on drinking

In whatever country or culture we find ourselves, having a drink together is a sign of friendship, intimacy, and peace. Being thirsty is often not the main reason to drink. We drink to "break the ice," to enter into a conversation, to show good intention, to express friendship and goodwill, to set the stage for a romantic moment, to be open, vulnerable, accessible. It is no surprise that people who are angry at us, or who come to accuse us or harass us, won't accept a drink from us. They would rather say: 'I will come straight to the point of my being here.' Refusing a drink is avoiding intimacy.

At worst, drinking together is saying, 'We trust each other enough that we don't want to poison each other.' At best, it is saying 'I want to get close to you and celebrate life with you.' It breaks through the boundries that seperate us and invites us to recognize our shared humanity. Thus, drinking together can be a true spiritual event, affirming our unity as children of God.

--Henri J.M. Nouwen

revamping

Y'all should check out my new bio page. Especially the links section. :)

It's not about the butthole pleasures, not at all

You all should go see The 40 Year Old Virgin. Just do it.

Off on a mini trip to San Luis Obispo! Exploring more of my new home state.

Relay in Bullet Points

> The second we stepped onto the field in the morning we were soaked through up to our shins. It was cold and wet under the Golden Gate Bridge.

> A survivor sang a gospel song at which everyone on the committee cringed due to the fact that this is a non-religious event in SAN FRANCISCO!

> As we cheered the survivors during their lap, Christie teared up, missing her mother who died of breast cancer. I called my mom immediately.

> During the survivor lap, a woman on a bike actually stopped riding on the trail just to clap for the passing survivors. I wanted to hug this stranger.

> Amazing volunteers helped me accomplish everything I needed. So much so that I had volunteers to spare to the rest of the relay committee.

>As I introduced some of the current legislation to relayers, I met a crazy old gay cowboy and talked to his friend about how people back home are scared of San Francisco because they know everyone out here is right and they're scared of the truth. (Oh how the people back home would laugh.)

> A friend and I were ambushed by a strange man asking where he could hook up with a dying cancer patient who had medical marijuana to spare so he wouldn't have to go back onto opiates. He then proceeded to tell us over the next half hour how plastic bottles are causing cancer.

> I met the woman who rejected an initial resume of mine so long ago because I lived too far away. She told me she was kicking herself now.

> A friend came and we hunted cute boys all evening.

> I learned that, unlike my past Relays, we would be sleeping at this event. I made a makeshift tent in the advocacy booth and prayed it wouldn't get too cold.

> We added glow sticks to the luminarias while entertaining the crazy gay cowboy.

> The cops came before luminaria to ask us when we would be turning down the music.

> One of the speakers bailed, so in a panic we decided I was singing at the ceremony instead.

> After everyone came up to get their glowsticks (the crazy gay cowboy took some sort of morbid pride in how many he took as he counted out the deaths of friends and family), I sang wobbily but proudly.

> The cops came back and issued a citation, stating that they had previously warned us about the noise (even though they had only asked us when it would stop). Rather than issuing it to the event or organization, they chose a person in whose name to put it. Crazy cops.

> We tried to have a conga circle with Joti, the guy who was supposed to be performing then. Nobody knew any of the songs. I knew one, so he pulled me up to dance with him. I sang badly and without knowing the words, but we had fun. Somehow at church camps we always knew a million songs to sing. People out here don't know the same songs we all do back home, though.

> I tried to curl up with my friend to stay warm, but it just didn't work. After dozing slightly and waking cold and wet, I woke up and found a fire. I drank amazing hot chocolate, met a girl from Doniphan (that's back home to you west coast folks), and listened to countless stories of drunken Vegas adventures from the guys with the fire.

> I went back to bed and fell asleep to my friend reading Seneca.

> Upon waking under the beautiful Golden Gate Bridge, I warmed up while listening to the Seneca essay I previously had missed, then learned we had raised over $28,000!!!!! in our tiny little Relay For Life.

Thank you so much to everyone who helped! Please let me know if you'd be interested in helping to make this event bigger and better next year!

Relay For Life

Come join me at San Francisco's Relay For Life in Crissy Field!

Saturday, August 20th, at 10am through Sunday, August 21st, at 10am

We'll be honoring the memory of those lost to cancer, celebrating survivors, and raising money for a hopeful future. Please join me for this tremendous event.

We have a great line up of bands playing all day/evening, and you can check out all of them for just $5 at the door. OR you can volunteer and get in free. Even if you can't stay long, warm caffeinated beverages and fresh out of the dryer blankets will be appreciated as I will be freezing my ass off all night in the SF summer fog.

Come keep me awake at 3am :)

Call me if you show (and know my number, of course). Otherwise just look for me :)

Ex-Lovers

So many of you have commented that my guestbook read like a list of hearts I've broken. Possibly true, but I have now hidden all (well, most) of the exes who left hateful messages or messages that were really just meant to show the rest of the men out there that I was taken, so you can be assured that the current entries are actually just friends or people who think my site is cool or something. You know, there really weren't THAT many exes on there. I think y'all are just too easily intimidated. :)

Secrets

PostSecret

my post in links

www.quirkyalone.net
Your score was 81. Somewhat quirkyalone (otherwise known as quirkytogether):
You are probably part of a mysterious group of people, the quirkytogethers. You share many of our quirky qualities, but you manage to find yourself, on a regular basis, in a coupled situation. Interesting.

www.jewishchickenranchers.com

www.miramax.com/bride

www.murderballthemovie.com
www.quadfather.net

http://landofsoju.netfirms.com/soju.htm

Why Chic Lit is Popular

Because all of us, even those who say we don't, want this:

"Hold on, I have an idea," (my loving boyfriend) said and tiptoed to the kitchen. He came back with two oversie garbage bags and spread them out over my blue comforter. He dug into the greasy bag and brought out two giant burgers with everything and one esxtra-large order of fries. He'd remembered ketchup packets and tons of salt for me, and even the napkins. I clapped I was so excited, (and almost forgot about my horrible first week at work that made me cancel our date tonight.)

"I'm not done yet. Here, check it out." And out of his backpack came a fistful of tiny vanilla tea lights, a bottle of screw-top red wine, and two waxy paper cups.

"You're kidding," I said softly, still not believing that he'd put all this together after I'd cancelled our date.

He handed me a cup of wine and tapped it with his. "No, I'm not. You think I was going to miss hearing about the first week of the rest of your life? To my best girl."

"Thank you," I said, slowly taking a sip. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

Telecide

If you're reading this, and you haven't called me or emailed me your phone number since I destroyed mine yesterday, please do so. Unless, of course, you don't want me to have your number. :)

After sending out the email stating that I had sent my phone on a disastrous trip down the stairs, I received a number of charming replies. I got a couple sympathetic ones, but most of you are really just mean :) Here are a few of the more entertaining ones (notice how they all say a bit more about the sender than they do about my mishap :))

Wacky San Francisco party kids.

why did you do that? bit silly wasn't it?

Why on earth would you have thrown your phone down a stairwell? ...and don't repeat...just for kicks. Whatever possessed you?

That sounds like fun. I want to try throwing mine down a stairwell.

funtimes---once, for kicks, my brother threw his phone in the pool. ;)

That's awesome. I prefer to go swimming with mine.

I love that allen is the only one in the "to" list.

crescendoing, joyful laughing

And my personal fav from someone who knows me all too well:

Are you ALREADY getting ticked off at new guys out there?!?!?!?!

Springfield on TV

So on the DL show tonight (the weekend version of the Daily Show), they did a call in to good ol' Springfield, MO. Given that southwest Missouri is the meth capital of the world, when DL decided to talk about Meth, he called the police dept in Springfield, MO! I'm so proud of my hometown. Cashew chicken and meth.

My Period of Loss

In the past three days I have managed to lose my driver's license, my older driver's license that I used as a back-up, a beautiful (and beloved) red cashmere/silk blend hoodie, and any confidence that I will make it home safely all by myself and with dignity intact after a drunken night out with friends in far away parts of the city.

Maybe, if I'm really careful, I get home tomorrow having lost nothing more than a little bit of weight.

Book People

From my most recent read, The Rule of Four, by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason:

I'd begun to realize that there was an unspoken prejudice among book-learned people, a secret conviction they all seemed to share, that life as we know it is an imperfect vision of reality, and that only art, like a pair of reading glasses, can correct it.

...

[Life] made a mockery of the laws they lived by: that every fact can be reinterpreted, that ever ending can be changed.

Phobias

Due to the incessant need of Laurel Heights and Presidio Heights families to own expensive and well-groomed (read: showy) dogs, I've recently had to overcome (at least a bit) my fear of poodles. Yeah yeah, I know...but they're big ugly mean creatures, and for whatever reason, I've been scared of the breed (and only that breed) since childhood.

As I entered the dog park last week, a giant black statue of fuzz ran toward me. I started to flip out, until I heard him being called back by an accent that so closely matched my mom's that I just had to feel a bti at home. I sat next to the man, despite the big ugly poodle, and talked with him for awhile--he in his native German and I in my broken version. The poodle actually turned out to be pretty nice, and I was more interested in the conversation (and feeling a connection to Mom who is oh so far away now) than I was in noticing my fear. Soon, two other poodles showed up to play. Okay, so I'm not as comfortable with the others yet, but maybe I'll get there. For now, my joy in not panicking at the one is pretty damn nice.

You wonder why there's no word for the opposite of lonely. You wonder if there's a difference between whatever might be truth and a performance that isn't a lie.

In your life right now, you can't find one.

~Pam Houston

In horror movies we know that when things get calm and quiet we can expect something scary to jump out and shake us up again. It's always at that point in our lives when we get calm after the storm, when we think things are finally moving forward, when we think Thank God, this might finally be the end, that Old Ghosts come back to get in one last spook.

Where's that damn remote control?

homesick

It's not that I want to be home or that home offers me anything better than my beautiful new city. I love San Francisco, but San Francisco is lacking a couple of really important things. At home, when a day is a little too long or the mood just isn't right, I can head to Mom's house, curl up on the couch next to her, and cuddle Gatsby in my lap. Here there's no home, there's no Mom, there's no Gatsby. At the very least I could curl up with Corey and his kitty back in Springfield. Here I don't even have the roommate or the substitute pet. I used to call these teddy bear moods--moods that make you want to curl up and be a little melancholy but you might not really know why. Here, I just call it homesick because it reminds me of my cuddly comforts hiding back in Missouri.

Anyone wanna loan me a cuddly cat or a nice big dog?

Jackfruit

The jackfruit is moderately large to very large, weighing from 10 to 60 pounds. A few cultivars are small fruited, weighing 3 to 10 pounds (1.4-4.5 kg) each. The skin is extremely rough and thick. Fruit skin color is green when immature and green, greenish yellow to brownish-yellow when ripe. The inside of the fruit contains the edible, sweet, aromatic, crispy, soft or melting pulp that surrounds each seed. Between the seeds and edible pulp is the inedible "rag". Pulp color varies from amber to yellow, dark yellow or orange.

It's also good in shakes. :)

Linzer's Take on My City

Lindsey visits the Bay Area for work rather frequently. This is what she posted after her latest trip here:

Beautiful. San Francisco. Sweet Lord, Mona, you are right. Went to Sausalito for dinner tonite. Ate spring rolls and salmon at this little place on the water and watched all of the ships cutting in and out of the bay. Little curly ribbons of road wound tightly up the sides of the green mountains. It was impossibly beautiful. The smell of the air was salty, mingled with something else cedary and wonderful. Then we drove up the coast to Muir Woods, home of the giant Redwoods. Breathtaking. Dizzying to look to the tops of the massive trees. I felt at any second those things would come to life and say in a booming Lord of the Rings voice "The park closes at eight". Some of those trees are almost two thousand years old. Foggy, flowery, lush, named after the cookie. Sausalito. I will honeymoon there. Amazing.

Places usually don't affect me that much.

Even my flight out to SF was clear and I could see the country from 15,000 ft. Dry desert, green patches of irrigation, river-carved canyons, mountains that look like rumples in my bed sheets. It was like a painting. So beautiful. So just for me.

As I sat on the plane, I was reading "Mathematics: Is God Silent?"

The answer is most definitely no.

Giving a Bad Name to Animal Rights Activists

The following story is from This is True dated 17 July 2005. It is
Copyright 2005 Randy Cassingham, all rights reserved, and reprinted here
with
permission:

"Ethical" Defined

After more than 100 dead dogs were dumped in a trash dumpster over
four weeks, police in Ahoskie, N.C., kept an eye on the trash receptacle
behind a supermarket. Sure enough, a van drove up and officers watched
the occupants throw in heavy plastic bags. They detained the two people
in the van and found 18 dead dogs in plastic bags in the dumpster,
including puppies; 13 more dead dogs were still in the van. Police say
the van is registered to the headquarters of People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals, and the two occupants, Andrew B. Cook, 24, and
Adria Joy Hinkle, 27, identified themselves as PETA employees. An autopsy
performed on one of the dogs found it was healthy before it was killed.
Police say PETA has been picking up the animals -- alive -- from North
Carolina animal shelters, promising to find them good homes. Cook and
Hinkle have been charged with 62 felony counts of animal cruelty. In
response to the arrests PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said it's against
the group's policy for employees to dump animals in the trash, but "that
for some animals in North Carolina, there is no kinder option than
euthanasia." (Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald) ...Oops, my mistake: that's
"Playing God" Defined.

In his author's notes section, Cassingham had more to say about this
story:

The more I learn about PETA, the less I think of
them. The story of them killing animals isn't even unusual. According to
PETA's own filings, in 2004 PETA killed 86.3 percent of the
animals entrusted to its care -- a number that's rising, not falling.
Meanwhile, the SPCA in PETA's home town (Norfolk, Va.) was able to find
loving homes for 73 percent of the animals put in its care. A shortage of
funds? Nope: last year PETA took in $29 million in tax-exempt donations.
It simply has other priorities for the funds, like funding terrorism
(yes, really). But don't take my word for it: I got my figures from
http://www.PETAkillsAnimals.com
-- and they have copies of PETA's state and federal filings to back it
up. The bottom line: if you donate money to PETA because you think they
care for and about animals, you need to think some more. PETA literally
yells and screams about how others "kill animals" but this is how
they operate? Pathetic.

And you know what I wonder? PETA's official count of animals
they kill is 86.3 percent. But if they're going around picking up
animals, killing them while they drive around and not even giving them a
chance to be adopted, and then destroying the evidence by dumping
the bodies in the trash, are those deaths being reported? My
guess: no. While 86.3 percent is awful, the actual number is probably
much, much higher. How dare they lecture anyone
about the "ethical" treatment of animals!

(This is True is a weekly column featuring
weird-but-true news
stories from around the world, and has been published since 1994. Click
the link for info about free subscriptions.)