Here are the dates I've been sick this fall/winter (to the best of my memory):

"Most of you might dismiss this as the raving of some idealist who simply doesn't fit into the modern, well-ordered world. That's probably true. But where exactly do you yourself fit in? Where and when in this world do you feel wildly happy? Or truly free? Or fiercely alive, or at peace, or even just content? i don't think these emotions are an extravagant luxury. I would think them to be the norm among a species that trumpets itself superior to all others in both intellect and spirit. I would think them the norm in anybody's life, and if they're not, then perhaps he doesn't fit into the world any more than I. And if, as it seems, so many of us live without experiencing these emotions, living the ilfe of a restless drone, if so many of us qualify as Freud's 'civilization's discontents,' then perhaps it is not we who don't fit into this world, but it is this world that does not fit in with us.

And if this is true, then perhaps it's time we stop changing ourselves to death. Stop changing jobs, cars, houses, wives and husbands, the color of our hair, the size of our thighs or our bank accounts. None of these have worked together or alone. And if all of this self-changing has brought no lasting joy, then why do we believe that the next one will bring salvation? Maybe it's time to leave ourselves alone. Maybe it's time instead to change the world"

p. 66-67

I hope you won't merely wander around the frontier. I hope you'll undertake a meticulous yet expansive exploration of that virgin territory. Here are some tips on how to proceed: 1. Formulate specific questions about what you're looking for. 2. Develop a hypothesis for the experiments you want to carry out. 3. Ignore what doesn't interest you and pounce only on what stirs your fascination. Halloween costume suggestion: an alien anthropologist visiting Earth from another planet; a time-traveler from the future who's doing a documentary on this historical moment; a religious pilgrim who's keeping a detailed journal.

http://freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/pisces.html

I wonder what my forbidden fruit is?


http://freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/pisces.html

I just want to mark this moment - today, I am bathing in happiness.  Life is just about perfect.  There are some circumstances that induce the joy, but mostly it's an attitude.  Every moment is inspiration. I love it.

Perhaps it's the twitterfication of my expression.  But it was before Twitter. I often have things to say that are best in their short form. They are meaningful to me in a certain way, but to explain or give context about that certain way takes the moment out of the moment.  Besides, isn't beauty in the eye of the beholder?  What if I just posted the meaningful snippets, and let them be meaningful (or not) to the reader in the way he or she interprets them, minus the context?  I figure I'll do that for a bit.  They'll be tagged "abstract."

Oh yeah, and the yoga blogging experiment failed.  I don't want to talk about it, I've found. I just want to feel it.  I'm getting to be more and more that way about things.

You can breathe and still be cool.

Ladies and gentlemen, the divine Ms. Sarah McLachlan.

It's actually pretty good. And yeah, it's the cultural lens.

I have not yet heard back from Kiva. I imagine I'm probably one of many people who send that email about that borrower.

In the meantime, I've had some additional thoughts about the whole thing.  The night I wrote the letter and post, I finally slowed down from my day and realized I'd sent the note in a flurry of doing, reacting.  A better letter would not have changed my judgment on Kiva facilitating the support of this business, but it would have acknowledged some important things.  The one that was foremost for me that night was acknowledging that much of how you feel about things like cockfighting depends on your cultural lens.  Growing up in Saudi Arabia and having an intimate experience of that culture, I can see how it would be OK, honorable even, for women to wear habayas.  We see it through the lens of freedom and our need to be expressive - quintessentially American; they see it through the lens of preciousness, protection, as if women are jewels. Now, even jewels can be hoarded with malintent, and like all "traditions" that are enacted thoughtlessly, they can be abused.  But how can we say whether it is good or bad?  Back then, when you removed the cultural practice, mayhem ensued.  I'm not kidding. People just didn't know how to handle themselves.



That's not to say it can't or shouldn't change.

I've cited the "women in habayas" example a lot when I'm trying to point out that things may not look the same to another person with other paradigms.  I've tended to deliver it with an attitude of "people are just going to do what they're going to do."  But more and more, I want people to be better than that (thanks Obama).  I think it is more just or peaceful for all humans to make their own choices. I would like to see Saudi women - all women - in full choice with their lives.  I also think that if we as humans are working toward greater justice and peace, things that promote separateness and allow for violent repercussions aren't going to help us get there.

So with cockfighting...  Ben, Jess, and Amy all make really great points in the comments to my last post.  I am so impressed with the thoughtfulness and kindness of my people!  I will let those thoughts stand on their own because they're pretty perfect.

I just want to offer the qualified version of my initial judgment on Kiva:  I do understand that through a different cultural lens, cockfighting isn't a bad thing.  In third world countries, animals are just not seen as sentient like humans are.  Hell, even human life isn't as wrapped up in preservationist emotion.  In some places there are starving kids begging at your feet, and the appropriate response is to kick them away.  So I *get* that Kiva, an American organization, can't change an ingrained belief system in another country.  And I get that sometimes you have to prioritize the relative importance and effect of things.  But cockfighting and gambling bring out and play on the violent, risk-taking, bellicose parts of human nature.  No matter what the other considerations, it's just bringing out the wrong kind of energy.  Sum total, that energy is antithetical to moving us toward justice and peace.

I don't expect Kiva to rail against every cultural practice we privileged little bitches find offensive, I just think they have a responsibility to the bigger picture.

Thanks for listening and participating in the conversation.  I welcome any other thoughts!

I just sent a letter to Kiva.org.

My first photo is from my move back to Seattle from SF in 2004. I think discovering flickr combined with the desire to document the move (which was a big symbolic one for me) inspired me to start using my long-neglected camera again.

Oh, and while I miss my friends in SF, I couldn't be happier with the decision to move back. I fucking love Seattle.

Posting this online so I can find it online when I'm not at home.  This recipe was passed to me by my friend Gwen.  It's delicious and kicks sickness' butt.

"Better than Chicken Soup" recipe
(originally from Whole Foods)

1    small yellow onion, chopped
4     cloves garlic, sliced
1 T     extra virgin olive oil
1 t    ground turmeric
4-8     fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced
4 c    mushroom, veggie or chicken broth
1.5 c    julienned fresh kale
1 c     butternut squash, cut into 3/4" cubes
2 T     grated fresh ginger
1/4 t     cayenne pepper (optional)
5-6     thin slices astralagus root (optional)
1    fresh lemon - juice
1 t    miso paste

•    In a saucepot over med-hi heat, sauté onion and garlic in oil 3 mins.
•    Add turmeric and mushrooms, sauté 2 mins.
•    Add broth, kale, squash, ginger, cayenne, and astralagus.
•    Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer 15 mins.
•    Remove from heat and let cool slightly
•    Add lemon juice and miso (adding miso when still very hot will diminish its probiotic benefits).
•    Cover and let sit 5 mins before serving.

serves 4-6

This is disjointed and not terribly eloquent, but I wrote it in an email to a friend who has been deeply involved with Worldchanging, and I want to post and remember.

How soon and how thoroughly I forget from whence I came.  More likely, as I always seem to do, I had no concept of who I was then, what beauty I had. This is why I am taking pictures of myself or my life every day, and studying them. Trying to understand the beauty I have now.

Tonight I got to revisit a slice of who we were.  We were beautiful and literate.  We were the liberal arts-educated, the philosophers, the artists, rolling through life slinging food, wine, and charm for tips.  We took the food seriously: We knew delectable things, cuisines, wines, regions, fares; but we operated on a different level than our patrons.  Days were for errands, evenings were for work, and late nights were for play.  This time was completely ours.  We rode a wave, fueled on wine, liquor, and sometimes cocaine, but always there was sexiness.  Tips were better if you looked good, and we were all complicit.  Some of us knew it, others weren't quite sure how or why we were accepted in this lot, but there we were.  Our parties were debaucherous and delicious.

After a time it grew old.  The sheen wore off.  It was beautiful, but none of it was real. Some friendships endured years later, but many were the result of drunken I love yous that were fickle at best.  And the glamour, the fun, didn't get us anywhere we wanted to be and the hangovers got worse.

Tonight we lived it again, some of us from the old generation, some from the new.  We rolled around together on 300 thread count sheets and took the world in our hands: All was there for us, at our behest.  We were full of wine and camraderie, and I remembered.  Remembered this tribe of faeries not of the 9-5 world, but of the night world, who breathe differently, sparkle differently, love differently.  Remembered that this is part of my fabric too.

A glass of water before I sleep, lest the wine punish me too much.

Who wants to come with me?  I need a date.

"Hurray!"
http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/

This, my friends, is why I overcompensate with my driving skills.  It's why I created a really dangerous situation the other night when I drag raced some guy up Cherry - to show him that just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I lack the balls to wipe the pavement with his ass.

He'd been behind me most of the way, just us two on the road last last night, and as we approached the red light at 14th, he pulled around on my right, looked over at me, and inched forward.  Except during rush hour, the right lane on Cherry becomes a parking lane except at intersections.  At this one, the first parked car was about two blocks up.  It was pretty visible.

His actions at the light were a pretty clear sign of his intent:  He wanted to ace me out in that small two-block window before the first parked car.  In my mind he'd sussed me out, thought "ah, female driver, no problem," and taken his position.  That's what *I* do:  If I pull up behind an old Volvo, or if someone I've been behind has been ambling along below the speed limit, I take the right and ace them out.  I base the decision on car type and driving behavior rather than gender, though, and it really pissed me off that he thought he could beat me because I'm a woman.  Now, I could be wrong and imagining things based on my own hangups, but honestly, I drive a fucking GTI with 17 inch rims and low profile tires.  What does that say to you?  And compared to his 90's-era Acura Legend, it was pretty clear who had the engine power in this.  He had to have been deciding based on perceived skill/guts, and the only thing he had to base that on was my female face.

I will also *always* give way if the person I expect to ace surprises me with a little pep.  This guy did not.  I started off at my usual, a good thrust off the line to establish my primacy, but he kept coming hard and fast.  For a half-second I slowed, thinking I should just give way to this asshole, but the switch was already flipped.  I had something to prove.  I punched the accelerator, called up the turbo, blew up the hill and was well in front of him when he had to fall in behind me.  Once we settled that I drove at a much more reasonable pace.  He caught up to me and rode my tail *way* too close until the next red light at 23rd.

He pulled up next to me and I saw that his window was down, and that he was clearly pissed.  I rolled mine down too and apologized - by this time my gloating had turned to horror that I'd almost pushed this man into a 50 MPH collision with a parked car.  I said "I'm sorry, that was dangerous," but instead of accepting he started berating me.  I smiled and said, "Listen, you pushed that just as hard as I did, and if you aren't aware of your surroundings you shouldn't be driving like that.  Neither of us should be driving like that.  We are both in the wrong."  He acquiesced, but like someone who is just waving off a chattering little girl.  Fuckwad.

I hope he learned a lesson.  I sure did.  Mine: I need to get race tires and do this shit on a closed course, stat.  It's far too dangerous to be fucking around like that on public streets, I don't care how big my balls are.  I can shut down men like that where it won't kill someone.

create your own visited states map

Cool, I've been way more places than I thought!