I just read my first ever graphic novel. I'd seen parts of Mouse, the holocaust one, but never read it through. It was my first assignment for my writing workshop. And then I am to create one of my own! It's called Persepolis: the story of a childhood. It's a story, a memoir, about the Iranian revolutioni seen through the eyes of a child. I am, I believe, hooked. I read most of it at Barnes and Noble--though I bought it at the Strand, which made me feel cool. I didn't buy and books there but I sat in their cafe and read it. I did buy a cookie and a coffee, so maybe I wasn't as cool as I thought...Then I went home and finished it, listening to The Miseducation of Lauren Hill.

I'm slightly in ecstasy right now. This is what I get to do. These are my assignments: to read novels and write stories. This is called school for me.

It is fucking fucking cold out there.

At last, here I am.

So many blogs have gone unwritten in the last few weeks: I've called family members on the carpet, been royally pissed at friends, the name "Jessica" according to blogger is actually cheesecake, been royally pissed at family members' landlords for their Byzantine behavior, have met the husbands of high school friends for the first time (all answering to the name Brian), found out that good college friends are in the whole tie the knot group, started a story about Moses and a truckload of cows, and since last night, I have dyed my hair a shade of blackish-red.

School starts tomorrow. I don't have class until Wednesday, but I feel like I have to start really being responsible beginning on Tuesday. Both Anya and I dyed our hair yesterday. We both felt we had to do something brash and new before going back to SLC. Hers is much more muted and natural-looking. Mine reminds me of a darker version of "Run Lola Run." My brain is in a muddle. I have no idea how I'm to survive this semester, especially since it's gotten so damn cold. Probably any money I'll save on not having to go up three days a week but only two will be spent on taxi fare to carry my wimpy ass to school.

Well, it's xmas morning, two a.m. Why am I up so early? Because Tom and I have just gotten the packing done for our pilgramage to Kansas. It was a good xmas eve, so the holiday's been very nice. Today we went to the credit union to do some depositing. Then we went to the pharmacy--again. Then we went to Payless to get socks. Then we went home. Tom went to work. I greeted some guests, who'd lost their luggage, and saved a bunch of my writing on discs. I've decided to leave my laptop at home--but I have fears of something horrible happening and me losing all my work. I'm thinking about investing in a zip drive. I went to the Washington Sq. United Methodist Church's Lessons and Carols service. It was very very nice. Good music--heavy on the jazz at times, but all the musicians are jazz artists, I believe--a lot of congregational singing, and it was done in an hour!

Tom and I had a nice evening of eating sushi, drinking pop, sipping hot and sour soup, and dipping veggie spring rolls. And talking to Ted on the phone. Then Tom's folks. Then we watched Love Actually. A good movie. Not a great film, as Tom says, but a great movie. It's been nice having Menno House to ourselves. Like we're really grownups and owning a place of our own.

I'm hungry, but I don't feel like eating, if that makes any sense.

I've been fighting my pharmacy, my insurance and a doctor's office the last two weeks about my medicine. Let's just say my doctor's office kept ignoring my calls about a prescription refill, then the pharmacy spelled my name wrong so when I came to pick it up yesterday when they finally called them, they said they'd never gotten it, and I had to wait for ten minutes for them to figure it out, then sat another ten for them to refill it. Then this morning I called to renew for my Lamictal, since I'll be gone to Kansas when it runs out, and they said my insurance wouldn't cover it until the 26th of this month--it's the freaking 23rd. But finally a nice guy at CVS worked it out for me.

My former boss at Pax said yesterday that she doesn't know any users, but I take more drugs than anyone she knows. It's so true. I can't imagine what people who are HIV+ have to do to get their drugs, if they can get them at all. Which is a whole other can of worms I have moaned about here.

Also, I suddenly received a bill from Mass General for 1,000 dollars. I have no idea why they're putting this on me more than a year after I had the treatment. So I have to deal with that.

I just bought some shoes from No Sweat Apparel. I could wax preachy on this subject, but I won't. (They're vegan-friendly, too.) I had the email sent to my new gmail account, which only sells adspace to the things you write about in your email, and this was listed, I'm not kidding:

"Child Labor for Sale. Affordable. Check out ebay now!"

So, I did. Checked it out. Unfortunately, it was all very politically correct. No "bright eight year old for sale" listings.

Well. My first semester is over. And I'm still standing, although my memory is seriously messed. Twice this week I've forgotten things, like on Monday when Tom had a office party after work. I remember now he'd mentioned it more than a couple times over the week, but Monday was an insane day, so I came home from school at 8ish (oh, I met Eve Ensler at Barnes & Noble--more on that later) and suddenly it was 9 and he wasn't home yet. I called his cell--and it didn't ring or pick up his voice mail right away, there was just silence. I left a message, and went on with other things. But then it was ten, then ten fifteen. I started to freak out. I envisioned buses barreling down on him. I called his cell phone several times, and it was just silent. I was about to put on my coat and look for him, when lo and behold, he called me...

About Eve Ensler--of Vagina Monologues, for those who are literarlily ignorant--I went to a reading at B&N. She talked about her one-woman show, upcoming projects, etc. One of which was interviewing young girls around the world. I asked her if she was interviewing a certain group of girls, and she said, "yes, I am, but I'd like to interview you." So, I gave her my email and phone number, she signed my little copy of The Vagina Monologues with the message, Bless your vagina, and that was that. For all I know it will never happen, and it might be weird if it does, but how's that for Meeting the Artist in Person? Usually I fuddle things up when I get autographs from writers. (See Feb. 2004 blog about my Toni Morrison encounter.) Although when I had Tony Kushner sign Homebody/Kabul, I did get a favorable comment from the gay, liberal New Yorker Jew on the t-shirt I wore. It was the Don't Kill for Us Amnesty International shirt.

He said, "I like that shirt."

"Thanks," I said. I felt quite proud.

I did sit in front of Salman Rushdie at a Michael Ondaatje reading. We made eye contact.

So, it's been a pretty good year as far as writer people are concerned. First, Pulitzer Prize winning author Edward P. Jones critiques my story in workshop. Now this.

Well, it is done. My last project for the semester, for better or for worse, is finished. And what a pointless one it is. What is this pointless topic? A summation of what my class, the oral history class, has learned plus a brief description of our readings. All of them. The bibliography is two pages long. I have to admit, it will be slightly helpful to the people coming in at semester. It's a year-long class. But they'll more than likely look at it for five, if i'm lucky, ten minutes, then it will go into a drawer or the recycle bin. Ah, the life of an academic. It makes me feel bad all the times i've tossed some book some academian has labored for years on. Whether it's any good or not, time was devoted to it.

For anyone (including you, MRC) who wants to read and argue with a much better arguer than myself, you should go to http://mybrainisopen.blogspot.com/. Yep, it's my little brother. In years, rather than height. I have a link to him to the right. Just wait (to argue, not read) until after Dec. 17th. He's got school like crazy.

Today I disregarded the final project due on Monday and went to B&N where I bought some xmas cards (if anyone reads Tom's blog, you'll find we're joining the adult club). Incidentally, some of the cards there were cheaper than the ones at Duane Reade's. And, the only ones without Santa or American flags at DR were large and needed more postage. I did buy them but on my way home I stopped a postperson and asked. So, I took them back. By the way, if you are unlucky enough to get one, yes, I know the angel looks like she's got a stomachache, but I liked the simple "peace and joy" message and it was for 8 dollars.

Anyway, there I was, drinking coffee and reading a book of short stories that I have to get back to the school library before the semester ends and so I can put it on my summary of what I have done for the semester and look that much smarter, when these two middle aged men sat next to me. I didn't even pay attention till one of them, M1, was talking to his daughter, named Jessica, on his cell. They were talking about M2's marriage troubles.

"There are five stages of marriages, and it is all about fertility and the need to populate the earth," M1 announced. I kept looking at my book, but was hooked. This is the info about marriage that I learned:

Stage 1

You are in love, forever and ever. You can't think without her. All you want to do is you-know-what.

Stage 2

You have children. Suddenly you are no longer #1 in her life. This smarts a little. Sex declines.

Stage 3

For the next 20 years, this goes on. The focus, for both of you, is the children and the money to raise them with. She becomes that person you sleep with, w/out sex, nothing more.

Stage 4

The children are gone. You are expecting sex more. At least once a week, but only if you are lucky. She becomes a friend you happen to live with.

Stage 5

If one of you does not get the divorce papers, this continues until death. You need to make sure you are nice to her, because possibly she'll be wiping your ass before death claims you.

It's so funny. In a place like Hillsboro, and probably Harrisonburg, you could never have a conversation like that in public. Never. But here, it happens all the time. Because you know you won't see these people you're sitting by again. And if they do reappear, quite possibly they weren't even paying attention. I got a call on my cell as I sat in the cafe from my nuerologist's nurse, and I sat there, discussing my estrogen levels and relating some of my OBGYN's observations, in front of all these people.

Whenever people are denied life and are calling out for life, and are struggling for life, God is there. - Rev. Niall O'Brien, SSC

Alternatives to violent solutions exist...moral force is stronger than physical force. - Colman McCarthy

When you bow to the universe, the universe bows back. When you call out the name of God, it echoes inside you. - Can't Remember Who Said This

I don't know if I totally want to go the route of arguing in my blog, but, since a certain Mr. Roth-Cline is afraid to put a comment page on his blog, I am forced to do such a thing. My friend states:

The first and most obvious problem is that prayer has little instrumental value — in other words, it simply doesn't work to achieve the desired ends. I'm not aware of any evidence showing that prayer has a consistent, statistically significant causal effect. Prayer may make people feel better (which does, of course, have an effect on individual well-being), but prayer doesn't seem to change the course of world events. Jessica mentions the "destruction of thousands" that she seems to think might have been prevented by the election of Senator Kerry — but what about the millions of people killed during the Holocaust or other ethnic cleansings from Yugoslavia to Sudan? Ostensibly those situations deserve supernatural involvement just as much (if not moreso) than the US election, yet peace did not come through supernatural intervention: it came when people with more guns than the ethnic cleansers put a forcible stop to the carnage.

I won't and cannot claim to be as good at the form of argument that MRC is, but I'll share an excellent story written in the script of the West Wing's first season--the show is about the death penalty; Pres. Bartlett has to decide whether to put a stay to a federal execution. Bartlett has been raging about the wisdom God has not given him in this case to his priest. Earlier in the show a rabbi and a Quaker had spoken out against capital punishment in the Oval Office. The priest states:

You know, you remind me of the man that lived by the river. He heard a radio report that the river was going to rush up and flood the town. And that all the residents should evacuate their homes. But the man said, “I’m religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me.” The waters rose up. A guy in a row boat came along and he shouted, “Hey, hey you! You in there. The town is flooding. Let me take you to safety.” But the man shouted back, “I’m religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me.” A helicopter was hovering overhead. And a guy with a megaphone shouted, “Hey you, you down there. The town is flooding. Let me drop this ladder and I’ll take you to safety.” But the man shouted back that he was religious, that he prayed, that God loved him and that God will take him to safety. Well... the man drowned. And standing at the gates of St. Peter, he demanded an audience with God. “Lord,” he said, “I’m a religious man, I pray. I thought you loved me. Why did this happen?” God said, “I sent you a radio report, a helicopter, and a guy in a rowboat. What the hell are you doing here?”

He sent you a priest, a rabbi, and a Quaker, Mr. President. Not to mention his son, Jesus Christ. What do you want from him?

The travesties of this world are not isolated incidents that came out of nowhere. Because people with free will refused to see what was going on around them. The Holocaust, for example. Had the Treaty of Versailles signed at the end of WWI not been so devastating to the German economy, had the US and Britain recognized the terror in Germany around in the late '20s and early '30s when Dachau, the first concentration camp was created, which imprisoned homosexuals and gypsies, not to mention the burning of books and the exodus of a certain Einstein fellow and the huge amounts of Jews been let into the US instead of back to Europe and certain death, had the racism against the Asian population not created the horror that was Hiroshima and Ngasaki (both cities with no military sites), perhaps history may have changed.

God works through people. God is not a puppeteer. She puts the tree in our sight and lets us choose for ourselves. People are given choices every day to do good or bad in the world. Unfortunately, many in power choose the latter. They refuse medical care for those who need it. They choose to send four planes into giant buildings. They build a wall, demolish houses and steal water from a people in need of it. They send suicide bombers into restaurants and buses. They enslave children to make sneakers for a pittance a day. The list goes on.

Right now, it's 188 Kerry and 197 Bush. And I have to analyze two stories for tomorrow...

I'm listening to Bruce Springsteen sing "Highway Patrolman." Seems to fit my mood right now.

Me and Frankie laughin' and drinkin' nothin' feels better than blood on blood takin' turns dancin' with Maria, while the band played Night of the Johnstown Flood ...

Well, it's been awhile, but as it is voting day-eve, I figured I'd take some time off living in my brain to address a situation: is it proper to pray for Bush's defeat? Really, I wonder. I am tempted to do it. I don't officially pray with any regularity. I feel that with all the suffering in the world that my needs are rather paltry in comparison. Singing in church is probably the closest I come to in praying most of the time. But I am considering that this situation, which may be the saving or destruction of thousands, needs the hand of God involved.

But should a pacifist pray for a warrior like Kerry to win? Or would I be doing the same as the Reglious Right in being a one-issue person? Some said in the Mennonite Weekly Review that Mennonites shouldn't vote because of this issue and others. But I think of the health care issue, the oil issue, the Iraq fiasco issue, and I say: there is never going to be a president who is a pacifist, so I should lean towards someone who kind of says some peaceful things and I should focus on other issues. I don't know. Does this make any sense to anyone?

I'm voting for Kerry tomorrow. I just don't know if I can pray for his victory.

Oh...and a certain friend who shall remain nameless asked me awhile ago whether I could see any positive sides to the Republican party. I am sure there are--no one is all good or all bad. But I can't seem to think of any right now.

I know it's been a long long long time, but I'll only say this before going to bed: any undecided voter who is leaning towards Bush post-first debate has some kind of serious brain problem. I mean it. I dislike the man but I felt bad for him the entire debate. He looked in pain. He struggled for words like "group of folks." When he wanted the extra thirty seconds to rebut something, he'd interrupt Jim Lehrer but then he'd stand there and try to think of something to say. And then he'd finish long before his time was up. He kept hunching up until his head was low to the microphone...

Now, to anyone who is a die-hard Bush supporter: I don't understand you either but good for you in your steadfastness in your trajectory, since Bush seems to think that is the way to go in all things.

It's feeling a bit like KS today. Thundering constantly, rainy and humid. I managed to write, or rather, rewrite, a sentence. Then in frustration I went to Washington Square and sat before I had lunch with Pax Christi folk.

I'm tired of money. Yesterday I spent the better part of the afternoon haggling with my health insurance company, otherwise known as MMA. I'd like to get rid of it, since we have good insurance with Tom's job, but we don't know what we will do for insurance in the future whenever we leave NY, and with my health history, it would be difficult to get any other insurance company to take me. Even a guy at MMA once said they probably wouldn't take me if I dropped the insurance but came back later...

It is depressing. Knowing that not only am I trapped by my body, I am trapped by institutions and the fact that I don't have money.

People often pray for the Second Coming. I would like cheaper medicine at least.

Come quickly, socialized medicine, come.

I've just been a-wandering with Tom and Ted handing out condoms and info near Astor Place. It was great to see Tom at work, hollering out for folks to take condoms. This is the shy boy I met at EMU.

I also took a bunch of pictures of the neighborhood with Ted's digital camera for a website I'm building to show friends where I live. I think I've fallen in love with the city again just looking through it through a camera.

It has been 1 year since I began my radiation in Boston--as well as begun this blog. Life's a weird crazy depressing exhilarating ride.

Tom showed me a website that has counted the number of times words in the English language are used.  I know it probably shows how much time i have on my hands, but here are the ratings for the above sentence:

Tom (1822) showed (947) me (72) a (5) website (not in count) that (7) has (43) counted (5990)the (1) number (171) of (2) times (287) words (365) in (6) the (the) English (390) language (510) are (22) used (136).

The first ones are obviously the usual in between words.  Frankly I was surprised to find the as number one until I realized I used it twice in my starting sentence.  Following that, it is interesting to note what words are put next to what words.  For instance, man is 142 and might is 143.  Woman is 393 and real is 394.  

There are names as well.  Tom is 1822 (1823 is the word widely--Thomas is 1510 with 1511 being rock), Jessica is 8982 (8983 is consolidated--Dawn is 3712 with Nicholas being 3713), Kirsten is 42341 (thrice is 42342), Jason is 6810 (athelstan, meaning "King of Mercia and Wessex (924?-939) who was the first Saxon ruler to establish his authority over all of England" is 6811), Holly is 7099 (7100 is saints), Reuben is 42187 (42188 is museveni, meaning "Ugandan president (since 1986). A former guerrilla leader who worked to overthrow the dictatorship of Idi Amin, he is noted for his efforts to maintain political stability by repressing opposition parties and creating a strong economy"), Bethany is 56956 (56957 is misreprentations), Miriam is 15390 (15391 is blot--also Kansas is 20528 with 20529 being fiesta), Diana is 3876 (3877 is spell), Jennifer is 8472 (8473 is curled), and so on.

Don't think it means anything if you weren't listed, it means nothing about my love for you.

Check out the website: http://www.wordcount.org  

 

 

 

Tom and I have gotten cell phones.

Yes.

After mocking everyone in this city who had them, we've fallen into the trap ourselves.

Enough said.

So, I am now unemployed.  And pretty happily so.  I would make a horrible housewife, however, or thank God.  i have spent most of this "precious" time sleeping, wandering thrift stores, watching too much TV and renting movies, making random cell phone calls, etc.  Though I have been slightly responsible with wrangling with Sallie Mae, Aetna and looking for SLC jobs.  Little writing however.

So I've made the decision that I will spend time writing every day.  To work myself up to the deluge that will be school.  You would think someone who calls herself a writer would actually write without having to force herself, but no.  A lot of it is laziness.  A lot of it is also that I can barely write anything down because I have too many stories in my brain that I don't know what to do with.  

So.

A Final Reflection of Mennonite Voluntary Service
 
When I left Pax Christi Metro New York, I was given a three-sizes-too-big Pax Christi t-shirt, a Pax Christi button and a relief of Dorothy Day.  When I left Rauschenbusch Metro Ministries, I was given a book called Vertical New York and a pair of movie tickets, which I think are past their due date, though I am not sure.  Despite the sizing and due datedness of some of the gifts, I am fond of them all because they have symbolized some parts of my experiences in New York so far.
 
I’m fond of Pax Christi’s gifts because there was not a Pax event that didn’t have a gaggle of nuns wearing some kind of peace t-shirt, a cap or button.  In the winter, Sister Liz wears a giant yellow coat covered in protest buttons.  I’ve seen her arrested several times in that coat—six times last year, in fact.  It was always convenient because then I could find her in the crowd of folks being hauled off to jail.  When Grandparents for Peace staged civil disobedience at the recruiting station at Times Square, I saw her like a beacon among the brave but huddled group of elderly folks (one was 90 and wheel-chair bound) making their own stand on an issue that was three-sizes-too-big for them.  But they were there anyway.
 
I am fond of the relief because Dorothy Day is one of those saintly people I was first introduced to when I started hanging out with these crazy Catholics.  The fact that I’ve spent time where she lived and worked at the Catholic Worker and saw how the place was a place of refuge and beauty even though the lighting is somewhat dubious and the paint job is cracking and peeling, even though I’ve heard the rumor that Dorothy Day could be rather difficult to work with at times—I feel more comfortable with those facts because who wants a saint who isn’t a little rough, a little smudged around the edges?
 
I’m fond of Rauschenbusch Metro Ministries gifts because they come from a bunch of Baptists who have wandered their way north to serve people who are being slowly pushed out of their neighborhood with the encroachment of gentrification—and have stayed on because they have fallen in love with this city.  This city that has an emptiness, yet a spirituality all its own.  Like the aforesaid movie tickets, they give whatever they have to that place: they run a free afterschool program, free English for Speakers of Other Languages lessons and a summer day camp for neighborhood kids—where ostensibly the charge is $100, but few people pay more than $25—a food pantry, a clothes closet in the winter.  All this on a rather narrow budget.  
 
I am fond of the book Vertical New York, which has vertical pictures of the city and quotes about the city from various artists and elected officials.  Here are a few of the quotes:
 
“New York’s a place where even the ugly returns you to the beautiful boundless soul of its inhabitants.”
 
“A hundred times have I thought New York is a catastrophe, and fifty times: it is a beautiful catastrophe.”
 
“I’ve always thought that the look of New York, the architecture was fundamentally religious.  Manhattan is a cathedral you know—the modern cathedral.”
 
I have often felt that this city, this cathedral, is where I truly found God.  God in the ugliness of the Port Authority; in the nearby Probation Office.  God in catastrophe of the hundreds of thousands of souls who wandered by my office window each day.  God in the frustration and beauty of a kid who would rather tap his pencil and sing Outkast songs than do his math homework.     
 
These few epiphanies have come between hundreds of aggravations of the lack of organization and too-many-visionaries-and-too-few-managers of the non-profit scene; the monotony of stuffing envelopes begging for money to keep a tiny Pax Christi office going; the bland boringness of writing grants; trying to take charge of 30 children who want to do anything but the homework at hand with only two tutors available; the bewilderment of teaching ESL when one has had no training in the field; not to mention the months I spent in Boston voluntarily having radiation pumped into my brain.  These epiphanies have been hard won, and are by no means complete or even understandable.
 
So, my time with MVS is closing.  I’m now officially unemployed, heading to grad school in the fall with a large debt to the federal government looming in my future—but I’m pretty happy.  I guess service in the city makes one more than a little crazy; one smiles in the face of negativity.  Two things happened yesterday to make me feel like I’ve become a true New Yorker: Tom and I bought cell phones, for one thing.  And two, I found myself thinking smugly of a Vertical New York quote as we were out in the wilderness that is Brooklyn waiting for the G train and seeing the Statue of Liberty from underneath the huge canopy of concrete:
 
“The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.”

The other day Tom and I had a New York moment.
 
We were sitting in a park on Houston and 1st, eating Chinese dumplings and drinking Coke, watching a yupster mom push her kids on the swings, listening to Arab taxi drivers argue loudly in Arabic and English and watching a man having a conversation with himself and chain smoking.
 
To sound a cliche--only in New York.

This is the thing. In a little more than a month, it will be the first anniversary of my entry into the photon-proton world. It seems somewhat unreal that it even happened. That I daily went in to have protons or photons shot into my head, that I can never have radiation directed at that part of my body for the rest of my life. It also seems unreal to me that in twoish months it will be the third anniversary of my brain surgery on Sept. 11. I've written in my journal the various places I've been in the past years: 1) On an operating table in NOVA (northern virginia for the uninformed, near DC). 2) Sitting on the steps of Washington Sq. United Methodist Church in Manhattan. 3) Having protons shot into my brain in Boston, MA. It is only a sick coincidence that I have been near the Pentagon on the day of, in New York City, near a park where I've been told one could once see the WTC, in Boston where two of the planes took off. I wonder what will be number 4. Supposedly it will be Sarah Lawrence, but I have ceased to expect what I actually expect.