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little exercise
Act so that there is no use in a centre. A wide action is not a width. A preparation is given to the ones preparing. They do not eat who mention silver and sweet. There was an occupation. -- gertrude stein, "rooms" from tender buttons, 1914 basically, i've lived a lot of places, and i expect to live somewhere new pretty soon; the question, really, is where? so i made a list of all the places i've lived. then a list of the certain things i liked about those places - even places i didn't really like. there's always something. but i thought about which, of all those things i liked, were making-the-best-of-it, and which things were reasonably stably pleasant. i kept the things i think i'd still like a lot, if i had them back right now. then i made a list of elements those things specifically consisted of. big windows; old movies; kittens; parades; fiddlers; grindelia; the smell of yarrow; doughnuts; kites; a little brook; holy days of obligation; wind through a screen door; the sound of a freight train early in the morning... good things composing the good in places. the final list from all of this: what did i have then that i don't have now? a few of these things i can't really have, i suppose, not pragmatically. and a lot of things i can't have all at once. and some might depend on pure luck. but still...  1. a temperate climate 2. wild places, access to them 3-6. mountains, lake, river, forest with access 7. camping spots easy driving distance near  8-10. bustling public library, university, community classes 11. community events 12. a city supportive of musicians and performers 13. a good cheap easy bus system  14. community radio stations 15-16. art and activist collectives 17. independent media center 18-19. a bustling food co-op, healthy food stores 20. neighborhood bakery  21-22. free store, used stores 23. alternative bookstores 24-27. mom-and-pop art supply, craft, yarn, fabric shops  28. a small enough community to be acquainted with the alt health groups 29. a small enough community to be acquainted with the social agitators 30. friends who like to hang out and talk in large groups 31. friends who like to eat together 32. women's groups mutual aid & support  33. a bar for hanging out, playing cards 34. a quiet coffee shop 35. ashram for meditating 36. a good church open 24 hrs with plenty of statues and stained glass windows and within walking distance 37. a yoga teacher  38. a big old house that costs practically nothing 39. a house big enough to house an extra 1-2 folks 40-41. a big house with privacy & a big kitchen 42. a house with physical space for yoga  43. a house within reasonable travel from family 44. neighborhood kids playing outside in nice weather 45. a safe place where cats can play outside 46. garden plot with enough sun 47. a bike that's easy for me to ride and carry stuff 48. neighbors with a lightweight canoe they'll lend  49. long term helping relationships 50. a clientele that prefers home visits 51. consultants i can get along with 52. doctor mentors who will nicely answer questions 53. a flexible job description  54. time for creativity 55. extra morning time a few times a week for yoga 56. reliable uninterrupted daily time for meditation 57. a few hours a few times a week to hang out in a coffeeshop and read and write 58. open sunday mornings for mass  59. regularly scheduled suppertimes not interrupted by work 60. a night a week to spend in a bar 61. friday nights off for salon, no call responsibilities 62. time for picnics 63. periodic 2-3 days off for camping  64-68. physical strength for canoeing, camping, herb walking, biking, gardening 69. sun tolerance 70. entire days not exhausted  A light in the moon the only light is on Sunday. What was the sensible decision. The sensible decision was that notwithstanding many declarations and more music, not even notwithstanding the choice and a torch and a collection, notwithstanding the celebrating hat and a vacation and even more noise than cutting, notwithstanding Europe and Asia and being overbearing, not even notwithstanding an elephant and a strict occasion, not even withstanding more cultivation and some seasoning, not even with drowning and with the ocean being encircling, not even with more likeness and any cloud, not even with terrific sacrifice of pedestrianism and a special resolution, not even more likely to be pleasing. The care with which the rain is wrong and the green is wrong and the white is wrong, the care with which there is a chair and plenty of breathing. The care with which there is incredible justice and likeness, all this makes a magnificent asparagus, and also a fountain. 
getting rid of alllllllllllllllllll that stuff
this journal entry, from 2 years ago: moving is very taxing indeed it's really appalling how much stuff i have how much stuff i need i need 39 little plastic yellow suns to slip over xmas tree lights to light up the kitchen i need 3 tatting shuttles i need all the sweaters i knit for 3 tiny tots (who are now adults) i need my grandmother's percolator and all the napkins she embroidered and her copper fruitbowl i need a miniature slide viewer keychain with a picture of a naked movie star in it i need a book called the little fur family i need tupperware AND plastic lids i need a collage i made of astronomy information and ovum fertilization close-ups, ripped up and badly waterstained i need a button that says "let the inspections work!" i need 3 hole punches 5 boxes of staples 2 staplers i need a pink ribbon that says "dancing star" and a chairman mao cigarette lighter that plays the chinese national anthem and an entire sack full of novelty salt-and-pepper shakers and "the riverside shakespeare" which weighs ten pounds and i need a string hammock and a metronome and i haven't even started on the garage, where the camping gear and gardening tools and bikes and bike-fixing junk is and the aquarium equiptment and the aquariums. aquaria. from back during the age of aquaria. on the one hand, i madly, truly, deeply believe that attachment is the root of all suffering - i know this to be a fact. on the other hand, whenever i travel i do not believe in traveling light, for i want every place to be at least a temporary home. plus i am sentimental. but now the whole not-traveling-light thing is coming back to bite me. in spades. we have 5 more days to get it together... broken lamps childrens' ice skates 1 gallon of crayons 6 bottles of vinegar (balsamic, balsamic, red wine, white, cider, tarragon) 5 half-assembled bikes a child sized canoe paddle a dozen little plastic minotaurs to slip over xmas tree lights to light up a dining room i won't be living in anymore broken folding chairs one hundred electrical extension cords 5 phones that each have one small thing wrong with them a basement full of obsolete computers ...and we're just about out of boxes. how do you pack an ironing board? how do you throw away a trash can? why don't stores have boxes anymore? how did all these tacks get on the floor?  jeez, it was intense. clearly i did not get rid of all that stuff. i got rid of a lot of stuff, though. now we have to get rid of more and more stuff.  dang! these photos make me sentimental. i miss being home with everybody all the time...  here was my recap 2 years ago: Random guy: Well, I'm glad the kids are still asking all the right existential questions. --overheard in nyc, 8th St & 6th ave last salon tonight. salon started ten years ago with me and mary alice having swanky cocktails on the front porch - it was a neighborhood thing. then none of us were neighbors anymore, but we kept getting together. somehow it turned into a weekly - later on, monthly - thing, during the school year. every year was different. there was the year of mathematical arguments and the year of union organizing and the year of head shavings and lesbian drama and the year of the invention of the wireless and more than one election year and the year of the trampoline and so on. candles in the windows and in the winter a log on the fire, a fridge full of beer and jazz or lounge music or folk music or disco. chairs on the back porch with torches, and more than once everybody lying in a big circle on the trampoline - it almost touched the ground. babies appeared and started walking and came in costume and went straight to the fridge for a soda; people's parents attended and people's parents' best friends attended too. teenagers came and they fit right in, which says something important about everybody's maturity level i guess. think about it. some people got together, and some broke up, with one or the other getting custody of going to salon. a few people ended up marrying each other. more than once, we put up a little tent or made a chair-and-sheet fort for the children in the living room, and it was amusing to see grownups standing around with drinks discussing stuff, next to a tent full of giggling kids. poetry was read, and puppet shows happened, and fiddle playing and dance parties and letter-writing campaigns and crane-folding and fund-raisers occurred. one time we made hand turkeys and played twister. our hearts were young and gay. but almost all the time it was just a bunch of us sitting in folding chairs talking and laughing. a lot of us really only see each other at salon. despite this, we know a lot about each other. after all, everybody is required to introduce themselves. some people came once or twice and never came again. quite a few said they didn't like the highbrow atmosphere. we were quite surprised by that, because how highbrow is it to sit around with a beer in your hand, talking about the new movie you saw? doesn't everybody do that? i think a lot of us just don't really sit around and talk for long periods of time; a lot of us aren't used to the storytelling mode, certainly not on a regular basis. we might sit around together watching teevee or playing playstation, and we might even play cards together, but i think in this day and age it's increasingly challenging to just sit around and talk - with people you've just met - simply for the sake of sitting around talking with people you've just met. even though i've always wanted to be able to kick back and relax with each one of these fabulous individuals, i'm often engaged in emptying ashtrays and filling glasses and finding more chairs and otherwise flitting about, and i don't always make everyone feel as welcome as they are, and that might account for some salon failures, i.e., folks i invited who left in dismay. but i think those that do stay, and do come back, know they are welcome, and so they welcome others. a perfect community might be one where people feel at home and therefore make others feel at home. and what you have then is, everybody's home. everybody's home. 
getting rid of all that stuff
 i went there and my mom and i drove around and around, getting lost & found, running the video camera all the while for jpw to see what it's like. unfortunately, the camera auto-adjusted itself for the light, throwing most things of interest into silhouette, because it was so bright that all the gold dandelions and red rhodies and green green grass just glowed, but only half as much as the sky, according to one auto-light-meter. and also unfortunately, the camera could not capture the smell of the early spring mountains, which was sweet and peppery and wet and kind of thrilling. i remember when i lived in boulder, that smell hung in the air a lot of the time, and i never got used to it - up there, it was ponderosa pine, like some kind of spicy butterscotch. i don't know what was in the air where we were driving, but it was so rich i really thought we could have caught it in a jar and brought it home - if only air traffic security wouldn't make me open it up and show it was 'empty'... friendly waitresses kept telling us we came at the right time, because it just stopped raining.  there's still a weird balance of indecision, where are we going to go? but it's intuitively certain we won't be staying. it's like the midwest of the map of the nation is lifting up, tenting up in the middle, so it feels like sliding, slipping off inexorably to the west. it's always a good feeling, feeling like it's cosmically out of your hands, the decision to go far away from all your loved ones, those you've nurtured with such tenderness and all those who've nurtured you... how callous it would be, indeed, to decide on that. so much the better, were the map to tilt up and dump you, dizzy and helpless and grateful, at the very edge - but before that, nervous-making, when you're not quite poised.  there are a number of practical reasons. the main reasons are impractical, but there are practical reasons too, and a list of cons much shorter than it used to be. it used to be that three fledglings nested in the midwest and one very sick mother abided there as well and money was scarce and my work was cut out for me. each of those priorities have grown less urgent. not less important, to me, but less urgent. really, nonemergent. and the more emergent problem, to me, has become, what am i going to do with the rest of my life? this empty-nest shit is no joke. i was walking around a strange, exciting-smelling place, asking myself, is there a 405 waiting for me here somewhere? but then i had to try to accept, again, that the 405 as we knew it - as we knew it - was a temporary shelter constructed to raise safe healthy children in.  lots and lots and lots of us constructed that shelter - parents and children and friends and relations; every one had a membership. and every one has really moved on. we've been homeless, some of us, for a little while, but everyone's making new homes for themselves, and now at last my road comes down to... increasingly more and more these days we think and talk about moving to the great North Pacific. me talk empress one day.  one of the issues is - how do you move the accumulated accoutrements of 27 years of child rearing, overland to the ends of the earth? we already jettisoned so extremely much - skates and kites and sleds and really, though you wouldn't guess it, an awful lot of books and tapes and paintings and posters, and threw out a lot of clothes, and made everybody come in and take away their many pairs of boots and shoes and slippers and sandals. and still it turns out we have about half a 405's worth of stuff. and it's just not appropriate. one accumulates, one accrues, one encrusts onself with lots of stuff, just so kids will have enough stuff - and when you don't have any money, you have to put it together any way you can - and then once you get ahold of, say, the trombone (a pawnshop eureka), the bike (recycled from other bikes), or the enormous trampoline (now there's a party vehicle) - you're reluctant to part with it.  but to everything there is a season, clothes don't make the man, a house is not a home, and so on. i struggle back and forth, in good faith, between materialism and householding. about that red wagon - i saved for months to buy it at the rural king store. i put it together with a table knife, a pair of pliers, and a high heeled pump (my hammer). i used to pull around as many as three children, down to the gas station for popsicles and back; i used to carry the groceries in it; we hauled camping gear for six up from the triangle to the top of the hill in it; how can i jettison it? even though it's full of dust and cobwebs in the garage & never moved an inch since we took it out the moving van last june... ay, me. 
censored
 a small part which when pulled or pressed releases a catch a small lever pressed back by the finger to activate the firing an act or impulse that initiates a series of events  censored  to activate by pulling or pressing a trigger to fire or explode a procedural code automatically executed in response to certain events  censored  censored triggers are difficult to face because they can produce extraordinarily difficult reactions in us most of us would like to live without being triggered triggers can be subtle and difficult to anticipate  censored which triggers produce the biggest response? which triggers provoke a milder response? it may help to actually rate them.  which triggers are probably unsafe? how can you face the trigger safely? POSSIBLE PHYSICAL REACTIONS: Aches Weakness Chills Being easily startled Increased susceptibility  censored HOW TO BETTER COPE Reach out Set small realistic goals Redefine your priorities Get involved in something that is personally meaningful and important every day Give yourself time censored  HOW TO HELP FAMILY MEMBERS AND FRIENDS COPE Be nonjudgmental Be flexible Reassure Reinforce the feeling of safety Talk about how each person has changed or grown as a result of the experience censored  we do not hate. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
ancestral farm suite
 primeval is the first scene presented to our view primeval is felt in the pulse of continuous beginning primeval is at work within us primeval is pulled forth  primeval is filtered through a space warp primeval is none other than grief primeval is a difficult tape to review primeval is part of a story arc which started with the land of the dead primeval is lurking below the conscious surface primeval is the past and some things should be left unwoken  primeval is cleansed primeval is revealed primeval is the word primeval is the natural history of ancient northwest forests primeval is the cathedral and environmental protection is the gospel primeval is interesting because it brings a new understanding to the serpent's character primeval is her discovery of the original mark primeval is the mystery and challenge and to this we are drawn primeval is so powerful  primeval is its appearance primeval is almost too busy primeval is your spot primeval is open primeval is only a few minutes' drive from main street primeval is still very much a traditional doctor primeval is owned by  primeval is more experimental with less bagpipe primeval is at work here though 
what's in the daily news? i'll tell you what's in the daily news.
 see how we are: Illinois Lottery Launches Game To Fund HIV/AIDS Awareness, Prevention Prevalence of Late-Stage Cancer Diagnoses Among Uninsured, Minorities Points to Need for Universal Health Care Los Angeles City Attorney Expands Probe of Improperly Canceled Insurance Policies President Bush To Call for Large Cuts in Medicare Spending  see how we are: Gov. Schwarzenegger Proposal Would Require Medi-Cal Beneficiaries To File Eligibility Forms Four Times Per Year Oregon To Use Lottery To Fill Remaining Spots in State Health Plan 19th Annual Black Church Week of Prayer To Raise Awareness About HIV/AIDS People Outside Washington, D.C., Enrolling in Health Care Program for Low-Income District Residents  see how we are: Illinois House Rejects Legislation That Would Have Repealed Act Requiring Students To Report Their HIV Status House Democrats Propose Offsetting Mental Health Parity Legislation Costs With Ban on Physician-Owned Specialty Hospitals More Than Three-Fourths of Voters Believe Next President Can Have Influence on Health Care Costs Hospitalized Patients Who Go Into Cardiac Arrest After 11 P.M. More Likely To Die  see how we are: Bush Administration Fails To Comply With Subpoena for Documents About FDA Approval of Antibiotic Senate Conferees Agree on Offsets for Farm Bill That Do Not Include Reduction in Medicare Coverage for Oxygen Equipment Couples Need Estimated Savings of $225K To Cover Health Care Costs During Retirement, Study Finds University of North Carolina Hospitals and Clinics Requiring Patients To Pay Costs Up Front  see how we are: New Orleans Continues To Experience Shortage of Psychiatric Beds U.S. Health Care Spending To Increase to $4,300,000,000,000.00 [trillions] by 2017 Health Problems Among Urban American Indians Do Not Decline as Income Rises Health Insurance Does Not Equal Health Care 
who do i love, so much, so much?
 I am weak but thou art strong. Grant to keep me from all wrong. I'll be happy just as long as long As I walk walk walk walk walk close to thee.
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