A Treasure Found at Home

ok, still not my writing but very near and dear to my heart none the less. please please help.

WE NEED YOUR HELP…NOW!CALL TO ACTION: VOICE YOUR OPINION TO THE BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT ABOUT ARBITRARY AND UNJUSTIFIED BURNING MAN FEE INCREASES

The BLM has threatened to increase Burning Man’s fees again this year without any rational justification.  It’s the last week of the public comment period before the BLM issues us a 2006 event permit with stipulations requiring Burning Man to pay more money than they are allowed to legally charge under the BLM regulations.Burning Man needs its community to flood the BLM with letters and emails stating that this increase is unjustified.  An emergency Jack Rabbit Speaks will be going out Monday morning and there is a link on the Burning Man homepage to the full story including a sample letter to send to the BLM at http://burningman.com/news/blm_news_06.html  Please forward this to your burner friends and ask everyone you know to send in their comments before next Friday, May 5th. Don’t let the BLM raise Burning Man’s fees again!  Thank you for taking action!

i was reading the best of craigslist again and, as usual, found one i just had to share.

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/van/148746330.html

and a gratitude list, for good measure:

• wash n fold
• getting to wash n fold *just in time* to pick up laundry
• pedicure
• allergy meds
• instant messaging
• vpns
• warm sunshine
• parking that doesn’t require a permit

too early
too early
all my life i’ve been
too early
but never ahead of the game
because no one told me it was just a game
until it was too late
and by then i didn’t believe
because i’d been too early

what is it about a spring morning in the city? i’ve lived in sf proper for three years and still the rattle rattle rattle sqeeek of a bus passing me on a dry april morning recalls me to england.

days when i took off my shoes to feel the cool grass of a city park and still wasn’t yet willing to give up the sweater wrapped around my arms and shoulders like an apology for having to wake up this early.

i wait for the train to work this morning. if i close my eyes and listen to the sounds of trucks banging down the street and beep beep beep back up the street, then all that’s missing is the rutabaga rutabaga rutabaga of fellow travelers and the knowledge that someone has gone off to find us coffee and croissants. if i just close my eyes i can be in victoria station one more time, waiting for another train to moss covered cemeteries and forgotten names etched in stones nearly worn smooth with time.

the only cemeteries i spend time in now, however, are those full of names i’ve heard since childhood. men of legends like grandpa pete. women who feuded are lain so close that if their arms could still stretch out they couldn’t help but touch. two fresh mounds wait for warmer days when sod and headstones can be set.

and we all hold our breath knowing before spring is over we will have laid one more to rest under the tree. i dream of london and st. petersburg, but my heart is in barberton and if i could go anywhere right now it would be there.

> 5 Things

• open toed shoes
• blue wrappy thing
• white rose
• french toast
• ‘favourites’ list on itunes
• chai
• parking spot near station
• still hot water left after housemates’s shower

last night, for the second time in less than a week, a man said to me while we were having a seemingly everyday interaction… ‘you emasculated me!’

watch out, boys! it’s sparkle the destroyer on the way!

——-

in other news: my hallucinations are returning. it’s been a while since i regularly saw things. what’s new now? constant state of exhaustion. totally a possible contributor. but the’ve changed in nature a bit. instead of cats and dogs ducking around corners now i’m seeing groundhogs loping beside me mid day, and last night while parking i saw a man who wasn’t there. just a guy standing in a long wool coat and bowler hat standing still on the edge of the sidewalk.
they’re still all in my peripheral vision, and thank goodness i’m used to the phenomenon. and thank goodness i’ve got saturday free for lots of sleeping.

i have these old fears which i don’t really have much use for anymore, and i’ve been thinking about what is the best way to really really really get rid of them.

rob has a suggestion:

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Will the truth set you free? Maybe, but first it will set you on fire, metaphorically speaking. Once you have been completely consumed by the flames and been reborn out of the ashes like the mythical phoenix, *then* you might be able to figure out how to use the truth to set yourself free–and to set others free as well. As long as you’re armed with the knowledge in this horoscope, Libra, the process won’t hurt as much as you might imagine. In fact, the predominant sensation may be exultation. Here’s some homework to get you started: Write your three top fears on a piece of paper and burn it.

what are some other ideas for dropping baggage you’re really tired of?

this past sat was tut’s 40th birthday celebration. there we were having a pleasant afternoon on the back patio when suddenly we were attacked by pirates! luckily, i had worn my shirt which is covered in skull and crossbones so i blended right in (once i filched a plastic sword and a gold chain to hang it from). i got this shot of two of the four pirates fighting (with swords on a sward) with my camera phone since my other camera was off with stone having some adventures out of state.

the party was a lot of geeky fun. we drank a slightly more ‘grown up’ version of the cpt’n morgan’s and mtn dew that i drank in college. the pirates brought the rum and the hostess had made lemonade for the two young kids (as opposed to all the 30+ yr old kids).

we watched a video about the tsangpo gorge and spent some time searching the atlas for it’s exact location.

then we drank some mystery drink which apparently is something like eggnog and fruitcake mixed together. you can see photos of the label in my photo stream if you click on the pirates.

we ate home made pizza and i had some cheesecake for dessert. yum!

then i and p (who loved the film noir lighting in the car-one strip of light from the rear view mirror across my eyes) drove up to the city for the second 40th birthday celebration of the day. that one didn’t have any pirates, but there was a room with no apparent use but standing around (space pr0n!) and a heater on the back patio. oh… and the scene of an apparent shooting wich we drove past serval times in our search for parking.

rock on, you 40′s! i’m digging your parties.

wikipedia birthday meme
Go to Wikipedia and look up your birth day (excluding the year). List three events, two births and one death in your journal, including the year.

October 13

Events:

• 1307 – Hundreds of Knights Templar in France are simultaneously arrested by agents of Phillip the Fair, to be later tortured into “admitting” heresy.
• 1582 – Due to the implementation of the Gregorian calendar this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
• 1976 – The first electron micrograph of an Ebola viral particle was obtained by Dr. F.A. Murphy, now at U.C. Davis, who was then working at the C.D.C..

Births:

• 1941 – Paul Simon, American singer, songwriter, and guitarist
• 1956 – Chris Carter, American television producer

Death:

• 1282 – Nichiren Daishonin, founder of the Nichiren School of Buddhism, dies. His ashes are interred at Taisekiji Temple. (listed in events and deaths)

my housemate is out of town this weekend, and so are pretty much all the people who i’d normally hang with on a weekend. flo is here, but just got her wisdom teeth out.

actually, she’s doing great and was up and about yesterday evening when i went by to visit. she was a little spacy, but not much more than i got later in the night when the tired overtook me.

we had an all night dance themed friday night gathering last night. it was really small compared to our current quarterly celebrations, but it was really nice. i had a great time dancing and talking to people i don’t normally spend much time with at these things. (see above where i mention most of my usual suspects are out of town.)

garma showed up just as i was really running out of steam. we did dance for a little while and tried to talk, but of course it was loud so it was hard to transmit intracacies and i found myself putting things in the most basic of terms.

i took this  shot when i was just starting to fade. sleepy sparkle.

this morning i woke up to find galahad and i were not alone! that ‘other cat’ had come in and was munching on galahad’s food. unfortunately, i was facing the wrong way to really see the sneaker. but since galahad could not be resting on my arm and eating on the other side of the room, i knew our visitor was visiting. sneaker’s still pretty skittish, so when is slowly picked up my head and set it down looking toward the food bowl, sneaker watched the whole thing then ran out of the room. i wonder if i’ll ever tame that one. i’m thinking no.

now i plan to take full advantage of having the apartment to myself! i’m going to hog the bathroom by taking a proper bath. later i think i might pull out some sewing. i’ll do the dishes (i actually do this most weekends, really). hopefully i’ll find the couple-a-few things i’m missing right now, too.

and tomorrow i plan to spend some quality time with my sql lessons. rock on.

if you missed 01:02:03 04/05/06, never fear. there are yet more geektastic seconds to celebrate. where will you be?

and, if you were hoping to create your own, at home version of ‘deep note’ here are the instructions. oh, and by the way, the computer used to create it was decommisioned in ’86 and sold for scrap. it’s a pretty neat story about the creation of ‘deep note’, how it was lost later, and how to get the score (just write to the guy after getting permission from thx).

i just found this page that let’s you put in a tag, see bunches of photos with that tag, and then click on other, related, tags to see bunches more!

http://www.airtightinteractive.com/projects/related_tag_browser/app/

try ‘smile’

some questions around suffering and madhyamika came up in a friend’s blog recently. i was trying to sort of explain the four possibilities of existence and knew i was missing something just a bit. i laughed out loud, at work no less, when i saw barnaby’s joke on tribe today. how appropriately timed.
Q: How many Prasangika-Madhyamikas does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: Four. One to screw it in, one to not screw it in, one to both screw it in and not screw it in, and one to neither screw it in nor not screw it in.

last night cujo came to the door as i was writing a letter with a glass dip pen and itunes shuffle was playing some song from the ’40s.

the time warp theme continued into the night as we shared with each other dark stories of the north… erh, uh, that is, stories about high school or college, mostly.

then in my dreams last night i knew what i was dreaming had already happened and i was just re-experiencing it from another point of view. not that it had already happened in waking life, but i knew the results of the situation and knew i was sort of in an instant replay. (i’m not really sure what it means that my cousin loney won a fishing contest by catching a huge red octopus in the middle of a river and using a smaller black octopus as bait.)

i’m again on one of those ‘be more girly’ kicks. wearing some makeup and, since it’s warm, wearing strappy high heeled sandles.

i figured i’d start doing my makup on the train so it doesn’t add any time to my morning routine. today i remembered to bring the make up with me, but did not bring a mirror so i can actually apply the makeup.

i’m not used to wearing those shoes, either. today i wore the pair of black strappies i thought i’d worn to the b&w ball last summer and danced in for hours… except, they’re not.

i realized when i started getting strap blisters pretty early on in the day that the ones i’d worn were the other pair. oops. guess i need to toughen up my toes and that bit where your heel turns into your ankle.

looks like i have some adjustments to make if i’m going to make this girly thing happen, eh?

Abundant sunshine.

abundant.

sunshine.

…

abundant.

while i was in ohio mom decided i needed to get the orange out of my hair and that it would be good to do such a ‘normal’ thing in the middle of all that we were dealing with. the woman who did my hair told me i’d be ‘the height of fasion’ even out in sf with this hair. well, she may have missed that aim, but it does look nice.

of course it doesn’t look this way when i do it at home. not as full and no flippy ends, but the colour is the same. what you can’t see in this picture are the blonde and even more red stripes.

by the way, for those of you familiar with the story, this is my ‘fairy godmother’ aunt. actually, she’s still that aunt even if you aren’t familiar with the story.

i’m back to my everyday life today. got into work and found a huge list of requests that need my attention, not surprisingly, so i’m doing my best to catch up.
while i was gone i missed jury duty and got two parking tickets. i’ve got a lot to sort through.

he wrote to her almost every day till she got on the train to come marry him. then it looks like she went back to ohio for a visit. the last stack is when she moved back to ohio before him, with mom, when he was reassigned and she wasn’t allowed to stay with him anymore. the ones in the middle are just random, undated cards and notes.

where to start. i’m just going to give up the attepmt at telling a clear story and let things come out as they do.

last night mom and i stayed here alone. her brother, his wife, and cousin loney all left for kentucky. she told me as i went to bed that she was glad i was here because she wasn’t sure how she would stay here alone. on future visits, she plans to stay with patty ann. i thought i heard mom moving around, so i got up to check. i’m in the guest room and mom has been staying in grandma and grandpa’s bed. the door to that room is open so i figured we’d be starting the day here soon. nope, she’s out in the tv room on the fold out bed with the tv on. looks like she did some more sorting after i fell asleep. and there’s a magnolia blossom on the dresser, she must have cut that last night.

yesterday grandma was pretty alert. they only gave her half her normal dose of xanax, so her nerves were calmed but she wasn’t so out of it all day. when we went by in the early afternoon with loney, the nurse aid called mom out into the hall to speak with her. apparently, that morning grandma had asked her, ‘will you do something for me?’

the aid asked, ‘what do you want?’

and grandma said, ‘i want you to help me die.’

she hasn’t said anything to any of us yet. not that there is anything we really could do — we’re not going to take her feeding tube out and starve her to death.

going through jewelry and things last night my mom nearly had a breakdown. she knew what we were doing was right and she thought we should be doing it, but that it felt really bad because grandma is still alive. no one thinks she’s going to come home, especially not to this house, but she is still alive.

if she does another miraculous turn around, mom’s mentioned trying to move her down to florida to live with she and dad. i guess mom would have to take early retirement for that, but it seems so far out of the realm of possibility that no one’s thinking seriously of what we would do.

mom really wants to get as much done as we can while we’re here so it doens’t all fall to pat. husbands, with the exception of my dad, don’t seem to be as understanding as we would all hope and there’s extra stress there, too.

mom made a hair appointment for me with my aunts’ hair place. cut and colour. she likes to make things look nice when there’s stress. it’s not a bad approach and certainly works to some degree. i know she doesn’t think it will make everything all better, but treating yourself does create some cusion. i wonder what it is about that which works. is it focusing on something else for a bit? my mind isn’t working that way right now. i’m having trouble with more ‘complex’ concepts.

as we left the nursing home yesterday, loney said to me that she thought i was really good with grandma, that grandma seemed to really respond to me. i’m glad of that, i’m glad i can help calm her and sometimes get her to focus a little. i wish i lived closer so i could be here more often. if i lived in the area i’d come by every day after work and maybe in the mornings, too, so i could catch her at her best. i just want to help her know it’s ok for her to go if she wants to and that where she is she’s fine. she’s ok.

she’s afraid of being alone, she told me. she knows everyone loves her, she pshawed and said, ‘i know *that*.’ last time i reminded her. but i think she really wants people physically with her.

i think she doesn’t like that she isn’t home, that grandpa isn’t there (we still haven’t told her why), that she can’t just do what she wants to when she wants to. that she can’t die but she can’t really live.

please click here, and scroll down if you have to, to find the eulogy my uncle wrote for my grandfather’s funeral. it’s amazing, really, i’m not just saying that.

we’ve started the hard hard work of going through grandpa and grandma’s things. she won’t be back, so we’re doing it all at once. it’s heartbreaking, necessary, and raw.