Iranaphobia.

This evening as I was driving home from the market (and no, Miz C, I didn't get hit on once -- maybe because I wasn't wielding a box of Tampax?), I heard Terry Gross interviewing Seymour Hersh about U.S. plans to invade Iran.

Think it won't happen, that we don't have enough troops to stage a third front? Hersh points out that "we" don't need troops -- it'll be a brief air assault, forceful but not devastating. "Here's what we can do to you," it'll say. "You can back off your nukes, or you can watch us come back and finish the job."

Meanwhile the Dems apparently are so surprised to be in charge that they can't get their shit together long enough to put an alternative proposal on the table. Can we survive two more years of this?

You can listen to the "Fresh Air" interview here. Or read Hersh's piece in this week's New Yorker here.

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Listening to Terry Gross led me to this evening's entertainment as she tossed in a brief interview linked to tonight's episode of "Frontline" on PBS. Part of a series called "News War," it looks at how newspapers are dumping their foreign correspondents because it's too "costly" to cover the world. That we'll soon be down to three monopolies covering the world: the Times, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. God help us.

"Frontline" comes on at 9 in this 'hood, so if you read this in the next hour, you have time to check it out, too. Or check it out here.

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Currently listening to: Martin Sexton (thanks, Juggler!)

Currently reading: "No Touch Monkey! And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late" by Ayun Halliday

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Willing to trade in kind.

The other day, the concept of polyamory came up in a conversation. I'd never even heard of it. Later that afternoon, I was editing a column about that very subject.

My first thought: Who has the time?

My second thought: Who can manage to find even ONE significant other, much less multiples?

Actually, one of the subjects offers a pretty astute quote at the end of the column: "Attention is the currency of relationships."

And I have been broke for far too long.

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The new issue of Garden Design popped into my mailbox yesterday -- an exuberant, orange daisy bursting out of this gray, gloomy February. Full of green-lined Paris pathways and vertical gardens climbing up skyscraper walls and lush, tropical Indonesian foliage.

Went to bed curled up under an extra blanket, ignoring the wet white piling up outside, dreaming instead of a new bleeding heart with golden leaves, rows of agaves on a bed of gravel ... wishing I could make a garden to fit each of my personalities ...

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All that '80s music the other night compels me to create the soundtrack I'd want were I suddenly to have a high-school flashback (which I really hope I don't):

How Soon Is Now / The Smiths
Just Like Heaven / The Cure (actually, this may have been college freshmen year?)
My Shadow in Vain / Gary Numan & Tubeway Army
Add It Up / Violent Femmes
People Who Died / Jim Carroll Band
Celia / the Motels
Mexican Radio / Wall of Voodoo
I Want You Back / Hoodoo Gurus
Skidmarks on My Heart / the Go-Go's
Ramona / the Ramones
The New World / X
What I Like About You / the Romantics (yes, I know, but ... )
Shout / Otis Day and the Knights ("Animal House?" Hellooo?)
A Million Miles Away / Plimsouls
I Want Candy / Bow Wow Wow
Destination Unknown / Missing Persons
Sex (I'm A ...) / Berlin
Can't Stand Losing You / the Police (angsty, much?)
I Melt With You / Modern English (oh, come ON ... it HAS to be here ... )

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Begin to hope.

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Postscript to an earlier post:
OK, *today* I will begin.
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For your planning purposes:
(courtesy Miz K)

March 14-17: Billy Bacon and the Forbidden Pigs @ The Zoo
March 31: Eagle*Seagull @ Duffy's OR Tilly & the Wall @ Sokol
April 7: Maria Taylor (of Azure Ray) @ Sokol Underground
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Do some good:
Miz K also passes along the following:

Working Assets (via Sprint) offers a cell phone service that will give 10 percent of all your monthly phone charges to Planned Parenthood Federation of America -- at no extra cost. You get a free phone, they'll buy out your current contract, and the rates/plans seem competitive.
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Quote of the day:
"I really think he shatters the myth of white supremacy once and for all."
-- Rep. Charles Rangel, D-NY, on President Bush
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Quote of the day (honorable mention)
"I was smitten, but I wasn't completely smut." -- Scott W.
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Currently listening to:
"Begin to Hope," Regina Spektor (thanks, Scott!)
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Who knows me better ...

... than the Subversive Used Bookstore maven? Said she had a funny little thing for me. "Is it a man?" I asked. "Well, kinda," she answered, in her enigmatic way. So Miz K and I stopped by last night for wine-fueled gossip. "Close your eyes," Miz Maven said, and she laid this little tidbit into my open palm.


The perfect man. I can read him like a book, and keep him in my pocket.

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It smells like spring.

Earthy and moist and sweet and ready. Oh, and the sunshine makes it feel even warmer than it is. And that it's still light, a bit, when I leave the office ... A taste of sunshine really can change my mood 180 degrees.

Play hooky today, even for just half an hour. Get out, smell it, feel it, live it today, before the next storm hits this weekend.

It's just a taste of what's to come. We've braved another winter, and yes spring is only teasing us now, hiding behind the bedroom door, prettying herself up, but she's nearly ready and when she is she'll burst that door open wide, grab us by the collar, fling us down on the bed and show us what's what.

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Won't get fooled again. (?)

-- edited for content --

This is dated, but screw it; a rant is in order. Trudy Rubin's piece last week about the similarities in U.S. policy between Iraq and Iran is right on target. I keep hearing the bushites on the radio, saying, Absolutely, we do not want to engage Iran; we are doing everything possible to settle their nuclear problems diplomatically.

Which sounds, to me, like: Get ready, America -- we're about to engage Iran.

(With what forces, though, I wonder; our military reserves are already stretched like the skin across Joan Rivers' face.)

And reminds me very much of the days, in late '02, when the administration was assuring us it was doing everything it could to avoid war in Iraq, that any "engagement" (what an ironic word, so matrimonial) would come only as a last resort. Over and over they said it ... and it was so easy to lick a thumb and forefinger, turn the page, and find the phrasing turned to past tense: "We've tried and tried, but we've exhausted all other options."

Remember?

We have to remember. We have to watch as they use the same damn playbook to try and fake us out again. We have to watch and speak out and keep speaking out. We have to make Molly Ivins proud and "raise some hell."

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More fodder for outrage

If you have HBO, tonight at 8:30 you can watch a new documentary on how the whole Abu Ghraib debacle was allowed to happen.

Since I don't have HBO, so let me know if it's any good.

Mind candy.

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Lately I have been focusing too much on what I want and don't have ... and not enough on what I do have and what I can be doing. Mismanaging my personal energy.

"Today I will begin" ... to stop that shit.

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My nightstand is one of my favorite spots in the house. I'm ridiculously vain about what it says about me.

These are the books currently in rotation. I'm about midway through every single one. Sometimes because what I read depends on the mood I'm in; sometimes because a fresh, new title entices me away from my current read. Some are "comfort reads" ... old favorites I return to like a security blanket when I need the reassurance of familiarity. Others never make it onto the pile because I gobble them up like chocolate-chip cookies.

Haphazard, yes. I read like I live -- all over the place, without discipline and with abandon.

Today I agreed to write a review of Betty Levitov's new book. To the bathtub, to begin!

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Quote of the day:

“I dwell in possibility.” — Emily Dickinson

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Miss Cellanea.

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Say "WOOT!!" for warmer weather

Just had to make note of the fact that, at 2:12 p.m., it is a balmy 47 degrees here in Lincolntown. Patches of concrete are actually becoming visible below the sheet of ice that has been my driveway for the past month.

Bikinis and frisbee in the park, anyone???

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Estoy aprendiendo espanol

If you want to find me Tuesday evenings beginning April 3, then you, too, must sign up for Beginning Spanish at SCC. (This means you, Mizzes K and J!)

Meanwhile, I’ve been listening to a new (to me) podcast on iTunes: “Coffee Break Spanish.” Weekly lessons, about 20 minutes long. So far mostly a refresher of what I already know. It’s a European podcast, teaching Castilian (rather than Latin American) Spanish, with Scottish accents no less. Still, it’s been jogging my memory, and that’s good. Got through three podcasts on the treadmill at the gym the other day before I even knew what had happened.

(I subscribe to a lot of podcasts, then feel guilty for never having the time to listen to them. Poor podcast babies, languishing away for lack of tlc from me ...)

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My latest iWant:

2007 Iowa Summer Writing Festival

Would I really get much out of it, or is it just the lure of the class titles:

-- Shaping the Truth: Fictional Structure for Memoir Writers
-- Cross-Dressing for Poetry: Poems for Prose Writers
-- Writing Out Loud: Crafting Essays for the Ear
-- Politics & Poetics: Writing Yourself Into/Onto the World
-- The Journey Within: Travel Writing and Transcendence

Finances-wise, it’s currently in line behind a new mountain bike and an iPod dock to replace my clunky, ancient stereo. A weekend workshop $25o plus housing; a full week, $500+.

Doesn’t hurt to think about it …

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A phone call, and a dream

Conversation with him the other day – the one who broke my heart so badly, more than two years ago now. Been slowly forging a “normal” friendship since last summer, when one last go-round proved we really never are going to get back together. Still a bit stilted (the discomfort of not being able to be that intimate with someone you once were so intimate with), but getting better with practice. He’s started to open up about the woman he’s been seeing.

“I have something I want to tell you,” he said, eventually.
“You’re pregnant,” I blurted out, trying to be funny.
Only I wasn’t far off. “They” aren’t pregnant yet – but trying.

The only thing that hurts is realizing it doesn’t hurt anymore – it finally, really doesn’t – and so how to define myself without all that angst and drama? I lived with it so long, I don’t know myself without it.

Now I feel compelled to share everything I’ve gone through in these past two years – really, he doesn’t know anything of my life since him – and I don’t really know why I want to tell him. My therapist would ask (again) why I want to remain “friends” with him anyway. But he’s a part of me; that past is what made me who I am now. Maybe it’s that past me I’m seeking verification/approval from? Permission to move on?

I woke the next morning from an intense dream in which Miz K and I were in an escapade with Scooby Doo and Shaggy. I am not kidding – and while I recognized, in my sleep, the comedic value of this, it was still a bit frightening. (We were our badass selves, btw – not those ridiculous Daphne/Velma stereotypes). And when Fred called from that psychedelic Mystery Machine, it was his voice. And he warned us (Miz K and I) that we’d better be using condoms. And later we realized it was because he’d been sleeping with both of us. This dream goes right to the top of the WTF file.

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Whose idea was this, anyway?

-- edited for content --

I’ve tried to hermit up this weekend to start writing my pieces. It is sloowww going. Right now it feels more like a book report for history class; no life to it. I’ve tried to start with my own gut impressions … but I think it’s time to venture into the seven notebooks I compiled over nine days. ...

A valentine.

Can't think of anyone better to crush on than Kooser; so what if I'm just one of thousands to get one of his valentine poems? No surprise that when it comes to men I have no shame ... so I shamelessly asked him to sign it. I'll be heartbroken if it really is the last ...

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Went to an info meeting on the Peace Corps this evening. Not much, practically speaking, that I didn't already know, but some good stories and a couple of good contacts. Latin America is the one area where they expect you to speak the predominant language before you're sent. So I need to start taking classes again. (Though I'm also interested in Africa/India/Southeast Asia.) And I need to winnow down what my area of interest would be: Teaching English? Women's health? HIV counseling? "Urban agriculture" (i.e., gardening). They all sound great to me. But I need to get some current volunteer experience in my chosen path.

For now, though, I need to put this on the back burner and focus my energy on the Nigeria project.

There's a great collection of Peace Corps blogs here.

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Speaking of feeling wanderlusty, I've put some of my Nigeria photos on my Flickr site. And June, one of my teammates, has some of hers on Flickr as well. There's a joint Shutterfly site, but I'm not sure I should share the group's login info publicly.

Wet blanket.

So I'm in the locker room at my gym, with a woman I've talked with a few times. She turns on one of the showers, comes back out, starts running water in the sink, then proceeds to take her sweet time undressing, chatting, organizing ... it's a good 5 minutes before she tosses a sports bra into the sink, water still running, and ambles her way into the shower.

How much water must she have poured down the drain (literally) in those 5 minutes? I wish I'd had the nerve to say something. I didn't.

When I was in Mexico, I quickly got used to stepping under the spray to get wet, then turning it off while I soaped up, turning it on again just to rinse. I feel guilty for failing to bring that habit home to Nebraska; it just gets too damn COLD here.

But even if I'm going all-out -- washing/conditioning hair, shaving various body parts, exfoliating -- I don't think I take even 5 minutes in the shower. I sure as hell don't understand those who leave the faucet running while they're brushing teeth, scrubbing pots, etc.
I just got home from a country where the vast majority of residents must walk a certain distance -- yes, even in the cities -- to gather water in 5-gallon drums and then carry it home again. You'd better believe not a drop is wasted -- even the graywater gets used again.

Water is a finite resource, people. Why waste it just because we can?

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Good news:

My doctor called today. Biopsy showed absolutely nothing. She'll check again in a year, just to make sure.

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Does this disturb anyone?

I just turned on the news (to see whether I should go out and shovel now, or do it in the dead of the morning ... neither a good option, imo), and heard a Wendy's commercial using the Violent Femmes' "Blister in the Sun."

Even worse than the first time I heard "I Melt With You" being used to sell something ... that was burgers, too, wasn't it?

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Currently reading: "Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002," Salman Rushdie
Currently listening: "Wrecking Ball," Emmylou Harris

Food for thought.

A recent study (separate from the big one released last week) shows that "by far, the most effective thing that you can do to fight global warming is to go vegetarian": http://goveg.com/environment-globalwarming.asp

Why? Because the livestock industry is a leading source of both carbon dioxide and methane, the two top causes of climate change. (Not to mention a ginormous water-waster, or how many nations we could feed with the grain that goes to fatten up cattle and hogs ...)

What you can do:

The Post-Punk Kitchen: http://www.theppk.com/

Vegetarian Cooking at The Book Lovers Cafe: http://web.mac.com/ians8/iWeb/BooksInc/Podcast/Podcast.html

Fat-Free Vegan: http://www.fatfreevegan.com/

28 Cooks: The culinary talents of a 28-year-old vegaquarian: http://28cooks.blogspot.com

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Early this morning, when I should've been sleeping but couldn't, I read a collection of Cynthia Heimel columns instead. A fluffy, cotton-candy bite of a book, by my usual standards, even if she is loudly and proudly feminist and rabidly sexual. Found it at the Book Maven's 29th annual birthday sale ... for some reason the section headed "How Can I Dump Him When He Hasn't Called" reached out of the stacks and bonked me on the head.

I've liked her previously for such titles as "If You Can't Live Without Me, Why Aren't You Dead Yet?" and "Get Your Tongue Out of My Mouth, I'm Kissing You Goodbye" and "When Your Phone Doesn't Ring, It'll Be Me." Good mindless ranty fun.

Twelve years after publication, though, these pieces do show their age. She rants about the dangers of computer solitaire addiction, of listing one's full name and address on one's checks, of not letting the answering machine pick up because if you don't you know it's gonna be your mother calling. Who, in 2007, doesn't have Caller ID? When's the last time you wrote a check? (Though if you still have solitaire on your laptop, don't let me know; I harbored quite an addiction for it myself, back in the day.)

And lamenting the days when none of her friends call and so obviously she is not worth existing on this planet ... when these days we all know self worth is based on the number (or lack) of blog comments ... where is everybody, anyway???

Let's be friends.

I have a Myspace page. Don't know that I'll do anything with it, but if you have one, too, then add me to your friends list, and I'll add you to mine. And then we'll get, like, really really popular? And, like, all the other Myspace dorks will, like, be totally jealous? And then, we'll have, like, haters? And then we'll be, like, totally, totally like Paris 'n Britney? Which, like, I already am anyway, 'cuz, like, I don't wear panties either?!? Totally.

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Laugh of the day:

A good friend (trying to maintain some semblance of anonymity here) has a 4 1/2-year-old daughter. The other day, said daughter announced she had a list of qualities that would make for a marriageable man. (Much as said friend once shared with me her list of "dealbreakers" in her own search for a man, highbrow and intellectual qualities all, except for the firm specification of "no dogs.")

The young lady's list:

1. "He must be smart."
2. "Kind"
3. "Genewous"
4. "Funny ... like Xxx" (insert name of mama's man here)
... and ...
5. "A good source of protein."

Mama says obviously her young'un was just tossing in things she knew were good for her. But I about pulled an ab muscle laughing at that.

And it officially goes on my list as well. All future prospects (not that there are any left in this town; I have once and for all exhausted the local dating pool) will have to submit to my checklist. Gainfully employed? Check. Relatively healthy? Check. Firmly unattached and available? Check.

"Now ... would you say you're a good source of protein? Are you prepared to prove it?"

Especially important for us vegetarians -- we must take our protein where we can find it!

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Quote of the day:

"However you are currently living your life is what people are going to remember you by." -- Miss Nealy

Goddess in our midst.

The mind-blowing, heart-breaking, soul-feeding Neko Case comes to the Rococo Theatre on April 3. Krista* and I are working on putting a table together. $20 a seat. Who's in?

My dream set list:

Set Out Runing
Deep Red Bells
Hold On, Hold On
I Wish I Was the Moon (despite gramatically incorrect title)
Favorite (it's a duet with Jon Rauhouse, who's the opening act, so surely they'll do this one?)
Rated X (one of my theme songs, and my favorite of her Loretta Lynn covers)
Honky Tonk Hiccups
Twist the Knife
**Mood to Burn Bridges
Maybe Sparrow
Star Witness
Things That Scare Me
Bought and Sold

I've always kicked myself for missing her in '03 (?) at Knickerbockers, a venue small enough that she could as easily french kiss the front row as sing to it. But we saw her a couple of years ago at Sokol Underground. This deep, booming, lusty voice ... then, at the end of each song, a squeakily perky "Thank you!"

And she signed my Tshirt. *girlish sigh*

*Trivia tip for Miz K (thanks, Wikipedia!) Did you know "Blacklisted" was recorded in Tucson?

**If I had to pick ONE theme song, this would be it: "So many people live in my town / Minding my business 'cause they got none of their own / They're all so happy with me now that I've done wrong / I'm surprised they don't come up and thank me"

Not such a bad day.

Last night was lovely, thanks to some of my favorite people in the world. Thanks for the great food ... and for so patiently looking at my photos from the trip and being so encouraging.

Yesterday full of good news, despite my agitated mood going into it:

-- Found out insurance indeed paid for my travel shots, even though I had to go "outside the network," so I have a $150 check coming my way. That'll cover half the cost of the biopsy.

-- Said biopsy turned out pretty well. Dr. Mahoney said it looked very, very minor, and she'll be surprised if the results tell her otherwise. Most likely, we'll just wait a year and look again; apparently odds are my body will heal itself on its own.

-- Scale at the doctor's office confirmed the one at the gym, which I'd been inclined to disbelieve. I am officially below a benchmark weight that I've rarely dropped under in my entire adult life. Only two pounds from where I was when I returned from Mexico. Likely just dehydration from the trip, and I guess being limited in what I could eat. Still, I think I can keep it up ...

Which means it's time to get outta bed and get to the gym!

Then clean house like a madwoman ... contact the Peace Corps chick ... write for at least an hour ... then wine and hummus with another of my favorite people in the world this evening ...

I'm home. Call me!!!

--edited for content --

Woo, my sleep schedule is messed up. A few hours in the hotel room last night, 20 minutes on the ride home from DC; tired but rejuvenated upon hooking up with Miz K -- we got some lunch, went and bought SMALLER JEANS!!!, rented a movie and came home to watch it ... upon which I promptly fell fast asleep. Now I'm wide awake at 4 a.m. Oh well, have a whole week to reacclimate.

I've posted one last blog on the other site. Well, maybe I'll post more if/as things come to me, but at this point I need to start thinking aboug what I'll be writing for actual publication.

As I expected, besides the experience, and the inspiration of being with a group of such high-powered journalists, I came away with a lot of opportunities. One teammate has worked at that Cambodia offer I turned down. Says no way have I burned any bridges there. Another says I'm *overqualified* but there's an opening in Boston ... I think that would be a bad place for me to live. A Hong Kong possibility. Much to ponder. And I mean to make an appointment with the Peace Corps recruiter in Omaha, just to feel things out.

Quote of the day: "I woke up bored." -- Miz K

Another hero gone.

The last graph of Molly Ivins' last column:

We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we’re for them and trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush’s proposed surge. If you can, go to the peace march in Washington on Jan. 27. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, “Stop it, now!”

She was one of those few who made me proud to do what I do, and unashamed to believe as I do.

"Raise some hell!" was her rallying cry. In her honor, go raise some today.