Friday Random Ten: "No Place Away"

This seems like a funny song to be listening to on a spring morning, but it's a cool grey gloomy morning. My car was parked underneath a spirea bush all night and now there are tiny white petals everywhere in my hair and on my sweater. When I turned on the iPod, it was in this Greg Brown almost all the time mode, and I heard several old favorites from him. But this one ("No Place Away") resonated kind of hard, so I listened to it a few times through before I went in to my office:

"Words like notes, strokes along a thigh
long slow seduction on an autumn night
when autumn was still autumn

wait a minute now, everybody just hold it
let's think about this -- whoa, whoa now
aint there no place away?

and I tried to hide, live there like they used to
but the sadness sent me letters every day
saying there's no place away

tell me where the hope lies to bear the world
to bear the destruction in which we all participate
tell me where the hope lies to bear the world
to bear the destruction in which we all participate

oh I wanna hear
Words like notes, strokes along a thigh
long slow seduction on an autumn night
when autumn was still autumn

pour you out some hot tea, build up the fire
we'll sit here & listen to the ancient choir
singing, singing, singing singing,
hallelujah
hallelujah
hallelujah

mmmmmm"

It's from the highly excellent "Dream Cafe" which I think came out in the mid or late 90s on Red House Records. So here's the next ten:

1. "Rollin the Dice" Jim Lauderdale (The Hummingbirds)
2. "Uncle Alvarez" Liz Phair (whitechocolatespaceegg)
3. "Reuben's Train" Old Crow Medicine Show (Greetings from Wawa)
4. "Dealing With the Distance" The Cash Brothers (A Brand New Night)
5. "Trois Petits Points" Paris Combo (Attraction)
6. "Water When the Well is Dry" Buddy Miller (Midnight & Lonesome)
7. "Death of a Ladies' Man" Leonard Cohen (Death of a Ladies' Man)
8. "Read About Love" Richard Thompson (Rumour & Sigh)
9. "Joy" Lucinda Williams (Car Wheels on a Gravel Road)
10. "Two Left Feet" Richard Thompson (Watching the Dark)

[Credit to Rox Populi and/or Trish Wilson's Blog and/or Feministe for the FRT feature. I'm not sure who came up with it, but it's fun to find out what everybody's listening to. Play along at home if you like: set your music-listening device to shuffle play and write down the first ten songs you hear. You can list them on your very own blog or here in the comments. Have fun!]

My first mammogram

A summary for the squeamish: It all turns out fine. Having a mammogram is not nearly as terrifying or uncomfortable as I had been encouraged to believe. Considerably less so than, say, dental X-rays.

I was not really all that apprehensive about having a mammogram; I knew that those stupid e-mails circulating every few months about how to prepare for your mammogram were ridiculously exaggerated (it's nothing like putting your breast into a cold waffle iron, for example, or lying down on the garage floor and having someone back over it with a car. Not that I've done these things, but I'm sure they're worse than the very minor discomfort of a mammogram). I was pretty sure I didn't have any major risk factors for breast cancer, and I did have a few reservations about how good a screening tool mammography is. There are a lot of false negatives (screening mammography misses about 20% of cancers), and quite a few false positives (e.g. things that look like a tumor on the mammogram but turn out to be nothing), especially in younger women, which in this setting I am.

Plus, I know that many studies of breast cancer (and this is changing as treatment options improve) count five-year post-treatment survival rates as success. It seems to me that earlier detection simply increases the amount of time you spend knowing you have cancer and dealing with it. My reasoning is a little flawed; I asked a few cancer researchers I know, and it does appear to be the case that early detection does improve the odds of successful treatment. I also learned that I do have a few pretty important risk factors: no family history of breast cancer, true, but I have never had any babies (I knew there was something I was forgetting to do), I started menstruating very early, I drink alcohol, I've used birth control pills. Damn. Big deal if I like tofu and exercise plenty.

By the time I actually made the appointment I was feeling like I had these ticking time bombs tucked into my shiny black bra.

I'm here to tell you that the screening mammogram (the kind they recommend either every year or every other year for women starting at age 40), is really not that unpleasant, or at least it wasn't for me. Sure, it's a little unnerving to take your shirt off and rest your tits on this little plastic shelf while this blandly impersonal but competent and nice technician adjusts them with her latex-gloved hands and has you lean this way and that to get the right angle and then lowers another plastic shelf to gently clamp it in place while she goes and snaps a picture & releases the clamp thingy right away. I think there were four separate poses in all.

Truly, it did not hurt a bit, and it was not even a little scary. Full disclosure: I have worked in health care/academic medicine for an awful lot of my so-called career, so I'm not put off by medical gear or clinic settings. Also, I have kind of big tits, and I've heard that the process is a little more difficult & uncomfortable for flatter-chested types.

It was all over in less than ten minutes and I was getting dressed, la la la, and went away & forgot all about it. The scary part came the following week, when I was exhausted and finally getting around to opening several days' worth of mail:

"Your recent mammography examination showed a finding that requires additional imaging studies for a complete evaluation. Most such findings are benign (not cancer). Please call blah blah blah ... "

Well, shit. It was too late to call that day, so I called first thing the next morning & made an appointment for the following Monday.

So then I got to work and there was this furious-sounding message on my voicemail from Nancy or someone in the Cancer Screening Center. Just her name, department, phone extension, and a request to please call her ASAP. I called, asked for Nancy, and Miss Snippity-Snip at the other end says that there are three people named Nancy & which did I need to speak to? I said I was returning a call & I didn't know the last name. She demanded to know what the call was regarding and I had to confess that Nancy hadn't said what it was about and was about to say, "maybe my mammogram appointment?" or "never mind, she can call me back if it's important," when I was listening to hold music all of a sudden. I couldn't really tell for sure, but it seemed like she'd hit the hold button a little too hard.

I had a few minutes of terror listening to "Minuet in G" thinking, "my god, is this really how they treat patients over there?"

Well, Nancy came on the line and started bitching right away about That Document, the one that kept me at work until like 4:23 am last week. Her first concern seemed to be that the thing on the left was blue, not gold like it used to be. And "you know that place where you put your mouse and it popped up where you want to go? It used to have on that one spot there were like a bunch of choices: A-F, G-K, L-Q & so on, but now it just says A-Z."

"Yeah?" I said helpfully, not understanding the problem. It seemed that she was looking for something that started with an H, and was having trouble locating H between A and Z. I swear I'm not making this up. I said, "What happens when you click on that, the A-Z thing?" I was afraid maybe the link was broken or something embarrassing.

She said, "Yeah, but then I have to scroll down to get to H. Where's the list of names that light up?"

I didn't want to try to explain that it had been changed because the old one didn't print out correctly for too many people, or they didn't like that it was sideways on the page or something, and they'd asked me to do it over this way.

So I asked her if she knew how to use the search function in her browser. It's described in detail at least ten times before you ever get to the page she was bitching about. But I'm used to this sort of thing. I had to repeat "control-F-enter" several times while she wrote it down.

"And then you just type in the word you're looking for?" she asks. "Can you do that on all the pages?"

"Well, yeah, you can do that on any web page or in pretty much any document in Word or Adobe or whatever. It works great. Keep in mind though that if the word is in there more than once, it'll go to the first appearance of the word, so you might have to hit the enter key more than once."

"The enter key?" she says.

"Or you could just print yourself a copy of the whole thing," I said. "Control-P."

Anyway, nothing like a little comic relief to take my mind off the tick ... tick ... tick noise from under my sweater. I mean, I know that most such findings are benign. I know that sometimes your bigger breasts are a little harder to get clear images of in the screening mammogram & they probably just wanted better pictures of my tits. But still. For once I could hardly wait for it to be Monday. The follow-up mammogram was a little more intense, but then the radiologist came in and said "You're fine! Go get dressed & get outta here."

The next day was my birthday. I went and bought myself five new bras, all very pretty, and I can't hear any more ticking.

Wow

That's all I have to say about it. Thanks to Magpie for this truly cool link. From the artist's statement:

"My pizza cutters seek to demolish the sterile conformity of mass produced objects and represent the stylistic and flamboyant embellishment of groups who live on the fringe of popular culture. The outlaw biker image is a break from the conformity that has taken over America since industrialization. My machined pizza cutters draw inspiration from chopper motorcycles and attempt to reclaim the mythology and economic usefulness of the American worker as patriarch; translating machine or functional object into flesh and blood."

Go here to see what this guy has done. No, really, just go.

Pope Hats!

I'm kind of behind the curve on this one, but someone asked me for this recipe recently and, well, I haven't posted anything about the new pope. I'm sure you've heard enough about him already. These yummy appetizers, on the other hand, are always very popular. Unfortunately, while I recognize that photos or at least diagrams would help, there aren't going to be any at this time.

You'll need:

• a package of won-ton wrappers
• a large can of tuna, or two regular ones (packed in water) -- but you can also use leftover grilled tuna - about 12 ounces or so
• a package of feta cheese
• a jar of capers
• some kalamata olives, pitted
• a bunch of fresh parsley
• olive oil
• two egg whites, lightly beaten
• a large container of plain yogurt
• a bottle of "Inner Beauty" hot sauce (or any very spicy, curry-based hot sauce)

The first thing is to mix up the tuna filling: Drain the tuna and put it in a bowl with 2-3 ounces of crumbled feta, a few tablespoons of capers (drained), about 25 or so chopped kalamata olives (if all you have are those gross black olives in cans, just leave em out), about a third to half of the parsley, rinsed & chopped (yes, it'll seem like a lot), and a tablespoon or two of olive oil. Stir it up. It shouldn't be all creamy like tuna salad. If it doesn't seem to hold together at all, you can add a spoonful or two of yogurt, but it shouldn't be necessary. I don't usually salt it, but use your best judgment. Pepper is good.

Chill the tuna stuff for a little while if you have time.

For the next part, you need to clear a space to work, and have a cookie sheet ready with olive oil sprayed or spread on it. Mix the egg white with a few tablespoons of water (more for ex-large or jumbo eggs). If you're totally freaked out by having to separate an egg white from the egg yolk, just use warm water. Nothing bad will happen. Put it in a small, shallow bowl or a teacup.

I like to do the next part on a large plate or spare cookie sheet. When you get good at it, you can do a bunch at a time, but for now just start with one. This takes much longer to describe than to actually do:

Place one won-ton wrapper in the center of the plate with the corners pointing North, East, South, and West (i.e., sort of a diamond shape) before you.

Brush the surface of it, all the way to the edges, with some of the egg white or warm water. If you don't have a pastry brush, use the back of a spoon or your fingers.

Place about a teaspoonful or so of the tuna filling in the wrapper, just slightly to the north of the imaginary equator of it. Not too big a blob. You're going to want to fold it over and seal the edges, so make sure there's enough but not too much.

Very gently take the Southernmost tip and fold it upwards to line up with the Northernmost tip.

Press all the edges together, being careful not to trap any air bubbles. It might take a little practice.

You'll have a triangle shape now, with the longest edge, the one with the fold, facing toward you.

Just imagine now that that edge is divided into thirds. Don't do anything yet. You're going to fold the left third over the center third and then the right third over that.

Gently pick up the Western point and fold it over the center third of the item. Do the same with the Eastern point, and sort of press them together without pressing them on the filling, using more egg white or water if needed. It's easy to pop the damn thing at this point so be careful.

Doesn't it sort of look like a pope hat? Place it on the oiled cookie sheet and do another, and another, until the cookie sheet is full or you're just plain tired of doing it any more. You can put them fairly close together on the cookie sheet.

Spray or brush or drizzle olive oil all over them.

Bake at 375F for about 10-15 minutes or until the outside is golden brown & crisp.

You can deep fry them if you like, but I don't really like to do that as it's kind of a pain in the ass. But go ahead, if you like that kind of thing. If you're frying them you need to be even more extra careful about no air bubbles and maintaining a good seal on all the edges.

For a dipping sauce, I generally just mix some Inner Beauty Hot Sauce & some yogurt (fat free, lowfat, whatever). I add the hot sauce a spoonful at a time to the yogurt on account of it is so fucking hot that it gives me the hiccups. So be careful.

Mango chutney is good too. Sometimes I mix yogurt and sambal oeleck (an Indonesian hot pepper paste). Or berbere (a north african spice mixture) paste.

In fact, this recipe is based on something once made in my presence by a Tunisian friend's mother. She left them in triangle shapes, and they were filled with just tuna, feta, olives, and olive oil, and a spot of berbere paste inside and then some thinner, similar-tasting sauce for dipping.

Friday Random 10: The 'Manic Monday' edition(s)

The Bangles 'Manic Monday' wasn't the first song I heard this morning, but it did pop up on the iPod while I was in some traffic, surrounded by dangerous idiots in a really big hurry to get to their important jobs. I was singing along, smiling at everybody, letting pedestrians have the right-of-way and once I even paused to let a huge SUV covered with W '04 stickers in front of me. I just wasn't in the mood to be unpleasant, though I did flip him a bird once he got moving. Talk about your mixed messages, eh?

Anyway, I got to my desk eventually and found a couple of random ten lists that were ready to go last Friday, but I apparently never got around to posting them. Here's one:

1. "Tell It To Me" Old Crow Medicine Show (O.C.M.S.)
2. "Thank the Lord for the Night Time" Neil Diamond (Classics)
3. "Just the Motion" David Byrne (Beat the Retreat)
4. "New Soft Shoe" Gram Parsons (Sacred Hearts and Fallen Angels)
5. "Like a Rolling Stone" Bob Dylan (Greatest Hits)
6. "Why Don't You Just Go Home?" Greg Brown (Slant 6 Mind)
7. "Have a Good Life, Baby" Dusty Springfield (Dusty in Memphis)
8. "Little Sparrow" Kasey Chambers (Just Because I'm a Woman)
9. "How Soon?" Martha Wainwright (Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole EP)
10. "Mohammed's Radio" Warren Zevon (Warren Zevon)

And here's another:

1. "Cats vs. Dogs" Matthew Sweet (Living Things)
2. "Avant La Guerre" Kate & Anna McGarrigle (French Record)
3. "A Case of You" k.d. lang (Hymns of the 49th Parallel)
4. "I Live Not Where I Love" Linda Thompson (Dreams Fly Away)
5. "Filipino Box Spring Hog" Tom Waits (Mule Variations)
6. "Join The Boys" Joan Armatrading (Joan Armatrading)
7. "Only Son" Liz Phair (whitechocolatespaceegg)
8. "Ne Meji Szivem" Marta Sebestyen (Apocrypha)
9. "Whipping That Old TB" Syd Straw & Wilco (Red Hot + Country)
10. "Winter's Come & Gone" Gillian Welch (Hell Among the Yearlings)

Too tired

If you want to know what kind of day I'm having you can read my post over at Suburban Guerrilla, where I've been guest blogging this week. I'll check back later, after my nap ... I mean, when this meeting is over.

Update here if you want to know how it turned out.

Poison Ivy

I was just outside checking out my yard. It's a gorgeous cool morning; I wish I had a camera here & could show youall my azaleas. I'm not like all obsessed with gardening or anything, but they're beautiful, and they don't last very long. I moved into this house about a year ago & I really had no idea what azaleas were until my 90-something neighbor, Miss Annie Mae, admired them when they bloomed all pink. And then, like that the flowers were gone; they were just big green shrubs again. A couple of days later, though, I noticed that two of them near my kitchen window were now covered with white blossoms, and the others were starting to blossom with white flowers too. I found it kind of strange that there'd be a shrub that flowered two different colors so rapidly. But what do I know? Then later on I was in the house & opened the kitchen window. A heavy, sweet, and somehow familiar scent filled the room.

Honeysuckle.

"Not like all obsessed with gardening" should perhaps be amended to "very nearly clueless about gardening." But I did know enough to understand that honeysuckle, pretty and sweet-smelling as it is, is kind of aggressive and will choke out pretty much anything. It's not as bad as kudzu, but you don't want it all over your gorgeous azaleas. It looks pretty good on old rusted cars, though, much like kudzu. I'm told that the locals often offer transplanted Yankees (like myself) cuttings of honeysuckle, and people often accept it on account of it looks so pretty and sounds so, well, southern.

I spent that entire afternoon learning how to tell the difference between azalea bushes and honeysuckle vines (not that difficult, actually) and hacking the honeysuckles to death. I got a pile of them about as big as a minivan. And then I discovered the bamboo sending up shoots in a razor-straight line across my back yard. They were obviously runners sent out from Miss Annie Mae's very healthy bamboo stand out behind her fence. I went over to take a closer look at the corner where the trees were bent over under the weight of some vines. Aha! More honeysuckle. I started hacking. And there was kudzu, oh my god kudzu is utterly terrifying stuff. Fortunately just then the lawnmowing team arrived, and they were willing to tackle the bamboo and the kudzu. They helped me move the pile of vines I'd accumulated and pointed out the poison ivy.

I was wearing gloves, and I'd never been allergic, but I didn't want to take any chances, so I left it all in the hands of professionals, glad that it wasn't in my yard.

Well, this year it is in my yard. Apparently the honeysuckle was holding it back or something. And it appears to be a particularly healthy crop. All around my house, everywhere I look I find some.

At least it's not kudzu. That stuff scares me. I don't want to miss the opportunity to plug one of my favorite weblogs: Invasive Species Weblog and this beautiful collection of photographs of kudzu in the southeast: Kudzu - The Vine.

I've finally gone too far

So I did something again today that just horrifies me. It's something that I have previously considered so, well, utterly unspeakable, that I've never even, like, sworn I'd never do it. And I've done it more than once in the past couple of weeks.

I'm grievously embarrassed by my own behavior.

Here's what I did: I went on & on trying to describe a television show to someone who really just couldn't have given a rat's ass about it. And I could see their eyes sort of glaze over & I kept talking anyway.

Maybe it doesn't seem like that big a deal, you're thinking. And I guess it's not.

But, see, I've never had a television. Oh, we had a couple, briefly, when I was growing up. And people have given me old TV sets which gather dust (and I did get three months of cable free once but canceled it as soon as I had to pay for it). And I've had roommates with TVs, I guess, but I've just never been able to get the hang of watching it.

I don't really think television is all that bad, content-wise, and I do sort of enjoy staying at my sister's and flipping around all those satellite channels. I mean, TV sets all have these "off" buttons, if you can find the right one among all the fucking remotes they have to have nowadays. I have no sympathy for people who whinge about the horrible things they or god help us their children are subjected to via their television sets. Shut up about whatsername's boobs already.

I am deeply uncomfortable about advertising, though, and I'm kind of baffled by people who say it doesn't really affect them one way or the other. Either they have some kind of skill or ability I lack, or they're just plain wrong. I don't think advertisers would pay all that money if it didn't work on somebody. And I don't think that most people fully get it that they are not the consumers of television, but rather the product being sold to the advertisers.

Anyway, I've been alternately annoyed and amused for years by how people respond when they find out I don't have a TV. In certain circles, I avoid even mentioning that I don't have one. There are three main types of responses: incredulity ("what do you do with yourself without a TV? I'd go crazy - how do you know what's going on in the world?") is the most common, I think, but there's also a lot of defensiveness, as in: "I don't watch very much TV; I just like to keep it on for company" -- or for the kids -- or the SO watches all the time. The most interesting response is a hostile defensiveness, an assumption that I'm a snob (probably not too far off base), or that I'm some kind of fanatic -- either religious or political -- and they therefore feel that I'm attacking them for having a television at all.

Truly, I don't care if you have a television. I wish more people were a little more critical of the information they get via their televisions, but I feel that way about newspapers and the internets too. And, sure, there have been a few shows over the years that I've watched with roommates or at friends' houses: 'Star Trek: The Next Generation,' for example, and (ahem) 'Dynasty,' 'Northern Exposure,' 'Monty Python,' and a bunch of those 1970s BBC sitcoms, and 'Xena Warrior Princess.' I'm not totally isolated from the world.

But what has always driven me just absolutely bonkers is people who ask me did I see [whatever their favorite show is] last night, and I say no, and they proceed to fill me in on what happened. If I say I've never seen it, then they have to fill me in on the whole premise of the show, and the history of each character, and my eyes glaze over and -- well, you get the idea.

I mean, I've never even seen 'Seinfeld,' and one day I was at the laundromat (secretly hoping to catch 'Xena: Warrior Princess,' which I really, really like) and I looked up at the TV and there were these people sitting at a restaurant and one of them said something, and there was a close-up of the only woman at the table and I thought, "Oh wow, that must be Elaine." And it was. I felt like I knew her.

Well, I've been watching -- on DVD at a friend's house, in between Monty Python episodes and WC Fields movies -- old episodes of a show called 'Futurama.' You've probably heard about it. I don't think it's on any more, but it was produced by Matt Groening of 'Simpson's' fame (I've never seen the Simpson's but I have long been a fan of his comic 'Life in Hell'), and it's a totally great show. I won't bore you with a description of it. But the really hysterical thing is that we're not watching the episodes in any particular order, so I don't always know exactly what I'm talking about, but still I want to share this fabulous thing.

It's pathetic, in a way. But on the other hand, it gives me a little sympathy for all the people who've been trying to describe 'Friends' or 'Sex in the City' or whatever.

All about me: Some test results

I've noticed links to these goofy online quizzes at a lot of people's blogs. I love taking them, for one thing, and one of the things I get to do at my job from time to time is design questionnaires and other forms, so I have a, you know, professional interest in them as well.

The first one I took, because I followed Magpie's link initially, was the What Kind of American English Do You Speak? test and I was a little surprised by the results:

• 55% General American English
• 25% Yankee
• 15% Upper Midwestern
• 5% Dixie
• 0% Midwestern

The results surprised me a little bit, as I have a very audible southern accent, pronunciation-wise, and I spent about 32 years or so in Minnesota. You'd think I'd have retained a little more of that. Plus I've never even been to New England.

But anyway, the test is on one of those sites with a bunch of reader-submitted quizzes, many of which are just plain dumb, in my opinion, but all the same I took a bunch of others, and found that my Inner European is Dutch ("Open-minded and tolerant, you're up for just about anything"), which pleased me; my Brain is 46.67% Female & 53.33% Male, which is apparently a "healthy mix," although I'm very much more right-brained than left-brained for what that's worth. My favorite quiz , though, was the What Breed of Puppy Are You? test. I'm a German Shepherd puppy: "Intelligent, quick witted, and a bit aggressive. You've got the jaw power to take a bite out of anyone you choose."

So now you know.

Friday Random Ten: Born to laugh at statistics edition

There are 1189 songs currently on this iPod. Fourteen (a little over 1% of the total) are by Was (not Was). Five (less than half a percent of the total, and less than a third of the Was(not Was) currently loaded on the iPod) are from Born to Laugh at Tornadoes. Todays random ten is 20% Was(not Was) from BTLAT. Here's today's selection:

1. "Man v. the Empire Brain Building" Was (not Was) Born to Laugh
   at Tornadoes
2. "I've Got a Secret" Mud Boy & The Neutrons They Walk Among
   Us
3. "Matty Groves" Fairport Convention Georgia On My Mind (v/a
   collection)
4. "Desperadoes Under the Eaves" Warren Zevon Warren Zevon
5. "Damned Old Dog" The Roches The Roches
6. "Professor Night" Was (not Was) Born to Laugh at Tornadoes
7. "Famous Blue Raincoat" Joan Baez Diamonds & Rust in the Bullring
8. "Amado Mio" Pink Martini Sympathique
9. "Do I Ever Cross Your Mind?" Joan Osborne Just Because I'm a Woman (D. Parton tribute CD)
10. "Tennessee Waltz (Live)" Leonard Cohen Dear Heather

I'm sure it doesn't mean anything, you know, statistically or mystically. But just for comparison, about 20% of the songs on the iPod today are by either Tom Waits, Richard Thompson, Emmylou Harris, Leonard Cohen, Lucinda Williams, or Gram Parsons (a little over 3% each) - and only one of those showed up.

[Credit to Rox Populi and/or Trish Wilson's Blog and/or Feministe for the FRT feature. I'm not sure who came up with it, but it's fun to find out what everybody's listening to. Play along at home if you like: set your music-listening device to shuffle play and write down the first ten songs you hear. You can list them on your very own blog or here in the comments. Have fun!]

Pirate moon landing

It looks like Kameron over at Brutal Women got bored at work and found this very silly item, along with a few others.

Irreconcilable differences

It seems the sponsor of Tennessee's constitutional marriage protection amendment, Sen. Jeff Miller (R-Cleveland, TN), stands accused of "inappropriate marital conduct." Cheating on his wife of 15 years is I guess the particular kind of marital conduct she finds inappropriate. Bummer for the guy who has made such a big --and public -- deal out of the sanctity of marriage. His estranged wife, Bridgitte Suzanne Miller, said as much in the Chattanooga Times Free Press (sorry, subscription-only, no link; here's the AP story in The Advocate). But here's my favorite part:

"The Tennessee senate approved Miller's marriage protection amendment February 22. In addition to defining marriage as "the historical institutional and legal contract solemnizing the relationship of one man and one woman," it would also forbid state recognition of same-sex marriages. Miller stopped an attempt to include a constitutional ban on adultery in the amendment."

Miller, who is representing himself in the divorce case, puts it all down to "irreconcilable differences," and denies any inappropriate marital conduct.

"Only a chocolate Jesus can satisfy my soul"

Trish Wilson had this goofy food meme posted yesterday & it looked kind of fun. Also I've been asked for a couple of recipes lately so I'll try to work them into the post as well. Along with the obligatory Tom Waits mention.

Favorite food to crunch: I hate crunchy food, and I don't like to crunch it loudly when I have to eat it.  I don't like raw things, and I dip most crunchy things into some kind of dip or soup or coffee to make them less crunchy.
Favorite comfort food: Tater Tot Hot Dish (veg. version w/wild rice).  Or any kind of soup, but especially the paprikasc my grandmother used to make, with hard-cooked eggs poached right in the broth.
Favorite picnic lunch: A baguette, an avocado, a hard-boiled egg, some mustard, cheese, stuff to make sandwiches, etc. Plus some kind of fruit. And wine, of course.
Favorite food scene in movie: in "Diva" when that guy Gorodish butters that baguette and puts garlic & caviar on it.  With the snorkel & mask on.
Favorite food lyrics: Have I mentioned Tom Waits today? Here's 'Chocolate Jesus' from Mule Variations:

Don't go to church on Sunday
Don't get on my knees to pray
Don't memorize the books of the Bible
I got my own special way
But I know Jesus loves me
Maybe just a little bit more
 I fall on my knees every Sunday
At Zerelda Lee's candy store
 
Well it's got to be a chocolate Jesus
Make me feel good inside
Got to be a chocolate Jesus
Keep me satisfied
 
Well I don't want no Anna Zabba
Don't want no Almond Joy
There ain't nothing better
Suitable for this boy
Well it's the only thing
That can pick me up
Better than a cup of gold
See only a chocolate Jesus
Can satisfy my soul
 
When the weather gets rough
And it's whiskey in the shade
It's best to wrap your savior
Up in cellophane
He flows like the big muddy
But that's ok
Pour him over ice cream
For a nice parfait
 
Well it's got to be a chocolate Jesus
Good enough for me
Got to be a chocolate Jesus
Good enough for me
 
Well it's got to be a chocolate Jesus
Make me feel good inside
Got to be a chocolate Jesus
Keep me satisfied
 
-Tom Waits

Best food smell memory: Making strudel with my grandmother & aunts; the smell especially of poppy seed strudel.
Favorite summer snack: Very cold ripe melon chunks. Or gin-soaked olives.
Food that reminds me of the ocean: I almost never think of the ocean, but I guess scallops always make me think of seashells and hence oceans.
Favorite winter snack: Hot cocoa, or tea and buttered toast.
Most likely to eat for lunch: Nothing, or maybe forage for some snacks. Unless I go out to lunch, in which case it's sushi or whatever's at the hot bar at Whole Foods, or maybe curry.
Least likely to eat for lunch:Fast food.
Makes me gag: Varies. Lots of things. Anything I don't want to eat at any given moment, or anything not fresh.
Food tradition I hate: Eating til it hurts at holidays.
Saturday night food: Takeout whatever.
Favorite wild foods: Morels, soaked overnight in saltwater, soaked in clear water to get rid of salt, dipped in flour & pepper, sauteed in butter. With a chunk of fresh baguette, or in an omelette with sharp cheddar cheese and fresh sage and caramelized onion.  Or, if there's a lot of them, made into a creamy soup, with lots of fresh sage.
Favorite food for sex play: Don't get anywhere near me with any kind of food if you want any sex.  Yes, yes, I have issues. Though if you catch me in just the right mood, mangoes are kind of sexy.
Favorite medicinal food: My interpretation of my grandmother's chicken soup, with still-warm, freshly-baked bread and chunky peanut butter.  You have to dip the bread in the soup to obtain the full medicinal effect. Or so I've been led to believe.
Food that reflects my heritage: A terrifying thought, as I'm Swedish, Irish & Hungarian. And I grew up in Minnesota, where they really do use ketchup as a spice.  But I grew up mostly on more or less Hungarian-E. European-German food, so you couldn't go too far wrong with some kind of sausage & potato combination, with sauerkraut. No lutefisk please, though I like lefse just fine. Irish whiskey is OK, but it's not exactly a food, is it?
Food most like me: Some variation of the samosa/pasty/calzone archetype, or what are those Mexican things called that have the filling inside the cornmeal dough & then cooked wrapped in cornhusks?  Tamales. Anyway the delicious but unassuming bread-type thing wrapped around the very tasty filling is the food most like me.
Favorite raw food smell: Garlic, or maybe fresh rosemary out in the yard. Or sage. Or bread rising.  Or the smell of a pile of root vegetables, freshly dug up, with the dirt still on them.

So the recipes are in the posts below. Scroll down or click on the links in the list above. Except for the chocolate cake, which isn't mentioned above, but the recipe is posted below anyway.

[update, a little while later] How could I forget my other favorite Tom Waits food lyrics?

"Eggs & Sausage (In a Cadillac with Susan Michelson)" from Nighthawks at the Diner:

Nighthawks at the diner
Emma's 49er, there's a rendezvous of strangers
Around the coffee urn tonight
All the gypsy hacks & the insomniacs
now the paper's been read
now the waitress said

Eggs & sausage and a side of toast
Coffee and a roll, hash browns over easy
Chili in a bowl with burgers and fries
What kind of pie?

It's a graveyard charade, a late shift masquerade
& it's 2 for a quarter, dime for a dance
Woolworth rhinestone diamond earrings,
And a sideways glance
Now the register rings
Now the waitress sings

Eggs & sausage and a side of toast
Coffee and a roll, hash browns over easy
Chili in a bowl with burgers and fries
What kind of pie?

Ah well, the classified section offers no direction
It's cold caffeine in a nicotine cloud
As the touch of your fingers
Lingers burning in my memory
I've been 86ed from your scheme
Now I'm in a melodramatic nocturnal scene
Now I'm a refugee from a disconcerted affair
Now the lead pipe morning falls
Now the waitress calls

Eggs & sausage now a side of toast
coffee and a roll, hash browns over easy
chili in a bowl with burgers and fries
Now what kind of pie?
A la mode, if you will
Just come in and join the crowd
Have time time to kill....
See I just come in to join the crowd
Cause I had some time to kill

Tater Tot Hot Dish (no really, it's good)

A "hot dish" is just a casserole, for those of you not from the midwestern US.

Note: If you can't find real, paddy-grown, hand-harvested wild rice, don't bother -- that paddy-grown stuff they call wild rice in the stores is awful and never quite cooks without a pressure cooker, and even then it's just not as good. Use brown rice or even white rice (though it's not as good with white rice IMHO) or those vegetarian "recipe crumbles" in the frozen food section - or what the hell, use 1 lb. ground beef or turkey, cooked and drained. It's fine to use leftovers from something else you made, and to mix any or all of the above, but if you have to cook it, chop up half an onion and (if it's not meat) add a little butter or olive oil, some minced rosemary, minced sage, and some pepper. For wild rice I think it's 4 parts water to 1 part rice. Check the package. I just boil it until done & drain off any extra water - or put it in a casserole in a 350F oven for an hour or so.

2 cups or so of cooked wild rice or whatever
1 can of low-salt cream-of-mushroom soup
12 oz (1 soup can full) milk
1 package frozen french-cut green beans, thawed
Some cheese (white cheeses look best), cut up into small chunks -- or no cheese
Some nuts (walnuts or pecans or sunflower seeds) -- or no nuts
Shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, caps sliced into thin slices -- or regular mushrooms, sliced however you like them
1 Tbsp fresh rosemary, minced very fine (or 1 tsp dried is OK)*
1-1/2 Tbsp. fresh sage, minced very fine (or 1-1/2 tsp dried is OK)*
Some tamari or shoyu (or regular soy sauce)
1 large bag of Tater Tots(r) or Crispy Crowns(r) -- the latter have the advantage of a more optimal surface area-to-volume ratio, giving you more crispy fried part and less of the potatoey part. Sometimes you can also find tater tots shaped like the ABCs, which are pretty fun.

Mix the wild rice/whatever, soup, milk, green beans, cheese, nuts, mushrooms and herbs. You can also add chopped onion at this point if you like. Add tamari to suit your liking, keeping in mind that tater tots are pretty salty. Mix in about half the tater tots or crispy crowns in with this stuff and put it in a casserole and top with the remaining tater tots, artfully arranged.

Bake it in the oven at 350F for 45 minutes to an hour. You can cover it at first and then remove the lid for the last 15-20 minutes or so to ensure proper crispiness. Also -- be careful as it sometimes bubbles at first. I usually put a sheet of tin foil on the shelf under it, and try to make sure I use a large enough casserole so that it's not quite full.

*Quantities for the herbs are approximate. Use as much or as little as you see fit. I measured it last time I made it and that's about how much I used. I put the quantities there on account of some people panic if you don't. The main thing is to use more fresh herbs than you would use of dry herbs, which are more concentrated.

Chicken Soup for the Sick

First you make the stock. Yes, you have to make it from scratch. You want this to work, don't you? If you just want to make chicken soup for dinner, go ahead and use pre-made stock. If the chicken and the soup pot are large-ish, use 2 of everything (except the chicken - only use one chicken); for smaller birds and/or pans, just 1 is fine. Yes, you have to be very organized about this whole thing or your kitchen will be very messy indeed.

1 whole chicken (Make sure there's none of that highly-absorbent stuff they put in meat packages nowadays and no little packet of chicken organs inside the cavity, and be sure to rinse it off & all that. If they gave you the neck it's OK to put that in, but I toss the liver & giblets & all that stuff - or sometimes make them plus the neck into soup for the dog.)
1 or 2 onions peeled and quartered
up to 3 or 4 cloves of garlic, peeled and cut in half
1 or 2 large carrots, cut in chunks
1 or 2 stalks celery, cut in chunks - feel free to include the leafy tops as they are quite tasty
1 or 2 dried chili peppers, whole (those little skinny hot ones)
(optional: 1 parsnip, peeled and cut in chunks)
a sprig of fresh rosemary
a little salt
some peppercorns
a few threads of saffron, if you have it - not too much though
a bay leaf
enough water to submerge all of that in

Put it on the stove and bring to a simmer (not a boil), skimming the icky greyish foam that rises to the top at first. Try not to think about how much it resembles the kitty or a cute bunny sitting on its haunches in the boiling water. The fluffy white foam is OK, though; you can leave that. Let it simmer for a good long while & go read or take a bath or something. Just make sure it's simmering very gently. It's done when the chicken is falling off the bones, & the skin will slide off easily.

OK, now the messy part. Take the chicken out and put it in a large bowl and into the fridge for a while. It's too hot to touch right now, so let it cool a while. Strain all the stuff out of the broth and toss it (the vegetables & stuff, not the broth) or mash it up & mix it with the dog food (pick out the peppercorns; dogs hate those). The dog will love it. Refrigerate the broth if you're going to leave it out for a long time (I usually just leave it on the stove for a half-hour or so; it's going to be brought to a boil for the last step).

While the chicken is cooling, chop the following into very small pieces and set them aside:
a peeled onion
1 or 2 peeled carrots
1 or 2 peeled parsnips
1 stalk celery or 2 if you like celery, which I don't really very much
a bunch of shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, sliced thin or they're a little rubbery
fresh herbs: I use rosemary, sage, & tarragon, but my mother uses parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. And she sings. You know that song. Don't start singing it now or it'll get stuck in your head & then you'll have to sing 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.'

The next part is also messy; maybe even messier than before. And gross, I think. The best time to do this is while the chicken is cool enough to touch but still a little warm, but it's fine to let it all sit overnight in the fridge if you need to. You remove the skin and bones and anything gross and then cut up the chicken into little tiny bits. Throw away the bones (do not give the bones to the dog) and skin and put the chopped up chicken bits into the broth, along with the vegetables you chopped up earlier, and turn the heat on. When it comes to a boil, turn it down a bit, add the chopped herbs, and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. Adjust salt & pepper to taste. I've heard that when someone is sick, that a little extra salt is good for them. I'm not sure about that, but it does make it taste a little better when you're all stuffed up and can't taste much. Also, I'm told that whatever medicinal properties chicken soup has are fat-soluble, so you shouldn't remove the fat from the chilled broth if you're cooking this for a sick person.

My mom always baked nice plain white bread when she made this, and gave it to us with chunky (sugar and salt free) peanut butter. I'm not sure why you're supposed to dip it in the soup, but it's yummy when a chunk of peanut butter falls in and melts. Saltines are good too. If you want to add noodles or matzoh balls or dumplings, my advice is to cook them separately (I use already-prepared chicken stock for that, mixed with some water) and place some in each bowl when you serve it, rather than dumping them into the soup. What happens is the broth gets all starchy and the noodles or dumplings get excessively soggy from soaking in the soup.

Chocolate Marmalade Spice (or whatever) Cake

Preheat oven to 350 and start some strong coffee; you'll need 1 cup of hot coffee for this recipe, at the end.  Yeah, decaf is fine.  Oh, and you'll need at least one large jar of fruit preserves or marmalade.

Generously grease a bundt pan and dust it with cocoa powder just like you learned in home ec. (if you're old enough to have taken home ec.) to grease and flour the cake pans except use cocoa powder instead.  You can use two layer pans or a 9X13 pan, but it looks really pretty as a bundt cake.  Although sometimes I put slices of fruit in the layer pans and make kind of an upside-down fruity version which is very popular.

Mix together in a big bowl (you can use a mixer, but I just use a big whisk):
1-1/2 cups granulated white sugar (ok to use up to 50% brown plus white)
1/2 cup canola oil
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla extract (or 1 shot of Grand Marnier or another liqueur; whatever works with the fruit preserves you are using)
1/2-3/4 tsp. cinnamon*
1/2 tsp. nutmeg*
1/2-3/4 tsp ground cardamom*
3/4-1 tsp ground ginger*
2 Tbsp. orange marmalade (or any all-fruit preserves)
3/4 to 1 cup very high quality cocoa

Sift together (or just mix up with a fork in a separate bowl):
1-3/4 cups flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

You've got the pan ready & the oven hot & a cup of hot coffee ready, right? OK, you can continue:

Use a rubber spatula for this part. Combine the dry ingredients with the chocolate-y stuff and stir gently just until barely combined. Then pour the hot coffee in all at once and stir - again, just until it's all combined but no more.  It will be way too runny now and you will think you ruined it.  Fear not.

Pour it into the waiting cake pan(s) and gently tap them on the counter to cause any air bubbles to float to the top.  Place on center rack of oven.

Bake until done - around 45 minutes for a bundt pan (but see comments below)**

When it comes out of the oven, let it stand for a little bit before tipping it out onto a plate.  This is where you'll be glad you greased the pan very evenly and generously - or you'll curse the little decorative shapes in the bundt pan.  If it falls apart a little as you're putting it on the plate, just use the marmalade to fasten it back together the best you can.  Trust me, no one will care.

While it's still pretty warm, use a spoon to spread a layer of marmalade over it, being careful to sort of seal the crumbs in as you go.  It will soak into the cake as it cools, so you need to do that again when it's completely cool.

If you're truly decadent and have an air-conditioned kitchen, you can make some of that really dense chocolate icing*** that you sort of pour it on instead of the second application of marmalade & it gets quite firm, like a chocolate bar almost, or a layer of fudge sauce. But don't do that if it's too humid, as it will slide off - plus it kind of crystallizes in humid weather.  Trust me. And really, it's fine with just the marmalade or preserves. It looks like a glaze.

===

*Don't worry if you don't have one or another of these spices -- just add a total of no more than about 3 teaspoons of some spices. Cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom and ginger are my favorites, but allspice is good (a little less allspice than ginger or cinnamon as it overpowers things quickly - same with nutmeg) You can toss in some finely minced candied ginger too if you have it, or candied lemon peel/citron if you are someone who keeps that kind of thing around.  I've even added lemon zest left over from something else, and that was good.  And instead of fruit and spices and vanilla, I have added mint extract and covered it with mint jelly (I liked it but it was not so popular -- same with the sambuca/anise variation -- I love chocolate and licorice together, but I'm alone in this, as far as I can tell)

**The time it takes to cook will sort of depend on your oven and the ambient humidity and some other factors I don't really understand. And it's a little tricky to tell precisely when it's done -- the usual tests for doneness don't work on account of this is a really dense, moist cake.  A toothpick will not come out clean, even when it's way overdone, and your fingerprint will not spring right back up when you touch the top gently.  However, it will start to smell really fabulous at about 30-35 minutes (a little less for layer or 9x13 pans), and you can check it frequently starting at about 35-40 minutes.  The top will get some nice deep cracks in it, and the edges will pull away from the sides of the pan.  It's usually done in about 45-50 minutes in a bundt pan.  But sometimes it takes a little longer, sometimes not quite as long.  All I can say is it looks done when it's done - but if you haven't made it before, that's kind of meaningless.

***I think the icing recipe is just to melt some chocolate squares and butter and add confectioner's sugar & milk and beat with electric beaters for a really long time, until you're completely bored and the chocolate is glossy & then add a little vanilla.  It's probably in Joy of Cooking or Fannie Farmer under 'Glossy Chocolate Icing' or something clever like that.

Andrea Dworkin

I guess it's been a long time since I read Andrea Dworkin. Her death this week saddens me in an odd way, like that of an eccentric aunt whom you never really knew because that one thing she said all those years ago pissed you off so bad you never took her seriously again, even though you knew she was smart as hell. You never tried to understand her after that, and you never tried to defend her when everyone else in the family said anything about her or somehow distorted her life or her views or made fun of her. And they did. And so did you. And so did I, even though I was one of them once. One of those womyn who went around vandalizing billboards and giving speeches about how pornography caused rape.

I don't have time to say much more about it now, but Susie Bright's post about her death is really quite sweet, acknowledging Dworkin's gifts and legacy while still not quite agreeing with her.

And here's her obituary from The Guardian.

The revolution starts after the fellowship meeting

The Unitarian Jihad, that is. From now on you can call me Sister Hand Grenade of Courteous Debate.

"Startling new underground group spreads lack of panic! Citizens declare themselves "relatively unafraid" of threats of undeclared rationality. People can still go to France, terrorist leader says."

Via sources too numerous to mention.

Giving it all up

A month or so ago I had a nasty allergic reaction to an antibiotic. I'll spare you the details, but I'm still all blotchy and red and itchy -- now with added joint pain and asthma-like symptoms. No fun at all, and really not very pretty. The doc(s) said it might be a few more weeks, or several months, blah blah blah. . .

I'm just not that patient a patient, so I started experimenting -- eliminating things that I am or might be allergic to, or that might exacerbate these particular symptoms -- to see if I feel any better, & then trying them again to see if that makes things worse. So far I haven't found anything that caused anything to improve noticeably, but I've already found quite a few things that make it all worse:

Caffeine, alcohol, spicy food, sunlight, salty food, exercise, hot baths, sitting in one place too long, and aspirin. And overly perfumed colleagues in elevators (but I might be imagining that just because it's so fucking unpleasant). And books, if they have even a little bit of mold on them.

I guess it'll be pretty easy to learn to live without getting into elevators with overly perfumed people. And I don't like salty food all that much, and I only rarely take aspirin. But how in the hell am I going to give up everything else I like? My house is full of books. I eat spicy food for breakfast. And I just got my damn bike out yesterday and it's sunny & gorgeous. And alcohol & caffeine? I don't even want to think about it.

Oh yeah, and orgasms make it worse. Seriously. "Not tonight honey, it makes me itch." How lame is that? I'm very glad I live alone.

Is it National Poetry Month already?

I don't read a lot of poetry. I read too fast for it too make much sense unless someone reads it out loud to me. Unfortunately, I live alone nowadays, and no one ever does that any more. I do write poems from time to time though, so I will offer the following in celebration. They were written some years back with the help of one or two of those magnetic fridge poetry kits (which at the time were available solely from the coffee shop next to where I did my laundry in Minneapolis and now they're all over the place in all kinds of dopey themes just like those Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul books).

And for you purists, yes I know the kits don't have punctuation. I added it myself. I'm compulsive that way.

Magnetic North

i.
I recall a thousand lies & no place easy.
These blue moments,
some rain,
& an enormous singing vision.

I felt the knife of your sweet & sordid urge.
A sweet hot lake,
our forest,
& the powerless dreaming flood.

I picture the soaring essential beauty.
Languid whispers
beneath trudging music
& a stormy shadowed moon.

I needed your shaking rusted worship.
Crushed petals,
my screams,
& a shining bitter ache.

ii.
I told her that her gift would not please those cool mothers,
but it only played into the ugly dreamlike moment.

I did no screaming yet my breast stormed.
Her bitter vision irons out my will.

iii.
Together our power of recall may be weak,
but these singing girls need only picture some shadowy gift
& there they lie, no less mad or lazy for it.

And when I said I would not trudge on your road after
a thousand frantic trips over it,
it was as though I could soar above those blue lakes.

iv.
My days before you were less easy.
Our sweet language recalls a time I never did have,
shining with play and dreams:

A love with a thousand essential parts-
some frantic, some cool.
A need like enormous delicate storms
and still water.

All true.

v.
In a dream I will drive where I please,
cook when I want.

I may watch some TV or read,
but you will have to ask to play with me
and what we say could crush our sleeping summer lust.

vi.
After our vision cools and you tell me
I can cry and scream and live,
it is time to eat.

You always like these chocolates.
Take a thousand,
they are tiny and essential:
bittersweet produce from the garden of this love.

vii.
It's a bitter path I drive.
You always stop me with your smooth stare;
its shadows rob me of most of my gift.
My apparatus for asking is crushed & sad,
my need true but now so tiny;
a fast car trudging.

viii.
Woman,
your chanted language floods the garden.
My tongue plays easy & sweet across your need.
My power, languid now, is nearby when I want it.

As I recall its use and I read your hot beauty,
I picture a rock,
the moon,
a forest
& I could drive you there in the rain.

Woof, woof

I'm dogsick.

It was a year ago this week that I found out my beloved dog, the Alpha Bitch herself, was terminally ill. With lymphoma. It was absolutely heartbreaking. It was 17 days from the time she stopped eating and I realized she was sick until I held her in my arms as she calmly and gracefully died. That was how she did everything: calmly and gracefully. My heart is still broken.

It's a funny kind of thing -- I knew that the prognosis for lymphoma in dogs was not so good, and that the only treatment offered was uncomfortable and debilitating and only successful about half the time (with success defined here as another six months or so waiting for a relapse and another 25 weeks of chemotherapy, and maybe another six months). I knew that I would not put either of us through that, and that I would have to somehow make a decision about when to end her life.

My veterinarian assured me that I would "just know" when the time was right, but I was skeptical. I mean, how could I possibly know? Would I just reach a point where I couldn't stand the suspense? Would I try to hang on too long and make her suffer needlessly?

I have a flexible schedule, and I almost always went home and had lunch and a long walk with her, but I was happy to take some time off and spend a few entire days with her that first week of it, just strolling around the neighborhood and basking in the spring sun. She didn't want to run in the morning any more, but she still had plenty of energy for long long walks. And for the first time since I'd known her, we could take walks without having to fight about eating the garbage. It's not easy to pull disgusting food/garbage items out of the mouth of a large-ish German shepherd/Rottweiler/Husky mix who's highly motivated to eat whatever it is you're trying to take away. She didn't even try to snag the catfood in the bowl on my neighbor's front porch when we went over there.

She continued to guard the house from her bed near the door, or to watch everybody go by on the street from her blanket on the porch. She was always happy to get company, as long as they didn't bring dogs. She wouldn't eat, though, not even her favorite lamb and risotto dish with canned pumpkin and yogurt on the side. Not even raw carrots or dog biscuits or chunks of watermelon.

She seemed a little tired, but pretty chipper considering that her liver had failed already. And her beautiful coat was still glossy and gorgeous.

Then it started to seem like even the shortest walks exhausted her, but still no obvious pain.

Then one day she didn't want me to leave whatever room she was in. She had never been a clingy dog, and this surprised me. She wanted me to touch her a lot, but not the vigorous dog-rubs that she usually liked. She became just a little clumsy now and then.

Then one morning after a short slow walk and a long bask in the side yard sun, she fell down, and it was clear that she couldn't walk up the steep steps by herself. And, for the first time, she obviously hurt.

I knew. I called and made an appointment for the end of Dr. J's work day.

We went outside again after a while and sat in the sun some more. Sometimes she put her head in my lap, sometimes she just leaned against my hip. It was a perfect day. I didn't even put her leash on as she had no desire to wander, eat garbage, or start fights.

We'd been sitting there for a couple of hours when I saw her look over at my neighbor's porch. I knew exactly what she was looking at, and her eyes were very sparkly all of a sudden. She got up very slowly and deliberately and walked across the street with her beautiful fluffy tail wagging. She trotted up the steps and ate the entire bowl of cat food. I made no attempt to stop her. Who cared if it made her sick?

I don't think I'd ever seen her as happy as she was at that moment.



[Update: I added the picture of her in July 2005]

"The forgery of the forgery is a forgery"

Giblets come right out and says it:

"Mel Martinez (R-FL) is secretly a Democrat in a clever plastic disguise, fiendishly planted by the international Leftist-Media-Islamist conspiracy just to make Republicans look bad! Giblets wouldn't be surprised if Tom Delay weren't in on the act, too, committing "fraud" and taking "bribes" just to make the rest of the party look shamelessly corrupt. Is there nothing liberals won't stoop to!"

Here's more on the memo in question from Media Matters.

P.S. I love fafblog!

What are they saving it for?

Mac over at Pesky'Apostrophe brought this fascinating item to my attention: Congress trying to extend daylight savings time. It makes sense, according to one of the bill's co-sponsors (Rep. Fred Upton, R-Michigan), "especially with skyrocketing energy costs." Um, how exactly does it make sense? It kind of seems to me that the amount of daylight is really beyond our control.

I've always been a little freaked out by daylight savings time. I mean, what are they saving it for? And how, exactly? Does Congress really think they can give us more daylight? And maybe I'm some kind of control freak (ahem) but it seems to me that any unit of measurement at all is more or less arbitrary; it's chief virtue, really, is its stability. What if Congress decided that from April to October a mile would be an even 5,000 feet long instead of 5,280 feet long. You'd get better gas mileage part of the year, right? Or if they redefined a pound as, say 17.6 ounces from like mid-October until early March, so that you could put on up to 10% of your pre-holiday weight and it wouldn't really show up on the scale until spring. We wouldn't have to read all those stupid post-holiday weight loss articles or listen to anybody whine about how much eggnog they drank and cookies they ate.

I think it's nutty. Plus I can't figure out how to change the clock in my car, so it's going to be wrong until next fall, or until I get another one, whichever comes first. Another good reason to get my bike out this weekend, and ride it until they change the time back.

Friday Random 10: The 'What, No Tom Waits?' edition w/ bonus Emmylou Harris

1. "Famous Blue Raincoat" Jennifer Warnes (Famous Blue Raincoat)
2. "I'll Be Your San Antonio Rose" Emmylou Harris (Luxury Liner)
3. "Caleb Meyer" Gillian Welch (Hell Among the Yearlings)
4. "Subterranean Homesick Blues" Bob Dylan (Greatest Hits)
5. "Trois Fois Trois - Country Version 3x3" 3 Mustaphas 3 (Heart of Uncle)
6. "Price to Pay" Lucinda Williams "Lucinda Williams"
7. "I Think I Need a New Heart" The Magnetic Fields (69 Love Songs)
8. "I Remember You" Steve Earle w/Emmylou Harris (Jerusalem)
9. "Calling My Children Home" Emmylou Harris (Spyboy)
10. "Where Were You When I Needed You?" The Bangles (Greatest Hits)

Just for the record: The twelfth song in this sequence just happened to be Tom Waits' "Get Behind the Mule." Can't listen very long lately without hearing from Mr. Waits. This is a good thing, in my view.

[Credit to Rox Populi and/or Trish Wilson's Blog and/or Feministe for the FRT feature. I'm not sure who came up with it, but it's fun to find out what everybody's listening to. Play along at home if you like: set your music-listening device to shuffle play and write down the first ten songs you hear. You can list them on your very own blog or here in the comments. Have fun!]

OK, I give up

The other day I mentioned I was kind of chilled by Glen McGee's post Dying For Food. I have a lot to say about it, but I really don't want to go there, not in public. All the same, here I am. Does that ever happen to you? Where the one thing you don't want to think about is the only thing you can think about? I'm not going to think about anything else until I get this out of my system -- plus the personal is political, right? Fuck those A-list boy bloggers; I'm going to keep writing about chick stuff anyway. You're free to just close your browser window and forget about it.

If I could starve myself to death I just might do it.

I mean, there's the whole Terri Schiavo thing of course, and there was Kameron's post that I linked to the other day on Brutal Women, and a zillion commentaries about poor dear Terri, and then this at salon.com and -- oh, and just everything else.

It's suddenly everywhere, and of course, I'm sensitive. Probably even over-sensitive. I'm not even all that much bigger than average, but I'm tired of thinking about it. I'm tired of trying to change it, and I'm tired of trying to act as if it doesn't matter. Yes, I know that there are more truly important issues affecting more people's lives in vastly more negative ways. And haven't I been saying for about a million years now that if more women would just put even half the energy into -- let's say, politics or economic justice or science or engineering or literary theory or any fucking thing at all -- that they put into obsessing about their weight, wouldn't the world be a much better place? A million fucking years I've been saying this, and nobody listens. I don't even buy it myself, if you want to know the truth. The number on the scale tells me what I am worth, even if I pretend it doesn't mean anything. Women dying from the consequences of eating disorders tell me I can't fucking win, even if I succeed. Especially if I succeed.

You see, I'm a failure at having a bona fide eating disorder. If I could only succeed at it, I would be beautiful. Not just beautiful, but hot -- maybe only briefly, but still. And as an added bonus, I wouldn't really have time or energy to think about any of the million other things that cry out for my attention all the damn time.

In my better moments, I am grateful for this kind of failure. I'm not having one of those moments right now.

And I know better. I know that every thin woman does not have an eating disorder, is not obsessed, does not puke (or even apologize) every time she eats -- god forbid -- an entire meal. Some people are just like that. Inefficient metabolisms or something. They really can't help it. Some people just aren't geared to pack on weight the way I am. That I'll outlive them in a famine -- and my babies will outlive theirs should I be somehow forced to bear children during a famine -- is no comfort to me. I lack an evolutionary perspective about this.

I'm not likely to ever bear children, and I've totally aged out of being, you know, even remotely hot anyway, so why does it even matter? Plus I'm really smart and funny and I have a pretty face and a great personality. And I can beat your ass armwrestling, you skinny little motherfucker. So what the hell is my problem? Didn't I just last year lose like fifty fucking pounds without even going on some wacky diet? I have none of the dire health disorders that fatness is supposed to cause, and my fat grandmothers and their aunts and sisters all got so old that they just died of being terminally pissed off, or bored silly. Except for the ones (the thinner ones, with only one exception) who drank and smoked themselves to death before all that other shit set in. Or, who knows, maybe the boredom and rage set in sooner for them.

You've seen plenty of it out there in the world. I don't even save the links anymore, so I can't give you exact quotes of the kind of whacked out bullshit out there about how feminists obviously don't ever have eating disorders so why are they all worked up about it anyway (i.e., they're fat & therefore boyfriendless & therefore feminists & they should just leave the 'normal' girls alone with their fucked-up ideas about beauty and food), and how conservatives like Ann Coulter characterize left-leaning gals as fat as though it means something interesting. Pie wagons? Um, Ann? Meet Maggie Gallagher. I think she's one of yours.

Yes, it's mean and petty of me to single out Maggie Gallagher on account of her weight, but my point is that we're all in on this one together, I don't care how skinny Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin are. You can just stop it about how liberal intellectual-type gals 'let themselves go' and therefore can't get husbands and are terminally bitter. There are plenty of terminally bitter conservative, non-intellectual gals, with and without husbands, who are fat. And it seems to me I've seen a skinny feminist or two. And even some feminists who are happily married. To men. Shut up already.

Am I bitter? Yeah, of course I am. Do I understand what's going on? I have one or two clues is all.

There are, truly, some serious consequences to the way most people live. Many of us are genuinely unhealthy. Too much shitty food plus not enough exercise, plus too much stress, and the sense that you are about to be revealed as a failure at everything it's important for a woman to be -- this is not a good way to live.

I shouldn't feel like I need to defend myself here, but I feel like I have to qualify everything: I don't have to shop in special fat-lady stores or buy two airplane seats, but I'm still officially fat. I eat less food -- and better food, most of the time -- than most people I know. I go to the gym most days. I walk a fair amount, and -- weather permitting -- ride my bike to work. I even enjoy running sometimes, just because it's fun, in a sick kind of way (sort of like smoking). I have successfully dieted, and lost all kinds of weight. And gained back even more. In fact, when I was 25 and officially stopped dieting, I did the math and determined that dieting had caused me to effectively double my weight over 16 years. Kind of beside the point, as I was nine and not overweight when I started, but you get the idea.

I think I'm lucky that I've never been one for 'binge eating;' I can't even imagine what that would be like. I have exercised fanatically even when I hated every second of it. I have made myself throw up every other meal. I have lived for weeks at a time on martinis and snickers bars, (the little fun-size ones, half for breakfast and half for lunch -- gin-soaked olives are plenty enough for dinner) plus an occasional salad. I hate salads. I have spontaneously thrown up entire meals from the sheer horror at having eaten to the point of being full. I've been a vegan, a vegetarian, followed strict macrobiotic regimens; you name it, I've tried it. Except for the raw food thing. I hate raw food.

And still I am a failure. If I were successful, I'd be a damn feminist martyr like Karen Carpenter, or dramatically dying in a hospice a la Terri Schiavo, may she finally rest in peace. I'd be wasting away and entering treatment for anorexia like -- was it Mary Kate or Ashley? I'd at least be dramatic and appealingly emaciated, with fabulous hipbones and prominent cheekbones and maybe even jutting shoulder blades over an exquisitely detailed spinal column. I would not be this sturdy, or strong, or for godssakes this fucking cute. I would certainly be rid of this ass forever, and these tits.

But enough about me. Why are women doing this? You know I'm not the only one. Yeah, we can blame men, or their conditioned desires for the nonthreatening, unrealistically skinny and airbrushed and contrived women in porn (let's not even mention bleached assholes -- ahem -- thanks a lot to Amanda at Pandagon for that one). We can blame other social constructs like 'the media' or 'images of women in advertising' or something. We can talk about how maybe we're control freaks or food addicts or blame our parents for being too involved in our lives or not involved enough or whatever. All that is true enough for enough of us to make a difference.

But we can stop any time, can't we? We're doing this to ourselves, right?

It was really that salon.com article I linked to above that set me off tonight. I'm a little too old and insufficiently hip to be in its target demographic but finally, there's a mainstream, trendy store that carries fashionable clothes (and even sexy underwear! and swimsuits!!) in larger sizes -- on purpose! -- and there are people worried that it might just be making the hideous problem of obesity worse for young women. Encouraging it, even. Like, somehow, the feeling that you can go out of the house wearing something moderately normal -- or even (horrors!) fun and sexy -- is going to make millions of young girls decide 'oh what the hell, I think I'll gain fifty pounds, maybe even a hundred.'

And then I read this today too, a review of the surprise hit diet book about how French women don't get fat. Never mind that sometimes they do, but generally they eat better food in France, exercise a little more, and enjoy their meals quite a bit more than we do here. They dress a lot better too, and wear sexy underwear even when they are as old as I am.

Maybe I'll just go to France.

On self-starvation

Glenn McGee's post Dying for Food is a beautiful essay about Terri Schiavo over at bioethics.net. The following paragraph quite literally gave me chills:

"If you are wondering whether or not the Terry Schiavo who had a heart attack would have said that she would want to forego nutrition and hydration, you don't know bulimia. She had already undergone a decade of refusing food at a basic, fundamental level, in the most resolute way imaginable."

I'm not sure I can say much more about this at the moment or I'll certainly be up all night.

Kinky Fascists are at it again

The Guckert/Gannon thing is really pretty baffling, but the ever-insightful Susie Bright clears it all up here. I mean, everything about the guy's story is kinda, well, just weird. Like, um, he changed his name to Jeff Gannon on account of Jim Guckert is too hard to pronounce? Susie's take: "more butch." Well, yeah. Anyway, a lot of you have probably seen this already (thanks to everyone else who already linked to it; I probably followed somebody's link).

Susie takes a look at the whole story supposing that the guy is in fact a prostitute, and a successful one, and it all starts to make sense. The mainstream press, after all, can really only report that there are allegations that he is "apparently" involved in some kind of "escort service." (There are, after all, no charges or arrests on record as far as I've heard).

"No sirree— Jeff Gannon has been a one-man hot military beat-your-ass stud, and the only thing he runs is a carefully honed sales pitch. He is one discrete, butch, jarhead whore— and  the only thing that is “apparent” is that he is one of the best, according to his customer reviews."

And while she praises the many bloggers who did so much digging around in the case (and those, such as AmericaBlog who have made it a project to "out" prominent conservative closet cases - on which more below), she takes it a bit further:

"But even the bloggers have been shy when in comes to understanding the motives and methods of a male prostitute.

"If Jeff was a drug dealer (I’ll get to that part later) the investigative reporters would be eager to provide a profile of how drug dealers behave in similar situations. If he was a classical violinist, we’d be hearing about that. It would be part of our understanding of his background, his peers; it would lead to analysis how his social network came to include such powerful men.

"Well, this is certainly the case with high class sexual services... and that is why anyone who’s ever done sex work understands that Jeff is not some wacky fluke... that the only way his access happened was because Gannon was dialed in, connected via his cock, to all the right people. The reason he got his little laminated press card was because someone was plying his favors."

But why a press card? Why reporters' credentials? Well, one gets to be a certain age and -- while no one sane would ever believe that reporters' retirement benefits are great or they get paid a lot of money -- I think maybe one starts to want a more respectable occupation, or at least one less dependent on one's aging charms:

"A mature hooker wants something that will lead to independence; like property, inheritance rights, or a new career.  The ultimate way to win your hooker’s favors is by offering something that gives them the same kind of independence that you, the civilian, possess.

But the most interesting part of Susie's article is her comment on the more general outing of conservative closet-cases, and why it's significant:

"I know he isn’t a household name yet, but one day Mehlman and his brethren will be understood on the same level as Roy Cohn, or J. Edgar Hoover: classist, misogynist, elitist power whores who may be Kinsey 6 homosexuals, but who look in the mirror and whisper this:

“ Mirror mirror on the wall, I am special and above it all.”

"The Kinky Fascists feel entitled to fuck who they want and ruin who they want, because they  believe they are a unique breed of men above other men. They say  “to hell with gay marriage,” because they’d never do something that “weak.” Hate crimes are something that happens to nelly queens who deserve it. And women are bitches from hell that need to be kept on a leash until you need their venom for your enemies.

"Sure, the hypocrites have deep-seated self loathing, but  they’re in the driver’s seat of American conservative politics, baby! Power is better than a line of cocaine up their ass for that all-important self esteem buzz.

Scary stuff, no? She also adds a postscript a few days later, with Ramones lyrics, for those who like that kind of thing.

Friday Random 10: Another Tom Waits edition

1. "Baby I Can't Please You" Sam Phillips (Martinis & Bikinis)
2. "Light as the Breeze" Leonard Cohen" (The Future)
3. "There's a Story in Your Voice" Elvis Costello w/Lucinda Williams (The Delivery Man)
4. "Ol' 55" Tom Waits (Early Years vol 2)
5. "Rock Island Line" Little Richard w/Fishbone (A Vision Shared)
6. "Brrrlak!" Zap Mama (Adventures in Afropea)
7. "Awara Hoon" 3 Mustaphas 3 (Heart of Uncle)
8. "Seguro Que Hell Yes" Flaco Jimenez (Flaco Jimenez)
9. "Sins of My Father" Tom Waits (Real Gone)
10. "Seranata Nortena" Los Lobos (How Will the Wolf Survive?)

How's this for a little strange? A while back I came across this list of Tom Wait's 20 most cherished albums of all time (with nine extra listed here). I think it's kind of interesting that all but of two of the songs on today's random list are either TW himself or one of the artists mentioned in his lists (Sam Phillips, Leonard Cohen, Elvis Costello, Little Richard doing a Leadbelly tune, and David Hidalgo of Los Lobos). It's an interesting list, and really does give you a little peek into the mind of a genius; it's definitely not a 'Desert Island Ten' kind of a thing, but you can certainly see where they guy's coming from.

[And thanks to the lovely Miss Susan at SG for the link in the first place].