| Our Multiverse | 10:21 PM |
I've been obsessed with this New Scientist article I read recently about how there is not one universe, but there are multiverses. If you're familiar with Schrödinger's Cat, the multiverse theory implies that it doesn't matter if the cat is dead or alive when you open the box, there is another universe where the cat is the opposite.
So in the simplest scenario, imagine the world you live in, the world you know -- or at least the reality you know -- and that there is another one of you that does the exact opposite of what you do. That's the simple version because it implies binary choices. Now imagine how many multiverses there really must be. And then imagine what this means morally? The better a person I am in the universe I know, there must be another entangled me in different universe that is just as evil as I am good. So what's to compell me to be good?
Last week, Ed and I were talking about an article he'd read about how this world could be a simulation. I found a few papers out there on the topic so I'm not sure exactly which one he read, but it stuck with me. And now I wonder -- would you bother to run a simulation if the multiverse theory were true? Wouldn't the simulation spawn the extra multiverses it needed, then what would be the point of observing one over another?
Then, there's Dexter. I'm beginning to think that watching that show is actually taxing my mental health, but all of this ties in together. Dexter. What's wrong with being a serial killer? If, say in another universe, you're a doctor helping people live? There's a scene in the episode called Circle of Friends, where Dexter is talking to another killer in jail and asks, What do you normally feel?, and his friend answers, Nothing. Fucking nothing at all. So empty. But in our multiverses, there'd be a him somewhere that didn't feel empty. Would emptiness mean anything then?
| Your Friendly Serial Killer | 12:18 AM |
I've been absorbed in Dexter, the Showtime series about the blood forensics expert/serial killer. I love this criticism of the media buzz around Dexter on the Media Research Center's site (a conservative group). I found it humorous.
I'll admit to having a long time fascination with serial killers. I used to read true crime novels (those hideously unliterary little mass market books) when I was a kid and was always especially interested in the serial killers -- the ones that were compelled to repeat their rituals over and over and over again. I see in my son this same fascination with death. The last time he was here he picked up a death encyclopedia. I told him he could pick between that and a coloring book on brain anatomy (we were at Paxton Gate). I was hoping to color the amygdala with him and talk about anatomy or something foolishly educational. Of course, he chose the book that catalogued different ways people died and when (which, btw, he's learned quite a lot from), and I picked up a black and white photograph of what looked like a pile of dead dolls.
My fascination with murderers is partly why I love crime dramas. Though I also love them because each episode is discrete -- you don't have to watch an entire season to get it. Sure, there are some insignificant narratives that arc through a season, but I'm only interested in the crime. That human relationship stuff always makes me impatient.
Last night, I saw the most gruesome CSI episode: Pirates of the Third Reich. Why is it that every strong, independent, intelligent, attractive woman on TV just happens to own a pair of knee high black leather boots and a matching bull whip for just the right occassion? Like whipping your daughter's murderer to death. The episode was about a methodically organized serial killer (much like Dexter). And in both the CSI episode and the Dexter series, there is just enough gore to be a little scary, but not enough to make me turn away.
The thing with Dexter is that he really doesn't seem that off. The things he thinks aren't so foreign to me. I was thinking tonight how it's a little like anthropomorphizing an animal. Not that I would equate a human being to, say, a cat, though arguably you could say that by society's standards, serial killers aren't "human". But, it's a little like that -- attributing feelings and thoughts to something, a person in this case, that don't actually exist. But in the series, Dexter's desire to fit in, to live a normal life -- isn't that what we all want? Maybe it's harder for some of us than for others, or maybe I don't understand your average person very well, or god forbid, maybe I'm giving away too much about myself when I say that I can relate to what that character thinks. I feel like he's just a lonely, longing person who feels like he's missing something, play acting through life, a different mask for different situations, and I think many of us have felt the same way. And I think that's the point the show is making -- that he's a serial killer, but he's still just a person like you and me.
The cinematography is gorgeous. The scenes from the opening credits make the mundane look threatening and murderous. It's like an mini allegory for the entire series. And you would have never thought that a butchered, bloodless body wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine could be beautiful. But I promise you, it is.
| Dreaming About Mom | 11:15 PM |
I dreamt about my mother last night. I haven't done that since she died. I don't know if I've ever done that -- I can't recall ever dreaming about her, but it's hard to remember dreams anyway.
I remembered it vividly while I slept, but now all I remember is that I dreamt that she came back from the dead and was sitting at a table with us talking about dying. In the dream, I so heartbroken. I was crying in my sleep and I woke up in the middle of the night crying.
I think it affected my entire day. I wanted to stay isolated, dwelling on my own thoughts. And now, for the first time in many weeks, I feel lonely, like I'm missing something.
The other day I saw a hummingbird on my patio for the first time since I've lived here. My plants are doing awesome on the patio and are blooming like crazy right now. Some of the plants I took from my mother's garden are blooming for the first time since I've had them. This weekend, I looked out on the patio and saw a hummingbird in the geraniums. My sister thinks that when a hummingbird visits her, it's mom. I don't believe that but because she does, whenever I see one, I think of both her and my mom.
For me, there are multiple types of "writing". There's my hardcopy journal, my blog, my fiction, and then long personal emails. And each pulls at me at different times. I think I write in my journal and send personal emails least often, my fiction second, and my blog first. But fiction's moving on up. I want it to win out over all the others. I dragged myself out of almost sleep last night and this morning to start a new story. Answering the call to write is natural now in a way that hasn't been for a long time. And it keeps me sane and content and hopeful in a way I haven't felt in a long time either.
| Liberals Are Smarter! | 10:47 PM |
I mentioned (only semi jokingly) recently that liberals were smarter than conservatives. Now I have research that backs me up! Please note, though, that I admit that a) I have a slanted view of this issue, and b) am not a scientist. Real scientists in New York have shown that brain scans could eventually predict voting patterns.
Study participants had to push two buttons based on whether they saw the letter "M" or "W", but each person was shown the same letter 80% of the time. For the other 20% of the time, conservatives only managed to hit the right button 53% of the time, while liberals were better at adapting to the change and hit the correct button 63% of the time. I personally think that being able to quickly adapt to change means you can think better on your feet, adjust arguments to be more appropriate for the conversation at hand, handle crises without melting down, better see someone else's point of view (e.g. empathy), etc. Isn't that a sign of greater intelligence?! I'd bet you Daniel Goleman would think so.
This finding supports another study that conservatives stick to what they know and are habitual creatures (I'd link to the article, but it's only available for a fee). If you are stuck in your ways of thinking and unable to adapt, doesn't that also mean you are less likely to evolve? And therefore less fit to survive? See how this all fits in with my theory?
The article also says that voting predilections could arguably be genetic -- but what about learned behaviours? What about how neural pathways change with different stimuli? I can't imagine that how you vote is *all* genetic. And another caveat (in my opinion) is that the study only contained 43 people -- that seems like an awful small sampling of people. But again...I'm not a scientist.
| My Son, The Jock | 10:49 AM |
My son called me yesterday just after his first water polo practice and I was so proud of him! Not because I want him to be some high school jock, but precisely because he's not. I've tried to encourage him to exercise, to moderate what he eats and to make healthier choices. I try to lead by example and hope that my passion for running and vegetables gets ingrained in his brain and sprouts new neurons that help associate running -> mom -> good.
Treading water for a long time is hard. Even more so for someone who isn't in physical shape. He just had his first practice but they have their first game this week. And he doesn't have to play if he doesn't feel comfortable, but he said he thought he'd give it a shot anyway.
He just started high school, too, so I was asking how he liked it. He says he's getting pushed around. Walking down the hall, someone'll just push him against the lockers. Being a girl, I didn't know this kind of torment in high school. I think there was some mild freshman hazing in band (yes, I was in my high school band), but it was nothing. Is that because you're the new kid? Yeah. So I guess it's happening to your friends, too? No, just me. Porsch (his older sister) thinks its because of the way I dress. Cause they're all gangsters.
Oh, it made my heart cringe! I was picturing him in my head in his clothes and wondering what about them might be offensive -- a futile exercise really because what do I know about what's in the minds of today's teenagers? Not to mention teenagers growing up in a different environment than I did. I didn't even know what was in their minds when I was one of them.
Are you going to join a gang? No, mom, why would I do that?
I'm proud of him because he's strong and makes do. Like I do. You learn what lessons you can, then move on. Not to say that nothing gets to you and that things don't end up festering in your heart, but there's a resilience that makes even the worst of things bearable enough to get through. Because if they weren't, you'd end up crazy or dead. High school isn't forever, but it always seems like it is.
| The Kindness of Strangers | 1:11 AM |
I've had the nicest (and funniest) experience with strangers the last two days. Last night when I got to the 24th and Mission Bart station from SFO, I stopped at my favorite burrito place to eat and went outside to stand near the bus stop to have a cigarette before I hailed a cab home. As soon as I had my cigarette lit, someone came up to me and offered me a ride home. I saw him before I went in to eat, and he looked and seemed friendly and I didn't get any creepy vibes at all, so I said yes. He ended up being as friendly as I suspected he might be -- we talked about work and where we lived and riding motorcycles on Skyline. As we got closer to home, I was worried he'd ask for my number, but he didn't -- just gave me the name of the place he worked at in case I ever wanted to stop by.
This morning, I was sitting on the bench in front of Hahn's Hibachi on Castro (around the corner from my shuttle stop because I didn't want to be smoking in front of my colleagues), and I had a bunk book of matches from the Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas and couldn't get the damn thing lit. Every time I'd strike a match, it'd flare up, then immediately die. As I'm struggling with the matches, this guy comes up to me and offers to help light it and takes the book of matches from me. I told him thanks, but the matches were bunk, so he takes four at a time, fails in lighting them, then acquiesces that I was right. I ask if he's got a lighter by chance and he says no, but wait -- I'm going to get that lit for you (though you shouldn't be smoking those anyway) and takes off. I thought he'd gone away so I snuck into the doorway of Hahn's Hibachi and again, try the matches, but then he returns with a lighter and lights my smoke. I think he went to Walgreens two doors down to buy a lighter to light my cigarette. So I thank him profusely and he walks away again. Then I'm sitting on the bench, holding a bunch of used matches in my fingers (cause god forbid I litter), reading my book, enjoying my smoke, and he walks by again and grabs the burnt out matches out of my hand as he passes to toss them out! I thanked him again.
I love that movie, Pay It Forward because it's touching and beautiful and because I think it would actually work. Because random acts of kindness engender other random acts of kindness. After that guy lit my cigarette this morning, I picked up some trash lying in a flower pot I was sitting next to. Perhaps it doesn't seem kind, but I don't know if I would've noticed the paper sack wrapped beer can or would have thought to throw it away if it hadn't been for that stranger. And I've been thinking about these two things that happened to me recently because I consider myself a kind person, but how often do I go out of my way to do something nice for someone I don't know -- not often at all. But I'm rethinking that.
Since we're on the topic of strangers...I had funny thing happen to me tonight as I was leaving my gym. It was just about 11pm and I saw this attractive couple out in front of the Four Seasons Hotel next to the gym and there's a guy walking down the sidewalk asking the man if the woman is with him. He responds, yes, and the guy says, You guys are an attractive couple -- you look good together, and as I reach him on the sidewalk he turns to me and says, Do you know where you'd look good? No, where? In my bed. And I start laughing! Not in a cruel, mocking kind of way (cause that's mean), but in a genuinely amused kind of way (because I am). And he says, in the lingerie I'd have picked out for you, you'd look scrumptious, man! Scrumptious! Fresh peals of laughter, and a thank you. That made my night -- who uses scrumptious anymore?! :)
| Decadence of Vegas | 2:24 AM |
Vegas is lights, slot machines jingling 24/7, hot women dressed in their sexiest clothes, guys trying to impress, drinking, smoking, dancing like strippers, and money blown like there'll be no tomorrow. This is good for three days tops. In fact, a three day visit is the ideal length of time -- you have at least two full nights of partying, plus a possible 3rd if you're hardcore (which I'm not). This gives you enough time to enjoy the pool, gamble a bit, try out various restaurants, and still have enough time to rest a bit before each evening's outing. I didn't actually do much of any of that because I spent each day recovering from the night before -- not in a sick kind of recovering -- more a relaxed, sleep all day kind of recovery which was nice.
I was looking around me at the fascinating mix of people this weekend. It doesn't matter how beautiful you are, there is always someone hotter, thinner, and younger than you in Vegas. Look at us -- three cuties about to hit the town, and none of us could stop ogling the other eye candy around us -- mostly women because as one cab driver said, Vegas is a place where women wear their sluttiest clothes and don't look slutty doing it (well, he said something along those lines anyway :)
I thought Justin Timberlake said something clever when he said who came up with this idea that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas? He said he was from Tenneesee and what happens in the backwoods there should stay there, but this shit that goes on in Vegas -- everyone should know about that. The next night, I'm in a cab and the driver's telling me how this thing about what happens in Vegas should stay in Vegas was the best thing ever -- cause the girls just go crazy out here. I don't know what exactly "crazy" means to him, but for me it's letting go just a little -- wearing the clothes I hardly ever wear at home, not being embarrassed about being drunk out of my mind, and dancing with my skirt hiked up to my ass with Ineke. That's Vegas.
Favorite quote from this trip: She's a classy broad. That's why we bring her with us.
Recommendations from this trip:
- Forty Deuce is always a blast. The girls that dance there look like they're having real fun, and the 3 man band is great. And I like the crowd mix.
- StripSteak had both really great food and really great service
- If you need a safety pin to pop a blister, the Logo Store has a great assortment of sundries (better than The Store in The Hotel at the Mandalay Bay).
- If you're staying at The Hotel at Mandalay Bay and you ask for a fold out couch and they say they'll give you one -- they're lying. They've lied to us twice about it now. But they will bring you up a comfy ass cot instead.
| The Nicotine Patch is Evil | 1:38 PM |
I have never been able to kick my nicotine addiction. I'm always either smoking or trying to quit. Except I never really try that hard. Instead of quitting smoking, what I've actually done is replaced cigarettes with nicotine patches that I supplement with the occassional cigarette. And if I feel like getting back into full on smoker mode, I just stop wearing the patch for a week or two. Then get back on it.
I think what the patch has done for me is actually worse than what would've happened to me without it. Not only is it a crutch (actually more like a cane) that helps me get through withdrawl, but it's an artificial "out" that lets me allow myself to smoke whenever I please -- because it'll be easy to quit; just get on the patch! And surely, I tell myself, being on the patch all the time is better than smoking every day.
Without the patch, I'd either still be smoking a pack+ a day towards inevitable death, or would have tried quitting several times before (hopefully) succeeding to slow down in my approach to inevitable death. Right now, I'm in this middle ground where I'm not a real smoker, and I'm not a real quitter, and I have no idea what my death stats are.
I think part of my problem is I have an inflated and false sense that I am safer from the cancer causing effects of smoking than most other smokers. Because I work out regularly, because there is no family history, because other people in my family smoke. I'm not afraid of it. The more dangerous and risky a drug is, the easier it is to use the fact that you don't want to die as the impetus to quit for good and never look back. An overdose is immediate, and guaranteed if you overindulge. Overindulge in cigarettes and maybe you'll get diarrhea and a bad stomach cramp and headache (I'm making those symptoms up). Dying from cigarettes takes time. Too long to be a deterrent.
I read this article the other day about how most mouth and throat cancers have decreased as expected with the reduced rates of smoking. Except for those at the base of the tongue and tonsils. They think it's caused by HPV (the genital warts virus). Now, if you had to choose, would you want to tell your mother you had throat cancer from a) giving head or b) smoking? Ding, ding ding! I choose smoking -- it's the best of both worlds (interpret that how you will ;)
| Lessons in Adulthood | 12:31 AM |
I came home last night after seeing Avenue Q with my friends and my power was out (damn that construction!). Luckily I had a headlamp hanging on a doorknob nearby and it was late anyway so I got settled in for the night. Getting ready for bed by candlelight/headlamp is fine. The only thing that sucks about no power is no internet (and no open wireless networks near home either).
The musical was really good! We had a biggish group -- eight of us, and every single one of us had a good time. We were talking about it well after we left the show -- and some of us were still thinking of it today. My favorite (and possible spoilers coming up in case you don't want to read ahead) characters were the Bad Idea Bears. Just imagine the cutest little baby puppet voices on Sesame Street giving you horrendous, unsolicited advice, then being really, really heartbreakingly sad when you don't take it. For example: you're depressed, your friends, the Bad Idea Bears, come to visit. In his sweet little baby voice, one says, you should hang yourself while the other one runs offstage, comes back, and in her sweetest little baby voice says (as she hands you a noose) with this piece of rope I found!. Their suggestions are so awful, but their enthusiasm is so contagious, and my goodness, you don't want to hurt two of the cutest little baby monsters you've ever seen, do you?!
Ed said he heard something on the radio about how it's supposed to be like life lessons for adults. It's not just a parody of Sesame Street -- it is Sesame Street fror adults. There are all these shows and educational programs about how to be a kid, a teen, a college student. What about when we leave college and we have all our fool headed ideas about what adulthood is like? Where are our educational programs about how to deal with our ever growing bills, or how to save money when you're making minimum wage, or how it's ok to have no idea what you want to do with your life even though you're in your 30's? What about those lessons, huh?!
Well, this show is it. It tells you straight up how a B.A. in English is a useless degree, how there's a fine line between love and a waste of time, how everyone's a little bit racist, depression isn't uncommon, life is mundane, not everyone knows what their purpose in life is, the more you love someone, the more you want to kill that person, throwing pennies off super tall buildings is bad, the internet is for porn, everyone's a little empty inside, and even well educated people can't get a job. I feel so smart because I'm so familiar with all these lessons -- it's like reading ahead for the exam. Except the exam is every damn day. Thank god I have a good sense of humor and singing puppets are funny.
The show only runs until the end of this week (Sept 2) in San Francisco so see it if you can. You can find a list of other tour dates on the official Avenue Q website.
| The Joy of Writing | 12:15 AM |
The weeks that I have to turn in a story for my writing group are good because they force me to email out something that's somewhat "complete". I haven't turned in anything longer than 3 pages and none of them I could really consider complete, but that I'm writing fiction at all is a delicious thing.
Lately I come home at night and I'm compelled to write and it feels good. I was talking to a good friend tonight about how when you hate work, it's a really tough thing because you spend so much of your time there. And until fairly recently, I was miserable at work for many months. And all that time I was trying to sort out what it was I wanted to do next. I have a lot of interests, I considered a lot of different things, but in the end what I love and have always loved is writing. The only reason I haven't pursued it is because I'm scared. I look at what Marg has done, and what Ineke is planning to do, and look at the other independent women on the periphery of my life, and I find what they've done, or are working on, inspiring. Fear is a silly thing to let get in the way of something you really want to do.
Now that I have a long term goal -- something I haven't had since I moved to San Francisco -- I'm content. I'm still not crazy about work, but everything's tolerable when you know you're working towards something better.
I haven't really written fiction since I graduated college. I half assed wrote one complete, new story when I applied to graduate writing programs years ago, but nothing since then. My new stories lately weave in bits and pieces of my real life in a way that's entirely new to me. My stories in college were complete fictions, and while imaginative, are completely different from the stories I've been writing lately. It's still fiction, but drawing on the pieces of my nonfiction experience has been interesting.
I obsessively read over a submission several times before I hit send. Part of it is the editorial process, and the other part is just hearing it over and over again in my head because it pleases me, and because I'm trying to hear if it'll please other people, too. So many people know I write and so few have read any of my fiction. Somehow it's ok to present it to less initimate people to critique, and scarier to give it to someone you care about to read. An intimacy and trust I'm not confident enough for. Yet.
| 96th Birthday | 10:58 PM |
We went to my grandma's 96th birthday party today. Seeing me and my sister always makes my grandmother cry. And it's hard on my aunt and uncle, too -- the ones that were closest to my mom. All of which wets my eyes and breaks my heart (used to make me bawl).
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| Grandma on her 96th birthday | Cousin Joseph, Me, Doug, Cousin Allis, Jess |
| Revisiting the Accident | 10:26 PM |
To attend Grandma's birthday, we were driving on the freeway my mom died on today and it's a regular drive for my sister, but it's only the 2nd time I've driven it since my mom's accident over a year and a half ago. As we were driving home, I was watching the side of the road wondering how the hell she drifted off into the dirt shoulder when the asphalt shoulder is so wide, but then it narrows and I imagine that must be where.
In my obsessive post death search for anything related to my mom, I found a callous post on some usenet group about her accident and it made me so upset. Just a couple of days ago, I happened across it again unintentionally and it incited some old anger in me. But it quelled pretty quickly. Death is so commonplace -- it's meaningless unless it's personal. According to the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, over 39,000 people die a year in fatal car accidents in the U.S. (at least back in 2005 and trending upward every year). And according to the CDC, motor vehicle fatalities were only about 0.02% of all fatalities per year in the U.S between 1988-1992 (source: Atlas of United States Mortality), though motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of injury death in the U.S. (between 1979-2004).
At over 2 million deaths a year, that averages out to close to 6000 deaths per day (rounding liberally).
It's been long enough that I can start weaving the story of her death into my stories. Bits and pieces of that whole experience (most of which I've blogged here) will color both the fiction and nonfiction I write for probably the rest of my life. One random death on one day like any other, but this one was my personal death.
| Burning Man Sex and Out of Body Porn | 10:52 PM |
I love this Violet Blue article on Burning Man. It cracks me up. I've been to burning man twice and will probably never go back. I think it's vaguely cool that people are so into it, and every year as the buzz about it grows and it gets closer and closer to Labor Day weekend, I get the slightest itch to go back. But I'll never scratch it -- it's just not my scene. I love the art, I love the enormous installations, I love the community feel, I love the communal environmental activism, I even sort of love the playa and don't mind being covered in dirt all the time. But it's a little too hip for me, a few too many people that are too into it, and a little too much effort to be in costume for an entire week. It's like one big rave where everyone looks and is cool, and I don't do either well.
In other news: out of body experiences scientifically explained. Now we know that it's not a) a psychic phenomenon, and b) it's not just something that happens to loonies. Just imagine the applications in porn!
| Shrinks vs God | 10:50 PM |
I love this quote by Ann Coulter: Liberals go to therapy. Conservatives go to church. (Right Wing News compiled her best quotes from last year -- most of them are too long, but some of them are real gems). It's so true, isn't it? Priests, pastors, confessors -- they're really like shrinks (is shrink a derogatory term?)
I stopped seeing mine. Not for any particular reason other than I've been too lazy to call my insurance to see what it'd cost me to keep seeing her. But I also felt like I'd go in and just sort of sit there, not sure what to talk about. We spent the first session talking about my mother, then she never came up again and she was the reason I was there in the first place!
I had four sessions with her and in two of them she asked if I thought I had a drinking problem. And I said no both times (btw, I'm quite confident I do not have a drinking problem). So when I woke up on the morning of my 4th scheduled apointment with a raging hangover, I called in sick -- I wasn't about to go in there after I'd just told her I didn't have a drinking problem, hung over on a school morning! I'm sure she would've been suspect of the validity of my previous denials. Besides, I was too hungover to talk.
So I've started to blog about more personal things again. Mostly because I'm no longer worried about future employers finding this blog. If you search for me, there isn't anything I'm really ashamed of online. No naked photos of me (at least none with my face -- haha, just kidding, potential future employer!), no stories about late night drugfests (just the occasional boozefest with friends), no compromising videos, no crime or violence. Just my raw voice. Oozing with sarcasm and heavy handed with profanity. It's me! Yay!
I read this in the news today about a settlement in racial harassment suit against a health clinic. It obliquely reminded me of some of Ann Coulter's quotes. Racism in code words -- think about it -- that someone would come up with coded language (not very well coded) to deride someone else because of race. Sneak attack racism. Who the fuck comes up with this stuff? And how much hate must you have in your black coal heart to think this is ok -- in a place of healing even. Tsk tsk.
| Girls' Night | 10:10 PM |
We had a girls' night out a couple of weeks ago and I got all dolled up -- which for me is putting on a nice pair of slacks and an appropriately cute tank top and the most uncomfortable pair of shoes I own -- I mean like I want to gouge someone's eyes out after I've spent an hour in them and why didn't I learn from the last time I wore them?! uncomfortable. At the end of the night, I wasn't drunk, but apparently was stupid enough to try to climb on top of a fire hydrant in front of the Rite Spot in the Mission -- per Ed or Ineke's request, of course. That fire hydrant was about half my height.
In front of the Rite Spot in the Mission (photo by Ineke)
Don't laugh at me, but in a week and a half we're going to Vegas and having another girls' night out to see...Justin Timberlake. You'd think I'd rather die than make that admission, but I'm doing it for the girls. I only know that Sexy Back song by him, but apparently women all over the world love that scrawny little playboy so what the hell.
So work provides these bicycles to ride around to the various campuses. They're called Gbikes (because everything good starts with a G, baby). I rode over to take a break with a couple of friends yesterday and as I'm leaving one of them says, You're a girl. In a skirt. On a bike. I love you! I rode away smiling and thinking ah, if only all men were so easy to please, then realized...oh, actually, I think they are. All the men I know are amazing and that easy to please. I'm the one that's the difficult bitch :)
| Drawbacks of Democracy | 1:25 AM |
So I was reading this today about the Philip Atkinson article on The Family Security Foundation, Inc site. I thought it was hilarious and well written -- it reminded of Swift's A Modest Proposal. I thought it was a parody, a commentary on Bush. But after seeing his treatise on democracy, I think the man is serious.
The funny thing is that I can understand the stance he's arguing from -- that selfish people don't always want what's best for a community as a whole. That sometimes what the "popular" opinion is, isn't always the best opinion. It sort of sounds antithetical to the recent revelations on crowd theory -- how the aggregated wisdom of many people results in the optimal decision, but it's not. If you listen to the most vociferous groups in the United States today, they are a homogenous group, far too keenly aware of each other's opinions of them. They lack diversity, independence, and are often rallying around a centralized point. They voted Bush in, they shut down valid scientific research, they fear sex education, they don't want to allow all people equal rights...shall I go on? If that's the popular opinion, then yes, democracy doesn't seem to work for the good of the community as a whole.
I can't remember who it was, but someone was recently saying that liberals don't make enough babies -- how are we going to fare when there are so many fewer of us than them? Well, we're fewer, but like a million times smarter. It seems like that should count for something...sadly it doesn't seem to be enough.
| More photos from Yosemite | 12:03 AM |
I dreamt last night about the PUW shares I blogged about and kept thinking I don't know what companies are in that fund...how do I really know they're ethical?! I then woke up in the middle of the night in a panic...where am i?! Cozy, overly warm, and completely clean in my own bed. My backpack stinks like hell. Going five days without washing, wearing the same pants every single day, no deodorant for fear of attracting bears, hair thick with dirt and heavily weighted down by the natural oil production of my scalp. Yummy.
I'm a lazy fucker and won't get around to posting my pics for a while, but Christian posted his pics (see two borrowed ones below), as did Aaron. Aaron's Yosemite photos are hilariously annotated.
My favorite quote from the trip: Dude, we're all white.
First day of hiking...just starting off
Last day of hiking...the end of the trip
| Backpacking Trip II | 11:26 PM |
Too tired to blog about the trip, but here're a few quick highlights: got stung by a bee on the first day, had to take a dump in the middle of the woods with no cat shovel or toilet paper, girl group "bathroom" trips, climbed up and over this crazy steep and narrow ridge, and met some damn cool people I'd never met before and hung out with some damn cool people I already knew.
Self photo at top of Parson's Peak near Vogelsang in Yosemite
| Ethical Investing | 10:58 PM |
I admit that in the past I have made my stock purchases based on sentimentality. Well, I say in the past, but it's really my only method. I'll do the research to make sure it's a sound company to invest in, but my heart does the picking first. A couple of weeks ago I was trying to pick some new companies I wanted to own stock in and someone suggested Starbucks (SBUX). My immediate reaction was no. But from a financial standpoint, Starbucks is a sound investment, and one of my financial management company's top 25 picks year after year. They grow, they make money, they're a great company for any investor.
I'll admit that I ignorantly dislike Starbucks. I have always preferred to support small, local companies and somehow hold it against the coffee giant for being everywhere. If there's another coffee place around, I'll purposely not go to Starbucks so I can frequent the other place. I visit my local Tully's instead of Starbucks in Noe Valley -- and yet, as a friend pointed out -- exactly how local and small is Tully's?
I can't imagine investing in a company that I purposely avoid, but if the returns are good... Now that I have a small chunk of money for the first time in my life, it's interesting to me how tempting it is to just invest in successful companies without regard to their practices. I would really, really like to invest in Nike. But the unresolved sweat shop stuff makes me uneasy.
I now know that Starbucks, on the other hand, is known for its corporate responsibility (though lately it's had some labor union issues). It treat employees well, supports local communities, supports coffee farmers, etc., etc. I made myself walk into Starbucks last week and took notes on all its splendor: the ethical water, organic free trade coffee, the little stand with stuffed polar bears and walruses that said, "what you do at home can save their lives." All that and they support local artists (Irene Hendrick's prints were up on the wall). I had a vanilla latte there while I waited for my shuttle, and couldn't help but think that "corporate responsibility" and "environmentally friendly" were trendy now. Have you been to your local book store lately and browsed the new releases section? Not that this doesn't make these efforts less important or disingenuous, but would as many companies be trying and would it be so easy to do if it wasn't so popular? Supply and demand -- walk through your local grocery store. Sometimes I wonder to myself, are all those products labelled environmentally friendly, organic, healthy, low fat really what they claim to be?
I chose not to invest in Starbucks. I opted for one of PowerShares' alternative energy ETFs (PUW), along with a couple of other sentimental choices. But I'm glad I did the Starbucks research -- now I can buy my Starbucks coffee with no guilt, knowing that they're out there trying to save the world and all.
| Privacy in the Future? | 11:37 PM |
I cleaned up this blog several months ago (not long after my virtual stranger Googling me incident) and deleted all the personal entries that were too personal. I left anything I considered benign, and anything related to my mother, benign or not. Having had a online journal for so long, it's still an endlessly fascinating subject to me -- this need and desire to expose myself on the one hand, yet my concern for privacy on the other.
I've been thinking about how differently my son's generation must view privacy. And I know I'm onto a relevant topic because a friend and expert in this field is seriously considering the implications of this as well. I had my son visiting me for four days and he was talking about myspace and about how they post party announcements there which was an interesting and updated version of the story I heard last week: mom discovers a 15+ year old flyer for a house party at her house while she and dad were away. A printed flyer. I'll bet you kids don't print flyers anymore.
Sites like myspace, flickr, youtube, twitter, etc, along with your cell/smart phone mean at any given moment you can broadcast your whereabouts and your whattodos, and can share intimate and assorted details about your personal life for most, if not all, the world to see. And kids do. Without qualms. So when these children become adults, do you think they're going to be bothered by cashless transactions or FastTrak devices that can tell their friends where they are at any given moment or RFID tagged everything? I think not -- these things will only make their lives simpler: gratification faster, information sharing with their pals seamless, and fridges keeping themselves full. Why wouldn't you want this kind of technology? Who cares if the marketers (and whoever else they want to share information with) know and keep track of everything you buy, or that someone could paint a pretty accurate picture of your life based on your travel history, especially if they tie it with your financial transactions because who in that generation is going to care that every single purchase someone makes will leave some sort of electronic mark?
I feel old and paranoid just talking about it. Everytime I shred a piece of paper with personally identifying information on it, I wonder to myself, why do I bother? Why, when you can look up any one of the x domain names I own and pull up an address? Why bother when my trash can has my address on it? Why, when someone can just steal my mail -- who cares about all the credit offers I've already shredded when the next one will be stolen before it reaches my mailbox? Just this weekend I received a pin number for a credit card I never received -- I wonder where that ended up. And just try not to give your social security number away -- everytime I ask someone if they really need it and can't I provide some other method of identifying myself, there isn't and I can't or it'll take me two extra days -- and honestly, most of the time it's not worth the two extra days for me so I admit it, I'll give it up pretty easily. Nowadays, identity theft is to be expected. You are now encouraged and expected to anticipate it and to monitor your records and credit reports accordingly. I feel like I'm fighting an endless battle that few people of my generation care about, and far less, if any, of my son's generation will care about.
What's left to defend if everything about you is electronically recorded? Soon, you'll want to and be able to monitor the state of your elderly and forgetful mother, your drug addicted teenager, his thieving friends, your daughter and her questionable sexual behaviour. And then the government will want to, too.
Maybe this generation doesn't watch or read enough science fiction. Or maybe I've read too much.
| Still Grieving...And I Thought I was Done | 12:30 AM |
It's been a year and a half now and I realized well after Mother's Day that I'm not done grieving. And long after I thought I was o.k., I realize I'm not. I still miss her. I finally went to go talk to someone -- I told myself I would much earlier, but never got around to it. The weeks before and the weeks after Mother's Day this year were so bleak and dark that I finally felt myself snap. And I still wasn't sure it was grief. Just everything else in my life gone wrong.
I've never been to a psychologist before and I'm fairly suspect of their efficacy. But I can't argue the benefit of having someone to talk to that won't tell anyone else what you've told them and that isn't a part of your normal life. Someone you can share things with that you've stopped sharing with your friends and family. Because you're worried you'll wear them out, worried of going over the same ground over and over again, and because you don't even realize that you need to keep covering that ground.
When I called to make my appointment I asked, what do you specialize in?. I figure they must all have something they specialize in. She said she didn't have a speciality, but dealt mostly with work issues, grief, and life changes. I told her she was perfect and went to see her. I spent half the session talking about my mom and I hadn't anticipated that. I haven't told the story of the accident in so long, it was cathartic to retell it and to recall that memory, slightly faded as it was. She told me I should start reading one of the many books I'd bought on grief that I never got around to reading so I started On Grief and Grieving tonight. And the intro is already full of God so I'm skeptical, but it's also full of dying and that's cathartic, too.
I got a phone message this week about a car accident my mom was in before her death. And it made me sad and angry. Why do I have to deal with this? Shouldn't this be over? But I guess life and all its responsibilities go on after death for the rest of us still living.
Death's been busy in my life lately. I just finished Harry Potter: The Half Blood Prince. It made me sob. I recently joined a new writers group and one of our first stories is about the loss of a son. Haven't had the heart to read it yet. My sister's fiance's stepfather just passed away yesterday. I only met him once, but my heart breaks for his wife.
And me -- I don't want to say goodbye. But I know I have to.
| On the run | 12:59 PM |
I love this story about a woman who literally chases down her identity thief. Karen Lodrick runs into the woman who stole her identity 6 months ago while they're ordering the same drink at Starbucks. And the crazy bitch lives three blocks from her. San Francisco is a small, small world.
| Part Cow, Part Human | 3:11 PM |
Conservative Americans are gonna love this: embroynic research gets a boost in the UK -- there's a new bill that would allow licensed researchers to create animal-human hybrid embryos. I especially love that this bill also includes getting rid of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority at the same time.
| Another Mother's Day Without Her | 11:59 PM |
Our second mother's day since her accident. We were at the grave on Saturday and I sat there wondering how much money people spend on flowers for their dead loved ones, how much money have we spent in the last 478 days on flowers for my mother's grave? And how long are we supposed to keep it up? For the rest of our lives? I don't begrudge the money (I only rarely am there purchasing the flowers myself), but wonder anyway.
I was at the Korean market 2 weekends ago and I haven't been in a Korean market in a long time. I sobbed the entire way home. I had foolishly thought that I was over grieving, but that car ride home make me realize how much I still miss having her in my life. And I've been thinking about her ever since.
My sister made Josh and I these beautiful picture frames with photos of us with her. Josh showed me his and I started sobbing. It was a picture of her smiling and him so much younger and smaller in front of Burger King. Time slips by too fast: we age, things change in big and small ways and often irreversibly. Josh will never be that small again. My mom will never smile like that again for the camera. Life is a series of heartbreaks and disappointments and sadness. Mixed in with some less morbid stuff that makes those things bearable.
I look at her photo almost every day. The same half smile on her lips, the same almost sad expression in her eyes. Sometimes I ring the hummingbird chimes, tell her photo good morning or good night, touch the things that remind me of her, wear her ring. Sometimes days or weeks go by and I don't think of her. And other times I can't stop thinking about her. Sometimes I sob for missing her. But most of the time I'm fine.
It's mother's day and I was thinking about my son today and wondering if he worries about me. We were talking about smoking and riding motorcycles this weekend. I don't want him to do either (not yet with the motorcycle anyway; never with the cigarettes), but I can't tell him not to. Not when I do both. I wonder if he realizes we want to protect him, and that when we don't want him to do these things it's because of our years of experience, not because we want to deny him pleasure. I was thinking tonight that worrying about your child and worrying about your partner are very different things -- you can love both unconditionally, but you accept that your partner is an adult and you don't try to change him. With your child, you want to influence, change, and shape him and wonder how best to do that without taking away his sense of free will. I don't have a partner right now, and I'm not the most influential person in my son's life, but I worry about both anyway.
| E-Gold | 1:35 AM |
Damn...E-Gold charged with money laundering. They've been investigating it for some time now, but the indictment is in with a nice doomsday quote from the FBI. I wonder what this means for the future of anonymous money, though I'm fairly certain that at some point, there will be no such thing as anonymous money. Every financial transaction will leave some sort of trace back to you.
| Your data isn't safe | 10:34 AM |
I've already mentioned that I've been thinking a lot about anonymity lately and today I was reading about a Tor hack on securityfocus.com. Doesn't this totally defeat the purpose of Tor?! Why is it so difficult to be maintain anonymity? And why is it so easily taken away?
I was at a talk recently about the online black market. The speaker showed us some realtime irc "ads". Criminals claim they have X number of credit cards, bank account logins, etc for sale or trade. They post a few so buyers can see they're serious. There was lots of personal information flashing across the screen during the demo. I saw a guy with an Irvine address and thought, poor fella, I should call him. And tell him what? Oh, I was at a talk and those damn hackers had your name and address and bank info and everything....What? No, I'm not one of them. I just thought you should know.
In my early 20's, I dated a guy that used to do this kind of crap. And he didn't even think twice about it. No moral qualms. Spent a lot of money that wasn't his to buy a lot of things he then traded for more illegally gained things. It bothers me when people think that it's ok to steal from big corporations because the little guy doesn't feel it. Well, he does -- he has to at the very least deal with his credit card company or bank and waste a countless amount of time sorting out the fraud. And eventually, stealing from corporations trickles down to all of us one way or another.
Have you read about all the personal data theft that's gone on recently? Look at the TJX data loss results. And personal data loss isn't uncommon. A couple of years ago, I got a letter from Time Warner saying they'd lost data disks with old employees' personal data on them. Did I want a free credit check to make up for it?
There was a recent thread on one of the mailing lists I'm on about an atm scam to steal atm card info and pins, and how easy this is to do. The security speaker I mentioned above said he doesn't even bank online -- not because online banking was inherently insecure (because online banking is not inherently insecure), but because he wanted to keep his risk exposure low. I can't imagine giving up online banking. Convenience trumps privacy and security too often. And I'm aware, but I'm just as bad as you about this. I don't give out information if I can get away with it, but if it's between giving up my ss# versus driving 30 miles to go somewhere in person, I might give up the soc depending on my mood that day. If it's giving up my soc versus paying a deposit -- I'll always pay the deposit. Give up my last name on a first date to someone who doesn't already know it? Forget it. We've already talked about where googling me leads to -- my utter mortification.
I had to take Mr. Number Two to be cremated recently (he died on Feb. 22nd, 2007). They wanted my birth date and I didn't want to give it to them. What the hell do you need my birth date for? They said if they prescribe any medication for my pets. Since my rat was dead and not likely to need meds, they let me leave it blank. But I knew I'd take Number 1, the 3rd in and was wondering if they'd ask for it when I got medication for him. They didn't. Which made me wonder why they wanted it in the first place.
| I Google; You Google | 2:03 AM |
My blog is a funny thing to me. I've been working on/thinking about this anonymity post for over two weeks now for my blog and still haven't completed it. I've been thinking about giving up this blog cause it's so damn personal. And so tied to my real name. Online forum profiles are an interesting phenomena because you can know so much about someone by his/her posts, and never know his/her real name, or anything else about that person he/she doesn't want you to know.
Someone I don't know very well told me today that he'd googled me and found out way more about me than he would've guessed. Whether he meant guessed he could've found out, or guessed about me, I'm not really sure. This always makes me feel embarassed. Which is ironic because I put all out here for the world to see, so can I really be surprised people find it? And can I be so public and embarassed at the same time? Yes.
Don't get me wrong, I'm totally flattered whenever anyone googles me. I, myself, google everyone. Anyone I have the teeniest, tiniest interest in. People who give interesting talks, people I meet randomly, people at work, friends, family, people I used to know, people with interesting profiles -- anyone and everyone. Though I've been wondering lately, is that normal? I got the feeling once that someone thought it was weird, and I remember thinking it was weird that person thought it was weird. Doesn't everyone use google in this way?
| My mini farm & cash apartment | 1:51 AM |
In an effort to clean up my apartment and get rid of unnecessary things, I finally took apart my "origami farm/replica apartment made of cash" that my friends built me for my 33rd birthday. It was the sweetest thing ever -- we don't celebrate my birthday often because we're usually all traveling for the holidays, but this year they made a special effort to put together this amazingly involved and touchingly personal birthday party. It was such a surprise that when I got to my friends' apartment and looked around at the decorations, I thought, hmmm...Mike & Marg must've had a birthday party for a child...I wonder who it was? And I saw my sister crouched in the kitchen in surprise birthday party mode and thought to myself, hmmm...that's weird. What's she doing here? And why's she crouching near the floor like that? They had Hello Kitty decorations which made me think of a small child (I didn't have the heart to tell everyone that I wasn't into Hello Kitty nearly as much as my ex was), and I so fully believed Ed's story about why I was over there (though the story did strike me as being slightly weird) that I wasn't the least bit suspicious.
Anyway, that was over 2 and a half months ago but I haven't had the heart to rip apart the gift they all collaborated on. In the tradition of the very personal, German folded money gifts, they made me an apartment out of origami money. With an origami farm to top it off. It is beautiful (view all the origami pics).
Taking it apart was harder than I thought it would be -- it's not easy stripping off hard glue and double stick tape. I was staring at one bill trying to think of how I'd explain to someone why Abraham Lincoln's forehead was peeled off the bill. Well, he was folded up into a chair and glued to a fake carpet.
| Past middle aged | 1:16 AM |
The rats aren't just middle aged anymore; they're getting old. I've noticed one of them hunches over more and squints a lot lately. Tonight I made them a fresh bowl of fruits and veggies and tuna and was hanging out with them. After dinner, I was watching one of them try to climb into his hammock and he didn't have the strength to pull himself into it. I'd noticed they hadn't been sleeping in it much the last few days. He fell to the bottom from the top of the cage and I was horrified. I went over and he climbed out, across my arm and snuggled into the crook of my elbow and just sat there. I started bawling thinking he was going to die. He's gotten so thin and I hadn't even noticed. They're not even two years old yet. There's no way they're going to make it to 3.
I rearrange their cage every time I clean it -- you know, to stimulate them mentally. I think I've made it too difficult for them to get around, though, in their old age -- I rearranged it tonight to make it easier on them. The other one still seems pretty spry, but they've both got little tumors and some respiratory issues. Ratties are prone to both. I'm traveling this weekend and I keep thinking about the last rat I had and how he had to be put to sleep when I got back from a weekend away. I don't want to do that again. I don't think I can have rats again. They die too soon and it's heartbreaking.
| The first year | 3:17 AM |
I was at the gravesite thinking, a whole year has passed without our mom and I made it just fine. Jess is a little behind, but she'll make it just fine, too. Not that I don't miss her, not that I'd rather she wasn't with us, and certainly not that I don't have moments where I feel like I only just lost her. But we're all still living.
The weather was nice -- sunny, clear, not too cold or windy at all. The cemetary was deserted and devoid of color. Last time I visited, it was around Christmas and the graves were full of flowers -- bright red poinsettias, miniature Christmas trees. Gifts and flowers and cheerfullness.
I couldn't help but think how weird it is to visit a patch of grass and think of my mom. Her body's there, but what does that mean? We brought flowers, we shed some tears, brushed off the gravestone, touched each other for comfort. I had my hand on my father's calf at one point and realized he was getting thinner. Then I was thinking, god, this is how it starts. You start to get smaller and smaller and pretty soon, you're just a little wisp of the person you used to be and your breath just leaves you. Then you end up underneath some patch of grass. And yet, we keep living.
| Almost a year | 3:04 AM |
Friday is the one year anniversary of my mother's death. And I think that coming up on it has been harder on me than I realized. I keep crying in the car. Which is somehow where I think of her most often. And I haven't been talking about it with my friends. Tonight I told someone I've only recently met about the accident. Did I tell you how my mother died? Driving on the freeway, slipped into the shoulder, over corrected, went out of control, banged her head real hard on the frame. Died instantly. People said it was violent, the car rolling over and over and bouncing so high in the air. People said she was ejected out of the window. Only the violent part is true.
A friend of mine wrote me the most touching email. It made me cry -- in a good way, knowing he's keeping his fingers crossed for me and I didn't even know about it. I went for a run at midnight tonight. I know it sounds obsessive, but in my semi fragile mental state, I couldn't afford not to. Between the calming effects of the run, and the warm fuzzies from his email, I think I can safely fall asleep now.
| miniPod | 1:11 AM |
i had to pick up a nano tonight so i could return the ex's loaner ipod (mine needs a new harddrive) so i was on the apple website and saw the iphone. i've been wrapped up in my own little head the last couple of days thinking girly thoughts so i've missed most of the buzz on it. i whipped around to my cubemate and asked in a flurry, do you want to go to the apple store with me tonight to look at the iphone?! he gave me a quizzical look and said, is it going to be there? they don't come out until june. d'oh!
if you haven't seen it, where've you been these last couple of days?! perhaps like me, you were wistfully thinking of something else :) but oh my god, it is so freakin' beautiful.
| myspace | 12:28 AM |
myspace came up in conversation last night, which was funny because i'd been meaning to blog about it after my weekend love affair with it. it's fascinating how 1990s a lot of the profiles are -- giant images, gaudy backgrounds, blinking multi-colored text, music playing in the background, text you can't read over the loud background images/colors, and endless profiles that match this description. i thought we'd left the 90s. i thought that web sites had grown up and matured. but i'm thinking now that this is most peoples' sense of aesthetics. they think this looks good. or they're so excited about what they can do, that they don't care it doesn't look good -- it flashes and is colorful and pretty cause i made it, yay!
it's really cute.
so i was trying to explain how i was forced into a myspace account. i've got a friendster account, an orkut account, i think even a tribe account. i'm linkedin, on classmates.com, and i yelp and i barf -- not to mention i'm on match.com and personals.yahoo.com (both with hidden profiles because i keep telling myself i'm not quite ready to date yet :) how many profiles can one person maintain?
so someone signed up with my email address, i started getting her myspace emails, got tired of it, deleted her account. she or someone else signed up immediately with my email address again, and this time i just updated the password and took over the account. filled out a minimal profile, no pic. then added a lame pic, then recently some decent pics, and voila! i have a myspace account! and last weekend i started really poking around on the site -- looking at profiles, reading all my old email and responding to people, researching groups, etc. for a second i thought to myself, josh has a myspace account, am i supposed to ask him to be my friend?, then immediately wiped that thought from my mind -- what 13, soon to be 14 year old boy would want to have his mom listed as a friend?! that is so gross.
so anyway -- i got a nice date out of it and met some interesting people. you can't fight the tide of popularity. but fuck, you can laugh at it.
