finestre

Random in May and October

2011-05-24T21:35:00.000-07:00

Oh dear, I'm growing contemptuous of the media. Somebody please restore my wide-eyed innocence!

On the stupid, redundant demands for investigation into the details of Libyan ex-leader Ghaddafi's decease

He died of being a cruel, violent dictator. Further details are absolutely unnecessary.

On the media reporting about military activity in Israel

I'm a little surprised today that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel did not point out to President Obama that for the United States to condemn Israeli action against Palestinian terrorism while we continue to pursue our own multiple "wars against terrorism" unabated is stunningly hypocritical.

With regards to events last week concerning Israeli military action on and near the borders, I was also more than a little disturbed by the equally stunning and hypocritical bias of the American press, a bias that was openly favorable to the Palestinians who were gathered to mourn the creation of Israel.

Were Americans to find people on its border openly mourning and protesting the creation of the United States, it is difficult to imagine that our military response would be calm or gracious.

Best Hot Apple Cider Ever

2009-12-30T19:09:00.000-08:00

Not thin and watery like other hot cider recipes, this rich, sustaining, thick, full-flavored cider is what I serve at holiday parties and cold-weather get-togethers. It always wins compliments and I've mailed it out many times - here it is for the rest of the world to enjoy!

In a big pot, bring to a boil:

1 gallon Martinelli's apple juice
* my own taste tests find this superior to other cider or juice bases, though it's expensive

1/2 bag or box brown sugar
1/3 cube butter
1 TBSP Cinnamon

1/4 tsp each...
  ~ Nutmeg
  ~ Allspice
  ~ Ginger (or, cut up 4-5 quarter-sized pieces of fresh ginger if you have it)

A pinch of curry powder
One apple cut in thin slices

Optional
  ~ small handful of raisins
  ~ 3 pieces whole Star Anise (makes it look very festive and beautiful)
  ~ shaved orange peel (more beauty)
  ~ whole cloves (more beauty)

Add some good cheer
3 cups brandy
1 1/2 cup rum
* Warn your guests! Even if you double the alcohol, it is very hard to taste that it is there.

After boiling, simmer for 20 minutes and serve. A cinnamon stick makes a great stirrer. This recipe can keep for a week if covered, but take the apples out or they will fall apart and cause the drink to have a grainy texture. Enjoy!

deborah64554

Random in December

2009-12-24T18:02:00.000-08:00

Closed hands can receive nothing.

Don't drink and brand !!

2009-09-28T20:23:00.001-07:00

Just what do they think you're planning to do with the breadsticks??

deborah64554

I Can't Understand Why People Like the "Twilight" Series

2009-08-08T00:51:00.000-07:00

Hellooo women - thinking it's cool to date a vampire is like thinking it's cool to date a SPIDER ! And it's DEAD !!! It's like thinking about dating A DEAD SPIDER !!! How about real, alive men who DON'T drink blood?

Vampires are gross!!

One of the people in my book club is choosing Bram Stoker's "Dracula" for the October book club. When I heard this I was glad because it's a book I particularly like, in part for the clear way it draws an unmistakable line between that which is good and fine and beautiful, and that which is evil, sick, predatory and loathsome, which stands in utter opposition to life and humanity.

She said, "It's a beautiful love story!" I perked up when I heard this, but I didn't know right then that she was a fan of the Twilight series.

I said, "Oh, yes, it totally is. A beautiful story of love and friendship. I cried many times as I read it, because of the love between the people who have to kill the vampire."

She gave me a Look. She said, "I mean it's a beautiful love story between the vampire and Mina."

WHAT ?!! There isn't any love between Dracula and Mina ! I think she may have confused the book with the movie starring Gary Oldman, where Mina is the exact image of his dead wife. Even then, it's sick. He's dead and he killed her best friend !! And even in the movie Mina didn't want to die or to be with anyone but her fiancee, Jonathan Harker! But in the book there is no hint of this - Dracula goes to London because that is where he has forced Mina's fiancee to prepare the way for him, and out of malignity, he decides to pick on Jonathan Harker's friends and family first. He pretty much polishes off Mina's best friend in a matter of days, and Mina is next - that's all.

How does she get love out of that?

Scarier still, how does she overlook the beautiful love of the friends? First they give their time - leaving their lives in foreign places to come to the aid of the mysteriously fading women. Then they give their blood - blood they put back in the women to keep them alive after the vampire has taken it out in order to sate himself while making them like him. The blood of four strong men is not enough to save Mina's friend, and the vampire takes all of it. Then, already weakened, they give more blood to Mina. Then they give their lives to try and stop the vampire from killing more people.

That is beautiful.

And how does she get this turned around to the degree that the vampire is some kind of romantic hero? Where the friends who had real love gave, all the vampire did was take. He had three more dead women back in Transylvania, so even in that regard what he wanted was a kennel, not a wife!

The grip of the idea of vampires as something cool is unexplainable to me. I think it's pretty frightening that in our culture something like that is perceived as a figure that will desire and protect some poor vulnerable or lonely woman.

I found myself thinking about this the other night when I saw a spider feeding on the insect it had caught. It looked like it was desiring and protecting too - its movements were slow and gentle. But it is like the sick embodiment of greed. It isn't desiring and protecting though its movements appear that way. It is killing the other creature in order to fill itself up.

YUCK.

There is something else about it that is horrible and sad. Like everything truly evil, it is an exact inversion of that which is truly good. The dead, sensual, evil vampire that takes both blood and life, to kill and keep on killing, is the spiritual reverse image of Christ, who gave his blood and died to give life, and to keep on giving life.

deborah64554

On the Pennsylvania health club shooter

2009-08-07T21:00:00.000-07:00

How horrid, my most recent posts are both gruesome!

This is about the Pennsylvania man, George Sodini, who felt rejected by women and decided to walk into a health club shooting to blow some of them away.

Here's a good summary article.

When I talked to women at work, they seemed to feel sorry for the shooter. I did too, a little bit, because it is a fact in our culture that as people age they are noticed less and overlooked more, and also it is very sad to think of how catastrophically lonely it is possible for people to be if they have, as this man apparently did, no friends or family to talk to and keep them from going off the deep end.

The consensus seemed to be that he was a good-looking guy and what happened was unexplainable. But I don't think it's great to stop at such shallow conclusions.

Here is what I think, from reading the news articles and excerpts from the blog he left.

He felt entitled.
He wasn't signed up for a singles service or anything like that. He truly thought that because he was tan, fit and "smelled nice" that women were going to magically appear, do a double take, and hit on him.

He felt entitled to a particular kind of person.
Other people remarked that in the picture, he appeared to be a good-looking guy, and I agree. I think there were probably many women who gave him a second look. But I think he only noticed one kind of woman - the kind he thought he should have according to his own estimate of his attractiveness - very beautiful women. Unfortunately for him, that kind of woman is the recipient, not the giver, of wide eyed second looks. I think he ignored women who really did look. I think that for him, those looks never happened because he never saw them or valued them.

George Sodini, Pennsylvania shooter

He had nothing to give.
In his eyes, the qualities that entitled him - tan, fit, etc. - were sufficient to cause and maintain an attraction. He was mystified and angry to see himself surrounded by couples. Reading through, I got the definite idea that he had no clue about relationships needing, first, a risk to form, and then, work to sustain.

He himself was not genuinely attracted to any woman. He wanted to be the object of attraction.
The excerpts from the news and his diary are remarkably free of anything like, "He had a crush on a girl at the grocery store," or "I really like Caroline, that adorable girl over in accounting. I wonder what she would say if I asked her to lunch." He was all inward. He seemed to truly expect to just sit back and fight women off. His longing was all "Notice me," not "Hey, I notice you." He expected to be filled up, but had no true desire strong enough to compel him to actively reach for something he wanted - except his desire for a sick, unjust and misplaced revenge.

And that's too bad, because I don't think I'm the only woman in the world who wants a man to be a man and take the first step - even if it's risky (which is also when it is most admirable and attention-riveting). This guy was willing to look and smell and dress like a man - but not to be one.

He would have had offers of marriage from women via MySpace profile, Facebook, fax and email if he had been in the news for rescuing women in trouble, or children from a burning building, or doing something courageous and good.
Right? Yes! Right!!

But no, he was a creepy psychopath who spent a year thinking about how he was going to kill other people he didn't even know, and then himself.
Maybe women sensed that? Maybe it's not that hard to pick up on!

His final act was the furious selfish violence of an extremely small child who could not make the world fit his preference. Nothing could be less like a man and almost nothing could be less attractive.

So I think pity is appropriate, and compassion also... but to stop there without condemning the habits of thought, selfishness, entitlement that led to the ensuing rage and psychotic desire for revenge, is just not enough.

Also, to accept it as normal male behaviour is to offer a terrible insult to other men who are actually normal - courageous, generous, loving and fine - real men.

deborah64554

Bank of America Branding Oops !!

2009-02-07T12:13:00.001-08:00

When I first saw this I thought it was a signage mistake at just one branch. But no - Bank of America wants us to think something new when we are driving by! What's your guess as to the target message??

A branch in downtown Los Altos displaying the new, confused branding!

1) We're in the red!

2) We're going down in flames!

3) Help - we can't find our LOGO! Can you?

4) Our VP of marketing is color blind!

deborah64554

Open post to politicians

2008-11-02T12:48:00.000-08:00

I loathe McCain and the whole dirty business of the entire republican party.

But, I am voting for McCain because to me there is one issue so important, it overrides the personality of the candidates, the repulsive recent history and direction of the Republican party, the disgusting and unjustified war in Iraq, our ruined economy and staggering future tax burden to rescue bankers from the effects of their appalling greed for short-term personal gain and prestige at the expense of true long-term health for their businesses, and (include predictable long list well covered by recent media).

I don't want to. But, here is the issue:

One party limits abortion. One party does not. I think abortion kills a human being. To me, murder and the weak, selfish excuses for making it legal trump anything on the above list. That is also why I voted George Bush, although I recognized well before the actual election that his greatest skills were in manipulating the media, and in the 2000 election, I believed Gore to have been by far the better leader.

Democrats, are you listening?

deborah64554

Updates on previous posts

2008-04-27T14:01:00.000-07:00

The fate of the start up

Four more people have left, one of them a key engineer. PM is now completely empty. One of the not-very-effective VPs moved back to Los Angeles, where she supposedly is still working for the company. The executives elected to do something they said they would never do - they had the UI engineers create a "spam" site that is 90% ads, that conveniently look like legitimate product links. Although they were supposedly going to try to "protect" the brand by "disguising" that it was actually a site run by our company, it is tremendously obvious to me when I look at it that the good site and the bad site are driven by the same engine and UI layout.

For about two months, the site's traffic soared, but page views went to less than 2 per user. The traffic was bought, according to my friends who are still there, and none of it was from an increase in repeat users - so clicks bounced on the first page. Two weeks ago the bought traffic ran out, and the site's statistics went right back down to true traffic (users who came to the site on purpose), a number that appears to be exactly the same as a month after launch according to Alexa. This means true traffic appears not to have increased since a month after launch.

It is really amazing to me that the investors aren't asking the executives some pointed questions. Millions of dollars have been drained and a total of around $20 million will run out in January. Basically, the CEO used investors' money to do business favors (like hire smooth-talking friends for extremely high salaries and very nice vacation, work-from-home, and paid-for housing packages) and to solidify his network. Anyone who could have actually studied, planned and implemented strategies for making the site work better and be more user friendly is gone, because the CEO didn't care about those things.

The mallard by the pool

He's still there and quite sleekly plump on snails. Apparently this happens every year - different year, different duck.

deborah64554

random thoughts in April

2008-04-20T19:20:00.000-07:00

On a little boy at the Hostel in Los Altos

On beautiful days, I like to take my beautiful horse to the hostel in Los Altos. It is a pleasant ride from the barn with many stretches that are just right for a gallop through the trees, and once we get to the hostel, it is very rewarding for both of us the way little children will react to Sasha, who is gray, very prancy, and always gentle, especially with children.

Most children over the age of four really like to pet him. Many haven't seen a horse close up before, and even though they may be timid, Sasha arches his head down and looks at them with his large brown eyes, and they automatically stretch out a hand to pet his nose. Some get so delighted that they hang all over his legs.

Some, though, remain timid. I don't blame them - Sasha is definitely large - and very small children under the age of four almost never want to pet him. In fact they look worried and upset, so I am usually very careful to keep him standing back unless they really want to touch him.

A normal sized adult's view of my gentle and adorable horse

Saturday, a chilly day here, there were not as many families as usual in the hostel park, so I was happy to see that a small boy had stopped and was staring at Sasha as he held his nanny's hand. He appeared to be about 6, although on the short side for that age, with very curly brown hair and large brown eyes. I brought Sasha up, and Sasha characteristically arched his neck and bent his nose down, to look at the child and make it easy for the boy to pet him. Sasha isn't pushy and doesn't ever come closer than invited.

But the little boy was very suspicious. He said, "What is he chewing on?"

"He is chewing on his bit, just as you would chew on bubble gum."

The little boy said with still more suspicion, "He has very big teeth."

I did not know what to say to this and was balancing Sasha to prevent him from accidentally stepping closer.

Suddenly the little boy said with decisive dislike, "I don't want to pet him."

How Sasha looks from the view of a small child - much too big!!! (These pictures are from a Motorola Razr - don't get a Razr if you want good pics)

The nanny glanced at me as though I might be offended, but I wasn't. It is not the most common response, but it is not uncommon either. I pulled Sasha up away from the boy. That is when the startling thing happened.

The little boy demanded angrily, "Does he belong here?"

I reponded, "He belongs to me. He lives across the street, and horses are welcome on the hostel trails."

But I thought about it on and off for the rest of my ride. The child could not have been more than six, but already he had a view of the world that could make his existence in it a tremendously unpleasant one: If you fear something, look for a rule to make it go away so it can not bother you any more.

That view is subtle and deadly. It means the answer to your fear must be found in a rule, and not in yourself. It short circuits the possibility that the person who holds it will choose to examine their fear and meet it. It is the definition of a Pharisee: a person who relies deeply on laws and uses them to destroy any threat. Relying on rules, the Pharisees protected themselves behind a wall so stubbornly solid, even Jesus could not penetrate it. Then, because Jesus made them uncomfortable in their citadel of rules, they killed Him.

I prayed for the little boy at Mass today, but it is the first time I really see how clearly the mindset works. That it can exist so definitely in one so young disturbs me.

On a young family at Mass

At Mass I was standing in line for confession. Usually I am somewhere closer to the front of the church, so I had an opportunity to see people I haven't seen before. I found myself watching a young family; a handsome caucasian man, his very beautiful Chinese wife, and their infant.

The wife was very much absorbed with the baby. At first it was lovely to watch, the way she gently fussed over it, looking into its face and responding to every movement. But something began to bother me. I saw that she never looked at her husband. She never lifted her eyes from the baby, even though her husband glanced over at them several times. He even leaned forward and began to fan them both (it was warm in the church), and even then she did not turn her attention from the infant even to glance up. It was as if only the baby existed.

I began to think it was very revealing that when they sat down, she put the baby to her left, while her husband was sitting to the right. Since she was in charge of the carrier, she could have put it between them, but she didn't. She put it on the other side of herself, so that she could pay attention to it only. I saw too that this meant the husband could not really see or interact with the baby. His experience of his child was that he was getting used to seeing his wife's back, and this view also blocked out his access to the baby. This could become very symbolic of his future relationship with his child.

I prayed for them, too. But I wondered how anyone could be so stupid - she seems very much to blame. Children thrive in families where the marriage of the parents is loving and strong. They may be satisfied in a family where they are the favorite of one at the expense of the other, but that is not truly a healthy family relationship and not truly to the benefit of any child. It was sad to see that the wife was so completely absorbed in the baby, that she was certainly neglecting and damaging the more important relationship with her husband. It was sad to watch some of the damage going deeper, right in front of my eyes.

On deep-down things that take a long time to heal

These posts seem to be all mysteriously related.

Now and then in my life I become suddenly and vividly aware of things in myself that are damaging me. The process usually goes something like this.

(For a long time) I have an issue with (insert issue). I am aware that it is an issue, that my reactions when it is triggered are not normal.

(After a long time) I wonder if I can change this issue. Maybe I can see it coming when it is about to be triggered, and then I will not have such a damaging reaction.

(After a while of attempting to see it coming and responding more appropriately) No, that doesn't work. Even when it seems to sort of work, it's just a band-aid. I need something that goes deeper.

(Just before my eyes really seem to open) I'm frustrated. It just happened again! Oh, it's hopeless!! I can't control it, even though I know it's there. Maybe I should pray about it. I wonder if God will help me.

(Usually within a few hours of prayer) Oh, wow. This issue is much bigger than I imagined. I see now that (insert issue) is inside of me even on a far deeper level than I actually really even already recognized. This calls for extra super help. I wonder if I go to confession, if I can get some extra grace to deal with it. I think maybe I will do that. It would be so great if God would help me with it...

(In the car on the way to confession) No, this isn't a matter for confession. You can solve it yourself! Don't confess that. Confess these other things, but not that. Ugh!! But I can't solve it by myself, I already know that. Wow, this thing is so huge, I am starting to see that it has affected much more of my life than I realized. No, I need help. I will confess it. Wow, I can sort of even see how this issue forced me to damage not just myself, but others too...

(In line for confession) A stone, that was in the reading today. Yes, this is just like a stone. It's like a huge stone in my soul. God can't be where it is, He has had to work around it all this time. Whoa, I seriously need Him to help me with this. Oh, thank God that I decided to come to confession. Now I can get the help I have really needed, for all this time.

(After confession) Wow. I feel peaceful in a place inside of myself that has hurt all these years. I can't remember ever feeling good in that place before. This probably won't be easy, but now I really see the whole problem in a way I never did before. Now that I've told God about it, He's going to help me with it. This will be hard, but I want this boulder in my heart to be gone. I will keep praying about it until it is.

What the soul does not see until later is how much God guided it through this process. I always think that God's surgery will be so painful, with no anesthesia and plenty of screaming, and always instead it is gentle and clean.

My issue this particular time is that in my family, love is not free. It is given only in return for work and favors. When I was very young, I would do extraordinary things to try to earn this very difficult-to-win love: I would do chores all weekend, I would surprise my parents with rooms that were cleaned, vacuumed and polished, and with birthday gifts that usually included my making meals and washing cars for at least a month.

That is a tremendous amount of work for a child to do, and I didn't just do it, I tried very hard to do it perfectly. (Later in my teens, I was fired from a sandwich shop for taking too long to make sandwiches - I was trying to make them perfectly.) Still, if I failed in any way at any task, the love was revoked. Even as a debit-and-credit system, it didn't work fairly or well. But that is what I grew up with, and it has damaged and is damaging my relationships in the professional world, where the credit-and-debit system of approval and acceptance (cheap substitutes that pass for love) is alive and well and wreaking tremendous havoc. I remember reading a Dilbert cartoon, years back, that alluded to it. I laughed, but I didn't think it was funny at all.

But maybe now I can heal.

Conversion to Orthodox Catholicism

2008-04-03T20:40:00.000-07:00

I've always wanted to write this down, so here it is. I am the oldest daughter of 4 children, in an atheist family. At the age of 30, I converted to orthodox Catholicism. This is the story of my journey.

My parents are atheists. My father, an engineer who has won awards for satellite design, was brought up Methodist in rural Washington. My mother, an extremely lively and adaptable woman, was brought up Catholic in Stockton, but repudiated it. I grew up in the metropolitan Bay Area of California, sharing with my entire family a feeling that we were superior to most other people - especially people who were stupid enough to believe in God under any religion.

As I grew into my teen years, I recognized that there was something wrong with my parents' point of view. They talked a lot about high moral standards, but it was easy to see that their moral point of reference bent and changed, according to circumstances or popular culture. Worse, it was easy to see that if God did not exist, then there was nothing truly wrong with any particular action aside from the fear of the consequences of being caught.

Sometime during my teens I became aware that despite my parents' point of view, I did believe in God. I had had several vivid and unexplainable dreams about Jesus as a very young child, although no one had ever told me about Jesus and I should not have even had any idea what He looked like. But I believed that God was my enemy, and that He hated me. It satisfied me to disobey His commands whenever it seemed like a good idea to do so, although I did not see at the time how much many of my behaviours were destroying my life.

I did not really care about my life being destroyed, as I gradually became so troubled and unhappy that I did not at all care if I made it into my 30's. Meanwhile, although my parents had little idea what was going on with their children, one of my sisters was becoming catastrophically addicted to drugs. She became suicidal, and my parents checked her into a suicide ward against her will after my Mom came home one early afternoon in response to an urgent intuition and found her cutting her wrists in the upstairs bathroom.

The memory of this time is extremely clear for me. I went with my sister one afternoon to Eastridge, at the time the largest shopping center in the Bay Area. Later, I found out that ambulance personnel had been following us all around the mall, asking storekeepers if they had seen us, so that they could kidnap my sister and check her into a suicide ward. The mall was too big, and they never caught up with us. But they did catch up with my sister a few days later, and she was in and out of the suicide ward for two years.

I remember driving down the freeway to visit her one night. I was a California teen, on my way to visit my drug-addicted sister in the suicide unit. I thought that was so dramatic and cool. At the time, I was fascinated by people who were in trouble, and I was well on my deliberately orchestrated personal path to becoming one of them. I thought that having a messed-up life was glamourous and interesting.

Later, I found out that having a messed-up life is just messed up. But that realization took a long time to hit. In the meantime, not just my sister but nearly my whole family was suicidal. I did not find this out til much later. I and my siblings and even my mother and father were all concealing inner despair, while we dealt with the obvious and immediate issue of my sister's condition. I felt jealous of my sister, and I suspect my brother and other sister did too. All of us were courting death in one way or another, but my sister was getting the glory for being most obvious. It was a dark, sick point of view, but it was very real.

I was in college during most of this period, and was irritated to find myself still alive at graduation, when I received a B.A. in History from UCLA. The edge had worn off of my troubled phase, and the parts of my life I had successfully messed up were now just messed up parts of my life, no longer glamorous or emotionally interesting. I wasn't angry enough any more at God or myself to want to die. I was upset at God for forcing me to keep on going. I was bored.

Trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life and working kept me more or less out of trouble for the next two or three years. I was a smart and good worker who learned fast, and my career took leap after leap until I landed in a corporate job that caused a sudden change. In California at that time, corporations responded to fluctuations on Wall Street by laying off employees every time the stock took a drop. All of the people I worked with, mostly people in their mid-20's, were enduring inhuman expectations for overtime and performance. Hardly anyone went home before 8:00 p.m., although we came in at 8:00 a.m. I burned out.

One day, against stern warnings that I was ruining my career, my future and my life (which I still didn't care much about), I gave notice. At lunch, I got a passport and bought airline tickets to Scotland. My short-term plan was to become an illegal immigrant. I had no long-term plan because I still expected to die relatively young, only now I expected it to be from a car accident or a random crime instead of anything I was doing to live dangerously. I really wasn't living very dangerously right then. I was too burned out from work.

To my surprise, it was not any easier to immigrate illegally to Europe than it is for an unauthorized person to immigrate illegally here, to the United States. So, after six weeks, I came back. I landed in Sacramento.

But now it was much harder to get a job. After three months of searching, and coming very close to running out of funds, a temporary agency hesitantly asked me if I would accept a position with the Sacramento Diocese. The position was way beneath my skillset, but I accepted gladly. I was getting worried about being hungry. I remember making a comment to the recruiter. I said, "It will be just like an excursion into a Medieval institution!" My interest in history was piqued, and my family is historically Irish Catholic. I thought it would be neat to observe those quaint people who still held onto something so ridiculously outmoded.

The Diocese really was fun. Everyone was so nice, and it amused me that they seemed to keep on trying to gently prod my sturdily atheist exterior. I had an intelligent, superior, correct and properly referenced answer for every question. I became puzzled that my arguments didn't seem to pierce their belief.

One day I was tremendously startled. On a feast day, the entire Diocesan staff celebrated with lunch and a prayer by the Bishop. The Bishop urged his Catholic staff to not lose focus. He said, "We are not like the company across the parking lot, and we are not like the DMV across the street. We serve a higher purpose. We are working for God."

The words sent a shock down my spine.

Let no Christian ever wonder if his or her words are wasted. Some soul is listening, even if it is not the one you are addressing.

That is the point that I call the beginning. But a lot more was going on.

My job with the Diocese was so easy, I had a lot of time to think. I wasn't thinking about God, but I was thinking about my life. I didn't like it, and didn't want it, but I was clearly stuck with it.

I was having terrifying dreams. I would be walking somewhere, and out of nowhere a terrifying force of malevolent sentience would identify me from the sky and would rush forward to annihilate me. There is no way to adequately describe the shocking terror this inspired. The force wanted to destroy me personally, and the destruction would be far worse than just death. In one dream, I was forced to run toward an axe murderer in an empty parking lot, who was actually holding an axe, because regular ordinary death at the hands of an axe murderer was welcome in comparison to the alternative.

I was also becoming aware of some very disturbing trends in American culture and media. One day I thought, "This can't be random. It's deliberate. Someone is intelligently directing and controlling popular media and popular thought." But I realized that no one person could control so many things - television, commentary, newspapers, magazines, movies, music, university intelligentsia, and all the many threads that tie our cultural consciousness together. However, it was unsettling to note how intelligently it seemed to be coordinated, and how unerringly it seemed orchestrated to compel human beings to sacrifice any real or lasting happiness for instant gratification.

The realization gelled into a sudden, startling thought. It was all completely, sinuously, like a terrible trick - the substitution of bad for good made deceptively, even irresistably attractive - and all completely opposed to any command God had ever made. I remember thinking with a touch of humour, "If anyone is controlling it, since it can't be one or even a lot of humans, it has to be the evil one. It's all a lie, it's all opposed to God, and it's a brilliant campaign of hate towards human beings."

I laughed the thought off, but I couldn't make it go away. Every time it entered my mind, it brought the corresponding thought, "If there is such a being as Christians believe, then not only is there God, but maybe God is as Christians believe too." Maybe God wasn't someone Who hated me. Maybe if one thing the Bible said was true, other things were, too. I let the thought settle, but I had just gotten a new job. Now I was distracted with an upcoming move, to South Carolina.

A tiny firm there had hired me. Just in case, I gave thanks to God in a prayer in the sanctuary at the Diocese before I left. I arrived in South Carolina and discovered myself surrounded by co-workers who were almost unanimously Southern Baptist protestants.

I was starting to suspect that God was framing me!

He was. A bunch of things happened at once. I missed my Diocesan friends and went to a Mass, just to check it out. I came away tremendously impressed with the stunningly faithful and powerful priest who delivered the homily. Then I had an argument with my Baptist supervisor that I technically won. But my popular idea, which was that "all faith is just like a light shining through different panes of stained glass, where all reflect with equal value even though the colors are different" was revealed to me as an obvious and total sham. All faiths can't be equally true - and what isn't true, isn't valuable.

Even my History major, with its underlying emphasis on analysis and critique of original sources, was beginning to seem like part of God's frame. When I actually read criticisms of the Bible's validity, I was stunned to find they were stuffed with fallacious arguments, unbelievably biased presentation of historical documents, and openly prejudicial premises.

I now believed that God both existed and wasn't my enemy, and I was becoming curiously regular at Mass. But I didn't want to be Catholic. Almost no other religion, except perhaps orthodox Judaism, is so strict.

But as a History major, I knew very well that no serious historian questions that the the community and structure founded by Jesus absolutely is the Catholic Church and no other. Furthermore, there were certain points in the New Testament relating to the doctrine of the Body and the Blood that could only be denied with serious intellectual dishonesty. Only the Catholic Church offered the trans-substantiated Host, the Body and Blood explicitly defined by Christ.

I read a stack of books taller than myself, desperately hoping to find an honest argument to refute what I was beginning to think might be true. At the same time, in my most secret moments, I hoped with more hope than I had ever felt about anything that it was true. That it might all be true! God might love me. He might have created me on purpose, out of love. My life might mean something. He might really even have done the things He said He did in His Bible... He might hear my prayers. Maybe He even knew how awful and upset I felt all the time. Maybe He cared that I was basically pretty lost.

One day a miracle happened. I had dropped my watch, a beautiful gold heirloom that had belonged to my grandmother, in the parking lot during a Carolina storm without noticing. The next day I searched all over without finding it, although I saw a river of water pouring into a sewer drain close to where I thought it might have fallen.

So I said a prayer to God. It was my first real prayer, because I had never believed before then that God would do anything to help instead of hurt me, or that He would truly be listening. My prayer went something like, "Okay God... I know You are there. I also know it was stupid of me to be so careless with my watch, and that I've been careless with it at least a million other times. But I've never lost it before, and I really want it back. You're God and You can give it back, and You say You hear our prayers. Will you give it back to me, please?"

The funny thing about prayer is how stunned you can be when it's answered. I really didn't expect God to give my watch back. That would be so definite and besides, I really had been careless. I was pretty sure it had gone right down the sewer, and I had definitely checked very carefully not only in the parking area, but in and under my car, in the bushes and in my apartment, too. I had checked once again before I prayed.

But when I opened my car door that night when I got home from work, I glanced down. My watch was right next to my foot. The car tire should have nailed it. I felt a shock run down my spine, a second time.

Some people will say it wasn't a miracle. But I think $700 gold heirloom watches don't disappear in huge rainstorms and appear again right next to your foot. Sure, an animal could have found it or maybe it got hung up under the car where I couldn't see it. But God knew about it, however it happened. He gave it back.

I could write a good bit more about many other miracles since, some very dramatic and supernatural ( like the walls of the Church in Charleston melting into light at a consecration of priests ), and some very ordinary ( like getting a job two days after a sudden move to Texas ). Or perhaps the most important miracle, my parents and family welcoming me back after repudiating me for six years due to their hostility towards Christianity and Catholicism. Or I could write about some defining moments of growth in a faith that is constantly deepening. But that all has to do with my journey after the conversion, which is really pretty much told now.

My life is very different now. I'm glad I'm alive. It's both scary and a thrill to be Catholic every day in a culture that is not only opposed but is furiously hostile towards faith, as I've found since becoming Catholic. I wouldn't trade it though. It's hard to end this narrative because faith is a story that doesn't end. I hope somewhere in here are words that will help someone in their journey.

Spring at last?

2008-03-15T11:10:00.000-07:00

Gentlemen

...if a woman can't operate correctly in your presence, she probably likes you a lot. Most adult women can pour sugar into their coffee without completely missing the cup, walk without spilling liquid and dropping standard objects such as keys and sunglasses, and use scissors correctly without cutting things in half, when you're not standing nearby.

A Mallard by our pool!

One morning outside my window (which is right in front of the townhouse complex pool) there appeared to be two large sneakers sitting at the corner of the pool. As I stared, they both stood up - they were a beautiful pair of Mallard ducks! Over the next week, they cleaned out bugs and snails by day, and rested by the pool at night. Miss Mallard got on my nerves. Mr. Mallard was so gentlemanly and handsome, always letting her get the first and best snails, and she just ignored him, usually with a repulsive bit of snail hanging out of her beak. One day he was by himself - I knew she was like that!! He looked forlorn and very alone for about a week, and then last week he seemed to be recovering. Now at night, if I turn off the lights in my kitchen, I can see him splashing around in the pool, preening himself and looking happy and relaxed. In the early evening he quacks expressively and often, telling this or that dog what he thinks of their barking. I am glad he has found his voice, because he was pretty silent around Miss Mallard, that wretch! Here is a picture.

Handsome and modest Mr. Mallard!

(Later) My neighbor tells me he wants to get rid of the duck. Apparently, there is a health issue connected with avian bacteria that could get in people's and children's eyes if they go swimming, and the pool will have to be emptied, specially cleaned, and inspected by officials because of the duck having been in it. I am sad to hear about this because I really like the duck and he seems to be happy here. Plus isn't it good not to have snails? I hope he can be relocated to Vasona, where he will have a lot of friends.

"Looks like" does not equal "Is"
Observation on a mistake many people are making:

This is a mistake that is deeply embedded in our current cultural, political and scientific views at this moment. Considering how obviously it is a mistake, it is amazing how easily it is made.

Here are some examples I have recently heard:

A human embryo at an early stage looks just like a patch of cells/tumour/or a chicken or fish embryo, therefore that is what it is equal to (so, there is nothing wrong with killing it).

Non-embryonic cells, tumours, and chicken or fish embryos NEVER produce human beings at the end of their development. The mistake in this case (and its consequences), is appalling. Regardless of what it looks like it is clearly a human and that is clearly the mechanism by which humans, and nothing else, are made.

My hand looks like a fish fin, therefore my hand is the evolutionary descendent of the fin. This mistake cropped up in a conversation at work. A normally intelligent person had read a recently published book called "The Fish Inside Us". It is difficult to assess how much our complete cultural, educational and scientific acceptance of the theory of evolution disables criticism of the "looks like" argument. However, this person's ability to analyze or criticize had definitely been completely disabled.

My responses to this one are too many to verbalize efficiently without writing my own book. Maybe I should start on that. At the time I wanted to ask how the types of fish that did not supposedly climb out of the ocean could have failed to evolve to the degree that land creatures supposedly have - for one example, no sea creature that I can think of has anything like an opposable thumb, although surely even a tiny evolutionary development in that direction would have immediately been rewarded with spectacular survival rates, as the creature could both grab other animals for food and free itself from other predators. Ocean life stayed remarkably similar through all these alleged millions of years, a gigantic and obvious fact that seems on its own to disable a good bit of evolutionary premise.

I have just realized that both of these arguments are related to evolutionary premises, which are very much based on the "looks like, therefore is" argument. And there is a stunningly degrading irony at work resulting in the conclusion: Since the human looks like something less, it is something less. I was amazed that the person who read the fish book was obviously enchanted by the idea that he was essentially related to and created from something inarguably lesser and lower and more base, while rejecting the idea that he was related to and had been created by something unimaginably higher and better and more.

I have often seen, especially as the technique for creating them has become well refined, silk flowers that appear to be actual flowers even when closely examined, until you actually touch them. But once you touch them, you know for sure and you would never accept that the silk flower "is" a real flower. Why do we accept other "looks like" arguments without a similar instinct?

deborah64554

night of the lunar eclipse

2008-02-20T20:28:00.000-08:00

Does lunar activity like a solar eclipse result in more activity that requires police intervention? I'm tempted to call the local station and ask - in any case, there have been three sirens outside in the last three hours, so I think the answer is yes.

I watched this eclipse, just like the one in October, only more comfortably this time since I could see it from inside my kitchen and also it reached full eclipse around 7:30 pm instead of 2:15 am. Both times I have been surprised by the effect - it is not as dramatic as I expected, since it happens so slowly, but it does look creepy and it creates a feeling that things are not right. It doesn't look black or red or anything, but it looks smudged, dark and wrong. That's not how it's supposed to look.

I can't say I personally feel like committing a crime, but I do feel unusually low, like I am under a shadow or something, just like the moon.

My new job is stressful. I really love it, and the people I work with too, but I feel very isolated there, and also isolated in general. A huge part of my job is trying to whip a new product into shape, that was developed by new partners and launched the day after I started without a visual or UI designer EVER having looked at it. It's a mess, one that self-perpetuates, because as soon as I fix something, the developers add something new and wreck my dev environment while simultaneously perpetuating old design errors into new features. I spend hours just trying to get my dev to work. And, it's in Ruby on Rails - I recognize the elegance of the model, but as a designer who's been thrown into it without warning, it's been like climbing Mount Everest without oxygen or even a sweater. I would truly feel a burst of rich, extreme happiness if I could blow it up and watch it burn. Meanwhile, the product is exposed to clients and actively being promoted and sold.

The rest of my job is supporting marketing (Seattle marketing guy is unhappy - he got cut short on approving a trade show campaign that I stayed up all night to concept and design, and then stayed at work 4 hours late to get to production on time) and improving design and UI for our core product. No visual or UI designer has ever looked at that either, but the core engineers who have been with the company are more savvy in that area so it's not as bad.

However, everyone wants a redesign and I have one day to prepare one for presentation. I may well stay up all night for that, too... it's overwhelming. After a weekend of sleep plus an extra day I was super energetic yesterday, but today that's all gone.

Anyway, that's enough talking about my job. Maybe it only seems so overwhelming today. I wish I had a boyfriend to talk about it with. I envy my friends who do. I hate having to handle everything by myself. It would really help if a real human voice told me not to try so hard or stress so much.

There was a ton of rain yesterday and today. I am very glad because there will be water in the streams and blackberries on the paths, and a good crop of cherries this summer just in reach from the back of my lovely horse. But it's very muddy out at the barn right now. Last night when I went out our barn manager was there in the dark, working with the groom to try to get the tractor unstuck from the mud. They had to leave it there although they worked several hours.

I feel like nothing is very good today. It's not true!! I have the most beautiful horse in the world, who is also the most gentle - he looks exactly like a merry go round horse, but like someone scaled him up to twice the size. I could never have imagined any more wonderful horse to dream of owning and having the right to ride whenever I want, through such beautiful trails and land. And to have the right to gallop and jump, as many times as he's game for.

My darling crippled kitty is still alive, healthy at the age of 13, friendly, happy and loving. I just noticed again this morning what bubbling, happy, pleasing, glad noises he makes all the time.

I used to dream of opening my closet and seeing more beautiful clothes than I could ever have once thought of. (Actual dreams, not figurative). When I was six, my Mom got three outfits for me from Goodwill... I remember being so excited and hopeful, that the lovely white shirt hanging by a hanger on the doorknob in our kitchen might be for me. I didn't want to ask because I was pretty sure I had done nothing special to deserve a gift - it had to be for someone else. In highschool, the children in my family each got $100 to spend on clothes. For the entire year! Now, when I look in my closet, it truly is full of beautiful clothes. In fact, there's pretty much no room left, and every piece is completely lovely, perfect for me and the exact right size. I have work clothes, casual clothes, casual work clothes, dating clothes, and even really nice pajamas and underthings and several pieces of seasonal formal wear. I have two soft wool scarves! And even a respectable suite of riding clothes.

Almost every childhood dream I ever had has been more than fulfilled with something better than I could have imagined.

And I'm Catholic - that is truly the best gift. People who have gone from unbelief to belief know what I mean. The difference between before and after really is like the difference between dead and alive. I'm certainly much more likely to stay alive than I was prior to conversion! I didn't even expect to make it into my thirties.

It doesn't seem right to feel down. I hope it is the eclipse.

In the last few months I've had several anxiety dreams about the moon. It blows up - to the immense horror, astonishment and dread of everyone on Earth (although most people do not notice right away). Sometimes it is because something struck it, and sometimes it is because attacking aliens blow it up before anyone realizes what is happening. Sometimes there is no obvious reason. It is always unbelievably horrible and dreadful. The shock is followed by the immediate realization that:

The pieces will strike the Earth, causing catastrophic damage
Earth's gravity will be thrown off and the resulting displacement may kill all life
Now the moon is gone and I'll never see it again shining up in the sky in its phases, and it was beautiful and lovely for all ages
hey, there was just another siren outside - that's four tonight

Usually I associate these dreams with some unidentified huge issue in my life that has the capability to darken and destroy it. But whatever this issue is or has been, or if it's the same each time or if it changes, I've never figured out.

deborah64554

Bookstores are depressing! An otherwise lovely trip to Los Gatos

2007-12-31T13:07:00.000-08:00

Last night I went traipsing off to Los Gatos.

It's a place I've always really loved, although I regret the demise of the antique mall and the world's coolest used bookstore (now occupied by standard retail boutiques). I loved it last night, too. The winter light was spilling in purple over the hills, Christmas lights were still twinkling from all the houses, streetlights and trees, and it was chilly and crisp, but in a nice way. I was sort of looking for half-price Christian Christmas cards and nice wrapping paper, but really I just wanted to go there and that was my excuse.

I didn't find any nice Christian cards. That was no surprise. For at least three years, I've been recycling the cards I bought when I lived in SC. It was sad though. Most of the magic has been stripped from Christmas. Most people don't give gifts any more - witness the stunning decline in Christmas retail numbers over the last five years - and hardly anyone even talks about Christmas, except to mock the religious meaning or to demand that it be grouped with all other "winter festivals".

There used to be, for me at least, a genuine blessing that could be sensed in the air. Even if people didn't have religious beliefs, they were moved by the inclination to think about Peace on Earth and Goodwill Towards Men. The Charles Dickens story "A Christmas Carol", which helped define the snow-covered London appearance of Christmas in the American imagination, really illustrates the once-treasured capacity of the season's blessing, and the expectation that even hard hearts could open up to generosity and love for one's fellow beings.

Today it's gone. At the barn on December 29, while I was cleaning up my horse, I heard an elderly French man wish a woman with two small children, "Merry Christmas!"

Her response? "Oh, we don't celebrate Christmas."

So WHAT? That's a justification for throwing the kind words of a friendly old man in his face? That woman would never have dreamed of responding so rudely and condescendingly to the greeting, "Happy Diwali!" For all her self-enlightened confidence, she had no kindness.

That's just one incident, but there are so many. I could wear out my keyboard.

Anyway, in my quest for wrapping paper and Christmas cards, I found myself at last in Border's Bookstore.

I usually avoid bookstores, unless they're used, because they've become for me a depressing experience. The things on the bestseller lists provide a seriously horrible statement about the weak condition of our social and cultural pulse. No one is alarmed any more by profanity, although for me, curse words always have the same effect as if someone just threw a piece of trash right at my head. Also, no one analyzes anymore. It's not required for what we now call "thought". What we now call "thought" is, listening to and adopting the thoughts of others with which we happen to agree, uncritically. I will write more on this some other time, but here is what I saw in the bookstore:

"Skinny Bitches" - isn't anyone but me sick of seeing women who refer to themselves as bitches as though it were something to congratulate themselves for? Like it makes them interesting or something? The word has been in the title of a prominently featured book every time I've walked into a bookstore in the last five years.

"The Bible of Good Sex" - Wow. What does this have to do with God? This thing was as thick as a ream of paper, or an encyclopedia, which would have been far more appropriate to use as a title. I shudder to think about how thousands of pages were devoted to making your partner into a better sex toy for you, at the expense of intimacy and love.

"The Truth About... "/ "The True History of... " Everything you ever learned in school, Queen Elizabeth, Anne Boleyn, Shakespeare, Jesus, Christianity, Christmas, Chistopher Columbus, you name it. Take any original source, suppress the parts you don't like and exaggerate the parts you do, and you too can write a book like these. Better yet, take a source that you can't prove even exists (like the "Q" text, or the so-called secret society crypto-documents) and write a large book claiming that everything you think it would say if it did really exist is true. It's an automatic recipe for a best-seller, and no one will challenge you because no one cares any longer to find, compare or evaluate historical sources to see if you are producing garbage. This completes a trend started over 20 years ago, when it suddenly became professionally risky for historians to challenge books that claimed that popular historical figures (Socrates, Jesus, Shakespeare, Columbus... ) were black, or (ten years later) gay, or (recently) never real people at all. Now you can claim anything. The probability that you will be challenged is zero, and you can make a lot of money.

"I Am America and So Can You" by Stephen Colbert - I like Stephen Colbert a lot because he's really funny, but the rigid one-sidedness of his incisive wit is what depresses me. An example is the phrase, "Remember, Reality is colored with a Liberal tinge!" This mocking statement is meant to silence critics of the media who claim that it presents issues with a seriously liberal slant. It illustrates that to most liberals, the slant is not a slant, but "reality", one that conservatives must be too stupid to observe. The problem is that both sides view their beliefs as "reality", and the paradigms don't coincide. The liberal paradigm is that this world is all there is - therefore, morality is relative and should be determined by the outcome that makes everybody feel best. The conservative paradigm is that morality is not relative, and that everyone being made to feel good is an invalid outcome unless it was arrived at in cooperation with a higher morality that is determined from a source outside of ourselves and our current social agendas. That Mr. Colbert conveniently ignores the difference in paradigms and insists, however humorously, that his is "reality", is an example of shallow thinking. It's very unfortunate that he has so much material at hand that well deserves criticism and mockery, but it doesn't excuse the lack of thought that he puts into the premises behind his skits.

"Eat, Pray, Love" - iiiiiiicccckkkkk. A better title would be, Consume, Thank God I'm a Consumer, Gratify Myself. But it's number one on the best seller lists right now, with a message everyone wants to hear. The message is false from the start, when the author got an advance from the publisher before even starting her self-centered journey. But false messages being what an astonishing number of people want to hear, it's a winner.

I'll fill out this list some more next time I find myself in a bookstore, which I hope will not be any time soon. I didn't intend to write a post or take notes on obnoxious titles when I went to Los Gatos last night, or I'm sure this post would be about twenty times longer. I've only put in what stuck in my head as being particularly awful.

Fortunately I did find some beautiful wrapping paper at Domus, and was able to scoot on home in triumph. Los Gatos is so lovely that even the trip home is beautiful with the lights of the valley glowing gold against a purple sky as one comes up over Winchester. I hope to go back soon, but next time I'll avoid Border's!

My experience at a start-up

2007-12-22T21:18:00.000-08:00

I've always wondered what it would be like to work at a start-up. For other people who are out there wondering if it is really as interesting and dramatic as it seems, here is my account from start to finish - that is, from my start to finish, not the start-up's.

Last year, while I was still arranging my move from Texas to California, I posted my resume and portfolio wiith a California zip code, in hopes of having a few interviews to greet me when I arrived. There was so little interest in my talents as a Visual UI / Web Designer in Austin (I never even got a permanent position there) that I was truly astonished to almost immediately begin receiving about two calls a day from the Bay Area. I remember one was from eBay, one was from an advertising agency (that was my background), one was from Motorola, one was from PayPal, and one was from this start-up.

The ad agency needed someone to start a week from the date of contact, and I wasn't going to be there yet. The start-up was very interested in me, but the Product Management director who was talking to me was also anxious at the thought of waiting an extra week for me to start. I had been living in South Carolina for ten years and thought, "What's the big deal? It's SEVEN DAYS!"

At first I wasn't very interested. I wanted to work on a lot of websites, like I had always done, and not just one website all the time. But the more I talked on the phone with the hiring PM director, the more I was intrigued at the idea of total ownership of the website's developing look-and-feel and brand. After a conversation with the VP of Marketing, I began to realize that these were very nice people who really liked my portfolio and thought I was The One, and that had a wonderful effect. I was reluctant to say whether or not I had actually left Texas yet, but firm that my arrival date could be no sooner than a week and a half from our conversation.

After agonizing about the week's delay, they hired me. In the verbal conversation where the PM director offered me the job, he asked me what I was making. In Texas and SC salaries are much smaller, but I was honest about it, although I also gave him the cost of a moderate house for comparison and remarked that I could easily afford a house, a car and my horse on those salaries. I also mentioned the numbers that had been mentioned by Motorola and PayPal.

I had been praying for a job that was with a small company, of under 25 people, within the Campbell-Menlo Park 280 corridor, that would pay at least X, where I could grow as a designer. Motorola and PayPal payed X plus some. This PM director offered me X plus a lot. What he offered me was, in fact, a bit more than I had said I would take, and that really impressed me. The entire arrangement in every way fulfilled and exceeded what I had prayed for.

My Mom flew out to drive back with me. As a side note, this also was an answer to a prayer. My parents had been extremely hostile to my religious beliefs, and had told me not long after my conversion that I was not welcome at home. Now I was not only welcome, my Mom was coming out to drive back with me! It was miraculous.

We really hustled, driving ten hour days in extraordinary heat, and arrived at home just 36 hours before I was due at the front doors of the start up. So, basically one day later, there I was.

They didn't have a computer for me yet. That was really funny. They had been so aghast that I wouldn't be there seven days sooner, and look ! They didn't even have a way for me to start work! I went to Fry's and bought a computer (now this one, my home computer) with my own money, brought it to work, and spent a day loading up 30-day trial versions of all the software I needed. I also bought, with my money, $2000 worth of software for when the trials ran out. Then I got to work.

I was a little stressed out at that time. My horse had arrived from Texas while I was still on the road. He was stressed out too. I heard later he had tried to jump out of his stall! My crippled little kitty was a basket case from the extended journey by car, and his new home. I was trying to hold it together, but it's not easy to change so many things all at once. Also, I was living with my parents while I recovered financially from the move, and that was a big change too. I love my parents and it was really nice to live there, but it was also really hard to go from having lived alone for ten years to living with other people who saw me as a new form of entertainment and who really liked a lot of conversation... EVERY time I walked into a room. I felt like I had to be "on" - all the time. It was hard to relax.

The start up was close to launch. In the first few weeks, I had big projects (marketing event materials, website registration UI) and small projects (buttons, icons, formatting issues).

I was astonished to realize something really great about the start-up. I had worked for big corporations in the Bay Area in the 1990's, and it was brutal. You had to project an inhuman amount of confidence and success, and you had to be willing to endure inhuman expectations for performance and overtime. Initially, I thought everything was still the same.

But gradually, I realized that other people were looking at me funny when I tried to over-achieve. At the start-up, these were good people who all wanted to do a good job, and they didn't expect any more from me than that I would do a good job too. They didn't question that I was competent - that had been settled when they decided to hire me. And they didn't expect me to slay myself on the altar of the Impossible Demand. This was a real revelation for me. Once I had it, I began to act like a real, normal person.

At the same time, I had been hired as a contractor and a Vice President didn't want to make me permanent. She was a different Vice President than the nice one. This VP was, in my eyes, an overly-assertive and under-effective Big Name from New York. She seemed to have no idea what good design was composed of, yet no one ever questioned her and bad decisions were always pushed through with little mitigation. She had disliked me on sight, (maybe, if I am honest, because my first reaction to her was that unexplainable, but obvious dislike that one is so unprepared for, that one can not suppress it in the milli-second it takes for it to show) and had opposed my hire because I had not worked on a website as large as the one she had managed in her previous position.

We had very minimal interaction, but it hurt my feelings and made me feel like an outsider to continue as a contractor when I was obviously doing what everyone agreed was an excellent job. I wanted to be an employee, like the rest of the team, with whom I was beginning to feel very bonded. The VP was a short, loud woman who read stacks of fashion magazines and had a small, shrill dog that urinated all over the office and barked incessantly when she went to lunch. She also had a way of looking at people as though she was thinking, "You're nobody." It was very hard for me to try to be friendly, but maybe she had to try hard to be friendly with me, too. She actually wasn't in the office that much. The company paid for her expensive condo in SF and constant air travel to and from New York, where she still really lived.

For six months, everything went wonderfully well for the start-up. We launched with a splash, and the Web 2.0 community took notice and gave us tons of praise. Our product really was the best that was out there in the space, and we experienced a stunning climb in traffic that seemed like it would never end. We started to run out of money, but our CEO, who I liked very much, got us $15 million in funding just as things were about to get tight.

Our SEO traffic made us dizzy. I remember the warning from one of our newest PM's as she argued with a director about some of our SEO strategy decisions that were probably going to lose, not enhance, SEO. The director got his way, and shortly after that we lost our SEO traffic.

After a few days of panic we got it back and sighed with relief. It was clear that SEO traffic was accounting for up to 100,000 hits a day. Without it, we got less than 5,000 hits a day. But we still took our traffic for granted, and made a huge release that completely restructured many back and front end elements of the site just after the SEO returned. This time we were blacklisted from Google. Google's robots do not like to find constant large changes to the structure of the sites they crawl. This was right around my 6th month.

The loud VP left around this time, which was her year anniversary. "She just put in her year," was the saying whispered around, which suggested that she only wanted to vest her stock options, and implied that she never really had much personal interest in the company.

The same day she gave notice, my PM director made me permanent. My salary was 10% less, but I was thrilled about the 10,000 stock options. A week later I was horrified to see that now that I was paying taxes from my paycheck, it was almost half of what it had been when I was contracting. This caused an immediate crisis, and I had to move my horse to a barn with fewer facilities. Right around this time, we moved into a less expensive building that I chose the color scheme for in a much more exciting area of Mountain View.

Everyone was really happy. Our SEO problem didn't seem very serious, as it had only been a little time since we lost it and everyone assumed it would come back soon. It was very near this time when another employee, one of my good friends, wanted all of us to go out for drinks.

I remember driving behind another one of my friends as we made our way to the Castro Street bar. We had left early from work with the blessing of our manager. I felt awesomely good. I loved my co-workers and friends, and couldn't believe my luck - I was making good money, for a job that I liked, in a new technology that was exciting and interesting, for people that I truly admired and liked to work with! Everyone liked me! I had friends! I was a success! Even Forbes had complimented our website design, and we had won awards! I was living a wonderful life, especially since I had now gotten myself a lovely rented townhouse in Cupertino. Even my cat was happy and relaxed. It was a lovely, sunny afternoon, and I was going out for a drink with my closest, nicest co-workers. Happiness and gratitude suffused my heart.

Though I didn't know it yet, the start-up had already had a turning point, composed of several terrible decisions in addition to the loss of our SEO, that would seriously cripple it.

My friend wanted to drink because the CEO had hired a new VP who was awful, and she had just experienced her first day reporting to him. She told us all about it at the bar. This may sound insignificant in terms of what it meant for the business, but it wasn't. It was a demonstration that our CEO was willing to hire an obviously unqualified person, one who was also openly cruel and manipulative to his suboordinates, for two extremely superficial reasons: One, that the former VP had recommended him; and, Two, that he had business contacts that it could be to our start-up's benefit to mine.

The VP never understood that his only real job was to hook up contacts, or perhaps he didn't really know the people he said he knew at all. But he wreaked havoc on the company, and especially on my friend. Without accomplishing anything beneficial or even seeming to have ever actually tried to use our site, he alienated every employee, was absent for days at a time with no explanation, and gave my friend a lifetime's worth of stories to tell about the dreadful things he said and did.

At this time, the CEO also hired two other VPs, one of whom also had been recommended by the ex-VP in New York. Both were seriously incompetent.

One, a man, did not seem to belong to any particular department. But he rhapsodized about what we came to call "the Fad of the week", which means that although he seldom demonstrated any real business planning ability, he created an unbelievable amount of work by proposing and pushing for quick fixes that would supposedly bring back our traffic. One week our site's look-and-feel was the problem. He wanted it to be completely redesigned to look and feel like a small competitor. The competitor was sold a few weeks later at fire-sale cost, but he still pushed the idea.

Our business goal, I was aware by then, was not to make a good product, but to be bought by Google, Yahoo, Amazon or eBay.

Another week, our problem was that we weren't in Facebook. Facebook got so much traffic, he argued, that any presence there at all would be good for us. Some of his ideas had merit, but they never had a real plan behind them. If you tried to nail him down on a plan, he would propose a lot of A/B testing. This didn't make our tiny, understaffed UI Engineering department happy. They had to create and re-create everything several times.

The other new VP was a woman. Her job was to create traffic from partnerships. Although nice to speak with in person, very sociable and friendly, it was immediately clear that she too had no clear understanding of our site's strengths and weaknesses. She was flighty, inconsistent, and utterly unable to understand our site's technology. Her department trembled every time she talked to potential partners, and one person in particular had to cover for her in every meeting. Whatever could chase a partner away, that is what she would talk about. Whatever a partner really needed to know, she was unable to talk about. She would harrass our overworked PMs about the implementation status of partners who were only going to bring us 200 hits a week, and one week she bragged about getting her son's elementary school signed on as a partner. Our UI Engineers were particularly frustrated. Without ever asking them how anything worked, she would promise whatever a partner asked for within a few days. Worst, the partners she was pursuing, though they were big names in their business niche, were in the niche that we were least able to serve well.

In short, three key, high-level positions had been filled with people who were all but actively obstructing beneficial development of our business.

Finally, the dreadful VP who my friend reported to was fired. My friend was fired, too. I heard our CEO's strategy for doing this described later by my PM director as "one of the ugliest things I have ever seen in the business".

Basically, the CEO didn't want the VP to sue him, so he "eliminated the department". He announced this in a company meeting when my friend was off site, and told all of the employees not to tell her, as she would find out the next week when she returned. However, she found out that day when she noticed that her email account had been terminated, and all of her vacation pay had been deposited into her account. It truly was ugly. There was no severance pay or anything. My friend had made many huge contact wins during her position, while her overpaid VP had made none. But she was fired as if she had never even been valuable.

At that moment, in our small company, our CEO lost many of his employees. They still worked there, but they didn't respect him any more. Meanwhile, our SEO remained at 3,000 or less. It had not, as we expected, magically returned. Google's SEO algorithms are mysterious. Many people admit that no one really seems to know how they work.

My friend found a job at another company only a few weeks later, but things were getting tense at the start-up.

Bad decisions were being made. Now that funding was taken care of, our CEO had nothing to focus on but how he was going to report our prospects to the board - and with far less than 10% of the traffic we had once had, the prospects looked unattractive. Suddenly, our site was splattered with ads. Every bit of white space now had an ad in it. Although in focus groups our users had reacted very badly to excessive advertising, now we were going to alienate even our last 3,000 users with 4 more ads per page than any of our competitors were using.

A new logo was proposed. There was no apparent purpose for this except to make a press announcement. The new logo soon grew into a proposed redesign. However, the CEO and the VP of marketing had completely incompatible visions for what the redesign should be. The CEO wanted an extremely simple, almost Google-simple site, and the VP wanted a graphics-heavy, consumer-friendly site. The ensuing power struggle led to an extremely frustrating process of compromise that finally ended the project. When the end result was presented to users, they unanimously hated it. A PM gave notice either on or about the day that the VP of marketing sent a screen with a Powerpoint slide that she, the VP, had put together in a panic, and now proposed we implement as a redesign, although there was now no time left to meet the deadline.

A key project was suddenly altered by our CEO to include an ad in a particularly offensive way. The ad itself wasn't so much of an issue as its placement. It was to bisect relevant information in such a way as to imply that it was not, in fact, an ad. The purpose was obviously to deceive the user into clicking on it.

Our executives were already treading gently on deceptive ground. They had bought another site at a fire-sale price in order to get press and traffic. They had implied to the press that it was a mutually beneficial acquisition, but in fact the other site was completely discarded. All that was kept was the url, which we now owned and directed to our own site. Despite the truth of the situation, the VP of marketing insisted on placing an award won by the discarded site at the bottom of the site we plugged into the url. But our site wasn't what won the award at all.

The CEO's ad project created horrified unrest within the PM team. Better solutions for ad placement were proposed. But not only were they rejected, now the requirement was that the ad should be formatted in our fonts and colors, which made it even more deceptive. One person expressed their concerns directly to the CEO, and was told that their arguments were "just their opinion." The CEO was so openly disrespectful, that another PM gave notice. The 5-person PM team was now three.

Now there was a hand-off meeting with the engineers. When the engineers saw the new ad, in addition to the other 5 ads that were cluttering up our most valuable page, there was an outburst of protest. The CEO responded with screaming. He alleged that we were "just trying new things", and "anyone who didn't want to try new things should leave."

This was catastrophically dishonest. No one was opposed to trying new things, but no one wanted to do obviously wrong things. No one, that is, except the CEO.

The PM director gave notice.

I asked to return to contractor status. I felt at that point like I was being forced to create bad work. When you are a contractor, everyone understands that you just do as you are told. I did not feel comfortable claiming responsibility for the site's new direction.

Also, when you are a graphic designer, your portfolio is your job recommendation for future employers. When you work at an agency, you just don't show work that didn't turn out to be your best. You show only the work that did. But if you work for only one company, that is all you have. I didn't want to be part of what our site was becoming any more.

Unfortunately, my request was refused. That was too bad, because I would have liked to go back to getting more money, and I now no longer believed our stock would attain significant worth. Also, the CEO felt that people who didn't agree with everything he proposed were enemies. The radical change in his behaviour during this time persuaded me of the truth of a theory I have, that you don't know anyone until you have known them a year.

I started looking for a new job. There seemed to be a lot out there, even though it was around Thanksgiving, and a lot of it paid more than what I was making. I began to hope I would be hired soon, but it was a process that took a lot of energy without necessarily going anywhere quickly.

Now we had a new "idea of the week". Fortunately, it hadn't come from the VP, but from one of the brilliant back end engineers. The CEO was anxious to get it out in order to make a big press release, and it was put together and pushed in under two weeks. It was, in my eyes, a UI mess with questionable value for our site. But it was a neat feature, and one that people seemed to like.

When the last surviving PM called the meeting to finalize it prior to the push, I was required in the meeting. This wasn't usual, but there were so few people left in PM to work on the project that I, the second person of a team of 5 from which only 2 remained, did not object.

Halfway through the meeting, as the PM, engineers and myself tried to reduce the effect of the CEO's worst ideas with regard to making the new feature "more obvious" (for the press release), the CEO started screaming. He wanted a red icon. The icon outlined in green wasn't obvious enough. He threw a full cup of coffee at the PM, who immediately jumped up and left. The meeting ended badly and everyone disbanded.

I was now desperate to leave. The last surviving full PM (we still had a shared PM) had not intended ever to return when he left the meeting and the office, but was with difficulty persuaded to stay two weeks. I found out later that the CEO "apologized", but in a way that was no true apology. Basically, he was "sorry that the PM got so upset." In other words, the PM was the one with the problem, not the CEO.

My information was already available on LinkedIn, and several recruiters had contacted me. Also, I had directly applied for several positions on LinkedIn and Simply Hired. However, now I posted my resume on Yahoo Jobs. I was immediately innundated with inquiries from recruiters.

After an exhausting two-week period of phone calls, phone screens, emails, and interviews, I was hired by a really nice (though not glamorously Web 2.0) company with a working business model on Thursday. Friday, I gave notice. I never imagined I would be so glad to leave.

There is one lone surviving partial PM. She is looking too. The situation of the start-up is now that they essentially have no PM team, and will shortly have no Visual UI designer. If one looks superficially, what appears to be happening is a transition to Agile Development. The truth, however, is that the engineers are now operating in a vacuum.

It may not matter. For at least six months, there has been no direction for setting or accomplishing business goals for the future of the product (as opposed to creating partnerships for the site in its current state) from the executive area. Our business goal for six months has been to drive traffic by making press releases, and according to what the press wanted to hear that week, projects were quickly put together and micromanaged by the executives into poor quality features. This was of no concern to the executives, since our ultimate goal has never been to make a great product (although the excellent engineering team has created the best product of its kind in the industry), but to make something that some other company would buy.

Our situation now, as a business, is that we have a Porche engine in a cheap Chevy body. It's still a Porche, but it will never attract a Porche buyer or a Porche price. Meanwhile, the team is disintegrating. There are now two empty departments, one that got fired in one of the ugliest incidents my ex-PM director ever heard of, and one that left.

When I think of what an unbelievably talented team this company had as a whole, what an amazing resource they had at their hands, and how it has been completely corroded and wasted, I could cry.

But it's been, overall, a very positive experience. I really did grow as a designer, and I learned a tremendous amount about really powerful new technologies and everything Web 2.0. I learned how to create table-less CSS layouts, how to work with back and front-end engineers, and how to brand a web-based business. I learned how to be myself at work. I had, for the most part, a really good time and I made friendships that I hope will stay with me for life.

I still haven't paid off my move from Texas (should have stayed a contractor!), but I'll be making more in my cool new job.

Here is a synopsis of the history of the start-up.

2004-2006: Engineers start modifying an existing product in a powerful new way and obtain funding to start a new business, $10 million (I believe).

2006: Due to conflict with the executive team, all of the UI engineers leave and are replaced. Product is prepared for launch. Most of the non-engineering team is hired. I come on board. The product launches. It makes a splendid splash and gets SEO.

2007: The site is redesigned to accommodate new features. Traffic continues to explode, but money is running out. It loses SEO just as it gets more funding ($15 million). Three VPs are hired. All product-related projects are scrapped and replaced with SEO projects. A department is fired. A PM leaves, then one more PM every three weeks until only a partial PM is left of a team of 5. I give notice.

Oh, I almost forgot. We did have afternoon parties with wine and beer about 5 times, but those were small catered events during the work day that never fit the description of the crazy Web 1.0 beer bashes. Also, it's true that almost everyone wore jeans almost every day. Some people dressed up now and then ( I did just so I could remind myself that I knew how ) and also some days some of the engineers wore shorts or sweats and thongs. All of our back-end engineers were from India. The latest I ever worked was 11:15 pm, but some of our UI engineers often worked all night and came in right before lunch. For the most part, I probably worked an average of less than 8 hours a day.

I'll keep posting about the fate of the start-up. It has been a very interesting experience.

December

2007-12-18T21:20:00.000-08:00

Un-scientific behaviour of insects

Supposedly insects are completely programmed by nature, too small to have a brain with anything in it but evolved strategies for survival, and certainly without emotion. At least, this is what I remember being taught. But here are some things I've observed, and at this point they add up enough in my view to require a challenge to science as dogma.

Incident with spider and ants

When I first moved to Columbia, I lived in an apartment where I smoked, because in some immature part of my mind, I thought it would make me look glamourously troubled. I always smoked on my porch, where a small brown spider had a web in the upper corner facing out to the sky. One day, a larger spider moved into the opposite corner. I had a bad feeling about its intentions towards the smaller spider, which I thought of as a friend since it never once made a move to come inside, or walked about menacingly when I was smoking and staring at the stars.

Well, one day the big spider destroyed the small spider and when I came out for a cigarette that night, it was in the smaller spider's web, looking especially large. It made me angry. I went and got a can of Raid, gave it a tremendous blast, and ran inside because I hate to see the scary way they jump around when they die. The next morning I went out to glare in triumph at its corpse, the nasty creature !!

At first I couldn't find the corpse. Then I noticed a small platoon of ants behaving very strangely. They were carrying small pieces of pine needle - none more than an inch in length - and laying them on a small mound that appeared to be composed of pine needles. It was the size of a 50-cent piece. I suspected the spider was under it and with a stick, I disturbed the pile. The spider was under it.

A friend of mine suggested that the ants were marking it as poisoned food. Normally they would eat another dead insect, but this one was covered with Raid. Well - maybe.

Incident of the yellow-jackets

One time there were a couple of yellow jackets around my porch. I've always heard these are mean, though since this incident I've moderated my views. Wanting to get rid of them, I took careful aim and swatted one. It died immediately and I left it on the ground, then went away to do something else. About fifteen minutes later I came back to go inside. But I saw that another yellow jacket was meandering in the air around the porch.

I was looking around for the flyswatter, my eyes on the second yellow jacket, when it discovered its dead friend. I mean, it just had to be a friend. The second yellow jacket had been juuuuuust buzzing along, with no particular direction or apparent intent, and then when it saw the dead yellow jacket, everything changed.

It's buzz went from a laid-back "bbbbzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzz bzzzzzzz," to something that sounded terribly upset and distraught, more like "BZ! BZZZZZZ !!! BZZZZZ !!! BZZ BZZ BZZ !!!" (I was astonished - it really sounded in tone and rhythm strikingly like a human saying, "George ! Oh my God - GEORGE !!") While I watched, it landed by the body of the first yellow jacket and, with obvious distress, examined it. When it saw the first one was completely dead, the buzz dropped in tone to something like, "bzzzzzzzzzzzz... bzzzzzzzzzz." It sounded much lower and quieter, which made it sound sad. Then with great effort, it picked up the first, dead one, and flew away with it.

Now I don't hit yellow jackets.

Incident of the ant

In my Cupertino townhouse, especially after rain, tiny black sugar ants try very hard to come inside. I've found and caulked most of their entries, and now they are reduced to coming in through pipes around sinks. Two days ago, I sprayed a sink with Raid. Yesterday, there were some dead ants that had tried to come up and suffocated from the smell, and I cleaned them up because who wants dead bodies in their sink?

But one more must have come up or maybe I missed one. Anyway, this morning I saw what appeared to be a deformed, elongated ant. On closer inspection, I saw that it was a living ant carrying one of yesterday's dead ants. I didn't molest it, and it went back in the sink and I haven't seen any more ants since.

What's the deal with all of that? I suspect science is simplistic and inaccurate in its estimation of the life, even the insect life, we share the world with.

My awesome idea for a start-up!!

I want to create a little robotic dragonfly that has a ball-point-pen-sized cannister of ink and is remote-controlled, in the same way those lightweight hobby aeroplanes are. Standing safely out of sight (or within sight, but possibly disguised!) I will fly my dragonfly up to traffic lights that are armed with those cameras that take pictures of traffic and automatically generate tickets for infractions. With the gentle push of a button, the ink cartridge will squirt a perfectly marvellous blot of opaque, super-sticky ink onto the camera lens, and then the dragonfly will return to me for a new cannister!

I haven't figured out how to monetize my idea yet, but even if I never figure that part out I would still:

1. become an urban legend (I've always longed to be a legendary international diamond thief, but I'll settle for this in a pinch)
2. have far more job satisfaction than I have right now!
3. truly feel I was doing something inarguably beneficial for fellow human beings (a problem for my alternative diamond thief aspirations).

Are you an investor? Please contact me.

Three cameras at this modest intersection near Stanford!

Full circle

Friday I was chatting with one of my co-workers. We were talking about mobile phones and how they can ruin your life - by shorting out and not ringing or vibrating, by not delivering messages when they are left, and by eating all of your data. She said she had realized about a month ago that if she lost the data in her phone, she could never replace it because for several years, that was the ONLY place she entered or stored new numbers for business connections or friends she had met and made. The realization made her uneasy, and she went through her phone contacts and wrote down, on paper, all of the information.

Guess what? Two weeks later, the phone ate her data!

That's not surprising. What about this is surprising?

She backed up her digital data on paper!

Guess what I'm doing tonight?

The humble Honda

I drive a Civic. I really like it, although it doesn't excite much admiration for overall visual styling or designed luxury. One thing I really like about it is that it starts, and never breaks down or leaves me stranded. When I first bought it, after a marathon of Saturdays in Pep-Boys watching NASCAR and reading car muscle magazines while my old car ruthlessly ate all my extra money for the month, just the fact that it was so polite that it turned the lights on for me when I unlocked it was enchanting. And it turned the lights off after I walked away from the car! As a female, I love that. It makes me feel more secure in a dark parking lot.

Compared to my previous car, which I had to actively plan to park on a hill to ensure I could start it on cold mornings, it was a dream come true. The dream of not having to rely on reluctant strangers to help me when it misbehaved, of not having to buy lunch or dinner for inconvenienced acquaintances who didn't really want to spend their time rescuing me, of not having to worry that the man with the battery cables is an axe murderer...

So today I got my car an oil change. It hasn't had one for three years, or any other care since its first scheduled maintenance four years ago, for that matter. And I drove it from SC to Texas in winter, then from Texas to California in summer! This is because I can not bring myself to spend one more afternoon waiting for my car in a concrete waiting room full of NASCAR magazines.

Guess what the mechanic said?

A little bit low on oil, but that's very common. Air filter so-so, but not bad (I replaced it). Timing belts fine. Everything good.

After three years with NO care.

WOW!! When I finally have to trade it in, I want another just like it!

Christmas in the Park in San Jose

No, I don't want to go. Christmas is supposed to sparkle and enchant, and I hate that so many of the displays are so shabby and in desperate need of refurbishing or retirement. Children don't notice, but I do. It seems a strange thing to feel so strongly about, but I do feel strongly about it.

See the lights in Willow Glen? Yes! I love that!

deborah64554

A Day in the Life - Friday after Thanksgiving

2007-11-23T22:06:00.000-08:00

I truly wish my family would really celebrate holidays. Sometimes going home for a holiday is worse than just having it by myself, and I really dream of one day having a celebration for my own family that is meaningful, rich - something to treasure, instead of just some day when I had to cook a lot of extra food. I think this is how my Mom sees holidays and I wonder if she was disillusioned in my early years by all of her children not being grateful enough for all the work it takes to do it right. (But how should children understand? Aren't children just supposed to enjoy it?)

Shouldn't there be, at some part of the dinner, a pause when you think about, maybe even speak about, being grateful for the good things you have in your life? My life is by no means complete... but there are so many things I'm grateful for! And my family isn't Christian, but I wish they would at least think now and then about something besides today's daily problem. I went home and thanked God by myself. But I wished Thanksgiving weren't just a big meal. In years past my Dad would say a few words about thanksgiving, but for many years he hasn't. It's his job. He's the father! He didn't do his job.

My life is not important or large, so the rest of this posting is just about my day, regular stuff that was meaningful to me even though it's kind of trivial.

Sleep! I got extra sleep. Maybe the bruise under my eyes that is caused by a lack of it will go away.

Breakfast! Only cereal, since there was actually so much food last night I am hesitant to make eggs and muffins, my usual weekend treat. My little kitty was thrilled with the turkey I brought him and there is enough in the tupperware to thrill him for days. He, at least, is visibly grateful and pleased!

Off to Santana Row. I hate Valley Fair, but I like Santana Row because it feels so friendly, it's such a welcoming space architecturally, and people look very happy and relaxed there. You can always smell the good food coming from the restaurants along the main street. I scored an excellent parking space and this made me feel extra good.

I wasn't going there to Christmas shop, although I wish I were. My family, as I have mentioned, really doesn't celebrate holidays any more. I ought to be grateful, speaking of gratitude, that I don't have to shop, but I'm NOT. I don't like the empty, gift-less tree at my parents house, and I don't like that for the last several years I am the only one who has gotten everyone else a really nice gift, and I don't like the elimination from the holiday of everything that takes time or money. The family tree last year (and every year for some years) was scraggly and a disgrace - carelessly chosen and grudgingly decorated. It had huge holes and didn't even reach to the ceiling, which is only 8 feet!

My parents choose the first tree they see, unless it's expensive. Even though they are affluent, they pick short, terrible trees. I can scarcely describe how this bothers me. Picking the tree is part of the holiday - getting the best one you can possibly find and making it beautiful with specially chosen ornaments, selected or made over the years with warm memories, is part of the holiday. Just looking at the tree is supposed to be a celebration of your life as a family. Looking at our tree, it looks like nobody cares. It's an empty gesture. Maybe the reason it really bothers me is that I suspect nobody but me does care.

And that's really funny. My family kicked me out a few years ago when my religious beliefs diverged from theirs. You would think I wouldn't care, after that, even though I've since been welcomed back into the fold. Instead, my permanent memory and sense of separation makes me care more.

Anyway, so I wasn't shopping for gifts. It bothers me!! That's totally not how Christmas is supposed to be. I resent having to celebrate Christmas their way, which is to not celebrate it at all.

I can't seem to get past that. Holidays and families are tough.

ANYWAY, so then I went to Anthropologie to return a beautiful sweater that was too small. I had gotten the sweater online, and initially intended to exchange it, but the next size up was too big! So I just got a refund. The refund was much more than I expected, and that made me feel happy too. I had thought I was returning the less expensive of two sweaters I ordered. Somehow it felt like I had gotten ahead for the month with no effort.

Returned!

The people working in the store were so nice. The girl at the register was so friendly to me that I wished we were friends. I am constantly meeting people who cause me to think "Oh, I wish I had known you in high school!" Maybe I would be a little less geeky, a little more easily able to relate to and trust normal people. At least I am glad to meet them now, even the ones who I only talk to for a minute.

Many of the people I meet are much younger than I am. They can't tell that I'm much older. I am very grateful for this. It is like God has given me a way to have interactions and friendships I couldn't have when I actually was the proper age.

Sometimes I think I am like a strange animal. I fit in, when other animals recognize my similarities and fail to recognize the differences. Surely there is at least one other out there like me. If there isn't, then that whole future family thing won't happen, and my dreadful fear of being found in a dusty, deserted attic with a half-eaten can of dog food in my mummified hand will come true.

Then I went back up to Cupertino and bought some grain for my horse. At the register, I saw a little container of "kitty grass", which is a fluffy patch of grass growing in a little pot. Wow! My little kitty is crippled, and sometimes I can tell he is nosing around my tiny rental porch for grass that he would like to nibble. Now he has some. What a find! I was considering digging some up in an obscure part of the complex and transplanting it. Now I am saved from what I ultimately consider to be a low act, although I would certainly have done it for my darling little cat.

Kitty grass. Yum!

Then I came home and cooked dinner. I was simply obsessed with trying a new recipe I found online, but if I cooked it tonight, it wouldn't be fresh enough for lunch on Monday and I want to cook a lot of it at once. I'll cook it on Sunday. I can't wait!!

Then I practiced piano. But first I checked to make sure my neighbor wasn't home. I'm getting better, but not so great yet that I want to torture innocent people with my efforts.

Then, I watched "Maxed Out". This is an Indie documentary about individual credit debt in our nation, the predatory practices of banks and credit card companies, and the complicity of our sickening politicians with those practices and their results.

It was definitely worth watching, although I've had it on my counter from Netflix for several weeks. Who wants to watch a documentary when they come home in the evening??! I'll watch Ratatouille the night it arrives!

It left me with a frightened, empty feeling. Our politicians are so complicit, so deeply compromised by their corporate ties. It is almost no longer possible in America for uneducated (or even educated) people to afford a regular life - a house, a vehicle, a family, and bills for food and energy - without debt. And this is going to get worse, because fewer and fewer can afford college. But our sickening politicians, our sickening president (his body language literally screams his awareness of the appallingly dishonest things he is doing and saying) cop out when it comes to restricting, limiting or making credit card companies responsible for their deceptive and predatory practices in any way.

This film was criticized for downplaying personal responsibility. I agree that the criticism is valid. However, there is a balance, and the balance should be a fair and equal one, between a person who should be responsible and a company that should be just and fair. That balance is tipped heavily in favor of the companies, which have become unbelievably dishonest, and the human cost is growing.

Some particularly awful moments in the film:

the Protestant pastor, who looked exactly like a banking executive, telling his congregation that they could tithe their way to financial solvency. As a Christian, I found that eerie, and terrible. Put that man next to the truly holy Pope John Paul II, and he would instantly corrode into a burnt puff of smoke.

Louis Freeh, MBNA executive, thanking the Congressional hearing for their "dedicated efforts" in probing predatory practices. Since the hearing, run by politicians, deliberately cut short the time when credit card executives might have to answer for the things they were doing, none of them had to answer any questions. Louis Freeh used to be the head of the FBI. He is no longer in that position because he was so obviously discredited over the course of his appalling career, that even the government couldn't justify keeping him there. How do you think his skills and ethics there merited his becoming a credit card banking executive? His position is a horrible indicator of just how deeply our government is tied to corporate interests.

When the water finally got low enough in the bay that they finally found and dragged out the dripping, dessicated car of a girl's mother who disappeared, leaving a trail of shocking credit card debt behind her. The bones were still in it.

I have very little debt now, but in college I fell for on-campus credit card application practices. The pressure on young people to look right, to have the right accessories, to appear successful, is enormous. The pressure on women to look alluring, to wear the right clothes, to make the right visual statement in any situation from lunch in the dorm cafeteria to a charity wine and cheese brunch at the Getty or a night in the Hollywood bars is staggering. I had a credit card bill so large that it took almost all of the grocery money my parents were sending. I looked anorexic, but it wasn't because I didn't want food. I didn't know about charity kitchens, and I was starving almost to death.

Those practices have real consequences for real people who are too young and too vulnerable to handle them.

"The Smartest Guys in the Room", a documentary about Enron, is also on my list. I'm going to have to lean heavily on animated comedies after this double dose to recover my normal happy outlook.

That was pretty much my day. Tomorrow I'm going to go ride my beautiful horse.

My start-up life is still unstable, and now three people have left the company from my five-person team. To stay in a position when I no longer respect the company is very difficult for me, but my job search has not yet produced a better position. I don't want to just move into another situation that isn't any better. However, they know I'm looking and that makes my situation very tenuous indeed.

As I made this entry I saw doves in my pine tree outside the window. I wondered where they went! They used to be in my orange tree, but it was vigorously trimmed by the landlord after a request from the townhome association.

My day ends with prayers. Someone I prayed for got a wonderful job and I am very thankful for that. It's a bigger deal for men than for women. I pray that this Christmas will bring things that are special and good.

deborah64554

whoa !

2007-10-02T13:48:00.000-07:00

It's been pointed out to me that people who don't know me well might assume that the previous post is about:

- interracial dating
- I'm a transsexual
- I'm a dwarf.

Incorrect !! I dated a person who, while loudly proclaiming his tolerance of all people, hated me for being a Christian, and described with relish how fervently he hoped to be alive on the day that we were all herded off to execution. He meant it, too, and I think the most satisfaction he had from the relationship was when he knew that he had really hurt me.

So, people, beware of assumptions. And, self-proclaimed "tolerant" people, beware of your hate. You haven't handled it any better than anyone else... you've just changed the face of which people you think you have some right to hurt.

deborah64554

Requiem and Parallax

2007-09-17T23:37:00.000-07:00

I Fought the Hydra
(November, 2006)

I fought the Hydra
I stood before it, small and amazed
where did it come from?
I know now where
I took my heavy sword
with a willing effort, I cut the smoking head
There, I said, begone. I have killed you.

The head fell
While I was yet smiling
two more heads grew
smoking, snaking, attacking
I cut again, again
where did they come from?
I know now where
they fell
I stood small, weaker now, amazed
The heads are gone,
I pointed out.
I killed them.

Two more grew back.
They weren't even real!
But they were killing me
four heads now
I can't move that fast
small, weak, amazed
I cut again

Eight heads
I can not win
My sword is heavy
The ground is red in blood
I am wading in it
This thing is alive
and I am dying
Who's blood is it?
It is my blood.

Where did it come from?

I had a cup.
I held it out with something inside
that was pure, bright, good, clean
and I know it.
Drink, thirsty one?
The thirsty one drank
too thirsty to refuse
I offer again

Suddenly the Hydra comes
it takes its strenght from his
He looks in my cup
There is a snake in it, he says.
There is no snake in my cup.
The snake is his fear
small, weak, amazed, I
demolish it
then hold out my cup
cleanest and brightest
and I know it

There are two snakes, he says.
He says now I put another in
My clean, bright cup
It is all pure, all good
and he calls it poison.

small, weak, amazed
I am standing in my blood.

Parallax
(September, 2007)

A sudden shift in perspective
How afraid he was
the bright chandelier of his mind
turned 180 degrees

Now I see the
twisted branches,
rage-bent iron
rage-quenched light
smoking and dying with impersonal sound
of light bursting out
in a blackened bulb.
A little courage I think
would have revived it
but where is courage when the moment comes
to choose: this what I know
or plunge
into I can't imagine what?

How many,
standing eager, arms open in joy
waited, waited, trembling with waiting
instant with trembling
shaking with love
for that long moment of joy
when timidly, softly, bravely
someone steps in?

And saw, statue like
medusa like
even that one
turned to sudden, shattered stone
Dust on the ground
Irredeemable
Irrevocable
Ashes and dust where life should be

Did he see the shadow
fleet, ironic, intimate
rise up behind the remains
and know himself the slayer?

Ah yes
that's what fear does
I know what I am
He didn't.

What can cure him
Who looked at me and saw
a monster?

Looking, he never saw
Hearing, he never heard
Fear supplied all
Anger filled the gaps
"I was hurt! You shall pay,
who are as I was
on that day
when I learned what all of your kind
are like."

Perhaps, then, vision was clear
and not sight, but mercy
lacked
From the very first night
he wanted blood
and suffering
even with his arms around me
he said,
"I can not wait
til all like you are dead."

deborah64554

Random September Things

2007-09-09T23:52:00.000-07:00

Today I saw...

Spinners on a Geo. Yes - no lie. I wish I had pulled out my phone and taken a picture, so I could post the proof here.

Life at a Start-Up

I love my job. It's not perfect and everyone works hard, but everyone is nice, and extraordinarily intelligent, and it's a place where I fit in - a rare experience for me! (Or maybe I am getting more normal.) I was stunned past speaking a few weeks ago when, after shooting my supervisor an email asking if I could use vacation time to leave early and ride my horse a few times a week, he came and loomed threateningly over my desk. "Deborah," he snarled, (Pushed it!! I thought in terror) - "You can leave WHENEVER YOU WANT. You're a SALARIED EMPLOYEE. As long as your work is getting done, you can set your own schedule!!"

At my previous job, the CEO would call me 5 minutes before closing to make sure I was still there. The job before that, my supervisor would not even acknowledge me when I left on vacation - vacations made him angry. I would walk out and say, "Hey, see you in a week!" and he would not look up or say a word... even though I counted up my overtime the last year I was there, and it came to over 100 hours and I had left on time TWICE that year (no raise). In yet another previous corporate job, the marketing executives would report anyone who was not 10 minutes early to HR... even though the entire marketing team almost never left sooner than 2 hours after the day was oficially over.

So I get to ride my horse. It's awesome.

But, start-ups being what they are, the signs of our probable demise are beginning to make themselves apparent. Google has stopped our crucial search engine traffic by blocking us from their index (we compete with one of their lamer products. Think of Google's lamest product, and you will be very close to guessing what we do). Though what our site does is amazing, better (I think) than anything else out there, we're probably not going to make it. We have hardly any users and, without Google, hardly any way to get them.

Does Google have too much power? Graph courtesy of Alexa.com.

Two people were laid off today. At lunch, the talk (in hushed tones) was whether or not our investors will yank our funding after the New Year. I'm still paying for moving expenses from Texas on my credit card, and if I save hard I can just manage to get together enough to make it a month if they do.

There is a feeling of "It's still fun!" - but it's already got a sort of nostalgic tinge. There's also a feeling of, "This is a shame." What we've built is awesome. But it's probably going to vanish. My own reactions are, I'm sure, mild compared to the people who've been there from the beginning, who really are the owners of what's been created. For them it must be like watching the slow death of a living creation. For more than one it was the hope of securing a good future for their small children, by making enough to put by for sending them to college later on.

I'm worried again about the future. California is so expensive. Will I be able to get another job here with the economy doing what it's doing? Will I have to sell my beautiful horse? Where can I go? I've kind of already been everywhere. Texas would be the obvious choice for the development of similar technology, but I was there before. It would hurt a lot, in more ways than one, to go back and I don't think I can really consider it. Maybe Wisconsin or Ohio. Maybe I should think about being a waitress in some medium-sized, semi-rural place.

Really, the world is wide open.

But freedom is more fun shared, and more fun chosen. These are choices I am worn out from being compelled to make.

Lyrics for "Espirits Divins" (1572)

I've looked on the web many times for these and never found them. Maybe I'm the first person to post them online! This is from the Boston Camerata CD, "A Renaissance Christmas", and the hymn, from 16th-century France, is beautiful and stirring. The translation is a true one, not made to rhyme, and it is also very moving.

Espirits divins, chantons de la nuit sainte
O holy spirits, let us sing of the holy night

C'est cette nuit que la pucelle enciente
On that night the virgin with child

Nous a produit le Verbe precieux
Delivered for us the precious Word

C'est cette nuit que l'on a vu les cieux
on that night the heavens were seen

Tout decouverts, et bien cinq cent mille anges
all opened, and half a million angels

Chanter a Dieu d'eternelles louanges.
were heard singing eternal praise to God.

C'est donc a nuit, la nuit la plus heureuse
That night is the happiest of all nights

La nuit qui donne a toute ame amoureuse
the night that gives every loving soul

Cet heur de voir parfois son Createur
the joy to see sometimes its Creator

La nuit qui donne a l'oeil du corps cet heur
the night that gives the eye the joy

Voir et toucher son Dieu en ce bas-monde
to see and to touch its God in this base world

Ne de la Vierge a nulle autre seconde.
born of the Virgin and none other.

Heureuse nuit, devant le jour premiere
O happy night, first night before the day

Nuit non pas nuit, mais parfaite lumiere
night that is no night but perfect radiance

Qui toujours luit et toujours reluira
night that still shines and shall forever shine.

Oh! Malheureusement celui qui te dira
Oh! Unhappy are those who shall call you

Dorenavant obscure, noire et sombre
henceforth dark, black, dim

Quand ton beau clair se fait maitre de l'ombre.
when your clear beauty masters the shadow.

"Happy" and "unhappy" had a much fuller meaning centuries ago than it does today. Happy meant fortunate, blessed, good, fulfilling, rich with good things. Unhappy meant, destroying, painfully turned away from all goodness, self- and other- destructive (think of the quote about Sir Modred, in Morte d'Arthur, where Arthur is warned to avoid Modred because he is "unhappy"; everything around him becomes ruined and destroyed. Arthur keeps his encounter with Modred and is killed by him, and this completes the destruction of Camelot. To be happy or unhappy was not seen as being the fault of any person, but a quality of how each person was shaped from birth, like how we see personality today. Unhappy people, though they were wisely to be avoided, invited pity and compassion, not hatred or blame.)

Piano Sheet Music

I'm finding that piano sheet music online, even if you are charged to download it, is often extremely poor. Either it is dumbed down for very new beginners, or else it has been hacked together in five minutes to copy the harmony of a well-known song with no thought for beauty, expression, emphasis or arrangement. I was especially frustrated recently while looking for a version of "The Drummer Boy", the Christmas song that is so moving, that wasn't a one-note wonder. I've heard it played so beautifully it stopped my heart and brought tears to my eyes, but what you pay for online is oversimplified, hollow and unsatisfying. Finally I found the Really Beautiful version for free at this site: http://www.theperfectscores.com/ . And I'm posting it here in case anyone else is searching for it.

Two poems

...brief but profound, that I discovered (strangely!) in a book of "Light Verse":

"Snowfall"
(anonymous)

Wires strung with diamonds,
Shanties decked in white,
Our shabby little village
Turned lovely over night.

If I were dressed in satin,
With diamonds in my hair,
Do you think, perhaps, that some one
Would say that I was fair?

"The Golf Links"
Sarah N. Cleghorn

The golf links lie so near the mill
That almost every day
The laboring children can look out
And see the men at play.

deborah64554

Surreal Day - do I belong here?

2007-07-28T23:35:00.000-07:00

Here is a taste of my surreal life:

On Wednesday I forgot to bring my lunch. I'm becoming a good cook solely by virtue of having to eat something I make daily, in order to avoid monthly bills for eating lunch out that well exceed my car payment. On my way out to go to Whole Foods I ask around our small office to see if anyone would like to come too. Our CEO, who I really like (a brilliant businessman, and an excellent leader who types his own memos and creates his own Powerpoint presentations), and a female VP from New York who I rather dislike (she's friendly, but I find her shallow and inconsistent, and she does not ever seem to really do anything but create a tremendous amount of emergency busywork for others) want to go.

As we get underway, I realize that this is going to be a very silent lunch for me.

I'm aware that I'm geeky and shy, but it's not impossible to have a conversation with me... unless you are a person who is so obsessed with work, that there is no other conversation you can have.

This is exactly what happens. CEO and VP begin discussing all of the CEOs and VPs they know in common. Names drop like rain. She finds out he has worked with Karen S., oh, she really admires Karen so much! The next thing out of her mouth is something so slanderous and shameful about Ms. S., that my dislike of her increases, right along with my amazement at how comfortably and in what friendly tones she conveys that Ms. S. was really very weird, that she never understood her, and that she (Karen S.) had a consistent tendency to imply in important interviews that she was the founder of a company where she had only been a minor late-hire manager.

This elegant conversation continued all through lunch. As we left the Whole Foods parking lot, I saw something very strange: A black woman, with short hair, otherwise attractive, had two horns - like cartoon demon horns - cosmetically embedded in her skull.

"That woman has horns!" I interrupt.

To me, a person with horns is a profoundly interesting topic for conversation.

Is one person so attracted to open and purposeful evil that she has gone to the exhorbitant cost and trouble of deliberately, personally and outwardly mimicking the traditional physical attributes of the most evil beings that could ever exist?

Or, does she so little believe in "evil" that she has idolized individual self-expression to an evil degree, and so made an extraordinarily ironic philosophical statement?

If worshipping self, self-expression and self "freedom" has created in her the desire to outwardly express that worship, and if the expression of that worship is accurately expressed by the horns, then there is tremendous irony there. Because it seems possible here that the lack of belief in active evil has led to an actively evil belief, accurately expressed outwardly by deliberately demon-like horns. Not believing in evil, she seems to have developed a belief that in its exaggeration has outwardly expressed itself with the appearance of an evil thing.

And a further irony, the apparent worship of self-expression and self-freedom, in its outward manifestation, has actually deprived her of the self expression and self freedom that she so desires.

Because suppose one day she actually feels happy, good, and like she would like to do normal, pleasant things? Her appearance immediately and unmistakeably places her in the stereotype of a kinky freak who will probably be game for anything. No one will treat her just as herself while she is wearing a statement like that. And, she is certainly not "free" with horns to work wherever she pleases or even to pass without remark among people in general - especially among people who try (not necessarily with any accuracy) to discern between good and evil, peole who would have good reason to avoid and suspect someone who deliberately looks like a nightmare.

Is she a nice person? Maybe. Do the horns convey that? Or do they convey something else?

So I stare, fascinated by the philosophical possibilities, and CEO and VP glance over.

Here is their single comment: "Oh. I thought that was all pretty much only in San Francisco."

After a short pause, they revert to industry gossip.

WOW.

The possibilities for self-examination kick in on the way back. Do I envy the woman with horns?

Oh, yes. I must admit I do. Not a lot, because I see too clearly how she has set herself up to be treated always and only in a certain way. No one will ever see past the horns, whether it's an attractive man with bizarre sexual fantasies who approaches her thinking she will easily fulfill and exceed them, or a mother with a child who protectively pulls the child away, or a tired grocery clerk who thinks, "I've seen too many weirdos today," and doesn't smile because he sees only horns and not the tiredness or lonliness that may be in her face.

But a little, because it takes a tremendous amount of effort to do what I do, to try hard to be good because it's who I want to be, to try hard to do right because I think it's right, and to hope to win approval on the way. Approval is seldom won. Let me amend that. Approval is almost never won. It might as well be never, is the truth. To keep on going is lately unbelievably difficult.

Woman with horns doesn't have to do that. She's placed herself beyond it. No one will ever bother to think that she is good. She's made an extraordinarily obvious statement that she is not.

I remember when my hair was punk - dyed bright white and spiky, about three inches long. Not only was it really cute, it had an incredibly unexpected benefit: Everyone thought I had an attitude. When I behaved rudely or angrily, no one came down on me because it was only what they already expected. When I felt like being pleasant, everyone was surprised and very happy with me because they didn't expect that at all. Everyone cut me so much slack. All of that certainly ended when I looked normal again. When you look like what you are, people's expectations adjust accordingly.

Woman with horns has a place to hide, and I don't.

But woman with horns can't come out of her hiding place - no one will see her. At least I can hope that some day some one will truly see me.

deborah64554

Decline and rise of the small retail business

2007-07-03T20:04:00.000-07:00

Here is something interesting.

For at least a decade, there has been tremendous national angst over the decline of the small retail business as superstores like WalMart, Target, Home Depot and Barnes & Noble appeared in every metro area in America and slowly, but predictably and painfully, drove small family retailers out of business.

Several of my friends have rabid things to say about this. Ellen, the rural breeder who raised my horse in Springdale, Arkansas, is one of them. She lived close enough to Walmart's corporate complex to know employees who talked, and she had some tales to tell. I remember the most vivid example she gave - of a small local paintball supplies store that ultimately went under after becoming first a vendor and then a victim of Walmart's pricing strategies.

Small business is in an irreversible decline, is the unhappy consensus of most.

I was thinking about this as two things recently came under my observation in my life. I'm still hunting for furniture to populate my rather empty rented townhouse, so I've been looking in stores of all kinds and on the internet.

On the El Camino Real in Mountain View, on the way to my office every day, I noticed a tiny furniture consignment store. I never went in - it occupied a very small space with difficult parking, and the thin bric-a-brac masquerading as furniture in the window just didn't promise dinner-party sized expandable dining tables or tall bookshelves inside. There would be nothing more to remark about this store except that about three weeks after I noticed it, it began to go out of business.

First, "Going out of business sale!" signs. Then, "Auction. Date and time." Then, "Closed", with a few stray items sitting on the floor. Then, "Closed" and completely empty. Now, "Available."

image courtesy of Google Streeview!

another victim of Craigslist? This store was on Lincoln.

How did this happen? There are probably about two reasons, one minor and one major. The minor reason is that this little store was in a terrible location - the essential market for consignment furniture is college students. This store was nowhere near a college, and not visible or accessible enough at its tiny location on a corner in Mountain View to attract the mobile apartment community that saturates the area.

But the major reason wasn't a huge retailer. It was Craigslist. I'm sure about this because I've been prowling Craigslist for furniture obsessively, and that's where the used furniture action definitely is.

Why is this interesting?

The competition that blew away the tiny family consignment store wasn't a huge superstore. It was a cluster of even tinier retailers - individuals, single units of people, who know that they don't need to take their furniture to a consignment store any more to sell it. No inconvenient transport. No consignment fee. Thousands, not dozens, of customers.

What does this mean?

I think the trend, or at least the perceived trend, that superstores have destroyed little retailers, is due for a radical update. The small retail business is not dead at all - it's growing, thriving and expanding in a way it probably never has in the entire history of capitalistic economy. The notable thing about the transformation is the change in the nature of small retail. Once a physically located family store, now it is a virtually located individual. A people unit, the smallest retailer there can be.

As proof of my conclusion, I submit... my mom. She never owned a store in her life, until this year. Now she owns a jewelry store, which she physically operates in the bedroom that used to be mine, and virtually operates on eBay.

When you consider the number of small retailers that have gone out of business since the 1980's and compare this to the truly staggering explosion of even smaller retailers on eBay, Amazon, and Etsy or boutiques that are highlighted by Kaboodle or crawled by TheFind.com, I think it's obvious that small business is inarguably on the rise and not even slightly threatened by superstores.

I love it when good news replaces bad news. And I think that is interesting!!

deborah64554

I found a baby blackbird !!

2007-06-24T20:08:00.000-07:00

I found a baby bird at the barn where my horse is stabled ! It was sitting on a shovel and I might have left it there, only a baby chickadee had died in the atrium area of my workplace after being abandoned by the rest of its family. It hadn't been strong enough to fly out and it cried all day. That night it actually hopped into the office out of desperation. It was gently replaced by a well-meaning person... but then died of hunger the next day. I was still upset about it.

The bird I found had been sitting on the shovel for two hours, and no other bird came near it... but a cat walked right by without seeing it, and that's when I made my mind up to grab it. It let out an enormously loud shriek considering it's tiny size ! All of the horses jumped around and snorted in their stalls, and I truly felt like an awful person. But my grabbing it was not at all the worst thing to happen to the baby bird, although it thought it was. The worst thing that could ever have happened to it had already happened - it became separated from its parents.

I took it home in a paper bag and found out it was a baby blackbird. It was totally adorable. Here is a picture:

I found several sites on the web that gave me good information about what to feed it. The best site by far was this one, which told me to boil an egg and feed little parts to the bird.

My bird was really excited about this. Because it was brown and snuggled into my hand so contentedly when done, I started to think it was female. She liked the boiled egg a lot - this makes sense, since egg white and yolk are created as nutrition for an incubating chick while it is still in its shell.

When I told one of my co-workers about this, he said, "Isn't that cannibalism or something?" I explained about the white and the yolk, and that it's only cannibalism if the egg is fertilized - then it would be a growing baby bird, instead of just protein and nutrients. He made a horrified face and said, "Oh, let's not go there!" He meant, let's not consider that if a fertilized bird egg counts as a real bird, a fertilized human egg might also count as a real human. I like Allen, who is gay, very much, but this made me see how eager people are to stay blind to obvious truths especially if examining them could lead to some inconvenient conclusions.

Anyway, the next day I also got my bird some baby bird mixture at PetCo. I mixed this with the boiled egg with good results.

WARNING ! If you use the baby bird mixture ("Exact" hand feeding mixture by Kaytee), read the instructions! They have important information. For instance, microwaving the mixture can create hot pockets in the mixture, which will burn a baby bird's mouth and throat.

I saw that my baby bird had a pre-digestion area in her throat. Here is a picture. Whatever she couldn't really digest yet, got sent back out from here. For instance, she couldn't eat raisins no matter how much I mixed them up. For the first few days, blackberries got sent back too.

To feed her, I basically trapped her in my hand and used a plastic syringe full of boiled egg mixed with the Kaytee mixture to get the food into her throat. Baby birds don't know how to swallow at first - that is why the food has to be stuffed in as far as possible. They don't mind, and will let you know when they're done. When there was food in her mouth, I used a soft art paint brush to push it down and if I was in a hurry I used my finger, which also worked although possibly nothing at all has ever made me feel so barbaric as using my finger to literally stuff food down the throat of a baby bird. I also used a soft art brush to clean her up afterwards, and she really liked that.

She needed feeding at least three times a day, and I came home at lunch to feed her. She needed water too, which she took in drops from my fingers. She was so aggressive about asking for food, but when she was only thirsty, she was very polite and made sweet, musical sounds that were very gracious and pretty.

After about the fourth day, she wasn't excited any more about boiled egg and mixture, and she started losing weight. But she still couldn't really fly! So I did something I never imagined - drove over to my parents and collected a really sterling selection of slugs, pillar bugs, beetles and raspberries, squashed them all up into a nauseating but nutritious mixture, and fed them to her with the syringe. I even fed her a spider that I found in a corner of my townhouse. It was so gross !! But also so satisfying to see her get her appetite back and weigh something again.

Here is a picture of the supplies:

I knew it was important that she learn to use her wings and get strong, so she wouldn't get trapped like the little atrium bird had. We did a lot of flying exercises. After dinner, she would sit on my fingers and I would lift my hand and drop it - like the Drop Zone at Great America. This forced her to flutter to keep her balance. I also lifted my arm way high and then moved it way low, so she had to cling at steep up and down angles. We did back-and-forth like a branch in the wind, and around in circles just for fun. She got very good at all of these and when she finally went outdoors, she could cling to the vertical corner of a stucco building - something I've never seen any other bird do.

I had her for about a week. Here is a picture of her right before I let her go - you can see she's lost her punk-rock fluff:

I knew it was time to let her go when I came home from work one night and she had jumped up and down in her box so energetically that she knocked the top off and flew up to the curtain rod.

She stayed outside that night in a little orange tree on my porch, and flew away in the morning. I saw her flying around with another bird, and she landed on my roof as I was about to go to work. I really wanted to get a good breakfast in her for starting her new life of freedom, and I asked her to come down. She tried to, but she just didn't have the confidence yet to fly at such a steep angle through tree branches. Some smaller birds took a friendly interest in her, and I saw her tasting different things to see if she could eat them - a leaf, a twig, an orange blossom. I had to leave for work, and I haven't seen her since.

I hope she's okay. I feel really priveleged that I got to be so familiar with something so small, gentle and wild. How many people get to hold and feed a baby bird, or help it practice flying? Not many. I miss my baby bird and think about her often. I've never thought about putting up a bird feeder before, but now I've put one up for other birds, so they don't have to worry about finding enough food. Now whenever I see a little female blackbird, I'll always wonder if she could be my blackbird. I do think I hear her sometimes, but I can never be sure. I pay more attention to birds now. It was a really special experience.

deborah64554

Bizarre weird messages I get on MySpace

2007-04-28T19:49:00.000-07:00

There have been some that lift my eyebrows, there have been some that make them do that perplexed expression thing, and then there are the ones that are so strange, you have to wonder if your friends are hoaxing you. Unfortunately, in the back of your mind, you feel pretty sure that your friends would do a better job at it. These messages are so ultimately, so critically disfunctional, they have to be genuine.

I truly regret I've only started with this one. Others have completely dropped out of my inbox on MySpace or been deleted. But from now on, I'll be diligent, yes, a diligent steward, recording these snapshots of the MySpace FantasyLand mentality.

From Haris (charming picture of a dark haired guy with nice build) titled "hello beauty" (who wouldn't read something that starts with such a nice compliment?) :

Hello sweety woman how are u doing there and how is everything going aswell....actually i saw ur pics in ur profile so i was so thrilled and also really wanna get to know u better cos u are a woman and kind of person am seeking for here ok.....so if u would love to know me better here is my yahoo im...protect-the-cluelesss@yahoo.com so u add me to ur list then we can talk better on there.....here is a lil word about me am a engineering construction company so i have a son his name is johnson since his mum died have been the one taking care of him cos his a son i so much love and care for so i here by looking for someone that can love me and my son forever ok and i know that its u already cos u looks responsible ok....take care...hope to hear from u soon

My comment: Whoa.

-----------------------------

Along the same lines:

i was searching for my heart angel and my soulmate when i saw your ravishing look and wonderful smile on your photo,which really swept me off my feet and i was so impressed,that made me drop you this few words of mine,.i would love to know you more better than i have already read of you from your profile,and also would love to have a some chat with you on yahoo instant messanger protect-the-cluelesss@yahoo.com or pls try and add me so that we can talk things out more better.., because i ve never been so certain of a woman b4 and i want yoiu to know I got this feelings that you are exactly all i am looking for in a woman and just cant wait to read a reply of this note from you. Pls Kindly get back to me........ am onlline for you now steve....

-----------------------------

Okay, now I realize VERY FEW messages on MySpace are NOT weird. This one is the last I'll post, unless there is a significant jump in the level of communication strangeness.

The following is an exchange with Ken (very handsome picture of a man who looks like a stockbroker or possibly a model):

--- his initial message ---

From: Ken
Date: May 4, 2007 12:21 PM
how are you

--- from me, in reply ---

From: (me)
Date: May 5, 2007 12:32 PM

Hi Ken,
Very good, thank you. How are you?

You have a very handsome smile. Your profile doesn't say very much about you, though. What is your life like in New York?

Have a good weekend,
Deborah

--- his bizarre, weird reply ---

Thank you pretty, am so happy to hear from you, well i will love to hear from you pretty that is like to chat with you pretty, dear come to think about it you so pretty i cant imagin how it will be being with you cos you look like an angel.Dear i will like you to add me to your chat id, angel this is mine protect-the-clueless@yahoo.com

Here is the best message ever, from a really cute guy named Nick.

Shopping is the American Sedative

2007-03-26T18:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Saturday, the first beautiful day here (Bay Area, California) in some weeks. I went to Valley Fair, for at least a decade the largest upscale shopping center in the metro area. I wanted to go to Macy's furniture store, which is only at larger Macy's stores, and though I loathe Valley Fair for an assortment of reasons, the closest furniture Macy's was here. I need furniture because I sold all of mine when I moved from SC, but now I am finally settled and I want a place to sit besides my bed.

This is about my experience.

In Macy's, downstairs on the way to furniture: A man in his 30's is literally loading up a cart with painted plateware. He has a stack of dinner plates, a stack of bowls, a stack of dessert plates. At the register he tells the cashier, "I'm finishing out our wedding set." It's about two thousand dollars worth of plates. I know exactly two people who have ever had more than 10 guests at one time for dinner, and one of them is me. Seeing this man spending so much money on plates because he and his bride have an "unfinished" set makes me feel uneasy.

In the furniture department: I step off the escalator into mattresses. A boy, perhaps 12 years old, is collapsed with his sister and brother on a mattress set. He is saying, over and over again, "This is eighteen thousand dollars. This is an eighteen thousand dollar set of mattresses. I can not believe mattresses can cost this much. Eighteen thousand dollars!" I look at the tag. He's not kidding - and it's on sale. The regular price is $25,000 for a king set. "Can you believe it?" He asks me. "I hope you're comfortable," I respond. "Oh, I like it a LOT!" he grins. I walk on, trying not to wonder how much he'll spend on a mattress when he grows up.

In the back of the furniture department: A saleslady is on the phone, but her voice carries. "Oh no. How awful - I never expected. How awful! Dear - I don't want you to call me. I just want you to be okay. What a terrible, terrible thing. What are you going to..." My uneasiness increases.

Escape from Macy's, into the mall traffic: The vendors in the aisles have to be extremely aggressive, because there are so many of them. On my return here from the midwestern U.S., I was trapped by vendor after vendor because I did not know how to be rude enough to completely ignore them. If you make eye contact, they will actually grab your hand and start rubbing lotion onto it. Accidentally, I make eye contact with a vendor. "Hello, can I ask you a question?" She says immediately, taking a step forward. I shake my head, break eye contact and walk on. "I just want to ask you a question!" She calls after me angrily. "Can I ask you a question?" This is disturbing too.

Banana Republic: A boy walks in with a girl at the same time I do. They are, to say the least, a striking couple. He is tall, caucasian, pale, with soft features and shoulder-length black hair, wearing all black. He looks unbelievably bored or maybe stoned. She is black, two feet shorter than he and very petite but dressed in a way that puts an unfortunate idea into my head. My head did not want to have that idea. Everything she is wearing is bright pink, including short-short cutoffs and unbelievably high heels. Neither one smiles. Neither one speaks to the other. My sense of uneasiness rises, but I can't define it.

Nordstrom: I forget - do they have furniture or not? I walk by case after case, display after display of earrings - dripping with jewels, reflected in mirror after mirror. Everything sparkles. But I don't like it and I want to leave now. The tables on the way out are stacked, stacked, with cashmere scarves. There are not just one or two in each of seven colors. There are about thirty times seven scarves on display. Table after table on the way out is laden with an unbelievable quantity of one product after another. I feel awful, like I've eaten something bad. I think I was getting close to having some kind of anxiety attack.

Epiphany at SonyStore: There is a huge HDTV screen in the window. It's looping scenes. Box after box opens to reveal pair after pair of gorgeous shoes. Dessert after beautiful dessert appears on the screen. Glass after glass of champagne is filled - a tower, overflowing with champagne. It's a movie, I realize when Kirstin Dunst appears, one I haven't seen: Marie Antoinette. Strangely effeminate men prance in, carrying one exquisite thing after another... box after box of shoes. Dessert after beautiful dessert, consumed one after the other, the images so insistently repetitive that finally they all seem the same. Even the dog is tired of dessert, but eats it anyway.

But Marie Antoinette was beheaded. Did the movie show that? Or what about the Princess de Lamballe, her best friend who was literally slaughtered by the mob, her head and body parts carried on a pike into the streets, when the mob came for Marie?

Who at Sony picked this to show? Someone at the corporate marketing offices, or someone in that particular store? Did they pick it with any sense of irony, of intelligent commentary on the environment in which it was displaying? Marie knocks over a glass after glass of champagne onto a table of cards and I think, "House of cards."

Box after box of shoes... dessert after dessert... glass after glass of champagne...

This was the moment I suddenly was able to put the growing anxiety and uneasiness into words. Valley Fair mall anesthetizes people. It's a sedative. Shopping is a sedative. No one can think in this environment. You're not supposed to think, either. Just buy.

I walked by Juicy Couture on my way out of the mall.

Juicy Couture: "Eat Candy. Eat Candy. Eat Candy. Eat Candy. Eat Candy. Eat Candy. Eat Candy. Eat Candy. Eat Candy. Eat Candy. Eat Candy. Eat Candy..."

deborah64554