A Plumpy Nut Christmas

Over the last few months my hands have touched every single thing I own and although I'd say I've liquidated about 3/4's of my worldly possessions I've come to the conclusion It's just too much...

So although it is only July I am plotting out my Christmas Service Project - you know the drill. I am still in the organization phase but here's a heads up, this years theme is "A Plumpy Nut Christmas".

Plumpy Nut is a totally amazing high protein mixture doing wonders in the fight against malnutrition in Africa. To top things off - It comes ready made (no contamination risk), keeps long term, is easily shipped, and the kids LOVE it. The recovery rate in some areas have been reported as high as 90-95%, though I have also seen more realistic rates of recovery listed around 75%.

I think this project also falls really nicely in line with my year long project for social/economic responsibility ... I know it's not easy... there are lots of things I want too (http://shop.nordstrom.com/S/2978364?tuid=000006cb-006f-0861-6c61-726765727669&id=8385421&largeImg=0&tname=product) ... but you know there are an awful lot of people out there with actual Needs, we must always keep them in mind. It is always better to try and make some small difference than not to even try. I'd also like to organize something local too. I assure you don't need to go to Africa to find people with needs and things to do to help, this winter is suppose to be pretty bad and there are lots of people who will spend it out doors

So ... you have been warned.... More info is to come: )

There & Back Again

Fortune Cookie Says:
"Follow that restless urge to find yourself." - perhaps this will be the montra of this "trip"

i'm laying belly side down stretched out on a mattress in the middle of my living room as i savagely dip animals crackers head first into steamy hot coco. i am a officially a month and a day off schedule - this is mildly amusing considering the notorious reputation i have for Leaving without notice and perpetually Returning late. i've got good feelings about going just not exactly about leaving or i guess staying gone lol.

The Move:

the house has been empty for quite some time now. in 1 hour and 20mins it's entire contents were loaded into a 17 foot truck, it was then driven 2.5 hours away were it was unloaded by complete strangers in under an hour! you can't beat that and it totally impressed my landlords parents (who dropped off the keys) lol "you mean that guy is a Bishop - in your church? And he's helping you move? And you never even met him?" lol that's just how we Mormons roll lol.

The New Place

despite my inability to stay gone - i do really like it there. i live in a small community, and my townhouse is a block down from a long and windy river walk, the river of course, and miles of wooded park. There's a rowing club and many of the homes dock boats right off their backyards. small waterfalls and cobblestone bridged over creek beds are abundant. the area is fairly wooded and tree branches arch over the street creating a nice cool umbrella of shade. where the trees are sparse their are gulf courses and ranges - the pga tour is currently right up the street. it reminds me geographically a lot like Miami Lakes - pancake flat. but with more of a N. Michigan like topography and in some lush marshes lined in weeping williows and purple headed thistles a bit of Georgia. The houses are more Lebo than USC and the people are the nicest. My first day here several people randomly stopped to see if I needed help getting situated and 2 people pulled over to welcome me to the area. this of course was much better than my welcome to USC, "Hi are your parents home?" The entire area is so quite - but people are everywhere walking dogs and riding bikes down the middle of the street. in another direction there is a small bz district with a Whole Foods and bakery and a white house black market and a Wolf Gang Puks. a block up in the other direction you can see the city sky line - it is really quite a sight. Of course I have a pool now and loads of running trails and a very nice very buff very single next door neighbor who seems not to own any shirts and would be perfect for someone i know.

The Old Place

tonight is my very last night under this roof, my very own roof. i love this house - it was everything i ever wanted. i know i still own it - it will still be my house - but i have a strong feeling it will never be my home again. and so i spent the last week on my knees scrubbing floors and up on chairs scrubbing walls to the point i am certain i have touched every single surface of this house. i am going to miss the many shades of brown and cranberry and light pinks and all the earthy greens... all the perfect fixtures and knobs. i'm never going to sit at night and watch the snow fall from my favorite chair in the sunroom... or sit too close to the fire all snuggled up to a yummy history book (lol yes some of them are so good you can read them by fires and in bathtubs) or sit by the pond and watch the koi... of course... it also means all that grass is no longer mine to bother and I don't have to baby all the different varieties of roses someone else planted... I am going to plant hydrangea and echinacea purpurea at the new house... and with Five less rooms to clean... i'll have much more time to do Anything else.

The New Ward ( the term ward is equivalent to saying like specific congregation)

in one word the new ward is dumpy in two words it lacks energy. The Bishop is very nice and seems energetic but the rest of the ward is just dumpy. the bishop said they had lost 12 families since spring - you think they would have been happy to have someone new among them. if they just had some energy ...or maybe smiled... said hi perhaps? I was standing their thinking... it's okay I read an article in the Ensign about just this sort of thing - i will say hi first! but no one was receptive. So the next week I went to the other ward... and it was like being at home - dental students and all - i found great comfort in that. And i met gobs of people and I thought I will be happy here! and so i asked the Bishop if i Could switch wards - I can SEE the ward boundary from my driveway! - he said he would like that and he gets the request often BUT i had to take that up with President Munson (for non LDS ppl - that means NO!) i am going to try the dumpy ward one more time... i am totally bummed out - totally.

Landlording

I have officially become a landlord - this occurred on the same day my whole house A/C officially became Dead. lol of course it did.

And so life goes... i unpacked my boxes... i put them all in the shed for next time...

The Girl in the Box

I've been living out these last few weeks in a physical Feng Shui state like metaphor. I've returned chaos back to order, sorted, de-cluttered, and discarded - much. Caught in the in-between of two lives I have found things that were easily and innocently misplaced. Not so much like uncovering a treasure chest, more like peeking between the floorboards and uncovering hairpins. Not just any hairpins, mind you, but the ones which slid between stacks of curls, your curls, holding each lock perfectly in place on that one perfect night. (Speaking of hairpins - remind me sometime to tell you the story of the prostitute's hairpins, perhaps valentines day -its a love story)

Of most interest I uncovered a cardboard box that has been shuffled from one place to another for so long that it has been warn soft with wrinkles and masking tape. Inside stacked heavy and high - stories, essays, poems, written in a dark, sometimes religiously saturated and often morbid if not macabre voice I almost didn't recognize. Some of these things date back as far as the Third grade lol and Most should be stacked a top a very hot pyre -totally. Though many of these were written within the last decade the voice struck me as foreign. It was really quite an odd and distant find. I hadn't recalled having won so many awards or even applying to college for creative writing in the first place, let alone the portfolio I sent in - or receiving a scholarship based on it. You' think having applications on the brain as of late it might have crossed my mind? The girl int he preppy short skirts and tall heavy doc martins was going to grow up and become a writer everyone said that - all the time.

While I remember in finite detail the moment when I "became" a history major (it was a moment that felt all warm and giggly and a lot like falling in love), I feel as though I am missing something important in not remembering the moment I stopped romancing the notion of writing a best seller on an old and loud type writer. Some people collect post cards, to remember where they have been, I collect moments down to the background music. I've been told it's just a quirk associated with how my memory works. But whether we realize it or not, whether we remember them or not, moments aren't returnable and you cannot give them away anyway - they stay with us all regardless of how detail specific we can nail them. Despite being emotionally a bit inept I do tend to be fairly good when it comes to peering into the small pin prick of clarity amidst an important one. I get their importance, maybe not exactly Why it was important but simply that it was. Of course the fact is most important moments are wrapped in disguise and enmeshed in everyday normalcy.

Having lost this one has forced me to consider my research - I don't do events, more or less I look at the interaction of ppl and life... what if there is no way to sift through an archive and pin point those life altering "moments" -the ones which end up directing the trajectory of life? Crap. What if all the research and footnotes in the world miss the truly important and singularly private moments that make all the difference in life. Crap.

Of course I have to wonder what it means to misplace ones voice or replace one with another? What if I never was a good writer and it was only that I had lived a life so different from most that I simply understood the world in different terms. How do you love something for so long that it becomes your defining quality... until one day in a moment you don't even remember it is simply gone?

And thus the quest continues for answers in the shadow of the valley where only questions grow.... In the mean time, I also found my Diadoras - mud still wedged between in the cleats.

What the Smurf!?

Unpacking to repack old boxes I hadn't bothered to unpack the last time I moved it came to my attention that ALL of my soft/stuffed SMURFS have been ... Destroyed - Death by unnoticed Water Damage. Thankfully the two 30 gallon containers which houses all of my Comic books, PVC guys, buildings and other random smurfy shtuff I brought back from Amsterdam was unscathed! Be assured I spent the afternoon putting off real work to ensure the safety of my "precious collection" Well I can't think of any other better reason for a god old round of Saturday morning smurfing ; )

***UPDATE*** Thank you for the out pouring of sympathy... oddly enough... as much as I love my Smurfs... after the initial WTS! I was okay... no Really. To be honest Except my ancient teddy "WishfullThinking" I don't Really like the feeling of stuffed animals (yuk!) They were easily obtainable on the Smurf-Market & as soon as any guy I ever dated found out about my collection they would be quite "original" & quite"romantic" and present me with one... unfortunetly I found the idea of snuggling with a stuffed smurf about as tempting as snuggling up to one of them and Thus I ended up with an old school sized computer & monitor box full of the little stuffed blue guys... lol Soooo Please...Thank you for the many offers but - No need to restock my collection just yet... especially not when all 60 gallons, minus the say 60ish new released figures I just picked up, are smurfing away their days at my sisters untill I arive back in town with my favorite three letters... P, h & d.

Blogging on the 4th of July

My house and their's is separated by a park of trees no less than a block thick - none the less it does not stop their crappy white fireworks from disrupting the complete silence and blanket of darkness required for me to sleep. It's well after 3 and the big buff Marine and a league of other barrel chested guys pickled in beer are bellowing the national anthem... yawn...

When I was still a very little girl I hated the Star Spangled Banner. I was after all the same very little girl who in, stiff dark blue hand-me-down jeans, a white turtle neck, and Rainbow Brite suspenders, was dragged to anti-nuclear everything protests, social marches, events like/including hands across America and sometimes late at night, in pjs, across town somewhere to a basement coffee house where people talked about politics and religion and I ate bagels and drank coffee.

To a very young, very adorable pigtailed version of me the Star Spangled Banner was just about another war we didn't even win. War was something I was quite aware of. My dad was Career Military, he had proudly fought in Vietnam and remained in the army up into 90s. I had heard enough stories to fill the creative blanks of my little mind.

War scared the crap out of me.

I was not yet in Preschool when I first heard about the on going Civil War in Lebanon and far too young to understand there was a mighty big difference between the small Middle Eastern country, Lebanon, and Mt. Lebanon, the small upper middle class suburb of Pittsburgh I called home. Many nights I laid awake my eyes peeking out the window next to my bed - through the tree branches that hung over my window I searched the skies for military helicopters, the shrubs for skulking camo clad enemies. I logged many hours in the wee hours of the morning playing dead, laying deathly still, taking small shallow breaths, practicing the art of not reacting to anything weather they be tickles or a cold steel muzzle pressed against my head These were important skills to have if ever ambushed or drafted to fight - I would simply fall on the battlefield and hope they didn't take pot shots on the dead. What can I say I was a battlefield coward.

It was during one of those long nights that my sister poked me with her bony elbow and informed me of the difference in the two Lebanon's. I laid awake that night as well, but this time it was a different kind of awake, it was the kind of awake that comes with new found knowledge. I realized that while there was no war raging in my backyard that where ever war raged there might be a little girl who couldn't sleep because there was in fact a war in her back yard. The thoughts and questions that came to me that night stayed decades later - some still today. On many sleepless nights I have thought and rethought and come to many very different conclusions on the subject of War and Wars, past, present, and future.

This in mind, my dislike for an anthem that seemingly glorified war is quite easy to follow. That was until I actually learned more about the circumstances surrounding it's having been penned.

History Lesson: Everyone knows Frances Scott Key, & "some other guy",wrote the Star Spangled Banner as prisoners of war on board a warship off Baltimore. It seemed Baltimore was about to be sacked when low and behold the sun rose and old glory was still beating in the wind. What most have forgotten however is that the War of 1812 & a moment like that marked a substantial moment in US history. The 30 years that followed the Rev War had been tumultuous to say the least - insurrection was abundant at every turn, economic depression, politics, state building, debts, and the idea of one union itself threatened to tare the new country apart at the seams. As always Super Powers France and England continued to battle each other - caught in the middle of their melee stability was at a premium for the US. Having no hindsight on unfolding matters there was no guarantee of what would happen. The Revolutions and Republics of other countries had been short lived. The country was forced into war. In the end the US stood up against a world super power - held its own, forced a stalemate and became a global contender. The moment captured by the Star Spangled Banner wasn't just against all odds a battle had been won but that by the skin of its teeth this country was here to stay (not that it wouldn't have it's problems). The republican experiment was no longer just an experiment.... it's a song about survival and the strength of rebounding.

In the days after 911 a flag raised over ground zero brought meaning to the Star Spangled Banner as a beacon hope amongst rubble. I thought over the songs historic value, and the then current circumstances and the message fell together not nice or neat but in my lap none the less. Things hadn't been perfect or peachy when the US entered war in the early 1800s and they weren't perfect or peachy at the turn of our century but I thought you know as long as old glory still finds her way up and symbolizes the unique liberties of this land then we have the tools to maintain/return/make good the potential and ideals set forth by this country in her making. We live another day and thus have another chance to make things good. What rises from the ashes might just be better than what it replaces ... 200+ years is not a long time there is still an oppertunity to realizes what could make this country great now that's something I can get behind...

Diet: Ice Cream & Oxycontin

The Tooth fairy paid her very last visit to my bedroom Friday night leaving behind a two inch pvc smurf -ahhh she knows me well. I personally think she made out on the deal a bit better than myself. I mean I had 3 wisdom teeth yanked...and got 1 smurf for my troubles! But perhaps the state of the fairy economy is not so different from our own, maybe even fairies need to buy petrol - I mean just b/c they can fly doesn't mean they have to all the time - i mean we can walk and yet we don't.) Maybe wisdom teeth just aren't worth what they used to be on the used body parts market she deals in. The Doctor on the other hand was far more giving. He did not stop at numbing my gums but set me on a collision course for a near nonfunctional drug induced mind numbing fog.

I'm on Oxycontin - I didn't get anything this strong when I had an ORGAN removed a few years back! My mom is terrified I am going to get hooked on the stuff lol which is funny because there is nothing fun at all about being on it. It feels a lot like having Mono. My mind is wide awake but with a slow and steady tug my thoughts they begin to slip to the back of my head - collecting - growing heavy, heavy like my eye lids that bat slower and slower until their no longer batting but simply closed and i've fallen asleep in a bubble filled tub. I've touched down in lala land and snuggled up in the warmth of the precipices at the back corner of my thoughts. But I'm never at a loss for a crazy great dream where you can almost taste and certainly feel so this is clearly not a pharmaceutical benefit of oxy.

So here I am living my days asleep at the wheel. I wake occasionally. i creep with a yawn like slither out from under the pool of blankets on my bed. Wrapping a light blue sheet around me like a toga I try to muster land legs but I have the grace and fiances of knees caps smacking off the corner of an end table. Drowsy squint eyes skim the world or at least the ice box for my true drug of choice and only thing which makes sense of having allowed a strange man to take pliers to mouth: The reward - the recreationaly addictive bowl of skinny cow mint chocolate chip ice cream with reduced fat smushed up Oreos.

Before the kitchen lights have ultimately faded to black I have once more returned to my labyrinth of thoughts and dreams .... licking a smudge of mint chocolate wonderfulness from the corner of my lips.

*Update* I have no recollection of writing this - actually - I don't remember anything about that entire week lol which is just totally Crazy -totally. I mean What was I wearing???? I hope I at least matched! Lesson Learn: Never mix oxy and Valium together...

"Molly Mormon" vs. the "Rouge Sheep"

Being a Mormon is hard work, it isn't the rules or the lifestyles or all the scripture reading or even 3 hour church services that make it difficult. It's trying to fit perfectly into a mold that's been forged by other people.

Sometimes it's the basics that nudge me into annoyance - Your sitting their "having drinks" with friends and everyone wants to know what exactly the Mormon is drinking.
Your sipping on a Diet Coke and someone suspiciously and inaccurately says... "I thought you weren't allowed to have Caffeine?!" You make a pot of Herbal tea and you have someone reading tea leaves over your shoulder trying to identify them as not really herbal. It's almost as though there is a pot of gratification waiting for them if they can catch me in action - sinning lol. That said one time I am sure they will lol because although I try to do and be better - i'm not perfect. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes people, including me, even make the choice they want as apposed to the choice which is Right - *Gasp* on purpose. It could be anything from shopping on Sunday, Speeding, or even lying to your husband about exactly how much you spent on that new dress. It happens. It's life. You live. You learn. Knowing is half the battle - that's what I think. As much as the ever watchful attention my secular comrades annoys me - it also strengthens my Mormon identity. They remind me that the bar is set high. But I don't think if I were Catholic or Methodist they would care in the least about my sinning or not sinning why does being a Mormon make that different?

Where Doctrine is concerned people have no problems telling me exactly what I believe (and of course why it is wrong). I think that is funny because sometimes I'm not even sure of all the different things that I believe - i just believe them. Like I 100% believe in a combination of pre/post existence and reincarnation. I also believe that life is made up of elements that are both fate and self determination. These things are not very Mormon but they also aren't actually excluded from Mormon doctrine either. I don't know how on earth these things may work or any of the details but I know them to be true in my soul. My testimony is something that is alive and evolving and ever changing and growing. I want to ask them what religion they are and do they believe and interpreter every single thing their leaders or minister or Sunday school teacher does in the same way? The funny thing is most of the time is that the people on the other side of these questions are people who are not religious themselves anyway - so why do they care? Me, I think religion is really a personal journey of beliefs and understandings. I don't think I could ever conform 100% to the beliefs of any one person or group - but you know one of my beliefs is that I don't have to. I know everyone says that Mormonism is different b/c it can't be served Cafeteria Style - but in coming to know some of most devote Mormons I have also come to understand there all different ways they understand and pay tribute to the churches teachings - the Words of Wisdom is the easiest example to point at.


A non Mormon once remarked that I didn't seem very Mormon. I'm certain there are members who agree - There's an older sister who says hello to me as her eyes lower to scan my hemline - im not sure I've ever made the grade where she and the minority of others like her are concerned, but they are the kind who get disjointed by boys with longer hair or girls who want to wear pants to church. It is a small contingent that misses the big picture in focusing on the small details. I can't imagine that God cares what people look like when they show up at his door - I tend to think he is just happy they came. Cleanliness isn't really next to Godliness - it's just Cleanliness. I don't suppose Jesus had many haircuts or took many baths... or wore pants for that matter. Mind you it's a small contingent but even so it taints the water of inclusion. Worse yet however are the non members who equate my "individualism" to a status "Bad Mormon" or "Renegade Sheep." I wouldn't go that far - I think being a Mormon doesn't equal being a sheep - but I can certainly see why people might think that because I think there are some Mormons who think that. Not me. One of the most amazing things about my church is the necessity it places on individual scripture studies and forming ones own unique testimony. This can't help but encourage intellectual thought and analyses - if not out right demand it.

Between both groups in my life there is one consistent conclusion - put me in a room of female Mormon's and i don't blend in. When I think over the list of differences between myself and them the list is endless and overwhelming. Worse yet there's nothing really to bridge the gap. I envy the standard Mormon female the glowing integrity, the way she caries herself, and all that she is feted with in talents, skills, patience which she dedicates to the upkeep and progress of family and community - a noble deed. It is a perfect little mold but one i just don't seem to fit. Each and every time I try - I find myself horribly unhappy. I always fail.

This year has been a struggle of self identity for me. It seems like I've been boxing with my own shadow and neither one of us will win. Amidst all of these on goings it seems many fixtures that were axioms of who and what it meant to be me have fallen away like the polls of a cage. What used to be me no longer seems to be an accurate depiction of what it is to actually be me. The chasm of dissonance widens and the only conclusion I come to is that non Mormons make me more Mormon but other Mormons seem to make me less. How odd. Being stuck between two worlds doesn't suite me, and why should it - in neither one am I able to simply just be happy with myself. That's really all I want to be. It's like living between a rock and weird place. Perhaps this moment of self analyses and transition into grad school & moving have been placed side by side with more purpose than irony. Perhaps this transformation is more metaphorical than physical. Perhaps within these muddled waters I might make some changes that will enable me to be the person I want to be...which is a person at peace with the person she already is. This of course requires some changes.

Good Question...

I Ran

It's hand to hand combat with a pale yellow sports bra,a blue tank top, and a yellow long sleeve t-shirt slipped on overhead, a pair of really warm fleace gray running pants and a swift tug and a tie of my blue and yellow trainers - & i'm off.

The constant steady rhythm and motion is not something i especially enjoy but as the sun returns from it's winter quarters it becomes something i do particularly crave. It's not the destination or sometimes even the time v distance that matters but the unavoidable and quite perspective that comes from sliding my feet into my very own very warn pair of sneakers.

Okay so i'm not going to break any records but there is something that feels fast about running, something that reminds me of being free. Free to move around without that yucky old wheelchair or crutches, something i often take for granted. it's free to let my thoughts run off just as far and fleeting as they dare adventure. It's setting fresh goals - and then crushing them! It's pushing myself farther, for the sheer reason of reminding myself that I can.

This month my goal was run 100 miles in a month and tonight as I was nearing the end of 100 and the beginning of 101 twelve years worth of adversary whistle wearing gym teachers came to mind. Despite my varsity soccer and swimming status, I am certain my dislike for working up a midday sweat earned me a proclivity toward civil disobedience, one which nearly cost me my summer vacation - every year, and eventually almost my diploma. Those gym teachers with their gym teacher smell and their ironic gym teacher round and lumpy shape would share quite a laugh if they knew that these days I actually get a bit cross when forced to skip a run.

Ahhh...How things can and do change....this of course is aside from my continued dislike of totalitarian women in sweaties and bad hair cuts... that has stayed pretty much the same :P

mw/h

"The End"

After 264 pages and 601 footnotes Craig was Finally put to rest today leaving behind one very happy Me!


According to my Microsoft Words Stats: This file has been on my screen for 336 Hours or 14 DAYS. I have opened this document 132 times. There are 452 paragraphs & I have been happy with the placement of exactly 74,328 words.


This last month it has taken me longer to write a single page than last year it took me to write an entire chapter. I don't think it was negligence but perhaps avoidance. It is hard to end a life on paper to say this is the end. I remember the day in the archive when I reached the end of his papers. It is a family collection, 16,000 items extending from 1765 to 1890. Craig's papers, letters, receipts, notes just stopped and a new generation of Craig's and their letters began. It wasn't just that life moved on, it was knowing that he would become forgotten. As someone who has been touched by the cold hand of death more than her fair share of times there was something very final and lonely about this experience in particular. It left a great and quiet sadness in me. I drove home without the radio on (very un-me, my life is immersed in music). I have felt a great responsibility in helping Craig tell his story, and although his death was but one small event of his life it seemed such a personal moment. Putting his death back onto paper felt as though I were dressing the body for a wake as opposed to what I wanted to do, bid him farewell on his journey to Aman. (psst it's a Tolkien reference)


As for me - It is not necessarily the ending of a project I don't like it is more the idea of starting another. At the end of each project I look back on the collection of stints where I ran my keyboard hot with good ideas and It scares me to think I will have to do it again & again & again because What if ... What if I never have another good idea...what if this time it was a fluke... what if I already played my best card...worse yet...what if I never had any good cards to play to begin with. This is the thought that scares me as the sun begins to set on any given project. This is the thought that makes Me (the worlds biggest lets-just-do-it-right-now-non-procrastinator) suddenly gain a back burner.


But for now, for this very short moment I'm going to sit back & as one dear and evil friend reminds me... feel like "amazing...crap" ;)



...Of course there is a great deal of editing to be done now...but that is a monster of a very different breed. For now I am just happy to say I am done.


Mw/h

Fool's Gold: Ethanol

Fact: In ONE YEAR 1 man could live off of the amount of Corn it would take to make ONE full tank of fuel...

Fact: According to USA today for all cars in America to run on ethanol we would need 261 Million gallons A DAY! and at full capacity (i.e. - if ALL available farm acreage in the USA was in corn production for ethanol) we'd still only have less than 100 million gallons a YEAR!

Fact: As it turns out Ethanol isn't as pollution free as you thought (oh and BTW - Neither is your plug in car - electric cars run clean... but the power plants that fuel them are WORSE than Petrol!). According to the EPA Ethanol plants produce high amounts of Carbon Monoxide, Acetaldehyde, formaldehyde, and acrolein - none of which are good for you know things that live... and breath.

Fact: According to Time Magazine currently 20% of the Carbon emissions being ... well emnmited is being done so not because of Cars but because of the deforestation, for the production of ETHANOL and Sugar Cane, taking place in the Brazil Jungle (You may also recall the Jungle by its other name from way back in the 80's & 90s when we were trying to SAVE IT FROM BEING DEFORESTED - the RAIN FOREST. But Boo Who saving the Rain forest is old school but not so much yet that's gone Vintage and is back IN again.)

Fact: Ethanol is only truly "renewable" to a point. Crops need rotated or fields need to replenish the nutritional value of their soil and production at full capacity means all available acreage is being worked continuously and sucking that value out of the soil and thus at some point yield will begin to decrease and we do not actually know the long term effects of long term land abuse.

Fact: Ethanol is not as efficient as Petrol. According to Consumer Reports mileage decreases by about 27% on cars that run on Bio Fuels as apposed to those running on Petrol.

Fact: Ethanol is already more expensive than Petrol and is not cost efficient to produce. Companies that specialized in Ethanol have turned to "alternative" bio fuels to supplement their output because thanks to Ethanol - the cost of corn and wheat have increased so that they are no longer profitable crops to work with.

Fact: According to the director of the EPA there is NO way to accurately calculate your "Carbon Foot Print" and most things done by intuition - like purchasing locally grown produce are inconsistent with what is actually eco-friendly.

The Biggest Fact: We've got to stop problem solving old school - i.e. exchanging one Problem for anther. We've got to start using our brains to come up with REAL and LONG TERM solutions. We've put the Cart in front of the horse and although the horse is standing there looking at the cart and getting it ... somehow it's blowing right over our heads. The health and well beginning of the earth - it is a great and noble cause to champion but must be done with appropriate, economical, logical, scientific actions, not knee jerk emotional reactions. We all must become stewards of the planet but we must do so responsibly. I have argued the case for lessening our impact on the earth for most of my life and while it is wonderful to see it has now become the thing to do over the last few years the hysteria surrounding how to "Go Green" has become as stylish and sensible as buying 5 to 8 year olds $1,000 tickets to see Miley Cyrus (aka Hannah Montana) lip sink.

The leap for ethanol is still technologically premature (as are most gas-alternatives), yet our jump to conform, to be trendy, to allow the market to dictate the best solution is creating new problems and leaving ethanol's distillery stink and yellow stain on the world economy in escalating prices and wheat/rice/corn food shortages around the world.

Even if we could grow the amounts of corn required seeing as the food shortages we are already creating should we? There is obviously a considerable moral issue at stake if we do. Turning food into a energy increases it's value substantially and thus moves it farther out of the reach of those who already struggle to survive. We are only just feeling the crunch here in the states and while we have the conveyance of perhaps just nipping our splurges here and there to fund our necessities that is a luxury not all the world enjoys.

What about other forms of Bio Fuels? As it stands now anything organic or dropped off the back end of an animal - will require substantial land. Before we encourage developing nations to begin deforestation of their invaluable resources in the rain forest or farmers to utilize their land for fuel as apposed to food research must be done to see what the repercussions of our actions will be. Of course Displacing people and animals are also ill side effects of programs which demand large sums of land to supply goods to a significantly smaller group. Bio Fuels only seem to "work" b/c they are currently low in demand, compared with Petrol. To rely only on Bio Fuels of any kind is to create an environment of dependence were shortages and higher/unstable costs rule the market.

First we need to decided what our goal REALLY IS. Neither 1. wanting to be independent of other countries for energy or 2. eco-friendly earth saving solutions are solved with Bio fuels. If these are the problems we are looking to solve we need to define them and then construct appropriate and humane solutions - based in logic and science. I think the answer is going to be harvesting, harnessing, and somehow retaining solar energy but I'm going to leave it to the scientists - the people who know a heck of a lot more than I do.

The answer should not be emotional, political, or necessarily stylish - but one made out of the necessity and with the planet's best interest at heart. If we treat this issue like a trend, like the cute mini-toy dogs all dressed up and shivering in a purse-carrier so popular 2 years ago - Than that's what it will be - a trend and when it becomes old or boring, just like those dogs it will be discarded.

As long as we remain uninformed and uniformly trendy and afraid to speak out against green fallacies and the PC Police the vote buying politicians and corporate vultures will swarm above us pimping their ever increasing amounts of new and improved unregulated "Green" crap. Down below we'll buy it all up and think we are doing our part - just like the toxic and hazardous Compac Fluorescent light bulbs we feel ohhh so progressive for jamming into our sockets. Companies will always be glad to fill our " green needs" but it doesn't mean their agenda is ours... though it sure as heck is Green. Right now they are leading us by the nose and deciding for us and we cannot afford jumping on the hybrid wagon a moment too soon, because the planet cannot.

Lost: Inspiration, if Found please Return

I am STILL stuck on page 261...

Why I Boycot China & the Olympics

According to BBC News in China last year 3 Million people took part in over 58,000 mass protests. China is one of a small list of countries I have never been to. Honestly I'm not sure over a life time that I've really given China much thought until last year. It wasn't the never ending recalls that brought the plight of the Chinese people to my attention but it was the the Bodies exhibit at the Carnegie Science Center. I was working for the Carnegie at the time and the first time we discussed the exhibit I was taken back by it - That Said in the name of Art and Science I was able to find tolerance for a "noble and higher cause" within the slightly distasteful display. It was not long after however I began to learn of the Crimes Against Humanity that take place in China everyday. So While I am not in China I quite my job to stand behind the 3 million Chinese who have taken a stand against the kinds of things this exhibit stands for - Western Ambivalence and East Asian Oppression.

These are just some of the reasons why I have been promoting consumer social responsibility (aka boycotting exhibits like Bodies, limiting the purchase of China made products, and by informing others) in the plight for human rights so that all citizens of the world may live... think ... believe... and speak freely. I support this with all my being.

1. Followers of Falun Gong (Which is a system of beliefs that work toward the "cultivation of virtue and character", "moral standards for different levels", and "salvation of all sentient beings.") are tortured and imprisoned daily for their beliefs. According to the UN over 65% of all torture cases and over 50% of all Labor Camps in China are comprised of Falun Gong Followers. This truly is a philosophy built on peace and the betterment of man through each persons own individual development.

2. China has no voluntary organ donation system. The majority of organs harvested and transplanted are done on the black market to people from all over the world who are able to afford them at about 16 million dollars a pop. Where do these organs come from? Although the exact figure is still unknown many of the people who have conducted these transplants have admitted that the organs were harvested from LIVE religious and political(people who have spoken out against communism)prisoners. In 1996 the Chinese Government reported that it had participated in over 20,000 transplant of kidneys alone. UN Report: http://falunhr.org/reports/UN2007-org/Torture-UN-07.pdf

3. Slavery is a reality in China. Men Women and Most often very small children are stolen from the streets, removed from their daily lives they are forced to live in bare hovels, they are tortured, raped, maimed, and fed bread and water, and worked from dawn into the night daily on tasks of hard manual labor in agriculture and mines. To their families most will never be heard from again.

4. According to CNN there are 1,100 known forced-labor camps in China. They are "are driven by hard-line ideology, Communist Party directives and the whims of local cadres. It is designed as a repressive mechanism to control and, in effect, eliminate anyone whose political, religious or societal views differ from those of the Communist Party."

5. All of this before we discus the unregulated and environmentally unfriendly acts that pump pollution above china in unprecedented percentages that corrupting the entire worlds air supply or the rampant sex and child sex trade that employs children as young 4 years old (and maybe younger) and encourages pedophiles from around the world to vacation there or the infanticide & gendercide that has created a gender gap that in some regions has meant a population of 70% males and 30% females. The mutilation of females. The sheer lack of value placed on human life. The 3000 Christians that have been put to death in the last 7 years for speaking out. Or that there is no Freedom of speech, and the internal media is used to propagate propaganda and a tool for oppression of ideas. After an even longer list of Chinese issues we come to the recalls which placed children around the world at risk for nothing more than pennies more in profit.

As for the Olympics I have mixed emotions. In general I don't support the Olympics because of their fundamental ambivalence to human suffering around the world. In one hand I understand that increased revenue can assist impoverished countries But what is good for tourism is Never good for long term sustainability and habitation of developing or oppressed countries. Tourism to oppressed countries only heightens the power of the economically and socially empowered people of the ruling class. In instances like the Sex Trade and Child Sex Trade (popular economic stimuli in developing tourist countries such as Mexico, Africa, the Middle East and Asia) aside from social and emotional ramifications they counter act economic development by denying children the necessary education and opportunities needed to economically mobilize themselves and their families long term. Instead these children become fodder for sexual deviancy until their youth has been spent and their futures blackened and decided. Even in countries were the child sex trade does not operate (openly) children are kept from school in order to make and sell trinkets on streets and in open markets. These sought souvenirs not only reflect the local culture but the culture of oppression & while tourists can not have enough of these goods to showcase their travels they have little heart or consideration for what they have really bought into.

I fear that as the times get closer to the Olympics the Chinese government will become more desperate to silence the heroic voices that have begun to rise above the oppression. During the last Olympics over 300,000 dogs and cats were put to death in order to make the city appear cleaner and more welcoming to outsiders - That was in Athens a country that does not already have such problems as China. For a country already plagued by torture and oppression what drastic measures might the Chinese government take in an attempt to maintain their "image"? That Said, I cannot help but hope that having a spot light on China will if not, empower her people, will showcase the social and inhumane injustices before the world and perhaps with a few billion behind them China may become free. Join the Fight Speak on behalf of those who cannot, limit your purchase of China made goods and make the economic statement that we will not conduct business or be bedfellows with those who commit atrocities against man kind.

An inside look into China:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgGCQ0nVcyU

PdotSdot: I am not so foolish as to think that these things and worse do not happen in other countries of the world... i just figure i'll tackle them one at a time.

Dreaming My Dreams

sleep provides a wonderful loophole for which logic & reason may escape. we may wonder aimless or with exceedingly sharpened and purposeful aim and yet even in my dreams i am afraid to fly. it's one small push and it's like i'm 8 and on ice skates. i have no clue how to stop, instead i simply prepare to smack into something. i star as the heroine, i stand beside an ancient canal, antiquity crumbling all around me, fire burning off somewhere in the background, the ground shakes beneath my feet, a large and heavy marble pillar threatens to tumble as my hand pauses a single moment cupping a cheek as i say good bye before jumping onto the very last boat. whole worlds are made and lives are lived in the span of real world moments, the colours are more vivid the soundtrack is always perfect. anything is everything and everything is anything. and yet perhaps the dreams had with eyes wide open, when we refuse to reach for anything less than everything and when faith and hope are perhaps the only science that supports our endeavours or fuels our passions... perhaps these are the truly daring dreams we dream. Mw/h

You are the Country's Biggest Problem

i'm not sure why but people are always asking me "what do you think"? I mean anyone who really knows me knows i'm this weird concoction of contradicting fatalism and optimism so i don't know perhaps i am not the best person to hand such a loaded gun.

this crazy little election & all of it's many Cani-don'ts hasn't helped. I can't, or maybe just won't, tell anyone who to vote for. i don't think change is something you smell on the wind, it's something you can feel - it's something you can't help but see. i'm a historian &, when i do my job right, i speak for the dead, i know where we've been...& at rare moments i see where we are going. in so many ways it seems we are living in such dark times. as we stand on this verge of "something" we have to wonder if it's not that "something better" we are endlessly searching & hopping for.

i am sorry to report but nothing better is on the horizon. sadly the fact is that regardless of who wins in Nov & regardless if we remain a capitalist democracy, or become a socialist democracy or something all together different it will not solve our biggest problem - You. each one of us is that person standing beside the system wrench in hand...about to throw & worse yet there are about 301,139,947 of us. the fact is we are own worst enemies. the system itself has no set values - isn't that why we call it "the Machine" it is only in the human component (of the government, society, economy, and day to day life), that a moral attribute can be found - we are the moral apparatus of the system/machine. quite simply the majority of people use the system but contribute nothing to it. as people we somehow grow up and think we are entitled to a middle class life, & all the trimmings, that our parents spent a life time building for the simple fact we were raised with them, as workers we demand more pay than most of us really deserve, as employers we demand too much time than we are owed, as consumers we demand bargain basement prices for an endless amount of *Must Have* *Random* *Crap* (how much STUFF do we need anyway?) & we never think of how those prices are achieved or what it really costs us & as retailers any amount of profit less than what we expected we report as a "loss" and demand government assistance...the list goes on & at the end of the day we are all supposed to be "Innocent Bystanders" wanting someone else to come and fix it all. the fact is until we start participating in the system & providing/fulfilling its moral element - until we at least start trying to just be good & accountable people who are fair in their business dealings on both sides...people who care about other people...things will not get better, anything else is simply a spot of bubblegum on a pipe about to burst. that's what i think.

Square Peg Syndrome

with the ease & grace of a magician's silk scarf what has perhaps been kept cleverly amidst the obvious has been revealed.

... i'm okay with that ...

All Work & No Play

It has been spring break all week. No classes to teach no mind wondering students or eager hand raisers to entertain, a week of hitting snooze and welcoming a world of colorful, long, complex and cozy dreams. a week of peace and quite, ceiling starring and falling asleep with a book across my lap on the couch. moments full of wonder, thoughts slipping through my head like warm water between your fingers into a bath tub full of bubbles.

i was waiting for four corners of a slice of paper jack cheese (wedged between two sides of an everything bagel)to fold under the ovens heat it's a process that generally takes 6.23 mins... & that's just enough time to do something I haven't done in a long time...a well hidden secret that few of the people i've met in the last 5 years would ever guess. leaning over the counter i began...slowly eyeing the boxed images one by one... flipping the slightly tattered edges of a Comic book. that's right... i am a not so closeted graphic novel reader & may quite possibly be the only girl of my kind - it's a fact im okay with.

i met 2 strangers this weekend, one was an older woman whose face was dressed in a lifetime of sour emotion. she said she had no free time and rattled off a list of everyday tasks that consumed her every moment. the other was this neat medical professional guy, who wore a smile like some guy's wear J Crew, rugged, natural, and worn in. he reminded me that there is always time for comic books.

have you ever done that, gotten so wrapped up in the "importance of life" that you have forgotten something almost like a box beside the moving van as the heavy metal door is slammed shut and the engine starts? it's an easy thing to do...but unlike time lost to an endless list of things that in reality bring about little happiness ... these small indulgences are easily recovered and merely a reminder away.

M/wh

PdotSdot: While i'm in the confessional i will tell you i also like colouring (my fav of which is comic books or over pop fashion mags that i've white washed.)

Between the Bindings & a List of Must Reads

Having sworn off blogging...here I am. I make no promises in my being able to keep this up but thanks to the urgings of a few mighty bloggers... I will try, and attempt not to put you straight to sleep along the way. While we are on disclosures I Must confess I have a truly boring life & so essentialy I am doing this to quell the mob.

I've been knee deep in writing this whole week, I am on page 248 of my very first book... it is a lot harder than you think or maybe just that I thought. I weave together tightly knit conclusions from a stack of receipts discarded 206 years ago with letters that allow me to eavesdrop on half of a forgotten conversation. Then there is the big struggle to choose the right words and string them all together just so. Lets not forget the whole spelling them all properly along the way thing lol which I swear just ruins the creative process lol.

For this reason, & another, it only makes sense that i begin my first official blog on the topic of books & reading. The invention of the novel, during the Reformation, may just be ONE of the greatest gifts if not advances to and of mankind. Don't worry I wont get all history on you. Reading is a love I did not find tucked away in the back corner of a local library but one which has been fostered by an entire family of book case owners dedicated to a life time of learning & only-them book habits. A book is not just a gateway to some far off and distant place but in spending time with good, and sometimes bad, characters we sometimes gain insight of a great unknown, by which of course I mean that sometimes when we read we find not only a new world filled with new people but a sweet or careful reminder of the fact that we are really reading about ourselves...as books sometimes reminds us who we are, who we long to be, and of course who we would rather die than become.

Of course there are other kinds of books and readings, my fav of which being the kind that stops you right in the very path of your life...you quietly sit to ponder ...& when you resume your life's journey you find that somehow it has changed & you are on another...but of course that is a blog for another day.

Some of The Very Best Books I've Ever Read

(Off The Top of My Head)

1. Les Miserable



2. The Count of Monte Cristo



3. Persuasion



4. Crime & Punishment



5. The Scarlet Letter



6. The History of Tom Jones



7. Vanity Fair



8. Far From the Maddening Crowd



9. Tristram Shandy



10. Moll Flanders



11. Nervous Condition (tisti Dangabraba sp?)



12. Sense and Sensibility



13. The Princes Bride



14. The Hobbit



15. Wicked



16. The Life and Death of Superman



17. A Whisper in the Dark (Alcott)



18. Pride and Prejudice



19. The Girl with a pearl Earring



20. A Tale of Two Cities



21. Atlas Shrugged



22. Wuthering Heights



23. the Great Gatsby



24. Catcher in the Rye



25. Goethe's Faust



26. Madame Bovary



27. Stranger in a Strange World



28. Grapes of Wrath

29. The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio

30. Invisible Man (Ellison)

31. Middlemarch

32. Things Fall Apart

33. How the Garcie Girls lost their Accents

34. The Old Man and the Sea

35. Money and Meaning of Happiness (Needelman)

36. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

37. I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings

38. In Country

Fav Childhood Books:

1. Monster at the end of this book - though admittedly I was scared to turn that last page



2. Uncle Remus - anything



2. Anne of Green Gables

Mw/h