Spring Cleaning- um, late winter cleaning

January seemed to go at a very slow pace this year. I spent gfar tioomuch money during Christmas, mostly on other people, and of course I had momentary regrets. But the look on people's faces was worth it. Of course, I ate far too much and drank plenty.

But with the advent of January I did a detox, vamped up my exercise program and did quite a bit of writing. But writing involves the use of imagination and memory, which can be tied up material objects, some good, emphasizing the best of your life, and some bad, highlighting times of sadness and regret. Both are good to have; but sometimes you need to let go of certain items and clean house, yo welcome in new possibilities.

That's what I am doing today.

Today was Carb Day

Good heavens, but today was carb day! Usually, I have a pretty balanced diet- a wholesome breakfast of egg or tofu plus oatmeal, coffee, lunch is a salad + protein or a soup, dinner is a repeat of lunch or a stirfry with quinoa.

But Jesus, today was carbs, carbs, carbs- pancakes for brekkie, a big serving of sweet potato soup and salad, tortilla chips, and mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and salmon for dinner, plus a mini muffin with tea after dinner, yet.

Jesus- I blame the rainy weather.

I worked out at the gym and did a sauna section, but that certain did not offset the nosh fest that was today!

Obama RANTS

From Sullivan's Blog- and can you blame him?

What you need to listen to, right now

And for extra bonus points:

How to tell people they are racist

Actually, this is good way to talk about any issue in which prejudice may come into play:

MLK Day

All progress is precarious, and the solution to one problem brings us face to face with another problem.

Martin Luther King Jr.

It's a marathon, life is, not a sprint.

Daybreakers- Sam Neill Goes NOM NOM NOM

Daybreakers is utterly and completely fun, pure schlock combined with corporate parody, a treatise on pharmaceuticals, screwed up family dynamics and commentary on Western business practices. The first 1/3 of the movie is something utterly fresh and original- just brilliant, briliant briliant.

The Sperieng Brothers.

And Sam Neill goes NOM NOM NOM.

Send your help to people helping Haiti

Catholic Relief - http://crs.org/

Mercy Corps-- http://www.mercycorps.org/haiti

Medicine san Frontiers/Doctors Without Borders: http://doctorswithoutborders.org/

Text YELE to 501501- this enables $5 donation to Wyclef Jean's Haiti org : http://www.yele.org/

The President has pledged support but a combination of various government and NGO help is the only way this catastrophe can be abated.

I have an efficient body

37 miles per gallon

Created by The Car Connection

What I think of research

Greyness

It is dark grey now, turning into a smoky blackness that describes the winter nights here in Oregon. Funny how for the New Year, we are encouraged to do a diet regime, clean our homes and do some exercise.

But how can one move, it is so grey outside? Grey and grey and grey and grey, steel gray skies with soft, misty insistent grey rain coming down, and even if you get a sunbreak, the only colors are the strange, flourescent green of the moss, the squichy dark brown of dirt and shit, and the ghostly grey of the lichen growing on sleeping trees.

Where are the clean winter smells of pine and fresh wind? All I get lately is the smell of rotting matter, fire smoke and humidity.

It makes one want to crawl into a truly sumptuous bed, perhaps one with very soft sheets and a down comforter, covered in a colorful duvet, with plenty of pillows and hot herbal tea and perhaps a few sweet biscuits and a book filled with pictures of tropiocal locales.


Oh, but people were not meant to TRULY work in this climate during these next six weeks. This was the time before Lent, fare well to the flesh. People who lived this high up on the Earth tended their animals and children, repaired things, and ate soup.

And slept.

Heck, my ancestors in the tropics didn't work for more than 6-7 hours tending rice and fish traps and smelting iron.

But now we are a plugged in, 24/7 society, aren't we, and we can anywhere and everywhere, even in greyness.

New Year- 2010!

I rang in the New Year with wine, a hot bath and a newly broken toilet. Yikes!

I also got to hang with Michael W, who was kind enough to let me blow the rest of my Christmas money on Sherlock Holmes and a really superb late brunch at Laurelhurst Brewpub on Hoyt and NW 23rd.

All the blogs are talking about the year in review, the decade in review, a name for the decade and other such markers.

Let me say this about the past ten years:

It was a wash. I graduated college, studied post college, and found myself in one of the shittiest job markets in a supposedly desirable city. I moved to LA and came back due to the cost. And I still found the job market shitty and people desperate and cauht up in the real estate boom, which turned out to be a bust. I did write and edit and learn my craft- which is good. I really should have pushed my work more and perhaps stayed in LA, despite the cost and noise- which is a bad thing to admit.

I saw my home city attacked by planes, and watched symbols of childhood- symbols of a greater world than Brooklyn- burn and burn and burn.


I lost Eric.

Any semblance of fellow feeling from my family was lost. Strangely enough, I am not sorry.

I have worked hard only to see any gain evaporated. I have seen friends build up careers only to move back in with parents or aunts. My fellow writers in LA have to work 2 and 3 jobs just to keep their heads covered.

I have discovered my self to be exactly as the Mother Church has trained me to be- a socially conscious and aware liberal Catholic. When I was 22, I used to say that with a sense of irony. I now say that with a sense of true pride.

It was not all serious.

There were fantastic parties, the best parties when you are hungry and drunk and dancing all night long. There was incredible trips to Canada and Mexico and France and even sneaking into Belize. There were the fiery, poisonous sunsets in LA, and drizzling winters in Seattle and Portland.

There was Barack Obama.

How to describe him, his effect on me and friends and the world? How to describe a guy that made all good things in America seem possible, that hard work and application mean something again? How to describe a man that made you feel smarter 3 minutes after hearing him speak, who made you feel that reason and wit was important again?

You had to be there.

I was. You were there, too.

See, you and me, we were there, weren't we?

It was not a lost decade, no.