things I am noticing right now.

I am annoyed and distracted by the scratches on my computer screen and equally annoyed that I cannot find an effective way to clean it.

I am noticing that I always have a million things I want to do on the internet, but when I get to the internet, I manage to forget all of them. 

At the moment, a man that I assume is Indian in ethnicity (as in India) sitting across from me in Panera Bread keeps trying to make small talk. I am being polite (moreso than I probably would have been prior to moving to the West Coast) and entertaining his questions, but they are many and random. For example:

"Have you ever been outside of the country?"

"Do you speak any other languages?"

"What do you think is the cleanest country?"

These are punctuated with long silences where, I imagine, he is trying to think of the next way to start conversation. He also made it a point early on to let me know that it's a shame that Baltimore had to lose someone as beautiful as myself. To me this seems to be natural Indian charm - I was waiting from the get go for him to suggest that we exchange information and, true to my instincts, he did just that. Fortunately for my little West Coast "I like to sit and ruminate quietly with my computer in public places" brain, a friend of his has shown up and I am free to ruminate. 

Problem is.. I've forgotten all the things I wanted to do.

Homecoming.

As the years pass, I become more and more unsettled with the idea of flying in airplanes. I still love the excited feeling I get when I enter an airport – the knowing that there is traveling about to take place, the convenience of which is one of modern society’s most priceless contributions to the human experience. I suppose, despite my background as a relatively reasonable person, the entire concept of airplanes still seems to me like a complete miracle. The fact that these enormous chunks of steal can shoot into the air nose-up and stay there, 37,000 feet above the earth, and return to the ground without just dropping from the sky…well, it’s a miracle to me. I don’t care what the science is behind it.

And so I end up losing sleep over the idea of flying, stoking one of my greatest fears – dropping out of the sky and plummeting to a long, splattered death on the ground – and then trying to force the grotesque images out of my mind. I find that once we reach our maximum altitude, I feel a little calmer (strangely enough) and that most of my fear lies in the just-before time of taking off, when there’s still time to safely land back on the pavement. I found myself today welling up with tears upon both safe landings in Minnesota and Maryland, spouting silent prayers of thanks to whatever is up there taking care of things while we sleep. In reality, I don’t know that my pre-flight prayers for safety are doing much because there’s always the chance that people like my mother are right: when your time is up, it’s up. I also always have this hope inside that if I were to ever board a faulty plane or have a faulty captain (and therefore the aircraft would be doomed), there would be a little nugget of instinct inside that would tell me and I would have the sense to listen and not board. Despite my fears, I knew today wasn’t my day to die.

There is this certain distance from the ground – and I don’t know what the number of feet is – where everything below looks unreal. All the cars and trees and buildings and ponds, they all look like miniatures in a toy landscape. It only lasts for a split second and then we’re high enough where everything becomes real again, but for that moment I can convince myself that what I’m seeing is a farce.

Today, the first time I looked out the window as we ascended towards Baltimore, there was just continuous water. It filled me with such joy that a big smile came across my face – we were only flying over the Potomac, but there it was, the biggest missing element from where I’d been living for the last year: water. Beautiful, flowing, ongoing water. I didn’t care if it was the dirty Baltimore river, because it was a river, a huge stretching body with little metal bridges strung across the swaths of land. (I always try to pick out large landmarks and get frustrated when I can’t recognize them from the air, but I did manage to pick out the Key Bridge.) The islands were drawn into geometric shapes, some brown and some still green.

Airplane windows are like postage stamps of the state you’re currently in or over. When I first looked out, great beams of the warm orange sunset-light were spotlighting over the river and over the land. A small boat made a sweeping V shape in the water behind it, motoring past a large patch of reflected fire. It was the kind of thing you see on religious cards, the dark clouds breaking apart to shed shafts of holy light upon the land. It felt that way too. A glorious welcoming, as if to say, “Here is the land of your birth! Rejoice!” And I did.

Don’t get me wrong: Baltimore is a dirty, corrupt city. But there is something altogether magical about the state of Maryland – the Bay, its many rivers that deliver life and commerce to an ungrateful and unacknowledging people, the wooded lands and the large fields, the grass that stays green without irrigation in the summer, the small ancient mountains to the west, the long shifting beaches to the east. The busy, hurried people of the north and the slower, farming people of the south. But sometimes only returning after a great departure can remind you of that. Sometimes I think you can tell in people’s voices when they haven’t been home for a long time – there is this controlled excitement when they say, “Well, I’m here!” as if, as it is for me, there is a spinning ball of joy in their chests that only grows in the moments before your people pick you up from the port of planes.

I looked out the window again. The water was a pale gray-blue and so were the clouds so that the postage stamp was just one color with different shades, broken in half only by the irregular and darker shapes of the land in between. As we passed the river, the great artery of interstate 95 cut across the land, the cars appearing to me as red blood cells carrying the oxygen necessary for life out to the city. Very suddenly we were close to the ground, and I was crying and thanking as we bounced along the tarmac. 

glory.

What is the magic behind snow? Why does it captivate us and give us that little giddy feeling inside? Was it this way for our ancestors, when they were still stalking deer in the bush by foot and spear? Winter was a time of scarcity, of living off whatever you'd managed to save over the summer harvest. True winter is something many of us can't even understand because we have the convenience of supermarkets, with their eye-burning synthetic lights and rows of upon rows of false security. This is why I wonder about Those Who Came Before Us. Did their faces unconsciously move into a smile when they looked out of their tipis or thatched huts to see the first of the year's gentle snowfall? Or did their stomachs turn with worry? I can't help but think they were pleased to see the flakes, drifting down from one continuously white sky, pulling their hides a little tighter around their shoulders.

In at least one native culture that I know of, snow is a powerful thing. It brings the ability to wipe away all things from the previous year (years were measured in 'winters,' months measured in 'moons') - both metaphorically, and literally, by covering everything in a thick layer of powder. Everything vanishes beneath it and the landscape becomes something altogether ethereal and different. When the snow is laid down, our tracks have been obliterated - the water will wash away any print left behind, and in the new snow, we are best able to make new tracks. The snow is a purging - it is pure. It purifies the land in a similar way that fire purifies with its brilliant white and deceptively heavy weight. It brings trees to the ground, it can be melted or worked into an actual dwelling, it displays clearly the blood and meaning of a hunted animal, and it collects in the mountains to feed the valleys when the summer sun melts it away. Small animals actually dig complicated tunneled burrows in the snow and hibernate there, where it can actually be warmer then in the ground or in a tree. It can be melted for fresh water and it can be transformed into breathtaking, sharp icicles that cling vertically to any surface. 

When I was in college, I wrote about the death of the snow. In Maryland, we'd get heaps of it once every four years or so, but there was always a time when the weather warmed slightly and it started to melt. It became slush, and it collected the dirt and grime of the streets. It was so sad to me, this dying - that it became so soiled, its glory taken. In Bend, it's not that way. If the sun is hot enough, it melts the snow before there is time to sully it. If it does not melt, it lays in drifts across the landscape, gently hugging the sharp, dry junipers, pines, and sagebrushes. It is a canvas for bird prints, for the hop-kick-hop of the juncos while they search for food beneath it. If only we appeared to enjoy our work as much as they do.

Winter is a time for going inside - again, both metaphorically and literally. We go inside of our homes where it is warm and safe and there is food and fire, but we also retreat inside ourselves to process the lessons of the summer. This processing becomes wisdom. Winter is a time of wisdom, and a place of the White Buffalo in the Ojibwa way. The North is the place of Winter, and it is a place of Ceremony and Ritual. In this time, it would do us well to be grateful for all that we have - for heat, for food, for clean water, for family. For shelter and safety. These are our most basic necessities and with the eye-burning lights of the supermarkets, we take them completely for granted. Winter is a time of remembering and of being grateful. In the Great Circle of time and the seasons, the Buffalo stands in the storm, protected by his thick coat and his knowing of the ancient ways. Sadly, we no longer practice the ancient ways and so the knowing has been lost to us. One day, I will know these ways and I will teach them to others who have realized the thirst inside of them for something more, for ritual, for marking the passings of our lives. And we will have a reason to rejoice, a way to reconnect, a way of knowing. 

May this winter bless you with all the comfort you want and all the wisdom you need, in a way as gentle as the snow falling on the juncos outside at this very moment.

my boss got fired.

So today was my second day at work, more like a half day because of exams, and my boss got fired. She'd been there for 20 years but apparently there had to be some kind of reason for her getting canned, because it wasn't just some random layoff. 

The job looks like it's going to be fun: there is a whole Nature Center to attend to complete with trails and little gardens, and a host of creatures to care for. There are three snakes, a handful of toads and frogs, some lizards, four owls, a goshawk and a bald eagle. I'll only be able to actually interact with a small number of those, but it's fun to take care of them anyway. I'll be doing a lot of programs with kid and adults come spring time so for now I'm just settling in and learning the ropes. The move from apartment to house has shaved a good 10 minutes off the drive which makes me REALLY happy (now 25 instead of 35), but I won't get my hopes up too high since I do have to cross a 4500 foot pass in order to get there and the snow hasn't started yet. For now it's only part time, and I'm hoping that translates into me being more motivated to get my Etsy shop up and running. I already have my tags and banner made, now I just need to get to sewing. I'm trying to narrow down my selection of goods to what I make the best and what I enjoy the most, so I'll probably have a number of yoga mat bags, greeting cards, tote bags, and.. well some other stuff. I also want to offer some small animal/spirit quilts, but those are extremely time consuming and take me months to finish. We'll see. 

I leave for Baltimore on Monday and I could not be happier. I can't wait to see my mom and my best friend and spend some time in Hampden and Fells Point. It's been an entire year since I've been home, and this year I set aside two whole weeks to spend with the fam. Unfortunately my grandparents are being jerks and don't really want to talk to me, but at least I have mom and the dog. 

Well, I think Tiara is the only one that reads this so I'll cut it short here. 

decisions.

So next weekend there is a local craft show going on. I have an application, and there are spaces left. It only costs $30. 

I'm considering going because I want to bust out with my own business sometime in the remotely near future, but I'm suddenly realizing how difficult this whole thing is. Mostly because I don't know what, of the million activities I've been involving myself in, I'm good enough at to pursue and make more of. I've been playing with hand stamped greeting cards, which are really fun, and jewelry, which I'm no good at. Maybe I'll make more yoga mat bags. 

I don't know. I'm feeling a little indecisive about it. 

Hrmph.

coffee shop.

Why do I do this to myself?

After only one or two hours max of studying, I decide that relocating to my favorite local coffee house will help me to study even better, and a change of scenery would do wonders for my melting brain cells.

This, of course, is a lie I tell myself to get me to the coffee house. 

I have a terrible time studying in a coffee house. I'm so easily distracted by, well, everything, that I get far less accomplished than I set out to. For example, instead of pulling my books out of my bag, I'm blogging. Why on earth would I bring my computer to the wireless-enabled cafe, you ask? Well, I told myself because I can practice for my upcoming exams by using the Blackboard activities my professors have posted. The real reason, which I blatantly refused to admit to myself until I was almost here? So I could sit at this little wooden table, absorbed in the white noise of conversations and overhead music, sip at my iced mocha, and let the thing that happens every time I come here happen again.

I'm not sure how to describe it - it's like my brain takes a vacation. It's like percocet for my imagination. I get really creative, thinking of all the exciting projects I want to start and all the beautiful things I want to create for my Etsy shop. I get wistful, nostalgic even. I subconsciously hope that a friend will pop up in the cafe and will want to sit down and have an extensive philosophical conversation with me. I contemplate life. I am reminded that my life is wonderful, in this cozy, caffeine-injected environment. I'm surrounded by stylish young people, bursting with potential and living on entirely different planets than the people walking by outside. When I come here, I think of how much I want to be one of these people: where the outside is represented strongly by the inside, and on the verge of independence from societal restraints. This of course is a projection of what I want myself to be and probably not nearly as likely real as I perceive it to be. I come here and realize that I *am* one of those people, that I *can* influence my own life in a meaningful way. That being a slave to this society is, in part, a choice. 

I realize how preposterous this all sounds, but it truly is why I come to the coffee house. To remember that the single iced whiskey of life is not nearly as strong as I sometimes believe. That a lapse in momentum in my day does not mean a lapse in productivity, or rather, that a lapse in productivity is not necessarily worthy of the guilt trip I usually give myself.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to being an espresso-sipping West Coaster.

kaput.

Okay. I have to admit that I'm proud of myself. For the last few weeks or so, I have made a concentrated effort to let go of my typical anxiety-ridden ways. I have been happier, more content, and have more energy and time (although I usually think otherwise). When I start to get hung up about something, I just shake it off. I have also been making an attempt to remove negativity from my thoughts and words; no more "I can't afford that," or "God, I'm so stupid sometimes," or "I'm really getting fat." I'm trying to substitute with, "I'm drop dead gorgeous!" and "I'm rich beyond my means!"

This may not sound like much, but for a chronically anxious human being, it's monumental. 

Anyway, at this moment, I'm feeling the stress big time.

In my Kinesiology class, we have sped right into (and through) all the major and minor joints of the lower body. For those of you out there who don't know the numbers, that's more than ten joints. Within those joints are numerous cartilages and ligaments. I need to know all of them - let me say that again: ALL OF THEM - by Wednesday. I also need to know 40 tsubos (those are the points that acupuncturists stick needles in) and an entire bodywork routine for Eastern Theory. Besides this, I have to present a program about fire on Wednesday to a panel of people deciding whether or not I get the seemingly only job opening in Bend (with salary and medical benefits - yes, salary, something I've never had before!). I haven't heard from the Nature Center job, so I am putting all my energy into this one. It might be tough to do school and a full time job, but dammit, I am worthy of shittons of money, and I can ace this job with no problem. Programs are what I DO. 

So, considering that my significant other is out flouncing about in the hills of Montana, leaving me here all alone (with my completely out-of-control fear of being in this (read: any) house by myself all night) - I am, needless to say, having myself a cup of kava tea.

Deep breaths. Deep, deep breaths. Two more weeks until finals... then it's all over until January.

Deep breaths.. oh, god, I think I'm hyperventilating.

flakey.

I have to give myself a pat on the back: for someone who is typically antisocial (in the respect that I immensely enjoy my alone time at home, puttering around the house), I have made a tremendous effort to create social activities for the massage therapy student base at the college. This I have done because I will be sitting in class nearly every day of my life for the next one to two years with these people. However.. something is strangely amiss. Everyone is interested in said planned activity, but no one actually shows up. Is it a case of "I'm too weirded out to go alone", or are the massage therapy students as a whole just like me? Enjoying their alone time too much to bother branching out? Well, at least I tried. 

Making friends is shockingly difficult once one has made the exodus from university. Now, being back in school, I was hopeful for the prospect of socializing and making new friends, but those prospects are looking dim. The fact is that Bend is just a difficult place to make new friends - most people already have established groups that seem somewhat exclusive to newbies. Oh well.

On the bright side, a friend of mine from Washington College rang me today - a one Jari Simila from Finland, that is. I may not be making any new buddies, but at least my old think of me still - even from across the Atlantic. Jari is more American than most Americans I know: he has no discernible Finnish accent, and he thinks the phrase "bad American movie" is a blaspheme that cannot be applied to any film ever having come out of American cinema. 

In other news, I have my second interview at the High Desert Museum on Wednesday. I will meet all the bigwigs who would become my associates and bosses, and I will have to 'put on' a prepackaged program, one that the position would require me to do often with groups of students. Groups of students do not make me nervous, but doing the program in front of an entire group of people who will be discerning my financial future (ie, whether or not I have one) makes me more than a little uncomfortable. I plan, however, to forge ahead and win their hearts anyway. Afterwards, I will go to the bus station to pick up a long lost friend that I went to South Africa with back in 2004. She's spending Thanksgiving with me, which is really a relief, because with Erin AND our new roommate Willow gone (and of course me being friendless), I'm feeling terribly lonely. I'm sure my poor mother feels the same way.

Our new house is the epitome of cozy, especially at the moment. I cleaned up the living room and kitchen, put my favorite afghan on the sofa (picture the collection of 1970s colors: orange, brown, light brown, gold, and green.. $5 at a thrift shop, and worth every penny in my opinion), and have the fireplace going. I shouldn't, because apparently the fireplace uses an obscene amount of gas, but I really can't help myself. I can't understand why people would put gas fireplaces into a house... perhaps wood burnings fireplaces are too messy? I have no idea. I just know that there is nothing like a fire where wood is being burned, and you can listen to all the creaking and popping as the flames change atoms and create ash, and the heat radiates throughout the house for most of the night (if you get a good one burning that is). 

Oh, and I don't have to leave the house to do my laundry. We lucked out and got a washer and dryer set for $100. Unfortunately the dryer doesn't fit into the wash room right and sticks out so far that the door has been rendered useless. I can't say I mind much; the ease of owning your own washer and dryer far exceeds the cons of having to listen to them run through an open doorway. 

Erin is away for the week in Montana and I'm glad for her. I really wanted to go with her, but I've realized I'm one of those people that doesn't have much need for personal space from a significant other. Maybe some people would call that clingy, but I think I'm just content to spend my time with her. It's hard for me to understand how a significant other (because this is a recurring theme in my relationships) needs and wants to spend time with people without you sometimes, but I realize that I'm the odd one out here, not them. (Thus my failed attempts to create social activities - you can't say I'm not trying to branch out.) Point being that I hope the week away from me (and then another in December) will give her the space she needs. 

Holy crap! Hark! People are coming over! I gotta go! WHOOPIE!

hovering.

For the first time in my entire life, I got involved with politics this year. It helps that I was fortunate enough to receive an internship from Human Dignity Coalition, the local equality group, and despite my main duties as office bitch (don't think I'm not proud to be HDC's office bitch though - I wrote it on my arm at the Drag Show) I am getting an inside peek at non-profits and the fight for equality in a world of discrimination.

In California, the ballot banning gay marriage was passed. I'm disappointed, but not, perhaps, as much as I should be. The only thing floating my balloon is that Obama actually said, "..Native Americans, and my gay brothers and sisters" in his victory speech. We may not have won marriage, but we did achieve national verbal recognition with the new president elect. Hopefully now we can continue to separate religion from politics. One religion cannot run a country; if we look to other countries, we can see the heart break that it causes. All religions need to become tolerant, or there will always be hate and war. Understand that: if you do not tolerate other religions and all things different than you and your beliefs, you will continue to contribute to war, hatred, and pain as long as you live. I'm not telling you to drop your belief systems or bring sugar cookies to your neighbors that you disapprove of - I am telling you to let go, and learn to accept. Ultimately, when this country collapses and politics and money no longer rule, we will all remember that we are of the same stuff, the same flesh, the same divine spark, the same love and pain and tears. 

I've never gotten so angry about politics. Obviously I got angry my fair share of times about Bush and his shitty ruling of the country (democracy my ass), but I've never fought about things. This time, I got into a heated argument with a Republican who called me closed minded and accused me of "not doing my homework" before making my choice to vote. I explained that all the homework I needed to do was hearing McCain's discrimination against gays and the knowing that the majority of his policies line up with Bush's, and that was that. However, it got me wondering, is that good enough? Should I have pored through internet sites and partisan literature? Should I have really taken a good look at McCain before I so blatantly disregarded him? Should I have instead voted for the more liberal, independent candidates, even with the knowledge that it was either Obama or McCain, hands down? I'm not sure. I feel in my heart that standing against anyone remotely similar to Bush was my position from the get-go, and that everytime I heard Obama speak, I felt hopeful. I told some friends that I felt like I was under an "Obama spell," that he seemed so genuine, so human; not some stuffy right-wing Christian who doesn't have a clue what's happening in the lower class, doesn't have any idea how people struggle, and doesn't have any idea what blatant discrimination really does to people (look at the Native Americans first, then the African-Americans, then the Homo-Americans). 

Don't get me wrong. I don't perceive Obama as the answer to all our needs in this time of upheaval. I don't think he can cinch up all our loose ends and right all the wrongs made in one term, and I don't even know if he's got what it takes. Obama is not the point.

The point, my friends, is that the American people finally, finally, finally stood up and said, "Enough. Enough." They came out in record numbers. They voted historically red states into blue ones. They stood in lines for hours upon hours to have the chance to say, "Enough." The consciousness of this country showed itself, that we are not a blind people all of us. That we can realize our own power. That we can hope and work towards that grossly cliche brighter future. So, to me, Obama is not the point, though I am praying he will be able to stay level headed and remember (unlike most other politicians) to follow through on what he told us in the beginning. The point is that America got out of its seat, raised its hand, and said, "Excuse me, I have had enough - I want change. And if it is a black man, I will still vote for him." We voted a black man into the White House. There are even white republican older men who voted Obama into the White House. This, my friends, is so incredibly beautiful. This is a step. Of course there is still racism and discrimination, of course hate crimes could go up, but the ball is rolling now. My eyes are tearing up just thinking about it.

Today I am feeling very tired. I don't know if it's the beautiful full clouds covering the sky, or the fact that my energy has been so rampant within the political realm, but I just want to curl up on the sofa and turn off my phone. It's not that I don't want to talk to anyone, it's just that, well, I don't want to talk to anyone. Perhaps I just need some time to come down. 

I love you all. I honor that in you which is divine. I honor the sacred beautiful holy creativeness which lies within you, and I ask you gently to remember that you are holy, worthy, and sacred, and that with you all things are possible. 

More bad dreams.

Another bad dream last night.

In the dream, she'd cheated on me with a male friend of ours. The harder I cried, the harder she laughed.

How's that for strange..

Bad Dreams.

Last night I had the strangest dream.

I was face down on the floor in my grandfather's office in their house in Baltimore. I think I bled to death. I got up the next morning and went into the bathroom; when I looked in the mirror I had a big purple splotch where blood had pooled in my face. I realized I was dead. My loved ones were devastated but they couldn't see "me" - I can only assume the me that was wandering around was my "soul" or "spirit" or ghost or whatever - so I had no way to tell them that I was really alright, that everything was fine, that my death was only a physical one. They were in such grief, and I was standing there watching them, completely unable to comfort them. As a spirit, I felt the same as I had alive - it seemed no different, only that there was no tangible bodily form. 

I wonder if that's what really happens when you die. You're really still there, and you have no way to tell your mourning loved ones that even though they'll miss you, you're really okay, that everything is fine. 

Poems of the Skin.

I wrote these one day in anatomy class and wanted to share them here. 

____________________

206 living stones

   give or take

8% of our genes

   are viral

only takes a microscopic

   nothing to cause

disease, disability, death.

   Bones are 25% water

nerve cells bear no repair

   But the body bears 

no worry, for all its duties.

   It may not take a break

Have a coffee and a smoke

   Take a day off from

blood production, 

synapse,

mitosis,

And we have so little appreciation for

the fact that

we.are.so.fragile.

__________________________

God has a nucleus,

membranes and mitochondria

And divides

all the time.

__________________________

Every single day

It is a miracle

That we are alive.

__________________________

For Visions

Some of us dance for life

Some of us dance for death

All of us cry for a vision.

Whether we realize the changes we make

Are the steps of the quest

Whether we sit on the hill

In our minds or on our asses,

We cry for a vision.

Sitting at lunch, locked in the cubicle,

Just before sleep, just after waking,

We are lost in the mire of decision-making.

We close our eyes tightly

Rub the bridges of our noses

Take a deep breath

And wish for light on the path.

We cry for a vision.

___________________________

Fast Eddie

The words on his water bottle said, "Fast Eddie."

And he lost his "r"s due to an origin somewhere

      near the Eastern seaboard.

In his email are hundreds of scientific newsletters

And if he realizes mid-sentence

      that he does not know

Then mid-sentence he'll say

      "I don't know."

And we'll laugh,

Because honesty breaks hearts and barriers

And lowers the the bar of expectation

Between humans.

He could see up close, but not far away --

But I suppose that's true for all of us.

We liken our worlds to glass bowls 

or thin-skinned balloons,

and only a few people are given 

the sharp pins of our trust and hope.

I don't possess a word to describe

the softness of her skin.

Her long fingers stained with nickel and ivory

Her life a delicate composition.

Once I loved a boy with eyes 

like moving water.

But he was smart the way glass cuts.

Our paths diverged before they'd met.

Before him was Eve's counterpart;

volatile, but soft

On the insides of his heavy black clothes

We were exactly what the other needed.

But you, my sweet, our dreams 

are already written

in the lines of our eyes and tired voices

Where has all your joy gone?

The recovery time 

for this kind of amputation - 

a separation of parts - is so long that

I can't see the end of it.

Before you, I wanted to draw the blinds on love

It's too messy and it blinds you

so that when it's gone

You're in total darkness.

I dreamt last night that I was 

searching for you in a tall house

And when I finally found you at the top..

You were happy to see me.

Stupid white people.

Part of a reply I made in daisysdeadair blog. Just felt like saying it here, too.

_________________

Daisy, when I first started reading Rose's comments, I was almost sick with fury. Then I read your comments, and I felt much better. Thank you for expressing the hidden-in-the-textbooks facts that all white people are immigrants, and we were welcome here (unlike the way we whites welcome the 'brown' people in every way, in every century) by the vast majority of the aboriginal peoples until we started acting like assholes. My family came here only a generation ago, but I will still take a white person's responsibility for our ancestors' big fat fuck-up, because if we don't, who the hell will?

I can't stand this right wing, privileged and blind white person bullshit. It makes me sad that people like Rose are so completely disillusioned, that they could possibly think immigrants are making an attempt to enter and ruin our country. If I was living without clean food and water, and watching my family members die in the streets, you can bet your ass I would come to another country for the promise of a few dollars to send home. Which, in my experience, is what most of them are doing. And they aren't happy. They're not happy being separated from their families, and they're not happy being treated like the shit on the bottom of the white man's shoe. (See: blacks from Africa, Natives from "America", and any other non-white culture.)

Why are people so blind to racism? I'll tell you why. Because they've never spent one fucking moment of their lives looking at real, true poverty. And I'm not talking homeless people on American streets. I'm talking kids dying from literal starvation or malnourishment, mothers dying of rape-caused AIDS and no one gives a shit, I'm talking about shacks built out of metal scraps and cow shit, about people with healthy cultures and respectful religions who now live with alcoholism and drug addiction in poverty-level reservations - and, Rose and all you other ingrates - NOT because they're lazy, NOT because they'd rather sit around boozing, NOT because they didn't try hard enough. 

You know why Rose? Because of US. Because of white people. You have a whole hell of a lot of reckoning to do, and most of us white people are afraid. Afraid to look in the mirror and see that where we came from shed more blood than we could ever consciously handle. WE are the ones taking. Takers. Wasichu. Lakota word for white people, roughly meaning 'takers.' It's no coincidence. We take the natural resources, we tell those people their cultures and religions are wrong, and we destroy them. Then we show pictures of them on TV and feel a moment of pity before changing the channel.

Why must copying and pasting in Blogger be such a pain in the ass.

An Ode to My Grandmother.

Grandmother, way up in the sky

Large and round like all grandmothers were at one time

Full with child.

Your light, a translucent layer of fine milk

Laid across all my skin, and cool like an evening breeze.

Your face pure and imperfect.

Silent guardian, tugging the waves back and forth

As Grandfather rises to bring us heat and light

A different kind of light.

And you, like all good women

Know that sometimes, regularly, you need

To go away for a day or so.

And when you return, bulging at the seams

People stop to look at you, and remember

In their own silent way

Whether they know it or not,

That they are deeply, desperately

Related to you.

Since you were born you have tugged at us

Showered us in the concealing illumination

Of your tender but not consuming embrace.

We have prayed to you, we have torn you away

From the breasts of all women, shot them down

As the men thought they could do to you too.

Still you shine. Still you rise.

And so it goes with all women, 

All over the world, for all time.

siiiiiiiiiiigh.

So I just applied for another interpreter position at the High Desert Museum, the most prestigious museum in Central Oregon (one of the only museums), which has natural history, live unreleasable animals, and a huge Native American section. I love this museum. I would love to work at this museum. This museum is closer than the Nature Center. However... I have also applied at this Museum half a dozen times already, and they have never once even called me for an interview. They are probably sick of seeing my resume by now.

But, goddammit, that won't stop me from trying. 

Sigh.

Useless bitching.

Call me lazy, but I hate this process of trying to get a job. I hate rewriting my "Employment History" a thousand times to no avail. I hate not getting a call back for a simple barista position, or having to have two interviews (Starbucks) and then not get hired. I hate, moreover, that I have to apply to Starbucks. 

I hate that this entire society is based on a 40-hour workweek. That you can only be successful and financially independent if you drive yourself into the ground for at least 25 years of your life. I hate that after applying and interviewing for jobs for TWO ENTIRE MONTHS, I am still unemployed. I hate that I have to worry about money and about being employed. I hate that as a student, I still need to struggle to find a job, when the government should be helping me through school so I can be a more productive citizen. (In fairness, I did receive financial aid and that's the only way I'm paying my bills; but if it weren't for my AmeriCorps Education Award, I would have had to use that money to pay for this term, and would still be jobless.)

At the moment, I make about $40 per week walking two awesome dogs on Tuesdays and Fridays. Once I reach 30 hours of work on my internship, I will make another $100. If only this was enough.

My spiritual teacher firmly believes that all things are as they should be; that any lag in employment is reasonable. Just not within our understanding of reason. And to her credit, I must admit that whatever higher power is out there has definitely taken care of my broke ass for the last year. When I hurt my back and couldn't work full time (then, couldn't work at all and had subsequent surgery with a recuperation time), I somehow managed to never be late on a bill or miss a payment. This time around, my bank account actually did hit zero dollars, but not before I was able to deposit my financial aid check. It's a bloody miracle on both accounts; I believe that.

So, obviously I'm being taken care of. My spiritual teacher also says that in these times, instead of driving ourselves in the ground with worry, we should view these in-between-jobs times as "vacations." Now that sounds totally ridiculous, but in fact, it's quite brilliant. It doesn't mean you stop searching for a job or applying, or trying to take care of your finances; what it means is mentally take a break from the worrying and enjoy the free time. Because, quite frankly, once you have a job, that free time will be gone. This of course only works if you have enough money in the bank to last you a month or so, or live with a sexy firefighting girlfriend who makes buttloads of money and is happy to help out when times are hard. 

To be honest, I don't want to have a job. I don't want to work under the thumb of someone under the thumb of someone else, and be underpaid for what I can offer. I hate it. I hate the whole process. So I've tried keeping myself to a standard, but so far that has gotten me nowhere. I have applied to a Nature Center about 30 minutes away (makes me want to vomit to think of the drive) but so far have heard nothing. My problem, besides not wanting to work in this society (underappreciated and underpaid), is that I yearn to do something somewhat important. I can handle slinging coffee, but it would be nice to contribute to society too.

Unfortunately, society is not hiring. 

Empty.

I am so incredibly frustrated. 

Sure, it was only a house, but that house really represented freedom. There was an enormous yard - for gardening, for a dog, for composting, for praying, for having company over, for birdhouses and birdbaths and birdfeeders. There was a fireplace, because we love to heat naturally. There were hardwood floors and a sweet little kitchen. There was a garage for storage so we could spread out a little more, and pack things away that we don't use all the time instead of squeezing them into the small spaces of an apartment. There was space in the garage for the four bikes we have, so they don't have to take up our entire dining room because there's no where else to put them. It was off the main street, it was right in our price range. 

It was perfect, and we didn't get it. 

Sure, it's only a house. But it took us a year to find the perfect one, that allowed pit bulls, and had a huge yard and a beautiful inside. All the others we've looked at that allow pit bulls in our price range have, quite frankly, been dumps. This was a dream house. And we didn't get it. It was freedom - a release from being told what we can do and what we can't do, because as mature adults there is nothing more frustrating. 

Yeah, it was only a house. But I feel like I had it and then lost it. Fuck.

the first kiss.

it had been an entire year and there we were, in the same room as darkness fell.

she had tears in her eyes and the rangy scent of very good beer on her that

                                                   for some stupid reason

I have always found seductive, making me bolder as if I had been the one to drink.

her head was in her hands.

I grew bold.

I tsk-tsked her because I was afraid too and we were alone in the loft with

the light of the streetlamp invasively shining against the wall, but

                                                well it kind of helped

to see her there and to tell her "Come here," to tell her to get into my bed.

she was unsure.

So was I.

A twin bed can only hold so much pain, so much longing and so much curiosity

and the desperate pounding of hearts crushes the cotton and bends the springs.

                                                We were face to face.

heads on pillows, the silence deafening as our arms found comfortable places

around the other's curves.

I felt like a deer being hunted.

Her eyes were wet, her mouth was wet, and my own blood was so full

of adrenaline that I wasn't sure exactly what I was doing or what

                                      it might mean in the morning

when the light exposes the crudeness of what the night turns soft and ethereal.

I trained my focus on her eyes.

Our mouths met.

Today.

Here's making up for the almost-month that I wrote nothing!

Well, there's a job I want, and potentially a house I want, and so of course I am fighting the anxiety that usually overwhelms me at the drop of a hat. At least now I'm aware of the anxiety, can see it coming, can try and defend myself against its tight little fingers. 

The job is a naturalist position, essentially the only kind of job I really want right now, and I will tell you that they are few and far between. I am gathering my references, thinking up a compelling cover letter, and planning to visit in about week to drop off my application. These kinds of things always terrify me: there is a side of life that we manifest, that we produce, just by thinking a certain way and putting our energy into certain pursuits. There is also the 'fate' side, in which we really have no control over things and the cards are dealt at (seemingly?) random. What I mean by this is this: do I pray and focus focus focus all my energy on getting this job to manifest it into my life, or do I just do my best and let the cards be dealt? If I put all my energy into it, I may be wasting my time - if it's not meant to be, it won't be. A lot of people think that's a cop out, but I don't see it that way. My opinion is that there are forces (and I'm not necessarily talking 'god' here) beyond our perception and ability to conceive, that move independently of us. There was a time in our history that we were more aware of them (if we only use 11% of our brains, imagine what life would be like at 80%) but for now, we are not. 

I respect these forces. I am a bacterium on the ass of an elephant, in terms of relativity. So I let them do what they need to do - but I put in my two cents. (Those of you who know me.. well, this is really no surprise.) So the hope inside my chest has been growing and squeezing me. 

Secondly, there is this house. With a few exceptions, it's everything we want. The exceptions are these: a little pricier than we were hoping, not on the West Side (closer to school and downtown). Gee, I thought there were more.. oh well. The upsides? There are many. Wood floors, a fireplace, under $800/month, any breed of dog allowed, washer/dryer included, garage for bike storage, two rooms, and the kicker? A yard twice the size of the house itself. Which is, in Bend, essentially unheard of. Landlord also seems like a pleasant man. Also off the main street and still in biking distance to downtown. Not notably closer to the college, but I'm wondering if we ever had a shot at finding an affordable two bedroom house on the majorly expensive West Side with any hope of having a pit bull. At any rate.. I just can't get over the size of the yard - I think my jaw might have dropped when I saw it. The landlord also said he would consider knocking some off the deposit in return for landscaping work, since they're redoing the landscaping. 

Well, Erin comes home tomorrow. I could have peed with joy. When you have friends or family within your immediate vicinity, it's not so bad to be left alone for two weeks. But when you don't.. it can be torture.

see.

steel gray skies

round, full

cold wind, warm sun

pushing, pulling

sharp breath

draw in the cold air

turns into bright, open eyes

mouth open, surprise

the hope of new

in the darkening time

backwards.

can't deny the feeling in my chest

trying to read the sky

as if the clouds were tea leaves

predicting the path

that only god knows.

only god knows.

if there is such a thing.

so she said

you must let go

and let this wind take you, too

with your brothers, the leaves

up across the sky, through the alleys.

look.

bad winter.

I don't know why fall makes me feel so

well, I don't know

awake.

the colors are stronger and the air is colder and it 

moves and pushes and swirls

a rejoicing in the death of all the green things

spinning them in circles, up from the ground

dancing and dragging across asphalt with that sound

the crackling of a fire or

the crashing of the waves.

celebrating, because death is happening all the time

while we're alive and we pretend it's not there

so a little secret part of me

is grateful that someone, something 

is celebrating death, so it's not so scary.

and I wonder, always here I wonder

at this time, I wonder

wrapped in warm things,

did I lose you when I wasn't looking?

they say it was a bad winter

they say it was a lot of ice

they say it and shake their heads when they say it

and it was a bad winter

I was in a bad way, the storms had stopped my movement

it was a bad winter in my head, behind my eyes

it was a miracle I was still alive

it was a bad winter, they said

and during that bad winter

when you fed me, bathed me, stroked my hair

did I use up all your love for me

in that bad winter?

concentrate it into one eternally long season

and dry up the reservoir, empty it out before our time?

it's here again, the just-before time

and the prayers on everyone's silent lips

especially mine

are whispering that they hope, I hope

this winter will be a good winter.

Dark Day.

A few days ago I was walking a dog at the Humane Society and felt something happen in my lower back. I don't know how to describe it, other than a 'shift' - it felt as though something moved. Since then, I've had consistent discomfort in the same areas that I had before my surgery to remove the herniated disc material. Essentially, I'm worried that I have reherniated the same disc.

Why is this causing such outright depression from the moment I awake in the morning? Well, because last year was so fucking terrible that, at one point, I thought about death and felt such relief that I wept right then and there. That's how bad life was. The pain was unbearable and kept me from performing even the simplest of tasks without trouble, and there was an 8 day period where I literally could not stand up or walk. I took Percocet every 4 hours on the dot and spent that week on the sofa. If it was not for Erin, I would not have eaten. In fact, if it weren't for Erin, I probably would not be here right now.

Fortunately I was awarded a free surgery from a local medical volunteer organization. I left the hospital that day in more joy than I'd felt in four months - the pain was gone. Since then I've been getting more and more active and recovering what was lost of my life. I don't think anyone really realizes just how bad this past winter was. Except for Erin.

So to wake up with discomfort in the same place and have strange new sensations is really pissing in my cornflakes. Not to mention I'm unemployed and have no health insurance. 

I could just throw up.

This is a silly rant.

I realize there are more important things to talk about on a blog, but I really need to vent my aggravations towards modern cookbooks right now.

Being a conscientious omnivore has its serious setbacks - including that, for the most part, cookbook-searching is limited to vegetarian publications. I can't just round up a side of beef or a few chicken breasts for an evening, so my recipe selection more often involves tofu and cheese.

Sometimes the cook calls for items that I do not have. A cast-iron skillet, for example, or a pizza stone. Sure, you can do without these items, but you're left feeling a little like your food will turn out mediocre instead of how good they say it will.

The problem with most cookbooks is that they are written by well-intentioned cooks. Maybe this is obvious, but I am not a cook. Therefore I do not have access, as cooks do in big cities, to the variety of international ingredients often gracing the pages. True, these recipes often sound delicious and I would love to try them out, but I'm not roaming all over God's creation to find these items. 

Furthermore, many recipes call for a very small amount of a certain ingredient - say fresh cilantro. Cilantro, where I live, does not come in 1/4 cup servings - it comes in a bunch weighing about .5-1 pound. Most of it, sadly, ends up going to waste. You can only have so much dried herb, and that's if you remember you have a pound of herb in the fridge before it goes all black and gross. 

These two factors - the not-easy-to-locate ingredients and the ones that will sit around in a house like mine - frustrate me if for no other reason than because on a limited budget, wasting food makes me nauseous. We are a simple people. We want simple recipes. Something like, "50 Ways to Eat a Potato" or "50 Ways to Eat a Noodle." Something written by people who do not get paid to cook - who work all day and want something healthy but easy to make and simple ingredients-wise. Maybe a cookbook where there are two or three recipes in a row that use most of the same ingredients so you can be sure to use everything. 

Someone like myself also needs an easy introduction into other types of food groups. Growing up, we had pasta, pan-heated vegetables, and meat - usually meatballs, pork-chops, or chicken breasts. This did not prepare me for something like "frisee salad with lemon-miso dressing." It sounds good, but upon reading the title, I couldn't tell you what the hell it is.

Erin is a potato and Indian food person. I am a pasta and pizza type person. I just want something with a bread factor, a tomato factor, and a cheese factor. I realize this is a terrible way to eat all the time (so I don't), but what could possible be better than these three foods together? 

I know this is stupid. I can't help it. We try to make interesting food all week long so we're not always eating the same stuff, but going through these cookbooks makes me want to tear my hair out sometimes. I suppose this is the price you pay if you want to eat healthy and keep the food choices fresh at the same time. I promise I'll keep trying.

Zounds.

So I've been inspired by my best friend to start using this blog as a platform for writing about things I know about or love. Problem is, I'm one of those common Americans plagued with, well, liking too many damn things. My brain is constantly a mishmash of unmatching ideas. I have no consistent direction. I can't seem to hold a steady job for more than three months lately. I have no idea what to do or where I'm going.

Here's an example.

Things I wish I could do with my life right now:

1. Be a wildlife biologist.

2. Be a wildlife rehabilitator.

3. Be an interior designer.

4. Be a graphic artist.

5. Be a writer, both fiction and non-fiction.

6. Rescue and rehabilitate dogs, namely pit bulls.

7. Have my own sewing business.

8. Working for myself.

9. Have a farm where I can produce vegetables, fruit, dairy, and meat products for myself and to sell to others.

10. Form my own tribal community.

11. Work for a cause. What cause? I have no idea.

Things I'm interested in:

1. The origins of our food and conscious eating.

2. Native American spirituality.

3. Massage therapy and other gentle, healing modalities.

4. Art quilting.

5. Helping veterans.

6. Rehabbing "problem" dogs/dog psychology.

7. Locating my strength as an artist.

8. Nature.

9. Animals. More than anything, animals, animals, animals.

10. The ethics of shopping and eating locally.

11. Dream interpretation, the effects of energy in our personal environment, self-manifestation.

12. Human rights, especially in terms of race and sexual orientation. 

Okay, that's what I can come up with off the top of my head anyway. Picking and choosing what to write about seems almost like more of a headache than it's worth, but if you, my whole 2 readers, have any suggestions, please put them forward. 

I've come to this realization that I may have gone in entirely the wrong direction with my life; this passion for animals that I have cannot manifest itself in many ways, save for the occasional volunteering at the local Humane Society to walk dogs and the few people in the community that I worked with to rehabilitate their dogs. (ha! I'd forgotten I'd even done that! sweet!) I'm going to massage school having had this realization, but also keeping in mind that I'm not especially stupendous at math and sciences; I'm good at ecology, but once we hit numbers, my attention span takes a nose dive. Biology, if nothing else, is a science, and so I am left wondering if my talents lie elsewhere. For now, I am happy to interpret animals and the lessons that they have for our lives.

Wow, I don't even know where I'm going with this. I suppose if I write anything, it will help to accomplish one of those items on my list, the wanting to be a writer of some sort. Maybe I'll just give it a shot?

Today was such an uncomfortable day for me. I think, without seeing it coming, I was hit by the truck of purposelessness and am still stuck to its grill. After a summer of non-stop motion, non-stop managing of details, non-stop hanging out with energetic kids, I wasn't prepared for the sudden nothingness of the last two days. Erin called and is doing fine, but she sounds very, very tired. I don't think I've ever been so excited for her to come home; strangely enough, instead of feeling distance after all this time together, I keep falling in love with her. There is a comfort level that I have with her that I've never in my life had with a male. She's beautiful, funny, and can't dance worth a shit. She's perfect.

So I guess I'm lonely too. At least when she left on assignments before, I had roommates, friends, and family to spend time with. That combined with the looming reality that I have zero job prospects has been unsettling to say the least. I've been slightly manic, distracting myself with completely useless tasks and ignoring the cleaning and sewing that I've been really wanting to use my time for. Fortunately I have a babysitting gig for the next few days and at the very least, it will keep me busy and make up the cash that I have to pay the city of Bend for breaking the law. Fortunately the judge lowered my fine today and will allow me to go to traffic school, which will keep the ticket off my record - whew. 

I miss home, too. I miss the freedom of picking up and driving out to see Tiara and spending if only a few short hours with her, because those hours are inevitably filled with laughter and sharing. Tiara and I have been on the same wavelength since we were kids, I think; once, in highschool (and this will sound silly to all of you except the two of us), I was searching for a completely random name in my head and Tiara tried to chime in to help - simultaneously, the word "Jeremiah" came out of our mouths. Neither of us knew anyone named Jeremiah, but we said it at the same time and followed it by a stunned silence and staring at each other. I still remember it, too - we were walking up the stairs to the second or third floor for class. This, among other things, I have taken as assurance that Tiara and I are soulmates, and I couldn't ever want for a better friend. I routinely think of her husband as my brother-in-law, and he and I have been tossing around the idea of writing a kid's book together. If it happens, I'll eventually have it in my Etsy shop, available through the authors and not through a bookstore. 

I also miss spending the day with my mom, making her pee her pants laughing (sometimes I'll hold her down and tickle her until she laughs so hard she can't breathe) and chasing Tink around the yard. Home calls to me, but not so loud that I would consider moving there again, not yet anyway. I'm just not satisfied being so far away from her, so I've planted the seed in her ear of moving out here with me. I think it's growing, but still far from blossoming. 

I can't wait to have something productive to do tomorrow.

Cripes.

Is my current life evidence that I need constant adult supervision? And what I mean by that is Erin needs to come home ASAP.

Our attempt at camping out with the kids was a total disaster. The spot chosen was on the other side of the mountains in the Willamette forest, which is essentially a Pacific Northwest rain forest (I think) - so, of course, it was raining. And it was cold and gusty. We opted not to stay there, but the truck carrying the camping equipment and all of our food broke down and, currently, is still sitting on the side of the mountain. I thought perhaps to find a spot on the east side of the mountains, in the high desert, but then realized that our food would be rendered useless to us as campfires are prohibited at this time of year and our food relied on a campfire.

So the kids ended up coming back to my apartment. I put down a tarp because they'd been running through the muddy woods for hours, and we popped in Lord of the Rings. One of the kids passed out, but then later proceeded to sleepwalk into the bathroom and piss all over the floor. Besides that, all the other boys (who were all at least 8 years old) managed to miss the giant toilet hole and sprinkle the seat or floor as well. I would think at that age kids could manage, but I guess when you're in someone else's house it doesn't matter if you piss on the seat (or elsewhere). The next morning another boy pissed his pants (thank God for the tarp). 

Can you say, "Birth control"? Because I can.

So yesterday was my last day of work, and I'm trying not to think about the fact that I am now officially unemployed. This morning, I woke up at 3:30am and looked in the mirror to find my right eye swollen, red, and pooping out all kinds of gunk. Good. Pink eye. I took an allergy pill to see if that would magically work and I'm happy to report that it hasn't gotten any worse - yet. I'm considering calling a doctor, but when you don't have health insurance the cost is outrageous just to have a doc look at your face and go, "Yup, pink eye. Here's a prescription." I wonder if some diluted soap in the ol' peeper would do the trick.

On the bright side, I'm going to get a massage today, going to IKEA tomorrow which will hopefully alleviate some of my apartment-clutter woes, and in less than one month my mother is coming out here to visit. We'll hopefully be taking a trip to Crater Lake and a variety of other fun local spots. 

I need a nap.

Funny Quotes for This Week.

My mother, after viewing a photo of me riding in the cattle drive:

"You look thinner, but you are on a horse."

Jennifer, after hours of discussing religion and how little interest I have in Christianity (and at 9:30pm during a storm after being on the road for 8 hours straight):

"Are you sure you're okay to drive home? I'd hate for you to crash and die...  and go to hell."

Into the Desert.

Let me start off by saying a few things:

First, today I got pulled over and I am NOT happy about it. It was my own stupid fault of course, but a mistake that I do not believe should cost $250. Tomorrow I'll go for my Oregon driver's license and pray that I pass the test the first time around. 

Second, Erin is officially out on spike and I have realized that I eat like a 15 year old boy left alone when she's gone. Cinnamon Toast Crunch is not a healthy dinner. (To my credit I mixed it with a little granola so I'd feel better about myself.)

Anyway, onto the good stuff. Since my photos wouldn't load, you'll need to check out my Facebook page to see them.

This past weekend, my coworker Jennifer invited me to travel with her to Mountain Home, Idaho, to pick up two of her sons from her brother's house. Charlie, her brother, owns a huge ranch and the boys were there helping him out for the summer. I usually would say no to something like that, being the control freak and homebody that I am, but I threw caution to the wind and agreed to come along. It was an 8 hour drive both ways, but the scenery on the way there was incredible. It constantly amazes me how diverse Oregon is when it comes to landscapes. There are huge mountains covered in wet coniferous forests in one part, then rolling sagebrush deserts in another part, then you have the coast and the valley, and everything in between. Deep lakes, raging rivers, the sea.

We headed out in the early morning, greeted by a number of raptors, including golden eagles and smaller accipiters that I couldn't identify. We talked for hours and stopped in the most random little podunk towns you could ever imagine. We discussed the differences between bigger towns and smaller towns, since we're both from one or the other. Jennifer explained to me that small towns are more self-managing (meaning that if you have a problem with someone, you take it right to them, not to an external authority), but that people also get away with a lot because the town is small and people are accustomed to each other's strange quirks. It gets swept under the carpet and unfortunately a lot of child molestation and incest never gets reported. But on the other side of that, the community is strong and the people support each other at all costs. In a big town, you don't have to tolerate any kind of abuse because the authorities have a greater outside power. But there's little community; if you have a community, they are usually spread out and separated from you by great distances. You don't speak to your neighbors and you don't watch out for each other. 

We drove through a miniscule town called Unity, Oregon. We went into a bar to use the restroom, and there were dollar bills with names (and other things) written on them, stapled on the ceiling and walls. Jennifer smiled and handed me a dollar bill, so I wrote my name and Joan's name on it and handed it back to the lady. Then I used a pointy post it note to locate Baltimore on a big US map tacked to the wall. 

Over mountain passes we prayed to see elk and bears, but to no avail. We discussed creationism; Jennifer is a firm believer and I pelted her with questions from my little archaeologist's brain. Just as science is an interesting theory, so to is creationism. I can't say I could really draw myself to believe in the tenets of creationism, but I think, really, vehemently defending one side or the other is really missing the point (and a huge waste of energy). She's in love with geology and contends that things happened a lot more quickly than scientists suppose (think hundreds or thousands versus millions and billions). We talked a lot about Christianity, but fortunately for me she's one of those people that can talk about it without trying to convert you. (I could tell she wanted to, but she restrained herself.) I'm always up for a good spiritual debate anyhow, and since picking up this path, I've never been more satisfied with my spiritual ways. Christianity just isn't for everyone - although Christians feel it's their right to make sure everyone knows that Jesus is the only way to Heaven, a habit I find somewhat tiresome but better understood after having Jennifer explain to me that if you believed you had the absolute truth and you saw people walking off cliffs, you'd want to give them the truth that could save them too. I prefer to let people come to me if they so choose, but everyone is different.

Once in Idaho, I could not believe what, and excuse my terrible lack of respect for the earth, a complete wasteland it appeared to be. In the blazing heat, there was only vast stretches of yellow with patches of green-grey sagebrush. No trees for shade, no boulders for shade, just low rocks that will break your ankles and hundreds of miles of emptiness.

We passed an exit sign on the interstate that said, "US Ecology Idaho Waste Site." It made me sad, but made me physically roll my eyes when we passed another roadside sign that claimed, "Idaho is too beautiful to litter." So.. nuclear waste is not what we're considering 'litter'? On the way home we passed a dump site for the government - all you could see for miles were huge mounds of earth, placed symmetrically apart across a vast expanse. I rolled up my window and shuddered at the thought of what lay beneath the ground out there - trickling into our water, poisoning the sand, delivering cancer bit by bit to the unfortunate humans that lived nearby. And the lies that accompany such activities by our government.

We arrived at Charlie's and the house was gloriously air-conditioned. I was instructed not to play with the five dogs, who can take commands like, "Left" and "Stay" as though they were human. These five dogs could single handedly wrangle a herd of cattle, just by Charlie's words. Charlie himself was an unimposing man, tall with the prerequisite mustache, two bouncing children and a do-it-all wife. He smiled occasionally and laughed more often than I was expecting him to, and referred to his nephews as worms and numbnuts. 

Charlie loaded us up in his truck, dogs in the back, and we drove through this painful desert to arrive at some paddocks where horses eyed us in that way that horses do; unsure, easily swayed by the scent of food. We brushed them and loaded them with saddles. The first saddle's stirrups were too long for me (surprised?) so I was switched to a slightly smaller saddle and I immediately remembered how much I loved being on a horse. This horse, Levi, ended up being quite a pill, but most horses are the first time you're on them. They're smart enough to know that they can push you and test you, and only with a fair bit of confidence and grit will you tame them. This is what I love about horses - they have spirits of pure fire. There is a legend that they came from the sea under Poseidon's command, and Native Americans contended that they were creatures of the thunderstorms. This makes the horse all elements of existence - air (thunderstorms and wind), water (their watery origins, water also being associated with the earth), and fire (their ferocity, power, intelligence, seductive nature). It isn't a wonder to me that they have always been creatures of great respect across all nations. It hurts me to think of how horses are broken and tamed, but I will not pretend that I don't one day want one for my very own. 

So, loaded on horseback, we set off across the desert, tiptoeing through jagged volcanic rock and shielding our eyes from the overpowering light of the evening sun. The cows on the land were there in part because Charlie sells them for their meat, but also because the environmentalists and ranchers were working out a system of rehabilitating the land (overgrazing, of course, does terrible things to the land and cows are notorious for being un-picky eaters, whereas buffalo, for example, will actually encourage natural health by picking and choosing which grasses they eat and when they eat them). We had to move the cattle from one area to another to reduce the amount of grazing they were doing in the first area. Being from a city of a million, I had no idea how feisty cows were - they brayed at the top of their lungs, glared daggers at us, and charged the dogs that tried to corral them. We didn't harass the cattle, just closed in on them slowly and surely so they'd do the moving on their own. We crossed streams, went up the steepest hillsides I've ever seen, and my damned horse tried twice to hang me up in a tree (meaning he walked about as close as he could to the trunk and tried to leave me in the branches). Horses do this intentionally, to test you. I have to admit the second time he really scared the shit out of me - we were on a terribly steep incline and he picked up speed as he went down, bouncing me around in the saddle when I was already leaning as far back as I could without falling off. He happened to pick up this speed right as he crashed me through the boughs and headed into the water. Bastard horse. 

At any rate, I had a blast. We returned to the house and de-saddled the horses, and Henry (Charlie's boy) showed me the best plum tree in the yard, full of tiny purple fruits a bit smaller than ping pong balls. The first bite was sweet like candy, and then tart as hell, making your lips pucker up. We went into the house and gorged ourselves on delicious foods, reveled in the feeling of clean, hot water coursing over our filthy bodies, and slept hard as rocks. Yes, the more I am exposed, the more I know what my life will one day look and feel like.

On the way home, we passed through towns bearing 110 degree weather - we had no air conditioning and even with the windows down going 75 miles an hour, it felt like hot sand being blasted onto our skin without the scratch of particles. It was like driving through a furnace, unforgiving and without shade. I have realized, being in the desert, how the body aches for water and not just when you are dehydrated. It's a deeper, primeval feeling, not only that you want to drink it but that you want to immerse yourself in it, bring it up over your head and face and bless yourself with its life-giving powers. It's so beautiful that you just want to praise it, thank it, take it with you. Your 75% water responds to its flow, its movement, the coolness it exudes in the air that could easily, literally cook you were you not careful.

We stopped in Pendleton and broke into her parents' home since they were not there, ate their grapes and green beans from the garden, drank their tea, marveled at their beautiful home, and were on our way again. We approached Madras at dusk, with the fire of the sunset bursting through heavy leaden storm clouds that, in the distance, emitted enormous lightening bolts that danced from cloud to cloud or exploded upon the earth's surface. 

As I prepare for my second night alone and without contact from my lover, I find myself hoping that the storms have been careful with her and her crew; that they will give them work to do but steer around them and keep them safe. Whenever she leaves for a fire, I feel as much anxiety as a mother must when her only child leaves for the world on their own; I always cry and tell her a thousand times how much I love her. I do this because I will not hear her voice or any word of her safety or unsafety for 14 straight days, and the worry I contend with would overwhelm me if I let it. Firefighting is not an un-dangerous profession but it is the one she has chosen. 

So I imagine white light around her, see her laughing face behind my closed eyelids, and wrap my arms around her pillow so I can bury my face in her scent. 

Grump.

Erin was out yesterday fighting fire from 7:30am until 10:30pm.

And she has to go back in this morning at 9:30am.

Her last day off was my birthday, July 26th.

Not a happy camper.

Warm summer day..

I am currently listening to Belleville Outfit and they are flat out awesome. 

I have been sewing up a bloody storm today and have successfully completed two beautiful projects. Once I make a few more of, well, each thing that I would like to sell, I'm going to get that Etsy storefront up and pray my bum off for success. I want so much to support myself, at least in part, with a skill that I have. I have spent the vast majority of my life feeling skill-less, and would feel just dandy if my shop was a hit. 

I've had this thing on my mind all week and I want to throw it out here. I work very closely with a woman and her son (at our summer camps), and they're both strongly Christian. Her son is young, only 19, and headstrong as any of us at that age. He's a wonderful guy - a fun mixture of sensitive and "macho," if you can call him that. At any rate, we got into a discussion about menstruation. Usually I'm much better at keeping my mouth shut about the religious divide here, but I was tired, cranky, and hot, and I lost control. He truly believes that menstruation is a curse given to women for eating the forbidden fruit - or moreover, for getting that sissy pushover Adam to partake. (I feel that God wouldn't create such a wimp and then give him a strong sexy woman.. let's just set the human race up for failure.) I countered with my own logic - how can anything natural be a curse? Why wasn't Adam cursed for taking the fruit? He could have said no. It's our JOB to say no when we're tempted to do something we know isn't right. So basically women get fucked for introducing wisdom to the hearts of men, who would otherwise just march along without questioning anything. Sounds a lot like a curse on pagans and an easy way to oppress those of us with ta-tas. 

But then I started thinking. Why DO we have these horrible periods? For many of us, myself included, it's a week of pain, moodiness, and general discomfort. Was this the best evolutionary path for mammals to take? I suppose if it didn't kill us, it didn't have to get tossed into the wastebasket of the universe. But why is it so awful? I'm not saying I think it's a curse, I'm just realizing I can see how easy it would be to believe that. Is it wretched to make us appreciate the life that comes forth from the process? Or have we, as some faiths suggest, actually made periods this painful and awful simply by being trained to believe that they will be; that the "curse" mentality has actually created a whole race of women who truly suffer and have been trained not to find any joy or appreciation for the fact that we (and, consequently, not men) are born with the ability to create life? I daresay that creating life is awfully God-like. 

I suppose men didn't want us figuring that out and getting too uppity.

Any ideas on this front would be appreciated and pondered. 

I'm starting to really loosen up I think with all the kids every week. Some things I still bump heads with my coworkers about, but for the most part I've managed to let go of the maniacal need to have every moment planned out. My main partner in crime is getting her MD in free-choice education - basically allowing kids to figure things out for themselves while you stand back and only really jump in when they want you to. No sitting down at a desk for 8 hours and expecting a tiny developing brain to really benefit from the experience. I myself have always thrived on order, the day-to-day routines even if they ebb and flow. College was a blast for me; I even enjoyed writing my thesis (64 pages). People who are free to the wind and seem to have no sense of responsibility have always made me a little uncomfortable, because I've wanted to experience that. I suppose in a small way I've been working on it through camp - not stressing out if I don't have a thousand things planned, just knowing that wherever we go, the kids can find something fantastically interesting *on their own*. That's really magical, and I can see why my coworker thrives on it. Plus, the whole MO of our camp is making the attempt to give kids what their parents and grandparents had generations ago: wandering around in backyard woods and ponds, getting dirty, getting scrapes, getting hungry, and connecting with nature - which, really, they are still so very close to, having left the womb so recently. 

There is a forward that has been passed around and it goes something like this: a little boy's mother had just had a baby, and she has placed her in her crib and left the young boy to visit with her. Once the mother has left them alone, he checks to make sure he truly has privacy, then leans over the crib and whispers to his freshly born sister. He says, "Can you tell me about God? I'm beginning to forget."

Lame-o.

Okay, so often I feel like a lame-o because I really have nothing interesting to talk about. My life seems so mundane, punctuated with a rolling of the eyes from Erin's antics or a belly laugh caused by my coworker Joan, who has something funny to say about every 3 minutes. Even if it's not really funny, SHE laughs and therefore causes YOU to laugh.

So I run summer camp program for kids. The programs were all decided before I got here by two girls who then up and left, with no one to perform said programs (parents had already registered). In I come, along with another woman, to run these camps to the best of our abilities under guidelines that are often ridiculous. For example, one camp advertised that campers would be able to interact with "a basket of kittens" and we actually received a complaint because said basket of said kittens was not available. I ask you.. where exactly does one get a basket of kittens? Shockingly, most people say, "the Humane Society." Have you ever walked into the Humane Society and said, "Excuse me, but may I please have a basket of kittens?" We're not ordering fries here, people. You can't rent kittens. But maybe that would be a lucrative business prospect...

What we DID have was a bearded dragon and a ball python. Which I thought was way freagin' cooler than kittens. By a long shot. I'd much rather play with animals that would sooner EAT a basket of kittens. And once, the bearded dragon took a gigantic dump on one of the kids that spends most of her day whining and/or vying for attention, so it was twice as awesome for me. I would like to note that bearded dragons poop approximately once a week. And it chose her.

Those are the moments that make the day that much more bearable. Not that I don't love my job, because who can beat this: outside every single day (although I am beginning to feel over-cooked and am turning surprisingly brown as if to corroborate that feeling), visiting awesome natural places around Central Oregon and getting paid for it, playing fun games like capture the flag and getting paid for it, and a host of other things that I'm too baked right now (from the sun, not the herb.. or IS it the herb?) to think of. Downside? It's exhausting to spend 40 hours a week with a group of 6-10 year olds. Especially when you're an impatient grump like myself. To give myself credit though, I have been trying to be better about giving kids more patience, it's just a hard thing to do in a rich, yuppy town like Bend where half the kids never have to hear the word "no."

Today, one of the moms was talking to me about real estate. I told her Erin and I are looking to rent a little house but have a hard time finding one that will let us have a pit. She told me to buy, it's a buyer's market, go for it! I gave her a funny look that suggested she was out of her freaking mind and explained, gently, that Erin and I between us have less than $3000 to our names. A very brief expression passed her face as though she didn't understand what I was saying, and then she flounced away and suggested we pressure our family for some money. After leaving her enormous house on 8 acres, I found my eyes tearing up. Pressure family? Apparently it did not occur to her that some people have families without lots of money. I felt a little wronged by that assumption, as though families always have money floating around to hand to children who want to buy a house in Bend for half a million dollars and get nothing but two bedrooms and a two-foot wide "backyard". She meant well, of course, and I can't fault her for her wealth, but obviously when you're rich enough to purchase houses all over the place and fix them up to rent out, you can't comprehend what it's like to live paycheck to paycheck. 

Thus I have begun the search for a second job. I already work full time, but goddammit, I am sick of being restricted by how much money I have in the bank. I don't expect to be able to buy a house, but I would like to experience the feeling of having, say, three to five - thousand dollars in my bank account. To be that secure. And really, to most people (at least it seems this way in Bend), that's chump change. But it's chump change I would welcome. I am also still chugging away at my sewing projects and hope in a month or so to have my Etsy store up and running. 

On another note, I may be changing my gmail account and thus my blog, so keep an eye on it. I have chosen a long and irrelevant name for my account and quite frankly am tired of typing it all in. 

That is all.

Happy Birthday to ME.

Note to you: playing children's games with all adults is my favorite thing ever.

SICK.

A little pissed about two things:

Number one, all we want to do is a rescue a pit bull and we cannot. No one in this town will rent to us. I've even put an ad out on Craigs List explaining the situation we would like to rent and had people contact me about it; then they appear to fall of the face of the planet and never return my calls or emails. Breed discrimination makes me want to punch the wall.

Second, when renting, I have to make sure to mention that I'm in a homosexual relationship. Why? Because these fucking right ring Christians think they know everything about the universe (sorry to burst your bubble, but God doesn't hate ANYONE much less people whose lives revolve around LOVE) and we can't risk stepping on any pure little toes. Fuck you people who hate gays. Get the fuck over yourself. What is your problem? Because one sentence in the Bible says men shouldn't fuck each other? Got news for ya. Men fucking each other in those days wasn't good for breeding, because it didn't make babies and exploit women. So, as the Christians do, they made some rules, said they were from God and voila, you have social control. Christ, get with it. What would Jesus do? HANG OUT WITH SOCIAL PARIAHS, AND THAT INCLUDES GAY PEOPLE, THAT IS WHAT JESUS WOULD DO.

Have you ever had to keep your mouth shut in front of coworkers, family, new friends, and the general outside world because you might be discriminated against for being in love with someone?

At first I wrote "Sorry about that," but I guess this post is a lot about discrimination and there's no way in hell I'm apologizing for being angry about it. If you're Christian and you're okay with homos, do the right thing and don't be offended by this post. If you are, I still won't apologize. 

Lazy day.

Well my week off is nearly up, and though I am definitely feeling better about resuming my activity in this reality, I'm a little sad to see the free time go. However, I am reminding myself constantly that your world is what you make of it - if you sit around bitching (as I usually do) that you never have time to do anything you want to do, you will, in fact, have no time to do anything you want to do. Now, if you squeeze what you want to do in the tiny slivers of time between life (as I am attempting to learn to do), you will have that time (or whatever else it is you want and don't think you have). I'm trying to do it about money and abundance too, reminding myself that I am abundant, I do have the means to meet my financial obligations, I will find a job when this one is over, I will manage to successfully make it through this winter.

Bitching runs in my family and I'll tell you, it's a hard gene to fight. But considering that my grandparents hardly speak to me and my mom misses me like crazy, I am in a position to release myself from inherited negativity. A person can influence their reality, they are able to manifest for themselves what they 'need' to survive this plane. 

On that note, I have been sewing my little heart out lately. Not as much as I'd like to, but I'm trying to conserve energy for the upcoming weeks of camp (read: lounging around). I've almost completed my fourth tote bag and I'm excited to see that they continue to improve with each design. I'm a little disappointed with some of the craftsmanship on this bag, but I've decided that there are certain things about making them that are far less important to me than others. For example, I don't spend much time measuring and being hyper about perfection - if a seam is a little crooked, so be it. Whereas I could, quite easily, be a freak over some of the details of what I make - and thus never feel good enough to try to sell them - I will instead own up to the fact that perfection just isn't as crucial to me as having a fun, functional finished product that pleases the eye. I find that admitting this straight up makes me care far less about what other people will think about my crooked seams, or the fact that you can see the beading thread on the fabric. Having been notified, any potential buyers will know what they're in for, and I've cleared myself from any potential guilt.

I am trying to manifest success in this endeavor, because I really, really would like to supplement my income through handicrafts. I have lots of ideas right now and the problem is being coordinated enough to work on all of them! Which excites me. Right now I have four items and I plan to put the site up when I have a good variety and selection, instead of having only a few things up at a time. I want a little bit of everything when I open the site, and hopefully I can keep encouraging Erin to work on some items too. She is such a good leatherworker, and with all the people I know who follow a Native American-based faith, I think she could flourish in her craft. The hard part is getting her to acknowledge how good she is and actually making some items. I'll keep working on it.