Punches Thrown while Police Look On, An Insect Receives Last Rites

9/5/07

Punches Thrown while Police Look On, An Insect Receives Next-to-Last Rites

I raised my glass of Merlot and sipped to the beginning of my second movie for the night: A Streetcar Named Desire. There was a flowery smudge on the wine glass just next to the first capital letter of the winery where I bought it. I never noticed that before. Was there a previously unnoticed flower appliqué on the glass? No, my finger found the mangled body of a small insect. It was probably a moth that I had been swatting unsuccessfully all evening.

I moved the tiny pathetic body (and a leg found separately) to a napkin and was trying to answer philosophical questions about the life and death of bugs when I heard loud male voices and car door slamming outside.

The street I live on, Alvarado, is a dangerous street after dark. I shut off the living room lights and peered outside from behind the curtain. Two young men were shouting near a car pulled into the right lane. One man emerged from the sidewalk and punched the driver of the car twice before the driver noticed two police officers on motorcycles crossing the street at Montana, heading west. The driver raised his hand, possibly to let the officers know he was alright, but then again, he may have been hoping they would turn left onto Alvarado and intervene.

The officers went straight and when I looked back to the car in question, it was leaving the scene. The identity and whereabouts of the assailant are unknown.

I was overwhelmed by the timing of these events. After the first punch, I wondered if I would have to call 9-1-1. In the end, everyone seemed to have survived with little more than bruises, except for the moth who I’m hoping is on its way to a partial recovery sans one leg.

What to Do (Old essay from 2005)

8/30/05

I can’t seem to figure out what I want or what I want to do. I want to do everything, but it doesn’t seem like I’m qualified to do anything.

I feel as if I don’t do anything important. My field is interesting, my job is boring most of the time, but neither of them is really significant in the world. If archaeologists disappeared forever, I think people would be fine. I want to do something that has more depth to it, something more real and tangible that archaeology.

Sometimes I freak myself out because I think of all the things in the world that I’d like to do, but feel as if I won’t be able to; I’ll never be that world famous archaeologist. Then I realize that it’s ok not to be the world famous archaeologist. It’s ok to be a cashier at the local grocery store. But you see, I have a college degree and it doesn’t feel ok to be just a cashier in the same town I grew up in. I’m suppose to have some edge over the competition now so I can get that wonderful job in a far away land where I’ll learn all about the long lost culture of the whoserwhatsit and publish several books on the subject.

I want to be a writer, a gardener, a good cook, and a spiritual and well-balanced individual. But how in the Hell can a person be who she wants to if she has to spend all her spare time looking for a better job when there simply aren’t any available? What standards should I set for myself? I wonder if I should give up on these dreams and come to terms with the reality that I’m going to have to work at a shitty job for a long time and not get to do most of the things I want. What goals do I need to set in motion in order to be this person I can see in my mind’s eye?

I have been searching for guidance for many years and have only found it in small pockets: a teacher here, a friend there – and then it goes away and I begin the search again. Always searching and always waiting, that is the story of my life.

An Obsession Confession (older post)

I finished reading Twilight in about five days. I had trouble putting it down, but I had to work at least three of those days, I took a short overnight camping trip, and had a birthday dinner with my family in that time as well. I was engrossed the way a person might normally be in a new fun story, but it wasn’t until I finished the book and read the teaser chapter into the sequel that I started to obsess.

I had planned on alternating between fiction and non-fiction as I worked my way through my home library. That evening as I got ready for bed, I perused my bookshelves in search of my next fix – I wanted to stick to my plan and start “Why Darwin Matters” or maybe “The Pilgrim and the Great Bird Continent” because my last science book was really enjoyable – but my fingers led me to more fiction: “The Vampire Lestat” (I’d never read that book in The Vampire Chronicles) or maybe “The Mists of Avalon” (I loved the King Arthur legends). But, I couldn’t quite shake this feeling that I was heading downhill and fiction was my navigator. Better play it safe: I chose an entertaining non-fiction book about extremist conspiracy theorists.

The next day, I was looking forward to having the house to myself for several hours after work. I formulated a plan to go to the library and check out the second book in the Twilight saga AND the Twilight movie; I was going to pursue my obsession properly. The library was an utter disappointment: five copies of the book and one copy of the DVD – all checked out. I walked the two blocks to the video rental place with my fingers crossed.

All was not lost! On the way home from the video store I came up with the following: “I just want the freedom to engage safely and responsibly in my obsessions”.

Another story is that I’m addicted to fiction and that’s why it was so hard for me to leave Twilight. I love delving so deep into a fictional world that the boundaries between real and fantasy starts to blur. When this happened in the past, I was able to go with it and let it take me away to wherever it wanted, eventually returning home safely. Now, my “responsible” adult life doesn’t seem to allow me full indulgence of my obsessions and that makes me obsess even more. It’s dangerous.

If this story is the more accurate one, it may be a sign of lunacy and the question facing me then is: Do I want to be cured? I don’t think so. I have figured out a possible way to “treat” this affliction however. The answer is so obvious that I barely figured it out. I must write fiction myself in order to live safely in both worlds. It’s the only way.

4/26/09

GO LAKERS!

This week the Lakers are playing the Celtics for the NBA Playoffs.  I'm not really a basketball fan, so that last sentence may be all wrong, but you understand what I'm meaning...  I guess if I have to pick a team, I'm Lakers all the way... I really enjoy watching basketball, compared to other sports (although I did catch some of the World Cup on Saturday afternoon and I could probably follow that if I were inclined).

It didn't hit me until today that it has been almost a year since I moved out of Echo Park and ended my last long term relationship... The last good memory I have of that time is catching the Playoffs last year on a TV at a Pub.  The energy of the crowd was infectious and I ended up following the rest of the games until the Laker's won and I watched my fellow Los Angelenos riot (why the hell did you do that?) all over downtown.

So much time has passed, yet I don't feel like I have moved forward very far in my life.  I guess I'm still healing, still getting a handle on reality as a single person.  Exploring the ideas I used to think were "me" before I was subsumed by an "us".  I am afraid that I have lost my edge.

Witnessing the hoopla over the Lakers (at work, in  my neighborhood and even in my own household) makes me wonder why people get so riled up over a sports team.  I think people have a deep need for tribal affiliations and sports satisfies that.  It allows us to be a part of the competitive "us vs. them" dynamic in a relatively safe way.  If we were still living in caves, we would be hunting animals and defending ourselves from other caves with much the same psychological effect.

Random Thoughts: About Me

In lieu of a singular connected "journal" entry, I am going to try random thoughts.

ABOUT ME:
I strive for simplicity in my daily life.  I don't want too many possessions and I want to limit my impact on the planet.  That being said, I need complexity to feel satisfied sometimes such as with food and drink, a movie or a book.  I love getting new things (even used things that are new to me) and struggle every day with my impulse to consume.

I know that I am swimming in contradictions: I trust science to explain the known universe AND some days I believe in things that can't be proven by science.  My beliefs about the world are constantly in motion and therefore can appear different from one day to the next.  And when that does happen, I'm not lying, I'm just open-minded about myself and the world of possibilities.  I live in a constantly changing world and I change with it.  I remember when I was younger and didn't understand that the world was fluid.  The world appeared solid and therefore change seemed like a bad thing, to be avoided.  Now I just accept that it is.

One Man's Scenic Route is Another Man's Deathtrap

Repost from my now defunct Myspace blog:

One Man's Scenic Route is Another Man's Deathtrap
June 24, 2007

I work at a job where they are tearing up the hillside, but at least they have good reason, right?  I realize that the work will straighten a winding road where too many accidents occur - is that really worth destroying so much nature?

My first impulse was to remember how radically I once believe in saving nature above everything else.  And here I am working for people destroying a small chunk of it.  I can justify it by the importance of my job (archaeologist) and what could potentially be found in the hillside, but does that really make it ok?

My second thought was that even though the work is being done with good intentions by the client, the ultimate problem is within the individual drivers who (in my experience) tend to be impatient, careless and egocentric.  With winding roads in particular, I've noticed too many people driving faster than I felt it was safe to drive.

So I wonder if changing the landscape to straighten a road is really saying more about human psychology than I first thought.  Changing the road means people will continue driving unsafely.  Instead of encouraging drivers to adapt to their environment, they've adapted the environment to the unsafe driver, which reinforces people's egocentrism on the road.

So not only am I party to destroying nature and releasing toxins from construction, but also encouraging a contaminated view of humanity's place in the universe.

I need to find a new job.

The Welcome Mat - A Poem

Don't throw out that worn welcome mat. 

It remembers the feet of those who have sat

at your garden bench or dinner table,

helping you when you were not able.

For friends have come and friends have gone

and that path worn thin recalls their song.

9/1/07

I'm not fat, I'm just big-brained

Did you know:

*1 out of 8 adolescent girls reported starving themselves to lose weight 

*40% of moms tell their adolescent daughters to diet and 45% of these girls are of average weight 

*81% of 10 year old girls are afraid of being fat 

*51% of 9 and 10 year old girls feel better about themselves if they are on a diet 

*More than 2/3 of women ages 18-25 would rather be mean or stupid than be fat 

*Over 50% of women ages 18-25 would rather be hit by a truck than be fat 

*70 million people worldwide struggle with eating disorders

I remember being "normal" sized when I was younger. For some mysterious reason I ballooned up in 4th grade and was back to what I was before by 5th. The boy that wanted to pass notes and hold hands in 3rd grade, Eddie Freeman, insulted me about my size the following year. I moved the summer after 4th grade and so he never had the opportunity to learn that I was not a "fat girl," I just had a fat year. It bugged me for a time but since I never saw Eddie again I tried my best to leave it in the past. 

I don't think I was fat again until my senior year of high school, when I wasn't as physically active but kept eating the same. Again, I lost the weight, and by graduation my mother was rewarding this "good behavior" with shopping sprees. 

I slowly put on a few pounds over the years at college, but I didn't feel "fat" until after graduating and living with someone. I think that I became comfortable and complacent about things, including over-eating, drinking, and not getting exercise. I think for me, it is more about learning bad habits and then not having the self-discipline to make the changes I need. Sometimes I think I need to physically go somewhere where I won't have access to food like I do and where someone external to myself can force me to get off my lazy ass and exercise. But that isn't real. The reality is that I need to figure it out on my own. Bad habits are so hard to break. It seems the harder I try to make myself change, the more I slip into "out of control" behavior. It's like I forget to remember that I don't want to be that way any longer. 

Photo Credit (Artist is not associated with the blog or its contents. I just really like the image):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hatchibombotar/ / CC BY 2.0

Statistics thanks to http://www.endfattalk.org/stats.html

Politics

I guess I'd never make a good politician because I like life to be simple. And I like things to work. And I like honesty, even when it's hard to hear. And I believe in making a difference, even in the tiniest and most insignificant of ways. And I have hope for the future. And I believe that 99.99% of humans are just reacting to the life they were born into and that I would have ended up in their shoes if I had been given that reality too.

I do not feel morally superior to people who are different from me based on nationality, religious, or political affiliation; I feel morally superior to people because they advocate detestable world views such as racism, sexist, fear and hatred.*

I hate the two party system. I like the whole idea of democracy, even a representative one like we are supposed to have. In theory, it should work OK. Not perfect, but OK. But we don't even have that. Everyone knows, it's all a sham. Everyone knows that it's money that votes, not people.

Sometimes it's hard for me to understand how people are so easily manipulated by all the name calling, political rhetoric and outright LIES, but then again - I totally get it. We love to see carnage. Sex and violence is what sells. The problem is that politicians know this too and with the virtual take-over of our brains they are able to enter our bloodstream directly through any electrical device.

I don't get how citizens can vote against their own interests. I suppose it comes down to a lack of education mixed with heavily funded misinformation campaigns. I see it every election. I see it every time congress is thinking about passing a bill. I see it every time Obama speaks about ANYTHING. He could get on the horn and say, "I love America", and someone would find a way to spin that as anti-capitalist, anti-freedom, and anti-American... They do it every single day.

So, in essence, I'm tired of it. I needed to just say it. Out loud.

But don't worry, I have plenty more to say. Later.
------------

*That was kind of a joke. I don't feel morally superior to anyone, but IF I did, that would be why.

Empty Vessels

WE PREFER PSEUDONYMS TO REALITY

RELATING TO PEOPLE BY WAY OF T.V. 

FLASHBACK TO MY FAVORITE EPISODE 

BUT NO ONE ELSE HAS SEEN IT, SO I GUESS I'M ON MY OWN. 

OUT OF WORDS, WE JUST USE SOMEONE ELSE'S. 

VICARIOUS LOVE AND HATE 'TILL WE'RE SENSELESS. 

THINK FOR OURSELVES HAS BECOME SO CLICHÉ. 

CARBON-COPIED, UNREALIZED POTENTIAL - EMPTY VESSELS MADE OF CLAY.

Floating

Life is like... life. There's nothing else like it, as far as I know. And it's confusing and weird and awesome and shitty all at the same time. Without the bad we wouldn't appreciate the good.

I guess I just feel like my life is in such a state of transition right now that I don't know how I feel. I got used to a reality that was quite comfortable in many ways, although it was stagnant and unsatisfying. I had solid ground to land on, a routine, an anchor to return to every day. And I liked having that anchor so much! But, the flip side to that was that I wasn't growing and accomplishing my dreams.

Now, I live in a world much different from that; there is solid ground, but no routine and no anchor. Some days I embrace the openness of endless possibilities and other days that wide open space scares the shit out of me. I imagine this to be the way sensory deprivation feels, just floating along outside of time and space.

So I don't know that there was any real point to this post, but I haven't written in a while and I'd like to change that.

Circuit Disconnected

I tried to retain the small details: the impatient flickering light in the waiting room, the pasty naked walls of the hallway, how people were polite but not friendly. We were herded into the emergency room where they tried to revive him and then, when they knew there was no longer an emergency, they herded us into the room we would say our final goodbyes in.

I didn’t try not to cry, but tears didn’t come readily. He was 83 and had lived a good life and for that I didn’t feel I was losing him. I had been prepared that this could happen; I was just glad he wasn’t alone. He was attached to a breathing machine with no hope of recovery. I think his actual death may have been hours earlier. Other people had their theories about his soul and a chaplain was called. I didn’t see his soul; I saw his body, lying in front of me, a single black hair stuck to the tape that held a tube to his skin. Such insignificant details, but I wanted to remember.

I watched the machines with their numbers falling gradually like a parachute landing. I didn’t know what they were measuring but I do remember seeing “epinephrine” and “adrenaline”. Those are two of the ‘feel good’ hormones, I recalled. I tried to make sense of the whole death thing while I was exposed to it first hand. Eventually, they turned off the machine and people waited and people cried and then we went back to the waiting room. The impatient light still flickered as we tried to talk about normal things. What now? When will they release him? Are you sure you don’t need me to stay for another two hours? I did all I could and then I went home.

For Uncle Lorne

3/19/09

Boxes

We all live in a box that we create. It is built upon our thoughts and feelings and ultimately our world view. You know how your 5th grade best friend turned into an enemy in 6th grade? And maybe she was a different ethnic background than you. The logical conclusion for many children that young is to blame the "outward" characteristics of a person, like ethnicity, and not see the fact that maybe they were going through their own shit at home and acting out. And your parents probably did not help matters when you arrived home with a bloody lip and had to explain. The first thing they said was, "You've got to be careful of (fill in the blank) people because they are different from you". So, from that point on you might have a more negative opinion of people that look like that friend turned enemy. 

I know that's crazy because it happened over twenty years ago. But it's still there in the back of your box, filed under "things that shaped how I view others". It's so complicated at times; It can include: how you see yourself, how you think others see you, what makes you think of other people in a certain way, your beliefs, your assumptions, your secrets, your preferences, your habits, your roles, your parents, your neighborhood, the friends and enemies throughout your life, moments of illumination and clarity, new experiences, memories and the knowing that memories are not reliable after a while. I could go on, but I think you get the picture. 

All it takes is one moment to form an experience that is always with you. I think it is good to occasionally be reminded that we are in a box. Usually this happens when we realize we've stepped outside of ours for a moment. Of course, the box expands to include this too. So I guess it's better for our box to be in a more or less continual state of expansion and revision. Think of it like rearranging furniture. Quite appropriate for my house, actually, because we rearrange things every few months to make room for new items and with them, new ideas and possibilities. 

I was inspired this evening because I had finished dinner and wanted something sweet. As a last resort, I reached for a box of instant Jello Chocolate Pudding. This pudding was not something I would normally eat, it was a gift from a family member, but I was on the verge of craving chocolate. I had never made instant pudding and I picked a bowl too small to mix it in. It made a huge mess. And when I saw the mess and just let it go... it was the most free feeling I've had in a while!

Potato and Corn Chowder

Last night I made soup and this is approximately what happened: 

 6-8 med Potatoes 

1 can Corn 

2 large carrots 

1/4 cup onion 

1 tsp. garlic 

3 bay leaves 

9 cups veggie "chicken style" stock 

1 crown of broccoli 

1 whole Anaheim chili 

about a cup of soy milk 

1 tsp dried Thyme 

loads of freshly ground pepper. 

 I boiled potatoes and carrots first, drain water and measure in 9 cups of fresh water. Then add the rest of the ingredients except the soymilk, thyme and pepper until it's almost done. I like adding things in stages according to how long they need to cook, so potatoes and carrots together, onion, chili, garlic together, broccoli last...then the seasonings.

Pet Peeves - Language

Sometimes I think the English Language, as used by the average American, is slowly turning into an incoherent combination of acronyms, abbreviations, and nonsense slang. I've begun to cringe every time I hear hip media people say things like "merch" and "va-cay" (merchandise and vacation, for those lucky enough to be unfamiliar with said "words").

When I was a kid I got scolded for saying "Mickey D's" instead of McDonald's. Not because of linguistic purity mind you. Let's just say it was because that's not what my parents thought white people should call it (another blog, another day). But over the years, I've been rather resistant to using many popular slang words until I heard them so often, they'd slip out on accident (examples include: hella', stoked, bad, aight, dope, tight). Now I use slang as more of a fun joking way to express myself, but not as a serious method of communication with most people. I add a far amount of "F" words in too when I get riled up or want some emphasis.

However, I still feel like there is a difference between myself and other people whom I hear brutally disfiguring words around me without much awareness of their mind-mouth connection.

Words have been shortened, twisted, and mispronounced in the public forum and then accepted as valid and regurgitated. I call G.W. Bush's use of "nucular" to the stand! Do you realize that an entire generation of young children learning to read and write were exposed to that idiocracy for 8 whole years!

Hate to run out of the blog mid-point, but I must. I'll try to add more later.

Coffee Anxiety

I worry about the silliest things. Today, I offered to make a pot of coffee at work and I am very self-conscious about it because I’ve been making bad coffee at home for a couple of months. I knew I made it too strong but I figured one could always dilute it with hot water if necessary. So I offer it to my coworkers and try to let them know that I know it’s rather strong, but I had to leave for an hour long meeting before anyone (besides me) drank it. After the meeting, I settled back into my work station and noticed one of the guys drinking the coffee. I felt the urge to address the issue then and there. I wanted to ask him if it was as horrible as I feared it might be and to let him know that if he did feel that way, it was alright with me because I was willing to admit to this horrible defect in my personality: the inability to make a good pot of coffee.

But the timing wasn’t right to talk to him about it. For almost a half an hour I sat brewing the defect in my mind, feeling as if my worth as a person was being sipped from that cup. “What kind of person will he think I am? He’ll also think I can’t cook! That would be awful because I’m a very good cook and I don’t want people to think I’m worthless! I want people to know that despite one or two things that I’m totally rubbish at, like making a pot of coffee, I am a very talented wonderful person in other areas. They just happen to be areas that I’m not judged in at my current job.” These thoughts and sub-thoughts (the thoughts that I didn’t even know I was thinking until now, as I’m writing about what I was thinking) are running loose inside my head until the last part of the day when I manage to ask how bad the coffee was.

He says, “the stronger the better in my opinion. There is no ‘too strong’ coffee for me”. So there you go. Another tale of how I spent a half hour worrying about nothing.

Untitled Narrative, 3/28/07

I used to create imaginary worlds when I was a kid. One fantasy world was hidden underground, accessible from drainage holes that led to lesser known passages. These portals did not enclose a subterranean city as much as provide instantaneous transportation to anywhere else on the planet. The precise details of what lay under the suburb I lived escape me now, but I do remember the underwater passageway.

One of the thousand unmarked gateways led to the ocean floor where a glass tunnel stretched to meet the water above your head. The semicircular glass tunnel covered an earth bottomed passage, wide enough for a freeway, from one shore to the next. The thickness of the glass increased with the depth of the ocean floor but the entire path allowed for visual contact with the ocean above.

I imagined this world when I was eleven years old, at a time when I desperately wanted a means of escape to a far off place. Why not crawl down a tunnel, hop into some kind of jet powered transit car and then walk under the whole ocean? I could go travel the whole world that way safely, and for free!

Not surprisingly, an underwater restaurant opened somewhere in the world not too long ago. I think seeing pictures of that restaurant reminded me of my youthful fantasy world. I told my friend how I came up with the concept for the restaurant 19 years ago and could have made a ton of money selling the idea first.

Another product I jokingly take credit for inventing in my head is TiVo, or the digital video recorder in general. When I was around the same age, eleven or twelve, I thought it would be great if I could pause and rewind the cable television the way I could with videos. This was before the digital revolution; compact discs might have just become available. I find it amazing that my imagination back then strove for digital solutions in the analog world.

To be honest, I didn’t think my idea would ever become a real reality. It was created from the same place as the glass tunnel under the ocean and the monster in my closet (which I never thought was real but was still afraid of).

I used to visit San Francisco regularly and the first time I took the subway from there to Berkeley I was stunned because the train actually goes under the San Francisco Bay. No glass tunnels to observe the wildlife as you go, but I did appreciate that it finally came into existence. It is things like this that remind me how limitless our world experience can be.

Work - Update

Just an update on what I've been doing at work!

(Above) A crocodile relative from the Jurassic Period (older than T. rex), found in Fruita, Colorado. I have to use a microscope and small tools to expose the bone from the dirt. This specimen will be pedastalled (bones exposed but left in the matrix)

This is a caudal (tail) vertebra from Thomas the T. rex which I completely prepared in the lab. Fossils go through a process of being removed from matrix with dental tools and small hand drills, then cleaning with fine sand blasting, filling cracks in with a putty/resin, then gluing and stabilizing.

Quick Update (mental health check)

I wanted to assure you that I'm still here, still breathing...still alive. I had hoped to spend more time here after getting a new computer, but I have been dealing with some issues and haven't had a lot "to say" about stuff. I will say this: I have started a personal journal to deal with my issues (depression, anxiety, etc.) and hopefully I will be able to work some things out without going to a shrink. I also wanted to share that I got my bicycle fixed and have started using it (slowly but surely - need to build up those bottom muscles!) AND I am currently accessorizing my self-help therapy with the following: 1. The Te of Piglet (book by Benjamin Hoff), semi-sequel to his "The Tao of Pooh" which I didn't read. I got this book for a quarter at a thrift store, so that's the one I'm reading first. 2. Zencast (free podcast on itunes) which are a series of talks/teachings by Gil Fronsdahl, of whom I am becoming a major fan. 3. Deerpark Monastery Podcast (also free on itunes) which is based on the teachings of Thich Nhat Hahn - another great teacher. 4. Also really loving the few free Alan Watts podcasts available. So I really hope to be back here soon. I wish you happiness, health and peace of mind.

When I was 8 years old, I wanted to be Madonna.