The Curse of Week Five

Next week is the halfway point in my ten-week quarter. I have a bunch of stuff due, including two project proposals and an annotation, along with my regular workload. Plus, I'm designing a book cover for a friend of a friend who's meeting with a literary agent.

I'll be waaayy out of touch for a little while.

I'll see you in a week or so.

~C~

From the "Shoulda Stood in Bed" Dept.

Today, in the basement of my building, there are two bomb squad units, about sixteen LAPD officers, countless security guards, both from the studio and the building, and one suspicious package left unattended.

And I bothered to come into work today becaaaauuuuuse..... Why, now?

Welcome to the post-9/11 21st century.

~CA~

Hello, I Must Be Going

Very busy. No time to blog. But I'd like to point your attention to a fascinating four-part series Salon.com is doing about "reparative therapy," the supposed therapeutic "cure" for homosexuality that's becoming so popular since we became a country of hate.

The first article, which was posted yesterday, was about the movement to classify homosexuality as a disease that requires cure. But the second article, today, is a stunner. Salon correspondent Mark Benjamin, a heterosexual married man with one child and another on the way, poses as a married man who confesses to homosexual tendencies, and gets a single session with a "reparative therapist." What he reveals about these sessions -- including their cost -- is enlightening, alarming and more than a little terrifying.

Please, please read this series, I implore you. We must stay abreast of every effort to turn America into an exclusive, closed society, where only white Christian straight men (or should I say, "straight appearing men") have full rights and freedoms in this country.

~CA~

Baby Blog

My baby has a blog of her own. It's called Cemetary Gates. Okay, she's seventeen. But she'll always be my baby, so shut up!

Isn't she darling? Don't you want to just pinch her little cheeks? Touch her and I'll kill you.

(This is the part where my daughter calls the locksmith and has the locks changed on the front door.)

~CA~

150 Days

Today, my countdown says I have one hundred and fifty days until I graduate with my Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies (with an emphasis in Creative Writing). One hundred and fifty days. That's not so long. I'm actually feeling anxious. Why, do you suppose?

When it was far away, it was a fun adventure. Now that it's around the corner, I'm filled with butterflies and a little dread. Just a little dread, mind you, but enough that it makes me wonder. I mean, I think I have most of my ducks in a row. Most of the stuff I have to get done, I can get done by December. So what's my damage?

I don't know. Maybe I'm having one of those, "But what if I get a degree and nobody cares?" moments. Maybe it's the dread of having to apply for grad schools, and knowing I'll be going through the worry of whether I get in or not. Maybe it's that nagging voice in my head (my father's perhaps) that education is a big waste of time, especially for people like me (read: female).

Don't suppose it matters much. I'm graduating and going on to grad school. It's a done deal. So, that's that.

I'll get over it. Maybe I should eat something. That usually helps.

~CA~

A Point of Law

UNITED STATES CODE, TITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE, PART I - CRIMES, CHAPTER 19 - CONSPIRACY;

Section 371. Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States.

If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

Okay? That's all I'm sayin'.

~CA~

A Different Kind of Memorial Day

"Memory is the mother of all wisdom." ~Aeschylus~

On July 11, 1995, in a tiny little geographical area known as Srebrenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina, then under UN protection, Serbs overran the Dutch UN troops and began a mass slaughter of Muslim men and boys that continued for several days. When it was over, 8,000 Muslims were dead, buried in mass graves throughout the Bosnian countryside. Ten years and over 5,000 exhumations later, about 2,000 of them have been identified by an international team of DNA experts who have donated their time and efforts to this cause. Today, in Srebrenica, 50,000 people, mostly Muslims, gathered to mourn the victims, including the 610 newly identified dead. They prayed, they passed the coffins from one hand to the next, they wept, before they finally laid them to rest.

What with a whole new war in Iraq, it's sometimes hard to remember that other war -- the one that really wasn't ours, between three different cultural and religious factions in Eastern Europe that we couldn't pronounce and didn't care about. It's important to remember, though, and that is why, in the words of Dr. Seuss, "I'm bothering telling you so."

The "ethnic cleansing" (God, how I hate that phrase) that took place was the worst single example of genocide since World War II. The Serbians under Slobodan Milosevic set about not to control or intimidate the Bosnian Muslims, but to eradicate them. One of the worst things about the entire incident is that it happened while Srebrenica was under UN protection. Dutch soldiers described in detail their helplessness as they watched a well-armed Serbian army which outnumbered them almost three to one march Srebrenica's men and boys to open fields and kill them with little fanfare.

It was the deaths at Srebrenica that prompted the U.S. bombing of Serbia. They never thought we'd do it. We'd backed down in virtually every military confrontation since Clinton had taken office. But this time, even Clinton was not prepared to take the pacifist role. It was only a matter of time before Milosevic's regime fell, and he was displaced. Still, it was too late for 8,000 people.

Today, we remember those people, and the thousands of other like them, who died because they had the wrong heritage, or the wrong philosophy, or worshipped the wrong God. As this country moves closer and closer to being a place where there is only one God, and only one way to worship Him, remembering what happened ten years ago in a place most of us can't pronounce is good for us. We can learn from their experience, heal from their pain, find peace out of their conflict.

Whether we are willing is another question entirely.

~A~

My *Other* Hometown

Those of you who've been with me awhile know how I feel about London. The first time I set foot there, on July 3, 1976, I felt like I'd come home. I spent America's Bicentennial in London. Not that I regret that we won the Revolutionary War (although, if we hadn't, we'd have national health care right about now -- bummer). Whether it's genetic recall (my ancestry is around 85% British), or just environmental preference, London is the only city I've ever felt as at home in as I have in L.A.

I'm very distressed today. I can't even make any political commentary (though I will confess to some dark moments spent as a conspiracy theorist). I just feel badly for the families of those who've died, and for those who will live, perhaps permanently disfigured and damaged because of this tragedy.

My heart goes out to them. I do know that the British tend to weather stuff like this better than we do, mostly because they aren't such coddled babies as we are. I have faith that they'll get through this and that, as in Madrid, the culprits will be caught and tried.

~C~

The Naked Voodoo Chicken LIVES!

I'm finally starting to figure out what to do with Blog No. 2 -- Naked Voodoo Chicken Dance. It's for the idea for a blog post I usually get after I've already posted at the Chron. It's a space where I can express my darker side. It's the moodier me. The less tolerant me. The less egalitarian me. The less patient, more annoyed, fairly snarky, even less willing to "suffer fools gladly" me. Right now, you can read my special War of the Worlds rant. There are plot spoilers, so if you want to be surprised, don't read the blog yet. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Another new blog is Best Available, started by my friend, Deirdre Cooley. She's just getting started, but she also has a review of WotW (also containing spoilers). She went to film school, so her review is likely to be more specific than my "it kinda sucked" type of rant.

I have to go get some sleep now.

~C~

But Is it Art?

I think we've already established that there are very few things that make me happier than playing The Sims 2. Chocolate makes me happier -- not much happier, but a little happier. A good book makes me happier. Sex makes me waaaaay happier, but really, who's having that these days (and if you are, shut up about it!)?

I have spent most of last night and today being happier than I have been in a while. I finally replaced my broken Wacom tablet mouse, and I can now pursue the most expensive hobby known to mankind. Forget boating or equestrian passions. About four years ago, some cruel, evil person (I can't even remember who it was now) introduced me to a little 3D modeling program called Poser. I downloaded the free trial for Poser 4. Big mistake. Four years and thousands of dollars later.... I just upgraded Poser 6, and I'm trying to get over the learning curve (many, many new features). Here's my first render.

Click here to enlarge

I'm not proud to admit that a small country could be fed on what I've spent on computer software and 3D models. But I figure it's better than playing video games, and it keeps me off the streets. So, now, I must go and draw in Photoshop with my new tablet. And then I will render something.

Thanks for indulging me in my many addictions -- food, The Sims 2, 3D art. Oh, God... I'm such a geek.

~C~

That's It! I Owe Brooke Shields a Lunch!

Today, in the OpEd section of the NY Times, our indefatigable Miss Shields wrote a smart, lucid piece in response to Tom Cruise's recent ravings against her. In it, she describes in a bit of detail what postpartum is, how it starts, and what it was like for her in the early days of motherhood, when she could not stand to hear, touch or even be near her baby daughter. She was bordering on suicidal, until she was finally diagnosed and put on therapeutic medication which began to alleviate her symptoms.

She chastises Cruise's open criticism of her, saying,"...comments like those made by Tom Cruise are a disservice to mothers everywhere. To suggest that I was wrong to take drugs to deal with my depression, and that instead I should have taken vitamins and exercised shows an utter lack of understanding about postpartum depression and childbirth in general."

It is a well-written column, and I urge you all to take a few minutes to read it. It demonstrates which of the two celebrities is the more sane -- the one who believes psychiatry to be a "pseudo-science," versus the one who utilitized it when necessary.

~C~

P.S. It also demonstrates which of the two celebrities never got a high school diploma, and which one graduated from Princeton with a major in French Literature and a minor in Italian. Princeton grad... high school dropout... Princeton grad... high school dropout.... Hmmmm....