Feeling Lucky
Thank you, Universe.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/01/29/ep.sepsis.infection/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
For Fans of Photography
May I please introduce you to MorBCN on Flickr. Vivid, eye-popping color, tremendous composition, technical flair, abstraction, and great texture.
Some of his photos (especially those with water) look like impressionist paintings. Some remind me of Van Gogh. In some of the ones featuring clouds, you can hear choirs of angels. And he’s photographed many major European cities, so it’s kind of like taking a dreamy tour.
Enjoy!
Wondering
Ever feel like you’ve gotten into the habit of being crabby, because crabby answers to questions like, "How was your day?" and "How are you?" are quick to appear in your brain and sometimes sound witty when you say them aloud? But when you really stop to think about how you are and you look around and take stock, you realize that there’s really not all that much to be crabby about? Because life is pretty fucking great and you have love and laughter and enough money and food and a roof over your head and friends who seem to like you even though you’re crabby?
How do you then break out of crabby thinking? If you frequently find it easy to see your glass half empty, how do you refocus on what you have? Cuz when your loving SO gets sad when you’re crabby and wants to fix it all for you and you realize that there’s nothing at all to fix and you should just shut the fuck up and smile, you feel like a jerk.
Just wondering …
25 things about me you may not know
25 things about me you may not know
1. Sara Jane was the name my “other mother” started calling me from the day she met me when I was 7 years old, even though my middle name is Elizabeth. Sara Jane was her mother’s name. Then my mother started calling me Sara Jane, too. It stuck. I then took it as my confirmation name at 14. Later, my husband started calling me Sara Jane because he was in love with the Dr. Who character with that name.
2. I have always wished I had blue eyes. My boys do, so that makes me happy.
3. I’m nervous about joining teams or groups because I don’t want to let somebody down.
4. I am a cautious person. To combat this, I actively seek out experiences that frighten me and take risks. They almost always pay off. I try to enter the forest via the darkest path. I learn more this way.
5. When I was in the sixth grade, someone put an anonymous note in my desk telling me I was beautiful. It blew my mind wide open. I never learned who it was.
6. I wanted to be a veterinarian when I was a kid. Then they diagnosed my allergies and asthma and took my Yorkshire Terrier away from me. It was devastating.
7. I love to travel. This pull I feel toward adventure and new places makes staying home with small kids hard.
8. I played the flute for four years, then switched to singing in choir. Singing was a great joy of my youth.
9. I was harassed mercilessly in the eighth grade, developed a budding eating disorder, and then eventually got over it.
10. When I was a small girl, I loved snakes, lizards, and dinosaurs. A lot. This was difficult for my mother because I would make her read to me from my book of snakes and she hates them.
11. I used to pretend my bicycle was a horse and I would ride around the neighborhood daily. I wanted a horse so bad from the time I was 7 until I was … um … 36.
12. On the urging of an older girl, I stole Barbie shoes and lipstick out of a boxed Barbie at a store when I was about 8. I was made to apologize and pay for the Barbie. The older girl was publically whipped in the street by her father and his belt.
13. On more than one occasion, I have eaten so many cherries that I have been sick for days.
14. I used to play a very mean game of four-square. This is about the extent of my athletic abilities.
15. The first time I rode a night train by myself from St. Andrews to London I sat across from a junkie/vet/crazy person, who talked and twitched the whole time and startled himself awake for 8 terrible hours. I didn’t know that I could get up and move to another seat.
16. The most magical Christmas I ever had was in Oban, Scotland, with Ian. We were in a small flat, had no money, and felt homesick. But we had a wonderful time.
17. I adore Burning Man and the friends I’ve met through attending it (5-time veteran); I also adore easy vacations involving lazing on beaches and drinking mai tais.
18. Before I had children, I wanted to jump out of an airplane. I do not want to anymore.
19. I regret not visiting my grandmother Mabel before she died. She lived in an assisted living home for a while and I never went to see her. I have guilt.
20. One of the few things my father has ever denied me is his silver 240Z with the rosewood steering wheel. I used to fantasize that he’d present it to me on my 16th birthday with a big fat red bow on top. He still has it. I don’t think it runs.
21. I was afraid to have children. For good reasons. It was a very hard adjustment for me and threw a lot of uncomfortable ambiguity into my identity. Frankly, I am still afraid to have children.
22. I didn’t experiment with drugs until well after college. I dunno. I guess I was too busy studying. I graduated Cal with a BA and a 3.8 GPA. I only attended Cal for 3 semesters.
23. I have not had 8 contiguous hours of sleep since May of 2006. I have probably slept 8 contiguous hours only 50 times since August of 2001. This has made me weird.
24. I once cast the Mother of all Love Spells. It worked.
25. I worked at a mortuary for several summers and a year after college. I was a floral designer and a Death Clerk. I met a great friend there. Otherwise, it sucked.
and one to grow on?
26. I once won a science fair competition with my astronomy project tracking the Dog Star. I was awarded a year’s membership in the Sacramento Astronomical Society. So, that was weird.
Friendship
I love, Love, LOVE my friends.
I am rediscovering old friends on Facebook and it’s cool, but kinda weird too. I am finding myself thinking a lot about the past, wondering about people, contemplating how much I’ve changed. Wondering how much they’ve changed. Is it possible to reconnect with someone you loved dearly once upon a time and find that you’re still totally compatible? Or is it more likely that you’ll find you have very little in common now? How much weight can you reasonably put on experiences and connections that happened when we were mere babies—14 years old? 18? And yet, they were formative experiences. Certainly I wish them all good fortune, good health, and love.
I’m also wondering about the various levels of connection. What do I want out of this thing? I am spoiled in most of my current relationships: they are very deep, very forgiving, very committed, very real. I think I often have unreasonable expectations about new friendships. They always feel a little funny because they start out slow and skate on the surface of life and love for a while, sometimes a long while. If you’re lucky and patient, these new relationships can get deeper over time. Sometimes I’m not very patient and I dive down deep too early. I think I scare some people away, and this makes me feel sad and awkward, and even unlovable. But then I think, I am who I am. I don’t have a lot of spare time. I do not want to waste it with people who don’t wish to know the real me, who can’t handle me. And so I ponder. I am trying to let it unfold. Patience is not a virtue that I have in great stores.
His First Pretending
It’s been a long time since I posted about what Asher is up to, and since his second birthday is next Saturday, I feel a good long letter coming on. But in the meantime, I have to write about his first (in my view) true pretend play. Asher will sometimes mimic his brother, if Lucas is pretending to be a mouse or a cat or something, but that’s mimicking. This was all of his own invention:
For Christmas I gave Asher a set of four wooden people. They are small—about 2 inches tall.
This morning he was clutching the people in his hands and then laid two of them down next to each other. He said "Mommy, Baby, milk." Ian then asked him who they were. Asher answered "Mommy, Baby." Then smiled and said and signed "milk." Ian asked, "Is that baby having milk?" "Jah! (Yeah!) Baby milk." Then he giggled.
So cute!
Weaning this kid is going to be hard.
Inauguration Prayer You May Have Missed
WAY WAY better than that Warren clown … but you might want to skip this if you don’t like "God language."
I don’t know how to embed video, so here is a link:
http://www.wikio.com/video/777147
The Inauguration Prayer You May Have Missed
Following is the text of the invocation given by the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson at last Sunday’s opening ceremonies and concert for now-President Barack Obama’s inauguration. Robinson is the Episcopal Church’s elected bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire, and the first openly gay bishop. He delivered the prayer at the base of the Lincoln Memorial facing a crowd nearly a million people strong that filled a stretch of the National Mall all the way to the base of the Washington Monument. Though the concert was carried on HBO and National Public Radio, the prayer didn’t get covered on HBO. I’m not sure about NPR.
Good afternoon,
Before this celebration begins, please join me in pausing for a moment to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.
Oh God of our many understandings, we pray that you will bless us with tears, tears for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women in many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die a day from malnutrition, malaria and AIDS.
Bless this nation with anger – anger at discrimination at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants; women, people of color; gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.
Bless us with discomfort at the easy simplistic answers we prefer to hear from our politicians instead of the truth about ourselves and our world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.
Bless us with patience and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be fixed any time soon and the understanding that our next president is a human being, not a messiah. Bless us with humility, open to understanding that our own needs as a nation must always be balanced with those of the world.
Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance, replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences.
Bless us with compassion and generosity, remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the ways we care for the most vulnerable. And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office fo the president of the United States. Give him wisdom beyond his years, inspire him with President Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for all people.
Give him a quiet heart, for our ship of state needs a steady calm captain. Give him stirring words, we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.
Make him color blind reminding him of his own words that under his leadership there will be neither red nor blue states but a United States. Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.
Give him strength to find family time and privacy and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods. And please God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents and we’re asking far too much of this one, we implore you oh good and great God to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand that he might do the work that we have called him to do. That he might find joy in this impossible calling and that, in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.
Amen.
[Prayer Jan. 18, 2009, by V. Gene Robinson]
That Facethingy
I joined Facebook. My inbox was full this morning, which was fun! But OMG this thing is sucking my brain!
[Just Ian] Invitation for Asher’s Birthday Party for Family
Please Join Us
for the
Celebration of
Asher Donovan’s
2nd Birthday!
10:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
January 31, 2009
at our home.
We will be serving a light brunch.
Please R.S.V.P.
Belated Happy Birthdays to My Favorite Martian and Two Babaliscious Babes
Dearest
I recently missed the birthday (Jan 11) of the lovely
And, this past Saturday was the birthday of sweet
