In my dream last night

I was in a ship with some group I was traveling with for work, i.e. Russian environmentalists, but we were in harbor. I remember enjoying using the word "harbor" in Russian (gaven') which declines rather beautifully on the tongue. It is featured in a lovely song "Arivaderci" by Zemfira (see above link under my obsessions), and after learning it in that song I rarely have a chance to use it. Anyhoo, that's how I know my trip was work-related. I also knew we weren't in Russia. Not because of the fact that it was a warm-water port, but because all the ships had "Ljubljana" scrawled on their sterns as their port of call. It was only this morning recounting the dream to a co-worker I realized that Ljubljana couldn't be any ship's port-of-call, since it is inland. So I think we were in port at Portoroz, or more probably Piran, a place that I think is magical and would like to go back to.

Anyway, the ship was huge. I remember enjoying a shower in a large bathroom while the ship rocked on the waves. I was running down the hall to the gym (in the hold of the ship, somehow) and was feeling really exhilerated about the upcoming trip out to sea.

I think that's a lovely way to enter the new season.

Other Ways to Stalk My Hometown

I keep going back to look at that stubborn snow at the Old Forge covered bridge, wondering if we have snow like that in my hometown. So, I did some stalking. This guy's bird-feedercam looking out at Route 11 (or so it appears) about three miles north of my parents' house seems to confirm it.

I mentioned in my Old Forge blog the other day how beautiful the Tug Hill is. Here is a cam to prove it (a site with a mission also to prove the existence of sun dogs, a phenomenon I have been known to point out to people).

This "Adirondack" cam is, I think, right outside Paul Smith (the culinary institute in the woods)- so it has the snow, being the high ground that the flurries from the Great Lakes are aiming for when they swoop down from Canada. Keep in mind that the Adirondack Park is hyoooge. The south-east corner that most people know (Lake George, etc.) is populous and built-up compared to the poverty-stricken, wind-blown and undeveloped north-west section, nearest my home. The wind has done such a number on the Tug Hill side of the park that there is almost no soil on Tug Hill. You have to pour concrete to put in a fencepost. People in the city take concrete for granted. Where I am from, you take enough-soil-for-a-fencepost-hole for granted.

My Poignant Moment of the Week

So, there's lots of things I've been meaning to blog about: my ongoing observation of the heron at my end of Lake Merritt, the preview I went to for A Series of Unfortunate Events (quickly: lesbian movie standard is met, Monty is the gay character, Klaus is the Jesus character), Dolly Parton, and Geocaching. However, this morning in a meeting a colleague who works in Paris told me to check out the great US apology page (for our recent election), and the World's apology-accepted page.

I know you all have probably known about those two pages for a while, since they have been up for a month now, which is 6 years in internet time. But I just discovered them, and it has me choked me up. The eyes peering out from the computer, sorry. Everyone, sorry. Everyone trying to find a place of acceptance of the reality of things, but where we can still hold our heads up and look eachother in the eye. It's heartening.

Old Forge Betrays its Fan Base

You've changed, man!

Your old webcam shot of the canoe put-in spot at the Moose River was so faaayn, I used to visit it and get all mellow. But now you've left it for the covered bridge shot. I can live, but I just wanted you to know, you used to be cool. Ducks, children playing, sunsets on the water... you don't share that with me now. Just that damned covered bridge.

Old Forge is 70 miles south (yes, south) east from the place where I lived from age 0 to 18. I monitor the webcam to see when it's getting dark, when the snow comes, when the ducks leave. My most vivid memory of Old Forge is at age 17 driving there with Pam, a girl I shared classes with from age 9 on. She was a slutty, smart-ass softball pitcher, and we took her Gremlin to see her horrible boyfriend. Their pet name for his penis was Snuffalupagus. We stopped in some gift shop and I shoplifted some pine-resin incense that I still like-- I burn it when I'm homesick. We stopped on the way home for strawberries some farm family was selling on the roadside. The tug hill was all blue on the horizon behind us. Summers at home are heavenly.

Why Am I in This Suitcase and Where are You Taking Me?

From a letter posted by Michael Moore on his website, making the entire US public into a victim of domestic abuse at the hands of GWB's government:

[Y]ou tell him to go to hell... then you walk out the door, taking the kids and gays and minorities with you...

Are we packed separately, or we all in one handbasket?

A Sedate New Permutation of the Lesbian Avengers?

My Bay Area Sappho list (for LGBT women living in the Bay Area) had an announcement today of the revival of a group I never even knew about the first time-- the Artemis Volunteers. It sounds like the partially-assimilated post-entry-level Lesbian Avengers! In our heyday, the Avengers did some of its best work in San Francisco as part of a coalition, essentially putting our "hands to trouble" as it were, being warm bodies in an action or in support work which ultimately served all of those who are marginalized in society, not just women or lesbians.

Not that I need one more thing to do, but I see this as a positive response to the November elections. Gotta applaud them when you find 'em.

A Near Brush With Obscurity

I don't know why, but today I was suddenly convinced my website was a) hosted by Geocities and b) that it had been deleted. By "my website" I mean my private personal collection of things that I don't subject you, my gentle blog reader, to.

Anyway, this confusion was resolved when (after I dried my tears) I Googled "yahoo + geocities + sucks" and found a page of links to Anti-Geocities and Anti-Yahoo sites --- hosted on * Angelfire *. Whereupon I remembered that I use Angelfire, too.

That tells you how often I update my site. Well, anyhoo, it lives. I am glad. Yay.

So, Slovenia Looks Good. Or Canada...

...until the Slovenians give me a work visa.

Read more about the noble Canadian effort to rescue liberals from our grim fate.

I was just in Alaska for ten days-- I can handle any weather the Canadians throw at me.

The Blended One

Eskimo fish ice cream!

Akutaq is "the blended one" in Eskimo Yu'pik language. They put up a sign at the Alaskan Federation of Natives conference-- across the street from the convention center-- some senate candidate's stump-- AKUTAQ 11:30-- the swarm could have stopped traffic (if there was traffic). People walked away with armloads of boxes of cups of the pink frothy yumminess. It is, actually, yummy, if made with whipped cream and not seal lard.

September 15, 2001, Barbara's Vote of Conscience

One of the reasons I still can love this country, that I am represented by Barbara Lee, the solitary vote in Congress against the Iraq war. I found a Mother Jones interview with her about her solitary vote... dated September 20th, 2001. How much has changed since.

I was in DC lobbying with a group of Russian Far East ecological activists and we got a tour of the Congress by a young assistant from Rep. Lee's office. He seemed totally paranoid that we would say something in a tone of Bush-bashing within earshot of a guard. He rather struck fear into our hearts. He used the words "right wing coup" without erring from his deadpan Californian blase'-ness.

He was very excited about the underground mini-metro between the house and the senate. He wasn't a cynical man. And he believes we have undergone a coup.

News from the Lakeside Baptist Church, My Neighbors

Well, the church with which I essentially share a wall has undergone some changes. My apartment building, which previously gave homes to nuns, is full of queers, immigrants, crazy old women and young men fresh out of jail. The church has become noisy with remodeling lately, and it started to look- from the odd groups coming and going helping with the hauling and painting and pounding- that something akin to what happened in the nuns' residence had happened. Well the Berkeley "Regeneration" church that has taken over now that the many "ethnic ministries" housed there have found their own churches.

The Regeneration church is the reason why I thought a rock band was rehearsing in the church on Sunday nights. The guys working in the alley right now told me- with a little embarassment- "yeah, we get pretty loud- does it bother you?" Those are the kinds of neighbors I can deal with. The old saws from the Methodist Hymnal being rehearsed off-key at 9 am-- that was making me hate Christianity all over again. A shame after all those years of detante.

I wonder if their minister will be moving out of his coffee shop office. His book is "The Relevant Church." I can respect that in a title.

P.S. Barry the Heron is avoiding me. I saw his large sweeping wings flapping in silhouette- flying away- as I walked by his post the other night. Figures.

The Heron and the George W. Bush Effigy

Walking home from work yesterday, I stopped to look at the Great Blue Heron that has been fishing at my end of Lake Merritt since the onset of fall. We usually eyeball eachother for a few minutes, taking stock. I'm not a fish, he's not a metaphor. But we get a certain something out of this relationship.

Coming to the conclusion that this was a relationship, I decided to name him, and was in the process of saying names loud (to test their musicality) "Bob the Heron, Bill the Heron," and was probably about to come up with a really clever name when this lit-up musical effigy of George W. Bush rolled into my path on Lakeshore.

I guess the Pants On Fire Mobile is en route between Eugene and Reno. I highly recommend trying to catch a glimpse, if you are in Reno this weekend.

By the way, I have decided to name my bird friend Barry the Heron. May he always fish 1000.

Big Cats Make Me So Happy I Can Forget About Baseball

I am trying to forget about baseball for the time being, since the season ended on such bad footing for the local teams I love, and so I'm spending time perusing this website for hot photos of big pussies, big speckled and striped Russian and Chinese pussies (tigers and leopards).

I think I love the big cats because I have a tabby-stripey girlcat who loves to hunt, especially small objects indoors, though sometimes she likes to hunt big game--pouncing on me, claws extended, when I'm in bed. I don't think she does it to wake me up-- it's just a hit-and-run game. Anyway, I like to know her whereabouts when I'm in bed.

So, I was retelling a great story I heard while I was in Vladivostok this past month about a tiger who ripped off a guy's leg at the knee. I was in bed with my girlfriend. I paused in the story and suddenly noticed... unmoving... two stripey ears perked up over the edge of the bed.

I chased her off, but I don't think I'll be telling the one about the maneating tiger again, not even if she asks really sweetly. My own private predator... the bears are smart, but it's true, the man-eaters are smarter.

My First View of the Pacific From the Left

It is pretty big. I flew longer than I've ever flown in one stretch- 13 hours. Then I flew another two hours here, to Vladivostok. The bay makes the air moist and fresh, when the diesel isn't suffocating you. The air is warm, even though the sky doesn't get light until after 7:30 am. They say the swimming is great.

I have seen Korean graffiti here, and in English "I hate this faking world." I've seen ads for Gold Bond brand tea and Maxim brand coffee.

In the lift you are forbidden to use "fiery things" or to try to "libirate yourself" in case you get stuck. Aside from those restrictions, it's a pretty nice budget hotel.

That is all.

Stalking Vladivostok

Here is Vladik's very useful Virtual Tourist site for people looking at Vladik like a tourist destination, which I am not. It is where I will be working for the next two weeks, at environmental conferences.

Here is Vladik's very own lesbian chat site, where apparently the lezzie club 'Drive' is getting reviewed, and you need to have your own car to get there! I hate that. Here you have to dance until you sober up enough to drive, there you probably have to dance and drink until you have the courage to face the Russian roads.

I've only found one reference to a bellydancing place - a Chinese restaurant, of all places. Russia is one of those places you find out "Asian" means everything from Istanbul to Vladivostok, from Baikal to Sri Lanka. Half the world.

Welcome to the lesbian web-portal of Vladivostok.

I have four more days before I leave for Vladik (as it is called) for two weeks of environmentalist conferences. I have to get going with my social card.

Cash Inspires Anti-RNC Action

Behold the photos of the Johnny-Cash-themed Man In Black protest group in NYC this past week at www.defendjohnnycash.org.

My Old Boss, Discovered as a New Species

Ananova reports on a furry frog-like shark discovered in a German aquarium.

I thought [P. E.] was still living in New York.

New Feature: George's Best Ringlish This Week

Several points of my coworker George's weekly report were outstandingly cobbled-together. Including one point that he, for some reason, included, but censored. You don't need to know the context of his work to enjoy his Ringlish, and his lack of a sense of appropriate use of the weekly report format. I do not get his use of quotes at all, from a Russian or English perspective. But I can still enjoy those. His ability to brag about his computer skills remains intact, despite all his lack of language skills, or good sense in general (he "penetrated"? a board?). Is he trying to predict an invasion of Russia by the US there in the end? It's like reading Nostradamus, isn't it?

- "Penetrated" the TRN board. Felt sorry for Solveig, the coordinator of TRN conference.

- Fully reloaded my computer (which is a useful thing to do at least once a
year)

- CENSORED

- Thought about those three terrorist acts in Russia last week (two airplane crashes and a bomb blow at a buss stop in Moscow) and about Russian perspectives. Adepts of Euro-Asian exceptionality say that Russia's fight against terrorism has nothing in common with the American one. Adepts of Anglo-Saxon Supremacy support the idea strongly. Russian society instability increases. Russia moves simultaneously in four opposite directions [It is not spreading, but shrinking in four separate spills, the size of each will determine Russia's future.]:
(1) building open democratic society,
(2) restoring imperial dictatorial ambitions,
(3) Africanization, when raw materials are the only source of revenue, and
(4) planning to improve living standards.

This physics law violation (simultaneous movement in the conflicting directions) is possible in Russia due to overrating of administrative governing and people's failure to speak out. We need to communicate more and convince further about world-wide problems. Russians are open for our communication yet and we should wrap it in a good way. Though this "Country of Unpredictable Future" owns the world second WMD arsenal and has the next after Saudis oil reserve volume, I hope the policy of preventive strike will not prevail. [We have a "wounded ant" in Iraq. We do not want to deal with a "wounded bear."] We have many common problems to resolve together with Russia.

Useless Fact for the Day

Old news, I know, but I can't resist. Available on about a million useless fact web pages.

Until 1965, driving was done on the left-hand side on roads in Sweden. The conversion to right-hand was done on a week day at 5 pm. All traffic stopped as people switched sides. This time and day were chosen to prevent accidents where drivers would have gotten up in the morning and been too sleepy to realize this was the day of the changeover.

As a part-Swede I can see myself thinking that this was a good plan.