Moments of Poetry
Mood:  chillin'
Topic: Daily Eruptions
I have been even more fragile lately. I can't handle the hurricane news. I let Hans watch it on CNN or listen to NPR and then tell me what's happening because I cry so easily now. Last Friday Sudie came home and the two of us sat in the office and cried for a good half an hour. I managed to listen to the Diane Rehm show this morning on NPR, though. The first hour was on the Supreme Court doings--it looks like Roberts will be confirmed as Chief Justice and maybe that won't be such a bad thing--and the second hour was on the failings and successes with the hurricane rescue and relief efforts. I heard only bits of the second hour because I was in and out of the car running errands, but I was relieved to be able to listen and not cry and feel like a level-headed adult. It feels very 9-11ish to me, this particular fragility, and with the anniversary of 9-11 coming up, I'm a little worried about how I'm going to do this weekend.

There have been small moments of poetry and joy, though. I've found myself literally trying, with my eyes, to suck the color out of the crape myrtle blossoms around the neighborhood and the mandevilla climbing up Mom and Dad's deck and the maple leaves that are turning red. And I had several moments of bliss on Sunday when Brendan came running out of the van and threw himself into my arms. There is nothing like a hug from a four year old! Oh, and the sunsets! I can't actually see the sunset here because it sets behind the trees behind my house--so I get sparkling light through the leaves which is wonderful--but the evenings have been cooler now with a slight breeze and everything gets bathed in gold light and I feel--depending on the temperature--like I'm in Santa Monica on the Promenade or in Michigan on a football field. I know, if I were truly in the moment, I wouldn't be putting myself somewhere in the past. But sometime in the future, when I'm in Boston or Santa Fe, I'm sure I'll be hit with the same breeze under the same sky and I'll remember how it felt to be in North Carolina walking Kaija while the sun sank below the trees.

Other Donations to Disaster Relief Effort
Mood:  rushed
Topic: Daily Eruptions
The American Red Cross, rated a Four Star Charity by Charity Navigator, is, of course, also accepting financial donations at http://www.redcross.org/donate/donate.html.

If you would like to help the relief efforts, but a donation of money is not the best option for you, you can also give blood, supplies of which are very low right now. Go to www.givelife.org to find out where you can make a blood donation, or call 1-800-Give-Life.

You can also donate airline miles--helpful in moving Katrina victims to available housing, stock, spare change, or in-kind products at the American Red Cross website, www.redcross.org

Katrina Relief Effort: Do you have a spare room, bed, or couch?
Mood:  rushed
Topic: Daily Eruptions
MoveOn.org is organizing its own relief effort this morning, creating a database of people with spare rooms, beds, or even couches who are willing to house refugees from Katrina. According to MoveOn, many of the shelters already have Internet access, and refugees can also have case workers or family members search for space for them.

Most urgently needed are rooms or beds within a 300 mile range of New Orleans, but all offers of assistance are encouraged and welcomed.

To list your available space, click on this link:
http://www.hurricanehousing.org?id=5949-3538367-OoGKElM6QG6e7VKIhjT9_g

Here is the full text of MoveOn's email request:

Dear MoveOn member,

Hurricane Katrina's toll on communities, homes and lives has devastated
the nation. Now victims must face the daunting question of where to go
next--and we can help.

Tens of thousands of newly homeless families are being bused to a stadium
in Houston, where they may wait for weeks or months. At least 80,000 are
competing for area shelters, and countless more are in motels, cars, or
wherever they can stay out of the elements. The Federal Emergency
Management Agency and the Red Cross are scrambling to find shelter for the
displaced.

This morning, we've launched an emergency national housing drive to connect
your empty beds with hurricane victims who desperately need a place to
wait out the storm. You can post your offer of housing (a spare room,
extra bed, even a decent couch) and search for available housing online
at:

http://www.hurricanehousing.org?id=5949-3538367-OoGKElM6QG6e7VKIhjT9_g

Housing is most urgently needed within reasonable driving distance (about
300 miles) of the affected areas in the Southeast, especially New Orleans.

Please forward this message to anyone you know in the region who might be
able to help.

But no matter where you live, your housing could still make a world of
difference to a person or family in need, so please offer what you can.

The process is simple:

* You can sign up to become a host by posting a description of whatever
housing you have available, along with contact information. You can change
or remove your offer at any time.

* Hurricane victims, local and national relief organizations, friends and
relatives can search the site for housing. We'll do everything we can to
get your offers where they are needed most. Many shelters actually already
have Internet access, but folks without 'net access can still make use of
the site through case workers and family members.

* Hurricane victims or relief agencies will contact hosts and together
decide if it's a good match and make the necessary travel arrangements.
The host's address is not released until a particular match is agreed on.

If hosting doesn't work for you, please consider donating to the Red Cross
to help with the enormous tasks of rescue and recovery. You can give
online at:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=859

As progressives, we share a core belief that we are all in this together,
and today is an important chance to put that idea to work. There are
thousands of families who have just lost everything and need a place to
stay dry. Let's do what we can to help.

http://www.hurricanehousing.org?id=5949-3538367-OoGKElM6QG6e7VKIhjT9_g

Thanks for being there when it matters most.

--Noah T. Winer and the whole MoveOn.org Civic Action Team
Thursday, September 1st, 2005

Overwhelmed
Mood:  down
Topic: Daily Eruptions
Today makes the seventh day in this recent cycle of feeling bad. It started last Thursday with a major sink into depression, included the little manic (or hypomanic) episode on Friday and Saturday that then settled back into depression on Saturday afternoon. Sunday was a bizarre but mostly okay day (we'll come back to that), but then the depression came back Monday and has just been settling in deeper every day. I've got too much to do at work with Sudie always bringing me more (she realized I was near a breaking point today, though, and restrained herself) and too much to do at home. Back in June when I was trying to get this place ready while Hans was in Seattle, I told my family I wanted to do the Labor Day picnic here, and now that's just adding more pressure. I have to make the place somewhat presentable--of course, I didn't actually finish painting the downstairs last weekend--figure out food, and I have to catch up with financial stuff that Hans said he was going to take over on August 1 but still somehow is on my shoulders. I'm cranky and teary and very lonely and yet really want to be left alone. Not a pretty picture.

So, Sunday. Long run day. Twenty-three miles. The best that I can say is that I finished them. Which is really saying a lot because I SOOOOO wanted to quit. I had to really talk to myself to make myself stay out there--and by "talk to myself" I do mean that yes, I spoke out loud on several occasions, but only in places where there aren't any finished houses yet. I also used smile therapy. I've read that using any excess energy even in maintaining a facial expression can negatively impact running performance, but I needed the little chemical boost that running mile two and mile eight with a smile on my face gave me. I made a series of bad decisions, beginning with getting too late a start (7:00 a.m.), then pushing myself too hard on miles 7 & 8, then refusing to stop at the house to put on sunscreen because I couldn't be getting that burned and it would only make it harder for me to sweat.... Let's just say, I'm glad it wasn't the marathon and hope I learned some lessons. I have two more long runs--26 miles and 28 miles--before the actual race, and I have to get them right so I know what to do on the actual day. I had hoped to do 23 miles at a pace of 4 minutes running and 1 minute walking and finish in about 6 hours. That seemed doable since I finished 20 miles at a run 1 minute, walk 2 minutes pace in that same amount of time. I was on track until somewhere around mile five where I decided it would be fun to see if I could keep my mind engaged by increasing the amount of running I was doing by 1 minute each mile until I hit 10 minutes running and 1 minute walking. I got to 8 minutes running and 1 minute walking and I had depleted whatever energy reserves I had. I was forced to go back to 1 minute walking and 1 minute running through mile 16. Then, I had to walk the last seven miles because I didn't have the mental, emotional, or physical energy to make myself run at all. I was out there 8 hours. Yes, you can laugh. Or cry.

I may well be the very last person to finish the marathon, and that's if they even have volunteers out there to give me water and sports drink after it gets dark....

All I have to say is that I really hope this fog lifts soon. There's no benefit in feeling like this. The depression and mood swings have finally gotten my attention and I'm trying to take actions to get to the causes. I just want to get on with it already!

Savannah Blue is Bilingual and Available Online!
Mood:  happy
Topic: Books
Here is the link to information about the new book from Winged Willow Press, Savannah Blue's Activity Book/Libro de Actividades de Savannah Azul! This is the first bilingual book we've published, and also the first activity book for children. Check it out!!

Still sitting here....
Mood:  energetic
Even though I said I was going to get up and get to work, I'm still sitting at the computer. I've looked again at all the mosaic materials on the Blick website, designed a possible wave pattern for the river rock stepping stone mural, and looked at watercolor pre-stretched canvases because I've decided that if I'm going to create visual art rather than language art for awhile, I may as well use some of the materials I already own.

I am hopeless!

Sleepless and Up to My Eyeballs in Venetian Glass
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Daily Eruptions
My moods have been cycling really fast this week. Thursday night I came home and felt the most desperate and depressed I have felt since moving here (after having a productive day at work). I have been binge-eating fast food all week, and Friday night I came home and a true manic episode set in.

I have been having ideas for a dress I want to design for myself and the glass beads I want to use to embellish it. On Thursday I decided I needed to buy the lampwork kit and start learning to make beads because I was going to make the beads for the dress as well as a pair of matching earrings, a necklace, and a bracelet. Yesterday morning, I started having ideas for mosaic projects I could do. I started in the kitchen with the beach/marine motif but by the time I got home last night I had expanded outside the house and started thinking about a mosaic door hanging and mosaic stones I could use in the front flower beds or to line the sidewalk coming up to the house and had two ideas for mosaic murals to completely cover the back patio.

Hans and I went to bed at 10:30 last night and I slept for awhile, but then I woke up sometime around 3:00 or 4:00 with new ideas and haven't been able to get back to sleep. Damn you, Dick Blick!

At some point, I stopped thinking about glass tile mosaics in the flower beds and switched to river rock. This would carry the water motif and be more natural, but still unique. It occurred to me I could make river rock stepping stones (square) and use them end to end to make a moveable mural. We own the property three feet beyond the far end of our patio, and I've been trying to think of a way to visually claim that space without putting up a fence that would block my great view of the woods behind the house. I could do that by laying these stepping stones down flush with each other and the edge of the concrete. Then we'd have a surface on which to place flower pots or the grill, the patio would look more expansive, and I'd get to use the river rocks but not in a location on which I would want to walk or sit frequently. (They're flat, rounded stones, but you stand them up on their edges and they aren't much fun to walk on, so I don't want to cover the whole back patio with them.) Then, I could still do a glass and/or ceramic tile mural to cover the concrete patio. I'm considering a sunburst pattern in reds, oranges and yellows against a cobalt and powder blue background, or, if I decide I want something more serene, more zen, a spiral that covers the entire space. I could do this in muted colors, add a fountain to one side, maybe a rock cairn altar to hold a candle, and use natural wood furniture. The space is too small to make the spiral practical for walking meditation, but I could sit at its center for sitting meditation.

It's awful! I have ideas for mosaic coasters (for indoors, although I'm still thinking about ways to use them in multiples for purposes other than holding drinks) and a lazy susan and glass mosaic votive holders I can hang from wrought iron lantern hooks all along the edge of the front patio. And now I'm on the hunt for rectangular mosaic molds because I've decided I want to make mosaic landscaping bricks, probably also out of river rock, to line the front flower beds. There's a tree ring mold I know I already want to use to encircle the crape myrtle in front of the living room window and I've been trying to figure out how to use the gentle curve of that mold to make all of my edging bricks, but that would require altering the shape of the beds to a wavy pattern, which I might really like, but I'm not sure the homeowners association would allow it without my having to get permission first. Rectangles would be easier.

This is, of course, after deciding last week or the week before that I was going to plant the front bed next summer according to a feng shui BaGua using native plants that attract butterflies and birds and hopefully also need little water.

The thing is, I need a second job to pay for all of these little projects because the current budget doesn't allow for any of them. And, of course, a second job would eat up the time I have available for actually completing any of the projects. So what I really need is a sudden, but steady, influx of new money that requires little or no effort on my part. Exactly what everyone is looking for, eh?

I'm a little disturbed about this particular manic episode because it makes it difficult to deny that I might be bipolar. As long as I wasn't having huge bursts of energy that kept me awake without feeling tired, it was easier to say I wasn't having manic episodes. They say that manic episodes, for some people, are productive and enjoyable times, and for an artist, I can see that that might be true. The only real problem comes if the manic episodes interfere in a significant way with your life.

Hans is awake now, so since I'm also up, I guess it's time to use some of this energy in a constructive way. I promised Hans I'd get the few remaining moving boxes emptied and broken down and their contents put away today in exchange for him putting up with the paint smell while I finish painting the downstairs this weekend. My family is coming out next weekend for a barbecue--it will be the first time my sister and her family will have been here--and I want the place to look as good as it can. I'm having three six-foot bookcases delivered on Monday and that will make a HUGE difference in the useability and appearance of my office. I haven't had a true bookcase since I left Seattle, and I'm very excited!

Okay, now to work.

Reader Privacy - Extra Help
Mood:  rushed
If you are a busy person with limited storage capacity in your overcrammed brain and don't know who your representatives and senators are or how to contact them, no worries!

You can find them easily by plugging your state or zip+4 into the locator functions at:

www.senate.gov

and

www.house.gov.

The locators are prominently placed on both home pages, and your message to the person who answers the phone in your elected official's office only need be one sentence long!

Your Reader Privacy Still in Jeopardy - Act NOW!
Mood:  rushed
Topic: Daily Eruptions
Here is a press release from the Campaign for Reader Privacy.

If you value your right to expose yourself to new ideas, shop for books without Big Brother watching over your shoulder, and use your library card--you do have a library card, don't you?--to explore your world, then this is an issue of concern to you.

Please read the press release and make a phone call!

P.S. The bolding is all mine--I may have gotten a little carried away with it, but I'm just trying to make it easier for you to get to the heart of the matter. I know you'll forgive me!

Campaign for Reader Privacy
American Booksellers Association, American Library Association,
Association of American Publishers, PEN American Center
www.readerprivacy.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For information contact:
Oren Teicher (ABA), 800-637-0037, ext. 6611
Larry Siems (PEN), 212-334-1660, ext. 105
Judy Platt (AAP), 202-220-4551
Bernadette Murphy (ALA), 202-412-7928

BOOK GROUPS URGE SUPPORT FOR HOUSE AND SENATE LETTERS

Washington, DC, August 24, 2005
In the final weeks of their two and a half year battle to restore the protections for reader privacy that were eliminated by the USA PATRIOT Act, organizations representing booksellers, librarians, publishers and writers today urged their supporters to continue pushing for the Senate version of legislation re-authorizing expiring sections of the PATRIOT Act. That version, in contrast to the unacceptable House bill, includes significant new protections for bookstore and library records and resets the clock for the records section to expire in three years. Supporters of reader privacy should be calling their House and Senate representatives to ask them to endorse letters being circulated by Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Larry Craig (R-ID) that call on members of the House and Senate conference committee to adopt the Senate bill. The conferees are expected to meet soon after Congress returns from its August recess.

Although S. 1389 (USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act) does not address all of the book community's concerns, it provides a more stringent standard to which the FBI must adhere when seeking bookstore and library records under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. Under Section 215, the FBI may demand any records that are "relevant" to a terrorism or espionage investigation, including the records of people who are not suspected of committing a crime. While the House bill maintains this overly broad standard, S. 1389 requires the FBI to provide facts indicating that the person whose records are sought is a terrorist, the agent of a foreign power or someone who is an acquaintance of a person suspected of terrorism or espionage.

The Campaign for Reader Privacy strongly believes that S. 1389 is the logical choice of the conferees because it passed with the unanimous consent of the Senate, while the House was deeply divided over its bill. Indeed, the House had voted 238-187 on June 15 to provide greater protections for reader privacy. However, the conference committee can adopt the House bill if it chooses.

The Campaign for Reader Privacy is urging its supporters to also contact the Senate conferees to urge them to push for S. 1389. They are Arlen Specter (R-PA), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Michael DeWine (R-OH), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Carl Levin (D-MI). The House conferees have not been chosen yet.


Christopher Finan, president
American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression
139 Fulton St., Suite 302
New York, NY 10038
telephone (212) 587-4025
cellphone (917) 509-0340
fax (212) 587-2436
www.abffe.com

Lucky Clovers
Mood:  lucky
Topic: Daily Eruptions
Soon after we moved into the new house and Hans came home from Seattle, Sudie had a commission for a drawing that included a clover blossom. I went online to find her photos to work from and then when I was out walking Kaija after work, I started looking at the clover patches around the neighborhood. Without even trying very hard, I found 4 four-leaf clovers! I brought them home and put them in a teacup of water on the kitchen counter.

It occurred to me, partly because things with Hans still looked so bleak and unhappy, that that was a very hopeful act. I considered making it a goal to always have a four-leaf clover in that teacup, but dismissed the thought, deciding it was unreasonable.

Ever since, though, the cup has had at least one 4-leaf clover living in it. One even grew roots and I determined to plant it in a pot so I could perhaps grow my own lucky clovers, but I think I waited too long and the roots have atrophied. Still, there are 6 four-leaf clovers and 1 five-leaf clover--what does that mean??--in the teacup downstairs. Hans suggested when I brought the five-leaf home that this place must have been exposed to radiation fallout, which I had already considered but decided not to think about. Afterall, I don't think this place is a twin cluster site the way our neighborhood in Wake Forest was! (Including my nieces, I can think of four families with twins in our old subdivision without even trying.)

I don't know how long the clovers will continue to grow--do they die in the winter?--but I think they'll make an interesting story element somewhere down the road. I just have to make sure that I don't make keeping them in the house into a compulsion ;) ! From what I've read, I currently see myself as having some obsessive behaviors, but no real compulsions (we're conveniently ignoring the fact that I have called myself a compulsive overeater), and I don't need to develop any.

So, if I interpret my heads-up, heads-down pairs of pennies as meaning that I choose my own luck, what does finding multiple four-leaf clovers in my neighborhood every other evening mean? I think it means I find my luck in places no one else thinks to look.