Lists; things that make me happy

This makes me happy:


It is blooming in my house.

Jons and Johns and Misinformation

John is my close friend. In high school, he knew another good friend of mine, Jon. He's also friends with my brother Jon. He is involved with a girl right now who used to date my ex boyfriend Jon (not the Jon that John knew in high school). Apparently Jon told his other ex girlfriend who John is currently involved with that I said unpleasant things about John's sexual history.


I know other Jons and Johns. But they're nicer to me and don't purvey misinformation. Very much.

I urge parents to please be more original. How on earth can I keep track of all these rumors about me if everyone has the same name??

Old Posts.

To clarify, I wrote this awhile ago, during my obsession with Huell Howser, a man who finds everything interesting.


October 3rd, 2005

Yesterday:

First day of Foothill/DeAnza horsemanship class. I was there all day, saying the same thing over and over again.

Today:

I learned about the Integratron:

The Integratron is the creation of George Van Tassel, and is based on the design of Moses’ Tabernacle, the writings of Nikola Tesla and telepathic directions from extraterrestrials. This one-of-a-kind building is a 38-foot high, 55-foot diameter, non-metallic structure originally designed by Van Tassel as a rejuvenation and time machine. Today, it is the only all-wood, acoustically perfect sound chamber in the U.S.

Scientist and pilot, Bruce Cathie, pronounced from his research that the Integratron has

"the same harmonic value that is built into the King's Chamber in the Great Pyramid. I believe that this harmonic is connected with inter-dimensional values. The yin/yang or gateway to dimensions."

Huell Howser, PBS travel log guru, says

"You made a believer out of me. I can FEEL the energy here!"

Recording artist, Billy Corgan, of rock groups Smashing Pumpkins and Zwan, says,

"I believe that projects like this should be supported."

Celebrities have discovered the relaxing and rejuvenating benefits of a Sound Bath at the Integratron, one calling it

"their new favorite desert experience."

Anyway. I live with my brother and my boyfriend. His girlfriend is here a lot too, so between the three of us, her and our dog we have five little warm bodies here.

Tomorrow:

One more day of weekend. Clean up after the five little warm bodies, including the kitchen, living room and our bedroom.

---------------------------

My situation is as follows.

As I mentioned earlier we have five warm little bodies that are here. We live in just one piece of a large building which is one of several buildings in our condominuim complex. Thinking about the building we live in reminds me of the picture on the box of the ant farm that my mother gave me when I was eight. The ants had dug several main tunnels, off of which were little holes like compartments that may or may not have had other little compartments attached to them.

We live in a compartment that has two smaller ones attached where we keep our personal things, including beds. Three of us warm little bodies use one, and the other two use the second.

So we live in a big city just full of these little ant farm buildings. It's a nice big city, but unfortunatly our ant farm is on the outskirts so I don't get to experience it much.

Moving here was supposed to change everything, but I am still unhappy.

Surrounded by pregnancy

http://www.nwfdailynews.com/article/6816

Yesterday I went and met a high school friend of my boyfriend and his wife. My boyfriend refers to the wife as "and his child-bride" because she's 19 or 20 or something. And pregnant.

I kept trying to figure out what exactly it was that she does other than provide fertile ground for her husband's seed and was not able to determine much. I also had a brief moment of panic when another family showed up, small children in tow.

These were the two prevailing thoughts in my head:

-I don't dislike the idea of staying at home all day with the kids, in fact I like it. I think mothers and fathers should be around their kids as much as possible and if you can afford it, you should have at least one parent at home. The only thing is I don't ever see myself in that position and I don't know why. Perhaps it's because I've never been close to marrying anyone responsible enough to be the sole breadwinner or really any kind of breadwinner or even someone capable of taking care of a cactus let alone me and/or a child. Perhaps it's because I have these conflicting principles about earning my own money, standing on my own ground and, at the same time, wanting to be taken care of and looked after. Perhaps it's because having total and utter dependency on just one human being is so terrifying that I can't or couldn't bear it. So I was totally fascinated by someone who had it all mapped out for her. The ease and simplicity of not having to make any real choices besides what to make for dinner; the docile, gentle, guilt-free acquiescence, of a pregnant 19 year old. I sometimes wish that was my world.

- The brief moment of panic following the arrival of the family. I don't know where it came from. It slowly dissipated, but was not a feeling I was unfamiliar with.

----------------------------------

Despite all of this, I am still amazed at the restorative powers of a nice cup of tea.

Lists; things that make me feel comfortably uncomfortable

A former student of mine asked me if I could answer some of her questions regarding my alma mater. I agreed and also put her in contact with other friends of mine that attended colleges on her list.

-She isn't necessarily like me when I was 16, however she definitely would have been my friend had we been born around the same time.

-I'm excited for her, because I'm watching her make a lot of the same discoveries I made at that age; it's hard for me, at times, not to spoil the surprise and just to let her figure out things on her own.

-She's falling in love with Kurt Vonnegut and The Flaming Lips among other heroes of mine. She's ambitious and warm and strange and says "Sometimes I weird people out; I try not to, though."

Lists; Things that I think are silly:

An Isuzu Rodeo that I saw in the parking lot that’s vanity plate read “CE LVIE”. Does that mean you’ve accepted the mediocrity to which your life has descended by the purchase of such a vehicle?

The banality of the Blandy*. Is he really that boring?

Nervousness on the part of my own submissions. Am I really
that boring?

*Not his real name. I'm aware of the Arrested Development reference.

I heart Craigslist

I'm looking for a new place to live. I came across this Craigslist Ad. It needs no embellishment from me:

$400 GEAT DEAL FOR STUDENTshitter for rent any time

i am renting a toilet for about a half hour a day for the summer
sorry females only or drags if you are cute tp not included
you will be put though a series of not needed to know qestions
wile you are here you should not be here we will lie to you and
try to fuck you out of your deposit any way so at least you know
that we are crooked morbid asshole that would rat out my own
mother for a hit of meth, crack, heroin, or a combo rock made of all
three thanks happy pooping

ps i wont call back in time and many hidden charges so piss off

You thought fermented potatoes were bad?

According to the Medical Journal, Lancet,

43% of deaths in working-age Russian men result from drinking non-beverage alcohol, such as cologne and cleaning agents. Even 8% of men in the control group drank non-beverage alcohol.

I mused to my friend J that perhaps they were drinking Axe Body Spray. He wrote back:

"Yikes. Why don't they just huff rags soaked in gasoline, like the rest of us?"

I'd provide a link to the article, but unfortunately you'd have to have permission to read it. Here's the summary:

Background

The reason for the low life expectancy in Russian men and large fluctuations in mortality are unknown. We investigated the contribution of alcohol, and hazardous drinking in particular, to male mortality in a typical Russian city.

Methods

Cases were all deaths in men aged 25–54 years living in Izhevsk occurring between Oct 20, 2003, to Oct 3, 2005. Controls were selected at random from the city population and were frequency matched to deaths by age. Interviews with proxy informants living in the same household as cases were done between Dec 11, 2003, and Nov, 16 2005, and were obtained for 62% (1750/2835) of cases and 57% (1750/3078) of controls. We ascertained frequency and usual amount of beer, wine, and spirits consumed and frequency of consumption of manufactured ethanol-based liquids not intended to be drunk (non-beverage alcohol), and markers of problem drinking. Complete information on markers of problem drinking, frequency of alcohol consumption, education, and smoking was available for 1468 cases and 1496 controls.

Findings

751 (51%) cases were classed as problem drinkers or drank non-beverage alcohol, compared with 192 (13%) controls. The mortality odds ratio (OR) for these men, compared with those who either abstained or were non-problematic beverage drinkers, was 6·0 (95% CI 5·0–7·3) after adjustment for smoking and education. The mortality ORs for drinking non-beverage alcohol in the past year (yes vs no) was 9·2 (7·2–11·7) after adjustment for age. Adjustment for volume of ethanol consumed from beverages lowered the OR to 8·3 (6·5–10·7), and further adjustment for education and smoking reduced it to 7·0 (5·5–9·0). A strong direct gradient with mortality was seen for frequency of non-beverage alcohol drinking independent of volume of beverage ethanol consumed. 43% of mortality was attributable to hazardous drinking (problem drinking or non-beverage alcohol consumption, or both) adjusted for smoking and education.

Interpretation

Almost half of all deaths in working age men in a typical Russian city may be accounted for by hazardous drinking. Our analyses provide indirect support for the contention that the sharp fluctuations seen in Russian mortality in the early 1990s could be related to hazardous drinking as indicated by consumption of non-beverage alcohol.

Shudder. Shudder. Shudder.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

"I've always wanted to set up an idyllic community of like-minded individuals where cousins are not only free to marry but are even forced to marry. It might be too good to be true, but I think it would be wonderful if they included a good dose of shunning in their daily activities; they could shun the newspaper, books, the movies, television, the internet, and any other source of information or education. I doubt it would take more than two or three short generations before the shunning habit led to gross misinformation about the world in general and genetics in specific and freak genetic mutations started becoming common. Wouldn't that be lovely? It would also be great if everybody sported fashions from the 19th century."

-RCD

In response to this article.

More on Birth Control Pills

So birth control pills contain Progesterone, a synthetic hormone that's part of the whole sneaky trick your body into thinking it's pregnant - it's non synthetic, naturally manufactured version present during pregnancy, progesterone is "the pregnancy hormon". The reason pregnant women create it is because of the fetus's having 50% of someone else's genetic material. It works as a natural immunosuppressor so that the mother's immune system does not attack the fetus. Obviously the mothers who didn't do this didn't have fetuses that made it to term and therefore did not pass on there genetic material.

The reason why women can have this high level of immuosuppressor is because they only have to do it for 9 months at a time. During this time, the have "greatly increased risk of blood clotting, high blood pressure, cancer, mental disturbances, weight gain, hormone swings and immune suppression" (Sarah Myhill, MD).

Think about doing that to your body for 5-10 years - I have plenty of friends that have taken the pill continually for that amount of time.
-------------
This causes a bit of frustration for me, because I would like to be able to use some sort of birth control beyond condoms. I just can't bring myself to go through what I did when I was on the Pill and now, after being exposed to the papers in the medical journals that I have access to at work, including the work by Dr. Ellen C. Grant, I am even more terrified of them.

Persons Anonymously Committing Crimes Against My Morals

The other day I walked into the kitchen at work with my empty tea mug.
Someone was standing at the sink with his mug. He looked
like he was getting ready to wash it when he turned to me and said:

"So, do we have cleaning people to come and wash these?"
------------------------------

Potato Leek Soup

Monday, June 04, 2007

1 onion

2 russet potatoes

3 red potatoes

4 or 5 Leeks

3 tomatoes

4 cloves garlic

Thyme, basil, salt and pepper

2 quarts vegetable stock

1 can coconut milk

Olive oil

-Chop half of the onion, both russet potatoes, 2 leeks, 2 tomatoes and add to pot of vegetable stock. Add 3 cloves of crushed garlic. Boil until everything is cooked. Add thyme, basil, salt and pepper to taste.

-While those vegetables are boiling, chop up the remainder of vegetables and reserve. Put the chopped red potatoes in a seperate pot and boil.

-Take cooked vegetables and stock and blend until smooth and delicious. Return to pot and stir in coconut milk. Leave on low heat to keep warm.

-Heat olive oil with 1 crushed/chopped garlic clove. Add onion, leek and cooked red potatoes. Add salt and sautee until colors are nice and vibrant. Add to soup along with (uncooked) chopped tomato.

Enjoy!

I can't wait for this movie:

The movie is called "Crazy Love" and it is about Bert and Linda Pugach. Here is a short summary of their story:

Linda Riss met Burt Pugach in 1957. They had a relationship for about a year, during which she discovered he was married. After realizing his promises to divorce his wife were not going to be followed through with, she left him. He stalked and threatened her and upon discovering her engagement to someone else, he hired somone to throw lye in her face, permanently disfiguring her and causing damage to her eyes that resulted in blindness later on. He went to jail for 14 years, proposed to her via television on the day of his parole (he wasn't allowed to ask her directly due to the restraining order preventing him from contacting her) and 8 months later they were married.

Weird huh? You always ask yourself (at least I do), how much of myself am I willing to comprimise in order to not be alone. For me, comprimising myself too much is a mistake I'm not willing to make again. These two people either have a really incredible sense of humor or none at all. I tend to think it is the former, based on this quote I found in the New York Times:

"Mrs. Pugach, who's skin looks remarkable for her 67 years, responds to compliments by saying "Lye is good for the skin but bad for the vision." When asked if his wife holds a grudge, Mr. Pugach, now 76, replied with a smile "She doesn't throw it in my face.""

..............................................

Birth Control Pills

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

At my new job, I have a lot of access to medical journals. My boss encourages me to do whatever reading of papers I feel is necessary to better myself as a person. I've made one or two astounding discoveries that I already had a few suspicions about from personal experience.

The birth control pill was an integral part of the sexual revolution. It was liberating for women in so many ways and had a pervasive effect on our culture and society. The FDA has recently approved a version of the pill that will allow women to suppress menstruation indefinitely. I used to think that this was a good thing, based on the evidence that women are not supposed to menstruate any where near as much as we do. We are designed to be pregnant or nursing a lot of the time, with high infant mortality rates, and thus would have menstruated a few times a year instead of a few times a month.

My own experience with birth control pills led me to some doubts about the safety of using birth control pills, given that they are synthetic hormones. I was highly sensitive, no matter what the dosage, trying 3 different kinds before I just gave up. I had severe anxiety, nausea, hot flashes and general discomfort. This led me, through a coworker who had a similar interest, to studies done by Dr. Ellen C. Grant, who was involved with the initial birth control studies done in the 60's.

It turns out, and I'll have more on this later (I've only done very preliminary research and I don't have a lot of time right now), that not only does the Pill come with potential acute side effects that we all know about such as thromboembelism (blood clots), stroke and heart attacks, but the Pill puts women at greater risk for long term heart and circulatory damage. This affects all women, not just those who are in the "at-risk" category.

There's a whole lot more to this story, with the almost certain damage to the circulatory system aside, but I urge all of you to learn as much as you can about drugs that your doctor might put you on or ones that you choose to take on your own.

La condition humaine

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

"La condition humaine is the art of suffering, enjoying oneself and
dying."

-Ivan Illich

I read an article today in Ode magazine (for intelligent optimists) about Ivan Illich and his views that technology and development get in the way of having a truly free and egalitarian society.

My favorite part of the article addressed a plan he devised to have a bicycle alliance. Everyone rides a bicycle and the only cars allowed on the road are taxis.

Bay to Breakers: lists

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Bay to Breakers tomorrow. I love that San Francisco has a drunk run for everyone to participate in. It makes it one of the best cities in the world.

Things to be excited about or things that are totally cool:

- Two kinds of pie that Ryan and I spent the afternoon baking. The plan was originally to spend the morning hiking and the afternoon baking pie. We didn't make it on the hike. That's not to say we didn't get our exercise though. Well. At least the cardio and some varying, challenging calisthenics. It was quite invigorating.

- Cardiovascular and calisthenic exercises. They are so awesome when you have a workout buddy!

- Silly birds, flowers, cocktail umbrellas in our hair plus red sparkly capes. Yay!

- The pies are for a dinner party at Claudia's after Bay to Breakers.

- Ryan is riding his bike to the dinner party from Palo Alto. Because he's awesome.

Things that are lame:

-My being unable to sleep at the moment.

- My friend's excuse for not doing Bay to Breakers (please keep in mind that although I am prone to exaggeration and the occasional fabrication, this is excuse is completely true and required no restructuring or embellishing from me in order to make it more lame than it already is) He hurt his back wearing a kilt that he wore to take his sister to her prom. I guess I would be more willing to take it as a legitimate excuse if he didn't seem to have excuses for everything.

- The same friend's excuse for not coming to dinner tomorrow. He hasn't made it yet and probably won't until a few days after the actual dinner but I'm sure there will be one and that sauce, as they say, will be weak. It will come in the form of an email, subject heading "Hey!" and the first word being "Sorry". If not that then it will be in a text message, by carrier pigeon or telegram, just as long as he doesn't have to talk to me in person about it, thus absolving himself of any need for testicular fortitude.

What a shame that a rare person, one that I genuinely think is a fun person to hang out with is flakier than a hippy on Phish tour.

FLICKRVISION

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

I've been staring at this for awhile now:

www.flickrvision.com

It's a totally awesome site that shows you what everybody in the world is uploading to Flickr.

Small Considerations

Saturday, May 12, 2007

I like them.

I'm frustrated with people who don't give them.

Unfortunate movies.

Current mood: horrified

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

www.lionsgate.com/deltafarce

Let me just begin by saying that I feel uncomfortable even saying the name of this film and I hope you do as well.

I saw a preview for this film when I went to see Hot Fuzz. I came to the conclusion that this is what happens when republicans make a comedy.

Apparently 3 incompentant soldiers get accidentally dropped into Mexico instead of Iraq and hijinks ensue.

But not the good kind of hijinks that happens in 80's movies, such as people falling in swimming pools, sneaking hot girls into your bedroom after hours and pies getting accidentally hurled into old ladies faces. Perhaps a car chase or two and definitely Rodney Dangerfield making wisecracks.

While watching the preview, I started to think about were I an actor, at what point would I accept such a role. How much of myself and my values would I need to comprimise would in order to get a job. Unfortunately I have a sneaking suspicions that these actors weren't really making any moral comprimises when they signed the contract for this film:

It stars three people who I had never heard of (until the magic of Wikipedia) including the freakish DJ Qualls, (star of such film gems as Road Trip and The New Guy), Bill Engvalls (even IMDB didn't really have much to say about him) and Larry the Cable Guy. Fans of "Dorf" and Jeff Foxworthy, hold on to your hats!

I went to Larry the Cable Guy's website because I was curious to see if he was the flag waving "Fuck Bin Ladin" t-shirt wearing moron that his name and presence in Delta Farce might denote.

Turns out, he is. He actually says this on the front page:

"The preceding script was for entertainment purposes only. If you're uptight, humorless, and P.C. in any way, please exit the site! Don't read this and then bitch and moan later on about it. I can't stress enough, life's too short so get over yourself. Now... me and my fans cordially invite you to pucker up and kiss our collective asses!"

If you have to excuse your bad jokes with a disclaimer after you've made them, then they aren't funny and neither are you.