my big red heart

Comments on the Coops

2010-09-18T20:51:00.000-07:00

We all know how lovely and beautiful the Coops really is.
Walking with him each day never fails to yield conversations with strangers.
Here are the most common comments:
"That is a BIG dog."
um, yes.
"That dog is fluffy!"
yes, he is.
"That dog is white!"
"Is that a Samoyah?"
me: "samoyed"
"That is a samoyan!"
me: yes.
"The abominable snow dog!"
me:

And my current favorite that never fails to happen, and never fails to please:
"A Samoan!"
um, no.

Insomnia

2010-09-12T02:03:00.000-07:00

So many things. I can't sleep tonight for some reason: mild sore throat, smallish headache, overthinking, ruminating.
On Monday, I returned from a two-week trip to Alaska with the boy I met from the online. That trip was our fourth date, and we loved each other in a vast and raw place, where the veil between worlds is thin. I might write about the amazing things we did and saw: periwinkle blue glaciers, the low clouds, the black bears ambling in our path, a million jellyfish. The nut brown ale from the Kenai River Brewing Company, flaky, cooked-just-right halibut, the fire in the wood stove in a house on the ridge line above Homer. The best parts of this adventure for me were the smallest threads hanging out in that veil. One morning in Seward, waiting for our boat. We were sitting on a bench looking at the harbour, and I had a cup of coffee in my hand. It was early and the air was crisp. I leaned against him, and we were quiet. I thought to myself: this, this is the sweetest moment, maybe ever. Easy, secret laughing. Watching him dreaming in the early morning light. Hearing him whisper to me: "I need you". On Friday, a dozen roses arrived for me at work. the card read simply, "miss you!" Because of him I am challenged to examine how frightened I am of trusting myself with this new intimacy and go ahead regardless, to dismiss my self-consciousness, to hope about things. He is strong and kind and sharp and also sweet with me in ways I never thought anyone would be.
Home now, there is a voicemail from a friend who now has something in his life he can't abide. I know he is not sleeping now, too, because this new thing he's got is the sort of thing that once you have it, you cannot give it back. My heart breaks for him. His voice is hopeless. There are two breast cancers, somebody else's crazy ex who is off the rails and possibly dangerous. There is the dear friend whose sister is being astonishingly horrible, and tears. But there is also sailing, and Cooper's big soft paws, and the golden sunlight of early autumn. The Sparkly Warrior Princess is pregnant and joyfully embracing her really-soon motherhood, her relationship, her new future. It is time to think about things like soup, and firewood, and rain.
I want to be open and fearless to all of these things. I want to be silent and uncluttered and available to every bit of it.

For my friend Britt

2010-08-03T14:39:00.000-07:00

If you can't get out of it
Get into it

Well Hello, Zetta

2010-07-10T11:15:00.000-07:00

It has been almost 2 years since I have written here, and that long since I have visited this place, which used to be so alive with my writing and thinking and looking. I had a broken heart. And the floundering economy did some heavy damage to my livelihood, and frankly I had little to say to the world that was any good, that was funny, insightful, or entertaining in the least. I disappeared from here, and from myself in some ways, while I struggled to make sense out of what I saw as one failure after another, like a row of dominoes or a perpetual motion machine.

Not long ago, someone that I hadn’t yet met told me that he had found and read this blog, all of it. He said he hoped I would not tell him to fuck off. In all honesty, I didn’t care that he had read it. After all, it is in the public domain, and it isn’t hard to find if one is mildly google-savvy. But having not been in here, I had sort of forgotten what it says. So last night, I read it all the way through, backwards, as he had. Now I wonder what on earth he must think about me, and I know now what he knows about me: that I can be very irritable over little things, and in the same way delighted. He knows all about the ins and outs of my last relationship, some familial discontent, my sorrows, my glaring flaws, my insecurities about how I look, all those little things I perhaps foolishly broadcasted for all to see. The funny thing about it is I am somewhat of a private, guarded person, and when I read through this last night, I felt small and vulnerable that he had read it. I wouldn’t have cared a whit about it—after all, I also checked the sitemeter, and though I have not been writing here, it still garners daily visits, maybe from people who have always read it, but also from strangers all over the world. Ah, the online. But then this person read it, and then, I met him.

Online dating: everyone does it, at least for awhile. Like most people of, um, a certain age, I don’t get out much. At least not to places where I might meet anyone with whom I might totally hit it off and start dating them. At the behest of some friends and Uncle Alan, who is now my roommate, bless his heart, I signed on. Uncle Alan—a man in his 60’s who has never been married, goes out on lots of dates he finds on the online. He shows me their profiles, and I have to say that the pool for him is much better than the one I get to choose from. While he finds svelte, beautiful, quality women his age who share common interests, I get morons, fatasses and perverts. I have met a few folks using this tool, almost all of whom are merely “alright” and certainly fewer of those whom I might want to meet more than one time. Part of this may be due to my inherent guardedness, but I just don’t get butterflies straight away anymore when I meet somebody. I won’t let myself. And when I do meet them, I don’t give them anything, really, to go on. One other thing: I don’t think I am much of a catch right now. Financially I am only beginning to recover from the Great Recession, I don’t want kids, and I share a house with my exboyfriend’s uncle, for crying out loud. But I digress.

Last year, I did something pretty well in line with who I am—I went back to school. I am almost always involved in some sort of active learning process, and anyone who knows me at all is never the least bit surprised when I sign on for something else. Last year, with the shitty money situation, I went back to school full time to become an EMT, which is something I have always been interested in doing but never had the time. It was good, it was fun sometimes. I made a friend from ambulance driver school who is, if I get nothing else from that experience, totally worth the time, money, and energy I put into that learning. I am a freshly minted EMT-B, and I am putting it to use volunteering for the fire department up on yonder hill, where I will be doing medical and rescue duties, wearing turnouts and a blue helmet. Power tools? Check. Lights and sirens? Check. Bon.

This blogreading dude, he lives in BC. He emailed me on the online dating site a few months ago. His tone was pithy, chiding. I was feeling pissy that day so I not only wrote him back, but I wrote him pack in a pissy way. He responded to that crappy email I had fired off to him, a little confused. This and that got wrote, and then he sent me a most excellent email to replace the first one, and I loved it, so I told him so. This exchange grew into a little writing back and forth here and there. Dream house? What would you do if? It was fun, and I found myself looking forward to his replies, if only because he was the only one who wrote anything worth reading, even if he was living so far away. I didn’t make much of it, because I never expected him to become “real” in any sense. Through the miracle of IM, there was more writing, sometimes for hours into the night. This was also fun, and he asked me all sorts of questions, and I answered them freely, because he wasn’t real, and I would never have to look him in the eye or touch him or feel him touching me. And then he wrote that he had read this thing, this whole thing. We kept writing. We sent photos. In a fit of spontaneity, I invited him down for a weekend. I did not expect him to show up. I mean, who does that? Who drives down here through the annoying border and braves the Seattle traffic to meet some neurotic girl from the internets? First, he sent me flowers. But then he did show up. And when he arrived, he had in one hand an overnight bag, and in the other hand, a rawhide bone for Cooper. I sized him up. He looked better than his photos. He had all his teeth. And he. Was in my livingroom. I made him sleep on the couch.

We spent a lazy few days doing mostly nothing besides telling stories, walking the dog, eating, and feeling sleepy. I failed to take him to Timberline, to the Coast, to Oneonta Gorge, to Ramona Falls. I didn’t introduce him to anyone, but Uncle Alan was here, and he graciously got gone most of the weekend. After the first evening, I did something I do not do, which is this: I chose to be not guarded. I chose to feel whatever I felt without prejudice, and it was easy for some reason. There was, at least for me, some subtle magic that is difficult to describe. He sleeps peacefully, unmoving, on his back. He is clean shaven. Wicked smart. Perfectly dorky. And he thinks. And thinks. And thinks. He has one crooked bottom tooth I want to touch. When he talks to Cooper, his voice gets sweet, and he says, “Good boy, Cooper, good boy.” I have hidden the dating profiles. I have set boundaries with someone where they were ill-defined. Why? Because I want to be not confused. Of course this is all silliness. This google-savvy blogreader, he lives in another country. My birthday was yesterday. There were flowers. And there was an email with a travel itinerary: two weeks from today, I will pick him up at the Portland airport, if he is nice. Otherwise he has to walk.

It has been Africa hot here the past many days. I don’t do well in it. Last night over the skype, he asked me how my big red heart was. I was tired, and wilted, and not sure what to say. Here is how I would answer him this morning, with the fever broken and overcast skies: my big red heart is good. It is a little scared, but not scared. It is excited about the many things to come: the blue helmet, the burgeoning recovery of my micro-business, this strange and hopeful knowing someone new and worthwhile and willing. My parents are coming next week. I have some things to tend to. I will get to them, carefully and patiently. Meanwhile, some time with friends, an evening in by myself, lime bubbly water, daisies. Remind me to tell yall about doing CPR for the first time on a person, and the profound satisfaction that comes with the sanctioned swinging of an axe into a car window. I’ve missed you, Zetta.

A perfect day on the mountain

2008-09-16T11:03:00.000-07:00

Recently I came into some good fortune. I was asked to house sit for a man who is mostly away on international legal affairs. He has an amazing house on the mountain--totally secluded and appointed to the nines. Cooper and I have been staying here with some frequency, enjoying the quiet and the woods and the bright stars. The house is just a quick minute from the farm, and the Intrepid Cowgirl.
Yesterday, the Coop and I got up, drank some coffee in the sunshine on the deck, and listened to the nearby Sandy River. Then we went for a hike up the trail. Cooper is growing up, and instead of racing away from me like he used to, he trots ahead not more than 10 or 20 feet and stops to check in with me frequently. We had an excellent fun hike with lots of scrambling on the rocks near the Sandy, breathing that perfect perfume of Doug Firs and dirt and sunlight. It is really fun to see him so happy running and playing in the woods, his beady little eyes gleaming.
After that, Jackie and I went down the pass to get some lunch, where we had typical bad food and crappy service, but we drank some cokes, so that was fun. After lunch, we tacked up some horses and went for a ride. Yesterday's ride was the best ride I have ever been on. In the past I have been downright scared at times on this horse, mostly because he has alot of motor and I didn't trust him to take care of me or to stop when I asked him to. I also tend to overthink, and when Jack had me on this horse in the arena, I would just screw everything up because I thought it to death, and this horse would get frustrated with me and things would fall apart. Yesterday Jackie decided to say fuck it and throw me to the dogs on this horse and off we went into the woods. We gaited and galloped and rode those horses across the river and up the other side. We got ambushed by dogs and spooked and there were times I was nervous, but I rode it all. On the way home, she had me go ahead of her, and it seemed I was all alone on this horse, who had his ears trained on me and we were moving along at a nice clip and the sun was going down and the air was that delicious temperature it hardly ever is, that temperature that makes a magical backdrop for all good memories.
We were dirty and dusty and tired and laughing.
I had Jackie up to the house for dinner, and we sat out on the deck watching the moon come up and drank a bottle of wine together and even though it was late, we still had to come inside and dance in the livingroom until midnight. Days like this are few, when all things align perfectly to create this most rarefied joy that only lasts so long, and then it is time to sleep hard and awaken with sore muscles and a smile on your face.

My last weekend of training in two parts

2008-08-26T17:03:00.000-07:00

This past weekend marked the end of my basic training in a system of acupuncture which is new to me, a training which has changed the way I look at acupuncture, certainly, but also the world.
It took place in Seattle one weekend each month for all of this year.

Part One: Sparkly Warrior Princess
My dear friend of many years, the esteemed and crazy Sparkly Warrior Princess, she lives in Seattle. Each time I would have weekend trainings, I stayed at her house. I broke a bunch of her wine glasses, and a ceramic coaster. I never break shit at my own house, so I don't know why I was breaking her shit. This last weekend, her stereo mysteriously stopped working as we were dancing in her livingroom. The following day, her DVD player also went south. She blames me, naturally, even though I did not touch either of those things.
A word about staying with SWP: we almost always end up dancing in her livingroom.
Dancing in SWP's livingroom to ABBA? Awesome.

Part Two: Class
I am pretty comfortable being a solo flyer when it comes to going to work and going to classes. I have a firmly established MO at classes--I sit in the back, nearest the door, in case I have to leave. I also do not care to be noticed, and generally feel safest where nobody can see me except the instructor. When I arrived at this class for the first time, I sat in the second row. I was soon joined by a friendly woman who is older than I am, and the guy who was videotaping the class for the association. Given that when I first arrived at acupuncture school I was sorely disappointed by who else showed up there, I was wary of these new people. The woman who had joined me at my second row table asked me what brought me to this class, and I don't remember what I told her, but I remember exactly what she told me. She told me she was looking for community. In my little head I dismissed that idea. I sure as hell wasn't looking for community. Still, I had to play nice and get comfortable working in small groups in hands-on situations with these people, so I did. The next thing I knew, I had joined a small cadre of like-minded people with kind hearts and smirky faces and shiny souls. This last Friday, when I showed up for class, one of these people actually said "YAY!" as I entered the room.
Nobody ever says "YAY!" when I walk into a room.
So even though community was the last thing I was looking for when I started this new thing, it was exactly what I got.
And I am damned grateful for it, too.

I'm doomed.

2008-08-07T14:07:00.000-07:00

A couple of nights ago I went out to dinner with an old friend I hadn't seen in a long time.
He's smart and wry and funny. We stayed up too late, drank too much, and ate too much food that had spent time in a fryer. We laughed, we told stories, we said some honest things about things that happened in the past, and who we are today. It was great fun.
This morning, he called me.
He said:
"I'm just thinking about you. You're wonderful."
I caught my breath, had a brief, superficial conversation with him about how Cooper had barfed in is kennel last night.
Then I got really worried. When I came home for lunch, I called him back and said something foolish about how I really can't handle things turning into a nightmare right now.
He seemed nonplussed and plain spoken and reassuring.
"Don't worry about it. There's nothing more to it than I was thinking about you and wanted to tell you so."
Suddenly I feel like I have no idea how to conduct myself in this world of being single. I am unfettered but I don't know what to do with it, how to hang out in it, or even what to say about it.

Back from a long break

2008-08-03T17:41:00.000-07:00

It has been ages since I updated this thing. Since last I wrote, I have had a birthday, lost a friend to a kidney failure, saw The Police play a live show, cried alot, smoked some weed for the first time in about ten years, and this weekend I went camping with a good friend, and two....12 year old girls. Plus Cooper.
We managed to cram all our stuff, the dog, and ourselves into my Subaru. We tried unsuccessfully all week to find an available campsite on the coast, but we ended up about 20 minutes up a mountain from the ocean at this little campground on a lake with tent sites. It was lovely and silent. And damp. The campground had a nazi lesbian camp host who seemed at first to be really friendly but as soon as anyone, and I mean anyone in the campground did anything against the rules or something she didn't like, she would come over with her clipboard and say something.
I let Cooper off his leash to pee for 30 seconds and she was all over me for it. She told some fisherman that he couldn't fish with a lantern. And she busted the kids for making too much noise when it was "almost quiet time." She also complimented me on my clothes each day.

We made friends with our campground neighbors from Tillamook, who were high level rednecks. They were really friendly, however, and they loaned us all kinds of tools and one night JB and I sat up late drinking beers with this guy Don Otto, who told us his whole life story, showed us pictures of his kids, and provided us with at least four really dirty jokes. They were kind, even if they weren't the same kind as us, and it was nice to have met them and laughed with them, even if ordinarily we might not be friends in a million years. Don Otto, however, did take the opportunity to tell me that I have "a really nice body" when JB went off to take a whiz. Funny how married men can sometimes think that saying things like that to strange women is appropriate.

We spent a sunny Saturday on the beach with the girls, who are crazy people and swam in the chilly Pacific all day long. I haven't spent all that much time with kids. It was really fun. I did find myself saying things like "put your shoes on" and "roll up the window please", and "No, you do not need anymore marshmallows". I worried over them going out too far in the surf, and nagged the one with blood sugar issues to check her glucose levels. I was surprised to find this sort of vigilance inside me. Nonetheless, we all laughed a ton together, enjoyed lots of food, took naps, and stared at a campfire. I can't really imagine what it would be like to be a parent, but I find I do so enjoy JB's daughter and her friends when we are together.

Still, it is hard enough having a crazy huge dog to try to rally. I'm glad I don't have kids, but you know what? Suddenly I really like 'em. Well, not all of them. But the ones I like I really like.

Gestures

2008-06-15T18:55:00.000-07:00

This evening I took Coop out on one of our usual walks around the neighborhood. It is exceptionally beautiful outside tonight, and the streets were swarming with happy Portlanders riding bikes, walking, eating at sidewalk tables. I am feeling exceptionally melancholy this evening, and so the Coop and I walked slowly, stopping occasionally to let strangers admire him, or to admire the flower gardens of strangers. I felt like a stranger here in my neighborhood of the last several years, in fact, a stranger to myself, as we walked. I was listening to possibly the saddest music in the known universe, almost home, past a tiny little girl and her mother who were doing something in the flowers they have planted in the parking strip next to their house. Then I heard the smallest voice say something to me, and I stopped the music to turn to her, expecting she wanted to pet my dog. She had in her hand a daisy, and she said to me, "I want to give you this flower." I leaned down to take it from her tiny hand, looked her in the eye, and told her thank you. "You are welcome," she said seriously, maintaining eye contact with me. I then turned to walk away with the flower in my hand, moved beyond words by her gesture, wondering how she knew it was just what I needed in that moment.

Chop Wood, Carry Water

2008-05-19T15:56:00.000-07:00

That is what I have been doing the last few days.
My relationship of almost six years with a wonderful man has come to a quiet close.
It seems we are quite good friends for one another, but we both agreed that things were vaguely dissatisfying, and so it is.
I went to see him at his new place last night. It is a wonderful big townhouse on the edge of downtown, with a bedroom easily the size of my living room and dining room. His bed is in the middle. The rest of the rooms are devoid of furniture for the moment.

I have been living in this house, the house we shared for almost 5 years, now, alone.
The lawn is mowed, the linen closet cleaned out, the floors mopped, the laundry folded. The bed is made, the photos are hung, the tub is clean, there is fish marinating in the fridge. I have done my books, read some, studied some, enjoyed some prosecco in the evenings with the birds chirping all around me. Cooper and I have walked, I have ridden my bicycle, I have been to the gym, and this morning my chiropractor friend kindly put my bones back where they belong.

I have worried hard about the sorry situations some people I love are mired inside of. I have awakened each morning with a knot in my belly and somehow each morning I have also been able to return to sleep. I may have eaten some cheesy poufs in that bed at night.

Each day unfolds before me slowly right now; eating is a chore, I don't much want to answer the phone, it is hard to concentrate on studying or reading. Tom Waits is playing continuously, his gravelly voice the perfect company for me as I hang pictures, check my email, dust the baseboards.

Life is long, and it is too warm outside, and I am so very sad and quiet.

A bit of the broken heart syndrome

2008-05-13T10:10:00.000-07:00

Everything seems out of balance. My heart breaks for people around the world suffering from wars, juntas, earthquakes, tornadoes, poverty, and disaster.
My heart breaks for friends of mine who are scared, alone, powerless, and sad.
My heart breaks for things ending even if they should end, and the empty houses we all go home to at the end of the day.

Make an exhaustive list of everything you might do and do the last thing on the list

2008-04-20T20:52:00.000-07:00

Stop being afraid.

When is it for?

2008-04-14T15:57:00.000-07:00

It is for now, for tomorrow, for the day after tomorrow.
It is possible that it is for the summer, the autumn, and into the winter.
It is even possible that it is for next year, and the year after that,
and on into time we can't imagine, because we are so infatuated with today
and yesterday
and the day before yesterday.

Faced with a choice, do both

2008-04-13T18:54:00.000-07:00

I am a fan of a tool for creative problem solving invented by rockstars. I have a version of this deck as a desktop widget on my macbook. I also found a way to procure a physical deck, and it is on its way here from another continent. Each day for the next 100 days, I am going to choose a card and do what it says and then write about it. Or not. Maybe I will take a picture of it.

How The Hell Should I Know

2008-04-12T19:16:00.000-07:00

I have kept much of my truly personal self off this page, for all kinds of reasons. One, blathering on and on about every detail is just so bloggy and trite. Two, innocent bystanders could be injured. Three, my parents read this shit. But what the hell.
I'm having some sort of crisis. Middle age crisis? Existential crisis? Crazy mindblowing new learning material crisis? The coming of my second 20's? Unstable on medication crisis?
La Nina crisis? Who the hell cares?
I am questioning my values, my aliveness, my relationship, my level of engagement with the universe. I hired a therapist. She has a great name and no agenda. I'm scared, uncertain, confused, and some days I am that kind of calm you get when the shit is about to hit the fan. Other days I have that sort of anxiety that makes it impossible to eat anything, and cigarettes seem like a Really Good Idea.
I'm lonely, I can't stand to be with anyone, I want to cling desperately to VBM and I want him to move out of this house. I need an oracle, a magic eight ball, divine intervention, or maybe a rollerskating party.

Huzzah!

2008-04-09T15:09:00.000-07:00

Three cheers for my sister, who has just been admitted to the PT program at the University of Minnesota. Study hard, and eat yourself a sub sandwich from Big Ten for the love of corn!

It's my style and there's nothing you can do about it

2008-04-07T17:53:00.001-07:00

I have a friend who is valiantly raising his 11 year old daughter all by himself. Sometimes I get to be a party to some of what his experience with this is like. Today, when I inquired after his daughter, he said, "Well, this morning we had a fight about pants."
I was intrigued.
He sighed.
"She has this pair of low rise, peg-leg jeans that are, I'm sorry, just too small for her now, and I told her that today was the last day she would ever wear those pants, because I was going to throw them out. God, I hate those pants."
I thought of the little teenager I saw recently going into a doorway clad in sweatpants that read "pink" right across her ass. We began to discuss the horrors of what kinds of clothes are available for girls his daughter's age.
"All of those clothes are for Vietnamese whores," he mused. He scratched his beard. "Then at the end, when I dropped her off at school, she told me 'it's my style and there's nothing you can do about it!' You've got to give it to her," he said, "the girl's got guts." He laughed about it, and I could tell his morning was definitely type B fun.
Right after that, I bought a bottle of wine. The cashier carded me. Awesome.

Meh

2008-03-26T18:39:00.000-07:00

Today as I was giving the kid at the gas station my 30 bucks, the kid said something to me.
He said: " Long day?"
I noticed he had one of those eyes that doesn't look in the same direction as the other one, and crooked teeth. I smiled wordlessly.
"I can see it in your eyes, " he told me, "It will get better."
"It isn't bad, " I said.
"I know. But you won't be as tired, or maybe as lonely as you are right now."
He handed me my change, and smiled kindly as I pulled back onto the road, hoping he was right.

Still burning

2008-03-02T21:11:00.000-08:00

It just occurred to me that this is the only place I write anymore. I used to write avidly, feverishly, needfully-- in other places (paper, mostly; poems and essays and lengthy letters in all caps to old lovers about this and that; letters to my grandmother). I don't know what happened to that very specific kind of passion. Maybe I wore it out. Maybe I made it into other things: cooking, photos, working. Maybe I just got tired of myself.
So: acupuncture.
Anyone who knows me knows I am heavily identified with this part of myself, especially people who know me for any length of time. It is something I have made at times with great difficulty.
I love it. I love it that it is ancient. I love it that it is magical and mysterious and somehow still true. I love its tools: needles (silver, gold, copper, and even this modern stainless steel) hands, fire, intention. I love it that is is a big puzzle with no static answer; it is changeable and flexible and, at least where I live inside of it, open to interpretation. And not. Depending.
This new acupuncture I am learning has me in all kinds of awe and wonder. After only two months I am finding myself looking at (indeed the world) and living inside of acupuncture differently than I had been. Less is more. Pay close attention, and much will be revealed. All pieces of my perception are being changed, shifted, trained to minute details. Everything inside this work is quiet and listening: especially my hands. The pulse is this vast and subtle cathedral where you can live forever listening to the hum and roll of the meridians in the body, ever shifting, sinking, rising, and singing--just under your fingers. I never had that offered to me at TCM school. Here it is part and parcel: a touch, a shift, a word, and a thousand ways to describe it. I always knew acupuncture was my home, but this place is the bath, the featherbed, the good flame on the stove, one that will fire up hot but still simmer softly.
The learning here is humble but not reverent. There is laughter and wry and wonder. Our teachers are gentle and clear. And also there is us: beginners, worrying, fumbling, trying to get it. We work in small study groups--asking one another questions, feeling our pulses, getting feedback, and inevitably getting to know each other intimately, quickly, carefully. Still, it is quite something to be lying supine on a table having some stranger touching your belly and asking you about your period (abdominal palpation is a big deal here). It is a strange thing to offer up your body for this sort of examination, and we all have our ways of coping.
I'm up front: I hate it when people touch my belly, especially strangers. I said so, and my partners were quick about it and plain and made sure to ask for every permission.
We end up saying things we might not say to new acquaintances in any other situation.
One of my partners would not stop talking--and what he said was this:
"I'm destroyed."
I had my hand on his pulse and my eyes in his and told him he looked okay to me. A shift, a breath, and onto the next thing. We're all there in it, and maybe he felt like I would know it one way or another anyways. I thought he was courageous for saying so, I suppose, and a little scared that he did say so. It is all part of this pretty cool new thing I am up to--all this knowing and feeling and learning. I've never done it quite this way: paid up front, feet on the floor, mind wide open, sticking my boot in it hard, like maybe I've got someplace to be.

Ow with the legs

2008-02-28T16:19:00.001-08:00

IMG_5945, originally uploaded by hellozetta.
This morning we rode gondolas and lifts to nearly the very top of Whistler. Down here in the village we have been socked in all week and rainy. The middle of the mountain is a zero-visibility fogparty. But the top, the top is a sun-dazzling dream. I was skiing well until we got to the fogged in areas, where there was steep and no way to see where you might be going. Could be off a cliff, or maybe clear over the edge of the world, where there are monsters waiting to eat your kidneys like little tapas. I didn't cry, but there may have been a little stretch of steep fog that got to me.
Also, my legs are ruined and started burning when I bent over to adjust my boots before I even got on a downward slope. VBM is more patient and mysterious than Dumbledore. I did get passed by a small group of black diamond munchkins. I shook my fists at them. I do not get how little kids can bend over backwards and wave their arms in the air while careening down a vertical slope while I have to get my weight forward, lean down the hill, weight the ski, relax, breathe, and stay forward all fucking day long.

Update; administrivia

2008-02-26T15:54:00.000-08:00

Whoa Zetta had a great time at her class over the weekend. I feel like I came a far distance with this new material. It is magical and interesting, and, ECL, I now know what do do with some of the stuff I am learning. The VBM came up and we stayed in a sweet B&B for two nights. After that, we spent the day driving to Whistler, where we will remain until Saturday pretending to be rich people, enjoying a ski vacation.
Yesterday when we arrived I spent some time in the fitness center defragging my shitty car mood, and after that we went to the pub that is literally spitting distance from our condo thingy and quaffed ale and I ate about 7464522879 chicken wings. They were good.
My experience as a beginning skier has been a mixed bag. When I took my first lessons I did great, felt comfortable on the skis, and looked forward to a lifetime without the sort of whiplash one sustains when she catches a front edge on her snowboard at a high rate of speed. Then I got on a steep hill, and everything went south. This year I have been working on not being afraid of a steep hill and also being able to turn on a steep hill without my eyes exploding and having a heart attack because yes, you are supposed to lean down the hill. On these slippery things attached to your feet. Up until last week or so, I had been making great strides with the steep hill/heart attack situation. Then we went night skiing , and where there is night skiing, there are steep hills. I had a rotten time trying to grow a pair and make good turns with speed on the inclines. It was awful. I was very worried about coming here after that.
Last year here at Whistler, there may have been crying. Just maybe.
Today was a good day skiing for me. My first run I had some issues with the steep and some falling, but after that I got more and more confident. I am excited for tomorrow, if not a little worried that my legs might come off because of the abuse they took today. The weather is warm, the snow is good, and I am lucky to have VBM patiently teaching me. And? The band of rugrats only passed me once today. I think last year I was lapped several times by a chain of 3 year olds. I hate them.

Also, if you want me to have your email address, please send me an email. I DO NOT HAVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS since my ibook crashed last week.

Good morning

2008-02-26T08:25:00.001-08:00

Good morning, originally uploaded by hellozetta.

I'm screwed

2008-02-20T16:49:00.000-08:00

My hard drive failed yesterday, and all attempts to recover my data failed, which means I have lost much of my address book. Lots of this data was backed up, but please send me an email so I can put it in the new hard drive.

*sigh*

Change Jar Money

2008-02-16T17:07:00.001-08:00

Ultra wide, baby.
What does Zetta do when blessed with the (rather substantial) windfall that was her change jar?
Does she pay bills, because she has a lot of them, and she is missing a week of work this month? Does she buy groceries? No. She buys a hunk of glass, that is what she does.
This glass cannot do its ultimate job while being screwed onto the body of Zetta's current camera. So Zetta is considering a wee upgrade. Meanwhile, look forward to creepy churches, far out distortion, and maybe sometime this year, some crazy fisheye action.
Please commission Zetta for photos so she can continue to declare certain tax deductions, yall.

Getting smoo-d

2008-02-14T18:34:00.000-08:00

A few words about today:
A dozen red roses were delivered to me at work, compliments of the absentee VBM, who definitely gets a gold star for the day. Today is the birthday of my late paternal grandmother; her name was Valentine. After enjoying a lovely lunch with my mother outlaw, I found a wallet in the street. It was disappointing in that it only had two dollars in it. It did have lots of other stuff that someone would be upset about losing, so I found the driver's license inside it, and went to return it to its rightful owner. I was greeted by a tearful young woman with a phone attached to her head. She wordlessly pulled me into a giant hug. Her man then appeared, thanked me profusely and told me they were moving to Rhode Island. Tomorrow. I was so glad I had found her wallet and returned it to her. That hug she gave me? It made my day.

Also, I found this curious envelope inside the door at work when I was unlocking this morning:

So tiny, and so inviting with a wax seal!
Here is what it said inside:

I don't know who it was for, or of it was for anyone, or if it was a random thing.
But anyways.
Awesome!

Rawwrrr

2008-02-12T20:12:00.000-08:00

I know sometimes I have rainbows and butterflies coming out of my mouth, but today, I'm feeling cranky. Here is my list of hatery for the day:
-People who do not pick up the poop.
(Yes, even if you don't like the Mormons, you should pick up the giant turd your dog has deposited on the church lawn. This is a place where people worship, and you are a total asshole for leaving dogshit on the grass here.)
-Paralegals who can't be nice when they call and ask for documents. Yes, I mailed it, and yes, you still have to have a consent form signed by the client no matter how bitchy you are.
Also, I am not in the office today, so go fuck yourself.
-The jackass who picks up the garbage in my neighborhood. Please stop throwing trashcans every which way, you jerk.
-USE YOUR BLINKERS
- People who spit. This is disgusting. Knock it off.
-Vegan Strip Club? Please.

Letting go some things

2008-02-10T18:58:00.000-08:00

A lifetime ago I was living, newly, in a midwestern city that shall not be named. I was enthralled with the idea of restaurants--restaurants that weren't Perkins or Pizza Hut or the shack that turned out maid-rites. I was also pretty darn broke, and interested in new experiences, so I found this hippie kinda vegetarian restaurant called The Mud Pie. And I brought my friend there, that friend I've known the longest, and we loved loved loved this dill dip they had there. It was called tofu dill dip, and we would go there just to eat that on some tortilla chips and mope out the window at the snowbank because we were in our 20's. The Mud Pie has long since closed and the location is now home to a sports bar. Because we need more of those.
A million times I have tried unsuccessfully to duplicate this stuff. You'd think it would be easy--c'mon, tofu dill dip? Memories are hard to taste. Last weekend I was at my favorite grocery store, and they was having a chip tasting. I dipped a tortilla chip into a bowl of dill dip. MMMMM! It was awfully similar to my memory of the Mud Pie's dip, and I grabbed a recipe. I got very excited when I read the recipe card, because it called for not mayonnaise, but tofu! I grabbed a container of soft tofu and came home and got my friend on the horn. She does not cook, but she wanted the recipe. We decided to convene the next day via phone to make the dip together. Long story short, the dip is okay, but it isn't all that great. It isn't what we used to go to the Mud Pie for, and say mmmmm after the first bite, and then stare out the window into the snowbank with Tori Amos songs in our heads. Nope.
Some things, I guess you have to leave where you found them. I miss eating with my old friend across an old wooden table, delighting in simple things like salt and corn and tofu. She says she's thinking of moving here, and I would love to sit across the table from her again on a regular basis, say, with a bowl of pimento cheese, or yummy chicken wings and quaff some ale.
I am happy to have left those times and places behind, but glad I got what I got from them. Back then, everything was unstable, uncertain, and the world was a cold and scary place and mostly everything seemed impossible to me. Things are still unstable and uncertain and scary, but they are also rife with possibilities, and lots of love and care and laughing.
I suppose I can drop the thing with the stupid tofu dill dip. Who knows? Maybe it is just that my palette is more discriminating. I mean, come on. TOFU dill dip? What were we thinking?

It takes a real man

2008-02-05T08:08:00.000-08:00

Recently at our house there have been one or two brief conversations about Matt Damon, mostly because of this hilarious video. For instance, out of the blue, VBM might say, "Matt Damon sings about as well as I do," or "Matt Damon is a really cool guy. I bet we would be friends."
He's watched all the Jason Bourne movies. This morning, after I admitted to having the song from the video playing in my head, VBM mused over Matt Damon yet again. he glowed a little.
"VBM, " I said, " I know you have a crush on Matt Damon." VBM tucked in his shirt and agreed.
"Yeah, I have a mancrush on Matt Damon. What's wrong with that?"

Zetta endeavors to learn something new

2008-01-28T17:46:00.000-08:00

This past weekend I began a new course of acupuncture study. I took my training in TCM, or Traditional Chinese Medicine. In the US most people who practice acupuncture are trained in this manner, with the exception of a small number of folks who got their edumacation about acupuncture from this really interesting school called the Five Element. TCM is a vast, and, some people say, a complete medicine. I think of it like a big organization with lots of departments--you've got your warm diseases, your cold diseases, your organ differentiation, your materia medica, and you've also got a behemoth of material to pursue, study, refine, and live inside forever. People can get fairly rabid and righteous about what they study, how they study it, how it applies to clinical realities, and on and on and on. There are more than just a few scholarly folks in this field who have alot to say about how they know this and that and the other thing, and they might, but I think if you don't get out there and do this stuff--all the time, then what good are all the quotes you have stored up in your brain from books that got wrote thousands of years ago? The way I see it, it is a damn fine way to make yourself into an asshole. For all the not-remembering chapter and verse of the Su Wen that I do, I'm working on people all the time. TCM, for all its pretty things and big stacks of books (stuff I love) has been somewhat empty for me spiritually. It's neat, but I want something else, something finer and sweeter and prettier to delve into wholly. I'm mostly interested in acupuncture as its own thing. I want to know what it is, what it does, why it does it, and, most importantly, how I can play with it.

I chose a course of study in a system of acupuncture that is not TCM. It comes from part of TCM--for those of you that want some jargon around this, the toyohari meridian therapy comes from the Nan Jing. A book I have not read because I am a punk and a terrible scholar and a wretched person, but I am going to read it, I swear. This stuff is based on Five Phase Theory, which I think we talked about for four minutes in first year TCM school, on a break between Four Stages and maybe Hot Disease or something. I am sure I was not paying attention because I was hopped up on coffee and watching the clock, because I was bored out of my mind. (See above about terrible scholar etc.)
So this meridian therapy class I am doing is really crazy if you are like me and accustomed to sticking needles in people. We use needles, but we don't puncture the skin. I knew that going into this situation, but once I got there I was pretty uncomfortable with it. Toyohari practioners come from a tradition of blind acupuncturists in Japan. That is what brought me to this course. I want to be the kind of practitioner who relies on the really subtle things about energy and feel and seeing and the magic that is necessarily germane to acupuncture for me, but also to plain old physiology. The getting there is going to be a bumpy ride.
I went from an adept, mildly seasoned, clinically knowledgeable acupuncturist to someone who had never felt a pulse or held a needle. When my classmates reported changes in pulse qualities, I didn't feel anything. When we were locating points in small groups--again by palpation and with a touch so light one hardly contacts the skin (tiny bony landmarks we love to find? Nope.) I was lost, scared, and it was getting dark out and I didn't bring any matches, extra food, or a compass. It is exactly like switching from Windows to Mac. I have to forget about all kinds of things that live in my head and which I use all the time and with every patient I see. I feel clumsy and stupid and I am fully willing to cop to it.
I'm excited anyway. When the teacher for the weekend addressed the class for the first time, he said this: "This work is a highly refined art, and you will always be learning it, throughout your lifetime." For the first time in a very long time since beginning my journey as an acupuncturist, I felt my heart open like a giant soft flower to the sunshine.

Team Dork

2008-01-22T21:24:00.001-08:00

Us two, originally uploaded by hellozetta.

You know you love us

Rawwrrr

2008-01-19T21:29:00.000-08:00

Optic: I also love those chem-Totino's pizzas, but have resisted indulging since I decided to eliminate chemicals from the diet last year.
Just talking about the Totino's makes me want to spend a dollar for the chem-yumness.
I will hold strong, however! MMMM roasted cauliflower. mmmm?

Feeling a bit gloom and doom about human beings in general:
Nobody uses their turn signals. I bet LOTS of money is going down the lazy-hole because of accidents caused by failure to signal. Fuckers, use your goddamn blinkers!

The building that houses my in-town business, and the workplace of my beloved partners-in-crime, is for sale. Our landlords failed to let us in on this, and we found out via GOSSIP. Lame! Fuck you, landlords! We will find some greener, lovelier space and find out via gossip about how you were treed by javelinas and then eaten by snakes!

The end.

Why I'm a phony foodie

2008-01-08T17:45:00.001-08:00

A list of things I have never et:
Osso Bucco
Linguini with clam sauce
Truffles
Cassoulet
Squid ink anything
Caviar
Lobster! Dammit!
Tripe
Foie Gras (can you believe that shit?)
Rack of Lamb

Some foods I really enjoy:
Chicken wings (though everyone I know loves them, even real foodies and people like VBM's Mom and the Lunch Lady.)
Hot dogs. Shut up.
Any sort of pasta with cheese or cream sauce
Burgers
Good ol' tots
White trash tacos--the baked hard shell kind with ground beef and chem seasonings, and yes, the ice berg lettuce garnish
Fried egg sammiches, but not with ketchup, the way my dad eats them
Denver. Omelet.
Hashbrowns. Oh fuck it. I love the potato the way all midwestern girls oughta.
Pretty much anything that has been dipped in batter and deep fried. (who doesn't??)
Dry wheat toast.
Mexican cokes

Please chime in with your guilty pleasures. I feel so alone!

Previously on Twin Peaks

2008-01-02T20:44:00.000-08:00

Nobody comments on this blog anymore. People, it is time for you to start commenting again.
Be anonymous, be my mom, be Fudge Christine, but just comment.
I have a raging case of PMS and I am officially about as pissed off at nothing in particular as I can be. Moments ago, over pizza with the lovely and patient VBM, I happened to see a photo of Mike Huckabee in the newspaper. I felt my brain starting to sizzle. It made a little noise, sssszzzzzzz.
And my eyes, they got very narrow. "Mike Huckabee," I said, in a very annunciatey way, "Please. Go. Fuck. Yourself." VBM chuckled a little.
And then he told me that Jesus had told him that he also felt that Mike Huckabee should go fuck himself.

Inspiring People in 2007

2008-01-01T08:52:00.000-08:00

I have this wise and cool friend who has spent the last year doing things that most people want to do but won't or can't. I'm not talking about space flight or cliff diving in Belize.

The first time I spent any time with this woman, she told me that she was "committed to misery." I think I may have said I thought that was crazy, but after I thought about it awhile I could see how it is that many of us are committed to misery--in all kinds of ways. She was just plain enough in her speaking to say so. Some of us stay in jobs that make us miserable, or continue to relate to our siblings in ways that create misery. We might never take out the recycling. There are lots of ways to be committed to things that don't help us live happy lives.
Still, I kind of couldn't understand why this creative, smart, interesting person would be committed to misery. I liked her anyway. Alot.

Over the last year, my friend has taken drastic steps to improve her health, and for the first time in the 5 years I have known her, she will tell you she feels good when you ask after her well being. Then she giggles. She joined a fitness center, where she swims and lifts weights. She walks every day. She asked me last week if I might be interested in walking a half marathon with her. Hell yes I would. She has made diet changes and has lost weight. Almost every time I talk to her, she is talking about learning something new, or having some experience she has yet to have. She'll say she's scared, but then she goes and does it anyway. Seeing the transformation from one who was at one time committed to misery to one who is committed to new experiences is an incredible gift. It takes courage and work to manage all that. Some people try and try and never get there. But my amazing friend, she just went ahead and did it.

And she keeps on doing it, every day. She shines a light in the world for all of us, a light she may have not even know she had. I plan to follow her example for the next year--I will make changes in my life that seem uncomfortable in order to achieve something I really want. I will make the choice to experience things differently than my default setting. And then I will laugh about it, like she does.

Hibernating; clues I should not ignore

2007-12-18T20:21:00.000-08:00

I have been mostly antisocial lately. Drawn in. Not unhappy, just happy to keep to myself.
My practice has been slow. This is frightening, discouraging, and it makes me less solvent than usual. I will admit it is bringing up old fears about survival, and memories I'd rather not explore about choosing food or gas. Still, if the me of last year or the year before was talking to the me of now, and the me of now was bitching about how much money she wasn't making, the me of two years ago would bitchslap the me of now, and the last year me would just shrug her shoulders.
Nevertheless, I worry. Besides that, it is dark, it is winter, and the absolute yin in me wants to be quiet, sleep, eat starchy fatty things, and watch the fire burn down while my big white furry babeh snuggles with me on the couch, the only time he is soft and sweet. I am blessed with many friends who would like very much to see me. But I just want some space, some not-talking, some emptiness I'll never fill.

My mountain practice has been particularly slow lately. I haven't put much energy into it. I have left the farm, which is something I haven't discussed here. (I love the farm, but I do not love the drama inherent on a farm with 12 horses, one woman, and transient help. See above.)
Sometimes I wonder if I should just give up my work on the mountain, regardless of how much I love it there. Today I was considering just that, when my phone rang. It was the Tuesday Lunch Crowd at the Spoon, calling to tell me they missed me. It was loud. In the background I could hear people shouting, "We love you!" I felt warmed and loved and tingly inside, like someone who has something special that was just given to her. A little while after that, another mountainy woman called me to ask if I would send my love for her dog into the universe. It so happened that this dog, who belongs to a patient of mine, was given some rawhide, which does not agree with him. The dog has been very sick for days, and this patient of mine told me that she knows that I know things about healing, she said, and that my love would help her dog, as it has helped her so much. I had never had a conversation quite like that. And later still, one more mountainy woman phoned me, to give me news I had been waiting for and worrying over.
On this day of considering whether or not to continue my mountain work, the mountain called me on the phone three times--once to love me, once to ask me for help, and once to remind me how much I have helped already.
This girl knows when she has been told.
I'll put more of myself up there, and let it grow again.

Happy Birthday, VBM!

2007-12-08T19:51:00.001-08:00

hunka hunka burnin' love, originally uploaded by hellozetta.

You are god's gift to me. You are so smart, and apt, and calm.
I don't know what the world would do without you in it, keeping things from going totally haywire.
You are generous with your time and with your love.
You work so hard in so many ways, and you do it without complaint, even if it hurts.
You are amazing and beautiful.
Happy Birthday, VBM! There are lots of people being glad you were born, and I'm standing in that line, every day, always, and crazy in love with you.
May this next year be filled with new challenges, high adventure, and crispy bacon.

A word about body image and stuff

2007-12-04T11:56:00.000-08:00

The other day there was an article in the paper about how kids are no longer required to shower after PE or sporting events. Read it and maybe leave me a comment about how you feel reading the article. It got me thinking back to my wretched, stereotypical adolescent days.
I grew up in a smallish, conservative-ish Minnesota town. It was the 80’s. I was a small little wee thing, and had learned from listening to the boys on the school bus that what really made girls attractive were “big tits”. As an aside, I have always, always hated that word, tits. Considering my introduction to slangy euphemisms for things of a sexual nature was the back of a school bus populated by children of garbage truck drivers and kids who were supposed to give their lives to Jesus, it is somewhat of a feat that I can even think about sex. Anyway, as you might have guessed, I did not possess the requisite tits. I was invisible, so I sat in my assigned seat with Tom Grimsley, who was a wrestling star and treated me rather respectfully despite the ambiance on the bus. I would stare out the window and feel pretty darned despondent. Firstly, boys were clearly the stuff assholes were made of. And secondly, I wanted so much for them to like me anyway, but I was going nowhere with my lack of a rack. I was very ashamed of my little body, and I hid it by wearing huge clothes. Yeah, they were comfortable and warm. But really, I just wanted to disappear.
Some years before that, I had experienced this rather defining moment when some kid (the son of a septic maintenance guy) asked me if I wanted a Milkbone at lunch. I was a pretty soft and impressionable kid in second grade, so I wore that ugly badge until I was, oh, about 33 years old. Silly, I know, but when you get really committed to some idea as a youngun, even if that idea is crazy, you tend to hang onto it. (see: religion.) And so I found myself in the seventh grade with a flat chest and a dog face sitting in Mrs. Owens’ health class.
Mrs. Owens. Here was a woman who cared about clean. She told us girls, who had been separated from the boys for health and PE, all about what it would take for us to get clean. By the way, the boys were upstairs in the naturally lit, airy gym, doing cool shit like climbing up ropes to the ceiling. We were in the stinky old wrestling room in the bowels of the ancient middle school (it had been a high school at one time, the high school my Grandmother attended.) doing aerobics. After doing aerobics on the musty, staph-laden wrestling mats, we were required to shower—and for good reason. I mean, ew. But Mrs Owens had a showering policy. Her policy was that you could not leave the communal shower area until you were wet enough. Mrs. Owens decided if you were wet enough. Finding myself in a situation where I was dreadfully, painfully uncomfortable in my body and being forced to shower with 20 other girls who probably felt the same way I did was a recipe for a bummer, I’ll tell you that. Mrs. Owens told us that our “private parts” needed extra washing, scrubbing, even, and that we should always use scented feminine hygiene products and douches to cover up the smell.
As far as I could see, I was basically fucked. Short, flat-chested, ugly, and now smelly.
It is a miracle I ever lost my virginity.
I’m sad for myself and my peers that we had no one to advocate for us. I’m sad that we have all had to get over Mrs. Owens and the things she told us. How I wish there had been a young woman around to tell us otherwise. Or an old woman. Any woman. This education sufficiently influenced me that this body was a disgusting thing, and the lessons I took from it made it nigh impossible for me to ask anyone, let alone my mother, for help and advice about how to grow up in a female body. I think it was around that time I began to devoutly wish I could become a cat.
I’m struggling even now with body image. I know I have written here about my forays into the gym. I am not getting any lighter, folks, and it bothers me. I think I am having the problem of comparing the way I look to retouched images of women much younger than myself. I have learned to dress—and I know I look alright in my clingier clothes. What am I aspiring to, and will I even notice if I get there? Or will I be doomed, like so many women are, to feeling like I am always too fat? How did I get to this place? I used to hate my body because it was too small. Now it isn't small enough. Goddammit.

If I were Queen Of The World

2007-11-24T14:17:00.001-08:00

People would not say "I threw up in my mouth a little". That was funny exactly one time, and that time was the first time anyone saw Zoolander. After that, becomes punishable by death. Even writing it on your stupid blog or myspace page is out. Using this verbage in a comment scenario on the internet, also rates execution.

People would not talk on their stupid cell phones in workout areas of the gym. Ever. Also, punishable by death.

People would not write paragraphs that look like this....it is so annoying....it just makes the writer seem lame, flakey, and like her thoughts are forever trailing off....it isn't appropriate to write like this...so if I were Queen Of The World, writing paragraphs like this....would get your typing privileges revoked....permanently....

Text messaging at all, much less while driving, gets you grading papers for the comp 101 class at Juvie. For a year.

Wearing a bluetooth headset at dinner? Forehead tattooing that reads "BLUETOOL".

There would be NO high fructose corn syrup and no industrial corn stuff in any food.
There would be no Big Gulps or Supersizes. The largest soda available would be sweetened with sugar and in an 8oz container.

Reality TV, banished.

Them damn kids would stop dressing like crack whores.

People would not be able to get famous by going on television with their breast implant surgeons.

4 day work weeks, people.

Ridiculous packaging, a mere memory.

No holiday advertising.

There would always be decaf at the self serve station where you go grocery shopping.

Billboards? What billboards?

The airport would not suck.

Housing, healthcare, and education would be accessible to everyone, not just rich people or corporations.

Kids, they would not be allowed in brewpubs, or to ride their bicycles in bagel shops.

I know there is so much more I can do as Queen, but for now, I need a little siesta.
*sigh*

Good American Family Traditions

2007-11-23T16:47:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we went over to VBM's Mom's house for a potlucky Thanksgiving afternoon. Ever since I've been with VBM, I have had the great pleasure of being part of this feast. For one thing, everyone in attendance can cook. No namby-pambies here. There is always bacon on the menu, and there is laughing. I made a bacon-infused corn chowder, and I was happy with the way it turned out and proud to serve it to the foodies. VBM made awesome molten chocolate cakes in little ramekins. Oh! There were warm vinegar-y greens, cold salad greens with homegrown carrots and bright blackberry vinegar, and a chicken stew with tomatoes and olives that was sublime. I brought my soup over cold, having made it the night before, and had to spend some time warming it over lowish heat because it had heavy cream in it. While I was stirring my soup, VBM came into the kitchen and had occasion to exclaim, "motherfucker!" I can't remember now why he did that. It might have been because Cooper was eating the recycling, or maybe he grabbed something hot. Anyway, I said to VBM, "VBM, you can't say motherfucker in your Mom's kitchen!" And he kind of shrugged, and then VBM's Mom asked me what he said that he shouldn't say, and I told her he said motherfucker. VBM protested that I had now said motherfucker twice. VBM's Mom said this:" What? Motherfucker?!"
And that, my friends, is only one tiny small reason why I love holiday meals at VBM's Mom's house, and one tiny small reason I love all those relatives of VBM's. They are smart, they are funny, and they never stop being delightful.

The Dog Shouter; I Need A Montage; Etc

2007-11-19T18:34:00.000-08:00

I know I have written a good many posts concerning my dog, Cooper, and the misadventures surrounding said dog. He is a willful soul, that dog, and stubborn and beautiful and full of evil tricks. One of the most difficult aspects of his training has been his recall. For a long time, the little bastard would just not come when called. One time I spend about an hour trying to get him on a trail at the mountain. He would get almost within reach and then bolt. I started crying, at one point, and he got so curious that I was able to grab the fucker and march him back to his kennel. We've had instances where he'd be out in the back yard, just not coming, and VBM would even be this close to beating the whelp. We have tried treats. We have tried training him on a line. We have tried shock collars. We have tried shock collars that can be turned up on high and made to exact a continuous current into the mutt's ruff, all to no avail. Without going so far as to claim total success, I think I have finally got some footing on the recall ground with this dog.
It is a technique which is part Cesar Millan, part My Dad. I like to think of it as Yelling With Strong Intention. The dog will now come to me when I get all the energy I can muster right into my lungs and larynx and scream: GET OVER HERE NOW! At the same time, I am telepathically showing him this place I have imagined for him, called Dead Dog Farm. And Lo, here comes the dog. Hello, dog. You are so pretty. You are so good. VBM says I am the Dog Shouter. But whatever. It works, don't it?

***********

The VBM and I have both bought season ski passes and also booked our second annual trip to Whistler. I am worried about all this skiing because I am still basically in pizza and french fry mode and part of me wants very much to ski with the manful VBM and the other part of me much prefers hanging out by the fire in my apres-ski shearling boots and the ski pants that make my butt seem smaller drinking spanishes. My friends, I am Stan Darsh and I need a montage. God help me.

***********

I made a pot of chili today. The kind of chili you ate as a kid, the kind that may have come from a can? I made that, from scratch. Yum!

ask not what you can

2007-11-18T17:33:00.000-08:00

Relationships are complicated. There was a time when my opinions about people and what to do with them were informed by a polarized view of the world. Things, they was much easier back then. The longer I interact with human beings, the more gray area there is. People are motivated by all kinds of things and for just as many reasons. I like to think I don't have any hidden agendas, that I am easy to read, that my motives are clear, that I am loyal and honest, and that I give of myself as much as I get in relationships. I am probably wrong about these things to some extent, or at the very least, in the eyes of some people. I'm getting to a place where I am reasonably comfortable with my vulnerability. I've given it, perhaps too freely, to people who lied to me about themselves and blamed me for how they felt about it, to people who hold tightly to double standards, and also to people who are more interested in what other people can do for them instead of how they can contribute to any given scenario. I need to have better boundaries.
I'm grateful to be blessed with more than one or two really good friends--the kind who know me forever, the kind who don't much care it's been way too long since we talked or hung out, we just pick right up where we left off. I thrive on that kind of simple love, the kind that doesn't keep score, punish me for taking care of myself, or fail to ask me, at least once in awhile, how are you, and how is your life, and if you aren't around much, why not?
I have found myself in a situation in which I have given much more than I was really interested in giving, but I did it anyway, and now I'm unhappy about it. I've been distancing myself from it for many weeks. My distance, or absence, is either unnoticed or simply not commented upon. The funny thing is, I used to talk to this person every day. Now not so much. She still doesn't ask me how I am, even when days go by between times when we talk. For awhile I was hurt by this, but now I am just used to it, and I wonder sometimes, how long it will take for the days between the times we talk to stretch out into months, and if it will matter to either of us. Maybe it was a lesson for me, this being a friend to her, about my own boundaries. The lesson I learned? Make friends with people who are more interested in you than in what you can do for them. Amen.

A Little Rant About Stupid Americans

2007-11-14T19:41:00.000-08:00

This morning on the radio and I heard a story about the drought in the Southeastern US.
They interviewed this stupid, shortsighted motherfucker about how he had a well drilled in his yard so he could keep watering his lawn. Such wells are not subject to current drought condition water rationing down there in the Southeast. Then they interviewed the guy who drilled this stupid, shortsighted motherfucker's well, and he said he's got plenty of wells like that to drill on his docket. Do these people really need to be told that these private little wells they are drilling to WATER THEIR GRASS are draining the aquifer too? Goddammit. That is all.

Is there a ghost in my house

2007-11-13T17:50:00.001-08:00

(photo by some innocent bystander)
I had the best weekend with my friend from long ago. It has been a decade since we lived in the same part of the country, but some things never change. We still listen to the same music, and over time our tastes and preferences have evolved in kind. We make the same silly gestures that nobody else makes; we both like to blandly state the obvious and then giggle about it. I wondered if this is a product of knowing one another for most of our lives, having been kids together, or having been kids in the same place? Or are we just both members of the same strange tribe? I don't know.
It was fun to take her to the ocean, where she loves to go, and watch her delight in the briny edge of the continent. I liked making sure she was comfortable and fed and listened to. We walked up to the top of a waterfall in the rain. We rested in the afternoons. We ate a lot of food.
Spending this time with her was the same as it ever was, but sweeter, more clever, and more honest than it has ever been. I miss her already.

Awesome Weekend

2007-11-09T09:32:00.001-08:00

The friend I've had the longest, she is coming to visit me for the next four days. I can't wait!

Being In My Body

2007-11-06T18:43:00.000-08:00

At the end of August, I joined a gym. I had been resisting such a move for years, citing the expense, the environment, the lameness of such an endeavor. After all, if you want to run stairs, go run some stairs--what good is a stair-climbing machine in front of a bank of televisions?
The thing is, I wasn't running stairs, at all. And while I wear a size two, I've been unhappy about my aging, sagging, sized-two extraness for awhile. I don't want to be a fat old lady. I don't want to be a fat 30-something lady. Hell, I don't even want to be a lady, so I had to start somewhere.

VBM is a fitness nut. He is a gym devotee. He looks the part, too. He has a lean, svelte self. Sometimes in the mornings, I'll be taking a bath and I'll watch him shaving, his back to me, rhomboids rippling. He works hard for his no-double-chin having, gut-free life. Sometimes he'll say to me, "I'll be home late. I have a nine mile trail run and then I have to lift weights." I'll be like, Ok. I'll be at home, eating bon bons on the couch. He manfully rides 30 miles up a hill on Saturday mornings on his mountain bike. Me? I walk the dog, go grocery shopping.
I don't want to be Jack Sprat and Co, if you know what I mean.

When I chose to join the gym, I also bought a package of personal training sessions, because I didn't really know how to do what needed doing. My trainer, Regina, is a beautiful woman. She is made of stacked muscle. She is tough. She laughs with me. She kicks my ass. At first I saw her twice a week for half an hour. Now I see her once weekly for half an hour. She is teaching me, each time, new things. Painful new things. With her, I was okay being a beginner. Since then I have procured a heart rate monitor, and four days a week I do some sort of crazy cardio workout on the elliptical trainer, while three of those days I also do a half hour or so of strength training afterwards. I have developed plantar fasciitis, a painful inflammatory condition of the feets, so I must keep walking on pavement to a minimum. Running is out of the question.
I have not lost one pound.
In fact, I have gained weight.
This is mildly disappointing.
I have, however, lost inches, and I can happily wear even some of my size one clothes from before I started feeling I had some extra on me, about 5 years ago. Why'd it take me 5 years to get off my ass and do something about it? I don't know.
When I started with Regina, I could do 8 pull ups. Now I can do almost 30 if I am fresh. I can run on the elliptical almost indefinitely at 70% of my max heart rate. Push it up to 80, like today, for 45 min, and I'm wrecked for the rest of the day. I did also train with Regina after that 80% workout, but I still feel like I am a mess.
What is the result of all this work? Hard to say. I must be getting really strong. There is the faintest hint of definition in my belly. Really faint, though. My beloved tiny slim gray skirt fits me like it used to. I'm thinking about wearing some jeans without a long jacket. The best part, though, is all this exercise is causing me to be really present in my body--at least several hours a week. It hurts. It is difficult. I sweat more than I ever thought possible. But sometimes, I feel like I could do more than I have in a long, long time.

All About Me

2007-11-02T18:08:00.000-07:00

Today was one of those good bittersweet kinds of days: perfect sunny autumn weather.
My work day: pretty cool. I went down to see my chiropractor friend and got some bodywork, without an appointment. On my way into his office, I waved at my haircutter, who is, crazy shit here, someone I went to highschool with, a half a continent away. I got a hug and a kiss from Doctor Smartypants, the Missing Business Partner, whom I almost never see. Cooper and I went for a swell little walk, and we rustled through piles of bright yellow and orange leaves. The sky was very blue. I missed my grandmother. When I came back to work, one of my patients told me that as much as she likes acupuncture ,(she really does, too. She won't miss a week, ever, and it is purely for relaxation) she really likes talking to me, because she thinks I have something special to add to the world, and something special to say about it. My not-so sure new patient with the hurting knees came in feeling alot of pain, and left with a smile on his face. I get to spend the weekend with VBM, who loves me despite my moods and my road rage and everything else that is wrong with me. Next weekend? The Friend I've Had The Longest is coming for a visit. I'm here, I'm established, I'm happy. I'm still melancholy sometimes. *sigh*

I CAN HAZ WHAT YOO GOT?

2007-10-29T19:00:00.000-07:00

THREE DAY WORK WEEK

2007-10-28T08:02:00.001-07:00

Recently, I have made some changes to the way I work. I really like my work--it is all kinds of things that I could never hope to find in any other scenario. I have flexibility, I am consistently challenged, I get to touch people, and I can make my work anything I want it to be. Having this freedom far outweighs any benefits that might be included in employment with some other entity. The notion of paid vacation hardly shines at all because it is so limited. I have my own health insurance--partially subsidized by a state program that exists for people who do not have access to employer-related health benefits. If I lose this subsidy, I have budgeted for my monthly premiums. Employee benefits just don't appeal to me that much. The absence of supervision and micromanagement alone eclipse a couple weeks of paid vacation and a crappy 401k. I'll save money aggressively and decline to answer the phone if I want to, thank you very much.
For a good while I have been very committed to a four day work week. I never work on Mondays, and with the exception of a grave emergency, I do not work on weekends, either. People have funny reactions to this four day work week. "Well, " they'll scoff, "It must be nice."
At first I felt I had to somehow defend my choice to work only four days, and I would hasten to say that on those four days I worked hard, as if working hard would somehow make it ok that I didn't work 5 days. And why would I need to work 5 days, or even work hard at all? What is the character value in that? And why did I feel I needed to justify it? There are some days when I do work hard. Other days, I don't work so hard. It just depends on what people need from me.
I spend a fair amount of my not working time reading about things that pertain to work, but I don't count that research time as work hours, it is just what I do. I do it to indulge my curiosity, to get smarter, to figure things out. I do it because I think this stuff is neat. Pharamacology--neat. Dopamine receptors--neat. Prions? Totally interesting. Is this work? Not really. It is who I am. Do I know how to help you improve your well-being? Probably. Is this something that needs to fit nicely into a 40 hour work-week model? I don't think so. Still, my patients benefit from all my non-working hours curiosity.
There is also a misconception that people like me, who provide a service for a fee, are always making that fee, every hour. If I made my full fee for every hour that I worked, yes, I'd be struggle-free when it comes to meeting my expenses. The thing is, I'm not making that fee each hour. Sometimes this is due to my schedule not being full. Or someone canceling at the last minute, or failing to show up at all. Sometimes this is because I am treating someone for trade, or at a reduced rate, or even for free, because I'm like that. I also have a chunk of overhead each month that isn't all that small. It is a price I pay for all the freedom I have--and I do it gladly. The next time you are using company toilet paper, think of me. I have to buy my own. Money, however, is not the point of this post.
The point of this post is that I have implemented the THREE DAY WORK WEEK. Like I said, I like working, but I like not working even more. I have started telling people this, and the reactions have been supportive. My work partners all thought it was awesome. They have similar schedules and full lives and they are also not rich people. Most of my friends think it is great. I am not sure I will let my patients in on my schedule change, however. I have one patient who has remarked that my four day work week makes me "semi-retired". She said this in the same breath as her complaint about how expensive it is to see me. She sees me once a month, and I told her that if my fee was too expensive for her, she would be welcome to drive an hour to the next nearest acupuncturist and see her for 10$ more per session. The thing is, my three day work week, which is awesome, is a full time job. I am running a business, seeing patients, doing research, keeping my books, buying toilet paper, going to the bank, commuting to and fro, and exploring what it means to me to have a healthy work-life balance.
I'm not busy. I'm just occupied.
What do you think about when you think about the notion of "work ethic"?

Godspeed to you Abbey

2007-10-22T14:18:00.001-07:00

Got food?!!, originally uploaded by shmemmett.

Thank you, for being a beloved friend for so many, many years to my beloved friend. You are dearly loved, and sorely missed.

At the beach!

2007-10-20T17:56:00.001-07:00

I like this sign, originally uploaded by hellozetta.

89 Points of Happy Birthday

2007-10-15T17:01:00.000-07:00

Getting Coffee

2007-10-06T18:28:00.000-07:00

Every Saturday morning, I am off to do the grocery shopping at my favorite neighborhood market. I always try to go before mid morning sets in so I don't have to deal with the hordes of clueless aisle-blockers and vegans getting in my way as I merrily smell nectarines and squeeze the artichokes to see if they squeak. The first thing I do is get a small cup of mostly-decaf coffee.

I hate getting coffee because I am the person who just wants a small, no frills cuppa. And I am always, always, always in line behind about 70 people ordering complicated lattes by the fours. It totally riles me up. And inevitably, the espresso jockey is solitary and slow, while the huddling masses waiting small eternities for their gallon-size sugar bomb espresso drinks are demonstrating just the kind of being in public behavior that makes my liver want to crawl out of my body and eat their heads.

This morning, when I arrived on the scene, I knew it was going to suck because there was a line at the coffee counter and the decaf carafe from the self-serve station was missing. I decided to go find a muffin to eat, but I had to maneuver past the coffee line. The guy in the back of the line was one of those people I hate being in line around, because he is listless, he is silent, and he never gets what he wants or his change is all wrong or some such thing which causes him to stand and stare at the customer service person for a half an hour while the rest of us watch our children grow up, our hair turn gray, our lunch hour circling the drain while this guy puts his 62 cent bagel on a credit card. This guy, he also WON'T MOVE when met with the plea, "Excuse me." I finally just pushed past him and imagined how it would feel to kick him, hard, in the kidneys. I went and got myself a muffin (blueberry) and perused the greeting cards for awhile, keeping an eye on the not-moving coffee line and the empty spot on the self serve cart. Finally, I just decided to get in the fucking line and get me some goddamned coffee. Guess who was still at the end of the line? You guessed it. Mister Zero Charisma. While standing in line, I can see that the decaf pot is brewed up and ready to go, but Slow Barista has no time between 32 oz pear dolce de leche macchiatos to bring it out. Meanwhile, the store is filling up with vegans and hippies and families. Arrrrgggghhhh! And worse, I see Ted, the gay dessert counter guy who never doesn't tell me about all of his ailments in great detail, as if I have nothing better to do than to listen to him talk about the headache he had yesterday that was so bad even percocet wouldn't make it feel any better and he had all these cakes to decorate. Ted had been absent for several weeks due to some foot surgery. I had been enjoying this autumn reprieve from the play by play about his poor health. Zero Charisma then orders 6 lattes. I just about die right there. Slow Barista finally asks Ted to bring out the decaf. "I'd love to," he replies, except you know he doesn't love to, and also he is walking about as fast as a slug, because he has a cast on his leg. "Hey Ted!" I exclaim. "I'll get that for you," I say cheerfully, as I grab the carafe out from his gloms and take it to the self serve station, where I quickly serve myself. Ah, I think, finally! Only now, Ted is standing next to me, telling me all about his surgery, and how much his foot hurts, and how long it is going to take to heal.
"Well, Ted," I say, "It sure is good to see you. Gotta go!"
Why? Why is it so hard to get a plain cup of coffee? Why? Why?

People

2007-10-01T17:32:00.000-07:00

They can be so disappointing sometimes.

chamomile tea

2007-09-28T22:01:00.000-07:00

When did we start loving chamomile tea?
I wondered this just a minute ago, as I was pouring hot water into a glass mug, over a bag of chamomile. Almost all my girlyfriends love this tea. Tea wasn't something I was introduced to as a child, even though the first chamomile I ever knew was growing in the driveway at our house in Minnesota. I used to pick the small yellow buds and crush them between my fingers. They smelled of apples, or vanilla. Matricaria is a favorite herb, used as a nervine, a stomachic, and it soothes the liver.
Best of all, maybe, is that this flar is a sunflower, also one of my favorites. I can't remember when it was I started drinking chamomile tea and associating it with comfort and warmth and well being. I'm sure glad I did, though. I find combining the chamomile tea with a fuzzy bathrobe and a big white furry babeh helps to amplify the effects of the tea. You should try it.

reason #856756746345629204057473930 why I disdain the Decider

2007-09-27T19:02:00.000-07:00

War in Iraq: $ 190 billion more than the $800 billion already spent on this farce
Health care for poor American kids: way too much to spend
Political beating of the dead horse: priceless.

Sir Bitey Biterson

2007-09-26T19:31:00.000-07:00

The Earl of Bitemore.
Knight of the Bite Table.

Your latest performance review

2007-09-24T18:25:00.000-07:00

My old, comfortable anxiety dream, the one almost everyone has:
It is finals week, I have final exams, and I have never been to class. This gets changed up a little, depending upon how neurotic I am. It can include things like Having Never Even Been To Campus, Can't Find My Car Because It Has Been Stolen And Also I Have No Shoes. Oddly, this dream has given way to a new dream, the dream in which I have to get a job, or go to some lame job, and it is conflicting with my own schedule. The job is invariably some lame job or a facsimile of some lame job I have done in the past. I always wake up wondering if I have to go to this lame job and then the relief washes over me and I think to myself, duh, Zetta, you do not have to go work at a grocery store or a pizza kitchen and you haven't had to for 5 years now so will you please just get the fuck over it?
The thing is, I am a terrible employee. I hate working in groups, I disdain management, I am snotty to mucky-mucks, and I am a jerk at meetings. No one would even hire me. I am, however, punctual to a fault and will work hard if need be. I work hard at what I do now, but I don't have the meetings, the management, or the mucky-mucks. And thank god I am not sitting across the table from my manager who wishes he never hired me, trying to figure out a way to tell me to be nicer to people without pissing me off.
Gah. Maybe my friend the Sparkly Warrior Princess will get me a job where she works if ever it should come to that!

Soundtrack to Cooper

2007-09-17T17:27:00.001-07:00

Fight The Power
Its So Easy
Debaser
Smokin In The Boys Room
You Gotta Fight
Loser
We're Not Gonna Take It
Lick It Up
Hey Ho Lets Go
Welcome to the Jungle
Insane in the Membrane

Football is stupid.

2007-09-15T18:59:00.000-07:00

A one hour game that takes four hours to play, 80 million ridiculous white guys providing a running commentary, homoerotic strategery, and gatorade. I'd rather eat some glass.

How not to get good health care

2007-09-13T17:55:00.001-07:00

Do not assume that the person on the phone with you wants to hear all about how sick you are, how you don't have a gallbladder, how many times a day you have diarrhea, what medications you are on, and oh yeah, you have polycystic ovaries, too. Do not tell the person on the phone, who has started already hating you, how much you weigh, and how much you are committed to weighing only that much. Do not, under any circumstances, torture the poor innocent person who has answered your panicked, rambling, TMI and also lame phone call, by talking over her and just not listening at all to what she is saying to you. Because when she is finished getting rid of you, she is going to feel exactly like you just threw up all over her, and her motivation to get you in touch with the help you really do need is going to be zero.

Tell me what you really think of me

2007-09-09T16:06:00.000-07:00

Each weekend I call my mom. She is at home in the midwest, enjoying retirement with my dad, who routinely asks her questions as she chats with me. I can't usually hear what he is saying, but she answers him, and it sounds like this:
Mom: "And then Mary was driving down----what?! I don't know! Look in the drawer! God!
Anyway, she had that brand new car, so......"
or this:
Mom: "Well we have just had so many beans out of the garden, all---"I told you, I'm on the phone! No, it isn't lunchtime! You'd think he could let me finish a conversation for once. But our tomatoes aren't doing all that good."
Today, it went like this:
Mom: "So we had a really nice time at Susan's wedding. Your sister was starving. And nobody had anything---I'm talking to your daughter! .....The old one!"

I guess it could be worse. I could be the retarded one.

And Lex Luthor said.....

2007-08-29T08:25:00.000-07:00

Friendship looks differently to me than it used to. I no longer need or want a large group of adoring fans who totally understand me. This excuses me from totally understanding a whole bunch of other friends who are interested in constant activity. This kind of swarming, I think, is an artifact of being in one's twenties.
I find I am happily involved with VBM, with whom I don't share everything, but he definitely knows what is going on with me. Or at least he knows my schedule. I do not need him to totally understand me, and I am fairly certain that he's keeping me in the loop, too. The nature of relationship seems less intense, but more sweet than it once did, all the way around.
People I am close to know that I'm scared, or embarrassed, or uncertain. They are the people I feel safe with while being a beginner at things: riding horses, skiing, pedaling my mountain bike. I don't know about you, but I just don't have the energy for constant detailed disclosure like I used to have. Also, that shit is boring.
Last night I got on the phone with the girlfriend I have had for the longest time. She's like me, and not like me, and we have had our ups and outs and there are times when we talk alot and times when we talk hardly at all. Lately it has been more talky with us, because she bought a DSLR, and is in that amazing phase of playtime with a camera where one remembers what she forgot when she retired the film SLR and starts seeing things again. It is so much fun to hear her get excited about lines and shadows and how to not wash out the sky. She looks at all my pictures, and I look at all her pictures, and in a sense, it is a way for us to be together, and sometimes, even though she is half a continent away, we are taking the same pictures.
I sat out on my Portland front porch last night, talking with her about the latest shit to go down with Stefano DiMiera and Sami Brady and then we moved on to some other silly pop culture stuff that we both enjoy. For a minute, I felt like we were seventh-graders again, earnestly discussing the effing greatness of Duran Duran, in total agreement, solidly connected, far across the void of all the things we don't agree on, the long times in between a shared meal, and all the ways we've changed over 26 years of being friends.

Hairy salads

2007-08-27T19:46:00.001-07:00

Gah, Zetta. You haven't been writing. I don't even know why.
We have returned from the lovely vacation and started back into our lives. I have been feeling refreshed and ready.
Fall is coming--my favorite season, and I am eagerly awaiting the cool mornings and cool afternoons and even the getting dark at 5P and the rain. Doug firs are loveliest in the rain, and few things capture my imagination like the fog here in the Pacific Northwest. Also: sunflowers, pumpkins, and chantrelles.

Cooper is blowing his coat. It is difficult to really describe what this means in our house. I am not kidding when I tell you that each time I brush him (which can be up to twice a day) I am getting a pile of soft undercoat the size of a houseplant. The houseplant in question being the christmas cactus I got from my mom in my early 20's and which is quite large. How can anyone have that much fur? How can kibble and yogurt make that much soft, downy stuff? And why did I get a purple velvet couch instead of a leather couch, one that I could just wipe off?
Why do I love to wear sticky black fabrics? Why do Subaru interiors insist upon keeping all the dog hair they can get? And why, why, am I finding this hair in my salads? Hairy salads!

Fat Camp

2007-08-13T11:11:00.000-07:00

The VBM and Zetta are back on vacation! This time we are squatting at an Incline Village condo that belongs to the parents of the woman one of VBM's old college friends married. This couple agreed to have us as their guests for a few days, and lo, they are gracious. I arrived late Friday night on a plane to Reno. Many hours after my bedtime I found myself drinking yet another mojito. Saturday, we endeavored to do a mountain bike ride which had been described to us as "flat" by the guy at that bike shop.
Um, no.
Not only did this ride start off with a four mile climb (elevation gain 1100 feet) in SAND, but it also included several miles of riding single track on the edge of a cliff, in SAND (I know I am prone to hyperbole but I am so not kidding and there are five other people who can corraborate my story. The ride then ended in a 1100 foot fast descent, also in sand. I ate shit on that descent, was the last one down, and also the only one bleeding. Good times.
After that, we ate a good amount of food and drank plenty of liquor, so that yesterday I had the divine pleasure of paddling a kayak in the bright sun in chop with a hangover. That was a-ok, actually, and we had a nice time paddling in the azure waters of Lake Tahoe.
People are not willing to let us pay for much around here. Last night we had a wonderful $$dinner that involved bacon-wrapped filet and bottles of wine and seared ahi. When the check was brought, newly arrived parents from back east took it from the waiter and refused to allow anyone to contribute. When I thanked the man for dinner, he replied, "My pleash."
I thought to myself, huh.
Today there is smoke in the air and a haze over the lake. We just came from eating the best damn breakfast I have eaten since I took my leave of this place in 1998. We are planning to embark upon bicyles and kayaks!
Yay vacation!

Me and VBM in Southpark

2007-08-05T21:33:00.000-07:00

Southpark Zetta
Southpark VBM

Don't tell me these aren't hilarious. I'll kick you square in the nuts....
in the nuts.

Miscellaneous post # 657550027826256

2007-08-03T19:12:00.000-07:00

The other day I went to the hipster video store in my hipster neighborhood to rent some DVDs. I usually do not patronize the video store because I have netflix and I love that (no interacting with other human beings). I had to go in there anyway and first of all the guy working there is this short bearded twenty-something frowny guy just frowning away because he is a hipster in Portland and prolly his roommates suck and his stupid band is having ideological conflicts and really, he is gay but can't quite bring himself to admit it. Which is why he is playing Morrisey at a very high level of decibels in the fucking hipster video store. Now, I know I had my couple years in 1988 of listening to ew Morrisey and ugh Bauhaus and the angsty navel gazing that brings on such habits. It is amazing that I did not pick up a heroin addiction or maybe turn into a gothy lingerie wearing pizza slinger, if you think about it.
I perused the documentary selection and considered marching up to the counter and sucker-punching Frowny Frownenheimerstein but I was able to contain myself. When I presented him with my video selection and a smile, he returned the favor with a thousand-yard stare and I knew then that no matter what I did, I was not cool enough, and that I was old.
Lucky for him, I had somewhere else to be on a Friday night. Like in bed, eating pizza and watching movies while VBM was out sleeping in the woods with a bald man.

hell in a handbasket

2007-08-01T16:12:00.000-07:00

Someone somehow got access to my business credit card number and used it to mail order 400$ worth of chrystal. This credit card has not left my possession for one minute since I got it.
Luckily, the company which has issued this credit is not holding me liable, and I have placed the appropriate alerts on my credit report, which needs to stay pristine. Also noted: in today's mail I got a letter from some security company letting me know that data associated with one of my personal bank accounts has been hijacked by a rogue employee and thusly sold to direct marketers.
I need some cloak and dagger, here, people.

Happy Birthday, Cooper!

2007-07-28T17:08:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday, Cooper!, originally uploaded by hellozetta.

Broken Heart Syndrome; Other People's Moms

2007-07-27T21:00:00.000-07:00

Today I saw a patient whom has been coming to see me regularly for FOUR years.
I know him well. I can tell by feeling his pulse if his chronic pain is a 3/10 or a 7/10.
Today he showed up and I knew instantly that something was wrong. His relationship had ended, and he was terribly upset. "I feel like someone has died," he told me, his chin quivering.
Even though I am about to celebrate five years (!) of togetherness with the VBM, I am no stranger to that visceral awfulness that is early stage broken heart. You awaken too early, your heart the size of a city. A big crimson swollen nightmare city that will not calm down. In that city, there is raping, pillaging, and burning. The sky is on fire. Maybe on the horizon you can see a mushroom cloud. It is bad in that city. There is no end to the void of loneliness, of obsessing about what happened. The bootstraps, they are over there across that void and fuck if it seems like pulling yourself up by them is going to do you any good. Tonight I raise my glass to this heartbroken man and ask whatever powers that be to grant him his first night of decent rest, and a little light to help him in the morning.

**********************************************************
Okay, then. A little levity is in order. You know, our moms are supposed to love us. Granted, some of them don't, and some of us don't deserve it, and some people are unfortunate enough to have moms that can't or won't love them. But I'm not talking about those people that are in the newspaper every day. I'm talking about our moms, people. They love us even though we moved across the country and we decided not to go to law school so we could be acupuncturists!
Sometimes, we get lucky enough so that other people's moms love us. And when that happens, you know things are good. I 'm always surprised and amazed at the love VBM's Mom shows me. Of course, I'm crazy about her, too. She's smart and edgy and she has beautiful hair. I do wish she would wear it down more often. And Jackie's Mom, one day, hugged me as I was leaving, and told me, quietly, in my ear, that she loved me.
What good fortune it is to be surrounded by this kind of love. I hope I can live up to it!

More about kids or no kids

2007-07-25T19:05:00.000-07:00

I just got back from the mountain and checked my blog and was surprised to find some comments after the last post! Yay, comments!!

I know plenty of folks, who, like me, choose a path other than that of parenthood. I know plenty of parents, and also a few non-parents who want children dreadfully and for whom parenthood is a difficult place to get to. I don't get too much pressure about my empty womb. I am lucky to have parents who don't try to negotiate this with me so that they can be grandparents. I bet they would love to be grandparents. I am sorry that this is an experience they may miss out on because of choices I have made. But they are my choices to make, and they have not said one word about it.
On that note, they are probably so relieved that I am not institutionalized in some fashion that not having grandchildren is just fine with them. I'm kidding, but not really.
For those of you 6 people reading--do you feel pressured to have children, even though you have chosen otherwise?
People ask me all the time if VBM and I are planning to, and I always say no. Sometimes I'll share that I have never felt compelled to do so, and I'm not interested. It used to be that I'd get told I'd change my mind. But now that I'm reaching middle age, maybe my choices don't seem so naive. Or maybe people figure that an asshole like me should definitely not try parenting.
I don't feel I need an excuse. I don't feel pressured culturally to procreate, or, for that matter, to marry.
I kind of want another puppy, though. VBM is not so inclined.
"But," I whined, "My biological clock is ticking! I want a puppy!"
It didn't work. I thought it was worth a try.

7 things

2007-07-18T17:29:00.000-07:00

I made the mistake of reading ECL's cake blog earlier today and suddenly became "morally" provoked to write 7 things about myself that might not be widely known. Ok ECL, but also, I will make you pay for this.

Measuring things does not work for me. I once gave away a bread machine because I failed at getting the thing to make bread. I just wouldn't measure the ingredients (unless eyeballing stuff is measuring). Maybe it is just that I won't follow directions.

Which brings me to: I almost never open owners' manuals for shit I buy. And even when I do, I don't usually do what the manual tells me to do anyway. I think this is because manuals are engineered by engineers, and my daddy told me that engineers are, well, poorly acclimated to real life scenarios (my wording). I figure I am pretty well adjusted to real life scenarios, so give me the damn food processor (camera, wood splitter, welder, blow-dart gun assembly ) and I'll figure it out myself.

I love potato chips. Goddamn it.

I don't want to have children. I was listening to the BBC's World Have Your Say the other day on my way up to the Farm when they started discussing how it is that people come to decide they'd rather not have a bunch of kids to let run amok in restaurants. This total moron, Lydia, from MN, got on the radio and asserted that people who choose not to have kids are just plain selfish. She went on to prattle about how you can have your selfish time for a few years when you are young, but it doesn't need to last decades, and that it is selfish to have other things in life be a priority. I'm sitting in my car thinking, Lydia, who exactly is suffering from this selfishness? Unborn babies nobody ever thought of? And Lydia, why is it selfish to devote one's life to something other than raising some kids in a world that is perpetually at war, a world that is burning up under the sun, a world that MIGHT NOT KEEP ON SUPPORTING HUMAN LIFE LYDIA and then she started in in how selfish it is when people just have one kid, because then that kid can never know what it is to have a sister or a brother. I was about to get inside my radio and find Lydia so I could kick her ass for her but then I arrived on the farm and the sun was shining and it was cool AND sunny so I got distracted. Lydia, the stupid whore, will get her comeuppance.
I am not interested in being a parent. Perhaps my life will lack a certain richness, but it is one I will not miss. Just looking at the damage I did to my own parents is enough to scare me off but good.

I have a secret guilty pleasure thing going on with Days Of Our Lives. I only watch it now and again, but if I am around the house at 3, you know I'm watching Sami wish she was really with EJ instead of Lucas even though EJ raped Sami and is now trying to get her unborn baby's stem cells to help Stefano not die. Now that's selfish.

I am considering hiring a hypnotherapist to help me erase the 80's from my memory.

For a long time I could not bring myself to eat pizza because I was so sick of pizza due to a job I had that was all about making pizza. Also the pizza I made was shitty pizza, because of corporate intervention. I am over that now, and have reintroduced pizza into my diet.

the end.

High summer, suddenly

2007-07-15T16:32:00.000-07:00

Sometime in the recent past, I was sitting at the picnic table at the girlfarm, laughing my ass off with the other girls who inhabit the farm. The sun had slid down behind the ridge, we had plates piled with grilled meats and big glasses of wine and bubbly water and some frozen peachy thing.
The air was thick with the scent of fir, of cedar, of big bunches of mountain daisies. There were sleeping dogs, horses munching on evening hay, and the click and swirl of sprinklers, too.
Our names: Peach, Daisy, Verah, Marva, Marcy, and Nell. I'm Marva. She's the trashy one who swears all the time. Marcy is the teenage girl from down the road who longs to learn about horses but I think she longs even more to belong someplace. So now Marcy has a place to belong to. We all try to make sure she really knows it, without letting on that we know she needs to know it. We wink at her, tell her slightly off-color jokes, invite her to share our chocolate.
We are all learning something important this summer on the farm--each of us has her own special lesson to master on the path to personal power. We screw up. We break stuff. Stuff breaks on us. We get tired, we get totally excited, we retreat to walk, to read, to get out of the fray. I'd never imagined myself in such a place, with such people, ducking out to slip on some heels and be the local acupuncturist. Or seeing myself in Marcy, and wanting so much to show her how it is here on the other side, where everything is so amazing, and it will never be quite this way again. Not for us, and not for the farm.

VBM's true colors

2007-07-03T09:57:00.000-07:00

It is early in the morning, and I am soaking in the tub. I feel so tired, because I was up late the night before, having taken the VBM to see a live taping of his favorite radio show.
VBM is brushing his teeth.
"VBM, " I croak, "I am paralysed."
I am thinking that maybe he will gently lift me out of the tub, towel me off with a giant white furry towel, and feed me some bonbons.
Instead, he says this:
"Great! Where's your wallet?"

Farm bum

2007-06-26T16:27:00.000-07:00

Today I didn't have any work until noon, so I got so spend my morning as follows:
Woke up late at 7:30.
Drank some coffee with Jack. Breathed in the sunshiney pine air.
Took Coop up the powerlines to let him run, which is excellent, because there are big hills up there. We saw two deer grazing, which he chased.
We also saw a million mountain daisies, foxglove, and the snowcapped peak of Mount Hood smiling down on us.
After that, I got my girlhorse out of the pasture and took her for a walk down the road. She is black and spry and lovely. I like that horse.
Then I ate a taco, and went to work.
I am enjoying my life. I have many blessings to count--and finally, the wherewithal to count 'em.

Anxiety and all her friends

2007-06-24T18:16:00.000-07:00

Insomnia, nausea, worry, rumination, depression. Overachieving, overthinking, undereating.
As long as I can remember, I've been anxious. I didn't always know that I was anxious, but I did know that I was uncomfortable. I didn't know what it was like to not be anxious. Also: I had nothing to be anxious about, not directly. I was just generally freaked out. The world was not a safe place for me. This was not in the sense that I felt that danger lurked around every corner--it was more of a weird mysterious organic knot in my belly that had always been there, and, near as I could tell, was "normal". One time, when I was about ten years old, I cuddled up to the family cat and wished as hard as I could that I could be a cat, and with that would come some peace of mind.
Needless to say, I didn't get to be a cat. And now that I know otherwise, this is a sad state of affairs for a child, expecially one who is not suffering from poverty, or violence at the hands of others, or any of the other myriad horrors that plague the world's children. Hell, when I look at it that way, I had it easy.
I was always awake early, the white hot tightness in my belly ready to get another wretched day under way.
I was awkward, fearful, painfully shy. And this was when things were good. When things were bad, like a seventh grade history test, oh, they were bad. Dread. Fear. And everyone had pennyloafers except me. Which somehow amplified that fire in my belly, and the big cold void that was the future: 5 minutes from now, next week, the eighth grade.
Honestly, I do not know how I got through my twenties, or grad school, or how I managed to get much of anything accomplished. I read books, I ran for miles, I drove around the city at night when I couldn't sleep, listening to the radio. Time was a vast and dark swamp. No matter how good I had it, I could not enjoy it. I couldn't appreciate my achievements, or relish my adventures. I couldn't really love anyone, because I was so afraid of what would happen when they didn't love me anymore. And I could hide it.
I went to counseling. I ate ten million herbs. I have been using natural medicine, mainly acupuncture, as my primary health care since 1990. I tried meditation, exercise, amino acids, vitamins, and did alot of work around why I felt so shitty all the time. There was a good deal of it that I had created for myself, that I was responsible for, yes. But underlying all of that was the familiar, ever-tightening knot in my belly. It still woke me up at night, and early in the morning with a start, followed by the heavy dread that always set in after the shock of waking up in my body, yet again.
Two years ago, in the midst of a personal crisis, I went and saw a psych nurse. I was at my wits' end, hadn't slept in days, and couldn't eat. She prescribed for me a small dose of a widely used anti-depressant. And B vitamins, a protein rich diet regimen, and therapy. I started to feel better quickly. For the first time in perhaps ever, I was getting restful sleep. And when I woke up, the tension that had plagued me as long as I could remember--it was quiet. I am still sticking to her recommendations. Taking pharmaceutical drugs in order to lead a happy life seems anathema to the things I believe, even to my work.
But taking pharmaceutical drugs to lead a happy life has opened my eyes to many things. I do think many people are over medicated. I do think that people "run" from their grief, their trauma, their whatevers, with the use of these medications. Maybe I am doing that. I don't think I am. I do my work. And really, for the first time ever, I can enjoy the fruits of my labor, I can enjoy the sweet love of a good man, I can stay grounded in my work, and when the morning comes, I can wake up without the old tense ghost of a nervous system keyed way up high to where I couldn't see anything, anything at all.

Intrepid Cowgirl Teaches Zetta To Get Out Of Her Damn Head

2007-06-23T20:10:00.000-07:00

I've always loved animals. I've been an animal sympathizer since I was a wee little girl, listening over and over again to my LP record of Black Beauty. Those kids on the playground, galloping like horses? I was one of those weirdos. Oh yes, I watched Grizzly Adams and thoroughly identified with the man. I've always had one or two beasts living right with me. Lately, though, this living among animals has changed for me--it is deeper.
My friend Jackie is a born trainer. She started with dogs, but now she trains horses, and she is devoted to her herd in such a way that people take notice. Her horse vet told me once that when she dies, she'd love to come back as a horse--so long as she could be one of Jackie's horses. The farm has 11 horses, give or take a few, some barn cats, and 3 dogs. When I am there, we add one dog who takes up the energy of two or more. Lots of animals on the farm and few human beings. I'd say we all like it that way.
When I got Cooper, I had no idea about how to train a dog, let alone train a dog whose sole motivation in life is world domination. I'd put him on a leash and he'd pull and bark and roll around on his back, but when Jackie came around, he's stand up straight and be a good boy. She told me, "It has to come from your heart." As far as I could tell, I was really feeling it in my heart that I wanted this dog to behave, but lo, this dog was b-a-d. And then Jack would show up and furrow her little brow at the whelp and he'd win the national spelling bee. I'd take him home and he was smoking crack with all his homies in my livingroom all day long while I was at work.
Little by little, she taught me basic training skills. She always told me that I was a "pushover" and that what we had here was not a dog problem, but a confidence problem. I was still completely bamboozled as to why he was a perfect angel for her, and then turn into my bright and shining arch nemesis. One day a few weeks ago, Cooper was loose in our back yard in the city and acting like a total asshole and definitely not coming to me when I called him. I stood there in my bare feet and my pink fuzzy bathrobe in the early morning sun and thought about my friend Jackie and all the things she had said to me over the months about training this damn dog. He happily gallivanted around me, bounding to and fro, just out of my reach, the little bastard.
I thought: This dog respects me. I'm the damn leader! This dog does what I ask him to do. And for the first time ever, I allowed myself to feel that, to make it a bodily felt sense. And then?
My arch nemesis came to me and he sat down. I finally got it. There is so much more to the thing than a command and a reward. There is expectation, communication, and a good boundary--just like dealing with human beings. Except your animal friend can know your heart, and that is what he listens to, not your words.
What a magical lesson my intrepid lovely friend Jack has given me. It is her nature, so she can't figure out what took me so long. I'm sure glad she waited for me to get it.

Why I Love The VBM #287560808940

2007-06-09T19:04:00.000-07:00

This morning:
"VBM, maybe you should be a porn star, what with all your rippling muscles."
"I'm too good looking to be in straight porn, so it would have to be gay porn."

Oh the days of yore

2007-06-07T20:51:00.000-07:00

I think I used to be somewhat funny here on this blog back in the good old days before some people I really treasured decided I was an asshole and also before I decided to concentrate on saving money and not go out to eat so much, thus reducing my posts about such things as the
kid bar.
It is true, I am an asshole, but I've decided to embrace that about myself and just be one whenever I feel like it. Right now the VBM is opening a box of something he got off of eBay.
Cooper has his nose right in it. "This might be the most attentive anyone has ever been to opening software."
That's my dog. Let us hope he doesn't get his nose in the sealed documents of the Catholic Church employment files as they pertain to the sexual molestation of faithful children. Amen.

Table

2007-06-03T19:30:00.001-07:00

Yesterday the VBM and I fashioned a table out of an old door and some sawhorses and threw a sheet over it. His family came over for dinner. The bought house, I said to VBM, will have a deck.
We ate a lovely arugula/fennel/radish salad brought by VBM's Mom, grilled chicken wings,(because we love them but when you really get down to it who does not love chicken wings, especially with Frank's Red Hot and bleu cheese oh my) grilled tilapia with a lime/chipotle/adobo buttery thing, and artichokes with aioli. There was a pitcher of fresh made mojitos and fresh cherry juice to add. And sourdough bread and a fresh fruit salad with watermelon, mango, and blueberry.
I love this family of VBM's. They are smart and wry and kind and being with them is like taking my shoes off and walking barefoot in the warm sand of a beach, a beach I've been to many times, and one I love to go to often.

Lacks Direction

2007-06-02T22:31:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what to do with this blog. I haven't much in the way of ranting or raving these days, and certainly I lack most things needed to write decent essays. I may turn it into a photo blog. Or a food blog. Or let it fade into the past.
In the meantime, here you go:

An Open Letter To The Little Fuckers Who Tagged My Shop:
Dear Little Fuckers Who Tagged My Shop,
I painted over your impotent indelible marker scratch on a lovely afternoon.
While doing so, I wondered why in the hell you did what you did instead of doing something good, like a giant mural of me kicking your ass for you ten thousand times.
Love,
Zetta

learning curve

2007-05-25T21:14:00.000-07:00

Just recently two of my three business partners discovered my little photo habit. The third one was in on it the whole time. The two late comers are now pressuring me to do a photo show on the walls of the health center we all created three years ago. Am tempted to take them up on it for our anniversary, but also somewhat--delicate, I suppose, about my colleagues and my patients having access to this part of me. I am definitely flattered and honored that they would like to have my stuff on the walls. Scared. Self conscious, like the way I was when I became acupuncture barbie.

This photo: This is my dog on lensbaby. He is also on a road. In a down. Barking.

reason # 4658769502526479a that I love the VBM

2007-05-25T15:34:00.001-07:00

This morning I went to check my schedule on my goddamn palm pilot, and...nothing happened.
It wouldn't turn on. I brought it home and plugged it into the wall and still, nothing happened.
I thought: Fuck! I have had this thing only since last fall and already it just up and DIES on me?? Now I will have to drive up to the giant big box store and buy a new one, this time with a dreaded service contract.
Since it was lunch, I called up the VBM.
"VBM", I said, "my fucking palm pilot is broke. Gah!"
VBM: "Hmmmm. Did you try the RESET BUTTON?"
Me: "There is a reset button?"
VBM: Usually on the back, there will be a tiny button that says reset button."
Sure enough, there was a RESET BUTTON!! Yay! I pushed it, and my palm pilot jumped back into the game.
Me: "Thanks, VBM! You are my hero!"
VBM: "I've got your back, sweetheart."

He really does.

************************************
Happy Birthday ECL! You are an amazing, powerful, smart, lovely woman. Thank you for being my friend, doctor, business partner, and fellow laugher. I hope the coming year is a deluge of love, adventure, and grand inspiration.

Good lord.

2007-05-19T15:30:00.000-07:00

NOW what will I do with my time?
I made the choice to go down to the Canon Expo at the local camera geek store.
I made it out of there without spending too much money, and got some good advice from the camera dorks about what to budget for next.
I still have so much to learn!
Note: the Canon reps were kind of sleazy-seeming.

This here is my street on lensbaby.

fun with macro

2007-05-17T10:52:00.001-07:00

fun with macro, originally uploaded by hellozetta.

This flar makes things a little better.

A sad day at the farm

2007-05-15T15:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I helped my friend roll her dead foal onto a sheet and carry it to a hole in the ground. The foal had been healthy, but complications with the placenta had caused her to drown in her own amniotic fluid. The dam is only mildly upset, and she is back amongst the other mares.
A man with a backhoe came and dug the hole. He did this chore with extreme goodness, and waited quietly as we heaved the baby into her grave, cried some, and then threw the spring’s last trillium flowers in after. He wouldn’t accept any payment. I wondered how many horses he had helped bury. He looked on us so gently. As he carefully covered the hole, I watched my friend stand there and see the last year of her life buried in the earth.
When things get difficult, as they do here on the farm—and indeed anywhere nature is close at hand—she steels herself and stands right in it.
I admire this about her maybe more than anything. She’d look the devil in the eye and ask him what he’s got. One time I watched her step in front of two charging horses and wave her arms. They each picked a side and ran the other way. This woman is steel, I tell you.
I saw her heart breaking as the backhoe leveled out the dirt.
Later we cleaned the birthing pen and burned sage in the barn and did chores.

There is a certain amount of doing what you have to do when you live with animals. Death is part of it. I remember, vividly, Loki’s last exhalation. I don’t reckon I will easily forget what it felt like to move the heavy, stiff, leggy foal over, either. I am glad I could be on the farm for this, heartbreak and all.

An Open Letter To My Dog

2007-05-09T19:05:00.000-07:00

Dear Cooper,
Jackie says that I do not have a "dog problem", but that I have a "confidence problem."
Since she is the Cesar Milan of the Farm and all within (including you and me) I had to bow my head and agree with her. You know, to like, get out of the room.
Here's the thing. You are just like someone who went to catholic school. You look good. You look good on paper. You'll perform when the head nun is watching. But I know the real you. The you that is making out with public school girls, and getting them to give you blow jobs. The you that is selling cocaine to the freshmen. The you that has the calculus exam answers written on your hand. I know you are out there running away from me, gorging yourself on horse poop, and getting the neighbor's dogs on the other side of the fence all riled up.
I will expose you for who you really are. I am onto you.
Love,
Zetta

This Just In: Atheists Are Too Extreme!

2007-05-07T16:34:00.000-07:00

This morning I was listening to World Have Your Say on NPR. Now, I'll admit I only heard a few minutes of it, because I had to get out of the car in order to go inside the library to pick up a book I had on hold. Ironically, the book is Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion.
The people on the show were arguing about how atheism has gotten "too extreme".
I can't believe this. Ok. Wait. When have a group of atheists started a war because somebody else didn't believe what they believe? And, when was the last time a bunch of atheists turned a commercial airliner into a rocket and flew it into the World Trade Center?
Any atheists sending their children on crusades? How about the atheists that shun their own daughter because she left a church? And what athiests are out there kidnapping people and sending videos to their mothers asking how they would like their sons killed? How many times has a woman been stoned to death by atheists after being raped? When was the last time an atheist killed someone for saying the earth revolves around the sun?
Just checking.

That's right.

2007-05-07T10:14:00.001-07:00

don't ask.

A weekend in....Sacramento

2007-05-06T09:33:00.000-07:00

The VBM and I are holed up in a Chain Hotel By The Freeway this weekend in Sacramento. Our friend Pooky done got hitched. The wedding was sweet and simple. Pooky didn't hire a photographer so he assigned a few of us to "get in the bushes and take pictures." Pooky has the camera equivalent to a penis truck, and I must say: my heart, oh it is now aching with about 3,000$ worth of lens and flash equipment. When I get home I'll upload some of the spoils.
We met some very smart and friendly folk at the reception, where the favour was lottery tickets!
When we were planning our trip here, I was assigned to find lodging. We are at a place in our development where we cannot stand a crappy hotel with chemical smells and strange-appearing tile.
In other cities we have stayed at lovely B&Bs, where we have been consistently way happy with the accommodations and the value. Here in Sacto, there are only two or three bed and breakfasts. Two of them cost 259$ per night. Even the chemtels where we won't stay are 200$ a night. WTF, we mused. So we took a chance and booked a room at a place in Freeport that was the right price, but we had no idea what it would be like since there were no pictures on the internet. Also, it happened to be right next door to the golf course where the groom and his cronies, VBM included, would be golfing on the day of the wedding. This hotel boasted a jacuuzzi tub in each room, which excited me, because I love baths. The tub was literally in the room. Right next to the bed.
The feng shui was so fucked up that I had dreams of running and getting killed all night. I decided I couldn't deal with the place--it was clean but the carpets were stained. You could smell the fried from the kitchen, and they had budweiser banners all over everything. And the tub. Next to the bed. So VBM came up with a plausible story that we figured might get us out of our reservation without having to pay for the second night. I would tell them my little daughter is sick with an ear infection and we had to go home early.
I did it. I had to have a conversation with the waitress about ear infections and toddlers but I must have been believable because no one seemed to question the story. I felt a twinge of guilt when the hotel guy said, " You gotta take care of your kids." Also: passing myself off as a mom was, well, just wrong.
Our new digs is between a mall and a freeway and there are only two entrances/exits to this huge mall. The room is chemmy but not terribly so. We hate hotels. Tub. Next to the bed. Ew.

Happy Birthday Betty

2007-04-30T17:14:00.001-07:00

Every time I take a picture of a flower, I think of your paintings.
Sorely missed, fondly remembered. Wherever you are, I know you are laughing.

how we get like this

2007-04-29T18:20:00.001-07:00

We live. We judge one another. We don't say thank you. We sleep too little.
We eat crappy food. We don't say I'm sorry. We read fashion magazines.
We work at jobs that harm us in some way. We don't tell ourselves the truth.
We distract ourselves. We pretend things are OK. We sell ourselves out.
We love conditionally. We keep score. We pick the wrong battles. We eat cookies for dinner.
We wish. We hide. We worry about what other people think. We have to be right.
We get scared but won't say so. We make the same mistakes over and over again.
We get old. We try to be something other than what we are. We blame people.
We blame ourselves. We feel guilty. We have no remorse. We think violence is entertainment.
We imagine that things will save us from ourselves. We look the other way.

Interview meme

2007-04-27T14:23:00.000-07:00

The fabulous Voix has sent me these 5 questions.

1) What's the big deal about dogs? Why do so many people love them?
Dogs is dogs! I can't speak for why other people love dogs, but I can tell you why I love them.
It should be noted that I am not a dog fanatic, and I don't love all dogs, and I am not a coo-er over other people's dogs unless that dog happens to be a cute puppy. I generally don't like small dogs all that much, but there are a few I know of that I like well enough.
Living with a dog is creating a relationship with a sentient being who doesn't share the same kind of language. Some people say animals don't have language at all, but that is a debate for another day. This relationship became, for me, a connection to nature, and therefore a connection to the divine. Dogs relate to the world in a way that is totally unobscured by bullshit. A dog is living only in the present moment--unlike human beings, who focus most of our time on things that happened in the past or things that may happen in the future. We can learn from our dog friends a great deal about being joyfully present. Your dog knows you. Your dog has you figured out, right from the beginning, better than anyone else you know. Cooper was eight weeks old when we brought him home, and he had me dialed before the first day was out. Relating with Cooper is also relating to my own animal-self. The me that is an organism, connected to the earth, linked up in the food chain, breathing, sweating, heart beating, physical body. Having a dog has me get down with this stuff every day. In this kibble cruncher, I have a trainer, a teacher, and a wise-quiet soulmate who joins me in all endeavors. That is the big deal about dogs!

2) How did you decide to become an acupuncturist?
I was drawn in by the notion that people are multidimensional beings and that there was a medicine which acknowledged that. Moreover, a medicine that was simple, required no chemistry labs, no bills totalling 100,000$ , and was accessible to everyone. I wanted a life without managers. There is a certain mystical quality about medical traditions which use acupuncture and materials that can be found in nature, and that appealed to me. It is also a trip
to see a breech baby turn during a treatment, I'll tell you that.

3) If you could spend time photographing any place in the world, where would it be?
I like taking pictures of everyday things, so I am happy taking pictures wherever I am.
It might be cool to spend some time photographing Area 51. And Roswell Army Airfield.

4) What is your favorite book of all time? Why?
That is a tough one. I don't think I can name just one, but I will say that every couple of years in the fall I re-read A Wrinkle in Time. I love the Harry Potter franchise, rather shamelessly. I like these books because of the fantasy involved. I lost a great deal of my willing suspension of disbelief when I was doing philosophy and literary theory classes in my undergrad. I am slowly getting it back but I doubt if I'll ever be 100%. Too cranky. Other titles on my faves list include Netter's Anatomy, The Collected Poems of e.e. cummings, Jon Krakauer's books about things that happen, and I have a guilty pleasure thing going on with Tony Hillerman. I read across the board, and for all kinds of reasons. I love nonfiction because I learn about stuff and I love stories about things that happened in real life, but I love fiction because I can surf around in fiction and take a break from things that happen in real life. Honorable mentions to Ed Abbey, Mary Roach, Mary Oliver, Isabelle Allende, Walter Farley, and Loren Coleman. I also keep a journal of books I read and whether or not I liked em. I figure I will start forgetting sooner or later, so I won't have to waste my time re-reading a book I didn't like to begin with!

5) Where do you see yourself in ten years?
Healthy, wealthy, and wise?

The sweet taste of Karma

2007-04-25T20:51:00.000-07:00

I admit it. I'm a bugger. I do things--every single day--to get the goats of everyone around me.
Recently, VBM's Mom left her watch in a treatment room at my clinic. I sent her a ransom email.
She had to take me out for chicken wings and beer in order to get it back. I have left all manner of faux bugs and body parts for VBM to find...in his water glass, in the shower, on his pillow.
I put a slice of cheese inside The Cowboy's flip phone. I am mischievous, and I know sometimes I can be a real pain in the ass. Whatever.
Up at the Farm, the Intrepid Cowgirl has paired me with a little black mare. This horse has not been ridden much, and while I'd like a little horse to ride, this little horse wants a person. This svelte lovely is Monique, and while she isn't a pony, I won't have to lob the saddle into the air in order to get it on her back--which is no small feat. The saddles at the Farm are 35lbs easy. Intrepid Cowgirl trains her horses the way you dream you would if you had them. She uses Frank Bell's training methods. Everything we learn, we learn it on the ground first. ICG says that if you can do it on the ground, you can do it in the saddle.
So we start with grooming. I go and get my little horse from the pasture, which is easy because all the horses will walk right up to anyone to say hello and see what is going on. She puts her head into the halter and walks easily for me. She stands patiently while I clean her up. She gives me her feet, gently, one at a time, so I can dig out all the dirt with a pick. Her eyes are liquid pools. She puts her nose in my neck and sighs. I love this horse. Since I am still prone to hanging around with my inner seventh grader, sometimes I take a minute to imagine riding her far up into the forest, where we will spend our summer afternoons walking in the shade.
All this sounds pretty idyllic, until I notice that my horse has several big kick and bite marks on her. I make a remark on this to ICG, who snorts. "Look at Gracey's butt," she tells me. "Your horse is a bitchy one."
After we get finished with our groundwork for the day, I watch my horse. She defers to the head mare, but after that, she is all piss and vinegar. Especially if I am around and any of the other girls want some attention. Monique will flatten her ears and chase them off. She bites and kicks. She bucks. She runs and stomps and snorts. She reminds me of Cooper, actually.
I ask the ICG why, oh why, has she chosen this little horse for me?
"Because she is you," she says, "like Cooper is you. They'll teach you everything you need to know."
I reckon they will.

I am tired, she said, of exploding people

2007-04-21T17:17:00.000-07:00

Human beings are capable of such abomination. It is hard to comprehend. All week, I have been out of sorts and under the weather and sick with thinking about what it must be like in Baghdad, or Virginia Tech or in the bed next to Cho's mother, whose heart must be so very broken and utterly alone.
The impossible voids we create.
I have a friend who is far away and her relationship is ending. It is like hanging around and watching someone die, she wrote.
War, weather, and the cough that won't go away.

Back to my old opinionated self

2007-04-19T18:55:00.000-07:00

An Open Letter to Alberto Gonzales

Dear Mister Gonzales,
I listened to NPR this morning and heard some senators wondering what in the hell happened when you started firing a whole bunch of US attorneys. Mister Gonzales, permit me to say that listening to you backpeddle and stammer and ramble on and on when the question you were asked was a simple yes or no question made me realize what a douchebag you really are.
Mister Gonzales, nobody believes you when you fumble and whine about how you have "misspoken" or how you "cannot recall." When you were in school, did you learn about this thing called checks and balances? Did you learn even CYA, for crying out loud? You set a pussy example of someone being questioned about his ethics. You sound like a first class whiner with a briefcase full of lame, wet, boring excuses. There is no way you have been doing the job you were hired to do if you can't even remember a meeting that is ON YOUR CALENDAR which took place less than 6 months ago, Mister Gonzales.
I need an attorney general who has some balls. Like Carol Lam. Or my mom. Please tender your resignation, tuck your lying, weeny tail between your legs, and stop wasting our time.
Love,
Zetta

Godspeed to you Mister Vonnegut

2007-04-12T16:34:00.000-07:00

A word about what I have learned while learning to use a camera

2007-04-11T16:09:00.000-07:00

Everywhere I go, there is something worth photographing. As a rule, I always bring a camera. Whenever I don’t, I wish I had. Last weekend the VBM and I were out tooling around town and we came upon someone’s DIY bicycle-pulled teensy tiny travel trailer.
I didn’t have my camera. I kicked myself all the way home.
I love digital photography for the same reason everyone does—freedom from film. I can shoot a hundred pictures in a day and not like a single one, delete them, and go about my business having spent no time, effort or resources on the trappings of analog photography. I love my old film camera, but these digital gadgets are working out great for me.
When I am somewhere I think is beautiful, I notice that I focus very much on whatever it is that is causing me to experience the place as beautiful, and often I don’t notice other details about the place—like powerlines. These minutiae are always sneaking into the frame while I am busy being taken in by a mountain, or the sound of a river, or maybe the feeling that something predatory is nearby, sniffing the air. Come to think if it, I can be busily absorbed in a car, a flower, or the ground.
I spend a good deal of time in the woods, exploring, getting muddy, looking hard at the way the world got shaped by water and volcanoes. I started to take pictures of the powerlines a few months ago because they were always obscuring my view of the mountain. I tried to find places where the powerlines weren’t, and my free time got sucked up into trying to find a clear view. It occurred to me one day that I could just accept where I was the way it was instead of trying to get some place else.
Everywhere in life there is something we wish wasn’t there: the bus stop, the neighbor’s dandelion yard, the scratch on the brand new car.
I am a stubborn person. There are times when I really struggle with flexibility, and there are times when it comes easily for me. The more flexible I can be, the more easily I can move around. Accepting things I wish were different is something I find difficult. When I started using a camera, this lesson was constantly in my face all the time. My mom left a comment about the last post that I didn’t understand—I’m not pissed off about the powerlines. They are giving me a chance to feel what it is like to accept something I think is ugly, and doesn’t belong there, something that sullies my view.

Photos about accepting things you wish weren't there

2007-04-07T20:45:00.000-07:00

These are mine. I want feedback, please, either on Flikr or here, but I want LOTS of it, because this is my first photo show. I'm hoping to hang it early this summer. Also: SCARED SHITLESS.

This blog really isn't about my dog

2007-03-29T17:05:00.000-07:00

Today it is about Circuit City, who is firing their best-paid employees in order to replace them with lower paid ones. To improve the bottom line.
I do not know why this move was deemed appropriate for a company who pays out MILLIONS of dollars to it's top executives.
Now they are going to have to pay some high priced consultants to try and do damage control with their PR. What a bunch of assholes.
Here is the copy of the email I sent them today:
Dear Circuit City,
The service at your stores is already poor enough as it is. Firing your best paid, most senior employees to replace them with lower paid, newer, more clueless employees is a nasty policy that is bad for your business, bad for your workers, and will affect your bottom line. I am your prime demographic, Circuit City, and I am an enthusiast of gadgetry and technology and all the things you sell. I have spent money for the last time at your stores, and I will be vocal about this to all my friends and associates who are also in your target demographic.
Circuit City, please accept my invitation to burn in hell with your CEOs who are making more money than some countries' GNP.
Yours most sincerely,
zetta

Cooking with Cooper

2007-03-26T22:15:00.000-07:00

Lately here at Chez Zetta we have been cooking alot. Last weekend, for instance, I made a truly evil cream sauce for pasta that involved simmering a bunch of cream with garlic and bacon. I let it cook over low heat for about an hour while I roasted some chicken and steamed some spinach and artichokes. It was damn fine, I tell you.
I have yet to kill and butcher the dog, so he has been helping me cook. He hangs around and waits for things to fall on the floor. If I am prepping anything really good, like steaks or cheese, he sits very intently close to me. His diligence does not go unrewarded, though I do make the whelp work for it. Although I bitch about this dog, he does eat his vegetables.
Things Cooper will eat:
Fresh cilantro
Gleen Bean
Carrots!
Potato
Lettuce
Spinach
Red Bell Pepper
...thinly sliced new york strip
Cheese
Plain full fat yogurt
Fritillary and Loquiat syrup ( a chinese patent cough remedy)
Socks
Poop

Tonight I made two indian dishes: cauliflower and potatoes with roasted cumin seeds and chicken breasts with mango sauce. You know, cauliflower is sadly overlooked as a delicious food. If you throw some fat and heat at cauliflower, it gets beautiful real fast. Add some cumin, coriander, turmeric and cayenne. Skillet this mess. Serve with the yogurt Coop didn't eat.
The chicken with mango sauce was a nice surprise. I had never made it, and chose a recipe, which I started messing with before I even started cooking. The sauce called for onion seeds and curry leaves, which were not available at my yuppie grocery store. I thought about it and chose to dissolve some hot curry powder in a little oil instead. I then tossed in sliced hot house tomatoes, some mango chutney, about a tablespoon each of fresh minced ginger and garlic, some chili powder and some salt. I let that cook until it was fragrant and then added a fistful of yogurt, turned off the heat and mixed that shit together.
I tell you what, my friends.
It was good.