woman who reads too much

12:40 am: The card not shown but at the center of the cross, represents the atmosphere surrounding the central issue. Ace of Wands: The seed of a new venture - perhaps as yet unseen. An opportunity to be met with boldness, vigor, and enthusiasm. The herald of birth, invention, or entrepreneurship. An innate and primal force released. May suggest a surge of vitality, creativity, or fertility that can set things in motion.

The card visible at the center of the cross represents the obstacle that stands in your way - it may even be something that sounds good but is not actually to your benefit. Nine of Cups (Happiness), when reversed: Vanity, conceit, and smugness in romance, friendship, or other relationships. Achieving what you always thought you wanted. Overindulging in food, drink, or the pleasures of the flesh. A state of joy and abundance that is shallow and fleeting.

The card at the top of the cross represents your goal, or the best you can achieve without a dramatic change of priorities. Wheel of Fortune: The path of destiny. Karma on a grand scale. An unexpected turn of good fortune. A link in the chain of events. Success, luck, and happiness.

The card at the bottom of the cross represents the foundation on which the situation is based. Eight of Cups (Indolence): Losing interest in a matter deeply important to you. Being forced to abandon something in which you had invested great love and devotion. Seeking earthly, physical pleasures, to the exclusion of spiritual growth and emotional fulfillment. Emotional withdrawal and lethargy.

The card at the left of the cross represents a passing influence or something to be released. Four of Swords (Truce): A time of tranquility and intellectual repose in the midst of a great struggle. A temporary retreat from stress to regather inner strength, reaffirm convictions, reorganize thoughts, and formulate a new plan. The need for vigilance in a moment of calm. May suggest a withdrawal from the material world to find spiritual guidance.

The card at the right of the cross represents an approaching influence or something to be embraced. Five of Pentacles (Worry): Hard times brought on by addiction, wasteful spending, ill health, or an outside event. Rejection, loneliness, and the need for comfort. May suggest unemployment, a catastrophe in personal finance, or a turn for the worse in business.

The card at the base of the staff represents your role or attitude. Six of Wands (Victory): A sense of honor and satisfaction at the resolution of an important matter. Triumph after great struggle. Jubilation at the hearing of good news. The realization of hopes and desires.

The card second from the bottom of the staff represents your environment and the people you are interacting with. Six of Pentacles (Success): A time of prosperity and profit. Success and generosity in material things. Power and influence turned to noble pursuits. Philanthropy, and the balancing of physical and spiritual life. May suggest gifts or aid to one in need.

The card second from the top of the staff represents your hopes, fears, or an unexpected element that will come into play. Nine of Pentacles (Gain), when reversed: Bad luck attending material affairs. Elitism and snobbishness. Lack of discipline resulting in the erosion of security and stability. Contempt for the exact labors that brought one to a position of refinement. Dishonesty in financial matters.

The card at the top of the staff represents the ultimate outcome should you continue on this course. Five of Cups (Disappointment): Suffering a loss and wishing for what might have been. Being crippled by sadness, grief, and vain regret. Indecision brought on by the feeling that you made the wrong choice. Ignoring what you still have. May suggest a broken relationship or tragedy. May also suggest a gift, inheritance, opportunity, partnership, or marriage, but one that falls below expectations.

Tags: tarot

09:07 pm: knock wood
Am half-afraid to mention it, but the extra two weeks of healing have left Passion in much less pain! (Although very unhappy that the other horses get turnout and she doesn't.) We've been gradually decreasing the bute. Today was the last dose. Now, I guess, we wait and see.

05:39 pm: decision-making
I'm not surprised to have to make this decision now. I am surprised to be making it about Passion. Jenny is my 32-year-old rack of bones, hanging in there, sans teeth sans eyes, on sheer willpower. But it's Passion, Nixie's horse, who has laminitis.

Horses' feet are even more complex and vulnerable than ours. So are their digestive systems. And the vulnerabilities can interact: Passion probably got too much fresh grass too quickly, which put toxins into her bloodstream, which inflamed something in her front hooves, which allowed her coffin bones to be pulled away from the hoof wall where they are supposed to be attached. So she's lame, and in a lot of pain.

Hugh got her hooves trimmed to take the pressure off the front, and bedded her on sand, and dosed her with a vasodilator and a painkiller for two weeks. In the best case, Passion would heal, but would have to be kept from eating anything other than low-carb hay for the rest of her life. Her bored and lonely life, with no pasture, ever.

She didn't get the best case. As soon as the painkiller stopped the pain restarted.

We're going to have to put her down. Hugh wanted to do it tomorrow, because he and Nixie are going to California for a week on Wednesday and it's hard for me to dose Passion by myself, but Nixie wants to wait. And I can hire a neighborhood teenager to hold her head if I can't manage it alone.

04:09 pm: Mungo fainted while cleaning a critical care cage at the Raptor Center. I'm wondering, if it's too hot for humans isn't it too hot for birds? Mungo says it wasn't just the heat, he was also hungry and dehydrated. I'm hoping they've both learned something about how to avoid heat stroke.

Have some pictures Nixie took in our back yard:

Is that a flock of wild turkeys?


It's a flock of turkey vultures!

They roost in the cottonwoods in the background, and like to sit out in the sun for a while before climbing the air.



They moved away as Nixie approached them. This one, who had the best perch, went last.



(Click to see bigger)

06:43 pm: One sleep till Wiscon
All my new plants are in the ground.

Everything else I meant to do before I left is not done. Did not finish cleaning the house. Did not finish the laundry. Did not try on all my clothes and choose some for the Clothing Swap. Did not make a costume for the Fancy Dress Party. Did not take packages to the post office. Did not acquire Octavian Nothing. Did not finish Mission Child. Did not add memory to my laptop. Did not find The Gift of Fear for Betsy. Did not read cell phone manual. Did not take garden catalogs to Scilla. Did not cut the asparagus. Did not upload a story.

I spent most of today weeding and watering, which is usually my best remedy for anxiety, but it doesn't work on the anxiety of leaving home: there's so much to *do*, how can I just walk away from it?

I am going to brush the dog (2nd best anxiety remedy) and then take a long hot bath with a glass of wine. See some of you soon.

01:47 am: Poll #1190796 Indirect communication
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Suppose you did not call your mother on Mother's Day. Suppose that the day after Mother's Day, your mother left a message on your answering machine, saying, "I missed your call on Mother's Day, so I hope you call me back soon." Does she mean

01:18 am: five things make an entry
1. Three sleeps till Wiscon.

2. The public areas of my house are satisfyingly clean.

3. I really really want to put my basil starts in the ground, and I really really do not want to step in dogshit while I do it. Unfortunately, that part of the yard is local_girlchild's responsibility to pick up, and unfortunately, she keeps refusing to do it. Fortunately, girlchild and I can fight and still like each other.

4. Some of my naughty potatoes have put up some greenery, bless their eyes.

5. Local_boychild is quite pleased with today's boxofbooks, which brought him The Eye of the World, Young Miles, and Little Brother. Local_girlchild got Lonely Werewolf Girl, but started reading Little Brother instead.

09:32 pm: good things
1. My old lady mare has made it through another winter.
2. My old lady dog is still happy to go on long walks.
3. One of my http://www.kiva.org loans is completely paid back.
4. I got a box from Bluestone Perennials today.
5. My daughter got inducted into the National Honor Society.

Bonus funny thing: At the nursery, the boy who brought mulch to my car (who was way too cheerful for that early on a cold gray drizzly morning) said, "Oh, you've got pretty dogs. What kind are they?" I explained that we had got them as adults, from the shelter, so we didn't know, and he said, "That's rad."

Well, hm, I said, some people do say they're afraid to get a dog from the shelter because you don't know what you're getting, but I think that's silly. You can see what you're getting. This dog! (I thumped the big dog here.) Dogs don't lie about who they are.

"That's really rad," he said. Who knew? I'm *rad*.

03:48 pm: You don't want anything I have to offer. That's nothing new.

It's normal human behavior to reject what you don't want.

But to use the occasion of rejecting my gifts as an opportunity to nag me for something you do want -- well, that's some serious bad manners. You can't do that without a massive, throbbing sense of entitlement.

Tags: anger is an energy

05:47 pm: holy cow
http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2008/04/on-having-black-name.html

Cannot do it justice. Just go read.

02:23 pm: Books I bought in April:

Elderberry Flute Song: Contemporary Coyote Tales by Blue Cloud, Peter
Missing Mysteries #10: A Scandal in Belgravia by Barnard, Robert
Saffron and Brimstone: Strange Stories by Hand, Elizabeth
The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen by Berley, Peter
The Arrival by Tan, Shaun
A Companion to Wolves by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear
The New Moon's Arms by Hopkinson, Nalo
Resurrection man by Stewart, Sean
Clouds End by Stewart, Sean
Cathy's Book: If Found Call (650) 266-8233 by Sean Stewart and Jordan Weisman
Mockingbird by Stewart, Sean
Matter by Banks, Iain M.
Gardening at the Dragon's Gate: At Work in the Wild and Cultivated World byJohnson, Wendy
Lavinia: A Novel by Le Guin, Ursula K.

Also, I have a sore throat and full ears and a creaky, rattly chest, and I think this recipe for green garlic soup sounds good. But I have no potatoes. Does it sound good enough to make me go to the store for potatoes? (I have to leave the house to fetch children anyway.)

Also also, why haven't the potatoes I planted in March put up sprouts??

11:40 am: So, I am going to http://www.4thstreetfantasy.com/ likely with one or two young teenagers. I'm driving, so I don't have to decide how many plane tickets we need right now. Two questions:

Friends who live in Minneapolis, do you want to hang out with us (even though I will probably have just seen you at Wiscon)? Should I plan an extra day before or after to spend with you?

SFcongoers, should I warn my kids about sexually predatory and otherwise ill-socialized behavior? This looks like a small and harmless con, but the only other one I've ever been to is Wiscon.

12:46 am: book talk
My son is deeply pessimistic and skeptic: even though I have a very good record recommending books he likes, he still wants to know in detail what the book is about and why I think he would like it before he will give it a try.

After reading a couple chapters of Interworld, which was cowritten by Neil Gaiman, I recommended it to Mungo. I described the book as best I could, and pointed out that he liked Neil Gaiman's work.

- He wrote Mirrormask, and Stardust,
- He wrote that?
- yeah, and The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish,
- That was a funny book.
- and The Wolves in the Walls,
- I like his work!
- and Coraline
- I haven't read that.
- Well, I have a hunch you'd like it. Just a wild hunch!

So Mungo started reading Interworld. "This is a funny book!" he announced. "It made me laugh twice in six pages, and books never make me laugh!" When he was done he declared that Neil Gaiman is his second favorite author. (His favorite author is Terry Pratchett.) Have I got good news for you! I said.

11:43 pm: Yea, verily, many of the responses to the Open Season on Boobs Project are made of love and have caused me to caper with delight. But the one which is perfect is this: http://plasticsturgeon.livejournal.com/107334.html

05:06 pm: i hate it when that happens
You know how it is when a writer says that he's talking about people in general, and you accept that he's talking about people in general, and then you SLAM! face-first into the fact that, for him, people in general are male?

I hate it when that happens.

Here's Michael Swanwick doing it on the first pages of The Dragons of Babel:

Half the children in the village were out in the streets, hopping up and down in glee, the winged ones buzzing about in small, excited circles. Then the yage-witch came hobbling out from her barrel and, demonstrating a strength Will had never suspected her of having, swept her arms wide and then slammed together her hoary old hands with a boom! that drove the children, all against their will, back into their huts.

All save Will. He had been performing that act which rendered one immune from child-magic every night for three weeks now.

I have to stop and wonder, does Michael Swanwick not know that girls can masturbate to orgasm from babyhood on? Or, okay, this is fairyland -- do the female fairies in Michael Swanwick's imagination have mature orgasms that are physiologically different from their immature orgasms, just like Freud thought we should? In which case, do many female fairies remain vulnerable to child-magic forever?

I know, he probably just didn't notice that his generic "one" came with male equipment. But I notice, and get kicked out of the fictive dream, which is a pity, since Michael Swanwick is really good writer. The Iron Dragon's Daughter is a box of delights and I expect this one will be too.


I read fanfic, so I know of plenty of examples of women writing about male bodies from a position of ignorance. But I never see anything like, say, someone at a School of Witchcraft and Wizardry writing an essay on whether people lose their virginity when they are penetrated or when they are inseminated, and what effect condom use would have on the latter. Women writing from the position that their sex is the norm: what would that look like?

11:51 pm: books i am in the middle of
The Reproductive System by John Sladek
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Manic: a memoir by Terri Cheney
Not Me by Michael Lavigne
Dark Reflections by Samuel Delany
The Strictest School in the World by Howard Whitehouse
Saving the World by Julia Alvarez
Blood and Iron by Elizabeth Bear
Total Recall by Sara Paretsky

These are all books I want to finish, or at least did want to finish when I paused reading them. They're just none of them what I want to read right now. I don't know what is, either.

01:30 am: need to mother QUITE satisfied thank you
have just finished washing paintbrushes and roller after helping local girlchild prime her room. we didn't finish earlier because we were emptying and cleaning said room. also this evening recorded data for boychild's science fair project. didn't do that earlier because he had a friend over all day. spent yesterday afternoon on Odyssey of the Mind, for which ONE team member showed up. two were still out of town, one got sick, and one preferred to continue playing with his cousins, even though I pointed out that the tournament is this saturday and they haven't finished building the props and Jared really cannot do it all by himself. if I were a good OM coach I would not interfere with the humiliating failure looming over them. . . but I am not that good.

01:22 pm: I just got email from High Country gardens claiming that Bees Need Homes! What do you-all think?

The Blue Orchard Mason Bee is a native species found throughout
the US. This mighty pollinator, doing the work of 120 European
honey bees, is not affected by many of the maladies harming
honey bees. To attract and build a population of these industrious
native bees in your garden you need two basic elements; flowers
to pollinate and nests to dwell in.

Blue Orchard Mason Bee Nest Tubes for Spring
Blue orchard bees are most likely already buzzing around your
neighborhood if you have fruit or flowering trees and the right
spring blooming perennials and annuals. To attract them to your
garden and help them begin to build their population, you should
provide Blue Orchard Mason Bee nest tubes in which they can raise
their young.


http://www.highcountrygardens.com/catalog/product/T0011/

04:05 am: Every day I come to LJ intending to post a little something -- just a little -- about what's doing in the garden or my son's new instrument or my daughter's homework: no big deal. And I don't. Because. . . communication. Too hard. Big deal no matter if it's no big deal. I don't know. I suck. Maybe. . . maybe next time.

But thinking about keeping silence on Friday makes me want to talk.

Some call the Friday silence a boycott, which it isn't. We aren't withholding money from LJ on Friday. We're withholding our work. We aren't refusing to act as customers.[*] We're refusing to act as content providers. So this isn't a boycott, it's a strike.

I recognize that SUP owns Livejournal. I acknowledge that, as the owners, they can do anything they want with it. I understand that each individual journaller's contribution is dispensible. But if it weren't for us, Livejournal wouldn't have anything to sell. Our content brings the boys to the yard.

I am fond of Livejournal, and I want it to thrive, and I don't believe it can unless it pays attention to the wishes of its content providers. So, in hopes of persuading SUP to pay attention, I support the Content Strike.


[*]"The advertisers are the customers. The readers are the product."

01:37 am: resentment dream
I dreamed about my dad last night. First time in years. Probably prompted by writing the sentence My father's hands are small and square, like mine. That's fiction, and that character's father is nothing like my father, but when I wrote it I visualized my father's hands, which are, in fact, small and square like mine.

I was thinking about House before bed too, as I often do these days. House is also nothing like my father, except that they're both doctors, and ferociously smart, and they both need canes and enjoy being cruel -- although my father was much crueller than we've ever seen House being, and enjoyed it a hell of a lot more. And my father needed a cane plus a hip-to-ankle leg brace, because one day when he was twelve, people were firing guns in celebration of something (a political event? a sports victory? a holiday? my mother didn't know), as Puerto Ricans do, and a stray bullet hit him in the back and severed the nerve that allowed him to move his left leg.

( cut for dream )

[*]My dad was Not Allowed to be wrong[***]. Srsly. If you were arguing with him about whether movie-Tarzan's short hairy pal was a cheetah or a chimpanzee, and you found a dictionary that agreed with you that a cheetah was a spotted cat, he'd say, "Let me see that," and "You see? A cheetah is a cat. Just as I said all along. No, *you* were the one who thought a cheetah was an ape." When you started crying with frustration at the unfairness of it all, he'd laugh, "You just can't stand to be proved wrong, can you? You think you're so smart! Ha ha ha ha ha!"

[**]In real life, I haven't seen him in thirty years.

[***]I often ask my children for appreciation for admitting that I Could Be Wrong. They have always refused to give it to me, on the grounds that admitting that you're wrong is normal human behavior. I am glad -- really! -- that they are not surprised by adults admitting to children that they are wrong[****], but sometimes I really would like cookies, even if those cookies say, "Thank you for not being so insane that you try to pretend taht you are never wrong."

[****]Special to cakmpls: My children may not appreciate that their teachers have no problem saying "I could be wrong," and "I don't know," but I sure do. And I tell them so.

Tags: dream, why i am the way i am

11:45 pm: A Thing
A thing that you may not know about me, which has some power to explain why I am the way I am. I usually worry that I talk about this too much, but a longtime friend of mine was shocked to hear it, so maybe I talk about it not enough.

I've been pregnant four times. I had a stillborn baby, then Nixie, then a second-trimester miscarriage, then Mungo.

I am very very grateful to have two children, especially these two. I am still sad to have only two.

I tend to feel very protective towards anyone I know who is pregnant, or has a baby, or wants a baby.

I have more mothering-energy than children, which is probably why I coach Odyssey of the Mind, volunteer at my kids' school, volunteer at the public library, and so on.

I worry about how badly my culture deals with grief. I want to ask anyone who is about to say anything to a grieving person, "Is what you are about to say intended to make the griever feel better? If so, DON'T! You cannot *make* them feel better. They will feel better when they are ready to feel better. In the meantime, you can listen to how they do feel. If you don't know what to say, 'I'm so sorry' is always appropriate. And I love 'May you be comforted' and 'May his memory be a blessing', which come from a culture with traditions about grieving."

I get irrationally angry at anyone who tells me that a loss is actually an opportunity to welcome better things. I acknowledge that if Gabriel had not died, Nixie would not have been born. I acknowledge that Nixie was my dream baby: she's everything I would have asked for, if I were ordering a baby from a catalog, plus extras, like beauty and charm, I would never have thought to ask for. I wouldn't trade her for anything. Gabriel's death is still not a good thing.

Tags: mothering, why i am the way i am

07:38 pm: preteens, sheesh!
The Odyssey of the Mind Coach's Handbook says, about Division II (6th - 8th grade): "This division adds a new challenge. Take primary, Div I, a liberal dose of hormones and a couple of broken hearts and you have Div II. Almost all Div II teams lack focus."

Yesss.

Thursday, when I picked up Mungo, who is twelve, from school, he said, "I have to write a book report and I have five days to choose a book."

Monday, when I picked Mungo up from school, he said, "I have to write a book report about a kid who lives in Africa. I need the book tomorrow, and I told you about this four days ago!"

I pointed out that what he told me four days ago lacked some important bits of information, including that he needed anything from me. I took him to the library.

I showed him how to search for fiction set in Africa in the children's collection. Alexander McCall Smith has a series beginning with Akimbo and the Crocodile Man that I thought would do, but Mungo said, no, it has to be at least 100 pages, and Akimbo only has 68.

We went through the entire list of fiction set in Africa in the children's collection without finding anything suitable, so I suggested asking Dee if he could do a report on two of the Akimbo books. Mungo said no, the Akimbo books are just about a kid who lives with animals, they aren't about the culture. It has to be about the culture.

Okay, I said, you go over there and ask the librarian for help. I will sit here and search through fiction set in Africa in the adults' collection, for a novel that contains a kid, has at least 100 pages, is about the culture, and (this is the hardest part) might appeal to Mungo.

A while later I went over to Mungo and the librarian, and asked if they had any possibles that I could fetch from the stacks for them. No, said Mungo, and actually it has to be about a kid in Asia.

Asia, I said. Asia. East Asia, south Asia, anywhere on the Asian continent? Just Asia, said Mungo.

The librarian offered us Blue Fingers: a ninja's tale, which I said would do. Mungo wasn't sure it had enough information about the culture, but I said, show it to Dee, and if she says it won't work, ask her for some suggestions.

Then we went to pick Nixie up from school. As I was telling Nixie this story, Mungo interrupted to say that actually, there were some books on the list Dee gave them that were less than 100 pages.

The list Dee gave you? I said. Dee gave you a list? Why didn't you mention it before now?

I just remembered, he said.

I laughed so hard I scared the dogs.

Nixie said, I never did anything like this, did I?

No, I said. There were plenty of times I was mad at you for not telling me what you needed earlier, like while we were still in town where the library and bookstore are, but you always knew what it was you needed. And if the teacher gave you a relevant piece of paper, you always had the piece of paper. I did not appreciate how extraordinary you were.

Tags: mothering, mungo

11:06 pm: Would any of you like to improve my OKCupid profile? They assure me you do not need to join in order to edit.

06:21 pm: I've just watched most of the first season[1] of House M.D. even though it keeps hitting my MDeity and for-your-own-good buttons hard enough to hurt.

There was a moment, when a heart-transplant candidate asked, "Why did you fight for me?" and Dr. House answered, "Because you're my patient," when I thought maybe 'my patient' has a place in House's worldview something like 'my child' does in mine, which can indeed put the normal human principle of "You are a person and I must respect your autonomy" in conflict with "It is my responsibility to keep you from harm."

That would be a really interesting dilemma, you know? Because you've got two ethical imperatives there which are both right and both important, and they really do conflict sometimes. And no matter how many times you resolve it, you haven't got a general solution, so it's also a productive dilemma.

But House doesn't seem to experience that conflict. The goal of the show seems to be to get him to violate his patient's rights up down and sideways[2]. The conflict is external: with the noncompliant patient, and with everyone who gets mad at House and threatens him for doing what he knows is right. And since he is right(correct), what he does is right(good).

I have the second season on hold at the library and I will probably watch it regardless, because I cannot resist teh pretty, but do tell me: should I brace myself for more of the same? Or

[1] "Fidelity", "Kids", and "Love Hurts" were too scratched to watch. Do they have anything interesting to say?

[2] Which has its appeal, certainly; but it appeals to a sick little part of me that needs no encouragement.

Tags: i hate doctors so much sometimes

12:21 am: reasons to be cheerful
blamebrampton tagged me to name eight things that are making me happy right now.

1. MORE LIGHT!

2. Christmas tree smell.

3. Money. I got some from my mom and some from my MIL for my birthday, and some from amaebi for looking after her son (which I would have done for love, but Mary Ann is so fierce on the subject of theft of labor that I did not even suggest it). This money is for me to please myself with, so I made some microloans, sent oranges from Florida to a friend who is awaiting a baby in Canada in midwinter, and got a massage. BONUS: My mom was really pleased to know that she got me a massage.

4. The pets, who are all getting old but still enjoying life.

5. What wilfulcait used to call the "grow your own friend" project. I'm not really good at this mothering teens business, but I feel confident we will still like each other on the other side.

6. The fact that Mungo's Lego Robotics team made it to State. The fact that Mungo's Lego Robotics team didn't make it to National.

7. KRKY 102.1 FM, which plays a good mix of stuff I like that I haven't heard in a while and interesting stuff that I've never heard.

8. My husband. One of the things I asked him for, in therapy, was to do one thing every day that was intended to express appreciation, admiration or liking for me. He doesn't remember every single day, but he remembers more than he forgets. It has made a big difference.

10:30 pm: five random things make an entry
1. Well, I've started a New Year; so far I've done diddley-squat.

2. I have more than 6000 books. Something must be done about this.

3. Mine daughter is obsessed with Russian. I get sorely-needed coolness points for being able to teach her a little Russian. I know a lot of Spanish, but that is not cool. Lots of people, including her, know a lot of Spanish.

4. Today my son asked what the word E-J-A-C-U-L-A-T-E meant. (He's reading the manga called MONSTER. Yes, it has more violence than I like; so does his conversation with his peers.) I must give him some sex-ed materials.

5.

Haiku2 for boxofdelights
meaning of my life not your mother's librarians made of awesome good
@ aboutmylife.netadvogato.orgblogger.comblogs.gnome.orgblogspot.comdeadjournal.comgreatestjournal.cominsanejournal.comlivejournal.commyspace.comspaces.msn.com
Created by Grahame

05:53 pm: oh intarnets i missed you so!
We have had no phone for a few days, and now I am way behind on both my reading filters. I was so lonely without you! On the other hand, I got a lot done.

I'm going to trim my reading list. Please don't be offended. Everyone on my list is someone I want to read, but I just don't have time. (Similarly, when I get dropped, I don't assume that it means anything about my journal or me personally. So if you wanted me to know that you find me offensive, you'd have to tell me!)

12:11 pm: dream analysis requested
I was in a kitchen where many people were working. I didn't really belong there, but someone who did had given me some food, which I was chopping into tiny bits to stir into the broth he had given me to feed my fox (who really didn't belong there). I coaxed the fox to eat, but then thought that foxes need more or different nutrients than they get from prepared food. I took the fox out to the riverpath so that it could catch mice, but everywhere I walked there were people and cats. (This riverpath is a place my dreams keep going back to. In some places the land between the path and the river is privately owned and built up; in some places the path and the river go together through a park; in some places it's left wild. If you go far enough you get back to my old school.) The cats got upset whenever they perceived my fox, and anyway they would have scared all the mice away already. So I went back into the building where the kitchen was, and in the basement, which had green indoor-outdoor carpet laid on the concrete floor, I saw a mouse and put the fox down. The fox kept pouncing at it but couldn't catch it, so I caught it and dangled it in front of my fox, who killed it but wouldn't eat it, because it was full from the food I had given it in the kitchen.

11:02 pm: reasons to be cheerful
I got to use the phrase "bloblets of floating humor".

08:32 pm: there is no worst
dracunculus pointed to http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2007/09/why-bmi-is-crock-in-pictures.html in which Kate Harding asks for a worksafe photo and your true height and weight.

So I sent along this is what obese looks like and two melons in a sack and (I am amazed at how much I hate doing this) I will tell the entire world that I weigh 175 pounds.

But, you know, the problem is not the BMI. If we adjusted the labels on the BMI to reflect the fact that people in the "overweight" category are less likely to die than people in the "normal" category, or found an easy but accurate way to measure body fat instead of body mass, or even to measure visceral fat and not subcutaneous fat, I don't believe it would make any difference to our anorexic culture. Because twenty or thirty years ago, when I weighed two-thirds as much as I do now, my father, my mother, my doctors, my coaches, and all but one of my boyfriends assured me that I needed to lose weight.

Tags: fat