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Poor old Johnny Ray
Sounded sad upon the radio
He moved a million hearts in mono
Our mothers cried and sang along and who'd blame them
Now you're grown, so grown, now I must say more than ever
Go toora loora toora loo rye aye
And we can sing just like our fathers
Come on Eileen, well I swear (what he means)
At this moment, you mean everything
With you in that dress my thoughts I confess
Verge on dirty
Ah come on Eileen
These people round here wear beaten down eyes
Sunk in smoke dried faces
They're so resigned to what their fate is
But not us, no not us
We are far too young and clever
Eileen I'll sing this tune forever
Come on Eileen well I swear (what he means)
Ah come on, let's take off everything
That pretty red dress Eileen (tell him yes)
Ah come on Eileen
This is my Eileen! She is far too young and clever.
for Royce:
Encyclopedia of Space
The World's Mythology in Color
A History of Western Philosophy
Encyclopedia of Espionage
for my dad:
Complete Encyclopedia of Motorcars, 1885-Present (1968)
The History of Flight
Historic Motor Cycles
for me:
The Merck Index
Roget's Thesaurus
The Pictorial Encyclopedia of Insects
The Complete Works of Shakespeare
Instead I will tell you what I have for lunch today:
Brown rice with wakame and shitaki mushrooms
Broccoli and asparagus with sesame and garlic
Daikon radish and bok-choy steamed with lemon and ginger
I'm trying to direct my anger and frustration and worry into something positive and productive, and last night that meant cooking.
Wearing: Jeans (because there are no students here today), wool sweater, corduroy blazer. It's so J. Crew I can hardly stand it. Or it would be J. Crew if I hadn't gotten this jacket at the Salvation Army for $1.75.
Drinking: Chai spice Earl Grey tea with honey.
Contemplating: My navel.
Tempted: To go home. I bet nobody would notice.
Writing: Grant proposal.
Reading: Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie by Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, a memoir that is turning out better than I had expected. The memoir genre is tired and self-indulgent. I think I might write one.
Planning: I feel like I'm planning my whole life. For a couple of years there I couldn't see into the future. I had few or no short term goals, let alone long-term ones. This past year, since Royce and I have been together, I've been crazily planning our future together, every day a different future. I love all the possibilities. Lately it has been when to get married, when and where to move, when to buy a house, when to have kids, blah blah blah. I am so in love and I guess that leads me to joyful anticipation of the decades to come.
Feeling guilty: That Royce let me borrow his car again today, which basically renders him transportationless. My car is still in the shop, where the problem is not being fixed. They procrastinated making a real diagnosis for a week until I told them just to slap yet another alternator in it and I will take the damn car somewhere else to get fixed. Anyway, Royce can't even really go play basketball (unless he walks a mile or so to the courts, which is fine on the way there, but after an hour of basketball isn't such a fun walk home) without his car. I'm hoping I'll get my car back today so he'll have his car back to go play tomorrow, since Tuesday is his basketball night.
Worrying: I'm worrying mostly about money these days, as the lack thereof puts all the planning for our future on hold. I say stupid things to Royce like, "If you had a job I'd be making you have babies with me," which is of course not true, but my ovaries would like to think so. So my train of thought goes like, "I barely have enough money to cover this month's bills, which means I will have to go into debt this summer, which means I will never get it paid off, which means I will never be able to afford a wedding, which means we won't get married and won't be able to buy a house, which means I won't be able to have kids because I can't have kids until I have a backyard!!!" My whole future goes down the drain just because I am breaking even financially. Stupid. Things will get better. But I still worry.
Pissed off: Watching Maternity Ward on Discovery Health last night...they had a woman who was a few days overdue, so they decided to induce her with pitocin. Of course, her contractions were reeeeallly strong, as they often are with pitocin, so they gave her an epidural to cut the pain. Epidurals are known to make labor slow dowon, which it did, and they decided she wasn't progressing fast enough and performed a C-section! All because she didn't deliver on her due date...it wasn't even because her amniotic fluid was low or the quality of the placenta was decreasing or anything. This woman had major surgery because her doctors were impatient and because (at least in my opinion) the woman wasn't educated about the effects that both the pitocin and the epidural might have on her labor. They claimed her labor wasn't progressing because the baby was too big, but when they finally pulled it out of the (vertical!!!) incision in her tummy, it was only five pounds. Argh. More and more and more I want to deliver at home, or in a birth center where there aren't people poking you with needles all the time.
Eating: These delicious Korean kiwi-flavored gummy candies. They even have little black kiwi seeds in them. And for lunch I've got leek potstickers. We went to Han Kook and got lots of Asian deliciousness last night! I'm very excited about my many kinds of seaweed and my daikon radish.
Wanting: To win the lottery. I think it is definitely true that the less money you have, the more lottery tickets you buy, because it's hard not to hold onto the hope that all your financial problems will be solved. Some people fantasize about finding true love, other people fantasize about getting a job they enjoy or moving to a better house or whatever, but I have everything I want in those arenas. All I need is some cash, baby, cash to pay off my student loans, cash to get a car that doesn't break down every 15 seconds, cash to send my sweetheart back to school, cash to squirrel away for my future family. I fantasize about how I'd spend the money, how I'd distribute it among friends and family, how my life would change and how it wouldn't change. Whoa! "Your organization has chosen to limit viewing of this site (http://www.calottery.com/), due to the rating of its content (gambling)." I've never been blocked from a site at work before. Who knew?
Am Happy: In my heart. In my heart of hearts.
The abortion issue frustrates me. It is so divisive, probably one of the most divisive political issues in the last 50 years. This isn't the kind of issue you can talk to someone about and come to an agreement. People either think abortion is murder, or think that it isn't. When people talk about abortion they get emotional and reactive. I remember when I was 18 or 19, I asked my (liberal, white, feminist, Catholic) roommate what she thought about abortion. "I'd consider someone who had gotten an abortion the same as a murderer." I was horrified and sick and panicked, because I knew that at that point in my life I would probably terminate if I got pregnant, and this girl was my best friend, like a sister. I would lose her! Of course, I didn't get pregnant, and said roommate is still my sister (and she has revised her position on abortion somewhat, too), but I understood then how strongly people felt about the issue. I understood why people say things like, "There is no common ground."
I think they're wrong, though. Actually, there is a lot of common ground.
This is my position. When I was a teenager, if I had gotten pregnant, I would have terminated. This is something I knew in my heart. I thought that anybody should be able to get an abortion at any time, and that there was nothing wrong with terminating a pregnancy. I think I felt this way in part because I was not in love with my partner(s) and did not want to be tied to them forever. Selfish, maybe. But that's where I was. In college, as I learned more about human development, and learned more about the depth of love I could have for a partner, I started revising my stance. Abortion was okay for the first two trimesters, and then only okay in the third if it was medically necessary. Or a rape. Or incest, consensual or no. And then abortion was only okay in the first trimester, and the second if it was rape and the second and third if it was medically necessary. And now, I don't know. Abortion is not okay for me anymore, except in the case of rape, and even then I think it should be really early. You know that you're pregnant by month two at the latest, right? So why wait months and months to terminate? That seems selfish. But it is also none of my business, unless it is happening to me. I think abortion is taking the life of a human being. That doesn't mean I think it should be illegal. I think that mothers have a right to terminate in the first trimester. I don't think it's morally reprehensible to terminate in the second trimester if you have a good reason. But the third? I don't know. It's interesting how my position has changed as my life circumstances have changed. It's interesting how I place value judgements where I once did not. Jody, my best work friend, said that her feelings on the issue have changed dramatically over the years, too. In her teens she was pro-choice. As she became more interested in having children in her twenties, and then had them in her thirties, she became adamently anti-abortion. And now, as she is in her mid-forties and approaching menopause, she is again feeling that abortion would be the right choice for her if she got pregnant. I'll be curious to see how my position on the issue continues to change as I get older.
In my heart, I know that abortion is not ideal. In an ideal world there would be no abortions performed. It's not wrong that women choose to have abortions, though. To me, it is more wrong to have a child that is unwanted, drug-addicted, or neglected out of necessity. It is more wrong to put your future child in the way of an abusive partner, squalid living conditions, or extreme poverty. It is more wrong to give birth to a child when you do not have a loving place in your heart and your life for that child. It is wrong to give birth to a child who will not have quality of life, for whatever reason. In an ideal world, there would be no abortion because there would be no unplanned pregnancies, no rape or incest, no domestic violence, no debilitating genetic diseases, no poverty, no drug addiction. THAT is the common ground. Instead of protesting at abortion clinics and in front of high schools, "pro-life" activists should be working to alleviate the conditions that make abortions necessary for the 1,500,000 American women who have them each year. "Pro-choice" activists should also spend less time villainizing those who oppose abortion and more time actively engaged in developing programs that address safe sex, drug rehabilitation, how to parent and how to get an education, how to escape a violent relationship, how to express anger without violence, and the myriad other topics that would contribute to a society where all children are wanted. These problems will never disappear fully, at least not in our lifetimes...but imagine if only 100,000 women per year needed abortions! Wouldn't it be easier to care for and support these women in their difficult choice, because we would better understand the necessity of their action? This is the common ground.
The dialogue should not be about Yes-Abortion or No-Abortion. That's like having a conversation about Yes-Cars or No-Cars. For some the argument is about ideals, and for others it is about practical reality. Instead of Yes-Cars/No-Cars, we talk about ways to reduce pollution, ways to improve public transport, ways to encourage carpooling and the purchase of low-emissions vehicles, and alternative energy sources that cause less impact on the environment. The same should go for abortion. It's not a black and white issue that is about the rightness or wrongess of a particular medical procedure. It is about the health and wellbeing of millions of women and children. That is the common ground.
Thank you for your years of friendship. Whether you realize it or not, you saved my life once upon a time.
Enjoy the next quarter-century!
You know, as concerned as I am about money right now, things are not that bad.
Yet.
It's not so much that I am out of money now, but that I project that I will be out of money by the end of June, which is when I stop receiving paychecks for the summer. In the meantime I am surrounded with love and little things that make me happy. My apartment is (mostly) astonishingly clean. [Ed. note: keep in mind that "astonishingly clean" is a relative term. I am not scrubbing with bleach or anything.] Yesterday we found a nearby natural foods store that has a bulk section! I haven't had a grocery store with bulk food in like a million years, but it makes buying spices much less expensive. Not to mention that they have several unusual varieties of rice, along with lots of nice whole grains that I can't usually find at the regular grocery store (millet, wheat berries, etc.). Tinessa has chosen blue for our bridesmaid dresses and I'm looking forward to finding a pattern. I repotted my tomato starts. The yellow pear plant is already over-achieving, with about twice as many seeds germinating as the other varieties. Last night I cooked up the artichokes that Royce brought home for me last week and made some homemade garlic-mayo for dipping. Heaven. Even Royce had some. And we are thinking about getting a new kitten!
So you see? My life is good.
Love for lazy weekends. This weekend barely dragged herself out of bed, showered after 1 p.m. on both days, and cooked high-fat, high-pleasure food. What a naughty weekend!
Food highlights: Pasta primavera on Saturday (please be indignant on my behalf--Royce did not "believe" I could make a white sauce, even though I have made white sauces on several other occasions, in the form of white gravy or shepherd's pie filling. Apparently he did not Put the Two Together). Sunday involved reading a recipe in the bookstore and attempting to recreate it at home even though I had no idea what was in it. Ended up being chicken breasts covered in mustard and a breadcrumb/herb mixture, along with some buttery garlicky new potatoes and a lazy salad. The chicken was only moderately good, but the potatoes were to die for! Also we ate many sandwiches! Speaking of which, I have an excellent sandwich for lunch today. I somehow found time to make it today before work, I think because Royce was in a particularly deep sleep and wasn't playing along with my usual morning games.
LOSE/LOSE
I got a splinter this weekend. Do not ask me the four W's or the H, because I don't know. I just noticed on Sunday evening that I had a splinter in my left palm, right underneath the pinky. And it hurt! And I couldn't get it out with tweezers! And I haven't unpacked my sewing stuff yet so I didn't have any needles! Sigh. So I let it fester overnight. This morning I thought to myself, "Hey, I will just SUCK THE SPLINTER OUT!" So I did. And it worked! But then I had a splinter in my mouth. Totally gross.
OOH/OOH!
I also picked up some pretty cotton yarn in a unisex color (unbleached/off-white with little colored bits) to make Heather's munchkin a baby cardigan. I am very excited about the whole thing. I started on it last night. Already I have changed just about everything about the pattern: yarn, gauge, needle size, ribbing (the pattern has a garter stitch edge, but I did a 2x2 rib instead). Why am I completely unable to follow a pattern or recipe? ooh ooh! The new issue of knitty is up!
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