A "giant" fuck-you

I just want to flip an enormous bird at the following people:

*Whoever started the 200 dollar pair of jeans trend
*The dumbasses who defend the 200 dollar pair of jeans trend with "they really are higher quality" justifications. Higher quality than 501s? No, they aren't. The fit might be slightly better, depending on your body type, but you are a label hooker if you think that 200 dollar jeans are worth the money. If, like me, you have actually purchased 200 dollar jeans, you did it because you are a lazy fuck, or you're smoking that pipe and thinking that the jeans you wear will unmake your middle-aged FUPA, or you're a label whore.
*The people who are charging 300,000 for a 3/2 in Marfa, Texas.
*The people who are willing to pay 300k for a 3/2 in Marfa, Texas.

It happens like this:
1. Someone grows a pair of brass ones and decides, "hey, I can charge twice what the market value of this thing is."
2. Someone is an idiot and falls for it.
3. Someone #1 tells a friend.
4. So does Someone #2.
5. A trend of outrageous inflation occurs.

Maybe this is just sour grapes on my part. Maybe I'm just pissed off that I have been effectively priced out of living in a small west Texas town just because Judd liked living there. He probably liked it because the mountain ranges near it are pretty, but he also liked it, I'm guessing, because it was fucking cheap and he was an artist. So, now, 25 artists live there and I can't.

Don't be a hater, go see sicko

Lots of people hate Michael Moore. Seriously. I don't have a lot of evidence of this fact, but that doesn't stop me from making the statement, because, hey, this is a blog, not a newspaper, and this is America, where the pundit rules.

But here are my facts, in case you're a stickler for that so-last-century notion of backing up opinions with facts:

1. Some people made ugly faces when I told them I just saw Sicko.
2. In that film, Moore himself references a website devoted to hating him.
3. Type "hate Michael Moore" into Google. Almost 2 million hits. (Oddly enough, it is exactly the same number as "hate Jessica Simpson," only slightly less than "hate George Bush," and twice as many as "hate Adolf Hitler.")
4. So, with bLogic, I think I just proved that twice as many people hate Michael Moore as hate Adolf Hitler.

So, I did some thinking about why people hate Michael Moore. After conjecture, subjective rumination, and unsubstantiated postulation (I almost just wrote "pustulation" - typos how do I love thee? Let me count the ways!), I hypothesize that the following "5-Pronged Rationale for Animosity toward Director Michael Moore" covers all the bases.

1. He's unattractive.
   Now, I know many of you think this isn't a reason to hate someone, but if beauty is a reason to love someone or something (see Shakespeare, Byron, et al) mightn't it also be a reason to hate someone? I honestly believe that roughly 10% of the people who think they dislike Moore for any of the following less shallow reasons wouldn't hate him if he looked like Rosamund Pike or Clive Owen.
2. He's unrelenting and annoying.
   Even fans of Mr. Moore are occasionally made uncomfortable by his interactions with his prey. Sometimes I even feel bad for really horrible people -- like pro-gun lobbyists, republican aides, and security guards -- just because he won't walk away, give up, etc. And while he's usually polite, in word if not in deed, he has a tone. An unveiled disdain for all the corporate goons and uneducated elite. Some of you haters of Michael Moore were brought up to be people-pleasers and you just cannot accept that he won't do what you would do, which is to let the corporate goons kick you out without a fight.
   
3. You disagree with what he's saying based on the fact that you don't want to believe what he's saying.
   Denial is a powerful tool. Why would any of us want to accept that our country has problems? The U. S. of A., the country they taught us was a bastion of hope, the one Bush called "the hope of the oppressed and the greatest force for good on this Earth?" Why would we want to swallow the fact that we might not actually be better than everyone? And there goes Mr. Moore comparing us to other countries on the murder rate, the infant-mortality rate, life-expectancy, and other pretty-serious sounding things. He must be making it all up, right?
   
4. You disagree with what he's saying based on "facts." There are a lot of websites, a lot of books, a lot of pundits on television and radio. Finding the "truth" is harder and harder. Just because it is printed in the NY Times or CNN doesn't always mean it's true, anymore, right? You have to know some one's motivations, check all of his or her facts, maybe even talk to the speaker's family, 2nd-grade teacher, rabbi, what have you, to know whether what you're reading is "true." So, these people would fall under reason #3, but they back up their opinions because they listened to a radio show, read a book or a pamphlet they picked up at an NRA fundraiser, or saw it on a well-respected blog.
   
5. You don't like his style of film making. He's heavy-handed and manipulative. He basically created, or brought into the mainstream, the persuasive documentary. He isn't just going out and collecting miles of celluloid about subject matter and then finding the story somewhere in the cutting room. He forms an opinion -- maybe sometimes like the people from rationale #3 and sometimes from rationale #4 -- and then he makes a movie that proves his point. He doesn't tell a story, he rams the story down your throat, with a cheeky, blue-collar snort.

So, which are you? Have I left a reason out?

So, while I am occasionally irked by his personality, and his style of film making (which is sometimes just a little too precious -- the Guantanamo Bay scenes started out that way, but then became sincerely moving when I saw the relief and sadness on the faces of the 9-11 rescue workers), I like him. Here's why (I cannot stop making lists!):

1. I think he's doing it for the right reasons - maybe I'm a naive idiot, but I believe he makes his movies because he loves his country and wishes that he could fix some of its problems. It can't be for the money, because he made a ton on the last one and he came back and made another - he even sent 10k to someone who hosts a website devoted to hating him.
2. He is bringing politics to the masses in a way that is almost as easy to consume as the candy in the lobby (and if you go for the matinee, it costs less, too!).
3. He doesn't give in or give up. He's a fat, unattractive man from a dirt-poor town and he didn't let that stop him from making his voice heard and without competing on American Idiot, er, Idol. (For fun, just close your eyes and imagine him singing "Soldier" by Destiny's Child.)
4. He is trying to entertain, educate, and persuade all at once, and often succeeding. It's actually harder than it looks.
5. He is looking out for the little-guy. Mainstream narrative-film directors used to do this (Capra?) but now they don't often get a chance to, or by the time they have the money and sway, they don't care anymore.

So, I like him. I liked Sicko. Go see it.

we hate it when our friends become successful

My good friend ZI mentioned me in one of her posts a few weeks back. She was a little annoyed at how good I am at my job or how hard I work or something? Anyway, I'm not bad at my job and I do stay late to get things done sometimes, but I also procrastinate and bitch and moan and spend entire afternoons updating my iPod software.

Also, when the powersthatbe think you're doing a great job, they keep piling more and more work on you, so it's not all wine and roses. It's best to be better than mediocre (because you won't get axed), but not so great that you get noticed. The pay isn't better where I'm at, and the stress is a lot worse. Plus, neither of us give a shit about this work! Why do we spend so much time and energy on it?

Anyway, today I got to feel some jealousy/bitterness, too. ZI casually mentioned that she got tickets to see a band I really like play ACL this week. I think she got the tickets because she is friends with someone in the band, but maybe she went down to UT like the rest of the bungled and the botched and was just lucky. Either way, color me green. Imagine getting to see Explosions play before 1am and not at that club I hate.

I want to say, "dude, share the wealth." But then I'll feel like a mooch. So, I'm passive-agressively posting this instead. She'll have to read it to know I was feeling this way, and maybe by the time she does read it, I won't care anymore.

revisiting those good old stages of grief

One of those weird fuct up dreams last night:

My husband, my close friend/coworker "ZI", and some other coworkers set sail on a cruise/adventure voyage. It wasn't really a cruise, because we slept in quarters that had exposed pipes/strange passageways and there weren't any all-you-can-eat buffets, discos, or botulism outbreaks. My husband disappeared from the story line for awhile.

Sometime after that, one of my male coworkers asked me if I wanted to leave the cruise to go on his private sailboat for some real sailing. He told me we would see the Canary Islands, some famous archipelago, and other natural wonders. I was initially interested, but realized that he wouldn't be returning to the ship so ZI would have to cart all of my stuff around and apparently this male coworker and I would have to drive on land quite a bit to get home - it could take weeks, he said. It started to sound like a hassle, and it dawned on me that I would be completely alone with this dude and that he would probably be putting the moves on me. I politely declined.

Then my husband reappeared. Convenient timing. I was sharing a room with ZI, but when my husband came back, naturally I was sharing the luxury cabin (looked like a boiler room, with no real walls, but separate spaces for sleeping vs. stowage of trunks) with him.

Somehow we realized that we had a) taken our pet dog and cat along with us, and b) that we hadn't given them food or water since the trip began. We freaked out, first opening their cages, and only then running around trying to block exits from the room to the rest of the ship and entrances to weird crawl spaces they could get stuck in that we couldn't get them out of. Thankfully, while we did this, they seemed very listless and weren't giving chase.

I began a noble, but anxious, quest for kibble. I found a large yellow bag of some chow mix and tried to give some to my cat. She seemed uninterested at first, so then I took some to the dog, who devoured it. When I got back to my cat, she was laying limp on the cement floor of our room and she was sticky.

All of a sudden we were back home, in our actual house and there was a group of friends sitting at the kitchen table I had when I was growing up in Cambridge (but not in the red vinyl upholstered alcove it belonged in) smoking cigarettes just like in a picture I have of my mother and her circa-1965 friends. A phone rang. Someone I don't know (who might, upon morning's recollection, have been my "godfather" - a man named Peter who I don't think I ever met) answered the phone and offered it to my husband, saying "one of the animals died. I think it was Mina."

I began wailing and then woke myself up. When I'm in this state, after a bad dream, especially one where someone I love dies or my husband leaves me, I spend a minute or two in this weird limbo between consciousness and subconsciousness. I tend to seek my husband's body warmth and to whimper. He usually extends a groggy, but well-intentioned arm around my back and I hug a pillow. It's sort of pitiful.

Once fully awake, I looked for Mina, the cat. She was alive and well, naturally and noisily cleaning her privates, as cats are often wont to do. I checked her food and water. While she had plenty of kibble, her water dish was a quite low and the bottom of the bowl felt slimy, like I hadn't cleaned it in days. I felt an awful pang of guilt, cleaned it and filled it in the dark bathroom, and headed back to bed.

it's a family affair ...

Today I'm going to attend my cousin's daughter's (does that make her my second-cousin?) wedding. I am doing this because I'm supposed to, which feels odd, because doing things because you are supposed to is not something to which my family ever willingly surrendered.

For example, my maternal grandmother did not attend my wedding. I was told "she doesn't do weddings." (She also didn't "do" Christmas, graduation, etc.) Well, apparently she changed, because she is doing this one - but she's 10 years older now, has buried both of her children, and maybe she recognizes the importance of ritual, even if this one usually is an awkward, saccharine parade of bad clothes, hair, makeup, music, and uncomfortable moments when you run out of chit-chat at a table full of strangers. That or she had nothing better to do today.

To be fair, I didn't invite my uncle to my wedding. You are probably supposed to invite uncles of all stripes. I didn't want to invite either of mine. The short hand version of why is that one of them was rude to my mother and sister on multiple occasions and the other one made jokes about being attracted to me when I was 10 and then put a gun to my head when I was 14. So, I gave in and invited the rude one, but not the other one.

This is the crazy thing. The same woman who didn't do weddings has lobbied over the years for me to forgive her son. I don't think you are supposed to forgive people who put guns to your head or who joke about incest within hearing distance of the proposed victim. I think they should be shunned as a form of societal punishment so that people think twice about behaving that way. But, even though this woman and most of her family tree boycott doing things because you are supposed to, they also frequently extol the virtues of "family" and how we're supposed to stick together.

I've thought about why they have these opposing views - don't do things just because you are supposed to, but stick with family, because you are supposed to (except you don't have to go to your family weddings, but you do have to invite all of your family - jeesh!) - and I think it must have come from necessity, because in the case of my maternal grandmother, grandfather, and uncle -- if they didn't brainwash people to stick with them, no one would. Harsh, but true.

So today I get to see my grandmother and my cousins. Thinking about my cousins and my sister and me makes me realize we have all tried to get as far away from the family as we could. I think that all of us moved out of our parent's houses by no later than 17 years old, some went back out of financial necessity for a year or so, but then scattered to the four winds.

Most of my cousins do the requisite amount of attendance at family gatherings (which are increasingly rare), but I am curious to see whether my cousin, whose daughter is getting married today, actually shows up. It is possible that he carries on the family-tradition of eschewing tradition. I could see him saying "in my eyes you're already married, so why should I be there?" Hopefully, he will give in and do what he's supposed to.

There's something more interesting in here, something about the folklore passed down to my generation by my grandmother, mother, and uncle, that was used to try to make us think that the way we were being treated was normal. It might have been subconsciously executed, but they definitely wove a tall tale, about how we were all so very special, how our family all had genius IQs, and were all so creative, blah, blah, blah. And if you raised your hand and said, "but, I don't like the way it feels when you do this or say that," they said, "oh, you, you're soooo normal. I'm really disappointed because you had such potential."

I have to let that stew for awhile. Maybe I'll find the jewel. I realize this post was a page-long gripe, but I needed to get it out before I see them. :)

something selfish and stupid this way comes?

Reading about the declining bird species, the lost bees, and the war (pick one; no link required) has me in a mood.

Oh, no, Polly Anna. Not a good one. The mood comes from feeling completely at a loss as to what, if anything, I can DO about it and being certain that I should.

I could donate $100, maybe even $200, dollars to someone who is devoting the majority of their time to doing something about it. Would that help? Does anyone know how to help the bees find their way home? Can someone stop us from developing every spare inch of this planet so that the little bob-whites can have babies at the same rate that a Westlake soccermom can? Can anyone stop the war(s)?

I start thinking about this shit and first I start to feel heavy and trapped, my brain gets foggy(er), my vocabulary shrinks, and eventually I begin to inventory my own possessions and to mentally enter the bunker.

"That lamp? It's mine. I have 2 lbs of rice. I have $489 in my savings account. I own 12 pairs of shoes. When the shit really hits the fan, I'll need those shoes. Maybe I should go get some jeans while I still can. I should have reserves of cash. I need a gun."

As soon as I get to the gun, I switch to Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo, only I'm riding the shame spiral on my way to hell in a handbasket.

"What the fuck is wrong with you? Jeans? Reserves of cash? There are little kid prostitutes in Africa who eat nothing but dick all day so their parents can buy drugs for AIDS. What you need to do is get your lazy ass involved, concerned, and active. You need to write letters. You need to stop this foolish blogging, quit your pointless, soul-less job, sell your Tivo and move to fucking Africa, you PIECE OF PAMPERED SHIT!"

So, I'm stuck in the safe, established neighborhood located between fear and self-loathing. And guess what? I will probably buy property here, and if the property tax keeps rising I will probably suck dick for a living to pay it. Because, I'll let you in on a little secret about me ... I don't want to move to Africa to save the world. Or I do, but I'd like to do it Jolie-style. I'd like to make sacrifices, but still be able to fly home to air conditioning and Wild Copper-River Salmon.

I saw Constant Gardener. Africa looks like a beautiful, amazing place. It is also looks like it is full of war, disease, famine, politics, desperation and pain. It makes me long to taste it for a minute - believing that it is raw and real in a way that my UnitedStatesian, middle-class existence will never be. But something holds me back from ever stepping over the line to be the person who does something truly unexpected or important. What is it?

If I was just selfish or stupid, like so many UnitedStatesians, like our president for example, or Jessica Simpson (I don't know that she is selfish, but it does seem like an actual deer caught in the headlights could beat her at chess), I bet I wouldn't care. Unfortunately, I'm generous and selfish and intermittently intelligent, and that adds up to a life of self-scrutiny and disappointment.

Or does it?

I don't want to go into this too much right now, but the shrink I used to see said a few wise things. She said them over and over again -- I'm not sure if that was purposeful or because she, too, had limits -- and some of them stuck with me. One was that all of us humans have the capacity for the full range of human behavior. Every one of us, under the right conditions, could be a Martin Luther King, a Jeffrey Dahmer, or a Linda Johnson (Linda Johnson is an unknown 40-something receptionist with 2 kids, who loves cats, votes republican because they believe in God, reads romance novels, and will die alone never having left her home-state when she's 75, more from boredom and loneliness than pathology).

The point of that is that I could change. I could start being more of a humming being. That's what my mom said she wanted to be (before she forgot and blew out her brains*). I guess I always thought that meant someone who vibrates with life. Someone engaged. Someone who has found their niche or niches (bitches) and who fully encompasses that space until she burns out (not fade away). Someone who leaves a mark, and not a bruise, more like a lipstick smear, an engraving, or a blood-sweat-or-cum stain.

*P.S. A sign of my emotional growth is that I almost left out the suicide-aside.

I can't think of another poop joke

This post is going to be about poop.

Dookie. Shit. Crap. Number 2. Scat. Feces. Like I said, poop.

If you don't like to read about poop - go read a different blog today. Might I suggest one that caters to pussies who can't accept that we, all of us, mankind, have to dump-out on a regular basis or die.

Oh no. I've just made my first hypocriticism of the day. Guess what? I'm a pussy who can't accept that we all have to shit or die. So now you know the real subject of this post. It's about one of my hangups.

("Um, excuse me Ms. Uumellmahaye, which of your posts has not been about your hangups?" asks that pesky little lone reader o' mine. Well, while I'm being schizophrenic, I might as well play name-that-personality. This one, the pesky lone reader, shall be christened "Polly Purefart" for her tendency to float stinky little self-censorship in my general direction.)

Anyway, back to me. My number one hang up about number two is that I cannot do my business in public. By "in public," I don't mean "on stage" or that I want to go "do it in the road." I just mean sitting in a sterile stall in a public restroom when other people, male or female, are milling about in the same said restroom.

Why do they call it a "rest"room? I am not going to nap in there.

I recently tried to explain to my friend of 10+ years (who is also my co-worker) why I can't do it. Here's the best I could produce: I am afraid that my efforts on this front have the potential to be best-case: noisy, worst-case: odorous. I imagine someone will look under the stall, see my shoes, somehow associate my shoes with me, know that I am a foul and gassy beast, and then, I don't know, maybe think bad thoughts about me.

My friend of 10+ years, let's just call her Z.I., said, "when I'm in the bathroom and I hear farting and smell shit, I never look under the stall to see the shoes of the pooper. I just think, 'i gotta get out of here.'"

Z.I. is a wise, some would say "sage," woman. She is practical and earthy. I have always envied her these traits.

Reading over my shoulder, my husband informs me that when he hears or smells the evidence of a gaseous shit-bag in a public John, he feels challenged to one-up-man-shit as a form of squatter's rights. If he can somehow out-doo the pooer, he will get the person to turn tail and run so that he can have the can to himself.

This is evidence of a personality so well-endowed with Id that I am dumbstruck.

Unfortunately, I am neither logical nor hegemonic about my pooping. And today, I caught a whiff of just how stupid I am.

Before I tell you, let me first thank you for making it this far. I apologize for the scatalogical nature of this post. I feel like that fly character in Meet the Feebles right now. Even typing about this subject makes me feel dirty.

So. Today.

Background: If you have paid any attention to my posts thus far, you know that I have a few food allergies/intolerances. (Yes. That's me. If I had to find my personality in pop-culture, I would say I am a cross between Clementine from Endless Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Joyce from American Splendor.) Anyway, I have had amazing will-power as of late in the dairy-department. Today I picked up a fast-food lunch from Chipotle without caving in to the sour-cream and cheese that I love like crack-cocaine but know is rotting my insides like an insidious cancer.

30 minutes after eating my burrito-bowl (which just sounds like the name of a food from Idiocracy, doesn't it?), nature, that rabid telemarketer, began to call. I was talking to a coworker about how to deploy our on-line help system and despite the bone-chilling boringness of that subject, he seemed like he might never let me end the chat. My stomach roiled and rumbled and I started to bloat like a highland-bagpipe in the hands of my kilt-wearing red-headed Scot ancestors. I tried to end the conversation by turning my body sideways and stepping away, but then he asked an open-ended question (deft ploy) and I was forced to retreat. At one point, oddly enough, I had to press ham to prevent an expulsion and while I am 99.99 % sure I was successful, I smelled evidence of raspberries. Is it possible said co-worker was also stifling himself, and if so, what horrible synchronicity!

Finally, I was able to tear myself away without being rude. I stepped to my cubicle to grab my access card exactly as Z.I. ran to her cube and informed me that she had to go to the bathroom.

Were we all caught in the eye of a shit-storm? Was it some sort of post-lunch phenomenon?

Anyway, I felt caught between a rock and a hard-place. Should I follow her to the bathroom, inform her honestly of my intentions, laugh it off and then go for it? In a fantasy world, yes. (Well, actually, in my fantasy world, there isn't a biological need to shit. Or shave. Or pop zits. The rest of the physical annoyances associated with human life don't bother me, but I could lose those three.) In this world, I gave her a head start, hoping she had to pee, and then quickly walked to the lavatory, accompanied by an emerging turtle.

I made my way for the furthest stall. It's the handicapped one, and in my book, it is "door #2" or "the brown room." I think everyone should shit there. Not because of some animus toward the physically challenged, but because it is farthest away from the door, thus affording the most privacy and lebensraum.

Z.I. was stalling. There was a lot of rustling of clothes, like she'd worn some sort of special underthings that required origami-like precision to refashion. I started to sweat. Despite the fact that I have known this woman since the mid-nineties, have laughed and cried with her, attended both of her weddings, and have worked with her more times than either one of us can count, I could NOT bear the thought that she would hear me poop/see my shoes/think ill of me.
I considered just saying "hey, it's me, and you might want to get out of here soon" or "it's me. Don't look at my shoes" and then singing the National Anthem with my intestines. But then I thought, "what if it isn't Z.I.? What if it's a TOTAL STRANGER or worse yet, an ACQUAINTANCE?" So, I zipped it, inhaled, and prayed that she would skip the handwashing, despite all the OCD that would cause me later, so that I could have a moment alone with my bodily functions.

She flushed. I tried to eek out a prologue under cover of the flushing noise but I was too tightly wound to relax. She washed her hands (good girl!), maybe even lathering/lingering longer than normal. Finally, I heard the door and let go.

Ahhhh. Total silence. And, honestly, I think my shit smelled like roses ("like Guns and Roses" the husband would say.)

As I completed my affairs, someone else walked in and I worried that they would hear the sound of the toilet paper roll and rip, put 2 and 2 together and figure out that the number of wipes required meant poop and would think ill of me. But this worry was fleeting, and I flushed/washed/and high-tailed it outta there before my anyone could have fingered me.

So, that's it. If you made it this far, you are a real gem. I think this is some sort of self-sabotage because over the last two days, two friends have told me they have been reading my posts (one even said she liked them) and so maybe I'm testing the limits of your patience. Whatevs. It's a big step toward normalcy for me to write in such a ribald manner, despite my non-anonymity, and so I feel like toasting.

So, here's mud in your eye!

A crack on the head is what you get for asking ...

I took a vacation. From everything that has been weighing on me. My two-in-one job, my other little job, my family, my pets, my town. I flew to Seattle and tried to relax.

Do you see the problem already?

Yeah, I tried. I tried to relax. I have to try now because I have recently forgotten how to relax without trying. And I have also forgotten how to be happy without restrictions.

Like I can feel sorta happy, BUT. But something. Like, but I'm drunk. Or, but I'm just vegging out watching the Wire. Or, but I was sleeping. Never, I'm experiencing total, unadulterated bliss.

So I tried to relax and feel bliss and I failed. But I still had fun. We saw the sights. (In Russian, the word for "to see the sights" sounds a little like dostapreemachatelnosty. It's a great word - so much sturm und drang for such a frivolous verb.) We ate "northwestern fare" and hiked in a ferny, mossy wood. We listened to grunge - if only because the radio stations there suck as much as they do in Austin and 15-year-old grunge is still better than most of the crap played on shitty radio nowadays. We waited for the bus next to the dilapitated old building where Nirvana recorded Bleach and took our picture on the Freemont troll. We saw fish tossed. We did the thing. And it was good.

But we had to come back.

Back to the job(s), the family, the town, and the realization that for me, at least, the ennui has little to do with being overworked and underlaid. It is something inside of me. And I know what it takes for me to be happy again, or at least occasionally so, and I have to take the reins and drive those doggies, rawhide.

I was so looking forward to a few days to contemplate that shit when I returned. A few days to relax, write, exercise, not worry, not work. And then I went and did a stupid thing.

I went tubing, which, in and of itself, is not a stupid thing. It can be an immensely dense thing, if you are drunk, which I wasn't. Or if you forget to apply sunscreen. Which I didn't. I did everything right. I forked over a few dolla's to the local Lion's Club and sat my ass down in a cool river for 40 minutes of mindless relaxation (as opposed to Sivasana, which is supposed to be mindful relaxation). My husband, my sister and I comprised the scant flotilla. We splashed each other (or rather, they splashed and I did not deign to retaliate for I find it distastefully childish) and floated and mused. I closed my eyes and let the eerie, calm motion occur without my navigatory intention. I opened my eyes and leaned my head back to joy in the shimmer of light between leaf-cover. I horrored at the site of a day-dwelling raccoon (rabid?) who swam across the water for cover from 3 circling hawks.

And I started to relax.

It was Wednesday. I knew I had that day and a full Thursday and Friday to revel in my freedom. (Saturday and Sunday didn't count, because a) I had to do some work for the little side-job and b) because I have those days "off" when I work at the real two-in-one job, too.)
Those days seemed like they would be long.

And then I decided to float over the rapid. Not the rapids, for that would imply there were many.

The one rapid. The lone rapid. It beckoned. I saw children floating over it unaccompanied by tubes. I saw my husband and sister eschewing the rapid for safer, calmer waters. I remembered times past, when I felt the brief danger, the quick fear, and the rush of conquering it as I sailed over the drop and over the eddy.

But not that day. No. This is what happened instead:

I had no actual fear. I saw the outcome and it was simple fun. I encouraged my tube in the direction of the rapid, for the waters around it were retarding my progress with tenaciously lax and lazy entropy. I approached and waited, internally impatient at the teenagers who cut in front of me. And then it was my turn.

In one/two seconds I went from a thawing 30-something who has finally achieved relaxation to a flailing, ass-over-tea-kettle nearly-drowning nellie.

I sailed over the crest of the rapid effortlessly and without tremor. But the eddy. Oh, the eddy. It exacted quick and deft revenge. It sucked my tube from under me and flipped me over 360 degrees. At 180, the back of my head thwacked against a lurking rock and send the fear of God through me. I actually had the thought, "is this how I'm going to die?" Followed by, "fuck, fuck, fuck. Where is the air? Have I passed out?" Two struggling seconds and then the air, the sun, discombobulated exuberance fueled by my fair-share of adrenaline.

A nice little boy noticed my plight and went after my tube. All I could think of to say to him was "I hit my head hard." He nodded.

I looked for Clint. I still felt like I was in danger until I could get my body next to his. When our eyes met across the river, I motioned to him that I'd hit my head. He made an empathetic face and then I shakily navigated the slippery rocks until I found a launching point well away from the now frightening rapid so that I could paddle across to safety.

48 plus hours later, and I've had a CT scan (no results yet) but no signs of real damage/concussion. No double-vision, no vomiting. I should thank my lucky stars. And yet. I know it was a threat from Geezus. Relax? You? That's not what I have in store for you, biatch. Just you wait and see.

the day I held aloft my magic sword

I won free-cell twice in a row. That warrants a second post.

My life has come to this?

Wait, why am I hatin'? I'm almost forty. If I want to play cyber-solitaire and drink too much red wine on a Friday night, I've earned that right.

While we're on the subject of what my life has come to - let me say something about the old life-line. I think mine forks at about age 60. Does that mean I will vote Republican in the year 2031?

there's a monster at the end of this book ...

I want to live without fear. I want to dive in, to embrace life, to take risks. I know that is the way to a life worth living. I know this deeply, like it was written onto my DNA.

And yet.

What if? What if I die? What if I kill someone else, either accidentally, or gasp, purposefully when I change into Mr. Hyde?

What if I'm driving on a twisty mountain road, in awe of the natural beauty that surrounds me, and then, suddenly, on the other side of the tunnel I see the canyon floor, 1000 feet below me (and my poor unsuspecting passengers). This time, instead of pulling over, hands trembling, red-facedly admitting that I'm struck with vertigo - what if this time I cannot stop myself and I point the nose of the car at the tiny, metal guardrail - our government's nod toward protecting drivers - built to a spec that never imagined the height of an H2 or even an Escalade or the power of their engines?

What if I rub my eye and get an infection that rots out my eyeball?

What if I have diabetes?

What if I eat something, anything, that I didn't know I was deathly allergic to?

What if someone breaks into my house and rapes me? What if I like it? What if he murders me for being a horrible slut?

What if I get pulled over and I have a panic attack because I'm afraid of being arrested, but the rookie isn't familiar with panic disorder and thinks I'm on drugs and arrests me? What if my cellmate shivs me?

What if that couple reading the Bible in the airport before they board the same plane I'm taking are religious terrorists who want judgement day to come and have decided to hurry it along?

What if I left the stove on and one of my pets knocks over a candle I also carelessly left lit and then they frantically paw at the door as the flames engulf them?

What if I left the dolmas out in the car and my sister ate one and got food poisoning and nearly died?

What if none of this happens but I spend my life paralyzed by stupid fear?

What if I decide to say "fuck you" to all the checking the stove and planning things and worrying and then one day, a rapist leaves my stove on, rubs my eye with his bible and then drives off the mountainside, a trail of rotten dolmas exploding out of the car when it crashes on the canyon floor?

reasons to love the cybernet

I hate almost all of commercial cyberspace.

Call me a pinko-commie-tree-hugger, but before the Web came a long, I hated advertisements (with very rare exceptions and I'm not talking about "where's the beef" or spuds mackenzie) and I hated telemarketers and people who say, "excuse me ma'am, would you like to apply for an American Airlines Platinum card to receive free miles?" Back then, though, I could avoid most ads, by not watching television.

But now, I sort of live and breathe the tedious beta version of the Metaverse and am bombarded by inline ads (skin crawls just saying it), banners, interstitial ads, and spam. I can't get away from it. It makes me angry. It makes me hate and seethe.

And then I bump up against a site that is truly entertaining, engaging, utilitarian, or just funny, and it makes it all better.

This post is an ode to the sites I love. I'm going to name a couple here. I was hoping that if anyone actually reads this post, they could post a reply with a couple of their favorites. I'm not talking about things like Google or IMDB, which we all know and love, but those little sites you bumped into and felt like you found something made just for you. Like the time I turned a corner in Portland, Oregon and found a closet-sized video arcade that specialized in 80s video games (and not just the ubiquitous Ms. PacMan or Galaga) and Asian candies and snacks. I hung out for about 2 hours playing Tempest and eating Pocky Sticks.

The Weight Watcher's Cards circa 1970
http://www.candyboots.com/wwcards.html
I can visit this site every 24 months and laugh myself sick even though the content never changes. Maybe it is the ceramic animals? Maybe because I did weight watchers, not in the 70s mind you, but the nutrition/recommended meals still had this strange sort of internal logic unto itself that wasn't entirely gourmand-friendly.

The Kook's Museum
http://www.pacifier.com/~dkossy/kooksmus.html
I think MV's bro found this first, back in like '94, but I think I love it more than he did. Whenever I feel crazy, I go read the writing s of one Francis E. Dec (Esquire), where he exposes "the worldwide deadly Communist Gangster Computer God," and I feel much, much saner. It's all relative baby.

The Hamster Dance
http://www.webhamster.com/
It's the music I think. Such a classic waste of space and time. It makes me positively gleeful. Like go-sing-in-an-actual-glee-club-gleeful.

http://buyblue.org/
I was sitting at work one day wondering in what small ways I can live with more integrity and I received an e-mail with a link to this site. Now I know when I spend money that goes to the Republicans. I haven't made much headway on the integrity thing, but it's useful to know that it isn't only for reasons of taste that one should eschew shopping at Victoria's Secret.

a promise made is a debt unpaid

It's been awhile. What have I been up to? Oh Geezus, I have no clue. Working too much, worrying a lot, other things that start with wor.

What's up with the title of this post? Well, this post is about things I'm going to start doing right. That is, in exchange for a little Geezus power. Who is Geezus you ask? I have a faint recollection that my friend Curriculae Vitamin (not her real name) told me a story about a little girl who pronounced "Jesus" like geese-us, but in my spelling, you still say it with a "juh" sound and a "you" sound. Like Gee, Zeus. Geezus is akin to the Great Sneaker (my father's lord-in-heaven who helped him pass tests in college despite his regular bleary-eyed hangovers) or the Flying Spaghetti Monster (except Geezus is real!).

Newsflash, my brothers: Geezus likes a bargain.

You know, a bargain. Like when you are in big trouble and you say, "Geezus, if you get me out of this pinch, I promise to do everything right." Geezus thinks for a minute and weighs it's options (Geezuz is asexual, duh!). I help this mortal morsel in this instant and he or she forever more does the things I like? That's a bargain!

So, in this instance it's me offering Geezus a bargain. In exchange for something that should be relatively easy for it to accomplish (giving me robust health until I'm 95 and then a quick, painless death and a rocking funeral full of friends and family who loved me dearly), I will do the following things:

For the next 6 months

• Stop eating all dairy to see if it helps me. (You may not be acquainted with the fact that Geezus hates dairy. Yeah, he's no fun at all.)
• Exercise every day unless I have lost a limb or have the flu. (Geezus is a lot like Jack Palance doing pushups at the Oscars. He likes fitness, hates the fatties.)
• Write every day, even if it's only this worthless blog.

OK, fuck this Geezus shit. And no, that's not blasphemy. Geezus loves cursing. (Basically Geezuz is like a lactose intolerant, physically fit Hemingway.) I don't need him, though, and I don't believe in him or any other higher power.

[This is an aside, but let me state for the record, I have converted to atheism. Sort of. I mean I think there are things out there that are still mysterious. Like man's desire for magic to be real. Just the desire is like fairy dust for me. It means we're mostly still children. The problem is that our belief in all the beautiful made-up shit usually comes from a innate desire for someone to take care of us and remove all the pain, ugliness, and annoyance from our lives. Nothing will take away pain, ugliness, and annoyance (nunca babies). Pain is what is eternal and omnipresent. Nothing will ever take it away - except maybe hard work and positive mental attitude. Anyway, the long and short of it is that it was a lot easier to believe in god when I was a kid.]

But I wish I did right now. Because I'm down in the mouth, blue, anxious, born under a bad sign, with a furrowed brow. My chest pains have gotten worse (I keep telling myself it's just indigestion and anxiety) and I feel like a fucking failure at 37. If I have some stupid heart disease (from smoking and eating butter like it was going out of style) and I die soon, the regret I feel could leave a crater in the earth the size of Detroit. Hey, maybe that explains Detroit?

So, I made an apperntment with a cardiologist. In a week. Knowing doctors, he'll then tell me I need 12 tests (that cost 4000 bucks) and it will be a month before I know if my ticker is OK. Until then, I promise to do those things in bullets above. The dairy thing because I'm supposedly "intolerant" of dairy (despite cheese being my favorite substance on earth, especially the Spanish goat cheese I ate with J and N in NYC a couple of weeks ago, oh Geezus!) and maybe that is causing some fucked up chest pains? The exercise because I'm a lard ass right now and if I have heart disease, the first thing they'll tell me is to slim down. And the writing because this is what I want to do with my life and if it is going to be short or long, I better start doing it.

Geezus ain't coming, my babies. It's like a copy of Hey Love. You gotta get your own.