Late Breaking News Alert: Cement Lawn Ornament Thief on the Loose

This is a clipping from the Watertown Daily Times, saved by my alert parents for me back at the end of October.

Woman Accused of Having Man's Lawn Ornament

Kimberly E. Robinette, 39, of 247 High St., Apt. 47, was charged Wednesday by city police with fifth-degree criminal possession of stolen property and is due to appear in City Court.

Police allege that about 4 a.m. Oct. 29, she was found possessing a cement lawn ornament belonging to David W. Johnson, 202 W. Main St. She had the item wrapped in her jacket near the Johnson residence, police said.

So, 1) what were the police doing out there at 4 a.m.? They picked her up right by the crime scene. They don't have beat cops in Watertown, so someone called the cops on her. So, my guess is she was totally drunk and made a huge racket dragging this cement statue of the Virgin Mary or whatever it was out of its bathrub or whatever it was planted in. Mr. Johnson was pretty pissed is my other guess.

2) what is FIFTH degree criminal possession of stolen property? Is this a special category for lawn ornaments?

3) I can never get enough of the specificity of the information they give. Her age, address, AND apartment number. Can't they leave a lawn ornament coveter in peace?

News from the Frozen Tundra: We're Cold, We're Hungry

From the Watertown Daily Times police blotter again:

Carthage Woman Accused of Stealing Two Blankets

CARTHAGE, NY - A Carthage woman was arrested Wednesday after allegedly stealing two blankets worth $17 each from Kinney Drugs on State Street.

Paula Burke, 47, of 611 State St., was charged with petit larceny and received an appearance ticket to return to village court.

Poor lady, I think we can call that a crime of survival.

Denny's Patron is Accused of Not Paying $11.91 Bill

A Watertown man was charged early Friday with skipping out on his bill at Denny's restaurant, 1142 Arsenal St.

Dana M. Zmijewski, 18, of 419 S. Massey St., was charged by city police at 1:28 a.m. with theft of services for allegedly leaving the restaurant at 11:54 p.m. Thursday without paying and $11.91 bill. He is scheduled to answer the charge in City Court.

OK, notice the time delay. He left the restaurant and an HOUR AND A HALF later the police caught up. Was there a chase? Did they take down his plates and run it by their database and just drive up to his house in the middle of the night? How bored ARE the "city" police up here?

I just want to add, after yesterday eating lunch at a local eatery a few miles down the road, Denny's is actually one of our nicer restaurants, where food is not being prepared exactly the way you would prepare it at home. Yesterday at "The Hotel Adams" (a hotel from the 1890's that has a "restaurant" in it consisting of a menu of fried food to go along with the long wrap-around bar) my father ordered a tunafish sandwich, and he got two slices of $2-a-loaf whole wheat with canned tunafish slabbed on it, cut slantwise. Nothing but the slopped on fish mush, not even a piece of lettuce. Luckily, their sandwiches are only $3.

Hm, it's closing in on the weekend, what shall we do...?

From the Watertown Daily Times, here are our options:

At least 19 different churches and fire halls in the region are hosting Bingo, including a "Bingo Marathon." Socially acceptable gambling, anyone?

One sock hop and four square dances. Surprisingly, only one line dance.

Chess, bridge, and euchre at various retirement centers, churches and Elks lodges.

Yoga is very hip-- at least four different yoga centers in the region are offering classes.

OK, here's a health activity now being offered in our one college town in the region, Potsdam:

Free screening: For performance artists with pain related to their art, 3 to 5 p.m. the third Wednesday of the month, Canton-Potsdam Hospital.

Wow, for all two performance artists in the tri-county region! Some resident at the hospital must have gotten a grant or something.

Other weekend activities include Arthritic Aquafit, Free Skin Tumor and Lesion Detection Clinic, and several childbirth preparation classes.

Then there are two columns of listings for snowshoeing and dogsledding. BYOS, BYOD. Bring your own snowshoes, bring your own dogs.

Lastly, Boonville Senior Citizens Center is trying to drum up participants for a group trip to Alaska.

The fun never stops!

Actually I am bummed I'm leaving before the Jan. 1st "Res-ZOO-lution Run" - a 10 km snowshoe and cross-country ski across the land where the local zoo is located. There's a free pancake breakfast! And the view from up on that fold of land is really gorgeous, if it isn't winter white-out conditions.

I'm home in Northern New York for a week, and that means...
More NORTH COUNTRY BRIEFS from the Watertown Daily Times!

In the N.Co. Briefs this morning:

Pair Accused of Stealing Brownies from Home

Norfolk, NY - Two Norfolk men who allegedly took some holiday baking
were arrested by state police Sunday.

Anthony George, 23, and Royjohn L. Gurrola, 18, entered an unoccupied
Norfolk home and stole a watch and brownies, troopers said.

They were arraigned in Norfolk Town Court on second-degree burglary
charges and each was ordered held in the St. Lawrence County jail,
Canton, on $2,000 bail.

Those must have been some tasty brownies.

Let me point out that the guys did not break and enter. The house was probably a) left unlocked, and b) a neighbor's house where they already are regulars. I'm also speculating they are high school buddies of the man of the house, and he got married not too long ago, and the wife is the one who called the State Police. I'm also guessing this is not the first time they have walked off with quantities of food. I can just see her eyes narrowing... "THIS time they'll PAY!"

You know, I actually once was friends with a Tony George from up that way, but he would be 35 or so now. I wonder if this was a relative of his. Wouldn't be a big surprise. He was a big stoner. Now that adds color to the picture. Tony and Royjohn (love that name) were probably REALLY STONED that they walked out of the house with a watch and a pan of brownies, ignoring the TV and stereo.

The Golden Flower Is, Indeed, Cursed

I just saw Curse of the Golden Flower (Man cheng jin dai huang jin jia ) by famed director Yimou Zhang of Raise the Red Lantern and House of Flying Daggers fame. It features the incomparable Gong Li (or, Li Gong, by the Chinese form of Last Name First).

This was a Shakespearean parable which turned very cartoony at a certain point. The San Francisco audience I saw it with tonight all cracked up at the climax when the soap-opera-ness of the quick series of close-up reaction shots (her reaction! his reaction! her reaction to his reaction! him looking at his reaction to her reacting to his reaction to her reaction!). And then, after an exhausting and disorienting wild ride (or, for me, a refreshing holiday family romp of blood and mayhem-- I felt quite rested, with a much better mood than I went in with), we were unable to do the traditional San Francisco audience applause at the end of the opening night's first showing because-- the credits rolled to the tune of a sappy POP SONG! It was a 9th-10th century AD period piece, with no music - almost no music at all- that had us all hypnotized by sparse panicky noise and uneven breathing and clashing weapons- and the spell was wiped away by an upbeat contemporary pop song! Weird, weird bad choice. Kind of a stunningly bad choice.

The rundown:

Jesus Figure: none! Nobody was driven to their ruin and then redeemed to greater glory, nobody. A classic tragedy.

Lesbian Movie Standard: met. Two women have a conversation about something other than a man. Gong Li's Empress character has a conversation with Chen Jin's mysterious Physician's Wife character about the way she was being poisoned.

Gay Character: the Empress' eunuch, who helped foment the revolt. He only gets a brief screen appearance, but there he is.

Guilty Pleasure: the bouncing boobs in those tight push-up bodices. Even one set of boobs decorated with shiny gold butterfly adornments (watch for it in one of the early scenes where Gong Li is taking her "medicine").

One review I just read notes that this is basically a lot like Raise the Red Lantern (the rottenness of royal/ upperclass living) but with melodrama and soap opera-ness and flying martial arts scenes. I still recommend R. the R. Lantern over this or almost any movie out there, period. It is a completely awe-inspiring movie. This, not so much. But still worth the price of seeing it in a real theatre. Really, the stage setting of carved rainbow-flourite palace lattice-work walls is STUNNING. My favorite scene is the mysterious Physician's Wife spotting her - we later learn - son through the translucent rainbow flourite lattice-work, and following him at a run - so the rainbow gemstone blurs... and then suddenly it's a fight scene (and that little ninja lady can really fight!).

Flaming Hula Hoops, Jump Ropes, and Bull Whips, Oh My

Unmata - the kick-ass dance group from San Jose - did this flaming children's toys thing at Shadow Play on Nov. 10 in Oakland.

Scroll to minute 8 for the bullwhip.

A bullwhip is a children's toy, in some parts of the world, right?

Survived

In the medical world, if you live five years past your cancer diagnosis, then you have survived cancer.

I have today medically/statistically survived the cure of my case of Cancer of the Girlfriend. As any cancer "survivor" like me can tell you, the only cure for cancer is death. So she got cured five years ago. Her cure wasn't too easy on me. But I'm still here.

Rest in peace, K2.

Call Homeland Security

My cat hates democracy. She barfed on my absentee ballot.

I'm not sure she's in league with the Terrorists but cats were once worshiped in the Arabic lands. I suggest someone look into it.

So How Was THIS Trip to Russia?

I forgot to mention in my last post that I was writing from Novgorod, Russia, in the middle of helping my friend Tatka's daughter deal with her English homework. Those six days I tagged on at the end of my work trip to Siberia were really wonderful. I got the full immersion experience, something I don't get when I'm traveling around with colleagues and work partners who speak English. In this little vacation I went "home" to the city where I studied for a year in college, Novgorod, aka Velikii Novgorod, aka Novgorod the Great. My friends there don't even read the English alphabet, something that startles me every time. Like, typing in the password for their dial-up connection they will try to read me the keys to press, and they don't know how to say the letters. I forget that there is no reason for any of them to know this information.

I haven't put my photo albums together yet, and with my tendonitis I'm going to take my time doing it. In the meantime, here are some other peoples' photos of the Moscow metro, a place where I spent large chunks of time in my three one-day pass-throughs of that city:

English Russia: Photos Made in Moscow Subway

I love how the drunken sleeping poses remind me of the cat-owner fan site, The Silly Sleeping Pose Olympics.

This is What Russian Students Memorize to Learn English

Still. Even after people who know living English came here to live.


Are the birds in the box?
Yes the birds are in the box.
Now take the monkeys and give them to me, please.
Are the crocodiles on the table?


This is a 1996 textbook. I am sure there is a method to their madness. But why - why! - do the children have to memorize this?


The bear's white.
The bird's blue.
The dog's black.
The puppy's, too.

I don't even know what that last sentence means.

Reduced to Syllables

It's been a while, eh? I got mentally et up by the Intro to Statistics class that I took over the summer semester-- and got an A in (shining knuckles on shirt)-- but I also have been eschewing computing outside of work because of a worker's comp claim for tendonitis... and meanwhile there is so much horror and bloodshed in the daily headlines (both in the Mid East and in Oakland) that I can't quite come up with a response. The world leaves me kind of speechless these days.

So I've been reading Jane Hirshfield's "Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry," and she recommends getting inspiration from reading word origins. Lucky me, I'm also supposed to be studying for the GRE, so I spent some time last night with my GRE vocab list and the dictionary. I'm sure you know what these mean but I would just like to list a few words that are great. To say, at least.

Vermilion
Zephyr
Peatmoss
Turf (the Russian for "peatmoss" is "torf" - and I think that is a dandy word too)
Antechamber
Troubador
Smock
Intrinsic
Snipe
Estuary
Shoehorn
Pontoon
Cessation
Soupspoon
Currycomb
Shellac
Sorrel
Muslin
Dreadnaught
Pants

...That's enough of that.

10 Days on Sakhalin

So how was Russia you ask.

Let's see, when I was last there in the fall of 2005 it wasn't much different from this time-- the oil barons getting rich, the roads are barely what you could call roads, what remains of government control over the social conditions is fading with the rapid rise in power of the oiligarchs, racism and sexism is alive and well, everyone seems to love Putin because they've swallowed that story that Russia Needs a Strong Leader to Bring Her Out of Chaos (they don't have the access to information that would help them follow the money as it piles offshore into private bank accounts instead of going into the country's infrastructure), and from what I know and have seen in Siberia and the Far East, you pretty much don't ever want to be out if you aren't straight. And while it's not as bad in the western provinces, it's still a sketchy business being out even in the capitals- Moscow and Petersburg. And please to not conduct any "gay-parade" in Moscow. But that's another story.

More specific news from this trip?

OK. In the Seoul / Incheon airport (ICN) I saw a t-shirt - one of many misspelled/ nonsense phrases in English that I saw printed on clothing -

"Heaven almost helpes those who decide jeans."

Another memorable quote-- we were examining important documents on the environmental impacts of the pipeline we were heading out to examine. L., our visiting pipeline expert from Alaska was sitting in the dark scrolling through documents for the third hour in a row and I heard her say -

"I'm not a biologist. Wetlands, shmetlands."

And then later when we were observing the improper storage of antifreeze barrels, which happen to be bright blue, D., the policy director from our org sort of mentioned as an aside -

"Blue is a good color for toxic waste."

There were some nice and strange roadsigns, too. One just had an exclamation mark on it. It was posted near the pipeline corridor. What exactly were we supposed to be alarmed about? I mean, all along the pipeline we saw alarming things, but maybe we were just generally supposed to be alarmed anyway, on account of the fact that we were in Russia and in the remote regions of a remote island whose only high-end export is underneath the source of food for most of the region (fish-rich waters), and non-risk-averse Muscovites and foreign oilies are happy to sacrifice the wellbeing of each and every person living on the island to render that slick of natural resources into piles of cash. The overwhelming overarching feeling I carried on this trip was just plain pity for that island. This is how bad it is with just two oil and gas projects underway. How is it going to be when the planned 13 (!) projects are careering along? And none of the companies sharing any pipelines. Like children who won't share toys. My pipeline! You're touching my pipeline! Stop touching my pipeline! Make him stop touching my pipeline!

One of our 5-person field team was a geomorphologist who works for the local administration. He has worked in construction in the Far East for thirty years. He says - and this is sad - that compared to Russian-run construction sites, the pipeline sites we visited were quite good. He's convinced that it would pretty much be a disaster if these pipelines were to fall under Russian control. As it is they have absentee parents in the form of Exxon and Royal Dutch Shell and their financiers in Europe and Japan. If the state monopolies step in and take control... that's extremely likely and extremely bad news for environmental controls.

It's just insane-- my back is still out from the condition of the roads. They were horrendous. Not just unpaved but slippery soupy clay-mud roads. And these are the roads in moderately bad (for them) condition, roads that wash out completely if there's a real downpour. And in a real downpour and flood conditions the badly-engineered river crossings (over 100 of them) will at some point result in pipeline damage and oil leaks. And that's when those very river crossings will be inaccessible to any and all teams who could control the leaks. It's just a guarantee of oil pollution from the pipeline. The question is only how far-reaching the catastrophe will be. Just the eastern administrative districts, or the shoreline, or the Sea of Okhotsk and the islands of Japan?

On other topics- a high AND low-light of the trip was seeing fresh bear tracks. And then hearing something heavy crashing through the woods following us. Them bears are hungry in the spring. And if they are adolescents, they are extremely disaffected. Freshly disowned by mom, wearing their bear eyeliner and listening to their bear Cure records. We discussed large hydro projects in Turkey that are destroying archeological sites. Loudly.

And on the topic of food- the french fries at Azalea (the restaurant in the back of the town banya) in Smirnykh are - just - heavenly! I've been on a junk food kick since I've been back because of those fries, I think.

The jeep broke down once (lost a steering-related bolt in a stretch of really bad road), the policy director got a brief spell of food poisoning, and the guy who was supposed to conduct the tour of the pipeline went in the hospital with internal bleeding from a ruptured ulcer the morning after we arrived (he's still there). That sums up the real trouble we had on the trip. Other than that I found that I worked hard, slept well, had few complaints about the company of my field team, and got to translate a lot of Russian.

The lowest low-light of the trip was seeing the hospital conditions where our local NGO leader was being treated when we came back from the field. Good lord it's a joke. Please do not get sick if you are in Russia. If you are Russian, that goes double. I'm sure there are lots of things they do very well and very cheaply, what with the socialized medicine and accessible education, but surgery? The surgery ward felt like a prison. There were no visitors and there was nowhere to sit when we visited. There were four men on cots in a bare room without curtains or even a place to put a vase of flowers (if they even would allow flowers, which I doubt). There was no climate control- you opened the window for air. We were harrassed for bringing our bags with us- the nurse said "this is a surgery ward-- leave your bags by the door." Like if we had brought a horrible infection with us on our bags, leaving inside on the floor by the door would save the four souls trapped in that room? Not a scrap of logic in it. And then there's the fact that the surgery ward was on the fourth floor at the back of a large sprawling building - WITH NO ELEVATORS. You better f-n be healthy before you leave, because it's a 20 minute hike in steep dirty stairwells to the front door. And because of his internal bleeding our friend was anemic, which meant that his young wife - while managing all the care of very young (1 year old) son with his own health problems - had to organize not one but TWO blood drives among their friends and family.

And what's more, is I think on the Russian scale of things, that was a pretty good hospital. Certainly the biggest, best one on the island (accessible to Russians).

The oilies probably get airlifted to Seoul.

8 Ways to Say "In Sheer Futility" in Russian

Translator Michele A. Berdy helps us to express our feelings.

She writes, of one of the permutations of ways to say "in vain" (Blogger isn't encoded to let me type in Russian, but it's bespolezno- "byez-pa-LYEHZ-na"):

I'm very fond of 'bespolezno,' pronounced with each syllable accented as if you are pounding nails in a coffin.

Of Chanting Muscovites and Theremins

I've now read some more detailed accounts of the demonstration/ action/ violence and arrests in Moscow. The participant account I read noted that of the 50 people participating (pro-gay) *most* of them were Westerners. So great. The Russian conservatives can point to this fact and say this was Western provocation. This is exactly the thing that could make this dreadful event into a setback instead of a Stonewall. Now, on the other hand, the organizer says he's very satisfied with the results and has a court case he can now take to the European Court for Human Rights. That could very well help the movement in Russia. I hope it does. I was sickened by the accounts of the protestors-- in a few cases specific people I know-- getting their faces bloodied by fascists or forced face-down onto pavement by brutal police. I think everyone will continue to wonder if this was absolutely necessary to bring the human rights situation in Russia to the international stage.

The non-worrying-about-Moscow parts of my weekend have been much more fun. So far this weekend...

- I went to the local SF LGBT Center's queer open mic and actually read something;

- I went to a house party featuring the last performance of the original crew of Nappy Grooves, an Oakland original-- an African-American drag king troupe with a political edge;

- I fell asleep stretched out in the grass and sun- to the tune of lapping waves- while drying out the cache log at the geocache site Ashby Spit/ Point Emery- I only got a little sunburned;

- I went to a showing of experimental super-8 / 16 mm black and white short films by Bill Basquin - rural themes in a queer context- very cool;

- At drinks after the Bill Basquin screening, A., one of our party, taught us about something he learned about at a Dorkbot gathering-- the strange new art of molecular gastronomy aka "food hacking." G. told us about his recent meal at one of the Bay Area's private restaurants --run by renegade chefs bucking the tyranny of the restaurant system-- and the "slow food" movement (an outgrowth of the "slow cities" movement, or, as A. said, "a bifurcation of the meme")-- nerds amok in the kitchen, hooray!

- I went riding in Montara- beautiful ocean, beautiful sky, good horses;

- and most recently I went to a house party hosted by a couple of dear friends who are DJ's and breakdancers. One of their friends brought over a theremin and we all got to learn how to play it. This was an old Moog theremin, actually signed by Bob Moog. I really enjoyed how easy this instrument was on my tendonitis. When I remarked on this the owner of the Moog theremin said the thing was first invented to be used by Clara Rockmore, a theremin virtuoso who had MS. Well, that's sort of true. She became a thereminist because of physical difficulties that developed because of early childhood malnutrition. The theremin wasn't invented *for* her. But Mr. Theremin (a Russian, by the by) was in love with her, and did make some modifications on the instrument for her. Ah love. Trying to win a woman by perfecting her theremin...

Another Reason to Hate Moscow

The coverage isn't very detailed-- there will probably be tons more information within the day (I'll have to remember to check the chat on gayrussia.ru or gay.ru in the next day or so), but basically the first Moscow gay pride march (which, by the way, is translated as either "gay procession" or "gay parade") was a bust and there were bloodied noses and arrests and no festive gay parade to speak of. Just about 50 pro-gay folks and over 100 anti-gay folks and lots of police who were not there to protect the former, and maybe weren't there to protect the latter either.

I have been in alternating states of denial and stomach knots over this announced visibility action. I'm glad I wasn't there, to be honest. The Western European gay demagogues who put themselves on the front line of this Russian-led action aren't the people I hold in the highest esteem as tactical activists. But some part of me knows this needed to happen, and while in some sense it may have set the movement back in terms of public acceptance, in another sense I think it will have long-term positive effects, making the het community wake up and smell the hatred.

But don't count on me to be wearing my rainbow beads on the streets of Moscow anytime soon. In fact don't count on me going to Moscow anytime soon, period.

Femme Convergence

The 2006 Femme Conference registration has opened! God I love it when a bunch of powerful organized femmes do a conference. There's nothing more organized than a femme conference.

I Used to Tell the Truth All the Time When I Was Evil

So how is the dating going, you ask? Well last night I amused myself by coloring in my dragon coloring book (of 14th century dragon designs-- a coloring book I got at The Cloisters like 15 years ago). Tip: don't cheap out on the crayons. "RoseArt" off-brand crayons are like coloring with candle stubs. Tonight I did laundry. And now I'm getting a boost from reading my collection of Bad Guy lines. I keep this little notebook handy near my comfy chair - I titled it "Notes From The Dark Side: Studies of Villainry." Many are from Buffy episodes. Some are from Angel, some from SG1, some from Inuyasha, some from Miyazaki movies... and the occasional [making the "guilty pleasure" face] Charmed episode. The title of this entry was something I think Angel said to Buffy. Here some others I enjoy:

I care about deadlines!

You've been spending too much time with humans.

It'll all be over too fast and you'll be dead and I'll be bored.

You are not here to provide information. You are here for my amusement.

You will bow to my awesome power.

I appreciate loyalty.

You lied to me. You made a mistake. You are sorry.

It's the end of humanity, not the end of courtesy.

How dare you summon me?!

You can't take me. No one can take me.

Can't a woman wreak a little havoc without there being a man involved?

I don't miss my heartbeat.

Come with me. It is the only way.

I wish you could feel what I'm feeling right now.

Ah yes, the whole god issue. Maybe we did take it a little too far... Can you blame us?

I shall savor your defiance.

Ah, I miss Buffy. My favorite Big Bad was Glorificus. That actress will never have such an interesting ass-kicking role ever again.

I watched Miyazaki's "Castle in the Sky" yesterday and really enjoyed Dola, the Pirate Captainess- that was another great anti-hero. The voicing by Cloris Leachman was just wonderful.

Some more lines I enjoy:

We can bring order to the galaxy.

I'm here to kill you, not to judge you.

Oh my God! Well, not my God, because I defy Him and all of His works...

And, last, a special thought for the evening... in the cold foggy grey area of silence following a second date...

Everybody feels alone. Everybody is, until you die.

Northwest Pacific Still a Little Quakey

Strong quake hits north-eastern Russia
Hong Kong, China
22 May 2006 06:42



A severe earthquake estimated to measure 6,7 on the Richter scale on Monday
struck in the north-eastern Pacific coastal area of Russia, the Hong Kong
observatory said.

The quake struck at 7.21pm Hong Kong time and its epicentre was located some
870km east of the Siberian city of Magadan, the observatory said.

This would put it somewhere in the Bering Sea off Russia's far eastern
Kamchatka peninsula.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

A series of violent earthquakes measuring up to 7,9 on the Richter scale
shook the Kamchatka penisula's Koryakiya region earlier this month,
affecting 12 villages with a total population of 12 000 people.

Dozens of people received minor injuries, and hundreds were evacuated from
the quake zone.

The Kamchatka peninsula, which is about the size of Japan, has a population
density of less than one person per square kilometre.

In 1952, the region was rocked by an earthquake measuring 9 on the Richter
scale, the fourth-biggest since 1900, according to data from the United
States Geological Survey.

-- AFP

Post-First-Date Ideation: The Enemy Within

All it takes is one positive dating experience for all my world to come crashing in, it seems. Or at least, from one second to another it seems as though it's safe to plan for the little cottage we'll have together in our retirement (with BLUE shutters-- a nice perwinkle or China blue would be nice) and then it seems as though it's safe to plan to never go on another date again in my life, let alone with this person. I sure do like my cat-- nice and predictable.

So, my one-month experimentation with the world of Salon.com personals has yielded, in the 11th hour, one positive first-date experience. And suddenly I understand why the more jaded gay boys refer to such an event as "meeting my future ex-husband."

How fast and how far the imagination goes with so very little information to fuel it! The less the information the more far-fetched the ideation.

In my head I go from nun to sexpot to lonesome cowgirl to stalker... No third middle-way seems available when all you have is a first and last name, a phone number and an e-mail. It's all or nothing, and it all rides on Date Number Two, when I'm sure we find out we are not only completely incompatible, but that we loathe eachother.

Or we pick up the real estate section and start shopping.

Sigh. Thirty-something and single and dating again after a long dry spell. The stuff country music songs are made of.

WAIT! This is a CRUSH! I almost forgot what those were. Hence that "world comes crashing in" sensation.

No wonder Meryn Cadell's famous Sweater Song from Angel Food for Thought has been playing in my head all day.

It's a girl not a boy who has got me crushy, and I haven't acquired any souvenirs to fetishize yet, but otherwise it's JUST LIKE THIS:

The Sweater Song (...in streaming audio).

If you want to download it, I can't link to Angelfire, but you can paste this into your browser to get the mp3 (3.1 MB):

http://www.angelfire.com/un/queereasteurope/MerynCadell_TheSweaterSong.mp3

Read along with the lyrics if you like:

Girls,
I know you will understand this
and feel the intrinsic incredible emotion.

You have just pulled over your head the worn,
warm sweater belonging to a boy.

Now, you haven't had a passionate kissing session or anything,
but you got to go on a camping trip with him
and eight other people from school.

And you practically slept together,
your sleeping bag right next to his
And you woke in the night to watch him as he slept
but you couldn't see anything 'cause it was dark
so you just laid there and listened to his breathing
and wondered if your heart might burst.

The sweater has that faintly goat-like smell
which all teenage boys possess,
and that smell will lovingly transfer
to all your other clothes.

If you get to keep it for a few days you can sleep with it
but don't let your mom see, 'cause she'll say,
"what is that filthy thing, and who does it belong to
besides the trash man?"
So you have to keep it under the covers with you.

You can kind of lie it beside you,
or wrap it around your waist,
or touch it on your legs, or whatever--
That's your business.
Now if the sweater has, like, reindeer on it
or is a funny color like yellow... I'm sorry,
you can't get away with a sweater like that.

Look for brown, or grey, or blue
Anything other than that, and you know you're dealing with
someone who's different,
And different is not what you're looking for.

You're looking for those teenage alpine ski chiselled features,
and that sort of blank look which passes for deep thought--
or at least the notion that someone's home.
You're looking for the boy of your dreams
who is the same boy in the dreams
of all of your friends.

Now the sweater isn't going fit you of course,
so you have to kind roll up the sleeves in a jaunty way that says,
'This is the sweater belonging to a boy,
and the boy is a genuine hunka hunka burning love',
and this is not just some hand-me-down
from your brother or your father.

Monday, wear the sweater
to school.

Be calm, look cute.
Don't tell him about the dream you had
about the place the two of you would share
when you get older.

Just be yourself.
The best, cutest, quietest version of yourself.
Definitely wear lip gloss.

He looks at you, and then he looks away,
And then he walks away,
and the smell of the sweater hits you again suddenly
like ape-scent gloriola,
and you get a note passed to you
by a girl in History that says
"He needs that sweater back.
He forgot you put it on in the tent on Saturday
and he's been looking for it."

And you don't have to die of humiliation, you know,
You are a strong person
and this is a learning experience.
You can still hold your head up high as you run from the classroom
tearing the stinking sweater from your body.

You look at that sweater, carefully,
and realize that love made you temporarily blind.
You've got a secret now, honey,
and though you would never sink as low as him,
you could blab it all over the school if you wanted:


The label in that sweater
says:
"100%
Acrylic."

---

Down With Tectonic Imperialism!

Up with the Okhotsk Block!

May 2, 2006, Seattle: Scientists officially declare: Kamchatka is not part of the US mainland.

merecemos paz

We deserve peace.

It was a sign - the first word in black sequins and the second on the back of the sign in green sequins - carried by a member of the Transunidos contingent at the May First march for immigrants this morning here in SF. I was so happy to see this contingent-- in my last job I worked hard on documentation and did other support for dozens of travesti asylum cases, and it is these immigrants who often come to mind for me when people discuss the pros and cons of immigrants in the US. The Transunidos contingent was only about six women, but they had a great big gorgeous banner along with a US flag and the "merecemos paz" sequin-bedecked sign. They were a beautiful sight. And while other contingents were angry or somber or intesely earnest, they were dancing and cracking jokes and laughing. In our quarter they were the ones piping up most often with chants, keeping rhythm with their safety whistles. I think they were more energetic and bouyant than others at the march partly because being out and present and labeled as transwomen was adding a dimension of joy and revelation and maybe even danger to their participation in the march. They were challenging the same powers that be that the other marchers were challenging, but also they were challenging the other marchers. This was not an explicitly safe place for transwomen, but they were taking the space and making it safe. A wave of pride and joy did hit me, watching this contingent of women flying the US flag and chanting in Spanish, and saying in sequins "we deserve peace." We all deserve it, but in particular these women deserve peace.


Quickly, other highlights:

- in the march, a middle aged white guy in glasses and a dress shirt and bow tie banging on a pot lid with a spoon, banging in time to "si se puede."

- girls with drums, it seemed like about one per city block of march, leading the chanting

- dykes heavily sprinkled about, kids of all ages sprinkled about

- the reclamation of the US flag as a symbol of resistance-- resistance to the government defining what makes someone belong here, contribute here, work here, deserve to be here

- "America Goes From Alaska to Argentina" and "Whose the Illegal, Pilgrim" and signs in various languages, mostly Spanish but also Chinese and Russian

- The chant (from the World Can't Wait contingent woman with a backpack and microphone): "who is the criminal - George Bush; are immigrants the criminals - hell no"

- running into an old pal from Challenging White Supremacy who said this looked to her like the biggest march she'd seen in SF. To go four blocks took the throng about an hour. It seemed like from start to finish the densely packed crowd took at least 3 1/2 hours to get entirely past the starting point. It reminded me - in size and density - of the anti-war march in March 2003, but this was a work day, so it seemed to me that it was more impressive, more powerful-- it will have an economic impact and therefore it might change things.

- noticing that while I'm happiest on a horse, I'm pretty darn happy marching in a mobilized throng of people down Market Street yelling and dancing.

- seeing someone I hadn't seen in many years, an Armenian refugee who I met as a 16 year old living at home and living in the closet, then just coming out as bisexual, now looking mature, strong and beautiful, wearing a suit and a smart bob-cut hair-do-- I didn't recognize her at first and had already gone past when I placed her. But the look on her face, watching this march from the sidewalk, probably taking a break from her office, seemed to be a mix of emotions -- something like joy and a kind of deep wonder.


Yes, Christina, this march was for you, too.

Tilichiki needs your prayers

Please pray for my colleague enviros who live in Tilichiki, Koryakia, which has this past few days been leveled by earthquakes.

There is no information but the video from news feeds show that nothing withstood the quakes and the 20+ aftershocks that were 5-6 in strength. Kindergartens, hospitals, power plants.

Here is the latest RIA Novosti article on the quake and evacuation.

Nobody is answering their phones there.

If you pray, pray.

A Beautiful Day for the Subjunctive

It's our first warm sunny day of spring, and the 100th anniversary of the great SF earthquake and fire today. That quake and fire is something that haunts everyone here all the time, but particularly today, when the subjunctive case-- "if this then that"-- is on everyone's lips.

So they decided to have a parade, which some think is weird, but on what other occasion do you get emergency services and trade unions all lined up to receive appreciation?

I got to clap for the SF police chief Heather Fong, and her mounted police escort. I got to clap for the firefighters, marching in dense formation ("formation"), replete with tiny children in arms, dykey types galore, and a very sweet but mangy looking black and white australian-shepherd-ish search dog. That will be the most beautiful dog on earth if I'm looking at him/her from under a pile of earthquake rubble, that's for sure.

I got to clap also for a sweet, earnest, out of tune junior high school band from Pacifica. The empathy that gushed out of me for those kids! I mean, the part of me that loves the Triplets of Belleville (the movie), the part that is so deeply touched by small acts of sheer absurdity, futility and earnestness, it just broke all open at their small, earnest out-of-tuneness. I even shed a tear at the beauty of it. As Eliot said "for us there is only the trying." Most perfectly embodied by a little tiny out of tune provincial marching band of prepubescents.

I got to clap for the long line of contingents of trade unions behind a single big banner "WE REBUILT THIS CITY." And the ILWU drill team, with their tap-adorned steel-toe boots and shiny chrome loading hooks.

As I walked away (the parade still going) I looked back to see the Red Cross marching by. As with the police and army and the firefighters who came before, when I'm standing holding my little tabby cat outside the burning wreck of my old 1920's apartment building after the next big disaster, I will be MOST grateful to see those uniforms.

At the tail of the Red Cross contingent was an old truck with the label "Red Cross Horse Ambulance." Right now, reading the Guns of August and getting a sense of the horse-dependency of the 1900-1920 era, I can imagine that truck was a welcome sight on many San Francisco street corners after the quake. But being an old horse person, some part of me saw that ambulance and felt that earthquake in an all-too-real way, imagining and quickly banishing the image of a burned animal.

So, both happy-gushy and provoked into disturbing thoughts by the sights of the parade, I returned to the office in time for a presentation by a visiting scholar showing us his horrible evidence of the vast recession of the glaciers since 1950. The ice core record showing exactly how human-made impacts are mounting (in terms of sulfates and other pollution evidenced in the core). Basically, after those firefighters, police, army and red cross workers do their best, and we still perish off the face of the earth, the other-worlders who come here to investigate what happened will have no doubt about what killed us.

A beautiful day with a very creepy aura.

[Note to the organizers: GET THE GAYS TO ORGANIZE THE PARADE IN 2106! If there's one community that knows how to organize a parade, it's them. And note to locals: did you notice the long hold ups and delays in this parade? This is how emergency services organizes a parade! Be afraid! Start those emergency kits NOW!]

Altaians in Ukiah

My three colleagues from Altai, Siberia, who I've been helping entertain, are here to learn about alternative energy projects in California. They went to Ukiah and got some front page coverage in the Ukiah Daily Journal this past Tuesday. In Hopland they didn't like the hoppy beer, but they sure liked the microhydro generators!

Hazards of Walking the Political Line with Russians

1. Overt racism. I work at an ethnically European-American organization that works with Ethnic Russians, Indigenous Peoples of Russia, and Asian-Russians. They have their bones to pick with eachother, but they are all pretty comfortable with European-Americans (hereafter "white people"). The white people they know are like the people I work with, often working in segregated circumstances, where the US NGO staff is primarily or exclusively white (due to traditional NGO elitism plus the nonprevalance of people of color with Russian skills). So not in ANY contact or circumstance do they have prior interaction with people of color from the US, and then they come to Oakland, San Francisco, Washington, DC, to visit. They are overtly amazed at the many different and often dark colors of peoples' skin, and will innocently ask for photographs with people who are exotic looking to them. Really! And really innocently. But to the grave discomfort of the well-trained well-intentioned white people that are trying to wrangle them.

Last night an Ethnic Russian visiting from absolute bumfuck nowhere Siberia was entranced with these two children the color of the darkest night sky sitting on a white bed in the bedroom display section of Ikea. He asked me to take his picture with them. I wouldn't, but I asked the Ikea employee who was talking to the kids, and who was African American, to stand for a photo with our guest. She was puzzled but not offended and hopefully I've averted a future disaster on this trip, since he now has his desired souvenir photo of himself with an African American. This definitely puts me in political grey area, as someone trying to live an anti-racist life, but I really felt like this urge of his to be photographed with exotic-to-him looking people could end VERY badly if it wasn't taken care of in safe circumstances. So, hopefully the young lady at Ikea thinks he spontaneously wanted a photo of someone who works at Ikea, and doesn't suspect the reality of the situation. Although, if I were her, I'd be suspicious. I apologized a little too much.


2. The reality that you might start fitting in with the Ethnic Russians. The questionable pedigree that Ethnic Russians have with regards to so many things-- treatment of minority ethnicities, minority religions, women, the environment, their neighboring countries-- leaves you with this question in your head when inevitably someone says "you're REALLY Russian now." Yes, working with a group of a certain language/ ethnic group you do try to fit in and not assert your own cultural expectations on the group. But do I REALLY want to thought to be REALLY Russian? This question comes up for me-- I try not to dwell.

Last night I briefly lost my car keys in the Ikea parking lot-- they fell from my hand into my trunk and got buried under some bags. So, I went from talking with my guests about my Swedish grandmother to being just at a loss-- here we are! Stuck in the parking lot! Oh well! As I unpacked things and eventually found the keys one of the Russians piped up-- "You're not Swedish-- you're Russian!" I know he didn't mean it in any way other than playful, and even complementary (see, you're just like us!), but it does leave me wondering if it isn't finally time to visit the land of my FarMor. Get in touch with some roots OTHER than my adopted Russian ones.

3. Of course the inevitable confusion with the Spy Names. And the Spy Rocks, getting clear transcriptions from our moles in Moscow.

KIDDING!

The Russian, the Eye of Shambala and the Dollar

Over dinner tonight with some visiting environmentalists from the Altai in Siberia, one of the guests brought up the rumor that the famous Russian artist Nikolai Roerich designed the back of the one dollar bill. We debated it a little and of course none of us knew anything about the dollar bill and its art. So, thank you Wikipedia, for clearing this up.

Roerich's influence on his devotee cabinet secretary Henry A. Wallace led to the inclusion of the Great Seal of the United States on the U.S. dollar bill known for the depiction of the Great Pyramid topped with an all-seeing eye — a religious, occult and Masonic symbol.

The FDR American Heritage Center backs this story up.


Nicholas Roerich, a Russian born artist, poet, writer and distinguished member of the Theosophical Society, led an expedition across the Gobi Desert to the Atlai mountain range from 1923 to 1928, a journey which covered 15,500 miles across 35 of the world's highest mountain passes. Roerich was a man of unimpeachable credentials: a famous collaborator in Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, a colleague of the impresario Diaghilev and a highly talented and respected member of the League of Nations. Roerich was an esoteric Russian painter, and went to Central Asia to become a lama. His earliest paintings, filled with Himalayan light, are in the astonishing Oriental Museum, also known as the Museum of East and West, in the Russian capital of Moscow, and others at Roerich societies like the ones in New York City in the United States and St. Petersburg in Russia. Roerich was credited with introducing the West to Agharthi and Shambhala. Nicholas Roerich was also influential in FDR's administration, and was the pivotal force behind placing the Great Seal of the United States on the dollar bill.

I wish that page had some anchors so I could just link around the page, and I don't feel like quoting the page further, but there are some amazing things in there about this Henry A. Wallace character and his obsession with all things Russian and also weird-ass mystic sects. Boy, nowadays you could NOT get to the heights of government this guy got to and still be openly obsessed with the Illuminati.

So anyway, Roerich didn't design the US seal (with mystic pyramid and Eye of Shambala) that is on the dollar, but he was behind it being placed on the dollar.

What's especially cool for me is that, looking at the Wikipedia examples of Roerich's art, I recognize his work. I have visited his paintings in the Russian Museum (in St. Pete) for years. He is an AMAZING artist. And I am very sorry he did NOT design the dollar bill's art-- that would be a fanTAStic dollar.

Check THIS out. One of Roerich's paintings I've been admiring for years.

Temporary Reprieve in Misfortune for Albanian Lesbian Asylee, Mother

You have to celebrate when you can, and this is just a temporary stay of deportation on human rights grounds, but since the US basically doesn't even recognize human rights grounds to begin with, my hat is off to the UK Immigration Court of Appeals Lord Justice Sedley.

The Long Perspective

This week I started and finished, in time for spring break, the third of four sections of a self-paced Intermediate Algebra class. And I got an A on it. It was a chunk of learning that is designed to take at least three weeks, if not a semester. I am hoping to finish the next section by the end of the semester. I'm pushing myself to get through the whole course in a semester partly because I need to keep moving toward about my eventual re-application to UC Berkeley's policy school, the career move that will end, blessedly if only temporarily, my long ten-year drag under the glass ceiling of non-profit generic catch-all jobs where I inevitably feel the weight of the egos of my heirarchical superiors driving me towards a future where I hope to someday be their boss. The late nights, doing math until 2 or 3 am, feel like an indulgence in my dream of a better future. My current non-profit low-20's glass ceiling drag is feeling particularly futile right now-- battling the clock to get small $1,000 to $17,000 grants to small vulnerable environmental organizations in Russia. In one week the new Russian NGO law comes into force which will suspend my work on processing these small grants, perhaps indefinitely. I complain about what I'm paid, but looking at the payrolls in the project budgets for these little enviro projects... it gives some perspective. And if throwing these peanuts into the cage feels like an exercise in futility, what must it feel like to the recipients in that cage-that-is-Russia...

And some more perspective. Feeling like I'm in this embattled nonprofit organizing world at a dead run -- such that looking out the BART train window I tend to wonder whether I'm going home or going to work -- I've been grounding myself by reading Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August. The story of the first month of World War One.

Wikipedia gives the summary.

By the end of August, the French Army had suffered 75,000 dead of which 27,000 were killed on 22 August alone. Total French casualties for the first month of the war were 260,000 of which 140,000 were sustained during the climactic final four days of the battle of the Frontiers.

Tuchman's book quotes some reports from the Battle of the Frontiers where the pile of dead was being compared to the image of a tidal wave falling at a 60 degree angle. Germany's conscripts were marching in dense formation and were mowed down in such a way that the French defenders were finding that the wall of dead created cover for the oncoming battalions. The world at that time was such that officers wore white gloves into battle. The cavalry with its swords was deployed against machine guns and heavy artillery. The old world and new world collapsed into a putrid wasteland of trenches and wire. And, most appalling of all, the presiding monarchs of the three prime players in this war were all cousins. One could say this bloody debacle was a family spat gone terribly terribly wrong.

So in my moments of feeling like I'm in a long uphill drag in a vast exercise in futility, I like a little perspective. The building I walk by every day to and from BART - the Kaiser Auditorium - has a gorgeous facade of Beaux Arts relief with the allegorical themes of a land at peace: the joy of effort, the consolation of the arts, the wealth of the earth. An agrarian, intelligent view of the world. The facade is dated 1914. I get chills looking at it, knowing that perhaps the very month that facade was installed the world changed forever, the ferocity of modern warfare erupted and-- to paraphrase T.S. Eliot's "Four Quartets"-- "the dancers [went] under the hill."

Back in undergrad study, I imagined something like the hill home from a Tolkein hobbit village as the hill that the dancers were gone under. But the hills, the earth-- it was where you buried those villagers caught in the warfare that was waged in fields of wheat. I read "All Quiet on the Western Front" and the principal repeating image you are given is that the earth is solace. You want to crawl into it to get away from the death, stench, bombs. You have the taste of it in your mouth, and you want to become earth, wide and broad and low and dead. And safe. You want to be gone under the hill.

So, here I am. Still alive, still racing around, making my futile gestures at bettering the world, while bombs go off daily in a country my country destroyed in a gesture at fixing it, and yet there is not, and will not be, the kind of war of attrition that was World War One. The modern war is deadly but there are no battles where 27,000 die in one day. Tsunamis, yes, but not battles with that kind of human impact.

It is grim but it is still something for which I can be grateful. War has evolved, still a monster, but evolved.

"Eerily Effective Psychographic Matchmaking Software"

After coffee but before any other important events on this April Fool's Day I made sure to check out what Google has in store for those hapless folks who don't read calendars and trust Google to handle every aspect of their life. This year Google targets the lonely hearts.

Oooh ooh look - they have links in one nook of the soulmate search spoof to previous years' April Fool's jokes:
GoogleGulp
Lunar Job
Pigeonrank
Mentalplex

Chicago, Not The Musical

In my writing group we try to say something nice before we lean in for the close read. So, first off, people in Chicago are better drivers than Californians. Secondly they have a street called "Wacker." That is amusing.

That said--

Has anyone told Chicago that segregation is over!? Good lord, the ethnic mistrust and prejudice and - at best - WARINESS is as tangible as that horrible face-freezing wind. My (Swedish) grandma's house is on the South Side in a little enclave of university-related folks living in falling down old 19th century Victorians. It's not an all-white neighborhood, but it is compared to every square inch of neighborhood to the south and west for miles and miles. Just going to the local Walgreens felt like I'd stepped into another decade. The looks said 'does that white girl know where she is?'

And the wedding I went to was so white-- 120 people and one person of color (SE Asian) that I saw among the attendees. The wedding band (which was AWESOME) - The Gentlemen of Leisure - was all people of color (by appearances/ speech African-American)and the catering staff was mostly POC (by appearances/ speech Latina/o). The bride was an ex-debutante and her side of the hall was chock-o-block full of pretty white 30-somethings and their successful husbands. It really did feel like I'd been transported to another time.

And then after the wedding I managed to get the one cab in Chicago driven by a guy who is African (West African, by speech) who is a Physicist and who has two discoveries to his name and who takes mortal offense of someone DARE ask him where else he's driven cabs, implying that he is a CAB DRIVER. He insisted I apologize, finally threatening to stop the car unless I apologized. I told him to pull over. I got out, throwing the $16.05 I owed into the front seat and walked off into the 1:00 am South Side. I didn't take his cab number-- I didn't want to make a federal case about it-- it felt like more of that ethnic tension that I'd been sensing, just boiling over in this one guy who feels totally humiliated by his station in life, in Chicago. And how dare this young white woman imply he is a cab driver, when (as he put it) he could be anyone.

Best things about Chicago besides the better drivers, and the one amusing street name? The lake. We went geocaching out by the lake and found a couple in the balmy-for-this-time-of-year 34 degrees grilling up some chicken, sitting in their lawn chairs, watching the lake. It looked very peaceful and romantic. We (my parents and I) found our cache and wandered around Promontory Point, where they got all misty-- that was the park where they romanced eachother the summer they met. That's a good thing about Chicago. There are a lot of good family memories there.

But returning to Oakland I felt like I could breathe again. The life-giving humidity. The sense of (in most cases) ease between a widely diverse bunch of people. Sure we look at eachother sideways sometimes, but we really can't touch Chicago for street static.

A Must for the Bar on Your New, As-Is Cash-Only 737

Gun, meet tequila. Tequila, meet gun.

Made in commemoration of the children of the distillers -!?

Pimp My Wings

The US Export Import Bank has an extra Boeing 737 on its hands. As-is, cash only.

How many NGO bank-reform campaigners do you think are going to put in joke bids on this?

Just the Headlines

Daniel Handler AKA Lemony Snicket writes a play for adults, called 4 Adverbs - Young fans everywhere already cringe at the thought of Lemony without the Irony

The celebrated dyke band Nochnye Snaipery (Night Snipers) from Russia will come to San Francisco March 8th (International Women's Day, the second biggest holiday in Russia after New Year's, by the by)

Nerd Goddess Sarah Vowell is going to be on the Geek God Jon Stewart's show tonight-- will the heavens open up and all the geeks and nerds ascend into nirvana?

Hmmm, what else caught my attention today... oh yeah, the polar icecaps.

My coworker just came back from the Alaska Forum on the Environment and Climate Change - which was mostly funded and attended by EPA and other government types - i.e. it was pretty sanitized, and didn't talk about the CAUSES of climate change such as hydrocarbons and other things sacred to the Bush Administration - but people STILL managed to talk themselves into a cold sweat about climate change. And one woman apparently reported some chilling (or not, as the case may be) facts about the polar icecap retreating from being in contact with all continents to being surrounded by open water (i.e. room for tanker shipping routes and offshore drilling derricks, yippee) in the course of only FIVE OR SIX YEARS! And then apparently she said that - oh well - we won't all survive, but the human race will survive.

And to boot, someone else said that NO MATTER WHAT WE DO the climate change we've been seeing will continue (in a best case scenario) for the next 100 years based solely on the impact we have ALREADY rendered... so, go ahead and get that houseboat you were looking at, because 6-7 meters of water is headed your way in the more and more immediate future!

I really want to know, are they working out a design for a Prius that floats? I mean, the oilies are fully apprised of our soggy future-- they must be engineering for it.

Doing a casual google for "prius" and "floats" I found this... shadow of the future?

The 2005 Prius has enough air bags to float you safely across the ocean. In addition to the usual driver and passenger air bags, it has side-impact air bags in the front and rear, and “curtain” air bags that deploy from the roof supports.

More From the Lesbian Front in Croatia

Apparently, according to my friend, who is catching me up on the gossip courtesy of Google chat, these billboards are up around Zagreb. When has San Francisco ever had a widespread lesbian visibility billboard campaign? I mean, besides the Lesbian Avengers' billboard beautification campaigns? This is Zagreb's SECOND lesbian visibility billboard campaign that I KNOW of, which means they probably have them every other year.

Croatian Androgyny

Dear readers,

If you haven't had enough Croatian androgyny in your life lately, you may want to check out this blog.

Nerdgirl Heaven

Well, I found myself blessed in nerdgirl heaven tonight. I was running late from work to go see Sarah Vowell read at A Clean Well Lighted Place for Books. The crowd was just getting to the point where nobody filling in the back was going to get more of a show than the sound of her muffled voice. But I scrambled up front and found a spot on the floor (the last spot on the floor, where I would practically be sitting at Sarah's right foot), when someone in the middle of the third row stood up and called my name. I knew I'd know SOMEone there, but what luck-- the woman she was sitting by had saved two seats, and her friend wasn't coming, so I ended up sitting next to a friend in the third row. Whoever is looking out for me up there- the patron saint of literary readings- thank you!

I noticed one other person I know - not someone I'd call a friend but someone I know, a friend of a friend - Lemony Snicket aka Daniel Handler (yes he has a Wikipedia entry)! He is friends with S.V. He was scooting out of the venue just as the massive throng in the back was getting surly.

The crowd was rapt. I mean, nobody moved. When I bent down to get a cough drop from my bag I felt like I was mooning the congregation at a wedding. She read from the beginning of Assassination Vacation and then from an op-ed she's about to publish in the New York Times about the need for having an outlaw secret service on prime time and the equal need to NOT have an outlaw secret service on the evening news.

Then the questions. My friend wanted to ask if she'd ever gotten a driver's license. But that was too personal and too stigmatized, she said, to ask publicly. She asked her privately when we went up to get our books signed, and turns out S.V. hasn't gotten her license yet. I wanted to ask her if she would take me up on my proposal (already e-mailed to her some months ago) that I be her guide on a European Assassination Vacation to the sites of the assassinations that came as a prelude to World War One in the then-Kingdom of Yugoslavia. So, I decided that wasn't a good public question either. I clarified her answer later. No.

What I *did* ask was - as a volunteer at 826 Valencia having just heard that she's on the board of 826 - could she talk about her role at 826? That was fun. She even said that at a reading last night - in LA - someone asked her what would give someone hope in this day and age: 826 Valencia. Her work is at the NYC 826 - the Superhero Supply Company (as opposed to the Pirate Supply Store we have here in the Bay Area). Apparently they have a "cape tester" there where kids can put on a cape and stand with their arms out in front of a big fan. This brings the kids in, and then when they find the hidden door to the tutoring lab they start coming every day and finishing their homework when maybe they had never finished their homework before. She was fairly gushing. She ended her response by giving a little "yay!" (with jazz hands).

One of the first questions was from a guy in the grumpy pushy nerd section in the back. He said that he had heard that male writers have more groupies than female writers, and was she bothered by this. So there she was, facing a completely - to the point of fire hazard - packed book store, with people crammed in who could only hear her voice from around a corner, being asked if she felt she lacked groupies. She was kind of dumbstruck for a second, doing what all good speakers do in such a case, repeating the question, then: "Well," she said dryly, "I suppose you could be forced to stand outside on the sidewalk- that would make me happier."

Now I have to run off to stalk the book S.V. recommended I read, about the assassinations leading up to WWI, The Proud Tower by Barbara Tuchman.

Notes on January

I am in disbelief this is my first post in January. See, bosses? I have been working at work. I really don't just putter around on the internet.

As for work, the campaign my job supports on Sakhalin Island against a Shell gas and oil project just had a massive (300+ participant) blockade of the hugest ever LNG plant in the world.

As for school, I'm back at the math thing. I am doing "intermediate" algebra which is so far review of "elementary." The new version of the open lab course I'm taking (sans instructor, plus computer) is a breeze. I hope. Either it's a breeze or I'm failing massively.

I went into the community college (Laney) today to get my student ID, and on the way up in the elevator I noticed that listed among the departments on that floor was "Vending Machine Refunds." It's a humble college, but what customer service!

My city, Oakland, has sucky sucky thrift shopping, I just rediscovered. I can't believe how very picked over the shops are. And the prices they ask for the filthy broken crapola that's left behind! I have to go to the 'burbs to do some good thrifting.

As for my neighborhood, Lake Merritt, Oakland, I've been traumatized by all the tree removal permits (fluttering an angry red in the wind, stapled to every tree along my daily walk to BART since mid-December). There has only been one drunken crying tree-hugging incident so far. I went on a couple "tree walks" held by Oakland's Public Works Agency, and got some faith in the process as they explained it. I still wrote my protest letter asking they try to preserve the lives of the 15 (beautiful, healthy) magnolias lining the approach to the 12th Street pedestrian tunnel. I don't know what possible good it could have done, but I had to say my say-so.

As for my home life, my favorite products keep being discontinued, forcing me to new heights of creativity. Last year EO discontinued a wonderful lavender-honey body scrub and then repackaged it in a container half the size and doubled the price. So, today I put together the five ingredients (why did it take me this long?) and it makes a perfectly passable substitute for the $4-an-ounce version they are trying to sell. Honey + kaolin clay + fine-ground brown rice + lavender oil + glycerin. Try it!

My first batch was made with this recipe:

2 T kaolin clay
1 T organic brown rice meal (long grain, fine ground in a coffee grinder)
2 t organic orange blossom honey
1/2 t glycerin (a liquid skin protectant/ soap)
5-7 drops lavender (lavendula officinalis) essential oil
1 drop eucalyptus oil
1 drop rose oil

I will probably play with the mix of oils in my next batch. Maybe another kind of lavender oil.

I'll try to remember to post my recipe to deal with the disappearance of the mucho delicioso frozen ginger-butter-carrot-almond mixture from Trader Joe's shelves.