Time to have some fun: What is the truth about Mr W. Bush? He ain't from Texas, that's for sure. Then there's the drunk driving thing. Yeah, that happened. Any questions?

http://www.realchange.org/bushjr.htm

It's real, it's a matter of public record.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/bushdmv1.html
http://www.chander.com/2004/08/and_while_were_.html

I don't have a problem with drinking, in fact I am baffled about why stupid things like marijuana are still illegal. It's an antiquated fundamental religious objection.
This violation of the Constitution where they get mixed up about separation of Church and State is a large part of the problem. Religious beliefs of the minority should not influence the choices of the majority.
I'll get to Roe V Wade later, when I'm good and mad.
Yes, I am just vaguely amused, at the moment.
You'll love me, when I'm angry. I hear I'm more beautiful. If you like Kali...

The driving part is inexcusable and unacceptable. Think about what it takes for a cop to actually CATCH you. Think about what it would take for a Bush to actually have a Record. This is pretty brave, for cops. Sorry guys, you are the best, but you do operated in a damn fool bureaucracy... I have a dear friend who's a cop in Austin, TX. I helped him get there. One of the best things I ever did. He's a real hero.

Now, think about his bud Cheney. The funniest thing this dude is ever gonna do is shoot an elderly crony at a canned hunt for quail (shooting tame, hand-raised birds out of cages, oh so macho) Cheney's not so slow on the bottle, either. http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/cheneydwi1.html
Dude, my Shibumi Bubba dad shot a guy in the rear hunting back in the 50s, and they are still fast friends. It's not a huge deal, in fact, in Texas, it's practically a marriage proposal. If only Cheney had had the cojones to be funny about it. His simpering statements to Fox were.. oh god... the equivalent of taking up interior decorating and a houseboy. Not that I object to homosexuality, either. I don't care. Better to love someone, than hate them. It would just be inconvenient for Cheney. Fortunately, his sister is more intelligent and open-minded.
At any rate it was funny as s^+t, and that's the only time Cheney is going to give anyone a good time. So we enjoyed it while we could.

For the record, I do like single malt, but as a lifetime asthmatic, I have no use for smoke of any kind in my lungs, nor do I care to lose my grip on reality (slippery though it may be) to any chemical, from codeine to Tylenol 3. I don't even like Benadryl. I also like to shoot. I was raised in Texas, remember? As in Actually Grew Up There and spent Summers in the Blistering Heat Instead of In the NE in Relative Cool Comfort (85 F)? Hell-Flocking-O!!!!

Rule Number 1: Know your weapon, love it and keep it clean
Rule Number 2: Never point your weapon at anything you do not intend to kill
Rule Number 3: It's just a tool. You don't have to be one.

I'll skip the lawyer jokes, since an old adopted brother of mine was a lawyer for Child Protective Services back there in Austin, and had a little girl he would have died innumerable times over for. I used to sit for her, when I stayed with them. I think they are both firefighters now. It's a much more visceral connection to helping people than the legal system, and I get that now. I am in a much more visceral connection with America's military now, for a maverick liberal on the rampage. It has been what I have seen here, that has set me off.

You can find a lot of interesting things on Google. Be sure to get the link that erases the cookies it keeps, though, because Google has sold out, and will provide anyone with information they ask for. Must be the deal they made with the Chinese. Totalitarianism appears to be contagious. Freedom of Speech, just Watch What You Say -- IceT was right.

Let's hope for some kind of blog free speech revolution:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/28/1521249

What are the alternatives?
http://www.jimhightower.com/

If you are into Jewish Carpenters, check this dude out.
http://www.kinkyfriedman.com/

I used to date his roommate's son.
As long as he hires Jim Hightower, I'll vote for him.

I've never voted in a primary, and I never will, until the damn nuisance things go away. What do I care for parties? What the hell have they done for me?

Taken my health care, taken my right to choose, taken my right to bear arms, taken my pension & social security, assisted in the robbery of untold pensions (air travel workers) at the benefit of fat cat already overpaid executive types who tend to congratulate themselves by giving themselves raises after ruining carefully nurtured futures of thousands of people who make them the money they depend on for their yacht payments.... forget that sh*t.

We can do better.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/28/1521249
http://www.topplebush.com/article1_recgovernor.shtml

Is it really rational, or intelligent, to give up the bottle for an Imaginary Friend? What if I had a Giant Pink Tiger who was my Best Friend and told me what was Right For me to Do with My Life?
By the way, I am a graduate of four years of 12 step programs, and I did it without any higher power. The only higher power is my own purpose, my own discipline, and my own joy in life.
How is this different from "What would Jesus Do?"

Penn Jillette said it best: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5015557 I especially agree about the jell-O and sex. But not necessarily together, without proper protection.

Notes on the experience of bodywork: I have been a massage therapist/bodyworker since about 2000.
I have always had the urge to lay hands on people, mostly in a constructive way. The man I married gave me the impetus to go to school and "go pro" and has diligently supported me in this journey.

So far, I've done the 500 hours of training in the US, gone for the bar (and made an extremely high pass on the National Therapeutic Board- though they have given me exactly ZERO support for recertification over here in Army Land, what's that 200 bucks worth, kids?) and done special trainings with the Pittsburgh Pain Institute (not as kinky as it sounds) and my mentor in Dr Henry Okizaki's Long Life Massage (Danzan-ryu jujutsu teaching) Tom Lang.

At the same time, I have maintained my attitude as a hardheaded skeptic who is willing to look for proof. I don't have anything to do with Reiki or Healing Touch, both of which have nothing to do with the hard sweat, tears and technique of realistic and focussed bodywork. I was of the school of "find a trigger point, kill it, and recalibrate the movement" before I found myself in possession of a copy of Anatomy Trains, used by my friend Carol Shifflet and the teacher at the Institute, Richard Finn.

As is my usual pattern, when I find something I like, test, and find useful, I backtrack to sources to see where it came from. I traced the author of Anatomy Trains, Tom Myers, to Rolfing. I remembered that my teachers at Lauterstein-Conway were at least connected with Zero Balancing (super light Rolfing- sorry guys, it's just ancestry) and many of the authors I read and respected, such as Deane Juhan, were trained in Rolfing.
If you are wondering what the heck Rolfing is, go here: http://www.rolf.org/

I took the Rolfing Spectrum course in Agatharied south of Munich, and found a home. It's so important, far from home, to find something like that. I have been in Munich almost every month since that time, to complete my training. I am am just now in the homestretch, looking at certification end of May. I'll post a few things which may give people an insight into what exactly Rolfing is, what it feels like and what happens.

FEB 24 2006

My courses in Munich are at this time being taught by a mad Bavarian. It's a grand tradition, see Neuschwanstein or Hohenschwangau and many of the ornate wastes of public funds (which now admittedly generate same) littering the Bavarian countryside. Many of the castles are of older Celtic origin, which may explain a strong streak of red hair and freckles in certain Bavarian areas.

The mad Bavarian has the typical Bavarian problem. He is tremendously, obsessively precise in his work, and yet he is also gregarious and funny and likes to tell stories. Teaching the class, he flicks through points of interest for us like a telepath reading a phone book. At the same time, he wants us to get things exactly right. O weyh, as my Oberpfalzer friends say. The madman is a compact fellow, with rather short arms, small expressive hands and surprisingly bright dark eyes under a closely shaven round pate.

"So anyway, here is Houston, and here are 10 places all over town you have to deliver pizza. These guys drink pepsi, this guy loves anchovies and onions, but don't get the guy on 62nd street anchovies OR onions or the Mob will slash all our tires again. Don't worry about the couple on the East side, they shot each other twice last year, just call 911 and leave the pizza on the stoop. Don't go in the yard on Blueberry unless the dog is tied up."
This is how the instructions we are getting feel. It's just bodywork, you know, but here we have these 10 damn things we have to get right and not get the anchovies or onions in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The mad Bavarian is like Santa, he gets all 10 deliveries right before a small child can peek up the chimney, meanwhile we are trying to remember whether it was beer or pepsi and is the mob going to slash our tires and where is that damn dog?

"It's just here, here, and do this, and let your sternum hang like a pendulum." Yeah, I'm supposed to remember that, and the flocking anchovies too? Basically, we are supposed to be perfect, and make other bodies perfect as well. Yeah. Right. And I'll be on the Olympic podium for the basketweaving gold. More like the basket CASE gold, by this time.

We get on the subject of ruptured disks and (perhaps because I was looking intent) the mad Bavarian waves me to a table and demonstrates some wonderful side-lying leg-waving thing I can barely remember because I was getting my legs waved, and then proceeds to have me hang my head off the table so he can juggle it. Or woggle it. Or something. Anyway I began to feel like some bizarre experiment with giraffes and cantaloupe, and then he had me turn face up. This was pretty prosaic, he was demonstrating this and that, then he pulled the marvellous trick of hitting that murderous spot in my back and kind of "pulling the nail out" of it. This was after grabbing the skirts of my brain, somehow, and tugging on them. If you've never had your brain tugged on, it's a little like pulling on your own fingernails. Not unpleasant, just peculiar.

Then he proceeded to expound on something else I don't remember because I wasn't taking notes. I wasn't allowed to move. I stayed supine, with his palm on my frontal bone, occasionally waggling my skull for emphasis. Then he would Do Something, and go back to sort of gesturing through his stories with one hand on my head. I began to feel like an idly dribbled basketball, with my head bouncing lightly into the padded massage table. If I tried to turn and look at a colleague, my head was immediately turned back into the straight position and he went back to whatever he was/wasn't doing. I was a bit bobbly when I finally got up and wandered around, but I'm clear as a bell now, despite a couple of cozy beers with colleagues.

Things were well all evening, but I woke with a migraine. This is miserable, especially after being free of them for about five years now. I took two aspirin and a Sudafed and hoped for the best. The pain only dulled, and my vision began to narrow and blur. I tugged the Bavarian's sleeve and asked him to check and be sure that he did what he had meant to do. He took time to see to his students for that session, and then waved me to a table.
Again, he checked my spine, checked my neck. He asked what happened to me (all bodyworkers ask that) and I can only reply that my life has been one big accident after another, so who knows. Another thorn came out of my spine, and my neck. My spinal column now feels like that of a rubber chicken's.

As a child I used to wake with a silent scream from nightmares of being skewered by a spear through the back. Even after years of good bodywork, I could still feel the hole from it, somehow, rags flapping around a cold dead hole.
When they first began to touch it, in Rolfing, I twitched every time and really had to control my reactions. It's very strange to me, today, to feel normal, to feel all of my back, no pain, stiffness, or even the deep itch which tended to plague my left thoracic area.

Then the head work began. He stuck his thumbs in my ears and began to manipulate the halves of my skull like a semi-sliced apple. This went on for some time, the problem seemed stubborn. Then he stepped away, and I heard the familiar sound of rubber gloves coming out of a box. Don't be scared, they don't taste that bad. Very strong pressure on my hard palate and frontal bone, then pressure around my upper jaw and frontal bone. Amazing, how much the skull moves. Amazing, that our brains function at all, after the battering we give them, physically and chemically.

The night after the first treatment, I wrote most of this story.
The night I came home after the second treatment, I started this blog.
I'd call that the end of several years of writer's block. I don't have anything else to blame it on. If I don't write, right now, I feel itchy and fussy. We'll see how it goes. Anyway, my ears are much cleaner except for the thumbprints.

Moral of the story: sometimes it's OK to let other people play with your head.
Footnote: all the best Rolfers are completely mad.

Web site of the day: www.somatics.de

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Ahh, the blog. No editors, no one to complain about Strunk and White and their Elephants of Style. Nothing looks good on an elephant anyway. Okay, maybe those spangled head-dress thingies, but you won't see one modelling Chanel or D&G anytime soon.

This is my place to lay open problems I see, things that bug me, funny stories, insanities mild and major.

I do not intend to pull any punches, in fact I intend to land quite a few.
I intend to exercise the rights delineated above to the fullest and widest of their extent.
If I am going to pay the price for being an American, I am damn sure going to enjoy the privileges, as long as the Patriot act has not entirely gelded this Bill of Rights concept we had in the beginning.

I understand that our Pres has instituted "Free Speech Zones" at his various functions.
http://www.amconmag.com/12_15_03/feature.html
http://baltimorechronicle.com/052704FreeSpeechZones.shtml
http://www.aclu.org//freespeech/protest/11423prs20030923.html
http://www.reason.com/links/links020504.shtml

The other George, the late Mr Orwell, was more right than we ever cared to believe. And we are just lying down like farm animals waiting for the steel bar to shoot through our brains so that we can be cut apart and used up.

Who cares about all this stupid civil rights stuff, if your Starbucks stock is doing well?
Um, those of us who cannot afford to buy it?

I honestly don't feel like I have any opportunity to be heard in my government, and as I am over here in Germany, serving my country to the best of my (civilian) ability, I am too removed, both physically and financially, from any influence over the happenings back home. I have to register by mail for Every Single Election.

I intend to have fun, to enjoy writing, and to do some research to support my points, which I will share with you if you have the time and patience.

This post is about some of the minor and annoying difficulties we deal with (face is a stupid way to say that, hell, I face the mirror every day, dealing with it is another matter!) living overseas under the kind protection of the DOD, the SOFA agreement, and the German government itself.

Granted, they pay for our housing and utilities while we are over here, and this is no small thing. We also get to live in one of the safest, cleanest and most hospitable of countries, Germany.

Except that over the weekend some piggy neighbor left a bag of trash in our bushes. That was kind of a freak incident, although Germans are getting progressively more careless. But that's another blog entry.

The impression over here is that Americans are a lot of slobbering Rush Limbaugh fans who actually BELIEVE that Dub was born in Texas and that he was actually elected by popular vote.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/112101a.html

Europeans are surprised when I can actually mouth a few words of German (I can actually hold small conversations after 3.5 years here, though I never studied German, only Latin and some Spanish). I got a typical German backhanded compliment last weekend when one of my German colleagues said I spoke pretty good German, for an American.

People make assumptions, all over the world.
I'm here to bust 'em up. It's in my nature. I've been told I'm a rather offbeat Texan, but in my understanding of the truth of the culture, we're not cut out for the herd, rather the dry gullies and scrub, the wild places. The herd animals just get rounded up, branded, and end up as Tony Llama boots and dog food. No thanks.

I think Penn Jillette is the perfect antidote to Rush. He's bigger, louder, crazier, and for my money I think he's way sexier. My hubby has me hooked on Penn's radio show, which he downloads as a podcast.

AFN broadcasts Rush every night at 6 until 7, after which they segue to the infamous "Dr Laura" which we refer to as "the freak show". I can't even listen to Rush, the man is a pack of lies disguised as "infotainment". There should be some kind of disclaimer attached to the show, that objects in the broadcast may be much smaller than they appear. On Fridays we get "52%" a show about political women's issues. Thursday morning we get the Motley Fool, which is super for the young military audience just learning about money, and for aging Xers like me, wondering what retirement is going to look like (Social Security? nope, don't count on it, kiddies).
We get treated to two hours of the most excruciatingly boring sports talk show in the world with a guy who has a voice only an elephant seal could love, every day at 10 am. They do broadcast NPR's Talk of the Nation and Justice Talking, along with Car Talk on Wednesday and Sunday, followed on Sunday by Prairie Home Companion.
Most of the time we listen to Internet radio, my hometown radio station, KGSR.com or the NPR feed, or various podcasts.

When it gets unbearable and we aren't IV'd to our laptops, we listen to German or Czech radio, always kind of surreal. We never know what the Czechs are going to play, from folk songs to thrash metal.

We shop in German stores (I'll publish a price comparison between the commissary and local stores later) we see German doctors, we eat at German restaurants and enjoy German public trans (the Bahn is wonderfu! Amtrak could learn how to actually be useful, from them!), we try very hard to observe German traditions and social rules. We don't mow on Sunday or leave trash around (they do that for us, evidently).

The American side of our equation is actually a bit more limiting than the German one.

Did you know that an American servicewomen (in military service or a spouse of an American servicemember) cannot obtain an abortion at military medical clinics? Wow, if this isn't a separation of church and state problem, I just can't put my finger on one. Don't get me started on the chaplaincy..

Did you know that I, as a Texas resident living overseas, have to register to vote by mail EVERY SINGLE TIME I want to vote in any election?

Did you know that Overstock.com will not ship electronics or certain other items to an APO? They have been extremely unresponsive and stubborn about changing this. I will not be doing business with them until they figure this out. They in cahoots with AAFES, or what?

In other retail woes, order to replace my Ipod, I have had to deal with Apple in a very annoying triangle: Apple only ships by UPS, so the box to ship the Ipod goes to him, he ships it to me, I ship the sick Pod to Apple, and they ship it back to my dad, who has to ship it to me. Bleah! What is wrong with these people? Shipping to an APO is exactly the same as shipping things in country, it just has to make it to NY or CA and the Army takes it by freight from there. It doesn't cost an extra cent to anybody. My dad, who worked for the US post office for some 30 years, told me that UPS uses the US post for much of their business anyway. So much for privatization.

Link of the day: http://www.tpj.org Texans for Public Justice

It's a sunny day in Germany, which is a rare enough thing. They call it "wetter" for a reason: If you go outside, you can only get wetter. Today the sun is sparkling on the leftover snow, and families are out happily crunching around on winter's grunchy leftovers.

Most Americans assume that because I am living in Germany, and because I am sort of Scandinavian looking (in an American Irish sort of way) that I AM German. They're half right, but off by a couple five generations on my mother's side. My ancestors didn't feel like they could change things enough to survive where they were, so they went somewhere where it was possible. Sometimes I feel the same way, looking across the Atlantic to the rapidly narrowing field of view coming back this way.

Let's get it straight: I'm Texan. I'm Texan three generations on my father's side, and at least three on my mothers. Liasons with natives and alligators (father's side is East Texan) aside, like most Americans, I'm a mixture of three or four generations of rejects, escapees, adventurers and optimists from Western Europe.

The rule in Texas is this: If you didn't come outta yer mama in Texas, you ain't a Texan. That's that. This leads to my next point, and one you are welcome to research if you like: The 43rd president of the US is no Texan. Sure, he's got the accent down, but I bet he can do New England just as well. He moved to Midland when he was three, and he never actually spent any time there. http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/George_W._Bush
It was just a tax shelter for them, as Texas has no state tax. One good thing, as long as the Bushes have property in Texas, there will be no state tax. Um, yay, I guess.

Here are some interesting links on the Bushes: http://www.bushfiles.com/bush_toc.htmlhttp://www.moldea.com/bushology.html

The dude can't even run a business. No wonder the deficit is swelling up like a dead dog on the side of the road in July... http://www.sptimes.com/News/102900/Business/Influence_and_bailout.shtml

They certainly do have their own "family values": http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1992/09/bushboys.html

Every time I hear a European say, when I introduce myself as being from Texas, "Oh, like Bush" I wince. The fact that the guy even lies about where he's from is excruciating.

Part of my goal here is to further publicize the damage being done by the current administration. In part, I'm trying to follow the brazen (Brazosian?) example of one of my heroines, Juanita- gotta head down to Fort Bend to get my hair done sometime: http://www.brazosriver.com/index.html

I am also going to talk about life with the military as a civilian, life as a "Texpatriate" my career in bodywork and massage therapy (I have a massage practice on a military post, and am in training in Munich as a Rolfer), my adventures in Germany as a "strange person in a strange land".

This is just a sample of what you'll get here at the Tex-Pat diaries. Same price every day, bargain basement rambles, rants, ravings and revelations. Step right up and give it a try!