clairevoyant paranoia

renewed interest

2007-08-01T21:22:00.000-07:00

hello out there.

i find myself experiencing a renewed interest in the blogosphere. since i left my position at the library a year ago, I really haven’t played with the interweb at all. i have barely even read the blogs of close friends. but, i think i feel ready to jump back into the virtual world. i don't know why exactly. perhaps my interest is a response to the blogging example john paul has been setting. i suppose his blog should be enough to record the general goings-on round here, but i guess i have blog-envy.

earlier today, heather was telling about tumblelogs. having been away for a while, i am quite outside of the loop. i was looking at looking at marcel’s tumblelog and, while i find it interesting, i think i prefer the personal blog. i like the innocent glimpses into other people’s lives; i enjoy the way people blend their personal stories in with the things they find fascinating about the world.

anyway, it feels good to be here.

mcsweeny's sleep test

2006-04-22T14:41:00.000-07:00

Find your own pose!

Pinching Koala and Tree Traits and Tendencies
Pinching Koala and Tree couples experience a kind of super symbiosis that other sorts of couples (especially vegan couples) only dream of. The harmony that comes from this kind of pairing would be revolting if it weren’t so inspirational, which is why Pinching Koalas and Trees are often surrounded by friends and would-be friends, and their schedules are often booked months in advance.

Comfort Zone
Pinching Koala and Tree is one of the Wind sleepers poses. Other Wind poses you might explore include Softserve Swirl and Fireman's Carry.

Note: Koalas make for excellent lawyers and flea market bargainers, thanks to their characteristic tenaciousness.

time vacuum

2006-04-05T18:13:00.000-07:00

hi there. are you still with me? i feel very guilty for my shameful neglect of this blog, but i see from my links that i am not alone in this. distracted by life, are we all?

tonight i had high hopes of creating an excessive documentation of our recent trip to sxsw. here's the short version: it was excellent. we got into all the shows we wanted to see and had a great time.

details to come someday. soon, maybe? but, rather than create, i spent my time tonight lost in a spiral of reading the blogs of strangers. i somehow got sucked into looking at dollhouses. believe it or not, this was actually a direct tangent to work.

i stumbled into the fascinating green doll house project, through the bizarre world of new york hipster fathering. from the archived page i entered, at first i thought this blog was simply a catalog of items this man saw for sale on ebay; but, it isn't quite. it is super heavy on the commercial consumption of parenting. i find it very strange. from conversations with deb, and from the posts and comments on this blog, i am led to believe that the baby-as-fashionable-accessory mode of parenting dominates in nyc.

to prove that i might not be much better, i really like this linked knitting pattern: baby's first dna model by kimberly chapman

sin & redemption

2006-02-17T11:44:00.000-08:00

sinandredemption
Originally uploaded by clairevoyant paranoia.

if you're in houston, don't miss aurora picture show's sin & redemption weekend. a/v geeks is back in town with films about our love of alcohol and its positive and negative effects tonight showing at st. arnold's brewery and Creepy Christian Cinema tomorrow at aurora.

valentine's day sugar crash

2006-02-14T13:51:00.000-08:00

you let me down, mr. sugar.

poetic licence

2006-02-07T08:45:00.000-08:00

john paul has finally found an outlet for his deepest, most private thoughts.

unexpected

2006-01-18T16:15:00.000-08:00

check out number 72 on this list. and, it was one of the four items from the list featured in the npr interview.

goodbye greezed lightnin

2006-01-16T14:31:00.000-08:00

last weekend (well, weekend before last, january 8th) john paul, justin, and i went down to astroworld for the final time, to watch the last day of the astroworld auction. people were paying crazy money for ridiculous junk. i can no longer remember any good examples. sorry. i really wished i had an extra $5000 to buy some silly ol' sign from the cyclone. well, what i really wanted (apart from the roller coasters) was the big metal sign that was centered at the loop of greezed lighnin telling about the life and work of the roller coaster designer anton schwarzkopf who created greezed lightnin and the viper, among other classics. alas, it was not up for auction.

i was very disappointed that we missed the saturday auction as i heard they sold the actual greezed lightnin for only 7 thousand dollars. i hope whoever bought it reinstalls it somewhere in town and opens it up for fun. as you can see from the picture, they had already dismantled it. so sad. so sad.

p.s. am i going crazy? i really thought i had blogged about our pre-halloween trip to astroworld with heather and greg. i don't see it anywhere in the archives. is this a false memory i have?

heather and her perfect pies!

2006-01-15T20:15:00.000-08:00

heather&pie
Originally uploaded by clairevoyant paranoia.

delicious! heather made some amazing pies: pecan pie, chocolate peanut butter pie, and the yummiest blueberry cranberry lattice pie. super duper!

happy pie day friday!!

2006-01-13T13:55:00.000-08:00

pie day friday the fourth
Originally uploaded by clairevoyant paranoia.

today is friday the 13th, thus pie day friday. this is my 6th pie day friday celebration. (the picture is from the 4th.) this pie day marks a great expansion of the movement. i am off to austin to join heather's celebration. she's makin the pie and doing the hosting. jason and deb sent a nice message saying they were planning to eat some pie today as well, celebrating on the east coast. so, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, i hope you find an excellent slice of pie today.

p.s. pie day friday memories can be found here, near the bottom.

happy birthday, birthday boy

2006-01-12T14:39:00.000-08:00

tuesday was john paul's birthday.

nasa lunch tray

2006-01-09T15:14:00.000-08:00

NASA tray
Originally uploaded by clairevoyant paranoia.

johnson space center recently replaced their old, beautiful cafeteria trays with new, boring, generic trays. in the process, they sold the lovely old trays. john paul was lucky enough to snag a few. we love them.

passing

2006-01-05T07:36:00.000-08:00

love.

happy december

2005-12-04T19:54:00.000-08:00

so, here are some things we have done this past month or so:

* replaced our dead computer;

* enjoyed the remainder of the quilt festival;

* took a fantastic trip up to portland, oregon to visit joel, tess, and nicholas,

during which we toured the tillamook cheese factory, visited haystack rock (featured in the goonies!), saw they might be giants in concert, and went walking along the columbia river gorge;

* celebrated our second anniversary at the kennedy school in portland;

* went to dallas for thanksgiving;

* went to a huge multi-family inter-generational family reunion of my grandfather's family;

* put up our christmas tree.

overall, a good month

the agony and ecstasy

2005-10-26T14:44:00.000-07:00

last friday our computer decided to go to sleep and refused to wake up. we're replacing the power supply, crossing our fingers and hoping that will fix it, but it remains to be seen. it is shocking to realize how much we depend on the interweb.

so, how 'bout them 'stros? i stayed up until around 2am watching last night's game. oh, how it broke my heart. i've decided i shouldn't watch tonight; maybe my avid viewing is jinxing them.

in delightful news, the quilt festival is this week!! (last year i took too many pictures.)

i took a half-day class on monday, which was fantastic. tomorrow i am taking a full day class entitled "surface design with found objects." i am worried i am in a bit over my head. i think we will be designing our own fabrics and such. my mom and an aunt are taking a color class on sunday; i am thinking about joining in with them. i love the classes, but it is a little lonely being shy and alone in a class full of boisterous, older, very experienced (most of the people in my monday class were quilting teachers in their home cities) quilters.

tonight is the "festival preview." i am so excited, despite the fact that i am so exhausted i can hardly see straight.

yippee!!

2005-10-19T21:10:00.000-07:00

ready
Originally uploaded by clairevoyant paranoia.

we've been a bit preoccupied with baseball 'round here. the astros are headed to the world series!! i am so excited. you might not know this about me, but i am a closet sports nut. i keep it pretty well hidden, but sometimes i allow myself to get carried away in the thrill of the game - and the series. i shamefully admit that, having had to work 4 of the last 5 games, i have been wearing my walkman radio around the library, one earphone in, wires under my shirt, listening to the great milo hamilton (and my once-favorite astro alan ashby) call the games. i was so swept up in the fervor that i even bought a baseball hat today. i haven't worn a baseball hat since i was 10, if not younger. i wore it around the library tonight, but felt really self-conscious.

well, we did put in for world series tickets, but those are apparently really hard to get. everyone i know entered themselves and at least two relatives into the lottery, and nobody i know won.

go 'stros!!

unexpected fun

2005-10-01T09:07:00.000-07:00

our time up in dallas coincidentally coincided with
botcon 10: the transformers convention.

well, ok, i stayed home. but john paul took great pictures.

home, safe and sound

2005-09-27T08:03:00.000-07:00

we made it home yesterday evening. the trip home was six hours, with a twenty-minute stop. so, about five and a half hours of driving. it was so much better. still, it was the second-longest time it has ever taken us to make that distance.

it is nice to be home. everything here is fine: no fallen trees, no power outages, no water contamination, no gas shortages.

the re-population was fairly uneventful. traffic was heavy and slow from before huntsville, but it kept moving along. we managed to sedate one of the cats, but our orange cat zeugma, otherwise known as spanky the great, or president kitty, was having none of it. we tried five or six times, but the pill always ended up on the floor, and me with deep scratches all over my body. he screamed much more ferociously all the way home. and he would claw at the cage, trying to open the doors. we passed a car on our way to dallas in which two cats sat perched, one on a box, one in the back window, calm as anything, just like they were sitting in a boring ol' room at home. i am totally jealous. why can't our cats be like that?

i guess i am glad we evacuated this time. we did what we could with the information we had. but, i will say that i will think carefully before evacuating again. it is always hard to assess risks, but really, how much risk were we actually facing? even if it had come into galveston as a strong 4, the potential danger was nothing like new orleans faced with katrina. and our house, in our neighborhood, would it really have been at risk? granted, the thought of no power for a week or so in +100 degree heat is extremely unpleasant. maybe that's enough. i don't know. i just will think it all through more carefully next time.

in other news, there was an interesting article about doulas in the new york times this weekend. the article has some flaws, but it was nice to see some coverage. i was disappointed that out of all the hundreds of pictures of doulas and new mothers, they used a photo of a woman who was bottle feeding. i know, teen mothers especially have trouble accepting breastfeeding, but what a great opportunity to show that some do choose to breastfeed. the article said that the rate of breastfeeding among teens who had a doula was up to 50%. that is fantastic. why not show a picture of one of them? breastfeeding is so hidden in our society, i find it shocking. i know, one must accept women where they are and respect the choices that they have made, but seeing baby hurricane evacuees starving because they lacked formula and clean water, when they were with their mothers and her breasts, just made me angry. it isn't just an age or class problem. the statistics are up a little, but still, at 6 months, only 50% of babies are breastfed at all (and only 14% of those are exclusively breastfed.) or maybe, the statistics show that at 3 months, 42.5% of infants were exclusively breastfed , and 51.5% were breastfed to some extent. At 6 months, these rates dropped to 13.3% and 35.1%, respectively. either way, things aren't so good for the babies. and i think part of the problem is the media's subtle, but significant, messages about the convenience of bottlefeeding and the unacceptability of images of breastfeeding. all a bunch of malarkey.

additional details

2005-09-23T13:56:00.000-07:00

john paul pointed out that i neglected to tell you our total travel time:

twenty hours, thirty minutes

additionally, he wanted me to balance out my story by sharing with you my own moment of breakdown.

we had been travelling almost 14 hours. when we reached the contra-flow cross-over, it seemed as though everyone was going on the contra-flow and no one was staying on the regular freeway. thus, the contra-flow lanes were backing up, where as the regular lanes were clear. if we had had any sleep and hadn't been driving so long, we would have thought this through and realized that the contra-flow lanes would eventually be the better place to be. the regular lanes would still be clogged up with all the people who had been on the road before the contra-lanes opened up, whereas the contra-lanes would be clear up ahead. but, we thought only in the moment and stayed on the regular road. after about 5 minutes of wonderful free driving, we hit the backlog. it was sooo frustrating! we saw a way to exit the freeway, u-turn, and get on the contra-flow lanes. at this point, i was totally exhausted, it was really hot, i was worried about running out of gas and still being stuck on the freeway when the hurricane hit two days later, i was desperately worried about the cats, and i hadn't been to the bathroom in 14 hours! i seriously had to wee. during our u-turn, we missed a restaurant that had a bathroom and got directly onto the contra-flow lanes. and as soon as we did, we hit more gridlock! i totally lost it. i started crying hysterically and said all kinds of crazy things. but, we soon passed a forested area, so i made john paul pull over so i could relieve myself. and a relief it was indeed. from then on, we were both able to roll with the situation and we did fine.

we stopped for gas in madisonville. we did have to wait in line for 35-40 minutes, but they had plenty of gas and it all worked out. i did think john paul might come to blows with a jerk who cut in front of me in the gas line, but he kept his head and it was fine.

we finally reached casa yabraian at about 8:45 and had a lovely, light dinner. the cats settled in great and don't seem to be suffering permanent damage. they are still a little nervous being in a new place, but they are sleeping and eating well. we slept a long sleep and have had a pretty good day today. as an added bonus, cindy and david (whom you might remember from the wedding- cindy was the maid of honor) are in dallas visiting cindy's brother, so we get to see them!!

my dad, however, is in tyler, texas (in from florida, where he weathered 3 hurricanes last year.) he has been staying in his concession trailer at some state fair, but he is looking for shelter. the winds and possible tornadoes in that area are quite worrying. so, here's hoping he finds a good place to wait out the storm and her aftershocks.

un - freakin' - believable!

2005-09-23T09:34:00.000-07:00

hello all. you have probably seen the pictures of the houston evacuation, but i know i didn't really understand what those images meant. let me tell you. the drive from our house downtown houston to john paul's parent's house in dallas is normally exactly a 4 hour drive. we knew the evacuation would cause crazy traffic problems, so we were expecting an 8, maybe a 12 hour drive. we left home at 15 minutes past midnight. at 8 am, we had just arrived at the exit i normally take to work (a 15 minute drive). at noon, we had not yet reached the woodlands!! so, if you know houston, you understand. the mayor had told people to be prepared for very long drives in the evacuation, but how in the heck do you prepare for it to take over 12 hours to get out of city itself?

we had tried to sedate the cats with benadryl per the vet's instructions. it seemed to work fairly well for xochi, our super-hyper-freaked-out cat. usually in the car he makes the most terrifying noises, but he was quiet most of the time. zeugma, on the other hand, must have vomited up the pill at some point; he was not calm at all. for 11 hours (!!) he screamed one meow a second, every single second. around hour 7, john paul took him out of the carrier and tried holding him in his lap. but, after driving all night without sleep and still being essentially in the center of the city, john paul's nerves were shot. zeugma wouldn't calm down and relax and his squirming pushed john paul over the edge. back into the carrier zeug went. not like being out helped him much. by hour 9, zeugma's mews were weak and quiet, but still consistent. at hour 11 he seemed resigned to his fate and gave up complaining. although i worried he was dying, thank goodness he stopped. it allowed us to calm down and relax a bit at a critical point in the trip. still hardly any sleep, and inching through the woodlands, his incessant meowing would have driven us totally crazy.

the scene on the road was crazy. it was just like the fatal scenes in every disaster movie ever made: people walking around between cars; cars pulling other cars on ropes; cars overheating and breaking down all over; cars running out of gas; cars stopped on the shoulder with people sleeping in the open hatches or on the road next to the car; many people not using air conditioners, maybe to save on gas, sweating in the 100 degree heat. i've never seen anything like it.

the highway department said they were opening up the contra-flow lanes of i-45 at 9am, then they said it would be ready at 11am. when we got there (just north of the woodlands) about 1:30pm, it looked like it had just opened up. but it made a HUGE difference. finally we were able to drive almost at 30 mph. for the whole trip, we averaged 12 mph. most of the night hours we were at 1, or in a good hour 2, mph.

i'm totally ready to move to a city with a smaller population, far away from hurricane strike zones. i have a feeling these kinds of situations are going to keep happening. jp's mom saw a nasa weather scientist saying that we'll see active hurricane seasons with extremely strong storms for at least the next 10 years. welcome to the consequences of global warming!

succumbing to panic

2005-09-21T21:34:00.000-07:00

off to dallas. toodle-oo!

shock

2005-09-08T08:25:00.000-07:00

like everyone, i am in a perpetual state of shock. yes, shocked about the disaster in hurricane hit areas, and the appalling results of the man-exacerbated disaster in new orleans, but mostly shocked by the total inadequacy and intentional idiocy of the government's response. the timelines of events are just incredible. here's a simple one and a more detailed one.

i mean, i knew this administration was terrible, but i am still totally appalled by the whole thing. i just can't believe it. and all of the heartbreaking stories of people who survived despite the best efforts of the government. it really is overwhelming.

i hope the tremendous flaws in the structure of our society revealed by this tragedy continue to stay in the forefront of everyone's minds. it is truly time to talk openly, as a country, about why we have a government and what responsibilities that government has to all of its citizens: to protect them from the devastations of poverty, to offer true safety in the face of emergency, and to immediately respond to disasters. i mean, FEMA turned away help!! this whole thing is just totally unbelievable. compare this to the response of FEMA to the minor hurricane Frances, that hit florida during the election campaign. there, FEMA declared miami-dade an emergency area, even though the hurricane did not hit the area.

it all just makes me feel sick. i know i am not saying anything new; really, i'm just speechless.

avast! fetch me some grog smartly, you lubber!

2005-08-23T15:25:00.000-07:00

comin' up september 19th!!

My pirate name is:

Iron Charity Flint

A pirate's life isn't easy; it takes a tough person. That's okay with you, though, since you are a tough person. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

the good and the bad.

2005-08-03T10:16:00.000-07:00

well, the good news is that the doula training two weeks ago was fantastic! the course was very inspiring. i am still a little nervous about taking on a client. i am mentally preparing myself to seek out opportunities. i figure, to keep working at the library, i can really only take on one client anyway.

not that i am a great public speaker or anything, but this morning a co-worker and i gave a presentation to a group of teachers on how to use the library's resources. the topic was simple, but i was reminded how much i enjoy training-type situations. my first job out of college was as a bookseller and assistant trainer at borders. i really loved training new employees. maybe i could go around giving little presentations on topics i know things about. that would probably be fun. speaking in public makes me really nervous when i don't really know what i'm talking about, or if the groups are too big, but talking about things i know well to small/medium sized groups of friendly people sounds fantastic.

and the bad news is that i had a weird and rapidly-progressing problem with my gum tissue. i had to go to a periodontist who then performed a gum tissue implant. they used freezed-dried connective tissue harvested from a cadaver! so, my mouth looks disgusting and my smile is goofy. it doesn't quite hurt, but it is a little sore. i also suffered a bad fall this weekend. it had been a long time since i had a good scrape-'em-up fall. I skinned my elbow very deeply and my knee to a lesser extent.

worse, i dropped my lovely sony clie. the screen shattered right over the writing interface, so it doesn't work at all. we only purchased the one-year protection plan, and it's been a year and a half. drats. i really loved my clie. and sony stopped making them. (companies always seem to stop making the things i love the most. i guess my values are in opposition to the values of the majority of consumers.) perhaps it is all an experiment in letting go.

and so it begins.

2005-07-19T18:40:00.000-07:00

as we were walking out of ming's tonight, the silent tv told me that bush has made his nomination. the nominee is not a woman and is unequivocally conservative and anti-choice. i think they rushed on the nomination to take the heat off of rove. i wish that for once the media could follow two big stories at once.

as if i wasn't disturbed enough already, following the reading of harry potter and the half-blood prince.... it's as if i can feel the dementors in the air, all around us.

many fragments

2005-07-06T17:52:00.000-07:00

last night i had a terrible dream. i had received an internship to work with le tigre. then, some weird things happened that i can't quite remember. the dream culminated with two mean and unpleasant people i once knew doing something to stop me from catching my train. then i just gave up. oh. i missed the train. things would never work out. i let my whole world just fall apart. it was so desperately depressing. so, what did i do? get out of bed ready to conquer the world and overcome that stupid dream? no. i snoozed the alarm for an hour and slept late, so shocked by the dream that i wanted to stay in bed forever.

as i read this, i remember how hard it is to tell people about dreams. often, the narrative is pretty simple. it's the subtle feelings and underlying responses to dream situations that's so moving and memorable. so, nevermind.

yesterday also started off on a rotten note. a young man attempted to scam me using the old *72 scam. so, a man calls me collect (the reasons why i accepted a collect call from an unknown source are complicated and not very good.) when i answer, he tells me that he dialed the wrong number and he is in an emergency. his children need to be picked up from his mother's house, but he was in a traffic accident and was arrested. will i please "please, ma'am" call his uncle for him and relay the message. dial *72 713-926-4209. he pleads, please ma'am. my kids.

so, i call the number, but not the *72, because i don't know what that does. i relay the message to a disappointed sounding young man, who doesn't sound like anyone's uncle. my assumption is that it is some kind of drug message. the guy was arrested and he wants to launder his communications through some pansy middle man. you know, someone needs to pick up my "kids," read pound of cocaine. i thought *72 maybe blocks the caller id from picking up the number you're calling.

well, i'm already running late, so now i'm late and feel somehow dirty. whatever the call was, it wasn't good news. i walk out to my car, turn it on, and no air conditioner. the a/c worked fine last friday, the last time i drove the car. but no, not any more. luckily, it's only 86 degrees in the morning....

i get to work and do a web search on "*72" but can't find anything. i call john paul to share my terrible morning with someone. later, he finds the scam on snoopes. if you didn't click the link, *72 activates call forwarding, so the scammer can receive long distance and collect calls through your phone, racking up hundreds or thousands of dollars in phone bills that you are then liable for. shocking. tomorrow i will try to call the police fraud squad, if there is such a thing. not like i expect them to do anything, but i have the guy's phone number....

tomorrow i will also take my car to fixers (my favorite eastern european mechanic) to check on the a/c. looking back, i took my car to him for the same problem exactly a year ago today. global warming and my car do not get along - on so many levels.

on the positive news front, i finally did something. i finally took a decisive step. well, sort of. it's just a tiny step, but a step nonetheless. i signed up for doula training at the end of the month in dallas. you might not know, but a doula is a non-medical birth assistant. a doula first meets with a birthing couple or mother to discuss what the parent(s) hope the birth experience will be like. they create a birth plan. then, the doula arrives when the birth begins and helps to support the mother and partner throughout the labor. when the birth is in the hospital, the doula can act as a neutral party, explaining what medical interventions are being offered and ensuring that the hospital staff is accepting of the mother's choices. the role of a doula is well summarized by the organization "doulas of north america" in their position paper.

research on doula-assisted births show clear medical and psychological benefits for the mother and the baby. some of those studies are well-presented in a recent article in the journal pediatrics.

At the present time, the demands on labor and delivery nurses are so great that they can spend less that 10% of their time providing supportive services. By adding continuous doula support, researchers found remarkable positive perinatal effects, as demonstrated in a meta-analysis of the first 6 randomized, controlled trials (RCTs). (2-8) There were reductions in cesarean deliveries by 50%, use of forceps by 40%, and requests for epidural analgesia by 60%, and a 25% decrease in labor length. These RCTs took place in hospitals that did not permit family members or friends to be present with the laboring woman or allowed only brief visits.

At this point there were questions about whether there would be similar positive effects for middle- or upper-income groups or for women accompanied by their husbands during labor and delivery. As a result, an RCT of healthy women, each of whom was expecting to be supported by her male partner, was conducted. (9) All could have family members present. A cesarean delivery was required by 22.5% of the women who were accompanied only by a male partner compared with 14.2% of those supported by both the father and a doula. This study showed the value of doula support for all mothers whether laboring alone or with a partner. The doula does not displace the father but supports him, shows him how he can be helpful, and relieves much of his anxiety.

further, a study in johannesburg shows that

At 6 weeks there were impressive postpartum behavioral differences: a significantly greater proportion of doula-group women were breastfeeding (51% compared with 29%), and the doula-group women were significantly less anxious, had lower scores on a test of depression, and had higher levels of self-esteem.

so, it's not midwifery school, or library science school, but it is a step towards something greater. come to me with all of your doula needs. i'll be ready for you!

i have other news of travel, but i'll save it for later.

oh. no.

2005-07-01T09:09:00.000-07:00

no.

library fantasies

2005-06-21T17:58:00.000-07:00

if i had a million dollars, or slightly less, i would immediately book a stay at the ultimate hotel.

"The Library Hotel in New York City is the first hotel ever to offer its guest over 6,000 volumes organized throughout the hotel by the Dewy Decimal System.* Each of the 10 guestrooms floors honors one of the 10 categories of the DDC and each of the 60 rooms is uniquely adorned with a collection of books and art exploring a distinctive topic within the category or floor it belongs to."

and it's within walking distance of the new york public library. although i have been to new york several times, i am ashamed to say i have yet to visit the new york public library. if you are looking for a romance about the new york public library, check out allen kurzweil's book the grand complication

in less romantic library news, summer in the public library is exhausting. last week 11,542 people came into our library branch, we received 600 phone calls, and answered 2,449 reference questions. personally, my story time attendance is up from an average of 4 children (during the academic year) to 36 children (since the summer started.) quite a change.

close but not convenient

2005-06-20T19:55:00.000-07:00

i spent this evening at traffic court.

i got home from work this evening and i thought to myself, "ah- wonderful. we live about four or five blocks from the courthouse. i can take care of my ridiculous and unfortunate ticket. and today wasn't even as humid as normal, so it's almost nice outside. what a great evening to walk to court!"

so, i get to the courthouse at about quarter to seven this evening. i get a number and walk into the courtroom and it is totally packed. i wait and i wait. and i wait. two hours and ten minutes before the judge calls my name. i go up and tell him i won't contest my ridiculous tickets (did you know that it is illegal to have the dealer frame around your back license plate? i mean, they put the stupid thing on there and never mention it being illegal when you get your oil changed or your car inspected....) i showed him the picture of my frameless plate and proof that i got my car inspected and agree to take defensive driving. then the judge says, "but wait, do you have a new driver's license?"

shocked, i say, "no. why? what?"

he points out that my driver's license expired last week on my birthday. i had no idea. i just got this license last year when i legally changed my name. oh well. he let me agree to take defensive driving anyway and just told me to get the new license right away. very kind.

then i waited a little longer and signed some papers. waited longer in a line and paid a huge fee, and then walked home. all told, close to three hours!

hurricane tracking voodoo pillow

2005-06-18T19:15:00.000-07:00

hurricane tracking voodoo pillow
Originally uploaded by clairevoyant paranoia.

last year my dad moved to florida. and then hurricane season started. he and his girlfriend live just a few blocks from the ocean and all three hurricanes looked like they were headed straight for them. in the end, they were fine and the hurricanes went elsewhere. but, in expectation of this year's even busier hurricane season, i made this voodoo pillow for my pops. of course, you don't want a hurricane to hit anywhere, but when it's headed for your house, the illusion of control might be comforting.

for other hurricane voodoo, check out the annual ritual in new orleans.

busy hands

2005-06-13T14:14:00.000-07:00

spiraltruck
Originally uploaded by clairevoyant paranoia.

despite all my angst, my hands have been busy lately. i really enjoy hand embroidery. i made this for my cousin's new baby natalie. i thought the cement truck would help her two-year old brother bond with her, and apparently it is working. i just did this one from a stencil, but i can highly recommend the excellent designs by jenny hart.

thought i'd tell yah

2005-06-12T15:22:00.000-07:00

john paul suggested that you might not know i have a book blog. well, it didn't have any posts for a while; but, it does now, so you might be interested. for other book discussions, please see the "books to know" column at the right of your page. thank you.

dangers all around

2005-06-10T15:08:00.000-07:00

bored at work, i made the mistake of looking at the news.

not the problem

2005-06-10T09:48:00.000-07:00

upon further research, i don't think narcissistic personality disorder is the problem. the dictionary is not quite the dsm, eh?

the problem

2005-06-10T09:02:00.000-07:00

the problem, maybe, is that i don't think i have anything to say. i really admire kelly, who makes herself post something (almost) every day. that is what i was hoping this blog would be for me, but like every journal i have ever kept, it is mostly neglected.

i was reading a little bit about commonplace books, kept by folks in yonder years. people would keep track of quotations they wished to remember or other bits of text. sort of like making your own textbook for the world. sometimes people would expand into personal thoughts on these excerpts or on other observations of the world. this sounds great; i would like to be able to escape my introspective nightmare.

i am consumed by self-reflection and find myself exceedingly boring. i feel that i have been stuck at this ridiculous, self-constructed crossroads for years (at least five years, but really since i graduated from college ten years ago.) i can't get myself to think creatively about the situation, or to make a freakin' decision, or to be content with where i am. and it is just so boring. i think maybe i've withdrawn a little from the social world because i find myself so boring i cringe when i hear myself trying to have conversations.

ok. that is totally overstating the case. i still have friends and i love them and i love seeing them. maybe i'm just having a bad week. it certainly sounds like i have developed a severe case of nar·cis·sism, as in a psychological condition characterized by self-preoccupation, lack of empathy, and unconscious deficits in self-esteem. i haven't lost empathy, but the other bit sounds right-on.

but isn't everyone obsessed with what they want to do when they grow up?

where to begin?

2005-04-20T18:05:00.000-07:00

written 4/27/05:
sorry to be so neglectful of you, dear reader. march was really a rotten month. april was significantly better. i have high hopes for may.

our move went pretty well.

many of my strapping young cousins were in town, and willing to help. it is amazing how fast you can move with five adolescent boys. many thanks to justin and wendy, who helped immeasurably.

of course we moved and promptly left town.

we spent a delightful week in washington, d.c. so many great people live in dc, and we were fortunate enough to spend time with almost all of them. the cherry trees were at their peak bloom while we were there. they were heartbreakingly beautiful. i am so totally in love with d.c. we know many people who live there, but i still can’t imagine how a regular person can possibly afford to. if i had a better imagination, or a higher earning potential, i would be there in a heartbeat!

written 5/18/05:
hello, if you are still out there. things are much the same as they were last month. days go by and not much changes.

last weekend was a great one, with friday marking my favorite celebration - pie day friday!! for those of you who don't know the tradition, every friday the thirteenth, i make pies and friends come over to eat them and celebrate. in times past, we would also watch a really cheesy horror movie too (the first pie day friday was marked by a viewing of the classic saturday the fourteenth. it was one of my favorite movies when i was about 8, but i can't say it held up as well as one might have hoped.) i preferred this pie day friday, as we had a sizable turn out and we just talked rather than watched a movie. my favorite pie this time 'round was the fresh strawberry rhubarb pie. the key lime was the most popular, but i like the fresh fruit pies the best.

saturday was the art car parade! from our new location, we could walk just a few blocks south and be at a prime viewing location. several friends parked at our house and walked over with us. it was excellent, as always.

this weekend should be fantastic as well. mr. harry moren is coming into town from seattle. i am sure many adventures will ensue.

last month some time, i really enjoyed re-reading dr. seuss' oh, the places you'll go linked off of kelly's blog.

un-slumping yourself
is not easily done....
simple it's not, i'm afraid you will find,
for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.

that's exactly where i am. stuck in the most useless place, the waiting place. and while i agree, no! that's not for me! i still can't quite see my way out of the slump. i feel like i get close to setting a definitive path and then the wind dies down and i'm left drifting, wondering should i go left or should i go right? up or down or simply turn around? this mind-maker-upper is having a most difficult time.

dear friends,

2005-03-10T08:48:00.000-08:00

thank you for your kind thoughts and encouragements, both on the record and off. you're super!

everything is working out fine, just as you said it would. after days of obsessively driving up and down my favorite streets, untold hours searching the on-line lease listings, various tours of properties of dramatically varying quality, and a spreadsheet, we found a great house.

sabine street house
Originally uploaded by clairevoyant paranoia.

our new house is on sabine street in the historic sixth ward. it is part of the "raia complex."

"Members of the Raia family owned this cluster of tenant houses for many years. The first house, 818 Sabine, was built around 1910 and features boxcar siding, most widely seen on railroad boxcars of the early 20th century. There was a large railroad car manufacturing plant off Washington Avenue around the turn of the 20th century and several houses in the area were built with boxcar siding discarded by the plant. The house at 900 Sabine was .... built in the mid 1890’s as Folk Victorian gable-front cottage with an inset porch, identical to the house at 902 Sabine Street. The house was relocated to the rear of the property .... in 1910. The 902 Sabine house dates from the late 1880’s and is identified as a Folk-Victorian cottage with an inset porch. The garage apartment, at 904 Sabine (hidden behind 902 Sabine) was built around 1940. It once served as a two-car garage with an one-bedroom apartment above; the garage bays were recently converted into a single studio apartment. The small building in front of 902 Sabine was built for Mr. Raia as a print shop in 1939."

we're in the house from the 1880s. it has 10 ft ceilings with ceiling fans, hardwood floors, a living room, dining room, big kitchen with tile counter tops, two bedrooms and two bathrooms- one with a claw foot tub. the picture above is from the rear of the house. you can see one of the other houses on the lot, and the lovely common brick patio area. we have a swath of private yard along the north side of the house, but it is only 6 ft wide. i was worried we'd have to give up the trampoline, but our landlord laughingly gave us permission to put it in the back corner of the lot, between the two back houses.

the more i think about, the more excited i am to move. from our new location, we can easily walk downtown to the angelika, the theater district, and countless other downtown goodies. also, we're just off the white oak and buffalo bayou hike-bike trails.

now comes the hardest part - boxing up all this stuff. we'll probably rent a truck and try to move most of our things on the weekend of the 25th. let us know if you want to help; we'll reward you well.

endings

2005-02-16T09:50:00.000-08:00

everything ends eventually. knowing this, endings still makes me sad.

john paul and i have been renting our house for almost four and a half years. it is a house that i have struggled with (see the endless struggle to get it clean and tidy and the cyclical battle with the garden), but it is a house i have loved. it matched us well. it has enough space to accommodate all of our junk (ok- it's mostly mine) and still feel like we have room to be comfortable. it has a warm-and-cozy-home feeling (wendy especially appreciates the kitchen couch. every kitchen should have a couch so friends are comfortable while they keep you company in the kitchen; cooking and talking together, you can't beat that.) we love the fact that we can both work in the same room - in our sewing & computer room. the house has giant armoire trapped in the bedroom (somebody walled off the only door that it might have fit through) that is a perfect art cabinet. and the trampoline fits perfectly in the back yard.

alas, our very nice landlady has just declared bankruptcy. the only way she can keep her house is if she moves back into it - so, we get the boot. we have to move out by april 1st. i know that many of our friends move houses all the time; it's no big deal. but, this is the longest i have lived in any one house since my mom and i moved to england after my freshman year of high school. i used to thrill at the idea of a new house - new space, new possibilities. but now i feel settled. we have finally gotten this house to work for us. we've come up with good solutions to some of its initial problems. rationally i've always known that we don't own this house, but we've lived in it as though we do. i even had plans to paint all the rooms this spring. yes, i should know better than to attach so closely to things, but what can i say?

it is true that we have been talking about the possibility of moving out of houston soon. we've been thinking about aus tin, washington, dc, or nova scotia, among others. but we won't be ready to move by april. the out-of-houston route is contingent on my getting into an mls program. i have been steadfastly failing to complete my applications and take the stupid gre.

so now i feel this totally overwhelming pressure to get my act together. but even if i do, we won't know if i've been accepted into any given program before april 1st. so then should we sign a new lease? can we find a nice place we can afford with just a 6 month lease? what am i doing with my life? and why? loosing the house has sort of forced many issues i have been neglecting to think about.

so that's where i am. does anyone have any advice? (besides, "relax - it is just a house. it's not that important"?)

i know what my weaknesses are

2005-02-12T20:11:00.000-08:00

spring
Originally uploaded by clairevoyant paranoia.

every year spring comes again, teasing me with her promises of forgiveness. i think to myself, "this is it. this is the year i'll get this yard under control. i'll beat those white flies and aphids with the amazing power of the lady bug and the praying mantis. i can plant beautiful flowers, fragrant herbs, and juicy tomatoes. can i find room in the yard for a lemon tree? or maybe an apple tree! gardenias blooming everywhere would be delightful..... by gum, by golly, i can conquer this wasteland!"

i go out there with my pruners and the machete and i clear out as much as i can. i ambitiously head down to the garden center and make my choices - butterfly flowers and bright annuals tempt me. oh, the broccoli and cauliflower look so promising, and i can already taste the tomatoes. all this enthusiasm - so optimistic this year will be different. my desire for a light weight tiller is almost overwhelming.

but, every year is the same. i forget to water regularly. the plants get weak and leggy. the white flies and aphids move in. the lady bugs won't stay in the yard even though there is way more than enough food for them all. the garden center doesn't have any praying mantises, and doesn't expect any to come in. the first round of monarchs lay so many eggs on my few milkweeds that the baby caterpillars strip my plants in about four days, leaving the plants and the little unfulfilled butterflies-to-be to die. the overhang from the house dumps dirty rainwater runoff onto the ill-placed bed of vegetables and herbs, further weakening them. the flowers on the tomatoes and peppers won't fruit. the other vegetables wither and die.

no peppers, no broccoli, two pathetic tomatoes that go bad before i notice they were there. the seeds i plant don't grow. too much shade, not enough water, too many bad bugs.

but still, i rush in, sure this year will be different from all those others.

and, today, the cycle begins anew.

trampoline

2005-02-11T16:08:00.000-08:00

trampoline
Originally uploaded by clairevoyant paranoia.

the most wonderful kelly snook gave us her trampoline when she left town. it fits perfectly in our back yard and we love it!!

jumping on the trampoline is so much fun. i remember, as a child, spending hours jumping alone on my grandma's trampoline. i don't quite have that energy anymore, but i still love it. i was trying to jump at least 15 minutes every day (it is harder and more strenuous than it looks), but it has been cold and rainy most days of late. regardless, i think the trampoline and i have gotten our relationship off to a good start.

scary things for the new year

2005-01-05T11:57:00.001-08:00

happy new year to you all. of all the frightening things I saw during the holiday season, this was the most alarming.

DSC00250
Originally uploaded by clairevoyant paranoia.

christmas wishes

2004-12-21T13:33:00.000-08:00

the other day, i told john paul that all i wanted for christmas was another harry potter book. it looks like jk rowling was listening, because the publication date for harry potter and the half-blood prince has been announced as july 16! just a month after my birthday, too. she has a mildly amusing website, but don't expect too many secrets to be revealed.

fantastic.

2004-12-12T00:30:00.000-08:00

DSC00229
Originally uploaded by clairevoyant paranoia.

the magnetic fields were amazing. stephin merritt was a bit intimidating, seeing as how he walked into the audience after the first song and yelled at some girls who had been talking. he said he would gladly pay the refund of their tickets. yikes. from then on, i kept thinking that at any minute he would get fed up with the bar noise and just walk out. but, he didn't, and he was great. they played many of my favorites, and some new/unfamiliar songs as well. i like it when claudia sings, but there wasn't quite enough of that going on. it was interesting to see that she is the public voice of the group - the person telling most of the stories and engaging in banter with the audience.

the most surprising part of the evening was actually the guy who opened for the them. he is an australian, darren hanlon. he blew me away. he was funny and clever, and had a lovely voice. it was just him and his guitar (and a banjo for one song - that is when he made the joke that he was going to start a banjo band called banjovi that will play only bonjovi songs on banjo.) he sings about bicycle kick-stands, and hiccups, and his love reading the phone book to him, from a-z. he reminded me a bit of the mountain goats, but happier. i encouraged him to go over to new zealand, because i think doug would particularly like him. he said he's never been, and thought that was a bit silly. so, maybe.

paths to happiness

2004-12-09T13:16:00.001-08:00

the mfah is having a christmas ornament making evening tonight. i was thinking about going. if you want to come, give me a call.

oh, i forgot to mention that the magnetic fields, one of my absolute all-time favorites, are playing at numbers this saturday!! i am so excited. there are two shows, at 6pm and 9:30. tickets are on sale @ sound ex. i am going to the 9:30 show, so maybe i'll see you there.

mirah, another one of my other all-time favorites, is also playing saturday night. her show is at the axiom, doors @ 10/show @ 11. i don't know about you, but i am going to try to make it her show after the magnetic fields. it might have been easier to go to the early magnetic fields show, but who likes easy?

in the news of fun elsewhere, the snow and ice festival in harbin, china looks like such a good time!

neglected loves

2004-12-08T12:47:00.000-08:00

so, like many bloggers, i am not very good at posting regularly. it has been almost an entire month of silence. in my defense, i will say that we were out of town for much of the time since my previous post, and then our cable modem system imploded. but really, is this forum for personal introspection really supposed to be one more thing i feel guilty about neglecting? it goes right into my long list of neglected loves: the dishes, my friends who live far away, my friends who live close, the laundry, the floors, the crafts, the gre, and on and on.

speaking of our being out of town, we had a great time in brenham. it was nice to get away from the guilt of daily living (see the list above) for no real reason, to a place that felt far away, but was really only an hour and a half drive. we had the most luxurious room at the ant street inn - and it was glorious! the coolest thing about the room was the old wooden barn door (in order to open it, you had to unlatch and swing down an old metal pole) that led out into the wonderful little garden, which we basically had to ourselves. and they offered as much bluebell ice cream as you could eat! we went easy on the ice cream, actually; john paul had three little cartons, but i just had one, which i used to make a coke float.

we had a wonderful thanksgiving in miami.

as you can see, there are many stories to tell. you can see more teasers here. the details will have to wait though, as i am getting sleepy.

on a totally unrelated note, tonight at work, i was very excited to see that louis de bernières has a new book out! birds without wings is the title. there are definite perks to working in a library. de bernières is one of my favorite authors. if you haven't already, i strongly encourage you to read his trilogy which begins with
the war of don emmanuel's nether parts. and while i love this book - and the trilogy - i did point out to de bernières that it was a bit of a euro-centric stereotype of latin america, and he did sign a personal apology to me in my copy of the book. (nothing quite like being an anthropology undergraduate, eh?)

until next time.

weekends

2004-11-19T09:52:00.000-08:00

andy walker was in town last weekend. some of his friends put together an alternative pub crawl through garden oaks and the heights. it was great fun, as usual. the new route was great - we hit many small bars, most of which i had no idea existed. rose's garden, somewhere in the northern heights, was my favorite. rose marie lives across the street from her bar, which is really just a tiny house with a pool table, bar, and tables. (that is where most of my pictures were taken.)

this weekend john paul and i are headed up to brenham. thanks to the glorious cynthia skelton, we have gift certificates to a bed and breakfast. we will be staying at the historic ant street inn. i'm looking at this as a belated anniversary weekend away. don't worry about us, there's plenty to do in brenham. however, we were very disappointed to find that, in the fall, bluebell doesn't give tours on fridays or saturdays.

we will be back on saturday evening. we might try to see a bit of the art crawl, but we're really looking forward to the bobbindoctrin puppet festival!

everyone should come out on sunday for the waka (world adult kickball association) pick-up game.

non-stop fun this weekend!

outrage fatigue

2004-11-11T08:44:00.000-08:00

ok justin. so that plan of attack didn't quite work out. although, i strongly believe kerry did win the election. while i have experienced four of the five stages of grief, i maintain that my refusal to accept the election results is based on evidence of electronic voting machine malfunction. in addition, the way i understand it, the provisional ballot situation in ohio is far from adequately resolved. Not only were partisan election challengers allowed into the polling places to "challenge" low income african american voters, but the validity of the provisional ballots is determined by a four judge panel of two republicans & two democrats. if the panel is split 2-2 as to the ballot's validity, the vote is not counted.

the la times alludes to this:
"under state law, each county will examine its provisional ballots, which are in sealed envelopes. before opening the envelopes, a team of elections officials — split evenly between declared democrats and republicans — will decide whether the voter who cast the ballot was registered by the early october deadline and voted in the correct precinct."

i know the media is casting all of these concerns in the light of "radical liberal conspiracy theories of the angry sore-loser democrats." i think it is more than that. the first step is to perform the most basic of audits- comparing the number of people voting on a machine with the number of votes that machine tallied. as in franklin county, that can show the most elemental of errors. yes, it is only 3,000 votes in an election that had a 150,000 + difference. but without more basic audits, who is to say this problem is not more widespread?

i think there is no way to have confidence in our elections without voter-verified paper receipts. why is that so resisted by our elected representatives? it isn't just a cost thing. think of all the costs spent on analyzing and re-analyzing these elections. if you had spot-check audits to confirm the trend of accuracy, and the ability to re-count when necessary, you would have a much better situation. why is this so hard??

despite all of this outrage, john paul and i have had some fun in recent weeks. we went to rich and sibel's wedding up in saratoga springs the week before the election.

it was beautiful and great fun!

after the wedding, john paul and i went back to brooklyn with jason and deb. we did many fun city things, including a bit of movieoke. deb and john paul acted out a quintessential scene from the brigitte bardot/jean-luc godard classic contempt.

overall, we had a brilliant time.

and last weekend, i was fairly successful at distracting myself from my election-devastation by attending the international quilt festival.

i took two classes; one that suggested techniques for making fabric-altered books, presented by a wonderful teacher and artist, lesley riley. it was quite an inspiring festival, and did help stave-off my total despair.

help.

2004-11-02T17:13:00.001-08:00

it isn't even 7:15 and i am already hyperventilating in response to exit polls. it doesn't look good for me. however, according to my favorite wonkette, things are looking good for kerry. i think if everyone maintains a positive focus on visualizing a kerry victory, it will all work out. send your love west, or anywhere people are still voting.

one who attacks and seeks to overthrow traditional or popular ideas or institutions

2004-10-13T12:47:00.000-07:00

i am sure you already know that crawford's local paper, the lone star iconoclast, has come out in support of john kerry. if you haven't already read their editorial, i highly recommend it. it is much stronger in condemning bush than i expected.

i didn't know phil donohue was our president - and i didn't know he was so angry.

2004-10-13T08:11:00.000-07:00

rant
Originally uploaded by clairevoyant paranoia.

the text reads: "but we wouldn't think it was funny if we saw the president of the united states on national television, and he was jumping up and down, yelling and screaming, and beating his fists against a podium. we would probably say: "even if the president is angry, he should be able to control his BEHAVIOR better than that!"

i found his ranting during the second debate much more shocking than his ridiculous facial expressions from the first debate. how can so many americans think he's a "nice guy"? i can't believe "personality" is the deciding factor for so many people in such an important political race; but, even if it is, how do people not see him as the sneering, arrogant, unstable megalomaniac that he is? i just don't get it.

party with the ponies

2004-10-10T09:48:00.000-07:00

last night tracy jo, wendy, heather, greg, and audrey went with us to the sam houston race track for a "party with the ponies" night. despite all of us placing our bets using the best-name method, tracy jo was the only big winner with a $14.60 payout on a $2 quinella. with horses such as texi gogo girl, ib your huckleberry, daddy's magic rocket, and crimson rojo diablo we thought we couldn't go wrong. can you believe those horses didn't come in? the world of racing is obviously falling apart.

we did rather enjoy the ac/dc cover band bonsfire who played lackluster sets in between the races. audrey did a lot of spectacular dancing and we all took turns in gallop races with her, wendy playing the perpetual finish line. the fix was in with those races as audrey swept the night, but what are you going to do?

at one point, another little girl came up to audrey, tilted her head slightly, and said simply, "let's play." and they took off immediately in comfortable play of their own. it is my wish that we could all grow into adulthood without loosing that openness and lightness that allows children to play so easily with complete strangers. oh well.

you can't bowl at gallery furniture

2004-10-06T20:50:00.000-07:00

everything's bigger at gallery furniture
Originally uploaded by clairevoyant paranoia.

back in august, wendy, aaron, john paul and i decided to look into the rumors that gallery furniture had a bowling alley. we did find a wall full of very strange pictures, a gigantic television broadcasting infomercials, shaquille o'neil's personally designed basketball motife throne, a free hot dog buffet, and indoor tennis practice cages; however, no bowling alley. by far the best attraction was the oversized dining room set. walking along the side of the enormous buffet piece really did recapture those childhood experiences of living in a world that is just way too big for your body.

ok. i can't resist.

2004-10-06T13:59:00.000-07:00

it seems like everybody has a blog today. so why not me? i'll try and see what happens. i might surprise myself.