Taking Chances Is Safe
Leaving the past in the dust, forever renewing vows to change. All the best words are taken. Only one remains unimpeachable, and even that one is a 4- letter word: LOVE
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Stereotypes harm everyone. Yes, we can't do without them, and there are many that are true. However, we live in such rapidly changing times that even the stereotypes are changing, or becoming obsolete faster than we all thought they would.
Today at the hotel bar, we had a discussion with a 20-year old father of a future boy who was left by his pregnant girlfriend, and a 19-year old gay reception clerk who joked freely about his gayness and the other's straightness. The reception person is the sweetest guy I've ever met. He was so calm while I was hysterical on the phone the first time I came here, in the dark, after two plane flights and an hour ride from the airport, and with the directions to the freeways and hotel that had proved to be mostly wrong. He had guided me all the way to the hotel, in spite of my yelling at him that I wasn't getting back on the highway again. It just makes me laugh thinking of that.
A woman who's about my age, or younger, walks into the bar with two guys. The bartender asks her, "What would you like, Ma'am?" - Don't call me "ma'am," she retorts angrily. They are from Nevada, apparently, and their friend is from Washington State, from it Eastern part.
I say to her, "it's out of respect, I don't mind it," and she ignores me.
...When I told the guys that my friend suggested I never talk politics with the Texans, they have proved him wrong, and we proceeded to talk about Bush, Obama, and everyone under the sun. I am laughing again as I am saying this. Speak of the freedom of speech, ha - many people here don't care about political correctness. I hear myself acquiring a bit of the Southern drawl already
Of course, much of what I say in the above, although true, is to cheer myself up. One can only imagine the contrast between Los Angeles and a suburb of Houston. At the same time, the latter could be just the place for truly finding (instead of losing) oneself.
This is really something. Although I always take such things with a grain of salt, I do believe that she has played an immense role in this country, culture, and in many people's lives, including mine. Yes...because I listen to her XM-Radio channel, she has some amazing people there, and what I've heard on it, so far, has led to many personal revelations (some became subjects of these blogs).
My guess is that there are at least 2 reasons for the ending of her show: a) she's bored with it and is up to something else, and b) she's a little conflicted about the spiritual leanings the show has promulgated (or a lack thereof) - definitely there is a lot of it on her radio show, and, maybe 3) both: she's basically questioning her own path now and can't justify the show any longer.
What are your hypotheses as to why she decided to quit the show?
...This is what it says on the front of the bottle. It's a North Coast Cabernet.
On the back, it says:
"You know you've experimented. It's a way to discover what you like. And what you don't. What makes you happy. What satisfies your soul. It's how you know when you've found the one. The one that makes you say, "Sorry, I'm with Cabernet." When you've met the love of your life, is there really any reason to keep looking?"
I was listening to Dr. Laura Berman's "Sex Rx" show on XM-radio today, and she had mentioned something that made me question it. She said there were 5 (five) basic emotions - joy, sadness, fear, anger, disgust - but I don't guarantee that those are the ones she named. I am no expert on the subject. Eckman and others name 6 major emotions, and often different ones are named, but anger, fear, and joy/happiness are a part of all lists. Regardless of the lists, this is what caught my attention. Dr. Laura Berman said that if you suppress ONE of the emotions, you have suppressed them all. The result is that you are not expressing yourself, that you cannot feel anything fully, and that you are now a repressed/constrained human being (not verbatim, but this is the gist of it).
I don't know if I agree with that. I think we have to suppress fear all the time. We also have to suppress sadness that stems from various past losses. We have to suppress the fear and pain of separation from our mother. Babies start suppressing their emotions from their very first hours, perhaps! Does it mean that we are not living fully? I am sure there is a special context to what she had said, however, she did say it in general terms on that show, I am pretty sure. She did follow it with "it is very important to feel what you are feeling." I agree with the latter. I think it is possible to feel fully AND to suppress feelings about certain things in your life - it all depends on the situation.
Anyway, what do you think about that thesis - that if you have stuffed one emotion, the rest are stuffed, too?
At the gym, I often watch people from the corner of my eye, I confess. And no, big muscles don't excite me I am just curious about interactions between different people, strangers, or not. Today it struck me that almost no one was "present." People went about their business of exercising in an autopilot kind of way, but when it came to looking at others, most of them seemed to be elsewhere, even if their gaze met mine (or anyone else's) for a split second. There were just two guys who seemed to be "in the here and now." One of them is a gregarious character, the type who would say hello to everyone in the room as if he's known them forever. I like his friendliness and happy demeanor. He exudes confidence, and his wanting attention is not of the narcissistic kind. He appears to be genuinely interested in people. He's a tall, handsome African American guy wearing a blue bandana. Today he was also wearing electric blue tights showing a big bulge (embarrassed smile). His choice of gym clothes gave me pause for a second, and then I decided it wasn't worth wondering It is what it is.
Then there was that other guy whom I've noticed before. He was "present," too. He was staring at me, and it made me feel a little creepy. Then, when he struck up a conversation with the blue tights guy, his face changed, and he became all smiley and relaxed. When he exercises he is very deliberate with his weights and the pace at which he approaches each machine. He also makes a number of motions which don't seem to me like stretching. He appears to be contemplating the worthiness of each exercise, and then he goes at it with the zeal of a martyr who, at the same time, seeks the attention of his audience as if he were a hero. He assumes there is an audience, and puts his upper body muscles on display. He also dresses in strange black outfits that resemble ballet attire, save for the shoes (the latter are ugly). I guess, what is most striking about that man is his incongruence that is reflected in his dress, his exercise style, his facial expression. Maybe the reason I felt creeped out when he stared at me was because I didn't know how to construe his stare, due to that very incongruence. Then I told myself that he probably wasn't used to showing much on the outside, and that seemed to have brought calm to the entire atmosphere for me...
Of course, to astrologers it should come as no surprise - Moon, the ruler of Pisces, the planet of emotions, should contain water. And they have found out now that it does! __________________ Splash! NASA moon crash struck lots of water
By ALICIA CHANG (AP) – 4 hours ago
LOS ANGELES — Suddenly, the moon looks exciting again. It has lots of water, scientists said Friday — a thrilling discovery that sent a ripple of hope for a future astronaut outpost in a place that has always seemed barren and inhospitable.
Experts have long suspected there was water on the moon. Confirmation came from data churned up by two NASA spacecraft that intentionally slammed into a lunar crater last month.
"Indeed, yes, we found water. And we didn't find just a little bit. We found a significant amount," said Anthony Colaprete, lead scientist for the mission, holding up a white water bucket for emphasis.
The lunar crash kicked up at least 25 gallons and that's only what scientists could see from the plumes of the impact, Colaprete said.
Some space policy experts say that makes the moon attractive for exploration again. Having an abundance of water would make it easier to set up a base camp for astronauts, supplying drinking water and a key ingredient for rocket fuel.
"Having definitive evidence that there is substantial water is a significant step forward in making the moon an interesting place to go," said George Washington University space policy scholar John Logsdon.
Even so, members of the blue-ribbon panel reviewing NASA's future plans said it doesn't change their conclusion that the program needs more money to get beyond near-Earth orbit. The panel wants NASA to look at other potential destinations like asteroids and Mars.
"This new and terrific result reassures us about lunar resources, but ... the challenges currently facing the human spaceflight program remain," Chris Chyba, a Princeton astrophysicist who is on the panel, said in an e-mail.
President George W. Bush had proposed a more than $100 billion plan to return astronauts to the moon, then go on to Mars; a test flight of an early version of a new rocket was a success last month. President Barack Obama appointed the special panel to look at the entire moon exploration program. The decision is now up to the White House, and NASA's lunar plans are somewhat on hold until then.
As for unmanned exploration, previous missions had detected the presence of hydrogen in lunar craters near the moon's poles, possible evidence of ice. In September, scientists reported finding tiny amounts of water in the lunar soil all over the moon's surface.
But it was NASA's Oct. 9 mission involving the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, LCROSS, that provided the stunning confirmation announced Friday — water, in the forms of ice and vapor.
"Rather than a dead and unchanging world, it could in fact be a very dynamic and interesting one," said Greg Delory of the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the mission, led by NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif.
The LCROSS spacecraft only hit one spot on the moon and it's unclear how much water there is across the entire moon.
The October mission involved two strikes into a permanently shadowed crater near the south pole. First, an empty rocket hull slammed into the Cabeus crater. Then, a trailing spacecraft recorded the drama live before it also crashed into the same spot four minutes later.
Though scientists were overjoyed with the plethora of data beamed back to Earth, the mission was a public relations dud. Space enthusiasts who stayed up all night to watch the spectacle did not see the promised giant plume of debris.
NASA scientists had predicted the twin impacts would spew six miles of dust into the sunlight. Instead, images revealed only a mile-high plume, and it was not visible to many amateur astronomers peering through telescopes.
Scientists spent a month analyzing data from the spacecraft's spectrometers, instruments that can detect strong signals of water molecules in the plume.
"We've had hints that there is water. This was almost like tasting it," said Peter Schultz, professor of geological sciences at Brown University and a co-investigator on the LCROSS mission.
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who in 1969 made his historic Apollo 11 moonwalk with Neil Armstrong, was pleased to hear the latest discovery, but still believes the U.S. should focus on colonizing Mars.
"People will overreact to this news and say, `Let's have a water rush to the moon,'" Aldrin said. "It doesn't justify that."
Mission scientists said it would take more time to tease out what else was kicked up in the moon dust.
AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this report.
I am going through a change. Maybe I myself am not changing, but my life is. I actually wanted to bring about some change when I decided to move from my old apartment in Long Beach. Now that I have moved to a place I love (!), I have to leave it. Be careful what you wish for. I wanted a change, and I got it. One move wasn't enough Shortly after I have settled in my new apartment with views from all windows, I have also lost my job. That's OK, it was not unexpected. Now I have found a new job in a different state. I have to move there very soon. My kids have been encouraging. I guess they are at an age when a parent's close proximity is a hindrance to their self-realization. So, by moving away from here, I am making the right decision...
I've got nothing to lose, really. Let alone having no job here, I am not leaving any serious relationships behind. I don't even know if it's possible to have a serious relationship in L.A. any longer, especially at my age. So it's all good. It just feels very sad... maybe because it's hard to do what you know you have to do...
Almost as Woody Allen predicted: one day they are going to discover that all those things which were considered bad would suddenly become good for you. Now, in addition to red wine, it's also chocolate milk (skim milk, of course). It's easy to understand why they decided that more studies were needed drinking chocolate milk - what a research job! __________________________________________ Vital Signs Nutrition: Chocolate Milk May Reduce Inflammation
Article Tools Sponsored By By RONI CARYN RABIN Published: November 9, 2009
Move over, red wine. Make room for chocolate milk. A new study suggests that regular consumption of skim milk with flavonoid-rich cocoa may reduce inflammation, potentially slowing or preventing development of atherosclerosis. Researchers noted, however, that the effect was not as pronounced as that seen with red wine.
Effect of cocoa powder on the modulation of inflammatory biomarkers in patients at high risk of cardiovascular disease (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition)
Scientists in Barcelona, Spain, recruited 47 volunteers ages 55 and older who were at risk for heart disease. Half were given 20-gram sachets of soluble cocoa powder to drink with skim milk twice a day, while the rest drank plain skim milk. After one month, the groups were switched.
Blood tests found that after participants drank chocolate milk twice a day for four weeks, they had significantly lower levels of several inflammatory biomarkers, though some markers of cellular inflammation remained unchanged.
Participants also had significantly higher levels of good HDL cholesterol after completing the chocolate milk regimen, according to the study, which appears in the November issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and is already online.
“Since atherosclerosis is a low-grade inflammatory disease of the arteries, regular cocoa intake seems to prevent or reduce” it, said Dr. Ramón Estruch of the University of Barcelona, the paper’s senior author, adding that more studies were needed.
I love most wines that come from Paso Robles. There is a winery "Doce Robles" that I discovered by trying their Barbera from Trader Joe's. I became their club member (the only club of which I am glad to be a member). They have unexpectedly sent me a case of various Doce Robles wines (they have extended my membership for this year). It is such a treat. I am now tasting the 2006 Zinfandel. It's on a lighter, less frutier and more naughtier side, it's a happy wine. I highly recommend Doce Robles winery to anyone who is interested in moderately priced quality red wines.
It is not easy to be uprooted. It is a state that one has to welcome and consider advantageous (coming from the notion "vantage point"). One searches for home, and then decides to carry it with him/her. I am my home. I am about to be uprooted again. My son said to me the other day, "Mom, but you identify with gypsies, so what's the problem?" And I said, "Oh, but I have picked my handle here just because I liked gypsy music." Maybe it wasn't only about the music...
Do you feel at home where you are right now, or are you searching for it? And, is there such a thing as home any more?
To link to this blog from blog posts/comments, use [blog GypsyTunes], from anywhere else use http://personals.westword.com/blog/GypsyTunes,
and to read it remotely use the feed.
