Just a few years later...

Today is my 9th wedding anniversary. I'm happy about that, of course, but I'm thinking about the folks who danced at my wedding that aren't around any more, and that makes me sad.

I started the day of my wedding with my hairdresser washing my hair in the kitchen sink in my parent's house. He did my hair, and my sisters' hair. He even trimmed my Dad's hair, a spur-of-the-moment request that he granted graciously. We laughed as he unrolled his little leather case that he carried his scissors around in; there had been no plans to cut anyone's hair, but he told us that he never went anyplace without them, as impromptu haircuts happen all the time when you're a hairdresser. He died earlier this year, and there was no funeral. There is a memorial a little later in the summer that I am both looking forward to and dreading.

Listing the rest of the folks that have passed on since that day is entirely too depressing a task for a day to be celebrated. So I shall resist.

I can scarce believe that 9 years have gone by; almost as if they've slipped away when I wasn't looking. Happily slipped away, don't misunderstand. Just that the passage of time does indeed speed up as the years go by.

Here's to DH, for standing by and everything else he does for me, in the Swedish tradition: Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

I'm 4!

Happy Blogversary to me!

I managed to write all of 9 posts in 2005, mostly about politics and women's rights. 2006 I got to all of 95 posts, and 249 in 2007. That averages out to about 141 posts a year. For a while in 2007, I was writing nearly every day. It was part of my near-daily routine. Of course, I was unemployed for 4 months in 2007, so I did have a bit more time to devote to it.

Thinking about that summer reminds me that it was two years ago that I went to Lilydale. I'd really like to do that again. I had such a sense of peace there. I went by myself, stayed in a hotel with no air conditioning (I was lucky that it was very cool for the week or so I stayed there) with a community bathroom down the hall, and I was happy as a clam. I just spent about 20 minutes searching my blog archive and my on line calendar to see if I can figure out exactly when I was in Lilydale, but all I can come up with is that I wrote a blog post from there on July 10. I think I stayed for 3-5 days, but I don't remember. I recently cleaned up the storage area in my house, and I pitched the program guide from Lilydale for the summer of 2007, which I could have consulted for definite dates...but no, I have that organize-tidy-clean gene.

Perhaps I think about Lilydale on my blogversary because it completely slipped by without me noticing that year. Too wrapped up in the myth, fantasy, curiosity (and lunacy) of Spirtiualism, as well as the fact that I'd lost my job just days prior.

This year, instead of the cool hills of western New York state, as you read this, I'll be in sweltering hot Florida. My beloved paternal grandmother turns 90 on July 4, and today is our last day in Florida. Since my parents retired and spend half of the year in Florida, flying there and home is pretty routine. I don't take any liquids (no need for shampoo, etc because it is all at the parent's house) and therefore don't check any luggage. Direct flights are nice when we can get them, but more often than not we have to change planes in Atlanta, my least favorite airport in the world. Ugh.

I guess there is always next year for Lilydale; I'd like to make that part of my yearly routine, because it is such a peaceful place. I was able to do nothing at all or keep busy with seminars if I wanted to. My atheism and skepticism of their faith was readily accepted; they're well used to skeptics and non-believers. Perhaps in future years, that's how I'll celebrate this anniversary; the blog gets another year older, and I get to spend a few days on my own.

Happy Blogversary to Well Behaved Women!

Poor, poor baby. Let me organize a pity party for you.

A few years ago, anonymous sex-blogger Girl With A One Track Mind, Abby Lee, was outed by British newspaper The Sunday Times. Backlash from the blogosphere was swift, virulent, vicious, and according to a recent article in the same paper by the same writer, Anna Mikhailova, career ruining.

Mikhailova ruined Abby Lee's film career - she worked in production, not as an actress - and now has the utter brass cajones to whine about Abby's readers ruining her "reputation" and by virtue of that reputation-ruining, her career as a bottom-feeding journalist is just not thriving. Awww. Honey. I'm so sorry.

I have a vested interest in this not just for reasons of anonymity; I believe that Abby would not have been vilified for her sexual escapades had she been male, so there's the feminist angle as well as the fact that I myself write under a pseudonym. My reasons for doing that are my own. Abby's were as well.

When does "the public interest" or "the right to know" trump privacy? When there is something illegal going on, certainly. But if I'm writing about my own private Idaho over here, and you read it and like it, why does it matter if I'm the woman in the office next to you or if I live three time zones away?

Of course, the automatic comeback to my argument is that if I wanted to remain anonymous, I wouldn't be writing on teh interweb, I'd have a journal that I kept under lock and key. Guess what. I do. Writing is part of who I am, not just something I do for fun. Publishing my struggles with depression has been both about my own recovery and about the hope that someone, somewhere, reads what I've written and decides to seek help for their own issues. De-stigmatizing mental illness is a goal of my blog.

Writing here about politics, the abortion debate, my silly little inconsequential life, is something that I enjoy doing. I believe that I have the right to do that under a pen name. And so I do not feel sorry for Anna Mikhailova. The line for the pity party forms to the left, please. Right there, that sign that says "Exit"!!

17

I don't have the time for a proper post today, but I cannot allow the day to pass without making note of the date.

Today is August 4.

Seventeen years ago today, I boarded a plane that took me from Pittsburgh to New York, and then another that took me on to Stockholm, arriving in Sweden on August 5th.

Without this experience, I would not be the adult I am today.

I feel nostalgic, and astonished to realize that I was 16 when I did that; it is now longer ago than I was old at the time. Um. I'm not making much sense there, but *I* understand what I'm trying to say, even if I can't adequately communicate it with you.

I celebrate this day as I do any other anniversary, as it marked a turning point in my life that is as big as the anniversary of the date I graduated from University, or the date of my first full day on the job at my first "real" "grown-up" job.

Would that I were a wizard...I'd be sending up red sparks from my wand today.

HOW many years?

Eight.

DH and I had an anniversary coupla days ago. It is hilarious to me that no one but you remembers your anniversary, so I try real hard to remember to send at least a 1st anniversary card to my friends who have married. I was surprised on our first anniversary that only a few folks remembered the date, outside of DH and I.

I could make a bunch of statements about how time flies, how I don't know where eight years have gone, but I shall restrain myself and note simply how grateful I am that he's stuck with me over the last year, which has been one of the hardest in my life.

Doesn't it go by in a blink

I added a Blogversary calendar a few days ago, after seeing it pop up on bunches of other folks' blogs.

The day I did it, I realized that MY blogversary was just around the corner. July, 2005. Long before depression, before losing my old non-profit job, before I thought about losing weight. Before so much. Things change. Time moves on. So slowly, sometimes, and at others moving by at lightspeed.

Writing nearly daily has changed me, too. I go nowhere without a journal that I write ideas for posts in, or jot down a few words that will later jog my memory. Any time that I have to myself, I'm often thinking about things to write about. I think my writing has evolved, gotten better. Or I hope it has.

The web's changed all of us. Changed the way we work, shop, research, spend our leisure time. I've spent some time talking about my undergrad days recently, reminiscing about classes and various idiocies with a classmate, but also talking about the administrative details of going to school. Registering for classes, buying books, paying tuition. That's all changed so much since my undergrad days. This dates me so much, but it also amuses me to no end. When I started university, there were black and white television screens in the registration hall that listed endless series of numbers, class codes. (Please note that color television DID exist, was widespread, just not needed in this case. We're talking about the early nineties, people.) As a freshman, there were a handful of "musts" prescribed by the institution: freshman comp (English), remedial maths if you needed them (and I did), human phys (sex ed). The "good" classes filled quickly, and you had to scramble around to get the requirements whilst still finding a class or two that you were actually interested in.

Today, they register online. They buy their books online, they pay tuition online. Heck, they even take some classes online, and professors have dedicated spaces on the universities' servers for subject-specific websites.

I picked up a book about my alma mater for my dad, as it is his alma mater, too. The history of the university, pictorial and narrative. Flipping through it, looking at pictures of co-eds in white dresses, graduating classes of 17 people, football players in leather helmets, I wondered what the class of 1928 would think of the class of 2008.

When I think about new technologies and advancing time, I often think of my grandfathers, both of whom are no longer with us, and what they'd have to say about my Crackberry, and the internet. Grandpa S hated computers. <i>Hated</i> them. Remember some of the early computing acronyms? Like GIGO? (Garbage in, garbage out.) He said that all the time, pointing out mistakes that they made. GIGO is still a true-ism. Databases are only as good as the data entry operators who populate them. HTML coding doesn't write itself. But it is amazing, heady stuff, something I'm glad to have taken the time to learn, if only in the most rudimentary fashion.

Trying to predict the future is a waste of my time. But I look forward to the next few years with hopeful anticipation for what is to come.

35

Tuesday (January 22) was the anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision. Thirty-five years of choice for women.

Without a doubt that decision means the most to me of any decisions made in recent history. I grew up under the permissive climate of Roe, and unlike my foremothers have never needed to seek a back-alley abortion. I never lost a college classmate to the horrible complications that arose from those procedures. I never had to live in a world where I was limited in the decisions I could make about my own body.

I have contemplated such worlds, though. They are the stuff of my nightmares. That we would go back to a climate where abortion is illegal is terrifying to me.

The anti-choice folks frighten me a whole lot too. NPR usually makes some mention of the anniversary of Roe when it rolls around, and Tuesday was no exception. They broadcast a story about the "human life amendments" which declare that a fertilized egg is a person, from the second of conception. Bible Belt states, and, surprisingly, Colorado, have these initiatives on the November ballots. Interestingly, most of them never mention the word abortion. Making it easier for the anti-choice movement to get them passed, of course. Remove that oh-so-crucial controversial word, and even folks who are informed about the issue get confused.

According to NPR, some of these misguided attempts at legislation could possibly make it illegal for a woman to have a miscarriage. There's a thought for the folks that call themselves 'compassionate conservatives.' What's compassionate about charging a woman who has had a miscarriage with murder? As if she's not dealing with enough already.

It is so hard for me to be calm about this issue.

The most strident anti-choice folks I've ever met are men. I don't understand where they get off with their holier-than-thou attitude; until YOU can get pregnant....well, I used to say that when men could get pregnant, then they could have a choice. I no longer have such a hard line attitude. But I still feel that the issue is one of control; as I see it, our misogynistic society wants to keep women in their little boxes, keep them from being able to make decisions about their own lives and bodies, keep them from being able to behave, in short, as men do. Multiple conquests and promiscuity are OK in our culture for men. Not so much for women.

Freedom, to make a choice yourself, no matter how difficult that choice may be, is paramount. By keeping abortion legal, we are not allowing the Congress or the Supreme Court, or our individual states for that matter, to make these decisions for us.

Community

So many places today will be full of mentions of the anniversary of September 11, 2001. I have no desire to rehash the events of the day. I declare a media blackout in my house during the week of the anniversary, because I can't watch those planes crash into the twin towers again. The heartbreaking loss of so many blameless lives. Are we any safer today than we were on September 10, 2001? I don't think so.

Instead, I want to talk about something that I didn't ever think much about before those tragic events. I never thought much about the idea of community growing up; my home community was simply there, nothing to consider.

I didn't go to high school football games, wasn't involved in other community activities. I remember telling my mother once, at about 15 years old, that the only thing our community ever pulled together on was trying to avoid our over-zealous police, who have been known to give speeding tickets to people driving 26 miles an hour in a 25 mile an hour zone. People flash their headlights at one another to warn of the police sitting somewhere up the road.

But when the American flag popped up everywhere on September 12, 2001, I realized that you don't have to be a supporter of your local high school football team to be part of a community. That community is more than where you live.

Watch a group of motorcycle riders sometime; when they pass one another on the road, they wave, or give that little guy head-nod that says, "hey, man" without saying a word. Likewise, boaters wave to one another, as do RV-ers. These are all communities.

Humans are very social creatures; even the most anti-social of us desparately longs to be part of something larger than ourselves, some group that we can claim membership in. We identify ourselves partly by the groups we belong to. Your religion, your nationality, your race, your occupation are all groups that you belong to, part of your identifying characteristics.

Last Tuesday I was writing about nature/nurture. This is part of it as well, the nurture part. Your personality is, I believe, in part determined by the groups that you belong to. The stories that we all tell are a part of who we are. The experiences that we share, whether with friends from school days past or a card club more recent, help to form our opinions and shape our world view.

I've said many times before that I don't like living in Northern Ohio. It isn't that I dislike the community, because I believe that small-town America is pretty much the same no matter what state you live in. What bothers me here is the weather, grey, cloudy, overcast and miserable 90% of the time, and the conservatism, and the mentality of many people who live here, who seem stuck in the 1950s, with the traditional roles so seeming entrenched in the collective psyche, the lack of arts and diversity in this area. Those things, I think, can change from community to community.

Then there are the communities that we belong to in the wired world. And I'm not just talking about the fandom world, either. Last week, I had a question about my iPod, and I posed that question to an Apple forum. I had 3 answers within hours, all basically the same (very workable) solution. I was surprised, people from 2 continents reached out to help me with a relatively minor problem. The web has changed so much for us, but the biggest thing for me has been how we're all more connected to one another through the web, and yet more isolated in our own communities.

My, I'm all over the map today, aren't I? There's just one thing more that is completely unrelated to any of the above; a new side effect I'm experiencing with my meds that is making me feel rather nuts. Remember how I was having thoughts in Swedish and unable to find the English words? That went away, but yesterday I was having trouble remembering the words in either language for some ordinary things, making me worry about what the heck that is, and why it is happening now. I hope it goes away soon.

The Required Anniversary Post

August 4, 1991. I was 16, and I'd never spent more than about 10 days away from my family. I boarded a plane in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, nervous, excited, scared beyond belief, ecstatic, and yet also sad at leaving my family behind. I was headed for Stockholm, Sweden, Arlanda International Airport, and I didn't speak a word of Swedish.

More than 24 hours later, I was walking through customs in Sweden in my ugly Rotary jacket, made of VISA, America's Freedom Fabric! That thing was fugly then and is fugly now. I like it better now than I did then, but that's a story for another day. I had strained to see out of the windows of the plane, as we landed, anxious for a first glimpse of this new country. We flew on a huge jet, 3 seats next to the windows, 5 seats across the middle and 3 seats next to the other windows. I swear to god, that plane held 500 people, it took for-fucking-ever to deplane and there were hordes of people in the customs lines.

I was exhausted, and scanned the crowd for my host family, people I'd talked to on the phone and seen pictures of, but had never met. Sadly, I don't remember much of that initial meeting. Smiles, hugs, and hellos were exchanged, and we walked what seemed to be 600 miles to the car, but other than that I don't remember the first few minutes with them. They changed my life, have been hugely influential in many decisions that I've made, and I'm still close with them, but I don't really remember meeting them.

It seems as if I've known them a lifetime now. And in some ways, I have. This year marks 16 years since I left America and 15 since I returned. That is a lifetime. In that year I spent in Sweden, I lived more than some people manage in their entire lives. Went more places, had more adventures, made some of the most amazing friendships, had a whole bunch of "firsts," (first time I got intoxicated, first language other than English I learned, first time driving a stick-shift car, and many others) life experiences that I wouldn't trade for all the money in the world.

When I talk about being an exchange student, I often make it sound as if it was the perfect experience, as if it wasn't hard at all, was a constant party. I was very good at recruiting potential exchange students when I was doing lots of that in my 20s because I had such a positive experience.

It wasn't a constant party.

I worked hard to attempt to keep up in school, and worked very hard to learn the language.

I'm fairly certain that to some readers, that will seem fantastic, in the sense of fantasy, because when I tell stories from that year, many involve parties and very silly teen exploits.

But it was life changing entirely due to the family that I lived with. They made me feel as if I was a member of their family; in fact, when I was back to visit in 2003, they referred to me as 'the third daughter,' a title that I was both touched and proud to claim.

I spent untold hours sitting in the kitchen of their home with my host mother, who was my first teacher in the Swedish language. "This is a pot. A spoon. Garlic. Potato. Bread. Flour." Those were among my first lessons. The majority of Swedish that I know I learned from her. She is an amazing and wonderful woman, who I am extremely grateful to.

One host-sister was all of 12 the year I lived with them; she's 27 now. We spent quite a bit of time without the host parents, we were latch-key kids because both host parents worked until around 5 pm five days a week. I have never forgotten her joyous laugh, her gentle voice.

The other sister was here in America while I was in Sweden, so we didn't get to know one another so well in the early 90s. But we've made up for that in the years since, every time we've been together we realize anew that not only do we dearly love some of the same people, but we truly love one another too. She is one of those people that never seems to stop laughing, and never runs out of energy.

And of course in this recitation of my Swedish family, I can hardly leave out Papa. He didn't speak English when I got to Sweden, so if I wanted to talk to him, I had to learn one of the 3 other languages that he spoke. We managed just fine with smiles and charades until I learned Swedish. He is a strong, silent type.

The funny thing about my Swedish family is that they are quite a lot like my American family. Pictures of my host mother from the 60s show her wearing the same hairstyle as my mother did. My parents kept notes about trips scribbled in the atlas that remained in the car in those days before GPS units; my host parents did the same. Notes such as gas milage, restaurants they liked, drive times. The only difference is that the Swedish family's map was of Europe and the American family's was of North America. There are hundreds of small similarities like that, which as we all discovered each one, we were first surprised and then amused and finally, at then end, nearly prosaic about these Twilight Zone moments.

What that taught me, more than anything else, is that people all over the world are more alike than we are different. That we all love our families. That life is pretty similar even thought the vantage point might change.

I miss the Swedish family, think about them nearly every day. The impact that they had on shaping the adult that I am today is impossible to quantify. I'm left with inadequate words to express my gratitude. "Thanks" does not even begin to cover it.

Tusen, Tusen tack till alla som jag fick kanner igen i Sverige i 1991/1992. Jag behalla er alla kar i mina tanker.

Who'da thunk, 7 years

DH and I are celebrating our wedding anniversary this weekend. Seven years ago today, we got married, after a nearly two year engagement and having actually met and started dating in 1994. I'm not going to tell the story of how we met (too personal) or how he asked me to marry him (again, too personal) or even tell the story of our wedding day.

Instead, I'll tell you that last night we celebrated the anniversary by taking a dinner cruise in Pittsburgh, which was fun. The food wasn't wonderful. It was billed as a dinner dance, and the music wasn't fantastic either, (too heavy on stuff like The Electric Slide, ugh) but it was a beautiful night and we had a great time. Spent the night in the city, at a fantastic hotel, and plan to spend the remainder of the day doing not much of anything. A nearly perfect weekend.

President Idiot

W said in speeches yesterday leading up to the 5th anniversary of September 11, 2001, that America is more protected from terrorists than it was 5 years ago. Really? Cause I gotta tell ya, I don't feel safer. Do you?

President Doofus strikes again- - - -I'd like to vomit now, please.

Yes, I know. I posted once already today. And about a very serious topic. But on the way home listening to NPR I heard something I hadn't realized. Today's the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and do you know that the president gave a speech via telephone to supporters of the anti-choice movement from Manhattan, KS, where he is giving a bigger speech defending the domestic surveillance program? Argh, he irritates me. Him and that whole "culture of life" catch-phrase. Which makes it sound as if anyone who does not see eye to eye with him believes in a culture of death. Come on. They played a snippet of the speech as part of the hourly update of the news, and I can't find the link to that particular story on NPR. Here's a bit of it copied from someplace else, "President Bush called and spoke with marchers, 'We're sending a clear message to any woman facing a crisis pregnancy: We love you, we love your child, and we're here to help you,' Bush said. The president touted numerous pieces of pro-life legislation he's signed and renewed his call for a ban on human cloning and for Congress to pass a measure respecting parental involvement laws. 'Because human life is a gift from our Creator and should never be used as a means to an end, we will not sanction the creation of life only to destroy it,' he said."

HAS THIS MAN EVER HEARD OF SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE?!?!?!? Please, please, contact your senator via NARAL and encourage him or her to VOTE NO FOR ALITO!

I like the bit about "we're here to help you" cause apparently, he's never heard the old joke about "I'm here from the government to help you" either. That made me snort my on-the-way home diet Coke nearly out my nose when I heard him say that. I do like it that the idiot's on the defensive in Kansas today, take a listen to today's Fresh Air where Terry talks to James Risen and Eric Lichtblau about the story in the New York Times. He SHOULD be on the defensive. Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public, if you have friends and relatives in Islamic countries, he thinks it is perfectly OK for the NSA to listen along to your conversations. Also, run over to Save Roe and support them in whatever manner you are able. Sleep tight.

August 4, 1991

Today is the 14th anniversary of the day that I set out as an exchange student to Kungsör, Sweden. I was 16; and that year changed my life forever. I wanted to mark the occasion by saying TUSEN TACK to Rotary , who sponsored me, and to my parents and my host family. Wanna see where I was? Check out these two links, which are my hometown in Sweden and the town where I went to school.