It's late August in the Oberpfalz. Evenings are cool, it's 13 grad now and I'm wearing sweats indoors. Plums, apples and mushrooms are ripening. Climate-wise, I am so much healthier here. We're starting to think about staying here.
It's a little scary, to be honest. However, like so many misfits to their own culture who try a different one, it's almost a relief to be really foreign, instead of just rejected.
It's not that I don't belong in Texas. It's not that Texas doesn't belong to me.
It's just that I'm not in my best of health there. The heat in the summer, the cedar in the winter, and the terrible air with all the cars and heat and pollen.
There's no way to wander around in a hamster bubble, nor would I want to live that way. Meanwhile, the American health system is falling apart, afflicted with greed to its very roots.
Here, if you can pay a little extra for private health insurance, and be accepted, you can get all kinds of treatments and spa weeks paid for.
Try that with your American health insurance.
In the meantime, I think I have to really get my business off the ground, and work hard, so that I can be a success here, in a successful and stable economy where wholistic health is valued. I'll wait and watch to see where my own beloved country is going, but, at the moment, theocracy is not what our Founders had in mind.
Nor is Imperialism (which we fought to free our own selves of).
Nor did they have in mind such an economic oligarchy.
It's actually incredibly disgusting to an aware person, unless one takes into account that only %25 of America votes (and perhaps even then) that we are in such a state.
In any case, I'm aware, and I'm disgusted. Take Note.
|-P~~~
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Thursday, August 17, 2006
It's the beginning of what I call "apple time" here in Bavaria. I learned about it first in Indiana. The apples on the trees begin to redden at the cheeks, the light turns more golden, and perhaps a little moody. Evenings cool, and the earth and its inhabitants seem focussed and gravid. Nuts on trees show promise, and mushrooms bloom.
Personally, I can weather any cold with a warm fire and a kitty in my lap. I'm wearing a deep pile jacket and have a down throw and an adoring kitty, with the back door open to let the katydid sounds and fresh air in.
It's amazingly beautiful to me, to look forward to apples and have cool nights. It was what I dreamed about back home. Now I bike past forests of ripe blackberries and cranberries, and check my favorite apple trees, and watch the wheat and barley dry down.
The vintners take the early fall grapes in and sugar them, starting the fermentation. Green wine and cider are available for those hard of head. I can't touch it, splits my noggin in two.
Fests are here and there and everywhere. Tents and toasted meat are everpresent.
Cars tuck into the entries of forest trails as the older folks go in to pick berries and mushrooms. It's quite the pastime here. No one is thought strange for it. Older folks interview me and even check my mushrooms for me, given a chance. It's hard to get their dialects, but even the best educated of folks will stop and chat, particularly in this area. America is deep in their cultural images, as the liberators, the givers of Coca-Cola and Hershey's Chocolate.
I can only accept the history and keep my eyes open to the future, as America deals with her own version of fascism.. how come every Communist nation, with a government Of and For the People, ends up with a dictator? is capitalist representative democracy headed the same way?
http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/node/835
http://civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet/
http://www.tfn.org/
http://www.brazosriver.com/index.html
I love apple time. I just hate the bad apples.
The fun part, I suppose, is throwing them at OTHER bad apples.
*evil grin*
Personally, I can weather any cold with a warm fire and a kitty in my lap. I'm wearing a deep pile jacket and have a down throw and an adoring kitty, with the back door open to let the katydid sounds and fresh air in.
It's amazingly beautiful to me, to look forward to apples and have cool nights. It was what I dreamed about back home. Now I bike past forests of ripe blackberries and cranberries, and check my favorite apple trees, and watch the wheat and barley dry down.
The vintners take the early fall grapes in and sugar them, starting the fermentation. Green wine and cider are available for those hard of head. I can't touch it, splits my noggin in two.
Fests are here and there and everywhere. Tents and toasted meat are everpresent.
Cars tuck into the entries of forest trails as the older folks go in to pick berries and mushrooms. It's quite the pastime here. No one is thought strange for it. Older folks interview me and even check my mushrooms for me, given a chance. It's hard to get their dialects, but even the best educated of folks will stop and chat, particularly in this area. America is deep in their cultural images, as the liberators, the givers of Coca-Cola and Hershey's Chocolate.
I can only accept the history and keep my eyes open to the future, as America deals with her own version of fascism.. how come every Communist nation, with a government Of and For the People, ends up with a dictator? is capitalist representative democracy headed the same way?
http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/node/835
http://civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet/
http://www.tfn.org/
http://www.brazosriver.com/index.html
I love apple time. I just hate the bad apples.
The fun part, I suppose, is throwing them at OTHER bad apples.
*evil grin*
Monday, July 24, 2006
I've made the best batch of raspberry jelly ever. I mean seriously, the flavour is amazing, the colour is astounding. Makes it worth all the fly bites and nettle burns.
What, you think I went and picked them in the garden?
No, I don't think so. I have a battered, slightly pink wicker basket that I bungee on the back of my mountain bike, and pedal off into the woods. The deerflies are vicious and insane this year, biting though Off if it hasn't been applied in the last quarter hour. Even a short nip from one is painful and leaves an itchy, scarring welt. The only remedy is to cover all skin with Permethrin-sprayed cloth. I even use a ballcap sprayed with Permethrin. It also repels the flying deer lice -- like ticks with wings. There are regular ticks as well, and danger of encephalitis. I've used tansy flowers as fly whisks, after I discovered that the flies really don't like the stuff. No kidding, the houseflies won't even land on the garbage can after I laid tansy sprigs across it. No wonder Medeival households used tansy as a "strewing herb".
I have a gorgeous bouquet of tansy topped by a tawny sunflower from my garden on our kitchen table.
Raspberries grow on all the edges here, from forests to brooks, streams, and agricultural irrigation channels. It's very dry this year, so the berries are fattest by water. Meanwhile, I have noticed that the schlehen, or sloes (wild plums) are thriving in the dry (by Germany's standards) heat.
I'm not doing so badly, either. This is nothing compared with Texas heat, and it gets deliciously cool in the evenings, down to almost 50. Texans would kill for 70 or 60, round about this time of year.
Cherries are at the end of their season. I found a wild cherry tree with yellowish fruits that was just delicious. I washed them and popped them in the fridge, snacking on them now. Apples are bulging green on the trees, some with tantalizing rosy cheeks. I'm enchanted by hazelnuts in their lacy casings, but I'm honestly not sure what to do with them. We have wild chestnuts too, in tresses of spiny casings, "hedgehog eggs" I call them. Poor mommy hedgehogs!
In my forest forays, the thing which thrills me most is the finding wild gourmet mushrooms.
Naturally, I must disclaim that I spent years of study getting to know them, and if you just go devouring random fungus, you can easily end up dead, permanently insane, or worse.
I've gotten to know the European chanterelle, known in Germany as Pfifferling. Whitish yellow to egg yolk yellow on a dry day, their fresh peppery fragrance is enchanting, mixed with the mossy musky smell of the earth they hide on. I also enjoy the European boletes in their variety. Get the right kind, treat it right (porcinis on pizza!!) and cross your eyes and hope to die, it's amazing. Chanterelles are best for breakfast. Grate an aged Gruyere into two farm fresh scrambled eggs and a dash of cream. Sautee sliced, cleaned Chanterelles in fresh butter, very gently. Dash with dry white wine, then add eggs/cheese mixture and cook on cooling burner. Snip chives over, and serve. O. M. G. I'll find even more of them when I go hunting for blueberries and cranberries in the fall, along with elderberries, and the later harvest of blackberries. I don't preserve apples, so far, just eat them. There's nothing in the world like a crisp tart apple right off the tree on a snappy fall morning.
It's an experience I trade being home for.
Like most natural progressions, I am here, there, and everywhere with it on a given day. This time of year the tunas are ripening on the cactus, and the muscadines are getting ready to pick, but it's the same story of protective clothing and timing. I got the worst case of chiggers once, picking wild muscadine grapes at McKinney Falls State Park where I used to work for Tx Pks & Wild. I worked so hard, to work for them, and then they disappointed me enormously.
I like my job much better now, I like who and where I am much better now, I like my health better, and by damn I may be chilly in the morning.
For a Texan, there ain't much to beat that, in late July.
What, you think I went and picked them in the garden?
No, I don't think so. I have a battered, slightly pink wicker basket that I bungee on the back of my mountain bike, and pedal off into the woods. The deerflies are vicious and insane this year, biting though Off if it hasn't been applied in the last quarter hour. Even a short nip from one is painful and leaves an itchy, scarring welt. The only remedy is to cover all skin with Permethrin-sprayed cloth. I even use a ballcap sprayed with Permethrin. It also repels the flying deer lice -- like ticks with wings. There are regular ticks as well, and danger of encephalitis. I've used tansy flowers as fly whisks, after I discovered that the flies really don't like the stuff. No kidding, the houseflies won't even land on the garbage can after I laid tansy sprigs across it. No wonder Medeival households used tansy as a "strewing herb".
I have a gorgeous bouquet of tansy topped by a tawny sunflower from my garden on our kitchen table.
Raspberries grow on all the edges here, from forests to brooks, streams, and agricultural irrigation channels. It's very dry this year, so the berries are fattest by water. Meanwhile, I have noticed that the schlehen, or sloes (wild plums) are thriving in the dry (by Germany's standards) heat.
I'm not doing so badly, either. This is nothing compared with Texas heat, and it gets deliciously cool in the evenings, down to almost 50. Texans would kill for 70 or 60, round about this time of year.
Cherries are at the end of their season. I found a wild cherry tree with yellowish fruits that was just delicious. I washed them and popped them in the fridge, snacking on them now. Apples are bulging green on the trees, some with tantalizing rosy cheeks. I'm enchanted by hazelnuts in their lacy casings, but I'm honestly not sure what to do with them. We have wild chestnuts too, in tresses of spiny casings, "hedgehog eggs" I call them. Poor mommy hedgehogs!
In my forest forays, the thing which thrills me most is the finding wild gourmet mushrooms.
Naturally, I must disclaim that I spent years of study getting to know them, and if you just go devouring random fungus, you can easily end up dead, permanently insane, or worse.
I've gotten to know the European chanterelle, known in Germany as Pfifferling. Whitish yellow to egg yolk yellow on a dry day, their fresh peppery fragrance is enchanting, mixed with the mossy musky smell of the earth they hide on. I also enjoy the European boletes in their variety. Get the right kind, treat it right (porcinis on pizza!!) and cross your eyes and hope to die, it's amazing. Chanterelles are best for breakfast. Grate an aged Gruyere into two farm fresh scrambled eggs and a dash of cream. Sautee sliced, cleaned Chanterelles in fresh butter, very gently. Dash with dry white wine, then add eggs/cheese mixture and cook on cooling burner. Snip chives over, and serve. O. M. G. I'll find even more of them when I go hunting for blueberries and cranberries in the fall, along with elderberries, and the later harvest of blackberries. I don't preserve apples, so far, just eat them. There's nothing in the world like a crisp tart apple right off the tree on a snappy fall morning.
It's an experience I trade being home for.
Like most natural progressions, I am here, there, and everywhere with it on a given day. This time of year the tunas are ripening on the cactus, and the muscadines are getting ready to pick, but it's the same story of protective clothing and timing. I got the worst case of chiggers once, picking wild muscadine grapes at McKinney Falls State Park where I used to work for Tx Pks & Wild. I worked so hard, to work for them, and then they disappointed me enormously.
I like my job much better now, I like who and where I am much better now, I like my health better, and by damn I may be chilly in the morning.
For a Texan, there ain't much to beat that, in late July.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Cat kept going to the edge of the garden today. Before we left, she never passed the line of grass at the edge of the stone patio. Now, after we have left her alone for a month, she explores more. First, to be out with her most beloved human, my husband. Second, well, it's, oh, sniff, what's this? oh, what's over here? wow this is a warm surface! ooh! a bird!!
It's not much different than anyone else's train of thought, so lets not make fun of this cat who is old enough to vote.
I'm twitchy, itchy and bitchy, coming back. I'm not sure how much of it to hide.
I'm conflicted about where I want to be. The good Southern girl in me just wants to go back home and take care of my mom and dad and support my brother. My wild streak says, what good would it do? you'd just be pouring good time after bad. Tears find me, when I think of not being able to be there, if they need me. I keep in mind that they don't need me yet. Not badly. Certainly my folks miss me, but I was never Miss Available. Especially with my family, where I developed my four-chambered life, I am partitioned and walled and carefully, compassionately, alertly aloof.
It's shaped who I am and how I interact with the world.
I always reserve the big guns far too late, when my attacker realizes that I am actually not only armed, but willing to unload, I generally get a few powder burns myself. I've learned that I need to walk a little taller, to avoid conflict. Still, I realize that stupid people are eaten by moose on a regular basis, just because they thought the big thorny apartment-building looking thing was harmless. Mostly harmless.
Anyway I'm mostly wild streak. Hubby, when I am on a cooking or cleaning tear, calls me the Domestic Goddess. I remind him constantly that I'm only feral. I'm just here because I can sleep without scratching.
Today the house was closing in on me after a day full of (doubtless inspired) cooking and errands. I had to run out on the bike and pick raspberries. They don't ripen as fast up here, which is good since downhill in Graf, they are starting to wear out. The occasional wild strawberry or chanterelle is a real thrill, and it's never really HOT. Deerflies are vicious, but long pants and Permethrin turned them today. They leave terrible, filthy bites and scars.
The German countryside shines like few others. Silence, grasshoppers, and bees. Smell of warm barley in the sun. A drift of liquid manure, followed by the sunny, furry smell of drying hay. Blue tits fuss and frolic in the birches, and magpies scurry around doing magpie mafia deals. The evenings are long and cool, with a warm golden sun. People talk, and blackbirds perform incredible blackbird operettas.
Soon the evenings will quicken and sharpen, and the apples will redden and ripen.
Mornings will be gilded, not with sun and birdsong as they are now, but with rimes of icy dew, leading to frost.
But for now, summer is wild and broad and in full swing.
It's not much different than anyone else's train of thought, so lets not make fun of this cat who is old enough to vote.
I'm twitchy, itchy and bitchy, coming back. I'm not sure how much of it to hide.
I'm conflicted about where I want to be. The good Southern girl in me just wants to go back home and take care of my mom and dad and support my brother. My wild streak says, what good would it do? you'd just be pouring good time after bad. Tears find me, when I think of not being able to be there, if they need me. I keep in mind that they don't need me yet. Not badly. Certainly my folks miss me, but I was never Miss Available. Especially with my family, where I developed my four-chambered life, I am partitioned and walled and carefully, compassionately, alertly aloof.
It's shaped who I am and how I interact with the world.
I always reserve the big guns far too late, when my attacker realizes that I am actually not only armed, but willing to unload, I generally get a few powder burns myself. I've learned that I need to walk a little taller, to avoid conflict. Still, I realize that stupid people are eaten by moose on a regular basis, just because they thought the big thorny apartment-building looking thing was harmless. Mostly harmless.
Anyway I'm mostly wild streak. Hubby, when I am on a cooking or cleaning tear, calls me the Domestic Goddess. I remind him constantly that I'm only feral. I'm just here because I can sleep without scratching.
Today the house was closing in on me after a day full of (doubtless inspired) cooking and errands. I had to run out on the bike and pick raspberries. They don't ripen as fast up here, which is good since downhill in Graf, they are starting to wear out. The occasional wild strawberry or chanterelle is a real thrill, and it's never really HOT. Deerflies are vicious, but long pants and Permethrin turned them today. They leave terrible, filthy bites and scars.
The German countryside shines like few others. Silence, grasshoppers, and bees. Smell of warm barley in the sun. A drift of liquid manure, followed by the sunny, furry smell of drying hay. Blue tits fuss and frolic in the birches, and magpies scurry around doing magpie mafia deals. The evenings are long and cool, with a warm golden sun. People talk, and blackbirds perform incredible blackbird operettas.
Soon the evenings will quicken and sharpen, and the apples will redden and ripen.
Mornings will be gilded, not with sun and birdsong as they are now, but with rimes of icy dew, leading to frost.
But for now, summer is wild and broad and in full swing.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Home in Bavaria, enjoying a glass of Indiana port. You have to know a great vintner, to get a decent glass of port in Indiana. Lucky us, our old landlord there has a love and a hand for the grapes.
Tom Petty sings a song about wild flowers. He might as well have sung it for me, back in 1999. This flower has a home, and always will, in Central Texas. The magnetic fibers of my iron heart point there, and always will. Going there fills me with joy, and leaving, I cry for a day.
It's only a day, and I bless the shortness of simian memory, for I am easily distracted by the pleasures of new places. At the same time, I realize that my perception of these pleasures are forever flavored by my experiences. Growing up in the heat and dry, my delight in cool green places is endless. My delight in the sea is also endless, however, since meeting the Agean, I'm a bit spoiled to cool, blue and clean. This doesn't mean I won't savor the Atlantic and her earthier delights. I also savor the harvest of the Atlantic, oysters and shrimp and crab, where the Agean is fished clean. The Greeks point and remark at certain fish which used to swim commonly in their waters. Gone now.
So I've been to the place I call home, and returned to my current abode in Bavaria. The goddess Bavaria and I have much in common. We are both broad and bawdy huntresses in the tradition of Artemis, her stolen Roman name Diana. Her likeness exists in the German Hunter's museum in Munich, where we made a pilgrimage. I had my picture taken with her, but one of us was looking much too serious and I chose not to publish it.
Our first week was in Norfolk VA. I could call this place home. The mild weather would allow a simply raucous garden, and the culture is friendly and casual. I would have both sea and mountain close at hand, as hubby and I would dearly love to do. He loves the sea to be near it and travel on it, and I love it to be in it and harvest its riches in fish, shrimp and oysters.
Second week was Austin, Texas. There is no more unique place on the planet, in terms of culture, intellect and interest. I took it for granted, for the first 30-odd (emphasis on the ODD) years of my life. How can one take for granted so much diversity, so much energy, so much texture and creativity, so much absolute ridiculous uniqueness?
I did. I understand now, all too deeply, the error of my ways. Indianapolis taught me first about my loss, in leaving Austin. Chuck should have gotten another job and joined me there. However, we never would have gotten the European experience, which, by the way, parallels the Austin one. This place is home. This place is home. This place is home.
If I click my heels three times, I'll get bruised heels and a lonelier heart. Texas culture is all about lonely hearts, so I fit in even better from afar. Like listening to Alana Davis's version of the Reaper, it's the same song on my own theme.
There are pros and cons to Austin. The pros include my family, my brilliant mother, my aging father and my incredibly talented baby brother. My magical godmother and her equally enchanting family (godbro J and the lovely K met us at every opportunity and we had great big fun) as well as brother KP and my beloved teachers BH and JP (points for trying, JP-sensei). I'd be sure to have work and home within biking range, only way to go in Austex.
I feel the need to be there and Pay It Forward very strongly. The best thing I can do is bring you my teacher, whether you like it or not. It's the best thing that ever happened to me, and I can't go back. It's like drinking port, once you get there, you know the difference between wine and water. If it don't got an Edge, I don't got no use for it. I hated it at first, too. I got to swallow the bitter, to find the sweet. I found it, and I'm not going back.
That flight to Colorado was supposed to be a vacation trip. I cried every mile of the way, and I'm crying now when I think of leaving home, It's another bitter/sweet equation. When I blink away the tears, the solution becomes clear. I am more than willing to spend time in Austin to care for my family, mentor/support my brother and guide their affairs. When that is done, I need to retreat to the mountains where I am at my best.
In Austin, I must negotiate the heat and the juniper pollen. In Glenwood Springs, I spring up at 6:30 or 7am, savor the light and the incredible air (thin as it is, this former asthmatic thrives at 7000 feet) and leap to the day, once I adjust to the altitude. Hikes with the amazing FG were nothing less than illuminating, astounding and enlightening (mostly because of FG's lectures). The Almighty's backyard is my destination when I decide to settle down and do my Life's Work, most likely teaching bodywork and natural history. There might be some budo involved, but only as a hobby. Much as I love it, it comes a cozy third to my great Passions.
Indiana is home to some lovely people, but the culture neither fosters nor tolerates individuality, so, piss off.
I have never been in such a stupid, ignorant, prejudiced (especially the black folks! hellO! not the way to go!) I've never met such closeminded, rude, aggressive, ignorant,careless, angry, WILLFULLY IGNORANT people in my entire life. The exceptions are statistically as opposite the mean as can be (T&LL, RC, and others in the Family) but I can't believe that the rest of you can live that way. Get a fuching clue. Get an education. Get on with your life, and realize that the rest of the World is so much bigger than you and your tiny problems.
Back to VA, there's some hope here. Folks are really nice, so long as you meet them outside of their cars on Hampton Road. They get seafood, they get the military, they have some decent music and culture.
Back in Bavaria, the nights are cool, and the welcome is warm. Where else do the neighbors offer to mow your lawn and have to be bought off with beer?
Life, in its intricate variations, is a treasure to be savoured, in any flavor. I am fortunate enough to try many.
I don't offer judgement, only encouragement to get to the ice cream store and try that pistachio chipotle chocolate scoop you've been curious about.
If all you learn is that you don't like it, you still will have learned something.
Tom Petty sings a song about wild flowers. He might as well have sung it for me, back in 1999. This flower has a home, and always will, in Central Texas. The magnetic fibers of my iron heart point there, and always will. Going there fills me with joy, and leaving, I cry for a day.
It's only a day, and I bless the shortness of simian memory, for I am easily distracted by the pleasures of new places. At the same time, I realize that my perception of these pleasures are forever flavored by my experiences. Growing up in the heat and dry, my delight in cool green places is endless. My delight in the sea is also endless, however, since meeting the Agean, I'm a bit spoiled to cool, blue and clean. This doesn't mean I won't savor the Atlantic and her earthier delights. I also savor the harvest of the Atlantic, oysters and shrimp and crab, where the Agean is fished clean. The Greeks point and remark at certain fish which used to swim commonly in their waters. Gone now.
So I've been to the place I call home, and returned to my current abode in Bavaria. The goddess Bavaria and I have much in common. We are both broad and bawdy huntresses in the tradition of Artemis, her stolen Roman name Diana. Her likeness exists in the German Hunter's museum in Munich, where we made a pilgrimage. I had my picture taken with her, but one of us was looking much too serious and I chose not to publish it.
Our first week was in Norfolk VA. I could call this place home. The mild weather would allow a simply raucous garden, and the culture is friendly and casual. I would have both sea and mountain close at hand, as hubby and I would dearly love to do. He loves the sea to be near it and travel on it, and I love it to be in it and harvest its riches in fish, shrimp and oysters.
Second week was Austin, Texas. There is no more unique place on the planet, in terms of culture, intellect and interest. I took it for granted, for the first 30-odd (emphasis on the ODD) years of my life. How can one take for granted so much diversity, so much energy, so much texture and creativity, so much absolute ridiculous uniqueness?
I did. I understand now, all too deeply, the error of my ways. Indianapolis taught me first about my loss, in leaving Austin. Chuck should have gotten another job and joined me there. However, we never would have gotten the European experience, which, by the way, parallels the Austin one. This place is home. This place is home. This place is home.
If I click my heels three times, I'll get bruised heels and a lonelier heart. Texas culture is all about lonely hearts, so I fit in even better from afar. Like listening to Alana Davis's version of the Reaper, it's the same song on my own theme.
There are pros and cons to Austin. The pros include my family, my brilliant mother, my aging father and my incredibly talented baby brother. My magical godmother and her equally enchanting family (godbro J and the lovely K met us at every opportunity and we had great big fun) as well as brother KP and my beloved teachers BH and JP (points for trying, JP-sensei). I'd be sure to have work and home within biking range, only way to go in Austex.
I feel the need to be there and Pay It Forward very strongly. The best thing I can do is bring you my teacher, whether you like it or not. It's the best thing that ever happened to me, and I can't go back. It's like drinking port, once you get there, you know the difference between wine and water. If it don't got an Edge, I don't got no use for it. I hated it at first, too. I got to swallow the bitter, to find the sweet. I found it, and I'm not going back.
That flight to Colorado was supposed to be a vacation trip. I cried every mile of the way, and I'm crying now when I think of leaving home, It's another bitter/sweet equation. When I blink away the tears, the solution becomes clear. I am more than willing to spend time in Austin to care for my family, mentor/support my brother and guide their affairs. When that is done, I need to retreat to the mountains where I am at my best.
In Austin, I must negotiate the heat and the juniper pollen. In Glenwood Springs, I spring up at 6:30 or 7am, savor the light and the incredible air (thin as it is, this former asthmatic thrives at 7000 feet) and leap to the day, once I adjust to the altitude. Hikes with the amazing FG were nothing less than illuminating, astounding and enlightening (mostly because of FG's lectures). The Almighty's backyard is my destination when I decide to settle down and do my Life's Work, most likely teaching bodywork and natural history. There might be some budo involved, but only as a hobby. Much as I love it, it comes a cozy third to my great Passions.
Indiana is home to some lovely people, but the culture neither fosters nor tolerates individuality, so, piss off.
I have never been in such a stupid, ignorant, prejudiced (especially the black folks! hellO! not the way to go!) I've never met such closeminded, rude, aggressive, ignorant,careless, angry, WILLFULLY IGNORANT people in my entire life. The exceptions are statistically as opposite the mean as can be (T&LL, RC, and others in the Family) but I can't believe that the rest of you can live that way. Get a fuching clue. Get an education. Get on with your life, and realize that the rest of the World is so much bigger than you and your tiny problems.
Back to VA, there's some hope here. Folks are really nice, so long as you meet them outside of their cars on Hampton Road. They get seafood, they get the military, they have some decent music and culture.
Back in Bavaria, the nights are cool, and the welcome is warm. Where else do the neighbors offer to mow your lawn and have to be bought off with beer?
Life, in its intricate variations, is a treasure to be savoured, in any flavor. I am fortunate enough to try many.
I don't offer judgement, only encouragement to get to the ice cream store and try that pistachio chipotle chocolate scoop you've been curious about.
If all you learn is that you don't like it, you still will have learned something.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Flashback time... this is me, listening to Petshop Boys.. this is me, wondering when they will play some blues again.
After falling madly in love with someone I am still in touch with and fond of, I swore off for at least a year. It's a good plan, and a good cure for madness, to wait a year. Life goes on, and in a year, if it matters, it will still matter.
This is me in high school... in a dark fog of confusion, depression and anorexia. I was in counseling for about 4 years. It's still a great influence on my life, and I use what I learned from Fr. Dave Penticuff far more than anything I learned in HS, other than to completely disregard what anyone else thinks of me. That lesson was the most important, for me. Danny W asked me to the Prom. I was friends with his GF and blew him off. DB asked me over for drinks. I tried to remind him that I was under the age of consent, while not taking it personally... it kind of undermined my respect for him, which was too bad. Other than sneaking some JD here and there, I didn't drink, and didn't, until I was about 25. This is me trying desperately to escape the dysfunctional death sentence of my family.
This is me, trying the perfection route, weighing about 125 lbs, making honor roll, and dating a pyschologist's son who is a year ahead of me. This is me, dealing with dating a teenage boy, dealing with my own issues and desires, breaking loose and giving up and taking New Age seminars which give me the emotional support and bouyancy I never got at home. This is me, getting out of high school and laying tracks to get out, any way, any how. This is me in the cheap South Austin apartment with my old friend Beverly, and working retail for something like 400 a month. This is me clearing brush, running fences and going into construction work with my ex in Bastrop County. This is me, immersing myself in martial arts practice, which evolved me beyond anything I ever expected. This is me, losing my mind, leaving the land and the house and the man, moving into a friend's sewing room. Many relationships were not Y2K compliant... many who had other agendas for me, or simply weren't sure about what I was doing, or maybe felt abandoned or set aside.. I'm sorry. As usual, it was never about you. It hurt more than anything in my life, to leave the familiar limestone under my feet.
I refuse to sit around listening to Bruce Springsteen, I'm way more into Pink's Stupid Girls, blues and vintage jazz.
I can listen to Bryan Adams, since he opened for Journey way back When and I was there...
This is me, breaking down doors, smashing windows. I've restructured my life in a way that I never could have imagined, way back in 1986. I'd like to think that I wouldn't be surprised. I knew what I wanted, it was just a matter of time until I found my way to articulate it, and get there. This life is still a work in progress, and will be, up until the very last moment of possibility.
This is me, calm and clear-eyed, with a view to what is, and what has been.
This is me, finding my way.
After falling madly in love with someone I am still in touch with and fond of, I swore off for at least a year. It's a good plan, and a good cure for madness, to wait a year. Life goes on, and in a year, if it matters, it will still matter.
This is me in high school... in a dark fog of confusion, depression and anorexia. I was in counseling for about 4 years. It's still a great influence on my life, and I use what I learned from Fr. Dave Penticuff far more than anything I learned in HS, other than to completely disregard what anyone else thinks of me. That lesson was the most important, for me. Danny W asked me to the Prom. I was friends with his GF and blew him off. DB asked me over for drinks. I tried to remind him that I was under the age of consent, while not taking it personally... it kind of undermined my respect for him, which was too bad. Other than sneaking some JD here and there, I didn't drink, and didn't, until I was about 25. This is me trying desperately to escape the dysfunctional death sentence of my family.
This is me, trying the perfection route, weighing about 125 lbs, making honor roll, and dating a pyschologist's son who is a year ahead of me. This is me, dealing with dating a teenage boy, dealing with my own issues and desires, breaking loose and giving up and taking New Age seminars which give me the emotional support and bouyancy I never got at home. This is me, getting out of high school and laying tracks to get out, any way, any how. This is me in the cheap South Austin apartment with my old friend Beverly, and working retail for something like 400 a month. This is me clearing brush, running fences and going into construction work with my ex in Bastrop County. This is me, immersing myself in martial arts practice, which evolved me beyond anything I ever expected. This is me, losing my mind, leaving the land and the house and the man, moving into a friend's sewing room. Many relationships were not Y2K compliant... many who had other agendas for me, or simply weren't sure about what I was doing, or maybe felt abandoned or set aside.. I'm sorry. As usual, it was never about you. It hurt more than anything in my life, to leave the familiar limestone under my feet.
I refuse to sit around listening to Bruce Springsteen, I'm way more into Pink's Stupid Girls, blues and vintage jazz.
I can listen to Bryan Adams, since he opened for Journey way back When and I was there...
This is me, breaking down doors, smashing windows. I've restructured my life in a way that I never could have imagined, way back in 1986. I'd like to think that I wouldn't be surprised. I knew what I wanted, it was just a matter of time until I found my way to articulate it, and get there. This life is still a work in progress, and will be, up until the very last moment of possibility.
This is me, calm and clear-eyed, with a view to what is, and what has been.
This is me, finding my way.
I'm looking forward to lilacs. This last winter has been so long, and so cold. Evenings in Bayrische Siberien are soft and cool, with blackbirds trilling and burbling at the eavetops. It's not salsa weather by any stretch, at 20 Celsius. Over freezing in Bavaria is something to celebrate, though. Forsythia splashes brilliant yellow, plum and cherry trees float delicate cotton candy petal flakes to the sidewalks.
In Texas, there were fields of bluebonnets, and mountain laurel with its strangely heady "beery" smell. Here, I get high on lilacs. Like the mountain laurel, they are incredibly toxic, but they smell wonderful. A roomful of either would give an adult a headache after a while. I learned not to sleep in roomfuls of lilacs. On the other hand, a generous spray of them in a crystal vase on the kitchen table is an incredibly sensual experience.
This year is the 20th reunion of my high school graduation. It's an interesting marker... like crossing the border in another country. Sometimes they stop you and look at your passport. Sometimes they don't care. It's just another stamp on my passport of life. I lost my first passport somewhere in Austria. It has all the marks from Scotland, Ireland, England (London), a few from Czech and back and forth from the US.
I wonder if my classmates even remember the quiet, strange and estranged girl who wore her hair over her face, and could only really express herself in writing. Sometimes not even then.. the AP teacher gave me the most grudging high grade I ever got, saying.. "weird style, but good writing". I've always lifted a silent middle finger to her when I write, while trying to use the more concrete suggestions she gave me. It's always more fun, when you can hit 'em with their own stick.
I've published scholarly papers without a degree, achieved the equivalent of a master's in my field of bodywork, earned some eccentric attention in the field of martial arts, and pioneered in the area of bringing bodywork to the military.
In general, I have completely forgotten to live a normal life.
I don't figure I'm missing a damn thing.
In Texas, there were fields of bluebonnets, and mountain laurel with its strangely heady "beery" smell. Here, I get high on lilacs. Like the mountain laurel, they are incredibly toxic, but they smell wonderful. A roomful of either would give an adult a headache after a while. I learned not to sleep in roomfuls of lilacs. On the other hand, a generous spray of them in a crystal vase on the kitchen table is an incredibly sensual experience.
This year is the 20th reunion of my high school graduation. It's an interesting marker... like crossing the border in another country. Sometimes they stop you and look at your passport. Sometimes they don't care. It's just another stamp on my passport of life. I lost my first passport somewhere in Austria. It has all the marks from Scotland, Ireland, England (London), a few from Czech and back and forth from the US.
I wonder if my classmates even remember the quiet, strange and estranged girl who wore her hair over her face, and could only really express herself in writing. Sometimes not even then.. the AP teacher gave me the most grudging high grade I ever got, saying.. "weird style, but good writing". I've always lifted a silent middle finger to her when I write, while trying to use the more concrete suggestions she gave me. It's always more fun, when you can hit 'em with their own stick.
I've published scholarly papers without a degree, achieved the equivalent of a master's in my field of bodywork, earned some eccentric attention in the field of martial arts, and pioneered in the area of bringing bodywork to the military.
In general, I have completely forgotten to live a normal life.
I don't figure I'm missing a damn thing.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Last Monday I didn't celebrate the Unniversary of my first marriage.
I know I didn't make the same mistakes as last time, but that didn't keep me from making different ones. How many mistakes can a person make?
I hope that Edison was right about mistakes just letting you know the wrong direction.
Life isn't ever going to be perfect, I know that.
But maybe I can learn to avoid some of the stupid shit, you know?
I'm sure trying.
I know I didn't make the same mistakes as last time, but that didn't keep me from making different ones. How many mistakes can a person make?
I hope that Edison was right about mistakes just letting you know the wrong direction.
Life isn't ever going to be perfect, I know that.
But maybe I can learn to avoid some of the stupid shit, you know?
I'm sure trying.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Here in the narrow mind of the Army (not so narrow for some people, just for the majority, as usual) we are subjected to Rush Limbaugh, with criminal guests such as Tom Delay featured, for your enjoyment. I suggest, as an antidote, to check out Penn Jillette. http://www.pennradio.com/ . I have suggested this to AFN, but, as usual, they have ignored me, because they are IDIOTS.
Fine. Lose all of your business to the internet. I can get everything I need on the Net. I have a functioning brain. I can escape the propaganda, and decipher the code, and make my own decisions.
In other news, did you know that the tampons of different countries come in different sizes?
A Greek Super Plus Tampon (by OB) is a good quarter inch larger in diameter than an American one. A German Super Plus is in between the two.
Now, what does that say about the cultures involved? Are American women really that "uptight" or Greeks really that, um, relaxed? There is certainly far more support in Greek, and especially German, culture for having children. The Germans say that one child makes you healthy, two makes you beautiful, and three makes you strong, etc. I haven't a clue what the Greeks say. They love kids to death, though. My Danish friend who married a Greek around age 20 has four beautiful kids, every one treated as a valuable investment.
Anyway, what's up with the international tampon size anyway?
More research to come, possibly with pictures.
Fine. Lose all of your business to the internet. I can get everything I need on the Net. I have a functioning brain. I can escape the propaganda, and decipher the code, and make my own decisions.
In other news, did you know that the tampons of different countries come in different sizes?
A Greek Super Plus Tampon (by OB) is a good quarter inch larger in diameter than an American one. A German Super Plus is in between the two.
Now, what does that say about the cultures involved? Are American women really that "uptight" or Greeks really that, um, relaxed? There is certainly far more support in Greek, and especially German, culture for having children. The Germans say that one child makes you healthy, two makes you beautiful, and three makes you strong, etc. I haven't a clue what the Greeks say. They love kids to death, though. My Danish friend who married a Greek around age 20 has four beautiful kids, every one treated as a valuable investment.
Anyway, what's up with the international tampon size anyway?
More research to come, possibly with pictures.
Friday, April 07, 2006
They say you can't go home again. I'm pretty sure that's true, because the you that left, is never the same you that comes back. This me is, now, almost seven years from the me that left Austin Texas in January 2001.
How can anyone leave Austin, Texas, those who get there and stay, wanna know.
I got too tangled up. I started chewing off my limbs. I still have cracks in my teeth from the frustration. I was literally losing my mind.
I didn't care to start losing anything else.
Like a caught animal, I just started lashing out. Then I realized it, and tried to isolate myself, to save anyone from harm. It went on for a short while, but I cannot thrive in isolation, especially with another person too close for comfort. That relationship was never exactly on solid footing, but neither of us knew the difference. Too dumb, too young, thought we were so damn smart.
My personality has difficulty with intimacy, and especially trust, in the best of situations.
No one who is uncomfortable with themselves, can truly let another in. Think of being ashamed of your house when you let someone in. You keep them in the rooms you feel comfortable with.
I had a couple of very nice guest rooms, and most of my friends thought that was me.
There's a whole house here.. I've thrown a lot of antiques out the windows, but am sure there are ever more relics and dust bunnies to discover and either redecorate or simply let go.
Let go, my teacher used to say. Just Let Go. I had one of the most beautiful and honest budo teachers out there. He said he was teaching aikido, but I'm not so sure any more. He was the hammer, and the mat was the anvil. I was the faulty steel.. folded a thousand times and still needing honing. My teacher now, does that well.
I've been through multiple processes now, and this steel is, now, simply naked.
I've found a place where I don't have to hide any more. I have a partner who delights in drawing every aspect of me out. He is fearless in that direction, and excels at being fearless, for others.
I have a profession where wierdness is celebrated, I live in a culture where I am an outsider, and therefore not expected to fit in. Like many other outliers, I am more comfortable in a foreign land. I'm already strange, therefore, to be a stranger in a strange land is actually an ease, for me. At least until memories have faded, and I have changed enough to be almost a foreigner, where I was once at home.
But for now, I go home in a few months, and I am feeling terribly, terribly naked. I dreamed, back when I began bodywork, that I had stepped out of a full medieval suit of armor and walked into the woods, and when I looked back at the armor and where my feet had fallen, flowers grew. They grew out of the armor.
Part of the concrete psychophysical process of Rolfing is to find a way out of the defenses we all put between our soft selves and the terrible world, if we perceive it that way, growing up. I certainly did. And now, headed back to the world I grew up in, I am honestly feeling a trifle nervous. At the same time, I am also thrilled.. that I will see it all, perhaps, with these new eyes.
How can anyone leave Austin, Texas, those who get there and stay, wanna know.
I got too tangled up. I started chewing off my limbs. I still have cracks in my teeth from the frustration. I was literally losing my mind.
I didn't care to start losing anything else.
Like a caught animal, I just started lashing out. Then I realized it, and tried to isolate myself, to save anyone from harm. It went on for a short while, but I cannot thrive in isolation, especially with another person too close for comfort. That relationship was never exactly on solid footing, but neither of us knew the difference. Too dumb, too young, thought we were so damn smart.
My personality has difficulty with intimacy, and especially trust, in the best of situations.
No one who is uncomfortable with themselves, can truly let another in. Think of being ashamed of your house when you let someone in. You keep them in the rooms you feel comfortable with.
I had a couple of very nice guest rooms, and most of my friends thought that was me.
There's a whole house here.. I've thrown a lot of antiques out the windows, but am sure there are ever more relics and dust bunnies to discover and either redecorate or simply let go.
Let go, my teacher used to say. Just Let Go. I had one of the most beautiful and honest budo teachers out there. He said he was teaching aikido, but I'm not so sure any more. He was the hammer, and the mat was the anvil. I was the faulty steel.. folded a thousand times and still needing honing. My teacher now, does that well.
I've been through multiple processes now, and this steel is, now, simply naked.
I've found a place where I don't have to hide any more. I have a partner who delights in drawing every aspect of me out. He is fearless in that direction, and excels at being fearless, for others.
I have a profession where wierdness is celebrated, I live in a culture where I am an outsider, and therefore not expected to fit in. Like many other outliers, I am more comfortable in a foreign land. I'm already strange, therefore, to be a stranger in a strange land is actually an ease, for me. At least until memories have faded, and I have changed enough to be almost a foreigner, where I was once at home.
But for now, I go home in a few months, and I am feeling terribly, terribly naked. I dreamed, back when I began bodywork, that I had stepped out of a full medieval suit of armor and walked into the woods, and when I looked back at the armor and where my feet had fallen, flowers grew. They grew out of the armor.
Part of the concrete psychophysical process of Rolfing is to find a way out of the defenses we all put between our soft selves and the terrible world, if we perceive it that way, growing up. I certainly did. And now, headed back to the world I grew up in, I am honestly feeling a trifle nervous. At the same time, I am also thrilled.. that I will see it all, perhaps, with these new eyes.
Monday, March 27, 2006
How many of us can find our way? How many of us are over-influenced by what we hear, what we read, what our friends say?
How many of us can go without shopping, without flattering, without wanting?
How many times, can we simply do what calls us?
If we want to paint, or talk, or heal.. if we want to sing, or dance. If we want to simply be, and teach others to do so as well?
Our destinies are far simpler than our inflated fantasies make them out to be.
What more can it be,
we are here,
we are together.
How many thousands of years has it taken already,
for this limited tolerance
to take place?
Just that we are here.
Together.
Sometimes it is enough
just to be
here.
How many of us can go without shopping, without flattering, without wanting?
How many times, can we simply do what calls us?
If we want to paint, or talk, or heal.. if we want to sing, or dance. If we want to simply be, and teach others to do so as well?
Our destinies are far simpler than our inflated fantasies make them out to be.
What more can it be,
we are here,
we are together.
How many thousands of years has it taken already,
for this limited tolerance
to take place?
Just that we are here.
Together.
Sometimes it is enough
just to be
here.
Sunday, March 19, 2006
The lower middle-class health care experience: I was 16 before I ever saw a dentist. I was chewing on ice and bubble gum, and a tooth exploded. I'm on the second crown for that tooth, fortunately I actually have pretty good teeth. I've been told I should have had braces, but I was never sure that wasn't just a cosmetic thing designed to make orthodontists rich.
I hid a cat bite from my mom when I was about 4, and had to get pulled off a board when I stepped on a nail in it and got my foot impaled. This happened twice, I think. My parents always got so upset when I got hurt, and I never understood that it was about that basic empathy parents have for their kid. I always heard the part about the money it cost them, and thought that was where it hurt them most. I'm sure that wasn't true...
When I hurt my knee on a skiing trip with a boyfriend, one they didn't want me to go on, one that I begged for (rare for me) and took a bad fall on an over-ambitious run, I never told them. Later, when my knee hurt too much for me to keep playing soccer, I just quit. The pain would sometimes abate, but always lurked, should I get too much impact or turn the wrong way. When I started doing martial arts, I had to be very, very careful. When you have knees that don't kneel, Japanese martial arts become especially difficult.
I had to go and choose the thing I could not do.
After the whole Rolfing series twice, plus some wonderful advanced work, my body feels so good that the knee and the hip stick out like the proverbial "sore thumb" as they never did before in a background of constant pain and limitation.
I insisted that conservative treatment was not the answer, and the very nice military osteopath on post sent me to a German colleage, an orthopedic surgeon who is also an osteopath.
After a short interval of manipulation (woggle waggle, does that hurt? Ow!) he ordered a hip and a knee Xray.
Hey presto, I have a possible medial meniscus tear of the right knee, and hip dysplasia on the left side.
From what I've read, babies are supposed to be screened for dysplasia, and put in some kind of brace. Even with that, and surgery, if needed, they can develop osteoarthritis later. I also found that they most certainly get OA later, if they are undiagnosed. I was never diagnosed. I just walk a little funny, and tend to topple to the left if I am not paying attention, or am tired.
Even though I have complained about my hip all of my adult life, no one ever took an Xray, and if they did, they didn't say anything about the angles.
I have complained about the knee often as well, and been diagnosed with chondromalacia, patellofemoral syndrome, water on the knee, and jumper's or runner's knee. No one ever bothered to order an MRI.
Why? Is it because I don't fit the "profile" of ripped athlete in some modern popular sport? If I was playing soccer or softball, perhaps I would have been treated as an "athlete" and gotten more aggressive treatment.
I've never been exactly a couch potato, but I've never been naturally skinny. A person of normal metabolism and my activity level would probably be pretty skinny. Both my parents are diabetics, so I didn't exactly inherit a great metabolism. I don't eat sugar or much in the way of refined carbs any more, so I'm pretty lean (about 30% body fat) and I work out daily with cardio and/or weights(in addition to budo practice, walks, hiking, and a busy massage practice schedule). If I skip that, though, I go right up in a hurry.
Since when isn't the practice of martial arts an actual sport? If people don't understand something, does that mean it doesn't exist? If it can't be sponsored by Nike, does that mean it doesn't matter?
I'm not surprised about either diagnosis. As I have learned more as a Rolfer, I have had a pretty good idea of what is going on with my body. I'm happy to have some concrete answers. We tend to blame ourselves for our problems, especially with the dippy New Age influence of "how you think is what you are" which we carry to ridiculous extremes. Most times it's just an ordinary organic cause, not anything dramatic/traumatic at all.
I'm just finding myself sort of frustrated "after the fact" and wondering if, if I had really pushed, I could have gotten a decent diagnosis earlier. Yeah well.
Hindsight is often the art of seeing what an ass I have been.
I hid a cat bite from my mom when I was about 4, and had to get pulled off a board when I stepped on a nail in it and got my foot impaled. This happened twice, I think. My parents always got so upset when I got hurt, and I never understood that it was about that basic empathy parents have for their kid. I always heard the part about the money it cost them, and thought that was where it hurt them most. I'm sure that wasn't true...
When I hurt my knee on a skiing trip with a boyfriend, one they didn't want me to go on, one that I begged for (rare for me) and took a bad fall on an over-ambitious run, I never told them. Later, when my knee hurt too much for me to keep playing soccer, I just quit. The pain would sometimes abate, but always lurked, should I get too much impact or turn the wrong way. When I started doing martial arts, I had to be very, very careful. When you have knees that don't kneel, Japanese martial arts become especially difficult.
I had to go and choose the thing I could not do.
After the whole Rolfing series twice, plus some wonderful advanced work, my body feels so good that the knee and the hip stick out like the proverbial "sore thumb" as they never did before in a background of constant pain and limitation.
I insisted that conservative treatment was not the answer, and the very nice military osteopath on post sent me to a German colleage, an orthopedic surgeon who is also an osteopath.
After a short interval of manipulation (woggle waggle, does that hurt? Ow!) he ordered a hip and a knee Xray.
Hey presto, I have a possible medial meniscus tear of the right knee, and hip dysplasia on the left side.
From what I've read, babies are supposed to be screened for dysplasia, and put in some kind of brace. Even with that, and surgery, if needed, they can develop osteoarthritis later. I also found that they most certainly get OA later, if they are undiagnosed. I was never diagnosed. I just walk a little funny, and tend to topple to the left if I am not paying attention, or am tired.
Even though I have complained about my hip all of my adult life, no one ever took an Xray, and if they did, they didn't say anything about the angles.
I have complained about the knee often as well, and been diagnosed with chondromalacia, patellofemoral syndrome, water on the knee, and jumper's or runner's knee. No one ever bothered to order an MRI.
Why? Is it because I don't fit the "profile" of ripped athlete in some modern popular sport? If I was playing soccer or softball, perhaps I would have been treated as an "athlete" and gotten more aggressive treatment.
I've never been exactly a couch potato, but I've never been naturally skinny. A person of normal metabolism and my activity level would probably be pretty skinny. Both my parents are diabetics, so I didn't exactly inherit a great metabolism. I don't eat sugar or much in the way of refined carbs any more, so I'm pretty lean (about 30% body fat) and I work out daily with cardio and/or weights(in addition to budo practice, walks, hiking, and a busy massage practice schedule). If I skip that, though, I go right up in a hurry.
Since when isn't the practice of martial arts an actual sport? If people don't understand something, does that mean it doesn't exist? If it can't be sponsored by Nike, does that mean it doesn't matter?
I'm not surprised about either diagnosis. As I have learned more as a Rolfer, I have had a pretty good idea of what is going on with my body. I'm happy to have some concrete answers. We tend to blame ourselves for our problems, especially with the dippy New Age influence of "how you think is what you are" which we carry to ridiculous extremes. Most times it's just an ordinary organic cause, not anything dramatic/traumatic at all.
I'm just finding myself sort of frustrated "after the fact" and wondering if, if I had really pushed, I could have gotten a decent diagnosis earlier. Yeah well.
Hindsight is often the art of seeing what an ass I have been.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Do you value your rights as an American? My ancestors came over here from Ireland and from Germany to escape totalitarian regimes (one still rules over Northern Ireland today, out of the frying pan into the fire, eh?).
Did you value Free Speech? Kiss it goodbye.. what's this about not being able to print that the President has broken the law? Are we setting up for dictatorship here? More, as people dare to print it.
Just for the statistics: I do not believe in God or a supreme being. I don't need an imaginary being to keep me straight. I learned Science in High School and the little college I could afford, and I do not think imaginary beings had anything to do with it. Any time you want to talk about God, insert the phrase "Pink Unicorn" instead of "god", and see if it still works for you. Then you know how rational beings feel, when you mention god.
This is the burden of sentience. We make the choice of who we are, and what we believe in , or what we refuse to be subjected to. The National Socialist Party of Germany, also known as the Nazis, were Christian.
You Democrats, who cowered while Feingold spoke the truth, Shame, Shame, Shame on you. You cowardly crooks. You might as well re-label yourselves Republicans and sell us down the river some more.
Neither party ever had my faith. I ask too many questions. I'm pro-gun and pro-choice, which puts me in a very odd corner. I don't really understand being pro-life and into the death penalty, BTW. Save babies and kill old people? Silent Running, anyone? I think it's illegal to be over 70 in California now, anyway. Too bad, Arnie, they don't want you at home any more.
Too few of our representatives have been pregnant, obviously. Too few have been faced with the life risk of delivering a child, much less one they maybe didn't want. It must be so easy, to be right all of the time. It is a luxury of the rich, a luxury of place and status, to have so much choice. Our representatives are so not representative of us any more, with guaranteed health care and retirement. Those who have it, want to keep it that way, and make the rest of the pious and well-meaning into Baby Machines. Hey, it was a woman's role in the Dark Ages. Why not go back?
I got this letter from the the very sold-out, deaf dumb and blind Senate Rep John Cornyn recently, in response to a form letter I sent his office from NOW. As you can imagine, the NOW (National Organization for Women) message has to do with personal choice and freedom above any imaginary religious right ideas about what they should do with their lives.
I had written to this public servant about the fact that women in America's military not having access to abortion in military medical clinics. Tri-care will not pay for a termination of pregnancy. Imagine a female soldier, wanting to go with her battle buddies, finding out there's been some kind of accident and she's pregnant. No sane woman would want to expose her fetus to the horrors of war, nor would she want to abandon her brothers and sisters in her unit. This is a something only the person at the center can decide on.
This is the message I sent to Mr Cornyn, whom I did not elect (I did not vote for him), who is not at all an accurate representative of my decisions for my country, who is an utter failure as a representative of what I, or others in the military community and society at large, wish for.
"I regret that my reply to your letter has been delayed. I strive to respond to each constituent in a timely fashion, but a technical error in an e-mail system used by the Senate prevented my reply from reaching you before today. The input that you and other Texans provide is valuable to me, and I appreciate the opportunity to respond without further delay."
Yeah, I guess you guys are pretty embarrassed about old Tom. *laughing* Did I mention that every absentee Texas resident (many of whom are military) much pre-register to vote by rigid standards, a month before the vote, and pre-registered. Try this from Germany. "Ask not what your country can do for you..." register me permanently to vote for one year and send me every ballot, thanks!! Yep, we got DeLay problems, all right.
"Thank you for contacting me to express your views on abortion for servicewomen overseas. I appreciate having the benefit of your comments on this important matter.I believe that all human life is a gift from God, "
You're mixing church and state again. Constitutional no-no. Religion is not a rational basis for morality. Our founding fathers were not religious, nor did they presume to legislate morality. At least 24% of the military population is at least "unchurched", and in many states, the number of people with no faith outnumber the fundamentalists by 10-20 percentage points.
http://www.usatoday.com/graphics/news/gra/gnoreligion/flash.htm.
Okay, maybe you missed out on the part where what a woman chooses to do with her body is none of your business. Then there is, again, did you miss my point? the Separation of Church and State issue.
Why should a small religious (fundamentalist) minority make decisions for others? This is no basis for legislation without the input or approval, much less the gross ignoring of DIS-approval by a large section of the poplulace?
"and I will continue to work within the law to see that all life is treated with the dignity and respect it deserves. "
While still supporting the death penalty? How can you do that and still stand up straight?
Wow. Does that mean that our taxes will go back to supporting education and advancement of all humans? How about those increases of Pell grants, state scholarships, and reduction of fees at state universities? How about health care?
Here in Germany, where we are deployed, the state pays for all necessary medical costs - not for us, for the Germans! . Retirement is guaranteed. Higher education (college) is taken for granted, if you pass the tests. In the US, the GI bill is increasingly the only pass for the poor, to college. Hey, W said there would be no Draft. Does taking away college education funding aside from entering the military constitute a silent one?
Is the legislation against abortion supposed to maybe create a bigger underclass of uneducated, easily controlled with religious pabulum breeders? Then there is the science education problem. No one with a decent education would buy Intelligent Design. I want some words with the Maker on this one.
Irreducible complexity is another way of saying "too dumb or lazy to figure it out". This is what we do best as humans, figure things out. To put stops on this is to deny our beautifully open and inquisitive nature.
With a decent background in science, you would know that, in the first three months of life, and most surely until the fetus is able to survive on its own outside the mother, there is no real consciousness, no pain, no real sentient existence. It's been proven in Britain. Funny how science has now gone back to Europe, in the face of burgeoning Dark Ages mentality in the US. My colleagues here in the health fields are celebrating.
How come I just feel ashamed of our primitive narrow-mindedness in response to some governing minority? I often wonder if the administration has been taking notes from the Taliban. Undermining education & options for the poor, increasing the power of religion while decreasing personal freedoms. Hey, steal my shoes and slap a black sheet over my head!
"I will oppose any legislation that would force the federal government to increase accessibility to abortion for any of our citizens, including our servicewomen.I appreciate having the opportunity to represent the interests of Texans in the United States Senate, and you may be certain that I will keep your views in mind as relevant legislation is considered. Thank you for taking the time to contact me.Sincerely,JOHN CORNYNUnited States Senator "
Um. Thanks. NOT! You do not represent my interest at all, any, whatsoever. I have no interest in the agenda of the Religious Right to bring us back to the Dark Ages of Femme Covert through the Reconstructionists and the Dominionists who are so in control of your Handlers and those of the Shrub, who should be impeached, not just censured. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_reconstructionism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Theology
http://www.religioustolerance.org/reconstr.htm
The whole world is shocked and disappointed. We were living the dream, and now we are falling into some kind of conservative black hole. The time has come for the sleepers to awaken.
Over here in Europe, I am repeatedly having to explain that I was not asked, my vote was not counted, my opinion is not regarded. The other half of the tragedy is that they understand. All too well.
I have to give this answer because of YOU. I will do everything I can to point to the rotten bits, to publicize, to criticize, to enlighten and inform.
Congratulations. You have created an activist.
Did you value Free Speech? Kiss it goodbye.. what's this about not being able to print that the President has broken the law? Are we setting up for dictatorship here? More, as people dare to print it.
Just for the statistics: I do not believe in God or a supreme being. I don't need an imaginary being to keep me straight. I learned Science in High School and the little college I could afford, and I do not think imaginary beings had anything to do with it. Any time you want to talk about God, insert the phrase "Pink Unicorn" instead of "god", and see if it still works for you. Then you know how rational beings feel, when you mention god.
This is the burden of sentience. We make the choice of who we are, and what we believe in , or what we refuse to be subjected to. The National Socialist Party of Germany, also known as the Nazis, were Christian.
You Democrats, who cowered while Feingold spoke the truth, Shame, Shame, Shame on you. You cowardly crooks. You might as well re-label yourselves Republicans and sell us down the river some more.
Neither party ever had my faith. I ask too many questions. I'm pro-gun and pro-choice, which puts me in a very odd corner. I don't really understand being pro-life and into the death penalty, BTW. Save babies and kill old people? Silent Running, anyone? I think it's illegal to be over 70 in California now, anyway. Too bad, Arnie, they don't want you at home any more.
Too few of our representatives have been pregnant, obviously. Too few have been faced with the life risk of delivering a child, much less one they maybe didn't want. It must be so easy, to be right all of the time. It is a luxury of the rich, a luxury of place and status, to have so much choice. Our representatives are so not representative of us any more, with guaranteed health care and retirement. Those who have it, want to keep it that way, and make the rest of the pious and well-meaning into Baby Machines. Hey, it was a woman's role in the Dark Ages. Why not go back?
I got this letter from the the very sold-out, deaf dumb and blind Senate Rep John Cornyn recently, in response to a form letter I sent his office from NOW. As you can imagine, the NOW (National Organization for Women) message has to do with personal choice and freedom above any imaginary religious right ideas about what they should do with their lives.
I had written to this public servant about the fact that women in America's military not having access to abortion in military medical clinics. Tri-care will not pay for a termination of pregnancy. Imagine a female soldier, wanting to go with her battle buddies, finding out there's been some kind of accident and she's pregnant. No sane woman would want to expose her fetus to the horrors of war, nor would she want to abandon her brothers and sisters in her unit. This is a something only the person at the center can decide on.
This is the message I sent to Mr Cornyn, whom I did not elect (I did not vote for him), who is not at all an accurate representative of my decisions for my country, who is an utter failure as a representative of what I, or others in the military community and society at large, wish for.
"I regret that my reply to your letter has been delayed. I strive to respond to each constituent in a timely fashion, but a technical error in an e-mail system used by the Senate prevented my reply from reaching you before today. The input that you and other Texans provide is valuable to me, and I appreciate the opportunity to respond without further delay."
Yeah, I guess you guys are pretty embarrassed about old Tom. *laughing* Did I mention that every absentee Texas resident (many of whom are military) much pre-register to vote by rigid standards, a month before the vote, and pre-registered. Try this from Germany. "Ask not what your country can do for you..." register me permanently to vote for one year and send me every ballot, thanks!! Yep, we got DeLay problems, all right.
"Thank you for contacting me to express your views on abortion for servicewomen overseas. I appreciate having the benefit of your comments on this important matter.I believe that all human life is a gift from God, "
You're mixing church and state again. Constitutional no-no. Religion is not a rational basis for morality. Our founding fathers were not religious, nor did they presume to legislate morality. At least 24% of the military population is at least "unchurched", and in many states, the number of people with no faith outnumber the fundamentalists by 10-20 percentage points.
http://www.usatoday.com/graphics/news/gra/gnoreligion/flash.htm.
Okay, maybe you missed out on the part where what a woman chooses to do with her body is none of your business. Then there is, again, did you miss my point? the Separation of Church and State issue.
Why should a small religious (fundamentalist) minority make decisions for others? This is no basis for legislation without the input or approval, much less the gross ignoring of DIS-approval by a large section of the poplulace?
"and I will continue to work within the law to see that all life is treated with the dignity and respect it deserves. "
While still supporting the death penalty? How can you do that and still stand up straight?
Wow. Does that mean that our taxes will go back to supporting education and advancement of all humans? How about those increases of Pell grants, state scholarships, and reduction of fees at state universities? How about health care?
Here in Germany, where we are deployed, the state pays for all necessary medical costs - not for us, for the Germans! . Retirement is guaranteed. Higher education (college) is taken for granted, if you pass the tests. In the US, the GI bill is increasingly the only pass for the poor, to college. Hey, W said there would be no Draft. Does taking away college education funding aside from entering the military constitute a silent one?
Is the legislation against abortion supposed to maybe create a bigger underclass of uneducated, easily controlled with religious pabulum breeders? Then there is the science education problem. No one with a decent education would buy Intelligent Design. I want some words with the Maker on this one.
Irreducible complexity is another way of saying "too dumb or lazy to figure it out". This is what we do best as humans, figure things out. To put stops on this is to deny our beautifully open and inquisitive nature.
With a decent background in science, you would know that, in the first three months of life, and most surely until the fetus is able to survive on its own outside the mother, there is no real consciousness, no pain, no real sentient existence. It's been proven in Britain. Funny how science has now gone back to Europe, in the face of burgeoning Dark Ages mentality in the US. My colleagues here in the health fields are celebrating.
How come I just feel ashamed of our primitive narrow-mindedness in response to some governing minority? I often wonder if the administration has been taking notes from the Taliban. Undermining education & options for the poor, increasing the power of religion while decreasing personal freedoms. Hey, steal my shoes and slap a black sheet over my head!
"I will oppose any legislation that would force the federal government to increase accessibility to abortion for any of our citizens, including our servicewomen.I appreciate having the opportunity to represent the interests of Texans in the United States Senate, and you may be certain that I will keep your views in mind as relevant legislation is considered. Thank you for taking the time to contact me.Sincerely,JOHN CORNYNUnited States Senator "
Um. Thanks. NOT! You do not represent my interest at all, any, whatsoever. I have no interest in the agenda of the Religious Right to bring us back to the Dark Ages of Femme Covert through the Reconstructionists and the Dominionists who are so in control of your Handlers and those of the Shrub, who should be impeached, not just censured. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_reconstructionism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Theology
http://www.religioustolerance.org/reconstr.htm
The whole world is shocked and disappointed. We were living the dream, and now we are falling into some kind of conservative black hole. The time has come for the sleepers to awaken.
Over here in Europe, I am repeatedly having to explain that I was not asked, my vote was not counted, my opinion is not regarded. The other half of the tragedy is that they understand. All too well.
I have to give this answer because of YOU. I will do everything I can to point to the rotten bits, to publicize, to criticize, to enlighten and inform.
Congratulations. You have created an activist.
Friday, March 03, 2006
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
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.
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
Monday, February 27, 2006
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.
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.
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.
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!
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