ow

One of my teeth got a nasty infection, so I went to get it pulled (yes, I live in America land of the free, unless you need medical care, in which case it's unbelievably expensive). The guy shot my mouth up with enough novacane to kill a large marmet, but it was still excruciatingly painful to have the guy even wiggle the damn tooth. So they gave up. I've got some antibiotics to kill off the infection and they're going to try again in a couple of days. Ow. So now I have to go through this all over again. Did I mention ow?

the answer to life the universe and everything

I had an interesting dream this morning, one the had me physically in tears, upon waking up. It was fairly involved, but the gist of it was that I was extremely upset about how the people around me were living their lives. I was frustrated that they were spending their time doing things that were basically just keeping the status quo and not making life better in any way. In the midst of a big rant, I suddenly blurted out "What is the purpose of life!" What I was trying to get across to my family and friends was that the real goal of life is to survive, prosper, and reproduce. And, from my perspective (at least in the dream), people were living their lives in a way that was robbing the Earth of its ability to sustain life. If we don't preserve the environment for future generations of life (including humans) then what, really, is the point? Everyone likes to think that taking care of the Earth is somebody else's problem, and that when crises arise someone important will fix it all. But that, as we all know, is really just denial of the fact that were incredibly greedy and probabaly have done completely irreversible damage to the planet that provides us life. I don't mean to be apocolyptic here, but I don't see that we're going to be able to change our downwardly spiraling direction before its too late.

I think this dream all started with Earth Day this year. I was at a booth for some moderate environmental organization that had suggestions for steps one could take to tread more lightly on the planet. One of their suggestions was to, one day a week, forgo the car and choose another form of transportation. Ooooh. Its this bland, compromised attitude that got us here in the first place.

Anyway, onto a more palatable subject, last night's party was really fun. It was supposed to be a fairly small affair, but we had a great turnout, and we had pizza coming out of our ears (no, not literally). The inner S.C.U.L. circle came, and so did my buddy Tim, so I was very happy. There was also a big Trivial Persuit game that lasted until 3am, and I came pretty close to winning. You always learn some weird stuff playing that game. Apparently, there was a scheme in China to drop cats, via parachutes, into rice fields, in order to get rid of the mice that were destroying the crops. That gave me the funniest visual when I heard it.

pizza, ice cream, and exhaustion

This weekend was, indeed, quite full, and I'm definitely pretty darn pooped. But my roommates are having a little party tonight, so I've got to try to stay awake and alert for the festivities. Pizza making is risky business and I wouldn't want my sleep deprivation to make me make a critical mistake, ya know? Anyway, it was all fun, and we got the bicycling word out to a lot of people at the Earth festival, so it was worth it.

The plan for this week includes a massive attack on the pile that is my bedroom, giving my wesite some actual content beyond a pretty face, and figuring out a place to grow the catnip where my neighbor's cat won't mutilate it. (I came home the other night to find the normally timid kitty rolling around my yard and staring up at the sky, completely oblivious to my presence. It was funny, but a couple more of these tripping sessions and she would have completely destroyed the plants.) Last year, I had a cool birdcage in the shape of a victorian house that worked perfectly to keep the birds (and cats) out. But some loser stole it. I could just use some chicken wire, but that doesn't look very attractive, and we've already got enough junk around the place as it is. Any suggestions?

bikes on the brain

You know how they say that men think of sex once every seven seconds or something? Well, that's me, except that I'm thinking of bicycles instead of sex. My trip to Maine was full of bike education and more work on designing promotional stuff for the various bike organizations and events. And now that I'm back I've got even more stuff to do. An Earth Day fair tomorrow, Critical Mass tonight, and SCUL tomorrow night. In all of this bicycle brewhaha, I decided to abandon my plan for setting up a table at the Somerville Art Beat festival to sell my recycled art. It was just too much. I've still got big plans for my website, and I'll be able to sell stuff on it, and that can be at my own pace, rather than trying to rush into getting a ton of stuff done in a couple of months. Maybe I'll sell some stuff at the bike tables and donate the money to them.

My stepfather is doing extremely well for someone who just had his artery scraped out. He was rototilling the garden within a week. Yay.

I got to hang out with a groundhog up in Maine too. The little lady was wandering around the arboritum where my bike education workshop was being held. She didn't really seem to notice or care that there were a bunch of people riding bikes around in circles just a few feet away. Later on, I followed her and almost got her run over by a car. Oops! But she was fine, and dissappeared into a gulley. Cute little thing.

antidisestablishmentarianism

It just occurred to me why geniouses seem to be such social outcasts - it's because society makes no sense. Most people just go about their lives, adapting their behavior to whatever the latest societal norms happen to be, without any attention to what they are doing. But smart people tend to do that whole thinking before acting thing, and would obviously see the insanity in certain things that are normally socially acceptable. The smart person, if she approaches life in a logical manner, is likely to get herself into trouble with the more traditional contingent of society. If she gets the opportunity to observe and study social behavior, then she's at least got a chance to see how weird "modern" civilized behavior really is, and she can choose to go along with it all, or just to give up and not care what anyone thinks. "Insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world." goes the saying. (No that wasn't Freud, it was some other, less libidinous, psychiatrist named R.D. Lang.)

Anyway, and this is in no way related to the last bit (we'll ok just a little...), I went on the SCUL ride last night. It was a particularly good ride, and when we got to our destination, we sat around in a campfire circle (sans fire) and told stories about weird stuff that happend to us while on bikes. It was like group bike therapy! "Hi, my name is Turtle, and I'm a bicyclist..." Heh. We also had a couple of derbies and I actually did quite well, if I say so myself. Both times I was one of the last four in the game (out of about ten pilots), and I made a couple of good defensive moves, along with one almost impressive save. Gimme another season and I'll be pretty decent, maybe. Oh, yeah, and I found out that my buddy Jef showed up for last week's SCUL ride and didn't tell me. Serves me right for not going!

Well, now its off to the great green north. I hope its not too cold. I've gotten used to the toasty weather we've been having here. Plus, I hate having to lug lots of big, bulky clothes all the way up with me. Though, I keep looking for excuses to wear this sweater I got that looks like a pack of lifesavers candy. I love it, because it looks like something Willow (from Buffy) would wear. Except that on me, it just looks like a big colorful blob. I always forget that I'm so much rounder in the middle than most people...

it's the sun!

I need to make an effort to update this a bit more frequently, don't I? Well, let's see, the update on my stepfather is that he's fine. It was a little rough going for a couple of days, but he had his surgery and is actually home, in Maine, already. If nothing else, this little scare made him (and my mom) acutely aware of how important it is to take care of oneself. He'd already cut out eating cow, but now he's got to be even more careful of the stuff he ingests. My mother dilligently made sure to finish off all of the potato chips, so that there weren't any in the house when he got home. :) And they are both really going to try to kick the cigarette demon again.

Stuff is going steadily along with MassBike, and I'm still quite excited to be a part of the organization in such a prominant position (one of two staffpeople). This weekend I go up to Maine to snoop on the Maine bike education program, and see what ideas I can steal from them. (Well, ok, they do know who I am and what I'm doing, so I guess I'm not such a great spy!) While I'm up there I get the bonus of hanging out with my mom (convenient, huh?).

The art thing is kind of on hold, with the weirdness of the week. I also have to wait a bit to find out if I can get a table for the big art fair. If I get it, I'll have to work my ass off to get ready for it. But I work pretty well under pressure. And making art is always fun, especially when I don't have to please upper management.

My computer game geek roommate Eric, who's also been unemployed, has finally gotten a job, so I'm losing my daytime partner in crime. We're not overly close, but he's a sweet guy, and has many talents that are particularly entertaining. If you ever meet him ask him to show you what he can do with his toungue...

what is that bright thing up in the sky?

My stepfather is in the hospital, and I can't decide what to worry about. He's never been in very good shape (drinking alcohol like a fish, eating meat, and smoking since age 14 will do that to a guy) so it's not surprising, but this is apparently very serious. I think that everyone is more worried about my mom, though. She's legally blind, lives in the middle of nowhere, Maine, and is completely broke right now. So she's a bit on the helpless side without my stepfather around. What's ironic is that he's actually down in my part of the world. For some reason no one ever seems to get operations done in the state of Maine. They are always shipped down here to a Boston area hospital. I'm going to try and go to see him today, but I'm one of those people who has a really hard time dealing with sick people, plus I'm not very close to him. So I'm trying to psych myself up for it. Fortunately, for everyone, my mom is going to come down tomorrow for the day.

As some of you may note, last night was Saturday, and I should have gone on the SCUL bike ride. I didn't, under the auspices of getting to sleep early enough that it didn't screw up my plans to venture off to the hospital today. Except that my upstairs neighbors had a party last night and my roommies and I ended up making an appearance. Until 3 am. I was there so late that someone who had actually gone on the SCUL ride showed up after the ride was over. (Turns out that it was a particularly unhappy ride, as some jerk in a car was trying to assault the gang.) But the party was fun. I learned a valuable party trick, too. Being a particularly shy type, I'm usually quite the wallflower at large gatherings. But last night, I showed up clutching a life sized penguin lawn ornament to my bosom, and it made me the hit of the party. I even got out ont he dancefloor and boogied my own, and the penguin's, booties off for a while. Oh, and I love my roommates. I can't say that enough these days.

I have a life

An epiphany came to me the other day, and I know what I'm going to do with my life, at least for a while. Art, dammit. I was watching a tv show about an elderly gentlemen who paints art on pretty much everything he can get his hands on. Old furniture, clothes, vehicles, essentially anything that has been discarded by someone in our disposable society. And he teaches kids to do it too.

So my idea is to set up a non-profit project to involve the community (primarily kids, but really anyone who wants to) in recycling trash into functional art. There was an organization in Boston a few years back that did this with "troubled youths" as a form of rehabilitation. (I haven't heard of them in a long time. Wonder what happened...) Anyway, my project would be more broad-reaching. As a first step, I'm working on establishing myself in the community as a recycled artist, with a line of "Renewd Art" that I'm going to hawk in a couple of places. Expect a media blitz, including the new and improved Random Turtle Productions website, within a month or two!

All this, of course, will have to fit into my schedule of being a big time bike advocate. Some day, I'm sure I'll fit all of my favorite roles, bicycling, teaching, and art, together in some really weird and random-turtle-like way. But, at the rate I find inspiration, this may be another ten years or so :)

Oh, and I can't forget to mention that we had our first SCUL ride of the season. Yay! I almost didn't make it, but managed to muster up some previously unavailable burst of energy, and had a grand old time. I managed to ride one of the fleet bikes that actually lowered my score, because it was supposedly really easy to handle (a point I would beg to differ on, as the extreme lowness of the pedals made it impossible to pedal through even mild turns, and the hugeness of the handlebars made quick maneuvering a lost cause). I really, really need to make my own turtle-sized chopper to ride... This mission was also the first time I ever got a chance to compete in a derby (a combination of tag and capture the flag, on chopped bikes, of course), and my greatest fears of suckage were, indeed, realized. Speed is pretty much something turtles are not known for. And, with my turning ability compromised, I had next to nothing to work with. With my own bike, I hope to at least have half a chance.

One final random note. About 10 years ago, I came up with a particular noise using a cheap drum machine. It was basically made by maxing out the volume of both the machine and the recording device (a cheap boom box). I thought it was brilliant, and I made a very long quasi musical piece with just this sound. Come to find out that other people have coopted my sound! Not only have I heard it in some of the more creative and experimental stuff on college radio, but I even heard it in one of U2's pop hits. I want royalties, dammit!

greed

I'm not all that familliar with all of the history of Israel and Palistine, but I've been trying to pay attention to stuff lately. What has shocked me is how incredibly primative and childish poeple are behaving in Israel. "It's mine!" "No it's mine!" "But my God said I could have it!" It's like national policy being decided by 6 year olds. (Not that the US government is really any better.) Don't they have preschool in Isreal? Somebody never taught these kids the concept of sharing.

I was watching the Bill Moyers show "Now", which seems to be one of the very few news programs on television that actually is run by poeple who aren't morons. There was a US couple on, who had moved into one of the settlements in the debated area of land. This husband and wife moved into what is essentially a war zone and then had FIVE children! One of their kids even had a bullet go through his head. Yet they still refuse to leave, because "the Bible proves that we are entitled to this land". This woman is so greedy that she is willing to sacrifice the lives of her children. It would be one thing if she was born there, or had lived there before the 1960's. But no, she moved from her own country, the US, into an occupied territory halfway across the world, in an attempt to kick somebody else out!

Thne the show interviewed some of the Isreali soldiers who were refusing to murder their neighbors in an offensive attack. Turns out that the Israeli government is arresting these guys and putting them in jail! In other words the government is saying "Kill people, don't think about it, and just do what you're told or we will punish you." Shades of Nazi Germany right in the epicenter of Judiasm...

It all just boggles the mind.

On a lighter note, it looks like aliens have taken over the White House. Someone who looked just like King George came out into public today and, for all intents and purposes, made sense! This former shell of an idiot actually suggested that killing people is wrong, adn that war needs to stop. Good heavens!

brave new turtle world

I just paid my credit card off, applied for unemployment, and had my first day of (part time) work at MassBike. Yay!

The work at MassBike is very likely to lead to some great stuff, and I'm really excited about the possiblities. Finally, I'm back doing what I want to be doing. With big thanks to Tim, who's working extra hard to make a place for me in the organization. I also spent most of Tuesday letting many of the bike organizations in the Boston area know what the other organizations are up to. When you really get immersed in the non-profit and activist world you realize just how many organizations there are out there. I even found out that my computer game geek roommate is on the board of directors for some computer game non-profit. And my dad and stepmother are on a committee for a folk dancing organization. I'd wager that there is an organization promoting just about every hobby or interest you can think of. For example, I know for a fact that there is at least one organization who's goal is to convince people that eating bugs is a great idea. If there isn't a group for your own favorite activity, then you should start one. Just imagine the friends you could make if you were the president of the ardvark appreciation society?

there's nothing phobic about it

Several people have gotten the idea that I'm a bit psychologically unbalanced because I tend to prefer staying home as much as possible. I admit it, I'm a hermit and I am a tad wary of trekking out into the big bad world out there. But this is no unfounded phobia. The world is a dangerous place. Case in point: this evening I was out doing a little trash hunting (my aunt said she'd seen a wine rack down the street and I wanted to check it out) and just a couple of blocks away form my house I was assaulted by some jerk in an SUV. I was whacked on the back of the head with a can of soda, which one of the village idiots whipped at me from the comfort of his truck. I tried to chase the freak down, to get the plate number, but he blew through a red light, turned off his lights, and made a break for it. (Maybe he'd been playing a bit too much Playstation lately?) I wasn't hurt, as I was wearing my helmet, but this just confirms my theory that the world is so filled with purposefully malicious bastards, ignorant bozos, and the just plain accident prone, that the act of going outside is very likely to be fraught with peril. No wonder people are afraid to go out without an armored vehicle, aka a car, just to buy a snack.

And the police are of no help either. When I went into the Somerville (MA) police station to report the crime, the woman behind the plexy glass looked at me like I was a crazy person and actually had the audacity to ask "Why?" Er... I filled out the form, even though it was likely to be tossed. And as I was leaving, she actually said to me, "Be careful out there". When the cops say that, you know it's bad.

history's mysteries

So, around last Solstice, I started getting a subscription to American Heritage magazine. I figured that it was a gift from someone in my family. The thing is, no one fesssed up to getting it for me. I tried reading a few articles in the first issue I received, but they were the same old blather that mainstream media always publishes. The issue I first got was the special "war" issue (ooooh!), and not only were ALL of the articles written by men, but they were ALL pro-war. Obviously, not something I cared to read (don't I get enough of this kind of thing EVERYWHERE?). One writer seemed to have a tad more balance than the rest, but then he completely blew it by saying that trying to understand the motives behind the 9/11 hijackings was pointless, because, get this, Osama Bin Laden is just plain evil. Yeah, ok. I expect to hear such rhetoric from the local jocks or even in a blog, but in a so called respectable historic magazine? That's just bad. Regardless, I still have no clue as to who sent me this subscription. I even called the magazine's customer service, but they had no record of who ordered it. I have my suspicions, but no proof. Anyone want to claim responsibility? Hmmmmmm?

the fools of april

Bush has resigned, Isreal has pulled out if it's occupation, and Enron execs have vowed to compensate all of it's employees for the money they lost.

No wait, it's just a joke. Happy fool's day! (I heard King Goerge is having quite the celebration today.)

I wish I was more of a prankster. I used to really get into April Fool's Day, but I think that I just take myself too seriously when I try to pull a prank. Or something. A few years ago, when I was dating this guy I'd met on a web message board, I sent a mutual friend a joke e-mail using my boyfriend's e-mail account. I pretended to be my boyfriend and confessed to our friend that I had beaten him up and asked for advice. I thought it was hysterically funny, because I'm such a huge proponent of nonviolence. However, I discovered that our friend didn't know me as well as I had thought, and took the e-mail completely seriously. The people in that circle of friends never quite trusted me again (though a really messy breakup didn't help matters, either).

Maybe I should just go back to the classic pranks like short-sheeting the bed, and putting salt in the sugar bowl. I did these kinds of things to my parents as a kid, and they seemed to go over pretty well and didn't make anyone think that I was a husband beater. Putting weird things in people's shoes, like plastic bugs or rocks or even marshmallows, is a good one too.