the dreamer

look what I found while googling images of ancient goddesses....

They call it "The Dreamer." It's from Malta, circa 3000 BCE, from a 6000-meter-square temple complex. Pretty cool, eh? I never saw it before. So lovely and peaceful!

why am I googling ancient goddesses? for the graphic design for SP's new massage practice which will be called "Changing Woman," particularly catering to pregnant women and new mothers, etc. I'm doing four concepts - mainstream/"medical", mainstream/"feminine," alternative/"nature," alternative/"feminine"...... weird when you think about it, what all these words and dichotomies mean, but never mind.

for the project I've also been reading about labor & childbirth—sounds miserable!. I never seriously considered it so I never thought about it very much before (even back when i wanted kids I always assumed I'd adopt, or Loopy could have them if she wanted to). Seems like a huge amount of work to get ready for it, learn all the different things you're supposed to do at different moments, like what kind of breathing/pushing to do just when the baby's crowning... You can see why people practice so much. And all the unnecessary or harmful things you have to fend off that the doctors want to do. Eep. I guess it's also nothing compared to actually having a kid 24/7--now THAT's hard work, eh, Moms? Maybe I shouldn't be writing this since I know at least one pregnant person reads my blog, but I don't imagine she'd be too put off by my comments (actually I imagine she would laugh at me a little, in friendly way of course), so I'm not going to worry about it. :-)

anyway, for those of you brave & determined enough to be considering the whole concept (and my admiration has gone up about a thousand-fold, believe me!!), I found a really awesome book... Birthing From Within. The title might sound goofy to some of you but trust me the book is awesome. If I were going to have to do this this is the book I'd want. Then it turns out that SP loves this book and is certified (or was?) in teaching women how to have children according to this book's ideas. Pretty cool.....

oops, gotta run. We're gonna go see Stepford Wives!

summer is a strange time

on the one hand, the garden is gorgeous, full of flowers, and i keep buying more things to put in it. the birds fly around the house constantly ("it's like a birdy thoroughfare out there," Loopy informed me yesterday, having spent several days studying at the kitchen table and watching the birds swoop rapidly back and forth across the open expanse of yard.) on the one hand there's no place i have to be, nothing i have to do, not exactly anyway.

but on the other hand there are a million things to do (clean out the basement, get the roof replaced, fix the garden, prepare lesson plans for fall, do my homework for my class, work on my friend's business card & brochure that is fun but still another thing on the list, tutor some of my former students in math, make arrangements for my trip to Tucson and possibly Atlanta...) and on top of all that, or beside it or because of it, i feel all crazy. i have all these strong emotions--i'm really angry, just furious about everything and at a few particular people, and also i'm sad, for no apparent reason, i just feel like crying. i feel like i have no perspective.

for example i am supposed to go to the Solidarity convention in Atlanta, but I am too crazy to be able to think about it. I am just furiously angry with one of the people involved, and also at the whole organization, and I just feel enraged at the thought of sitting in a room with a bunch of people having intellectual discussions about the world's problems, i am so angry about the waste of time and the out-of-touchness...... but i usually love this organization and i love doing that, so what's going on here??? should i pay attention to these feelings as the basis for a decision about my trip to Atlanta, or should i just go (everyone's advice) on the assumption that i'll have fun once i get there (after all I"ve never been).....? but I need that time for other things... but it's only five days.................

and isn't it weird how sometimes you feel completely alone, like, no one can really see you? but that's not true either, i'm just being crazy.

lost. like Katy only much less eloquent and with much less valid reasons. i wouldn't even say i'm sad or depressed, i'm more....stormy, tossed about, and confused.

wow, there are some great blogs out there

I've been tooling around in my friends' blogs this evening. When did everyone get so brilliant/witty/profound/interesting/eloquent? Oh, I know--since it's been summer and we're all procrastinating! Of all of them, Katy's gorgeous elegaic prose takes the cake, so I'll link to hers: Too Much Light To Deny. Wow. Stunning. I also enjoyed Embly's, Chrissy's, and of course Loopy's musings. I was going to put in all the links but it's too much work (see below regarding inertia).

I took the day off today—in my annoying way where I get up and make a list of stuff to do, then about 2:30 pm I become aware that some part of my brain (the part that's actually in charge) has decided that I am not doing those things today, but instead, I'm doing something else. I am working on trying to become aware of the decision-making process by which this obscure part of my brain makes its own plans. In my head, for any day or hour, there's often the "official plan" and the "unofficial plan." The former is selflessly productive, efficient, appropriate, wise, etc. The latter—which tends to take over unless I exert strenuous effort to resist it&151;is self-serving, avoids discomfort like death, and generally tends toward immobility. Often I only become aware of the unofficial plan when I observe it unfolding (if such an active verb can be used for activities that resemble immobility). For example, right now I think the official plan is that I'm going to grab my reading for tomorrow, and run downstairs and get on the treadmill for a half hour or so. And/or I'm going to run off to bed and get up early and walk on the treadmill while doing my reading for class. The unofficial plan probably involves putzing around in blogland for another hour until my back is killing me and Loopy yells at me. Why, why, why would I want to do this? I will feel so much better if I get on the treadmill and just even SKIM my reading! Not to mention I will be so much happier if I crawl into bed while Loopy is still awake and has not yet donned the new, intimidating version of the Face Underwear (pictured at right)(no, that's not Loopy in the picture). (It's a machine to prevent sleep apnea. It works wonders for her health and well-being, but it's not exactly alluring, although it is at times hilarious!)

All this discussion of Face Underwear has helped me focus on a good motivation for going to bed, so I'm off in that direction. However, in closing, I will just add one more thought on the problem of the "official" vs the "unofficial" plan: I recently realized that any decision that involves taking my own needs or wishes into consideration causes me intense anxiety, which makes it hard for me to rank and prioritize the different considerations, and results in actions that are either insanely self-sacrificing or horrendously self-absorbed. If I could think clearly about my own needs and wishes, maybe I would be able to find some kind of happy medium between the official and unofficial plan. But I get stuck between conflicting urges of "to hell with everyone else, just crawl off and hide somewhere and everything bad will disappear" and all my upbringing that urges saintly perfection, and I just can't even think at all.

I'm reading a really, really useful & interesting book right now--Empowering Underachievers. I picked it up to help me with my students, which it definitely does, but it also applies to me a lot. I seem to be some kind of late-blooming underachiever.

Ah, a plaintive call from Loopy... "Will you kill the mosquitos in my rooooooom?" Of course I will. Five minutes later, as I play with my post, she calls again.... "They're eating me!" and then "You've gotta help me!" Poor loopy!!!! OK, here I go

at last, a quiz that truly understands me

saw this on loopy's blog, so I had to go check it out....

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-Perfect- You're the perfect girlfriend. Which means you're rare or that you cheated :P You're the kind of chick that can hang out with your [loopy's] friends and be silly. You don't care about presents or about going to fancy places. Hell, just hang out. You're just happy being around your [loopy].

What Kind of Girlfriend Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

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I played around with this a little and found that if you say you like to go to the video arcade, never have crushes, prefer Adam Sandler movies, and like some song that goes "I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts," then it tells you that you are "innocent, childish, and possibly lesbian" Very amusing!

(I can just hear Dorotha, K-fly and Ang* saying, "you thought Harry Potter was offensive** and you think that's amusing???" What can I say? — maybe it's just a matter of being in the right mood).

I see now that the three above-mentioned peeps have also taken this little quiz...we're just all perfect together, lah-di-dah. ;-) I think it's funny that I probably could be described as "mercurial, tomboyish, and loving".... but definitely not perfect, due in no small part to being too mercurial.

I wonder if the person who made this knows what "mercurial" means? (Do I, for that matter?)

But if you *really* want to take a long hard look into the deepest depths of your soul, try taking the "What kind of Pocky are you?" quiz, by the same author. I am Strawberry Pocky! "You're energetic and you probably bounce around a lot. You're also a bit naive, and you probably fall in love easily." Hey, at least Strawberry Pocky isn't preachy!

Tomorrow we face an army of roofers and plumbers. Don't even ask.

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*Not to imply that I assume or expect that any of these people read my blog necessarily. Blogs should not be a social obligation. :-)

**Here are the three things I found mildly offensive*** in Harry Potter: (1) the fat aunt who blows up, (2) the severed Jamaican head and (3) the implied comparison between queers and werewolves... i.e. the predator who can't control himself and deserves pity rather than condemnation.

***Not that I ever let being offended/annoyed get in the way of enjoying a really top-notch movie (such as "Return of the King," whose human villains mostly look Arab or African), but HP-TPOA was really not a top-notch movie. (Maybe third or fourth notch--not bad, I may see it again someday when I'm bored, but just.... as the below-mentioned Amy would say... just "eh.") So the annoying stuff stands out more.

happy birthday AMY!

or hip-pappy bithuthday, as I think it says somewhere in Pooh bear. Amy (aka Amerina) is my roommate from college (aka the halcyon days of yore) and she was and is fantabulous, so I hope her birthday was extremely happy, or magnamonious, as the case may be, because she deserves only the very best! Yay Amy! xoxoxoxoxo

Kansas & Nebraska Act, no... Yalta, yes.

Yalta showed up on the test after all. Guess I shouldn't have assumed that "I knew about Yalta." Do you know about Yalta?

Which of the following things happened at the Yalta Conference in 1945?
a) Korea was divided along the 38th parallel
b) Poland got new borders
c) The participants decided to demand reparations from Germany for the USSR.
d) Something else that I ruled out immediately & can't remember because, unlike answer (a), it didn't almost make me laugh out loud.

Well? Do you know??? Apparently it was (b). I changed my answer so many times between (b) and (c) that I don't know which one I ended up with.

I know if I asked my mom she would act all surprised that ANYONE could not know such an OBVIOUS thing. Good thing she doesn't read this. (Does she?) Well, Mom, do you know the difference between fiscal policy and monetary policy? How 'bout Weber's definitions of authority, do you know that? Do ya? Huh? Huh?

Cuz I don't!

a weird and/or fucked-up century

so, tomorrow I have to take a content test in social studies. I meant to study, but I guess I didn't. So I've spent the last hour and ahalf googling about, looking at timelines, trying to cram for at least the history portion, which after all is supposed to be my field (what the hell is the "Kansas and Nebraska Act"??)

I have learned that the Rules of War, cubism, and the electric washing machine were all introduced to the world in the same year (1907). Also that Gandhi's Salt March was in 1930 (a lot earlier than I realized) and that there were a whole bunch of conferences after World War II in which the fate of the world was decided (I knew about Bretton Woods and Yalta, but not Potsdam and Dumbarton Oaks). See, tests can drive learning.

But I still don't know what the Kansas and Nebraska Act is. But I'm going to bed anyway. It was on the practice test, so it won't be on the real test.Right?