I'm such a trend setter!

Turns out that gray hair is trendy. Who knew?

According to recent quips from Alex Brownsell, high-end hair stylist in the UK, grey hair is now in vogue. She states that many individuals who sought the uber-blonde look over the past few years or so have taken it a step further and are now requesting that hairdressers country-wide are taking it a step further in processing — gorgeous grey.

The Book Thief

When I think about Germany during World War II, I never think about (non-persecuted) German civilians, or even the soldiers. I only think of atrocities and evil leaders and evil officers and most of all, the victims. Sympathy for (non-persecuted) Germans doesn't cross my mind. At least it didn't until The Book Thief. This is a story about a lot of things. Most of all, for me, it's a reminder that the casualties or war not not all soldiers. Not the good guys or the bad guys. But regular people, trying to live and grow up in a war zone. This is a timeless truth.

Now, the compulsory question: Gimmicky or not? I say gimmicky.

At the beginning, the little notes seemed new and experimental. But no. Just gimmicky. And the voice of death could be edgy or even humorous if done in that tone. And seriously, this is Germany in 1943 - Death has a staring roll. But I don't think it was necessary. Just another hook.

I kind of even wonder, if the book didn't have these devices, would it have been marketed as a YA book? Or do publishers think they need to appear edgy to get teens reading? And do teens fall for it? Not that one needs to be tricked into reading The Book Thief. It's really quite a read. You don't need to gimmick people into reading, why gimmick at all?

National Day of Action Against Stupak-Pitts

Senators Hatch and Nelson are planning to introduce an amendment virtually identical to the Stupak abortion coverage ban that passed in the House bill. It would effectively ban abortion coverage for millions of women.

Please stop them: Email your senators.
More actions

Real health care reform doesn't sacrifice the medical needs of 50% of the population.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

My grandma lived an agricultural life. In the early 30's she was bounced all over the Pacific Northwest as a foster child, which in those days was equivalent to being and indentured farm-hand. At age 27, she and her husband purchased 10 acres, where they tended vegetables, flowers, berries and an orchard, and they raised pigs and cows and 6 children. Grandma worked and lived on the farm for the last 55 years. She died there on November 18. Over the last month, I spent a lot of time at my grandma's farm. I learned quite a lot about my grandma's life and about how the farm functions.

I began reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle the day after my grandma passed. In the week that followed, I was amazed at the parallels between the lifestyle Kingsolver promotes and the lifestyle my grandma lived. It felt like a window into the world that I somehow grew up ignoring and neglecting and not helping with. I loved the descriptions of plants and animals and seasons and food. I saw my grandmother in the neighborly and generous spirit. I could seriously feel the love that Kingsolver and her family share. OK, maybe I was projecting a bit, I've been surrounded by love love love.

When my book group chose this book, I was not enthused. I fully expected to get annoyed at Barbara Kingsolver. I expected to be overwhelmed with her wealth privilege, farm-knowledge privilege or even free-time privilege or some other format of arrogance. Contrary to my fears, Kingsolver does not guilt the reader for not owning a 20 acre farm. Occasionally I did find myself thinking: "What about those of us who can't figure out what is a weed and what is spinach?" or "How does anyone these days learn how to butcher a chicken?" or "Most of us don't have the means to purchase farm land, or the knowledge of how to turn our yards into a veggie garden." Then I'd remember that my grandma did all these things and she knew these things. She would have been thrilled to teach me. She taught my father and aunts and uncles, they grew up this way. A generation later, many of my cousins garden and a few learned to butcher animals. I just never listened.

Whenever a loved one dies, we naturally regret the time we didn't spend with them. I'm also regretting the things I neglected to learn. How sad that I read gobs books about food and nutrition and sustainability and have a shelf of intimidating books on gardening that I haven't even cracked, when such a knowledgeable teacher was only a generation away.

I have vivid memories of a hot kitchen as she canned green beans over her wood-fired stove. I have no memories of helping or asking to learn. Around 10 years ago, Grandma's garden became too much for her to work alone. Family members pitched in with work parties, but I was already living far from home and only made it a few times. One chore I didn't escape was chopping firewood, but I certainly never learned to cook on the wood stove and don't even know how to use the fireplace. (The other chore I didn't escape was killing slugs with a salt shaker. Grandma had armies of salt-armed grandkids. Organic!)

At Thanksgiving, the family started the sad task of cleaning out Grandma's house, beginning with the refrigerator. I was sent home with the usual Thanksgiving leftovers and a couple jars of jelly. There was an open invitation to raid the shed, which contains shelves and shelves and shelves of canned foods.

My grandma knew how to feed her family. It's a wonder I can even feed myself.

Love the muppets!

Why I'm studying Buddhism

For a while now I've been trying to figure out how to explain (to myself) why I have such an interest in Buddhism.

Let's start with the most important thing: I am an atheist and for me, that includes disbelief in anything supernatural. I do not intend to ever be anything but an atheist. I'm not looking for something to believe in, or something to tell me what to do and not do, or to explain the meaning of life (I don't believe there is a meaning to life) but here I am becoming more and more interested in Buddhism.

I was never looking for a religion and I'm still not. I don't want to have a religion. Religion baffles me. Sometimes, including right now, I don't even understand what religion means. It's something different for each person. In the past, people used religion as a substitute for history, science, medicine, morality, deities, and spirituality with philosophy.

Since we now have a good handle on how to record history, pursue scientific methods, understand health and pass that information along, many of these purposes hold no validity to me. I do not accept religion in these contexts and am -sometimes rudely- incredulous of those who do. I also do not understand why religion is deemed necessary for morality. As a non-sociopath, I have a sense of compassion and know that compassion is all anyone needs to make moral choices. As I've mentioned, I'm not ever going to buy into deities and have no interest in pretending to even respect the idea. That leaves spirituality and philosophy. I always considered spirituality to be relating to spirits, as in superstitious nonsense. Now, I'm thinking of spirituality in context of a state of mind. Philosophy is what I think I'm dealing with here.

I have this idea about life, a theory. It's not all fleshed out yet, so I have a hard time explaining it. Basically, I think that the feelings of spirituality are really psychology, that feelings of peace or calm or "being with god" or what have you are a state of mind. Nothing supernatural about it, just biology, human nature and our brains. Various things I've read over the last few years have led me to think that this may be our right brain and I wonder if meditation is somehow related. I want to learn to meditate.

Also, I have an outlook on life and a set of (imperfect) skills for dealing with situations and emotions. These are based my life and experience and possibly on the host of self-improvement books and articles I've read over the years. I know that I can sometimes influence how I deal with things. I can choose to not take things personally, to let other people's opinions be their problem, not mine. I know what I can and cannot control and not take on worry for things out of my hands. I am not perfect at these things, or even necessarily good at them. But I think they're close to the right track for dealing well. Maybe you'd call this my philosophy.

I don't really have the time or energy or intelligence to think through and explore my theory on brains/spiritual feelings or my "philosophy" at a super deep level. And we all know the second step of the scientific method is background research. I'm sure I'm not the only one with ideas like this, so I'm trying to find others who have thought this through and learn from them. Buddhist teachings are that background research.

I'd heard that Buddhism is compatible with atheism. I didn't fully understand how that was possible, but it got me started reading. Then I found my interest peaked in meditation and found that the teachings and practices of Buddhism are largely in line with my philosophy. Now, as I continue to study, I'm constantly surprised by how these things are all interconnected. And how much my reservations are being assuaged. So far I haven't found a Buddhist tradition that I'm fulling in line with, but to my surprise I continue to be interested.

Make sense? Yeah, I'm not sure I get it either. But I'm interested, so there you go.

insomnia

Life is incredibly hard right now. I feel so many things it's overwhelming. Who could sleep? Now, I pretend to be doing anything other than avoiding sleep, avoiding tomorrow, delaying the moment the phone rings...

I feel like I have a lot to say and no where to say it. To private for a blog. To much to lay onto another individual.