This picture makes me happy.

Dog Nurses Tiger Cubs - Yahoo! News Photos

This was maybe the brightest spot of my day.

"Nothing can describe it."

La. doctor cleared in patient deaths recalls storm - Yahoo! News

Pssst...hey New Orleans, yeah you guys...if you want to begin to get your health care system back on track maybe you shouldn't sue doctors that chose to stay and work in the worst situation-hell-hole-hospital-nightmare EVER in modern history.

"If you're reading this..." pt.2

I was drawn into reading my own blog one night last week, and I got stuck for about an hour reading old entries from 2005 and 2006. It was interesting for a few reasons, one of them being the change in my writing style that is clearly evident since I've moved away from the wilderness.

There was a brashness in my diatribes that seems to be missing from my recent entries. Perhaps it's my own perception of my present situation that is coloring how I read, well, me; I can tell you that I am very judgmental of my own works, so perhaps I'm not the best judge of what is good writing and what is REALLY good writing. I loved how direct I was--very powerful, like a voice in your head (I hope I still have THAT).

I was very entertained reading the old me. I laughed a lot. I was impressed with how accurate my economic predictions have turned out, but I think a lot of other people were thinking the same things, so it's not too surprising. To be honest, I'm not completely sold on the total economic meltdown that James Kunstler or other Peak Oil prophets foresee. I guess anything is possible, but people are still out on the highways, going to work, going to the mall, and buying real estate. So I'm not real sure how painful the gas pump crisis has been. It sucks, but it isn't derailing my life and lifestyle in any way. Still, it would be prudent to consider what $10 a gallon gasoline would be like. I never thought I'd see $4, and here we are.

I recall one blog entry where I talk about my customers, people that live regular lives and have regular jobs. I'm one of those people now...very curious. Life. Hm. I was totally engrossing when discussing New Orleans, or the drama that is Utah Politics. In fact, I believe I have the beginnings of a really good book. I just don't know how I can pull it all together--maybe it would be a better screenplay, sort of a slice-of-life chick drama.

There is no doubt I'm a good writer. That's a lock. I'm just unsure of where to channel myself. Fiction doesn't work for me. I have tried--Lord knows. And it's best that only the Lord and maybe three other people know what my attempt looked like.

*sigh*

I think that maybe my day-to-day life in an office is sapping my ability to remain on top of current events, and sapping my will to sit in front of the computer when I am not at work. This one change in my life could be the reason I'm not as prolific and chatty as I have been in my past posts.

Wait a minute. Why the hell do I care anyway? No one reads this except for my friends and some family; my husband says he refuses to read me until I in some way monetize my written words. He constantly wishes aloud that I wrote more, and got paid for it, because I am "SO good."

I don't know what else to say about this. Maybe I'm just working out some shitty variant of writer's block that curses you not with a blank page, but with poor-to-middling ability. ::YAWN::

Really?

Boy, 11, tracks speeders with toy radar gun - Yahoo! News

I don't know. I just don't know.

Country life might not be so bad...

Banks are actually failing today. I cannot believe it.

I suppose what is even more unbelievable is that this is not the big news story today; the "Obama" cartoon on the cover of the New Yorker, as foul as it is, is the big headline.

Here's a picture of people making a run on an IndyMac branch in California. The article isn't too cheery, either. And the voice in the wilderness, Jim Kunstler, has written a frighteningly upfront blog entry about how life as we know it is over. Over and done. I love these paragraphs the most, I think:

"It's hard to imagine what kind of melodramas were unspooling on the Hamptons lawns this weekend, while everybody else in America was watching Nascar, or plying the aisles of BJs Discount Warehouse for next week's supply of mesquite-and-guacamole flavored Doritos, or having flames and chains tattooed on their necks, or lost in a haze of valium and methedrine.

"With the death of the IndyMac Bank last week, and the GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac laying side-by-side in the EMT van on IV drips, headed for the Federal Reserve's ever more crowded intensive care unit, there was a sense of the American Dream having passed through the event horizon that denotes the opening of a black hole."

Washington Mutual, National City, Zions Bank, and a couple of others are on the way down and out, closing at lowlowlow values today; tomorrow may be Black Tuesday V.2.

Okay. Time to get serious. Now is the time to have your "come-to-Jesus" moment about your job, your spending habits, your bank account, your gas tank, your garbage, your bicycle, your health, your loved ones, all of it. I know I've written about this before (and after reading my blog posts from 2006 looking for a "be prepared" entry I wrote, I got sidetracked reading and never found it)--but get your "community (friends and family that can be trusted and helpful)"and your business in order. Think ahead to what your winter home heating bill might look like if this crap continues. Plan ahead.

I smell Hillary. No really...

Obama camp: Satirical magazine cover 'tasteless' - Yahoo! News

Derelicte...it's really real. Now.

hansel

If you remember Zoolander, you'll totally get why this company named itself Hansel (he's so hot right now), and how all of their merchandise is recycled stuff, not unlike...Mugatu's Derelicte line.

A Year in Kentucky.

It has been a year since we moved to the Bluegrass State.

Somehow, the short span of time we spent in New Orleans between Utah and moving here seems like a strange dream. And after meeting my husband at the Louisville Airport twelve years ago, Utah and the Grand Canyon are beginning to seem like strange dreams, like we've made some kind of big circle in our lives and we're back to the beginning. Other things have happened to me since being here that make it feel like 1996 all over again, but they are too personal to divulge.

It's strange living in a deciduous climate after living in the desert for so long. I forgot about my allergies; they were really bad this spring. But I LOVE the big thunderstorms. I will never get enough of the atmosphere in an unsettled state.

I've held down two extremely interesting office jobs, one of which I literally carved out of the ether at the law firm; the other was offered to me because of me being...well, me. I couldn't say no since I'm still the only person in our household that is working. It pays a lot more than the law firm, the office demands are liberal, and the office itself is beautiful. No contest there. My very specialized work history in the outdoor/federal bureaucracy/tourism field seemed to be the very thing that the architecture firm found desirable, something that I NEVER thought any reasonable corporation would respect as valued experience. But I don't work at a regular architecture firm. I work at a firm specializing in historic renovation, and the stuff they work on is amazing. I'm proud to work there, as I was when I owned my own thing.

Not that the law firm didn't respect my former life; in fact, I think people there were fascinated by my landing in Kentucky after such a weird, wild, freewheeling adventure owning my own business out west. I was something of a whispered celebrity in the firm...the girl from Utah that knows HTML that got hired by sheer will and hard work as a contractor for six months that used to go backpacking in the desert. Oh yeah, her. She got hired? Wow. I loved my coworkers, and I still do. I didn't know if they loved me for leaving for a job that gave me more money and a cool office, but they called me for lunch last month and I discovered that they still liked me and actually missed me, too. I will be forever grateful for the opportunity to work there, and for the people I got to know.

We've lived in two very different areas of Louisville. The first rental was practically in the country out of town. Wonderful, but then I found work downtown. And then I found my old buddy Robert at the Cathedral downtown. And then I was spending most of my time downtown, and the rest of it commuting. It got old. And when gas started to push $3 a gallon, we moved downtown into an old, ultra-bohemian/urban neighborhood with wonderful old architecture. Since we've moved here in March gas has gone up $1 a gallon. So we've already saved a few hundred dollars a month just moving here. We live in a really cool carriage house converted into a loft apartment. It's really the most "us" place we've ever lived. It's also the first place we've lived without the dog.

That was a sad, sad chapter in the Kentucky part of our story, the day we put the dog down. It will have been a year on August 1st that I told her goodbye.

The reason we're even in Kentucky, which is also sort of sad, is because of my husband's grandmother. She's really, really old, and is now getting ready to close the book on her long life. She is mortally ill, and it's only a matter of time for her. I've been in this family for twelve years; for that entire time she's lived in assisted living or nursing homes, and the family just never knew when her time would come (all these death euphemisms are ridiculous). Now, we're all pretty sure that her time is drawing to a close with the latest word from the doctors.

We've enjoyed our time in Kentucky, but after grandmother is gone, I don't know what our plans will be. I will stay and work at this cool job as long as I have it. Louisville is a great town, perfectly sized with nice people, and easy to get around. I love the farms in the rest of the state, too. Country drives always make me so happy. We are considering buying a farm for a fun getaway place, but I think husband wants to go country full-time again. I'm not so sure about that.

I always try to understand what he needs, but I have needs, too. And as much as I love the country, country living full-time is not the rosy dream that so many people think that it is. Small towns are weird. The sheer monotony on most days, and the lack of amenities nearby like, say, a hospital or a pharmacy, are also a big drag. You learn patience, quality home repair, and cooking, which is good, but you also learn about longing and yearning, which I'm not so sure is such a good thing. Hoping, perhaps, is the positive antidote to longing. But hoping has never made anything happen. Will and determination and energy always make things happen.

I don't know if I have it in me--the will--to live full time in the sticks again. Only time and circumstances out of my control will tell. If I keep having 1996 moments while I'm here, something really big is going to happen to me before the year is out that will change my life. I wonder what it will be...whatever happens, I am always up for a new adventure. Within reason.

Missionaries. Shirtless. Trouble.

Mormon facing discipline for shirtless calendar - MSNBC.com

There are so many levels of hypocrisy here I am not sure where to start.

Maybe I should start with how the calendar makes Mormon men a sexual object for a change, instead of the women. That probably upset some old church folks.

Then as I read on, I realized that the calendar creator, himself a "Jack Mormon" that has not been involved in his church since 2002, probably hasn't tithed 10% of his earnings from the somewhat successful calendar, which is now its second edition. This is a serious enough problem in and of itself, never mind the half-naked ambassadors of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Facing excommunication is serious if you believe in your faith. However:

"Members have been excommunicated for reasons including criminal activity and scholarly works of history or theology that contradicted church claims."

This guy should be proud to be lumped in with the author/historian who wrote the carefully-researched-from-church-records account of the life of Joseph Smith, the DNA scientists who disproved the church's belief that American Indians were the lost tribes of Israel, and my freaker friend Keven that makes drums.

If the church excommunicates him, he will be in good company. Somehow I suspect that the church and the calendar man will come to a financial and spiritual understanding.

Psychedelic Healing.

Emerging from the Drug War Dark Age: LSD and Other Psychedelic Medicines Make a Comeback | AlterNet

Oh wow, man...

"Although it may be difficult for the uninitiated to understand at face value, LSD and other psychedelic compounds can have a profound life-altering affect on the user that, more often than not, serves to connect them (or reconnect, as the case may be) to the universal compassion and love for life that is inherent in our species. It invariably causes them to question the validity of the status quo, to examine their life and what surrounds them in terms of beliefs and values.

"And in this epoch of industrial civilization, the last thing a corporate culture that survives on war, aggression and consumer spending needs is a consciously awakened population of people who inexorably choose to leave said culture in droves because they see it is killing the planet, themselves, and each other. This is precisely, to the letter, the meaning of "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out."

"But even for those who would call this hyperbole, what was lost in all the derision and urban myths about LSD and other psychedelic compounds like ayahuasca, peyote, psilocybin and iboga -- plant medicines thousands of years old -- was the fact that they are miraculously powerful medicines, with the ability to effectively treat, and in some cases, cure some of the most debilitating illnesses and disorders plaguing humanity: addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and migraine and cluster headaches. They are also effective palliatives for the sick and dying."