LES Artistes

The Shrine of the Rock

2010-04-09T13:24:00.000-07:00

Give It Away Now/ Charity

2010-03-23T14:39:00.000-07:00

WARNING: I'm a little bit buzzed right now, read at your own peril.

I got rejected from Hunter College this morning. In retaliation, I had a rum punch for breakfast, whined via text message, forgot why I was upset, ran errands, and signed up for a writing workshop. I think I may take rejection exceptionally well. Or it could be my short attention span at full mast.

Additionally, today I learned that the Georgia State Supreme Court called limits on malpractice awards "unconstitutional." Well goody. Ten days past my statute of limitations. I have not decided whether I will pursue the change of other excruciatingly unfair laws for the good of all georgia-kind or just take my wounds and my injuries and limp off into the future.

I have started an investment portfolio for the first time in years. I've been investing in my health for the past 6 - 7 years, health care is expensive. I had a fairly amusing conversation with a guy who didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground on the topic of the new health care bill. Obviously, my crippled ass is in favor of it and I'm damn glad it passed. I still recall the shock of learning Americans not employed by the government or in the military didn't necessarily have health coverage. This is an aside, but my co-intern at the Detroit Free Press Christy told me her mother died at home, of breast cancer, because health insurance wouldn't cover the condition. Her family converted from being Republican to Democrat after that.

Anywho, since I'm investing in my health with tens-of-thousands per year because I've just gotten tired of spending that kind of money, I've decided to put some of that money toward playing with the stock market. 24 hours in, I've taken a $24.00 drubbing. Oh well. I'll do some more reading and then evaluating my "starter stocks." I've never invested in individual stocks, I've always tended toward Mutual Funds instead. But I like stocks, thus far, and they are fun and easy to buy in small amounts. All good.

Well, I'm going to enjoy my buzz.

Be My Backdoor Man

2010-01-19T20:30:00.000-08:00

After weeks of reading the entire Sookie Stackhouse series and brooding like a hen, I'm out of the funk. This morning I woke up and read a random passage of Simple Abundance. I hated it. It was about asking for what we want. I felt, if at all possible, even broodier. I hurrumphed around the bathroom and gallumphed down the stairs and harrumphed into the office and worked. I considered canceling my afternoon appointments. I enjoyed my surly.

Then my buddy Colorful Child IM'd me and we chatted about feeling stumped in our respective developments as sentient beings, women and artists. We chatted and had breakfast and inserted a few "brb" and eventually came up with a really fine idea for promoting ourselves through the efforts of one another. There is nothing more nerve wracking than promoting oneself. Tim Ferriss makes it look easy, but it just isn't. I can run someone else's multi-million dollar venture and go to the mats over 1 cent, but I have problems remembering to attend to my own affairs much of the time. I've tried personal assistants. They make me batty, all that telling someone else to do when i can just do it, or think about doing it, myself. Then managing the end product, oy vey!

So, we will barter promotional efforts to one another. I'll do her, she'll do me, at least in the earliest stage and see how it goes. We've nothing to lose, we're both too squirrely to do it for ourselves.

I had tea and rum for lunch with a bit of McDonald's and enjoyed the fine guitar-picking stylings of Fatback Deluxe and decided it's just a Blues kind of period. I have been frought and distressed and generally put out, which is Blues living if ever there was any. There has also been plenty of "doing plenty of things I don't want to and hearing the whip crack on my back" going on. Today was unseasonably warm as well, so Mississippi Delta, I'm with you in spirit.

I found an old email exchange with one of my personal idols, The Sweet Potato Queen, Jill Connor Browne. Don't you just hate when someone says something and you think "that's not true" but then discover, much to your horror and mortification, that they were right on the money? Money. They were right about money. They were right about another person. They were right about another person and money. It's like feeling a pebble drop from the back of your throat into the pit of your stomach with no digestion, that's what it's like to read words of wisdom and realize just how transparent you were to someone else when you thought you were occluding everyone.

Today after the chat and before the rum, I thought about myself. I thought about the hallmarks of my personality. I'm ruthless. I'm occasionally feckless. I'm stubborn and I'm single-minded. I'm smart and tough and fragile and quite worldly, but that comes at the expense of knowing a lot of American cultural hallmarks. So, taking all of that, I am going to create myself out of spiderwebs and spanish moss.

Weird Girls get all the Boys

2010-01-16T19:57:00.000-08:00

Proven Fact. Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman just announced their engagement.

Weird girls are intense and quirky. I have three little sisters. To borrow a line from the Bard, they are Weird Sisters, but mine. I have extremely weird friends. One friend, she's a little scary in a completely soft and lovely manner, she declared over dinner and while I was 1.5 vodka gimlets into drowning my troubles that she's going to stop telling people she's stupid. I thought this was a fine idea because this is a girl who makes her living tutoring people in advanced mathematics - she doesn't deal in anything less challenging than calculus, it isn't worth her time and she bores easily. To keep conversation going I asked why she was suddenly going to stop telling people she was stupid. She explained, in an offhand manner, that there are a lot of stupid people in the world and she isn't one of them, but when she says she is, the stupid people start talking to her and they really don't have anything in their heads. She gets bored. And we're back at the original statement, she's not stupid.

Weird girls are worth the trouble. In our extreme youth, we are often dumped for simpler girls. I have a testimonial: when I was a senior in high school, I loved a boy. He was exotic to me and I'm pretty exotic for most other people. I got him into college. Weird girls are brilliant, we just don't flaunt it because then people ask you to do things like run their corporations (sub-testimonial, this happened to me and it's been a six-year headache). So, there I am, in the blossom of love and hormones when he dumps me. Just flat-out says "We can't date any more." I ask all the relevant questions, "is it because your family is orthodox?" "No" "is it because of our ethno-cultural differences?" "No" "Do you not find me attractive?" "I find you very attractive."

This was a true stumper. Finally, I had to ask, "well, what IS it?" And bless him, he told me "you're too smart. I can't get over on you and I get tired of thinking." Well, huh. I thought about offering to play stupid, but I was too busy thinking of 5 guys who could comfort me. Three days later I saw him at a nightclub with a girl who was my physical carbon copy save the vacant look in her eyes. Ding-dong and no one but a yap-dog is home. In that moment I was incredibly hurt and insulted. A stupid girl is a great insult. This girl was about as quirky as a dead amoeba.

Weird girls deserve weir-but-socially-acceptable partners and should not settle for less. We tend to settle or go single for years at a time. We deserve love, our love is so rich and multi-faceted, only an idiot could get bored and idiots LOVe weird, smart girls. They don't even understand our multisyllabic language, but they like our big words. We like their big hands. It's a complementary relationship. But we deserve brilliant, weird guys/girls/significant others who make us laugh and can do our homework when we want to read romance novels or play sorority life or just sit in a corner and obsess about particle physics and chemistry

Superstarr HealthCare

2009-09-18T18:50:00.000-07:00

I'm starting a new writing project about Endometriosis. The other day I had to drop Dave Ramsey. He spent five minutes on his radio program ranting about how universal healthcare would be "socialism." It was disgusting and I navigated right away from his website, where I'd just been planning to drop $200 for tickets to his live event.

Universal Healthcare is no more socialism than offering healthcare to active and retired military personnel. I've been the beneficiary of government healthcare most of my life, first as a military dependent then as a college student, then as a private citizen who prefers to utilize clinics. In fact, and this is a total aside, my life was never put at risk until I hauled off and used private physician care. Those guys nearly killed me!

When this president was campaigning, he made the rather poignant commitment to making sure every American had access to the same healthcare as members of Congress enjoy. Think about that for five seconds. The same people who are exhorting the "evil socialist unDERtow" of HealthCare for All are on a government healthcare plan. They will keep that healthcare plan if they are voted out in the next election.

Personally, I could appreciate having access to the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). There are millions, yes, MILLIONS of people covered by FEHBP. The surly government worker at the courthouse, she is covered by FEHBP. The disinterested gossip at the Federal Building...he has it too. If you're between the ages of 24-34 in all likelihood you're reading this without insurance. If you're in certain California or New York markets you may have catastrophic coverage. Catastrophic coverage does precisely what it says, if a piano falls on your head, you're covered for a few hospital days.

More than likely, if you do have coverage you don't know what isn't covered until you need it. I work in medicine, the only people who can get the healthcare they need are 1. covered by the U.S. Government or 2. coming from another country and paying cash. I've heard individuals on the street railing about not wanting to pay for "welfare queen's kids" to have health insurance. They are crazy. Definitely crazy. The Welfare Queen? Her kids, they are already covered. If she smokes crack and snorts heroin and drinks antifreeze and her child is born with every developmental disability ever conceived, her child is covered for LIFE.

The nice college graduate who married her high school sweetheart and is starting out in a career on the bottom rung and finds herself expecting a baby? She will cut prenatal pills in half, skip sonograms, go through a very nervous pregnancy, and walk out of the hospital owing $20,000 or more for the labor suite because she does not have health insurance and in this country, if you are young (under 65) you are not deserving of basic medical care.

I'm a 30-year-old woman who has lived with a chronic illness since I was 13. I've never worried much about money and my healthcare - I've always had the benefit of the U.S. Army's healthcare plan, and when that was over, I was very gainfully employed in the career of my dreams. It wasn't until I went through the dot-com bust, lost my job after a less-than-successful surgery, and found myself living off of my investments that I even got curious about healthcare. So, I did what any enterprising young woman of 25 would do, I changed careers and started working in medicine. The things I've seen are frightening. Most physicians have no idea how to help their patients navigate the frightening world of American healthcare.

I have seen newly employed men lose their jobs and find out that the benefits they payed for were retroactively canceled after they suffer some terrible accident. The insurance company would much rather cut a guy a check for his premium than pay for his surgical care when he's been in a car accident.

I have seen hardworking people forgo care because their insurer won't approve it. Thankfully I can say I have dedicated no small amount of my life to fighting on their behalf, but I've seen it every day of my life, I've seen it.

I have had riders placed on my insurance policies. A Rider is a clause in a policy that exempts the insurance company from paying for any care related to a condition. Most policies, unbeknownst to the well-meaning purchasers, carry riders for pregnancy.

My riders put my health care in my hands. I negotiated with physicians for rates and used "cash is king" as my motto. I have been fortunate to have the cash to do this successfully, but I have spent thousands of dollars, on top of insurance premiums, deductibles, out-of-pocket maximums and co-pays for the privilege. When a surgical error resulted in 6 additional surgeries, I was relieved not to have significant financial responsibility as the hospital bills rolled in. I was not without day-to-day grownup life responsibilities, and I kept the secret fear that my insurance would drop me on a whim. I sat in a hospital bed, emaciated and drugged, working on my laptop because I feared losing my job in addition to losing my health. It wasn't an irrational fear, it had a precedent in my real life experience.

I whittled away my nest egg and, in addition to the infantilizing effects of prolonged recovery, I could have ended up homeless and haunted. I've not recovered from the damage done while I was under anesthesia. I may not ever recover. Thankfully, I didn't walk away with tremendous debt. I'm very, very fortunate. There but for the grace of God went I.

How would a government health care plan have changed my life or my experience? Not a whole whopping lot, other than perhaps giving me real means for recourse with the surgeons by implementing tort reform with regards to health care. During the time period when I was self-insured, it could have saved me about $10,000. As I prepare to return to school, toting along my injuries and diminished ability to work, I would have greater confidence that I could continue to take care of myself in the myriad small ways I must.

I believe in state sponsored health care plans. State sponsored, in this instance, meaning government regulated and controlled. To say this does not exist is to ignore the tens of millions of Americans currently enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid, Military Benefits, Retiree Benefits, Federal Employee Benefits, State Employee Benefits, Prison Health Care (yes, the serial killer who scored life in prison gets medical care while you fret about co-pays) and various other health care plans.

I do not have a classy ending to this post. I don't have a classy ending to my life, or the stories I have witnessed or participated in as I've grown up in America. I look with great optimism at the resolve of a President whose mother died while wondering how she would pay for the medical care she received. There is something to that, having someone in the White House for whom health care is not an abstract issue that concerns the proletariat, but an issue that has broken his own heart and hit his own pocket at the worst time imagineable. That's the best advocate I can think of in the bloviated, self-involved world of Washington.

Today is not the day

2009-09-10T21:27:00.000-07:00

For the healthcare blog. I'm tired...still.

I am at the ranch, which is infinitely more interesting than being at my home. AT the ranch, someone or something is always up to no good. Tonight one of the horses went on an unauthorized walkabout. Freaked the little sister out. She went all Death Con 5 on the everyone. It was pretty funny.

The horse was recovered in a pasture where she was enjoying some new-growth grass and a rub down or something because she's all soft and warm to the touch now. Perhaps she was abducted by aliens like Cartman and had an anal probe.

Hmmmm...

healthcare

2009-09-09T20:42:00.000-07:00

i'm going to write a blog on healthcare...tomorrow. tonight, i'm tired and my back hurts. there was a time when I would make such a remark, and some older coworker would tell me I was too young for back pain.

ha! i showed them! i have legitimate back pain.

but tomorrow. tomorrow i will write about healthcare. this matters to me from all sides and i want to write something i can be proud of.

listening to God Save the Sweet Potato Queens. Keeps me jolly.

Goodnight

Change your hair - change your life!

2009-09-08T19:55:00.000-07:00

That's one of my favorite sayings. It's true too. Today was a good day for not writing. I keep bullying myself, challenging and taunting myself to get back to editing, but I just broke out in a rash and that seems enough to put a pause to all activity. Plus, I'm tired.

I'm on the Ralph Lauren site. Gone are the halcyon days of cruising websites and waiting with all manner of anxiety for my purchases to arrive. I'm moving! I'm going to graduate school! I'm reverting to poor (by comparison) student life. I must refamiliarize myself with TJ Maxx. I've always loved a well-cut piece of clothing, I just can't afford to pay premium prices any longer.

I have, however, thoroughly vetted every piece of clothing in my closet. All that remain are items I love and feel good in. The closet is...sparsely populated. I'm inspired by my friend Fly-brother (Ernest White II, a desperately handsome fella) @http://fly-brother.blogspot.com/ who packed all his belongings into two carry-on bags. If I need to, I have no problem doing this, I prefer to travel light. But I've been living heavy for a while. I mean...don't crucify me for this, but I just realized I have no business tripping the market fantastic on eluxury.com or net-a-porter.com any longer.

This is going to take a real adjustment on my part.

Oh well. Onward and upward. I'm going to bed. I'm not going to dream of Vuitton or Louboutin! I am...I so totally am. And Bocchic Origine cuffs and raw diamonds. I'm going to dream of all of it...

What I have between my ears

2009-09-07T18:41:00.000-07:00

Is pretty awesome...

I'm writing while I wait for my novel to open. It's not looking good for the whole "finish my 4th round of edits" project this evening. I remain optimistic.

I have quite a few projects in the pipeline. At the moment, between twice weekly breakdowns of the nervous variety and looking up at the sky from the bottom of a hole not of my own making, I've been playing with my hormones for the betterment of my health. It's working wonders too!

In addition to all of this inside work, and lots of therapy, I'm also taking on the task of miraculously dropping 10-20 actual pounds. I'm reworking my wardrobe again, nearly 2 years after falling in love with Tim Gunn's infallible advice. Now, all of this will not be documented on Les Artistes. I think I will chart my advance on graduate school (yes, two years after declaring my bachelor's degree had expired, I'm finally doing something about it) here. I'll continue to rant and rave and post inappropriate things here, while exercising some diligence and focus on my new blogs, as yet to be named.

Regardless, I'm going to commit to something. I'm committed to writing on a daily basis 5 times a week. Hope someone out there will pay attention.

Ode to MG

2009-07-14T08:18:00.000-07:00

There are moments that define us. I'm existing through a series of such moments. My grandmother is in my house and this is probably one of the last times we will have the chance to live together in this way - as adults with a long, complicated, loving and occasionally destructive history.

I watch her. I watch until I can't take it any more, then I go one room away and I think about all of the hers I have known. I love that my grandmother has taught me to always value the eccentricities and individual quirks that weave together my being.

I was watching a Toni Morrison interview recently and she spoke about the loss of her father, which prompted her to write and publish. She said, and I paraphrase, that with the loss of her father she would never be seen the way he saw her. In this I felt the connection to my life, when my grandmother is no longer in the world there will no longer be anyone who sees me the way she does and that stings, if I allow it, it hurts deeper and longer than I can bear.

How Long Do You Want To Be Loved?

2009-07-03T20:49:00.001-07:00

Is forever enough?

I'm writing this post with multiple layers of mixed emotions. A few people in my life are mightily displeased with me. I think that indicates I'm finally doing something right, possibly.

Redemption Song

2009-07-02T10:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I wanted to post a question for myself, it went along the lines of "is it better to write slowly and get there eventually or to pound them (the words) out and get there more quickly."

I stayed stuck on the matter for a while. Last night, the answer came and found me in an article from The Atlantic. It encouraged the labor, the long labor, of wordsmithing.

I have a song I discovered in a friend's collection that has been keeping me regular company for nearly a week now. The song has crawled into my consciousness and seems to be girding my spine and reinforcing my stomach, for I've found all kinds of courage I thought I lacked.

I started speaking up for myself yesterday, for my dreams. Yes, it's unrealistic to want to be a writer (of all things, a writer?) but real life is painful enough without abandoning your dreams in the process. Dear Reader, do you know what happens when dreams are ignored? They do not shrivel up like a raisin in the sun. No, they become the deepest, longest, most persistent nightmares imaginable. Or worse, they are unimaginable because the force it requires to ignore a dream, or to set it aside, is the full force of your being.

That's a lot of force. It is more force than the majority of people encounter, I am constantly reminded that a great many people never have to call on their basic will to live in order to stay alive. I find that, in itself, fascinating.

So, I'm working my dream. working, working, working. The long version of work, the type that redeems a soul rocked too hard by nightmares.

Love,

Camille

Bloodchild

2009-07-01T19:12:00.000-07:00

It's an Octavia Butler kind of night.

Happens to Be Black

2009-06-30T07:38:00.000-07:00

UNTITLED BY Glenn Ligon

This is what happens when I actually read the materials I stash away in my bags and back pockets. I learn new information, somehow it's right on time, too. To get the full effect, please turn on Cannonball Adderly's "Nippon Soul" album and read on.

B is for Black
A child of the civil rights movement, my mother believed that as black people we would use our natural talents and abilities to rise above adversity. Paradoxically, she also believed that blackness consisted of habits, not nature, and most of those that she associated with it were negative.

P Is for Proud
James Brown's "Say It Loud" was released in 1968. When it came on the radio, I could sing the "Say It Loud" part but I could only whisper, "I'm black and I'm proud." (camille note: hey, every little step will lead you somewhere...)

X is for X
When I was in my twenties, I met a member of the Nation of Islam who told me that since black people took the last names of their masters, we all had slave names. That was why, he explained, Malcolm Little had changed his name to Malcolm X. I considered changing my last name to X for a week or so, but decided that it involved too much paperwork and it would upset my mom.

*This is a quick excerpt from an entire alphabet of information from the essay Untitled by Glenn Ligon. It was a great first-of-the morning read and went well with my unpacking from a recent NYC weekend, the quick read of Richard Mayhew's work, and hanging of Tibetan Prayer Flags.

I'm wearing rainbow toe socks that reach my knees, this I tell myself, is in honor of Pride. But it's really not. It's in honor of the bright colors and my third pair of toe socks, which I hope to retain longer than the predecessors that last a week and two week respectively before being pilfered by friends and loved ones.

I fell in love with yet another dead person last night. Paul Darcy Boles' book 'Story Creating' has left me panting with the effort to keep my lust for his sentence construction in check. I've not yet thrown the book across the room in a fit of pique, so things are looking good, but I can't read it in public. I'm bound to corner some stranger and start reading (or worse, reciting!) passages.

Happy Tuesday!

There Goes My Hero

2009-06-27T18:52:00.000-07:00

Today I flew to new york and took the M60 to 125th street. I've been in a fog of sleeplessness and grief over the death of Michael Jackson. I'm one of those holdouts who just didn't care what happened in his personal life because I loved his music and that was what he gave for public consumption. The rest - the allegations, the public furor, the judgment - well, frankly that wasn't much of my business and I didn't really care. I hated to see someone who was so obviously fragile get dragged through the labrynthine legal system, but there it is. You can't be great forever and that's just life.

I've been grieving. Sometimes I wonder why there seems to be a pall over my day, or my heart just seems less joyful, then I recall I've lost someone dear, whom I admired and loved from my earliest memories. And I am more gentle with myself. It is gratifying to hear his music blaring from streetcorners and to see photos of him populating the windows of shops and street vendor carts. It was most gratifying to see hundreds milling about the Apollo Theater writing their thoughts and peaceful journey messages on the walls surrounding the Apollo. It was the love I think he lived for, but never truly felt he deserved.

New York, the first city of my dreams; it is so wonderful to walk these familiar sidewalks, to reconnect with those who helped form me when I mostly resisted direction and suggestion. On the subway this evening I struck up conversation with William from Georgia, who had a slow southern-boy cadence and beautiful eyes. We talked about turning 30 and opening your eyes and realizing, "I don't have to screw up any more." Well, not the reckless screw ups. I'd wondered what turning 30 would do for me. It damn sure didn't feel any different than 26-29. Then I started to notice the sea change of the people around me. My close friends started forming close romantic relationships, having babies, discarding old philosophies and talking about stability. I began to consider all of those things. Now I carry the label of the one who almost died, but it's almost incidental to the larger questions being mulled over by all who surround me.

I don't have any answers, but life tends to provide those in time. Or time provides those if you keep living. Or both. Both. The trick is to keep living, resisting the urge to just exist or always take the easy way, and occasionally applying your heart to matters where the mind can make a wrong decision to see if it feels right.

Michael's death sucks an artist out of this world. That hurts. It makes those artists who defined and delighted recent generations that much more precious. It makes the act of creation that much more important - creation of life, creation of ideas, creation of change, creation of words on a page...creation.

A quote from the inimitable Toni Morrison: "I think some aspects of writing can be taught. Obviously, you can't teach vision or talent. But you can help with comfort."

Comfort. I like that word, especially as it applies to writing, which is just uncomfortable work. Today I wrote about my experience taking a year to write. It was maddening. I would sit down at my typewriter and the blank page would look back at me. I would sometimes be reduced to typing one letter for lines, just to put something on the paper, then I would expand that letter to include a vowel (the single letter was always a consonant) and then a word, then a sentence and I would switch off the part of my brain that lives to critique sentences so I could write a few more.

I produced a lot of pages that way. I also spent a great deal of time seeking solace in the world outside my windows, wandering the streets and striking up odd conversation with strangers on the street or at the market or on the MUNI to buffer the crowded loneliness of voices in my head. I thought the other day about babies and how my body seems ill suited to producing a version of my genetic code. I thought that my babies will have to be words, and deeds, and acts of love to share with the world, these things will have to survive me, they will have to speak for me when I can no longer speak for myself.

I think Michael left us a great, great deal to hear - great acts and great actions that speak on his behalf. When he lived, those actions and words were drowned out by his very act of continuing to draw breath while shrinking from the view of the world. Now that he is gone, the words, the actions, the memory of his life must stand on its own. It has great legs...and it moonwalks.

100 days, 100 nights

2009-04-03T02:43:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow I'm going to lay claim to some Cherry Red Espadrilles. Something about the color excites me. It's a wonderful substitute for the Python slingbacks I refuse to afford. I think of all the people on Kiva whom could prosper with a micro-loan worth 1/100th of the Slingbacks retail price and I shudder. Cherry Red Espadrilles, not so much shuddering. I can write it off as "self-nurturing." As Tara Lake told me once while we were fighting over a pink linen skirt at TJ Maxx - "Coogi-shop-aliya" determine your own retail future (or price Heh Heh Heh).

This month I skived work and checked out the King Tut exhibit. It was intriguing and I lingered like all hell over the jewelry. In a coincidence of fortune, LV has a collection of semi-precious stone jewelry that harkens to some of the lighter pieces from Tutankhamen's grave. Fortuitous? I think so.

It's been nearly one hundred days since last I wrote. I've been talking a lot, talking is a wonderfully dishonest method of communication. All of the noise blocks out the uncomfortable truths we wrestle with in our sleep.

My uncomfortable truths are piling up fast and hard. Ignorance really is bliss. I spent the past two years of my life walking on sunshine, singing Bananarama, and generally feeling at peace with the world. I miss those halcyon days.

I've been thinking about several career changes. It's Camille - I don't do static for any reason. The brain does not shut off. I suppose, more accurately, I'm thinking of expanding my career interests. Simultaneously expanding and narrowing. Entering new fields, but focusing on small areas within the new fields. It feels good to type that out loud.

I'm also a bit disappointed that my call center in Pakistan is having a lot of problems. Our call volume is largely to blame, but that means I'll have to start shopping call centers again, training management, and go through all the trial and error again. I prefer to the believe the first time is the worst so I may as well get on with it.

Well, I'll try to contribute with greater regularity, though I must warn, I'm not always pleasant.

To the surgeons who took from me what I didn't know I had

2009-01-29T20:06:00.001-08:00

A dedication:

It's almost like you had it planned
It's like you smiled and shook my hand
And said "Hey, I'm about to screw you
Over big time"
And what was I supposed to do
I was stuck in between you
In a hard place
We won't talk about
The hard place

But I don't blame you anymore
Thats too much pain to store
It left me half dead
Inside my head
And boy, looking back I see
I'm not the girl I used to be
When I lost my mind
It saved my life

It's how you wanted it to be
It's like you played a joke on me
And I lost a friend in the end

And I think that I cried for days
But now that seems light years away
And I'm never going back
To who I was

'Cuz I don't blame you anymore
Thats too much pain to store
It left me half dead
Inside my head
And boy, looking back I see
I'm not the girl I used to be
When I lost my mind
It saved my life

I think I cried for days
But now that seems light years away
And I'm never going back
To who I was

'Cuz I don't blame you anymore
Thats too much pain to store
It left me half dead
Inside my head
And boy, looking back I see
I'm not the girl I used to be
When I lost my mind
It saved my life

That life seems like
Light years away, light years away

Golden Brown Angel

2008-12-09T17:43:00.000-08:00

Well, here I am in the country. It's a good life. I like the emails. I'm probably more fond of the animals than anything. They are so lovvvvving. All lovvey dovey without any expectations whatsoever.

The little sister counts as an animal. LOL.

I don't sleep at my house. I wonder why that is. There was the whole "leaf-blower" incident yesterday morning at 7:30 am. Such an early hour seems a ridiculous time to have trim work done around the external of the building, beneath my bedroom window. But hey, I may have just been cranky. I doubt it though.

Not too much going on this way. This month's (belatedly started) project: Start a new business! Last month I wrote a novel. I suppose I don't know how to do things in a small way. We'll see how this turns out. I've told my biz partner I don't want to meet in person any longer, but that will shift. It's just, right now, you know, meetings are productive. While he's a joy to behold, one can only do so much looking before the shiny rubs right on off and you become immune to the accented handsomeness across from you. I'd rather be surprised and struck dumb for 3-5 seconds once every other month.

I placed an ad to replace that roguish employee of mine and in 10 hours I've amassed 400 resumes. I will evaluate them in small bites. It brought home for me the fact that this economy is *really fucked up.* However, for every door that is closed, a window opens. In addition to people peeling off jobs like clothes in South Florida, there has also been a reduction of dependence on credit by corporations and individuals. I think I rhapsodized in the past about LayAway making a comeback. The idea that people will own things again, things they work hard to buy with out an attendant 30% interest rate is entirely too exciting for me.

I don't think the Auto Industry merits a bailout, but let them have this cash now, everyone needs a little cash to see them out the door. I think they would be more innovative, much more quickly, if they were left to fend for themselves without this particular infusion of funds - the CEOs would go out the door and the Boards would get deeply creative in solving their problems. Such is life, one day they will pay the piper.

Does anyone else love Burn It Blue from the Frieda Kahlo soundtrack? That Lila Downs give me goosebumps!

Holy Shit, I'm almost done

2008-11-24T18:20:00.000-08:00

I've been going through changes. Ch-ch-changes. I've been questioning whether this first draft of the novel would ever happen, never mind the ridiculous word count I had to rack up over the weekend, the deaths of characters I didn't even like, but had grown comfortable with and therefore was crushed to lose, and general silliness on my part.

But I'm 10,100 words away from done. I can write 10,000 words in a day if properly motivated, fueled and intrigued by the story. I'm nearly there and I hadn't realized it. It felt as though I would be writing on this thing forever and terrible things would continue to happen to these people with whom I have spent entirely too much time in the recent months. They are familiar and familial, so even the positive events elicit deep suspicion in my little reptile mind. They just mind their business, the characters really do, they are just minding their business and I know terrible things will befall them before the next page.

It's stressful. But I'm almost done, then I can set this aside and get a little air from all their voices and complex social hierarchies and do something different. Praise god for something different.

Saving My Soul

2008-11-20T21:18:00.001-08:00

It's probably isn't a great big secret that I've been coming unstitched a bit here. Got a great (tipsy) email from this great guy I don't spend nearly enough time with and it made me feel heard in this big old world.

The other morning things were getting tight around my mind and I wrote an SOS email. Just to relieve some of the pressure, you know? And I got the best message from my new friend Michele. She just said, "You'll make it. Somehow."

I'm laughing, because it funny. There was actually a 4-point plan included in the message, but the jist was "You'll make it. Somehow."

And one of my best friends, her mother died when she was in elementary school so of course all of the adults around her promptly commenced to behaving like self-absorbed jackasses, leaving her to raise herself and battle in the neverending war of children who have been left behind. She's making it. Somehow.

Tonight I went to dinner at this very posh place. It happens on occasion. When it does happen my capacity to consume food is immeasurable. I'm a girl who likes to eat. I can starve if my life is on the line, but if I'm not in immediate danger, I'm eating that lobster mac n' cheese, fuck what cha heard. Anyway, the waiter was just too perfect. Maybe instead of gaydar I've developed cripdar? Dunno. So, I ask him about himself and he tells me in short order that he's in grad school and I ask him what he's studying and he tells me and I ask him why and he says, "Well, last year I was standing near my house and I got shot in the stomach and spent nine days in the hospital. And I saw so many people getting medical treatment, but not being treated like people. So, I want to be a hospital administrator. They took 7 feet of my intestine, and my family was there to advocate for me. But most of the people around me had decisions made for them they would not have made for themselves. I want to help change that."

My awesome Irish pixie of an aunt works for the state of Oregon adjudicating public assistance cases. Her belief is that if a person needs help, they should get it. This, of course, flies in the face of what most people believe. But she talks about going back 20 years in a person's case history to find that one flawed decision that led to them losing health benefits and she says, "if we can find that one mistake, that oversight, someone can get the treatment they need." She also said something that challenged my own assumptions (thank god), she said "people consider Medicaid a poor man's healthplan when it's really one of the best programs in the world."

Most of the people I see on Medicaid are good people. They have lived and they do their best, but in an overinflated economy, that doesn't get you too far. There are the few and far between who are professional system-gamers, but those folks are the same regardless of tax bracket. There is always someone trying to get over.

All this to say, there is so much wonder in the world. I'm happy to be here, to listen to more stories, and tell more stories and to keep learning in this life. Scars and all.

Optimistic

2008-11-18T20:56:00.000-08:00

"If things around you crumble, no you don't have to stumble and fall, keep pushing on and don't you look back." - Optimistic

I'm listening to Optmistic by Sounds of Blackness. I made an entire playlist based on this song. Things were going pretty badly for me last summer. I'd come home from the hospital full of tubes, holes, and other people's blood. I couldn't eat. I was subsisting on fingernail-fulls of bread and 2 oz. of broth diluted with water. I was in an interesting place where all the superfluous living stuff becomes just that, superfluous. One thing I didn't have much of was pity for myself. I hardly understood what I was experiencing, but I was determined to survive my series of calamities. My mother had assured me I was too mean to die in my one moment of abject terror and I had to just ride with that.

So, one night, in lieu of crying with the fear I really felt, I downloaded Optimistic. The words came into my brain and I knew I had to hear the song. Art is just a way for us to reach one another, soul to soul, and my soul called out for help no one could offer. It called out for solace and encouragement. I listened to Optimistic every night, every day for 3 months. I added songs to the playlist, songs that would help me ease into sleep so I could get a couple of hours before I had to change dressings or empty bags or rehydrate, but it got me through.

And then, when the tubes were removed and I was allowed to move back home and reintegrate into the world as a pseudo-functional human being, I stopped listening. Utah Phillips has an album titled, "The Past Didn't Go Anywhere" and it's the truth. I thought that if I told myself that the illness never happened, and the struggle never happened, that I could forget they happened. I don't think forgetting serves me well. When I erase the memory, I invite the violence of my psyche to play out some truly demented fantasies. It's easier to acknowledge and manage my life as it really is as opposed to the careful PR campaign I wage out of habit and comfort.

My mentor tells me that I will change, my personality will be fundamentally altered. Thus far, that's the god's honest truth. I'm not as mean, but I'm also less tolerant. I wonder at myself, at my reactions. I watch in third-person shock and mild horror when I cannot dredge up empathy for others who are convinced they are having a crisis. I remember being in recovery after surgery number X and there was a woman a few beds down who was coming out of anesthesia, same as me. I was full of gaping holes and swelling body parts and she was screaming for her mother.

This was no spring chicken, either, it was some older lady hollering herself hoarse. "ohhhh mama, come get me mama!" She was so annoying. I asked the nurse to knock her back out. She was ruining my anesthesia high. That's how I feel about so many things now. People talk to me and they tell me about some small event that their limited life experience has made significant if only because it breaks the monotony of their days and I want to tell them to shut up. I have to resist the urge to encourage recreational drug use in others if only so they will sit down and shut up and leave me alone.

I suspect a lot of people out there in the world have real scars they cover up to look nice for the world. One of the most striking things about the medical work I get to do in the Caribbean is the preponderance of physical scars and disabilities. Ever notice how sanitized our streets are of people with visible physical ailments and scarring? I've seen some doozies, too, folks with half their bodies burned or machete welts across their faces. And I have a typical reaction, I flinch, then I feel really, really good. Because I'm looking at another human being who is carrying their scars and I know what that feels like. So, I relax and I listen and I feel the connection of soul to soul.

I appreciate AA folks who declare how long they've been sober. They wear it right there on their sleeve, fully cognizant that one small slip-up could send them back down the river. I wonder if they have an AA equivalent for the chronically ill. Because I know that one false move could send me back down a path of personal destruction I don't care to ever traverse again. Hi, I'm Camille, and I'm 11 months clean from endometriosis. Every day is a lot of struggle and I still don't know how I'm going to make it to tomorrow, but I'm happy to be here today.

And I can hear a roomful of people with their various histories say back to me, "Hi Camille." It feels good.

Weeee-hooooo!

2008-11-12T19:27:00.001-08:00

	1082

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lab.drwicked.com

A wee political rant

2008-09-09T09:59:00.001-07:00

A wee bit Political
Category: News and Politics

I have to break down and post this. I've been having a great conversation with my friends online about this post and it's validity. Also about the relevance (or lack thereof) of these posturing scholars and "leaders" as Obama has ascended to the national scene. Read and Enjoy:

Obama and the Suicidal Left
Why the black intelligentsia needs to stop hating on
the Democratic nominee.

TheRoot.com
Updated: 2:59 PM ET Sep 2, 2008

Sept. 2, 2008--During the Democratic National
Convention in Denver, I sat on a panel about hip-hop
and politics with a number of well-read and highly
regarded thinkers in the black community. At one point
a fellow panelist commented that it was impossible to
criticize Barack without being considered a sellout.
That statement inspired a thread of commentary echoing
the sentiment.

Let me say this much: I'm a believer in firm critique
and the virtues of skepticism toward anyone who holds
a position of authority. I publicly disagreed with
Obama's FISA vote and his decision to campaign in
Indiana as opposed to traveling to Memphis on the
anniversary of Dr. King's assassination. But my
response to that line was simply to ask: Why it is
that a group of progressives would spend about 40
minutes discussing how to critique Barack and
virtually no time discussing how to elect him?

Unless John McCain has suddenly become a more
attractive option, perhaps those priorities should be
shifted.

The GOP has won 7 of the last 10 presidential
elections largely because of the success in creating a
big tent. They manage, however improbably, to get an
unemployed factory worker to vote for the same
candidate as the millionaire CEO who just fired him.
Progressives, however, have the opposite of a big
tent—we have a funnel. We take the broadest
possibilities and narrow them down to just a handful
of ideologically correct, if absolutely unelectable
also, to mitigate the pain of defeat with the balm of
our untainted ideals.

I thought about that conversation again, after I heard
Cornel West and Julianne Malveaux savage Barack
Obama's acceptance speech. Malveaux went hypertensive
because Barack never mentioned Dr. King by name
(despite the fact that he had two of MLK's children
and Rep. John Lewis speak about the March on
Washington and that only the absolute dimmest of bulbs
could not know who that "young preacher from Georgia"
was.) West fulminated that Obama had left out a
critique of white supremacy and missed the symbolism
of the moment. And worst of all, he noted, "no one was
crying."

Between acting in The Matrix and launching his rap
career, Cornel West has gone soft around the middle. (camille note: is that soft around the middle of the brain, cause the man left his sense somewhere in Ethiopia during that ill-fated marriage a few years back)
The kind of symbolism-laden speech he wanted is what
candidates give during their inaugurals, not their
acceptance speeches—unless they're 15 points up in the
polls. Obama is running neck-and-neck with a GOP
cadaver, and he was virtually required to give the
kind of nuts-and-bolts speech he delivered on
Thursday.

In truth, we've been seeing this strand of thought for
months among black intellectuals. My friend and
brother-in-arms, Mark Anthony Neal, accused Obama of
"cheapening his religion" when he resigned from
Trinity, but made virtually no mention of the fact
that Obama had put his neck on the line by defending
Jeremiah Wright in March, only to see Wright and
Trinity ignore that gesture, dismiss Barack as a
"politician" and repeatedly inject themselves into the
campaign. Jesse Jackson threatened to manually
castrate Obama for giving a speech that was far more
even-handed than the few lines quoted from it suggest
and completely in line with a series of "personal
responsibility" speeches Jackson himself gave during
his 1988 presidential campaign.

Obama has been giving inspirational speeches. He's
built an amazing grassroots machine and brought people
into active political engagement who had sworn off
politics long ago.

But conventions are about winning elections, plain and
simple. (That was something that Hillary's most
die-hard supporters missed also—their hopes of a
nomination fight harked back to an era when
conventions actually had something to do with policy.
At this point they are closer to Broadway productions,
with everyone memorizing their lines and dancing on
cue.) There are still heated arguments in smoke-filled
rooms—they just take place in May and June, long
before the first delegates have even begun packing.

I was hoping that Obama would avoid the kind of
emotive speech we all know he can give and deliver
exactly what he did: a basic outline of his policy
positions. The measure of Obama's connection to those
movements West was talking about is not whether he
mentions them in his acceptance speech, but whether he
prioritizes the progressive civil rights and
anti-poverty platform he's outlined in his platform.
(Does the fact that he's the only candidate in eons
with a program to employ ex-offenders and reduce
recidivism or one where poor pregnant women can
receive home visits from nurses to reduce infant
mortality mean anything to us?)

Perhaps the most biting irony is a kind of reverse
affirmative action, where Obama seems to face a higher
bar for support than the white candidates who preceded
him. The Congressional Black Caucus and black
progressives asked virtually nothing from Kerry (at
least not publicly) and not much more from Gore, yet a
former civil rights attorney who has litigated
employment and voting discrimination cases has to pass
a "good faith" test.

On some level, you understand the logic of expecting
more from your own people, but not the logic that says
you should road-block the path to election.

William Jelani Cobb is associate professor of history
at Spelman College and author of "The Devil & Dave
Chappelle and Other Essays." His blog, "The Delegate,"
appeared on The Root last week.

What did I tell ya'll about how I work?

2008-09-07T09:59:00.000-07:00

See. I'm at work RIGHT NOW. I've been here for close to two hours. I'm just sayin...

So, it's Sunday and I'm going to take a moment to blast my little sister for not taking any pics of me with my fly new haircut (hint: I got bangs) and thus disabling me from showing you guys my fly new Betty-Page-esqe look.

Add insult to injury: I think little sister also flew away with my camera. I may have told her she could, but only telepathically. I think. I don't know, it was a long time ago. Like, last weekend.

The other day, my friend "J" got himself hit by a car on a bike. Again. How fucked up is that, that I have to qualify that statement. It is not enough to unveil the horror of a loved one's mortality with "he got hit by a car while on a bike." Oh no. I have to say "again." Because it's accurate and true. This is the second time (that I'm aware of, though he has disclosed 6 accidents, I don't know the details of them).

The key differences - he walked away from this one. In a sense, at least, I mean, he was ambulanced away but left the ER sore but able to perambulate on his own. The last time he got hit by a car he was not so fortunate.

That's what we're going to focus on, the fortunate part. Yes, i thought it was pure folly for him to commute on a bicycle, but I understood the economic concerns (even if they were mainly the result of a skewed sense of priorities, but whatever). I can appreciate staring death in the face and getting the glorious reprieve of "not this time." Thus, i am fortunate to still have my friend, in one piece no less, and that's that. Ya'll just send up a thought for the mysterious, accident-prone "J", who is really the best lunch buddy a girl like me could ask for (he believes in free food, listens like a pro, empathizes no matter what the situation, and has an attention span equal to or less than mine, and he's just damn interesting).

Another friend, "M", also got in a car accident. He totalled his car last week, so add him to your thoughts list. M is having what I have deemed an interesting life. We don't get to talk much, but he's a good guy and deserves warm energy.

Alright, well, that's my shoutout list for the week! Send all requests to...LOL.

Czilla

Yeah, I suck

2008-09-05T10:00:00.000-07:00

I did actually write a post yesterday, and the day before. But both days i was feeling emotionally upheaved and didn't post. I lost interest. you know it was bad when I just couldn't bring myself to write anything, anywhere. It was all very maudlin and tacky. I'm on the tail-end of it now, mostly I want to indulge in a couple of krispy kreme donuts and hang out with fun people whom I like.

I rearranged my living room last night. I love moving furniture, creating a new pattern within the confines of the structure. I like to say "change your hair, change your life" but I also believe in "change your furniture, change your life."

I think I've had a nasty case of inertia. I was doing alright, then, late last week the visigoth got all Visigoth-ish on me. He was "going through something" and since that is a rare occurrence and not particularly descriptive, it mostly came off as the prelude to a breakup. Please imagine how distressing this was to me on at least two levels. We have been so happy and then suddenly I had this surly, snarling mess on my hands. Apparently we are not breaking up, so after that was established, I needed a little "fall apart" time. Cause, um, whenever someone starts throwing crazy signals, I mostly get busy catching. The practical parts of breaking up I am quite adept at handling - housing, dissolution of financial whatevers, getting scarce for at least a year for the purpose of "healing" on both sides. The nice "I've just been through a breakup and travel is necessary" trips to new lands. I'm very good at all of that.

Anywho, that's all water under the proverbial bridge. Just the reason I've not been writing. Now I am, as my Jamaican colleague says, "trying to find some ambition." Until recently I have been chock-full of ambition, brimming with ambition, bubbling over with ambition. I suppose part of the problem is that I appear to be battling another (again, i mean good GAWD) infection. How is it that I went through a year of major surgeries, lived on a farm and played with the animals and generally made a nuisance of myself, but didn't get a single infection or side effect or take medication BUT now I have three infections of increasing strength and potency in one month?

Well, I think this is enough catch-up for all of us. I shall totter off and find some lunch and ya'll will do...whatever it is you do.

Do it well

I CAN COOK!!!

2008-08-27T10:02:00.000-07:00

For reals! I can cook!

I made fettucine alfredo with shellfish (not clams, the other ones) and artichoke hearts. so very yummy.

And i watched Penelope. I wish it had been longer. It was grand, though, and that durn James McAvoy - he's so pretty. Super pretty with an burr...if I'm ever single again I'm headed for the isles and gettin' me some! In a Lotus! Whew. Exhausts me just thinking about it.

I have been watching the DNC convention. I love the speeches. Rah Rah Rah. Bill still holds sway, he swayed me. And fuck whatcha heard, he and hills love each other. They appreciate one another. What's a blowjob in the face of mutual ambition, brilliance and the pursuit of power? You know he probably remembered Monica Lewinsky's name, but only because he's genetically incapable of forgetting names, not because the poor sad thing was memorable.

She was "the jump off."

Well, off I must go to read Dexter. We heart Dexter. Season's starting again soon.

P.S. Volver with Penelope Cruz kicked ass. It deserved the praise it garnered. i should stop hating

Pavarotti makes sex so much better

2008-08-24T10:03:00.000-07:00

Hey, it's a quote from a movie (but it's also deadly true!)

Oh man, I am so freakin' hooked on elance.com. You can get so much accomplished, so easily. Wicked easy. Wicked fast.

I get doling out jobs - design a website, build an EMR system, organize my finances, authorize surgeries, answer my phones - and people keep saying "yeah, i'll do that."

So, then, I have to think of new things to do with myself. I want to work out, I want to write ad copy for some other stuff, I want to research best-sellers since I desire to write one, there's those languages I've been meaning to pick up and on and on and on.

Suddenly all these desires and dreams that seemed unattainable once I returned to this (greatly overvalued) real life of mine and the crap kept piling up. Other people's crap, no less. Quelle horreur!

Lol.

Okay, i need to nap. Apparently my raging infection has been throwing WWIII within my body and i've been cooking along at 100 degrees for the last few days.

I return to convalescing.

camille

If I love you, I'll call you Lotus

2008-08-21T10:05:00.000-07:00

or Elise. Pick one.

I'm not feeling altogether hot, but I"m taking it easy. Being effective as hell from home. Really, they pay me to do this...

Saturday afternoon I'm going for a nice, long winding drive in my about-to-be-new baby Elise. Lotus Elise, that is. We have a sympatico I've not known with other cars (at least not in the last 2 months). Really, this is LOVE!

I just spoke with my newest Godfather, a car lover himself, with a lotus or two in the garage about how to buy, what to expect yadda yadda yadda. He was so happy I wanted one and was talking to him about it. It was really nice. We bonded a little more.

Okay, I'm off to figure out what sort of business I can run with an absolute minimum of effort.

Another One Bites the Dust

2008-08-18T10:05:00.000-07:00

Watching Californication...no wonder so many employers feel like they can fuck their employees.

Wait, they are reenacting a scene from Secretary. I remember the first time I saw Secretary. I cannot share the details, but let's just say it was hot as shit in the theater in the Castro. S spanking...oh lord.

Quote of the night (and there have been a few) "WHAT? Don't you Knock?"
Response: "Huh? Don't you Lock????"

Fantastic.

So, I had to put a prospective friend on the curb today. he kept asking about my boyfriend and being invasive and c-r-a-z-y! I mean, I had to tell this fella to quit asking me questions because they weren't any of his business, had nothing to do with our friendship blah blah blah. I mean, FRIENDS. Not lovers.

I'm going to take a moment to rant here: WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH MARRIED DUDES? I just want to say, hold off on the marriage thing. I'm on the boat with dan savage, marriage in your 20s is generally a bad idea. Sure, through sheer determination and willpower you can STAY married but, yeah, you're probably going to be swimming through levels of shame and misery t-minus 5 years in. No matter what a banger you marry.

I see this time and time again. Fabulous woman, good enough fella, early marriage, life, pressure, and a diamond is not created, a fucking edifice of stone is constructed! And then it's all chasing tail and illicit adulterous affairs or fantasies thereof. I really wish people were more honest with themselves and one another.

I'm no critic of chasing tail and affairs - but unless illicit is your fantasy - in which case you and the wifey can playact that shit out - illicit is nasty and leaves a stain on the soul. Makes you feel ugly in little places that matter a lot.

Secrets can be sexy. Mystery is a turn on. But all this sneaking is for the dogs. Or maybe i'm truly not properly american. i've been corrupted by a childhood in Europe and there is no going back. Because I look at all this shit, men hiding the fact that they are...ummmm...MEN and women locking down the fact that they are (here's a real shocker) WoMEN is enough to make me sick.

Quietly, I need more men to cop to enjoying the occasional homoerotice stimulation as well, since I'm putting together a wishlist for the betterment of all mankind and whatnot.

Back to Weeds..

The Great Assistant Search & Weird Relationships

2008-08-02T19:57:00.000-07:00

First off, I'm addicted to fucking Kerli wasserface, MGMT, and Danny Elfman. I am similarly addicted to the Savage Love Podcast. At least once a day I nearly cough myself to death laughing at the callers. I keep trying to think of something to call about, but all I can think of is "Dan, you're the best. If you ever slip up and want a woman, let's give it whirl!"

Wait, my fave call was today, episode 80-summat. This lesbian calls in and says she stole her best friend's wife and they are soul mates, but it ended the friendship and now she dreams about her best friend. She tried to contact the friend via a mutual friend and the ex-bf got so upset that she ended the friendship with the go-between (disembowel the messenger!) So, Dan's response is...

"Fuck You. You stole this woman's wife and you still want to keep your fucked up emotional meathooks in this woman and she wants to move on with her life. You got the girl and the price you paid was LOSING YOUR BEST FRIEND you whiny, crybaby, codependent asshole! Leave her ALONE."

Yeah, I was in the shower when I heard that and nearly had one of those made-for-tv slip n' falls in the tub. Fist pumping and all that jazz. Where are the g-damn boundaries? People need boundaries.

On an unrelated, but somehow relevant note, I've decided to farm out my life. I suck at work mainly because I'm more interested in the higher-level functions of work - developing and executing strategy - i would rather undergo another surgery with insufficient pain medication than listen to one.more.fucking.patient rifle through a calendar to see if a surgery date "works" for them, or answer another insipid question from my receptionist of questionable intelligence, or put out yet another fire for my scatter-brained boss/boyfriend. I think most people are given too many options, hence my inclusion of this video from Google Speaker's Bureau:

..

So, I'm on elance and letting people bid to do my paperwork. Take it all. I'll fax it, answer the occasional question for clarification purposes and not think about it any more.

Another weird relationship note: I have unwittingly been fueling fantasies. You know, I vowed to be more social, to experience more of life with this new, improved body/life of mine and thus far it's been interesting. This morning I got one of those weird phone calls from someone wracked with guilt over fuckall. I mean...nada, nothing. Wracked with guilt over lunch and a hug. Seriously, I just saw myself as a listening ear and friend for someone who was obviously on a search for something greater than the life he'd constructed. Apparently I was seen as hot, tawdry mistress material. If only people new how totally non-tawdry I am. I mean, my latest-greatest underwear purchase were Hanes bikini briefs and I must say they are a miracle of textile engineering. I love them. I will buy more tomorrow.

All of this exhausted me because I am suspecting that for all the resting and recovering I've done for the past year, I'm not out of the woods. I mean, I'm not actively ill or pained or cleaning sutures, but I'm easily tired and prone to "overdoing" it.

Oh yeah, does anyone know how levi's fit girls with asses? I shall post a link to my new favorite-looking jeans that I might purchase at the end of this week. I'm trying to decide on a size and may have to ask my alterationist to take my measurements, unless my little sister (who has a secret passion for sewing, wtf?) can do it.

http://us.levi.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3152310&cp=2069959.2075212.2075218&parentPage=family

I heart this song

2008-08-01T14:26:00.000-07:00

Came to work today to give myself a break from reading novels. I finished Tempest Tales by Walter Mosely (it was hilarious and inspirational, there is nothing the man has written that I've not read and loved and admired deeply) and got back into Gods Behaving Badly, which has gotten uber funny.

The line I left on:

Would raping you harm you? (Apollo)

Huh? (Alice - cold fear gripping her heart)

If I raped you, would it harm you? (Apollo)

Yes. It would harm me. (Alice)

Well, then you should leave. Don't forget your bag. (Apollo)

Hilarious. Really. The context is that poor Apollo has been hit with one of Eros' arrows and is in love with the mortal Alice. But Eros didn't have the heart to see through the rest of the plan and make Alice hate Apollo, so instead Apollo is in love and Alice is blissfully unaware.

Did I mention that Eros is now a born-again Christian? When his mother, Aphrodite, put him up to hitting Apollo with the arrow he actually asked "What would Jesus do?" Such a good time

You don't want to be a lawyer, you don't want to be a professor!

2008-07-31T19:48:00.000-07:00

Wow.

There is a tremendous amount of negativity in the world. Has anyone else noticed this? I googled "steps to go to law school" and came up with about 800 websites dedicated in whole or in part to discouraging people from attending law school.

Mmmmkay. Color me crazy here (it's not hard) but isn't the SCHOOL part the important bit? It's SCHOOL, a place where you LEARN. Actually, a place where you ARE INSTRUCTED IN THE FINE ART OF LEARNING.

For instce, I was not at a bastion of intellectualism for undergrad. That's the mild, pc way of noting that I attended a rather notorious "party school." I didn't know I was signing on for a party school, but I can say definitively that I'm awfully glad I did it. I learned to party, picked up some rather fetching career options and broke out into the world utterly prepared to hijack concerts at will AND edit the hot holy hell out of a piece of writing. Most of the people I knew were of above-or-well-above average intelligence and we spent a good chunk of our time admiring the hypersmart drug dealers who were working on their MBAs and Ph.Ds in Pharmacy to truly lock down their markets. There was always someone to admire, is all I'm saying.

As I prepared to leave school there was a lot of yammering about getting a job and prospects and I'd spent 3 years already listening to quite a few of my engineering buddies predict their income upon graduation and rant about EP (earning potential) of girlfriends. Eggheads. They so totally missed the boat. They didn't have nearly as much fun in school as I did, being locked away in the E-building, which wasn't such a bad place as I spent chunks of time there trying to sneak into the chemical engineering labs and see what I could muck up, and most of them didn't find the satisfaction in those Realized Earnings as they thought they would. Many entered the world of work and found that ridiculous amounts of money were not waiting for them, however utterly stultifying workplaces were. Go figure.

I spent most of college traveling, sleeping, recreationally exploring my campus and fellow students, watching clouds cross the sky, scamming free food, writing and wandering the bowels of libraries up and down the eastern seabord. If I couldn't be found it usually wasn't because I was in class (boring!) but because I was blowing the dust off of some tome and dancing little jigs because I'd found some obscure bit of analysis that confirmed my theories on whatever (generally alice walker and toni morrison and exploration of the supernatural in literature). I came out of school making a rather obscene amount of money to do something I would have gladly volunteered to do for the same amount of time every day gratis. And they fed me.

So, now I'm ready to go back to school and it seems the whole world is anti-education. In reality, there is nothing wrong with school as long as you understand some simple rules:

1. School does not guarantee a job - you do. School is the mind, jobs (and careers) are the heart and hands. They require human capital, as in, human you show up enough and you get a job.

2. School does not make you smart - you do. At best, school gives you exposure to smart people and an outlet for learning new things. At worst, you may pick up a nasty drug habit and a brand spanking new disease. Shit happens. School, like life, is what you make of it.

3. Attending college DOES improve your chances of increased income. If you're trying to climb economic classes, school is a handy-dandy way to do it. Yes, the stuff they teach you in class is helpful, but the REAL meat is in the stuff you learn from people in economic classes you aspire to. In school, you get to be around those people, observe and make forays into foreign worlds. You get to gather the tools of assimilation. You learn the language, mannerisms, cultural touchstones - you get exposure and possible acceptance. Again, human capital.

So, this is me going back to school. I'm not going to school for another or better job. That's hogwash. I'm going back to school so that I can spend time in libraries blowing dust and to give myself a break from working full time. No shit. I want to read and learn and become mildly insensible with useless knowlege, but I also want to sharpen my analytical skills and float a bit and come out with some letters after my name.

Cause really, there are few thrills as pleasant as having letters after your name.

Happy Skoolin!

Happy Estonian Morning to You All!

2008-07-29T07:44:00.000-07:00

I don't even know where Estonia is. Alright, that's a lie, I did look it up recently, it's Northern Europe. Estonia. Right.

Lately Estonia has been heavy in my life. My friend tried to get an Iphone from Estonia on my advice. I found an ad in the newspaper and the price was right. I figured they got thrown off the back of a bus in China and it would be all good. Unfortunately the phone never showed up. Estonia incident #1.

Then I got hooked on this song Walking on Air by Kerli. I thought the name was a little odd. Well, where is little miss Kerli from? Estonia. She rocks too.

Now I have a new estonian artist, Lakissiva, she's quirky and weird and is like bjork without all the electronica and more fucked up accent.

Maybe I should plan to visit Estonia soon. I do have a free plane ticket and Paris is always there.

Happy Estonian Morning to you all!

P.S. - Katinka-the-big-white-dog is now declared to be from Estonia.
P.P.S. - My word. Estonian Reggaeton. Get OUT!!!!

The big white dog & vodka gimlets

2008-07-28T10:21:00.000-07:00

LOL.

Ya'll are fools. Maya wants to know if I'm happy to see her if that's just a big ass dog in my pocket and Exodus gives me a tongue-in-cheek lecture about bleaching defenseless animals.

Tink - as I call her - is just pale as all hell. She found the family a few months back. Actually, she found the chickens on the farm and was hell bent to get her some wings and drumsticks, but I was outside and (i use this word very liberally since walking was not my strong point) chased her away. She just kind of hung around. My stepmom tried to run her off. No dice.

Fast forward a few hours and the little sister gets home dark-ish. We mention there is a ghost dog outside hellbent on eating Robin and the girls and she becomes obsessed with seeing said ghost dog. She trots out with the father and they capture said ghost dog and bring her in. She's thin and, we suspect, abandoned. Oh, she's also batshit crazy. Everything looks like food to her (cept the humans, we disabuse her of that notion with alacrity).

One day she gets loose and runs straight for the horses. Sure, they outweigh her by 1100 pounds and 15 feet, but she's a huntin' dog dammit and she's gonna get some horsemeat! Well, they kicked her little ass around like a soccer ball. Ever see horses play soccer? Probably not, just imagine Ronaldo, Beckham, and any other fancy-footed futbol player having at a ball with three of his best mates. Yeah, she was the ball. Hilarious. She could have died. But, you have to give it to Tink, the girl has moxie and she wouldn't give up. She was gonna hve some horsemeat if it killed her (nearly did too).

My dad had taken up teaching her a very nasty trick of taking your hand into her mouth but she doesn't have enough self control to NOT bite the holy hell out of you in the process. That merited some re-training of dog and father. She's a good friend, though. Very curious and intelligent and likes to talk. She's also funny to watch, highly destructive and still inordinately interested in the chickens. Quietly, though, I can't hate on her about the chickens. They look like walking roasters as far as I'm concerned.

Is anyone else out there enamored of vodka gimlets? Vodka and lime juice, does get any simpler or tastier? So wonderful, especially on a hot summer day when you've decided working is for suckers, and working at a bitch-ass job is for people who don't value their souls as much as you do.

Holla!

Wow, it's been forever

2008-07-27T03:07:00.001-07:00

but i've been tied up living life. it's god awful early, but here's a little poetry to start the day.

Woke up this morning not so much in love anymore
No one’s fault, maybe mine, for dwelling on a past full of passionate mishaps and raunchy sex
Woke up this morning and really wanted some time to hold me close
And spread my legs in both directions of the bed, to remember my name
Whatever it is.

There’s a problem with living life with a vengeance, too much to remember, too much to leave behind
Too many friends who care to remind you what you prefer to put out of your mind

This morning you brought in a stray, said she weaved between your legs when you stepped just outside the house
As she climbed your back and around your collar I refused to leave sleep
Now she stretches in a cat-coma that has lasted for hours
What has been is not nearly as important as what is

There’s a problem with living life with a vengeance, too much to remember, too much to leave behind
Too many friends who care to remind you what you prefer to put out of your mind

Brick Walls made of Flesh

2008-07-26T10:22:00.000-07:00

If you haven't yet, take a few minutes and view this vid by Randy Pausch on his Last Lecture, which really was his Last Lecture and was definitely time well spent.

I laughed a lot while watching this. It's a fabulous reflection of how fun and fantastic life can be.

Okay, that's all I feel like sharing right now.

Tata!

He's ready to get drunk

2008-07-08T03:37:00.000-07:00

And so am I! Man, I have a slight headache and it's only 2:00 in the afternoon. I could use a beer in the most serious way imagineable.

Hm. Wonder if I'm hungry...

I digress, here I am on the plantation. Annoying people abound. Today is one of those days where I constantly resist the urge to roll my eyes. Over and over and over again. Recently I stopped resisting the urge. I just roll with it now.

I think I'm also entirely too sendentary. Life requires movement and i don't move a lot when parked in front of a computer. Right before I started typing this graf I lapped around the office a couple of time.

Oh lord, my boss is back. We'll just call hime the 'overseer' cause he certainly isn't boss of me!

Camille

A whole frier and a big desire

2008-07-07T03:38:00.000-07:00

Alright. i have a whole chicken, an infusion cooker and i don't want anyone to get hurt!

I feel so accomplished right now. I just put my chicken in the oven and uncooked it smelled divine. Truly. I doused it with olive oil to make the skin all crackly and tasty then i rubbed it down (a sensual massage if you will) with garlic and ginger, sprinkled with salt and pepper and popped it in the heat.

The secret though is the spiced Kweyol rum with ginger and garlic that will infuse as it cooks. I don't know how to tie birdie extremities so I didn't even bother.

i hope it doesn't catch aflame in there. Bird flambe is not what I was aiming for.

So, happy Monday readers (or Tuesday if you're getting to this late). How be's you? I am well, spent the weekend with the fam. Experienced my second flat tire in three days and had an unholy good time waiting for the tow truck.

Well, it's time to eat. I have a cranky visigoth to deal with. Anon, anon,...

Pavarotti Perspective

2008-07-02T03:39:00.000-07:00

So, the day started out shitty. I've not wanted to wake up for three days in a row. Just haven't wanted to, couldn't make myself blah. Then, I drag ass to work and I have an employee with THREE teeth that need to be extracted (wtf? how does it get so out of control) and another one in the middle of a lovelife crisis (again, WTF?)

Needing some *assistance* and being unable to smoke or drink at 10:30 am, i pop in a little pavarotti. He makes it all better. Opera lends a sense of grandiosity to ones life. Suddenly all the little things happening around me seemed insignificant. Patients who show every sign of serious drug abuse - no problem. Bills need paying - whatever. Life is life, Opera is life, such is life, get over all of it.

I spend my day hashing out a new direction for the company and wondering why I didn't take up escorting when I was young and nubile Heh Heh Heh. The music lures our newest MD into the office and since I find her entertaining that's not a bad thing. I also take a great deal of amusement in guessing her sexual orientation. They always turn out to be straight as blades, but this is fun for me. Is she, isn't she, is she, isn't she??? She's a jock, but she does her nails. Gender identity is so fawking confusing nowadays. It was simpler in the wilds of San Francisco when you could just say MtF, or FtM, or gay, Straight-ish - you know, it was easier to tell.

Oh well, I just finished Walter Moseley's Blonde Faith so I'm on to a new novel.

Mazel Tov!

That would be me

2008-07-01T07:58:00.000-07:00

That would be me
Okay, I have to share this with ya'll:

"Not necessarily. Some might instead ask why the Bush White House didn't replace Michael Chertoff as secretary of homeland security after a House report condemned his bungling of Katrina. The man didn't know what was happening in the New Orleans Convention Center even when it was broadcast on national television."

This is from an op-ed piece on Charlie Black's interview with Fortune where he said a terrorist attack would help McCain gain the presidency. What made me laugh was the last line about Michael Chertoff not knowing what was happening in the Convention Center even when it was broadcast on national television. That is so something I would do. Completely oblivious. Of course, I would not have settled for TV, I would have been telling the Air National Guard to get me down there on the ground, but still, I would not have been watching TV.

Really, the article is precious. And it taught me a new word this morning: Bloviating: to speak pompously. Used in a sentence (again, thanks and shout-outs to Mr. Friedman) "These nights you can still find Mr. Rove hawking his numbers as he peddles similar G.O.P. happy talk to credulous bloviators at Fox News."

Bloviators. What a GREAT word! Sounds like Bovine...So you just get the idea of something large and filled with air and maybe not all that bright and booyah - it's the truth!!!

Okay, I have to get back to IMing at work...I am working too though. Just on hold...forever.

Sittin' on a GoldMine

2008-07-01T03:42:00.000-07:00

I have to thank my buddy TeraByte for that phrase. Apparently she was complaining about being poor and hungry freshman year of college and her mother made the comment that she didn't know why our Terabyte was complaining when she was sitting on a goldmine.

Yes. I'm going to let that sink in for a bit. Sitting on a goldmine...

Speaking of, I have a goldmine on my shoulders. Tonight I wandered around Borders with J-Boogie talking about the emotional differences between men and women. The conclusion? Men are slower to feel, but feel as deeply as women. As such, it's very easy for a woman to shatter a man - and all his hopes and dreams focused in her direction - with a casual word or deed. It's rough out there for the fellas, I tell ya.

We also hashed out the redeeming qualities of arranged marriage (personally, I think it's a fairly responsible concept and for years I wished my family was cohesive enough to choose me a husband and then marry me off. I mean, really, dating is for the birds), and the importance of clear, structured communication within the context of a relationship and what types of relationships (clearly defined roles of influence and power) feature structured communication. In all it was a very stimulating evening.

Tonight I also came up on the final book in the Bartimaeus Trilogy. Ptolomey's Gate! Yeah!!! I'm so excited. The book practically leapt into my hands as I was standing by the clearance racks. Very, very cool.

So, I'm yawning and I'd like to read a few more pages before fading into the ether. I just had to share the whole "sitting on a goldmine" phrase. It was too perfect to pass up.

A short story doesn't have to be long...

2008-06-30T17:21:00.000-07:00

You know, I got demoralized recently in a writing class. My classmates were all writing the same sort of ambitious, pat, naturalistic text. I felt like a fix out of water with waaay too much oxygen in my gills.

So, I've been looking for some reassurance in the pages of my favorite authors. I've been looking for new forms and interesting perspectives. Perspectives not set in the Victorian Age or some ill-defined "future." I've been looking for my characters again cause they got lost in the criticism.

Wouldn't you know I got to reading a collection of shorts by Neil Gaiman and in breezing along his words I came upon the shortest short story. Then it hit me, a short story doesn't have to be long and a novel doesn't have to answer everyone's questions. Better still, it's a shitload better with a lot of questions left in there. I've been all worked up about "do people understand" when MY readers don't have problems understanding. They want the world and it's my responsibility to create it.

While I'm at it, I have to satisfy myself because I'm my first reader. This is not to say I'm going to go jumping, both feet and super enthused, into classes. I don't like other writers that much. I've met one in three classes whom I enjoy and he's busier than I am with his day job. Great guy, though.

Instead, I'm going to keep on with what I'm doing. Mainly researching escort services and learning about that industry because it intrigues me. I am content to be easier with myself and less inclined to listen to others. They had their chance to impress me with what they had to say about my writing and it didn't work out so hot.

Hooray for art!

YOU DON'T HAVE RIGHTS

2008-06-29T12:16:00.000-07:00

You Don’t Have Rights...
You have a BILL OF TEMPORARY PRIVILEGES - George Carlin

So, now I'm watching a documentary on Roman Polanski, who drugged and raped a 13 year old girl forever ago. Uhm. Idiot. He saw some ass and he wanted it. So he used what he had to take it.

It's the way of the world, is it not? Those who can take, absolutely do so. And they pray on the inexperienced and the naive and those who are unable to take care of themselves. Or who have no protection.

There is a song from the late 60s that I like and one of the first lines in the song goes something like this "who's your daddy, is he rich like me? did he explain to you, the way things have to be?" It's not at all subtle, if your daddy can't stand up to me then i can do exactly what I want to you. Of course it's directed towards a girl.

I work in an industry that is a holdout of male domination. The subset of the industry I work in is the most competitive part and is almost exclusively male. Sometimes I want to slip them all Estrogen mickies and get them to shut up. Instead, I dress in a way that provides distraction. A knee-high skirt instead of a calf-length skirt. A pencil skirt instead of a A-line. It's easier that way. If I dress to distract, then there is no shocking me when they get completely out of line. Instead, I'm ready. Comments that would ordinarily embarass? Yeah, I take them in stride because I'm ready to insult. I pay attention to every look, every mood and dare them to break form.

And they do break form at every possible opportunity. Not to say I'm not professional, because I am. This is to say I simply anticipate what is going to happen, I even take for granted that it's going to happen. There was a time when (poor naive me) I believed hypereducated, uberprofessional people would be too busy to go chasing ass day in and day out. Yeah, bully on me for that one. They take their education and ability for granted leaving them countless hours in the day to screw, pursue screwing and generally make a fucking mess of their personal lives, which in turn fuels a lively gossip and litigation industry.

Such is the life I live. An enterprising escort service owner would get some ladies (and guys) with solid clerical skills and put them in offices. Found money, I swear.

That’s mighty white of you boys!

2008-06-27T20:16:00.001-07:00

That’s mighty white of you boys!
For the love of God.

I had to have security take a man AND HIS CHILDREN out of my office today. No shit. I am not pulling your (collective) leg(s). This cat has been coming by the office daily and harassing the staff to track down the boss. For no discernible reason. Apparently he used to come by on social calls and peddle the occasional art piece. I may have one hanging in my house, as a matter of fact, it's not a favorite, I'm just holding it for someone.

So, my receptionist comes to me and tells me he's shown up, then relates how he came by every day last week. The kicker is, he's brought his family with him. Huh? So I ask here if he's for an appointment, is one of the kids sick? I'm all prepared to make sure the child sees a doctor. No problem.

But, yes problem. The kids aren't sick. I ask my boss if he wants to see this cat and he's like "I'm busy. He needs to make an appointment. I've told him this for years." Memo to readers (and self) if you tell someone something and they ignore you, stop dealing with them immediately. Just stop. That'll learn 'em.

So, i step out and speak to the guy. I tell him he needs an appointment. I offer him a date and time. In short order he calls me a two-faced, double-barrel liar and refuses to leave the office. Being logical and really not giving a flying fuck, I declare "Well, since you refuse to accept that you need an appointment, I have nothing else to discuss with you," turn and walk toward the backoffice door. Before I know what is happening he is nearly on top of me growling and gesticulating wildly. Color me surprised.

He's going on and on - and he has to because his accent is thick and it takes me a while to catch what he's saying - about how I have disrespected him in front of his children and he's a provider for his family and I've disrespected him. So, I look around him into the faces of his kids. They are mortified. Ashamed. I feel for them. Parents are embarrassing by breathing, but this is beyond. I apologize to the kids and offer a smile. This sets him off anew, how DARE I address his children, I'm insulting, I'm blah blah blah yaddda bing bang. I extract myself from the situation by saying "I have heard you now. Thank you." Then I lock the door behind me.

I ream my boss. He's bewildered. He doesn't do well with confrontation. I don't do well with nearly being assaulted. I tell him I plan to call security and he looks blank, grabs another chart and darts into an exam room. This leaves me in a bit of a quandary. If I call security will he consider it overstepping my bounds? If I don't, am I leaving my staff and patients in an unnecessarily vulnerable position? So, I mull this over and wait for the seething rage to subside a little, just so I can think clearly.

Seething rage can take a while, so I call for advice. Then based on the advice, I call security. They arrive and tell the guy he needs to leave after I explain he's been sitting in our office for over an hour and has been asked to leave. He refuses. He laughs at them and mocks them as rent-a-cops. They waste no time calling the Police Department. My god, why do things have to get this far? With the announcement that the police have been called, he finds it prudent to leave the office, children trailing after him (4 of them, maybe five). He tries standing outside the office in the hallway and is escorted away, out of the building entirely.

Upon his departure the mood in the office changes entirely from one of controlled stress into laughter. Amazing. The staff starts telling me about the guy, how well he used to dress, how he used to even smell good. They think he may have been just successful enough to get into trouble - drugs, gambling the usual vices. Now he's desperate and not a little unhinged. Bad news.

But here's my point: He was willing to humiliate his children, use them as cheap and tawdry pawns for some unknown end and then he screamed that I was disrespectful of him as a father. You have got to be fucking kidding me. I thought about this a lot while ruminating and waiting for the rage to subside. I wanted to find something redeeming in his behavior, something that supported him wanting to present himself as a father worthy of praise. I thought about all the times I accompanied my parents to work, I really stretched to say that if the family was on hard times, or he didn't trust his kids to be home, or if the family was homeless...but I couldn't make it happen for myself. I could not justify his behavior and I certainly tried.

Feel free to share you many and varied perspectives. Or just share a lugh.

This type-A of mine...

2008-06-24T21:52:00.001-07:00

This type-A of mine...
I'm gonna let it shine! Let it shine, let it shine, let it shiiiiiiinnnnne.

Yeah. I'm back. Had a whirly-girl day. Ended up sobbing in the car out of sheer frustration and (more than likely) seriously lowered blood sugar. But a lot of frustration. I'm a results girl, I don't do so well with dithering. I'm not all that particular about the result being perceived as good or bad cause if I don't like a result I can always - *gasp* - make another decision and get out of a situation.

The visigoth, on the other hand, wants the universe to show a clear path on every decision is content as all outdoors to w.a.i.t for that dove with the olive branch, or the yellow brick road, or Shiva to appear with all his arms pointing the way. Shit's crucial. And deeply disturbing.

So, then, this evening I had to have a reckoning with myself. I had to further accept that the visigoth's behavior is unacceptable to me on many levels. And I've run out patience for my first line of defense, which was to agree with him and support him in his glacially-paced decision-making process. Phase One is dead in the water.

Phase two means risking more and feeling better in general. I'm going to start decorating my new office, if I have to take my ish back home then so be it, but at least I can get moving on doing something. It's not even impatience as much as it's total lack of understanding and an emptied basket full of empathy for the indecisive.

Note to the world: I can't stand indecision. For real. I'm the friend who will tell the waiter to wait an extra 10 minutes before approaching the table, then COACH my meal-mate through deciding on something. I find out my companion's likes and dislikes, then I cut out everything on the menu that they won't like, narrow the field to 3 items, propose them (one is always an outlier, one is always something I plan to get, and the other is what I think they will order based on history/conversation). I talk them through the menu. They whole time I'm casually sipping my wine or water or whatever. I'm smiling, I'm relaxed. I'm a pro.

I'm not totally unfamiliar with indecision. I feel conflicted a fair amount and need to mull things over and get settled with them. I just tend to do these things well in advance of a decision being necessary. Failing to make a decision is a decision in itself and leaves one vulnerable to the desires of others. That sucks.

You know, I was going through this with the visigoth last month, too. Then it was whether to chunk a business associate. He malingered for - ah - 4 good months. IF he could do that now, he'd be happy. It's actually quite funny because after I've done all manner of behind-the-scenes manipulations (yes, I said it, I'm a fucking Scorpio and I manipulate situations!) and much brow-beating, he had the temerity to tell me how good he was at making decisions. My. Ass.

So, hahaha, laughs all around. Mr. Can't Make a Decision lauds himself on not making a decision and having one made for him. Claim it.

Choose your Religion...

2008-06-21T19:43:00.000-07:00

Choose your Religion...
...based on holidays.

If I find a religion with every day as a holiday, I'l convert immediately. A colleague recently asked me about my religion. That's always a simple answer that prompts more questions.

MY answer goes something like this: I was raised in a black southern baptist household. I was a practicing Buddhist in college, mostly agnostic in high school and now I have one prayer that's really effective and it's "HELP" - add in exclamation, question mark or period. Whatever. It always works.

Just "help." You know, you stand up and drop a quart or two of blood - Help. You've run out of money and can't see a way to keep yourself going - Help. Surrender is a damn good thing. Active surrender, if you will, cause you don't pray help and then get busy waiting for help. You say help and you keep on going, certain the help is coming. It always comes.

I watched Three Kings today with Ice Cube, George Clooney and Markie Mark Wahlberg. It was a really good movie. Touching and human, you don't see a whole chunk of that out of the film industry. I also watched Independence Day. Errr. I cried through half of it, I have no idea why. I bought new shoes and they are *technically* revenge shoes. Or at least I have revenge in my heart and satisfaction in my soul when I put them on. It's complicated, but the I'm going to enjoy making people suffer while I prance about in my new shoes.

The other day I was talking about my staff with a few people and it's firing time again. I have one staff person I've asked to get speech assistance - ad nauseaum. I've even arranged a retired English professor to help her. She won't make the move, but she's actively campaigning for a raise. Hrmmmmmm. Another girl requires weekly counseling just to keep her from making basic, stupid mistakes. Weekly. And she's been on the job for 8 months. It's not fucking rocket science. It's not brain surgery. Perhaps she's understimulated. But she's also a pathological liar. She can't help herself, so she's pathological and compulsive. Bless her heart. She's a little disaster.

I went to the library today and stocked up as well. I got a free copy of Seabiscuit, it's already entrancing and I'm so happy to have such a wonderful book to read. I bought a copy of The New Yorker, I like the cartoons. I stumbled out of the library with a bag of about 12 books. The librarian told me she was watching me teeter around with books stacked from my thighs to my chin. I did not ask her why she didn't ask if I needed help, I'm sure I looked funny and I wouldn't have offered me help either. I just couldn't help myself - there is so much good stuff out there to read! Woooo-hooo!

Okay, enough of my drivel...Read a book!

Rearranging again...

2008-06-18T19:57:00.000-07:00

So, i was thinking last night that my whole life has more than a soundtrack, it's just musical. Sometimes the music doesn't work out so well, and I can always tell when I'm going in the wrong direction because I stop discovering new sounds.

Right now I'm hopeful and optimistic and I feel as though I could fix the world. At least until I got bored with fixing the world, then I'd leave it half-done and move on to the next adventure. I know me quite well.

My favorite albums of the moment are Adele's 19 and N.E.R.D.'s Seeing Sounds. Both albums allow my mind to wander down interesting paths. I think a lot of things I've done and things I want to do. Adele is more "things I've done" and N.E.R.D is more "things I want to do."

Hey! There is an ad for Sirius radio as the banner on the myspace page! Fawkin' A! I want satellite radio. I can't decide, actually, it seems like fun but whenever I have a rental car or I'm jackin' around with my friends' satellite radio I think I'd rather have a serious iPod hookup in my car. Top that I am (heh, heh, heh).

So, there is this lyric:

Daydreamer,
sitting on the sea,
soaking up the sun,
he is a real lover,
making up the past and
feeling up his girl like hes never felt her figure before

*This one tends to punch me in the stomach. Which is interesting because, well, who wants to get punched in the stomach AND to compound the oddness of the feeling, it's the first lyric on the first song of the album. WTF. It always makes me think of every single suave lover I've ever had. The ones with deep emotional disturbances and hooded eyes. Those lovers who make promises in barely-audible whispers and look genuinely surprised when I hit the road in lieu of turning a blind eye to other girls/guys whatever. Or, worse, when I decided good for the goose is good for the gander and didn't bother to lie when asked what I'd been up to.

Okay, and another lyric (in the same vein, but from different song)

Why is it everytime I think I've tried my hardest
It turns out it ain't enough cause you're still not mentioning love
What am I supposed to do to make you want me properly?
I'm taking these chances and getting nowhere
And though I'm trying my hardest you back to her
And I think that I know things may never change
I'm still hoping one day I might hear you say

I make you feel a way you've never felt before
And I'm all you need and that you never want more
Then you'd say all of the right things without a clue
But you'd save the best for last
Like I'm the one for you

*Yeah, this one is a real specific memory. I was soooo crazy about this blue-eyed Brit, it was unexpected and instantaneous. I had to have it. So I go jumping of the cliff of lust and I'm having a fabulous time, but at the oddest times the ex-girlfriend would get mentioned. Like, upon waking in bed together. Or on my birthday (just after the ex's). Then there was the whole "well, you can't be a good person cause you two share the same star sign." Officially, as a Scorpio, I do not need to be held responsible for someone else's shit cause I am perfectly capable of stirring up my own. VERY capable. But, hey, most of the relationship was great. Amazing and exciting. Then there was the mildly devastating announcement that "they" were talking about getting back together. This, I knew, was hogwash. Me and the ex-girlfriend had people in common, I knew who and what she was doing and what she would not be doing (that relationship again). So, I had to walk away. I wished I could hear "I don't want her, I want you" but instead I knew those words weren't for me.

I was not the one.

Well, those are my ruminations for the night. Comments are always welcome...

I know some women who would do this too..

2008-06-16T19:49:00.000-07:00

crucial. and ever so funny.

Happy Father’s Day

2008-06-15T18:29:00.000-07:00

Erm. Is it just me or does Myspace not have a tag for Family? I'm just wondering because most of the people I know spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with family on one level or another (or mulitple at the same time, take your pick).

Yeah, that's me and my Dad and my older brother in the photo. Ah, fathers! I have two official fathers and several adoptive fathers. I'm very popular with parents, apparently I strike people as needing guidance often and much. They aren't wrong most of the time. As my sister told me recently, I'm highly dysfunctional on my own. I think it continually surprises my family that I am able to make it through the day without getting disemboweled, going broke or getting arrested.

Quietly, it kind of surprises me as well. I know that my ability to stand on my own two feet - even after being disemboweled twice in one year - is significantly attributable to my fathers. They are very different, yet oddly similar. Their best qualities are the same, their worst qualities are not dissimilar. They are both assholes about a lot of things. But they are generous and loving and fiercely protective and encouraging of their offspring. You gotta love that. The asshole thing is excellent preparation for the real world.

Plus, they were both in the military, albeit different branches. Is anyone else out there convinced their father is a nutjob? I suppose having children makes you incredibly strange. For a man it must be a humbling experience, to always have an emotional exposure men are not socialized or born to acknowledge. It's what makes the involvement of my fathers so much more special. They turned that vulnerabilty and terrible love into people who struggle to live in this world and somehow succeed despite formidable odds.

What a gift. I have magnificent fathers. I hope you can find something fantastic about your father(s) as well. I wish them well and thank my fathers for giving me life and teaching me how to live it.

Pater familias and all that!

Camille

Best for Last

2008-06-14T20:48:00.001-07:00

Best for Last
Saturday night...and I'm finally home. Sorry I've been offline all week, something was flukey with the home wifi, I suppose I should be trifling and put a password on the network and stop sharing with the neighbors. It hurts my heart to do it, though, because I love to pirate anything and everything. Oh well, life keeps on moving.

Today me, KymE, and Caddy went to the movies then we launched ourselves on a galaxy quest for a store my hairdresser told me sold skinny jeans on the cheap with lots of spandex or lycra sewn in. Perfect for curvy girls. About an hour after we set out we finally found the place. We passed the city jail in all it's terrible glory and were regaled with a tale from KymE about having to bail a friend out the weekend previous (a 12-hour ordeal). Turns out she actually knew the place we were going. We spent a good chunk of our time recovering from the journey in a nearby IHOP and discussing the dearth of cheap shit in the downtown area where it would be convenient for us. We spoke with relish of street vendors and people with teh back of the truck open in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. I declared that I wouldn't mind moving back to New York and was committed to making my next permanent residence in a Parisian Arrondisment.

I did get those skinny jeans, btw, 30 bucks and some fly new aviator glasses for 5 bucks. Factor in the gas and I'm up to about 80 bucks, but still at a savings.

You know what's funny? In driving down to the ranch my mind wandered off the minutae of wirk and onto dreams for myself. I've been feeling a whole lot like Samantha in the SATC movie: I say someone else's name 50 times a day and hardly ever say my own. Every move I make is in representing someone else - who I'm much savvier than and it's not a secret at all. The old adage about success being a "we" and failure being an "I" is in full effect. I don't mind so much that bit, but I chafe at always looking out for someone else's interest, working at their behest blah blah blah.

Anywho, I know I want and need to go back to school. So I figure I'll apply to programs that interest me and see what comes up as viable. Preferably online classes, but I do enjoy the stimulation of being in a classroom. Except usually the other student are really slow and mildly stupid. That's frustrating. Perhaps I should extend myself and give a go at attending a really good school, instead of just going someplace close by. Perhaps I should create some ripples in my life - again.

It's attractive and boring all at the same time. We shall see.

Ta!

Dexter is the Shit

2008-06-07T21:08:00.000-07:00

Holy Crapzilla Batman! Dexter is the shit. I tried to watch it a while ago, but it was too bloody and I was too sensitive. Now, though, it's my new Ugly Betty. Speaking of which, I haven't watched Betty in half past forever. I've missed the entire current season. He loves to eat, he has a moral compass, he's carefully controlled in all that he does.

I love the dramz. Cops all wrapped up in the mix, being human and flawed and terrible. It's a wonderful show and I'm only five episodes in!

It's so, so hot in my house right now. The A/C went out sometime while I was out of town. So, I come home and I notice hot air blowing this way and that, look at the thermostat and it's 90 degrees inside, 104 outside. No win. I've gone classic with it, chillin' at the movie theater enjoying film and cool breezes. Monday the A/C should be fixed, but for the time being it's no-movement and lots of ice cold water and cold baths. I love cold baths.

Well, Dexter is on and I have to pay attention.

Grown men crying

2008-06-03T17:05:00.001-07:00

Grown men crying
Well, he's gone and done it. He quietly, consistently plowed forward and got every single delegate point he needed to become:

the Democratic Candidate for President.

In the same generation that ended Apartheid in South Africa, in the same lifetime as those who suffered under Jim Crow and the most virulent segregation policies imagination, Barack Obama has carefully constructed a career that has brought him one step closer to the Presidency of the United States.

Don't hate. Appreciate.

I've gotten emails from so many people in the past hour. Grown men are crying at their desks at work because they dreamed of being president once upon a time. They are crying because they have endured insult, struggle and idiocy to ascend to where they are and they see themselves reflected in the accomplishment of this young, dapper, father of two who has broken the idea that a man of color is always relegated to someone's else's footstool.

Take a moment, let's enjoy this.

Camille with the ponytail and a brand new last name...

I’ve never been to Neverland Ranch

2008-06-01T16:46:00.000-07:00

I’ve never been to Neverland Ranch
Stop laughing! I'm serious. I've never been to Neverland Ranch and that was one of my life's ambitions.

I never saw Phyllis Hyman perform live and then she hauled off and killed herself.

There are a quite a few other things I've never done. I never did master Fortran, but it doesn't seem like much of a loss. I've doctored a script for a movie, but never acted in one. I never performed on the Great White Way, though that's a move that may happen sometime in the future. Never too old.

Let me tell you what I did do, recently too: I drove on the interstate singing along with a song I really dig. This is quite major for me - I've not driven in a year and I couldn't sing for nearly as long (I also could not laugh other than to say "ha-ha-ha" in a very dry manner).

The 40-year-old Virgin is always funny. It's Sunday and I'm thankful for my new accomplishments. If you see someone tottling down the street, singing happily and occasionally clapping spontaneously - that's me, and I'm happy, very very happy.

Cheers!

I can say I hope it’s worth what I give up...

2008-05-29T17:53:00.001-07:00

I can say I hope it’s worth what I give up...
You don't know me/I am an introvert and extricator...

I'm sitting here, in my house, feeling mildly intoxicated for many reasons. I've had half a Pacifico with dinner, my real estate ventures are looking better, I had a seriously cute waiter and he smiled at me a whole, whole lot...

A doctor promised me free eyeglasses if I can seal the real estate deal, generally, I'm feeling rather fetching and quite sexy.

I got to see my local crush, which is always amusing and a terribly conflicting experience. Does anyone else have a crush, someone they dig - at least on the surface - someone who you know nothing will ever happen, but just the sight of them is edifying in some wonderful, terrible way that is impossible to explain?

And, as usual, I was attracted and repelled simultaneously. Stupid crush! Wait, did I tell you guys about the performance I saw the other night, the dude who sang Purple Rain and had every girl in the place screaming like two-bit hoes set on fire?
"You make me so confused/the beautiful ones you always seem to lose"

It's all good. I think my buzz is passing. Oh well, back to catching up on my paperwork.

Proud Mary Keeps on Rollin

2008-05-28T23:55:00.001-07:00

Proud Mary Keeps on Rollin
Hey Ya'll!!!

I just got back from Apache Cafe where all manner of Atlanta artists gathered to pay tribute and fundraise for Franklin-the-bassist who died in a motorcycle accident Monday on 285.

The highlights of the night are as follows:

Li'l G & his freaknassty guitar - started his set with a roaring, ripping, beautiful rendition of Purple Rain. Segued into Chili Peppers and finished up with Shout by Tears for Fears (yes, really, he did and sang each and every song at full throttle while literally coaxing tears and fire out of the guitar). Every girl in the place was screaming and rending her clothes and/or hair. the most beautifullest thing in the world...

Phillippia - Hometown favorite and man...when that woman opens her mouth and starts letting the beast out...sheeeiiiitttttt! I heart Phillippia. She sang her own compositions.

Erica Smith - I am a total convert. She sang Proud Mary, but did is slow and hard, her voice is a huskier Tina Turner. She murdered proud Mary. I mean, she laid it to rest, then resurrected it. I actually felt the sadness of Franklin's passing with her. She channelled all that anguish and hurt into the lyrics. It was amazing and a brilliant arrangement.

All in all, tonight was sublime. I'm so glad I decided to go out and expose myself to the local music scene. It was worth every single minute.

Hug your loved ones, ya'll, you never know when...

Fun with Intestines and warm water

2008-05-24T23:08:00.001-07:00

Fun with Intestines and warm water
heh heh heh.

Sooooo...anyone else have a bit of intestine just kinda hanging outside their body? Well, i do and there is always something amusing to be found in this experience. Lately I've been working on "training" my intestine. Yup, simple tricks, sit, sit pretty, roll over, heel, you know, nothing too complicated. Well, my intestine is one smart loop of - uhhh (what is intestine? I mean, is it muscle...yeah, it's muscle - muscle. It's doing all the tricks all by itself at the appointed hour. Shocks the shit out of me cause you know I get bored easily and after 3 days of training I planned to take today off.

Not so for my intestine. It was on it like clockwork. I mean, I could practically hear the exclamations of "yeeeeeeaaaah babbbbeeeeeeee, let's do this shit!" There was some Arsenio Hall-esque fist pumping and street-fair dancing. For real, I have a terribly bout it bit of intestine.

I've also been thinking maybe I want to lose a little weight. Yes, I am truly this vapid. It was not even a year ago that I was fighting for my life in a hospital bed with tubes running in and out of me and no hope of having the smallest drop of water pass my lips, much less food. Now, though, I notice I eat without enjoying what's passing my lips so much. I eat when I'm bored or agitated about something, especially if I feel I cannot talk to anyone around me about my agitation. That should be on the decline for a while as my chief source of agitation has thankfully resigned and is moving oout of th state. Still, though.

I realize it's silly because I'm not anywhere near unhealthy or overweight. I'm just a little control-freakish. I like me at a particular point, I am not willing to cede that bit of self-determination in exchange for unchecked access to really not very good food most of the time.

I also realize that eating for me is a social activity. Put me in a group of people whose company I enjoy and I'll eat, but I'll also stop when I'm full, and getting full doesn't take much. However, leave me home alone or out and about and lonely (not necessarily alone, but lonely) and i'm clearing the fridge, scarfng everything on the plate and coming away hungry.

I suppose I am not hungry for food as much as companionship, an exchange of ideas, laughter and insight into the worlds of others.

that's some food for thought, i suppose.

heh heh heh.

What The Hell???

2008-05-23T17:42:00.001-07:00

What The Hell???

Okay, I got CRITIQUED on my blog? But you did have a good point, I did get distracted and bored and I think I was writing too late at night because I didn't feel like being as thick about the friend thing as I usually prefer.

So, let's get more specific (in contrast to Kanye talking about his overdue bills in College Dropout). Let's just say that the thought was touched off by a mail message from someone with whom I was friendly in college. This person probably knew me better than I knew them. So getting this mail message, encouraging us hanging out, struck me as mildly ridiculous. For what point, I asked myself.

Then today I got a message from another person I knew in college. This person called me and - I shit you not - was asking me to co-sign a loan for medical school. Yes, you read it right, CO-SIGN A LOAN FOR MEDICAL SCHOOL. Now, we've been in touch enough for this particular "friend" to know I've been in and out of the hospital for quite some time and some other stuff. The last conversation we had I was solicited for money and then told I was wrong for suggesting that black american women should open their dating pool to include non-black men. It was a little stronger than being told I was wrong, I was called a hypocrite and a lot of other things for the suggestion. It wasn't as though I'd just been shooting off at the mouth, my opinion on the issue was solicited.

But what really tore me up was the fact that the conversation in question was at least 2 years old by my friend's count. Huh? Who in the hell remembers a conversation from two damn years ago (this person, obviously).

So yeah, I've had ample opportunity lately to look at my "friends" and figure to whom the label still applies and to whom it simply served as a designation of convenience. Or, as I suggested in my last, much-critiqued blog, I've outgrown the relationships.

And, Tera-byte, i think we should both go back to school and get another degree. I'm really thinking that English Ph.D could come in handy some day when I need a way to find hot young men. Where better than on a college campus?

Feel Flows

2008-05-22T21:13:00.000-07:00

Feel Flows
Has anyone else noticed a tendency to grow away from friends? I know I'm not the only one. It's funny, I'm not terribly good with remembering things. I don't remember events that were/are major for other people simply because the event doesn't register as exceptional at the time for me.

But, then, I tend to stir up trouble often and much. It takes a fair amount to get my attention. Earlier today my friends and I were talking about another friend who had an SUV (a navigator or something) driven into her bedroom by her house-mates drunk boyfriend. I didn't even believe her when she told me about it a day later. Being a 'show don't tell' person, she insisted we walk over to her place and *voila* there was the demolished wall and telltale tread marks over her bedspread.

It was a mess. That impressed me, especially since it is one of my odd fears. I heard this story in middle school about this guy (it was one of those Be Christian, Be Good, God will still get you, but hedge your bets lectures) and his wife and a semi drove into their house and he even lifted his shirt to show a whole gym full of kids the tread marks on his back.

I think the wife died. The whole point of the rally/lecture was anti-drinking and driving, but all i could think of was "Jesusjehosephat! A Semi careens into your house and runs you and your wife over?! There you are, sleeping all peaceful and suddenly a monster is in your bedroom, on top of you...a bleeping SEMI?"

So, when my friend had a Navigator climb into her bed, I was completely undone. It's part of the reason I don't believe in ground-floor dwellings.

Hm. Lookit that, I'm two views away from a whopping 5000 since I started this blog. I still wonder if the times I look at my own blog before writing the new missive are counted. I tend to think not, now, but I'm pretty sure people read this blog by accident a lot.

Thanks for dropping in , btw.

I did start participating in the writing class again last night. I don't know if I'll submit anything for review, but I'm getting back to critiquing the work of others and I hope I offer encouragement. I don't care for telling people what does and does not work when they are on Beta draft and really just need "hey, that's interesting, i like the characters but your sentences are a little flukey, keep writing, I'm intrigued."

Or maybe that's just me. Perhaps I need the pats on teh back and I'm projecting onto my classmates.

LOL.

Well, I'm typing with one eye closed and the other one is drooping. Big yawn, feels like my jaw is going to unhinge one of these days.

Keep it freaktastic!

Fighters

2008-05-21T18:30:00.002-07:00

Fighters
"Fighters"
(feat. Matthew Santos)

[Chorus:]
When the fighters are all around
All the lovers are underground
No one will save you anymore
So what's happening, what you rapping about?
little boy. Is it cars? Is it girls? Is it money?
The world?

[Verse 1]
Or is it something they can never believe?
Or is it something you can never achieve?
Is it
Beyond your means?
Is it
Inside your dreams?
Can it
Never come out cause it's scared to
Unprepared to
Too worried about the words of the people it's weird to
You don't want them to hear you
You just wish there was a door that would appear that you can go disappear through
Well I'm feeling your pain
I was feeling the same
But I said I'd never feel that again

[Chorus]

[Verse 2]
Man
I really miss my pops
Hope that God watches over him and that he's on top
That there is no more disease and that he's alright
That he's one of the generals inside the army of the light
And grandma, you know I had to bite something from you
So after every show it's "peace, and much love to you"
Auntie Tweetie's on the way, please look out for that girl
I know we'll meet again, so it's never me against the world

[Chorus]

[Verse 3]
I hope that God forgive us, all of us sinners
Turn us back into beginners, put us up where the winners go
Holy apartments in the gardens in which the rivers flow
Thank you for all your blessings and all of your miracles
I thank all my fans and all my supporters
Shout out to Bishop G, congrats on your new baby daughter
I tip my hat to all my family and friends
Now we just got one more to go
L - U - P - END

What can I say? It's on my mind. Some KrAZy movie with Dennis Rodman is on the tube, but I've had a day. Last night I had my moral compass challenged. Actually, my moral compass has been getting dicked around consistently lately. I know where my moral center is, but other people keep coming along and they make honest attempts to turn me around.

It's not that I'm unmovable as much as I have a desire for something specific. Mostly the desire centers around moving my life in a different direction, which I won't do until I'm somehow finished with whatever this is that I do most of the time. I fantasize a lot about getting my act cinched tightly, writing daily on some interesting work, shopping it, finding my voice as a writer.

It's well and good to fantasize, but in the meantime I'm not writing a damn thing. I'm past feeling lukewarm about the writing class and into the realm of non-attendance. This was not my intention. I certainly don't spend hundreds of dollar on something just so that I can skip. This is not, after all, college and I am not a scholarship student burning someone else's money. It's my change.

I don't think it says much about the class that over half the participants have dropped it.

An aside - i have not been to Paris, New York or Miami in a painfully long time. I talk to myself in French, which is ever-so-tragic and quite lonely-making.

Lately I've been fighting a lot. Well, I guess that's my nature. i'm always up to my eyeballs in something, I like it better that way. As long as the something changes periodically, i feel pretty good about things. All last year i got cut apart and sewn together. this year I'm doing similar operations on the business I work for.

You know, I sound kind of impressive when other people talk about me. My sister told someone I manage a multi-million dollar company, which is true on it's face, but mostly that involves me trying not to cock up the company, building flimsy allegiances and budgeting like a a new fool.

It's not exciting stuff in the least. it can be interesting, but not exciting. We won't even roll our eyes over my compensation (or lack thereof). I mean, i read industry standards on compensation and stuff and I seriously wonder "what in the HECK am I doing wrong?"

I've been driving a borrowed convertible sports car for about a week and it's the life. Truly. Sun shining, fast car, top down...that's me with the hair whipping everywhere, smiling my fool head off. The moments speeding down the highway blasting Prince's "Purple Rain" album are some of the happiest moments I know. They are magic moments, I feel so good and lovely, as though the heaven's have opened and are smiling at me.

If I didn't have those little moments I might go homicidal on fools.

Ciao!

Fighters

2008-05-21T18:30:00.001-07:00

Pretender

2008-05-20T17:36:00.000-07:00

Damn.

Foo Fighters. I've been feeling them for a long time, every once in a while, though, they come out with a video that is absolutely captivating. Like the video for Hero, that was the shit and a half. Now the Pretender video - shit and a half AGAIN! Fawkin' A man!

So, here are my all-time favorite two Foo Fighters videos/songs. Well, maybe not my fave songs by them. But definitely the fave videos.

okay, so i cannot find a video - well, the actual music video - for these songs so enjoy the grammy performances.

Okay, on the phone helping a friend through a paper on modern-day China with a historical perspective. Possibly in chinese. Wooot Woot!

How to wheel and deal while drunk

2008-05-19T18:57:00.000-07:00

Talking wirk, briefly: had an interesting convoe with an opthalmologist who has some office space for rent. He called me at 7:00pm, i was half a glass into some sweet white wine and had NOTHING in my stomach. It's rude to smack into the phone, so I settled for drinking wine. 45 minutes later I slurred to the close of the conversation, "Okay, Dr. Opthalmologist, thanks so much for taking time to call me, I'll be sure to be in touch tomorrow..." and he said "huh?!" and not just because he's not a native english-speaker!!! Hot mess on the phone! But I had to get him off so I could eat something since I could not feel my toes, fingertips or tongue and my lips were pretty much nonexistent!

A friend asked me why I support Barack...that's a complicated question, especially since I've been inclined toward Hillary. However, there is an intangible Mr. Obama posesses - nevermind the surplus of intelligence, the skill and diplomacy, the willingness to listen and the background that is less isolationist and more inclusive than any other presidential candidate in history. I can't tell you the intangible, perhaps it is a mixture of desire and destiny: powerful stuff. But, hey, I don't discriminate against intelligent, focused, talented, bold people. I suppose voting is an intensely personal decision when you get down to it. Obama reminds me of Clinton from 1992 - young, smart, willing to build across perceived gaps and adamant about involving young people in the political process. It's rare, you know, that young people are courted for their youth and idealism, not simply treated as not-quite-old people who are to be led blindly down no path in particular.

Okay, tonight's book: Size 12 is not Fat by Meg Cabot. Anyone else out there read a book a night? Tomorrow looks like Jurassic Park or Why Black Men Marry White Women (a well-reasoned argument, I'm intrigued).

Ta!

Sunday Morning, Beautiful Day

2008-05-18T09:09:00.000-07:00

Some strange animal is outside making noise. I'm still in the country, at the ranch, feelin' relaxed and loved. I'm probably about one year from a severe and sweeping "fuck-all" moment, quitting everything I know to branch out in some new direction of my life.

In pop-psychology parlance, I am feeling genuinely inauthentic in most of my endeavors at this point. I could care less, which makes me sad, so I try *hard* to care more. Do I really care about the foolishness physicians get up to, especially when they are so tolerant of one another? Nyet.

Do I give a screaming dodo's flip about people in the office, transient as they are? Hell, fuck, no.

You know, I want to convert the office to a nice immigrant cash-only endeavor for the staff. Get off payroll. Always have some folks on call. Who cares about anything else? It's not brain surgery. It sure as hell isn't fun. (retch, gag)

Last night I watched Indiana Jones with the fam. I took a bath and slathered lotion and oil all over my baaahhhhday. I contemplated my toes, came to peace with not wanting to participate a'tall in my writing class. Spent some time debating salsa class and weight training (I think I can dance, I'm not sure I should be bench-pressing).

I like having freshly trimmed hair. I finished reading A Year In the Merde (again) and marvelled at the guy in France I met years ago now, who was so severely well-connected and so damn French, in the best possible way. He definitely ascribed to the "if you like 'em, move 'em in" philosophy (thank god), and the "it's not what you know, it's who you know" philosophy. Certainly we got along like a house afire. Damn shame I haven't seen him in person since that initial meeting, but life takes you places sometimes.

His fractured English was tres mignon.

Alright, I'm off to go shopping.

You look like Alicia Keyes

2008-05-17T15:28:00.000-07:00

Wow.

Go figure. So i finally left the house last night for something other than a work-related event. I went to a club where I thought a friend of mine would be singing, but she wasn't, instead Rich Medina out of Philly was there and it..was...so...lovely.

Starts out, i navigate to a parking lot and get out of my car just as these two well-dressed guys are getting out. So I ask them where the club is and they say they are going there as well, so we all walk together. Polite chatter, then one of them says, "You must hear this all the time, but you know, you really look like Alicia Keys."

No, actually, I haven't heard that in aeons. The last time I heard that, Alicia Keys had her first album out and it was mostly shorthand for "you look mixed." Perhaps that was the case last night, too, but the difference is HARDLY ANYONE EVER COMPLIMENTS ME ANY LONGER!!! So it was a nice change of pace.

Then, we're in line for the club and there is a severely drunk woman in front of us. That's funny all by itself, drunk people are fools. This one is five-foot-two and about 200 lbs. She's celebrating her birthday and falling out of her top. She manhandles every single guy in line - she's stroking and caressing and giggling and cooing madly. Her friend keeps explaining "it's her birthday, it's her birthday." So, she gets up to the bouncer and she has a go at him too. The line that sent me over the edge was "Oh, that's my daughter's name too!" (pet, pet, caress, fondle).

I'm so busy laughing that I do not notice the guy in front of me pay my entrance. Color me surprised. He disappears by the time I get inside, so I sit down to see what's happening and the music is so live. SO LIVE. For all my SF friends - it was deeply reminiscent of DJ Somuchsoul at the Baobob. yeah. that nice. The place erupted when they played Marques Wyatt and came off the hinges when the air went still, then Crystal Waters' voice reverberated with "She wakes up early in the morning/to put on her makeup/ gotta have her makeup."

With that I even had to stand up and dance a little. Like, half the song. I was already sleepy. But one of the parking lot guys had swung by my table and brought me a water, so I was tired but hydrated. I had a great time!

What was really, really dope was the vibe. Usually in ATL clubs (not that I'm an expert, but from my limited experience) folks are not all that friendly. And the music is not all that hot. If it's a younger crowd, then it's all strip club music. Older crowd and it's all old-school. I may be blasphemin' but those are my observations. So, this was great vibe, beautiful people, fantastic dancing and hotness music. Hotness.

Yaaaaaay! It was the first night in a very, very long time where I wasn't thinking about the j-o-b or the idiots involved in the j-o-b. I was just taking in all the humanity and having a good time. No more idiots! I'm ready to start telling folks what I think of them. The telling-offs will start with "does your mama like you?" I always think that's a great jumping-off point, especially for those who labor under the illusion that their shit does not, in fact, stink.

Bitches.

Anita Bryant and Pie Face

2008-05-16T21:18:00.000-07:00

Oh god. My computer is going soooo slowly. But I have to share this little story. There was this woman, Anita Bryant, who hated gay people with a purple passion. She was convinced they preyed upon kids etc. etc. and was very vocal and very public and galvanaized Dade County to support her.

Well, one day she's having a press conference and someone walks up to her while she's talking and throws a fruit-cream pie in her face.

Yes. Really. So, her husband or some random fella is sitting next to her and he tells her "honey, let's pray for him, pray for him" and so she starts praying. Now, in the account I'm watching, Bruce Villanch is saying "she was already in trouble, no one would do her hair" (pie insert) "and no one would decorate her condo (more pie) and I swear to jeebus, I was crying it was so funny. One, the timing was crazy - insanely funny. Two, pie in the face - freaking PIE IN THE FACE!!! So 3 Stooges and Charlie Chaplin. Terribly funny. She was mid-word "the gays" etc. and then (blammo!) PIE!!!

And she gets two sentences into her prayer and breaks down crying. Crying. Sobbing. Then you see a shot of the guy who threw the pie and he's licking his finger. Which completely undoes me. He's enjoying a bit of cream pie and she's so shocked she can't even wipe the pie away.

I just had to share. Had to.

On boredom and coming to terms

2008-05-15T21:20:00.000-07:00

Life is just a crapload easier when you're honest. But have you ever noticed how easy it is to deceive yourself? To either be so oblivious that you shut down every thinking part of yourself or to just flat-out lie to yourself in an effort not to acknowledge the obvious.

I think it's called ignoring the elephant in the room. I've been ignoring the elephant in the room. Lately I've gotten rather down, quite forlorn, amassing little hurts and developing a severe case of unhappiness. It broke, in a way, on Mother's Day while I sat outside my Grandmother's church and wrote about everything I saw around me. I also spent some time talking with a Jamaican shyster. In our short exchange I learned that he had 8 kids, considered himself a Rasta, wanted to get in my panties, was all about "young girls" but wanted to marry a woman 40+ who could support him financially, despised his youngest son's babymama of 7 weeks because she was a. unfortunate looking and b. a p/t lesbian. We had to cut the conversation short when he lit a cigarette. I can only take so much, after all.

Back to my elephant - I sent out an email to friends and family a month ago asking if I could or should fire myself from my job. It's not much fun, you know, and I like action and results. I understand life has plenty of plateaus but living on a plateau is not much fun. Nor is having someone's foot in your neck. I've been living with both. I suppose I'll have to take it all one moment at a time. I've lost my sense of optimism about work, though, and the joy I found in returning to society and my vocation has dissipated. I've even considered putting together my resume and shopping it.

We'll see. If nothing else, shopping my resume would be fun and a way to meet new people. I'd like to meet new people, they are entertaining most of the time.

And now, for your daily dose of Obama:

My Appointed Husband

2008-05-14T13:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry, watching Oprah on the FLDS and plural marriages. That, of course, has fuckall to do with your daily dose of Obama...

Whoa. I haven't heard that in a while "a woman's hair is her crowning glory." Funny story - in college a girl from my hometown came up to me and looked in shock and horror at my freshly shaved pate. She pointed, finger trembling, and stuttered "but your hair is your crowning glory!" I think it is relevant that she's a preacher's kid. Pretty girl. I wasn't so much in the mood for a PK lecture, though, so I asked her, "but I thought that was my brain?"

We didn't ever speak again. She shook her head, full of long, straightened hair and looked beyond me. I heard she ended up cutting her hair and maybe there was a lesbian rumor as well, but I could be confused because there were a lot of those.

Watching the Cosby Show, more later...

Realities Collide

2008-05-12T17:51:00.000-07:00

Oh LOOK! there is a Category for Politics! It's under News. Fabulaux!

Now I can share my happy new thingie with you all, observe:

And every day I will show a new one. There is a great one that talks about "this is your brain on hope..." fantastic. of course, it won't be all fun and games to get this world fixed. it's going to hurt and hurt quite a bit, but i like to think my generation is up for it. i like to think most generations are up for it.

I've just finished another Mrs. Pollifax novel. They are mysteries and i think they are set in the late-70s early 80s, but the writer makes her descriptions of places so specific and her descriptions of time are broad. Always, there is intrigue and treachery in the world. It is only balanced by hope and charity.

Well, hope you enjoy the video and get out and vote. Make the right decision!

xoxo - camille

FreeBird

2008-05-10T19:27:00.000-07:00

Yayoi Kasumi's dots make my heart pitter patter and shorten my breath.

And now for lyrics:
If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me?
For I must be travelling on, now,
cause theres too many places Ive got to see.
But, if I stayed here with you, girl,
Things just couldnt be the same.
cause Im as free as a bird now,
And this bird you can not change.
Lord knows, I cant change.

I was thinking about change earlier. I just finished reading Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire. I read it once before, in 2000, and I think I was really sick and probably not a little drugged because I found it annoying. Now I am charmed. So, it got me to thinking about change. The book is a "insider's look" at the life of Cinderella, but told from the perspective of one of her stepsisters and Cinderella (better known as Clara Van de Meer) doesn't show up til halfway through. For reference, Maguire is the author of Son of a Witch and Wicked (the basis of the Broadway sensation).

Anywho, every character goes through quite a few changes and their actions reveal their motivations over time. A well-told tale. Probably arduously written. There are a lot of ruminations on beauty and some compelling stuff on charity and survival. The end of the book has a lot to say about the inheritance children take from their parents: not the money stuff, but the emotional inheritance.

That makes me think of myself (naturally), but an interesting comment made to me by a guy I met once in Chicago. We walked all over that damn city that night and he told me about his father, the artist, and his mother - who I think became a pastry chef or something after their divorce. His mother had the last word, his father, so dedicated to art, would not work so as not to clutter up his artistic spirit. Mom supported herself and her child with her art. Necessity is always the mother of invention.

Well, this is enough prattling for one night. Dinner plans were scrapped due to family emergencies, so thank god I had a fantastic lunch at a new place up the street where our waiter had Bell's Palsey and the visigoth could not resist talking to him about treatment options. I went away to the bathroom and came back to spy the visigoth contorting his face while talking to the waiter and had a moment of alarm - he could not Possibly be poking fun! And he wasn't, they were involved in an informal discussion of symptoms and remedies and the waiter was genuinely grateful.

There is an itch inside of me, I am growing dissatisfied again. It's the most unpleasant and unrelenting sensation. Only slightly less troubling than a leaking suprapubic catheter.

Ah. perspective.

WOrD

2008-05-08T20:42:00.000-07:00

Yeah, has anyone noticed there isn't a blog category for politics on Myspace? Again, myspace is for skanks. Nevermind I'm here. I'm just helpin' out.

Enjoy. Dance. Register to Vote. Vote.

Once, a long time ago, when I was an aspiring journo (this is before you become a journo and mostly hang out for the food and backstage passes) I covered the first G.W. bush election. Nasty business. Anyway, I was stationed out in suburbia at a church. I saw NO people of color. Everyone was boomer-ish and as they passed out of the polling place they would smile and chat with me and say to the person walking in "make the right decision."

Without fail. "Make the right decision." It was a community convinced about their candidate *Dubya* and enforcing it with one another.

Well, this is me telling you: Make the Right Decision. If you're not old enough to vote, you ARE old enough to REGISTER people to vote. My birthday is election day, so I missed voting the first time for Bill Clinton. However, I spent the summer canvassing churches and shit in the blazing Florida sun, registering everyone from panhandlers on the street to church congregations to vote. They would ask me if I was going to vote and I would say that I would not be old enough. So many people loved that, I was out there working to get them to vote even though I couldn't do it.

Sometimes I get disillusioned, the Bush years (Alpha and Beta) are disheartening. But we have a chance for change and it's young people who will make that change. Sea Change (check the Beck album, but not if you're depressed cause you will slit your throat). Obama is about change. I donated to his campaign. I couldn't afford the $2300.00 a plate dinner for Hillary, sorry. She's a cool lady, she's smart as hell, but she's not what I NEED in a president right now. She'll do great work regardless. Just, she doesn't belong in the White House.

Make the right decision.

Got my mind made up (I’m a Lady)

2008-05-06T21:55:00.000-07:00

Got my mind made up (I’m a Lady)
Great new quote:
Arthur C. Clarke formulated the three "laws" of prediction which apply well to the evolution of technology in my lifetime.

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

LOL. ROFL. I'm such a fucking geek sometimes (okay, all the time, but fuck you, I'm in denial about a lot of things and my geekiness tops the list).

I just spent the past few hours making myself incredibly happy by reading up on open-source electronic health records. I had a terrible jolt earlier today when I demoed a EMR that I've been DYING to see, oh, I've heard such GREAT things about it and I was so excited, I would have forged the check myself.

Until they told me how much it cost. I was disgusted then. Absolutely repulsed. Shock and Awe. For real. The military could have saved a billion bucks and just quoted the price of this web-based software to Iraq if they wanted to scare the shit out of everyone. It was disgusting and lazy and designed to boondoggle the unsuspecting out there. I had even tried to like the salesperson, but now it's solidified, I don't. He knew he fucked up when I wrote back after the demo "the price is steeper than expected." So THEN - adding insult to serious injury - he starts telling me how he can talk to his manager and see if they can bring the price down.

I flashed back to every single sales-instruction video I've ever seen in my life and could imagine him wearing polyester pants, a wide tie, a combover and his belly hanging over his pants as he tried to scam me out of good sense and money. Dumb bitch. Here is what killed, in order to save money, he wanted me to decrease MY expectations. Yes, truly.

That's like walking into a clothing store and being told that the expensive shoes you want to buy are all yours for the taking at full price as long as you're okay with them being 3 sizes too small. W.T.F.? Why not just find the shoes elsewhere - hell, on sale even?

Well, it was just enough disillusionment to prompt some therapeutic wolfing of steak and broccoli and crablegs (all you can eat!!!) and for me to come home and baste in bathwater scented with "French Kiss" bath stuff from Lush (Merry Christmas to me from my little sister!)

Now I'm listening to 2080 by Yeasayer and preparing to go write nice comments on my novel writing class. The class, btw, is not a phenomenal waste of time, but I won't be taking it again. It's too...esoteric. Plus, as I have detailed at length, i can't stand the instructor. Working with other writers who are trying to gain a toehold is painful. Painful I tell you. There is a reason writing is an alone activity. Most of it is ugly and unredeeming. But you keep going and it gets better. Being a part of someone else's process doubles or quintuples the agony. It's infinitely worse to share your early ugly moments with others as well.

Won’t you come over love, so I can show you love?

2008-05-05T21:34:00.000-07:00

Won’t you come over love, so I can show you love?
Bring it all to me...

Love that Estelle...Bring it all to meee - oooooh, ooooh, oooooh

My newest nefarious plan (heh heh heh) is to 1. attend my sister's graduation and spend a week sun n' funnin' it in Florida (hometown-ish!) and 2. To see Kanyizzle at Madison Square Garden.

For real, I gotta get on the stick on both plans. I can be so retard about things. That's the french pronounciation, btw, meaning slow. And I know i misspelled pronounciation, but i don't care.

Why Is Portishead's Three album hot as a cautery tool? I remember my first job in medicine, I worked at an orthopedics convention. The first couple of hours I wanted to throw up because there was a vendor across from me who played the same damn video of a knee replacement over and over and over. By lunchtime, though, I was immune to the grossness of blood and muscle and tissue and I rather thought the knee, skin pulled back, looked like a hot steamy slice of pizza. Things change pretty quickly.

he power and beauty of the human spirit

2008-05-04T19:44:00.001-07:00

he power and beauty of the human spirit
Television done right. This American Life on Showtime (Sunday at 10) - Just had a show
"Escape" about a guy who has no muscles, but has managed to live into his late 20s. He has a girlfriend, he's trying to move out of the house, but he's on a breathing machine and has been in a coma twice in the past year.

But he's in love. And he writes, he blogs, he wants and is a part of the world as much as he can be. Watching him made me feel good. Not in a "thank god it isn't me" way but in a "this is why I keep trying" way. Sometimes, especially when things are going awry, I wonder "why do I keep trying, I'm just a puddle and things keep going wrong" but then I get over myself and I get back to trying.

Sometimes it feels as though I'm just stupid, too stupid to stop trying even when everything suggests stopping is the only logical thing to do with myself. I guess it's a matter of knowing the limitations and constraints and then artfully dodging them. Remember that character from Dickens, the Artful Dodger? That's me. Artfully dodging my limitations, working within them, putting a pinkie toe outside just to see what will happen.

Oh, and I gained 5 pounds. So, now I have something to do with myself, something to be all manner of self-absorbed about to the exclusion of everything else, which oddly enough, makes me highly efficient in all other endeavors because i want to spend all of my time taking care of my corporeal form again.

Tomorrow is my ostomy anniversary. That makes me smile. What great things have happened for me, what strange and interesting adventures I have taken. I predict there are more to come.

Happy Monday all!

How many crablegs can she eat?

2008-04-22T18:28:00.001-07:00

How many crablegs can she eat?
Exactly 10. With help. that's king crablegs. Yep, so there is one less king crab in the universe/sea now. One down...

I have to give a shoutout to The Highlander for giving me something to dream about for almost a full month, then coming through with the promise. I called ahead to make sure they hadn't cancelled the event and the barman was casual as you please telling me "oh yeah, every tuesday is all you can eat crablegs all day."

I'm sure they know most people really can't put down that much crab. For $20.00 they are winning the battle and getting people to drink.

Wow. Cee-lo is singing "Who's gonna save my soul now?" in the most wonderful, plaintive and soulful manner. I'm digging this song. Heavily.

I think it's about time for me to start allowing myself to be observed and monitored by my cadre of surgeons again. I've had just about plenty of pretending to be normal - or fancying that I have the ability to keep the charade going. I wonder if I fool anyone? It would be amazing if someone believed me. But I suppose most people don't look all that closely.

I was talking with my godmother earlier today and related something someone said to someone else about me and she shrieked "jesus, people can be so self-absorbed." and I agreed, yes, we can all be pretty self-absorbed. I tend to hope that I get the majority of my self-absorption out in my writing, the absorption increases when I'm not writing and turns very quickly into something dangerous - all that energy goes destructive and I start hurting myself rather quickly. Better to get it out, talk it out, write it out, stare-at-horses it out.

I watched an interesting movie today with Renee Zellweger. I respect her body of work. I can say that now, before I always thought "she must be fucking for roles" but it's actually that she transcends her rather odd looks and radiates beauty, talent, strength and vulnerability. That one mines her self, then empties the vessel to see what new can be poured in. Happy for her. The movie was Price of Rubies or something like that. Renee was a wife in an orthodox Jewish sect. She went through it. I loved the movie, it was slow and engrossing.

Cee-lo is telling the little children to run this way. On that note, I head into the moonlight for more adventures.

A Good Year

2008-04-20T01:16:00.000-07:00

It's four am and I had to wake up to make myself little munchies of baguet with ham and cream cheese to satisfy a craving created by reading descriptions of Provencal food in "A Good Year."

Speaking of A Good Year, I would count last year as one of the best years ever. Oddly enough, I've been getting a lot of "oh, well, i'm sorry for your last year" hooha from people lately. Mostly colleagues. I've endeavored to explain that I'm not sorry for last year at all, but they get uncomfortable and i realize I'm out of my depth or they are - or we don't have proper scuba equipment or something.

Last year was, for the record, one of the best years of my life. The Best. I know the bad years, 2006 was a miserable year (actually 04 - 06 lumped together sucked bat balls). Then, the year I turned 22 was pretty awful, 21 wasn't much fun either, come to think of it. I was married both of those years and very, very ill and undiagnosed. Sucked for me on all fronts. I was also living in a dark corner of the midwest during blizzard season. A Trifecta of horror.

23 wasn't bad, I danced a lot, drank a vineyard worth of wine and champagne, made new friends, got divorced (first), gave my bosses hell and flew to lots of interesting, new places. 24 was also pleasant (at least the first bit) I was in love - that passionate crazy stuff, had plenty of money, walked to the beach daily, met a fair cache of truly weird people, I went to the Exotic Erotic Ball and met a tall, strapping irishman named Gerry who burred to me in Gaelic seductively after i figured out he had a thick accent and wasn't drunk or high to the moon.

Yeah, so I'm clear on the good and bad years. Really, people, surgery isn't the worst thing that can happen to you. Illness is pretty bad. Chronic illness is pretty bad to the nth power. Try living in a body that doesn't want you there - that's a bad year. One of the most valuable commodities in the world is time and I was fortunate enough for time to move at a wonderful pace for the past year. Now, I'm back in the thick of things and i feel like a kid again, with my head stuck out of the window of a moving car and the wind whipping my head back over and over again. I just want to enjoy myself and instead I have half the free world telling me their problems and seriously expecting me to facilitate a solution.

As if I give a rat's ass. Really. But then, I find myself skipping meals and getting dehydrated and suddenly i do care. Mainly because I'm sleep, food and water deprived. All that deprivation leads to heightened focus on minutae and I am such a victim. A total patsy. I wonder if it's intentional. For instance, 2008 thus far has not been the hottest year of my life. I'm just putting it out there, I'm not enjoying this year. I rang in the new year in the hospital, after deciding I was really, really tired of being in the hospital, but going back because I was more tired of the parts of me that still didn't work and were essential. I was alone and I sang a song to myself, turned out the light and went to sleep.

Also this year I've taken a number of hits. If I were litiginous I would be slapping people left, right and center with libel and slander suits. Alas, i'm not, thusly I pretend to ignore all the offal being slung, then rant and rave on my blog and to my parents about how unfair and cruel the digs - and diggers - are. We won't even go into the parts of me that still don't work, possibly will never work again, and my slowly dawning realization that the disease won some concessions I never could have anticipated. There is no morphine to make all of this irrelevant either. I'm wide-ass awake and, quite frankly, not a little pissed.

I think the latter half of 2008 is going to get tougher, but so will I, so hopefully it won't feel as uncomfortable (wool-sweater in summer uncomfy) as the first bit has. Spring is here and that always brings change.

He had gone into the place of things that are...

2008-04-13T12:11:00.001-07:00

He had gone into the place of things that are...
The full quote is:

"He had gone beyond the world of metaphor and simile into the place of things that are, and it was changing him." - Neil Gaiman (Neverwhere)

Guess who read a book? Yes, snitches, yours truly. I'm still reeling from the Quaddafi revelation of my second-to-last blog, but I needs my realities adjusted occasionally. My new class has started and everyone is middle-aged and chasing their dreams. I've decided I, too, am middle-aged and chasing my dreams, I just *look* like a teenager. Heh heh heh.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a wonderful day in the neighborhood...can you believe my little sisters never watched Mr. Roger's Neighborhood? That was quality television, better than almost everything that is on now. Between Mr. Roger's and Sesame Street I had manners reinforced, my imagination validated, developed a simulataneous fear and affection for wooly mammoths and big yellow birds, learned to embrace my cantankerous side and learned the merits of Super Grover and handpuppets!

Barney was second rate in comparison.

My man-friend is back in town and we're learning to live together again. We do this every so often, have to get reacquainted. We have different rhythms, I'm a night person, he's a day person - we get along well between 5pm and 1 am. After or before is kind of sketchy.

I've had a gnat of worry in the back of my head about THINGS TO GET DONE. None of them are that important. I think my real worry is *asshole coworker returning to the office whom I do not want to deal with at all, ever again and i wish he would just go away like his homegirl did*.

Yeah, that's what is bothering me cause writing it made me feel better. Re-reading the sentence I have to chuckle, that's exactly what I'm feeling. There is a litany of things for me to get worked up about: what if he talks to me? what if I'm expected to talk back? what if he asks me a question? I know he's not going ot like my answers, but professional protocol requires i reply and - oh holey jesus' drawers - put up with whatever cutting remarks he makes about inconvenience to him, his lifestyle - who gives a fuck about him? I mean, other than him. He's in no way endeared himself to me or anyone else. I just imagine him with saggey pants and poop running down his leg - that's how much I do not like dealing with this....creature.

I know that's not nice or evolved or any of the other things I achieved while under anesthesia and hopped up on morphine and contemplating life, the universe and the wonders of having my intestines hang outside my body. Well...there's perspective. There is nothing he can say that even come close to my intestines hanging outside of my body or buckets of my blood washing over the floor as I stare in horror and go into shock.

here's to Sunday afternoons and Monday mornings! Monday, monday....

Sunrise

2008-04-08T21:53:00.000-07:00

Sunrise
Sunovabiith!

Tonight i taxi’ed over to midtown art cinema to grab some late dinner with my sister and found out the highlander was having all you can eat crablegs for 19.95. People around us had tables piled high with king crab legs, the air was crisp with cracking bottom-dweller limbs. So we pull up to a table, the waittress comes over and asks if we’re ready to order. I say, "yeah, we’ll have the all you can eat crablegs" and she says "I need to see some i.d."

And i’m confused. What does age have to do with crablegs? Ordinarily I’d hand her my ID and let her feel stupid cause I might look 15 but I’m twice that and people just have to hate on me on their own time. But the sister is 17...so I ask how old you have to be and the waittress (who incidentally had a bad perm, bad skin and funky bone structure) says "21."

Obviously I will be obtaining a fake ID for this sister of mine cause we can not get turned away from all-you-can eat crablegs just because of some fascist smoking law (that’s what the waittress cited, a smoking law). We settled for kids portions of chinese food and gossipping about teenage pregnancy.

My sister has a friend who has missed her period two months in a row, has LOTS of unprotected sex and is *still* convinced that she can’t possibly be pregnant. She also refuses to take a pregnancy test. This is going to be one of those "why is my stomach cramping" pregnancies where the baby is born to a girl who honestly cannot fathom how it happened (hint: you let him stick the tip in. that’s the dangerous part, incidentally, the tip! that’s where the baby-making stuff comes out...)

One of the horses at the ranch is so pregnant she’s waddling. Ever see a 15 hand high black horse with delicate legs waddle? It’s memorable. That foal is coming soon and she looks like everything is hellish right now and she’s just so damn tired of being fat and heavy and having her organs squeezed together. But her attitude has improved, I imagine she’s too tired to go kicking folks at the moment.

I flipped out the other day because Santogold’s song Creator was featured on some corporate commercial. Then my homie was telling me that Quaddaffi camped out on the White House lawn in his white tent (he will only sleep in white tents attended by beautiful virgin maidens) and exited with his entourage blasting Creator recently. Almost makes me wanna move to Libya. Good taste in music matters to me.

Alright, I have Neverwhere to read..

You were the one who said forever from the start

2008-04-06T21:38:00.000-07:00

I just woke up. Not a damn thing to write. I’m still quasi-stuck on this whole "your body is phukked" thing, but that’s a vast overstatement. i just have some permanent nerve damage. No biggie.

I do want a disability parking pass though. I mean, I have nerve damage, that’s some old Agent Orange shit. It did not help matters at all that I met this guy this weekend who - and I am not lying - fell out of his Hummer (more like missed the last step or something) and broke his ankle. Hell of a fall, right? So, he’s on crutches for a few weeks and gets a parking ticket for parking in a handicapped space. He gets 38 high and sends his assistant to get him a permanent disabled driver’s license. We used that sucker with impunity this weekend. Obviously I am not optimizing my trials and tribulations as a cripple properly. This situation shall be rectified with haste.

My homie Ray is on his way to Canuckistan, then further north into Canuskistan, and then further north to a remote island in Canuckistan to set up a satellite. He’s gonna turn into a hypersmart little choco-popsicle. It was really nice knowing him. Truly. A pleasure. You hear those jokes about people being assigned to a post in the arctic when they fuck up on the job. ummmm. Ray has been assigned to a post in the Arctic and he’s on his way there. I don’t think he fucked up though. It’s assbackwards, but I think this is an advance in his career. Crazy, right?

My grandmother and I got into a political argument the other day. Over the phone. I had to get off the phone when she started yelling. She calls herself an Obama-Gramma and I like Obama plenty and I plan to vote for him. But I was telling her that Hillary is fighting a good fight and I respect her immensely. She’s a devastatingly smart woman, very strong, with good judgement. Everyone has lapses, hell, my lapses had first and last names and social security numbers! But she’s a great candidate and she’s running a fantastic race. Does that alter how I feel about voting - not an iota. I respect McCain as well. He’s a career politician, but he’s centered somehow. Last time he ran (does anyone else remember this) the Bush people and all their CIA contacts dredged up never-before known or released information about his time as a POW. It was so fucked up. They trotted out one of his former camp-mates and played up the fact that the two men never talk now. It was ridiculous. It was dirty and ugly and shameful. There are some things people should not have to talk about: Sex (good, bad, and indifferent), torture, family, and their own personal list of unspeakables.

Everyone has unspeakables. Lots of people wear the unspeakables on their sleeves, but unspeakables are just that for a reason. They aren’t for the world, they are what defines us and our human experience. Unspeakables are shared with those we trust, they are not the means by which others trust us other than how they inform our actions.

Well, Nancy Wilson is singing "Guess who I saw today" it’s a song about a wife catching her husband cheating at a bistro. Gazing with love at another woman "I saw two people across the bar/who were so in love/even i could spot it clear across the room/ Guess who i saw today my dear/ I’ve never been so shocked before/I headed blindly for the door/ Guess who I saw today?/ I saw youuuuuuuuuu."

Peace

Shoutout to Terry the Crackhead

2008-04-02T01:06:00.001-07:00

Shoutout to Terry the Crackhead
I have to send a spiritual shoutout to Terry the gas station panhandler. Well, panhandler isn’t accurate because Terry always volunteers to help you out with whatever your task is. pumping gas, putting air in tires, washing your windows. he wants to do a little work, make a little coin, grab some snacks at the package store, talk and laugh and spend some time weaving the fabric of his life.

today Terry put the air in my tires. he’s a big dude, 6 and some change, and gangly and that’s not a little menacing when he rolls on you. But I’m accustomed now, he’s always respectful, "Excuse me pretty lady, can i help you with something in return for whatever change you have available?" Most of the time i say no because there are a lot of people around Terry who aren’t as respectful and i’m not trying to be an easy mark, but today he just took the initiative and filled my car tires with air before the 75cent ran out. He was about his bidness. And I paid him a dollar and he ambled off. All good.

i do miss that. In the small town where i would visit my grandmother there were some indigent guys who floated through town. Sometimes they were off-season migrant workers from the islands, one was my mathematical genius autistic cousin. He swept every street in the town while chewing on the the nastiest cigar I’ve ever seen in my life. His name is David. There isn’t a combination of numbers that you can give David and he not solve, but he has the social skills of a mollusk. He used to scare me as a child because despite his singular obsession for sweeping streets, David has no regard for personal hygiene. you can smell him from a block or two away if the wind is blowing wrong, 5 blocks if it’s blowing right.

But he’s always been kind and he’s always known who I was. He knows his family and at times when I would find myself cornered by a bully or just a boy who wanted to get frisky, David would show up with his broom and get me safe and admonish me in his own special language about being safer and not wanting to tell my grandmother on me.

David’s way of dealing with the world, other than sweeping tirelessly from sunup to sundown, was to drink. He seldom got out of control, only a couple of times that i recall and mainly when someone interrupted his peaceful tradition.

So, yeah, Terry the Crackhead doesn’t bother me. he wants to be a part of society and sometimes i wonder who Terry was in a past life. We all have past lives, and he carries himself in such a way that I always resist the urge to ask, "who are your people? Where do you come from?" and find out how it was that he ended up at the gas station, approaching strangers for small jobs and small change to make his life a little less dull.

Grizzly Adams and f*(cking snow!

2008-03-24T18:02:00.000-07:00

So, I wander all unassuming into the bathroom to take a soak and I notice that my chin looks a bit fuzzy.

Weird, I lean in closer and I swear to god, there was a chia pet on my chin! WTF? The lighting on the farm is not THAT bad.

I may be exaggerating the tiniest bit about the chia pet. But that is how it felt. My hormones must be having Kappa Luau or something because some strange things are happening in who-ville. Oooh, has anyone seen Horton Hears a Who? I think I’m going to pull a marathon movie day this week, one day in the middle of the day I’m going to hunker down in the movie theater and hop around until I’ve caught up on all my pop culture. I want to see Horton, Be Kind Rewind, and a bunch of other stuff I don’t thnk about until I go passing by a movieplex. I want it all.

I was reading Joy Luck Club earlier today and in it there was a passage where they were talking about the fighting in Kweilin in the 40s, as Japan invaded China (again) and destroyed everything it could get its hands on (again). So, thousands died because the Kuomantang refused to acknowledge the advancing Japanese presence and kept printing out newspapers saying everything was fine. And 50 years after the war, people from outside the province had no idea what had happened and were shocked to learn of the war, the destruction etc. I thought, "that is so gangster." Generally, I think the Chinese are gangster anyway. I mean, there are few media savvy western adults who don’t have the image of the lone student standing in front of the tank from the early 90s but ask an adult of the same age from China - not a thing. Blank expression. Never saw it, never heard about the student protests - nada. Gangster.

However, the U.S. is pretty gangster, too. If for no other reason to learn what we are up to, i think Americans should leave the country and listen in on the conversations of other English-speaking people. That’s not hard. You can go to the Caribbean and sit on a semi-secluded beach and hear people relating the miles of misanthropy our government gets up to in the name of the American people. I don’t hate. I just like to have an idea of what my cultural identity means in the larger arena on the off chance that, oh, i don’t know, someone invades and proverbial chickens come home to roost.

It snowed today and got real cold, real fast. Who saw that coming? Not I.

Well, that’s enough of my rambling.

Sweet heart, bitter heart, now I can’t tell you apart. ~ Feist

When I die...

2008-03-23T11:58:00.000-07:00

I'm going to come back and haunt the fuck out of you people - seen on a t-shirt.

That made me laugh long and hard. Another thing that made me laugh - watching TWO separate dogs eat horseshit. Yeah, really. It happens. They love that stuff. Smack it up like a delicacy. I so don't understand, but I'll keep it in the mental rolodex for future reference. I suppose it helps that horses eat whole grains and are vegetarian. I don't know. I'll have to think about this some more.

Today is Easter and i went to the onion to pirate my favorite Jesus-the-Easter-Bunny photo and this is what I found instead:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/black_guy_asks_nation_for_change

It cracked me up. Way to distill the facts and throw a spin. Do you know how few people that are boomers understand spin as an integral, farcical part of life? The things we take for granted as gen x, y, and beyond are just too touchy for *most* boomers. There are notable exceptions and I have the good luck to know most of them. But lately I've been running into boomers who wouldn't know a good time if it walked up and beat them about the head a bit. It's sad, really it is.

Oh well, I can't find the Jesus the Easter Bunny pic. So sad. It's terribly funny, but they put it out in the late-90s. Still, I bet I could find it if I really tried. It was classic.

Well, I wish you all a happy easter and whatnot.

Girl, get your boogie on

2008-03-20T19:11:00.001-07:00

Wooooo-hooooooo!!!!

Why am I so excited? I have no idea, not really, not unless you count the fact that I made a FANTASTIC meal, listened to Zap Mama, ate my fantastic meal and had a run-in with yet another person at my j-o-b and walked away full of that certain je n’ais ce quoi - perspective.

You know, that thing I lacked before - perspective? As in, yeah, this person is difficult and petty and really not that bright, but that’s okay because in the end everything is going to be o-kay! I pissed someone off today and I got yelled at, and I didn’t like that part very much, but in the grand scheme of things - well, I got a better understanding of the dynamics and people involved.

I have to give it to the visigoth, he actually does get people pretty well. I thought maybe he was just being flippant when he predicted that our latest addition would be flying the coop soon-ish (he’s betting 30 days or less), but now I realize it’s true. Before I just couldn’t believe someone who seemed so well-intentioned would just throw in the towel and never even bother to explore the possibilities, but it’s true, our latest addition won’t. Doesn’t care to. It’s a personality/life thing. If things don’t fall into this person’s lap, and quickly, then everything is wrong and life is terrible.

Can’t do too much with that. One of those things, you know, can’t make the unhappy happy. I used to say that I liked dating people who were hardwired to be assholes and now I can say that I can’t see a flight risk if it’ standing in front of me, waving arms about and lacing up the trainers. Upon reflection I realize I can’t tell the people who will stick with me in life either. Houston, we have a blind spot! Maybe I’m inherently shallow and thus incapable of comprehending the deeper, more meaningful things in life. What an impediment. I shall struggle on bravely, though. Good for the soul, soldiering on.

Did I mention my cousin’s wedding? My new profile photo is from the wedding. It was great. Saw family I haven’t seen in 20 years. We all look basically the same and I trust that I’ll be a fab-o older lady, if a little crotchety, judging by my aunts and uncles. All the family babies are damn near grown now. And cute. Ma famile!

Okay, now I must go critique some writing. This weekend I have to re-work my writing for another submission. Wish me luck.

See how I came Up...

2008-03-18T11:42:00.000-07:00

See how I came Up...
The pressing issues in life: money, available sunlight, and water...don’t sleep, those are the important things. I was thinking last night, after about 8 hours of sleep with 7 remaining, that it would only take a day or two of darkness to make the human eye extremely sensitive to light. I then thought of the mole people - I can’t recall if they were just a movie or real people. I think they were real people, a study in inbreeding or maybe just people with funky dna. Either way, they would be kings in a sunlight-bereft world. The blind would also have distinct advantages.

Has anyone ever read Blindness by Jose Saramago? That is the scariest book. It’s all about a disease that sweeps through society leaving everyone blind with a few exceptions. Three-quarters of the book is an examination of the hierarchies and evils humans visit upon one another - even when everyone is stricken with disease. It’s crazy as hell. Rape figures prominently.

Someone in my writing class submitted a "rape story." I didn’t even feel like going there. I think it would be far more interesting to me if men wrote rape stories about men. I don’t like the idea of a man writing a rape story - there is something offputting in that. But let him write a story exploring the emotions and reactions of another man who is getting raped and I’d put money on the story carrying far greater significance than the same story about a woman written by a man.

I may posit that idea to my classmate. He’s the deeply annoying type, too much time in the closet as a child or maybe not enough. Either way, he’s just enough of an annoyance that I wouldn’t mind suggesting - hey why dont you make your protagonist a man and play out the rape scene that way? I’ll report back if he responds.

Frequence Trois

2008-03-17T14:56:00.001-07:00

Frequence Trois
I have tried three times to go the same doggone restaurant down the street from my house and it’s just not working. What to do? Try again, perhaps?

Today i don’t feel altogether hot. I had a few glasses of wine over the weekend, so maybe this is a delayed hangover, I dunno, all I know is that I’m not feeling so fresh or so clean, clean. I think maybe pulling 12-hour days twice last week at work was not the hottest idea I’ve ever had. I need to empower myself with taxi money and be out when it’s time to be out. On the reals.

And stay hydrated. And eat regularly instead of failing to eat for all twelve of those hours that I work. And go to bed at a reasonable hour since I wake up early so as to get into the office before the staff.

Oh, and I have to stop listening to the b.s. the docs are playing. All of these games! Who has the time? Life is too short and entirely too wide to have people playing games with your time. Appropriately, "Free My Mind" by Arrested Development (anyone remember them?) is playing on Frequence Trois, Radio Paris!!! I miss that city, Paris is a great city. I know no one likes the french police, but they are as susceptible to flirtation as anyone. Smiles and winks abound.

Now I’m on a mission to go to Turkey for the summer to see my homegirl get hitched. Oh, yeah, that’s why I might be hungover. I went to my cousin’s wedding this weekend. It’s was really fun and pleasant, only in part because a fair-sized chunk of my paternal family showed up (we don’t hang out much) and the crazy was up-front-and-center. There is the aunt who reminded me every time I talked to her that i was retarded and so were both of my parents (all love, all the tme), the uncle who is a preacher with 30 kids, all manner of parents who have gotten divorced but showed up in unity, bitter kids of aforementioned divorces etc. etc. etc. Great. And good cheese. What more can a girl ask for? And a scat of college and pro football players who were on their good behavior. The football wives sat behind me at the ceremony and they were a fresh riot. Loud! Precious, though. I do not envy those women. Big dudes...

As my cousin L.S. said, "wow, we’re a pretty family." my response, "yeah, pretty and crazy as hell. those are our calling cards.’ she looked shocked and I had to ask her if she could imagine how boring her life would be if she weren’t crazy as batshit? she allowed as she truly could not and my point was proven. crazy adds spice to life. and as with everything, moderation is important.

well, tomorrow i get my new slate of books. I’ve been on a buying spree, which is funny because i don’t have excess funding available to me, but well, i don’t really care either. I keep asking myself why I’m feeling so liberal when it’s obvious the country is in a recession and everything and all i can think of is "i’m alive. i’m healthy. i’m happy. i love my life. why not get the stuff i want and need?" so to that end, i’m ordering and buying books and trying absorb new ideas about my craft of writing and my vocation of medical practice management. it’s a fair spot of information between the two fields, nevermind the places where they overlap. *whew* this could be another part of the reason i’m exhausted. but really, i’m going to put a lot of that on the physician politicking and jockeying that has been going on. I find myself talking to myself (not unusual, but i tend to prefer lighter subject matter) as I debate what is happening around me.

It’s never good to feel as though everything is happening *to* you and I think I’m at that point. Which means I’ll be happening to some folks in the near future. i’ll keep ya’ll posted.

i need to update my netflix queue!

I feel pretty, oh so pretty

2008-03-12T19:58:00.000-07:00

I went to work today ya’ll. Yes I did. And I wore some cuuuuuute clothes. I mean, the people in my office were agog, I was so cute. And I felt good. So good.

It was great, too, I did some stuff, I didn’t feel all cloudy and crazed (it’s amazing how good you can feel when you’re not living life on major painkillers - bigup to the dimming properties of morphine!)

Of course, the folks at the office are two-plus-crazy-as-hell. They were fun to watch, one lady actually doesn’t speak to me. This is old hat to me, though, there was once another lady who didn’t speak to me, too. So, I just ran her over a few times (she’s short), embarassed her once (she was being rude), and had a great day in general. I think she cried a few times (had nothing to do with me, I swear). It’s kind of like grammar, (work with me on this one), if you break the rules because you don’t know them there isn’t nearly the effect of breaking them on purpose despite knowing them. There is skill and stupidity, guess who is operating from the latter?

Ah well, leopards and spots and all that. I’m missing my grandmother right now and scheming on how I can go see her. I bought a new dress today and now The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is on. I love this movie. I know it was panned by the critics, but haters beware! The movie is damn fine.

Oh and my friend Beff sent me the most ignorant video in the world with this ghetto preacher who is reading from (i shit you not) the Yellow Pages, insisting it is actually a bible and he calls the congregation Bitches. For real.

I think that is a good note to end a post on. A preacher calling the congregation bitches. Yeah Bitches!!!

A world full of questions and no answers

2008-03-05T20:47:00.001-08:00

A world full of questions and no answers
Well, I've stepped off the deep end and gone shopping online - again. New retailer, though, bluefly.com. I was in the mood for some BCBGMaxAzria. Actually, I was watching the Project Runway finale and they were offering 30 bucks off and designs by season 4 winner Christian Siriano and I just had to get my hot little hands on some of his pencil leg pants and a ruffly shirt. Rami Kashou's designs also please me. I'd love to wear his stuff, I mean, i would crash many a party and swing from the chandeliers in his designs all night long.

I did a bad job of straightening my hair this afternoon. I'm now watching Death at a Funeral and this ish is absolutely out of control. A midget in a casket, LSD mixed with ketamine, people trippin' balls left right and center...it's gets laugh-out-loud funny about halfway through and builds to the funny for the first half.

Classes are going well. Politics in the office are building and reaching their boiling point. The thing is - they can boil for quite a while so I just have to keep my hand out of the pot and tend to my own endeavors otherwise I get stressed and distracted. No point in me joining the multitude of unhappy people.

have you ever noticed that people make their own misery? There are some things that are appropriately misery inducing. Death. Illness. Emotional and mental trauma. Childhood. Pop music. But there are a lot of people who complain a whole, whole lot in life. They don't do anything to fix whatever is wrong with them, they refuse to acknowledge small or large things that can be adjusted in order to experience the happiness they crave - instead they complain that happiness does not fall in their laps.

Newsflash, happiness is a choice. You just make up your mind. And then you work toward keeping that happiness. Anything that makes you happy, you focus on. Anything that compromises your happiness, you avoid like the plague. It's all good.

Well, enough sermonizing from me. I got a cherry red cashmere t-shirt and a chocolate jersey wrap dress in case you were wondering.

Holla...

Brush with Infamy

2008-03-03T22:18:00.001-08:00

Brush with Infamy
happy tuesday snitches!

okay, check this out:

http://cjsd.blogspot.com/2008/02/ten-simple-rules-for-graduate-students.html

I love it. I have a lab coat that has the nametag "Dr. E. Genius, Ph.D" embroidered on. I wear it all the time at work and i just don't pay attention as people read it. this one guy ( a doctah, wouldn't you know it) actually asked me how to 'pronounce (my) last name' and whether it was french.

yes. i said yes. it was french. pronounced "jean-ous." i'm still laughing. Like, did NO ONE else ever watch cartoons or read comic books as a kid and now they can't get the joke. Dr. Evil Genius, Ph.d. hullo!

So, one of my friends claims to be in a corner, babbling incoherently to herself, having been driven mad by her job. Another friend has an ex calling who always asks for money. It's that time of the year. i'm just putting the information out there - it's the time of the year for EX-FEST. Yes, the exes come out of hibernation with the spring, all the major holidays are gone and (usually) so are their steady dummies - i mean partners - so they want to go through the rolodex in their minds and make sure someone out there is still pining for them. it doesn't matter if you say, "oh, you're still alive?" when you get the phone call during Ex-Fest, they keep on comin'. Of late i've been contacted by people I don't even remember. This is no great big achievement, considering the number of brain cells I've sacrificed to the greater good, but really, i don't recognize these people.

And I know I've slept with them cause of the way they approach me. Yet, i don't recall them. At all. big blank. Or, say, someone I was terribly fond of once upon a time forever ago and they contact me, but I'm no longer fond of them. I mean, it was a LIFETIME AGO. So now, he is reaching out and I'm wondering "does this person honestly expect a reply? Like, for really?"

it's too bad, no one gets replies. You have to ask yourself, "what do I have to talk to this person about?" And then you have to be honest with yourself. Did you do much talking before? Was it based on a shared experience or a particular point in time? If so, ya'll don't have anything else to talk about. Shit's over. Experience has passed and the point in time may exist in a parallel dimension, but it's way past gone in this one.

The Times has a good story about choice and how difficult it is for people to limit their choices even if they have empirical evidence that limiting their choices will make them more successful. Ah well. Such is life. Who needs that many choices for anything? Or that many people to recall on a semi-regular basis. its' better not to remember.

Stupid Human Trick

2008-02-29T19:12:00.000-08:00

Stupid Human Trick
New trick learned: How to tie a scarf. Yes, yes, I know, you all mastered this is the 3rd grade. Well, thank you very much, so did I, but then I had to keep relearning it every year, some things just don't stick for me. Sure, I can recall the lyrics to songs my mom listened to while I was gestating, but tying a scarf consistently evades mastery. shit happens, we all have flaws.

However, I have said numerous times and I will reassert my opinion - there is nothing wrong with you that technology can't fix. For really. So I googled "tying a scarf" and there were simple 3-step instructions with a delightful picture! I am not the only humanoid with this particular challenge. I am not alone in the world.

And i'm getting less alone by the millisecond. I'm up to my eyebrows in aspiring writers at Gotham Writer's Workshop, this week I submit my writing sample to the class. So of course I started working on it last night. Nothing like an impending deadline to motivate. I do agree with the sage Douglas Adams: I like deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. brillz.

I joined Last.fm today. Social Radio, they call it. Right now I'm listening to my favorite Rolling Stones jam, "Sympathy for the Devil." Just the best song ever. It's on my Santana radio station. I have been listening to Pandora, which is okay, but leaves a lot to be desired, such as the use of british english (an advantage Last.fm exploits to the fullest and I enjoy seeing as I have to remember which country I'm in before I go spelling colour/color favour/favor grey/gray etc.).

Today i was thinking I need to get back into practicing my spoken language. English is easy enough, it's all the other words I know that I've developed some degree in fluency that screw the pooch for me. It takes some effort to weed out the other words and stick to the right one in English. I always think of a recent visit to a friend in Cairo, where she was immersing herself in Arabic and sexist society, and hearing her use what can best be described as FRACTURED English. I laughed so hard because the phrase and intonation she used was a mirror of what runs through my head. I laughed myself sick, yes i did. She knew I wasn't laughing at her so much as I was laughing at the situation and how easily you can lose your native tongue under the right circumstances. i.e. total immersion.

Well, bar-b-que ribs to you all. Have a good night.

P.S. I think i'm going to get a record player and "borrow" all of my parent's albums including the Exodus album and Lady Sings the Blues soundtrack. Wish me luck!

Who Died and Made Tavis King?

2008-02-28T09:17:00.000-08:00

Who Died and Made Tavis King?
By Melissa Harris-Lacewell | TheRoot.com

Does Tavis realize that Obama is trying to win an election?

Views
Who put Tavis Smiley in charge?

Over the past two months African Americans have emerged as equal partners in a multi-racial, intergenerational, bipartisan, national coalition led by the most exciting political candidate of the past four decades, who also happens to be the first viable African-American presidential possibility in our history. So why is Tavis Smiley throwing a temper tantrum?

He is mad because Obama has not promised to attend Smiley's "State of the Black Union" next week in New Orleans. At last year's SOTBU Al Sharpton, Cornel West and others joined Tavis is roundly criticizing Obama for not attending. Where was Barack that weekend? Oh yeah, he was announcing his bid for the U.S. presidency. This year, Obama is busy trying to win Texas, which has emerged as the firewall state for the Hillary Clinton campaign. Obama wins Texas; Hillary goes home. But Tavis & Co. think Obama should spend precious hours chatting with them about their agenda?

(Jimi Izrael wondered the same thing about him and the other Popes of Blackness.) Let me be clear: I respect the importance of the SOTBU. Tavis performs an essential public service by creating and reproducing a critical black counter-public through this event. The event is decidedly democratic because it is open to a true variety of black voices. Every year it showcases black intellect, commitment and ideological diversity. All this is great, but it doesn't make Tavis the gatekeeper. It certainly doesn't give him the right to act as King-Maker, or in this case Queen-Maker.

Tavis and his guests have every right to criticize Obama if they have substantive disagreements with his policy, his approach to politics or his viability as a general election candidate. They do not have a right to create a false, racial litmus test. All these black leaders who spent the year telling us that Obama is not old enough, not black enough and not angry enough to earn African American votes must have noticed that Obama can deliver the black vote to himself, by himself, with little help from these self-proclaimed racial power brokers.

I can't quite figure out what motivates Tavis. At least I understand the old guard Civil Rights leaders. They are genuinely unwilling to cede power, believing that they have an authenticity claim based on their proximity to Martin Luther King, Jr. I also understand the frightened Democratic insiders who rely on the remnants of the Clinton machine for their bread and butter. But Tavis is not in either category. He is a part of a new generation of journalists who have carved out their own constituency. I am actually surprised to see Smiley join a pile-on led by his former boss Bob Johnson, who tried to silence him with such an ungracious termination a decade ago.

Maybe Tavis legitimately worries that the policy issues of black America will be lost in the excitement of the multiracial coalition. That is fair. But I wonder why Tavis does not trust us to vote in our own interests. Obama won the votes of the people of Louisiana last week. He stood at Katrina's ground-zero while Hillary blew off the state, assuming she couldn't win it. Now Tavis wants to act as a racial super-delegate by claiming he knows what the people need better than the voters.

Maybe Tavis is just jealous. Maybe it isn't deep at all, just a replay of the old adage about crabs in a barrel.

I do think that an Obama should attend the State of the Black Union. I agree with CNN's Roland Martin (which is rare) that Michelle should go. She should listen to concerns, answer questions from the audience and take seriously the substantive concerns raised there. Barack should be in Texas. I don't think anybody in the room will claim that Michelle is not a good enough surrogate for Barack. If Hillary can claim Bill's presidency as her experience, I am pretty sure Michelle can talk to Tavis on the campaign's behalf.

I usually watch this event every year. It is fun, enlightening and inspiring. This year I will have to TiVo it. Why? Because I will be phoning Texas voters to remind them to head out to the polls on March 4.
Melissa Harris-Lacewell is is associate professor of politics and African American studies at Princeton University.

http://essence.typepad.com/news/2008/02/copy-of-sen-bar.html
Copy of Sen. Barack Obama letter to Tavis Smiley

February 13, 2008

Mr. Tavis Smiley
President and CEO
The Smiley Group
3870 Crenshaw Boulevard
Suite 391
Los Angeles, CA 90008

Dear Tavis,

Thank you for the invitation to participate in the 2008 State of the Black Union forum in New Orleans, Louisiana February 21-23. The exchange of ideas raised at this annual symposium are invaluable as our nation strives to address the critical issues facing not just African Americans, but Americans of every race, background and political party.

I especially commend you for hosting this dialogue in New Orleans. On the eve of the Louisiana primary, I visited this great city for the fifth time since declaring my candidacy to share policy proposals for rebuilding the Gulf Coast so that we never experience another Hurricane Katrina. On February 9, I was deeply humbled to win the Louisiana primary with 86 percent of the African American vote and a 14 point lead among all voters who said they were adversely affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Uniting our country and creating a national constituency for fundamental change is why I am running for President of the United States. We have come a long way in this race, but we still have a long road ahead. In the final stretch, I will be on the campaign trail everyday in states like Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin talking directly with voters about the causes that are at the heart of my campaign and the State of the Black Union forum such as affordable healthcare, housing, economic opportunity, civil rights and foreign policy. I am committed to touching every voter, and working to earn their vote.
That is why with regret, I am not able to attend the forum. I understand that you have declined the campaign's request to have Michelle Obama speak on my behalf. I ask that you reconsider. Michelle is a powerful voice for the type of real change America is hungry for. No one knows my record or my passion for leading America in a new direction more than Michelle Obama.
Tavis, this is our movement and our time. I look forward to working closely with you throughout this election. Thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely,
Barack Obama

The closest a girl can get...

2008-02-28T07:30:00.001-08:00

to having a penis. No, really. I think I've achieved it...i was looking at how I refer to my leetle friend the ostomy and it's as though it's a part of me, yet separate from me. We eat together, we live together, yet technically it's a part of my body, just not a part I actually would see on a normal-non-life-threatening basis.

And so, I think it's like a penis! Yeah, guys talk about their penises in third person, they refer to doing things with it, etc. etc. Same language and I imagine same experience. Very cool.

Life is bumping along. I went into the office this morning, nothing too interesting there. Still reading Good to Great in fits and starts. Classes are ramping up, I'm definately getting my money's worth out of both. I feel incredibly boring right now. Perhaps I could make good use of a nap...

In the air tonight

2008-02-26T07:54:00.001-08:00

In the air tonight
Last night a storm blew into town and it rained so hard and so fast that it reminded me of the someone typing on a keyboard really fast. I woke up and thought "wow, Visigoth is typing up a hot storm, I've never heard anyone but me and my mama type that fast!" Then I realized it was rain on the window and roof.

This morning is drab and gray and gorgeous. It's also pretty warm, which is a plus. I'm still a little brain dead, too much air pressure around town. But, no professional pressure! No other pressure either.

*sigh* that's all for now. Gonna enjoy the rain day.

Good to Great/ Good Grief!

2008-02-24T21:41:00.000-08:00

Good to Great
Anyone else out there read the book? I'm reading it now and maybe it's because I'm exhausted or maybe it's because I'm going through a phase of conscientious illiteracy - but I'm thinking I might have to do the audiobook. That way I can learn and do other shit at the same time.

I spent the weekend in Minneapolis, I really didn't give the city its due in my last blog, typos, misspellings, incomplete thoughts and all. Fabulous city. Jar-jar calls it the Mini-Apple and I'm feeling that. Everyone was so doggone friendly, too. Excellent customer service everywhere I went, people on the street smiled. Honestly, the unfriendliest place I've ever been was Indiana - Hoosier Hospitality? Even living in Manhattan I could connect with people on the street, hang out with a homeless person, get a walking partner for a few or 50 blocks if I was willing to tolerate getting hit on the entire time. San Francisco is a friendly city, hell, people will share their cocaine and make you a cheesecake that is 80% marijuana and LSD or have stranger-sex in public buildings - now that's friendly! For the record, I don't use illegal drugs and thus, while deeply honored by the offers, never took anyone up (but still, tell me that's not friendly).

Indiana, not so much.

Well, the trip to Minneapolis was a business trip. Emphasis on TRIP, as in, head trip, mind trip - c.r.a.z.y. Actually, there was just an element of crazy - one single element - but we all know one is exactly one too many as far as I'm concerned. It chafes my ass when people critisize others because of their own feelings of inadequacy. The other thing that chaps my hide, since I'm on the subject, is age-ism. I've been working since I was 8 years old and I've always worked in industries where my "peers" are significantly older than I am. I like that dynamic, it makes separating work and personal life easier and I see it as an opportunity to learn new skills and hear interesting stories. Every once in a while, though, I land in an environment or around a person or people who can't see beyond themselves and their disappointments with life long enough to give me a chance. This doesn't stop me from achieving my goals, collecting my stories or learning, but it hinders the process considerably and makes it uncomfortable on both sides.

This weekend I did an avoidance dance with someone who I, theoretically, should have been getting plenty of "face-time" with. But every time I made that foray into sharing thought and ideas I was condescendingly told that "well, you'll understand once you get older" or, worse, I was given some off-the-wall anecdote and called (hold your drawers) "pookie."

Now, this person isn't stupid. This person is highly intelligent, but I think she's professionally frustrated and personally under stress (or whatever, do I care, NO). Regardless, I saw the chasm grow between us as the weekend progressed. What had been a crack or simple schism became a canyon that I'm not willing to gear up for crossing. It's not worth it. In the timeless phrase of the method actor "what's my motivation?"

What I'm talking about is not a function of age. I can count a lot of people twice this person's age who approach life with considerably more wit, wisdom and tolerance. At least 10 of those people are in their 80s. There was a quote I liked that i read this weekend and i think it applies to those people who are so stuck in the hot tar of their lives that they have to suck the juice out of others with condescension, malice or whatever other little tricks they have accumulated over the years.

"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty." - Henry Ford

Old Henry may have been a racist anti-semite, but he was no dummy. That there mentioned above is the sum total of how I approach life and people. I like to see the lights turn on, but boy is it a strain to walk through calling out for a rope in the darkness of another person's mind.

Here is the kicker, by the end of the trip I'd given up all pretense of communication or interest in communication. I decided to talk to more interesting people, from whom i could learn something because they were willing to share and talk. And on the plane ride home, the "old" person had a small shift in (consciousness, perception, motivation, desire) and started chatting me up. Asked if I had friends around my homebase. Looked confused when I said my friends tend to live exactly as I do, with a homebase and nomadic soul. Maybe she sensed the professional situation was not "sold" with her as a participant and my young ass was part of the decision-making mechanism - something that had possibly been doubted or overlooked. Or maybe my rhapsodies about Prince a few nights prior stopped seeming like hormonal outpourings and more like passion - pure passion - for artistry. Who knows? More importantly, who cares? Not I, says the cat.

I want to call my favorite elderly people and listen to them laugh about all of this.

Fuzzy pillows to you all...

Ben n’ Ringo and The Pearl fishers

2008-02-23T21:24:00.000-08:00

Ben n’ Ringo and The Pearl fishers
Ostensibly, this is about music. But not really. I just saw a clip of Ben Harper interviewing and joking around with Ringo Starr. I kinda dig Ringo, he's low profile and i respect that. Ben Harper, well he's ambitious and low profile, thoroughly NorCal - interesting melange of characteristics and his Burn to Shine album put me on for a long, long time. His voice can annoy me though, so it's a mood thing, for sure.

The Pearl Fishers - I'm listening to Amici Forever right now. i know a lot of purists hate the Pop-Opera movement, but I think anything that keeps an art form vibrant and relevant without destroying the art of it is valid and I'm all for Pop-Opera since it's fun.

I'm in Minneapolis just not. No, I did not purify myself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka, but I damn sure thought about it. i've been marveling at this city - who knew? There is an eclectic vibe and industry and some sharp, interesting people wandering around. I like the energy and i can't say that about a lot of Midwestern cities. Mainly because of a prejudice developed while living in the seven level of hell (not Alabama, Indiana). I'm sleepy and I have some stuff to do for my writing class, but I just had to write something while in Minneapolis, hometown of one of the three living performers whom I would be completely unnerved to me. His royal purple badness, Prince.

Ach! There aren't words in the English language to describe how I feel about him, though I tried hard last night to articulate my feelings to a colleague. Prince: the artist who seemed to know the rhythm of my life and expressed spirt and sex ever so eloquently. And he's pretty. So pretty.

Okay, typing with both eyes closed...luvs!

I’m starting to lose faith

2008-02-21T08:22:00.001-08:00

I’m starting to lose faith
Oh Amy Winehouse. I've been playing your record for a long-ass time. And you're giving soul music a bad name right now.

You can't sing live. That's the basic requirement for soul music. Not the rnb bullshit they play on the radio with synthesizers, not the "nu pop" of britney spears pedophile-type stuff, but soul music. The gutbucket. You put out a gutbucket album, bitch, be able to sing that shit live!

Hiking your skirt up to your cooch in the first 4 bars is not going to distract from the fact that you're OFF KEY and OFF BEAT. Bad, bad, bad. Singing in front of big crowds is difficult, no arguing that. But a shitload of performers have met their obligations high, drunk or any combination of the two in the past. That's the best love you're likely to get for a long time.

Don't be a Dionne Warwick. If you were at the Apollo, Sandman would be dancing circles around your ass. So disappointing. My only hope is that you will be a Mariah Carey and use two years learning to sing live, then go on a concert tour. Take your junkie husband with you if you want, I don't much care, but learn how to sing live. A good album is nice. A good performance is real.

Bewitched, Bothered, not Bewildered though

2008-02-20T16:20:00.001-08:00

Bewitched, Bothered, not Bewildered though
I wanna go kung-fu fighting (huh!)

Well, I spent today doing lots of things. I watched a series of videos featuring a delicious boy (de-lish-ous) and installed a new computer that is just so fun and fly and fast!

I harassed my employees. It's not really harassment, but you know, every once in a while you have to remind people that you're not stupid. And I'm not stupid.

Now, I'm watching "Bewitched" with Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell. I know it panned at the box office, but I find it wonderful and enchanting.

Oh, my cousin got engaged this weekend. That's weird. But, somehow, not unexpected. We're kinda the marriage-happy type (pronounce marriage the way johnny depp does in Pirates of the Caribbean "mah-ree-ahge").

I also really like Kristen Chenowith. I think I would watch anything she's in. And I put a new monitor (my former HDTV from my bedroom) with my computer and waaa-laaaa, i can watch netflix movies on my computer (cause netflix, like myspace, hates macs).

Mmmmkay. Nothing real to write about. More focused on the writing class, have 4 critiques to write this week (eek!) and a total rewrite to complete by the 6th of March (triple eek!). It'll be fabulous.

Kisses.

Boo-boo the Clown

2008-02-18T07:52:00.000-08:00

Boo-boo the Clown
Watching Blue Streak right now. Ordinarily, I would not watch Blue Streak, but last night I caught "Inside the Actor's Studio" featuring a two-hour interview with Dave Chappelle. Dave said a lot that is especially important to me as I actively pursue my creative vision and desires.

The first thing that made a fantastic impression on me was related to Dave's decision become a comedien. His father pulled him aside, he was after all going to be the first person NOT to go to college since slavery ended, and asked him why he wanted to do comedy and why he didn't go for something more stable - such as teaching.

Dave asked his dad how much he made as a teacher. We all know the answer is "not a lot." So Dave told his dad that if he could make at least as much as a teacher, while following his dream, he would be satisfied. Dad could not argue with that logic and offered this gem: "Set your price at the very beginning. If it ever becomes more expensive, leave." (dave's aside: "hence Africa.") It's not that you fear hard work, it's that you know the price of your soul and what it will take to look at yourself in the mirror each morning. When you hit the point where there isn't pleasure in the work, when you can't look at yourself without wondering how much harm you are doing - the price is too high.

There is a tremendous amount of personal integrity in that statement. It seems in conflict with the way my grandfather did business - he shook someone's hand and if the job ended up being more expensive, he ate the cost. But there is a difference here. What Dave's father is talking about is giving of oneself. More than just skill or trade - self. I've always maintained that attitude about corporate work - always had time limits on how long I would do any given job. But when you're creating, you want so much to SHARE. It's like removing pieces of your flesh and getting giggly because other people want to eat them!

Speaking of, I watched Eddie Izzard "Circle" last night and it was hilarious. He did this bit about Jesus and God, and how God sent Jesus down to stop the false idol worship and Jesus came back to heaven PISSED OFF. He was like "they nailed me to a damn tree for THREE DAYS!" Then he and God got into what Jesus did on Earth. They went over the "easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into heaven" comment and Jesus reported that the rich had started putting their camels in cuisinarts and pouring them through the eyes of needles. So, he said, guess we'll be seeing all the wealthy up here pretty soon.

Then he talked about the last supper. God had real issues with the last supper. The whole "take of this and drink, for it is my blood" reeked of vampirism and the body metaphor was cannibalism. The joke was killer and it killed.

But back to Dave's advice. On Richard Pryor, Dave said this: "The mark of greatness is that everything that comes before you is obsolete and everything that comes after you bears your mark."

That is quite some standard to aspire to, but what was more compelling was the fact that Dave understood what Richard had done: he took all of himself and put it out for display, to teach, to entertain, to plug into the great pulsating stew of life and people loved him for it. Richard smoked crack, set himself on fire, beat his women, neglected his kids (and my personal pet peeve) could not swim. He put all of that on the table. In a hyper-intelligent, highly-refined manner.

I don't think it would hurt artists of any ilk to work from that ethos. To carve them(our)selves open and figure that if we can just arrange it right, people might love what we have to show. Jean-Michel Basquiat, anyone?

It's a great morning. I'm writing, fits and starts mostly, but writing just the same. I think I"m up to my wrist back into my characters and they are responding. I keep writing and rewriting. I'm starting to enjoy the rewriting. Always I think, "I don't want to rewrite, why do something twice or in multiples of 4 when I can just do it once?" That's my inner lazy bastard. Once the lazy bastard ambles off for a nap, I'm free to keep playing with the words and see the different ways they come out.

Happy Monday!

Uh-uh-uh,git it on girl!

2008-02-15T17:17:00.000-08:00

I got ANOTHER NEW WRITING CLASS!

Hooray for me. Hooooooorayyyyyyy for me! Rah, rah, rah, gooooooooooooo Camille!

I'm just so geeked. Gotham Writer's Workshop opened up another class for fiction. and I just bought in. I like writing (can you tell?) and I like taking classes. Perfect marriage of my favorite things.

These are a few of my favorite things...has anyone else out there heard Al Jarreau and Kathleen Battle's version of that song? It's glorious. Jazz vocal maestro and opera diva dance and dive and do the minuet over horns and drums and all everything. So beautiful.

And that's how I'm feeling right now. Like soaring. My class has already started so I get to play "catch up" which means I already have stuff to do and I'm behind, which is exciting. Love is in the air.

Crazy is Contagious

2008-02-13T20:10:00.000-08:00

Crazy is Contagious
Here we go again.

Same song, different singers. Has anyone else noticed that crazy is contagious? Let in one nutjob and everyone loses their minds. Domino effect and all that jazz. Take out the crazy and things settle down.

Wait, there is this ad for Will Ferrell's move "Semi-Pro" and apparently Andre from Outkast is in it and they are doing a screening tomorrow night. I've still not recovered from Talladega Nights, so I don't know if I need to endanger my stitching with another Will Ferrell movie just right now. Woody Harrelson is in it as well. I predict madness.

And that is encouraging. *Relieved Sigh* Crazy always ends up moving on. Yes, I'd like for it to move on sooner rather than later, but there are some things I can't change or affect in any meaningful way. It's like being on morphine or Dilatted and trying to have a coherent, linear conversation. You can have all the desire in the world, but there's just not that much getting around morphine and its derivatives. Instead, you talk, you black out, you dream you're still talking, you wake up after a couple of hours mid-syllable and continue talking - wash, rinse, repeat. There is no changing the process of healing and when you're not the decision-maker, or taste-maker, or the person who pays the bills - you can't dictate how long the crazy lasts.

Instead you do what you do on morphine, you make a decision that the needles in your arms don't matter, the blood transfusion will end eventually, and you set your mind to be happy and you don't waver no matter what happens. As I get slighly more involved with my office that is my decision - I'm happy. I'm healthy (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) and I have my dreams to accomplish. I'm loved, I've worked and earned the respect of my peers and my subordinates and my supervisors.

That last bit should be taken as indication that someone came after my job today. I knew it would happen. New people are entirely too predictable. What's that quote from Bulletooth Tony in Snatch? "Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity." ROFL. It's the god's honest truth. That's not to say you can't work with stupid people, but if they are actually intelligent but having a stupid phase, someone has to let them know in fairly concrete terms that they are, in fact, quite stupid and cannot contribute anything until they contribute the basics expected of them.

Gosh, that was a dense paragraph. Ah well, anyway, stupidity is predictable. Crazy is contagious. And I'm happy. Everything always turns out well anyway, why worry about it in the process? I need to get the library and rent some books. And I definitely need a class...the best cure for being distracted by the wrong thing is to get involved in the right thing.

Oh, and I'd like to thank everyone who has landed on my page by mistake and read my little missives. It means a lot to me. Just being read is a secret thrill, but I just looked at my blog log and I've had 19 kudos. Wow. that means people read and actually stop, take the time to let me know they have read. Wow. I love the internet. Did anyone else hear Hillary Clinton talking about how the U.S. invented the Internet? Does anyone else remember when the Internet was called the Information Superhighway or something like that? The Hills comment smacked of Al Gore. I dunno, I like Hillary, I appreciate her intelligence and her wily ability to work the system. I've read her books. People hate that she's overtly political and I wonder why. Is she supposed to be covertly political but still run a campaign? They (this being historians mainly) say Golda Meir was something like that. Rather, her effectiveness rested in her ability to take large issues and make them intimate, personal. Golda would take issues like economy, religion, the Palestinian conflict and speak of herself as a mother tending to her children and her home - the Israeli state. It was devastatingly effective.

Margaret Thatcher had a different approach. She was as steely as her hair was coiffeured. There was no soft overlay for Marge. She was highly effective. Hillary tries to blend styles, but you simply cannot make everyone happy at the same time. She's in the unfortunate position of having to attempt to do so. Blech. I don't envy the woman one whit.

I'm going to find myself a writing class. It will make work less interesting and more like a character study - plenty of fodder in a medical office.

Ta!

Doin’ the Hallelujah Dance

2008-02-13T06:04:00.000-08:00

Doin’ the Hallelujah Dance
Oh, I loooooooove to eat.

I relish good food. Last night I nearly ascended to the heavens. I had rich whole milk yogurt (what is the deal with low-fat? All they do is add sugar so it doesn't taste like shite on a stick and then we wonder why we're diabetic. No one needs that much sugar) with cardamon, cinnamon and honey. It was all creamy and wonderful. Said to be "European Style" which I don't quite understand as the mass-produced weird stuff they sell in mini-containers here in the States is foreign to me, but whatever.

Then, I made myself a grilled cheese sandwich with thick organic wheat bread and Jarlsburg slices. If i'd had tomato and avocado, I would have thrown them in there as well. It was ridiculous. With the yogurt I did a victory fist-pump in the air. Involuntary reaction to good food. I started dancing as I ate my grilled cheese. Chased all of that with strawberry-kiwi juice and went to gaze at my new sunflowers, which for all the world insist on looking like a Van Gough painting come to life. I'm not mad at them.

I'm sitting at home, in my bedroom, laughing at the foolishness of others. Crazy McCrazy is at it again, but she's just about worn the welcome mat out of existence. Poor thing, there is probably a lot happening in her personal life that she just can't handle.

Does anyone else out there love Handel's 'Messiah?' I've heard so many versions, but every single one is lovely. My favorite is an arrangement Quincy Jones did in the early 90s. I also love Debussy. Nothing calms the savage beasty inside like Debussy. His music is pure confection, notes like cotton candy whipped in the air on a cool day. And Mahler, Mahler is great for being productive. Can't leave out Rachmaninoff. I wouldn't play Rachy cause I'm rather fond of my newfound sanity, but listening to his compositions is heartening. It's lurvely.

Well, this is my morning missive. I just had to share the food tales. I had yogurt this morning before running out the door and it brought sunshine to what is a classically cold, dreary winter day. The other love of my life is my heating pad to warm my feet. I do harbor concerns that one day it will simply burst into flame, and I hope I wake and get away without any harm being visited upon me, but until that day it's my second-favorite thing to have in bed with me. All that warmth and just one little me.

Cheers and Happy Day to you all!

Roxanne

2008-02-12T20:38:00.001-08:00

Roxanne
I am listening to Ewan McGregor's fast and funk-y version of this song from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack...I need to download that movie onto my iPod. Anyway, here I am, back to doing what I do.

I had a moment this weekend. Life has been coming at me quite rapidly (that's me avoiding a trademark infringement) of late, I've been integrating into day-to-day life, the one that got disassembled around late february of last year. So, I've visited the office, I've started back to sorting through the miscellany of my life, piled high in corners of my house. Hint: most of this shit is going to the garbage. I take my little no-more-than 5 pound bags and feel quite accomplished. Every day a couple of bags. I've learned how to do things slowly in this past year. I've learned how to plan down to the bones every activity, but lately I've been feeling overwhelmed.

Then, this weekend I watched Akeelah and the Bee. Part of feeling overwhelmed was having more factors in my life than I'm accustomed to: agendas of others and everything. Who ARE these other people? Passers-by. Has anyone else noticed that the people who raise the most hell are the ones who spend the least amount of time in any given environment? You just can't sustain hellraising when you're a part of a group, when you're linked or otherwise bonded to other human beings in a consistent fashion. Ubuntu, you know, being human only through other humans. You cannot raise hell among your close fellow humans, but you can certainly do drive-by hellraisings.

So, there's been some hellraising in my life and I've had my internal head cocked to the side and my eyes slightly squinted wondering just what the fuck all these other people are going through and why they are dialing my number with their problems? That, I've realized, is entirely too much thought to give to these issues. Too much weight. I don't know if I'll ever say, "listen, you're an idiot and your business plan was purchased for $5.99 on legal.com. go away." But that's what I'm thinking. All.the.time.

Back to Akeelah. With all these different factors and whatnot I've been distracted from my books - from reading and writing and so forth. Agitating in the extreme (for me that means I spend a few hours a day wondering how to remedy my block and eat a lot of yogurt). Anyway, watching Akeelah I realized I simply needed to shift focus. I looked to the side for the equivalent of five minutes, being helpful, and danged if I lost track of my words. Danged if I didn't.

There is a quote in the book by spiritulist and writer Marianne Williamson that talks about the moral/spiritual/sentient being imperative to be the very best of ourselves. To let our individual light shine, as it gives others permission to shine their own. Obliterate the light, try to hide it, and we feed the darkness. I know of darkness, I know of living life with a boulder on your soul's shoulders and still seeking the sun. That life is over for me, so it's important that those passing by or passing through understand that even if they are slick enough to fool the people close to me, I'm not fooled.

These things resolve themselves one way or the other. In the meantime, I'm writing, I got a new fountain pen (Pelikan - aaaaahhhhhhh) and returning to the pleasure principle I've honed in the past year.

Can you believe I've been having surgery and hanging out at the hospital for an entire year of my adult life? Wow. What a year. Now...two years of recovery. Two years! Wow. I'm smiling. I'm so happy to be healthy that my toes curl in anticipation of the next milestone. i don't even know what it will be. Probably some incredibly unpleasant test or (infinitely less exciting) nerve pain that indicates new healing. There was talk of putting an implant on my spinal cord. I shit you not. I drew the line at that. I have, of course, drawn the line in the past to no avail, but I just can't reconcile myself with having an implant on my spinal cord. The longterm indications are not encouraging and just to correct some weird nerve damage that could very well correct itself in not too long? I trust my body to heal itself on that front, it's ambitious, I'm young and I appear healthy (getting closer on the inside and it feels so good!)

So, this message jumps around a lot. I generalized. Mostly i talked about work and keeping my mind sequestered away and honoring my priorities and ignoring the priorities of others. Life is simpler that way.

Go out and jump around in the world!

'Til Niagara Falls (did anyone else love that book in elementary school?),

Secret Heart