It's hard to write when you work a lot.  This week I've worked a total of about 65 hours and I am really fucking tired! This is why I'm limiting myself in how much I can work post-Burning Man.  This year the playa will take some getting used to.  I'm having a really hard time imagining myself in Black Rock City, not going to work, not even being in the same realm with my jobs... unreal.

But back to writing.  I thought of something particular to blog about yesterday and now I can't remember what it was for the life of me.  When I'm not working so much remembering will come easier.

The past week has been such an exhausting emotional rollercoaster, it's hard to gather up my thoughts enough to express my feelings without boring everyone with minute details.  I suppose my emotions are still wrapped up in the details of the accident, both with my car and with my personal life.  There's not enough of a time cushion between the events and my current state of mind.  The 3/4 of a bottle of wine that I have just consumed isn't helping things either.

I have officially given up on this blog being anything but a space for experimentation and whining.

Goals for the upcoming week:
-figure out the rest of the insurance mess
-write at least 2 more times
-acquire a hammock
-exchange camera
-finish that damn book already
-don't be late to work
-

decisions

I am tired of making decisions.  Over the past week I decided to come back to a job that I was almost sure I had left behind.  Good decision.  Then I decided not to go see Phish up at the Gorge after all.  Bad decision.  While at work on Thursday, I decided to go out for lunch.  Another bad decision.  Then a man on a motorcycle decided to crash into me.  Really terrible decision.  I didn't decide that, he did.  Now insurance companies and the police are going to decide if the accident was my fault or his.  Is it just me, or is that a bit ridiculous?  We are two human beings operating these big, deadly metal machines, and we happened to collide.  At the scene of the accident, the police officer that wrote out the report said something to me that I keep thinking about.  He said, "You know, it's just an accident.  He probably could've done some things better, you probably could've done some things better."  And I know, the important thing is that I'm okay and I think the motorcyclist is okay as well.  I still don't even know his name.  That's all in the the police report.

That being said, this is my fucking blog and can I just say, this shit blows!!!  How's that for a philosophical assessment of the situation?

Pop!

This article on Salon.com about an interesting parental choice brought back ideas that I haven't thought about extensively in a while. I haven't been too concerned with gender differences as of late, strange as that may seem.
Today at the store I witnessed a very common scene. A girl of about 5 or 6 stood in the check-out line with her mother pleading for another fruit wrap in the sweetest voice she could conjure. The woman in line behind them stood there with an unconscious, adoring look on her face. Finally, overwhelmed by the cuteness of this child she began to coo loudly. "Oh my gosh! Look at your shoes! And how they match that pretty shirt you have on. You are just so cute! Ah! Oh, I just know you have the fashion streak in you. Dontcha? And I have no doubt you'll keep being this fashionable when you get older." Then to the mother, "How adorable!". I clearly remember being told things like this from a very early age. And yes, I bet the little girl will stay this fashionable, in small part thanks to a stranger in line at the grocery store.
Considering how impressionable a young child is, and the speed with which a young brain absorbs information, ideas and symbolism, it's clear that envirionment plays a huge role in gender identity. If the environment includes people like that woman, it is very easy to be convinced that being typically male, or typically female is what you strive for. Perhaps this little girl never gave a second thought to her matching shoes and skirt. Perhaps it's the mother that picked them out in the first place. The idea was either planted in her head, or it was encouraged to flourish.

These Swedes are up to something, though I doubt that I would follow their example when it came to raising my own kids. I would try to be as gender neutral as possible, but I doubt I'd go so far as to hide the sex of the child from the world.

'cause you're free to do what you want to do

On this here last day of June of 2009, I would like to wish everyone a very happy Pride!

Photo taken on Sunday, June 28th.

Flickr blues

I love Flickr, dont get me wrong, but there are just some things in it that are very Web 1.0. Here are a couple of examples.

First of all, when you're selecting photos to download, it's impossible to select a whole folder of photos. You have to go into the photos, then highlight the ones you want, then upload. When uploading photos it doesn't assume that you're probably uploading a set. You then have to go back and manually put the albums into a set. Perhaps that's too much to assume, and maybe they could first ask you if you're uploading a set or just a random collection of photos. Hearing myself talk now, I'm almost disappointed. This is a very Mac point of view and I find that Flickr is much more of a PC style website. You have more independence, but with the independence comes more responsibility and less TV-dinner type of convenient computer operation.

Oh and hey, I'm on Flickr! My friends tend to think that my photos are half-decent.

sushi

Over my weekend in LA I went out for sushi at [will ask name of restaurant] on [Beverly? I need to pay more attention...], and the experience made me realize that I'm slowly and surely on my way to sushi snobbery.  I am reading these gushy, wannabe restaurant critiques on Yelp and can't help but cock my eyebrow in confusion.  Did we go to the same restaurant?  I have to give it to them, the fish was fresh and obviously money is invested in this place (strip mall valet parking, for god's sake), but the preparation of the sushi was terrible.  The fish was mashed up into unrecognizable balls squished next to giant cuts of cucumber.  The nigiri was good and fresh tasting, but the fish still didn't slouch over the rice, lazy and glistening, the way it does at Kirala in Berkeley.

I know I might sound just like the above mentioned yelping wannabes, but I have no problem with flowery description of food.  I just feel that the food is what is really important.  Some of these reviews gave stars for the color choice of the walls.  I've eaten decent sushi at places with an enormous Betty Boop figure greeting you at the door and a blowup Budweiser Godzilla hanging from the ceiling.  And not in an ironic hipster way.  Tell me about the food, the texture, the smell.  I suppose I do have an obsession with nice silverware at restaurants, so maybe that I should give these yelpers a break.  What I'm trying to say is that I write about my personal experience at a restaurant, not how I would look dining at this restaurant on a magazine photo.  Perhaps it's not Yelp, but LA.

I don't have any good sushi photos, but I found this one on Flickr.  Check out this photographer's awesome macro skills!  Makes me feel like I need a better camera...

and for a grand total of $9...

On my way home from another delicious brunch at La Note in Berkeley, I stopped by a block sale in my neighborhood.   This is what I came away with!

framed print (gift for a friend who seldom reads this blog) $2
flask (!!! I've been wanting on for so long and this one is very ladylike) $5
books (like I need more...) .25 each
 - The Handmaid's Tale (Atwood)
 - The Closing of the American Mind (Bloom)
 - Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers (Faderman)
 - Writing with Style (Trimble)
 - The Subjection of Women (Mill)
 - Politics and the Arts (Rousseau)
 - All Quiet on the Western Front (Remarque)
 - A Streetcar Named Desire (Williams)