update on my stepdad

Thank you those who have been praying for (holding in the light, etc) my stepdad. He came out of the surgery yesterday and was awake and mumbling. The doctors are very happy with his recovery so far. He still has a ways to go, but so far so good!

thanks again,
charity :)

please keep my stepdad in your thoughts.

he is having quintuple bypass surgery today. apparently he had been feeling chest tightness but didn't know it was related to his heart. he was walking in the yard and almost blacked out, so he took an aspirin. the doctors said that probably caused him to not have a heart attack, and since he didn't have a heart attack, he was healthy enough to go into surgery immediately. he is currently doing well, and should be out of surgery in a couple of hours. he'll be in the hospital until early next week and in recovery at home for an unknown period of time. this weekend i will be doing a couple of interviews and mom didn't want me to postpone my work, so i'll be going home next weekend. that way, not only will i stay on my work schedule, but i'll also be able to visit with him at home (rather than in intensive care) and help mom taking care of him. please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

thank you.

Some interesting items.

Confessions of a Matchmaker: This new A&E reality series follows the attempts of a matchmaker in Buffalo, NY to make the love dreams of the seemingly hopeless come true. Selected quotes: "Look at you; you picked doughnuts over sex," and "You are way gay." Recommended for shit-talkers and embittered singles.


The Painted Veil: This movie stars Naomi Watts and Ed Norton, with a strong supporting role played by Liev Schrieber, Naomi Watts' babydaddy. Set mostly in rural China in the middle of a cholera epidemic in 1925, this film brought memories of the "rice water stool" my former roommate told me about while studying for her M.P.H. Luckily, the story, the acting, and the breathtaking scenery (filmed largely in Guilin, Guangxi in southern China) distracts one from the disturbing images that phrase creates in the mind. The story didn't end as I would have liked, but it worked very well in retrospect. I'd like to read the novel by W. Somerset Maugham. Recommended.


Volver: I had been looking forward to this film for some time. The director, Almodovar, is one I want to like more than I actually like. The actresses do a great job. I found the movie entertaining, but it seemed to move slowly. And yet, the story was very complicated. The images in the film were nice, and again, the actresses gave powerful performances (not just Penelope Cruz). It was strange: at the end of the movie, I was left with several unanswered questions, and yet I found myself not caring very much. Compelling overall, though. Recommended.


Pandora: This is a neat website that will create radio stations based on the music you like. You give it a song or artist and with the help of the "music genome project" Pandora will make a playlist based on characteristics of that song or artist. As it plays more songs, you can continue to provide input, and it will continue to modify accordingly. Highly recommended.


Weeds: I rented the first season of this show and really enjoyed it. Mary Louise Parker does a great job, and although I have some ethical issues around racial portrayals in the show, I recognize the relative impossibility of perfection and think overall the show is a good one. And I love Elizabeth Perkins. I can't wait to see the second season, but I hear it's not quite as good. Season one recommended.


Top Chef Miami: Not nearly as engrossing as the second season, but it only just began, and I think maybe I'm just still worn out from the last season, which was emotionally draining and also highly irritating. It should be pretty interesting though, since the contestants appear to be very talented. Half-heartedly recommended.

Stay tuned for Hollywoodland, The First 48 Hours, Shin Chan, and more!

Nicholas and Susanna and I went to the pool today!

what else bugs me:

i live in a house divided into apartments. i'm the one who gets all the junkmail since i live in apartment one.

swine post office.

i find it amazing

i find it amazing that in one tiny single moment you can do something so consequential, like say something terrible that no one will every forget or forgive (my usual mistake) or even something as menial as put a coffee cup you think is empty into your purse then realize it's not at all empty and now you have ruined everything in your purse, ruined your new purse, and gotten coffee on your pants. it was so brief. can't i have that moment back and NOT do something so careless?

it's these little things that i always do that make me feel like i have no control over my life or anything in it.

melodramatic? yes.
an overstatement? possibly.
a truth that i live with daily? definitely.

charity :)

the significance of 144,000 in marketing religion and real estate.

I saw a commercial today for Century 21. They advertise that there are 144,000 brokers in their firm (all dedicated to listening to me and finding my dream home for me, of course). What struck me is that as a good Seventh-Day Adventist (kind-of), I immediately recognized this as the number of redeemed from the twelve tribes of Israel that appeared to John in his Revelation (that's in the Bible).


(See this website for more.)

My related question is a three-part one:

1) Are they trying to subconsciously sell their services by connecting it to something Christians will be drawn to (even though it does also kind of imply end-times)?

or

2) Is it just a coincidence?

or

3) ARE THEY THE TRUE CHOSEN PEOPLE?

...spooky...

(or lame or blasphemous, considering your perspective).

charity :)

two gross things in my apartment.

max's little tennis ball. can you tell it's her favorite toy? she walks around meowing with it in her mouth.


me working on my dissertation.

i am getting ready to post nikki's photos of canada in my picasa album. mine were lost in the fire i.e. the great computer crash of '06.

peace (chuhch! i'm out this pizzle!)
charity :)

ps-for the link to my picasa album look in the sidebar to the right. because of my gmail problems (see below) it is too complicated to log on and copy the address for you. sorry. blame google.

Picasa Web Album

I just wanted to let you guys know that I opened a Picasa account. You can see my public albums by clicking on this link. Pictures from Las Vegas are there.

Here's one of me with Olivia the sweet:



charity :)

if i've seen a stranger looking picture of me, i can't remember it.

Haha! I was working with my Dad in his jewelry making workshop when he took this picture of me. It's from his Picasa album (December 2006). I think at the time I was trying desperately and uselessly to flatten a piece of copper. It's harder than you might think...

I'm listening to the Weeds soundtrack (Volume 2) on Napster. Has anyone seen that show? I've heard it's good. I don't know. But the soundtrack is pretty good (Volume 2, at least).

charity :)

they may rule the world, but they'll never rule me!

Now that Google owns everything, you'd think the integration between all their entities would be more seamless. I have been trying to figure out for hours (I'm at work, so it's ok to waste time) how to switch ownership of this blog to my Gmail account, and I have discovered that "surprise, surprise, surprise (!!)" I am not an idiot (in this particular instance). It is actually not possible. In order to switch ownership of my blog to my Gmail account, I would have to create a new blog, then move the whole thing piece by piece over to that account, a long and tedious process that through switching names and URLs might cause the 3 readers (Hi Daddy, Nikki, and Harry, maybe?) to not be able to find it anymore. Geez.

If you have a blogger account, will you kindly ask them on the wish list to please enable users to switch blog ownership? As far as I can tell, my blog will be deleted when my school account is deleted upon graduation/termination of my graduate school career. And, from the number of questions in the Blogger Help Group dealing with this topic, many others are frustrated by this as well. Apparently you could do it in the older version of Blogger.

I went to Las Vegas last weekend, and as soon as I get home I'll post a few pictures. I had a really nice time. I want to open a Picasa web account to post my photos, but that's through Gmail, and it just reminds me of all the frustration. Wouldn't it be neat if they were all on my stupid Gmail account? Argh.

In summary, I feel this way when I think of Google:

let's dance!

charity :)

a brief update on my life...

fun stuff:
i got a haircut!
i'm going to las vegas wednesday for nikki's birthday!
becky came back to jazzercise after some physical therapy!
i started hot yoga again!

not so much fun:
ben and i broke up.
i realized one of my hips is bigger than the other.
my dissertation is making me feel utterly miserable.
i can't get my flat iron to make my hair look this good.

on the bright side,
my hair looks nice anyway! also, i decided i am going to try to get in shape by the time i turn thirty. i think it will make me feel better if i can take control of my eating and exercise, and make some progress on my dissertation. and the office season finale was really cute.



closing thoughts from married to the sea:


(i try to remember)
charity :)

ps. paris.

did you see that paris hilton got 45 days in jail? her "shocked and disappointed" lawyer had this response:

"To sentence Paris Hilton to jail is uncalled for, inappropriate and ludicrous. She was singled out for who she is. She's been selectively targeted. Paris was honest in her testimony. We plan to appeal. Shame on the system." (source)

I like how he calls her "Paris Hilton" like she's not a person, she's an image, a persona. And why is it so uncalled for? Shit, she broke about 16 laws in three months. Shame on the system for doing what it says it will do? For not giving special treatment to celebrities? He says she should have gotten away with it because she was honest in her testimony; so if i got arrested i should be able toget out of it by saying,

"I never would've been driving if my license was suspended. [Even though that's exactly how she violated her parole.] I follow the law. I'm followed by cameras every single day... I respect the law.... I want you to know I'm very sorry and will pay complete attention to everything from now on." (source)

i'll keep that in mind.

poor dear. although, actually, since she's not poor, she might not have to serve it anyway, like michelle rodriguez and her 60 days, i mean 2 hours. (source).

nature fight!

(my favorite webcomic is married to the sea.)
(unfortunately i can't go outside; i am stuck at the computer because i have a draft of the dissertation due today, so i've got to bust my butt to finish it.)
(maybe later...)
charity :)

sad news.

thank you for all your thoughts and prayers. my aunt died monday night and i went up to asheville yesterday for the funeral.

my mom told me she'd buy a spot for me there in the cemetary, next to my grandma and grandpa and aunt. and i guess my mom. my stepdad wants to have his ashes scattered in the ocean or the ozarks or something.

one of my favorite card games as a child was "old maid." i guess i always knew.

death, dying, and decay.

In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.
Benjamin Franklin

I don't have to do nothin' but stay black and die!
Mogan Freeman as Joe Clark in Lean on Me

Seen on the highway: a phone book, swollen with dried rainwater.

Seen on the highway: several dozen used brown loafers, strewn in the space between the highway and an off-ramp.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a deer on the side of the highway, right next to the fast lane. It was lying on its side, its head facing back towards oncoming traffic, its feet inches away from the divider in the center of the highway. It had been hit by a car, I guess. I immediately thought of how terrifying its last few moments must have been. Fleeing the suburbs, it had darted into the highway, realizing too late the danger, face-to-face with three lanes of oncoming traffic. Panicked, it probably kept running, hoping to get to safety, finding only a 6 foot concrete wall. It never had a chance.

Two days later I drove by again, and it was still there. The next week, it was still there. In the first days after it happened, the deer began swelling up, but by the time I drove by the next week, hoping it would be gone, it had become only a shell of what it had once been.

Yesterday, it was gone. Someone must have picked it up. I wonder, was it animal control? Waste management? Who takes care of dead things?

My ex-boyfriend grew up on a sheep farm. They had to dump their own trash, and he told me of the massive bins where the farmers dumped their refuse: separate bins for household rubbish, broken appliances, yard waste. He told me all the bins were marked by diamond-shaped yellow signs, like you might see on the highway. There was one with an upside-down cow on it. For dead livestock. At the time I was mortified, and fascinated.

I guess I still feel that way about death. Like, it's just evidence of the passing of time, a perfectly logical and normal "next step" (and last step, I suppose): the end of a road everyone walks down. At the same time, it is something that should be marked, and not ignored, or left to rot on the side of the road. Those videos taken by people who "liberated" concentration camps in WW2, where there were so many bodies they had to be bulldozed, people's arms and legs sticking out at unnatural angles, rolling over each other, piling up so high. It's probably the most horrifying thing I've ever seen. Obviously, genocide is terrible. But also, the bodies have lost their identities. The mass of bodies, rotting into one another; it just seems so disrespectful.

I don't know why all those bodies weren't cremated like the bodies of so many people who died in concentration camps. Wikipedia states that many Jews even today have a negative opinion of cremation (it's also against Orthodox Jewish beliefs in the ways dead bodies should be handled). The remains of the 12 German war criminals convicted in the Nuremburg trials were cremated and spread in secret locations, to prevent the building of a memorial to them.

I always wanted to be cremated. I felt repulsed imagining bugs crawling through my head. Then I found out that when you are cremated, sometimes they have to turn over what's left of your body to make sure it gets totally incinerated. I know I'll be dead then, and it won't really matter, but I can't help but imagine myself, in a giant oven, being turned over, my limbs half gone, moving in unnatural ways, and I don't like it. Then I think about embalmers emptying the blood out of my body and filling me with chemicals, and I don't know what I want.

I'm not one who wants to pretend death doesn't exist, or that I can somehow avoid it. There is a middle ground between letting someone rot on the side of the road and dressing a body up, preserving it for the future. In a way I feel like that's just a way to pretend the person hasn't actually died, that nothing has changed. Really, the only thing in that person's future as far as we know is getting buried.

Death is not something terrible and awful (although the situations surrounding it can be), it just is what it is. It still should be marked, I think, like a rite of passage, a graduation of sorts. I just don't know why we have to handle it in such bizarre ways.

(I wonder what they did with the deer?)

see you in the mountains!

This weekend was my dad's birthday. Happy birthday! Also, I went up to Merlefest with my stepdad. My mom came briefly, but then a family emergency took us (makes it sound like we didn't actually have to do the driving all through the night on Saturday, but we did) to Asheville.

(Please pray for my aunt, who is in the hospital with pneumonia, and my mom, who is probably at the hospital right now with her. Thanks.)

In the meantime, here are some pictures taken at Merlefest pre-emergency. I did not take pictures of Elvis Costello, but he sure did a great job (still seems strange that he was playing an Americana/Bluegrass festival, but they try to mix it up a little, I guess. And he played two songs he wrote, one of which he played with George Jones, I think, and the other was recorded by Johnny Cash, so I guess he wasn't too far off the mark playing that festival). I also didn't take pictures of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, but they were good, too.

I wish I had remembered to take pictures of Asheville, too. I can't wait to move back home so I'll be with my family more, and also so I'll be in North Carolina full-time again (the BEST STATE in the WHOLE DAMN UNION).

charity ;)


leaving atlanta.


although the sky was heavy with clouds at times, we never got rain. (how beautiful is north carolina?!)

my new favorite band, Uncle Earl (playing with Bela Fleck).

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?

I got to this quiz from my cousine Erin's MySpace page. She was lucky enough to be Nicola Tesla. I, of course, am the mad French king who wets himself.


Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

portland 4: what else did we do?

well, also i got the new be good tanyas album, hello, love. i really like it. plus they're pretty (see below). and canadian.



also, ben and i went to see zodiac, starring a whole list of good people (chloe sevingny, mark ruffalo, robert downey, jr., and jake gyllenhal-see below) and directed by david fincher. i recommend it.



also, i read one of the funniest film reviews ever in the Portland Mercury, for the movie 300. you should read it here if you get a chance. very funny.

in addition to the stuff i've already mentioned, we ate at a restaurant in chinatown and the waitress hated us worse than if we had forced her to watch 300 and write a paper on it. we also went shopping for novelty items and funny toys and t-shirts in southeast portland (of course, i couldn't buy anything, but it was fun to look), we went to powell's which is bigger than you think, we walked across the st. john's bridge (okay, halfway across-it was really scary!), we went to the oregon museum of science and industry where ben works, we ate some carrots and easter candy, we ate delicious waffles from a funny waffle stand in a parking lot, and i met several nice people and one nice baby. overall, i had a great time.

of course, i'm already starting my list for things i want to do next time. the japanese garden, the international rose test garden, the zoo, the columbia river gorge (that's a dream item, since you can't get there on public transportation), and so much more!!

maybe someday i'll be able to get a job there. or build up my nerves and savings enough to move there and THEN get a job. (although the thought of that terrifies me a little bit...)

charity :)