asking you to give up on other futures you could have, on alternate lives which would be easier, and take less effort and thinking, and I'm begging you to take the harder road, the road where nothing is easy and there isn't much reward for living it. Not many people can walk it; I can't even do it sometimes and I want to give up and just paint for a living. I get exhausted trying to understand the intricacies of the human condition, and I think sometimes I exhaust others because of it. But I really try and I want you to try too; selfishly, one day years from now when I'm exhausted by this I want to look over and see you working for it too. Maybe nothing will get better in our lives, but I retain the hope that maybe, maybe, it will. So please, don't be a corporate lawyer.

Love,

Your sister.

I don't mean for this letter to be some artificially-made devastatingly poignant moment. I just watched him think about lawyers and remembered a letter I got, once, a really long time ago, that changed me. And I think, most of the time, even when I'm scared and really fuck up shit, that I'm doing the right thing, in the end.

Protest Songs / in response to Military Aggression / Protest Songs / to try to stop the soldier's gun.

2007-12-22T13:21:00.000-08:00

Felt not Heard-

Felt not heard
has been joined by
smelled not touched.

You wrapped me in your sweater
to keep the cold off of my bones
on the solo ride home.
Its an ugly rag,
but you better believe I slept with it
wrapped around my chest;
cause it’s the closest I’ll get this life around.

& I’m trying to dance w/ impossibility,
I’m trying to swoon drunk w/ the hum
you slip through my ribs.
but your generosity, accurate and free
sets my home awake
and a little too close to on fire.

It all started when I told you I’d been here 32 days
It all started when I asked you to turn up your bass
so I could grasp your voice
and the metaphor began;
“A good bass player should be felt, not heard”

Your notes, your steel sliding fingers
your goofy ass patentable grin
tickle that fine line
felt / heard

Music is dangerous.
sound waves don’t see skin as solid,
they reach through and shake
each little atom, one by one,
& whether or not you like that trembling
you have been changed.

And I just want to hear you,
I just want my fingers on you
my mouth, here and now
Fuck this dream state bullshit.

But what can I do?
we are cast off different homes,
you are wrapped in older skin,
still, I can’t stop feeling you.

- Samantha Barrow

I fear no man / I know wrong from right / We push until the day we see the light. / and we keep on pushin, pushin, pushin...

2007-12-15T13:31:00.000-08:00

PART I.

I don't really know where to launch into this from. But I have to just do it. I've been meaning to write about identity for a while... but every time I try to cut the extraneous bits of the conversation away, I can't do it. I want to write something witty, or succinct, or unshallow, but I'm not really sure I can.

There isn't any way for me to write some amazing entry about identity, because it can't be wrapped in a neat little package and tied up with a cute little bow. I have, by no means, gotten my mind around what identity even means. Besides the fact that understanding your own identity is ... the penultimate struggle of our lives, or something epic-sounding like that. [Part of it is also part of a confidence game – admitting you question things about you identity implies you haven't figured out who you are, which is seen as dangerous and awkward. But I guess I have to let go of both of those things and just do it, or I'll never get anywhere in understanding it.]

I will start by saying: I have a hard time making decisions. Its a truly complex particular breed of indecisiveness. I've stated this previously, and I don't mean to repeat myself, but recently I've wondered if indecisiveness is a much bigger issue than I give credit to. Not just with me, but with a whole culture of people. And I guess it goes further than indecisiveness, even the aggressive strain I seem to have. It crosses over into the world of commitment to identities and to labels.

I don't like being simplified, or simplifying other people. I value complication and complexity; I don't like multiple choice questions, one word answers, all-inclusive titles... I don't like being simplified.

As teenagers, and as children, and generally as human beings who are raised and educated by other human beings, we are taught to define ourselves as much as possible. We are taught to learn the categories that exist, and fit ourselves into them. In the process of doing that we receive a lot of mixed messages. A lot of conflicting ideas about who we're supposed to grow up and be. There's who our parents want us to be. Who our culture wants us to be. Who our friends want us to be. And then, eventually, who we want to be.
But who do we want to be? Even that sentence doesn't really make any sense. It implies that we wake up as one day as a finalized, categorized product. Which, as a culture (and as a subjects of social psychology) we want to perpetuate: we need to codify everything, so we know how to respond.

Everything is categorized, and then you have to pick one. Black and white, one or the other. As little kids it was: you are a girl or a boy. OK, you're a girl: here are your options for how to be a girl. (Not like anyone really has a choice there. Or at least when we're younger, gender doesn't appear to be optional.)

We get older, and find out that maybe there are more options present. You can be the subversive but sexy girl, but you have to be her in a certain way. You can be the 'tom-boy' girl-next-door, but you have to be her in a certain way. Even the “alternative” female identities have to fit into a certain status-quo.

At Hampshire we get it beaten into our heads that identity based qualifiers are on a spectrum. Gender is a spectrum; sexuality is a spectrum. But as much as we're taught that, I still see an intense pressure to conform to new identities present within Hampshire's insular communities. And Hampshire is pretty progressive... outside of Hampshire, its “Are you gay?”. Then once that answer is established, maybe its “Are you a lesbian?”, and if the person is really direct: “Are you femme?”. So I'm led to believe that once you “decide” that being queer is part of your identity, then you're supposed to find a way to fit in again. Early theory of homosexuality was dependent on lesbians being masculine and gay men being feminine. Are we really that divorced from that idea?

If I don't consider myself a lesbian, I don't consider myself butch, I don't consider myself femme, but does that mean I give up my right to be considered? Then when, exactly, is the tipping point when I'm considered queer enough to call myself that? To me, this mindset is just a whole other kind of binary.

This is from from NYMagazine, about Manhattan's Stuyvesant High School teens: (http://nymag.com/news/features/15589/index6.html):
“These teenagers don’t feel as though their sexuality has to define them, or that they have to define it.”
“But kids are... in the process of working up their own language to describe their behavior. Along with gay, straight, and bisexual, they’ll drop in new words, some of which they’ve coined themselves: polysexual, ambisexual, pansexual, pansensual, polyfide, bi-curious, bi-queer, fluid, metroflexible, heteroflexible, heterosexual with lesbian tendencies—or, as Alair puts it, “just sexual.” The terms are designed less to achieve specificity than to leave all options open.”
The article seems undecided whether Stuyvesant's small sexuality sub-culture is immature or just different; are they radically changing sexuality's definitions, or just not committing to a sexual identity out of uncertainty?

It's never been a conscious effort on my part to reject definition, it just happens. I just don't feel like being reduced to single descriptive words. A refusal to be defined became part of my identity. But at the same time, I always wonder... can an undefined identity be a legitimate identity? Or, in some way, is identifying as non-defining simply symptomatic of my generations inability to commit?
Is refusing to commit to an identity, actually because I'm scared to own it, or because I'm indecisive? If that's true, then am I not owning parts of myself? Or not owning parts of cultures that I'd want to be a part of?
By claiming no label, do I forfeit the right to be certain things, or to participate in certain cultures? As far as gender is concerned, am I not “feminine enough” to be a woman, but not “masculine enough” to be a man? Or as far as sexuality is concerned, am I not “lesbian enough” to be considered queer, but not “straight enough” to be considered heterosexual? Perhaps then, non-definition is just reactionary to not fitting into any of those categorizations.

[A note: Gender identity and sexual orientation/identity are not the same. I'm not lumping them together except for my own writing ease to address them both simultaneously. I'm also not addressing cultural, class, racial identity right now either, because there are only so many hours in the day.]

If we could strip away all the messages society has shoved down our throats, the words that have defined us throughout our lives, the people who dictated what we were, all the times we masqueraded as people we wanted to be, or thought we should be: if we could strip down to the core of who we are:

Who would that be?

Its almost too ridiculous to comprehend: with those external layers peeled away, definitions and words don't mean anything. But the ideas behind them would still exist. So who are we, then?

The problem is, our identities aren't created in a vacuum. Our identities are all wrapped up in the outside factors. Not only that, but its essentially impossible to exist without context. We only understand ourselves by what exists around us.

And then... at a certain point, when my face is an inch away from someone else's face, all of this stops mattering. And I have to put it to rest and say: fuck it... Theory ends here.

last night, she said.

2007-12-12T19:25:00.000-08:00

from Blissful Times, Sandra Alland
THE TERRIFYING NATURE OF INTIMACY:

what in his language meant

hello

in hers meant death squad

and when he said

love
she heard disappeared

i listen and drive while you talk.

2007-12-03T20:02:00.000-08:00

The things about writing (about all art really) is that when you start to feel pressured to produce it, it becomes a chore. And once I feel that pressue, I start to feel guilty, and resentful, and then I pretty much just avoid it.

Like this blog.

But I'm not just speaking about writing. Its in everything... once we feel like there's obligation involved, its like we're children who've just been told that there won't be any dessert till we finish our broccoli. We freak the fuck out.

I'm not trying to eloquent here, because I'm mentally exhausted and I just don't have the time. I'm also not angry or upset, I'm just being honest. Recently, it seems like honesty has become a very complex topic in my life. Its both a heavy burden and an answer that I'm searching for.

You know that point in a movie, where the character is about to open the door, or peak inside the box, or look in the envelope? Right before they do, there's always a moment... a moment where as a viewer, you know that everything is going to change once they cross that threshold. You want to stop them, prevent them from experiencing what every movie-goer knows is going to be a difficult journey. There will probably be pain. There might be even worse things around the next corner.

I want to call this the truth-threshold.
"Do I want to know, or do I not want to know?"
More often than not, the age of computers and instant access to information means we cross that threshold. Almost always, we see the line and we run straight across it.

And we end up knowing, perhaps, too much. We end up knowing things that maybe we shouldn't know. For human beings, having all the answers gives us too much power. Its more than we can handle. We overthink situations that haven't even happened based on information we shouldn't even have.

I'm not advocating that we don't ask questions... I'm simply pointing out that there's not much value in the answers if we get them so quickly and so effortlessly. Or maybe I'm pointing out that the answers we get aren't answers at all -- its only temporary. Its a convenient truth.

Its the equivalent of having a remote control that fast-forwards in high-speed. Freeze frame: the character is about to open that door. Fast forward: The end of the movie. Plot revealed.

What happened in the middle? Who cares, right? You got to skip that and get to the juicy stuff, the conclusion, the answers. No struggles, no challenges, no hard and awkward scenes. Just the gritty bare minimum. To some, this is enough. Being satisfied with what is easy becomes what is true.

Is it worth giving up some of the answers we think we already have, to risk seeing what happens when we cross the threshold? What would we risk to get answers?
What would we risk to forget the answers we think we know, and what would we put ourselves through to get the truth instead?

and I want to kiss you but I can't. Down on the river by the sugar plant.

2007-11-25T13:42:00.000-08:00

" A notion of character, not so much discredited as simply forgotten, once held that people only came into themselves partway through their lives. They woke up, were they lucky enough to have consciousness, in the act of doing something they already knew how to do: feeding themselves with currants.
Walking the dog.
Knotting up a broken bootlace.
Singing antiphonally in the choir.
Suddenly: This is I, I am the girl singing this alto line off-key, I am the boy loping after the dog, and I can see myself doing it as, presumably, the dog cannot see itself. How peculiar! I lift on my toes at the end of the dock, to dive into the lake because I am hot, and while isolated like a specimen in the glassy slide of summer, the notions of hot and lake and I converge into a consciousness of consciousness -- in an instant, in between launch and landing, even before I cannonball into the lake, shattering both my reflection and my old notion of myself.

This was what was once believed. Now it seems hardly to matter when and how we become ourselves -- or even what we become. Theory chases theory about how we are composed. the only constant: the abjuration of personal responsibility.

We are the next thing the Time Dragon is dreaming, and nothing to be done about it.

We are the fanciful sketch of wry Lurline, we are droll and ornamental, and no more culpable than a sprig of lavender or a sprig of lightning, and nothing to be done about it.

We are an experiment in situation ethics set by the Unnamed God, which in keeping its identity a secret also cloaks the scope of the experiment and our chances of success or failure at it -- and nothing to be done about it.

We are loping sequences of chemical conversions, acting ourselves converted. We are twists of genes, acting ourselves twisted; we are wicks of burning neuroses, acting ourselves wicked. And nothing to be done about it. And nothing to be done about it. "

--Gregory Maguire

Astounding to me, is all the things we do in a day without thinking about them. Without examining the consequences -- be they distant or quickly incoming; we act and react and don't ever really imagine that we are tiny little fingertips tapping on the water of the world, creating ripples and waves.

I enjoying taking a warm shower. Except for this morning, after I had read National Geographic's November (?) article on Global Warming. Although not directly related to biofuel, which really was what the artile was about, my extra-lenghthy shower is still a gesture of apathy, considering the minute consequences which each choice we make commits to the general picture.

I turn the hot water on, and alter it little by little to get the temperature just right. I'm both picky and fickle; I'm one of those constant temperature adjusters who fiddles with an eight of a centimeter trying to get in the tiny fraction of my acceptable temperature zone. Honestly, I get ridiculously cranky when my elbow accidentally hits the spigot and I plunge myself into cold water, or when I'm fourth in the house to get into the bathroom and have to wait for an hour for there to be any hot water at all.

I am not always like this. When I was in Salvador, there weren't any warm showers ever -- there wasn't any hot water, actually. Not for showering, and not for dish-washing either. The former was the least of my concerns at the time.

But imagine how cranky the world will be if (or, when) our world climate raises by just barely 2 degrees:

National Geographic estimates that even with drastic cuts in our planet's CO2 emissions, the average global surface temp is due to rise almost 2 degrees. Doesn't seem like much? Below are the most important issues which have already begun as global temperatures increase, with effects increasing in intensity as temperatures rise even 2 degrees.

WATER:
Now:
- Increasing precipitation in moist tropics and high-latitude regions. Rain falls in heavier downpours, with the risk of more frequent flooding in both wet and dry areas.
- Increasing drought and declining water supply in mid-latitudes and semiarid low latitudes.
- Hundreds of millions of people face increasing risk of water shortages. Causings include decreased river runoff and loss of glaciers and snowpack.
FOOD:
At +1 degree increase:
- Cereal crops will increase in mid to high altitudes, and begin to decrease in low latitudes. (Low latitudes include Sub-Saharan Africa, Austrailia, the lower Pacific Islands and most of South America.
At +3.5 degree increase:
- Cereal crops decrease across mid to high- latitude regions, and greatly decrease in low latitude regions.
HEALTH:
Now:
- Increasing illness and death from heat waves, storms, floods, droughts, and fires. Rises in malnutrition.
- Changing distribution of insects that carry diseases such as malaria and dengue.
At +3 degree increase:
- Worldwide healthcare systems substantially strained.
COASTS:
Now:
- Storms and rising sea level cause growing erosion of coasts.
At +2 degree increase:
- Coastal flooding affects millions more people each year. Small islands and low-lying regions in Asia and Africa are especially vulnerable.
At +3 degree increase:
- Worldwide, about 30% of coastal wetlands are lost.
ECOSYSTEMS:
Now:
- Range of many animals and plants pushed into higher latitudes or higher elevations.
- Coral bleaching increases in the tropics.
At +.5 degree increase:
- Oceans acidify.
At +1.5 degree increase:
- Up to 30% of species face risk of extinction.
- Most corals bleached.
At +2 degree increase:
- Ecosystems become carbon sources as permafrost thaws and vegetation burns or decays.
At +2.5 degree increase:
- Widespread death of coral reefs.
At +4 degree increase:
Up to 40% of species face risk of extinction.

Each bullet point is a tipping point, which means once we hit that point, the damage has already begun and there's almost no going back. Most of these have already begun, particularly catastrophic in poorer nations without the means to adapt and recover from the influx of environmental disasters. Even here.

It bothers me when I think about how many times I make uninformed (or perhaps even apathetic) choices and say nothing to be done about it. No, more than "bothers".
What stronger words I wish I had to explain how these things really DO sit in my chest, gnawing away at me. What sacrifices do we all have to make to save our own planet? We got fuel from rocks, and that was easy. Henry Ford discovered how cheap and easy crude oil was, and it was like a dream. But the next step won't be a dream, and it won't be easy or cheap either. It will hard, and it'll be a sacrifice. To agree to the alternatives in fuel, and living, when we know that the alternatives will be more difficult. More expensive. Will take more committment and more work and more research. And no immediate results, perhaps... no instant gratification; and knowing that the simple way will always exist -- to ignore the problems, to pretend that everything will right itself and that all our dealings will work themselves out in time. But they don't, do they? And even if we sweep the things that bother us under the rug, even if we play blind and deaf and dumb, even if we pretend like we never noticed at all... its still there.

As exhausting as it is to constantly live in that reality -- a reality where we deal with the consequences of our actions, and hold ourselves accountable. A reality where the truth is that some truths are ugly and awful, and probably our fault... and that we have to look at it right in the face anyway.

i thank you lord almighty up above just for sending out the F train to me. so thankful for all the unspent love that i save up in the jar of money.

2007-11-22T10:32:00.000-08:00

Uhhh, I *should* be cooking for Thanksgiving dinner right now. Butttt I'm going to do a political blog post, cause I'm just so damn thankful for my freedom o' speech.

And also I'm a procrastinator.

This post is dedicated to Beau Sia.

I'm willing to admit that I'm in love with Beau.
Well, thats not quite accurate -- I'm actually in love with slam poetry. I'm in love with art that intersects with social justice. And I'm in love with artists who use their art to interrogate racism. And I'm also in love with the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe (NPS) National Poetry Slam.

I'm actually fuckin' FILLED with love for all God's creations -- but most especially with Beau Sia, who covers all those bases beautifully.

Take this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJCkHu3trKc

[Note: a) I know, I know, I'm an ass cause I'm too lazy to embed my videos. b) I have to credit the finding of this video to a link a facebook friend posted.]

I have two commentaries:

1. I don't want to be represented by Rosie O'Donnell. Not as a feminist, and not as a queer woman (even though the latter part of that identity is harder for me to own, but thats a whole other post). Just because we both happen to have that in common doesn't mean that I identify with her in any way, nor do I want her representing or defending me. In the same way I don't think Bill O'Reilly represents me as an American, just because we both happen to live here and are alive. I've heard it said several times, both in popular culture and from people here at home, that Rosie's word is the word of all lesbians. Like the public defender of what a "typical lesbian is and thinks" (thats a direct overheard quote).
Of course. All women think alike too. It would follow that so do all queer women.

2. I see all this shit in the comments of that video about "reverse racism". I also had a really disturbing conversation the other day where that argument was used. I use the word 'argument' loosely, btw.

A few notes about "reverse racism".
Its an empty phrase.
"Reverse racism" does not = a logical argument.
The very word, racism, has an entire legacy of discrimination, violence, and inequality behind it. "Reverse racism" carries no such history, and thusly no such truth. Tacking on reverse 'cause you feel slighted in conversations about race doesn't make it a real concept.

The term is offensive simply in its ignorant usage. I mean, that right there is high scoring on the Richter scale of What-The-Fuck. But even its etymology offends -- a white majority appropriating a word with years of struggle behind it. Huh. Thats so new and different!

As for all those "GOD, have a sense of humor. It was just a JOKE." comments --
Oh damn, how deftly they point out the error in anyone feeling offended... boiling down an entire culture to a sing-song slur is *absolutely* not exploiting stereotypes with no intellectual insight or forethought! After all, the perfect joke recipe IS that perfect blend of arrogance and racial privilege.

I'm always wanting to disclaim myself and say: I'm not any kind of expert on racism. That's because I'm privledged and white. But I recognize that. And I try to call 'em as I see 'em. Sometimes I'll fuck it up, but I'm trying to engage as best as I can.

Anyhow, to close (so I can go eat), let me reiterate my love for Beau, by iterating his love for love. First year I did an embarrassingly terrible job of performing the first few stanzas of this poem for an acting class performance, effectively schooling myself in why I should stick to my day job.
I don't know, maybe it wasn't *that* bad -- ask someone who witnessed it, ha ha. Regardless, it was my initiation to Beau, and it really blows me away every time I hear him perform it.

"Love" by Beau Sia

I think love is the most beautiful thing
in the world,
and I don't give a fuck,
because I have no original ideas.

I'm a pathetic man
whose goal is to read poetry
in order
to get women
to fall in love with him,
and you'd think I was reprimanding myself
and revealing my horrible dark side
by saying that,
but I was really saying
"women who hear this, fall in love with me, or else,"
because that's what it comes down to --
an ultimatum,
life or death,
and sure, maybe I'm being extreme,
but you walk around and tell me
that things aren't extreme,
jesus,
I've seen a man jack off to a gap window display,
so don't tell me that love isn't important.

and maybe you didn't get that series of lines,
that's OK,
most of them are subtext
designed to impress people
who know too much about art,
all you need to listen to is
the 12 percent
which contain words like "fuck,"
and "ass,"
and "ride my dongstick, you naughty schoolgirl."
because in a poem about love
we all need to know the relevant things,
because we're all looking for the complete definition of love,
if only we could open our encyclopedia brittanicas
and look up love and know,
but love isn't that easy.

they say cupid loved my so called life
and when the show was cancelled
cupid cried and cried and cried and
decided that he was going to fuck up
all of humanity,
and this is why china has a trouble with its birthrate
and arkansas rhymes with date rape
and iraq is iraq,
and the fat lipo-sucked out of california
could be
its own island.

but this isn't a poem about geography,
this is a poem about love,
the bane of my existence,
the reason why I hate valentine's day
and halloween,
which is about ghosts
and I think you know where I'm going here.
I'm going to the land of girlfriends of halloweens past,
and maybe I've only got three ghosts in this land,
but this doesn't mean that they don't bring their friends,
who are the ghosts of girls who have rejected me,
because girls rarely travel alone in this land.
lydia is from this land.

I used to kiss her
while listening to
the cure's "just like heaven,"
now I don't see her anymore,
so that song makes me sad,
why must we associate music with
our love lives?
I'm not trying to be profound here,
I'm just saying that music really takes me
back, way back,
and I can't explain the memory process involved in that,
because I am not a psychology major,
and maybe
my problem with picking up women
has to do with me always asking,
"what's your major?"
but that only makes me as cheesy
as 90 percent of guys
looking for women,
and 86 percent of them have women,
so what's the deal here?
maybe I shouldn't think of women in terms
of picking them up,
and maybe I should open up my sensitive side,
but really,
the sensitive side sucks.
I've been there.
you can only imagine the kinds of sweaters
they make you wear.
it's not fair,
love is not fair,
and war is not fair,
and I don't care what anyone has to say about
any of that,
I feel unloved,
I'm sorry I need people
to tell me I'm cool,
I'm just that way.
aren't you?
am I the only one?
I know that I can't be that
misunderstood.

but you don't want to
understand me!
you just want to hear the part
where I talk about my small dick again,
because the asian man will always be plagued
by this rumor
until he is brave enough to fling it out
and say,

"HA! WE ARE GIGANTIC!"

this is not the direction
I wanted to take
this poem.
honestly, I just want to be in the arms
of my true love, in a house, in a room,
in a wonderful, perfect world with our
two children,
a boy and a girl,
helga and lamar,
but maybe I shouldn't have said this,
woody allen taught us
that marriage is a death trap.

I'm almost as old as his girlfriend.
she could be the long lost sister
I've been looking for,
maybe my mother gave her away
when we lived in china,
wait, I never lived in china.
I think I've begun lying in this poem.
I was hoping to talk about love
for 3.4 minutes
and then
come to a conclusion,
somehow defining love
within the poem,
but
I don't have any answers
and I'm looking for help from anyone,
because love has got me fucked up
and dying,
because I feel retarded without anyone to hold me,
and maybe that's sentimental,
but what's wrong with sentimental?

I just need love --

to self: fuck you, I'm OK!
you see, I can't even decide what I need
much less understand what I'm saying.
you see, all I'm saying
is
someone love me.

ps- i'm vaguely sure this performance is on youtube, and/or his site is http://www.beausia.com/. you should listen to it, since it gives it a totally different context.

pps- I may have posted this several hours (after I said I was) while the dark chocolate food-high wore off. bahhhh sue me.

call me back when the war is over. call me back when your boyfriend's gone. i'm aware of your oscillations. don't belive I'm the only one.

2007-11-19T08:19:00.000-08:00

This is part of a chapter of my Div III, so in a way I'm kind of cheating and recycling my own material. But then again, no one other than my committee will probably ever read my Div III, so in reality I'm just broadcasting my thesis to a larger (albeit both anonymous and perhaps non-existent) audience.

A note about Div III: Div III Hampshire students are a lot like annoyingly proud parents who just had their first kids.

Have you ever met one of those obsessive new parents, who just has to relate everything back to their new baby? They'll regale you with late-night bottle feeding stories about each coo and burp until you want to claw your ears out. Since, of course, no one has EVER had a baby before, this must all be fascinating, since obviously they're a veritable pioneer in the field of reproduction.
And as such, every moment of her child's development must be of paramount importance to you, because who doesn't want to hear a two hour detailed retelling of baby Cindy's new reluctant acceptance of peas?
Of course, it wouldn't matter if you were talking about rocket science or drink mixers -- suddenly it has somehow all related back to babies again and "speaking of babies, you'll never guess what baby Harry did yesterday..." and you're left standing there thinking "Wait. How did we get back here? I would've sworn I successfully steered the conversation far away from this."

Div III students are eerily similar: You get to listen to their incessant rambling about this and such inconsequential realization they've had about the whole process, and life, and academia, and this new idea which amazingly occurred to them at 3am, after a bottle of Jack Daniels. And you get to hear about each turn and twist of their writing process, and every change in direction and new concept revealing itself to them like all the wondrous workings of the universe. Of course they assume that everyone wants to hear about all their mental crap, which turns into verbal diarrhea, pouring out of their mouths at every opportunity.

Sorry, do I sound jaded? Pff.

Anyhow, I shouldn't even be talking, since I *am* a Div III student, and since I'm already so immodest that I think everyone wants to hear my ruminations on each topic which crosses my brain. (Note: this blog.) Luckily, you can navigate away from here with merely a click, and I can assume that since this is a one-sided conversation, that you're in rapt attention.

"'Why, in a body of such exquisite design, are there a thousand flaws and frailties that make us vulnerable to disease.'

'The great mystery of medicine is the presence, in a machine of exquisite design, of what seems to be flaws, frailties, and makeshift mechanisms that give rise to most disease.'

My question in all of this has slowly but forcefully become: Why DO we get sick?

According to Randolph Nesse, a professor of Darwinian Medicine, the causes of all disease extend far beyond our complex bodies as they exist now.

Instead of asking why a person gets sick, he asks instead why sickness exists at all. Not in an existential "why are we here and what are we for" way, but in terms of evolution and human history. Medicine looks at a single body in a vacuum, as a self-sufficient machine which malfunctions and breaks down by nature of its design. Yet every human body is not only the product of two other bodies which created it, it is the product of thousands of years of biology and evolution. Much like a finely tuned machine, each piece and part was designed and placed there for a reason. To understand disorder, you must also understand how harmoniously the entire body works together in the context of its creation.

Now, this is not to say that the causes of all ailments boils down to evolution. Rather, many other determinants, like the toxins we are exposed to every day, random accidents, stress, diet, parental DNA, affect our health. To ignore any set of factors, be they the proximal or evolutionary set, is to ignore information about the body which would help us to better understand disease and the body as a whole.

The Darwinian Causes of Disease are described as 6 distinct categories: Defenses, Infection, Novel Environments, Genes, Design Compromises, and Evolutionary Legacies.

1. DEFENSES. Defenses are those mechanisms our body has to protect ourselves, like a cough. A cough, which is bothersome and can lead to other problems, is not actually the problem at all. The problem is that there is something in your lungs that needs to be expelled. A cough is the response of the body to a problem. (Stopping the cough, of course, wouldn't solve the problem. The problem is fluid in the lungs, or mucous, of infection, etc.)

2. INFECTION. Self-explanatory.

3. NOVEL ENVIRONMENTS. Evolutionarily, we were created and bred and molded for certain environments. Counter that with human migration, fatty diets, drugs, air-conditioning, cars, pollution. etc., and there you are. Imagine putting a turtle in the Sahara. He wouldn't last very long, either.

4. GENES. This is a big one.

All things considered, the number of harmless genetic mutations which occur, versus the number of harmful ones, is fairly equal.

Picture flipping a coin. You only want to get heads every time. Of course, you will eventually be disappointed when the penny lands head-up, which will eventually happen. That's just how probability and chance work. But now picture a million coins. If you still want them all to land with Abraham's shiny face staring up at you, you're about to be seriously disappointed. The fact is, the more times you're flipping, and the more coins you have, the more times tails is going to appear.

Now, human genetics and evolution is a little more complicated than flipping a coin. So what happens when you do land tails up?

Here is a mutation. Your genes have mutated, so something in the normal process has gone awry, and unfortunately, that part of your body is "defective". Evolutions solution is that, most likely, you will:
1. Not reproduce, since you are (logically) a) not a good mate and b) might not even live long enough to reproduce, depending on the severity of the mutation.
2. Simply die.

This is the unfortunate mechanism of evolution.

Ok, now lets say you have a beneficial gene. How does "evolution" know that this gene is beneficial?
Answer:
It doesn't.

Mutations (whether we consider them harmful or harmless), in the eyes of natural selection and evolution, are neither positive nor negative, unless they improve your ability to mate, or effectively nix you from the mating tract entirely. Then they become positive or negative, but only in that they have affected your ability to make more copies of yourself and pass on your genetic material.

Every mutation has a context which dictates its value. If you're a naked mole rat born with superman strength eyesight, you may pass that mutation on, and you may not. The superman eyesight isn't hindering, nor is it helping, your daily moleish life. Your value within the species isn't changed in any way -- you live underground, and eyesight is worthless there.

Now, if you are a lion, and your mutation is superhero eyesight, this mutation can become of value. Your role as a hunter is greatly aided -- thus making you a better hunter because of the mutation, and because of that, a better candidate for some lady lioness who is looking for an effective provider to mate with.
Now the mutation becomes beneficial. This mutation, in some secondary way, helps you make more offspring; you pass on more genes.

This doesn't always happen. Nature wants to keep the status quo. Like all things, we are perpetually trying to achieve homeostasis. There very well may have been genetic mutations, which by chance, causes the bearer to be able to breathe in outer space. Fantastic!

Only... no one would ever know, because here on earth, that mutation didn't benefit the person in any way. Your environment, again, dictates the value of a mutation. And what we as humans might see as valuable, is not always agreed with by natural selection and evolution.

5. DESIGN COMPROMISES.
Some "design flaws", or illnesses, things we think of as problems, are actually indications of evolution's compromises.
We have back problems, but of course, our species can also walk upright. If you'd like to give up walking upright to eliminate your back problems, by all means. You have permission to crawl.

6. EVOLUTIONARY LEGACIES.
A.k.a. - You gotta work with what you got.
Sometimes, what you got happens to be so convoluted and complexly designed that you're kind of screwed. So, you make due with what you've been given.

I'm sure all this theory is of little comfort to someone diagnosed with brain cancer.

But there it is. The most important part, however, is understanding that Darwinism is N-O-T eugenics. Eugenics is a reaction to Darwinism.

The idea of Darwinian Medicine is simply a system.

Humans, by our nature, are constantly trying to rise above our humble animal beginnings.
We read and write, we think and feel, we build useless and useful systems and structures which we argue about. We create words and names for emotions which we can't even point to or locate. We create new systems of communicating about our lack of communication. We murder and reproduce with and without reason. We have art, blenders, music, Christmas lights and libraries.

And we are all wild little Icaruses -- smart enough to build the wings, but not smart enough to stay away from the sun. We create our own problems by our very humanity, by our very existence as what we are. You might say we are too smart for our own good.

But lest we forget where we came from... we are still subject, in the end, to the same system we were built in. As self-aware and somewhat intelligent creatures, we desire to be healthy, to live longer, and we fear our own mortality and defects. Disease is almost a reminder of where we're from. In that framework, Darwinian medicine is not malicious, nor embedded with any sort of meaning at all, other than what it is -- it is where we came from. Its the rules we must play by.

And if we can: by our uniqueness in our comprehension that we exist at all, and might exist further -- its a set of rules we might learn to bend, right or wrong, to try and better our chances in the game.

tempted by the fruit of another.

2007-11-13T07:15:00.000-08:00

Here is your biochemistry lesson of the day.

A human being is driving. A human being is in a car accident. This human being's hypothalamus, stimulated by the perception of outside events, begins to release CRH, a hormone which travels to the pituitary glands. At the pituitary gland, CRH binds to secondary sites, where adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) is released. ACTH travels to the adrenal cortex, where is stimulates the adrenal glands to produce and secrete cortisol. Cortisol, also known as the "stress hormone", affects almost every tissue in the body.

Cortisol, once its released, will circulate through the whole body. It raises blood pressure, starts the breakdown of proteins and stored complex sugars (energy supplies) in the body, suppresses the immune system, decreases bone formation, and reduces seratonin levels in the brain.

Interestingly, cortisol also affects memory. A rush of cortisol would cause the brain to store quick short-term memories -- flashbulb memories. Too much cortisol impedes the brain's ability to lay down a new memory at all, and also makes it more difficult to access already stored long-term memories.

Cortisol, in women, also stimulates the release of oxytocin. Oxytocin, which has a minor counter-active effect on cortisol, also dictates how the mind will react to stress levels. Oxytocin is the same hormone released when women are giving birth; it creates a sense of calm, well-being, a desire to nuture, and positive feelings of attachment. Oxytocin is also released during an orgasm.

Not coincidentally, oxytocin also acts as an anesthetic for the mind. When released, it prevents storage of traumatic or painful memories.

So at both ends of the spectrum - during times of great stress and at times of pleasure, the human body tries to protect itself. (Turns out those ends are closer than we think.) It keeps us from remembering the reality of an event, which would, in retrospect, be recalled as less painful, less unfortunate, better. Memories through a hazy rearview mirror.

So when you remember:
a horrible car accident
birth
mindblowing sex

you may not be remembering it perhaps as it was, but as your body wants you to remember it.

2007-11-07T11:58:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I spend many long days working tirelessly on my senior thesis, also known here in the valley as a Div III. Senior thesis is an understatement -- Div III is more like a graduate research project meeting your entire courseload and then wrapping its little tentacles into your whole life. Everyone fourth year at Hampshire lives, eats and breathes Div III.

Mine is on wellness, sickness, and healing, specifically in regards to holistic medicine as it structures itself around Multiple Sclerosis, HIV, and Cancer. This might sound dark and intense. And honestly... it is. Well, not dark, although it could degenerate into that if I wasn't keeping a watchful eye on it (and on my perspective). Its a difficult Div III, to write about suffering and healing, and inevitably, death. But I also get to write about hope, and survival, and healing. I get frustrated, of course. Anyone who is passionate about something, and has all their hopes set on writing the great American Novel about that topic is bound and set to get a whole lotta frustration. I'm trying to ignore the prospect of a product, and focus instead on the journey.

Point is (and I'm sure I'll have a 20 other 'point is's about my Div III as the weeks go by) that while writing about such deep, complex, and personal topics, I sometimes let myself get really wrapped up in the sad and troubling aspects of both the American treatment of disease, and the sad reality of sickness and death. That sounds morose and perhaps it is. But this happens only infrequently, and I temper it by remembering that what I'm writing has a lot to do with NOT letting that happen, and about NOT suffering. Maybe even about spirituality. We'll see.

So, when that moment happens where I start wanting to curl up and begin to think: "Uh, maybe I should just go back to being naive and not acknowledging pain at all", I listen to this song and it cheers me up.

Excuse the blatant... well I don't know what this blatantly is, but its blatantly something and forgive me for that!

When the Saints - Sara Grove

Lord I have a heavy burden
of all I’ve seen and know
It’s more than I can handle.

But your word is burning like a fire
shut up in my bones
and I can’t let it go...

And when I’m weary
and overwrought
with so many battles left unfought

I think of Paul and Silas in the prison yard
I hear their song of freedom
rising to the stars
And when the Saints
go marching in
I want to be one of them.

Lord it’s all that I can’t carry
and cannot leave behind;
it all can overwhelm me.
but I think of all who’ve gone before them
and lived the faithful life, their courage compels me.
And when I’m weary and overwrought
with so many battles left unfought

I think of Paul and Silas in the prison yard
I hear their song of freedom
rising to the stars
I see the shepherd Moses in the Pharaohs court
I hear his call for freedom for the people of the Lord

And when the Saints
go marching in
I want to be one of them.
And when the Saints
go marching in
I want to be one of them...

I see the long quiet walk along the Underground Railroad
I see the slave awakenin' to the value of her soul
I see the young missionary at the angry spear
I see his family returning with no trace of fear
I see the long hard shadows of Calcutta nights
I see the sisters standing by the dying mans side
I see the young girl huddled on the brothel floor
I see the man with a passion come and kicking down that door...
I see the man of sorrow
and his long troubled road
I see the world on his shoulders and my easy load.

And when the Saints go marching in
I want to be one of them.
And when the Saints go marching in
I want to be one of them.
I want to be one of them.

one sweet love.

2007-11-05T10:50:00.001-08:00

Not January 1st; Today is the first day of a new year. Specifically, of mine.

And because this is MY New Year, I have some resolutions.

-In this year of my life I will take real risks. Not "I'm going to drink a tank of mercury just to see what happens" risks, actually scary, life-altering, risks. The things I'm really frightened to do, I'm not going to hide from, I'm going to take them on face first. I will not be scared of anything.

- This year, I will tell the truth. Even when it hurts me to do so. Even when it'd be easier to lie, I will let truth be my identity. Sat nam.

- I will stop worrying about who feels what towards me and simply feel however I feel towards them. I will let go when its time to let go, and I'll fight like a real fuckin warrior for the friends who are in my life. No more putting off letters, emails, phone calls... no more selfishness about being open.

- I will wake up every day and just be grateful. I will remember this feeling I have right now; free and deliriously happy. This year has been wonderful and thrilling, and also long, and hard, and heartbreaking. But thats ok.

- I'm going to start forgiving myself and everyone else. Pema Chodron says "come as you are". Every day can be like this, not just today. Life can be like this.

I'm having a mind-blowingly fantastic day, (even though not everything is perfect). I did things for myself that I really wanted to do, got some really thoughtful gifts and I had a wonderful night last night where everyone bought me drinks, and random people dedicated songs to me. Not bad.

And probably tomorrow this high will be over and I'll feel ordinary. But... BUT - I don't aplogize for that. Even if I seem like an ass for being so dizzyily thrilled -- I want this. I feel more alive like this, and I'm going to bottle it up for the next year of my life.

you might be the girly who shall end all girls.

2007-11-03T21:07:00.000-07:00

sick of politics right now - three poems instead.

If I make this new tulip stem the viaduct
or underside of your wrist and lick
the branched artery, I arrive in Rome
on the other side of a season sudden as a kidnap note.

I lean against the famous fountain and watch
the waiter refresh the glass of marigolds precisely
ringed by petals. Isn't this every painting
I've ever studied? (I should be in France) but there

you are, that sip of cappuccino, so delicious
I sketch and title it: Alone on the Terranean Sea. Then
I simply walk over and pick up your cup. You are the coast
of October, my graduate art fellowship above the café,

the technical modeling, windows wide, gauze drapes
puffed. I can't stop breathing when breath is cinnamon, over
and over, lineament, rags, turpentine negligence, afternoon
canvas. The mysteries of light, and later when you said

"Abriera," I did enough for you to lay down
your brush and draw the chiffon scarf across my tongue,
"la lingua," like petals or air, nothing, a glass ring,
the curve of this cup rim, this lace, this froth.

Beth Simon - Taste Is

------------------------------------

Every cricket here has mated.
Hear it in the distant tone and timbre
of a tired, old drone: a chorus
for those who now wear only
white robes over lost bodies—

that chorus which for us rises evenings
in the cancer, neuralgic, and geriatric wards,
where all are far beyond triage.
Each moan, we know, echoes
a voice from that boundless night
preceding the afterlife.

Forget your body. Forget the afterlife.

God, give me back wolverine passion,
ability to dig my way into dirt road
before truck tires crush, before
hunters come with guns.

Bring sky. Settle my mind.
No, fill my veins with red ants.
Never allow my blood to pool or cool
or stand placid as the surgeon's before his work.

Thunder among my muscles. Hail
upon my bleached bones. Raise nations;
raise wind. Bow wheat stalks
in rivers. Scatter my seed
to those only with wings.

Kevin Rabas - Reseed

----------------------------

Let’s not talk of healing yet
nor making love
nor of ingenious devices
replacing touch.
And this is not theoretical:
A poem with calipers to hold a
heart
so it will want to go on beating.

Adrienne Rich - excerpt from Calibrations

And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that.

2007-10-24T11:28:00.000-07:00

So, computer is gone. In the words of John Mayer: "Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone."

If keeping this thing up and running wasn't next to impossible before, its sure as fuck will be now.

But I'm trying to recommit myself to putting my thoughts to paper (or... blogger).
One needs to write out, regularly, all these scattered thoughts they're thinkin'.
I have these fantastic debates in and out of my head, sometimes even in a crazy-psuedo-talking-to-myself-in-the-car way. But thats how I work things out; talking. Action. I could think myself in a ditch, to be sure. I could survive with my head in the clouds, but a man named Jeff Greene once told me a story which has stuck with me for years:
Jeff worked in prisons. He went into prisons and taught art, which might seem to some like building a card-castle in the middle of a tornado -- a pointless waste of time.
But its not, and it wasn't. However, where Jeff's motivation had been to *teach* art, he also learned a whole truck full of knowledge, most especially from his "students" who were repeat offenders, or who had life sentences. One specific inmate, who was taking Jeff's class for the third or fourth time, was talking to Jeff about "meaning". He was explaining to Jeff how inside the prison walls, what was important was completely different because of context. The context was the prison, and what was important outside those walls meant little inside. The example the inmate used was the secret of the whole universe. He said to Jeff:
"You could know the secret of the whole world. Of the whole universe. You could have divine knowledge from God himself about the workings of every secret plan there is. But you could be running around screaming it in here, and it wouldn't mean jack-shit. In here, the secret of the universe is worthless."

Not that my brain is a prison, but you see the analogy.

Its all about access this week. What do you have access to that someone else doesn't have access to? Because of your class? Your gender? Your race? This is the theme of my week:

- Access to commodities.
On a macro level, I was in a serious discussion at a feminist meeting yesterday about porn and sex workers. One of the big issues that kept coming up was access. The one thing a lot of people kept forgetting to consider was the motivation -- why did some women (not the one's who are all empowered and choosing to be involved in the sex worker world) turn to selling their bodies? Well, access. What other commodities did they have to offer, and what access did they have to other options? How does your access affect how you understand your own empowerment, and your identity?
On another macro level, tomorrow I'm teaching a workshop about the politics of HIV, and access to information, prevention, testing and ARVs. But thats for Friday's better-thought-out post.

-Access to people.
On a micro level, I've been trying to make myself more accessible. Both a resource to other people, and just being a little more transparent. Making myself understood... to understand.
And vise-versa -- trying to access other people, i.e. admit that I don't have all the answers, and sometimes I really don't know anything about certain subjects, or how to talk about them, and asking for help. Or just trying to work things out. That's why writing and talking are so important... I could make up all the answers in my head, but it'd be a whole museum by one artist. How boring.

Which is one of the reasons I read: Carnival of Feminists
So I can be hype on all the intersections of feminism and racial justice, or even science, or art. And so I know where other people stand. Access to ideas plays into this too. And access to education, learning...

-Access to answers.

Sometimes, there is no access to this at all. No matter how privileged you are. This is how I see the world's justice sometimes... you can't buy the answers (except to the SATs).

I've been trying to accept this reality. It is posed to me time and again in Buddhist scripture: Accept that sometimes you will have to accept no answer.

The world is confusing. Things seem to point in one direction, lead you to what seems like an answer, *the* solution to a problem... and then the whole situation turns upside down, and you're back at square one.

To me, this is life's way of saying: "Oh? You were so immodest to believe you had that all figured out, did you? Well, let me gently remind you that things are not so simple."

Sometimes (often) I am frustrated by this. I think I understand someone, something, but then something happens so totally out of left field that I have to reevaluate the whole thing. I'm trying to be a more passive observer of these moments... to be good natured and calm and understand that I don't understand. Accept my place in time. Kurt Vonnegut was a keen observer in this way... he was often criticized for making observations in his books which seemed callous. But to me, I loved him for that. It was his way of pointing things out.

So mix up Vonnegut and Brahma. And there you have my goal for this week -- in the face of confusing situations, plans being uprooted, unfinished moments... in the face of my access to answers, accepting that I just might not get any.

So it goes.

2007-10-17T06:17:00.000-07:00

US Honor for the Dalai Lama angers China.

I must say, if the Dalai Lama is wrong, I don't wanna be right.

"Stop preaching that peace business! You just.... STOP THAT! Stop right now! Stop talking about your spirituality nonsense! .... STOP! Don't you dare bless that crippled child!!!!"

I'm not sure crippled is the P.C. term anymore, but ya know.

On a serious note however, it really speaks the the current political climate in China that they seriously consider the Dalai Lama to be a national security threat.

I want to hold you in the bible black predawn.

2007-10-09T00:16:00.000-07:00

_

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

-Kaylin Haught

_

I looked back on the last few entries:
I'm really not generally obsessed with God, and I promise ensuing writings will not reference or otherwise refer to such ... for at least a week.

2007-09-29T22:28:00.000-07:00

all the glory that the Lord has made
and the complications when I see His face
in the morning in the window.

all the glory when He took our place
but He took my shoulders, and He shook my face

And He takes and He takes and He takes.

my Grandma died today.

i just needed to say that somewhere.

.

You made me smile today. You spoke with many voices. We travelled miles today. Shared expressions voiceless.

2007-09-23T14:33:00.000-07:00

http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw/en/page94?oid=162506&sn=Detail

The above link would take you to a news article. The news article would tell you about how Merck and Co.'s experimental HIV vaccine, called V520, has failed in its trial run. You would click that link, and read about the decade it took to develop the vaccine, and how 45 of the "test subjects" are now infected with HIV as a result.

But you don't need to read the article, because I just explained it to you.

Maybe you will read it, I don't know. Will it make you think? I don't know that either.

If I posted an article about a gruesome bicycle accident, the next time you went for a ride, the thought would flit across your mind:
Should I wear a helmet?

But we don't. We don't put on the helmet. We are 20-something, and we drive too fast around turns, because we're in a rush. Life is moving 1,000 mph, and so are we, and we have no time to wait, and so we take risks. We are invincible.

Why is it HIV is so different from all of the other problems of the world? Its a bullet that could be stopped with a hand. It kills with an inevitable slowness, it is the Alpha and Omega, but it can be prevented with a layer of latex only 0.0018 mm thick.

A vaccine would have been a mixed blessing. Even though it would have prevented millions of deaths, entire countries would have waited years for its availability. The upper class in first world countries would get it within months. And the generation of orphans and infected babies in Brazil, South Africa, India, Costa Rica, China, Russia? Too late for them

I don't mean to sound defeatist. But what I read, what I have seen first hand -- it both gives me hope and heartache. I spend most of my days trying to fight overwhelming odds, to get through insurmountable barriers.

Its exhausting. I hope, every morning, that I'll open the front page and read about a cure. But the day doesn't come. So I work harder that day, and I try to invent my own cure.

2007-09-18T20:41:00.000-07:00

A friend I met in Brazil took this photo at a gallery in Italy, I think. Anyway, long hiatus due to overextension of... well, life.

Amidst lots of talking about gender, sexuality, and chakras (my housemates), I remembered this:

It reads:

All thats wrong with sex

death and babies
very close
like fighting but wetter
all that energy and time
all that money
and what about performance
what about the fact that bodies don't look like they're meant to
also what about the fact that at some point sex has to involved another person
like i've already said people can't be trusted
although they are not animals its best not to encourage them

Is it tounge in cheek or is it one of those half-jokes/half-truths?

bears, guy who hates bears, something unrelated to bears.

2007-08-20T08:25:00.000-07:00

This is absolutely NOT funny.

Being eaten by bears is not funny.

Also:

Stephen Colbert and Richard Branson (of Virgin Mega-Airlines-Music-Mobile-Spaceships fame) get into an on-air water fight. As in, fist-a-cuffs throw-down. Cannot wait to see that.

At some point this week I'll have something more to say other than regurgitating news stories which amuse me. But for now, really fantastic dancing that pretty much no one else will appreciate.

Lacey and Pasha Hip-Hop -- In the Morning by Junior Boys. ch'd. by Dave Scott

Lauren and Pasha Hip-Hop -- Fuego by Pitbull ch'd. by Shane Sparks

Hok and Jaimie Contemporary -- The Chairman's Waltz from Memiors of a Geisha ch'd. by Wade Robson

and last but not at all least (because it gives me chills ever single time.)

Last Season's Top Six -- Hide and Seek Imogen Heap ch'd. by Mia Michaels

(with and without screaming audience.)

PS - The dance videos are from So You Think You Can Dance, which although has ended for this season, is an unbelievably fantastic dance show. They have choreographers like Mia Michaels, Shane Sparks, Dan Karaty, Wade Robson and Tyse DeOrio... so it goes without saying that there are some bangin' dances. Mia Michaels was even nominated for an Emmy for a contemporary piece last year. Case in point: you missed the boat of you haven't seen it.

lately I'm a desperate believer- walkin' in a straight line.

2007-08-03T14:43:00.001-07:00

"To live with her was to sit completely on the floor,
entirely on the grass, wholly on the hollow
of her crossed legs, utterly in the mud.

To live with her was to sing out all the notes
even if you didn't know most of the words,
to scribble down each idea thats sprang at you in the dark,

to recall the exact phrasing of every folded message
you found tucked under your pillow."

-Excerpt from "Matka" by Donna Kaz

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free.

2007-07-12T12:20:00.000-07:00

The Jena Six.

Even if you do nothing else today, read about this case.

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."
Martin Luther King Jr.

I don't have much to say about this. It leaves me wordless.

Bad medicine.

2007-06-10T08:44:00.000-07:00

"The logical complementarity of the human sexes has been so recognized in our culture that it has entered our vocabulary in the form of naming various pipe fittings either the male pipe fitting or the female pipe fitting depending upon which one interlocks within the other. When the complementarity of the sexes is breached, injuries and disease may occur as noted above. Therefore, based on the simplest known anatomy and physiology, when dealing with the complementarity of the human sexes, one can simply say, Res ipsa loquitur - the thing speaks for itself!"

-James W. Holsinger Jr., in a paper concerning the "detrimental health effects" of homosexuality.Currently the nominee for the Surgeon General of the United States of America.

James W. Holsinger Jr., albeit trained in some of the most pre-eminent schools for medicine, has been a staunch contributor to the anti-gay rhetoric spewed by the conservative medical community. As a current, standing member of the National Methodist judicial community, he has not only voted in support of a Methodist pastor who kept a gay member from attending his church, he also voted in 2004 to expel a lesbian clergy member from the Methodist community.
Most disturbingly, Holsinger founded the Hope Springs Community Church, which “ministers to people who no longer wish to be gay or lesbian.” Holsinger has publically stated that homosexuality is “an issue not of orientation but of lifestyle.” (the Lexington Herald-Leader via Think Progress.org)

Although I may disagree with certain fundamentalist aspects of many religions, I can't dictate what entire religions should or should not accept. However: Science and Religion, though in history once enjoyed a mutually prosperous communion, no longer work in a beneficial harmony. Instead, religion has been used to dictate what answers science is allowed to give.
By it's very nature, science has no final answers. It only has the best answer out of what is available. Science is a tool to examine our world, and further explore different and unique ideas.
Religion, by it's own nature, seeks to give absolute answers to questions about our lives and our universe. By the same token, it is rare that religions are fluid and changing with the times, updating and re-adressing central beliefs based on new evidences and discoveries. In fact, whereas science in a dynamic and self-correcting process, religion often seeks to be stable, permanent, and unchanging through the external pressures of a changing universe. Religion looks to the past for strength, science pulls towards the future.

So how can religion be used to dictate what "answers" are given in matters of science? Should Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc., be an editting tool in how we read medicine?

I would maintain that this is always a bad idea. Our own personal bias's always phrase what we say and how we say it. Yet the more knowledge we have, the more truth we gain: so what can possibly be gained from an additional voice censoring what is heard?

That is not to say that morals and ethics have no place in science. Medicine should have no opinion. It is what it is. Doctor's, the appliers of medicine, are the driving force which should use humanity and honesty to guide treatment... but how far? To what end?

Reagrdless of what the answers are to that debate, I genuinely don't like Holsinger, and to speak to political incestuality:

"Holsinger has been a consistent contributor to the Republican Party, according to Newsmeat.com. The web site lists close to $17,000 in contributions to the national party and to various candidates, including President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, both fellow United Methodists, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)." - Cynthia B. Astle, United Methodist Nexus