Hymn for Year's End

Hello all.

I don't have a proper post for you all tonight. I just wanted to wish everyone a safe and happy New Year's Eve. Ring it in safely! I'll make a note to post tomorrow morning. And for anyone who lives outside the US, who has already rung in 2008: I hope you had a fabulous evening.

In the meantime, I'd like to share the lyrics of a song that I love during this season. It calls for bells ringing out for Christmas, but I like it for New Year's Eve, too. (Plus, I like the liturgical calendar that celebrates Christmas through January 6 or 7. Why stop the festivities on the 26th?) It's called "The Closing of the Year" and was written for the movie Toys, back in 1992. (I loved that movie, btw.) I've always loved it and its desire to bring hope in times of coldness. Apparently Sarah Brightman and Placido Domingo like it, too because they performed it last year at some Christmas concert.

Since I haven't figured out how to embed video so you can just click and play, here's a link to the original movie video on youtube. Enjoy!

If I cannot bring you comfort
Then at least I bring you hope
For nothing is more precious
Than the time we have and so
We all must learn from small misfortune
Count the blessings that are real
Let the bells ring out for Christmas
At the closing of the year
Let the bells ring out for Christmas
At the closing of the year.

If I cannot bring you comfort
Then at least I bring you hope.

Now all the winter bells are ringing
Hear them echo through the snow
And the children's voices singing
on the streets so far below

This is a time to be together
And the truth is somewhere here
Within our love of people
At the closing of the year.

Sad and confounded

Benazir Bhutto is dead.

That was not the breaking news headline that greeted me at 8:30 this morning. Instead it was "Suicide Bomber kills 2o at Bhutto rally ... more details to come." It was only as I was pulling into the parking lot of my office that I heard the announcer on our local NPR station say that the blast also took Bhutto. I felt a welling sadness sink into my stomach and my eyes began to wet.

I liked Benazir Bhutto and I'm not really sure why. Like most Americans, I don't keep up with Pakistani politics, other than knowing they get into nuclear pissing contests with India every few years. I know that Bhutto was controversial and probably marginally better than other Pakistani leaders, at best, if that. I don't know if her human rights record was any better than anyone else's. Nonetheless, she seemed to be modern and unashamed. She seemed to be exactly the kind of female the Muslim world needs in a leadership position. (Hell, in a visible position at all.) My God: she didn't marry until she was 34! And she really only did it because she knew her political career needed it. Maybe she was otherwise happy being single. She did not demure, publicly, once she was a wife. Her marital status did not subject her to being a submissive piece of property. Hell no! And though she wore a veil when in office, she made it look good, girlfriend! How I WISH the Muslim world produced more women like her! Now that she's gone, what Muslim women carry the banner of Strong, Public and visible at all? Queens Noor and Rania are the only ones I can think of. Bhutto was a kind of hero in my book. ... of course, it doesn't hurt that she at least gave the impression of being pro-American during my lifetime.

And now she's dead.

Another bloody idiot with a bomb strapped to his chest sent her, and 20 innocent human beings, to their deaths! I am so angry and sick and tired of these self-hating, self-righteous morons who feel that other people should have to suffer - AND DIE - for their own pain. Your life sucks. I get it. So if you're not going to get help, kill your own self. Don't barge into a classroom and knock out a couple dozen students before you spray your own brains; don't go park-and-pop next to a group of job applicants trying to feed their families after a botched to hell invasion; ; don't barge into church or a mosque and take out some worshippers and the clergy because your wife hates you or whatever; don't brood-and-boom on a public bus because the ruling class in your country is treating you like shit; don't hijack a plane and crash it into heavily populated buildings because the owner of the building is an imperial prick. The adage of "if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem" is not only true, it should have an extra line for suicide bombers: "you make the problem worse for everybody - and 1,000 times worse for everybody you think you're helping."

Of course, I can't help thinking Musharraf might be behind this. He may have been helpful to us post-9/11, but seriously, this is dude who took over his country in a military coup. I can never tell what to make of him. Sometimes I want to like him, and others ... not so much. Especially in the last year or so. I don't envy his position. But I don't take him off the hook for this one. ... Pervez, you'd better not be behind this one. Jon Stewart gave you a Twinkie, for God's sake!

What a difference a week makes

This time last week, I was strapped to a hospital bed, with an IV drip in my arm. I also had a morphine button to juice me up when I needed. And I was totally loopy from anethesia. Now, my scar is itchy, but the pain is diminishing in noticeable increments.

My mom is coming up to visit this coming week. I'm looking for it. She's going to help us out while I recover from my surgery. By the time she gets here, I'll feel even better than I do, now, but her assistance will still be appreciated immensely. Honey will be working a LOT, and I can't decorate the house with these stitches, so Mom will have her work cut out for her.

Operation recovery has been harder than I thought. The doc said to take one to two weeks off of work. I'm playing it by ear, right now, hoping to return to work by Wednesday. But I find that I'm still pooped. It took me forever to wake up this morning, and it's been a week! My scar is healing up okay, but if I'm up and about too much, I just get malaised and tire quickly. I just made the mistake of checking my office email. There's an irritated customer there. I don't know if my body needs that kind of stress right now. (Yeah, that's the ticket!) But frankly, as I'm paid by the day, I really don't have the luxury of waiting till I'm fully recovered. Eh. I'll probably be okay enough by mid-next week, at least to do half-days.

In the meantime, I am going to count my blessings, like my grandmother told me I should:

1) Everything was caught in time.
2) Everything so far feels like it's healing up alright.
3) I'm catching up on Netflix and TiVo.
4) I'm blogging more.
5) My cousin just had a baby.
6) My dog no longer smells like the dead bird she excitedly nosed around in in our backyard.
7) I'm getting some reading done.
8) I'm take a legitimate breather after a year of hectic activity.
9) Showering is optional, since I'm not going anywhere. (Woohoo!)
10) I'm getting lots of my Christmas cards done.
11) I have discovered how utterly fantastic my friends are.

There are many more, but it's about lunchtime and I'd like to cruise the fridge.

Ooh! A Meme!

Rules: Once tagged, you’re supposed to link to the person who tagged you. Then, post the rules before your list and list 8 random things about yourself. At the end of the post, tag and link to 8 other people and then leave them a comment telling them they’ve been tagged.

I have to admit, I'm not exactly sure how to link back to someone, but this was from Pearl, so if you click on her name, you can visit her blog, which is very interesting and, I think, inspiring. So, before I begin my 8 random facts, I'd like to tag: Devinoni, Darla D, Mommanator, Sonnjea (who has probably long since stopped reading this), VirginiaGal, NubianTemptress and JoeinVegas. I've pared down some of my blog-reading in the last few months, so if I haven't included you and you're reading this, just please forgive me as I'm trying to get back on the horse. (Seven is almost 8, right?)

1. Unlike most people I know, I never went through a phase when I disliked my middle name. I have always loved the fact that is unusual and evocative. To this day, I love seeing people cock their heads to the side in amusement when I tell them what it is.

2. When I was a little girl, sometimes I'd be very disoriented when waking up. It wasn't the disorientation you feel like when you wake up in another room and you've forgotten that you went to sleep there. Nor that you're coming out of a dream. I would lie in bed, hear the voices of my family throughout the house and intellectually understand they were my family, but feel emotionally unattached. Almost like I was a character in a play, aware that I was in a play. I would hear my parents in the hallway and think: "They are not really my parents," and I could feel in my bones that I had been somehow dropped into this realm accidentally. Like something out of Quantum Leap - but these episodes predated Quantum Leap, so the idea was my own. I knew, for those nano-seconds, that those voices did not belong to my real family. Because my real family lived in outerspace and we were all fuzzy Sesame Street-style monsters. And if I closed my eyes and opened them again, I'd see my blue familiar parents hovering over me. It would take me a few seconds to shake out of it and sometimes I'd have a little twingey head pain. I outgrew this by about the time I was 9 or 10.

3. Also as a child, I had recurring dreams of Mahatma Ghandi falling into infinite blackness against a neon spiral. I was worried for him and it scared me.

4. I tend to dislike things that people like, or that are expected of me to like, just to be contrary. Not that my dislike isn't genuine, it's just if it's expected of me to feel positively about something, I'm going to approach it with a dim view first. The same is true about things that are expected of me to dislike. I'll probably like it at the outset, just to be contrary; but I'm not going to dislike it just because everyone else feels strongly about it.

5. Despite my mother's best efforts to fight it, I really do like Willie Nelson. And Johnny Cash. And any country music that tells a heartbreaking story; not dolled up for the slick Nashville types. (see number 4.)

6. Even in my ugliest cynicism, I can't deny that I still believe the sun'll come out tomorrow.

7. In 1995, I had a random, unsolicited metaphysical experience with the color yellow.

8. I think one should know when her life is a movie. It's important to recognize certain plot points and recurring elements in your life. You should always be aware of visual motifs and musical themes as well as cheesy dialogue. It's becoming increasingly clear to me that sometimes my life is a movie. Oh, look, there's that irritating tertiary character from act one emerging in act three to save the day. She's going to try to pull off what? Well, in the real world, she'd get away with it, but this is a movie and karma has a way of making sure she won't. ... and I don't. I'm learning to listen for the swelling music and look for the visual motifs.

... and a bonus. For all of these above random things about myself, I am stunned that there is a person willing (and I hope happy) to spend the rest of his life with me.

Getting in my own way

Last week, I took a freelance colleague of mine out to lunch, since it was her last day on the project. She told me about a cousin she and her husband are hosting in their house. He's trying to make a new start of it in the area and they were happy to help. Except now it's been several months more than they all originally thought it would be. He's not taking temp jobs, not really actively seeking out permanent employment and is basically being a drag on a pair of newlyweds who were just trying to offer the kind of support they hoped someone would offer them if they were in a similar situation.

During our conversation, my colleague told me that her cousin, who is 30, often complains to her that he doesn't have the degrees that she does - bachelor and post-grad - so he's not as marketable as she is and that's why he's not getting jobs. She was frustrated by this because even though she is degreed, he is prior military, which counts for a lot in the marketplace. Additionally, she has been busting hump looking for work in our field since she got her graduate degree, and having mixed success. Here's what struck me though: he's imprisoned himself with his negativity.

That got me thinking about how much and how often we define ourselves by what we are not (or what we have not) as opposed to what we are. I am not educated, married, a parent, accomplished in my field, living in the "right" town, wealthy enough, religious enough, traveled, fashionable, and so on and so on. There may be plenty of people who don't do this, but the majority of us do, that's why we're always impressed with the people in the world who accomplish things; they're not stopped by their own naysaying.

The silly thing about naysaying is that it shackles us to the very negatives we supposedly resent about ourselves. I can't do this, I'm too old. I can't do that, I don't have enough experience. Nobody would let me do this because I'm not "insert reason here." Anytime we think we can't because of some "no" hanging over us, we certainly can't, because we won't. We won't even give ourselves the opportunities to try and fail or try and succeed because we're too married to the "no" of our situation. I feel like I wasted a lot of my 20s because I told myself I was too old for some things or too inexperienced for other possibilities. And it was fucking stupid. I wasn't too old. I'm probably still not, but as long as I put that speed bump in front of myself, I couldn't proceed.

There are plenty of roadblocks we cling to that are largely beyond our control. For the last two years, my body has been telling me "no" about some things. And this last weekend, it shouted "HELL NO" at me. I don't know if or when it will ever give me a resounding and final "no." I'm hoping and praying not for some "yes" from my body. But I'm feeling very beat down, crushed and angry these days. Life can still be good even if my body ever gives me a definitive no, but right now I just don't know how. But I want to learn how to climb out of this hole I've been sliding deeper and deeper into. It hurts and there's a whole world of happiness out there, if I only remember how to find it. My body's telling me "no" has been impeding my happiness. I want to learn to live with the "no" and realize that there is still a pulsing, vibrant world of "yes" beyond this ugly shadow of "no" that hovers over me.

In the meantime, I want to start dispelling all the nos I've put upon myself all my life. I am exactly as pretty as I am. I am exactly as young as I am. I am exactly as talented as I am. There are aspects of my life I can control, and I want to work to be in charge of them. There are aspects of my life that I cannot control, and I want to work to not let them be in control of my happiness. I don't want to be a prisoner to my own insecurities anymore, the way my colleague's cousin is. It's self-defeating.

Excellent Night; "What's Molly Dreaming Now" November edition

I'll start with the excellent night. Some girlfriends and I went to a concert last night, and not being one who does live music a whole lot, I wasn't sure what exactly to expect. I like live music fine enough, I like concerts, but I very rarely feel like that, for me, they're the emotional events that so many other people - heavy concert-goers in particular - experience. Too often, when I see a band or an artist perform, I feel like I could have had the same emotional experience at home, listening to to them on my stereo/iPod/Pandora. The only thing that ever makes it more personal for me, is if the artist is a good storyteller, or my proximity to the stage, or if I get to meet the artist afterwards, like I did with the Indigo Girls once. (Yes I did have a witty quip for Amy Ray, and she liked it!)

The band before last night's big act was no different from what I normally expect, which made me nervous for the act I had come for. But one of my girlfriends, for whom this was her third time to see the big act, assured me that they would be way better. They were. Largely because their music bloody rocks, anyway, and because they know that spectacle is important, but is nothing if you don't have a good delivery. And they had great delivery. Plus, you can tell they just really enjoy being up there; they love singing these songs with each other. As a performer myself, I love that, too, so it's relieving and joyful to see they do. At some point, near the end of the show when people were still rocking out, it reminded me of what people used to describe Heaven as to me as a kid: a non-stop party where people were just in ecstasy to be in the presence of God. That was definitely ecstatic and their music is so positive and powerful, it felt Heavenly; and the energy was such that no one wanted it to end.

It turns out last night was their last night of the 2007 tour and people from all up and down the East Coast had turned out for it. The lead singer solicited city call outs from the audience. That was really great. People like to represent. I hope one day I can draw folks from miles around! I decided I wanted to be one of the back up singers when I grow up. One of my friends and I kept trying to mimic their hair-whipping and we paid for it afterwards. After two extra-strength Tylenol and a mostly full night's sleep, my neck still hurts. The show overall left me pumped: I wanted more of their music and felt like I'd been jumping on a rainbow!

Now for the weird dream: it was brief, but strange. Maybe it was inspired by yesterday's post. I dreamt that Honey and I needed to get from point A to point B, presumably in Texas for some reason and that it was a 5 or 6 hour drive. Honey had BabyDog with him, and I was still in some medium-large city. We were supposed to leave a little bit before 2PM, he was impatient and we must've been in separate cars. I had to stop by a casual friend's house for something and he kept telling me I needed to help him lure his stoner friend out of the basement. I did my part, and by then it was 4PM and I surmised that Honey was already en route to our destination. I called him on his cell and told him I had one more thing I had to do and I'd be on my way. Why all these delays, I don't know; I know they were mandatory and I resented them.

So I'm at a movie theater with one of my girlfriends from the concert last night. We step into an elevator. It's one of those elevators that has a window in the primary door that closes you in, as well as window in the outside door, so you can see everything. I press the floor number we need, and as we go up, I see that my favorite scarf is stuck in the outside door of the third floor. And for some reason, it's being held there by escalator teeth. And for some reason, I can reach through the doors and loosen it. I do that on my first trip up, but it's still stuck. All I need is one more go of it. The third passenger riding with us gets off at 4, and we go back down to one. We press 3, and when we begin to reach the scarf I begin to pull, but as the car comes level with the third floor, there's a group of sadistic, educated-looking, European men standing and sitting there. Severely standing and sitting. They were waiting for me. One looks like Adam Ant, another like Bill Nighy. The others, I can't recall: just that they look angular, European and mean. They say nothing, and as I reach for the scarf, evil-Adam Ant shakes his head and draws up a sheet of paper that looks like a scantron and a pen. I let go of the scarf and he teases with his pen as if to say, "which bubbles will I fill in?" He circles the number 96 and 10 and then lifts his hand with a gesture for the number 3. For some reason it becomes apparent to me that my friend and I are supposed to travel up to floor 96 and floor 10, 3 times each as some punishment for crossing evil-Adam Ant and evil-Bill Nighy and their gang. All I wanted was my scarf! I don't know why they thought it was bad that I wanted my scarf!

So, I push the button for the first floor, and by this time, my girlfriend and I are clinging to each other, scared and whimpering. The moment we hit the bottom floor, we remember, this building is only 14 stories tall. How do the evil English guys expect us to go to 96? But we daren't just get out at the first floor, because these guys just materialized out of nowhere to begin with and they're sadistic: somehow, they know I hate elevators and love my scarf! So we began our journey, deciding we'd just do the ride to the 14th floor several times anyway. What sucked was that other people could get on and off as they pleased as we were forced to continue riding. And the worst part was: I really needed to get on the road to meet with Honey and this was another, inescapable delay. And I was almost out of power on my cell phone! Argh and yikes! Damn you, Adam Ant!

So ... any thoughts on what the dream means would be greatly appreciated. Put your divining caps on!

Memory Museum

There are at least two new movies that I know of which were filmed around the town where I spent my adolescence. Luckily, they're both movies that I'd want to see anyway, with fantastic actors and directors. Last night, I got onto Apple's movie trailer site and decided to watch their trailers. The second shot in the first one, one of those outdoor shots that helps establish the physical realm in which a story unfolds, made tears well up in my eyes. I paused it. My dog, who always rushes to my side when she hears me sniffle, did not fail in her habit.

The image was of a sunrise over a mountain that overlooks my hometown. But it was shot from behind the mountain - or rather, from the side that does not face the town. I watched the rest of the trailer, scanning the horizons of the panorama shots to see if I could recognize any other geographical features. I only spotted one other which I thought I could place immediately. But either way, it was such a treat to see all of it; I still recognized the undulations and vegetation of the Southwest Texas desert floor. After I watched the whole trailer, I showed it to Honey and paused on the second shot. I explained to him where the camera was in relation to the highway connecting my town and the next, roughly how far out from the town the shot was taken (maybe 7 to 10 miles), where the town was in relation to the shot and what time of day it was, based on where the sun was. He gave a polite, "neat."

I've blogged before about my hometown and how I haven't spent more than 48 hours there, since the summer after I graduated from high school, in 1994. I haven't even seen it at all since we scattered part of my childhood dog's ashes there during an 18 hour trip in 1996. (At Christmas that year, we decided to scatter his ashes in every place he'd ever lived. This meant we drove around the state of Texas, from the Gulf Coast where we lived at the time, to the Panhandle, where both my dog and I were born, to the Big Bend and back to the coast. For those keeping track, that's about 32 hours of road time alone.) There are times in my life, when things get hectic and scary, when I retreat to my hometown in my dreams. In the past few years, each time I'm there, I convince myself that I'm actually, physically visiting the town and when I wake I'm crestfallen. As a teen I hated the isolation of my town; as an adult, it can be alluring. Lately, I have not been having those dreams. Nor have I had any dreams about tornadoes or aliens - other common themes which tell me that I'm stressed - in many, many months. But about a week ago, I dreamt I was on the road which drives right by the mountain described above. I don't know why; I haven't been missing my town or feeling too stressed. (Well, I can think of something in my life from which I'd like reprieve, but you good folks shan't be privy to that today. But the dream was still surprising.)

In any event, I think seeing my town's mountain inspired my train of thoughts when I woke. Touring the terrain of my childhood. All I could think about was the inside of my grandparents' house in the Panhandle. They moved further in-state about 5 or 6 years ago to be closer to my aunts and uncles and parents. The last time I visited them in the Panhandle was shortly after New Year of 2000, almost 8 years ago! Not that I wasn't aware of it, but I hadn't meditated on this thought in a long, long time: I'll never see that house again; certainly not from the inside. So I took a tour of it in my mind. I felt the fresh summer air from their porch, went inside to hear the whirring of the window air conditioning unit, looked at all the family photos and Grandpa's paintings on the walls, smelled the gas from the kitchen, placed my hand on the stack of books and magazines that Grandpa kept on the corner of the kitchen table ... I laid in bed tracing the terrain of their house for what felt like 10 or 15 minutes. I was kind of surprised by how much I remembered. I remember it as well as, or maybe better than, the two houses I lived in growing up. It was the constant. Then I toured what I could remember of the church we attended till I was 12 - with a brief stint out while Dad pastored a church for a few years in the mid-80s. That, I remember more in chunks: the yellow-white brick, the arched breezeway on the east side of the west wing, the L shape of the building and that the only two sets of stairs were located on the ends of the L, the brown carpet in the hallway, the library on the east end of the building, the kitchen that was right across from that, the playground just north of the parking lot where, when I was a kid, we had the old cab of a semi-truck to play in (all the kids loved pretending they were truck drivers); the vast field across the street from the church where, in 1982 on Mother's Day, I saw my first - and so far only confirmed - tornado; that field is full of houses now. Progress.

Sorry I've been absolutely awful about blogging anything this Fall. And I'm sorry my first post in over a month was pretty self-indulgent. And, I'm sorry I haven't really been cruising other blogs a lot (or at all, really) in the last 6 or 8 weeks. I'll try to be better on all counts.

The Luckiest

Thoughts of mortality - that of my own and of those around me - have never been too far from my mind. The last few days, however, these thoughts have been forefront in my mind as I drift to sleep. I find myself kept awake, particularly, by the thought of Honey passing and leaving me behind or me dying, leaving him.

Saturday morning, we were awoken by the sound of heavy engines idling outside our house. ... and of Babydog barking at the uninvited noise. A fire engine and an ambulance had arrived to tend to our next door neighbor. Our next door neighbors are an elderly couple; the wife has left the house only a handful of times in the 16 months since we moved in. She has been recovering from a series of falls in the last year and a half. Having been the couple to assist the cops when our next door neighbor on the other side (an elderly single woman) died at home not six months ago, Honey and I immediately thought the worst. We watched as surreptitiously as possible. Luckily, when our elderly neighbor was wheeled out of the house on a gurney, she was sitting up and alert.

Saturday evening, we brought her husband a plate of cookies from a local bakery that we like. He seemed pleased. Apparently, she had (unsurprisingly) taken another fall and an x-ray could not see enough around a pin in her leg to determine whether she had fractured or sprained it. He was hoping she'd be available to return Sunday or Monday. Yesterday evening, when I came home from work, he was returning from a day visiting her in the hospital. No dice. The doctors want to keep her until she's well enough to walk on her own. Currently, it's agony for her to stand. Explaining me this, my neighbor's eyes looked tired and puffy - like he'd been crying and not sleeping well.

We're not that close to our neighbors. Friendly. They have our house keys in the case of emergency. But we don't really hang out. Nonetheless, I have to think what's going on next door is affecting my thoughts on a subconscious level.

Honey is my best friend and my hero. I don't know what I would if he predeceased me - at least not now. Sometimes - maybe most times - I take him for granted. And I'm sure it's the same with him for me. You can't live every single day loving someone with the ultimate enthusiasm as you would if it were that person's last day on Earth. It's simply emotionally unsustainable. Why is it though that these thoughts of pre-bereavement come just as I settle in to sleep? Could I not have these thoughts around 3PM, so that they make me more eager to get home and spend quality time with him?

And then I wonder what would happen if I predeceased him. I worry that he would not deal with my death well at all, becoming some stereotypical curmudgeon; and I also worry that he would recover within a year, finding some younger, slimmer, more successful, more beautiful version of me and would be so happy with this hypothetical woman (I HATE her so much) that he would never spare a thought for me again. Both scenarios are ultimately unlikely - particularly the latter because I'm such an awesome specimen that I pity any woman who follows me; it'd be like DuMaurier's Rebecca, or something - but both make me sad. Statistically speaking, he'll probably predecease me; but as I have a bevy of cardio-pulmonary maladies in my family, I may go first. I just want each of us to be happy and cherish each other, both in life and death. And I hope that we are reunited on the other side when it's all over.

In the end, I hope that Honey and I live to ripe old ages. But I also hope that our declines are relatively brief and not too hard on the other. There's a song by Ben Folds called The Luckiest.
My favorite part of the lyrics are as follows:

Next door there's an old man who lived to his nineties
And one day passed away in his sleep
And his wife; she stayed for a couple of days
And passed away

I'm sorry, I know that's a strange way to tell you that I know we belong
That I know

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

The old man who lives next door to us is not in his 90s yet. And frankly, if he died before she did, she would be in much more trouble than he would if she went first. But it's clear he loves her very much. And while I hope Honey and I don't pass within days of each other - I want us each to live as long and full as possible - I can't deny the romance of that scenario. For now, perhaps I should just dwell on the lyrics from the first half of the song, since that's the romantic part of our relationship we can always live in:

I don't get many things right the first time
In fact, I am told that a lot
Now I know all the wrong turns, the stumbles and falls
Brought me here

And where was I before the day
That I first saw your lovely face?
Now I see it everyday
And I know

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

Apply palm to forehead, forcefully. Utter, "d'oh!"

I love it when people do particularly obvious boneheaded things. It's hilarious. I also love it when the boneheaded thing took years to plan and accomplish and went undetected for decades. Such is the case with a cluster of buildings at the Coronado Naval Base which from the sky, clearly resemble a swastika. Here, take a looksee:

What I love about this is that the Navy claims that no one noticed this for forty years. The buildings were built in the 60s and until the advent of Google Earth, it slipped everyone's notice. I have to think this is bullshit. I worked at an architect's office for about a year and from what I remember about blueprints, you get to see buildings from all angles; top view included. Even if that slipped their purview, it seems like someone would've noticed something on a fly-over. The military loves doing fly-overs in all branches of service. I'm supposed to believe that during some air show, no pilot ever looked down and said, "Holy shit, Bill, look to your left! You won't believe this!"

Frankly, I think the Navy's $600,000 investment in landscape architecture to hide the building shapes isn't going to cut it. I think we'll find eventually they're going to have to do some major remodeling. In any event, it's rather hilarious to me that 20 years after the Holocaust, the same people who fought against the bloody oppressor would have unintentionally paid homage to their evil enemy in a form as permanent as a quad of buildings.

Clean out the attic

In the meantime, enough whining. In the spirit of Three Beautiful Things, here are some little things that have caught my notice as of late:

- a man in a tuxedo standing on the corner of a residential neighborhood, apparently not waiting for a bus or a ride or anything. He's holding a sign that reads: "Audition Today."
- a family on a bike ride along the trail. Hom leads the pack, Dad brings up the tail. Right in front of Dad, little brother, probably no older than 5, pedals like a madman, his knees flying up, furiously.
- tending Honey through food poisoning this weekend. Though it breaks my heart when he's ill, there's something really love-affirming about having that heartbreak. The beautiful agony of true love; of hurting when they suffer.
- seeing an occasional friend from childhood - and cousin of a dear friend from childhood - in the audience of the Emmys; feeling happy that this person's significant other won and that this person made it to the thank you speech.

And now for a scoop of irony ...

Along the lines of faith in God or lack thereof.

I feel like thus far my life has been pretty fortunate. Nonetheless, I've hit some rough waters in my life. Big disappointments. Close calls and trauma. Frankly, I've been on some choppy seas for the last two years; the toll this rough passage has taken on me is greater than I realize, really. The other day I was reading the blog of a woman who has been in similar seas to me, but her ride has been much choppier. She's a Christian and she's going through a crisis in faith right brought on by her struggle. She said she wondered if God was punishing her. And then I can't remember if she specifically said this, implied it, or if this was somewhere in the many, many responses she got: blaming God.

While I haven't wondered if God was punishing me for something since I was a little girl, I went through a phase in my teens where I was angry with God. That seems healthy. (Frankly, I believe in crises of faith.) But I can't ever remember blaming God for anything. I just don't feel it. Not when I've fallen into depression, not when 9/11 struck too close to home and not even in this murky voyage I'm bitterly muddling through. But everyone else does for misfortune that befalls them. So here's my question: Am I wrong? Is there something fundamentally wrong with me that even when I'm angry at God I don't lay blame on him?

There are only two reasons I can think of: One is that I ultimately see God as love, creation and the creative conscience of life, the universe and everything. And I can't blame love. Nor creation. And certainly not the all pervasive creative conscience. And the other is that I have never subscribed to the reward-and-punishment image of God. We weren't guaranteed an easy ride. It's just the nature of being human that tragedy in one or many forms will befall each of us. On top of that: if JESUS can't escape life without being crucified, why the hell do I think I'll get away with a free ride?

But even though my concept of God is more nebulous than the orthodox, I still feel a personal relationship with God. God is a part of my family and daily life. So shouldn't I blame him for things? As I blame other family members on occasion for things, shouldn't I also blame God? Isn't that human?

My cousin suffered his entire life and died from MD at age 20. I have no idea if he blamed God - if he did, he never ever expressed it. Quite the opposite actually. But I suspect he did. My dad had polio as a child and it has left him with a wobbly gait and a body that's easily 15 years more aged than his peers'. I don't know if he ever blamed God. I assume he must've at some point. I'm facing my own health issue right now and I pray a lot, but I don't find myself blaming God. And I know that lots of other people who face my issue - whether they overcome it or not - blame God. So why can't I?

I don't feel like I'm being punished at all. Not even karma for hooking up with my best friend's boyfriend in high school. I do feel a lot of injustice, but again, it doesn't feel karmic or punitive. It's mostly just jealousy that most people's bodies work properly. But shouldn't I feel punished? If I believe in a God with whom I have a personal relationship, does that mean I'm naive or blind for not blaming God for what's happening?

So there's the scoop of irony: I bitched about some people applying their stereotypes to people who believe in God, and yet I wonder if I'm flawed because I don't fit into the stereotype of a lot of people who believe in God. Man this fence chafes my hide!

If God, Then stupid

This morning, lying in bed, I read an article in Newsweek about scientists who are not godless and the uphill battle they face in some universities and schools. Namely, that because they believe evolution is real, the boards of these schools deny them the right to teach it. Nevermind that the scientists in question are usually devout Christians.

That many institutional Christians reject any academic study of evolution or any other study which might defy their narrow belief system is not surprising. People rather expect it. But something that I've only caught whiffs of in the last few years is the idea that to believe in God, you must be ignorant.

The article didn't directly address that prejudice, but it brushed up against it and moved back toward the predictable bigotry of the fundamentalists. Nonetheless, it got me thinking about it.

A few years ago, my father, a protestant minister, was honored to be chosen to attend an intensive week-long theology course at Oxford. The topic of the study was science. Living in Texas, he's used to fundamentalists blocking enlightened discussion about science, so when he got to Oxford, he said he was all geared up to pick on the fundamentalists who so prejudicely deride science in the public realm. However, his instructor told him that in England, it is he who is derided immensely. His instructor, an Episcopal priest and professor of theology as well as a practicing scientist, is the leader of a group of scientists who are also ordained ministers. He does not question evolution or any other law or established theory. But because he believes, worships and promotes God, he is subject to ridicule by the scientific and academic establishment in England.

About a year ago, I picked up a coworker of mine from the airport and drove her to the office after her honeymoon on safari. As I relished all the details of her adventure, she was telling me about how great their guide was. He was so well educated, so smart, but he was really religious. A lot of the guides on their tour were really religious but they were well-educated. "It was really strange," she told me.

Then one night I was listening to a book talk on C-Span radio. It was Julia Sweeney reading from and talking about her book about her journey from Catholicism to Atheism. It was of course funny and poignant. Then an audience member asked her a question which I forget but to which she answered essentially that her mom was still a Christian because she didn't have the insight and introspection that Julia did. I don't know Julia Sweeney's mom. Maybe she isn't that introspective, but it seemed really presumptuous. Kind of like how I once told a good friend of mine I was going through a crisis in faith and she just shrugged and said I'd some day realize there wasn't a god because all smart people do eventually.

So that's where we are in this society? That if you're a believer, then you must be ignorant? Isn't that just as bigotted as believing an atheist has no soul or nothing to contribute to your own spiritual growth?

What bothers me about this is that this prejudice does not come from traditionally uneducated people. Fundamentalist groups in this country tend to appeal to people who may not have had that broad a formal or life education. They appeal to groups who know others mostly like them and who have not been in broad contact with people whose experiences differ. But the "you can't be smart and faithful" folks tend to come from more ethnically heterogeneous areas or, in the case of critics like Dawkins, places of high education. These tend to be the same folks who are much more socially tolerant. And yet, I can only suspect two things which would contribute to this prejudice:

1) Like my coworker who's Catholic in name only, they've lived in societies that are so secularized that to even talk about faith openly puts you in a weird light (places like Vermont - c'mon Dean; nobody in VT talks about religion, that's why your sudden openness rings hollow in the South). So they only thing they know of open discussion is what they see in the media which only focuses on book-burning scandals. You'd never hear about the church I helped charter in Texas, led by a gay man. Nor of the illegal refugees my church gave shelter to during an emergency. Kind of like how if you live in an all-white area of the country, you may be prone to fear blacks because guess how the media portrays them.

2) Maybe no matter how heterogeneous one's environs, this actually just goes to show we really only surround ourselves with like-minded people. Though I spent a large chunk of my childhood in the very Baptist Texas Panhandle, my parents encouraged me to seek other points of view and didn't fret when I asked questions. And though the majority of my friends in the past have been white of Christian background, I've always felt very comfortable getting to know people of other faiths and heritages as well as friends who reject the notion of God. If someone can't fathom that a person could be both genuinely faithful and genuinely intelligent and introspective, to me that not only shows a lack of imagination on the part of that person, it shows they've never really stepped outside their tight circle of experience to get to know someone of a differing viewpoint.

I have always been angry at Christians who stand in the way of education. Not only does it paint a negative picture of us with which others can easily (and often rightly) attack us, it shows great distrust in God. It tells me they want to keep God in a box; that they don't believe God could still be speaking to us, that new scientific revelations don't have to be soulless, but rather, can reveal the utter beauty of God's handiwork. Still, the tendency I feel like I have been sniffing - to believe that faith is a sure sign of idiocy - is just as offensive as the prejudice of the fundamentalist. It's essentially the same prejudice in my mind: you are less than desirable; I have nothing to learn from you; I must save you and society from yourself.

How haughty both sides of the fence are. I'm so glad I sit precariously on the top and sneer down at them both! teehee! What is it that pride comes before, again ...? ;)

Blah, blah, blah

Greetings, blogosphere.

Truthbeknown tonight, I have nothing to write. I'm merely writing today for the sake of writing, for the sake of getting myself back into the habit of moving my fingers with the hope that someday, something will come from it.

So, since I have nothing to write, I will just describe what I see around me. or rather what I do not see. My office is dark, lit only by the glow of my laptop. My laptop is sits on an old library table. The table was my family's dining room table until I was about 10 and my parents replaced it with a huge, square antique table from Germany that's very heavy and was missing leaves. my dad made some leaves for the antique table and when we extend it, we cover it with a table cloth so that you can't see the leaves don't match.

This table, the old library table, found its way into my dad's office when I was 12. Then it was handed down to me when I moved from a dorm to a house, in college. I don't recall what happened to it when I moved back into the dorm. But either way, it followed me from college into my post-college life and across the country.

When I was a child, I remember thinking this table was so big. I believe we had 8 ladder-back chairs around it. Three on each side and a chair at each end. I can't imagine that now. Americans are so large these days, seating three to each side seems impossible. It's highly probable that we only sat two to each side and one at each end.

Anyway, these days it is my desk. My very messy desk. And I really love this table. It's probably 3 feet high, blond-ish wood with a veneer that has peeled away slightly on the interior where hot plates have chapped it. It's simple, sturdy and a reminder of simpler times and more hopeful dreams, for me. This table feels like a security blanket for me.

Wow. Look at that. I had nothing to write and now, I've written something!

My thin veil

I don't remember where I had read this, but I recall reading somewhere about the origins of Halloween that the Druids or Celts or erstwhile ancient folks who lived in sun-deprived, rain-soaked northern Atlantic isles believed that the period we now call Halloween was the time when the thin veil separating the living from the dead was lifted, and they could cavort.

This time of year always finds me anxious, irritable and fearful. And I always forget it's coming until I'm steeped in it. Such is the case again, this year. It is all due to the attacks. Labor Day through the 21st or so is time my thin veil is lifted. But this veil doesn't separate life and death so much as the comfort of reliability and abject fear and chaos.

I want nothing more than to draw nearer to my husband during this time of year. As both of our jobs demand a lot of this time of year also, it's difficult. The little time we have together is rarely "quality" time. In the last two or three years, I've managed to bear through the veil days with almost no angst. This year is different. I'm more agitated. I suspect it's all due to the fact that this is the first time sine that dread day that the 11th falls on a Tuesday. I've been re-running my memories of the days leading up to and after the attacks over again and again in my head. There is more a fear of the Groundhog Day effect this year than I have had in years past.

I find myself holding my breath more than usual, this year. I pray the veil closes, soon.

The Second Coming of My Screen Goddess

Honey and I just spent this lovely, lazy Sunday afternoon and evening watching movies. It was great. Finally got to see The Queen. Helen Mirren is wonderful and as if I wasn't already happy that such a talented (and non-20something cutie) actress got the Oscar this year, having seen her performance, I think it was a hands-down win.

In the meantime, I know you're wondering what's up with the lush ginger mane to the left there. Well, I figured I should for once put up a picture of me. But Molly, we can't see your mug. That's right, folks. I still like a modicum of mystery in this tell-all digital world. But I included this picture because I think my hair looks nice and red, here. My hair varies throughout the year, sometimes browner, sometimes blonder, but always red somehow. (I do not color it.) And on the morning this picture was taken, it was feeling particularly like a honeyed orange-almond creme brulee.

But more importantly, I thought I'd use this homage to vanity as a segue into a discovery I made tonight. Apparently, Cate Blanchett is reprising her role as Queen Elizabeth in the upcoming Elizabeth: The Golden Age. I cannot begin to tell you how sauced I am about this! Cate Blanchett, in my estimation, is a goddess among mortal actors. And her performance as the Virgin Queen in 1998's Elizabeth was the moment I fell hopelessly and blissfully in love with her. I firmly believe that when Gwyneth Paltrow won the Oscar over her, when my goddess was nominated for her Elizabeth, what transpired was nothing short of rapacious nepotism and flagrant Hollywood thievery. If Gwynny hadn't been up against the powerhouse that is Blanchett that year, maybe the cornsilk waif should've gotten it. But she wasn't in an easy field; she was up against Cate and Cate blew Gwynny out of the water like so much dynamited trout! I really won't go into a whole lot of detail about why Elizabeth is on my top 5 list (usually at the top), but here are some reasons I'm looking forward to this sequel:

* Wicked beautiful cinematography
* More Cate in a position of authority. God, she nails that stuff!
* The return not only of Cate and Geoffery Rush, but also the original director, Shekhar Kapur. (We'll overlook The Four Feathers, Shekhar.)
* The addition of Clive Owen and Samantha Morton (woo-friggin-hoo!) They so rock, there's no way this is going to be anything but SO-LID!

To satisfy any other Cate-as-Elizabeth lust which you hopefully share, here are some photos. I'm off to bed, to dream of dead-on performances, magnificent cinematography and women who rule!

Resurrecting Discipline

HA!

In order do resurrect something /someone, that entity had to have lived. I have never been terribly disciplined about anything in my life! (Save for birth control.) Nonetheless, now that the thesis - aka, Grendel - is slain, I recognize I need to get back into the habit of posting on a daily basis and cruising the blogs of friends. I'm sure there is plenty I could blog about today, but as I need to hurry to work, I'll just update and riff and then I need to get dressed and go.

Since my last post, I've been either traveling or traveled upon. My group took our gig on the road in late July where we performed at a marathon festival that included over 100 groups performing back to back to back for 56 hours. Of those, only 3 groups got standing ovations. We were one of them. Considering that included among those scores of groups were a smattering of highly talented professionals and some celebrities even - none of whom received that kind of audience accolade - we were all pretty sauced! Then Honey and I zipped to Texas on a much-needed visit to family. We saw my grandparents (which was good since I think this may have been the last time I see grandpa alive), his grandparents, some cousins, my parents, and lots of friends. And as Texas is a big state and we have pretty much our whole families there, we still missed a lot of people. It was a bit of a whirlwind, traveling up I-35 to see all these folks in the span of 4 days, but I'm glad we did it. We're in that cycle of life where everyone's either getting married/having babies or on the other end, breaking irreparably or dying. Being Home always makes me feel so good and though I'm happy when we're back at this home, I've found lately that I'm literally sick to my tummy when the plane leaves Texas, the last few trips. It just makes me sad to leave, even when there's something wonderful waiting for me in our East Coast home - like BabyDog and Cootie Cat.
... eh, bygones.
My parents followed us back up here and visited for most of last week. That was fun, but it is nice to have our house back. Last night, my best friend from adolescence arrived for a job interview, so we went out for a beer and bocadillos. We lunched with her in Austin 2 weeks ago, but we still had lots to catch up on. It's funny, I saw her maybe a total of twice in the last three years, and then this year, I see her twice in three weeks!

Now that Grendel is rotting in the Great Mead Hall (mmm, mead!) that is the school library, I find I have a teeny bit of free time on my hands. For now, I think I'm just going to enjoy it - especially since work is burbling towards a Vesuvius like eruption and my group is retooling for a bunch of shows this fall. But in the next few weeks, I'd like to start finding other ways to train my creative energy. There's a 10K I'd like to run this fall and I need to start training my soft, flabby self. Likewise, I need to get back into the habit of writing for fun. Maybe fix that horrible screenplay of mine. Eek! That reminds me: I still owe my friend an essay for his site. Schiesse!
Well, off to work! Happy Monday!

La Commedia e Finita!

It is finished.

I managed to capture all the signatures I needed and this afternoon, I delivered to my school's library, the requisite two complete copies of my thesis! When the university thesis librarian accepted them, I asked if there was anything left for me to do. (I keep waiting for some other shoe to drop; like a switched baby hidden in Vermont or something crazy.) But she said no. Once they've accepted it, I'm all done. To congratulate myself, I bought a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (book 6 - yes, I'm a book behind!) and a People magazine that pretends that there are enough varieties in Hollywood female body types to use them as examples of how to flatter any figure. (pfft!) It was a little anti-climactic for me, on campus. But I think that's because I'm not yet allowing myself to fully accept its finality and the relief. That, I'm certain, will change this weekend!

This weekend, my group is taking our performance to a festival I've been meaning to attend for years as an audience member, but I get to make my debut there as a performer! Woohoo!

... and speaking of "Woohoo!" ... one of my motivations to get all my thesis crap completed today was the opening of The Simpsons Movie. Though skeptical that a movie of my favorite show might ruin the show - Hollywood does not have a good track record there - I've been looking forward to this since I saw the first teaser for it in the theaters last summer. I promised myself that if I could get my thesis completed, signed, sealed and delivered by today, I could go see the midnight opening, tonight. And so we did!!

I joke that when (if) we have children, they will think the order of religious adoration and guidance in our household goes something like this: God, Jesus and The Simpsons. They will probably believe that we have somewhere a Gospel of Groening, consisting of the books of Homer, Marge, Bart and Lisa, and including the non-canonized apocryphal texts of Futurama. We had to be in tonight's audience.

GO SEE THIS MOVIE, NOW. Not just because it's good, but because the sooner you see it, the fresher and more appreciative the audience will be. This is definitely a movie worth seeing with a hungry audience. This film would have been okay on its own, but it could not have stood alone without 18 years of stories and culture commentary. You almost have to see it with a full house who genuinely loves each and every one of the characters in Springfield. When the lights went dim and the initial vignette played out and the clouds parted to reveal "The Simpsons" with Elfman's iconic score playing in the background, the crowd - many of whom I'd spotted wearing Simpson's t-shirts - erupted in applause and cheers. The crowd ate up the humor, as well, of course. This was an opportunity for everyone who digs this satirical staple to come together and dig it together.

As Simpson plots go, there was nothing out of the ordinary in this one. That's what made it so good. The stakes were raised higher than they usually are, but the story moved just like any other Simpson's episode. It just ran three times longer than usual. Something I was afraid of was that they would litter the dialogue with profanity and lower the jokes with toilet, T&A lowest common denominator gags. When Hollywood takes TV to the silver screen, you can tell by how readily the studios go gutter how much they really trust the core material. The writers, however, must be given credit for responsibly handling their tone when the restrictions of broadcast regulations were lifted. They definitely crossed the FCC line at least one or twice and they punched a little crasser than usual a few times as well. However, when they did stretch the "good taste" line, they did so sort of tongue and cheek, implying that they couldn't get away with this in broadcast, without being heavy handed and without feeling forced. There's nothing I detest more in a film based on a TV show (or any film, really) than when a character utters language (profane or not) or engages in behavior which is absolutely uncharacteristic of him or her. It's quite clear the studio forces the character to behave in that way to appease the 15 - 23 year old boys in the audience who have no sense of character believability.

There is so much I liked about this movie. I know the critics aren't receiving it well, from the headlines I've read. I'll have to read the reviews later. And I happily admit I have drunk the Kool Aid with the marketing on this. But it's quite willing on my part. I know they're pimping and they know I know what they're up to. There is much I'd love to share about the movie with you, but I don't want to blow anything. I'll just say this: it's essentially a longer version of the Simpsons, but one which is best experienced communally. Go see it as soon as you can. Go with a big crowd who adore the Simpsons. You'll be glad you did.

Three Beautiful Things

since i've been stressed to the max, lately. i'm going to return to the 3BT formula which Clare has beautified the world with. plus, i think y'all would rather read what's going right in my life, for a change!

1. Despite a mix-up in the formatting of the signature page and sending it off at the wrong time, my first professor has dropped the signature pages back into overnight mail for me. I should get them tomorrow. How merciful that my prof doesn't mind doing the administrative bull on vacation!

2. Chatting with my favorite cousin on the phone this morning. And hearing her toddler, normally a terribly sweet, gregarious and precocious girl throw a fit in the background. She's being potty trained and apparently has a favorite kind of wet wipe, which my cousin didn't have available to her.

3. Knowing that well-placed, compassionate wisdom is a family trait. My cousin, after hearing of one of the stresses I've been under lately, emailed me some sympathetic encouragement her father, my dad's brother, gave to her when she was in a similar situation. And it sounded just like the kind of thing my dad would say to me - or anyone really. And he's so good at that kind of stuff. It warms my heart, for some reason, knowing it runs in the family.

Just when I think things are getting better ...

I met with the last prof who needed to comment on my thesis, this afternoon. My other two professors have commented and their adjustments are relatively simple to fix. I thought today's meeting would be about an hour long. It was three hours long. He basically took a scalpel to it.

This is due, with all signatures in two and a half weeks. But really, it's due in 10 days, because I'll be out that last week.

The good news is that he knows it's unrealistic and unreasonable that I would be able to implement all the changes he suggested. Also good news is that it won't require any new research. In fact all his feedback was excellent, however daunting. I just wish I'd gotten it a week or two earlier, as I had originally sent this to him over three weeks ago! His request is that I "do what I can." And that is what I will do.

In the meantime, I've still got travel adjustments to make for our upcoming trip. I've got a movie review to write for my friend's rapidly growing blog. I've got medical appointments to line up. I've just been named logistics goddess at work for a project that's about to vomit all over us in the coming weeks. I've got articles to proofread and somewhere in the mix: sleep to get. I'm really writing complaining about this to get my juices flowing so that I can begin to tackle the beast in earnest yet again. Okay ... let's try this one more time.

Cutter! Come bandage the scrape above Molly's eye and blot her bloody lip. Alright Molly, round 5 now. What did Mama say? Mama said knock you out! I'm gonna knock you out!

Hard to balance heartache.

Parents do stupid things.

My sister in law once accidentally locked herself out of the house as she was retrieving mail. Not a big deal until you consider that my then - three year old nephew was taking a nap in his bedroom. She realized her error and managed to break into the house via the garage. My dad once forgot he was supposed to pick me up from school and left his Kindergartener daughter crying on the school steps for a couple of hours. (I don't remember if there were school aides waiting with me; but I assume so.) There will no doubt be times that Honey and I do stupid things as parents (if we're lucky enough to ever get that distinction) which are done out of carelessness or oversight or during a bungled emergency. Nonetheless, I find I have decreasing sympathy for parents who seem outright derelict in their duty.

Last weekend, Honey and I took in a 9PM showing of Ratatouille. It was cute, but frankly, I can't tell you too much of it because most of what I remember of the movie-going experience involved a friendly pre-lingual toddler. He could not have been more than 22 months old. His parents saw fit to bring him and his three year old sister to a movie which would not let out until 11PM. The children were, thankfully, quiet, but their parents' behavior was rather disquieting. We were in a theater with stadium seating. Honey and I were at the fore of the top section, so that we had the railing in front of us, the floor and bottom seating section were below us. The childrens' parents took seats on either end of the handicap accessible seating at the top of the bottom section and let their children wander. During a movie. In a large room filled with strangers. In the dark. The little boy was really adorable and had we met under different conditions, I wouldn't have thought anything of it. But as the parents kept their backs to the children - in a dark room filled with strangers - only to check in on them ever 30 seconds or so and to retrieve them when they began to wander up the steps of the top section, I could not fully enjoy the movie. Why? Because, I felt like I had to keep my eye constantly open for this little boy in case someone did try to nab him. His parents certainly weren't doing it. Safety aside, it's simply rude to let your kids run around a movie theater. People are there to enjoy the film, not your cell phone text messaging session, not your comments to the screen and not your toddler's happy dance in the aisle! It's called, "pop for a babysitter or wait for the DVD," buddy. If you know your three year old can sit through a movie, bring her and let the other parent babysit.

What irks me most about this is that clearly, some people have no concept of safety, when it is their moral charge as parents to do everything in their power to ensure the safety of their children. I have been in a cave lately, so I just learned of this today, but when I did, I thought immediately of the parents at the movie theater. Little Madeliene McCann was nabbed from her family's resort apartment room while on vacation in Portugal. It's truly tragic and terrifying. But when I learned that the parents had put her and her 2 year old twin siblings down for the night in the room unattended while they went off to dinner for the evening, I was sadly unsurprised. How easy would it be for someone to break a window and take her? Or a hotel staffer who has a key to waltz in and nick her? Then when I read that her parents had actually left the room door and the patio doors unlocked I was livid. That's not just a stupid parent move - like leaving your kid in the car for 10 minutes to run in to buy milk - that's patently negligent. If that family were American, those parents would be arrested and separated from their remaining children. Who leaves toddlers unattended while you're 100 yards away?! (That's the length of a football field, mind you!) It's not as if her parents were 19 year old dumb kids. They're doctors!! I understand that abduction is not as common in England as it is in the US, so for the sake of those who live in "more civilized" societies, let's pretend kidnapping does not exist, that children are at no danger of ever being nabbed and harmed. You still don't leave a couple of toddlers alone in a hotel room to sleep! What if one of them falls off the bed and bangs her head? Or another wakes in the night and pulls the TV on top of himself? Doctors don't understand this?!

I certainly cannot begin to imagine the bereavement these parents must be feeling, nor their sense of guilt. I do feel sorry for them. But in my mind, they are just as accountable for their daughter's loss as the villain who took her. This was not a momentary separation from their child at the store or in a crowd or even a missed rendezvous because of poor parent communication. This wasn't even a piss-poor decision to let their kid run around a movie theater under a lazy parental eye. Theirs was a deliberate decision to leave their pre-literate children alone in a hotel room in a foreign country without even giving them the barest dignity of a secured room. They could not respect their children enough to lock. the. door. I have immense sympathy for the little girl. I pray that this comes to a happy ending for her. And I hope other parents take a moment and get a clue from this.

A grouse and a gladness

One problem about having the radio alarm set to NPR is that sometimes the first thing you hear in the morning just depresses or angers the crap out of you. Such was the case this morning when I heard about the latest update on BBC reporter Alan Johnston. The latest video shows him with an explosives belt strapped around his waist.

What the crap? If Palestinian separatists and dissidents want help and respect from the outside world, maybe the should drop the shit like threatening people who are there to tell their stories or killing wheelchair-bound cruise-goers or even blasting their own damn selves up in shopping centers! They've been pursuing terrorist and illegitimate means for over 20 years (in my lifetime anyway) to right what many people in this world agree is a political wrong. And what has it gotten them? Some of the worst unemployment in the world and a big fat wall. Here's a thought: try some Ghandi-style peaceful resistance. It took 20 something years in India, but it looks like you guys have all the time in the world on your hands, just no patience or even any realistic or reasonable goals. Here's another thought: I can't speak to the opinion of local Israelis, but I know that my Jewish friends here would prefer an Israel where Palestinians and Israelis live peaceably with dignity and opportunity. Your adversary may be actually be your ally if you stop and listen. But violence does not breed a credible partner.

There is some good news in my life. I don't want to post only on irritating subjects.

For one, Babydog has decided to sleep in this morning. This is good for me, because this means we'll probably have breakfast together, instead of her at 5AM and me at 8:30.

More excitingly, though, last night, I sent in my completed thesis to my thesis committee for their review and revisions. If I understand the process correctly, once they have sent it back to me, I make the changes, they and my advising professor sign off on it, I send it to the library and we're done! Since there's essentially nothing I can do with the content this week, I'll use this week to go to Staples and buy the correct weight paper that it's supposed to be printed on. And I'll run it by the library again to be reviewed for formatting. I have to admit that I'm rather nervous. Having worked on this for the last 10 months, I know the vein of my advising professor's comments, but not the general opinions of the committee members'. So I don't know what to expect when it gets kicked back!

TEN MONTHS! As Honey was saying last night, this thesis is past due. We need to induce! And how! I'm so ready for this to be over. And when it's done and we can stick a fork in it and it's published and I can truly chant, "no more pencils, no more books," then I'm looking forward to sleeping for two months and having a big ol par-tay!

What's Molly Dreaming Now? Edition 3

It has been almost a month since I've blogged anything. Why is this? Because my thesis will never die and it has been keeping me out of the blogosphere (and rehearsals for my show had begun). My professor wanted it to be done, forever and ever amen by next Friday. But due to some delayed communications, it will probably be at least another month. Chispas!

In any event, stress over my thesis has definitely been affecting my dreams. Namely, I've been dreaming of tornadoes again. Tornadoes are Molly's shorthand for sinister mayhem in her life. Quite often I won't even know that I'm under stress until I begin dreaming of twisters. It's the dreamworld tornadoes that often reveal the stress that I've been suppressing and bring it to the surface for me to acknowledge. (And sometimes deal with.)

But the tornadoes haven't plagued my dreams for a few days now. No, what surprised me was theme of my dream last night.

It was current day. Bush had just suspended the Constitution and taken sole control of the government. Another terrorist attack had just occurred on our soil, but it was not as vast or terrifying as 9/11. All I remember from my dream were the feelings of anger, disenchantment, disillusion and utter sorrow - not at the attack, but at the totalitarianism, at the fragility of our democracy that I love and take for granted and our apparent willingness to cede it so quickly to a single person under the guise of security. (A person who consistently displays no regard for the lessons history or promise to the future, no less.) And in my dream, I was terrified that I would be jailed and my family disbanded, simply because I - and my family - don't like our president and have been "foolish" enough in the present to actually exercise our freedom of speech both publicly and privately, against him and the policies he pursues in my name.

I wandered the streets of my neighborhood wailing like madwoman; hands in my hair, mouth agape. The image that flashed in my mind in my dream was that of an American flag. It was like any other American flag, except that the second red stripe under the blue field had been stripped out and replaced with a black stripe.

What triggered this dream, I don't know. I just know this morning, talking to Honey while he had breakfast, I had a feeling of dread. I seemed to worry that there would be a terrorist attack in the near future. Then I remembered my dream. Maybe it was the story in the news lately of the JFK plot. That's really scary, but I haven't really been following it closely. I also seem to remember hearing on C-Span radio a few weeks ago, though, that Spanky had quietly signed some piece of legislation essentially allowing him to suspend the Constitution and assume all control in a time of crisis if he felt it necessary. But I don't know the details of that, either. Quite frankly, the prospect of a single person taking over our government is equally terrifying to me as another 9/11 or a more invasive attack from a foreign agent. In fact, it's more terrifying: how can we fight to preserve our democracy, our "freedom," if we don't feel it can stand in times of direst crisis?!

File this under "Well, duh!"

A recent article from Discovery Channel news reports that stereotypes dehumanize the people they're applied to. Wow. Really? Who'd've thunk?

In a study, psychology students were asked to list some "uniquely human traits."

These traits, generally believed to distinguish us from other animals, were linked with civility, moral sensibility, intelligence and rationality.

Those stereotyped thus are at risk of dehumanization.

"Likening a group to animals goes on in everyday perception of other people," he says.

He said children, artists and the elderly all tend to be stereotyped this way.

That's awesome. I consider myself more of the artist-type. Fab for me! I'll be easier to torture, apparently.

Speaking of dehumanization and psychological experiments, if you want to hear an interview with the professor who ran the Stanford Prison Experiment back in 1971, listen here. He's apparently written a new book applying what he learned in that study to life, war and math teachers.

... oh, sorry. Was I dehumanizing there? What can I say? As an artist, I lack civility, rationality and moral sensibility.

Not what we expected Today

A few months ago, our next door neighbor, a woman in her mid to late 60s, was diagnosed with lung cancer. We told her to let us know if she needed any help. We had helped her with her weekly trash pick up when she'd had an injured foot a few months earlier. She was always quiet and kept to herself; not very social, but very nice to us. She gave us an amaryllis for Christmas. We gave her homebaked cookies. This winter, some family came up from the Southwest to care for her. She spent over a month in the hospital and came home earlier this month. Her family returned home last week.

Last Sunday I took her to the pharmacy to pick up her meds. For someone about to undergo chemo, she looked pretty good. In fact, had I not known she'd been hospitalized for a month and some change, I'd've not known anything was wrong. We chatted and enjoyed the sunshine in the car and griped about the health insurance industry in this country screwing people over. She asked if Honey and I wouldn't mind helping her with her trash and some small odd errands while she underwent chemo for the next few months. Of course, I agreed. This evening, I called over to ask if she was ready for me to pick up her trash. No response. I didn't worry much; I figured after a week of chemo she was probably napping.

Apparently I wasn't the only one who got no response from calls to her house. Within an hour of my calling her house, several police cars arrived, as well as an ambulance. After they entered the house, they sent the ambulance back. There was no need to transport someone who didn't need saving. She was gone. We were as helpful as we could be to the cops, providing what next of kin information we had. Her family will be up here soon.

I had planned on drilling into my thesis this evening, and Honey had planned on doing work work. But after that, we were so unfocused, we both decided to just watch TV. And now, despite the Benadryl I took I can't get to sleep. I think there's something about knowing the house next to use is empty tonight. Sadly empty.

We liked her. We weren't close to her by any means, so our moroseness isn't rooted in intimacy. But death is inherently disconcerting. I expected this would happen at some point; just not so soon after her return from the hospital. I'm beginning to wonder if 2007 is going to be a little like 2005: a multiple funeral year. My grandfather has been knocking on Heaven's door for about a year, but he's been yanking on Heaven's bell-pull for about 2 months now. I'm hoping he hangs on through summer when we plan on visiting, but I suspect if he makes it to 2008 at all, he'll pass early.

I do hope to go to her funeral. I want to say goodbye. To leave the departure this way, conversations with cops and the eventual condolences to her family, is so unfinished. I hope she that she didn't suffer much, that it wasn't painful that death has brought her healing and respite. My prayer is that she is at peace and that death came as a friend. Also that Honey and I can be there for her family as they grieve and manage her estate in the coming months, if and when they need us, however they need us.

No time to read?

This began as a comment on Darla D's blog, but as per usual, I kept rambling on and didn't want to inflict such a laborious comment on her blog. So, here's my response:
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i really liked this post. the arguement of "no time" is weak, but i'm going to play devil's advocate here. and this will be - as everyone else's - from my own experience and from what i observe of others.

first off: public transportation is the best gift to reading ever. i read more when i commute like that. but most people in this country drive in to work, and you can't do both at once.

secondly, reading is an active activity. it requires attention that TV or Music does not demand. for myself, i simply cannot read a book when there is background noise or human distractions like conversation or homelife going on in the background. i can read newspaper or magazine articles with those distractions going, but if it's something i HAVE to know (like for school) or i WANT to enjoy (like a novel), it's impossible. i know many people can, and i try, but it's basically impossible for me to shut out the juicy convo at the table behind me or the TV show in front of me. you really can't passively read. and for a lot of people who've knocked out 8 to 10 hours at the office, dealt with traffic in and out and nagging kids when they get home, the last thing they want to do is actively focus on anything. it's shameful and they should be flogged publicly, i know, but mental exhaustion leads them to the TV and it's just a habit. that's something i like about audiobooks. it's been a while since i've listened to one, but you get the same text, and you can listen in your car, while you do laundry or if your job is mindless enough, you can listen at work.

i also wonder if people also go in cycles. i commented to a coworker once that sometimes i'll go through phases that last months or a year where all i want to do is nothing but read, then all i'll want to do is write, other times, both ... and then there are times when i just want to play and daydream. i'm always reading magazines and newspapers, but when it comes to books, i've also noticed that when i'm wrapped up in school, i'm less eager to pick one up. when you do nothing but read for evaluation, then it becomes a chore. it's like a good friend of mine who's a TV producer. he watches TV, but not nearly as much as one "should" to stay on top of what's going on in the industry. ... i wish i could say that bringing my textbooks with me on my commute force me to read them. usually what happens with me is i have my text, plus a newspaper plus a fun book. guess which i avoid! and when i have only my text with me, depending on how much i want to avoid it, i begin to daydream or plan future vacations. there's still mental activity going on even if it's not being agitated by text.

you make a good point that one should stop after X number of pages if a book sucks. but aside from the curiosity one feels about wanting to know how it ends, despite the suckiness, i wonder if there's just also a commitment factor. do you REALLY want to be the person who didn't finish a book? there's a high school english teacher inside all of us who chastizes us when we don't spell correctly or misuse grammar or choose the wrong books to read or don't read enough or well enough or fast enough, or, or, or .... even if it doesn't change our habits, she's there. i know she is, because friends and family of mine who don't spell well are haunted by her. i like reading, i consider myself a reader, but as at least half of my friends are the kinds who devour books like blood-thirsty raptors, where i'm content to graze. particularly because i'm not a fast reader so i want the book to be worth my time. and the english teacher haunts me there and makes me feel like a dumb-ass knuckle-dragger.

but your overall point of it comes down to priorities is absolutely right. it's like that with everything in life. i once had a friend who told me her parents didn't take her to church because they thought it was too boring. then why send her to school? school for both of us was terribly boring. because - laws aside - school was the priority in the house, not church. "i don't have time" is not an arguement, just like "it's boring" isn't. so the challenge then becomes getting people not only to prioritize reading for leisure, but convincing them that reading IS leisurely. i really think the biggest obstacle is mental exhaustion. there's a reason people keep books by their beds. it's the last quiet refuge at the end of a busy day in an increasingly hectic world.

What's Molly Dreaming Now? Edition 2

Since going full throttle on trying to slay my thesis, my dream life has been waning. Friday night, though, I had a very strange and vivid dream. I'll do this like the last one and give you the details and let you guys tell me what you think.

Honey and I have apparently moved to a new house which he bought without me having seen it. I am not upset by this; it was a good purchase and the previous owners left a lot of their old furniture so that saved us money and effort. I can't tell what city we're in. It's clearly some old East Coast American city with a colonial history: Philly, Baltimore, Williamsburg, I dunno. It is a monstrous townhouse in the middle of a row of townhouses. I'm not talking a big, modern townhouse like you see in developments all over the place. I mean a monstrous townhouse amidst other other monstrosities amidst the quaint, colonial historical part of town. For some reason, the Disney company has seen fit to run a monorail tunnel through the townhouses. Not through the living areas, but there's a tunnel beneath the first floor; like we don't have basements because the tunnel is in our basements. And the tunnel for this transport system emerges outside our kitchen window. We're not an end unit, but still the tunnel spits out and turns basically between our house and the neighbors. It's odd. Odder still, people emerge from the tunnel on foot, not just on the monorail cars. (Incidentally, here's an adorable diversion.)

Okay, so I've taken Babydog on a walk and come home and then I've gone out and run some more errands. Each time I come home, I comment on how I like the paint on the walls or how the old furniture still jives with my style or whatever. When I come back from running errands. I see Honey lying on the sofa with a tiny baby on his chest. The baby's wearing a pink onesie. I don't remember the dialogue that transpired between Honey and me, but for whatever reason it became apparent that this child was our daughter. ... and I didn't remember having had a baby.

So I take the baby into my arms - she's probably a month old - and try to become familiar with her. We haven't given her a name. She has a soft nest of dark hair, an incredibly round head, very round eyes and large, jutting, Stephen Colbert-shaped ears. Essentially, she looks nothing like Honey or me. I rifle through my memory and begin having vague recollections of being pregnant, but only 5 or 6 months so, not enough to have produced a baby. But I accept it and begin to grow comfortable with the idea that I have a baby - not that I am a mother, but that I have a baby. I'm happy that it's a girl. I then remember she was born on January 15, 2008. So it's now like April, 2008 in my dream. I hold up the baby by her armpits because she's able to hold her own head at this point, or at least do that weird neck-scrunch thing. And now, she's naked. I think to myself, "well, I hate January, but I guess I'll like it, now."* She begins to cry - scream really - and her mouth opens wider than anything I've ever seen. It's freakish and hilarious. She's like a wide-mouth bass or a cartoon baby (as illustrated above) and she's letting it roar. ... and that, we decide, she got from me.

The dream dissipated shortly after that. But what was weirdest to me was that I didn't feel an instant affinity for the baby. Honey and I were tickled by her and we were fully committed to caring for her, but it was more like she was a new curiosity than our child. I was not indifferent to her, but I wasn't inspired by her.

*side note, because I know VA Gal will say something: a ton of my favorite people are January babies, so I know the month in which one is born has no bearing on one's character. I'm just not a fan of January past, say, the 7th or 8th. If I could I would jump from January 10 directly to April 1, every year.

So what does my dream mean? ... a little history: a lot of our friends and family are having babies these days. We are in the process of replacing windows in our house. Have fun!

So THAT'S where they went!

A few months ago, I added comment moderation because I was getting too many comments advertising penis enhancers, anonymous anal sex and Nintendo Wiis. As I am quite happy with the "equipment" I am already privy to and I am quite happy with the very nonymous sex that I get, and we recently already bought a Wii, I decided I could do without the magnanimous offerings of strangers who decide to pad their comments with spaces and random characters. Perhaps they will find a more receptive audience elsewhere.

But when I enabled comment moderation, the comments seemed to disappear, or would only randomly appear. This morning however, in the "new blogger" which requires I sign in with a gmail account, I discovered I had a dozen comments to sift through in my comment moderation holding pen. So I did. Some date back two months. I have added all but one - the one that was advertising anal sex with a Nintendo Wii controller that had been slathered with penis enhancing cream. Frankly, hot as that sounds, I didn't feel it necessary to include in the chorus.

It was nice reading the comments. Particularly ones that were posted near the lowest point of my recent emotional crisis. Even if you didn't know that's what was going on, or if that was not what you were commenting on, the observations really kind of retroactively sustain me if that makes any sense. ... actually, screw "sense:" this is life and life is largely a hilarious exercise in absurdity in so many ways.

All that is to say: if you've commented in the last few months and haven't seen the comments in the comment field, forgive me. It has been corrected. Huzzah! (And the villagers rejoiced!)