Manifest Evidence

Dialectic

2009-11-03T20:39:33Z

I. Thesis

Just a moment enjoying stillness,
giving each other's regard gracious entrance to hearts.
Open mouths link in natural symmetry, overcoming never.

II. Antithesis

Desire enfolds both,
offering relief at hand,
as needed nearness exalts heavy ardor,
before exploding reverence.

III. Synthesis

Fervent oration rebels ecstatically, vanquishing eternal rest.

Invisible

2009-11-03T20:02:33Z

If I am sitting when you meet me, you may not see it. Walking into my second story apartment you will be simultaneously overwhelmed by the brightly colored paintings, books, music & movies, all drowned out by my loud and infectious laugh. I exude vitality and as you make your way through there are framed photographs from the mountains I have climbed, oceans I have dived, deserts I have hiked and endless churches and museums that I have visited.

After a few minutes you might notice that my breathing has become more labored, the sweat is pooling on my brow and my alert posture has started to slump into the couch. I am no long what I used to be and can no longer maintain the vivid presence I used to constantly inhabit. I cannot walk, stand or sit straight for more than ten minutes before I begin to collapse. Or when I do it is despite the pain that is coming on and that will stay with me for days, or sometimes weeks.

You might be embarrassed as we are both confronted by my frailty, so at odds with the large frame that once was legendary for its strength and endurance. As you search for another place to look you might at last take in my shiny red cane, the breathing machine, the regiment of pill bottles and the overflowing folder of medical bills and benefit explanations that are waiting to be filed.

I was an artist, a musician, an actress, a dancer, an academic, an administrator, a muscular therapist, and an unignorable force of nature. With all of these gifts and experiences, when asked my profession now, all I can say is 'disabled.' It's not a question of what I can or cannot do, but of what it takes for me to do it. I have the use of all of my limbs and senses, but now that I have chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia any focused use of one or more of my faculties causes me fatigue and pain that is by many accounts comparable to what one experiences with cancer.

My cells don't make enough energy and my neurons communicate too much pain. We don't know how these illnesses happen and so we who suffer with them are not given the respectable status of a chronic disease. We have syndromes, a constellation of symptoms and conditions that may last for months, if you're lucky, or decades, if you're not. There is no test that will tell us how likely we are to improve or how likely we are to get sick again if we do. So we have to live our lives balanced between a grim acceptance that we may need to plan never to work again and an impossible optimism that today will be a good day.

There is no pride in chronic fatigue, because you quickly learn what overextending yourself will cost. I am currently in a two week flare up of shooting pain in my lower back, hips and legs and aching in all of my joints, staying in bed all day and running a constant low-grade fever. These two weeks of heightened illness and misery were caused by standing for 15 minutes, w/ my cane, when there were no more chairs left, sitting for an hour and walking up and down one flight of stairs.

Harder still than the ongoing failures of my form to function is the sluggish weight through which my mind now operates. Once used to reading dozens of books per year, most days I cannot maintain focus enough to read One full article. And if you find some eloquence in these words that you think belies the gravity of my condition. This post was for Invisible Illness Week, September 14th-20th, 2009.

What welfare state?

2009-08-03T21:02:38Z

I have not had any direct income since November 10, 2008. I have received child support, generous donations from friends & family, am coming to the end of my 401k & am still in the process of conducting my appeal for long-term disability benefits from Mutual of Omaha (through my former employer.)

I am unable to perform all of my ADLs, am a single mom of a small child & cannot work. Below is the summary of my eligibility for various federal, state & local public & private programs given my situation:

SSDI: I am ineligible for Social Security Disability Insurance until my divorce is finalized, because of the income my spouse (from whom I have been separated since 10/2005) has. My divorce should be finalized in September, at which point I can start the 3 month application process. Note that any money received from social security will be deducted from the 60% of my previous salary that would be covered by Mutual of Omaha if they grant me benefits on appeal.

Unemployment: I am ineligible because I am not currently searching for full time work.

Medicaid: After I am divorced I will qualify for medicaid which after 45 day application period will cover a primary care physician & prescription drugs for the kid & me. It will not cover any of my specialists or any emergency services however, so I would need to keep COBRA in any case.

Elder & Disability Services: I am not old enough, disabled enough or sick enough (i.e. with a terminal diagnosis) to qualify for various subsidies and meals on wheels programs.

WIC: The Women's, Infants & Children program only extends to families with children age 5 and under. This excludes me from a variety of services, including food stamps.

Child Care Subsidy: Because of my limited energy & mobility I have opted to keep my daughter in the school aftercare program. They are offering me a 45% scholarship, but I am ineligible for child care subsidies to pay the rest because I am not currently working or going to school.

Low Income Housing: If I count the donations from friends and family as income I can qualify for low income housing in the area. The money it would save me would be offset by additional expenses in moving, utilities & transportation.

Rental Assistance: I do not qualify for rental assistance on my current apartment because I pay more in rent than the guidelines allow. If I moved into the problematic low income housing above I would be within the assistance guidelines but only if I did *not* claim the income that I would need to claim to be eligible for the housing in the first place.

Utilities Assistance: Utilities assistance is provided for heat only, which I currently have for free as I have steam heat & do not pay for water.

I am evaluating what I can sell off and am going to be putting up a fund-raising site soon, but other than that I am out of ideas. Any brilliant suggestions of what I may have missed would be well appreciated.

Her name was Hamsa

2009-07-16T15:25:12Z

There once was a disabled mother/with one child conceived another/and one year ago/had to let her go/but thanks God each day for the other

A Call to Mourning

2009-07-14T04:17:28Z

I burn messages into the screen, hoping pixel dust and ash will carry them to you before I sweep it clean. I cannot smudge a heartbreak nor mend a life once marred. I do not ask for you to heal me, only to be seen by someone who once held my heart and was there when it scarred.

Who will wear grief's mantle, cloaked o'er both our heads? A life of possibility blossoms from one dead. To hold both roads, to cup your hands and drink my grief and joy, I scan for any scant envoy but silence ill forbodes.

Yes I am my witness, appearing at each trial, but will you take the stand with me, weeping for a while my own forgiveness?

Weltliebe

2009-06-18T11:03:13Z

Tribute video, includes graphic images of the injured & the dead in Iran as well as inspirational images of peaceful mass demonstration

Credo - My personal statement of belief

2009-06-14T13:05:25Z

CREDO

I believe in an infinite creative universe.

I believe the fact of existence, the inconceivable jump from 0 to 1, is evidence of its miraculous nature.

I believe that the fundamental subparticular force of matter is “intention”, that which endows all matter with a tendency to exist.

I believe that everything exists in one location-moment-being of space-time-identity.

I believe in the mergyeugnau, in which the universe celebrates itself through an endless process of differentiation into the many and reunion into the one.

I believe that entropy, electromagnetism, gravity and conservation of matter are mechanisms of this divine process.

I believe that the experience of individual identities within a context of linear time is the result of serial perceptions of individual locations within space-time-identity.

I believe that consciousness is the experience of intention within dynamic systems.

I believe that all systems from the quark on up are dynamic, only observable on different scales.

I believe that organisms are fractal arrangements of conscious units.

I believe an enlightened state of consciousness is the flickering existence of a happy fragment that embraces both the restrictions and specificity of its identity and its unity within the whole.

I believe attachment and suffering are a fundamental component of fully living this individual identity, and to seek to completely overcome them within in this life is to deny the miracles of love, creativity and compassion.

I believe that notions of justice, fairness, perfection, beauty, measurement, truth and meaning are infinite and are only relevant within a self-limited context.

I believe that the most valuable guiding principle is compassion, for oneself, for others, and as the loving acceptance of the self-limited context that we inhabit.

I believe that intuition is a complex sense whose mechanism we have yet to describe and that grace is empiric evidence of that which we take on faith.

Iran Elections & Hopes for Peace

2009-06-14T08:05:10Z

Writer's Manifesto

2009-06-08T14:55:39Z

Today is my daughter's "blooming authors" party at school, where she will share her written opus with me. Accordingly, here is a piece on my own journey as a writer. This is a new revision of the piece I wrote for my executive self-summary in 2007.

Hello, my name is Deborah (Hello Deborah) and I have been a writer for… well…

I am always ambivalent about efforts to codify my personal narrative, but taking on an identity as a writer has been particularly challenging for me. I carry the weight of generations of writers and editors, and have only recently experimented with adding the self-described title to my load.

My family tree has been made into more books and articles than I can count. The paper trail starts in the radio newsroom at NBC, winds through the halls of the Reader’s Digest, and scatters to the wind across the shelves of university libraries and Barnes & Noble. My father’s entry in PubMed alone is exhausting, and as inspiring as my mother’s skill in distilling clarity from any source material. My sister is one of my favorite novelists, and the otherwise diverse roster of my aunts, uncles, step-parents and cousins are unified in a dedication to the written word.

From my earliest years I have composed music and lyrics, but never understood it to be writing. When my compositions were performed in school assemblies in kindergarten and elementary school I took it as validation of my identity as a singer. The time that my fourth grade after-school teacher requested that I perform a short story I had written on her college radio show seemed a fluke, and more likely related to her pity for a strange and friendless child.

As the turmoils of adolescence unfolded writing came suddenly as the desperate refuge from a series of traumatic events. I wrote in my journal to know that I was not crazy. I wrote in my journal to confirm that I was crazy. I wrote intense poetry that was not hyperbolic within the context of its inspiration. I wrote song after song after song to proclaim a self that was struggling to own its existence. I was not a writer, I was a survivor. I viewed the artistic merits of my creative production as suspect, but held onto their import as evidence of my life.

The earliest beginnings of my identity as a writer came from my academic classes. I took almost sensual pleasure in my ability to write a critical essay or research paper, to combine my gifts for insight and manipulation in creating a document that transformed thesis statements into intellectual evolutions. As yet ignorant of relativistic theory, I proclaimed great truths and their antitheses to be synchronously and equally valid. That, I was informed, was not the assignment.

By now, my identity as a non-writer was so entrenched that I ignored all evidence that would contradict my negative conviction. Encouragement to submit short stories to teen journals went unheeded and the success of my first play resonated more for its semi-autobiographical theme. When I performed the opening monologue for my audition at NYU’s school of musical theater, I heard their enthusiastic encouragement to apply to the writing program only as a slight to my abilities as an actress.

In college I met a writer who offered me both her friendship and unprecedented nourishment for the seeds of acceptance that were sprouting in my heart. She was and remains an inspiration in her use of poetic form and imagery, her ability to milk small syllables for the most poignant drops of truth. That she found worth in my creative writing and criticism was baffling, but opened a sense of possibility within me. During a time of great personal evolution we had endless conversations refining the metaphors of our experiences. My journaling transformed into personal essays and my poetry into manifesto.

In later years when our friendship lapsed and my marriage encroached upon my soul my writing dropped off. To regard myself through my own expression would have endangered the uneasy calm of denial with which I had enshrouded myself from my self. It was the therapeutic training that I underwent in massage school that finally re-cracked the door and allowed me to step through and re-assert my existence. As my strength in myself grew, my writing returned and my marriage failed.

Now the dust has begun to settle on my new life, and I have made but one resolution to keep for the remainder of my days, a mantra, a commandment and a celebration of all that I am, as one of the universe’s children:

Manifest like crazy.

So here I am, hopeful and anxious, tired and restless, but no longer searching for conviction.
Hello, my name is Deborah and I am a writer. Period.

Let's try this again shall we?

2009-06-07T16:52:55Z

4/28/09-5/3/09 Tweets & brief update

2009-05-04T18:04:17Z

Happy Star Wars Day all - May the 4th be with you! I am trying to ride the wave of epic heroism to get things done, while simultaneously staying in bed as much as possible since my 6th rib has decided to go on a journey from its normal home into the territory of Argh. I am pleased as punch that I have been deemed witty enough in my responses to one of the Onion editors that he is now following me.:) In a minute I shall brave the wild wet of Bethesda to go to Fed Ex/Kinkos and fax in my IRA rollover info. I r old.

4/28/09
09:20 Just watched a moving TMC short interview with Chuck Jones. I feel more bonded to him now than ever. Rest not in peace but in joy.<3 #
14:29 RT @NationalNOW: If equal pay were instituted now it would result in +$319 bil. /yr nationally for women tinyurl.com/czmtlt #fairpay #
14:30 RT @NationalNOW: Over her working life, a typical woman could gain +$210,000 in additional income with #fairpay tinyurl.com/czmtlt #
14:30 RT @NationalNOW: Wage gap is wider for #woc: To men's dollar, African American women earn only 69 cents and Latinas just 59 cents #fairpay #
15:03 More hope & inspiration for a return to intellectual rigor & ingenuity: Obama speaks on the necessity of science bit.ly/5QbDv. #
15:19 Huzzah! RT @GLADLaw: ME Judiciary Cmte votes 11-3 that marriage equality "ought to pass". Next step - a vote at the full Senate #marryME #
16:34 My legs are shaved/my hair is blue/I bought new goo for my left shoe/I got new goo for right shoe too/my hair is blue & poem is through #
16:52 Children, surprisingly, still left behind: RT @teachersnetwork: Racial disparity in US schools: tinyurl.com/czrdsp #
19:22 Yay! This is one of life's little joys I've always wanted: RT @google: New page with years of Google holiday logos: bitly.com/16n1HU #
20:06 Cheers to the hometown nerds; a photographic retrospective documenting 80 yrs of MIT pranks: bit.ly/TMfaq #
20:10 LMFAO. Craigslist is one more: RT @TheOnion: Craigslist Server Contracts HPV bit.ly/11IlNz #

4/29/09
10:12 Glorious rain, thank you for turning your cold front & shoulder on the oppressive & vulgar heat of April. I am cold & wet and so very happy. #
11:50 The sponsors are substituting crack for craic. via @neilhimself: Dear Ireland. Please don't be stupid. @ickle_tayto: bit.ly/10u6kS. #
12:18 We who are about offend apologize: Will next Tuesday be the Sicko de Mayo? #swineflu #
15:29 Mixed day re GLBT RT @GLADLaw: NH Senate passes marriage equality tinyurl.com/dao4kk, fails trans community tinyurl.com/dyof33 #
22:43 @imchriskelly Sad but understandable. Perhaps someone anxiously clicking F5 waiting for a tweet is the new definition for 'twitterpated'? #
01:29 Happy 33 @amandapalmer! If you who don't know her yet, treat yourself to truth-smacked lyrics w/ diverse & lush music @ bit.ly/YINNA. #

4/30/09
09:57 @colorkitten Ah I see you are one of these "early adopters" of the new-fangled DeeVeeDee technology. And yes, Ethel invented going to 11. :) #
12:55 My favorite funny of the morning: RT @TheOnion: New Video Game Technology Finally Allows Rendering Of Smaller Breasts bit.ly/1486Z4 #
13:00 And a big yay for the ongoing march to equal civil rights. RT @GLADLaw: Maine Senate passes marriage equality bill 20-15! #
13:12 @the_swine_flu I have sussed out your evil attempt to destroy the world by making us forsake energy efficient travel. Well played my foe. #
20:29 @kalandaka And Bethesda/Chevy Chase likes it black squirells. Black coat, white shoes, black squirell, cadillac, the squirell's a timebomb. # (NB: I am ashamed of my misspelling minniethemoocha, you can blame it on Tori.)

5/1/09
11:14 Morning naps are good. I need to find active balance. Good news is that I am cleared for aerobic exercise 2 min/day, up from 30 sec in Jan!

5/2/09
17:31 Curse you & your tempting talents @neilhimself @DaveMcKean & @evandorkin! Free comic book day & you have killed my collecting abstinence.:) #
17:42 Seriously though going into a comic book store after so long was like a family reunion. I got verklempt watching my daughter buy her first. #
22:05 @TinaFey I must confess that I carry for you the thingy that dare not speak its name. You are the cloned offspring of Lucy & Dorothy Parker. #
22:06 @TinyFey By which I do not mean to imply that you are a raging alkie who makes bad romantic choices. #

5/3/09
11:54 @amandapalmer yes a small village/is easier to care for/but contact brings growth #
12:44 RT Kentucky high schoolers protest after principal bars lesbian & gay students from school bathrooms. tr.im/klCR via @gendercrash #
14:31 It's the coming of Gozer! RT @sivers: Microwaved cellphone. Awesome. tinyurl.com/5tvq6n #
14:43 RT @amandapalmer: can't believe "gesamtkuntwerk" (spelling deliberate) doesn't exist on web as post-modern porn site. (via @mystepfather ... #
14:51 Another twitter/time-warp trio I'd like to see: Salvador Dali, Heironymous Bosch & St. John the Evangelist. Semiotics & insanity FTW. #twarp #
14:54 @jillsobule Band name: Bananaramachinehead #
15:06 @jillsobule Band Name: Madeleine PeyrouxPaul #
15:16 Last twitter/time-warp trio and then nap: Virgina Woolf, Naomi Wolf & Tom Wolfe. #twarp #
17:26 @colorkitten That's amazing. One of my newer obsessions is specialty ice cube trays like the Gin & Titonic: bit.ly/TAABW #
17:40 @kawaiinot Outsourcing the rainbow sounds like hiring a diversity consultant. #
20:20 @colorkitten I'm thinking of getting the "cool jazz" guitars and making fruit-pop-music treats.:) #
20:31 Watched Camelot & had a good bittersweet idealist/pacifist cathart. Yes, an idea can have substance & is certainly worth living for. #
20:32 "He is what any of us are, less than a drop in the great blue motion of the sunlit sea. But it seems that some of the drops sparkle!"-Arthur #
22:16 @Randazzoj Have you seen the Oscar-winning Sophocles' Choice? #
23:06 @ellenstarbuck "Fork, Spoon, Knife. Repeat." Sounds like Carmen's dating MO. #
00:20 Heading to bed to get back to my asleep by 1 regime. Need to step it back soon to meet my mid-June goal of 7 hrs per agreement w/ sleep doc. #
00:21 But first funnies from the last two days not shared: "I've eaten so many warheads candies my next swimsuit will be Bikini Atoll." #
00:24 I'm so tired I can't remember the others. Insert your own witticism here and ascribe it to me. But make it good. I have a rep you know. #

The First Year of Sickness

2009-05-02T06:00:49Z

I have made this a public post because I know how helpful reading other people's experiences was for me when I was dealing with the fear and exhaustion of going through the diagnosis process. A separate friends-locked post will follow.

It started on the evening of April 30, 2008. I had a sudden gastrointestinal upset and was violently ill. The next morning I still felt dizzy and wiped out and went to the doctor. Although she gave me some antibiotics to fight the stomach bug that she thought it was I was concerned that in the previous nine months I had had an unusual number of infections ranging from sinusitis, bronchitis & laryngitis to a stomach ulcer and one in a nailbed. So we did a House style work-up and ruled out all kinds of immunocompromising conditions, including LUPUS.

The week before I got sick I had also found an enlarged lymph node in my right armpit, so of the remaining things on the table cancer was a leading possibility. After multiple ultrasounds, cat scans and a mammogram I was about to have my lymph node biopsied when I found a dark horse possibility in the medical literature. In searching for articles on the differential diagnosis of lymphadenopathy I came upon references to an obscure infection called 'brucellosis.' Only 200 cases are reported in the US each year, mostly slaughterhouse workers and others in close contact with livestock. But wouldn't you know that yours truly, being an anatomical nerd, had spent the previous two weeks all up in the bones of the paschal lamb from passover? And the symptoms were identical to mine: profound fatigue, a low-grade fever that went up and down throughout the day, chills and night sweats, and pain throughout my body.

When the test came back positive in mid-June, I gleefully started a six week course of antibiotics and patted myself on the back for being such a medically savvy smarty-pants. I knew it would take weeks to get back on my feet but I was optimistic that I could get back to work FT sometime in July. As the fates would have it though I was hit with a second wave of fatigue and nausea, which I would have chalked up to the antibiotics had I not also felt familiar sensations in my breasts and pelvic area. Three days before my missed period at the end of June I confirmed my suspicions that I was pregnant.

I will cover what happened in my relationship separately, but suffice it to say that I would have given birth around March 6th of this year, and I did not. I had a difficult post-partum period, bleeding for the last two weeks of July, and the near constant cramping and PTSD from the experience triggered a flare up of my IBS. My bHCG levels also didn't return to normal until October. I tried to go back to work full time but was unable to manage it and I scaled my hours back again. In August my health took another turn for the worse. The fatigue and pain returned worse than they had been before, including shooting nerve pain down my arms and legs that hit my 9/10. For those of you that know me well you can understand what that means. I am the girl whose father had to tell me that I needed to tell the doctor where it hurt when he was moving my broken arm back and forth.
I was seen, tested and evaluated by a series of specialists, each one declaring me an enigma. At last when they had found nothing in repeat lab tests and blood cultures, and having ruled out a return of the brucellosis, I was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue and Immunodeficiency Syndrome and Fibromyalgia in November 2008. By then my short-term disability policy at work had run out and we came to a mutual agreement for them to let me go, since it would likely be months before I could return. It was a great relief to be rid of the stress and to be able to focus on my recovery, and my mood improved (also helped by psych meds I started in September.) The new stresses I have faced though have been applying for long-term disability (and currently conducting an appeal of their denial), seeking out and applying for various social services, the full-time enterprise of finding and managing an extensive care team, and caring for myself and my daughter.

I will spare you the rest of the medical exposition, but for my own amusement I have pulled together the last year by the numbers.

Doctor's Visits
PCP 10
Psych 47
Acupuncture 4
OB/GYN 3
Infectious Disease 3
Gastroenterology 3
Hematology/Oncology/Internist 3
Neurology 3
Sleep 5
Rheumatology 3
PT 36
Biofeedback 16
Average per week 2.6

Total # of Medical & Allied Health Pros Seen (excluding radiologists, lab techs, etc.) 21
Units of Blood & Urine Collected 40

Procedures
X-Ray – Chest 1
Ultrasound – Axillary 2
Ultrasound – Uterine 2
Ultrasound – Transvaginal 2
Cat Scan – Abdominal 1
Cat Scan – Chest 1
Mammogram 1
Abortion 1
Colonoscopy 1
Biopsy – Polyp 1
EEG 1
Brain MRI 1
Sleep Lab 2

Durable Medical Equipment
Cane
CPAP
TENS Unit

Medications
Prescriptions Taken over the Last Year 15
Current Prescriptions 5
Supplements 3
Over-the-Counter 3
Pills Taken per Day 33

Work/Finance
Number of Full Days Worked 12
Wages Lost to Illness $45K
Medical Charges to Insurance $62K
Medical Expenses Paid Out of Pocket $11K
I have lost a job, an income, a child, a partner, my physical ability and my independence. What I have gained is a fierce determination not to compromise my physical or mental health for anyone or anything again. I have proven anything I ever needed to prove in my career and in my personal life. I am now dedicated to the work of rebuilding myself, better, stronger and happier than I have ever been – I have the technology.

It will likely take another year or two for me to complete my physical rehab, but while I would very much like to get back to work I am also happy to have a universe-mandated psychospiritual sabbatical. In the meantime I am working multiple 12 step programs to overcome various unhealthy compulsions. As a result I have not smoked 3,000 cigarettes in 11 weeks, have lost 40 pounds (despite being largely sedentary) and came to a place of certainty that I am not crazy and can stop sabotaging myself.

Every day I wake up blessed to know that I have the strength within me to find joy and connection with the universe and my fellow beings. And while I am incapacitated I am learning to accept the dividends of all the love and generosity I have put out into the world and to let myself be cared for by one and all. I am no longer searching for a witness to my pain, for I am my own witness. I am no longer interested in martyring myself for another's salvation in a misguided hope that I will then be deemed worthy.

For, lo, I am a rock star and I will no longer make any apologies for my strength, my talents, my intelligence or my joy. I have wrapped up the past 20 years of pain and suffering with a bow and am ready to spend the next fifty manifesting like crazy. Thank you for being with me on the path. <3

the daily tweet - 4/27/09

2009-04-28T22:46:34Z

15:06 Vanity+=Between the 40# I have lost, the too tight empire flowy dress I'm wearing, my radiating joy & the heat, I am turning heads all over. #
15:17 Vanity-=Guy who went 20 min out of his way to talk to me: "We're probably about the same age. I'm 38." Last year I got carded - for cigs.:/ #
16:22 Great interview RT with @margaretcho and @sarajbenincasa talk about Liz Phair, in a bathtub: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cboeNFmhRYY. #
19:48 The beginning of the end: "Mommy, would you like me to become an accordian player?" #
19:55 Rock the freak on! RT @Disaboom: Kyle Maynard, Man with Congenital Amputation to Make Debut as MMA Fighter tinyurl.com/caxg9s #
20:32 UNICEF's school-in-a-box ow.ly/4aos a better gift for mother's day than a dick-in-a-box bit.ly/aQx2Y #
23:44 The twitter conversation I'd most like to observe: Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker. What would your twarp be? #twarp #
00:16 @SaraJBenincasa When I die I want to go to Pixar. #

4/27/09 tweets (edited to fix links)

2009-04-27T13:35:29Z

Sampling these manually for the time being; although I know it can be done automatically, there is simply no branch logic that is an adequate substitute for split-second human judgment. Now I am off to see Z sing in her first in-school concert (!), followed by (surprise, surprise) a doctor's appointment.:)

09:38 Of course this comes 48 hrs after kid goes veggie: RT @artchique: @rainnwilson the cure for swine flu is bacon weave. bit.ly/81MCq

09:43 At least I got to know the love of bacon chocolate chip cookies FTW: bit.ly/yDzpX

10:04 Testing the magic of twitter...Here is a link to my CL ad looking for a new songwriting partner/keyboards in Bethesda: bit.ly/kXL4B

13:29 Voici - no longer protected. I like reciprocity in communication but would rather welcome in the world than shut out a few individuals. <3

Rest in Peace Benazir Bhutto

2007-12-27T16:10:04Z

...for there will be none in Pakistan, as any pretensions of a valid democratic election in January go with you.

I will post happy holiday/travel things later, but I need a few moments of silence first.

Down with the RPG (yeah they know me)

2007-12-21T02:23:09Z

Nabbed from wolffirepa
I Am A: Lawful Good Human Monk/Wizard (3rd/2nd Level)

Ability Scores:
Strength-14
Dexterity-10
Constitution-16
Intelligence-19
Wisdom-14
Charisma-17

Alignment:
Lawful Good A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. He combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. He tells the truth, keeps his word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished. Lawful good is the best alignment you can be because it combines honor and compassion. However, lawful good can be a dangerous alignment because it restricts freedom and criminalizes self-interest.

Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Primary Class:
Monks are versatile warriors skilled at fighting without weapons or armor. Good-aligned monks serve as protectors of the people, while evil monks make ideal spies and assassins. Though they don't cast spells, monks channel a subtle energy, called ki. This energy allows them to perform amazing feats, such as healing themselves, catching arrows in flight, and dodging blows with lightning speed. Their mundane and ki-based abilities grow with experience, granting them more power over themselves and their environment. Monks suffer unique penalties to their abilities if they wear armor, as doing so violates their rigid oath. A monk wearing armor loses their Wisdom and level based armor class bonuses, their movement speed, and their additional unarmed attacks per round.

Secondary Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus e-mail

Of -cides, arboreal and ginger

2007-12-14T13:56:46Z

They are cutting down another old tree on my street today. I had to run inside to get Zoë tissues while we watched from the bus stop. They could have trimmed the branches only, but apparently civilization demands nothing less than the pure repudiation of nature.

However I have no moral ground upon which to stand this week as I will likely be tried at the Hague for crimes committed against the ginger people and their civilization.

The Horrible Gingercide of 2007
Stalag 17

I make a better cook than an architect. Decorations courtesy of Zoë. I made a smaller house in atonement that I decorated with gummy sharks.

The Killing Fields

(Note to self - do not turn off the timer until you have actually removed the food from the heat source, lest you be distracted by cleaning and great tragedy occur.)

Oh no!

Sources reported gravely that the remains of once-popular celebrity Mr. Bill were found among the carnage.

Please be sure to send me mail courtesy of the ICC.

So tell me, Part II

2007-12-11T12:10:29Z

I never knew about Nohari - the inverse of the positive traits listed in Johari. Thanks again to castulasoria and to dcseain. So have at it: http://kevan.org/nohari?name=mergyeugnau.

So tell me what you really think...

2007-12-11T03:03:39Z

I hadn't thought about Johari windows in along time, until castalusoria posted a link in her journal. For those who are unfamiliar, you choose 5-6 adjectives to describe yourself from a set list of 55. Your friends then also pick 5-6 adjectives for you and you see how your self-image matches up with your perceived image. Mine can be found at http://kevan.org/johari?name=mergyeugnau. Please comment below if you set up one of your own to which you would like a response.

Spontaneous meteorogenic archictectual improvements

2007-12-04T01:53:10Z

Such has been my day: "Alisa, can I call you back? I just walked in the no door."

According to the building's manager, only fragments remained strewn over the lawn. A new door shall be forthcoming in the morning. In the meantime I am humming to myself "I had a red door and I want it to be back."

Baby it's cold outside...

2007-11-30T13:27:29Z

I don't particularly trust the supposed impending resolution of instability in Pakistan. But today, Vladimir Putin gets the leading role in my nuclear nightmares. And tonight were gonna party like it's 1949...

Bitches and Hos - Uncut

2007-10-23T00:59:22Z

The most useful thing I learned in music history 201 was that you can often identify cultural trends by observing what people are legislating against. In that vein, every time I feel the backhand of a civil smackdown (as with defense of marriage amendments, etc.) I try to take it as evidence of hope that the times they are a-changing and that such enacted bigotries are the last hurrah of a terrified and increasingly failing majority trying to preserve the comfort of its formerly presumed hegemony.

Sometimes though, I just want to curl up with a bottle of wine and a Sweet Honey in the Rock CD and wish alternately for a new incarnation of MLK, Gandhi or Hothead Paisan.

For todays trends in misogyny:

"Don't worry your pretty little head dear; We don't need no stinking foreign badges. We had nothing to do with it and we've got everything covered."

"The incident was not terror related." I dunno, as a woman I find it equally predictable and terrifying.

Tired of only having a 1 in 4 chance of being abused? Move to Central or South America instead and more than double your odds!

(See the link at the end for the 1994 wonderfully well-intentioned and totally toothless Declaration des Droits des Femmes).

...and while I should be happy for things like this I am so freaking tired of being the marked category separate from the default of 'human'.

I am grappling so hard for the silver lining my fingers are raw and pulpy. What I will take from it is this:

I will continually strive never to fall into complacency.

I will pursue my newest and most fervent long-term ambition to help develop and promote the adoption of integrated peace & conflict resolution / tolerance / communications curricula for all educational levels.

I will petition NOW, RAINN, Emily's List, HRC and the ACLU to start lobbying for rape and domestic abuse as hate crimes.

I will never give up, I will never surrender.

"In my heart, I think a woman has two choices: either she's a feminist or a masochist." —Gloria Steinem

Ah Youth...

2007-06-28T11:48:54Z

Yesterday everybody in my neighborhood fledged. As Z and I sat in the nearby park, baby sparrows came and joined us on the bench. This morning I got to see the offspring of my friends the mockingbirds, manically chirping and diving between poles and buildings. He also appears to have taken on a baby sparrow as a sidekick, who follows him around. The two engaged in about a minute of conversation on top of the building across the street.

Best of all were the three baby squirrels that were chasing each other around the telephone pole. Seeing the three of them skulking in a row across the wire in front of house was perhaps the cutest thing I have ever seen.

It's the simple things that make a difference...

2007-06-09T00:07:03Z

In an effort to improve public health, a proposed bill in MA would require all public bathroom doors to swing out.

Soapbox Spew on Logic, Intuition and Truth

2007-06-02T17:55:09Z

I just posted this comment on mme_moonpie's journal. Any takers?

And speaking of emotional logic, and acceptance of ones whole truth, common sense rears its ugly head at last:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6711071.stm