Joan's Journal

Username:	Password:
Forgot your password?	Remember Me

Posted in an altered state
On the table there's a shelf fungus with elaborate grafitti carved into its top; a tin whistle in the key of D, the traditional one for Celtic music; a very large box of sidewalk chalk; an herbal tonic custom blended for me; a broken spice grinder; a bottle of commercial fruit smoothie a quarter full; a bag of culinary seaweed; a book called Planet Medicine; another called The Inner Sky; a cast iron trivet in the shape of a pentagram in the hub of a twelve-spoked wheel; a copy of the 1967 Joy of Cooking with the diagrams showing how to skin a squirrel; and half a loaf of whole wheat bread from the Hungry Ghost bakery. Oh, and a rodent-chewed femur, possibly from a raccoon, possibly from a human infant. It was taken away from a dog that was playing with it in a damaged colonial graveyard.

I live with magic. How could I have forgotten?

The reminder sits next to my computer: Bruce Springsteen's 1975 album Born to Run, which I missed when it was new, to the extent that anyone conscious and out of diapers in North America that year could miss the title song, which was a very big hit.( Read more... )

Sexual freedom and psychiatric politics
Don't know why it took me so long to hear about this.

This time instead of a Southern or Western legislature or judge, it's the shrinks trying to mess with sexual freedom.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has been called the "bible of mental illness" because it lists and defines all of the "official" psychiatric diagnoses according to the American Psychiatric Association. The DSM is in the early stages of undergoing its 5th major revision; each previous revision has seen the total number of mental disorders recognized (some might say invented) by the APA greatly increase.

This increase is not exactly shocking. The DSM lists all the disorders that psychiatrists can get reimbursed for by health insurance companies, and it's written by psychiatrists, so of course they want to expand the number of definitions as far as they can. The problem is that any condition in this manual can be used to make a case to force medication or confinement to an institution on an unwilling person. It was only thirty years ago that people could be tossed in the loony bin for being gay, and sixty years ago for being attracted to a person of a race other than ones own. Those "diseases" were removed from the psychiatric literature, not for scientific reasons, but because of political pressure by activists.

Nobody is going to touch race or gender preferences in this day and age, but the people revising the "Paraphilia" (formerly "Sexual Deviation") section are proposing to pathologize a whole list of harmless kinks and preferences.( Read more... )

Never would have occured to my mother to warn me about days like this
Last Thursday, April 30th, I experienced the following:

- a heart attack scare (false alarm)
- a stole car scare (misunderstanding)
- a lost wallet scare (it was in the house all along)
- and some good news at the end.
( Read more... )

For all you depressed greenies out there
A PDF of an article in Elle, of all venues, about turning Al Gore-ish dispair (remember "The minimum that is scientifically necessary far exceeds the maximum that is politically feasible."?) into Transition Town hope and enthusiasm. http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_17621.cfm

Social science geekery
Just read a book strongly recommended by Craig: In Search of Respect: Crack Dealing in El Barrio. It's an anthropological study of the drug culture in the little corner of Manhattan traditionally known as Spanish Harlem, published in 1995. I see why he recommended it. It has allowed me to understand certain things I never got before and always wanted to. ( Read more... )

Tired
I've spent most of this weekend out in the yard planting a few things and prettying things up -- putting a couple of fallen stones back in the retaining wall, throwing grass seed on the bare patches in the lawn -- and cooking in the solar over. This time it was wild turkey (courtesy of Felix) with 40 cloves of garlic, modified from the famous Provencal chicken recipe. Turned out yummy and the garlic ended up soft like mayonnaise. I also got in a bit of a creative mood and cut off a chunk of twisty bittersweet vine to make a frame for a small battered bare mirror, about 10" x 4", that a former housemate left behind. I also grated organic orange zest to dry, harvested the batch of kombucha that was ready and made a new batch. We're going through the stuff so fast that I'm thinking of starting a third gallon jar. And if anyone wants kombucha culture and/or the recipe, let me know 'cause the culture makes a new layer of itself with every batch.

The source of the bittersweet was a section of hedge that I'm sure was once entirely forsythia as the rest of it is, but that is now almost completely smothered by the bittersweet. Yes, this is the stuff that produces the pretty red and orange berries and that makes very cool rustic furniture. Also the stuff that I call the Borg, as in "Your shrubs and trees will be assimilated." I'm fantasizing about just having that whole section removed and planting it in potatoes. Bittersweet and potatoes are both members of the nightshade family, so where the one grows well the other will probably live long and prosper as well. At the edge of the infested area there's a gnarly little oak tree, big around as my calf but only about ten feet tall because the bittersweet has semi-strangled it. Can't help thinking that that tree would make some wizard an awesome staff because of the twisty marks left by the vine. Craig thinks any reduction of wildlife habitat is a Very Bad Thing and I should leave the bittersweet alone (admittedly the birds do completely polish off the berries over the course of the winter) but my conscience is untroubled. Seriously, I could crawl in under the vines, girdle the bittersweet so it will never leaf out, and it will still provide nesting space, not to mention a trellis for the potato vines to climb on. Craig also complains that we don't have potatoes often enough. I rarely buy them unless I'm planning to cook them the same night because this house is built on swamp and they tend to sprout very easily, but if we had a steady supply right out in the yard it wouldn't be an issue.

On the other hand, a potato patch under the corpse of a bittersweet overgrowth would be a lot of work to put in. I don't know what I'll do.

Wrote to my Senators today
Yes, I was procrastinating from doing my taxes. I read http://capwiz.com/grassrootsnetroots/issues/bills/?bill=13092666&size=full and got concerned, so I wrote to them both, snailmail, longhand, with a little appreciation up front for things each had already done that I agreed with. Then I said more or less the following:

I'd like to call your attention to a small but significant flaw in the otherwise fine Global Food Security Act, S. 384. In Section 202, subsection 2, there's a line about amending the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to require that agricultural researchers funded under the act “include research on biotechnological advances... including genetically modified technology.'.” That's a direct quote. I object to this language for the following reasons: it will restrict funding to those research operations that can afford to work with biotech; it provides government funding for research that for-profit biotech companies really ought to be doing themselves; it risks making poor farmers dependent on expensive patented seeds; and it sends risky technology to countries with even fewer safeguards that the U.S. has. (See http://www.biotech-info.net/klebsiella.html for the story of the alcohol-making GM bacteria that killed wheat for a well-documented example.) If you could manage to make that provision disappear from S.384, you'd be doing a great favor to future generations.

Health post
I just had a moment of noticing, where you suddenly see something that's been in the background most of your life, definitely a factor, but never before distinguished.

A week ago my Radical Nutrition class was on the topic of Green Smoothies, fruits and leafy greens ground up together in the blender with water and maybe some additives, as a way of getting more greens into my diet. On the way back from this week's lesson (on the politics of food safety laws; it wasn't popular) I was determined to make one of those green smoothies for myself. I stopped in at Cornucopia (the local natural food store downtown) and bought two slightly overripe organic Red Bartlett pears. Got 'em for half price because they looked so funky, but my secret knowledge is that only the funky looking Bartletts are really ripe. I brought them home and then I got lazy. I didn't wash them. I cut them, cored them, dropped the pieces in the blender with a half bunch of parsley, a leftover leaf of lettuce that got forgotten at salad making time, a shake of spirulina, a pinch of salt and a cup of water. The result was a dull turquoise sort of color (it doesn't take much spirulina for it to visually dominate the recipe) of about a pint in volume. Tasted yummy. I drank about half of it, then carried the glass containing the rest over to my computer.

Twenty minutes later a familiar feeling of grogginess came over me. My concentration was shot, but somehow I was reluctant to go lie down. Instead I wanted to quit concerning myself with anything large-scale or important and just focus on finicky details. Happens there's a game like that on my machine, so that's what I've been at for the last half an hour. Being focused on the game has allowed me to stay awake until the effect passed and I had full brain function again.

Being aware of it as it was happening to me has given me some new perspective. ( Read more... )

To my West Coast readers
Just found out about Tryon Farm and if I was still out there I'd be planning a visit right now. Portland OR is like Northampton in that it's so low-density that there is room for entire small farms within the city limits. Let me quote my informant:

You should pay a visit to Tryon Life farm in sw pdx. It's a beautiful 7 acre
permaculture farm full of beautiful people and plants and earthen structures and animals and they offer workshops and free tours. They are friends of mine. Tell them I said hello, sure do love pdx and that farm!

Their website is http://www.tryonfarm.org I believe but if not google will get you there. Directions and all other info are on the site.

Keepin' it green in new mexico,
Dori

I am such a girlie girl sometimes
Wednesday afternoons is my shrink appointment. Today's was a particularly heavy session. I probably spent half of it in tears. And when I came out I had this craving. No, not chocolate. Starch. It wasn't the candy store I considered going into. It was the Tibetan restaurant, for dumplings.

I looked in The Diet Cure and found that starch provides temporary relief from the following symptoms: depression, lack of energy, lack of drive, poor concentration, ADD, stiff and tense muscles, stressed-out or burned-out feelings, inability to relax, emotional hypersensitivity, negativity, worry, anxiety, low self-esteem, obsessive thoughts and behaviors, PMS, irritability, rage, heat intolerance, panic, phobias, fibromyalgia or TMJ flare-ups, insomnia and suicidal thoughts. Gee, no wonder it's popular.

I got home and made rice noodles and had them with arugula pesto and now I feel relaxed to the point of tired. I think it's time for a nap.

My idea of a fun Friday night
Hurray for the mighty interwebz! Day before yesterday the garbage disposal quit working. It hummed but did nothing. I was afraid something hard was jammed in there and the mechanism would have to be taken apart in order to remove whatever it was. This seemed likely to be a difficult and messy job, so I was procrastinating. However, the sink became slower and slower to drain until it was pretty much impossible to wash dishes, and after the excellent dinner last night (the whole household plus three guests) there were lots to wash. So I googled “garbage disposer repair” and up came the About.com disposal troubleshooting page. Know what it told me to do? Stick a broom handle down in there, jam it against one of the rotor thingies, and force it. It didn't take much force, either. In fact, the most time-consuming part was picking my way through the stuff stored in the basement to the fuse box and figuring out which fuse I needed to pull, just to make sure the thing didn't accidentally go on when the broom handle was still in it.

Dinner last night? The initial group of eaters consisted of Craig, his newest girlfriend, the girlfriend's friend who was visiting from out of town, and the client Craig has been working on for the hour before, whom we spontaneously invited to dinner, and me. Felix, our third housemate, came later, just as the rest of us were finishing up. The main course was the eel Felix brought home from Boston Chinatown the day before, in a traditional Normandy eel stew known as a matelote, roughly according to the recipe from The New James Beard Cookbook, which is not so new anymore but still a great font of culinary wisdom. The rest of the meal consisted of a spaghetti squash salad of my own invention (cooked spaghetti squash with baby lettuce and a dressing of melted coconut oil, lime juice and Vietnamese fish sauce) and spelt buttermilk bread, recipe from Nourishing Traditions, which I made Thursday because Craig was unhappy about not being able to get spelt bread from the Hungry Ghost Bakery until today. That's about how long it lasted, too. Oh, and a choice of Craig's homebrew hard cider, for those not driving because it's pretty potent, or a frozen banana kefir that is, I believe, the best vegan kefir I have made yet. Half the people at the table are natural comedians; much laughter was had. This is why I choose group living, to maximize the likelihood of dinners like this.

What I've been reading lately
First, this OMG brilliant essay by Clay Shirky on the revolutionary effects of the invention of the printing press around 1500 and the similarly revolutionary effects of the Internet, particularly on that creature of the earlier revolution, the newspaper. One of his main points is that when cold-eyed realism tells people that not only their jobs but the entire industry in which their careers have meaning are going poof, they tend to react with denial and retreat into fantasy and treat cold-eyed realists as crazies.

Then, a couple of links away, Alex Steffan's equally brilliant expansion of Shirky's idea from the newspaper industry to the entire economy. The bad news is: we don't know what the world is turning into. The good news is: in the absence of the old certainties, your freedom to try something new is enormously expanded. As Shirky put it, "Nothing will work, but everything might. Now is the time for experiments, lots and lots of experiments".

Thanks to

panmodal for calling my attention to this. I lost my bookmarks last month when my desktop was reconfigured and had not got around to rediscovering Shirky.

Know a kid who needs glasses?
For the next month and a half, Target is giving away prescription glasses for kids 12 and under. See http://ngakmafaery.livejournal.com/997461.html.

Reflections on the past and the future
Looking for videos for my class, I came across Dmitri Orlov, who as a child lived through the collapse of the Soviet Union and then moved to the U. S. and became an engineer and now is seeing the signs of collapse in our society and has some advice for us about the differences and similarities between Russia then and Massachusetts now (he lives on a houseboat in Boston Harbor) and what might work and what might not. There are several videos of him out there including this one of a talk he gave at the Long Now Foundation, Stewart Brand's current venture. (See http://joanhello.livejournal.com/34045.html for a little about Brand and his role in my life.) In the video Brand introduces Orlov and manages the Q-and-A at the end. They were talking about the social life in the marina where Orlov parks his boat and Brand said "One of the advantages of a relatively stable, relatively dense community is that it really is a community." Brand has famously disowned his hippie past, but when I heard him say that I though "Man hasn't really changed. Not all that much."

How my life is going
I've now presented nine episodes of the Radical Nutrition class and it's become the element of my week around which all else is structured.

The class happens Fridays from 3 to 4 pm. I'm usually out of there by 4:30 or 5 and then drive home, possibly running an errand or two on the way. If it's the first Friday of the month, I will see some of my students again that evening at Drum & Dance and possibly give one or them a ride.

The rest of the weekend may involve a little research online or at the library but mostly it's about catching up on stuff around the house. I usually make a stew or something and maybe make some sort of dehydrator snack. (Last week it was homemeade beef jerky. Pound and a half of beef went into that recipe and it came out tough but it has almost disappeared nevertheless. Next time I should make five pounds' worth.)

Monday I start thinking I should pick a topic for the upcoming Friday class. I may even start on one, but if so there's a good chance that I'll completely change my mind about it in the next day or two. The day is spent dealing with businesses that were either closed or hopelessly busy on the weekend.

Tuesday I begin to work on it for real. It tends to be slow going because some of what I'm covering I learned thirty years ago and there've been new discoveries since then and I want to present up-to-date information. That means more research.

Wednesday I can only work until 2 because I have my shrink appointment at 3:15 and then after dinner my other class, the one in which I am a student: Non-Violent Communication.

Thursday is panic day. I usually spend the whole day at the keyboard, typing like a madwoman. Chances are very good that I'll fall asleep with the text still not done.

Friday will be a race to get the text finished and the handout formatted, printed and photocopied. On a good day I'll actually start on time and have the handout ready. The actual presentation of the class no longer scares me. I can handle questions from the class. This is good.

When the class is finished I start all over.

Among the reasons to live here
Yesterday was the kind of snow that falls in clots, clinging to every twig of every tree. This morning was a very unusual situation: sunlight and snow at the same time. Not very much snow and not very bright sun, they gave the perfect gentle atmospheric combination for viewing Mt. Tom through the branches of the neighbor's dogwood tree. For that brief moment my bedroom window was like a Japanese painting come to life.