tinkonthebrink

2011-11-19T08:09:00.000-08:00

An acquaintance recently posted "Can someone tell me in 20 words or less what all the "occupy" crap is about? I only want 20 words to "occupy" my brain."

I don't really care if people want to remain as ignorant as possible - some of those people are perfectly nice. I just hope they don't get a wild hair up their ass and decide to vote.

Same person also said "I'm angry about having to pay for all the b/s that goes into their 'occupation'."
Okay, here's where it gets a little touchy for me, and I think this is not an isolated sentiment, it isn't just this one person, and this person as far as I know is not evil. But the right to peaceable assembly is bigger than the right not to ever be inconvenienced by someone's free speech. I am very grateful that as a woman, I have the right to vote, to at least aspire to equal pay, to own my own life. I'm grateful that African Americans have those rights and beyond that, that someone inconvenienced people around them to demand access to integrated education, to eat at the counter at a diner, to ride at the front of the bus, to no longer be denigrated in a systemized way. And I don't care who that inconvenienced or who payed for it.

I don't think what is happening now is any less a revolutionary path than those paths were. In both of those situations, no one set out with a grand plan of exactly how things would turn out. People were just fed up, at first a few, and then many more than a few. And even without the internet at their fingertips, there was enough power in the convictions of those first few brave people, and then among their supporters, that injustices were eventually worn away. Denigrating the Occupy movement because it's inconvenient or it's just too much trouble to figure out the issues is a blatant disregard for human rights, and for humans in general. A grassroots movement doesn't spring up with a power point action plan; that doesn't make it unfocused or ineffectual. It just makes it a real, human response to being treated unjustly.

My last quote from this acquaintance (again, not a bad person at all - a very ordinary person, someone you stand in line next to at the grocery store and who probably smiles nicely at you) is " I am happy to remain one of the whatever percentage of ignorant people there are out there."
Intellectual laziness is fine if you want to be kept as a pet, but again, please don't vote if you don't want to think. Really. Please. But beyond that, we all have to find some way to use our lives to endorse the values we espouse in a way that makes the reality of those values apparent and compelling and joyful. So that even the people who prefer ignorance can see an alternative and not be afraid to think a little harder. It's on us to make the revolution open to all without sacrificing integrity and intention.

I'm pretty sure we're up to it.

a tantrum day

2010-06-09T12:54:00.000-07:00

Just picked Little Bit up at school. She didn't know I was there yet, her back to me, working at a computer, got mad at the computer and picked up the keyboard and threw it against the monitor. Teacher said "do you want to talk to her?" and I said no, you talk to her and I'll take her when you're done. Eavesdropped. What sane person asks a person with autism to describe how they're feeling? "What's wrong, is something wrong? Are you upset? Are you feeling okay?" Please. Are you kidding me? Maybe the gigantic candy bar she gave her at field day had something to do with it...

I am guessing that Little Bit thinks that people without autism are complete morons.

good morning, let's freak out for a minute

2010-06-01T06:05:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure it's appropriate, although pointless, of course.

I think the gulf oil spill is such a cataclysmic event that there is either denial or outright obfuscation, because if people really understood how bad this is, we would all be freaking out. I think this is the event we will look back at a hundred years from now and say "and that was when it happened." We're living in an economy that can't take on many more blows. There isn't much left to absorb the damage, and there are going to be enormous blows coming out of this - entire industries, coastal economies, tourist economies, not to mention what is going to happen next to the oil industry as a result of this and the expense that will be passed on from that - all of that is hitting an economy that is already down for the count. We're way past being able to contain the problem, save habitats, save the fishing economy for that entire part of our country (not to mention other countries this will affect), we're past finding a happy solution. If it were capped right this second it would already be too late. All the backpedaling on BP's part ("there is no plume of oil below the surface..." - really???? Great!), their concerns over how much this is going to cost them, how they can do damage control and put a better spin on it - it's too late. This is the event that will change everything.

Of course, I could be wrong. Hey, lets book a cruise. Does driving a Prius count as a carbon offset?

a brief public service announcement

2010-05-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

I get really exhausted with people who have some crazy new diet or food obsession or who want me to subscribe to becoming macroneurotic or only eating foraged food or whatever. So it's with a gigantic grain of hand harvested fleur de sel that I am going to say this. If you are bothering to read this, please consider trying to go without wheat or dairy for a month. Really, you can do anything for a month. When you reintroduce these foods (one at a time), you will know immediately if you have a good reason not to consume them. And there are very good reasons to want to know this.

There's a very high likelihood that none of us digest wheat glutens very well. On the evolutionary timeline, although we think of bread as an ancient food, wheat is on the teeny tiniest little end bit of the timeline. Wheat and corn are the earliest engineered crops. Our bodies don't really know what to do with that. But there's more to it than just some digestive problems.

Even in people who have zero digestive symptoms, gluten intolerance causes increased gut permeability, which means that on a molecular level the foods you eat start leaving the appropriate place and roaming about in your abdominal cavity and sensibly enough, your body starts producing antibodies. As a result, other food sensitivities, intolerances, allergies result. It takes time. You won't know this is happening straight away.

Your doctor will likely be no help at all. Celiac disease/gluten intolerance is one of the most misdiagnosed and overlooked problems ever, primarily because there is no drug treatment and therefore no incentive to do research, testing, continuing education or in any way to pay attention to it. In fact, it's far more profitable to misdiagnose with conditions for which there are drugs.

One of the most common presenting symptoms of this problem is panic or anxiety disorders. In populations chosen for the diagnosis of schizophrenia or autism, the incidence of gluten intolerance is around 90%. There are obvious neurological associations then, also an increased risk of T cell lymphoma, colon cancer, osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, organ failure and loads of other charming things - all even if you have no symptoms at all. And even if physicians could be persuaded to look for this problem, the tests are fairly lame. A positive result does tell you something but a negative is not conclusive. And the only truly conclusive test is a surgical biopsy of the small intestine and when all that's done, the only treatment is to not eat foods with gluten.

So what I'm saying is, give yourself a month. Really, you will know when you reintroduce foods if they are causing you a problem. You will save yourself years of accumulating health problems which will only become apparent later on. You will save money on therapy for problems which are actually physical in origin, your skin will clear up, you'll stop having headaches and you will be a pain in the ass at restaurants. It's okay, it's well worth it. Just give it a shot.

I was lucky in the sense that I had digestive symptoms - which were consistently misdiagnosed, including by several gastroenterologists. I took medications which had no useful effect, went to therapy for panic disorder, took xanax, tried ssri's, had every typical presenting symptom of gluten intolerance. And if I hadn't done an elimination diet on my own I never would have figured it out. If I could go back twenty years, the only thing I would be intent on changing is to do that much sooner.

And I want to say again, it's very likely that this affects almost all of us on a continuum. So really, give it 30 days. I wish someone would've said that to me, but I'm grateful to have figured this stuff out. Even if I'm a pain in the ass at restaurants and miss eating lovely chewy bread.

kindness

2010-04-22T07:50:00.000-07:00

This is something I wrote in a notebook I carry with me so that when I'm twenty minutes early to everything, I have something to do.

I am thinking about kindness as a practice - kind driving, kind shopping, kind house cleaning, kind gardening, kind work with my clients, kind relationships. Kindness isn't always what it seems; it isn't ever just playing nicey-nice and smiling and metaphorically patting everyone on the head. Sometimes it's kindest to say no. Sometimes there are complicated choices. Most of the time true kindness requires looking both closely and deeply and not stopping with the obvious. The impulse toward kindness can be - or become - reflexive and instinctive, but the practice requires thought, which is maybe the reason that "kindness" and "thoughtfulness" are often interchangeable words.

Kind driving is a great example of this. Most of the people I know would probably consider themselves to be kind drivers, and in lots of ways they are (although I know a surprising number of otherwise kind and gentle people who have an alter ego that drives their car!). Most of the people I know don't cut others off in traffic, make obscene gestures, lay on their horns, tailgate because they're in more of a hurry than the person in front of them - you know, all the obvious rude stuff. But now make it a real practice, and make the picture both wider and more detailed. Assume you are responsible for the best possible experience for EVERYONE around you on the road. You are the ambassador of vehicular kindness. So you have to consider the person behind you, the person behind them, the person behind that person, the car in front of you, the one hoping to enter traffic from a sidestreet, and it isn't simple. If you let the person on the sidestreet in, do half a dozen people behind you miss making the next traffic signal? If you are able-bodied, do you voluntarily choose the farthest away parking spots? Even if it's raining? Is your car the kindest car you can afford, one that uses as few resources as possible, and do you drive only when it's really necessary and combine errands as carefully as you would if you had to walk? Do you leave early enough for work or appointments that you don't need to hurry, and you don't need to harbor resentment and impatience and steam at the tiny old person who can barely see over the steering wheel and who is driving 20mph below the speed limit? Because the point isn't just that you refrain from tailgating or gesturing wildly to hurry them along; as a practice, the point is the effect on your own thoughts and feelings. What matters is that you use the amazing power of your conscious mind to create more kindness in yourself.

So it isn't a simple thing, but the gift of any practice is that with time and repetition and persistence, new patterns are constructed, pathways where the practice begins to flow more smoothly. And of course, when that happens, we can use our attention to notice finer and finer details, farther and farther reaching consequences, because that's the thing about a practice - it isn't ever "finished."

typing out loud

2010-04-05T08:10:00.000-07:00

I'm one of the most talkative people I know, but lately I've been mostly speechless, at least as far as the internet goes, which is pretty far.
It's odd how much I've counted on the secluded little Gaia community as a place where I could say pretty much anything, feel like I was talking amongst friends and that I would be forgiven if I was silly or dumb or worse. I am a little bit adrift. This makes me think that maybe I should write a book, you know, just to talk on purpose to people I don't know and also of course because I am attracted to endeavors that will never ever make any money at all. (What, did you think I was going to open a bank, or a bookie business, or start selling...well, anything? I would be the world's worst salesperson, no matter what the product was - "Really, you probably don't need this. I mean, you don't have it now, and you're fine, right?") So, yeah, me, adrift. A bit.

I'm putting on my big girl panties now and dealing with it.

Tomorrow morning one of our fabulous poodle pups goes to get his nads snip-snipped - they are brother and sister and we of course don't want crazy mutant poodle puppies to ensue, so he goes first. She goes as soon as the freaking IRS gives us our tax refund for buying this falling down house, which they apparently think will break the bank because they are stalling and foot dragging and being all governmental and stuff (read as "being stupid and annoying"). I think she's going to freak out at being away from him tomorrow for an entire day, whereas he won't even notice what's happened, what with the anesthesia and all. Maybe I'll rearrange all the furniture while he's gone, just to surprise him.

potato pancakes, cabbage and computer malfunctions

2010-03-18T10:29:00.000-07:00

I started this blog a long time ago with all kinds of good intentions, but I kept blogging on Gaia and faded out here. On Gaia, people commented, conversations started, it wasn't just me blabbing. But Gaia is going to be no more, and knowing myself, I can't stop talking. So I'm hoping people will talk back, and I won't just be floating out here talking to myself. Yes?

I am having fits with Picassa, which is where I download and store all my photos. I suppose I need to uninstall and reinstall, but since the issue is that I can't transfer any photos it will mean losing everything I've put in before I realized I couldn't get the photos back out again. Can't email, can't post to a web album, any attempt crashes my computer and I have to restart. It is quite happy to download, it just won't regurgitate in any form. Anyone have any thoughts? Frustrating.

Last night Krissy brought home Dropkick Murphys and today I'm eating lovely leftover cabbage and potato pancake. I'd post a pic, but you just heard my sad sad story, so forget that. I could go use the lappy but stubbornness has set in now and that would just feel like surrender to the forces of cyber evil if I give in. So just imagine really cute wedges of cabbage with coarse black pepper and lovely little potato cakes with onions, all nicely browned and adorable and yummy. Whatever you imagine, it's even better, I swear.

why I am not a professional gambler

2008-12-22T06:20:00.000-08:00

Last night was card-playing night with housemate Albert and Krissy's niece Kasie who was staying overnight to get a headstart on driving with Krissy to a family party from which I am immune, as we have four dogs who can't be left untended for a twelve hour day if we hope to have a house here when we get back. Thank the gods for dogs, because my family party experiences did not prepare me for this kind of thing. In my family we believed in the adults getting somewhat plastered and then my mom agreeing to let my uncle pull me behind his car on a sled tied with rope (I kid you not). Because I think my mom wasn't really enthused about parenthood.

Anyway, if I had video of this card game it would be a YouTube sensation, consisting of the thirteen year old girl constantly asking about cards sitting face up on the table "wait, what's that being played on?" alternated with whining "that's not fair!" when she wasn't doing well and then backpedaling with an oh-so-clever "just kidding" because otherwise she knew that flames would actually burst from my forehead and sear off her hair and she wants to look good in the holiday pictures. And then our charming dog becoming possessed by dog demons and insisting on sitting in the center of the table - not a small dog, mind you, a Vizsla-sized dog, and refusing to be removed so that I had to pull her off against all her efforts to brace her feet and cause herself to magically weigh 1200lbs. Albert drank more and more scotch and I don't think he could even remember what game we were playing but in the end somehow won anyway because the universe is just not fair and that's the way it is, so get over it, Kasie. Oh, and who was the bigtime bottom of the heap loser? Oh, yes, that would be me.

proof that I am evil

2008-12-11T02:05:00.000-08:00

So I had a five minute conversation with Little Bit's teacher and the program coordinator at her school. And in that short amount of time I managed to ruin everyone's day and cause her teacher to well up with tears. It's a magic trick I perform. The thing is, my inner editor is on time delay. You know how people say "I wish I'd thought to say that at the time..."? They don't mean it. They don't know what they're asking for.

So this program coordinator says about Little Bit, who by the way has autism, "She tantrums and has behavior problems and we think it's about food because she demands orange juice and popcorn and screams and cries and then when we give it to her she stops."

And before my editor kicks in and before I can find an ax to chop my own head off, my mouth goes ahead and says "So she's training you then?"

And the only good thing that happened was that the program coordinator person finally thankfully stopped talking and turned all red. But her teacher, who I really like, looked stricken and sad and watery and then we left, because after all, my job there was done.

Later I poked kittens with sticks and teased homeless people by holding food just out of reach.

I even procrastinate about talking to myself, that's how bad it is

2008-11-24T05:35:00.001-08:00

I am obviously very undisciplined about keeping up with more than one blog. I do pretty well with blogging on Gaia and I think what keeps me going is the sense of community and the running commentaries, whereas here I tend to feel that I'm talking to myself which I do more than often enough in my car. But a community with a specific intention is a little different - it's like thinking that because I talk with people at the yoga studio I don't need to speak at any other time during the day. Which maybe would benefit the world, come to think of it, but I'm not going there.

I've also tried to limit the time that I am glued to a keyboard or video game in favor of, say, doing an art project or maybe sweeping the floor or taking off my pyjamas before I forget how to do those things altogether. But that's not the point. Assuming I have a point, I think it would be that this is exactly the place for talking to myself and I'm falling down on the job. And that if I were more diligent it might cut down on the number of times I have to start pretending I'm on my phone because someone is watching me babble on and on in my car all by myself.
So I'm committing to posting a couple of times a week at least, say about as often as I sweep the floor or take off my pyjamas. Kidding about the pyjamas...

Now I have to get on to the art project. I was the one who initiated this postcard/art card circle where we all exchange handmade cards once a month and of course, I'm the one who's going to be late late late this month - although I haven't received anyone else's cards yet, so I'm assuming in good company. I'm posting a shot of one of last month's cards. I'd post the current month's, but, oh yeah, I'm a slacker and they aren't ready yet.

At this rate I think we'll have thanksgiving dinner on Valentine's Day...

super powers of adorableness

2008-08-18T06:10:00.000-07:00

Lyra, our extremely adorable puppy, has now become even more adorable by insisting on dragging a blankie around the house with her. She prefers this one green rug or a striped towel that we let her have in her crate. And she walks around the house with it hanging out of mouth and trailing along under her feet. Krissy says that her real name is Linus Lyra Woodsy, but the Linus is silent.

mayberry on acid, that's where I live

2008-08-02T06:19:00.000-07:00

Ok, this was just on the local news. Some dude got out of jail and immediately tried to break into a cabin. By going down the chimney. He got stuck. It happens that last year this cabin was used as "santa's headquarters". But wait, it just gets better. When they pulled him out, his clothes came off.
god I love living here.

good times

2008-05-18T14:54:00.000-07:00

Yeah, okay, it's been over a month. I know. In that time I had surgery on my left knee and in a crazy 2-for-1 deal, ortho dude agreed to take out the hardware in the same leg from an old tib/fib fracture. So one anthroscopy, 8 screws and a titanium plate later, I'm almost back to normal, or as close to normal as I ever get. Tuesday the sutures come out and I go back to work. Going back to work is great since I need the money but I'm growing to really like the time off thing now that my body is in working order.

I have to say, the medical technology that I got to take advantage of is awesome and nearly magical. I requested spinal anesthesia and no Versed so I could watch and crack terrible jokes during the whole dealio and remember it all. I got to see the bones in my leg and watch someone unscrew things from them. He had to knock the plate off with this little hammer, which was kind of freaky. And I watched the arthroscope on the monitor. Very cool stuff. I did overhear the anesthesiologists before the procedure - one of them said "Is she sure she wants to do that", and there was no audible answer which I assume means shoulders were shrugged and eyes possibly were rolled, but I was sure. And it was definitely an interesting and worthwhile experience.

So. Now I feel like I've been running with weights on and someone took them off and if I don't keep myself in check I might take flight. Krissy comes home from work and makes fun of my endless list of things I've accomplished during the day and then says things like, "What, you haven't painted the house yet?". And it's down there on the list but I haven't gotten there yet.

Life is good.

puppy whipped

2008-04-15T10:17:00.000-07:00

I know I'm biased, but our dogs are the cutest dogs in the entire universe, and Lyra and DobbyDog in particular are so completely in love with each other that I want to send them valentines. What, anthropomorphizing you say? Yeah, maybe, but just look at them. This is obviously a picture taken when they weren't trying to bite each other's faces, but that's cute too.

First Impressions

2008-04-14T00:23:00.000-07:00

So, this past weekend I got to meet The New Girlfriend when she and Adrian came up for the weekend. She survived the onslaught of our badly behaved and overly enthusiastic dogs who greet people coming into our house by barking, levitating about ten feet off the floor, and in the case of the puppy, attempting to eat all their clothing (because the best way to impress people is obviously to immediately eat all their clothing). She not only survived but didn't seem fazed in the least. So although I didn't get to spend much time with her, I know she is a really, really good sport. Either that, or she was raised in a barn by wolves with serious ADHD, which is the dog training model we use in our home.
New Girlfriend is actually New Fiance (not that there was a previous fiance) and her name is Chandini, which I was told (after getting it wrong all the times I was saying it in my head before I met her) is NOT pronounced like Houdini, but with the accent on the first syllable.
So I think she seems great but can't really guess what she thinks of us. At least I wasn't the one who tried to eat her clothing...

my fabulous unplanned vacation

2008-04-11T00:02:00.000-07:00

On the plus side, ortho dude thinks I will be able to get by without surgery on my all-kinds-of-fucked-up knee. Breaking out the confetti as I'm typing. The downside is, he's taken me out of work for two months, for which I will not be paid since I've now used up all my paid time off. This is what I get for having a very physical job which doesn't have a "light duty" option - all those times I gloated about getting paid to take my dogs hiking? Yeah, this is the universe smacking me upside the head on that one.
So hey, two months to do anything I want, as long as it costs absolutely nothing or less. w00t.