hairs were cut

Last night while waiting for Loopy, who was attending one of the many dissertation research meetings that bring her (and sometimes us) to Chicago every week, I got my hair cut. In the car before, we had this exchange:

Me: I don't know why you won't ever tell me if you think I would look better with bangs.

Loopy: Oh, for chrissakes! [this is the fifty millionth time I've asked that question] I think you look better without but it's YOUR HEAD! Why do you care what I think?

Me: Okay, I won't get bangs.

Loopy: Oh, now, see? This is why I don't give my opinion! You just do whatever I say.

Me: Honey, you're my wife, you're the one who has to look at me the most, and besides, I'm not good at seeing what I really look like.

Loopy: So LEARN to see what you look like! Aaargh!!!

...pause...

Me: Maybe I will get bangs.

In the end, I got a bob with bangs (see photo at right), not because of this conversation or anyone's opinion, but sort of at random, and at least partly because I was as tired as Loopy of hearing myself ask "but do you think I would look good with bangs?"

Conclusion: I look okay with bangs.

Also, without bangs.

Turns out it doesn't make that big a difference.

Oh well.

more horrifying concepts from the real world

From the catalog "Childswork, Childsplay: Essential Resources for Counselors and Educators," a few choice entries:

The Positive Thinking Game
Ages 9 & Up. This exceptional therapeutic game maintains the premise that thought is the source of many of our emotional states. By becoming more aware of our self-talk and cognitive responses to situations, we can better control or select our emotions. Helpful in addressing emotional difficulties such as anxiety, depression, anger and low self-esteem. For 2 - 6 players.

Oh, well, if depressed kids could just "control or select" their emotions they'd be just fine! Repression is a wonderful way to cope with stress! So next time Daddy is beating Mommy, just repeat to yourself, "I can choose to be happy" over and over. If you do it real loud, you might drown out the sound.

Winning at Loss
*NEW!* Ages 6-13. Designed to help guide children through the grief process, this game uses open-ended questions to facilitate discussion about: dealing with the shock; admitting the reality of the loss; feeling the pain of loss; adjusting to life after loss; and rebuilding for the future. Comes with two sets of cards & a facilitators' booklet.

How wonderful—instead of years of pain and suffering, now (new!) we can help kids zip through the whole grief process in the time it takes to play a quick board game. I'm sure if they're having trouble "admitting the reality of the loss" that reading a special card with an "open-ended question" will really help them accept reality.

Monster Stomp Game
Ages 4 & Up. Help children gain control over things that scare them with this nonthreatening, fun-filled game. Kids mold and then stomp monsters as they travel from room to room in the goofy, monster-filled house. As players stomp monsters, they get to collect them in the monster jail.

This one is horrifying in so many ways that I don't know where to begin. A monster-filled house? What fun for a four-year-old! And how can this game give you control over things that scare you if they are things you can't control? "This monster is called 'Mommy's drinking,' this monster is called 'Daddy killed my kitten'...." This is insane. For extra fun, explain the "monster jail" to children who are anxious because a parent is in prison.

The Upside Down Divorce Game
Ages 6-12. Most children don't want to talk about divorce, but this game makes talking easy. As they go around the colorful board, they flip their playing pieces upside down. To turn them right side up, they have to learn new coping and communication skills. Children are also challenged...to express positive feelings about themselves and their future.

Am I the only one that thinks this sounds like absolute torture?

OK, enough with the extended commentary... I'll just leave you with a few of the choice titles:

• Maybe Days: A Book for Children in Foster Care
  
  
• Finding the Right Spot: When Kids Can't Live With Their Parents
  
  
• Why Are You So Sad? - A Child's Book About Parental Depression
  
  
• Sammy's Mommy Has Cancer
  
  
• The Year My Mommy Was Bald
  
  
• Why Did You Die?

(those last four could really be read as a series, don't you think? Oh, I know, I'm evil)

• Anger Bingo For Teens (???)
  
  
• Rufus, The Bear With Diabetes
  
  
• Blink, Blink, Clop, Clop: Why Do We Do Things We Can't Stop? (for kids with OCD)

Oh, god, I can't take it anymore!

I just had to post this since I'm trying to clean up a bit and this obviously has to go in the recycling bin! Now!

"fighting to penetrate the amygdala"

No wonder we feel so overwhelmed and bombarded—our amygdalas are suffering a hostile takeover.

The amygdala is part of the brain that stores our most profound emotional experiences of pain and pleasure. But it's manipulated and assaulted on a daily basis in the service of profit...without any thought of what it does to us to have this promise that our needs can be met, this illusion of meeting them, and the ultimate letdown of it all being part of a big scam to get our money.

I knew this, but it's sort of disgusting to read an instruction manual on the fine art of emotional-manipulative brain surgery, viz., this horrifying article, Recognizing the Moments of Truth for Your Hotel Guests. Truth, anxiety, safety, desire for human connection—all analyzed and subverted to serve the goal of Branding.

Some excerpts:

The beauty and curse of the amygdala is that logic will not penetrate its walls. Emotion created through human connection and dynamic aesthetics is the only means to get through. To shift your status [in the guest's mind and make them like you] begins here....

"Welcome" is never just "Welcome", but an invitation for your guest to enter your brand’s story, in all its color and glory...[Y]ou want the guest to know that they are Captains on this trip. The fastest way to the brain’s brand central is to have it feel like it’s in control....

....the key is responding to the guest’s essential emotional and aspirational benefit needs, rather than only the functional....

...this is a Moment of Truth. Here the guest makes an instantaneous evaluation of all that has come before. It is rife with pure emotion, the kind that goes to the amygdala and has a party. I would venture to say that if consumers were wired up so their chemical brain activity was recorded, this Moment of Truth would rank high on the Richter Scale....

...Here, the brand story gains closure and the brain’s pleasure center recalibrates its feeling toward your brand....

There's a reason "branding" is named after a process that involves searing living flesh.

Wouldn't it be cool if all this knowledge of human needs, pain and pleasure, was used in the service of actually creating socieites, cities, institutions that were less painful and more human?

Yeah. Dream on.

squirrel pants?

I really want more people to go to Loopy's blog and guess what these are. Pretty please? C'mon.... it'll make me happy*....

---

*ultimate extortion from a depressed person to her worn-out friends & loved ones! ;-)

i am surrounded

by pompous academics.

I'm in a local eatery. Near me is a professor from a department you may know, pompously pontificating to two grad students whom I don't recognize. The first couple times I caught references I knew--to a prof, or a specific brown bag--I inadvertently looked up. Fortunately this has had the effect of causing him to lower his voice considerably.

At the very next table is a different professor explaining very basic computer concepts to another professor. He's talking as slowly and clearly as if the other is hard of hearing and doesn't speak English, though neither of these seems to be the case. It's grating on my nerves.

First he was explaining what a "pdf" was (including the comment, "PDF stands for.... I can't remember," which I'm certain is bullshit because almost nobody knows what PDF stands for, and who cares) slowly and laboriously; now he's explaining wireless ("the young lady behind us is connected to what is called a WAAYERRRRLESSS network... that means...")

This also wouldn't be so annoying if he didn't sound so smug about what is obviously a much smaller granule of knowledge than he seems to assume. He's not using all the "right words," yet he seems incredibly condescending.

It's like... a friend told me a story about a guy she had sex with, who said, "this may be uncomfortable because my ____ is so large," but it wasn't large at all; "on the small side of average," was how she put it.

That's exactly what this is like. "Don't be intimidated by my massive brilliance at computers," except, yeah, you know what a pdf is, big fuckin' deal.

Enough whining. Back to work.

I cooked

and I'm very proud of myself.

I made fettuccine with plum-shiso sauce and seaweed topping. Okay, it came out of a packet (at left), but I did have to boil the water.

One depressing difficulty: figuring out how much pasta to make for one person. If Loopy ever left me this is the sort of thing that would really put me over the edge. I have never in my life cooked for one person—only microwaved frozen things for one person.

Maybe I should look at it as a brave new frontier in adult independence.

Another amusing aspect: the vast gulf between my definition of "pasta for one" and the definition of the Japanese company that packaged up the plum-shiso sauce. To be more specific, it didn't come out of a packet, it came out of two packets, and I should have made twice as much—I'm still hungry.

So in Japan, my "one-person serving" would feed a family of four.

. . .

"Hey Birdfarm, what did you do today?"

"Well, let's see—I screwed around on the computer, then I cooked dinner, then I blogged about cooking dinner."

Yeah, I definitely need to get out more.

what a load of crap.

This quote scrolled across the top of my gmail today:

"Freedom means the opportunity to be what we never thought we would be."
-- Daniel J. Boorstin

Bullshit.

In my opinion, freedom is three things:

Freedom is safety—having your physical needs met so that you can think about something besides whether you and your children will survive the next week.

Freedom is being able to speak your mind without fear of government repression.

Freedom is self-determination—having some ability to affect the outcome of all decisions that affect you.

In my estimation (yes, this is my blog, it's all about my opinions and estimations), we in the US only have the second of those three definitions of freedom. And that one is sliding down a slippery slope.

They're right that "freedom isn't free." But not enough people seem willing to pay the price for everyone to gain freedom.

Oh well. Maybe some other century.

i'm thinking...

...that I shouldn't update you with every swing of the mood, because (just so you know) it's back down in the depths now.

I'll find something else to post about.

Now I'm going to bed.

better—thank you!

I'm relieved to report that I feel better. Also slightly sheepish (at right, ha ha) about all the morose musings of the last post, and very grateful for your wonderful outpouring of support.

Time has passed and I've gotten over the whole thing of feeling like I've failed at healing myself. Taking meds is healing myself. I'll get there.

Also, this week, I've taken much better care of myself in Loopy's absence. I've showered, eaten all my meals (sitting down at a table, healthy food, etc.), been mostly on time for things, and went to bed at 2 instead of 4. So I feel better all kinds of ways—including, I feel less crazy observing myself.

Today I spent some pleasant hours with friends. First I spent a couple hours working on a project with an old friend. This is someone I've drifted away from in recent years as we've been fighting more and more, but today, it was unexpectedly wonderful to just spend some time working together in an easy, comfortable manner.

After that, I felt as though going home would be like crawling back under a rock, so on a whim I called up my dear friend Miriam, who was home sick with bronchitis, and asked if I could bring my lunch over to her place. We ended up watching Shaft in Africa (in honor of the ninth anniversary of her mother's death...long story), which I enjoyed even more than I expected.

When I got home, I ate delicious stew followed by delicious apple crisp, both of which Loopy made before she left. I also turned the radio on, which makes a big difference.

Moral of the story: blogging and emailing don't actually make me feel less lonely—in fact they make me feel more lonely and cut-off. Whereas actually spending time with living, breathing people eases all manner of aches and pains. I can't remember the last time I just called up a friend and went over to hang out, without any big plans or anything. Note to self: do that more often.

Thanks again for all your support, everyone... means a lot. Seriously.

Now I'm gonna go have a bath and watch another episode of Firefly. Yay!

rats

I am really good at convincing myself of things.

I had convinced myself that "OK, so I feel a little down, and sometimes I have some bad days, but I'm not depressed, and besides, with all the meditation I'm doing, I'm learning to handle my feelings, so I don't need medication or anything--I'll be fine."

Yeah. Sounds good.

One reason I'm angry at my old therapist is that she would participate in the convincing. I would make up a little story and she would help me tell it, add details, help it all fall into place. It felt nice and comforting but it was not useful.

But, damn, I hate when I get called on that shit.

My little stories are so pleasant. They keep me warm at night. They pat my hand and smile reassuringly. Too bad they're imaginary.

So, realistically, let's consider the facts.

Q: How much meditation am actually I doing?
A: Not that much. OK, hardly any.

Q: What did I eat while Loopy was in Chicago for three days?
A: Jelly beans and granola bars and......uh.....I know I must have eaten something else.

Q: How late did I stay up every night while she was gone?
A: Til 4 a.m.
Q: Why?
A: Because I couldn't stand the idea of turning out all the lights and being alone in the dark.

Q: How long have I been unemployed and without any regular activity?
A: One year.

Q: Why?
A: Because I'm trying to finish my incompletes so I can get my teaching certification and finally become a teacher.

Q: What am I doing toward finishing those incompletes and fulfilling that dream?
A: Uh...... nothing. Well, wait, there was that one day when I wrote a page and a half—okay, yeah, nothing.

Yeah. Hate to break it to me, but all of that sounds pretty damn crazy. Or at the very least, non-functional.

Our Little Italian Friend (couples therapist) is annoyingly good at ignoring what I'm saying and listening to why I'm saying it. So he listened to my twenty-minute speech on how I'm learning and growing and doing so much better, and responded with, "You sound terrible." Aw, what gave it away? Was it what Loopy calls "the Stepford wife voice"? Or was it the vacant stare? Dang.

My point is, it's depressing to be told you're depressed. Even if I was deluding myself, at least I had some cheerful moments back before he..... rats, I'm deluding myself again.

But it is depressing, because I really thought I had this thing licked. I remember telling people "I used to be really depressed but it's fully in remission. I feel happy every day, I feel like my life is headed in the right direction..." That was spring of 2003. But here I am, back to the meds again.

Of course, the fact that I was there once gives me hope that I can get there again.

It just seems like there's this enormous mountain between me and where I want to be. I thought I already climbed it, but somehow it's in front of me again. And I don't even have the energy to want to climb it. I just stand here and stare at it. Been staring. For a year. And it just gets bigger.

That's what meds are for, I know, I know. We'll see.

anti-depressants

Yup, as of three days ago, I'm back to poppin' pills. Lexapro, 10 mg. We'll see how it goes.

Loopy's new CD of the Ohio Players at top volume on a Sunday morning don't hurt none either.



"Skin tight... doot-doot-doo-doo-doot... Skin tight... ooo-ooo-ooooo..."






I'll keep ya posted. But now, it's time to vacuum.

happy Dr. King day (belatedly)

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies,
but the silence of our friends.

—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Came across this quote and it hit me really powerfully.

It is too easy to excuse and rationalize our silence—or to pretend that there wasn't really any need for us to speak. Easy to think that the real battle will be another day, that it doesn't matter that we took the easy way out this time.

Privilege isn't just about doing what I want—it's about being able to completely ignore the impact my actions have on others.

If I only look at the impact of my actions when it pleases me to do so, I'm an unreliable ally. Worse than an enemy. Because you might grow to rely upon me and then one day when you really need me, I won't be there. And I won't even notice I've failed you.

"And if wishes was horses, we'd all be eatin' steak" *

Ah, Firefly.

As a present to Loopy, who is far far away in Chicago, and to Rachel, who is very cool, and to any other Firefly addicts out there, I present this little happy memory:

Zoë: Where's River at now?

Mal: In her room, which I'm thinking we bolt from the outside from now on.

Wash: That's a little extreme, isn't it?

Jayne: Anyone remember her coming at me with a butcher's knife?

Wash: Wacky fun.

Jayne: You wanna go, little man?

Wash: Only if it's someplace with candlelight.

Zoë: Sir, I know she's unpredictable, but I don't think she'd harm anyone.

Jayne: Butcher's knife!

Zoë: Anyone we can't spare.

Loopy got me the box set for xmas and we watched an episode every night while we were in AZ... it gave me something to look forward to every day, and every day around four or five o'clock I started looking forward... and Firefly never let me down.

---

*The title quote is from Jayne... of course.

brokeback mo*

I enjoyed the film, tho it did nag at me that the ending was so traditional—everyone ends up dead or lonely and miserable.

Then, tonight I came across some christian's rant** about the film (hideously titled "The Rape of the Marlboro Man"!), which justified my feeling that there really is something wrong with always having the queer love story end in death:

"The [film] is a brazen propaganda vehicle designed to [promote]... the complete and utter acceptance of homosexuality as equivalent in every way to heterosexuality.

If and when that day comes...this nation—like the traditional cowboy characters corrupted in "Brokeback Mountain"—will have stumbled down a sad, self-destructive and ultimately disastrous road."

First of all, dude, you think "traditional cowboy characters" are so holy and pure? Where d'you think the term "cowpoke" comes from?

But more seriously, I am waiting for the day when a really beautiful, tender, believable AND well-acted, gorgeously filmed, and deliciously scored queer love story on screen does NOT "stumble down a sad, self-destructive and ultimately disastrous road."

I mean, what else has there been? Big Eden was close, my favorite probably, but most of the film was tortured longing (adorable, but unfulfilling)—they just get together in like the last ten seconds of the movie, and even that is just a significant look across a room and then an awkward dance—no real love scene or togetherness. Desert Hearts I admit I liked, corny as it is, but again, they only barely sorta get together at the end, and you don't really know what's going to happen.

And sadly, in both those films, you couldn't really quite believe that the characters were even queer. They were too tenative and, well, you know, they just didn't quite manage to convince me that they weren't straight actors trying very, very hard. That was one place where I thought "Brokeback" really did shine, as Franklin also noted. (The author of the above-mentioned christian rant quotes one of the "Brokeback" stars as talking about how hard it was for him to do the love scenes, and states that this was because he was going against his god-given conscience. Gee, ya don't think it's because he was STRAIGHT?)

So, anyone else? Did I miss any queer films that (a) are as gorgeous and well-crafted as Brokeback, (b) have real sex and real love, and (c) have a happy ending?

I'm tempted to close with, "I didn't think so"—but I'll just wait and see.

---

*That was what the ticket stub said - "Brokeback Mo". I thought it was mildly amusing—similarly, when I worked at Barnes & Noble, Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil was super-popular and it always came up on the computer as "Midnight in the Garden of Goo". Got a smile out of that every time—what can I say, it was a dull job.

**Here it is, if you want to spend your time on it: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48076
I'm not gonna link it, you'll have to cut/paste.

on a lighter note...

Lately I have been obsessed with Firefly, the TV show that was the basis for the movie Serenity. So yesterday I blew fifteen bucks on the action figure of one of the characters, the dumb muscle-man who occasionally shows a flicker of a softer side but mostly can be counted on for hilarious one-liners.

Here he is guarding my grandmother's tschotschkes from potential interlopers:



And here is tonight's sunset. Who says Arizona has all the good ones:

seeing hard things, feeling hard edges

I have been feeling really uninspired when it comes to blogging...haven't even read others' blogs lately. But then this post from Rachel (aka "The Village Knittiot," which—silly me—I hate to call her because I feel like I'm calling her an idiot) really got me thinking.

Rachel wrote that she and her sweetie had an incredible and wonderful time with the family after this:

We talked a lot about what we want our holidays to look like. In the end, we concluded that it is all about time spent, a willingness to connect (even with the most challenging family members) and it is about being open with family.

Open with family, willingness to connect even with the most challenging people.... hmmm.

Yikes.

Yikes is an understatement.

Loopy and I got into a huge fight on New Year's Eve because I was being so closed-off to my family and she felt that she had to over-compensate, be twice as open and available—be "the daughter they wanted" since I wasn't being it.

This hurt me a lot, but after some thought I realized that it hurt me because I had the (when I really thought about it, childish and unrealistic) idea that Loopy should always be "on my side" in some kind of imaginary epic battle of "me vs. my parents."

"I am on your side, Mr. Frodo."

And, I had this idea that this "being on my side" meant that she should never feel sorry for my parents, only feel sorry for me; she should never criticize how I am with them, always criticize how they are with me...basically it was this huge drama in my head where I am the lost and lonely victim and she is supposed to comfort and protect me from the evil dragons.

In this picture, of course, she has no thoughts or even personality of her own.

Did I mention, childish and unrealistic?

---

So at first I felt totally betrayed and like she had abandoned me on the field of battle.... but some time (and meditation and reading and thinking) later.... I realized there was no field of battle, and she had never abandoned me.

It's uncomfortable to see that stuff, but once you see the man behind the curtain you can't go back to thinking there's a Wizard of Oz.

So, the field of battle, the betrayal and victimhood, the big dramatic story with me as the poor wronged heroine, it all melted away.

Leaving me with this discomfort, this fierce and fearful need to remain closed-off with my parents, and no excuse or rationale for it... just a lot of compressed & turbulent emotions.

---

When we talked about this with "our little Italian friend" (couples' therapist) I said that "I just can't be open to my parents—being in the same apartment with them is the best I can do, you have to accept that." And OLIF said that it has to be okay for us to have separate relationships with my parents—we can't make the other person have the relationship we want them to have.

I don't think either of us were very happy with that, but at the time I really felt that "this is the best I can do," that it was a broken relationship and we all just had to live with it.

"They're used to me being like this," I said. And they are.

But they don't like it. They want more from me.

But the more they want more from me, the more invaded and overwhelmed I feel, the more I want to run away and hide.

They aren't the dragon.

This feeling—that they want more from me than I have to give them, that they want so much from me that, somehow, if they could, they would take everything and not leave me with anything of myself, that somehow I would be sucked dry and just disappear completely—this feeling is the dragon.

And of course that's impossible, even childish and unrealistic—nobody has ever died from their parents wanting their love.

And the more I describe it the more I see that I'm making up another story, and embroidering another elaborate epic drama in my own mind, when reality is something else, something more simple and clear.

But I'm not quite ready to let this drama go go...

...but somehow Rachel's post really got to me...

...and I find that maybe I'm ready to think about the idea of letting it go, maybe,
not now, not soon, but maybe sometime, though that's still a bit scary...

---

Lately I have been reading The Wisdom of No Escape, by Pema Chodron. She has this great metaphor about armor.

She talks about how we all have all this armor on, and we can either spend our lives trying to make our armor more and more solid...

...trying to learn how to block every gap where any pain or sadness might enter...

...or we can spend our lives trying to take our armor off, trying to learn how to accept the pain or sadness, accept that all emotions are part of being human, and continuously open up to life with all its different sensations and feelings.

It's a great image, for me anyway, because it's so clear that armor is big and heavy and an obstacle rather than a support.

The whole "armor" idea helps me visualize how all that self-defense becomes a heavy weight, and how you get trapped inside it and suffocate and can't move, and yet it still doesn't protect you from sadness—because the sadness is inside the armor with you, and the armor just bottles you up with the sadness, without any light or air and you just rot in misery.

Isn't that what depression feels like? Like being trapped in a heavy, dark, suffocating place where you can't escape from all this suffocating misery?

Taking off the armor is about "letting go and opening," not protecting and defending, not buying into self-abuse or self-pity, just letting the world touch you and staying open to that.

The everyday practice is simply to develop a complete acceptance and openness to all situations and emotions and all people....experiencing everything totally without reservations...so that one never withdraws or centralizes into oneself.

---

The wonderful thing about the way Chodron presents all this is that she doesn't say, "you should quit being such a baby and grow up," which is the way my brain talks to itself.

She says, find your "edges," find the places where you are afraid to take another step (for me, right now, I'm seeing an "edge" with regard to being more open to connection with my parents), and open to the experience that you are having of being at that edge, become curious about why it's so terrifying.

The instruction isn't then to 'smash ahead and karate-chop that whole thing;' the instruction is to soften, to connect with your heart and engender a basic attitude of generosity and compassion toward yourself, the archetypal coward.

Right now I don't want to take another step—and I don't want to want to. I'm convinced I would absolutely die. If I pushed myself forward I would just close up and hide.

But I can just stay here at the edge, seeing what it looks like, what the terrain is like, what is scary, what is hard, what hurts so much. And just staying awake in this place, and wanting to be as awake as possible and to open as much as possible, is enough for now.

What's next is some kind of shift, maybe one more step, maybe seeing things differently, maybe melting some hard frozenness, maybe something I can't imagine right now. If I just stay here, I will find out what's next.

It is painful, but this pain feels better than that dark suffocating misery—like a clear cold biting wind that replaces a dark hot heavy stuck weight. And the better it feels, the more courage I find, to my surprise.

---

For future reference, for myself... something to consider... perhaps "I'm feeling uninspired when it comes to blogging" means, "I'm not feeling like being honest with anyone right now, especially not myself." All this stuff that came tumbling out, was what was behind that "I don't feel like blogging"—all of this was what I was afraid of looking at or thinking about.

Thanks to Rachel (and of course, Loopy and Miriam and Rie and OLIF and a lot of others) for waking me up.

Happy New Year

Received the following from a good socialist friend. As I commented to him, it was a great counter-balance to the depressing cards I got from everyone else—every one of which seemed to slip in a comment about how terrible things are in the world. In contrast, the following message, quote, and photo were inspiringly upbeat.

"Happy New Year,

I want to wish you all a happy new year. Stay strong in the fight against imperialist war, social injustice and racism. Let's all make 2006 a year to remember. As we fight the good fight—remember to enjoy the good things in life—dance, sing and share laughter with your comrades.

Comradely regards, John K.
www.socialistaction.org


"I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and vileness, and enjoy if to the full."
—Leon Trotsky



[end of quoted email]

As some of my comrades sign their emails....

yours for the revolution,
birdfarm

loopy-loopy dialogue #3,487

Me (drunkenly*): I love you too much, you know that?

Loopy: No. I don't think so.

Me: What??

Loopy: I don't think you love me enough.

Me (genuinely hurt/worried): Why not???

Loopy: Because if you did....I'd have a pony, and a bunny, and some ice cream...right now!

...
(pause)
...

Me: How 'bout something from the vending machine by reception?

---

*What can I say? The pitcher of sangria was a much better value than the glass.