timid's Xanga

The Sea

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 03:51:31 GMT

God I wish I were in Mexico, inhaling salty ocean mist. I want to sink my hands into the cool sand and listen to the hoarse sea--its roar, its slap, its moan. It doesn't have to be Mexico really--it can be Brazil or California or Thailand or Oregon or Spain or Massachusetts. Everywhere the great maw of ocean draws me, stirs some primordial fish inside, and I will stand wind-lashed and staring, so paralyzed with the thrill that I can hardly breathe.

But I breathe. And my little, fragile chest heaves. And my brain is filled with thunder.

Far away, it's a glint in my eye.

Women's Fiction

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 01:31:55 GMT

An email I wrote to Amazon.com:

I take offense to your "Women's Fiction" category. Why is there a Women's Fiction where there's no corresponding Men's Fiction? By having this category, you are implying that a woman's interest is somehow secondary, that being male is normal and being a woman is something else.

Also, how do you figure that what women are interested in is "Divorce," "Domestic Life," "Friendship," "Mothers and Children," "Single Life," and "Sisters"? Why are these topics only the purview of women? And what about women who aren't interested in these categories at all?

I find this type of classification damaging. They reinforce gender stereotypes that are constantly forming incoming generations into the same old limiting molds of the past. I urge you, as a responsible company, to remove them as soon as possible.

Life in Western North Carolina

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 23:58:34 GMT

Introducing the green salamander, a state-endangered and federal species of concern:

View from rocky outcropping in the conservation community Sherwood Forest:

Plant a Billion Trees Widget

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 01:48:10 GMT

Monday, June 02, 2008

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:50:44 GMT

Can't we do something about this?

http://www.bestlifeonline.com/cms/publish/travel-leisure/Our_oceans_are_turning_into_plastic_are_we.shtml

Polling

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 21:49:34 GMT

Does anyone know how those polling services decide who to ask when they're conducting their polls? Do they call people up or do they ask people on the street? I'm just wondering if they're getting a fair sample. I know I've never once been asked any question by a political pollster, and I have a hunch that part of the reason is because I don't use a land line. I have one, but I don't plug a phone into it (we just use it for our DSL). I don't think pollsters have access to cell phone numbers, and even if they did, I'm not sure it's legal for them to call us. Most young people I know only have cell phones and don't use land lines at all--are we being represented in these polls? They say Hillary Clinton is leading in California polls right now, but almost everyone I know my age is voting for Obama. Could this be why the polls are so off this year?

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 00:40:32 GMT

From Natural Capitalism (by Hawken, Lovins, and Lovins):

"Researches have calculated that industry moves, mines, extracts, shovels, burns, wastes, pumps, and disposes of 4 million pounds of material in order to provide one average middle-class American family's needs for a year. In 1990, the average American's economic and personal activities mobilized a flow of roughly 123 dry-weight pounds of material per day--equivalent to a quarter of a billion semitrailer loads per year. This amounts to 47 pounds of fuel, 46 of construction materials, 15 of farmland, 6 of forest products, 6 of industrial minerals, and 3 of metals of which 90% is iron and steel. Net of 6 pounds of recycled materials, that Average American's daily activities emitted 130 pounds of gaseous material into the air, created 45 pounds of material artifacts, generated 13 pounds of concentrated wastes, and dissipated 3.5 pounds of nongaseous wastes into the environment in such scattered forms as pesticides, fertilizers, and crumbs of material rubbed off tires. In addition, the person's daily activities required the consumption of about 2,000 pounds of water that after use is sufficiently contaminated that it cannot be reintroduced into marine or riparian systems, and produced 370 pounds of rock, tailings, over-burden, and toxic water as a result of extracting oil, gas, coal, and minerals. ... In sum, Americans waste or cause to be wasted nearly 1 million pounds of materials per person per year."

Yes, that means you. Something to think about next time you make a purchase.

Friday, December 21, 2007

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 09:07:43 GMT

[Copied from my journal. Names sometimes abbreviated.]

Pen poised. Something was on my mind, but I've forgotten it. Lost it in the whirl that includes Chris and Shay and Carlos and Annie Dillard and (miraculously) Jackie and fish and fathers and babies and Marykate and all the dreck and dust cluttering my old, wrinkled brain.

For example: Walking in the Chiang Mai rain wearing leather flip flops. I had thought tropical rain would be warmer, but dampness carries a chill even in Southeast Asia. We examined the market goods. I made K bargain for me. She has a talent that I missed when I was with C in Mexico City. C and I both feel shy of bargaining; we fear insulting. It was on that Chiang Mai trip that I bought the "hideous" gifts for J's mother, who in turn piled them on J, who probably threw them away. So craft becomes trash. But it doesn't matter in the free market since it was "paid for."

Why do I want girls to be more serious than guys? Maybe because I find their kind of frivolity insane. If they aren't going to be funny or entertaining they better bring something else to the table. They batter damn well care about this world.

I'm afraid I try to make everyone feel guilty these days. It's only because I feel so guilty myself that it's all I can think of--our society, like a giant parasite. Sometimes I think I can't live here anymore: I'll burst. I have to go somewhere else to be just one person. I can't be that here.

And he wants me to wait more. He wants me to get old this way, sitting on my mound. My whole body rebels against this suggestion, all my cells quivering.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 02:08:05 GMT

According to Ecological Economics: "Anthropology and archaeology together provide us with a reasonable understanding of the hunter-gatherer economy. Rather than the 'nasty, brutish and short' life that many imagine, early people met their basic needs by working only a few hours a day, and resources were sufficient to provide for both young and old who contributed little to gathering food. A recent study of the !Kung, who live in a very arid, marginal environment, found that 10% of the population was over 60, which compares favorably with populations in many industrialized countries."

I want to be a hunter-gatherer. And here I was envying the cat! That was me, in another lifetime.

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 23:12:59 GMT

A sponatenous, inarticulate message I wrote to the UN Secretary General:

Dear Secretary General,

Yesterday, I listened to you speak on the radio show It's Your World, broadcasted by our local public radio station, KQED. You spoke of Darfur as being your number one priority, and this lifted my hopes. But your next words disappointed me--you said that peacekeeping troops would be deployed by October at the latest (or was it earliest?). I am sure many atrocities will be committed between now and October--is there nothing we can do to speed up this process? The majority of the Rwandan genocide took place in a span of 100 days; there are almost as many days between now and the end of October. We simply cannot make the people of Darfur wait this long before we help them. I beg you to send peacekeeping forces now.

Sincerely,

Christine Chen

Santa Clara, CA

USA