Now that I'm back home, I've been walking at the lake every day again, working off all the pain au chocolate, muller rice, and Pret a Manger brownies that always seem to make their way into my mouth when I'm in England. The walk around the lake is about 3 miles, and takes me about 50 minutes to complete. I've been doing it every day, in the evenings when it's not so hot. Generally I listen to an audiobook - right now I'm listening to one called Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla (he so totally got a raw deal in posterity). But the other day I caught up on a bunch of podcasts from BBC History Magazine - their History Extra podcast is one of my favorites.
If you read Pillars of the Earth, you kind of know the story of Thomas Becket, who was martyred when soldiers sent from Henry II murdered him in 1170. Poor Henry. I have a lot of sympathy for him. To start with, he appointed Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury because he and Thomas were supposedly friends. Thomas had worked for Henry as his Chancellor. Then Henry appoints him Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas has a "Road to Damascus" conversion, and suddenly Thomas is fighting Henry every which way.
So for years Thomas is driving Henry crazy, and Henry is stuck with an unruly Archbishop who won't put royal supremacy over papal law and do the things Henry asks him to do, as King. And Thomas is all, "I'm standing up for the power of God," when he was probably just being a little brat. Ok, maybe he was partly standing up for God, but there was definitely a part of him that was being a brat.
So then Henry, after years of putting up with this ungrateful man, has a hissy fit. Apparently Henry used to have lots of hissy fits, and people just ignored him until he calmed back down. He was seriously emotional Well, you would be too if your wife was supporting a rebellion against you; one that was led by your sons. Doh! So Henry has a hissy fit and says, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" And some younger men of Henry's, who weren't so familiar with his hissy fits, are all like, "oooh, we will! we will! We'll impress the king and kill the Archbishop!"
So they go riding off into the night like a bunch of punks, show up at Canterbury, kill Thomas, and then Henry has to do penance. He has to dress as a penitent, go to Canterbury on a pilgrimage, and beg forgiveness of everyone so that the Pope doesn't excommunicate him. At this point, I'm kinda like, "Poor Henry," right? He was just doing his thing, having his hissy fit, and it got all taken out of context.
Which is why there are two lessons for the day:
First, don't be a yes-man Chancellor, and then suddenly get a spine when you're appointed Archbishop. That isn't going to be good for you if you like your head attached to your shoulders.
Second, if you're a King, and you're surrounded by yes-men who are eager to please you, watch it when you talk about people you'd like to have killed. Because you just never know when you're going to have to wear thorns and beg forgiveness of people you can't really stand.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_II_of_England
BBC HistoryExtra Henry II Podcast:
http://78.152.32.153/cdn.bbcmagazinesbristol.com/bbchistory/audio/HistoryExtra_24thMay12.mp3
Monday, August 13, 2012
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Places I've been in the past 6 weeks:
1) New York
2) Lancaster PA
3) ALA in Anaheim
4) London
5) Iceland
6) San Francisco
7) Home in my mountains
That's why I've gone all incommunicado. Too many airports.
And now I'm all busy doing laundry and cleaning and getting to know my cats, who had forgotten about me and much prefer Melanie, our petsitter. Apparently she fed them a lot of wet food. I don't like cleaning up puke more than I have to, so they don't get much wet food from me. Bummer for them.
But hey, I'm back, and I'm alive, and I'm going to be blogging again. (She always says this...and then she disappears again...I'm so fickle....)
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Iceland Dreaming
So I'm back in my own home in California, after galavanting around New York and Pennsylvania for two weeks. No cow-tipping this trip. Though I did play tourist on the Empire State Building. But I'm not getting too comfy here because in another week we're off to London and Iceland. I'm finally going to the land of our Viking forefathers, which now publishes the highest number of books per capita of any country in the world, and gave us Bjork. It's been a long time coming.
Iceland has held an appeal for me for over a decade now. When I lived in the UK I knew a guy who would take groups on tours to Iceland. I almost went with his group once, but, seeing as how I was perpetually broke, that kind of fell through.
But it triggered something in me, and I've always wanted to see Iceland. You know how you see those maps on the screen when you're flying across the ocean, and it shows the little plane, and how much further you have to go, tailwinds, headwinds, etc? I always see Greenland and Iceland, and think about how it would be so cool if the plane was like a bus and I could just stop off and check out an igloo for a little bit, and then be on my way.
And what's more ironic is that a bunch of people I know have been to Iceland, some of whom heard about it from me. And I've never got my ass in gear enough to make the 3 hour flight from London.
In fairness to me, Scandinavia did leave a bad taste in my mouth after a really horrible trip to Norway in 2004. So I think I avoided going anywhere potentially linked with Vikings after barely surviving the worst heat wave in Oslo's recorded history in a non-air-conditioned Best Western with no bathtub that made me feel like I was trapped in an Ikea catalog. I wasn't big on Iceland for a few years after that.
Then the economy fell apart, and Iceland nearly went geothermal belly up. They're still considering getting rid of their currency because it's so worthless. Note to self: it doesn't really work when an entire country of fishermen decides that they all want to become hedge fund managers.
The one upside to the failing Icelandic economy is that it's relatively cheap to go there now. I say relatively, because everything in Iceland is bloody expensive. We'll be staying in a youth hostel, sharing showers with smelly students from Estonia, I'm sure.
But we'll all be in Iceland, paying $15 for a non-value-meal at McDonald's, and we'll be happy about it :)
Iceland has held an appeal for me for over a decade now. When I lived in the UK I knew a guy who would take groups on tours to Iceland. I almost went with his group once, but, seeing as how I was perpetually broke, that kind of fell through.
And what's more ironic is that a bunch of people I know have been to Iceland, some of whom heard about it from me. And I've never got my ass in gear enough to make the 3 hour flight from London.
The one upside to the failing Icelandic economy is that it's relatively cheap to go there now. I say relatively, because everything in Iceland is bloody expensive. We'll be staying in a youth hostel, sharing showers with smelly students from Estonia, I'm sure.
But we'll all be in Iceland, paying $15 for a non-value-meal at McDonald's, and we'll be happy about it :)
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Why I haven't finished 50 Shades of Grey (and won't buy the sequels): An appeal for literary erotica
A few weeks ago I became hip to the 50 Shades of Grey books when Saturday Night Live did a spoof commercial for it.
In case you've somehow missed the 50 Shades...erm...overexposure...it's an erotic trilogy written by a British writer who used to write Twilight Fan Fiction (had I known that before buying the book, I never would have. I spent almost all of Twilight wanting to strangle Bella. Such a terrible example for girls. Don't get me started.). A college student meets a 26 year old self-made billionaire who's working to cure world hunger and has unusual erotic tastes. She starts a relationship with him, he ties her up, there are loads of other bondage scenes, she spends a lot of time chewing her lips and blushing, and this has somehow become a bestseller.
I bought the first book because I had to see what the hype was all about, and I read it for about half an hour. I skipped ahead to some of the steamier scenes to see if they lived up to my expectations; they were terrible, and I deleted it from my kindle without giving it a second thought.
Then a week ago I saw this blog post on a friend's facebook page where a woman was outlining the reasons she wasn't going to read 50 Shades. Her reasons centered on the conservative view that porn is evil, lust is wrong, and indulging in a bit of erotica is going to destroy your neuropathways and stop you from ever enjoying sex again. The comments were all in the line of, "yes, ladies, the Evil One is destroying marriages through this book."
Oh, Please.
Seriously?
Even if I believed in the devil, which I don't, (yes, I'm going to Seminary, and I don't believe in the devil) I would still think that the Evil One would have cleverer ways of destroying marriages than a book written on an 8th grade reading level about a girl who does a lot of blushing and climaxes on a horse.
Ok, look, here's the quote that conservatives throw around all the time: Jesus said that if you even so much as look at another woman with lust, it's the same as sleeping with her. Weeeellll, one interpretation of that quote (mine) could be that it's a condemnation of hypocrisy: you can't just sit around all smug and holier than thou because you aren't sleeping with lots of women when you are singlehandedly keeping the strip clubs in business. Just be honest about it, and quit being a smug hypocrite. I look at other people. J looks at other people. When we got married we didn't all of a sudden lose all interest in other people. That would be weird. So how's that whole "lust is wrong" thing working out for them? Conservative Christians have the highest divorce rates.
So the sin argument doesn't win for me. The reason for not reading this book isn't because it's sinful (it's not sinful - except maybe the editing). The reason for not reading this book is because it's an awful book, and the worst thing that could happen to erotic fiction is for this to become the standard of erotica.
Look, I just have to say this, as a public service announcement. You want some good erotica? Anais Nin was married to Hugh and was totally in love with him. Then she also fell in love with Henry Miller, and Henry's wife June. And she somehow managed to have steamy affairs with all of them, all the time. And she wrote about it - lots about it - in her diaries. Yes, Anais was crazy too - she also had affairs with her therapist and her father as well as her male and female cousins - but damn, her writing is beautiful...
Seriously, if you want a literary alternative to that hot mess that's out there right now, pick up Henry and June. It's amazing. And not the rambling fantasies of a teenager.
Just please, quit giving money to this 50 Shades nonsense. I beg you. Quit encouraging it.
That's it: PSA over.
In case you've somehow missed the 50 Shades...erm...overexposure...it's an erotic trilogy written by a British writer who used to write Twilight Fan Fiction (had I known that before buying the book, I never would have. I spent almost all of Twilight wanting to strangle Bella. Such a terrible example for girls. Don't get me started.). A college student meets a 26 year old self-made billionaire who's working to cure world hunger and has unusual erotic tastes. She starts a relationship with him, he ties her up, there are loads of other bondage scenes, she spends a lot of time chewing her lips and blushing, and this has somehow become a bestseller.
I bought the first book because I had to see what the hype was all about, and I read it for about half an hour. I skipped ahead to some of the steamier scenes to see if they lived up to my expectations; they were terrible, and I deleted it from my kindle without giving it a second thought.
Then a week ago I saw this blog post on a friend's facebook page where a woman was outlining the reasons she wasn't going to read 50 Shades. Her reasons centered on the conservative view that porn is evil, lust is wrong, and indulging in a bit of erotica is going to destroy your neuropathways and stop you from ever enjoying sex again. The comments were all in the line of, "yes, ladies, the Evil One is destroying marriages through this book."
Oh, Please.
Seriously?
Even if I believed in the devil, which I don't, (yes, I'm going to Seminary, and I don't believe in the devil) I would still think that the Evil One would have cleverer ways of destroying marriages than a book written on an 8th grade reading level about a girl who does a lot of blushing and climaxes on a horse.
Ok, look, here's the quote that conservatives throw around all the time: Jesus said that if you even so much as look at another woman with lust, it's the same as sleeping with her. Weeeellll, one interpretation of that quote (mine) could be that it's a condemnation of hypocrisy: you can't just sit around all smug and holier than thou because you aren't sleeping with lots of women when you are singlehandedly keeping the strip clubs in business. Just be honest about it, and quit being a smug hypocrite. I look at other people. J looks at other people. When we got married we didn't all of a sudden lose all interest in other people. That would be weird. So how's that whole "lust is wrong" thing working out for them? Conservative Christians have the highest divorce rates.
So the sin argument doesn't win for me. The reason for not reading this book isn't because it's sinful (it's not sinful - except maybe the editing). The reason for not reading this book is because it's an awful book, and the worst thing that could happen to erotic fiction is for this to become the standard of erotica.
Look, I just have to say this, as a public service announcement. You want some good erotica? Anais Nin was married to Hugh and was totally in love with him. Then she also fell in love with Henry Miller, and Henry's wife June. And she somehow managed to have steamy affairs with all of them, all the time. And she wrote about it - lots about it - in her diaries. Yes, Anais was crazy too - she also had affairs with her therapist and her father as well as her male and female cousins - but damn, her writing is beautiful...
Seriously, if you want a literary alternative to that hot mess that's out there right now, pick up Henry and June. It's amazing. And not the rambling fantasies of a teenager.
Just please, quit giving money to this 50 Shades nonsense. I beg you. Quit encouraging it.
That's it: PSA over.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Letter from Fertility-Land
A few weeks ago I had a Little Fertility Breakdown. Let me explain. Once you're 35, you're supposed to go get checked out if you have been trying to get pregnant for 6 months, and haven't yet. It has something to do with the quality of your eggs decreasing every 6 months, but really, it's designed to frighten you into the fertility specialist's office. Am I bitter? A little.
So there I sit, in the Loma Linda Center for Fertility and IVF, filling out paperwork, looking at all the other women around me, who also seem to be having trouble getting pregnant, or carrying a pregnancy. Weird, how normal they look. I always imagined people who couldn't conceive would have a sign on their forehead or something, but nope, these women look perfectly nice and healthy.
I get a check up, an ultrasound, and then the doctor orders a bunch of tests to check for things like the follicle stimulating hormone, my ovarian reserves, and other things that make no sense to me. But here's the thing: my insurance doesn't cover anything fertility-related. So I go to get the blood work, and find out that it's going to cost nearly $1500, just for blood tests. My gut was telling me to leave and figure it out later, but the thing is, you're supposed to go on certain days of your cycle, and if you miss it, then you've got to wait for the next cycle, and I was afraid to leave, overcome with the sense of urgency that was instilled in me.
But my gut won, and we left. It was all a bit traumatic, because I was at the same hospital where I delivered Baby T, and the whole thing was just overly emotional. I don't want to have to take blood tests to have a baby. I just want a freaking baby. Why am I doing all of this, I wondered? Why are we putting ourselves through all these tests? There are babies in the world who need parents...why are we putting ourselves through all this mess when we could adopt one of them? So we decided, after a lot of crying and deep breathing, to chill out about the whole thing. We'll keep trying, but we'll also check out adoption, and try to just chill about it all.
A few weeks later and the doctors call me telling me that my OB/GYN can order most of the tests, and it will be covered by insurance because they can do it under a recurrent miscarriage workup (never thought I'd be happy for having had recurrent miscarriages). So on Day 3 of my cycle I go back and get about 8 vials of blood drawn, and the results are starting to trickle in now.
The best news is that I found out that my ovarian reserves are very good (yay!). I think this means that I still have a lot of eggs. So I don't have to freak out about my biological clock so much, and we can continue on the Path of Chillaxation. That makes me so happy. I had this feeling that we had to get pregnant like yesterday, or else it wasn't going to happen. And the feeling would go up into my chest and before you knew it, I'd be hyperventilating in full Panic Attack mode. So knowing that I still have good eggs left is a serious relief, and will go a long way towards helping me relax about the whole thing.
In fact, maybe we'll even skip trying for a couple of cycles so that I can get rip-roaring drunk in London in a few weeks. I'm jonesing for a night out at Heaven, the gay bar under Charing Cross station, dancing on tables, losing every one of my inhibitions, and pretending that I'm 24 again. Ahh, to be throwing up in the alley outside of a club again, house music swirling around inside my brains, peeing my pants and then falling asleep on the ground waiting for a cab.....those were the days....
Thursday, May 31, 2012
A friend of mine once told me that he could always tell that I was happy when I stopped blogging. And when I was depressed, I spent a lot of time sitting at home emptying wine bottles, writing about how my heart was broken, and the guy who didn't love me back was an asshole (this was, I should note, in my Single Girl blog, which would be about 10 years old this year).
So if I go away for a while, it's not because I'm pregnant, or I got kidnapped by a crazy gunman at 7-11, or anything like that. It just means that I'm out doing my thing. Especially with springtime arriving, I have spent as much time as possible outside, walking around the lake, and getting some extra doses of Vitamin D.
That being said, I don't want to just disappear again, so here's a lowdown on the events of the past few weeks:
1) I decided to go to Seminary. But I don't really know why. I don't know that I ever want to have a church of my own, and preach. Maybe. I haven't thought that far ahead. For now, it's enough to know that I just belong in Seminary studying the Bible, and being part of the conversation that creates Doctrine so that, you know, Christianity can be more about loving people, and not so much about excluding people because they're gay or whatever.
2) My husband is hemming my performance dress for choir. If you fancy hearing some nice a capella choral music on Saturday, the Claremont Chorale is performing at 3pm and I'll be up there in my hemmed dress, looking fancy. It's super-cool that my husband can hem my dress, I should add.
3) I've boarded the fertility treatment train. But I'm not going to get carried away with it. I'm really going to try to be conscious of the fact that you can easily spend thousands upon thousands of dollars, and lots of time and heartbreak, getting IVF and all that stuff, and frankly, I'm not that desperate to have a biological child. If that's your thing, it's great that it's possible, and I applaud people who do it. For me, I just want to have a baby. I don't feel the need to genetically breed, and there are millions and millions of kids in the world who just want a family that loves them. To me it seems like a needless expense, but that's just me being judgmental.
4) We're also starting to seriously check out adoption, and are signed up to go to an open-day at an agency in the summer.
5) This summer is going to so totally rock. We're going to NYC for me to go to Book Expo and negotiate with publishers about our ebook project for libraries. Then PA for some Family Time. Then London and...wait for it...I'm finally getting my ass to Iceland to see 24 hours of daylight. I'm so stoked.
6) In the Realm of Stupid Things I've Done to Lose Weight: last week was high up there. I had a weight goal I wanted to make by Memorial Day. As of Wednesday, I was still 3 pounds away. So I went on a liquid diet. Didn't eat any solid food for 4 days. I made the weight (of course I gained it back since then) and had a fun day shopping at the Gap Outlet, which made me feel like I was 19 again, because their Muzak was Songs from the 90's, and nothing says 90's more than shopping at the Gap and listening to The Cure, but I digress...now I feel ridiculously dizzy, tired, and stupid for having done that. But whatever, I have new clothes. So...yay for new clothes...
So if I go away for a while, it's not because I'm pregnant, or I got kidnapped by a crazy gunman at 7-11, or anything like that. It just means that I'm out doing my thing. Especially with springtime arriving, I have spent as much time as possible outside, walking around the lake, and getting some extra doses of Vitamin D.
That being said, I don't want to just disappear again, so here's a lowdown on the events of the past few weeks:
1) I decided to go to Seminary. But I don't really know why. I don't know that I ever want to have a church of my own, and preach. Maybe. I haven't thought that far ahead. For now, it's enough to know that I just belong in Seminary studying the Bible, and being part of the conversation that creates Doctrine so that, you know, Christianity can be more about loving people, and not so much about excluding people because they're gay or whatever.
2) My husband is hemming my performance dress for choir. If you fancy hearing some nice a capella choral music on Saturday, the Claremont Chorale is performing at 3pm and I'll be up there in my hemmed dress, looking fancy. It's super-cool that my husband can hem my dress, I should add.
3) I've boarded the fertility treatment train. But I'm not going to get carried away with it. I'm really going to try to be conscious of the fact that you can easily spend thousands upon thousands of dollars, and lots of time and heartbreak, getting IVF and all that stuff, and frankly, I'm not that desperate to have a biological child. If that's your thing, it's great that it's possible, and I applaud people who do it. For me, I just want to have a baby. I don't feel the need to genetically breed, and there are millions and millions of kids in the world who just want a family that loves them. To me it seems like a needless expense, but that's just me being judgmental.
4) We're also starting to seriously check out adoption, and are signed up to go to an open-day at an agency in the summer.
5) This summer is going to so totally rock. We're going to NYC for me to go to Book Expo and negotiate with publishers about our ebook project for libraries. Then PA for some Family Time. Then London and...wait for it...I'm finally getting my ass to Iceland to see 24 hours of daylight. I'm so stoked.
6) In the Realm of Stupid Things I've Done to Lose Weight: last week was high up there. I had a weight goal I wanted to make by Memorial Day. As of Wednesday, I was still 3 pounds away. So I went on a liquid diet. Didn't eat any solid food for 4 days. I made the weight (of course I gained it back since then) and had a fun day shopping at the Gap Outlet, which made me feel like I was 19 again, because their Muzak was Songs from the 90's, and nothing says 90's more than shopping at the Gap and listening to The Cure, but I digress...now I feel ridiculously dizzy, tired, and stupid for having done that. But whatever, I have new clothes. So...yay for new clothes...
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