Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York or Vermont.

Those five states are places to consider moving to, according to Tips for getting insurance when you have a pre-existing condition. I found it after talking to a close relative who is charged an exorbitant amount ($1600/month for a single person) for major medical. Is it possible to even believe that some people can't get insurance because something like ADHD is a "pre-existing condition?" Out of control. It makes me wonder if most of the world sees Americans as "successful" business people who go on destructive sprees and don't know shit about taking care of themselves.
Regardless of discrepancies in income, healthiest people possible is beneficial for all.

The shopping was good

Bling at the party store for cheap! No I did not buy anything for a pimp costume. Cheezy looking dollar bill sign rings and necklaces for, at minumum, $6.99, went by the wayside in favor of other items more in the 99 cent to 3 dollar range, including a gigantic fake engagement ring necklace. Quite a fun find, hidden behind the aisle clogged with boxes.
(It was in the bachelorette party section.)
Recently, as we watched TV, my roommate told me about this silly thing.
I checked a friend's facebook post and am very, very sad about this.
I began reading this. And somehow, accidentally, this came on.

There could be a club

for people who actually remember Powerhouse, my favorite show as a kid.
And also...oh my god...I found it! The show about the telepathic twins!
It was part of a series called The Third Eye. Oh, wonderful internet. Except, it's a little bit heartbreaking that I can't find the clips of when the good stuff starts to happen! But, how odd. A new version is coming out? I remember them sticking their hands in jelly, being in underground and underwater in caves and stuff like that. The energies from the rocks were different colors. Red and Blue motif again. I vaguely remember another show called The Haunting of Cassie Palmer, but at the time it was a little too freaky and grown up for me to "get" and I don't think I watched it much.

Chapi Chapo!

Some channel (PBS? Nickolodeon?) used to have this funny looking puppetish kid who annoyed me. I think I was in "boys annoy me" mode when I saw him. He had a big head and nerdy glasses and maybe there was something like...a song playing (maybe the star spangled banner or america the beautiful?) and then the TV behind him would go all staticky with white stuff...What the hell was that. I have no idea. Instead I found Chapi Chapo! I never knew the name of it. I accidentally stumbled across it after clicking on the video for Pinwheel. Could totally re-watch all those episodes. What a wonderful gender neutral message. Red Girl, Blue Boy Equality! I didn't even know it was teaching me French.

to see, maybe

"Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes" was recently shown at one of my workplaces, and I missed it, but there is this interesting youtube clip.

What came of the internet

I was sitting by my book shelf and looking at a small jar, which is decorated with pictures of a frog and says "Drinkglas" on the lid. It once contained delicious Nutella-like spread from the Netherlands. Now it is full of erasers and a few pendants I don't really wear. There is one in the shape of an alligator. The girls on my dorm floor gave it to me ("Ali") my freshman year, on my birthday. Thinking of this, I decided to look up the name of my old college roommate and came across this page, which was probably created right when the college began to get the internet. Despite the fact that I was not in that program and only went there for 2 years, I recognize every name on the page and can picture every single one of them. In a way, I sort of wish I'd run into an alumna, chat with her about her extremely successful life, and get my ass kicked or else into gear somewise, because lately I feel like I have to do something different.

music: lonely or great

There's a CD I found for a dollar in a thrift store, called Deep Breakfast by Ray Lynch. It's in my car now, but I looked it up, and the videos have the most bizarre comments. (Tiny Geometries is more benign, though.) Oh comments. You exist, even though to me this stuff is all about me being young and living on an island, contemplating sky travel and mountains. Or, being in college, and running out in the middle of the night with my roommate to a place by the convention center in Seattle which had some kind of cool lighting sculpture. All alone, no one else there. She had a tape of it, too, something a teacher in class would play for them.

Random thoughts, are you in crisis????

Virginia, Gold Dust, John Bellairs, orchards, Emerson, Thoreau, the log of Christopher Columbus, lands, that book I was looking for by Malcolm Bosse (what was it? Oh yeah, Captives of Time) sugar, JUST GO TO THE WOODS AND LISTEN. Arrrgh. Sometimes an old cheap motel in the middle of nowhere does the trick, too. There's more! There's art and photography and painting and color and music theory! Apples! Apple cider! Hot showers, cold showers, singing, voice lessons, costumes, and treeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssss.....

Poofy dresses

A friend who has a daughter posted on facebook that he thinks girls' costume options come in two choices: "slut" or "whore." Ouch! (I said "did they already run out of nun costumes?") But he lives in California. Perhaps if he lived in Alabama he'd see some other options.

And Pocahontas

Portrait as Halloween Costume Idea.

Seeing some old DC in "Gold Dust"

Sure, like Virginia (I like that song, set to scenes from a kid's movie or no) this makes me think I could appreciate where I live better, even though it's not quite where I feel most at home on this planet, or even in this country. Sights and Sounds / pull me back down /another year / I WAS HERE / I WAS HERE / Whipping past / the reflecting pool / me + you / skipping school / And we make it up / as we go along / We make it up as we / go along / You said --you raced from Langley -- / pulling me underneath / a Cherry Blossom / canopy -- Do I Have -- Of course I have, / Beneath my raincoat, / I have your photographs. / And the sun on your Face / I'm freezing that frame / And somewhere Alfie cries / and says "Enjoy his every smile / You can see in the dark / Through the eyes of Laura Mars" -- How did it go so fast -- you'll say / as we are looking / back / and then we'll / understand / we held gold dust / in our / hands.
(Gold Dust! Gold Dust Dress? Gold Dust Dress? Gold Dust Class!)

Diner dash

At the end of this year, I will get the opportunity to visit Sedona, AZ. I think I would like to check out The Red Planet Diner. Who knows maybe if I like it enough I can move out there and work next to a bar with filled with aliens instead of DHS employees. Ha ha. It would also be healthier for everyone's lungs because Arizona, like most places, now enforces a smoking ban.
~~~~~~
It's odd how diners can be good places for writing. I think so. Yet, their food is not the healthiest. How can one be both healthy and creative? I skimmed a paperback tonight that talked about "Dance of Death" cults in the Middle Ages. It mentioned the idea of people going into trances dancing to their deaths as a reaction against the restrictions of the Church. If that is possible, couldn't one also go into a peaceful kind of trance when creating something? Maybe society is in a trance about the suffering artist.
Tori Amos has songs about suffering, though, and I continue to love them. When I first listened to Virginia, I probably found it to be boring. Later, I listen But as always / The thing that he / Loves he will / change from her / sunwise to clockwise / to soul trading / still she'll lay / down her Body / covering him all / the same / oh Virginia / do you remember / when the Land held / your hand / oh Virginia / she will let you back in oh Virginia / you can't remember / your name
and love it so well.

Kinda funny

Bumper sticker:
"That's okay I wasn't using my civil liberties anyway."
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I watched this video of Taxi Ride and it was the very first time I heard "killer bees."

Virginia thoughts

Today's a day off and I think I might venture out to another orchard in rural Virginia...East Virginia Blues....Virginia rural news...
~~~~~
Then again it was actually a better day to try the hill at this park. (And strike up a friendly conversation with a woman who hikes there regularly with her dog on the trail.) Yes, better that way. No "apple-pie" flavored fudge too terrible for teeth and pancreas and endocrine/reproductive systems and walnuts to tempt one.
(Why did I write "walnuts?" I have no idea. I'm leaving it in.)
~~~~~
Oh honestly. On the topic of dating: lets say there was this creative person who, well, kinda sucked at relationships. (By their own admission! Because of their issues and yada yada yada.) And still had far to go to progress in that area of their life, in spite of other successes. Would you hurl your cherished friend at that person to fix them up, in the name of an "adventure?" I fear too many would! At the moment, I think I would not.
~~~~~
Not quite upstate NY, but Virginia autumn leaves are beeeautiful!!! :-)

Books tonight

1) Quote: "Rosemary Gladstar often calls plants 'little green teachers.' Once while visiting our farm, she gave an interview to a reporter. She was talking about how much she has learned from the plants, how she considers them her most important teachers. The reporter, a little confused by these comments, asked "What could you possibly learn from a tree?'
Rosemary looked the reporter in the eye and said, very matter-of-factly, 'Patience.' .... For many people, spirituality and philosophy come from books and lectures, not nature. Trees and shrubs and flowers can't talk, so how could they possibly teach us anything?"
From page 8 in this library book: The Herbalist's Garden.
2) In a bookstore, I read some of The Glass Castle.
3) But I also took in some sky and rose hips and birds today. (Here.)

Female DJs

The other day, I asked myself, what do I know about female DJs? And the answer was nada. I looked some amateur ones up. Youtube commenters were pretty harsh. Sheesh, people, is there no place in our society for a beginner? Then I found one who seemed accomplished and there were NO comments on this video of Pam the Funktress. She does a trick from Afro Puffs, which sort of used to get stuck in my head, but I now know, after all these years, a) thats not by a man but by a woman, and b) it's not saying "apple puff." (Well I sort of already knew that.) My friend sent me: Sister Bliss and Faithless: Why Go. And that's my education on the topic so far.
~~~~~~
Then I showed my roommate this and she showed me this.
Then I watched Mass Destruction.

The delicate art of dollar store shopping

Maybe I shouldn't have bought the red hair extensions, wand and wings (little fairy red riding in the hood!) And definitely not the plastic rings, which are meant for five year old pinkies. (They looked more flexible.) Oh lord. REALLY REALLY TACKY. I came to this conclusion after a sobering glance in the mirror, after eating most of the interior of a small, mediocre pumpkin pie, which I did after the fashion of our long deceased gray cat, Robert E. Lee. (He liked pumpkin pie filling.) However, the plastic necklace and Big Red gum, I can work with.

Even keel

There was a day when I was perhaps 20 or 21 that I was visiting an older woman's house on the island. One of her (younger, but middle-aged) friends came in to visit. The friend walked in, noticed me, didn't find my presence of any particular importance, and said, matter-of-factly, "well, mother died." I was shocked. Then they discussed the sudden impact of her death and the older woman said "well, wasn't it a wonderful time for her to go?" This was not a heartless discussion. The woman did love her mother, and on some level it had been a painful shock, but at the same time, it was what it was. (I guess?) There is a phrase that comes to mind when life is going pretty okay. It's not high and butterflies-in-the-stomach (elated but part of you fearing how it will feel when you will crash) it's not low and screaming into a pillow, or moaning like a beast, because you just don't know what to do. It's like you look out on the horizon, and you can see things from a larger perspective. You can take in the whole view. It's even keel.

Alumna

Really? According to this entry in Wikipedia, Tallulah Bankhead went to MBC? Ah, that would've been interesting. I vote for a movie about her.
A girl I know who went out with a VMI guy says they used to call it "Mary Bedroom." A girl I knew who went there went out with a VMI guy. They might've gone to Ring Finger. He was quoted in Ms. Magazine. It was regarding VMI being forced to allow females to attend. The gist of it went something like this: "They (the Northern soldiers) shelled us during the War for Independence. We'll survive this too."
The closest I ever got to going out with a VMI guy (not that this was ever a goal of mine) was when I talked to one at a mixer who liked my peasant girl dress. I remember that I told him that the other guys ragging on him was not a good reason for him not to wear the traditional kilt of his ancestors. He promptly began avoiding me.
My college friend I met up with yesterday told me that a company in Virginia that makes car vacuums has this motto: "WE REALLY SUCK!"
Talula talula...

Quippy friend

Me: It says on amazon that the guy who wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies also wrote The Big Book of Porn: A Penetrating Look at the World of Dirty Movies.
Her: Is it a pop-up book?
(Yes, I was amused.)
Amusing-seeming person I don't know: some Seattle area yelper.
~~~~~
It's a strange transition, because I was not in a quippy mood at all for most of today. It was more of a "enjoy this weather, this apple cider, this pork sandwich, those cloggers, that tree, those wildflowers, the songs on this CD, I wonder how I can make a low-budget not-shaky video of a roadtrip and set it to music?" state of mind. And thats a very simple summary.
Who can explain how enjoyably complex your own meanderings can seem to you when your life is feeling harmonious?

Apple picking!!!!

Rain or shine, me and my old friend from MBC (Hey. It says they tore down the dorm that was the Civil War Hospital. I can't believe it. That was such a Halloween tradition!) will reunite at this festival.

Costume decision

Help came from roommate who went as a Bloody Mary one year.
The hooded pullover idea has evolved. My costume will be "Red Riding in the 'Hood.'" (;-D) Speaking of 'hood,' after reading I'm Down, I decided to look up my old elementary schools in Renton. Both have 70-75% of their students getting free or reduced lunch and are Title One. I wonder how that compares to when I went there? What would I be like if I hadn't moved to an island I don't really know anymore? Not possible to know. Today I did this little stab at putting down creative writing ideas.

politican's author's conservatives' locals' out of towners'
friends friends friends friends friends friends
media government shaking cars aircraft
fires fears drives to sanctuaries
driving by signs for think tanks
"this family is not a democracy"
closed eyes prayers
calls to arms to armed forces here
in the government
cars nails tires
newspapers

Strange phone calls at the old woman's house in Seattle
Old man in nursing home?
(Girl giggles because he coughs so much and insists she is someone else)
Weird voodoo chant from another culture?
(Girl stays on phone until the chanters hang up.)

Nothing about the island there.
And I watched Kantoi, Going Up the Country, and Godless again.
I believe I will spend more time in gardens, even in cold East Coast winters. And look at some good Canadian Garden blogs! Amazing how well they can live in that socialist country, eh?

Halloweeneee costumeee

Thanks to certain brilliant friends, I have an event to attend at which costume will be mandated. I have to face certain facts. I am probably not going to be able to use a cute, peasant girl type of dress, which is actually from the 70s, unless I go on a real diet. At the moment, I'm not a fan of diets. (Have I ever been? Perhaps I would be if I saw a point, like if I were, say, attending dance classes five days a week.) Speaking of dieting... Anyway, at this point I should probably give another girl a chance to wear it. Oh well, at least there were those cute pictures of me in it at my highschool graduation party. (Not the case of a college mixer I wore it to, in which the photographer followed me around, creepily whispered compliments, and then--creepier yet--for some reason didn't provide any photos for me to buy when the prints came out.)
OTHER COSTUME IDEAS:
I do have a pair of red, sporty-in-appearance-if-not-actuality (the polyester & cotton fabric is not fun to wear in any kind of heat) pants that I got from a clothing swap, which almost match a red hooded pullover that one of my relatives gave me from a writing conference with the words "Escrire Cogitare Discere" on it.
[Modern, Broke English Major Red Riding Hood?]
Or, YET AGAIN, YES, my wonderful (especially because it still fits!) Indian dress with all the cool little mirrors/beading/embroidery, which I only ever seem to wear on Halloween. Put the scarf thing around my head.
[Little Ethnically Ambiguous Burnt Orange Riding Hood?]
Or maybe I could go as The Secret.
(I'm actually not making fun of The Secret. I'm making fun of myself.)
Think I'll go make myself a Dal Paratha, or as I call it, a delicious Indian pancake. (This, and rice with beans and hot sauce, was accomplished.)
At end of evening: watching The New Age of Walmart.

Best 20 minutes of today

were spent at a garden, cozying up to red ornamental grasses.

Tuesday morning thoughts

Cat on bed, and Bob Dylan show in the near future.
~~~~~~~~
Later- That was earlier. Feeling less contentment now. What to do?
Bookstore read of tonight: Half the Sky.
~~~~~~~~
Sheesh, though. To be able to find that clip of Shirley MacLaine from the Bella Abzug memorial service! Not seen by these eyes since I'd come back from the jungle and waited in the Lima hotel room before going back to Seattle...What should I do next. What, what, what...

Waiting for those laundry machines again...

I suppose there are many sides to this story, but this massive layoff of highschool teachers and counselors in DC sounds pretty messed up.
I got a speech from a stranger that I should be teaching the other day.
I remember that when I was a T.A., a student with limited English skills came in with a really creative story for a project, and I saved it. Really cracked up the class by drawing funny pictures to illustrate the story. It was all about a nameless monster. The nameless monster travels the world and tries on various personalities, none of which really satisfy. The conclusion was "we are all nameless monsters." How about that...
On Columbus Day, the laundry room becomes extremely popular.
~~~~~~~~
Hmmm. S.M. speech at L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center Gala.

Cositas

I started to reread El Camino. Now I realize it's the first time I've done that since my sister did our family tree and found on that on the southern side we are descendants of Charlemange. But this is more interesting: when I went to Peru, I coincidentally met the guy who had been the author's tour guide in Cusco. Briefly, in Miraflores. I didn't really say anything to him. The professor who took us there knew him. Later, she told me that she had met her. And she had very...something about nice eyes and very warm. And she felt lucky to meet her.
Oh and another funny thing was that I found a clip. On one of my trips back to Peru, before I returned to the US I saw this in a hotel room in Lima:
S. MacLaine remembers Congresswoman B. Abzug.
I definitely remember that I at least saw some of it.
~~~~~~~~~~
Honestly, it might sound weird, but to me, with her hair long, she almost kind of resembles Tori Amos in this 1970s clip: S. M. shills for...

art, art, art, art...

Then sings my soooooouuuuuul.....
Actually I have enjoyed singing that one.
I like very much the feeling of, when I'm reading something, that someone has tried to uncover a secret. Recentish examples:
1) A. Fulton's great grandmother
2) Spain's African history in Kinky Gazpacho.
3) Yosemite's Buffalo Soldiers.
Sooo sucked back into my own memories of going to two elementary schools in the Seattle area because of reading I'm Down.
Less intensely, but more gently, I remembered New York when I reread a poem called "Sympathetic Hexes" from Dance Script With Electric Ballerina. A memory of a museum in Albany. In a quiet corner, I felt the urge and started to dance, perhaps, and a woman saw me and smiled, (maybe she even laughed? but not meanly, I think.) Then I stopped and I wouldn't. I refused to come out of my shell. How sad. And poignant. But it's okay. One little moment of embarrassment is not forever.
I didn't grow up in "the city." I was from upstate NY, where grown ups worked in places like Macy's (not the big Thanksgiving parade one) and went to RPI. After I moved, when a new girl from NY came to Seattle, I was excited, but she was from the city and it became clear that this was not the same NY I knew, and also that hers was cooler. I was from the Albany area. However, upstate NY and reading books was enough to instill a sense of familiarity in me when I visited the city as an adult. And I'd already been to cities like Seattle and Amsterdam. Every amazing city also has an element of insularity.
I found out that a Bob Dylan show is in my friend's future.
This is a funny review of his new Christmas album.

An old incident in the mind

There was a restaurant worker who blurted "table or booth?" and offended the guests, a wheelchair bound man (probably a veteran) and his wife. She was the recipient of an angry silence. Later she said, within earshot, that she was having a bad day, and now the machine wasn't printing the check in a timely fashion. "I hate...people...no...not people...just the machine..." And for some reason, as awkward and mucky as it all was, it was something. Because when she walked by them again, the wife had softened and veteran had brightened, and wished her a very good day.

The evening's dose of humor

Was to be gotten at the bookstore cafe table which actually still had a chair (why did the staff stack chairs so early? Why does the library close at 6 pm on Thursday?) I sat and read this book: I'm Down by Mishna Wolff. Aw, memories of my own 3rd and 4th grade experiences around Seattle. Peechees! "DANG" and "PSYCH!" Double Dutch. Value Village. I wonder if there will be any episodes on the playground involving kids at the tetherball pole, or picking up glass for the playground teachers. Hopefully no one will throw a chunk of concrete at their playmate's head. (That happened at a daycare I attended.) I wonder how old the author is.
~~~~~
I remember a day I came to school with no lunch money. Somehow I ended up talking to the principal. She smiled and explained to me that I didn't qualify for free lunch, so I would have to go without one, but suggested I ask if one of my classmates would share their lunch with me. Back to the cafeteria... I was the new kid and didn't really have any good friends yet. Glumly, I thought that maybe I could ask someone for the shredded iceburg lettuce and peanuts that the lunches came with, because no one ever ate them. (Hello, what were they thinking? Peanut allergies!) I still remember the stares I got. Then one of them pushed her plastic container at me. "Girl, you eat all the peanuts you want."
~~~~~
Hotel is in my head for some reason. "Exit 75, I'm still alive."

Little end of album trio

Morning was all about Northern Lad, afternoon and evening was Playboy Mommy, and then transitioning to Pandora's Aquarium at night.
~~~~~~~~~~
And then some obligatory searching turning up Playboy Mommy song meanings, Iieee story and Storytellers recap. (Oh that is so old! What was I thinking about in 1999? Going back to Peru.)
~~~~~~~~~~
Soy Andina looks like a nice film. I am not peruana but I could be a favorite guest. They taught me some castellano. What do I remember? Prendelo! Es rico. Me queda bien. La (insert female name).

Film watching a few years back.

It was October in upstate NY. I had no plans in particular. School was over for me. I drank too much wine in an old coldish apartment, and went out and bought apples at a local market. I'd make quinoa with cheese in a pot and add some ketchup. I got movies to watch with my strange typewriter-obsessed friend, who'd recommended the King of Hearts. He fell asleep during Lovers of the Arctic Circle. When I brought home The Seventh Seal, he said he hoped it would tell him how to live.

Cheap Food Blog Discovery

Makes me want to see the "lunch truck Renaissance" and the "Hollywood Bowl." Also now I am going to see how much scallops cost here. I haven't seen the "Julie and Julia" movie, but the preview makes me think, how cool would it be to see Julia Child movie with Meryl Streep? Probably very cool.
100 Blogs for the Frugal Gourmet

Wisconsin Bookstore

There ought to be a documentary.
Lenore and Lloyd Dickmans' Bookstore.

Photo Essay of Asgarda

The "Amazons" of the Ukraine.

Ugh, espresso

Something about it does not agree with my body. Even if it's just a medium-sized latte. Hours later, nausea and regret. Next purchase on birthday gift card will either be tea or apple cider. I have also switched to a new library book. Changing Planes has a very promising first chapter, although it is quite negative about airports.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I mean, first story.

Waiting for the laundry to finish

Richmond Rap. Arlington Rap. Hey There Khalilah. What a joy it was, one night, to sing those lyrics to myself when the original came on at one of my jobs. Today when I went to do laundry and trash, I heard a girl's high voice saying, slowly and deliberately, "I have no where to wear these clothes...so I have to wear them at home..." "I know," an older-sounding, lower, feminine voice saying. The "girl" always speaks like that. She was in an accident when she was younger. Now I can't type. For example, I tried to type tear-jerker and went "terk" and then had to erase it, and I keep doing that sort of thing, anyways, the preview in question was the one I watched for the movie in which Maria Carey goes without make-up! Who Knows Maybe Things Are Looking Up For Women In Hollywood.
Last night, due to a conversation about Magic and Tarot cards, I was amused by the December '06 Archives of I Fought The Law.
Mail: Most f'd up team ever said a grad school chum, of this story.
I'm reading Welfare Brat.