Blogging With Lenya

Wind/Horse

2011-05-26T08:39:00.000-07:00

"One interesting thing about surrendering is that it's different from giving up. When you surrender there is a tremendous sense of freedom....Basically, when we surrender we are no longer spoiled." ~ Makkyi Rabjam Jampal Trinley Dradul

I am reaching my fingers through the hair of the grass and the pine boughs. My currents swirl over the ocean and through the mountain passes to caress your hair and lift your chin. In broad daylight you are arguing with the wind - I push you, cry out for your attention, pull you into an embrace right there in broad daylight while the crows fly overhead. I whisper to you about the things I've seen. I am fleeting and renewing - now a stream of particles flowing clear through the Vermont forest, now a wave crashing on rocks, breaking, refracting, prisming.

I have a great deal of freedom, of lightness in my life. Contain me, let me escape you. Feel me slipping through your fingers, receding from you, retreating from you, running from you, withdrawing, galloping away. Rearing up on two legs. I am not a wild horse. I am still a work horse. I am a grazing horse. I am a racing horse. I am your favorite horse. It is as simple as this: some things and I buck you off, some things and I take you across the ocean of plains with grace, strength, and intoxicating velocity.

I will to surrender to a just master.

I want to be filled with Love, I want to be Free. I want to serve humbly without expectation of praise, I want to be praised.

2011-02-22T16:56:00.000-08:00

A poem for Shirl, a poem for Lucy.
A poem for Jocelyn. Something for the old timers. I pass by the clapboarded houses and oppress them with my nostalgia, daydream about how sweet life could be with my lover and our children. Life could be sweet, sweet like a carrot frozen in the ground, sweet like something whose sturdy starches that it uses to sustain itself have been crucified, masticated into simple sugars by hard times and low down cold nights alone. Alone in the frozen ground with no way to harvest itself. Even if it could harvest itself, pulling it out of the frozen ground would mean death. Mastication not just by the cruel cycles of the seasons but now by nibbling jaws with little or big teeth. Either way, your food is not for you. It is of you but it is not for you. This is your world, your life - make it what you want it. I am my own family now. My naive ideas about togetherness, passion, treasuring, a community of friends are slowly dying. No one is coming. I am here, wand in hand. If I don't act soon, the Dementors will come and I will be worse than dead. I understand my mother better now. Life is a work of Tanztheater, nothing more and nothing less. Dream, yes. Love, yes. Practice, yes. Allow me my soothing bit of honeycomb when I am sick and sad, but don't expect me to harvest it from the same hive you get yours from. Mine isn't better than yours and yours isn't better than mine. But they are different.

2010-06-16T05:18:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, Dear dear Cemplank! I love you and don't know what I'd do without you.

Happy Birthday, Grille.

2010-06-15T07:49:00.000-07:00

We still use this language because we understand the need to learn our history, to know where we came from. But every word hurts, every word cuts into the unity. When we came here, when we came together, we decided we would only use words once the sun went down and we were in quieter mindspaces. During the day we call moan and sing to each other to express ourselves. We also touch each other with greater or less pressure to communicate our ideas. At the end of the night, when we are done using words, we wail in grief for all the cuts and scrapes into the unity. Our deep sorrow shows us that the unity is never really damaged, so then we sleep and rest peacefully. When the next day begins, our minds are clear that we are One.

The sun sometimes has rays like cocks and we think of it as masculine. Other times it is a circle, the shape of pussy lips held open, the shape of an opening, so we think of it as feminine. It shifts and changes as it goes through its lifespan, so we worship it.

We decided that running water made people too greedy, so we carry all of our water now. We don't use towels, either. It is too precious and shimmering to be covered in water - we let it stay there and feel it on our skin until the lifespan of water on our skin comes to its end.

We still embrace, but we changed the embrace. We hold onto each other for a little while and then when we let go we look in each other's eyes and share a moment of grief that everything our senses will ever experience will be taken from us. Then we share a moment of wild ecstasy that everything our senses will ever experience will be taken from us.

There is a famous battle story that we tell some nights. A young girl came to us for help. She was running away from a marriage into which she had been forced. The husband got all his men together and they came with guns. We understand that violence in the assertion of boundaries is a method of maintaining Homeostasis. We have certain advantages in this type of attack, being on our home turf. Four precious sisthers were killed. We captured the husband and one of his men and this is what we did:

We all gathered around them in a circle. They were in the middle of the circle. It took about a hundred times until they stopped trying to run away. We were all sitting down, rooting down. Then everyone in the community went around and said something we loved about those two men, and even the girl said her piece. There are so many of us, it took a few days to get through it all. The men were crying - maybe they were bored to tears! After that, they were too vulnerable to let them go back to the murder-as-entertainment world. In those situations, we keep them with us and feed them and invite them to join us in a transitional capacity.

For years after that, it was the fashion among the adorners to make bangles and necklaces with four beads representing the dead sisthers and two beads representing the two men, all together on a suture representing the unity.

We consider the beginning of agriculture to be the beginning of violence against women, but we are wondering if we can grow out of that. So we still have cows and goats and geese around - it is brutal and violent. We work together. We don't grow very much grain, so we are all becoming more feral. But we all love to work and the work feels good. We love to keep our calves with us and let them suckle at our breasts as much as they want, and we bring our babies over to us and all the different kinds of mothers spend time together and consider each other. We all show each other our different kinds of calves and babies and goslings - we are all proud mamas, so it is easier to share our gifts.

Some of us are concerned that we shouldn't cut into Mother Earth at all. Some of us think violence is everywhere and Mother knows that. We learn from the trespasses made against us. Also, penetration feels good sometimes. We don't need to use words to communicate about this particular issue. As a compromise, we are working only with our hands if there is a green thing we would like to grow or grow and eat.

Old habits die hard. We noticed early on that the young ones want to be desired. Now we raise them up to learn that their bodies are made of desire. That is what we call each other at night - Desire. When we get shot through with an electromagnetic spanda of jealousy, we immediately make a small group - whoever is around, and we just stop what we are doing and sit together in silence, or moaning. We know that this tactic means "Meyou are a lucky one, Sufferer! Shed your light on meyou, cover us in the mud of your anger, the fecund soil of your sorrow!" Often this passion inspires intense tenderness for Suffererdesire, and we cover her in kisses. It presents an opportunity for Suffererdesire to basically get fucked out of her bad mood. We mud wrestle and pull each other's raiments off, run our fingers through each other's hair and fuck. Our bodies smell like sex and low tide - it's incredible. These feelings of passion create the thought-waves of bondage, they increase our investment in one another and in life. Our bodies vibrate with joy, oneness, honesty, transience. It is dangerous and sensitive, so afterwards we walk together to bathe and meditate.

On our farthest field a wild turkey has a nest. When we ride the motorcycle up there she squawks at us and we wail, "MOTHERHOOD IS POWERFUL!"

On the ledges by the island in the cove the seals come up to rest and sunbathe. When we take the canoe out to get mussels, the females bark at us. They fan out to protect the young ones. That is when we cry, "MOTHERHOOD IS COMMUNAL WORK!"

Under the clear cold ocean water lie the sea urchins. When we pick them up their spines move gently, their little pussylips kiss our palms, looking for information, wondering without anxiety if they are safe or in danger. This experience is extremely important, because we feel so powerful, so connected, our hearts are bursting and we scream, "INTERSPECIES LOVE IS ILLUMINATION!"

2010-02-27T07:09:00.001-08:00

The other day I started reading Desire: The Tantric Path to Awakening by Daniel Odier. I don't have it with me right now, so I can't quote it, but it's been giving me crazy-wisdom dreams. There are a few things I'd like to write about it.
- Frank (not the cadaver) vs me in our approaches to life and meditation: Frank is the Zen type, I am the Shambhala type.
- Me as a vector/figure for awakening the senses.
-Ralu saying some of the most interesting relationships are short lived, like the person on the dance floor at jackie 60.
- My troubles and discomfort don't come from the fact that life isn't how I want it to be deep in my heart. They come from the fact that life is that way, but I'm not allowing myself to fully recognize it.

After reading an article in which Lady Gaga said "I want to strap a penis onto my vagina" or something like that, I dreamed that Hugh and I were dancing in a kitchen somewhere and he whispered in my ear, "I've been thinking about it." I said, "You should go for it!" So he had this surgery done where he had a tiny vagina opened into his perineum.

Then last night I dreamed I was on a bed with a sister figure from my childhood, her baby who was around the age of 8 months or so, and a man who was the husband of some other woman. In the middle of the night I was awakened (in my dream) as if called by a higher purpose, and I very directly and without a single moment of nervous faltering, initiated what can only be called an orgy between us three adults. This was intermixed with some of the most intense and deeply satisfying baby cooing and cuddling I have ever experienced, and though the sensual directness and joy of these moments were very connected and unified, there was a clear delineation between the interactions with the adults and those with the baby. In the morning of my dream, society set in and was very angry with me for having sex with a married man. The era became the 1800's and I was in a small coastal Canadian town. The townspeople were setting out to lynch me and I was on the lam. I was also fluidly switching between being a man and being a woman as I ran and hid from the mob.

2010-02-24T08:10:00.000-08:00

I felt you coming, girl, as you drew near.
I knew you'd find me cause I longed you here.
Are you my destiny? Is this how you'll appear,
Wrapped in a coat with a tear in your eye?
Take that coat, babe, throw it on the floor.
Are you the one that I've been waiting for?

As you've been moving surely toward me,
My soul has comforted and assured me
That in time my heart it will reward me
And that all will be revealed.
So I've sat and I've watched an ice age thaw-r
Are you the one that I've been waiting for?

I exist in a world where the pulsing sap fills the trees with passion and they reach their branches out to me, calling these lyrics. The snow balancing on a tall branch glitters like an aerialist and then dives toward the earth, longing to delight my eyes.

You have Me.

2010-02-19T15:09:00.000-08:00

Dear Zoe, I hope this cheers you up.
Love,
Len

I have you.

2010-02-18T20:40:00.000-08:00

Thank you, dearly Rosa. You always know how to cheer me up. Little moments of beauty all around.

2010-02-17T13:52:00.001-08:00

"It's opening you to your world and you feel a tremendous tenderness for everything."

Eyes and lips seem brighter. This cadaver's name is Frank. The past two labs we've done things to his head that aren't fit to repeat here, but suffice it to say we're on the inside. I ran my fingers over his smooth teeth. Frank. Lab makes my body rebel, it makes me assert myself as alive. It gives me a painful and nauseating hunger. I was overcome looking at my professor's necklace as she explained the pterygoid ganglion to another group of students. Just then, I felt two hands on my shoulders and turned around to see Ben, smiling brightly. We each carry around so much history. I overheard someone say, "You look so beautiful! You must be a woman in your thirties!" I thought I was defiled before, but I keep getting more and more defiled, fuller and fuller of experiences stretching and pulling and tugging and shredding. It fills me with anxiety to hang onto it, but when I let it go I am an explosive river, Saraswati overflowing her banks. I don't have innocent optimism, but I do have a tremendous tenderness for everything.

Kitty Wales

2010-02-10T19:44:00.000-08:00

Rosa hadn't heard of Kitty Wells, but he introduced me (literally) to Kitty Wales.

Dear Diary,

2010-02-09T19:23:00.001-08:00

Instead of writing in my journal, here goes:

Saturday, watched the train go slowly by while the pigeons of White River Junction flew overhead.

Two nights ago, I dreamed of you, Zoe. You had designed a special contraption for looking at people so it placed them in the room with red curtains from Twin Peaks. I knew you had made it and you asked me how I knew. I said of course I can tell everything you make, because I just can. I believe this to be true in real life, as well.

I've been thinking about bonsai. I am drawn to things that keep me in place, but I agree with you, it's probably not a good idea. I don't want it to be a symbol of love only to let it die because I want to visit a friend for a precious long weekend. On the other hand, I am drawn to it, and I like to follow myself where I want to go. I like to accompany myself there. I go there alone.

So I stopped to look at bonsai trees. I decided to wait. After I left, I noticed that the whole landscape looked like a bonsai tree. Angular and curved and balanced.

Then I had two intense up flares of jealousy. Was I tremoring? Or just caffeinated?

I feel so many things throughout the course of one day. I can't deal with it all on my own! I have to talk about it, I can't just let it sit there...can love and friendship help with that? Does anyone really want to hear it, to help with it? Can anyone really handle it? Is anyone else like that?

After class I took a walk with a friend and then went to a workshop about helping people make a plan to quit smoking. There were a bunch of people there who smoke and were willing to let us practice smoking counseling with them. My classmate and I ended up with a young woman I often see outside the med school smoking. It was amazing to talk to her! She totally wants to quit! She's moving to NC to start an MD/PhD program this summer.

After zooming home for just a few minutes of QT with Moondog, who has been so charming and loveable (grabbable) lately, I drove to the hospital for an OB/Gyn skills night. We split up in two groups, then spent half the evening with an ARNP and an OB who I worked with at the Feminist Health Center talking about contraceptives and abortion, and half the evening in the Birthing Pavilion with a midwife and a nurse midwifery student talking about how babies come out. My classmates asked me a lot of questions after each session, and it felt good to recognize how much I carry with me. It was also amazing to see the raw emotion in my classmates, male and female, as we talked about water birth, placenta-eating, fetal monitoring and ultrasounds. It was a loaded conversation and I ended up continuing it on the phone with one of them after I got home. Our deepest, scariest desires for ourselves and our lives come through in everyday interactions. It takes daily maintenance to stay clear, alert, to keep it all moving. It takes introspection, calm, support, friendship.

With this on my mind, I thought back to Jay-Z's 100th problem. What does it mean to have girl problems? What does it mean to need love?

2010-01-27T05:42:00.000-08:00

I heard this poem today and felt transported into its world.

Something Else
by Nin Andrews

Sometimes you say I'm something else,
and you mean I'm good, really good,
but honey, don't say that, please?
Reminds me how my dad used to say,
I'm just not myself today.
As if he were some kind of imposter dad.
Then he'd ask things like:
Why don't you go play with James?
Has the dog had his walk yet?
Will you kindly get out of my cotton-pickin' hair?
Sometimes he'd come home from work
carrying his hat and a brown paper bag,
and I'd know he wasn't my dad.
There were at least three daddies then,
sort of like daddy A, B, and C.
Like that TV show. Which will it be,
bachelor number 1, 2, or 3?
My mom often said he wasn't the man
she married. And I thought about that.
How, when they married,
I wasn't me, either. I wasn't anyone.
I didn't like to dwell on that.
It kind of gave me the creeps,
but I liked to ask,
Were you really in love then?
Of course, she'd say.
Did you hold hands?
Yes.
Kiss in public? Sit on his lap?
Yes, yes, I did all that. Once.
She even showed me photos
she kept in her lingerie drawer
beneath her slips and silky things
she never wore anymore: him
in his spats and slick-shined hair,
her in a pink crinoline cocktail dress
with her long bangs clipped back
in pearly barrettes. Not a thought
in her head, except maybe
Don't I look swell? And
Love me. And he did.
Did he say so?
He said it every day.
He was something else back then.

2010-01-26T12:53:00.000-08:00

The panel was a complete success. I'm really proud of it!

2010-01-18T15:19:00.000-08:00

2010-01-17T11:34:00.000-08:00

Download All Creatures for free from Sherman Arts.

2010-01-12T17:55:00.000-08:00

His lunch with Eartha Kitt...
Thank you, dear Alice B.!

2010-01-12T17:51:00.000-08:00

Met756Val

2010-01-11T15:35:00.000-08:00

Methionine

Valine

Both of these amino acids are nonpolar and neutral, but valine is more hydrophobic than methionine and that could cause a change in protein function.

FAMILY/ The Italian Doctors Are Mutating The Gene In a Dish

2010-01-10T06:43:00.000-08:00

All proteins are long chains of amino acids. An amino acid, in general, looks like this:

The "R" in a box represents the variable group. Differences in the R group are how we get the twenty-two standard amino acids we use to make the proteins in our body that are responsible for every thing from muscles to the channels in the membranes of neurons that allow us to think and move.

The NH2 shown on the left is an amine group, and the COOH shown on the right is a carboxylic acid group - this is how the amino acid got its name. When you line the carboxylic acid end (C terminus) of one amino acid up with the amine end (N terminus) of another amino acid, an OH comes off of the carboxylic acid, and an H comes off of the amine. The OH and the H come together to form water, and what's left of the carboxylic acid and the amine come together to form the peptide bond, like this:

Our genes/DNA are what give the protein manufacturing infrastructure in our cells the information for what particular amino acids to string together to make the very specific proteins we need for every biological task we carry out. The string of amino acids, held together by peptide bonds, that make up a particular protein is referred to as its primary structure. More complex interactions between the amino acids allow proteins to have secondary, tertiary, and quaternary structure, as well, so one chain of amino acids can fold itself up into an intricate shape.

Many of the important protein structures in our body are made of several individual proteins interacting. (This interaction is the definition of quaternary structure.) This is the case for the hERG protein, a potassium ion channel that allows the heart to end each heartbeat and get ready for the next at an appropriate rate and rhythm. That process in the heartbeat can be called ventricular repolarization, and on an ECG it is referred to as the QT interval:

The KCNH2 gene is the location on the DNA map that tells the protein manufacturing infrastructure in our cells how to make the largest part of the hERG potassium channel. Different mutations in this gene can cause the QT interval to be either too long, lasting more than 430 milliseconds (Long QT sydrome, specifically LQT2) or too short, lasting less than 300 ms (Short QT syndrome, specifically SQT1). Long QT syndrome is more common than Short QT syndrome. Which one does our Chemical's family have?

SQT1 is caused by replacing the amino acid asparagine in position 588 in the chain with the amino acid lysine. The big difference between these amino acids is that asparagine is neutral, not positively or negatively charged, while lysine is positively charged. The images below don't show where the charge is. I haven't figured that out yet.

asparagine

lysine

The differences in charge and shape between these two amino acids change the way the long chain is able to fold. This one change in primary structure ends up changing the secondary, tertiary, and quaternary levels of structure in the entire hERG potassium channel. Just like everything else in life, a change in structure is also a change in function. For SQT syndrome, this change results in a faster passage of potassium through the channel out of the cardiac cell - a gain of function - that makes the ventricles able to contract before they have enough time to fill with blood.

There seem to be multiple mutations between positions 35 and 36 on chromosome 7 that can cause LQT2. These mutations cause a loss of function in the hERG potassium channel, reducing the rate at which potassium can leave the cell. This makes the ventricles unable to contract when they should because they take too long getting back to their baseline potassium levels.

2010-01-09T10:33:00.000-08:00

Food Chain Erina Matsui

I love Shrimp Chili Erina Matsui

Guy Pearce

2010-01-06T08:56:00.000-08:00

From Priscilla...

to The Road.

Conversation Between Selves

2010-01-05T17:27:00.000-08:00

You are best and brightest when you are happy for the triumph of a friend.
I see this in your photograph. You are holding the bouquet you caught.

You are best and brightest when you are listening to the pain of others.
I see it in their eyes. You make them believe they are strong.

You are best and brightest when you are taking enormous risks.
I see you hold the photograph up to your face. You are wondering if it is really you.

2010-01-04T16:07:00.000-08:00

I've still never seen Zooey Deschanel in a movie so I don't know if she can act, and I've never heard Joseph Gordon Leavitt sing, but this video proves that they both can dance.

Dear Julie

2010-01-04T12:23:00.000-08:00

Back in Bloomsburg and feeling much better than I ever expected. I am not alone - the Shrew is here with me, shrieking at me to keep carrying the fire, to keep absorbing and spewing truths. Here is a sensitive little project by Miranda July so you won't let me or anyone fade into the background.

2009-12-16T18:31:00.000-08:00

What is Life like for the Whore of Babylon? She tends her garden, keeps up with the housework (by her standards), and goes to bed early. She ruminates on her decisions, tries to trust herself and slowly make what amends she can. It was good to see you again.

- W.B.

Climate Change and the Maldives

2009-12-12T06:07:00.001-08:00

Water Lilies

2009-12-11T17:09:00.000-08:00

Water Lilies (Naissance des pieuvres) is the very respectable first film (from 2007) of French director Celine Sciamma. It is a careful portrait of the private world of love and friendship created by three girls (in two pairs) as they manage expectations and violations visited upon them with increasing frequency from the larger world.

Low Expectations

2009-12-11T16:59:00.000-08:00

"His cluelessness makes the atrociousness of his movie utterly supernatural."

- David Edelstein on Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Lovely Bones

2009-12-05T19:12:00.000-08:00

"A Streetcar Named Desire" starring Cate Blanchett and directed by Liv Ullmann, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music until 12/20...

"So you've seen Precious, eh? What did you think?"

2009-12-05T07:39:00.001-08:00

"Precious" was definitely one of the most complicated depictions of abuse I've ever seen. The hype didn't detract from my experience because the story was well told. It wasn't naive and didn't claim that any problems were solved, which made the love, especially self love, even more powerful. Ian drew my attention to the controversy about skin color and casting. (Does Hollywood Still Have a Brown Paper Bag Test?) That criticism is totally founded, but its still a good film. I really agreed with what Theresa Wiltz wrote about the mother's character on theroot.com: "we recognize the humanity in the monster, without wanting to forgive her of her trespasses." I think that's really important and uncommon in a story about abuse and violence, because denying the humanity of abusers encourages observers to distance ourselves from the problems that really do lead people to hurt each other. This phenomenon came up in this week's This American Life rebroadcast in the section about Elizabeth Smart.

World AIDS Day

2009-12-01T05:50:00.001-08:00

2009-11-30T17:10:00.001-08:00

"What the Buddha actually suggested is that it is the avoidance of the elusiveness of the object of desire that is the origin of suffering. The problem is not desire: it is clinging to, or craving, a particular outcome, one in which there is no remainder, in which the object is completely under our power."

My Day

2009-11-05T20:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my day. I set myself to the ongoing task of accepting myself and my decisions, resisting an overarching narrative of success or failure, treating myself kindly and letting love, support, and happiness flow through me unhindered to the people who have what I think I want. I kiss myself, I chew my own food, I marry the bed.

Two Friends Stories on Double X!

2009-10-28T18:10:00.000-07:00

I came for Beth Schwartzapfel, I stayed for Audrey Bethel! This was an amazing coincidence because these two friends don't know each other. It reminded me of my first solo trip to the NEC Libriary in good ol' Henniker, where I happened to be flipping through a feminist reader and found an essay by Jessica within its pages!

2009-10-24T13:37:00.001-07:00

This is a still from the movie my Miami friends John and Hanan made about the bellydancing troupe Hanan started in Cuba! I haven't seen it yet. I think its called House of Arabs...not sure what the title's all about.

Don't you know me, Bloomsburg?

2009-10-23T06:02:00.001-07:00

I'm the new Berlin Wall! Try to tear me down!

I got up at 5 again today. I took Maude's advice and greeted the dawn with a breath of fire. We had a lecture today from our classmate who started as a first year last year but ended up taking part of the year off because he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. He spent the hour giving us an elegant, thorough, and personal presentation of the embryology, innervation, vasculature, pathophysiology, and history of his cancer. He walked us through every step of its diagnosis and treatment, including the surgical notes from his procedure and a graphic video about it - laparoscopic retroperitoneal lymph node dissection. Finally, he told us how much of a difference it made to him that he was here as a part of a small medical community, and we should never forget that we could actually wake up tomorrow and be diagnosed with cancer. He asked us to consider how we would feel about how we had spent the last several weeks if that happened. This message, which I might have dismissed as child's play just a few months ago, came at a very important time for me. I have continued to prod myself with worries that I would have been happier at Evergreen, and just yesterday I felt a really clear breakthrough about it. I thought about how many years of my life, important formative years, I have spent here in Central PA, and how radically changed the course of my life has been by the time I have spent here. I felt that this place is here for me as much as any other, offering me as much as any other, and I don't want to take it for granted. More importantly, I want to feel open to all that is here for me, embrace it, and thrive. I felt blessed in this purpose by Hedwig, whose child lover sang these words to us this morning as I drove to school:

Forgive me,
For I did not know.
'Cause I was just a boy
And you were so much more

Than any god could ever plan,
More than a woman or a man.
And now I understand how much I took from you:
That, when everything starts breaking down,
You take the pieces off the ground
And show this wicked town
something beautiful and new.

You think that Luck
Has left you there.
But maybe there's nothing
up in the sky but air.

And there's no mystical design,
No cosmic lover preassigned.
There's nothing you can find
that can not be found.
'Cause with all the changes
you've been through
It seems the stranger's always you.
Alone again in some new
Wicked little town.

So when you've got no other choice
You know you can follow my voice
Through the dark turns and noise
Of this wicked little town.
Oh it's a wicked, little town.
Goodbye, wicked little town.

2009-10-22T19:06:00.000-07:00

I went to a talk today called "Baryshnikov and Bohr: The Biochemistry of Ballet". The first slide was "Oranges" by Ellsworth Kelly. "When you think of a cell, what is the first thing that comes to mind?" A circle. A semipermeable phospholipid bilayer. The cell membrane gathers together the components necessary for life and maintains their appropriate concentrations so life can continue. How wonderful! How wonderful to imagine our predecessors, little vesicles of the components necessary for life. And when enough of these cells came to be, they began to interact just as the components necessary for life interacted. They touched membranes; they opened and closed to each other. If it were not for the membrane - the best boundary of all, proof that boundaries are necessary and life-giving, boundaries say YES AND NO - water, carbon, nucleotides, phosphate compounds, everything necessary for life would just be scattered to the winds in random concentrations! We couldn't even get started. This little bubble of fat gathered up a mouthful of its surroundings and created a little environment, a little womb, a little home, a little safe space, protected for just a moment from the randomness outside. The point was not to hide away in fear or solitude from the environment outside. The point was to interact, to exchange, to be penetrated by and secrete into the environment outside from a point of strength and just the right amount of structure. Now we are cathedrals of those tiny microenvironments, and we interact just as the components necessary for life interacted. We touch membranes, we open and close to each other.

2009-10-21T03:04:00.000-07:00

Pablo and Marek met Sandino's grandson, Walter, at the 2009 NicaNet East Coast Conference on the Streets of Baltimore!

Favorite Poems from High School

2009-10-20T14:49:00.000-07:00

To Be of Use

Marge Piercy

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Ego Tripping

Nikki Giovanni

I was born in the Congo.

I walked to the Fertile Crescent and built the sphinx.

I designed a pyramid so tough that a star

that only glows every one hundred years falls

into the center giving divine perfect light.

I am bad.

I sat on the throne

drinking nectar with Allah.

I got hot and sent an ice age to Europe

to cool my thirst.

My oldest daughter is Nefertiti.

The tears from my birth pains

created the Nile.

I am a beautiful woman.

I gazed on the forest and burned

out the Sahara desert.

With a packet of goat's meat

and a change of clothes,

I crossed it in two hours.

I am a gazelle so swift,

so swift you can't catch me.

For a birthday present when he was three,

I gave my son Hannibal an elephant.

He gave me Rome for mother's day.

My strength flows ever on.

My son Noah built an ark and

I stood proudly at the helm

as we sailed on a soft summer day.

I turned myself into myself and was Jesus.

Men intone my loving name.

All praises all praises,

I am the one who would save.

I sowed diamonds in my back yard.

My bowels deliver uranium.

The filings from my fingernails are

semi-precious jewels.

On a trip north,

I caught a cold and blew

my nose giving oil to the Arab world.

I am so hip even my errors are correct.

I sailed west to reach east and had to round off

the earth as I went.

The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid

across three continents.

I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal.

I cannot be comprehended except by my permission.

I mean...I...can fly

like a bird in the sky...

In Celebration of My Uterus

BY ANNE SEXTON

Everyone in me is a bird.
I am beating all my wings.
They wanted to cut you out
but they will not.
They said you were immeasurably empty
but you are not.
They said you were sick unto dying
but they were wrong.
You are singing like a school girl.
You are not torn.

Sweet weight,
in celebration of the woman I am
and of the soul of the woman I am
and of the central creature and its delight
I sing for you. I dare to live.
Hello, spirit. Hello, cup.
Fasten, cover. Cover that does contain.
Hello to the soil of the fields.
Welcome, roots.

Each cell has a life.
There is enough here to please a nation.
It is enough that the populace own these goods.
Any person, any commonwealth would say of it,
“It is good this year that we may plant again
and think forward to a harvest.
A blight had been forecast and has been cast out.”
Many women are singing together of this:
one is in a shoe factory cursing the machine,
one is at the aquarium tending a seal,
one is dull at the wheel of her Ford,
one is at the toll gate collecting,
one is tying the cord of a calf in Arizona,
one is straddling a cello in Russia,
one is shifting pots on the stove in Egypt,
one is painting her bedroom walls moon color,
one is dying but remembering a breakfast,
one is stretching on her mat in Thailand,
one is wiping the ass of her child,
one is staring out the window of a train
in the middle of Wyoming and one is
anywhere and some are everywhere and all
seem to be singing, although some can not
sing a note.

Sweet weight,
in celebration of the woman I am
let me carry a ten-foot scarf,
let me drum for the nineteen-year-olds,
let me carry bowls for the offering
(if that is my part).
Let me study the cardiovascular tissue,
let me examine the angular distance of meteors,
let me suck on the stems of flowers
(if that is my part).
Let me make certain tribal figures
(if that is my part).
For this thing the body needs
let me sing
for the supper,
for the kissing,
for the correct
yes.

The Ballad Of The Lonely Masturbator
Anne Sexton

The end of the affair is always death.
She's my workshop. Slippery eye,
out of the tribe of myself my breath
finds you gone. I horrify
those who stand by. I am fed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.

Finger to finger, now she's mine.
She's not too far. She's my encounter.
I beat her like a bell. I recline
in the bower where you used to mount her.
You borrowed me on the flowered spread.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.

Take for instance this night, my love,
that every single couple puts together
with a joint overturning, beneath, above,
the abundant two on sponge and feather,
kneeling and pushing, head to head.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.

I break out of my body this way,
an annoying miracle. Could I
put the dream market on display?
I am spread out. I crucify.
My little plum is what you said.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.

Then my black-eyed rival came.
The lady of water, rising on the beach,
a piano at her fingertips, shame
on her lips and a flute's speech.
And I was the knock-kneed broom instead.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.

She took you the way a woman takes
a bargain dress off the rack
and I broke the way a stone breaks.
I give back your books and fishing tack.
Today's paper says that you are wed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.

The boys and girls are one tonight.
They unbutton blouses. They unzip flies.
They take off shoes. They turn off the light.
The glimmering creatures are full of lies.
They are eating each other. They are overfed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.

2009-10-20T14:05:00.001-07:00

For Alice B. Toklas

2009-10-19T12:38:00.000-07:00

The Autumn bush clover's
Under-leaves are colouring
From this point on,
For one all alone
Will sleep be harder to find?

Anonymous

Between the trees
Drips moonlight,
seeing it I know
Heart draining
Autumn has come at last.

Anonymous

Chrysanthemums in Autumn:
While they shine
I'll wear them in my hair,
For sooner than the flowers'
May come my ending.

Tsurayuki

Ever my tears
Fall with the showers;
At my ancient home,
The lustre of the Autumn leaves
Is deepest of all.

Ise

2009-10-19T05:00:00.001-07:00

Class was postponed by one hour this morning, so I had the luxury of turning off my alarm on a school day, sitting down with my breakfast, listening to music and drinking my morning coffee at home. It feels so different and good. Even though we just had a long weekend, my mind has been asking for time to stop. These little moments of calm help me accept that it will keep going, no matter what I do.

2009-10-15T03:58:00.000-07:00

Dreamed of hanging out with Zoe and Luca last night. It was still in the apartment, you were holding hands. It was very nice and made me miss you.

2009-10-13T19:40:00.000-07:00

This Buster posted on facebook gave me some nice moments of childlike wonder. Also, I've been enjoying reading Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart. I'm resisting the urge to concretize. Actually, its been a really really long time since I've concretized.

2009-10-11T10:28:00.001-07:00

The reunion that made me consider believing in God.

2009-10-10T18:29:00.000-07:00

This evening Moondog and I went for a walk and even though I had been feeling good when I left the house, after just a few steps I could feel the tension rising inside me. I spent the walk trying to talk myself down, and still ended up crying on the edge of the woods. I looked around and felt the emptiness of everything around me, of me. The longer I looked at it the more deeply I understood how we are responsible for making the meaning in our lives. Remembering this seemed to let things pop out at me - a little bird hopping in the grass, Bonnie's kindness across the street, the old neighbor couple.

2009-10-08T17:50:00.000-07:00

Its about that time of year when I long for Velvet Goldmine again. Maybe its the way autumn makes you romanticize the past. Visions of Jack Fairy and a green jewel that fell out of a satellite of gay love into Oscar Wilde's Moses basket are dancing through my head. Tonight we toast the Death of Glitter!

"You know, if you're gonna claim that you're gay you're gonna have to make love in gay style, and half of these kids just aren't gonna make it. "

2009-10-06T17:32:00.000-07:00

Soliciting exciting summer ideas. Group projects especially encouraged.

2009-10-06T16:57:00.000-07:00

A toy designer has created a process for people to dry and tan their own placentas to make them into one of a kind teddy bears for their children. This could be a sincere idea, a way for the child to continue her relationship with her "little sibling", as the placenta is called in several Southeast Asian cultures. It could also be wonderfully creepy, especially if you put it in a glass jar like a Mutter Museum specimen.

I watched a goat at Farm and Wilderness eating her placenta when I was little. It was mesmerizing and nauseating to watch her dutifully choke down that cold, slimy, bloody, rubbery pile of flesh and membranes. Now my opinion is: just eat it, people! You only live once! What's so disgusting about it, really! Just take one bite!

2009-10-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

2009-09-30T16:44:00.001-07:00

2009-09-25T11:49:00.000-07:00

Today I left Lydia in the competent hands of my colleagues and moved to another cadaver. I felt a little unsure about leaving her behind, but promised to let the new donor inspire in me all the respect and reverence that Lydia had. No name has come to me clearly yet. This new woman is taller and fleshier than Lydia, and she has large brown freckles on her arms. She was 90 when she died. Working with her today I thought about the woman who came to the Community Health Center yesterday to see Pat. She was 78 years old, calm and sharp, a snowshoer, a flautist, whose husband died six months ago. In anatomy lab, I looked into the chest cavity of my new donor and tears fell down my face as I looked at her lungs and heart. My classmates asked if I needed to leave, but I wanted to stay. I remember reading how some medical students have felt like there is no room for emotions in human anatomy lab, like they aren't welcome. I haven't felt like that so much, and I thought, for me it makes sense that this would make me cry and it's no reason to leave the room. Then, to my surprise, our professor handed me a scalpel and I, still crying, removed some beautiful seaweed like fat from around her heart and lungs.
What was it about today? My body stood next to her body, with its heart beating and its chest expanding and retracting, bringing air into the lungs so I can do what I do, heart pumping oxygen to my brain so I can think, heart circulating hormones in my bloodstream so I can have these wild emotional experiences, so I can soak cloth with blood, so I can cry with a scalpel in my hand. Her body lay in repose next to mine, having put aside the undulations of living, having chosen to postpone her composting so I could learn from her. Ten or fifteen minutes after I removed her right lung with its horizontal and oblique fissures, felt the impressions made in it by the esophagus and the spinal cord, examined the primary bronchus, pulmonary artery and vein, I was reading our lab manual out loud so we would know what to do next. All of a sudden, in the middle of a sentence, a wave of nausea rose up from my abdomen, making my jaw feel tingly and my head spin. What was happening? Was my body revolting against death? Saying, "We are in a room full of death, but we are alive! We should get out of here and live! How did we get here? Was it something we ate? Have we eaten the pomegranate seeds of Death? Maybe we should throw up everything we've eaten to make sure we can still Live." Was it menstruation, turning up the volume to eleven on everything I feel? Like how when I'm bleeding I get so tired I feel like a truck full of tired hit me on the highway, or how I get so hungry I feel sick with sharp discomfort? Or was I dipping my toes into the fetid cesspool of death, understanding physically that it isn't necessarily comfortable or dignified, that it will make me shit all over myself and clench my fists with terror, that I may not be ready but it will happen anyway. There is a little bit of death in every cycle, the darkness in the sky before the new moon. Every release of the built up uterine lining is a chance to feel your death around you. This is not because you missed a chance to have a baby, its because the menstrual cycle is a life cycle in and of itself. This is one of the greatest gifts given to a menstruating human being, this chance to get to know death little by little. Day to day, I am walking on a mountain pass with a beautiful but frighteningly steep slope just to the side of the trail. When I have my period, I take a few days to stand at the edge of the slope and look out, thinking to myself, "I am not ready to fall. I need to just stick to the trail." But then today as I stood at the edge and contemplated falling, a rock shifted beneath my feet and made it all more real to me. When I found my footing again I stepped back a little bit, but its not time yet to keep walking. I'm just going to sit here for another few days and keep thinking about it.

2009-09-23T18:25:00.000-07:00

Hedley is now the head baker at Kripalu!!

2009-09-23T12:14:00.000-07:00

It might seem from writing "why are we alone?" that Lenya is in what Americans call "a bad mood." Its not true. She is actually just wondering WHY? Are the answers we think are so important even true? In some ways it is completely obvious that, as Rosa says, Len is not alone. All right, Rosa, you are right. Look, I am not feeling sorry for myself here! I am just trying to reflect on the scattering. Is the scatter good? Is it really offering such a unique educational experience as laid out in its charter? Or have I just forsaken my more traditional Moldovan ways for some American wild west idea of "independence"? Am I just obsessed with masculinity once again, heading out for the frontier with something to prove? All I'm saying is I want to eat dinner with you every day.

I am reflecting on Jophet now. When was the last time we had any experience beyond what falls into the category of "The Visit"? I do believe it was 2003. And with Zoe?? Before my busy last year, it was one seminal summer in Chisinau in gone but not forgotten 1998!! I couldn't hear Rosa very well because it was loud where I was, but it was something like, "well, aren't those some of your most intense ___________?" "Yes," I said, "those are some of my best memories. But I want to spend my life with the people I love, not just call them on the phone."

Then another time, Jophet said something like, our community will continue to exist in fits and starts. This seemed like the hard truth I had to face. It seems like the truth to face now. But I'd like to call to mind the night outside the Machias Grange, not much more than a year ago. Some young ladies had been talking to you about raking again. We were sitting outside in the dark after and I asked you if you were considering it. You said "No, I'd need my people with me." "But they can be your people now", I said, "What's the difference? We're all people." You said, "The difference is they're not you(s)."

I am the first to admit there is no solution, but that kind of practical explanation comes up short for my heart, as I have been reminded again and again this past year. So if you've been thinking of spending any time in the Bloomsburg area, I can only say that I support the idea whole-heartedly.

2009-09-23T11:03:00.001-07:00

Why are we alone? Why are we alone? Why are we alone? Why are we alone? Rosa I love you!

For Rosa

2009-09-17T18:41:00.000-07:00

The human wrist contains eight carpal bones: scaphoid, lunate, triquetrum, piseform, trapezium, trapezoid, capitate, and hamate. When we learned about them in Anatomy lecture, our professor taught us the useful mnemonic device, "Some Lovers Try Positions That They Can't Handle." I really like this because it causes me to consider the experience and implications of trying a position I can't handle. This will be very helpful in memorizing the names of these eight irregular bones.

Edie's tattoos!

2009-09-13T08:28:00.000-07:00

Why do you think it is that some people just don't want a tattoo? How did I end up as one of those people?

Happy Birthday, Wolf Pup.

2009-09-12T03:55:00.001-07:00

2009-09-10T19:05:00.001-07:00

Messenger
Mary Oliver

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

2009-09-08T20:39:00.000-07:00

I am willing to do things even if I am not skilled at them. I am willing to present this process for criticism. I do not have the time to develop fine skills at everything I would like to be good at. I will die before I can become skilled at everything I would like to be good at. In the meantime this is what I can do.

2009-08-30T05:38:00.000-07:00

I like it when The Shrew visits me on weekends because we can just go to our tent and sit on moss together. She really is lovely company once I get her settled in from her long trip.

2009-08-27T14:36:00.000-07:00

The Shrew is back. This explains a lot.

2009-08-25T05:43:00.000-07:00

"We are entering the howling waste but we are armed...With our hearts that are targets and shields, with our skulls that collect the dew! Mystics in the Wilderness!" - grille

2009-08-24T16:31:00.000-07:00

The High Times Will Come Again.

2009-08-23T06:57:00.000-07:00

Mein liebster feind

2009-08-23T05:26:00.000-07:00

Though my week felt uncomfortable and unsettled, my weekend has been very nice. There have been some important milestones since I came back here. For one thing, I harvested and ate my first wild mushroom all on my own, and it was only about a half a mile from my doorstep! It was a lovely lobster mushroom, poking its fiery tail out of the dark earth at me. I made two batches of fruit kimchi. Moonshine is getting happily settled here - he likes to watch birds. And I have been through one week of school. It often feels like a frenzy of information exposure, but hopefully I will learn to organize it well.

Yesterday I spent some time walking around good old White River Junction, probably tied with Fellow's Balls as my favorite VT town. There is a new all ages pool hall and the man in charge, in faded yellow suspenders decorated with tools, spent a long time showing me around the place. They have Atari arcade games and a player piano and their flyers say, "White River Junction - An Oasis in the Crumbing Empire." Then I stopped by the Center for Cartoon Studies but it was closed so I went to the COVER store which is like a thrift store and found a little present for one of my Jophet-flowers, the Bomb in Gilead one. Next, I went to the clothing store and donated a fur lined wool coat made in Pampa, Texas that had been given to me by the original owner, herself in Pampa bred and born and bred. They should be able to fetch a pretty penny for it. Then I went to the yoga studio and found myself behind a two children and a man. He said, "Is she in there? Is it this way? All right, I'll follow you." and the little ones wended their way down corridors and around corners until they saw a woman behind a desk. They all lit up when they saw each other and ran into each others' arms. The woman was so happy it almost seemed like she would cry with joy. She said, "I didn't think I would get to see you!" All of these things made me feel very very good about the town.

Later I watched My Best Fiend. So much integrity, alongside the most intense open childlike mad driving desire for love. There is something about the people who are trusted by butterflies.

Mount Moosilauke, 4802 ft

2009-08-17T15:26:00.000-07:00

Off to a good start.

2009-08-12T08:10:00.000-07:00

The orientation session that is going on right now is a presentation about disability insurance in which, to warm up the crowd, the sales reps showed photographs of famous people with disabilities and asked us to identify each celebrity's name and disability. I'm proud to say that I won a water bottle for correctly identifying Larry Flynt.

2009-08-11T17:56:00.000-07:00

"Rachel?? We are just so fucked up on the internet! Put that on your blog, why don't you? Or are you trying to avoid using the f-word? OK, I'm checking my email...I have no new messages...that is just so devastating to my self-esteem..."
- Abel Santamaria

2009-08-11T14:15:00.000-07:00

When I pulled up into the driveway on Rand Road, I accidentally locked the keys in the car in a way you can only do with cars that lock automatically. I locked my phone and wallet in there with them, but somehow was lucky enough to have placed my shoes outside the car before shutting the door, or I'd have had to show up barefoot to the funeral. I wandered through the garden and saw someone rustling around by the pond. It turned out to be Jason. He put on some presentable clothes and we drove to the cemetery on the Old Concord Road, just across the road from where the Bennett boys place lilacs every Memorial Day. On the way over I used Jason's cell phone to call the mechanic, Danny's. He said he could go up and get my keys out of my car while we were at the funeral and leave an invoice there for me. So we parked in the cemetery and as we walked up to the small crowd we saw two cows pulling something behind them...Jason guessed they had pulled Shirl's casket up to its final resting place. People were placing flowers on it - lilies and wildflowers, zinnias and sunflowers. A Skip McKean fuel truck drove by. The religious figure presiding over the service said a short prayer and spoke of Shirl as an old friend. Then Morris Day, the well digger told the story of the time when he was ten and he borrowed Shirl's horse, Duchess, and walked her out on frozen Pleasant Pond, and when he came back and told Shirl what he had done, "Shirl kicked my ass, and that's the truth. That was the only time cross words were spoken between us." Then his nephew Tim/Mo spoke. He said Shirl always worked with them and taught them how to do things the old way. He said, "Whenever we were bringing hay in, he would leave some of it loose. I don't know about any of you, but I could get in a load of loose hay right now." He was followed by two of Shirl's great nieces. Then several people stood up and told stories about him. After it was all over, we went up and hugged Lucy. She asked me what I've been up to and said, "I have your letter! Shirl always saved it. He took a lot of pleasure out of it."

2009-08-10T16:12:00.000-07:00

Back in Bloomsburg, feeling the ground shift beneath my point slippers. Everything feels familiar but strange at the same time - somehow its not very comforting that I recognize rivers and buildings, establishments and even people. Would it just feel even harder if I was anywhere else? Right now I'm looking out a window at a girl who was in my general chemistry class two years ago. And I'm also looking at the back of the head of long wavy black hair of a beautiful dancer who used to intimidate me (and still would if I gave her a chance). Some nice things have happened, like I told the young woman I was sitting next to today that I'll be gone tomorrow for a funeral, and she just leaned over and gave me a big hug. Also I made an instant friend - someone I just knew I could talk to even though we didn't know anything about each other. Then I found out hours later that she's a doula. Then there's the boy in the Caribou High School t-shirt - we had a nice long talk about Maine and then started a new table at the picnic. The director of anatomy came and sat with us and the table soon filled up and we talked about cadavers and their families and the memorial service we will hold for them. On my right was a boy from Southern California whose humility and sense of humor put me at ease.

But I feel a little lonely and I've been thinking about death - the sort of selfish callousness and detachment with which we keep living our lives when someone dies, especially if it is not someone from our innermost circle, not someone who can bring down all the walls. Shirl was tired - why should there be sorrow? I was crying for myself, not for him. But I've learned that my dream was not true. I'm not ready.

The Kind Land

2009-08-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

Orientation started out exciting with a speech from Jim Kim, but it has quickly turned into a black hole of smiles and unnecessary well intentioned "information". Everyone is very welcoming, though, and I don't take that for granted. I just want to get the thing started anymore!

Yesterday Abel and I had a picnic of honey roasted peanuts, potato chips, and beer by the Tooky. As we were discussing all these important things in our lives, his mother called him to say that Shirl Davison has died.

"Hey, Shirl, did you ever ride a horse into Henniker?"
"Oh, sure, lot's of times!"

The night before he died I was with Sarah in South Portland where she taught me the song, In the Kind Land.

"They don't know the life we keep
They neither fish nor sow nor reap
And for them the land is cheap
In the kind land"

Highlights of the Evening

2009-08-01T04:24:00.000-07:00

"Marat/Sade and Equus just left me unable to function after I watched them...and that's really what I'm looking for in a film."
- Zoe

"When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before."
- Mae West

"I'M READY TO DIE!"
- Lenya

Merce Cunningham

2009-07-31T22:18:00.001-07:00

2009-07-29T21:02:00.001-07:00

clean teeth. preserve. orphan tapes. territory. confusion. not sure if all i am doing mentally or emotionally is just an elaborate plea for security, not sure if that would be a bad thing even if it were true. not sure if trusting myself is just an elaborate plea for security. it might be it might be, there is nothing wrong with that.

2009-07-29T11:17:00.001-07:00

2009-07-28T10:28:00.000-07:00

Driving home around 9pm, the sun was setting and there were thousands of fireflies glowing in the acres and acres of baled hay.

Make Peace

2009-07-26T21:44:00.000-07:00

Its almost 1am now. I'll be getting up early to drive to Lisa's house where I'll meet new little Henry Makepeace. Do I understand your question then, is it hopeless and forelorn? Its amazing to me how we can swing back and forth so many times in our lives from unbridled optimism to destitute failure. The smallest gesture of kindness in the right place at the right time can give me just enough energy to take another step, just one more breath. Like in birth, you don't have to think about how the baby will come out, the mountain that looms before you, you just have to keep breathing one breath at a time. I've been feeling very grateful to Pema Chodron lately for reminding me how the flare ups, the moments of desperate heart-armoring, are actually flags that mark a door. The door can be locked and double bolted and alarmed and barricaded, or it can just be opened. What is behind the door? Just a red beating heart, all bloody and soft and strong.

I don't need anyone else to share my interpretations of the last week. Our experiences and perspectives are all different. For myself, I feel incredibly blessed and confused, full of love with the wisdom and roots of grief. Unsure of the future but afloat on a vessel of truth and trust. This is ME, this is ME coming through. I can't control it and I don't want to. I also can't control how any other human being, friend or foe, responds to or interprets me, and I don't want to control that either. If I could have controlled it, I would never have been able to create the brilliant shining stars in my life or predicted how deeply you would influence me.

1969-2009

2009-07-20T06:03:00.000-07:00

A rat done bit my sister Nell
With Whitey on the moon
Her face and arms began to swell
And Whitey's on the moon

I can't pay no doctor bills
But Whitey's on the moon
Ten years from now I'll be paying still
While whitey's on the moon

You know, the man just upped my rent last night
Cause whitey's on the moon
No hot water, no toilets, no lights
But whitey's on the moon

I wonder why he's uppin' me?
Cause whitey's on the moon?
Well i was already given him fifty a week
And now whitey's on the moon

Taxes takin' my whole damn check
The junkies make me a nervous wreck
The price of food is goin up
And if all that crap wasn't enough
A rat done bit my sister nell
With whitey on the moon

Her face and arm began to swell
And whitey's on the moon

With all that money i made last year
For whitey on the moon
How come I ain't got no money here?
Hmm, whitey's on the moon

You know I just about had my fill
Of whitey on the moon
I think I'll send these doctor bills
airmail special
(To whitey on the moon)

- Gil Scott Heron

Thank you, Kiki and Herb! Thank you, Jessica, for reminding me of the Cherry Lane Theater only yesterday!
Love,
Len

Pick it up and drop it.

2009-07-16T13:51:00.001-07:00

I'll enjoy this while it lasts! Here are the things I want to work on every day that's left of my summer vacation:

- New obscene dance moves courtesy of Shawna. Anyone who thinks pussy popping is easy should try it and be humbled. And its not just meaningless vulgarity, either! Its a lot like belly dancing - its not coquettish or evasive, it is a mesmerizing assertion of your flesh and sexuality in space. So much fun! I know many people would be completely disgusted by this uncensored Ludacris video which absolutely qualifies as soft core porn. There's plenty that's annoying about it, but what stands out in my mind is how hard those ladies must have worked for those moves. I enjoy seeing sex workers' skills being appreciated and celebrated, too. These are basically yoginis and I am working to be like them. Shawna said if I practice every day for a few months I'll get it down. omg what if I could do it in a headstand?!

- Working on songs. The repertoire is expanding slowly and with any luck I will grow out of my habit of strumming only with my thumb. I am excited because my mom got a piano yesterday and I've been trying to figure out People Ain't No Good and Into My Arms.

- Reading in the sunshine. Had to renew Infinite Jest today.

- Seeing friends before I move. This project is going passable well.

That's really it for things I want to do every day. There are other things that are on my To Do Summer '09 list - at the top: bike path with Zoe.

Varuh Meje

2009-07-14T07:14:00.000-07:00

Guardian of the Frontier, or Varuh Meje, is the story of three Slovenian students who decide to take a canoe trip down the river that separates Slovenia from Croatia. Their adventure becomes an exploration of all kinds of borders - international, personal, and gender - and the spectre of physical violence that hangs over those who cross them without institutional permission. Its from 2002, the first Slovenian film to be directed by a woman, and I really enjoyed it.

The Cult Starts Ten Years Ago.

2009-07-14T06:59:00.000-07:00

2009-07-13T06:37:00.000-07:00

Today's mid-morning contained an episode of the Daily Show followed by the Colbert Report, and its actually not over yet but I felt I had to report on a chilling and hysterical moment. In a segment titled "Fourth of July Under Attack," Colbert said, "Were it not for the American Revolution, all nature documentaries would look like this:" and then they cut to a clip from the BBC's Planet Earth in which a white wolf was attacking a herd of sheep, but they sped up the footage and played the music from the Benny Hill Show. I just stood there extremecida - when I would go to Gaggie and Alice's house when I was little I always took in an enormous amount of television and the Benny Hill Show was particularly disturbing to me. I liked to watch soft core porn on the cable channels and I made a Barbie whorehouse, but watching that fat old man chasing bikini clad girls through the English countryside always offended my sensibilities. Colbert knows what I mean.

2009-07-13T05:25:00.001-07:00

2009-07-04T08:47:00.001-07:00

INTERDEPENDENCE

25 Years After We Met

2009-07-04T08:35:00.000-07:00

2009-07-02T13:00:00.000-07:00

When my friend Jessica's dad Mitch died in April, Corey made this poster as a memorial.

Lenya is Published!

2009-07-02T12:36:00.000-07:00

Simultaneous Assessment of Peripheral Tissue Oxygenation using EPR and NIR Spectroscopies
Benjamin B. Williams1, Shudong Jiang2, Rachel Haynes Coombs1, Thomas Matthews1, Nadeem Khan1, Harold M. Swartz1
1 Dartmouth EPR Center, Dartmouth Medical School, Department of Radiology, Hanover, NH 03755, USA
2 Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA

2009-07-01T12:37:00.000-07:00

Wonder of Nature! Wonder of Nature!

2009-07-01T12:19:00.001-07:00

2009-06-30T06:27:00.000-07:00

"I'm a little baby few days old
I'm a little snick snack some days old
I'm a little jabber talker lotta days old
and I'm a little butterfly one minute old"

Eyes of Laura Mars (spoiler alert)

2009-06-28T20:09:00.001-07:00

John Waters once said that there are no bad films because if you are watching something you don't like, you can always just amuse yourself by studying the various light fixtures on the set. Well, gender provides me with all the light fixtures I need to get through just about anything. Laura Mars is a photographer plagued by visions of violent murder. All of a sudden, something will come over her and she won't be looking through her own eyes, but through the eyes of the killer. The killer is slowly but steadily picking off the people who are close to Laura and her work. As we watch, we see Laura tangled in a web of men, each pulling on her with his sticky silk threads from a different direction. At first we are led down the classic homophobic/transphobic horror route, but as it turns out the film veers completely from that path and instead asks us to fear something really terrifying: the overprotective macho with "mother" issues! In the end, Laura is able to save herself because she honors her illogical, hysterical, instinctive visions. I spent a lot of this movie wondering why such a strong, talented artist would let herself be pushed around by so many manipulative men, but when it comes right down to it (kind of like in real life) the Feminine so clearly mops up the court with the oppressor that their manipulations just seem childish in comparison with her wisdom.

2009-06-27T04:42:00.000-07:00

What she said.

It is happening again. It is happening again.

2009-06-26T11:42:00.001-07:00

I can hardly wait to see Rosa!

2009-06-25T20:05:00.000-07:00

"it is easier to die when you have lived than it is to die when you haven't, so i say to all young people go make memories - beautiful memories - so when the time comes for you to go you will not go alone."

dorian paskowitz