grandma

My grandmother died today. On my dad's side. She was 90 and had been suffering Alzheimer's and Parkinson's for 10 years. I've been mourning her since her illnesses began, but today my sadness hit a peak.

This certainly puts things in perspective.

I miss her.

milk

I just bought a medium cup of steamed milk and a chocolate cream cheese brownie. This is the best fucking cup of milk I've ever had. The brownie is marginal in quality.

CD wallet

I recently found myself stuck deep in a musical rut. For a few weeks there, I was playing the same damn albums over and over and over again. This morning, I put my foot down on that repetition and switched out every CD in my CD wallet. Here's what ended up in the rotation, in order of appearance:

One Soul Now -- Cowboy Junkies
18 -- Moby
In Time 1988-2003 : The Best of REM -- REM
Dookie -- Greenday
Willing to Wait -- Melissa Ferrick
Simon & Garfunkel Collected Works, Disc1 -- Simon & Garfunkel
Brahms Violin Concerto and Beethoven Symphony no. 5 -- Vienna Philharmonic
Short Trip Home -- Joshua Bell, Edgar Meyer, Sam Bush and Mike Marshall
The House Carpenter's Daughter -- Natalie Merchant
Motherland -- Natelie Merchant
A Kiss in Time -- Patty Griffin
The Freedom Sessions -- Sarah McLachlan
Play -- Moby
Automatic for the People -- REM
Lifes Rich Pageant -- REM
Moulin Rouge Soundtrack -- Ummmm...
Van Lear Rose -- Loretta Lynn (produced by Jack White of the White Stripes!)
Achtung Baby -- U2
The Bends -- Radiohead
Post -- Bjork
Up -- REM

chemically-influenced free associations

I should be posting - take solid advantage of this flipped-out Ambien-induced pre-sleep state I'm in. But I have no guarantees of what will come from my fingertippies. Each night I take a bitter pill to get me off to dreamland and I'm testing the boundaries of how long I can stay lucid post-imbibement. It's getting pretty difficult to focus my eyes and my words feel slurry and I wish I could buy a slurpy. My favorite flavor is blue-raspberry because raspberries aren't actually blue. I am blue, only because of recent life events. I will turn yellow or pink or purple again soon. But for now, blue will have to do. There is an up to this down. And it's only being in the down that allows us to fully appreciate the up. Fuck this philosophical bullhooey. I want the hell out of this dispair I'm in. I want to wake tomorrow finding rays of light pouring into my window and on a mound of cottage cheese pancakes with lemon curd dressing sitting beside a round cup of coffee with cream. I want to embrace those simplicities for all the joys they bring, making life worth living. But when will I find joy in that cup of coffee again?

What coincidence: it's my birthday and the Cowboy Junkies were on Morning Edition today. Wow.

If you haven't heard the Trinity Sessions, you should. I also highly recommend Black Eyed Man.

around the sun

There's nothing like the gift of new music from your favorite band. REM has a new album, due for release on October 5th. I've been looking forward to this date for a few months, perhaps years. I can still remember the joy of learning the ins and outs of their 2001 release, Reveal. I spent weeks with that CD on repeat, memorizing every word, every note, every instrumental, every pause. I have precise memories of where I was while reaching epiphanies about certain songs - riding the 71 MUNI westbound on Haight Street (Track 10), leaving my then-boyfriend's apartment down the west slope of Mt. Sutro (Track 1), lounging in my apartment in the dark with S and L (Track 2), sitting at my bench in lab (Track 4). Each listen brought new clarity to the enigmatic lyrics. The fullness and beauty of the songs, the complexity of the instrumental layering, and the thoughtfulness of the musical construction - all unfolded over time. Within weeks, I knew that CD like the back of my fucking hand.

Familiarizing myself with a new CD is a highly anticipated event. I have already made plans to slap down my $17 at the local Amoeba Records precisely at opening time on October 5th. From there, it will be THE CD in my CD player for weeks. But last night a wrench was thrown into my thinking. This entire CD, for which I thought I had to wait 13 more days, is available in full (for free) on myspace.com. What do I do now? Break the anticipation and sink my teeth in? Or wait for the full series of events: cut the cellophane wrapper, open the case, read the insert, marvel at the artwork, remove the CD, place it in my player, and listen. I am perplexed. Modern technology is fucking with my head. I am left......conflicted.

Women, Burdens, and Relationships

I'm pissed and it's time I let loose. I want to start by apologizing to my male reader(s) (Grrbear, I adore you). I fully recognize the degree to which I am generalizing here, but I feel intensely cynical...so I blog forth with great hyperbole.

Women carry an inordinate burden in this world. Some of this stems from biology. We suffer monthly aches and pains, we live with the anxieties about unwanted pregnancy, we must bear the pain of childbirth, we are at much higher risk of contracting STDs, and a good portion of us - for better or worse - are attracted to men. And then there are the things that result from socialization or societal norms or whatever the fuck you want to call it. On the whole, we get paid less for the same amount of work, we are treated with less respect in less obviously measureable ways (see this), and we are (you may argue, but I believe it) expected to act within bounds of gender roles and are negatively labelled when we don't fit those molds (think of that last 'bitch' of a boss you had and ask yourself, 'was she just acting like a male?').

And then there is the position of women in the realm of romatic relationships. Whether due to biology or socialization or a combination of the two, we tend to get emotionally connected. We take the others' words of care and support seriously. We open ourselves with caution and connect when it feels safe. We CARE even when the intensity of the feeling is not mutual. And when we have to go our separate ways, we wonder why we gave anything in the first place. We come to realize that words and actions do not hold the same weight for them as they did for us. We discover that some part of our confidence was tied to it or them or us. In the end, we wonder why we didn't preserve all of our energies and care and nurturance for our girlfriends, the ones who will always be there. I find myself wondering, why the fuck did evolution result in something that makes very little logical sense? Men and woman together?!? Total rediculousness. Absurd.

Tea

I have officially made the move from coffee to tea by force of a stomach bug. Point#1 of the Autumn 2004 resolutions has been fulfilled. Moving on to point #2....


"I don't know nothing, except change will come." -P.Griffin

Change is in the air.

America's Health Care System Sucks

I'm in Public Health. I KNOW the U.S. has a craptastic health care system. I've witnessed this first-hand a few times in my life - the worst was the fall of 2000 (Spice can chime in on that). But each bad experience with our disasterous system catches me off guard - and I'm reminded of why I got into public health in the first place.

Yesterday I finally got signed up with HealthNet - retroactive for September 1st. They signed me up for a primary care physician who, as it turns out, is NOT accepting new patients. So I call back and switch to someone else who, by the information given on the web site, IS accepting new patients. When I call that doctor's office, it turns out she's NOT accepting new patients. Fuckin' A. So now I'm calling every office that appears to have a primary doctor accepting new patients. My success rate is about 50%. The best story yet: calling an office of a doctor that doesn't actually exist. They acted as though I'm an idiot. I think HealthNet and their outdated crappy website is at fault here.

I wish I could return to my horrible, low-service, high-cost student health insurance. I never thought I'd say that. Blah.

Summer of 2004

This has been a hell of a summer and I'm glad it's over. My lowest point? Getting mugged. My highest point? Spice's visit and related activities. Right now? I'm done with extremes. Just give me boredom again - or at least the space to rediscover myself.

...

I feel worse. The walk to work exhausted me. Now I'm sitting at my desk thinking that the light coming into the window has an unnatural shimmer. I haven't had a square meal in days. I drink lots of juice and swallow vitamins in hopes of maintaining my sanity. But it is wearing fast. My boss wrote me to tell me I'm not signed up for health insurance. I find this disturbing, given that I think my food needs to be delivered via IV. When will this end? I'm going home.

I have some virus and I can't get rid of it. For several days, my diet has consisted of bananas, apple sauce, crackers, and - in good moments - yogurt. Yick. The best part of all of this is the DELIRIUM.

Gabe fears he's turning into a Japanese woman.

Gabe is trying to talk me into being a G-mailer. I will resist.

Gabe has a G-mail account. What the fuck?

Se7en, and Other Delightful Treats

I feel it is only fair that I update my readers on the Prince-related events that transpired last night.

In short: fabulous.

In long form:
None of us in the party of 4 knew we'd be attending said concert until less than 24 hours before start time. The stand in for Annette (home with cold) knew for roughly 3. There is usually some substantial build-up time for attending a concert of someone so prominent as Prince. Typically, tickets are bought with large sums of money several months in advance. There's the time to get excited, simmer down again, wait out the time, consider what songs will be played, and get geared up again the week of the show. Not so for us. We had to do all that processing over the course of a 1.5 hour drive to San Jose and a 1 hour wait at the arena. We never hit a state of full acceptance of the events that were to transpire. This is evidenced by the fact that when we sat down 10 minutes into the 2 hour concert, we looked at each other in disbelief, pointed at the stage, looked back at each other in disbelief, and said, 'Holy crap. That's Prince!' It still hasn't registered. I am in a continuous state of surreality.

Prince was on fire last night. Highlights included a rocking rendition of 7 (my personal favorite Prince song, quite appropriately played after a long conversation during the car ride about the seven deadly sins...we can only list 6), a 20-person performance of the Electric Slide (west coast style), and a funktastic cover of the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction". As always, Prince was in top-notch fashion form - ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS. And I won't even get started on the trap door and smoke machines.

In my exhausted delirium, I talked like Ralf Wiggum all night and danced like there's no tomorrow.

I end with some facts about Prince you may not be aware of:
- He was born and raised in Minnesota and maintains his residence in Minneapolis.
- He is a very short man, measuring at roughly 5'3".
- He is sexy as all hell.
- He was once married to the woman in the Kiss video for 2 years.
- Marriage didn't suit him.
- He recently joined the Jehova's Witnesses and has stopped playing his highly raunchy songs.

Rock on!

Like it's 1999

Yo. Guess who got tickets to see Prince tonight for a mere $16. That's me. And Leah and Ben and - I really really hope - Annette too. Dude. A fucking deal.

At 5:30 I'm going to get my hair cut short and permed like Richard Simmons.

I'm Famous....Sortof

I received an e-mail from Sweet Helen this morning indicating that MY blog made it to the gossip circle at US News and World Report. Damn. Excitement abounds. Check out the link of interest and you'll find some good stories. She writes:

Your blog made an appearance at U.S. News today - one of the guys on the web team has some kind of thing set up where it crawls the blog world looking for references and links to U.S. News, and it found your link to me! My web producer was like, hey, there's this link that says "Helen writes these" on somebody's blog. So she sent it to me and whaddya know, I *know* that blog! H

People, Where Are You?

I am a social person.

I like being around people.

I go crazy when too much time passes without interaction.

But I work in an office mostly alone.

50% of the time, Gabe is here.

The other 50? Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, and Mike Mills are my companions.

I am lonely.

And I'm going bonky.

Read this in your best Ralf Wiggum voice:

"Today at work Gabe and I took the elevator. We went up and down and up again. Meow."

WNV and the Benefits of Living in the Bay Area

West Nile Virus has hit California with a vengence.

Uncorrected, raw, statistically questionable numbers say that Los Angeles Co. is suffering the most: 165 infected humans, 763 dead birds, 281 'mosquito pools' (wtf), and 50 viral-bearing sentinel chickens. We in Alameda and San Francisco Counties remain relatively unaffected with a total of 6 dead birds and (this gives me peace) NO reported infections in sentinel chickens or humans.

In general, the epidemic appears to be clustering in the southern part of the state (the counties of Kern, Los Angeles, Fresno, San Berrardino, and Riverside). These counties are the republican strongholds in this state. Could it be that being republican is a risk factor for becoming infected with West Nile Virus? This hypothesis is supported by the finding that the only two northern counties with reports of human infections (Butte and Lassen) are also strongly republican.

The above argument is an example of how statistics can be used in bad, self-benefiting, 'other-blaming' ways. Correlation is not equivalent to causation. (The AIDS epidemic did not originally cluster among gay men because god deamed them sinners deserving of suffering.) The West Nile epidemic is probably focused in the aforementioned areas because of common ecology or an older age structure in the populations living in these regions etc, etc.

But from the looks of things, West Nile is definitely heading northward. My advice to you? Clean up those pools of water in your homes and get some screens in your windows. Or just live on without worry. If you're between the ages of 13-65 and not immunocompromised, you'll probably fight off the infection anyway.

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Before signing off, let us take a moment to bow our heads in thanks for sentinel chickens throughout the state and world. These brave little birds are the true warriors of publich health, offering their lives so that we might save ours.

The 9th Month

It is September and this is my first September blog. I am doing this so that a 'September 2004' link will appear under my Archives.

In truth, I have nothing of value to say otherwise. I'm actually busy at work today.