Four short hours at the Atlanta Airport

Two flights from Atlanta to New York have been cancelled, so I am waiting on the third. Looking at the prices on things, like this chocolate, I’d venture to say the vendors know I’m stuck here.


Power-points are a hot commodity, but I’ve trolled about and found one gate that has these nice kiosks, and scored my own little cubicle. Access to the airport wi-fi is $7.95 for 24 hours—and if I knew in advance I would be here for 24 hours it would be totally worth it. I’m actually kind of astonished that airports haven’t yet tried to charge for the electricity.

AWP

Leaving for New York today for this big conference for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. I'm moderating and sitting on a panel on Saturday. Am I ready? Not quite feeling it yet, but I'm assured this is standard. Two hours before departure found some open hair dye in the closet while looking for something to pack and thought I'd give it a shot. We'll see how that works out.

Light on the Horizon

What can I say. It's rainy and cold outside. It's damp and cold inside. I have a cold. I don't get sick often, but when I do, I am utterly exhausted, as I have been for the last three days. In addition, I've been doing some research, looking for some easy factoids to fit into an essay, and instead found myself in a mire--hours and pages deep--of not really conclusive and not really usable research on the topic. On a better day I would expand on this, because there are interesting facets and I would have the energy to to organize and point them out, but today is not that day. Today is a day about lying in bed wrapped in blankets, about getting unreasonably sad because there's no garlic to put in my soup, (although no garlic in the house is pretty sad), or because the pump nozzle on my new shampoo is defective.

The one bright light on the horizon is this: My friend Jeff has written a musical. Opening night is July 19 in Los Angeles...On that day, this cold will be a distant memory. My overwhelming thesis project will have been approved. The mountain of material items that weighs down this apartment will have been bulldozed away, the remainder transplanted by cube truck, tears cried for friends left behind...It will be a whole new day, a Saturday even. And I shall be going to the theater (pronounce that the-ah-tah). If you live in L.A. check out the dates, I'll go again with you!

Key West Pt. 2

A picture of our workshop class. A picture not taken would have shown the cool independent bookstore, Voltaire's Books, that our class-room was attached to. Several 4-day workshops took place between the two sessions of seminar, covering various genres and topics. Ours was Non-Fiction for Fiction Writers, and was taught by the guy standing on the right-Trevor Corson. He's written, among other things, two books, The Secret Life of Lobsters, and The Zen of Fish. I can recommend both, although I have an affinity for the second, much of which takes place in Los Angeles--at locations I know; talks about the history and process of making sushi--already interesting to me; and follows a class of aspiring sushi-chefs at Hama Hermosa--something I can imagine myself or many people I know deciding to do.

Key West

And, BTW--am back from the Key West Literary Seminar, and it was so fun. I got to hear a lot of great readings by good writers, and met nice people, and the weather was beautiful. As usual, I did an awful job of taking pictures...not starting until the last day. This is my roommate, Ladee on the deck of our B&B, then me with Barbara and Trevor during our three hour layover at the Miami airport. You can access better pics of the events and people like Billy Collins, Lee Smith, Kevin Young and Junot Diaz through the KWLS blog.

Charitable...ish

I just got back to find life’s complexities waiting from me in various forms, one of these being the piles of mail on my desk, containing approximately 20 credit card offers, and two requests for charitable contributions. One was from the Mercy Home for Boys and Girls in Chicago, Ill. Father Scott Donahue sent me these lovely mailing labels with pictures of angels on them. I do not respond well to the little mailing labels in advance of any donation—it feels like emotional blackmail—like deaf-people who shove sign-language cards into your hands or the guys who run out at red lights and start washing your windshields and then ask for money. Plus I don’t know this organization so I’m not going to send them anything. So, how does it affect my karmic credit rating that I put the labels in the desk drawer and plan to use them on my self-addressed-stamped-envelopes next time I do submissions? It’s not that I even want to—in fact I worry that the editors of literary journals will make assumptions about my politics, intelligence and literary merit based on my apparent affection for cheese-y-religious angel art—but the labels already exist with my name printed on them and are unwelcome in the recycling bin because of their adhesive nature, so the least I can to is save them from a meaningless existence quickly followed by a trip to the landfill. That’s my reasoning.

And I do give to charities. Each year I pick one or two beneficiaries. In my college years and twenties it was usually Greenpeace or the Environmental Defense Fund, then Amnesty International, then some organizations that gave relief after the wave of natural disasters in the first years of the new millennium. Now I give to The Smile Train, an organization which performs cleft repair surgeries on children in third world countries. Their ads—often found in Newsweek-- feature a “before” picture of a small child with a cleft palate, which horrifies me, and then another picture of the smiling child, sans deformity, after the simple $250 procedure. The first time I saw one of these ads, I reached for my checkbook. I have a deep-seated fear of deformity. I know its shallow, but I think that if you have no money, no education, perhaps have to resort to prostitution to survive—your chances are always better if you aren’t ugly. It’s widely known that the best defense babies of mammals have against the cruelty of their elders is merely their cuteness. Conversely, I think ugliness brings out the natural cruelty in people

So anyway, I periodically give to this charity, who now periodically sends me little gifts—including mailing labels of course--personalized with my name, which they have entered in their data base as “Seetachift.” While I was gone, they sent me a little card to put in my wallet, with a calendar on one side, and the photo of a cleft-impaired child on the front. The whole reason I send them money is that these photos horrify me. Do they really think I want to carry one around in my wallet? I hope they aren’t making plans for any wall calendars soon.

Re: Been Around the World

I just read my last post and realized that actually I have been around the world...it just involved a lot of airplanes...What a weird thing to forget.

Been Around the World and I yi yi....(a plug)

Okay, I haven't actually been around the world--but my friend David is going. He's building his own boat and will circumnavigate the globe in it solo--with no stops.

That's the plan.

When he gets back, he'll be reading my thesis.

Oh, and also writing all about his trip for Esquire magazine. They are sponsoring a blog for his journey, worth checking out. You can find it on the sidebar--
Tin Can Blog.

cloning: the next generation?

Thanks to Nikki for sending this link...

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/01/15/fda.cloning/index.html

To summarize, the FDA has released a 968-page document saying that it finds no risks in consuming meat from cloned cows, pigs or goats or milk from cloned cows and their offspring.

The FDA decided it needed more information to determine the safety of meat and milk from cloned sheep, and also decided food from newborn cattle clones, "may pose some very limited human food consumption risk."

The article goes on to point out though, that because cloned animals are so costly to produce, that it is more likely to be the offspring of the cloned animals (that "may pose some risk") that ends up on our plates.

Questions: What have they found that should make us wary of second-generation immigrants to the sexually reproductive community? And how does it manifest in the next generation after that? Are the cloned animals mated with other cloned animals in these tests, or are we looking at half-caste cows here? And if so, at what point are cloned offspring simply merged back into the mainstream food supply?

According to experts, it will be three to five years before cloned meat starts appearing in your grocer's freezer.

I'm happy to meet you at Lone Star, but I'll be ordering the salad.

Miami Mangrove

Well, in the end, we didn't make it to too many places in Miami. As we started to embark into the world, Paul got an emergency text, so we drove straight to Cineworks, where they didn't actually need him, but told him they might, so he decided to hang out until his appointment, but then, for various reasons, that was pushed back by three hours. Total time hanging out at Cineworks, 8 hours. Total time driving 16 hours, total time walking around Miami, maybe an hour. I finally left and drove to a nearby park, which features Manatees and Mangrove trees. I did not see any of the former, but plenty of the latter.

Clinton Hotel

According to the coffee table book in our hotel room, our hotel has "a cutting edge design concept unlike any other in South Beach"

"Our famous French designer, Eric Raffy, has created a fun, one-of-a-kind playground and hideaway that celebrate South Beach's Art Deco Heritage."

Despite his fame and Frenchness I am largely unfamiliar with the work of Eric Raffy, but would like to draw your attention to the corseted objects in our room, a chair, and a mirror (don't be distracted by me in my jammies, the corset tie is over my leg.

There’s another big corseted centerpiece in the lobby downstairs, that I will add if I remember to take a picture on the way out.

Miami

My first trip to Miami will be a short one, book-ended by long drives! Paul has color correction to do here (that's post-production for his Coke film--not some Michael Jackson thing), and I'm tagging along so I don't leave Florida without ever having been to the big city. So we drove down yesterday, 3pm-11pm, (stopping at the Cheesecake Factory in Boca Raton. Amazingly Tallassee, land of all chain restaurants, does not have this one, so it was my first time back since L.A...and not too different.)

We are staying at the Clinton Hotel in South Beach. It's right on the street, and so has valet parking. For the entire time I have known him, Paul has avoided valet parking like the plague, and I always thought it was just because at restaurants,he hates spending money on anything that isn't his food. But last night he confessed that it was because he is uncomfortable with the tipping structure: When do you tip? Upon giving them the keys, upon getting the car back? Both? I have always been one to tip upon return of the car, but at a restaurant, it is likely that the same valet will still be there when you return--not so at a hotel, so it seems you should do both.

So I found a buck and gave it to Paul, but then the valet came into the desk as we were checking in, instead of waiting for us to come back out, and when Paul reached into his pocket, he couldn't find the money! So our man went tip-less. And we got in the elevator feeling embarrassed and guilty.

Later, we went for a walk on the blocks around our hotel--at least four different sushi places, all open after midnight on a Monday night! As were a couple of clubs, and two corner pizza places. It was just like a real city that you read about! (not one that I've ever lived in of course.)

And of course, the whole going on a walk thing was also a ruse to have an excuse to walk by the valet again, and give him his tip

An Epson 880c for Your Rabbit...

It is that time again, semester’s end, when –though not to the extent it will happen in May—many people are graduating and moving on. Around the ye old Alumni Village, the dumpsters are full, and items too nice or too plaintive to toss in a Hefty sac with the coffee grounds and ketchup containers are left scattered on the ground around the trash receptacles like refugee orphans hoping to be taken in. It’s so sad.


In the laundry room, someone had left a large sac of goods scattered across a folding counter with a piece us paper on which she had scrawled the word: FREE. Among them was this large stuffed rabbit, who I had no choice but to rescue, carry home and place in Paul’s TV watching chair, since he’s not going to be home much this month anyway.

Seeing so many refugee items so unceremoniously tossed has strengthened my resolve to try to part with our goods as thoughtfully as we can in this time we have remaining. In this spirit I have looked into the Epson recycling program for one of our printers. As I am about to pay the $10 (very reasonable as it included shipping), I am caught by the sudden thought: Maybe we should have tried to get it repaired. Keeping an item surely leaves less of a footprint than having it shredded (yes, according to the website they intend to shred our printer) and buying yet another one. I want to get a laser printer when we get to California anyway, but again, I could give or sell this one if it is working. Ahhh dilemma. So maybe I’ll call around and see if anyone does printer repairs, although my guess is in the end I’ll be sending it away. Which is good, because I need the shelf space for my new stuffed rabbit.

All My Almonds, I Will Send to You (Sterilized)

“Research conducted at the University of California at Davis showed that a high-fat diet rich in whole almonds reduced the colon cancer risk in rats chemically treated to reduce this cancer. Other research indicated that phytochemicals in almonds inhibit tumor cell growth in culture. Specifically, the board notes, two flavonoid phytochemicals, known as quercetin and kaempferol, may be strong suppressors of lung and prostate tumor cell growth.”

During my cancer recovery in 2004, I was encouraged to eat a small handful of raw almonds daily. This will soon no longer be an option for residents of the USA, Mexico and Canada, following enactment of a new federal rule passed by the USDA, FDA and California Almond Board that now requires raw almonds to be sanitized through treatment processes that the industry describes as “pasteurization.”

As far as I can tell, the three suggested methods of pasteurization seem to be “really bad,” “not as bad,” and “well…okay, but you still need to say it.”

Really bad: Propylene Oxide (PPO) fumingation—recognized as a possible carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and banned for treating food for human consumption in the E.U., Mexico, Canada, Mexico and most other countries. In lab experiments it leads to gene mutation, DNA strand breaks and neoplastic cell transformation.

Not as bad: High heat—it degrades the integrity and enzyme structure of the nuts, but hey, at least it doesn’t cause gene mutation.

Okay, but: Steam pasteurization, which still devalues the nutrients, enzyme activity and antioxidants, (but hopefully not much more than just cooking or roasting them.)

And just to make it extra dark and shadowy, almonds undergoing these processes can still be labeled as “raw” and are not required to specify what kind of pasteurization treatments were used.

I believe that the pasteurization for organics will be limited to steam, but still required, which means that there will be no actual “raw almonds” sold, except for a few direct to the public farmstead stands in specific areas of California, which is the only state in the nation that produces almonds.

Ironically, U.S. food retailers who use raw almonds in their products will have to import from foreign sources.

It's all pretty interesting. If you want to know more, check out www.cornucopia.org/index.php/almonds

Happy 2008, Y'all!

What do I want to do this year? Lot's of stuff, like write and revise things--i'm particularly keen on revising because if I got my pieces into a condition I was truly happy with, I could recycle piles of workshop notes I have been saving for three years...I'm talking reams of paper, folks. And that would free up some space to put other things so we could see what's what in preparation for moving.

Moving might seem aways off--six more months really, but I think the first half of 2008 really will need some time devoted to preparing. Today, I spent an hour researching Gemeinhardt piccolos online so I can put mine on Craigslist. I bought it about 20 years ago along with a flute from a guy whose wife was having a baby and he needed the money. I played the flute a lot, but never really took to the piccolo...I'm thinking if it hasn't happened yet, it's not going to.

And here's a big one--work to be environmentally more conscious...No, let's say I want to translate my consciousness into more action. I'm already conscious every time I stop by the store and get new plastic bags because I've forgotten to put the cloth ones in the car that it's not good, but I would like to translate that into really remembering. Also, I am mindful of the amount of the amount we drive...to restaurants and movies across town etc, and would like to translate that into doing it less, but truthfully, I'm scared to even bring that up to Paul...I think he would freak out because he would consider it to be an oblique attack on all the eating a restaurants...so maybe I'll just encourage him to drive the small car more, even though I really like it for myself, I don't go out as much, or as far.

Finally, I have gotten pretty slack about meditation, although I think I might average 10 minutes a day, I think that should be a minimum, with an average of more like 20 or 30 minutes.

I think if I also mindfully devote 30-40 minutes to cleaning or organizing everyday, instead of completely ignoring things then having weeks of work to do...that might help my anxiety levels almost as much as the meditation.

Also, maybe I will try to be more punctual, which I do every year, and have gotten slightly better, although even right now I can see Paul getting tense because we need to leave in a half hour and I'm still in my pajamas typing this.