lauding the virtues of dripping-wet prose

Dammit, every time I want to write a blog I'm reminded that I still have to fix my website. The website has totally been the sacrificial lamb of my busy-ness lately. All I have to do now is locate my original install disc and reload iWeb, but I can't find the install disc, and my brother loaned me another one that doesn't work on my platform. It's not the big obstacles that suck, it's the small ones, I've found.

Anyway, I don't even know who I would be anymore if I ever got my shit together, but other things have been going well. I've experimented with several approaches to productivity lately and the one I'm enjoying now, which was suggested by Blake, is to just separate the day by activity: writing from like 6 to 9 timeframe (coffee -- not even trying to not drink coffee at this point in life), then classical guitar in the afternoon, acoustic work in the evening.

I've continued, as per the last blog, to be beleaguered by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune -- my right hand nails had just gotten to the perfect length again after whatever last nail disaster occurred -- I think they broke on the camping trip -- anyway, I was taking the dogs out the other morning, and Sophie saw another dog across the fence and lunged excitedly that way. Her leash slid, as if by magic, across the tops of my right hand nails and snapped them all off in one neat second. Bam, three weeks of inept playing to look forward to. My Martin has been such a problem that Todd bought me a used Guild as an early Christmas present, so I'm free and clear to pursue gigs again -- however, I'm leaving tomorrow for my scoliosis physical therapy down in Phoenix for a whole week, so I guess I'll just tackle everything when I get home.

But, back to the book, if you had asked me two weeks ago if I would have it done in time for the writer's conference in February, I would have probably cried and said no, but now I'm on freaking cruise control -- wait, that makes it sound like shitty writing -- the wind is under my wings, let us say instead, and I feel like I don't even care about the outcome per se -- I just look forward to being able to write every morning between 6 and 9 for as long as possible, hopefully for the rest of my life. It's so much less stressful to approach the writing in terms of arbitrary time invested, rather than the higher goals of epiphany, "real" progress, chapters, even word counts. Thank you Blake -- I think this is the answer. How weird it's been, to discover that it's difficult to make myself do the things I love in a regimented fashion.

With great guilt but also great pleasure, I have been reading a shitload of new (to me) Tanith Lee books that I found on Amazon, ones I'd never read (4 or 5 times) before. I've kept having this feeling that, if I really really really want to do something, there's got to be some reason for it -- and the vice versa -- and instead of saying to myself, "Absolutely no reading for pleasure until tasks A, B and C have been accomplished", I've bemusedly let myself just sort of churn through 6 or 8 books, in the last couple weeks, and I have to say: I'm learning how she does it. (Tanith Lee is my favorite author of all time, for any newbie readers.)

Initially, during my last 15 years of reading Tanith Lee, I just felt like, this will never stop being magical long enough for me to gain any glimpse of the underpinnings. I read and read and read, and just couldn't figure out how she does it, let alone how to use any of it to my own advantage. (Original art isn't about doing something no one else has ever done -- it's about careful, discriminating theft in service to your own goals.) But I'm learning. I'm actually getting closer.

It's not so much a This or a That in particular, but a headspace. Her prose has been lauded as being poetic, and it is, but I think that term -- "poetic" -- is so misunderstood as to actually obstruct the truth of the matter. If the fictional reality of her story could be compared to a vat of water, then her prose emerges dripping, dripping, dripping wet. Like, passages that don't even make sense sometimes objectively, but which, nevertheless, make perfect sense, and have enormous impact besides. Which is an interesting irony, because prose is, obviously, nothing but an act of translation -- the writer's thoughts to the reader's brain -- but Tanith Lee's prose is sort of uncompromising in that act, because she seriously doesn't give a shit if it's made clear enough for everyone to get on board. Certain passages almost have a sense of, figure this out or get left behind, because the story's not stopping. The prose is served wet and warm.

So, that's what I mean when I say it's poetic, and that it's a headspace. Learning (by example) to occupy that headspace is wonderful, because there are so many subtle gestures that can be made, in prose, once one either stops caring if the reader gets it, or assumes the reader is badass. It's almost like Tanith Lee writes with the assumption that her readers are badass, and I haven't necessarily been that reader before, but there was a lot there for me anyway -- and now I am a badass reader, and it's a feeling of finding that place on the old fashioned radio dial where the last smidgeon of static disappears, and your favorite song comes on crystal clear. (I love it when I used cliche to describe the feeling of something fresh.) So, I've been going back through my book from the beginning, and making it wet wet wet! It's like I've been learning to wiggle my ears or something -- it's not hard in itself, it's just elusive.

Also, been swimming laps at the NAU pool -- I just got back from there now. After I swim (which I'm terrible at, by the way, but at least my gasping, splashing physical inefficiency ensures both cardio and muscular benefit), I feel so peaceful and tired but refreshed. The way people always say they feel after yoga, except I hate yoga. (Makes my back hurt!) I'm worried that my gorgeous hair color (dark brunette, level 3) will suffer from this exercise of choice, but I've been doing what I can to protect it. The best part is, I never really feel that I'm working out at any point -- swimming is just so fun, it reminds me of being little and not having to file taxes -- but afterwards I know I got smoked.

Separately, but aesthetically related, I noticed in the locker room mirror that my lower belly's been sort of poochier lately than in the past, and it's not fat, it's my digestion. I feel like the scoliosis exercise therapy could positively impact lots of things for me -- having my lumbar spine out like that makes everything kind of irregular, nerves not carrying messages as easily as they should, etc. I have a whole book on eating for optimal digestion, and I completely ignore everything it says except for the super common sense stuff -- raw food digests faster than cooked, so eat the fruit or salad first so it doesn't get all backed up in the intestines, like a fast car trying to get past four lanes full of slow traffic. (And then that fast car would ferment and become putrid, in this analogy.) And, obviously, water dilutes digestive acids in the stomach, so don't drown your stomach in water before you eat, or during. Oh, and, I make sure to eat a little something -- an olive, a corn chip, something -- before I drink caffeine, sugar, or alcohol, so that when those lovely poisons hit my pyloric sphincter, it'll be safely closed and I'm not dousing my unprotected system with garbage. So, just the really easy, obvious stuff. Point being, I could be a lot more contentious about eating so that my digestion, even challenged by a 22 degree lumber curve, could have it pretty good, but of course I'd rather not have to. Like everyone, I'd like to just eat whatever I want to eat, whenever I want it. So, it's not a pity party or anything, but the poochy stomach is pretty fucking irritating, especially since it's not plain extra fat that I got to have the fun of indulging in. So, I hope this physical therapy can accomplish lots of things for me.

Conversely, vegan-Hannah is loving her body-life, besides the whole back thing. Being vegan is no excuse for getting sedentary, of course, but it's really nice to know that when those sedentary, super food-munchy times happen -- as they do to all of us, despite our best efforts --I still look as good as I did as a very active and diet-conscious ovo-lacto! (If you've seen Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail, imagine the scene were the first guy successfully answers the troll's questions, and so the second guy, who initially hung back, runs forward screaming, "That's EASY!!!" in a belligerent voice; that's how I feel about my vegan body.) It's been interesting, because I've only been vegan for a year and two months, and so I still feel like my body's in the transformative stage. It's not like you stop eating all that crap and six months later your ass has gotten wherever it's gonna get. It takes some time, apparently.

But yeah, this summer I decided to stop running forever, because it's just too much impact, and I lifted infrequently but carefully, and still kept wrenching my lower back, so I stopped that, and we always walk with the dogs, a couple miles a day, but I hadn't discovered swimming yet. (Today was only my second time swimming.) So, yeah, I've just been taking walks and eating a lot of whatever the hell I want (like, three servings of tofu benedict smothered in Hollandaise sauce on Todd's birthday, and dessert almost every night because I've been baking), and, besides my stupid fucking spine, I have the body I struggled mightily to attain every damn day of my life as an ovo-lacto. Like, I've been wearing those fold-over yoga pants. It's crazy! Or, should I say, That's EASY! It's so easy. It just seems wrong. Wrong to live in this world of everyone struggling, struggling, trying everything under the sun (except one thing) to lose weight, and I can't even gain more than three pounds no matter what I do, no matter how much vegan Hollandaise sauce I consume.

Again, I'm certainly not advocating a sedentary or high-fat diet, here, but it's pretty damn awesome to have discovered this way to eat and be lazy but not gain weight. It's almost as cool as if there was some way to have all the wild, unprotected sex you wanted, without ever getting a VD or preggers -- it's like that. So, I mean, there's still days where I'm like, ugh, I'm fat today, I'm gonna wear my fat pants, but it's all negotiated with a way better ass than before. Ahhhh. But the sedentary is over!!! Once I come back from this clinic next week, I'll have a half hour routine to do every single day, for the rest of my life unless I feel the need to check back in in a couple years and fine-tune it, and I'll be swimming, much to my hair's dismay.

And, walking one dog. Yep, the verdict is in, and Daisy's gotta go. After the initial upswing with the prednisone, which, if you've paid attention to any of my bitching, you'll know was only temporarily viable, the T3 hormone ($100 per month) has not made her better, and has possibly made her worse. Not to go into too much detail, at the end of this horrendously long blog, but Daisy is just difficult to have right now, and there is no bond, no connection, between us -- or between her and Todd, her and Sophie, her and anyone. (She attacked Sophie last night for the crime of sniffing at her kennel, and we had to drag Daisy off into the garage, still snapping and growling.) She lives her life here like she's in constant Vietnam flashback, while the perfectly mild-mannered world that the rest of us inhabit goes on without her. We do not feel comfortable having overnight guests until she's gone, and with dinner guests we keep her in the kennel. It's pretty pointless to keep on going. She needs to be in a home with someone who actually wants a crazy fucking dog, and who can lavish time and training upon her.
I observed, from the brief prednisone-fueled upswing, that there is a sweet little girl inside there, who loves me and who I love very much, but she just gets bulldozed over with this manic, nervous, territorial and violent psychosis. I'm not gonna spend any more of my savings, or any more time negotiating with the terrorist that is my own dog.
However, interestingly, the breeder shows no sign of responding to my emails, now. I am going to have an absolute shit fit if, after all of this distress, danger, time, money, and severed attachment, I have to make the breeder accept Daisy back at lawyer-point. There is no way I'm taking her to a pound, any pound. She would be at her worst, there, and no one would ever adopt her. So, hopefully this delay in response is due to...anything but the breeder turning chickenshit. I can't even imagine what is taking so long. But also, I wrote Grumpy Puppy forever ago about administering another temperament test, and he's never written back either. So, I hope these people are bleeding in a ditch somewhere, because otherwise it's shockingly unprofessional. (I don't really hope that, but you know. I'm the one stuck with the crazy, here.)

So. Last time it was really emotional, and this time it's not as. I still can't envision myself as the kind of person who ever gives away her dog, but neither can I envision myself living the next fourteen years under tyrannical Miss Daisy. So, last not least, that's gonna happen.

Okay, gotta go, stuff to do, wish my back luck.

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hmm

Well, either we got the swine flu or something just like it. I never felt like I needed to go to the hospital or anything, but I can definitely see myself straight up dying of that, if I was a very small child or an oldster. It feels like your lungs are in a vice, and filled with mushrooms too. Todd came down with something, he kept saying it was his lungs, and I thought he probably had a touch of the regular flu compounded by some congestion from now being able to breathe well because of his rib injury. He thought, no, chest cold. Anyway, he had a raging fever two nights in, which was the last night I felt normal.


The next day was a systematic take-down for me. From the inside, I felt like I was watching old, flickery, slow-motion footage of a building disintegrating, except it was me. By evening, I felt like a mote of consciousness trapped in an inert shell of heavy, miserable flesh. Fever, shakes, weakness, all of that. But still, it seemed like a normal flu, and I figured it would be a quick 24 hour thing. After suffering in delirium for most of that day, I said fuck-it and took an Aleve. Normally I don't like to interfere with symptoms, because symptoms are the outward manifestation of your body doing what it needs to do, but I was just so miserable, I wanted a break. All day I'd been freezing cold, shivering, taking baths as hot as the water would go. Once the Aleve kicked in, my head cleared and I felt "there" again, and I got clammy and sweaty all over, because I was so hot, like a furnace. Drugs are amazing things, especially when you really need them.

So anyway, 24 hours became 48, and my lungs started freaking out. By the third day, I knew I would have been completely back to normal, except my lungs were tight and thick and my whole body seemed to be rendered sluggish and tentative. The lung badness had just begun. I really don't think I was getting anything close to the amount of oxygen I'm used to. The cough started then, and was a racking cough all night. Incidentally, we had a cold-cold-cold snap here in Flagstaff at right around this time, and also things were complicated by Daisy, whose current medication assures that major calls-of-nature will occur every thee hours or so. Every night, I had to set an alarm for 2:30 or 3, let her out of her kennel (we've brought back the kennel -- it's red nylon, like a tent, and the top of her head is pink from rubbing against it), and take her out into the bitch ass cold night, OMG. So cold, like knives stabbing my broken styrofoam lungs.

I never asked Todd to take turns letting her out because he knew I hated doing it but never volunteered, so that's a pretty clear signal that he'd rather not. I can respect that. Daisy is sort of my problem, in this vague way. I'm half-owner of a tattoo shop that I never have to lift a finger to manage because Todd does it all, so I'm more than happy to pick up the Daisy slack.

But anyway, not pleasant, and the one night I didn't set an alarm, she had di-di all over her kennel, poor thing. So, I think it was on the fourth day of being sick that I listened to my lung sounds in the bathtub and was alarmed. I had my ears underwater, and discovered a marked end-expiratory wheeze that sounded like a chorus of whispery mice. Never in my life have I heard my own lungs sound like patients-on-ventilators' lungs. That's when I knew, this shit was major. So, for several days, I could only take little sips of air, barely enough to survive on. A larger breath would trigger this painful, tight itch, and a cascade of coughing. I coughed so much that the various pressure valves of my body -- I'll let you figure that out on your own -- eventually began to prick and feel rent, or on the verge of tearing maybe. And I could feel my scoliosis! That was weird. Generally, I feel pretty normal but with some persistent back kinks, but I was coughing so hard and so much that I could feel my asymmetrical back muscles absorbing the stress asymmetrically. I'm glad I have that physical therapy coming up in two weeks.

And, as you can imagine, there were many instances of juxtaposition of both coughing and taking Daisy out, as both of these activities were almost constant, and we just had some new neighbors move in, whose scrutiny I could feel quite intensely. I'm sure they think we're really white trash -- it's always the white trash people that stand outside with their pet, in their bathrobe or shabby sweats, coughing their fucking lungs out. At least I wasn't smoking on top of all that. You could tell, they'd be out on their porch, just like, ew.

So, on with the swine flu -- here was the progression, then: lungs full of mushrooms, tight all over; then, lead in the bases of my lungs, congestion breaking up to coughable strands, but still really cobwebby and heavy; then it all moved up to the middle of my lungs, then the tops, then unbearable tightness at, literally, my clavicles -- as you can imagine, I was a bit concerned that the day after that, my head would just explode and that would be the end of it. But no, then it reached my throat, and I became hoarse, lost my voice. Now, two weeks later, I'm still coughing some, and the lungs are still a bit tickly, but I can take a deep breath and I can sing pretty well. So, what the hell was that? Like nothing I've ever had. Todd went through all of the same stages, just about 48 hours ahead of me. It is so exhausting to not get enough oxygen for days and days.

Well, 'nuf of that. What else? Oh, over the course of the sickie, Todd and I watched way more TV than ever in our lives before, mostly Netflix instant queue, and I have to say -- I'm so in love with old Tom Cruise movies! I missed out on most movies considered quintessential to my own generation, just due to growing up on the rez and then being really really busy all throughout my teens and twenties. So far we've watched All The Right Moves, A Few Good Men, Risky Business, and Jerry Macguire, none of which I had ever seen. He got laid in every movie except A Few Good Men! Goodness. I wonder if anyone's ever tallied an actor's movies based on that criteria -- like, Tom Cruise gets laid in 95% of his movies, whereas Philip Seymour Hoffman only gets it in 20%, for example.

Also, we watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which I had also never seen before -- amazing! I loved it. That was my favorite Jim Carrey persona ever -- he's great, of course, in his crazy comedic roles, but totally believable in this shaggy, painfully shy, pessimistic but yearningly hopeful character. Every single person just nailed it -- Kirsten Dunst, Kate Winslet. What an interesting concept -- to begin a relationship already knowing everything that you'll grow to hate about the person, and forgiving them for all of it in advance. Movies! It's so fun to watch movies at home. I would have felt really guilty about all that wasted time if I wasn't coughing and gasping for air.

On the animal front, sometimes I feel like Sophie and Daisy both could just fuck off and I wouldn't care. Not all the time, of course, but I don't feel any of the magic like I did with Eva. I asked Todd the other day if he thinks a person can maybe only really love once, with dogs. He said he thinks it's like songs or bands -- every now and then, the right band writes the right song at the right time and it becomes poignant and emotional for an entire generation. Eva was my right dog at the right time, I guess. Daisy is the wrong dog for anyone at any time, of course, and Sophie is wonderful but there's this gi-normous species barrier. She really is a dog, in every say -- she knows she's a dog, she fulfills ultimate dog expectations 100% of the time. I guess what I'm looking for in a relationship with a dog -- and for which I'm prepared to offer all kinds of time and effort, as I do anyway -- is something that feels like a communion across species lines, in which I experience some occasional disorientation because we have such a rapport that it's difficult to remember what it means to be "human" or "animal". I never experience any of that confusion whatsoever with Daisy or Sophie.

I do, though, with the cat. I actually have that feeling of rushing home because I can't wait to see my cat. I feel confused all the time about what actually distinguishes us from each other, besides the obvious. Pepper is my dream cat. And dogs are not like children -- I don't think I could write a blog about how disappointing I found the motherhood experience to be, for example. Well, my mom did tell me once that she wished she'd not had kids, and I was like, wow, are you really telling me this? But, after everything I've been through with the Daze, I can say: not totally sure we should keep her. I feel like I went through all the emotions when we first considered giving her up, and now I'm just kind of numb.

Additionally, my life is plagued with weird and minor setbacks to progress -- it's taking an inordinate amount of time for the dog behaviorist to get back to me about repeating a temperament test on Daisy, and I kind of won't know where we're really at until then. I could just take her downtown myself and tie her up somewhere and see if she attacks passers-by, but I'd rather have a controlled situation.

And, other barriers to progress, I have this combination of my acoustic guitar developing all kinds of ticks in terms of sound quality, and my usual guitar technician developing all kinds of ticks in terms of ever calling me or getting it back to me when he said. In general, I feel right now that, for whatever reason, I'm manifesting a swarm of tiny obstacles for myself to overcome (swine flu -- guitar -- sound technician -- Daisy -- website -- etc), and it's almost certainly fear of success. Which is at least gratifying in the sense of realizing, I'm pretty powerful! Because these are a lot of stupid obstacles! I feel like I want to shake it off my coat, like water off a dog, and proceed through the world unencumbered by pettiness. Which is not to say anything is petty in itself, but I'd like to feel less bogged down.

As much as I love my home and family, I feel I would accomplish so much more right now if I just lived alone in some crappy little studio apartment. Do I feel like I'm going crazy, come to think of it? Maybe so. I feel like I want to drive a couple hundred miles and check myself into a hotel and get some shit done, regardless of whether it's day or night. What can I do to stop myself from accommodating all the stuff that sets me back? I don't know. If I get enough music practicing done every day, I don't get enough writing done, and vice versa. I feel like I need to be fairly immersed in one or the other to get in any kind of zone with it, and no zone has happened for a while, except little blips on the radar now and then.

Okay, I'm having a full on existential crisis right now, I think I'm gonna stop writing.

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A thorough blogging about everything that matters except 2012

I don't know how I got on the mailing list for all these fashion catalogs that are obviously targeted for a demographic that I'm going to call "the quintessential office slut".  I got four today, and they all featured outfits that were sort of sexy-corporate in a way that would only inspire scorn and loathing in all female co-workers, and lowest-common-denominatorism in the men.  You know, it is so weird -- ever since I was a little girl, I've had this reoccurring, but very vague, fantasy in which I live in a big city and work in some high rise where I have to wear suits and attend meetings.  Isn't that weird?  I mean, obviously a lot of people do just that, but it's weird because it's the antithesis of everything that means anything to me, so I wonder why it floats around in my head.  Anyway, if I did live out that fantasy, I would not do so in office slut outfits, but apparently there's a big demand.  

Anyway, back to the real world, I've been realizing I'm a huge underachiever compared to pretty much everyone else I know who's doing music!  Alli's doing another new album and has a tour or two under her belt, Brian Benham is on youtube, Grant is on youtube, and I'm still sitting on a pile of recordings from goddamn five years ago that aren't even representative.  What the fuck am I doing?  I have technology!  I need to get cracking.  But, I am going over to see Matt Maust today and maybe sing something for one of his formerly-known-as-instrumentals.  

Oh, and here's one exciting thing!  Probably it'll seem anticlimactic, but let me explain: this past Saturday I went to Heritage Square in the afternoon (super warm day) and busked!  Busking means, to play music publicly, uninvited, with your case open for money.  You'd think that wouldn't be a big deal for someone who has played lots of actual gigs in restaurants, bars, cafes, churches and the like, but au contraire -- it's actually always been a fear/desire of mine.  I don't know why it seems so scary -- I guess I just like to feel like I have someone's (anyone's) permission to do something like play music, you know?  So, I just went over there and found a likely spot where I could catch traffic from the sidewalk and the Square itself, and I tuned up and all, and then I just really had this overwhelming feeling like I needed to get someone's permission!  Luckily, Jen from Cuvee was serving some customers out on the patio, so I went over and said, "Hey, I'm gonna play some music over there within earshot, so if any of your customers gets annoyed, let me know."  And she was like, "Oh, play closer, please!  Awesome!"  So then, inexplicably, I felt someone had given me permission so I just started playing.  

When I practice at home, I do a lot of wandering around (knocking my guitar into doorways) and I sort of wandered at the square a tiny bit, too.  At an actual gig, when you're plugged in, you can't really do that, but I feel much more natural being able to stroll a bit.  So that was nice.  These three little girls totally fell in love with me, and kept running to their moms and coming back with dimes and quarters for my case.  One girl sat on a bench facing away from me, sipping an iced coffee, but her body language seemed very listen-y, I thought.  People put ones and a couple fives in my case.  I was stoked about that.  The worst part was, my guitar just got out of the shop -- it was seriously in the shop forever, I almost despaired, but it's been through a catastrophic RV accident and an international flight to Japan and back, so it had to have its whole neck taken off and redone -- anyway, the guy put the old strings back on except for a couple the trebles, which I hadn't wound enough, so it was a mixed set of strings -- anyway, the upshot is, my guitar strings sounded like shit because a couple of them were really bright and clangy, but the others weren't.  But, it hadn't been so obvious at home.  

So, I knew I would want to wrap things up anyway before the second worse thing happened: a time conflict with the hell-and-brimstone bible thumper man, who set his bibles and angry cardboard sign up right near where I was.  He left for a while, then, and people were reading his sign and then looking at me, and I was singing of course, but if there was a phrase break I'd be like, "Those are NOT mine," and then when he came back I just said fuck it, and put my guitar away.  He was pretty cool, all in all -- he asked if I knew any gospel, and I said sorry but no, and he asked my name, and I said Hannah, and we shook hands, and he said, That's a beautiful name, a beautiful Biblical name.  Are you Christian?  And I said no, and he said, well, Jesus loves you anyway.  I said thanks.  He said he's there every Saturday at two, so he definitely has the track record of using that spot.  

My friend at Cuvee told me that everyone was bummed, though, when I stopped playing and he started screaming out the gospel.  I was already gone by then.  But I finally busked!  Yay!  Now it will never be that hard again.  I would like to busk in all sorts of places, I'm totally excited about it now.  Just because it's real, people react to you in a real and honest way.  

Anywhoo, what else.  Good news about Daisy!  She's still a little crazy, but not nearly as crazy as before.  We're still dialing in her dosage level, and I won't bore you with those details -- it pretty much comes down to us just paying attention to the medicine-to-growling ratio, and keeping her in a happy place.  It's not any kind of anti-depressant or mood altering stuff per se, just an anti-inflammatory.  Apparently is really was her thyroid, at least in large part, making her crazy.  When we feel pretty stable with the whole thing, we're going to call Tony the trainer again and have her repeat some of her out-in-public exercises, under super controlled conditions, with his supervision.  She had done not-so-well, last time, and the exercise at Heritage Square had to be aborted because she was like, totally fucking nuts.  That's when the shock collar came in, and we did that once or twice but I just felt....hmmm.  I just felt like there was something we weren't understanding.  Turns out I was right!  It just took another couple months to really take that road.  So yeah, I'm still not at the point where I'll just release Daisy into a schoolyard full of children, but she's made very definite progress.  There was a moment two days ago, again I won't bore you with the details, but it was a moment when pre-medication Daisy would have bitten me, 100% certainty of that.  But instead, she just jerked her head up all pissy, and no one got hurt.  That was nice.  

The biggest change, though, is her new-found happiness around the house.  She used to be the biggest downer, just sitting there and glaring, sulking, all the time.  Super depressive.  Like, she just has a shit life or something.  You know how one negative person can bring down everyone else's vibe?  Well, it doesn't have to be a person.  Me and Todd would just look at her like, goddamn, lighten up.  Other animals just as smart as you are getting boiled alive as we speak, and you're sitting there like the couch isn't worthy of your ass.  But now, whoa!  Big dif.  She's always grinning and wagging her tail, panting and coming up for pets, just smiles and smiles and smiles.  It's so weird!  It actually trips us out.  Also, it's made us realize how bad it was, before.  A well-cared for dog should be happy, right?  The whole point of having a dog is that they just love you and want to be with you, and it sure is a lot of thankless work to have one that hates her life and hates everything.  So, we'll see what happens, but at least Daisy is now happy, grateful, loving, and cute, the way a dog is supposed to be, baseline minimum.  

However, we did agree to take care of a friend's dog this last weekend and that dog made us feel a renewed sense of thankfulness for our dogs, problems and all.  That's all I'm gonna say because it feels mean to disparage someone else's dog.  

Aaaand, what else.  I'm a bicycle convert!  I never really enjoyed the thought, or reality, of commuting around on a bike.  I usually just walk, or drive if it's far.  But Me and Todd's mostly-unpleasant vacation did have the one good point of making me realize that I love riding his single speed!  I guess it's just the gears that annoy me about bikes, which is weird because, when I'm driving, the more gears the better.  I've driven trucks with 21 gears, enjoying every minute of it.  But yeah, on a bike it just seems all complicated and exasperating.  Especially when you're already struggling to ride up a hill, and then your gears fuck up because you're me and I'm not so great with the shifting, and so it's exhausting and clanky and frustrating all at once.  Ditto starting out on a green light, and nearly falling because the chain slips or whatever the hell.  

But on a single speed, the pedaling just gets harder or easier!  That's it!  No chain slippage, no surprises.  So yesterday I rode to my vet appointment (no Daisy, it was just a consult to talk about her behavior), and then home, and then to dinner with my brother, and it just felt so great!  It was faster than driving AND my butt is sore!  I'm riding across town today to listen to the formerly-known-as-instrumental piece.  I don't know why it took me 33 years to realize that riding a bike is fun, but it did.  And it is.  

Hmm, other good news is that the November Noise issue will be running a new article of mine, a little feature on Tom Sheeley, whose classical guitar concert is coming up on the 21st, and basically it seemed like the music editor was really skeptical about my pitch at first, but then loved the article, and now I'm on to cover the rest of the Grand Canyon Guitar Society's performance season, which runs through March of 2010.  Yay!  They're talking about giving me an actual regular stipend so I can be a staff writer, which would be helpful.  I also have to come up with other musical things to cover, which should be easy, since everyone I know is five times as successful as me at doing their music right now.  

I'll have my day, I'm sure -- for the time being, I can't get my fucking printer to print on my printable CD's (full of underwhelming, five-year-old recordings), and I refuse to drop off demo CD's that don't look at least a little bit profesh.  Apparently the CD printer driver doesn't work with the new Mac operating system and I have to download the driver from a Russian website or some shit.  AND I still haven't fixed my website.  How much more complicated could life possibly be.  

Good news, though, on the classical front is that I now would consider the following songs to be (shakily) performance-ready: Two tremolo studies, Pachelbel's Canon in D, Villa Lobos's Mazurka Choro, my half of a guitar/flute duet which is just a beautiful aria all by itself, and a couple of pretty studies, for sure.  I know that doesn't sound like much -- and it's not -- but I've come so far, so fast, in the past couple of months.  I've been playing in the NAU guitar studio's master class and getting my stage fright under control again, and the fugue is almost ready to begin metronome-practicing, which is a big jump from where it was.  So, pushing forward a little bit everyday.  

Oh, my book that I'm working on is coming along the most slowly of all, but I feel like I'm accumulating a bunch of thoughts and feelings about where it's at now that will soon be explosively vomited onto the page, to colorful effect.  

And Road Hunter is finally done, the video game whose text I wrote.  Should be available on the iPhone app store here in a month or so, I'll let you know.  

Okay, gots ta walk dogs now!  

Oops -- first, a final thought, I really really want this down-insulated North Face coat which is not vegan in any way, shape, or form, and I think I'm going to eventually buy it, and assuage my guilt by just wearing it for the rest of my life and never buying anything down again.  It is really the last really cold-weather coat I would ever need to buy -- it's full length, so a lot of waterfowl got their shit pulled out for that coat.  Oh, which reminds me, my frivolous consumerism fast is actually going super well, I haven't even been tempted to break it.  I choose not to call a winter coat "frivolous", even though I'm sure I would physically survive this winter without it.  I'm more worried about betraying my vegan convictions.  I think I'll just do a lot of research about down-related cruelty, I'll watch the horrendous videos if I can find any, and, if I still feel like I want that coat, I'll just get it.  I've always felt that it's not so much what you do, but doing it in an informed way that counts.  So, I guess that's up in the air.  

Alright, all for now.  Fly free, little reader birds!   
  

         

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half finished blog

We just got back from the least relaxing vacation ever. It was really great and really shitty at the same time -- great because we were camping and exploring some of the most gorgeous stretches of SouthWestern America I've ever seen, and shitty because Todd fractured his ribs (we think -- he hasn't actually had an x-ray) four days in while mountain biking.

So maybe I'll get around to writing about all of that, but first I have to recount this super cute thing I saw this morning: we stopped at Macy's for coffees on our way to the boarding kennel to pick up the girls. In the Beaver Street Brewery parking lot, which is adjacent to the Macy's outdoor tables, there was a dog stalking some pigeons. The dog was some sort of purebred setter, and his owner was sipping coffee at one of the outdoor tables. The pigeons were hopping around on the asphalt, not too worried. The setter was POINTING as hard as he could. I guess, with my lack of hunting interest or experience, I've never actually seen a dog that points, even though I've heard of them. I guess the idea is, the dog behaves in a way quite opposite of how most dogs would react to some sort of prey, and instead uses his whole body to silently and covertly indicate the presence and relative direction of something shootable. And then the master shoots it.

So, the guy sipping coffee at his table had no interest in the pigeons whatsoever, and apparently isn't even slightly interested in hunting. He just somehow wound up with this dog, and this is what the dog does, all by himself. (And it was a he -- there were some rather large balls in evidence.) But the setter was pointing so intensely, so feverishly, so passionately, it was exhausting just to watch. It went on and on. There wasn't much cover and concealment for him, but he did what he could with the metal handrail and potted flowers outside the brewery. He was a white, big, leanly muscled dog, and he was trembling, every muscle rigid. His nose was extended out to the maximum forward position, his tail was extended back like a furry dowel rod, his breath was coming in shallow and painfully subdued panting motions. He would lift one paw at a time, so carefully, so quietly, so slowly, legs quivering, trembling, and then place the paw on the ground again, ever so gently. He crept closer to the pigeons, by the most minute advances, stretched out so sharply, his eyes, his eyes just glued, his ears straining. The pigeons hopped. The dog stalked, growing tired, shaking more violently, desperately waiting for a rifle shot that would never come.

"Yep, that's just what he does," said the owner, who looked like a man that's recently decided not to drink himself to death after all. When we emerged from Macy's again with our coffees, the setter was at his feet, looking as if he'd just run a doggy marathon. What a sweet dog, I thought. That is his nature, he just gets out there and points as hard as he can point at little critters, even though nothing ever comes of it. Sort of sad, funny, and adorable all at once. Like I said, I'd heard of it, but I never knew it was so intense.

Anyway, our own dogs were totally stoked to be reclaimed, and that was cute. Apparently Daisy was "no problem", so that's great. I told them how she is, but they watched her anyway, thank god. The cortisone has been happening for what, now, a week plus a couple days? No noticeable changes yet, discounting the lack of incidents at the boarding kennel -- I can't really count that because so much of her krazy takes place at home. It's nice to know there's a place where the dogs can go fuck off and be cared for by someone else for a fairly low price, when the urge strikes. If there were boarding kennels for children, I might actually consider reproducing. As it is, when I see those parents who have their toddler on a little glorified leash in big, busy public settings, I always knew I would do that too if I had a kid.

So anyway, the vacation was cool, except for the injury. We drove to my hometown, Chinle, which is peripheral to Canyon de Chelly National Monument. Todd had never been to my hometown before, although we visited his last summer, so that was fun to show him around. We thought our cold weather camping wouldn't really start until we got up in Colorado, but that night at the Cottonwood Campground in Chinle was pretty uncomfortably cold -- lower temps than both Durango and Flagstaff, as it turned out, despite being at a lower elevation. We didn't sleep very well because it was just biting, despite all our bags and blankets. We learned to pick a campsite that gets morning sun, for winter camping -- obviously the opposite for summer. Our campsite didn't get sun until, like, 9 or something the next day, but Todd got up early and fixed us lattes on the grill (stove top espresso maker: go buy one) and then we walked over to a sunny picnic table and let the sun and coffee warm our bones. That was nice -- and you never know what things you'll talk about, even with someone you've been married to for a while! Turns out Todd had a bit of a stalker, years back, and that was a good story. I'm always so polite, when I'm at a loss, but Todd was just like: I see you behind that tree, what are you doing? That's funny.

Then we hiked in and out of the canyon, which definitely finished the job of warming us up, and took in the views, and headed out of town around noon. I had made all of our food for the trip already, and we bought a cooler that plugs into a car's cigarette lighter. Let me just say, that cooler is my new favorite object. So badass, not to worry about ice or slop-over, wet mushy food, draining it all the time, any of that. And the cooler's so small, but we can fit a lot into it because, hello, it doesn't need ice. So, yeah, I would run into the house and save it from a fire. Amazing.

Anyway, we ate really well on this trip. We stopped in Black Mesa and had potato salad and creamy spinach-green chili casserole (with sagey-buttery-breadcrumb topping of course), and rolled into Durango in the late afternoon. Bought two sleeping bags that had a zero degree rating -- ours were like 20 or whatever and that shit was enough to keep us alive, I guess, but not happy.

Oh, turns out I'm having dinner with my brother and Todd right now and I have to cut this short -- Abe watched Pepper for us and I'm excited to hear all the stories of cuteness. Ugh, and Daisy just farted again, I have to leave this house. Her ass is gnarly with whatever they were feeding them. Okay, I'll finish the blog soon.

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iTick, Weathersby, Prednisone, and keeping a log

Lots of good changes, lately -- it's been hard to write about them, though, because I established some fairly formal minimum daily output standards for myself that pretty much take all day to accomplish, especially when you factor in vet appointments and chiropractor negotiations that drag on forever and vacation-related prep: making food for the camping trip, arranging boarding for the dogs and a place for the cat to go, etc. I love it, though, because I feel worthy and meaningful and, most of all, too tired at the end of every day to stress about what it all means, blah blah blah. Instead, I'm just like, fuuuuck! Read some of my book, hang out with Todd, go to bed, and start all over.

I'm able to bring a lot more smarts to bear on this whole classical guitar process than I did the first time around, I'm happy to realize. A lot of my approach before had been haphazard at best, especially in terms of technique, and now I'm much more methodical. I downloaded a free metronome app for my iPhone called iTick and you wouldn't believe the difference this silly fucking metronome has made in my life. I've never really been happy with any of my metronomes before, and if you're any kind of serious classical guitarist, your metronome gets hours of use every day, at all different tempos -- literally hours.

So anyway, yeah, I think I spent most of my undergraduate in this state of, like, semi-appalled disbelief that I was really expected to do this big ass long list of things everyday (4 sets of scales, coordination exercises, tremolo, trills, arpeggios, etc) -- and just for technique, not even counting the actual music that I needed to practice. So I would do it, but I was just all over the place. Mr. Sheeley must have told us a million times, keep a log of your practicing every day, and I was like, as if. But now I've had this whole experience of weight lifting with a log (versus without) and you know what? It really makes a huge difference! More than anything, it's this feeling of peace, right here, right now. When you keep a log, you don't have to worry about yesterday or tomorrow or where it's all going -- you just have to, for instance, look back at the speed of the metronome for scales yesterday, add five or three or whatever to that, do it to the best of your ability, and viola: progress has been made. So, I don't know what little hiccup in my medulla oblongata has made me occasionally resist the advice of people who obviously know what they're talking about, over the years, but let me just say it's probably never a bad idea to keep of progress log of anything you're trying to get better at. So anyway, between the non-irritating metronome and the practice log, I've been progressing by leaps and bounds on that fucking guitar. The biggest obstacle right now -- and this would be heinously depressing if I hadn't proactively ensured some light at the end of the tunnel for myself -- is that the more I practice, the more my back hurts. Not just normal kind of hurting, but like scoliosis-muscle-asymmetry-bizarre-tensions-and-pullings hurting. A couple times, during the last week, I've been kicking some major ass on the guitar, up in the art room, and I have to just go lay down because my back is silently screaming.

So, here it is October, and I have my big date with the Schroth scoliosis physical therapists in Phoenix next month, November 18-24th. I had been kind of worried, the last couple of weeks, that I'd get there and they'd just say, "Playing guitar makes your back hurt? Okay, it's gotta go." Which is not an option for me -- classical guitar will soon become, probably, the most reliable means of producing income of all my various incomes. (Just a side note -- can you believe I'm going through all of this just so that people can eat their dinner or wedding feast or whatever, while totally ignoring the sound of everything I play? That's right, I'm moving mountains to provide a service that pretty much guarantees I'll get ignored. Maybe the future will be different, but that's how it always went down in the past. I don't give a shit, as long as I get paid and people put money in the tip jar. I love the music or else I wouldn't do it.) But anyway, I got the patient questionnaire in the mail yesterday, and filled it out, and it's pretty clear from the questions that many people with scoliosis are suffering pain or discomfort that prevents them from doing things they want to do or need to do, or at least makes it harder, and the clinic is trying to get a handle on how affected you are and how frustrated that makes you. It put it into perspective for me, I guess is what I'm saying.

This time in my life right now is a really big push, particularly for the guitar -- I won't have to practice quite this intensively once I'm out and gigging, because then it'll just be a matter of technique alone, and adding new songs to the repertoire, rather than building it from almost-scratch as I am now. So, with the scoliosis home exercise program, and a classical regimen that will eventually be focussed more on maintenance than growth, I think I'll be okay. I think my back will be okay, is what I mean.

Oh, and to fill you in on the rest of the back stuff, I totally broke up with that one chiropractor and started all over with Dr. Weathersby, Sal's beloved chiropractor. I don't know if you remember, but last Christmas, after my car was broken into (all shoes stolen, I repeat: all shoes stolen) at a Motel 6 in Utah, and Blake flew down to Salt Lake, and we were snowed in with Daisy in a luxury hotel in downtown Salt Lake while waiting for the new glass, and then we drove through the crazy blizzard for two days to get back to Flag, and then we went out and got really shit faced with Sal, and then Sal danced with a girl at the Monte V who wanted to get dipped without really getting Sal's go-ahead on that, and so he dipped her but tore his hamstring in the process, and then me and Blake had to literally carry Sal back to our house, where he convalesced and was fed amazing vegan food for almost four days -- anyway, during the convalescence, we dropped Sal off at Dr. Weathersby's office and he felt much better. I was like, how is a chiropractor going to help your hamstring? But Dr. Weathersby is this young, nice chiropractor who's really into body mechanics, and a bunch of his clients are professional or semi-professional athletes, turns out.

So I'm really happy to have ended up with him, after all this, because he's excited about my physical therapy approach, and managing my care from a biomechanics standpoint, and seeing what I can accomplish with this two-pronged approach. His take on my x-rays was interesting and insightful, and the adjustment that followed was pretty out-of-this-world; terrifying and exhilarating by turns. I think I actually gasped, "Oh, shit!" at one point. I felt so good, after, that I immediately went to the gym, did some very careful squats, and wrenched my lower left back. I've decided, it's grandma squats from now on. I can't be in denial anymore that my back does not handle stress like a normal person's back, and I have to baby it as much as possible. I can still work out, of course, but there will be no more "pushing through" anything going on with my back. I'm just waiting for Weathersby to finish my referral letter, which he wasn't coy about providing like the other guy was, and then I'll send that off with the x-rays, the radiologist report, and the new patient questionnaire, and I'll be good to go.

Okay, one more me thing before I go on to Daisy things -- my acoustic guitar is finally done! It's been two months? I don't know, long enough to completely derail all my momentum, practice, and big plans with singy/songwritey stuff. But apparently the guy did all kinds of shit with it, so maybe it'll sound really amazing. Honestly, I don't LOVE my guitar the way some people do -- I just get frustrated when it won't stay in tune. Maybe someday I'll have the guitar of my dreams, but I've never felt that way about the past or present guitars. I don't even know if I have it in me, to dork out about it the way some people do. I mean, every now and then you meet these guys who just would probably have sex with their own guitars if they could physically make it work, you know? I'm just like, whatever. It's a guitar, and that means it's necessary, but it's sort of the enemy too. It's certainly not going up on any goddamn pedestal, in my house or in my mind. But, the acoustic is done, so that adds a whole new category to my daily output minimums.

Okay, Daisy business: her thyroid levels were not conclusively wrong, but they were not right either! Yay! If that shit came back normal, I would have honestly been sort of depressed. So, the test didn't accomplish much except for NOT being able to rule out a thyroid dysfunction. Also her lymphocyte count was way high, like really high, and that's consistent with this sort of thyroid-related aggression in dogs, where it presents as an auto-immune illness, with her own WBC soldiers attacking her own T3 and/or T4. Daisy's T4 was fine but it was the T3 which was borderline low, which is unusual I guess. Like, they wouldn't necessarily even test for T3 unless you're specific about it, which I was. So, all in all, it was enough for the vet to start her on prednisone, which is a temporary thyroid medication, while they scramble around and try to find T3. (See, it's so weird, the vet doesn't even know where to get the medicine for it.) The prednisone isn't hard to give her, physically -- you just put it in some peanut butter -- but the dosing schedule is bizarre: one tab twice a day for five days, then half a tab twice a day for five days, then half a tab once a day for five days, then half a tab every other day for ten days. Me and Todd had to break out the calendar and write it all down.

This morning we were playing with Daisy, throwing up our hands excitedly and saying, "YAY! She's NORMAL!" to which Daisy would pant happily and poke her head forward for petting. I'm sure she's totally not normal -- that's the joke -- but we are hopeful, above all else. If nothing else, all these recent trips to the vet have gotten both her and me used to muzzling her for safety, and she would be a pretty okay dog as-is, if we could just leave a permanent muzzle on her. That's not an option, but it's nice to know that muzzles exist, and that I can get one on to Daisy without her biting me. She looks really funny in a muzzle, I just have to add. Anyway, yeah, she's on a medication schedule and we'll just go from here. Worst case scenario, I feel way more comfortable with the notion of giving her away AFTER having tried a couple things, rather than just unloading her now. If her little tics could go away, she would be not only as cool as other dogs, but even cooler, because she's so smart and people-ish and adoring. She does this thing when she's happy where, as you pet her, she presses her forehead into whatever part of your body is handy -- and you really have to brace yourself because she pushes hard -- and she just pushes and grins and breathes really heavily, all stoked to be petted, and stamping her hind feet with happiness. Oh, there's this whole other discussion about dog food that I wanted to have, but I have to bring this to a close and go pick up Todd, who just dropped the car off to have the roof rack (for bikes) installed for our vacation. Website still not publishing, but Abe will maybe help me with that soon...

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pre-guitar practice thoughts

Ugh, I really need to fix my dang website. Gotta work on that today. I don't know how I can be completely unemployed and still feel like there's not enough time to get everything done. However, recognizing a problem is at least half the battle, and I've recognized that schedule -- as in biorhythms being either stymied or encouraged by arbitrary time decisions -- is a big deal for me. Actually, I've always known that, and I've just been fucking it up lately. If I lived by myself, it would be easy, but the thing is I have to just realize that Todd's schedule is only partially synchronous with mine, and just act accordingly. It's sort of hard, when you have an adorable husband who's fun to hang out with, to just say: I don't care what you're doing, I have to go to bed right now -- and then, in the morning, I have to get the fuck up when the alarm goes off, with a minimum of snuggling and burrowing.

Basically, when I wake up early, I can run my day almost any way I want, but I still get lots done because I'm such a morning person. But Todd works from noon to eight, so we usually have dinner at like 8:30, so then it's weird to go right to be after dinner, plus he tends to stay up later than me. Even if I don't stay up late, though, it's been really hard to wake up early. There's a part of me that says, without even really exaggerating, that I've had to wake up in the 4 am -6 am time frame almost every day for about fifteen years now, what's the harm in sleeping in now that I can? But it's actually the most harmful thing ever, I'm realizing. It's like I cared enough to drag my ass out of bed for a job I probably hated, but I don't care enough to get up for the most important job in the world -- being a self-employed Hannah. So, I've felt a lot of things have been problematic with my output lately, and the first correction I'm applying to the situation will concern my day starting. Honestly, if I'm not up between 5:30 and 6 at the latest, I might as well just go get a shit job and write myself off. It's been stressing me out, and it's just not worth it. I was telling Blake on the phone last night that my stress about mismanaging my own work schedule has taken the form of feeling jealous of people I encounter who are doing their jobs, whatever those jobs might be, and just thinking -- she doesn't have to be in charge of herself. Someone just tells her when to show up and she has to, or else. Isn't that the most bizarre thing to think? It's a sign of me getting wrapped around the axle, and it's gotta stop.

Several other things have been a problem too, lately. I've noticed I've been obsessing about stuff a lot. Like I think, hmm, it would be really helpful to have a brown, cowl-neck sort of sweater, I don't have very many winter sweaters, and then I'll totally blow all this time trying to find one. I'm bringing this kind of thing up, not because it's new -- this is pretty much a prototypical Hannah move -- but because I really have to be a better me than I've ever been right now or else I'm not gonna make it. Old patterns need to be looked at and changed for the better. So, I've actually made a big decision: I'm going to go on a frivolous-consumerism fast for an entire year. (Todd was shocked.) Starting October, in a day or two. So, the rules are, I can replace anything that runs out and I need more, and if I really, really need some sort of new clothes item, I can only go to Savers to look for it, unless it's underwear, tights or hosiery. But yeah, no new and frivolous purchasing of makeup, perfume, body care, jewelry, shoes, clothes, outerwear or underwear until October of 2010. By then I should either be kicking ass at what I do, or a total failure. Either way, it's really distracting to be a girl in a world of stuff that makes you look pretty and smell good, so it's just got to stop. So, I'm excited about that. I've always found cold turkey to be so much easier than moderate indulgence.

The Daisy thing has obviously been really distracting, but when something's going on with an immediate family member, it just has to be dealt with. We're still waiting to find out what our options are right now, and I'm feeling a lot more oriented to what I'm willing and not willing to consider in this situation (for instance, accepting my father's offer to come out and see to Daisy's execution is not on the table), so that's receded to manageable proportions, I think.

The chiropractor drama, as regards my wish to get a simple referral for the physical therapy program, has been way more energy-sucking than I think it needed to be. I broke up with my one chiropractor yesterday, the one who was determined to find something wrong with me that meat could fix. He was really nice and apologetic, and vowed that I should stay because we could both learn from each other, but I was pretty firm. I hope he's more respectful with the next vegan or vegetarian who walks through the door. He told me that he meant no disrespect to my person, and that I'm in the top five percent of all his clients in terms of health and fitness, but that his other vegetarian clients are unhealthy and ill-informed, in so many words. And I was just like, trust me, no one is as irritated as me by all the junk-food vegans running around and collapsing at the drop of a hat. I mean, how do you think I feel, to have gathered the courage to swim upstream against overwhelming general sentiment, to have challenged the notions of health and abundance that surround the true nature of mass-produced meat, which impoverishes our bodies and our world, to have done my research not only because I truly want to understand this massive psychological schism between the meat eater and the vegetarian, but also because I find myself the default target of people's vague attacks all the time, and to have elevated my already passable culinary skills to a never-before-seen excellence in response, so that I can fully reward myself and my family for making a decision that is the right, that is good, for following an unavoidable thought process to its inevitable conclusion -- just to have some chiropractor treat me like I just fell off the meat wagon yesterday! Because his other vegetarian clients are lazy illiterate grain munchers! Well, I shouldn't be so judgmental, but it's the harsh nature of the minority identity. God forbid you should be a lesbian with a mullet, a Native American with a drinking problem, or a vegan who doesn't eat vegetables. So, whatever, that whole dynamic is lurking out there, and I can certainly deal with it, but I don't think I should have to be on my best vegan behavior while addressing my damn scoliosis. Shit!

So, I have an appointment today with Sal's recommended chiropractor, who will just look me over, write me the friggin referral, and see me on a follow-up basis whenever I want, no pressure. I think I did the right thing with that, even though confrontations always exhaust me.

Well, this blog has gotten long enough -- I have scales and arpeggios and all kinds of stuff to practice, so I might as well get started. My acoustic guitar has been in the shop FOREVER, and it's supposed to be done this week. It's seriously been like a month and a half...or two? Anyway, I'm starting to kind of freak out. At first I was like, oh no big deal, I'll just have more time for classical, but now I just want it back. Good lord. Oh, I'm gonna sing backup on this girl's album! Ali Jay. I'll write more about that later...

(P.S. -- Grant's alive and has a phone that can leave me messages! Yay! My world has been so Grantless for the last year, but not anymore!)

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why wouldn't my chiropractor interrogate me?

I'm sipping coffee this morning and Todd just left to go mountain biking with his friend Nate, who stands six feet and eight inches tall so everyone calls him six-eight-Nate.  Nate has one of my favorite sleeves that Todd's done -- it's a scene with aspen trees and a little bird here or there.  The dogs are all bummed that Todd didn't take them, and their little sad faces got even sadder when I went upstairs and came down with a laptop instead of a jacket and shoes, but they'll get their turn.
What a gorgeous morning.  It feels so good to be alive!  Yesterday I spent some time writing in my little "what am I up to?" document -- it's this dialogue I have with myself that no one ever reads, I don't turn it into a blog, or anything like that.  It's immensely relieving.  I would totally recommend starting one if I were you.  It's the completely judgement-free zone, where I don't even have to try to make something seem valid -- if I'm thinking it, I can talk about it and explore it, or even just get nowhere with it.  Lately I'm trying to look back at my overall trajectory -- not just in the last year or five, but since I was a teenager, or even younger -- and see it as being a series of situations I chose for myself on some level, although I distinctly remember thinking that I was choosing other things at the time -- so just trying to see how big of a gap there is between the experience I think I'm pursuing in life versus the experience I'm actually manufacturing for myself.  
Like, this Daisy thing is the perfect example -- I definitely didn't think I was choosing to have a vicious little furry friend, but at each point along the way, my ability to react to what was happening with Daisy has been compromised by my feelings of loss from before, with Eva, so it's been really difficult to just see what's in front of my eyes, at any point.  Which is a passive way of choosing, even though I didn't feel like I was choosing.  I'm pretty sure the same kind of thing has happened over and over, in all areas of my life -- instead of responding to what's going on now, I'm responding to what already happened, but applying it to the now.  I would probably become a total badass of some sort if I could reliably begin to respond to what's happening now, now.  But I am getting better at it -- or, the lag time between stimulus and response is definitely getting shorter, as I sail further into my 30's.  
Like, I have this situation with my chiropractor.  Well, I don't want to say "my" chiropractor, he's just this guy who's office I walked into because I need x-rays and a referral to go do this scoliosis home exercise training program in November, and it's not like I have a primary care physician.  It's funny, when you fill out forms, they always ask who your PCP is.  Do people really do that?  Is that a thing?  Like, I have a mechanic, a hairdresser, a dog groomer, and a doctor?  I was just raised like, you only go to the hospital if you're dying and you know it, and at that point who gives a fuck what doctor treats you.  Not out of a sense of denial of health concerns, but out of sense of knowing I can probably fix it myself better and faster than they can, unless it's a broken leg or something.  My parents didn't take me to the doctor when I had tonsillitis at 16.  If they would have, I'm sure the hospital would have had my tonsils out.  As it was, I couldn't eat for three days, and my dad was like, people used to fast all the time, it's good for you.  And I lived, so it's fine.  Anyway, point being I don't have a primary care physician, so trying to get x-rays of my spine and a simple referral for scoliosis eval and treatment has been pretty challenging, overall.  
So, this particular chiropractor has been pretty helpful, after some initial skepticism, obstruction, and resistance.  You've gotta remember, I'm pursuing something that means I can fix myself at home, but to get it, I need help from these people who stay in business by telling you, you can't fix yourself at home, you have to come in here and give me money on a regular basis.  But of course, if he's gonna help me with the 'scrips and referral, I'll get my back adjusted a couple times or whatever, no big deal.  
But then the other day, my diet comes up, and there is no way to get any kind of doctor worked into a tizzy faster than by telling him -- and usually it is a him -- that you don't eat dead animals.  Well, the interrogation got off to a great start.  He looked me square in the eye and said, "Most vegans and vegetarians are extremely unhealthy."  Yep, they're hauling them into the ED on stretchers every day and every night -- that's what burned me out on being a respiratory therapist, was the stress of constantly performing CPR on all the vegans and vegetarians of the world.  But seriously, he grilled me, and I was fairly spunky?  But still, there's just a psychological disadvantage to arguing with a doctor of any sort, in his office, with your own x-rays up on the light panel thing.  He actually made me recite what I'd had to eat the day before, and that went like this: fruit, toast, a salad, some corn chips with pinto bean dip and homemade guacamole and salsa, some miso soup with raw garlic and shredded zucchini and carrots, another salad of belgium endive and pears with maple carmelized pecans, a BBQ seitan sandwich with coleslaw and fresh parsley potato salad.  I think he expected me to say "potato chips and soda" or something.  And the funny thing is, it went down pretty much like a thousand other conversations I've had with the infinitely concerned public -- he asked about protein, and I told him it seemed to me he should be explaining this to me, not the vice versa, but that (one more time):
1)the body creates protein from amino acids. 
2) There are 20 amino acids, and our bodies manufacture 11 of those. 
3) That leaves 9 amino acids that we need to acquire through our diet.  
4) Anyone who eats a varied diet with enough calories to maintain their body weight is getting enough protein.  People who need extra protein are athletes and pregnant women, of which I am neither.  
5) My diet is stellar, and I supplement on top of that, so I am the vegan you should be concerned about the least.  I should be grilling you about your diet.  
5) Too much protein is extremely hard on our systems, and animal protein is hard on anyone's system anyway because we don't have the stomach acidity of a carnivore, and our intestines are so long that meat literally rots inside us before our bodies are able to fully process it.  
So, of course he immediately changed tactics.  That's the thing about these fucking meat eating interrogators -- as soon as you (easily) refute one accusation, they just move on to the next, because there's certainly no shortage.  It's extremely passive aggressive, and I've done this dance so many times.  So many times.  He eventually moved into the ultimate meat eater's safe zone of vague mysticism -- "But you need to complete the circle," was the phrase as I recall.  He just wouldn't give up.  
And finally I had to say -- and I don't think it should have had to get to this point, you know? -- I had to say, "Look -- I might eat an animal under the same circumstances you would eat a human."  He was treating me like I just moved away from home and some of my little anorexic friends convinced me that if I stopped eating meat I would fit into my skinny jeans and so I was adding that to my bulimia regimen or something.  And I was like, no, I'm pretty much the most educated, well-read, culinarily gifted and morally convicted vegan you will ever meet so do not fuck with me.  And I told him, look, I am totally interested in any kind of advice or help you want to give me -- like he mentioned that most grains are very acid-forming in the body, and I actually already knew that because, in a very real sense, I do this for a living, it's not like I just float eating whatever's convenient -- but anyway, I was like, that's good advice.  That's good to know.  Telling me over and over again that, if I would just eat a little meat -- a little fish -- just to complete the circle -- that's not helpful.  That's western medical bias, in all it's corpulent glory.  
So, anyway, I left there thinking, ugh.  It's bad enough to have to deal with that kind of bias when you're on even footing with someone -- like my friend Jody, who likes to have a couple beers together and then start accusing me of being part of a politik that would take food from the mouths of people in starvation, subsistence situations.  Always the most extreme example, of course, that's what meat defense is all about.  But when you're in a situation with a power dynamic, like doctor-patient, it's just not okay.  I even told him, "I'm really uncomfortable with the thought that you'll attribute everything that's wrong with my body to my diet."  Obviously I was there because something is wrong with my body, that's a given.  Oh, fyi, it looks like my very lowest vertebrae, the one that's just above the sacrum, is just in there a little crooked, and so the whole rest of my spine is compensating for that.  But yeah, as the week has gone by, I've been thinking back on that conversation and feeling less and less comfortable with the thought of continuing care with this guy.  And that sucks for many reasons -- I was almost where I needed to be -- I think he's been stringing me along with the referral, a bit -- and now I have to start over somewhere else, and hopefully I can get back the money that I stupidly paid ahead.  At least I have x-rays now, so that's the biggest thing.  
But yeah, I just don't want something like that in my life.  And back to the main point, which started ten million sentences ago, I'm getting better, as I get older, at choosing my battles.  A major paradigm clash with a medical professional who's taking my money is not a battle I choose.  So, my next meeting with him is in two days and I have to kick him to the curb, which is always uncomfortable.  He didn't mind making me feel uncomfortable.  Oh, before I forget to mention it, my website has been having publish problems, so if you're reading this on myspace or blogspot, cool -- if you're reading it on my website, that means I finally got my ass to Best Buy for fix-it advice and all of this is a little out of date.  This will be the third blog I haven't been able to publish on the website.  It'll all get worked out, I'm sure.  
Me and Todd watched Sling Blade last night, the first time for me.  What a great movie!  I guess the moral was, some people just need to go.  No wonder Billy Bob Thornton is famous.  I'm actually a big fan of Dwight Yoakam, both as a musician and as an actor.  He has a small role in my favorite war movie of all time, "When Trumpets Fade".  That movie is a bummer, but it's got some great moves.  
Oh, turns out I won't know if Daisy's crazy because of her thyroid for a week or so, just in case you were on the edge of your seat.  We're plugging along just fine, though -- I've been putting her in the garage anytime someone comes over, and she actually seems to prefer that.  I think it just stressed her out, to try to figure out what to do with visitors.  We are still sad to think that we might be giving her away, but like my best friend Blake said, in a wonderful voicemail: "Keep her if it's a good thing, but not to avoid the bad things or the fear.  You don't have some transcendental duty to keep Daisy around for the rest of your life -- you don't even feel that way about your boyfriends, or your husband! -- so only keep her if it's good, really good."  So, we're just enjoying her every day, every moment, and who knows what will come down the pipe.  As I think I've said before, she is super cute most of the time, so I feel happy to have this at least.  The thing she likes best is to push between your knees, if you're standing there, and then to have you squeeze her middle body and sort of trap her there, and then to pet her rump and back legs really firmly.  She gets so happy and excited about that that she sort of stamps her hind legs, over and over, and then when you let her go, she comes around again, like a kid wanting to ride the carousel over and over.  So, we've been doing lots of that.  If  we do have to give her away, I'll hang a card around her neck with leg-stampy instructions.  Okay, that's it for now -- have a great whatever, whoever you are, whenever you're reading this...   

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no news

(That’s a picture of Eva, fyi.) Lots of people have responded in one way or another about the Daisy thing, and I’m grateful for that. No word from the vet today, so I guess the results didn’t make it back from the lab in time for C.O.B. But you know, I was just thinking -- regardless of whether or not my dog’s aggression issues stem from hypothyroid...ism...hypothyroidishness?...I wish that I had known before now to get that checked. I wonder how many dogs have been put down or given up because of this. Oh, before I forget, here’s a link to that article -- it’s from way back in ’92, but more recent info online seems to corroborate. Apparently it’s a problem that seems to be growing more prevalent, too.

http://www.canine-epilepsy-guardian-angels.com/bizarre_behavior.htm

And of course, the way I was raised was always to exert a little healthy skepticism towards any kind of explanation that says, “oh, the chemicals in the body are just out of whack and medicine fixes it and that’s that”. Rather, I’m curious, why would a dog’s thyroid start misbehaving in the first place? And why would more and more dogs experience this in recent years? Even if that does turn out to be (the majority of) Daisy’s problem -- which I have to admit, I really hope it is -- I would feel really strange just saying, okay, I’ll give her this medicine for the rest of her life, instead of trying to re-balance her thyroid juice (for lack of a better term) through diet and...what else is there, for dogs? I guess just diet. Exposure to environmental toxins too, maybe, but we’re pretty good about that, for our sake alone. Not great, but good. Plus, anytime you start supplementing with something the body produces anyway, the body’s gonna say, hey, why bother manufacturing this when it’s being shoved down my gullet or into my arteries or whatever anyway. So, I would assume that a thyroid medication would slow down or halt Daisy’s production of thyroid juice. That’s why I’m always leary about the medication approach, and more interested in the diet/lifestyle approach -- if you can fix it that way, there’s never any risk of side effects or not being able to get the miracle cure anymore, for financial or other reasons. Like, for instance, I’m so nearsighted that optometrists always suck in their breath a little bit when they see my prescription -- negative 8 and negative 8.5, if that means anything to you -- and I always worry a little bit about the apocalypse affecting my access to vision correction. Can you imagine how fucked I’d be, in a world without contacts or glasses? I’d be a stay-at-home wife for real.
Anyway...drifting off topic. I just wish I knew. Fucking blood work! This is kind of agonizing. Oh, so anyway, yeah, people have weighed in on both sides -- give Daisy the benefit of the doubt for as long as we can, versus washing our hands of the whole thing before it gets anymore risky/expensive/emotionally draining/etc. As far as Daisy biting anyone else while we get this figured out, I’m knocking on wood right now, but I just don’t see that as a likelihood. I know you probably think she’s just psycho, out there tearing new assholes every time someone looks at her funny, but she’s not like that at all. I know from watching Caesar Milan that it is pretty common for dogs to have behavioral issues in one context but not another -- which might belie the thyroid hypothesis? -- but she’s at her absolute most crazy when tied up somewhere, which of course we never ever ever do. That’s a 100% probability of a bite.
Second most crazy is at home, but only sometimes, and in response to certain triggers that are fairly predictable. She can’t be petted before leaving the house, when it’s obvious to her that you’re leaving and she’s staying -- keys in hand, jacket on, whatever. When I got bitten by her last week, I was conducting an experiment to see if she would still react that way even if I was extending a treat to her, and we all know how that turned out, but it wasn’t like I had no idea that might happen. I should have put on some gloves, damn. If she’s eating or drinking, she’s better left alone, although many times I’ve patted her flanks and she just wags her tail. (I think I get bitten so much because I’m always challenging her boundaries, because her boundaries are crazy and unacceptable -- but still. And yes, I’m scared of her.) Anytime she’s under a table or chair, the bite likelihood goes way up. Or if she’s on the couch or the bed, or any high place. (Not allowed on the bed anymore, but the couch is a losing battle.) Stranger in the house, approaching her in a friendly manner, she’ll probably bite. Needless to say, Todd and I have had to evolve our houseguest strategy as Daisy has evolved her aggression -- we used to be able to do this reverse psychology thing with her, for instance, where she had to sit and stay and the houseguest(s) ignored her for about five minutes, and by the time I released her, she would be so excited to say hi that it was all good. Then this began to fail, and she would seem unreliable even after the sit-stay, and so now our strategy has evolved all the way to keeping her ass in the garage for the duration. I just didn’t want you to think we invite people over and then let them fend for themselves -- but then again, we often haven’t had the opportunity to realize that her craziness has escalated again until a new manifestation, sometimes, which usually happens in the home setting. It’s all been very peculiar.
But fortunately, Daisy is wonderfully and totally normal while out running around in the forest, or in whatever sort of great outdoors -- she’ll run up to get a look at people, if there are any, and if they put their hands out to pet her she’ll sort of spin away like, no don’t touch me, but if they don’t put out their hands she’ll sometimes wag her tail ferociously and rub against their legs until they do. She’s happy and comfortable, even with strangers, when we’re outside on a walk. And she’s always been totally appropriate with other animals, so no worries there. Nevertheless, I have been keeping her leashed more on our walks just since the recent drama, because I want to get through this situation one way or the other without any more casualties, and I’ve stopped challenging her “boundaries” at home. Either her mood is fixable through thyroid medication or it’s not, and either way I’m done fighting. Probably, considering the eye thing and the heart thing, the aggression won’t be resolved and we’ll have to give her away once it’s all become clear, but I just want things to be as safe, peaceful, and happy as possible until then. Maybe a miracle will happen. I don’t know.
Getting rid of her via death or disassociation has been a popular reaction. But like Todd said today, while we were having lunch: “It’s called caring.” We care about her, and we always will. The story needs an ending, even if it can’t have as many chapters as we’d like, and a perfunctory hand-off due to various unidentified medical and/or behavioral problems is not a satisfying conclusion at all. I don’t want to lay awake nights, from now until I die, wondering what the hell was going on that I didn’t have the courage or the patience to investigate -- let alone wondering where she is and if she’s okay. When you love someone, that means their story doesn’t stop when it exits your own sphere of influence. When you love someone, the parts of their story that happened before you and after you mean just as much as the parts that happened with you. I think my dad and others are trying to save me from any more trouble or danger or pain, but a song that doesn’t resolve on the tonic note leaves an unsettled ear. I still believe that our characters are most clearly shown in our actions towards those beings from which we can expect the fewest repercussions. Everything will be okay, one way or the other. Little furry jerk, what a lot of bother.
The worst part of all of this is that her unsettling behavior has prevented me from ever indulging my fantasy of her and I dressing up in matching and/or complimentary mother/daughter Halloween costumes and going to all the bars that allow dogs on Halloween. Or maybe the worst part is that we never got to be a therapeutic dog team at the hospital, going around and visiting patients, as I had initially planned when I first got her. She doesn’t shed -- I just knew we could even go into the precautions rooms to cheer people up. I would wrap her up in a yellow paper gown and put latex gloves on each of her feet. I don’t know if any dog would tolerate a droplet mask. I wanted to play gigs with her laying at my feet, or curled up behind my amp. Or even better, being adorable by the tip jar. I planned and imagined so many things for us, when she was little, and one by one I just had to let them go.
I used to take Eva everywhere with me, of course, and I remember something a guy said, one night. We were just outside Big Ed’s bar and tavern on Potranco Road, San Antonio, looking at the stars and sitting on this wooden circular deck. I was drinking a Rolling Rock with lime and salt. The RV park where I lived was just down the road about 1/4 mile, and there wasn’t much traffic, so I’d have three or four beers and not worry about it. Drinking and driving is a way of life in Texas anyhow. There was a guy I’d started talking to in the bar, and he came out after us. He was fit, probably in his thirties, with a nice handsome face and short, dark hair, but not military. We just talked about whatever, and Eva would lay across my lap, but then go to say hi to anyone else who ventured onto the deck to smoke or whatever, and then she’d come back to me. The guy I was talking to spent a long time petting her, and she just went back and forth between admirers, really. The guy -- I can’t remember his name -- he said, “You know, I have a dog.”
I grinned and said, “Oh, good!” I just think it’s a generally good sign, when people have dogs. The guy was interested in me, and I already knew I didn’t feel the same way, but sometimes a misplaced sexual attraction can facilitate a wonderful human interaction that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
He said, “I love my dog, but...it never occurred to me, honestly, that I could be friends with him, the way you are with yours.”
I laughed and said, “They are man’s BEST friend -- you know that, right?”
He said, “Yeah, but...I just never took it literally before. He would love this, if I brought him out here. He would probably do just what she’s doing. But I never thought of it. I just always leave him at home.”
I pondered that for a bit, and meanwhile someone brought me another beer. Eva was a big hit at that bar, and we went there pretty often, and so I just got free drinks all the time for being her mother. But I said to him, “I hate having to go anywhere without her, honestly. When I was little, I would take my teddy bear everywhere. But Eva’s so much better than a teddy bear. Being with her makes it easy to be the person I know I really am. Like, right now, talking to you -- I feel so relaxed because she’s here and that makes it easy for you to see the real me, even though we just met. I don’t know how to describe it. She makes me feel happy and comfortable, no matter what.”
So, that’s the kind of expectation, or at least hope, that I had going into this relationship with Daisy, and it’s been really hard for me to put in all the work, all the time and money and effort of raising a puppy from scratch, and then having it turn out this way. Where she hurts or scares people, unless I control every aspect of the situation. It makes me so sad.

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The Daisy Update

So, I’m in this situation with Daisy that has been a major emotional roller coaster for the last couple days. Well, for the last three years, actually, but really for the last couple days. To perfunctorily summarize, so that I can get on with my maundering reflections:

1) Daisy bit me again last Saturday, this time ripping a fairly large hole in my finger, and then she continued to sort of...attack me, I guess is the phrase?...while I dragged her off the couch and into the garage. The bite occurred during an experiment -- she bites if I pet her before walking out the door to leave, so I thought she might not if I were to extend a treat on my way out, and I was wrong.

2) There was no denying, at that point, that she’s effed up and I have to consider giving her back to the breeder. We’ve one training and behavioral therapy, and she continues to be a super smart, trainable dog that just happens to go psychotic under increasingly hard-to-predict circumstances. The behavioral therapy progressed to shocking her with electricity, at which point I kind of flaked out on the trainer because I felt so conflicted about the shocking. I’m all for it with most dogs, but Daisy’s not most dogs, and I didn’t feel like either me or the trainer really understood her psychology. I know that sounds like an excuse, but it’s the truth, so think whatever you want.

3) I wrote a long letter to the breeder, detailing Daisy’s trajectory over the last three years -- how many people she’s bitten, how many times she’s bitten me, how much we’ve tried to fix her, how totally kick ass it should theoretically be to be a dog in our household, since we walk them in the forest every day and love them like crazy, etc etc. FYI, when you get a dog from a breeder, there’s a clause that says you must surrender the dog to the breeder if you’re ever unable to keep the dog. Thank god we have that option, because I can’t imagine myself driving her to the pound or putting her down. (Shudder.)

4) My letter opened a dialogue with the breeder that has been wonderful, supportive, non-finger-pointing, and relieving. We began discussing terms for Daisy’s return -- where, when and how, what kind of life she would lead afterwards, etc. This was obviously a difficult point for Todd and I to arrive at, as dysfunctional as our lives with Daisy have become, and as honestly scared of her as I have to admit I am, because she’s pretty terrifying when she snaps. From the outside looking in, I’m sure it seems really clear cut, but it’s just been so odd -- she truly is a sweet, loving, hopeful and gentle little soul, and these instances of aggression are just so bizarre, so disconcerting, when taken in comparison with what we know is also real and true and good about her. A quintessential Jekyl-and-Hyde case, with Mr. Jekyl slowly and sadly being subsumed by an increasingly dominant Mr. Hyde.

5) After spending a couple days getting used to this unthinkable concept of Daisy just being gone from our lives forever, the breeder sent us some information that might provide a last resort -- dogs with mild hypothyroidism exhibit a behavioral symptomology that matches Daisy’s to a tee. It’s like spasms of aggression and fear, sort of, in a dog that has previously been mild, loving, and calm. In the case studies presented, these dogs have enjoyed a rapid return to their previous disposition after being placed on thyroid medication. Of course Todd and I scheduled a STAT vet appointment to have her levels tested.

6) The appointment was this morning, and wowzers. I won’t know the lab result on the thyroid until tomorrow at the earliest, but Daisy’s heart is not right -- probably not an arrhythmia, but almost certainly a tachycardia, which may prevent her from getting enough oxygen when she’s excited -- and even worse, there is clouding over the lenses of both her eyes. She’s not seeing as well as she should, though obviously she’s seeing well enough that we hadn’t strongly suspected this earlier -- although, now, in hindsight, we have wondered why she seemed so startled, several times. Either of these conditions could certainly contribute to her aggression, and the heart irregularity may be secondary to a thyroid problem -- no telling yet.

7)Obviously we’re concerned about money -- just the appointment this morning, with the EKG and lab work and everything, cost us $430.00. The vet wants to write me a referral to take Daisy to a veterinary eye specialist in Phoenix. This morning, after the appointment, I felt so upset -- like it had been so sad and so hard to get ourselves to this point of being willing to return her, and once we got there we just wanted to rip off the bandaid and get on with it, because it was just too painful to linger in that in-betweenness. Then, we have this last hope, out of nowhere, and then an appointment that is supposed to simply confirm or deny that last hope turns into a whole medical profile that is much more complex than anyone had suspected. So, I was weepy and confused because I felt like, we have borne this burden of crazy dog ownership for so long, and now it’s worse than ever, both behaviorally and financially, just when I had finally marshalled my emotional resources to do what needed to be done, and now it’s this big confusing mess.

Maundering Reflections: But then, this afternoon I looked through all of our photos of Daisy, from the time she was a little fleecy fluff ball until now, and it all started to get straightened out in my head. The hardest thing about all of this, I think, is that there’s such a confusion of possible paradigms at work. If Daisy was my biological child, there would be much less confusion -- I would expend all of my resources, until I was bankrupt, to find the treatment or the situation she needed. But, if Daisy were a human suffering whatever equivalent set of medical and/or behavioral problems, then A) they would probably not manifest in a way that physically hurt me or others, and B) they would probably not manifest in a way that could get me sued, or allow some random stranger to have the power to court-order the destruction of my biological child. Because, really, that’s a huge part of the danger, fear, and uncertainty, here. So, that paradigm can’t really fit this situation, regardless of how much I regard Daisy as my kid, with all attendant responsibilities and commitments.
The dog paradigm, though, isn’t much more comfortable to me -- my father, for instance, to whom I disclosed the details of our current situation in a moment of weakness and boredom when it was 5 am and I couldn’t sleep from worry -- my father is enraged that we would keep a dog for one instant who had exhibited threatening behavior at all, ever, and is certain the breeder is just tap-dancing and being an obstruction, and has volunteered to get in his Honda Civic and drive to Arizona and personally see to it that Daisy gets put down, immediately. So, that’s pretty fucking helpful. My mother has lessoned me, via voicemail, in the teachings of the Jewish faith, the ten days of penitence and the day of judgement and atonement, so that I can better understand why Christ died on the cross for all of us (so that we didn’t have to be inconvenienced for ten days out of every year, presumably), and has extended her opinion that Daisy is my punishment for not accepting Jesus Christ as my personal lord and savior. She already said that my scoliosis was my punishment, before, so I guess there’s no end to the ways God is willing to punish me for pretty much existing. That voicemail may end up being my next dance track, fyi. So, usually I don’t blog about the follies of people I love, but I have to do this to remind myself to never share any aspect of my life with my parents again. Once you write about something and publish it on the internet, you can’t pretend anymore that it never happened. I told my brother on the phone last night, “May God strike me dead with a lightening bolt if I ever confide in my parents again.” I mean it.
So, anyway -- the dog paradigm is available to guide me in various ways. I could just say, Hey Breeder, I paid one month’s rent for a defective dog, take this thing back. No one would fault me. We’ve already gone above and beyond what’s required of us by the dog paradigm. In fact, I could shoot Daisy in the head and put her body in the dumpster, according to the dog paradigm. So, it’s not as easy to figure out how you feel about things, when you love an animal, because there’s not this universally understood agreement for what constitutes appropriate behavior, like there is when you love a human.
So yeah, today I had to just really think about how I felt, without the assistance of a gigantic, supportive context that everyone I know buys into. But I feel pretty clear about it, after looking at all the photos. All this time, we’ve treated Daisy’s aggression/fear issues from a training/behavior/dominance/submission standpoint, and of course here we are. But now, we’re on the cusp of a totally new understanding, and Daisy absolutely deserves for us to see that through. I really want to get to the bottom of this, and not just throw up my hands -- not now, after three years -- and say, let someone else take over, I’m tired. Believe me, I am tired, and I am worried about the money, but I’m going to insist that the breeder help us, a lot, with these expenses, and we are going to figure out what exactly is going on with this little girl. My dog Eva, who had no behavioral or medical problems of any kind, and who was the easiest, best dog in the world, died before she was three, and I got Daisy, sight unseen, because I wanted to toss the dice and try again. I wanted to keep myself out of the choosing process because I was freaking out, trying to recreate a kind of connection that can only happen once, that I mourned more than I’ve ever mourned any other loss in my life. So -- Daisy came to me on an airplane, and she was fucking quirky from the get-go, let me tell you. But sweet, so sweet, so vulnerable and often fearful. She’s not a human, but I’ve staked everything I am on the belief that animal lives matter. She matters in a way that none of the prevailing paradigms is very good at explaining. She matters because we say so, and it’s sort of terrifying to realize that she could not matter, to anyone at all, simply by us deciding she doesn’t, saying that she doesn’t. That thought trips me right out. I could render her invisible right this second, just by saying, Daisy’s a broken toy. So no, Daisy’s life matters because I choose for her to matter, as I’ve always chosen, and we’ll collect all the information we can about her, and then -- if the aggression can’t be addressed medically -- then we’ll revisit our decision to surrender her. But even if we have to do that, she won’t go on to that next step in her life without being accompanied by all the information that could make the difference in the kind of care she gets. If I don’t care enough to understand what’s going on, I don’t know who else will. I mean, I cared enough to hire a guy to shock her with electricity.
So, that’s today’s Daisy update.

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Today I Did a Good Thing

read with photos at hannahprallewriter.com!

I already knew that one person’s hell can be another’s heaven, but I got to experience this knowledge in an intimate way, today! I attended the NAU Classical Guitar Studio’s Master Class, with Mr. Sheeley’s permission, and played classical guitar for an audience (more or less) for the first time in five years!
The pertinent background info here being, in case you don’t have my uber-convoluted biography memorized, that I got my bachelor’s degree in Classical Guitar Performance following a strenuous, confused, and very long eight years of playing, schooling, and working; only to then completely stop playing classical immediately afterwards. I spent the next four-ish years doing all this medical Air Force bullshit, beating myself up in alternating bouts of fury for A) spending 8 years and $20,000 on something I apparently didn’t want to do, and or B) not doing it for so long that I forgot how to do it. Time really does heal all wounds, fortunately, and eventually so much time passed that it just became another harmless part of my nonsensical history. By that time, I had thrown myself into the creative writing curriculum in grad school, and was feeling a sense of identity there that mitigated my confused frustration about the music thing.
And in hindsight, I can say -- I was a really good classical guitarist. No, I was not touring the world or playing for crowds of thousands, but I did play for hundreds of sick patients, one at a time, during my years in the Therapeutic Music Program at FMC and SMC (Sedona’s radiology clinic at Sedona Medical Center); and I played for hundreds of diners, eventually, at my restaurant gigs. There were a couple of weddings, too, in which my little contribution went down in history as a small part of a couple’s big day. I was doing it, I was comfortable with it, and I played well. I can look back on it all now and say: I was a solid classical guitarist.
But for the last couple of years, it just seemed like a finished chapter -- I couldn’t see myself getting back to that level of skill, really. I mean, it takes a lot of time, a lot of work. And it’s never been the kind of thing I could make myself do in the cracks and chinks of an otherwise busy life. I can sit down and write in a spare ten minutes, or read, or even practice an acoustic song, but it just seemed like I needed more openness in my day than I was ever likely to realistically have, for any willingness to engage the classical guitar to re-emerge. It’s not immediately gratifying in the same way other things are -- especially when you have to knock off five years of rust.
But this past summer and fall have been magic for me. I would never have been able to have this kind of time and space without Todd’s support, but I’m just so excited to see these creative energies emerge. Emailing Mr. Sheeley to inquire about Master Class participation was a big step, especially since I’d only been at it again for a couple weeks -- but I knew that fear would solidify my commitment, and it’s a commitment that, finally -- after not only $20,000 and eight years of playing, but an additional five years of severe neglect and doubt -- I am happy, thrilled, ecstatic to make. There are so many shitty jobs in the world. I’ve worked so many of them.
When I was younger, the thought of being chained to this instrument, practicing for three hours a day just to maintain technique and repertoire -- god, it just seemed like a prison sentence. Now, I feel so differently. It’s this thing that I can cultivate, that will put food on my table. I don’t need certification from a national board or a state licenser; I don’t need to pay anyone any dues; I don’t need to be in any dangerous, dirty, or unpleasant situations; I don’t have to subsume my identity or wear a uniform. All I have to do is practice, and play for people. How weird. It seemed like such a raw deal before, and now it’s a freakin bargain!
So, as far as personal versions of heaven and hell, today was my heaven. I was terrified, and I played fairly poorly for a large group of bored/anxious/posture-some guitar undergraduates. It was hell for them (not my playing -- just having to attend Master Class in general. It’s this scary weekly ordeal that all instrumental performance majors must undergo.) but I felt like I was myself again -- a version of me I’ve loved, that I’ve missed, that I honestly didn’t ever know if I would see again. The elevator-like discomfort of everyone’s awkward silence, the agony of stage fright, the missed notes, the bungled chords -- it was my own hellish heaven. It means something to me -- it means I’m on the right track, and not just in my head anymore, but in an externally verifiable reality. I played real Villa Lobos music for real people.
Whoo hoo! I feel like celebrating! I’ve been trying to describe to people all day long why I’m so happy and I just can’t seem to put it into words. I think this is all probably very difficult for the average person to grasp. It doesn’t matter.
You know, my parents were always sort of stressy about me being a music major, my mom especially, and I remember talking with here once on a weekend home from college. She was like, what can you do with all this? You never take a day off? It seems so hard! And I told her -- I remember this now, even though I’d forgotten it since -- I said, “I don’t know where this will lead, but I feel like everything will be okay for me as long as I keep playing music. It just seems like the one thing that matters.” So, maybe that’s what it is. I have a profound sense of relief, today, to find that I am still a person who can face that fear and make music happen anyway.
It will only get better from here. I remember, as an undergrad, practicing so hard before Master Class each week that I would unhesitatingly take the rest of the day off from guitar after class. It was just like, Jesus, that’s enough of that for one day. But today, even though I woke up at 6:30 so I could practice for about three hours before, I came home, spent a couple of hours doing this and that, and then picked it back up and practiced my piece for next week! (Pachelbel’s Canon in D, a great transcription.) Unheard of. That’s a happy Hannah. And with this new violin player I met, and the duets we can learn, and the interesting juxtaposition of classical music and songwriting that we can explore, I just feel...certain I’m going the right way. That deep down sense of right, that this is part of what I’m supposed to be doing with my time on Earth. I think this sense of rightness now is worth the wasted time.

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Nattering on about music n' stuff

read this with photos at hannahprallewriter.com!

(That’s an old picture!) I have a gig tomorrow, for the first time in a long time! But not the last. It’s my friend Zach’s art show at the new Utopia store. I’ll have to figure out how to twitter it and that will be the maiden twitter voyage. The music world is feeling really good to me right now. I don’t know what my big issue was, before. Besides depression, loneliness, anger, fear, and grief, that is. I was gigging in the unemployment interim after this huge traumatic life-change time, and it made me angry when people didn’t pay attention to my music and uncomfortable when they did. That’s a great vibe, huh? I’d love to go see a musician play who literally resents my presence at their gig. Every time I played, I just wished I was home in bed. And that, folks, is depression.

So yeah, it’s amazing how all the “out there” problems seem to be most easily and thoroughly solved “in here”. I went to this monthly singer/songwriter group at Bookman’s this past Monday night and it felt so good. It was sort of like coming out of the closet as a musician, a particular type of musician, in this public but very welcomed way, and we just went around the circle and each played a song. The idea is to write a new one each month, and I’ll have to get on that. I haven’t been writing songs at all, lately, so what a good impetus. My acoustic practicing has a bad habit of overtaking my classical practicing, and so it was a good thing, lately, to find out my guitar needs a major adjustment. I dropped it off at Custom Sound and he said it would be a couple of weeks.

Ever since, the classical practice has flourished considerably -- I’m basically re-learning the repertoire I used to keep -- which goes a lot easier the second time, believe me -- and so the Villa Lobos is almost there, Pachelbel’s Canon is close, and the Fugue is a big fucking nightmare, just like it always was. And I still love, love, love tremolo. I emailed Mr. Sheeley today to see if I can sit in on the guitar studio master classes this semester -- I hope he says yes, but if he does I’ll be quite terrified. (Master class is just where all the students of one particular instrumental studio meet once per week and play the pieces they’re working on. It teaches you the valuable art of knowing to subtract about 30% of your proficiency with any given piece, and that’s how well you’ll play it in front of an audience, rather than to yourself in your safe little bedroom. Maybe more like 50%. It’s rough.)

So, I’m sure all this is really boring to read about, but it’s really exciting to be able to report. There’s something about practicing classical guitar everyday that makes me feel safe and...familiar to myself. I did it for eight years, pseudo-religiously. I always struggled with my own feelings about it, often feeling trapped in this course of study that was way more than I’d had in mind when I signed up. It was like this thing, taking over my life, and it’s not even like I grew up wanting to be a classical guitarist or anything. Then, I just stopped completely once I finished my senior recital -- I didn’t intend to, I just thought, oh, I”ll take a month off or whatever -- and that was five years ago. I had to go through a lot of mental junk to get to the flippant-ass place I find myself at now. I spent most of those five years being angsty about forgetting music I knew, losing dexterity, can I even read music anymore, directing laser beams of guilt at myself for slacking, continuing to slack, no slacking end in sight, etc etc. Now, it’s a fresh start because I have literally had to start from scratch. I don’t remember my goddamn scales, let alone the English Suite. And that is totally okay! It’s fun! Classical guitar is this crazy machine that you put time into, and then beautiful music comes out. How could I possibly have been so conflicted about that? It’s amazing. I love it.

The problem is, when you’re in the academic musical setting, these people tour around or do concertos or whatever, and they’re all just so imposing, just so...like you respect them but you don’t want to be them, because that would mean an end to life as you know it. So, I guess I started to associate the classical guitar with this whole thing I didn’t see myself being, and it got all cross-wired in my mind. Honestly, I’ll be totally happy to just play for people in whatever context, hopefully paying contexts, and that’s fine. Weddings are the best money, but they are kind of stressful. I like fine dining the best, where no one pays any attention to you, and you just get paid to practice, and the tip jar fills up. Honestly, the singer/songwriter thing was equally fraught with burdensome detritus in my mind, really. What was the problem? Music is music, music is fun. I love having this time to really work on it, instead of squeezing it in between work, school and Army, like I always had to before. There is no better feeling than waking up in the morning, knowing you get to work on music and creative writing all day.

This website is getting the ass-end of the deal, stuff is totally not getting updated with any punctuality. Oh well, there’s always one casualty in my life, one thing that just gets horribly abused and abandoned. I’m glad it’s not music anymore!

Other stuff going on is, I decided to resume my once per week fasting habit, and that day is Tuesdays. I’m sure I’ll write more about that later, probably on some hungry Tuesday, but basically it’s just such a good re-centering for me, physically and mentally. You don’t really begin to understand the body-mind connection until you stop eating, let me tell you. So, that’s cool, and the other great thing is I’m making progress on this whole scoliosis front. All I need is an x-ray, a radiologist’s report, and a scrip for treatment, and it’s been really hard to break into the healthcare world, so to speak. Nobody wants to give you any services unless you’re going to be their patient, lining their coffers. And, needless to say, the medical world is not stoked about anyone pursuing a treatment option that involves them doing home exercises that conservatively manage their issues on their own time.

My pronouns are all over the place in this blog. Fuck it. I’m hungry! It’s lunch time. Oh, for breakfast - ? I made the most amazing thing, fyi. Steamed corn tortillas stuffed with creamy potatoes and corn, with a green chile gravy poured over, enchilada style, topped with scallions, avocado, and home made salsa, served with a side of leaf lettuce salad in a grapeseed oil and champagne vinegar dressing. When I wake up in the morning, before the alarm goes off, I actually think about food, I have these food epiphanies, and that’s the epiphany that came to me this morning. I’m still waiting for my dinner epiphany. I’ve been having fruit tart a la mode epiphanies about every week, now -- I had no idea a shortcake pastry crust was so easy to make.

Oh, one more super quick thing -- we decided to make the bedroom a no-animal zone, because Todd’s allergies were pinging (probably from having a cat sleep on his head every night) and now Daisy seems to be in a normal dog phase! There’s all these variables, it’s so hard to tell, with three animals and all this furniture, what might be interpreted as hierarchical clues at any given time. Anyway, Daisy was always a big bed whore, and now she has to lay on the floor like everyone else (they have dog beds, but they’re on the floo r) and she’s awfully grateful to see us in the morning when that door opens! As she should be, little jerk. Okay, lunch time.

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Divine Dichotomies

read this with photos at hannahprallewriter.com!

I just want to start with a snippet from an interesting article in Time called “Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food”:

"Somewhere in Iowa, a pig is being raised in a confined pen, packed in so tightly with other swine that their curly tails have been chopped off so they won't bite one another. To prevent him from getting sick in such close quarters, he is dosed with antibiotics. The waste produced by the pig and his thousands of pen mates on the factory farm where they live goes into manure lagoons that blanket neighboring communities with air pollution and a stomach-churning stench. He's fed on American corn that was grown with the help of government subsidies and millions of tons of chemical fertilizer. When the pig is slaughtered, at about 5 months of age, he'll become sausage or bacon that will sell cheap, feeding an American addiction to meat that has contributed to an obesity epidemic currently afflicting more than two-thirds of the population. And when the rains come, the excess fertilizer that coaxed so much corn from the ground will be washed into the Mississippi River and down into the Gulf of Mexico, where it will help kill fish for miles and miles around. That's the state of your bacon — circa 2009."
The link between carnivorism and environmental degradation is getting a lot more coverage lately -- not that I think anyone will stop eating meat for environmental reason if none of the other reasons were good enough, but I am happy to anticipate fewer incidents of snotty-elitist-pseudo-intellectuals pontificating about the world and the environment while shoving meat down their gullets. At least now people will have to act embarrassed about eating meat, if they’re trying to claim a position as an environmentalist. Well, not “now” yet, but soon. Yay media. You gotta love it when they discover startling new data that’s been around for decades.
I have two new vegetarians and one new vegan to report! None of these are “conversions” at my hands, mind you; I’m innocent, with the exception of a loaned book here and there and a home-cooked meal or two. Emily, Daisy’s Godmother (the person Daisy wishes she could spend the rest of her life with) was sort of being vegan, and then spent her summer in a cafeteria food concentration camp, and that swayed her all the way towards the light; and my friend Megan and her mother are both going veg (with just eggs still in Megan’s diet because she’s always been lactose intolerant) as a team effort. I have to say, I never pressure people to be veg at all, with maybe a couple of exceptions in my fiery first weeks as a veegs, but I’m always so excited for them when they do. There’s plenty of ex-veg’s running around in the world, but they seem to be the ones who tried to subtract large groups of food from their diets without having first added any others. Potato chip vegans, I call them. And of course they run around telling everyone they used to be vegan but then they got really sick, and it’s all a lot of mental masturbation for the speaker and the listener because they can all feel good about eating meat for that five minutes before their conscience gets conflicted again on a deeply sublimated level, and they go about their meaty business.
Reading “Conversations With God” helped me to get over the last hump with all this, I do believe. It’s all about divine dichotomies, in which two things literally contradict each other but enable each other at the same time. As a vegan, it (initially) feels impossible, actually impossible, to accept that all these billions of innocent, conscious, hopeful lives have been, are, will continue to be -- in an Orwellian turn of phrase -- treated as a face, upon which a black boot stamps, forever and ever. I feel hopeless, enraged, galvanized, all of these things -- mortified to the depths of my soul that I belong to a race and a civilization and a time which performs these crimes, not with evil glee, but with perfectly detached compunction. Sometimes I feel I could punch my own meat-eating friends in the face, just for being part of something so barbaric, so hypocritical, so unscrupulous, so gouging, so inexcusable on every level.
That’s half of the dichotomy. The other half is just as challenging, and just as true: the only way I can help anything or anyone, most of all myself, is to first learn to see the perfection in everything. The perfection in everything -- I think we all tend to cringe a bit when faced with a phrase like that, but perhaps especially the animal advocates of the world. I believe this is the right goal to have, though, for me. I have to believe that maybe death is actually the nicest thing that could ever happen to a living being -- that physical, mental and emotional anguish are parts of a valuable, embodied experience that we all have agreed to undergo -- suffered at each other’s hands, even, in order to become what we wish to become. I have to remember that the people who construct themselves differently than I do provide the opportunity for me to exist in contrast to them -- to exist at all. I can choose right only because there is a wrong. And for this last observation to be worthwhile at all, it has to follow that individual choice is not only desirable, but absolutely indispensable to the process of conscious evolution (I know, I hate people who use that phrase too, but I’m fucking using it) -- meaning, I, the individual, am incredibly important. Little me, doing my little thing. And that this is true for each of us -- little you, doing your little thing, too; you, who are only separate from me in terms of a mutually agreed-upon delusion. Animal carcasses. The universe is working perfectly.
So, this is obviously a frame of mind that takes a lot of daily work. I oscillate between these two perspectives. I’m getting better at staying in the second one more and more, but the first way of being is never far off. It’s really a mental problem of having to accept the unacceptable, and being forced to grow thereby.
No blog is complete without a Daisy update, and I just want to say that, after writing all those mean things about her last time, I felt really bad. I’m just extremely bitchy and intolerant, lots of the time. This is not something I’m seeking to change entirely, because I’ve spent most of my three-ish decades being very meek and door-matty in moments when I knew I felt wrong about a situation, and so it is a lot nicer to just feel completely dismissive in those same types of moments, instead. But, Daisy is so young -- I keep forgetting how young she is, she’s like a little toddler in her head -- and we’ve been so up and down, she just doesn’t know what to expect from me, because I’m always reacting to her ups and downs, which I’m sure she is completely unaware of on an objective level. So, we’ve both been up and down, but I’m the human and the adult in this relationship, so of course it’s my responsibility to set the tone, which I haven’t really done. I just feel like I never want to talk to her again, sometimes. But ANYWAY, today I just tried to spend a lot of time sitting on the floor and being cute with her, and letting her be in charge of how she got pet and for how long, blah blah blah, and she hasn’t growled at me all day! Yay! I feel that my relationship with my neurotic half-poodle is actually a barometer of my own progressing inner work, in some way. Like, as I get better at being human, she’ll get better at being a dog. I say this because I seem to have attention problems, like everyone else. I’m looking, listening, engaging all five senses as best I know how, but my mind is all ADD (like everyone else), and so my attention is impaired. Then, I turn some corner in learning how to be, and I realize that I wasn’t paying attention at all, and that Daisy’s signals are much clearer than I had thought -- along with all other signals from everywhere. It’s like the old radios with the dial, where you had to turn it carefully and try to find the least staticky place -- the whole world is just one shit storm of static, when your attention is impaired, and learning to pay attention makes different signals start to come in -- not perfectly, but maybe you can tell what song is playing, and then it’s lost again -- like that. So, most dogs have signals that come in pretty loud and clear no matter what, of course, but Daisy is pretty elusive. It feels really neat when we got on the same frequency, though. She’s this whole conscious being, with all these feelings -- more feelings than any given three people, probably, goddamn she’s got a lot of feelings -- and she just wants me to be nice to her. That’s it. She has no idea what a bitch she is, of course, or how hard she makes it.
Okay, that’s the Daisy update. Oh, I’ll have to share the Daisy camping dysfunction story next time -- she is really unbelievably bad at camping. It was a staggering concept for her, she tried to reject it but it wouldn’t go away. But anyway, yeah, I’m going to make pesto now and stuff my face with carbs right before bed. Yeah! (Not refined white flour carbs, though, you can be sure.)
Bye!

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pets and scoliosis (mine, not theirs)

read this, with pictures, at hannahprallewriter.com!

I was just making out with Pepper this morning and I thought, this is too good to not write about! Actually, I have a couple things going on that are too good not to write about. So, FYI, Pepper is our adolescent, female cat, and Sophie and Daisy are our dogs (who are getting shaved today, but don’t know it yet). Sophie is big and Shepherd-y? and came from the pound, and she’s extremely loving and acquiescent with whatever’s going on (except shaving!). Daisy’s a Goldendoodle who really has good days and bad days. That’s what I’ve observed, being her mother for the past three years -- she has phases, big time, and there’s just no telling exactly what might me causing it. So, Daisy’s in a shitty phase right now where she’s high-strung, defensive, likely to growl and/or bite, etc. Been through months and months of dog behavior therapy costing hundreds of dollars, etc, and the upshot is, she has phases. There are certain people she’s always happy to see, other certain people she’s always prone to...not attack, exactly...it’s more like she goes to Def-Con Delta and gets put in the garage, if she’s in a bad phase, or a down-stay if she’s in a good phase -- and then other people she makes her mind up about in some way that I can’t really follow. I belong in that third category -- yeah, you didn’t think I got a pass just because I feed her and walk her every day, did you? Oh no. I’ve got scars. Todd, she loves unconditionally, and my brother. And Emily, who we’ve designated her Godmother. Daisy not only loves Emily passionately, but she gets all moon-eyed when she’s with Emily: you complete me, she’s thinking. So, yeah, I’m really not into Daisy right now, any more than she’s into me.
And, just to add even more context to this scenario, I’m so hands-onny. That’s probably what’s pissed Daisy off, she wants to be treated like a dignitary, not tumbled around like a puppy, even though she has been a puppy until just recently. (She pretty much hates me. Have I made that clear?) So, back to making out with Pepper -- obviously making out with Daisy is not an option. Sophie loves to make out, but she’s so stiff -- she’s so anxious not to offend, or to stay on the furniture for too long. If you lay on the floor with her, she’s stoked, but she won’t look you in the eye, she’s just a little weirded out by having a bunch of attention paid to her in that way. She’s so humble and eager to please that she can’t just relax, you know? So, of course I regularly smother Sophie with love, but I wouldn’t really call it making out.
So then, Pepper, who I haven’t blogged about since just after we got her -- what a wonderful creature! I love her so much! She makes me so happy, like fifty distinct times per day. And I feel I deserve her, too, after having the one dog die and the other dog who acts like I’m inconveniencing her whole life. Pepper, aka “Purr Box 2000”, is so full of purring and snuggling and love. She knows how to spoon -- which just seems crazy, when the two life forms are so different in size. She’s my animal soulmate. She’s like, Let’s just beeeee together!!! She loves to hold hands while snuggling -- can you believe that? She reaches and reaches out with her paws for one of my fingers, and then when she’s got it (no claws, of course, just the kneading toe action) she just holds on. She also pets my face with her paws -- it’s like the movies where the blind man asks if he can touch the girl’s face to “see” her, and then it’s all sensual of course -- so she just pat pat pats all over my face (I don’t even care about the litter-box residue situation, I’ve got soap) -- and then she’s like, Now meeee!, lunging her face into any passing hand so that her cheeks can be firmly stroked.
I’m so glad we got this cat! Dogs are so much work, and then when you’re not even getting daily doses of fawning, unconditional love out of it, it’s just bullshit. (Sophie’s exempted from that statement.) Oh well, only thirteen more years of Daisy. I’m kind of kidding but kind of not. I do love her, but she just really sucks right now. I guess Eva was my lesson in getting loved unconditionally, and Daisy’s my lesson in returning the favor. The stupidest part is, Daisy gets this miserable, jealous look on her face when I’m making out with Pepper, and I’m like -- you just bit me last Thursday when I was petting you! What do you want? Hopefully we’ll have an upswing into a good dog phase here, soon. Poodles are so much like people, as they say, and mine is neurotic people. (I’m actually pretty well acclimated to this sort of relationship because Daisy is the dog manifestation of someone else in my life that is exactly like her, but I’m not naming names.)
So, the next thing is actually the huge good thing happening right now, if anyone made it through all the pet drama prelude. Here’s the nutshell version: A) I discovered an approach for managing scoliosis called the Schroth Method, which is pretty much the standard of care in Europe -- here in America they tell you there’s nothing you can do until it gets so super-bad that you have to have surgery; and B) I discovered one of the rare clinics that does exist in the U.S. online: it’s called Scoliosis Rehab in Wisconsin; and, miraculously, C) Scoliosis Rehab is about to open another clinic in PHOENIX ARIZONA MOTHERFUCKERS! in November, and I’m gonna be their first client! Yay!
I had pretty much decided that I would do this no matter what (and by “no matter what”, I mean not having insurance or a lot of money) and it turns out they give a 35% discount to people who pay all at once, at the time of service, so I did the math and it’s gonna cost about as much as my new laptop did, which is really not significant at all, compared to what this could mean in my life.
If you’ve been a regular reader of mine at all, you’re probably wondering, Why does Hannah write about every other thing under the sun, palatable or not, and I’ve never heard about this scoliosis business? Well, the answer is, I’ve been miserably depressed and worried about it for the last fifteen years -- so much so, in fact, that there was just no way I could consciously acknowledge how hopeless it made me feel, let alone write about it. Like I said, they just tell you to wait until it gets really bad (which it can, it’s a progressive condition) and then get surgery which is so problematic on so many levels. Specifically the level of straightening your spine without doing anything to address the muscular imbalances that cause the real discomfort.
Besides these logistical problems, though, just imagine -- how shitty is it to have a crooked spine? I mean, people with spine deformities have consistently been treated, by Western literature, as either villains, idiots, or both. We don’t look fondly upon spine deformities. And it feels really, really yucky to have one, even if it is a “minor” one -- especially when you can tell it’s getting worse as you get older. For some reason, girls are more prone to scoliosis than boys, and it’s usually diagnosed in adolescence. Mine was diagnosed when I was nineteen, just after coming to college, but that’s probably because my medical care was pretty patchy throughout childhood. Like, I should have had braces on my teeth, too, but now I have to deal with it as an adult.
Anyway, I’m just as glad it wasn’t diagnosed, because Western medicine knows how to do exactly jack shit about it. We just have the weirdest paradigm going on here, it freaks me out: heinously invasive or nothing at all, that’s your choice. So, body-conscious young girl that I was, I had definitely noticed a difference in the curve of my waist on the right versus the left, prior to the scoliosis verdict. When it was diagnosed by a really not-nice chiropractor my first year in Flagstaff, he just made me feel so terrible about myself. I had to either come up with enough money to go there three times per week, or else just get worse and worse -- he told me I shouldn’t have babies, not that I want any but still, and that I shouldn’t run anymore, and that there was nothing I could do but visiting his clinic all the time would help “a little bit”. Actually, in hindsight, it wasn’t that he was super-mean -- I think he just wasn’t very sensitive, and this was sort of earth-shattering for me. I mean, you know, you’re just starting to be sexually active, you feel super insecure about your body anyway, etc etc -- just really scary. I remember sitting in my dorm room with the X-rays and crying. It’s like you’d rather have a crooked leg or arm or anything, but not your back.
Ooh, look at the time, I have to go take Daisy to her shaving appointment -- to be continued...okay, I’m back. So, me having scoliosis is this thing that all my friends are like, “I think you mentioned that once, but I forgot all about it...” I’m too self-conscious not to mention it, but then I can’t stand to actually talk about it. Anyway, it’s definitely gotten worse/bothered me more the last couple of years. What happens is, your muscles develop more and more asymmetrically over time in a vicious cycle until, rather than the spine pulling the muscles the wrong way, the muscles start pulling the spine even more out of place, and you get a twisting effect, with usually one side of the posterior ribcage area becoming convex, and another becoming concave. It depends, of course, on the type of scoliotic curve you have -- everyone’s is different.
Here in the U.S, the only “alternative” treatment you ever hear about is yoga. Well, I did yoga for about a month, thinking “I really need to do something about my back”. Not good -- yoga hurt me, a lot. Turns out, yoga is good for a healthy back and, unless you really know what you’re doing, fairly bad for a scoliotic back. The Schroth approach identifies the exact curvature and muscular imbalance going on with each person and then teaches them a specific exercise program that works to lengthen and strengthen the compressed, weakened muscles so that they pull your spine back into something resembling its ideal shape. So, I’ll spend a week at this clinic with physical therapists, and then I’ll just do this half-hour exercise regimen every day for the rest of my life. Happily! Check out the Schroth website if you’re interested. I have an appointment today to get current X-rays to send to the Rehab people. I’m just so excited, I can’t even tell you. This has sucked so much, I will now admit. The muscular-imbalance-feeling has really been kicking in when I cook and when I play guitar -- two of my favorite things -- and I deleted the video of me at the gorgeous beach on Tokashiki Island, Japan, because all I could see was scoliosis. Maybe I’ll post pictures of before and after a couple weeks or months of Schroth, if I feel good about it. God, a straight back. Or, a straighter back.
You know, I always try to keep it positive, I don’t think anyone wants to hear me rant, but can I just -- really briefly -- extend a gigantic Fuck You to the U.S. medical establishment. While other doctors, therapists, and specialist around the world are actually trying to help people have a better quality of life, the USME is basically this monumental exaggeration of, like, a bad mechanic. There’s nothing more diabolical than a bad mechanic, and that’s all it is, but on a large scale, with our bodies instead of our cars. And Americans tend to be so not only badly misinformed, but aggressively, belligerently misinformed, about nutrition (thanks again to the USME), that it’s inevitable we all end up in the ultimate scam chop-shop of the typical American hospital where the self-fulfilling prophecy of heroic intervention is re-enacted every day in a thousand different, gruesome ways. So, yes. Rant over.
Wish me luck with my new back exercises!

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the shittiest thing

I’m already super behind on my new website, and so I was getting bummed out, thinking I might have bitten off more than I could chew, but then I just finally put up Brian’s column and I got so excited reading it that I don’t care if I’m behind, acutely or chronically. It’s so neat to have such good stuff collected in one place. I’m just feeling a little paralyzed lately -- I was talking to Brent Amaker from Brent Amaker and the Rodeo when they gigged here last Saturday at the Monte V, and man, he has his shit together. He’s, like, herding people to the band’s PR sites like cattle to the, um, chute? Or whatever it is that cowboys do with cattle, but not that you dirty-minded readers. Anyway, I guess I’m not supposed to know how to do everything all at once, but I’m impatient with myself. Are people tired of reading? Will only video blogs survive the ADHD mother wave? I’m evolving as fast as I can, but it’s not fast enough!

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new tattoo!

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I’m getting a tattoo tomorrow! I’m excited! I haven’t seen the drawing yet, so I hope I like it -- don’t wanna have to be a bitch. Although you would think Todd would be doing it, he suggested I try Chris, his employee, as Todd thinks a lot of Chris’s style and abilities. Also, he didn’t say this, but I think Todd is so super-critical of his own work that he’s hesitant to put it on the one person who’ll be around for the rest of his life. He’ll get better, and in ten years the tattoo would be a source of shame for him. Sensitive artists! My own blogs are a source of shame to me, starting at about three weeks back, so I can totally relate.
Anyway, back to the tattoo, which hopefully I won’t have to bitchily object when I see the drawing -- it’s going to be a Japanese paper fan, in the open position of course, on my left foot. Imagine the base of the fan situated at the top of my arch bone, sort of, and then literally fanning out towards my pinky toes and out-step. (They never say out-step, but that’s gotta be the other side from the in-step, right? Or should I say the port side, as opposed to starboard...) Then, flowers will sprinkle the fan and, indeed, fall right off of it to trail along back towards my lovely ankle. That was facetious, I know, but I must admit that I do love my feet -- they’re pretty even on fat days. I don’t believe in tattooing areas whose reveal-ability fluctuates greatly, because then I might be presumed upon to show it on a fat day.
So, Todd says to trust Chris and I do, but I really hope he didn’t lean towards the cartoon or graffiti style. I think you have to get pretty good at reading people to be a successful tattoo artist, like being a bartender sort of, and so I doubt I come across as the graffiti style type. Aw, yeah! Straight fans and shit, all on my foot, dawg! See, I can’t even parody it properly. Everybody has been very forward about how painful the foot tattoo is, and of course I just got my period so it’ll be even more painful. However, it just can’t possibly be as horrendous as the pain of the last tattoo I got in my family jewels area, so I hope I sit okay for the session. I love to wear high heels, and I suppose there will now be an increased possibility of looking tawdry with my foot tattoo. Some girls manage it with class, and others look slutty. There’s no telling which way I’ll go, in the eye of the beholder. I think my nose saves me from looking slutty, because it makes me look way more like a judge, jury, and executioner.
Just think! I’ll have something on my foot forever that is not there now! So crazy. What color will it be? I don’t even know! If I seem to wear this okay, then maybe I’ll start bugging Todd more insistently about something for my arm. I really have no objections to visible tattoos because I don’t have a life where I have to look a certain way -- but every time I think about it, I just imagine my annual family get-together in Colorado, and how my relatives there will react. That’s it -- the only imagined stress. The rest of the world’s opinion seems negligible, I guess.
I’ll post a photo as soon as I can!

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I've got a date in San Francisco!

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Well, now I’m in a hotel room in Gunnison, Colorado, and it’s almost three in the morning, and I just came back from a trip to the vending machine. I got a water and a Snickers Almond bar and scarfed it in the hallway. My brother is asleep in the other bed. I can’t fucking believe I ate a Snickers bar! So disgusting. I feel absolutely disgusting now. It wasn’t any kind of craving, so to speak -- I just can’t sleep and I haven’t eaten since 5-ish and I felt like I was gonna die if I didn’t put something in my belly. Nothing was vegan, so my selection was a moot point in terms of any kind of ethics on any level. I have to say, now that I ate a Snickers, I think I prefer the ravening hunger to this feeling. Hopefully I’ll have a sugar crash soon, and sleep until morning. My dad’s room is downstairs and he brought an electric hot plate, a pan, some brown rice, some Brewer’s Yeast, some garlic powder, some organic whole wheat saltine crackers, and ginger kombucha. I’m looking forward to hitting him up in the morning. He really knows how to travel -- I need to get on my game so this Snickers atrocity never happens to me again.
I didn’t have much of a chance on this trip, though, to travel smart -- Todd and I arrived at the Phoenix airport on Friday at 4-ish. Our whole trip home from Okinawa took about 20 hours, give or take, and it all happened on Friday. Our Friday was, to be exact, 40 hours long. Anyway, Abe picked us up at the airport, where only one of four checked bags had made it. Luckily, none of the MIA bags contained anything immediately necessary, because Todd had savvily chosen to include his tattoo machines in the carry-on, this time. You’d think they’d make a bigger fuss at security, seeing tattoo machines go through the x-ray, but it was no big deal. So, it was 119 degrees and felt pretty okay! Such a dry heat. I’ve always been irritated when people say that about Phoenix -- “...but it’s a dry heat!...” -- but now I must admit they’re right.
Knowing rush hour would slow us down anyway, we ate at P.F. Changs, mmm, my favorite, and then headed home to Flag. I hadn’t actually slept on the international flight at all, because there were so many good movies showing, so Todd and I both went comatose on the drive back to Flag. Then, Abe dropped us off at home, we spent a long time saying hello to our ecstatic animals, I took a shower, got a couple things together, Abe picked me back up again, and we drove all night to Gunnison in order to attend our yearly family get-together here. And I didn’t sleep at all until late afternoon on Saturday, after the parade and lunch at the Mexican place! Crazy -- hardly any sleep for three nights, all in all. Today, Sunday, I made the mistake of stopping back in at the hotel to do some reading after our early dinner and fell asleep until about ten, and now up with no recourse to anything except the computer, because I don’t want to turn on any lights.
Ugh, disgusting Snickers. How do people eat that? Why did I do it? The worst part is that it was old, so the chocolate was grey and scaly, and I ate it anyway.
However, I have to say that getting myself all excited about a writers’ conference in San Francisco has not helped me relax. Part of my vague, being-a-writer plan is to work my ass off on three novel projects and a children’s story or two, and then to attend a writers’ conference where you have the opportunity to pitch your stuff to a bunch of different agents and editors. I didn’t actually know many specifics about these conferences, so I just had a fuzzy image in my head of staying at a posh hotel somewhere and being fabulous with other fabulous people at a writers’ conference. I have to confess, I tend to visualize what I might wear to hypothetical events much more enthusiastically than any other aspect of my hypothetical attendance. Well -- now I sound really dingy -- I know I can pitch the hell out of my writing, I’ve already been doing that with everyone I meet. I’m not shy about that at all -- I’m like a pimp. And I have no confidence issues in situations like these, so for me it really does come down to finishing my projects and figuring out what I would wear.
So, I finally got around to tracking down specific conferences online, and none of them seemed as fabulous as what I had envisioned, except for this San Francisco one. The venue is a gorgeous hotel on Nob Hill, and there’s a gala ball and fine dining and super-famous keynote speakers and Speed Dating for meeting agents and editors, and open mic readings, and just all sorts of stuff. The “tuition” is fairly horrendous, turns out! Six hundred something, or five hundred something if you register early. It’s in February 2010 -- perfect timing for where I’m at with these novels. The rooms are over one hundred dollars per night, and I would need four nights plus airfare. Oh, there’s also a writing competition in the genres of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and children’s lit, and you can enter in multiple categories. Winners are announced there at the conference -- although you don’t have to attend to win -- and receive special attention from publishing representatives. I’m totally entering.
I’m totally doing it, all of it. This gives me so much work to do, with a reasonable-yet-alarming deadline. Not only would I need to get my projects done or near-done, I would also need to compile book proposals, bios of various lengths, a project list, business cards, all that kind of thing, plus get my website really tightened up. Then, I’ll go, fling myself out there, have a blast, totally get signed -- there’s no fucking way I would pitch to a bunch of people for three days straight and not get a deal out of it -- and then come home with a much greater understanding of this industry and, most importantly, a much more confident vision of myself as a writer -- a real, viable, out-there-doing-it writer.
I’m so excited!
Now it’s 3:15. I feel like I would do anything, give anything, for some toast and smashed-up avocado right now.

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Some non-fashion related observations

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I should probably describe my surroundings at some point -- one would hope I could muster the wherewithal to do more than just write about myself, halfway ‘round the world!
So, Okinawa is part of Japan, and in the same physically disconnected way Hawaii is part of the U.S. Okinawa is a bunch of islands, and I’m in Naha City, the capital, on the largest island, which is still not very large. Traversing the widest part would take about a four to five hour drive, I think, but please no quotes. Naha is a Japanese (mainlander) tourist destination, and the area where Todd’s working and, therefore, we’re staying is just off Kokusai Street, which is the famous tourist trap stretch here in Naha. In my daily perambulations, I’ve discovered that everywhere else feels a lot more like business as usual, whereas Kokusai is always a hotbed of foot traffic, car traffic, tour busses, people hawking their wares, noises, sights, sounds, smells, etc. Naha is pretty big, by the way -- there’s a monorail system and lots of huge buildings and freeways and all of that. Gambling is apparently legal, here -- there are some really large casinos dotting the city.
Oh, the other big demographic influence is the military presence, which has been here since the U.S. won the Battle of Okinawa in WW2. Something crazy like a third of the entire population of Okinawa died in that battle. I’ve read that resentment towards Japan is perhaps equal or greater to any resentment towards the U.S. Japan could definitely be seen as having mitigated damage to the mainland by throwing the battle (if you can throw a party, why not a battle?) on Okinawa; then, to make it worse, Okinawan civilians were denied shelter, food and medical treatment by the Japanese soldiers. This had to be especially irritating when you realize that Okinawa hasn’t always been a part of Japan, but was absorbed some time in the I-wish-I-had-internet-as-I-write-this-because-I’ll-probably-forget-to-check-this-fact-before-posting period. When the Battle of Okinawa was won by the Allied troops, we provided aid to the Okinawan survivors, which was really nice of us. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, however, was not really nice of us, and I have to say there’s just no getting around the awkwardness of that, being here as an American. I mean, no one’s said anything to me, but Americans still look at Middle Eastern people funny and 9/11 was not EVEN as big of a deal as the two atom bombs we dropped on Japan. However, having grown up on the Navajo reservation, I’m pretty used to being the color of negative associations, however we all might strive to get over it. The military occupation of Okinawa by the U.S. has had its up and downs, too -- there have been a couple of really flagrant rapes: one was a gang rape of a thirteen-year-old Okinawan girl in either the late nineties or early oughts, and the other was something more recent. I’ll probably forget to fact-check that, too, when I walk to the internet. If they ever made a video of Marines Behaving Badly, it would be one very long movie. Nevertheless, the U.S. military and the Okinawan economy have evolved a sort of symbiotic relationship, as is usually the case, and everyone struggles along as best they can.
So, what I think is the most interesting part of this whole experience is that I’m here, in another country, as an American tourist, and I really do get to have the experience of being an irrelevant foreigner because this entire tourism machine is geared towards the Japanese. I’m not very well traveled, but from what I have experienced, the American tourist is catered to and heavily appeased in most other sub-tropical island paradises. Other climes as well, no doubt. Here, almost every business along Kokusai has a young man or woman standing out on the sidewalk, handing out menus, flyers, proclaiming the wonders of that shop, and generally trying to herd people in to buy something. But if it’s me or Todd walking past, with no Japanese people immediately around us, the shepherds will fall quiet and look off into the distance in polite boredom, or sometimes smile at us. They know we don’t understand what they’re saying, and we can’t even read their flyers.
It’s really nice, actually, to just be a non-entity in such an otherwise aggressive tourist trap. Okinawans don’t expect any white people to speak or understand even a modicum of Japanese because, from what I’ve observed, they never do! They are really pleasantly surprised at any American making any attempt -- they just come to life, it’s really awesome. Todd and I thought that we could probably get by here on English without too many problems -- not that we’re resistant to learning to pass on another language, but we were just both so friggin‘ busy in the time leading up to this trip -- but that has not been the case at all. The base is quite a ways off from Kokusai, and only just around that is there much English-language-catering. Here, maybe one person out of every ten (that I’ve run across) will speak a tiny, halting bit of English, but that’s it. You either have to learn some Japanese quick or get really good at pointing and making facial expressions. It’s funny -- one of the first things me and Todd absorbed was the Japanese way of making sounds; like, sounds of surprise, pleasure, realization, and humor. That can actually get you a long way, when you can’t communicate verbally otherwise. And it’s not totally different from the American way of making those sounds -- just a variation, you know?
Okay, enough about that. The WEATHER, omg. I’m used to it now, but it was gnarly for a while. This isn’t yet the hottest part of the Okinawan summer; thank goodness we’ll be missing that. I mean, you go to a new place thinking you’re gonna go everywhere, check everything out, walk all around, explore, etc etc. But when we got here, I felt so bedraggled and exhausted, after even a ten minute walk, that exploring just got downsized to little moderate excursions. I had to make a psychological switch, really -- like, this isn’t bedraggled and exhausted, this is okay and normal. Little by little, it got more bearable, and then when we swam in the ocean for the first time, and spent a whole day at the beach, that’s when it really started to feel okay. Not like Flagstaff okay, but a new kind of okay.
It’s odd how all my stuff is geared towards a climate radically different from this one, even though I packed as best I could. Just little things, like all my bras are lined, because otherwise I have a major high beam problem (in Flagstaff) -- and here, I don’t think I could form a nipple if my life depended on it. My hiar conditioner is too heavy, my lotion is totally unnecessary. As far as clothes, there just weren’t any clothes that were comfortable at first. I would have preferred just a bit of gauze wrapped around my middle, and anything beyond that was overkill. Better now, though. In Arizona, the color of your clothing makes a big difference -- you’ll be a lot hotter in a dark shirt, for instance. Here, it’s more about the thickness and the cut. Anything tight feels horrible, but light or dark doesn’t seem to matter.
I still have a face sweating issue -- imagine how wet your face would be if you bent over the sink and splashed it with several handfuls of hot water. That’s how wet my face is all the time, here, when I’m outdoors. Even after I walk into air conditioning, it takes about ten minutes and a lot of face wiping to dry up. Having a hanky is important; I’ve been using scarves. Having a fan makes lots of sense, too -- both men and women walk around fanning themselves pretty commonly. I’ve held off buying a fan, because I definitely will never need it in Flagstaff, and I’ve been able to use my quick Japanese reference card, which is laminated, in the meantime. The face sweating is sort of embarrassing, and totally uncontrollable. All of my customer service interactions have taken place with me being just facially drenched: “Konnichiwa! I’m a big, white, sweating embarrassment!” The Japanese women maybe get a little dewy, but that’s it. The good news is, my complexion is benefitting from the constant sauna effect.
None of the beaches are very easily accessible to us, which is fine. The shop guys have taken us to three different beaches in and around Naha, now, and we spent one whole day on the beach at Tokashiki Island, a half-hour ferry’s ride away, and that is actually all the beaching I think I can handle. Having never really had access to a beach at any point in my life, I thought I would want to be there all the time, but it’s sort of exhausting in this weird way. You don’t do anything, but you get so tired all the same. Also, my judgement in terms of sun-exposure is as bad as a twenty-one year old’s judgement in terms of liquor exposure: oh shit, I’ve totally had too much and now it’s too late to do anything about it. You’d think, coming from Arizona, that I’d be old hat at the sun game, but Arizona is too hot to not be cognizant of sun exposure -- you get very parched, thirsty, almost ill, and then you get a major sunburn. Here, and especially on the beach, it’s more difficult because I never feel hot in that scorching, Arizona way.
Only the yen is used here, of course, and we’re definitely not doing any better on the yen than we would have on the dollar. They use more coins; counting up, there’s a one yen piece that’s tin or something, very light, small, and dully silver. It’s equivalent in value to our penny, but much much lighter. Next is a five yen piece that’s a brown metal with a hole in the middle. Then a fifty yen piece, which is a heavier, shinier silver with a hole in the middle, but still small; then a shiny silver one hundred yen, with flowers stamped in it -- so that’s like a dollar, okay -- then a five hundred yen piece, which is sort of goldey-bronze and big, almost the size of an old American fifty cent piece -- then there’s the first paper bill, which is one thousand yen, or about ten dollars. No “twenties” that I’ve seen, just a five thousand and ten thousand (50 and 100). When you buy something, the number comes up on the register so thankfully you can know how much to put down before learning the sound of the numbers. You always put your money in a little tray -- money doesn’t actually change hands without the intermediary of the tray, interestingly.
I’m still trying to figure out when to take off my shoes -- all homes, of course, and me and Todd are supposed to in our hotel room based on the little slippers everywhere -- slippers at the door, slippers in the bathroom, slippers on the balcony -- and at the shop we take off our shoes. At clothing stores you don’t, but if you want to try something on, you do remove your shoes before you step into the dressing room. If you forget to, as I did earlier today, it’s a goddamn emergency! The lady was like, “Kutsu! Kutsu! Kudasai, anatto no kutsu!” And I was like, hmmm, kutsu...that word sounds like something I should know...what is it?....ah, shoes! Oops!
Nobody has central hot water heaters with tanks -- instead, they all have tankless hot water heaters, which we have at home thanks to our enviro-savvy landlord -- but here, the control is just outside the bathroom, so you turn it on before you start the shower, and then turn it off again to save energy. At home, our control box is in the garage, so that’s not so practical. In both the hotel room here and the one we stayed at in Korea, there’s a slot just inside the door where you insert your key, and that makes all the lights come on and the power outlets work. So when you leave, and take your key, all that stuff goes off until your return. Again, what an energy saver! Food, which is shockingly fresh, is not packaged very sturdily at all in the market, and then when you go through the check-out line, the cashier will wrap up individually any item that might spill or crush or whatever. A very wise man named Blake once said of America, “I think we’re the only country on Earth that actively makes it impossible to eat fresh food!”
Much more to say, not much more time to say it -- I’m gonna post this now and save other observations for later.

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Getting it all figured out.

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God, it’s so irritating when I don’t blog for a while, because then I feel that there’s so much to catch up on that I get intimidated and actually put it off for even longer. Now I’ve screwed myself! I make approximately 300 observations per second about Okinawa, so I’ll never catch up. Oh well. Let’s see...God, that girl has amazing shoes. Sorry, I have a really good view of a busy intersection right now and there has never been a more distracting location to write.
Let me just start, then, by talking about myself, because nothing has ever been able to distract me from that. I recently read (and reviewed on the website) French Women Don’t Get Fat, and it was so what I needed right now. I’m here in this strange place where food and exercise are not available in the forms I’m accustomed to, and I was kind of over-fixating on food, bloating myself, then feeling like a Fat American (there aren’t many Americans here, but the few I do see are hard to miss, because they’re either fat or military) while surrounded by the slimmest, most well-dressed people I’ve ever seen, unable to run because of the climate -- shit, barely able to walk or stand upright because of the climate -- nowhere near any kind of gym or weight room or track or anything like that, and just feeling like my whole body-happiness situation was destabilized. As some of you may know about me, everything is wrong when my body-happiness is destabilized, and there’s no peace until I get that handled. Oh, turns out I was totally pre-menstrual too, and I would have known that if I ever bothered to keep track, which I don’t, because I have an IUD so I don’t have to.
Anyway, then I read this book and stopped eating mechanically, started eating very consciously, and not while doing anything else. I had been eating while studying Japanese, while reading, and while in all sorts of physical contortions because we were staying in the back of the tattoo shop for the first week and there was no furniture per se. Also, my sleep schedule was fucked, my pooping schedule was fucked, and since I was mostly confined (due to climate) to the same area where Todd was trying to figure out his work situation, I was somewhat trying to time eating with his schedule, which is just impossible and frustrating. So, at the same time I bought this book, we moved into a little studio, which I will discuss in more detail eventually, and it suddenly became viable to get a little more civilized. He went off to work in the afternoons, I had lots of time and space to myself, as well as a little kitchen-type nook, and a big chair to sit in, and so I began implementing the book’s recommendations: eating three distinct meals per day, while sitting at a table (I had to approximate that one), not watching TV or reading or doing anything else while eating, but eating meals of small, careful portions of the freshest possible ingredients off of real china with real utensils, consciously enjoying the food, having some alcohol to accompany -- she recommends wine or champagne, of course, but I’ve really been enjoying this super dry Japanese beer called Asahi -- making the meal a celebration of pleasure with a distinct beginning and a distinct ending -- not just mindlessly snacking throughout the day.
She also recommends “movement” rather than “exercise”, basically lots of walking and as much stair-climbing as possible and more a mindset of things worked into normal life, rather than a separation of life versus exercise. So, we only live on the third floor, but I started taking the stairs all the way up to the top (seventh) floor and back down again every time I leave and every time I get home, and specifically going for a long walk everyday, which I view as being separate from the walking Todd and I do anyway, of necessity. I’ve been doing some floor exercises once per day, on one of the huge beach towels spread out on the wood floor of our studio, and counting the repetitions in Japanese so I keep my head in the language game. (Ichi, ni, san, ICH! Ichi, ni, san, NI! Ichi, ni, san, SAN! Ichi, ni, san, YON!...)
And I feel so great! No longer a Fat American! Like, I seriously feel like a million bucks, and I feel that I could go anywhere (and it sounds like this trip abroad may be only the first of many -- Todd’s kicking ass at this international tattoo artist thing) and maintain my body-happiness equilibrium. My snacking was out of control, and it feels amazing to eat three meals a day, off of a plate, regardless of what craziness and upheaval is affecting me. Little things make such a big difference. Okay, so that’s covered.
Now, I’ve been continuing to read Conversations With God (books ichi, ni, and san -- I’m on ni right now) and that’s a whole ‘nother amazing story. It’s exactly what I’ve been needing in order to continue this memoir exploration (Like People, the thing I used as my grad thesis, but don’t yet consider complete, like, at all). It’s also exactly what I’ve been needing as a being experiencing existence on a physical plane, and the ideas resonate so harmoniously with my own suspicions and hopes and dreams. I mean, it’s one thing to be told I am responsible for my own reality, and another to be taken through such a thorough exploration of that concept that I feel I can get this, I can do this! I am this!
Oh my God, that girl is so sexy, it’s unbelievable. Wow, I am just getting so schooled in the feminine arts, here. I have never in my life seen so many women being so extravagantly womanly.
Um, what else? Language -- it’s coming along. I’m extra glad I’m trying so hard now, because me and Todd got drunk with Satoru and Yeoichi (sp?) last night at the shop and so many interesting things came out! There’s the language barrier, of course, but Satoru’s English is better when he drinks. Basically, after a string of bad experiences with American guest artists, he implemented a no-more-Americans policy. But then Todd was referred to Satoru via a Japanese bookseller, in whose painting contest Todd had won an honorable mention, and a myspace interaction began, and Satoru decided to break his own rule, just because Todd seemed cool and most especially because he was older, not a young, fiery douchebag like Satoru’s had to deal with before. (Apparently the American guest artist which represented the final straw in this whole thing was from New Orleans, and they called him Mr. America behind his back because he embodied, like, every shitty stereotype imaginable. Shudder.)
So, on top of that, no American guest artist in Satoru’s experience has made even the slightest attempt to learn Japanese. Even worse, 99% of Satoru’s tattoo clients are American service members, and none of them try to pick it up either. Basically, Americans are just out there making us all look like arrogant assholes. Thanks, guys. I mean, the guest artist thing is bad enough, but if I was going to be stationed in some foreign country for a couple of YEARS, you can be goddamn sure I would learn the language. You know? Like, what kind of shit head do you have to be...? Whatever, I’m over it.
So, we didn’t know any of this until last night, but here we are, always trying to say our basic greetings and social niceties in Japanese, trying to express our thanks for all the nice stuff that’s been done for us (there was a day at the beach where they cooked us mountains of the most delicious veg food ever, and plied us with cold beers -- it was so frustrating to only know how to say “Arigato gozaimas! Gozaimas gozaimas!”), and we’re not fat (he actually told us last night that, when we first arrived, he thought to himself: Hm, skinny Americans -- that’s weird), and we didn’t even know that he had broken his own rule to bring us here! So, yeah, thank goodness we’ve had our heads in the right place, because this is just an amazing experience. We both feel so lucky -- we both are so lucky. (By the way, Asian people have stopped looking Asian to me, and they just look like people -- thought I should mention that.) So anyway, once again, I can’t say enough about Rosetta Stone. I’ve gone from feeling quite intimidated at the thought of a new language to musing about learning other ones just for fun, once I get a better handle on Japanese. I wonder if they have Rosetta Stone for Navajo? My Navajo was good once, but it’s decayed horribly through disuse.
Okay, I think that’s it for now, because I just got extremely hungry. The website (hannahprallewriter.com) may or may not be working right now, it’s been really difficult to trouble shoot via this off-and-on internet connection (that’s not even where I live), so please be patient. I did figure out how to enable comment functions, so sorry to those of you who’ve tried in vain -- it should be super easy now. Everything will come together soon enough, I’m not gonna stress.
Oh, I just have to leave you with a description of one of the most killer outfits I’ve seen on a girl here, in the midst of thousands of killer outfits -- this girl was walking towards me on the sidewalk yesterday and of course she was Asian-gorgeous, and here is what she was wearing: a black, brimmed hat, low over her perfectly made-up face and long, long streaming black shiny hair; a thin, soft black shirt with long, loose sleeves; cut-off jean shorts that were super old and super faded, so short that the bottoms of the pockets were hanging out (though nothing else was); amazing, model-perfect legs, of course; and then these black, high heeled sandals that had an ankle strap from which four-inch long black fringe depended, swinging wildly with every step. It was amazing, I felt like I had stumbled onto the set of a movie and she was the star.
Okay, I’m off to eat dinner in a civilized fashion!

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Hannah in Wonderland

Read this blog with photos at hannahprallewriter.com!

I slept for twelve hours last night! I’m finally getting on track here. I’ve been waking up at 2 am, 3 am, 4 am, 5 am, and then 5:30 am yesterday morning, much to Todd’s chagrin. Not just waking up, but ready to start my day, to do something, anything. The time difference, by the way, is that Flagstaff is ahead by eight hours (so, like, 3 am feels like 11) but yesterday. If that makes sense. Here, nothing opens till the 8-10 timeframe, so it’s been horrible for both of us, in our little room at the back of the shop: me trying to be quiet but going out of my mind, Todd catching up on all the sleep he didn’t get on the trip. He can’t sleep when he travels, and I can’t poop. I’m still trying to get right on that front -- my body thinks it’s gonna “wait it out” ‘til we get home. Little do my intestines know, we’ll be here a month. It’s like trying to tell a dog that their master has gone out of town, and they don’t need to post up by the door anymore. No, they just cling to the only thing they know. Slowly but surely, we’re getting on track, though. Last night’s sleep was amazing, and it was even more amazing to wake up at 7:30! A nice, respectable time to be conscious. This experience makes me really appreciate the travails of short international trips. At least I’m here for long enough to acclimate -- being here for a week would just confuse the hell out of my body. “Are we working night shift again? What’s going on?”
So, the first thing I need to report is that you can’t throw a stick here without knocking down five or six gorgeous women. (So to speak.) Not only gorgeous, but fashionable, sexy, vivacious! The Marines stationed here must think they’ve died and gone to Asian woman heaven. And I’m not stereotyping, I mean this so literally. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous women ev.ery.where. I feel so big and clunky. (I was washing my hands this morning and they looked like huge hairless gorilla paws.) Even the frumpiest of them are still wearing four inch heels. Fashion was made for these women -- imagine inundations of adorable rock star girls, impossibly chic career girls, visions of femininity in ruffles and long, flowing gauze, girls in skin-tight jeans and high-heeled gladiator sandals, glitter t-shirts and wedge heels filled with bubbles, girls with thick, shiny black hair piled up on top of their heads, girls wearing every kind of hat you can imagine, girls wearing mini skirts and ruffled black thigh-high stockings. The craziest part of this whole situation is the climate! I feel like I’m smothering in hot, wet wool every time I go outside. All this impossibly perfect fashion is happening despite this climate! Todd and I got a bit lost on a walk yesterday, and I was wearing a long, light dress, and it felt like 30 pounds of steaming flannel cocooning my body, by the time we found our way. How do these women even keep makeup on? Oh, the other really cute thing is, it rains torrentially almost every day, maybe several times per day, so all the adorable women carry these uber-fashionable umbrellas. (I braved it in a rain parka one time and it’s a no-go. It’s such a hot rain, and so heavy, you just have to have an umbrella.) So then they all go marching smartly along in their sexy heels and capri pants and Coach purses and razor-cut hair, twirling their umbrellas and just looking amazing. What must it be like, to be that amazing all the time? It boggles my mind. I would take pictures to illustrate, but it just seems rude to stand right there and take some total stranger’s picture, as if they were a building or a tree. I’ll try to get one or two shots, though. Everyone’s smart, too, because apparently you’re just a retard-failure-washout if you don’t spend the first couple decades of your life learning four languages and studying for 18 hours a day.
Oh, which brings me to my next observation: Kanji, pretty as they are, seem like bullshit to me. I know that’s a horribly ethnocentric statement, but give me a second. The shop owner, Satoru, has an eight year old daughter (half Japanese and half New Zealander), and she made me a paper with my name on it in Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana -- the Japanese use these three different alphabets. I was naturally curious as to how each one functioned. Basically, hiragana contains 46 syllabic characters, of which the traditional Japanese language is comprised. Katakana also contains 46 syllabic characters, many of which overlap in sound, but this alphabet is used to communicate foreign and adopted words. Okay, that’s only 92 things to know -- still way more than our alphabet of 26 characters, but totally do-able. Now, Kanji came from China originally, and consists of about (estimates vary) 50,000 characters. It’s said you need to know at least 30,000 just to read the paper. Now, if I were Japan, and China’s Kanji tried to move on over, I’d be like, Fuck you, Kanji! That’s ridiculous! But it’s totally become a standard! I mean, I’ve been spending 5-6 hours a day on Rosetta Stone, learning Japanese, and do you think they have me working on Hiragana or Katakana? No, I’m learning to read Kanji, because that’s what’s used out there. I’m so offended by this. All these millions and millions of school children, slaving their youth away to learn this big, arbitrary language. No wonder they can pick up English -- “Oh, look, five more minutes until my bus gets here. I think I’ll learn English.” It’s a drop in the bucket! In any case, I’m completely uninterested in learning any more Kanji than I need to, just to get around. I object, emphatically and totally.
The spoken language, however, I’m enjoying very, very much. Let me tell you now, those of you who’ve never Rosetta Stoned, it is so awesome and so fun. It’s like a totally addictive video game. I’ll be finishing up the first big block today, which has been grammar and structure basics (if anyone walks up to me and wants to know how many red apples or blue bowls I’m holding, I’ll be all set to answer them), and then I’ll be moving on to the section that really focuses on meeting and greeting people. This will be really good to know, and I should have gotten myself to this point before we even arrived, but I was too busy building this website.
Coming to Starbucks for internet most mornings has been a good baseline for me, though. At first, I couldn’t even say “hello”, and when the total came up on the cash register, I would just put all my money on the counter so they could take the right amount. Classic dumb foreigner move. But this morning, I walked in and said “Good morning! How are you?” And she said, “Good!” And I ordered the actual drink in English but then said “extra ice, please. Thank you!” in Japanese. It feels so much better to have some working knowledge of social exchange. I even managed to tell a restaurant employee yesterday that we don’t eat meat or eggs or milk. Ordering food here would be easy if there were no dietary considerations, because the menus all have pictures, which is neat. For vegans, though, it definitely demands some linguistic effort. So, it’s hard in the sense of the language barrier, but not hard at all in terms of the food available. I have had the best food of my life, here, already. God, I love it so much. I don’t even know how to describe the rightness -- I guess it’s attention to presentation, which I’ve always appreciated, and which America seems to care less about than quantity; plus getting lots of separate things on a tray and combining it however you want. Little bits of this and that, all different colors and textures and flavors. Hot things are SO hot, and sour things are SO sour, and sweet things are just a little bit sweet, not overwhelmingly so. In terms of food, I wish I could eat this way the rest of my life. I’m not exaggerating. We haven’t had the same thing twice yet, because there’s no need to. So many amazing, different, unique foods. MMMMM. Going grocery shopping soon as I post this blog, actually!
Oh, one more thing about the language -- having some familiarity with written and spoken Navajo is coming in so handy for me. It’s like the two languages, Navajo and Japanese, came from the same root or something -- I’ve been really surprised. Basically, written Navajo has all these things called diacritical marks, and they look scary when you’re first learning. But what they do is give a clear indication of the actual way a word should be pronounced. Navajo, compared to English, has a lot more “musicality” (high and low tones which accompany certain syllables regardless of the mood you’re in when you say them), nasal tones, diphthongs, and glottal stops. (A glottal stop is just another type of consonant, formed further back in the throat. We make P’s and B’s on our lips, T’s and D’s with the tips of our tongues, K’s and G’s with the back of our tongues, and glottal stops with the top of our throat, as in “Uh-oh!” Can you feel it?) Japanese words have all four of these nuances constantly going on as well, but no one ever encoded it into the written (in the English alphabet) language. I guess that would be additionally confusing to most people if it had, but I would personally find it very helpful. The words on a page, as in “Here’s how to say ‘I’m lost’: Michi ni” gives no clue as to how this phrase should actually be pronounced! I would give an example of diacritical assistance but I don’t know how to do that on my keyboard. Anyway, so with the Rosetta Stone, I’m trying to get enough of a sense of pronunciation that I can carry those “rules” into use when I say something from a guide book. Wish me luck. Okay, off to shop for groceries!

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Getting to Japan

Read this blog with photos at hannahprallewriter.com!

I’m overseas, for the first time in my life! Naha, Okinawa, by way of Flagstaff, then Phoenix, then Los Angeles, then Seoul, Korea, and finally to here, yesterday. Technically I’m living in tomorrow and everyone I know at home is one day behind me. I’m in a dark little room right now which is attached to a tattoo studio called One Shot in the Kokosai downtown district. It’s dark and Todd is sleeping and the sun hasn’t risen yet. I’m hungry and thirsty and not sleepy at all. I did sleep some, but then at what must have been around 3 a.m. I started getting restless.
The shop owner’s wife is amazingly vegan-savvy and she took us on a walk, yesterday after we got here, and showed us where to buy food and how to identify fairly safe bets. There’s a character for “soya” that looks sort of like a little TV, and it will be used in conjunction with one character for “tofu” and with another character that has a little J-hook for “milk”. There are so many amazing things to eat here, my mouth was just watering, but it was a quick tour so we didn’t do any purchasing yet. I’ll be going out today and establishing a cache of food for us, no doubt. We can stay here at the shop, or we can rent a little loft for the month if we want. It’s certainly cramped here, and loud with sounds of Appetite For Destruction and the like all day while the shop’s in operation -- and there’s no closets or drawers. Not ideal, but I do like the idea of saving as much money as possible, not that I’ve found out I need braces. Todd is thinking about getting braces too -- neither of us have the greatest teeth, and we could be brace-faces together. Expensive! But, I need to work on the novels and the music while we’re here, and I definitely, definitely, definitely can’t do that with familiar rock music on in the background. We’ll see what pans out -- but thank goodness we have a place to get our bearings, you know?
We just got in late yesterday afternoon and Todd’s already picked up some huge tattoos. These Marines come in and money is no issue, but being bad ass is, and they’re in groups of four and whatnot: “We all want back pieces!” So I can see this being very lucrative for Todd. I brought my guitar, hoping to busk, but it’s not immediately busk-friendly, as far as I can tell. The trip might have to be lucrative for me in the sense of future writing proceeds, let’s hope. It’s just crazy -- everything all crammed together, some sidewalks but not always, funny little cars looking like they’re about to crash into people and buildings and each other but somehow getting by, and people of all ages on scooters, motoring around obstacles. Like, the room where we’re staying has a window, and if you open the window you can touch the next building over. All the windows have big bars, for the yearly typhoons. Adorable people everywhere. Haven’t really had a good exploring yet, but those are my impressions so far.
I have no idea where the beach is from here, or how to get there. I feel like an asshole speaking English and people having to use my language to try to understand me, but oh well. At least the military presence guarantees bigger displays of assholery than I could ever aspire to (d to the p). One thing I’ve noticed -- the Asians don’t go in for morning industry much. When Todd and I had our 24 hour layover in Korea, Asiana Airlines put us up in a hotel in the town, and it was probably 9:15 a.m. local time when we finished checking in and showering. So we thought we’d go explore the town on foot. Total ghostage. Nobody out, nothing open, nothing going on. I guess things start to think about maybe opening at, like, ten. 
And now, here in Naha, there’s a Starbucks just down the street -- I know I should feel scorn but I’m so thankful, actually, for A) something familiar, B) coffee, and C) internet -- and I guess they open at eight. Which is just insane, in America Starbucks world. Those fuckers get in there at what, five? Six? So, that will be my source of internet for the time-being. Starbucks coffee, by the way, is much better overseas. I had a soy latte in Korea and here, and they were both just incredible. Like, best coffee of my life. I bet they have better soymilk here or something -- at home I hate it.
Okay, enough about coffee -- what else? Well, for all my vague fears about Korea, I have to give the country a big shout-out. The southern part, that is. From the airport to the hotel to the service, Korea made America look like a monkey fucking a football. Never in my life have I had such nice everything. Our hotel was this amazing oasis of Asian tranquility, with those platform beds, and a hard wood floor, and every single amenity, and the most amazing bathroom ever: green marble from floor to ceiling, huge bathtub with jets, green glass shower stall that doubled as a sauna, a toilet with buttons that did things bordering on what I would call sexual perversion. And it was free! The airport, Incheon, has been voted “Best Airport in the World” by all these different organizations. I didn’t care about shopping so much, with my braces situation looming and all, but there was Dior, Givenchy, every kind of upscale shop you can imagine, all duty-free.
And the food we had there was incredible.  The food we had on Asiana Airlines was incredible. Todd took my to Brix in Flagstaff for my birthday and they hate vegans and fed us the most expensive rice and vegetables of our lives, and here this fucking airline delivers us tray after tray of the most savory, steaming hot, flavorful goodness -- I couldn’t believe it. I ate too much. We were on the plane for a long time and they just kept feeding us! All of it vegan! I wanted to stay on that plane forever. The flight attendants were so gorgeous, it was like a movie of gorgeous women bringing endless trays of delicious food. I’m totally looking forward to the return flight, just because of that. I think my underlying hunger is subtly steering the course of this blog. I’m really hungry. There’s a 24 hour shop with noodles and inari and stuff that I might have to hit up. Where’s the money, though? It’s pretty money. Carry the decimal twice to the left, seems to approximate dollars.
Oh, we were detained and our passports taken away for a bit, when we first landed in Okinawa. That was kind of stressful, but I was like, whatever -- what are they gonna do, put me back on the delicious food/beautiful woman plane? They had signs everywhere for “foreigners this” and “foreigners that”. I told Todd, they may as well have it say “foreign devils”. They were very concerned that we were planning on staying at a tattoo shop whose phone number we did not know (Todd did this all over the internet), and being picked up by someone whose name we didn’t know, who wouldn’t recognize us, who might not know Todd’s real name because he goes by Soup. In hindsight, these would have been good things to establish for a smoother passage, but we weren’t expecting the Spanish Inquisition, you know? Like, what’s it to them where we’re staying or who’s picking us up? We just thought we’d look for the guy with tattoos.
So, they detained us long enough that we missed our ride and had to get a cab, and he got sort of lost so it was expensive. Another lady was detained with us for a bit, and she was this tall, chiseled African-American Marine E-9 who had her passport, but had lost her military ID in the States while she was visiting home. She was about to bite someone’s head off! I was like, Oh.My.God let us out of here before she blows! She was like, “I defend your damn country and your damn freedoms and you won’t let me in? Ah hell no!” Eventually we all got through. They told us to have a phone number of where we’re staying next time. Whatever.
So, that’s it for now -- my website is up but maybe problematic, more on that later...

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