Many times since I became a parent I have expressed sincere and deep appreciation for my fortune to be able to put off motherhood until I was ready to be the mother I wanted to be. I have the privilege of being a product of this era. I have a husband who works hard right beside me and takes his role as a partner to heart. I have parents who are always available to assist and have given generously of their time and money to ensure that these kids have everything. My reality was not the norm 70 years ago. There were perhaps a limited number of wealthy women who had access to information and paraphenalia who could limit their fertility, but most women lived at the whim of the men around them (as is the case presently in much of the developing world).

Choice is a word that gets thrown around. I am glad that the days of compulsory pregnancy are waning and that I’ve been able to take charge of my fertility. I have the privilege of a broad education, parents who encouraged me to read widely and answered my many questions. I have access to many types of support in my community providing me with information and appurtenances as needed. Not everyone has these advantages therefore I feel it is a necessity in a tolerant society that women control their fertility and have, as a means of controlling their fertility, the ability to choose a safe and legal abortion.

Over the last few years it has become apparent to me that the POTUS has a limited effect on my life. In the past I had rejected other Democratic nominees because they were not liberal enough. I finally realised that true change comes from the bottom up and stopped looking up for that change.  After seeing who has been nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States over the last few decades and under the impression that the next president will appoint at least one justice in his term, I became a one issue voter. Then we saw McCain make his famous air quotes gesture as he spoke in the last debate about the health of the mother. I was even more horrified to consider that he might be president and make those appointments. Any time someone wanted to debate one candidate’s qualifications over the other’s I would revert to my stubborn stance and repeat ‘The next president will likely be making appointments to the SCOTUS and I want the person making those appointments to trust women to make their own decisions.’

I want my daughter to control her fertility. PERIOD.

I want women around the world to enjoy the privilege of choosing when and how they become mothers. We need to extend sex-education, brith control, equal rights, and for now, some women might need the option of abortion. For them it should a safe and legal medical procedure.

Since San Diego tap water comes from a variety of sources, a number of additives are used to counteract the contaminants founds in the water even after treatment. One of these — I think chloramines — leave a stale, chemical taste in the water (something I did not miss when I visited SF a few weeks ago). Kiosks with filters that are hooked up to municipal water pipes seem to eliminate most of this flavor, rendering the water mostly palatable. The little filter we keep in the refrigerator works for most beverages like tea, soup, or, well, actually nothing. I start gritting my teeth if I have to drink it plain. The fact of the matter is that I’d like to have some type of appliance at home that I can use to filter tap water to make it as enjoyable as I perceive our old brand of bottled water to be.

My requirements are simple. Something that will fit on the counter, something that does not require batteries or electricity, something that will take our slightly dodgy local water and turn it into something cleaner with a lighter flavor. Oh. My. Dorsh. I though I would google a few filters, read some comparison sheets, and blimbo-bango make a decision and buy a new little filter. The filter industry is widely variable and the people who buy them and sell them rely on all sorts of hyperbole to push their product. In addition, I found a subculture of message boards focused on a ‘back to the land’ movement, based on a widespread belief that society as we know it is on the verge of an imminent breakdown. I’m not going to provide any links because I am trying to forget some of the stuff I read. It’s out there and relatively easy to find.

We are still functioning under our stopgap measure: going to the local water kiosk and filling our plastic bottles with reverse osmosified water. We’ve tried this many times or the last several years. Every time thus far this system breaks down after a few months due to memory laspses, exhaustion, and lack of dedication. I am still unclear as to which filter I will eventually buy as my old standbys have failed me in this effort. The appliance I’m looking for is a niche product, something between a whole house filter and a little pitcher filter. In the meantime, I am reading up on filters, learning the lingo, and trying to stay far away from the cultural rabbit hole.

*a quote that does not inspire confidence from the 2006 Annual Water Quality Report

In ninth grade, I had a friend named Erin (Rick was friends with her younger brother, Dana). I’d known Erin for a few years in junior high, but right before our freshman year Erin and her family moved about a block away from our house near Leigh High School. One day I was walking home from school with Erin in my cheerleading uniform and instead of heading straight home I went home with Erin. We were cautioned to never do anything unbecoming of cheerleader while in uniform under threat of being kicked off the squad (some girls did some very risque things, however, since they weren’t in uniform none off them were ever relieved of their positions). Once at Erin’s home, we listened to music and ate some snacks. At some point Erin offered me a cigarette as she had been smoking for a while, stealing smokes from her mother. Dressed in my cheer uniform, I hesitated, but then not wanting to be a square I said sure. Since Erin was still hiding her smoking from her mom, we went outside in front of the garage to have a smoke. I was nervous about breaking a taboo and also afraid of being caught smoking — even though we had a smoking section at school for the students. That cigarette made me so sick and dizzy that I couldn’t even finish it, but still there was something seductive about the ritual of inhaling.

I never have been a ‘smoker’ even though I have occasionally enjoyed a bidi, a cheroot, or a nargile. So I don’t think that the root of the problem is smoking in and off itself. I think that the problem is our gluttonous society wherein a person smokes a pack or two or three a day. If a person smoke two packs a day that is forty cigarettes per day. Assuming 16 hours of wakefulness and 2.5 cigarettes per hour at approximately 7 minutes per cigarette smoked, over 17 minutes per hour are given over to the smoking habit. Sure you can smoke and make breakfast at the same time, but ew, gross, ashes & eggs do not the best menu make. And what to do with the refuse of a habit that takes up almost 1/3 of your waking time? Is anyone gonna walk around with 40 butts in their pocket? A few years ago I was acquainted with a person of European extraction who smoked. I was surprised when I accidentally discovered xir habit. This person never stank of old astray or spewed smoke tinged breath in my face. I tried to give hir a hard time about hir habit and xie defended hirself saying, ‘I smoke 3-4 cigarettes a day. One after lunch, one or two in the afternoon or evening and one before bed. I run and am active, so give me a break. It is just a past time and I don’t over indulge like you Americans.’ I learned that in many European countries, smoking is not a competitive sport (although I am sure there are individuals who over indulge there). It is more of a pleasant way to end a meal or to sit and contemplate the passing of the day. Just as one drink does not make one an alcoholic, one smoke does not make one an extreme smoker.

So while I despise the visual clutter and environmental pollution as much as the next person, I think that unless smokers start taking responsibility for their habit i.e. not throwing their butts into the roadway or people’s yards, smoking far away from children, not smoking near doorways or places where their smoke impinges on other’s ability to breath, local governments will enact more and more laws restricting smokers and their ability to smoke wherever they damn please. Instead of complaining and whining they need to band together to show the world that in spite of their addiction, they can be considerate, conscientious, and clean. Bwahhhahhha! Who am I kidding? The vast majority of those who indulge in this lethal past time are never gonna do this. So government will keep extracting extra dollars from smokers and continue limiting their habit and time will keep on ticking into the future.

About 4 weeks ago, a writer named Theresa Duncan reportedly killed herself in New York. She had a blog of some acclaim that until her death she updated daily. Her death was not widely reported even by by NY and LA papers and blogs — she’d recently moved from Venice Beach to the East Village — until after the disappearance of her longtime companion and collaborator, the artist Jeremy Blake. He walked into the ocean a week or so after finding her body in their apartment and was at that time presumed dead. Reports assert that a body was eventually recovered and identified as his through dental records. An ongoing investigation is presumedly underway, but as of this time no further information has been released nor have the texts of either of their last notes been released.

I read of Duncan’s demise most randomly on Valleywag, a website I rarely visit, on the morning of my 35th birthday. I felt some shock because her website had become a staple of my blog diet and I felt certain I had just read an update, but no her last obscure post dated July 10th, the date of her passing, was the last instance of my remote interaction with her web presence. Some personal websites or blogs offer a portrait, often a self-portrait, of a narrow portion of life focused on crafting, geekery, or parenting while other websites offer vistas or wide landscapes that showcase a certain portion of society. The ‘Wit of the Staircase’ offered a different kind of view that in my opinion made it stand out from the crowd and made it a memorable experience that took one out of the mundane. I reveled in the juxtaposition of the unusual images she used to illustrate her nebulous links and abstruse interests, but in the two years she blogged she revealed very little personal drama. Occasionally she asserted perplexing accusations and one could deduce she had more than a passing interest in what is demeaningly referred to as ‘conspiracy theory‘. One could not say they ‘knew‘ Theresa Duncan from her blog, but still her passing was very shocking.

There is something to this ‘story‘ that captures the imagination. There are so many questions left…Were they really harassed? (Probably.) Were they ‘mentally ill’? (Who isn’t as it all depends on who is giving the diagnosis.) And the answers will not be given by either of the two doomed lovers. Many are trying to put the pieces together, some are going for easy and cheap analysis while others are looking into the depths of the internet for meaning. I grieve for their families. There are no answers. My feeling is perhaps the meaning lies somewhere in the middle.

Something has been lost. Two lives are over and their deaths will resonate for the family and friends left behind. I will miss her sharp wit, her endless links that took me on an adventure far from the quotidian, and her superbly curated images that opened worlds before me.

May the elements of the rainbow colors not rise up as enemies;
May it come that all the Realms of the Buddhas will be seen.
May it come that all Sounds will be known as one’s own sounds;
May it come that all the Radiances will be known as one’s own radiances…

Neuromancer does something to my brain. There are turns of phrase that are like keys to the dim recesses of my subconscious. I read certain passages and I silently freak out at how they grasp and mold my imagination and evoke startling clear images like dreams that grip you in your waking state. The prose resonates with me and after twenty-five+ readings, none of the enjoyment has diminished. I remember reading it for the first time and how my view of the world was changed and colored by his timeless observations. When I finished reading it, I lay on my bed for hours, imagining the world of the book then turned back to the first page and started reading again.

I envy William Gibson’s mind, his imagination, the way he synthesizes a new reality that parallels our own, which is but simply a reflection of who he is and his twisted magic. Even his blog reveals nuggets of cyber-gold that sometimes make me think that his books are reality and we are fiction.

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p.s. i read this after i wrote this entry

I have no memory of my life before words. What remains is the 8mm movies, the pictures, the memories of my parents and that is all. What will he recall? Memory can be a trap or a gift. I hope it is always a gift for mon cheri.

A few summers ago I took a public relations class at one of the local university’s continuing education programs. We briefly studied the history of public relations, its use after WWI, and it’s infiltration into the corporate sphere. There was lots of subtext about the inherent nature of PR, its (dis)honesty, its manipulation of ‘truth’. Then we studied lots of theory. OMG, so much theory. It’s a very murky field because some things that shouldn’t work, work and somethings that should work, don’t and meanwhile the public is learning about how they are being manipulated and developing more and more defenses (like an immune system) to the control being spun by the machine.

I wonder too about the conflation occuring because of blogs — personal journalism, personal interest (design, craft, books, &tc), professional, corporate — how does public relations figure into all of this. Are people ‘keeping it real’ (can you even keep it real? what is the nature of reality?) Some have asserted that Andy Warhol’s notion of ‘everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes’ has been replaced by a global notion of ‘everyone will be famous for fifteen people‘. How are we shaping people’s perception of our lives? Are we being honest or is there a slant (conscious or subconscious) that is creating a ‘meta-mutant’ persona? I

The other day I was reading a blog (I can’t remember which one right now, I’ll update when I find the link) and there was something about the voice that made me think the blog was ‘inauthentic’. It was constructed as a personal journal, but there was something about it that made me think ‘Nuh-uh, this person is gunning for something’ — a book contract, a job, a site fully supported by advertising — and I was turned off, perhaps it wasn’t true but it was enough for me to close tab and move onto something else.

Actually I was pretty disappointed. The last few weekends have been big on preparation. The Samhain party we went to had better results, but that may have been attributed to the fact that I got to sleep in my own bed after the fact and not share a little sleeping space with both my gigantor husband and my son o’the flailing limbs.

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Everyone keeps asking us if we’re going to have more kids and when we truthfully say we “don’t know”, we get all sorts of responses, ranging from disparagement of only children to tales of children who were deprived of ‘playmates’ or relationships with their siblings because the age spread was ‘too big to bridge’. I wish I had the Ms. Manners wry and witty repsonse memorized because in general this is a really personal question to ask someone (unless you’re the grandparent of the first child;).

Personally for me I just feel like it’s too soon and that if I were to the follow the logic of all the advice, I would be having the child for a whole bunch of reasons that don’t make too much sense to me. Having a child is a whole helluva lot of work and having one so that Lucas will have a playmate just seems like the wrong reason in my mind. I had Lucas because I wanted a child and if I end up having another one, it’ll be because I want a second child, not because only children are awful in some way and I want to prevent that from happening to my big boy. So if and when we’re ready to have another one, well, we’ll see.

Wade and I were trying to come up with an analogy for having children versus not. So far all we’ve been able to come up with is a renting vs. buying analogy. One is more responsibility, more work, more expensive, more maintenance, more effort, more heartache, more worry, but you also have more responsibility, more say over the big decisions, more equity, blah, blah, blah. It still needs some work and isn’t exactly poetic and also has some major problems cos you can sell a house and become a renter, but you canNOT sell a kid (and who would want to?). I love my sweet one. I delight in his existence, but sometimes I do miss my uncomplicated pre-child life. I think more than anything I am just utterly exhausted especially after a night sans sleep in the desert. {yawn}. So g’night.

The only reason I am quick to make the connection between Simone DeBeauvoir and Simon Bolivar is that we recently watched a video of President Ikeda whence he quoted the great man. “In Strength lies Virtue.” “I have a thousand times more trust in the people than in their deputies.”

But the she handles it so gracefully that she only rises in my esteem. Must work on my mudita.

*Ah, Jens Lekman, I loves ya! The man has a lyric for everything.