Absorbing, heartwarming drama

When I was young my parents would listen to John Dunning's "Old Time Radio". It was a show on KHOW, where my mother also had a Sunday evening show about finding deals in Denver. "Old Time Radio" was rebroadcasting of old radio shows, complete with Lucky Strike commercials. At the time I knew it was neat. To listen to these old shows, mysteries, westerns, I didn't always have the patience for them, but listening to them made me feel safe and warm.
I knew that WAMU had an old time radio show, because I had heard the host helping out with the fall fund drive. I just turned on "The Big Broadcast" because I screwed up my radio and I don't know if I'll manage to get it to play my ipod anymore. At the moment I don't mind, though I'm sure that particularly apathy may pass.

Some of these days

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Originally uploaded by Rachel Ariel.

Snowy Sundays are perfect for laundry and reading. Which is what I've been doing all day, though it didn't actually start snowing until about two hours ago. I haven't gotten dressed, I haven't showered, I've just been drinking tea and reading and listening to music that was old when my dad was born.

I've stopped waiting for the phone to ring, stopped hoping that the people who say they will call will call. It's a disappointing, but also liberating feeling.

The streets are pretty deserted, and I have a feeling it would be a good afternoon to go to the grocery store, which i need to do desperately, but I can't quite bring myself to get dressed and venture outside. And that is also part of the beauty of Sundays (that, and eating cookies for breakfast).

Walking

As I was walking home from work today two men talking said "Hi", I responded in kind, and one said "Enjoying the weather?" and I said yes, and that I had just gotten off the phone with my parents who are in Denver (which was true). We then started talking and it became a very nice concversation. they both have lived in DC, around my neighborhood, for some time, and the talked some about how the neeighborhood has chnanged, the benfits of owning one's home over renting, and the beauty of driving less. It was a very nice conversation, at the end of which one of them gave me a ride home, and the other invited me to have food at his home.
Israel is the only other place I have lived where people will invite strangers off of the street to share a meal with them. I have heard that it happens in Europe as well, but my experience with Europe is fairly limited. It was a very nice interaction, and it started my weekend out on a pleasant note.

All aflurry

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Originally uploaded by Rachel Ariel.

The last couple of days have felt frenetic to me. It seems like there is not enough time to do all of the things that I want to do and the things that I need to do. On my own time, the want things win out over the need things almost all of the time. Which means that there has been very littel studying.

Some things that I have been playing with in this last week of the year:

del.icio.us
digg.com

Note the new sidebar items. I'm still learning about both of these, so for the time being they seem to have a fair bit of overlap (but then again, so do all the sites I linked to in my last post, so perhaps there's just a degree of overlap in my life right now).

Links for 12/28/2006

Pandora


Music Mobs


Last FM


The above three links are very similar, but are different in important ways. Explore... they are all fun. I would also mention Art of the mix because it is neat, but I don't think it's being maintained and is pretty basic. But the discussions can be pretty cool.

..--..-.--

I was sad last year when the world lost Telegraphs as a mode of communication. Are we really on the verge of losing Morse Code? I think that perhaps simply because it is no longer a required skill does not necessitate that it will disappear forever (don't people still learn Sanskrit?) There will always be people like me who love the old, obscure things.

Art shmart

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Originally uploaded by Rachel Ariel.

Truly, what good is an art show if you're not going to take someone down in the process?

These are the things that I do, rather than study for the GRE, a weekend and one weeknight condensed into succinct bullet points:

1. Clean my room. As in moving the bed and mopping.
2. Freak out about how I am going to pay for graduate school.
3. Watch 13 episods of Prison Break courtesy of itunes (for the record, it really sucks that you can't watch Fox, NBC or CBS shows on their website if you use a Mac. Long live ABC!!), because thinking about grad school makes me panic and we all know that television is the opiate of the masses.
4. Design a tee shirt for the Threadless Decemberists <3 Threadless contest.
5. Realize that though my drawing skills have improved dramatically over the last year, my photoshop skills have not.
6. Wonder why my printer has decided to freak out.
7. Attempt to reinstall said printer (in the hopes that I can simply scan my fabulous tee shirt design into Photoshop and submit it)
8. Give up and watch 24
9. Look at the clock and realize it's 10:30 and I have done no studying. Contemplate taking out the Kaplan book.
10. Fish the cat toys out from under the dresser and throw them for the cats.
11. Blog about how little studying I did tonight.

Things that made me smile today

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Originally uploaded by Rachel Ariel.

Christmas may not be my holiday, but I thought I would put together a list of some of my new favorite things:
Foodler Definitely check it out if you're in the DC area.

Chuck Palahniuk wants you to write

Learning to Love you More you should never get bored.

I saw Blood Diamond today, and it was intense and hit me very hard. All I wanted to do was sob, and unfortuantely I was not with someone I felt comfortable sobbing in front of. And of course, by the time I got home the moment had passed.

When I worked at the counseling agency last year I worked with a number of people who are Catholic. A couple of them, who are married to one another, told me that on Good Friday they would watch a movie about conflict, something that helped them to think about the complexity of the world and its issues.

I am not new to the idea of conflict free diamonds. A number of my friends have gotten engaged or married in the last eighteen months, and each time I have asked them what they know about their diamonds. Because I am curious. What do my crunchy, hippie, Quaker friends do out in the world? How many of them stick to their ideals, and how many of them fall by the wayside?

I don't have a lot of room to talk, I have a Verizon phone, I hold major credit cards, I have a Macintosh computer. I've done enough research to know that I am not without guilt, so I throw no stones. But the thoughts are always sitting in my mind, they watch me.

What does your Christmas look like?

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Originally uploaded by Rachel Ariel.

I slept until twelve pm, contemplated getting up and making coffee and realized I didn't need it.

Despite nothing quite happening the way I expected it to over the last couple of days, I have had a really nice, relaxing long weekend. Today I am off in search of Chinese food and a movie, in the tradition of most American Jewry.

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Originally uploaded by Rachel Ariel.

There's a bunch of stuff I've been meaning to write about recently, and as always, as soon as I open my computer to work on it, all of my thoughts fly out of my head. Ain't that the way.

I was in Denver this last weekend for my friend Laurel's art opening (pictured above, at said event). It was phenomenal, as I knew it would be nothing less. Going to Denver gives me a sense of meloncholy, I fall back with the old people so easily, and it feels so right. Denver is comfortable and easy.

Oooh! One of the missing ideas has come back to me.

I look back on this past summer as one of the very best times I can remember. I don't doubt that it was amazing in it's own right, but it also came out of one of the thoroughly dark moments of my life. I remember this summer from my bicycle, late at night. I was out in the world, I was reconnecting with old friends, and making new friends. I approached everything with a sense of open-ness that I rarely experience, and I know that was because I knew that if I screwed something up I was leaving soon anyway. It's a weird way to live life.

When I came back to DC it was like waking up from a dream. It was cold, and surreal.

I have begun to question things I have taken for truth for the last three years, about who I am and what I need to do with my life, as well as where I need to go with my life.

Darling won't you please come home.

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Originally uploaded by Rachel Ariel.

I dream of a studio or an efficiency with a lofted bed and lots of light. No more north facing windows for me, I miss my rainbows. I've been feeling a little lost lately. Everyone in my life is involved in fairly serious relationships. And we're all getting to an age where that actually means something. And here I am... alone, and mostly happy about that. Except for those certain moments. It's not that I want to date someone, its that I want to already be there. I want the comfort of having been married to someone for five years, knowing that I'll continue to wake up next to that person every day for the rest of my life, and feeling really happy and secure in that knowledge.

Whe I lived alone at least I didn't have to check with anyone before inviting a friend to stay for two weeks. But the loneliness occassionaly ate my soul a little bit. I guess everything has it's own special tradeoff.

Sea of doubts

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Originally uploaded by Rachel Ariel.

What does it feel like, to really trust someone?

Suicide is a line in my life. A number of people I have known have crossed the line, one person has tried, and one person I know about has seriously considered it.

I have come just short, in this journal, of explaining how truly upsetting an experience high school was for me. During high school I became quite familiar with that line, and where it lay in my life. I took comfort in considering walking slowly across that line, but I never thought very hard about how to do it. It was more like an escape plan. Nice to know it was there, but not something I wanted to think about for long. But now... having been out of high school longer than I was in it... I wonder if I'm remembering clearly. Certainly I am not.

That, as interesting as it is, is not actually what I wanted to talk about. One of my best friends attempted suicide a couple of years ago. This was not just a friend, this was someone with whom I'd had a physical relationship, someone I was only just beginning to realize I loved, and someone I knew was intensely troubled.

What I am wrestling with right now is the idea of the fear of death. I am desperately afriad that the people I love will leave my life before I have a chance to tell them the important things. And that is incredibly selfish.

In the weeks before my friend tried to kill himself I knew something was wrong. People who had known him longer and better than I have asked me if it wasn't possible that I was over-reacting. When I described his catharsis, his complete lack of emotion, response, his complete lack of life, I think that for just one moment they understood just enough to know that in that moment, those of us who were there had not over-reacted.

But these are difficult thoughts. It is hard to keep them in my head. Almost as soon as my friend was out of direct danger I began to rationalize on his behalf. "He wasn't serious... it was a cry for help". This is something that we say to make ourselves feel better. Because it is incredibly upsetting to realize that somoene you love might be in such an intense amount of pain that you can't comprehend, or fix, and that you are not enough to make the person believe in the goodness of being alive.

These are all incredibly selfish ideas. I recognize that.

I have a friend who died almost exactly four years ago. She died in a car accident. I regret that I did not know her as well as I wanted to. It's not the kind of thing that I look back on and think "I wish I had known her better". I wished I had known her better when I was in a room with her. She was one of the people I couldn't believe would want to be my friend... she was so much more awesome than I. And I never got a chance to get to know her later, when I had a better sense of self worth. The point is that I knew then how amazing she was, and when I found out she had died I felt as though something had been stolen from me. I no longer had an opportunity to know her better.

When I get depressed now... I sometimes feel that I will have to go through the rest of my life having loss be as nearly constant as it was in those crucial years.

It feels hard for me to trust people that they will be in my life, that they won't suddenly disappear one day. I am not so secretly a control freak, and death frightens me.

are you one of the beautiful people?

The beauty of fandom.

I am a reader of blogs. Not many, just the ones published by my friends (Look! There on the side! It's a bird, it's a plane... It's a blogroll!) and a couple of select others. Kevin Smith and Dooce most regularly. Because they are well written, tend towards hilarity, and don't make me feel a. stupid or b.like i've just wasted five minutes of my lifetime. I was struck today when I saw that Heather, over at Dooce, has begun to offer tee shirts. Now, as a compulsive reader of Questionable Content, Dinosaur Comics and Red Meat, I am no stranger to the lure of tee shirts affiliated with the internet. I certainly don't begrudge dooce the selling of tee shirts. Really this is just a reflection on my amazement at the internet. People will buy the shirts, even though they don't have any nifty pictures or phrases, becase dooce has created a community of readership. The internet is a very strange place.

Would you buy a shirt that says Franken, or Jonathan Safran Foer? Yeah. I'd probably buy one that says Jonathan Safran Foer. But I'd probably be more apt to buy a shirt that says "Dear Stephen Hawking, Can I be your protege?" which is a direct reference to the book, but is a little less obvious. And it allows passersby to be part of your in joke.

Which inevitably brings me to a discussion of people's desire to be part of exclusive groups. Or at least Americans' (and by that I mean people who are in the United States) desire for that. If I wear a shirt that says "dooce" on it, there is still a degree of exclusivity, since people who don't know what dooce is will say "what does your shirt mean", and people who do know what dooce is will just know. And in twenty years when I have kids who think my "vintage" clothing is alternately hideous and wonderful they will say "so you mean dooce was a website? what did it do? you mean you just read it? that's pretty funny"



I'm holding out for VR baby.

When faced with a challenge...

A comment was left on my last posting by someone unknown to me. This person invokes Jesus and the New Testament in reference to love. I am not Christian, and generally I have some distrust of people who immediately jump to discussion of Jesus and his love when faced with, well, any sort of discussion. For now I am leaving the comment, because it isn't directly proselytizing through my blog. But I am going to ruminate on this. And I have chosen to approve all future comments.

Technorati Tags: challenge

I love you so much

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Originally uploaded by Rachel Ariel.

What does it mean, to understand the love I want to have, to have known what it feels like, and to know that the person with whom I feel it is not the person I can be with?

When I'm with him we hold hands. He makes me feel less crazy for being in love with the little things in life. He makes it okay that I want to throw bouncy balls off tall buildings, race matchbox cars in the metro, and lie around all day watching cartoons from my childhood. When I'm with him I don't need to understand him, and he knows that he doesn't need to have the answers for my questions. It's enough that we are each other, with each other.

When I'm not with him don't think about who he's with. I don't wait for him to call me, but I allow myself to be thrilled and surprised when he does.

I'm learning a lot about what is important in my life, and I have learned a lot about love from one person, and some more about it from many other people. I don't know what love looks like. I know that I need a love that is peaceful, that is understanding and thoughtful and full of grace.

The best love never tries to hurt the people they love, but takes responsibility for it when they do, and trusts the people that they love to know that they are not perfect. Together we create a space where it is alright to be human, to make mistakes.

The best love is not afraid to express when they are upset, knowing that feeling a certain way is alright, but that acting out of that feeling may not be. We are able to express our feelings without using them to manipulate one another.

The best love shines a light in the dark corners, challenges the people they love to be the very best people they are capable of being. We support one another in good times and in hard times.

Love is not limited by number, by gender, by physical appearence or ability. If I tell you that I love you, no matter who you are in my life, these are the things I am telling you.

Strong Women Create Strong Nations

For the second year in a row I have had the honor of attending the Women for Women International Women of the World Awards Gala. Last year I was a guest, and had only just become familiar with the work of the organization. This year I attended still as a guest, but also as a staff person, someone who has seen some of how the proverbial sausage is made, and who continues to be astounded and impressed with the work. I cannot recall ever feeling so proud to be a part of something as I was tonight, hearing the words of a woman I have only begun to get to know in the last couple of months.

Yes, my job causes me stress and sometimes makes me fantasize about running away and working as a food service person on an Amtrak train, but events like tonight, seeing the way people come together to support our work, hearing the words of celebrities, board members and lay people speak about the phenomenal work that I am a part of, gives me resiliance and is a powerful reminder of why I have chosen to pursue the life that I have.

Tonight Zainab, the CEO of Women for Women International, remarked that she does not know if we live in an age of war, but that it is war that seems to dominate our lives, our politics and discussions and sometimes even our families. She said that in such times it would be easy to get depressed, to give up and lose hope, but then she thinks about the women she has met in her work, women who have been violated and brutalized and who continue to g et up every morning, who have hope for the next day, and the one after that.

I have never viewed pride as a particular valuable or good emotion, but tonight, sitting in the room and hearing the words, I was proud of myself for being a part of something that is doing so much good. I am proud of myself for following my dreams, for knowing what I want and for figuring out how to achieve it. I am happy to know that I am capable of making these things happen in my life, and it gives me faith that I can achieve some of the good that I want to in the world.

The Way We Get By

Friends, I tell you you have not lived until you have spent an hour on the living room couch with a 6'7 German man named Oliver, watching the Gilmore Girls and discussing heavy metal versus industrial, and how Metallica carried us through high school. I guess some experiences really do transcend time and space... though I didn't think they would really involve Metallica.

In other news, I will be spending about 35 hours in New York at the end of this week. If anyone wants New York presents, you should let me know before Thursday morning because I don't know what my internet access will be like. I will not tell you what a New York present is... and I can't honestly promise you that it won't be something that I find on the street. But if you are interested... comment/ message me.

Work has been crazy, hence the dearth of posting... I regret to say that I have fallen off of the NaBloPoMo project, but I am still trying to write more than I was before, and hopefully it shall continue.

Dodger has been particularly whiney. This had been going on for a couple of weeks following some unfortunate bladder evacuations on his part (a problem mostly solved by us having a stern discussion of the consequences of continued bed peeing upon, and also me locking him in a small room with a litter box and some toys and a blanket at the suggestion of my vet, so that he could relearn how to use the box). Anyway, after the peeing came the noise making, which let up for a couple weeks, but seems to have returned. The common internet knowledge seems to be to ignore the cat when he is whining, and reward him when he stops. My question to the internet is this. My cat walks around the house meowing at the top of his lungs. He could want for me to feed him, or pet him, or play with him, or he could want me to ignore him and tell him irately to learn how to use his words, cause ma's had a long day at work and needs language with her vocalizations. Now, any of the three former ones are fine, but if he wants the fourth one... I mean, how do I know that I'm not inadvertently rewarding his bad behavior?

Someone will tell me when I've gone fully round the bend, right?

Note to self:
Probably don't read O magazine about the women your organization helps in Africa while on the metro. Crying on the train is so cliche.

Anyone out there who's curious about what I do, why I put up with the days that make me post stuff like I did last night, and the night before that, check out O magazine for the month of December (currently on the stands). Page 283. These are not stories that are easy to read, but this is why I do it. Knowing that in my own abstract way I am doing something to help these women.

I am faced with the question, how can this be the world I live in? Do men rape women when civil society degrades to a level that there is no reason for them not to? Would the men I know act in the same way if our society collapsed completely? Is this what anarchism really means? If it's not the collapse of the rule of law that allows such atrociety, what are other possible explanations? Is this the normal state of the cultures in which these women live, or is this caused by the illness that began three hundred years ago with European "exploration"?

I'm tired, and I don't know if I make sense right now. I would like to believe that there aren't cultures whose default position is to endorse violence (towards women or anyone else) but my knowledge of the Old Testament belies that belief.

I need to think on this more.

Started making plans to kill my own kind

A note on absenteeism. This has not been an easy couple of weeks for me. Unfortunately there is very little of it that is mine to talk about, but in the interest of completeness and honesty, right now is not an easy place for me to be. Things get better in bits and spurts, but it's not quite awesome. And by not quite awesome I mean at least I don't quite feel like I'm drowning in this moment.

As is my wont, when I get stressed out I create small, or sometimes large projects for myself. The current project that is percolating is one in which I see all of the monuments and museums in DC in one weekend. This is a baby idea right now, and i have two days in which to nurture it. How many hours will it take? Is my goal of only walking a reasonable one? How many miles will it be by the end? Should I go to museums that are closed, or am I exempt from those? Does the library of congress count as either a museum or a monument?

Does anyone want to join me?

Look for me when the sunbright swallow sings upon the birch bough high

It's been a day. Something in my room smells of cat piss and I have not yet determined what that is.
Awesome.