On Righteous Indignation

I was born in the mid 1980's to a card-carrying member of NOW and an absent-minded engineer. I was raised not believing, but knowing I was equal in every value to boys, but also knowing that stupid boys might try to harm me if I reminded them of that fact. From that I grew to understand that I was equal in value to smart, worthwhile boys, and was actually worth more than stupid rednecky ones. I knew that I had every opportunity to be as smart as I possibly could, pursue any career I wanted, and that I had the right to say no, or yes, as the spirit moved me.

I also knew that when I reached adulthood I would be held responsible for my actions and choices, that my self respect and sexuality were mine alone, that a woman was prime minster of England and there would soon be a woman President, and that I had a personal responsibility to maintain my sense of self-worth in the face of all that might oppose me because I was a girl.

It was a lot to absorb before 1990.

But absorb that I did, and I think that may have harmed the feminist movement in the long run. See, I grew up under the very erroneous assumption that my rights, responsibilities, and opportunities were a given. That they were not something I would be called upon to fight for, because that fighting had been done for me. All I was asked to do was maintain it, and not waste it.

Which is why I was a bit shocked to learn, upon leaving Fort Mill, that the oppressed women we'd glossed over in social studies were actually real people, and the institutionalized rape, murder, and imprisonment of forward-thinking women was actually going on outside of the protected bubble I called home. I got through the chunk of my education in which my teachers focused on making us appreciate what we had, but before they could get to the point where, I think, they were going to tell us to help others attain it too, 9/11 occurred and the message of "promote women's rights in the Muslim world" was trampled by the much louder, "kill all brown people."

The hoopla did die down a bit and more recently our politial sights have returned to the plight of women living under the Taliban and other Back-assward regimes. I think the reason Western women have a hard time wrapping our heads around the fact that women haven't en masse risen up against institutionalized rape, honor murders, punishable education, and forced marriage is that we really don't understand how they can feel powerless. Our reeducation in the 1960's was pretty damn thorough--girls do feel empowered, women know we have rights, and we know when they're being infringed upon. We do get angry when our neighbors only pay for their sons to go to college. We do get upset when jackass old men leave their wives of 40 years for teenage gold-diggers. We're saddened to see the ghetto produce teenage baby-mamas who erroneously believe that having kids of their own will free them from the abuse they receive from their families. And people do work to help women break free of these patterns of male-dominance, or at least sue the bastards for everything they've got. People do go into the schools to try and help teenage girls see that college, not babies they can't handle, will help them break free of poverty and subjugation by men. We do try in our own communities because we know that the overall sentiment among women here is that we are equal, and we deserve our equality.

In the West we are shocked and horrified to read inquiries into the institutionalized beating, rape, and neglect of children by religious schools in countries we call our own--especially when we know that something could have easily been done to stop it at the time. I think the abuses perpetrated by the Irish Catholic Church against the children in their care are identical to the abuses against women in Saudi Arabia, in almost all ways. The children were captives, raised in the abusive institutions, understood that they could be abused at any time for any reason, and that if they spoke up about it or even cried that the pain would be worsened and they would be isolated, called liars, shunned, sent away, or killed. Many had never known any other way of life, and they inherently knew that fighting would get them nowhere--they were smaller than their captors, and in many instances kept weak and on the brink of starvation partly to ensure that they would never effectually fight back. Indeed, they also knew that complaining would get them nowhere--even if they sought an outside authority, such as the police, the adult in the confrontation's word would always be taken more seriously than theirs, even if their bones were broken and their bodies clearly violated. If you were raped by a priest it was your fault for reaching puberty in his presence. If you were beaten senseless by a nun it was for your own good because otherwise you'd end up like your mother, who was a prostitute and the spawn of Satan. You are alone, you have no recourse to aid, and you have no rights at all--not even to your life.

I have never lived in this world. I don't ever want to. I have felt victimized and have occasionally feared for my life, but I have never been made to feel utterly helpless for any sustained period. I've always had the right to leave, the ability to seek help, the right to a grown-up or a lawyer or a jury of my peers. No one's authority over me is absolute, and I always have the right up to stand up against what I perceive as injustice. I have stood up against what I perceived as injustice. It got me nowhere, as the last time I did was during the Bush administration, but I was not harmed or punished for doing so. I have petitioned, written my senator, peacefully protested, and voted again and again. I have taken my side up in court and won with the validity of my argument. I've been intimidated by cops but only in one instance have I ever felt that they were twitchy enough to abuse their authority or harm me. I have said no, and been respected for it. I've also said no and been told to fuck myself for it, but I've still had the confidence to uphold my dignity that I believe must come from the inner knowledge that if this punk tries anything, I'll totally bring the law down on him.

But that's the difference between me and girls my age living under oppressive states, with oppressive religions and oppressive parents. They don't have that confidence. If punks try something against a girl in a community where she is repeatedly told she is worthless, she is browbeaten and will not find anyone sympathetic to her plight, where even the nice people say she probably asked for it, she'll probably find herself raped and beaten by a man, then beaten or killed by her family, the state, and the church for allowing it to happen to herself.

Where's the strength to stand up for yourself? Where's the self-assurance that comes with knowing this is wrong? Feminism is Western and the West is Satan, so Feminism is satanic, therefore many men are working very hard to convince women that they are worthless and might as well like it that way. How many women in these communities genuinely believe that rape is the fault of the raped? How many mothers feel a strong responsibility to raise their daughters to submit? How many mothers felt that their forced marriage to the douchebag that fathered their children was appropriate? Why?

It's this aspect of the mindset that baffles today's Western woman. It is one thing for a mother to impress upon her daughter that yes, this sucks, and I'm sorry for bringing you into this horrible world, but if you don't marry your cousin willingly you'll just be beaten senseless and married to him by force so you might as well deal with it like I did--but when a mother says "this is what you must do, this is my will, you may not marry the man you love because your father and I want your money" to her daughter without a shadow of empathy or yearning...it just doesn't make a damn ounce of sense. That seems contrary to every basic instinct that makes up the female condition. How can adult women willfully suppress love for the sake of money or propriety? How can fathers so deliberately sacrifice their daughters--entities deemed sacred by their own endocrine systems--to lives of misery and servitude for the sake of their own finances or reputations? How can this behavior continue through the generations? How can parents defeat biology?

Love is not an abstract entity--we know that. It's a huge and complex network of synaptic responses to stimuli that demand we protect our offspring and those with whom we mate. In my culture people who deliberately harm, or appear to not have good intentions for their children are considered insane. Assault and battery are one thing when it comes to strangers, but if you hurt your own kid, prevent her from going to school, make her marry a man she detests, or refuse to let her go outside unattended by a male relative the police inquiry will probably include some Rorschach tests. Child abuse is a sign that there's something terribly wrong going on.

So what does it mean when a culture institutionalizes it? Condones, encourages, even demands it? What we call catastrophic human rights abuses, brainwashing, and the subjugation of over half of the population, Saudi Arabia calls "Thursday." The small clusters of women that do feel inspired to start grassroots equality campaigns are choked out early before they spread, and are often publicly raped or stoned until dead to serve as examples to everyone. These displays don't prove rightness or wrongness to anyone--they just remind everyone that violence will always defeat pacifism. The Westerners who manage to get in and start talking to people are imprisoned for espionage, or simply disappear. These are countries that don't want their people to want life to improve. They'd rather blame the West for their horrible lives than take the initiative and improve them for themselves. It can't be this repressive religion or culture we've built around ourselves that makes us so unhappy, that makes our finest minds escape to America at their earliest opportunity to pursue respectable careers and send their daughters to school, thereby leaving us devoid of modern healthcare or access to legal representation. They appear determined to make a bad situation worse even though they can easily see that their goals are not realistic and their ideals are intolerable. All for what? Spite? God? Didn't they say their god was benevolent? What idiot worships a god that she believes hates her? Why is the pursuit of happiness a sin?

This is the problem. We don't get it. We don't understand. The misery of these women's lives doesn't make sense to us, because to the empowered mind it doesn't seem possible. And it's because we're a little bit empowered. We're not on top, we're still struggling for our own voices to be recognized as true authority and not merely conciliatory authority permitted and supervised by nice men. (Between two equally awesome hypothetical candidates, a woman and a man, I'll vote for the woman out of a sense of "it's about damn time.") Western women have a sense, fulfilled or not, of ideal equality. We seek it, we crave it, sometimes we even feel it. Do oppressed women know this feeling? Do they get the urge to fight? Do they want to?

In our idealized eyes we know that if we could simply get all repressed women to stand up as one and throw off the shackles of their government they could succeed in overthrowing their way of life. Sadly revolutions must have a starting point, and it is pretty easy to stamp out little fires of revolt. Moreover, even if they did really all stand up as one and demand their government and religion be restructured to include them as equals with rights to themselves, i'm pretty sure they'd be attacked, as one, and wrestled to the floor by their husbands, fathers, brothers, and community men who flatly refuse to allow women to consider themselves people, even if every single one of them demanded it. Because it's not just a small group in the government controlling the masses--the permeation of culture through religion and education allows the masses to control the masses. Just as American education and a lot of Western religion does in favor of women.

Our idealized notion of empowering the women themselves is not going to work because a large portion of their culture was established to prevent them having power, and to prevent the men in their lives from wanting them to have it. Even the men who genuinely do love them. Look at how much American men fought against women's suffrage, for centuries, and came up with a host of bullshit excuses why they shouldn't--excuses as far-ranging as "women don't need to vote because they can't hold land--oh what, now you're going to tell me you want to do that too?" and "women shouldn't have say in what the country does--it's not like it affects them." and "frankly my dear, you're just genetically stupid." Love or no, if you convince a person he or she is better than another flavor of person, he or she is going to have a hard time granting that flavor of person the same rights and privileges he or she enjoys. (for a list of flavors, allow me to direct your attention to the Anti-Discrimination Policy included in most American corporate models. Baskin-Robbins ain't got nothin on it.)

America as a nation is still pretty bad at the whole "live and let live, everyone is equal--yes, even Transvestites, Mexicans, and Mormons, so knock it off" thing, and we claim the greatest Human Flavor Diversity Index of any country ever. (The combinations! The mix-ins! The subtle hints of mocha!) Imagine the difficulty of convincing people who's lineages determine what they eat for breakfast of the equality of all people. (My heritage recall gets hazy beyond my grandma, and in my country that's a-ok--even desirable, as I'm not entitled to anything, but I don't have to apologise for anything either.) Plenty of Americans' backgrounds are so diverse it's easier for them to just mark "yes to all" on the survey sheet. Our ethnic diversity is so great that equality is paramount among all lessons taught in public schools...in our urban centers. In states that turn red on election maps...that tends to be glossed over.

To diverge from my topic (further), I just want to ask Islamic Nationalists which chunk of America they find more despicable--places like New York and San Francisco, urban centers of diversity and typically peaceful interaction among races and cultures, or places like Oklahoma and Nebraska that have reputations for promoting and wishing to impose upon the rest of the world their homogenous race, religion, and ancestors?

I don't know what type of intervention into repressive religious government is appropriate. How was denazification so successful? I guess we...bombed Germany into a pulp and then rebuilt it as the global community saw fit. Somehow, though, I don't think the same technique would be effective in an area we've been continually bombing for decades for no readily apparent reason. I think the trick is to covertly re-write the laws, and when somebody notices, just point at the humanitarian re-write and the Qu'Ran and say "oh, but look--it totally fits! It must have said that the whole time."

Seriously, I don't know how Western women managed it, rising up and demanding to be respected after lifetimes of repression. It's been a gradual process and we're not there yet, but we're the closest we've ever been in centuries, and sadly as our culture has filled in behind the waves our foremothers made we've lost the fire, the spark, the anger that got us here. We have no reason to fight for what we have, and have a hard time doing it when it is asked of us. (Prop 8's success startled many people.) What we have, instead, is a sense of cultural identity built upon the understanding that we are in fact equals, always have been, and always will be. I was born knowing that, and as such can't genuinely fathom an existence without it. I don't know how to fight for the right to self-respect. I sadly feel like Marie Antoinette saying "let them eat cake" simply because I'm truly so far removed from the matter that I don't get it. I don't know how to help.

Oh Come On

This past Tuesday I sent a rather large amount of money to confirm my place in the graduate program I've decided to attend--technically my second choice, but the first had been giving me the run-around and I'd run out of time to wait for them.

So naturally this past Friday I received an email confirming interview dates and times for
my first choice school.

It's just one of those things--I knew it was going to happen, it happened, it annoyed me anyway.

In better news, Congratulations Patrick and April!

Cackalacka

I'm heading to SC for the weekend to witness the nuptials of one of my best friends (and the lovely lady who astonished us all by agreeing to it.) I plan to also give my mommy flowers and hugs in a belated-but-awesomer show of Mother's Day appreciation. Two for the price of one flight. Holla.

I also plan to change out seasonal clothes and shoes so I may look a little funny if my bags get opened by airport security. "So you're taking sweaters, snow boots, heavy socks, and a giant woolen coat...to South Carolina. In May. Right. So why don't you just make this easier for everyone and dig out the contraband?"

New York City Smells of Urine

That is all.

I think the most profound difference between scientists and religious followers is that scientists are looking out at and trying to figure out the baffling vastness of it all, while the religious believe the vastness has it all figured out and is looking in.

O Ralph

I may have mentioned this before, but Ralph, the God of Plumbing, enjoys testing me. Every house i've lived in, no matter how long, has had crappy plumbing of one shape or another, and always, Always, the water-related problem has reached critical mass when I've been the only person around to deal with it. Today, naturally, was no exception, but it was a small matter--the outflow pipe from the kitchen sink detached and created a large puddle in the cabinet underneath, but it's drying out okay. But every time--and believe me, there have been dozens--that my plumbing goes awry I shake my tiny fist and fight the urge to shout "O Ralph, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?"

Anyone who has lived with me in the past few years and seen me go all twitchy when the shower rots out, the toilet won't flush, the intake or outflow pipe corrodes, the basement floods, the bathroom floor goes swampy, it won't get hot, it won't get cold, it's been three days and the water is still running red, oh my those tiles popped off and now a plague of locusts is swarming into the tub (true story), may be interested to know that I was adept at handling a toilet snake when i was 6. I'd been using my bathroom on the third floor of my new house for about a month with no problems, when suddenly it backed up in the middle of the night and started overflowing--from the bowl, from the tank, everywhere. I didn't know how to turn off the intake valve, so i tried to mop it up with a towel, but it kept getting worse, so, being 6, I screamed. My daddy ran up the stairs and, after stymieing the water, showed me how to use a plunger. Sadly for the lesson, it didn't work--by two a.m. the bathroom was soaked and dad grumpily admitted defeat. The next day he bought a toilet snake and ran it the length of the pipe to try and find the blockage--it went out a full 30 feet before it reached something that wouldn't budge. After fighting with that for an hour he called a plumber, who eventually followed the line down to the basement, tapped around, and cut the pipe just below...a big wad of construction materials. yep, concrete, kicked in by construction workers or crammed in by punk kids, gave me hours of joy standing in half an inch of water tainted with my own wee, throwing out my minuscule back with the strain of fighting an intangible obstruction and set the pattern for my encounters with plumbing from then on. To give you an idea of how far-reaching this curse of mine is, I can say "The toilet is clogged" in three languages. I've bought metric and imperial pipe fittings. I'm known on site in hardware stores in four time zones. I've troubleshot heads on historic ships, had toilets fail at thirty thousand feet, and prevented an overflow from flooding the Louvre. And I'd just like to make one thing perfectly clear. There is nothing remarkable about my bowels, there is nothing reprehensible about my toilet practices. I use just enough paper to do the job. I clear my hair out of the drain after every shower. I don't try to cram crud down the sink. I have a responsible attitude toward plumbing, but I guarantee you if I ever move to Niagara it will somehow clog.

O Ralph. Why me?

Books on a Train

I'm about 3/4 of the way through Naomi Wolf's 1991 bestseller The Beauty Myth, and it has been on my mind a lot lately. I would have finished it a lot sooner if it weren't for my new habit of only reading on trains--if there's one thing New York public transit has taught me, it's to always have a book on hand.

An unfortunate strength of the book is how relevant it continues to be, nearly twenty years after it was published. It is soul-crushing to have pointed out to a reader, in explicit detail, exactly how marketing and sales interests have worked throughout our lives to chip away at women's, and more recently men's, sense of self-worth until we lose sight of what is worthwhile in life and instead waste all of out time, money, and energy worshiping and attempting to embody intangible, impossible, unhealthy perfection. It hasn't gotten better since the '90's, women haven't stepped up and stripped off the shackles of perfection ideology, we're still strangled, distracted, and berated by the need to be objectively beautiful, still taunted and tsk-tsked like four year olds with beauty do's and don'ts that constantly contradict themselves and get more expensive.

That's something I've found funny--women did speak up and complain that it wasn't right that we were being targeted as objects of aesthetic scrutiny, that every element of our culture was pressuring us to not only buy beauty products and gym memberships, but to adhere to them religiously, feel guilty when we didn't, and allow ourselves to be chastised ruthlessly when we aged and fattened anyway. So the market responded--they roped men into it too. Now Everyone feels ugly, fat, and unlovable. Progress!

What really gets me, however, in this text, is exactly how relevant Everything she says is to me. I don't merely breeze through and occasionally stop and reflect when she's right-on--my progress through the book has been sluggish at best because I have cause to reflect at least twice in every paragraph. I find this personal accuracy on the part of Wolf both reassuring and distressing--I applaud her insight, but am irked by the fact that I gelled so neatly and uniformly into the mold she describes for modern women. Dammit, I thought I was an individual with quasi-unique concerns and interests, not some stamped out fembot with pre-programmed personality paradoxes and marketable mental hangups that were clearly itemized before I was born. But Ms. Wolf actually wrote out, verbatim, the circular reasoning that entered my head during puberty and continues to this day which has prevented me from accepting a compliment...when I was 7.

Nothing he can say about this is right. He can't speak. Whatever he says hurts her more. If he comforts her by calling the issue trivial, he just doesn't understand. It isn't trivial at all. If he agrees with her that it's serious, even worse: He can't possibly love her, she's fat and ugly. If he says he loves her just as she is, worse still: He doesn't think she's beautiful. If he lets her know that he loves her because she's beautiful, worst of all, though she can't talk about this to anyone. That is supposed to be what she wants most in the world, but it makes her feel bereft, unloved, and alone. (Wolf, 170)

This just isn't fair. How is it that in twenty years I haven't done something about what was going on, how my culture has not only played upon my insecurities, but Given me insecurities to play upon and make money off of? How I was given beauty magazines as a child and encouraged to learn from them what big girls cared about, as though it was privileged information for adults and I was being bad-ass by reading. As though Seventeen magazine isn't written with impressionable twelve year olds in mind. I felt fat before I had fat. I felt short when I was taller than every boy in my class. I felt ugly before my skin knew how to produce oil. I had those mass-market insecurities deeply ingrained long before I was a viable buyer. The last time I looked at a mirror and didn't suck my belly in I was an infant. I can actually recall being about five and having a cashier tell my mom I was a very pretty little girl, and automatically dropping my eyes, fidgeting, and saying "thank you" without any sincerity. Somehow even by then I'd been trained to not believe it, knowing that adults were required to provide children with empty platitudes and compliments.

I tell you something, I've never felt pretty. If I am, I don't know. I can clearly recall my first insult, but compliments bypass my self-esteem like the breeze. (for anyone curious, a male classmate called me "bug-eyed" in the lunch line one day in first grade shortly before flicking a rubber band in my face. When I sneered and turned my back on him, he spat his gum into my hair. It took my mom hours and a full jar of peanut butter to get it out. I still hate that child. Six years later another boy spat gum into my hair on the school bus. I punched him in the face, and although it bruised and clearly hurt he laughed, lest his ego also be bruised, and mocked me for hitting like a girl. When moments later I was reprimanded by the bus driver for fighting like a boy I was left baffled, and realized that both comments were degrading. That was about the point I started hating being a girl, and I've lived with it since.) Every compliment I've ever received has been meticulously analyzed by my Self-Hatred Committee (I think their offices are near my left ear) and has only reached my starving Ego with a lengthy note attached. "He says you're pretty because he thinks you're trash and wants someone easy to have sex with him." and "They say you're smart because it's an easier lie than 'you're pretty.' Read: you are ugly and stupid." are the two form letters that get pinned to compliments most frequently.

I'm insulted when people point out I'm pretty. I'm insulted when they don't. All in all, I hate it when people notice and/or fail to notice that I'm visible. When my other half thinks he's covering his ass thoroughly by saying that I'm both pretty and smart and neither asset detracts from the other and he in fact values both independently but finds that my intellect makes me more beautiful but I was pretty to begin with I am able to retort that he's a bastard who doesn't care about me because he acknowledges that I have an outward appearance at all. When he acknowledges that that's true only to the extent that if I had no outward appearance I'd disappear from view, I tend to agree that that would be best. He has since resorted to only giving me compliments when I'm too tired to argue.

This is frustrating to no end--I would absolutely love to be able to say "thank you, I feel pretty, I think you're pretty too, lets curl up and look at each other and enjoy it," and leave it at that. But, while currently that would be a logistical nightmare anyway, no matter what is said something in my head has to pipe up and contradict it, say he's lying, or simply remind me of the areas of my body I've been trained to despise. It's as though I've got a little Scorpius hovering on the edge of my consciousness, a pop-up ad in my soul, brought to you by Proctor & Gamble.

It isn't fun, it isn't easy, and its more common than influenza. Somehow a large group of people, purporting or perhaps even intending to be helpful, have encouraged me to see artificially enhanced young women as the beauty ideal and attempt to emulate them. They've convinced me to try to become them because that's what boys like, and have encouraged, through helpful language like "You have the power to be beautiful" me to hate myself when I fall miles short because I eat when I'm hungry, I don't have a team of dedicated photo artists on hand 24/7 to clear my skin, and I'm not being paid to work out and have pictures taken of me.

That's just it--beauty is not my job. Unlike models and porn stars, far from being compensated for my efforts to become pretty, I'm expected to pay for it, and take time out of my day in excess of my day job (or worse, take money out of my savings when the temp agency doesn't call) in order to attempt to achieve what "beautiful" women have made a career of doing. I'm sure many struggled and strove to get started, and smaller-time models probably have to pay for their gym memberships themselves, but they can see a direct cost-reward line between working out and getting paid. The rest of us are supposed to somehow work out, never eat, be productive in our fields, have energy for family and friends, be happy and interested in our worlds, and not go into debt over our heads. There are two approaches I could take to this--I could try and fail, or I could not try and also fail. I choose the latter because its cheaper and, as I'm not Catholic, I don't harbor guilt.

Which brings me to the issue of models and porn stars--the image they generate of pretty, skinny women participating in sexual acts, not for pleasure, but for pay, is frustrating. Women like sex, and as biologically the whole point of sex is the transfer of genetic material into a woman, you'd think that as a culture we'd make a point for the sex-act to be about pleasing women. Sexual encounters effectively end when the man comes to orgasm, right? We know he's going to keep at it until he gets off. That in itself is not noteworthy and it requires no extra effort on the part of a woman to achieve it. If you want to suck his penis, fine, but it's the same sensation that leads him to orgasm no matter where he gets it. Women...not so much. It does require extra effort to stimulate the same receptor cells and achieve the same physiological response that men achieve through coitus--due to some odd evolutionary snafu the clitoris is not directly involved in the sex act. She may enjoy penetrative sex greatly, but it simply does not stimulate the same nerve group or elicit the same spasmodic reaction as clitoral stimulation. It doesn't.

So you would think that, seeing as a man's orgasm generates the risk of pregnancy in a woman, so she is running a big risk by allowing him to come near her at all, he would be expected to do something to earn the right to. I.e. he should bring her to complete and satisfying clitoral orgasm before proceeding to use her body to bring himself to one. This still isn't remotely fair considering she's still risking 20 years of responsibility and lost self, or an expensive avoidance procedure, for that orgasm, but at least for the sake of leaving both participants satisfied it is a reasonable arrangement.

Unfortunately, when sexual activity is depicted on film for the sake of educating the men and women of tomorrow, this arrangement is never seen. Almost invariably the woman in the demonstration is subordinate to or a mere vehicle for the man's enjoyment. To draw the power structure visually, she begins and ends the encounter on her knees. Some demonstrations include brief, cursory woman-pleasing scenes, but the technique used (generally understood to facilitate the camera operator) is either so ineffective as to be pointless or appears painful. For the most part, however, the woman performer goes directly from orally stimulating the penis, to vaginally stimulating the penis, back to orally stimulating the penis, before the encounter ends with a mess on her face. While she may make a lot of noise during the encounter it is understood by both performers and audiences that she is not having a particularly good time but is, in fact, imagining the fat paycheck at the end of the shoot.

Which is fine, opponents to my frustration claim--porno is intended for male audiences, so why not pander to the audience?

Because men aren't the only watchers of pornography, and teenage boys are not the only people who are in a position to be influenced by it. Let's be honest with ourselves--security pages on the internet are there to inconvenience the very people who are most able to bypass them. If you put a lock on a cookie jar, you're going to wind up with it mysteriously emptied but the lock apparently untouched. Young teenage girls crave porn, and why wouldn't they? It's interesting, it's risque , and it helps them safely satisfy their very real and urgent sex drives--which started developing before the boys in their classes lost interest in cooties. Locking porn away from children is adults' way of pretending that their children are asexual, and will remain so until they're 30, married, and have children of their own. So the internet has done the next best thing--it has locked the porn away to appease parents, and made the lock page far easier to overcome than those pesky tops on the Vicadin ever were, to appease kids.

But what these kids are seeing is unhealthy--not because it's sex, but because it's an unhealthy depiction of sex. It's violent. It's demeaning. It's painful. Women are subjected to humiliation and apparently unsafe practices. Grown ups know it's all pretend--everyone there is getting paid, no one is getting hurt, and most of the performers respect each other as friends and colleagues within their industry. But even if kids know that, the imagery sticks far better than the explanation. What we need is to revamp the sex industry and encourage people to produce happy sex--scenes in which obviously consenting teams of normal, healthy adults engage in mutually pleasing activities that leave both clearly satisfied, depict accurate and helpful techniques for pleasing women, encourage the female performers to enjoy actual on-screen orgasms, refrain from putting women in subordinate or demeaning positions, reduce or even negate the emphasis on the blow job, remove the undertones of rape, sex as payment, sex as a means of getting better grades, sex as a behavior women consent to merely to appease men, and sex as a means of perpetuating the idea that women use sex to promote their careers, and when it's over, refrain from covering anyone in slime.

I don't care if your analyists don't think it'll sell. Porn doesn't sell anymore anyway. Everyone who's got half a brain watches it streaming for free and avoids the eyebrow-raising credit card charges and .tmp files. I'd be willing to bet nine-tenths of today's porn consumers have never paid for it and never will. The fact is, young people will get their hands on porno by any means necessary, so it is important that what they find presents them with a good first impression of sexuality. Please don't delude yourself into believing that with guidance and involved parental support young people won't seek it out and be influenced by it. If your fourteen year old tells you s/he's never looked at porn, s/he has learned how to lie. Or that with proper internet management we can keep kids from seeing content that's intended for mature audiences. If the audience was mature, they wouldn't seek it out. Porn isn't just for perverts anymore. Perverts have had to reach above and beyond sex to stand out from the crowd.

I applaud some recent efforts within the amateur community for their attempts to depict natural, happy sex. These unpaid or low-paid exhibitionists are more likely to have healthy body weights, are more inclined to perform only with partners who know them and their bodies well, and are more likely to look like they're having a loving, fun time. Keep it up! (C'mon folks from South Preston--you remember porn-n-hors-d'oeuvres nights. We heckled then--the comment "damn, those shoes are going to perforate that sofa," was one of mine--We can encourage now. We're apparently grown ups.) I think a genuine effort on the part of the porn industry to promote a healthy female body image and a healthy female relationship with sex would work WONDERS toward promoting healthy women in our society. (so of course it won't happen--if they like themselves, they won't buy our products! bastards.)

Hizzle

I sat down and compiled a list recently of all the places I've called home in the past 24 years, and came up, to my astonishment, with 10. I've lived in all but 3 since I started this blog, nearly four and a half years ago, and in that time have gotten so used to moving that all I need is my copy of Ender's Game on the shelf to feel settled. (not my signed one--this is my travel copy. Ender's first few pages in Salamander Army are a little loose but still good.) Anyway, this list attempts to describe the houses and structures I've resided in within a certain set of real estate ad-esque criteria, plus a few market-irrelevant details.

We begin. . . in 1984!

1984-1990 Pineville, NC. (single family home)

3BR, 2.5BA 2 story w/ blue aluminum siding on .1 acre cleared lot. 1981 build. Informal LR, DR, Den. Full kitchen with sm. breakfast area, ground floor rear porch. Laundry, 1-car garage. Tot. occupants: 4. (a number my older sister resents to this day.)

1990-2002. Fort Mill, SC (single-family home)

4BR, 3.5BA 3 story brick on .2 acre wooded lot. 1989 Build. BR 10'x10'. Formal LR, DR, informal Den. Full kitchen w/ breakfast area. Laundry, 2-car garage. 2BRs and Den recently converted to offices. Tot. occupants: 4+1 cat. Smells Like: Home.

2002-2004. Columbia, SC (Preston College, University of South Carolina)

120 double-occupancy 100-150 sq. ft BR, 90+ensuite BA, 3-story concrete+stucco Colonial-style dormitory with front and rear porches on landscaped lot. 1936 build. Formal lobby w/ piano, large aquarium, historic sofa from Zelda Fitzgerald's estate. 100-150 sq. ft BRs. 03-04 partial kitchen (no stove) and small LR. Communal laundry on main floor, staff-only parking. Tot. occupants: 240 men and women+1 dog. Smells like: freshmen, marijuana, scented candles.

2004-2005. Canterbury, Kent, UK (Homestall, Parkwood, University of Kent)

5BR, 1.5BA 2-story brick facade townhouse (13 of 19 in a rough U, central courtyard with bicycle storage and limited parking.) 1990's build. Full kitchen and small table, no other communal spaces. 100 sq. ft BRs (avg) Laundry, bodega, communal space .2 mi away. Tot. Registered occupants: 5. Tot Regular occupants: 7. Smells like: cooked macaroni, melting pot handles.

2005-2006. Columbia, SC (South Quadrangle, University of South Carolina)

4BR, 2BA apartment on first of 4 story yellow concrete/stucco 100-apartment complex. 2000 build. 49 sq. ft BR. Full kitchen in small LR with square breakfast table. Poorly lit: little sunlight, small windows, no overhead lighting in communal area. Some parking available across street at PE center, laundry down hall, convenient garbage chute. Formal, minimal landscaping. Tot. occupants of apartment: 4 women. Tot. occupants of building: 400 men and women. Hall part of Global Community, most hall mates were foreign. Smell: beer, cigarettes.

2006-Summer A. Noyac, NY. (near Sag Harbor, NY)

2 story gray wood slat house with Mother-In-Law suite downstairs. 1980's build. 4 BR, 2 full BA, 2 full Kitchens, 1 formal Living/Dining room (US) one informal LR (DS). Laundry, driveway and on-street parking, wraparound US deck. Outdoor shower. .2 acre cleared lot. Tot. Occupants: 12 men and women. Smell: feet, sleep.

2006-Summer B. East Hampton, NY.

1-story ranch-style natural shingle house with unfinished basement. Unknown build, converted from duplex to single-family home. 3 BR, 1 BA, full kitchen, large living/dining area. BR:8'x8'. Partial laundry in basement, mud track driveway with ample in-grass parking. 1-car garage (locked and full of lawn furniture), wild wineberry shrubs on .3 acre wooded lot. Tot. occupants: 6 men and women. Smell: fuel oil, mildew.

2006-2007. Berkeley, CA. (Regent Hizzle)

2-story natural shingle house with finished basement (private apartment inhabited by owners), townhouse duplex to rear. 1905 build. 6BR, 2.5 BA, full kitchen with breakfast nook, LR, DR. Purple heart inlay in full hardwood floors. 9'x9' BR. Driveway, timed onstreet parking. Heavily landscaped .2 acre yard w/ fruit trees, tropical flowers, etc. Tot. registered occupants: 6 women. Tot. typical occupants: 7 women+1 man. Smell: women, marijuana, curry.

2007. Central City, CO. (Parish House)

2-story yellow wooden slat house with earth cellar. 1875 build. 6 BR, 3 BA, full kitchen, Formal DR, LR, mud room, semi-detached secret room. 6'x6' BR. No parking, laundry .2 mi away. Un-landscaped small grassy plot. Smell: Women.

2008. Baltimore, MD. (USCGC TANEY)

300' white steel Coast Guard Cutter (retired). 1937 build. 9 BR (4 offices), 3 toilets, 2 showers aft; 80 berths, 3 showers, 7 toilets forward. 5'x6' BR. Partial kitchen with mounted tables, benches. Add'l 5 BRs, Full Industrial Kitchen, Clinic, workshop, bridge, map room, navigation center, engine rooms, boiler rooms, barber shop, gift shop (not for personal use). Typical occupancy (weeknights): 1 permanent resident, 5 seasonal. Typical occupancy (weekends): 1 permanent, 5 seasonal, 80 boy scouts, 15 chaperones, 4 employees. Smell: cosmolene.

2009. Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, NY

4-story Brownstone townhouse subdivided into 3 apartments (landlord's family occupying bottom two floors.) Front door on second floor. Early 1900's build. Walk-up apartment includes 1.5 BR, 1 BA, full Kitchen, LR. 6.5'x15' BR. All hardwood. Laundry, bodega 1/2 block away, onstreet parking typically available. Small subdivided back garden (not accessible except in emergency.) 2 disused fireplaces. 6min walk from A-C. Tot. occupants: 2 women. Smell: good cooking from downstairs.

2009. Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY

4-story purpose-built double-fronted apartment building. 8 homes (2 per floor) plus above-ground basement. Front door on second floor. Mid-1900's build. Walk-up second floor apartment includes 2 BR, 1BA, large tiled kitchen w/ breakfast table, microwave, stove, Cuisinart mixer; hallway/LR. 10'x12' BR with window AC unit. All hardwood. Laundry, bodega, decent Chinese take-away 1 block away, Food Bazaar 6-7 min walk away. 10min walk from L,M. Onstreet parking generally unavailable. Fenced, poured-concrete pad behind (not accessible except in emergency.) Tot. occupants: 1 woman, 1 man, 1 "non-girlfriend who sleeps over a lot," 1 stinky cat. Smell: Cat poop.

2010. Lewisham, London, UK

2.5 story private home on tree-lined block. Late 18/early 1900's build. Brick. 2 BR, 1BA, tiled kitchen w/ new hardwood counter-tops. Fully furnished, bare floorboards originally carpeted over. 12'x14' master BR, 7'x11' guest BR (with built-in desk and shelving.) Converted attic study w/ 2 skylights, 1 wall entirely built-in shelving. Washer & dryer. Co-Op, pharmacy 5 min. walk away. Onstreet parking scarce. 50'x14' garden, concrete & topsoil. 1 side walled, the other hedged. Tot. Occupants: 1 woman, 1 man. Smell: Usually smells of nothing, but if we've been away for a while, or have visited Ben's family home, it smells like other people.

TRENDS:

While not mentioned above, as time progresses, availability of carpeting decreases

If I've had a stove, I've not had a microwave. And vice-versa.

I'll keep this list updated as life continues to move me.

Snow Gone...

But interestingly, as an update, I wish to inform viewers that I happened upon a Brooklyn Public Library Branch a bit closer to home than the main library to which I could have, had I known of its existence, brought the keys. I'd like to state that for the record this discovery does not diminish the good day that I had in the snow, nor does it cause me to regret the trip I made to get there, as I discovered a large and bountiful fiction section, read a good book, and explored a little more of my town.

but.

It's half a block away from my house.

New York Snow Day

They really don't shut down the city. And there was over 5 inches of snow overnight!

This morning, for the sake of experiencing my first real snow here, I decided to bundle up (in all my handy-dandy long underwear nyoinked from a large donation to LCF--hadn't needed it since downrigging. My tops still smell a little...cosmolene-y.) and go stomp through the snow drifts in the street. While that was fun for about five minutes, I soon felt a need to occupy myself in a more worthwhile manner. So I went to stomp through snow drifts in the local park. After a delightful five additional minutes of stomping I happened across a set of keys. The ring was smushed, and a number of the owner's grocery store discount dongles were torn, but the keys themselves were fine. I initially opted to try and hang the keys on a railing where they'd be visible if the owner came looking for them, but then I stumbled across his or her library card, attached to another smushed keyring.

An idea formulated. I called my sister.

She gave me directions to the closest library branch,which involved two trains I'd not yet taken, and after a few false starts, I managed to stomp my snow-coated way through the doorway of the Brooklyn main branch. It's a simultaneously attractive and hideous building--spacious, interestingly curved, and interestingly painted with what appears to be zodiac symbols, but monolithic, solid concrete, with little interior decoration and that all-too familiar utilitarian government-issue feel to the racks. After surrendering the keys and cards to the security office I meandered into the fiction section and was surprised to discover the first book I saw was a collection of short stories by a favorite author of mine. I proceeded to make myself comfortable at a reading table and systematically execute two hours.

When I emerged from the library, the wind had picked up and the previously delightful chill had become bone-rattling. My eyes teared up instantly, blinding me, and thanks to the snow re-routing the street I nearly wandered out in front of a moving car. On the brief train ride back toward my house I observed that I'd encountered some sort of pocket on the karmic continuum--I performed a small act of charity by turning in the library card, and in return I enjoyed a book that I wouldn't have otherwise encountered. The moment I exited the library, however, the pocket disappeared and I returned to cold reality.

To suggest the trip to return someone's keys was entirely selfless would be fallacious--if it hadn't been for the library card I would have hung them up nearby and hoped for the best. But any excuse to go to the library is a good one for me. I had nothing better to do, and the card, far from inspiring a good deed, triggered my nerd-out response. I hope the keys make their way home, and I'm glad I had the time to take the trip.

"I say, look at that pair of birds. And me with this solitary stone."

Why is the World in Love Again?

Tonight I'm going to go see They Might Be Giants perform Flood with Oppenheimer at Le Poisson Rouge in the Village. I'm rather excited, as I've been a rather emphatic TMBG fan ever since I was 8, but this shall be the first of their concerts I've viewed. Flood was the first of their albums that I bought (just like everyone, I'm sure), and if it weren't for such pieces as Dr. Worm and The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas it could have been the only. (that and the dial-a-drum-solo segment of She's Actual Size on the Dial-a-Song album. Pure Genius.)

My cousin, who earned his Ph. D in Chemistry from Berkeley a few years ago, introduced me to TMBG at a point in my life in which I was very easily influenced. A little while later this cousin got me into gin-tonics and Douglas Adams. (It is important to mention, however, that it was my sister who first let me borrow Ender's Game.) My similarities to said cousin suggest that my life could have panned out quite differently had I not been met with an utter dearth of decent math and science teachers in middle school. Alas, now I'm one of the millions of educated, unemployable liberal arts grads in New York City left wondering why we bothered with college at all.

Anyway, TMBG tonight. I intend to rock out with my prosthetic forehead on my real head.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

Aloha from sunny New York City!

oh wait. Let me try again.

Greetings from the Frozen Tundra that lies north of Baltimore!

Better.

I've moved into a cute sublet in Brooklyn and am rooming with a young, fun personal trainer.

The building is easily 100 years old, but I don't know its exact dates.

It's old enough to have a picture rail and beautiful mouldings and accents on the ceilings.



And Medusa lives on the table.

I've had about a week of work in stage carpentry and electrics and it's been wonderful.


I've had two interviews with universities that I've applied to and both went very well. We'll see.



I'm sleeping on an inflat-o-bed and it's comfortable but I feel I should find something that gets me further than 8" off the floor. And yes, I borrowed the tiger blanket.


I've gotten to know my way around Greenwich Village to a limited extent and have not as yet gone hungry due to being lost. It is helpful that I live right off the A subway line, which has gotten me everywhere I've needed to go with at most one line change. I'm sure this will change.

I'm applying for temp work as I do hope my stay here in lovely New York is temporary. We'll see.

Freeways, Runways, and the Interconnectedness of All Things

I love the design of the interstate highway—the road gradually curving and blending and expanding, giving the impression that it is fluidly sliding away below your tires and you are actually sitting still. I love the effortless branching—whether or not you can actually merge safely through the onslaught of confused and angry motorists when the time comes, there is an understated beauty in the natural divergence of one lane into two. The continuation of this into bridges and multi-level overpasses, while again frustrating (in the case of I-80's Maze east of the Bay Bridge I never got it right) turns the simple beauty of an onramp into a symphony of delicate navigational transitions. Bear left, under the bridge, quick right, follow the cloverleaf, merge in from the left, get your speed up to join the fast lane. . . after two continents of this it feels less like you're consciously moving and more like you're floating along effortlessly down a vehicular river.

I like to have window seats when I fly--partly to have something to rest my head on, but mostly so I can peek down occasionally and watch the ground slip away in the high-altitude equivalent of slow motion. If I close the shade it's hard to believe the plane is moving. (And when we fly through dense, contour-less clouds it's hard to believe we're in reality.) I noticed on my most recent venture into the skies that from the air freeways look a little. . . stagnant. The fluid curves and river-like visual movement to them seem pointless when you're not on them, particularly when they're empty. The feeling I get when I observe an empty freeway juncture from above, all its voluptuous contours reduced to a tiny, burnt-gray concrete knot—it's like taking off my roller skates. An empty freeway is the first few frustrating moments of friction after your internal inertia has acclimated to gliding.

Just like city driving. Stop. GoStop. GoStop. erk. erk. erk. ugh.

Tonight I managed to drive five miles along a light-studded section of a Charlotte boulevard without so much as slowing—it's amazing how well well-engineered traffic systems work if you just stick religiously to the speed limit. It's amazing how frustrating driving can be when cities erect traffic lights at random.

Rutabega!

So I finally learned what the American name for a swede (root vegetable) has been all along: Rutabega! Everything is in its proper place. The universe makes sense again.

So England is still there, for anyone who was curious. Even after all the colonizing there's a few people left to hold down the fort.

My objectives in visiting were straightforward--look at schools, travel the countryside, and make good use of the intervening time in the company of one ginger-bearded beatnik.

All three objectives were met with fairly high levels of success. Schools were indeed visited, and heaps of first impressions were garnered. I enjoyed talking to nearly everyone I met--except for one dangerous and disgusted-looking receptionist. I'm sorry for looking like the guy who gypped you out of owning Madagascar, ma'am. Really. I actually apologised when I asked if I might be allowed past the barbed-wired checkpoint to use the restroom. "Fine, its to the right, up the stairs--the women's room has a stick-figure of a woman in a skirt on it. Don't go in the one without a skirt. That's for men." "Thanks, where I come from ladies just use the earthen pit with a door." Anyway. All the other receptionists I met were friendly and helpful--particularly the young man who not only helped me get a tour of his school's props department, but got out a map and guided me to the right street when I got lost on the way. He gave me an excellent first impression, and I applaud his institution for employing him as their face and voice.

In the interest of courtesy I'm not going to list the details of my school tours here as I don't really know the people I encountered and, what with the ready availability of information on the internet to those who seek it creatively, I'm sure its easy to link my applications to all of the dumb things I've posted here over the years. So why exacerbate the problem?

The thing I always find rather disquieting is how many people share my exact name, and of those, how many are near my age, roughly share my interests and inhabit places I've lived. I have an unsettlingly large number of people to trust with my reputation--what if one of them gets convicted of murder? Or uploads a compromising but faceless video onto youtube? I do my best to be internet-obscure, but even if I didn't use the web at all these folks could inadvertently smear me in the eyes of a curious department head. I'm keeping a close eye on you, Kristen from Denver!

In any case, Canterbury is still lovely and still slowly collapsing under its own age. London Bridge station is still crawling with gruesomely made up actors (who have swallowed a Lot of pride) trying to recruit visitors to the London Dungeon. Cornish pasties still taste amazing. The weather still shows off with snow and fog when I come to town. The automated voice announcing that this is a Piccadilly-line train to Cockfosters still makes me laugh like a drain. And the center of the London Tower Drawbridge still refuses to bounce, no matter how hard you jump on it.

New discoveries for me this trip included Canterbury's Boho Cafe (with its delightful motif of early 1970's-era clocks--some are right twice a day, some will never catch up), new management at the Cricketers (and new employees who enjoy American football--c'mon brain, think of a team name! think of a team!), hilarity and good music at Brighton's Sanctuary Cafe's "Cella," (where I gained a new appreciation for ants, dad gags, and dinosaur figurines), and a new perspective on roller coaster terror by observing the carnival rides on the Brighton Pier.

Art I enjoyed this go 'round included Thomas Brock's Eve and a silver and diamond bodice ornament at the V&A, the water features of More London, and the hilariously, disgustingly gaudy Royal Pavilion, Brighton.

As usual I expressed my sympathies for the preserved Egyptian man at the British Museum and vowed to demand my remains be cremated, tripped over at least twelve cobblestones on the Canterbury High Street, and consumed entirely too many potato-based foods. I gained five pounds. It was fabulous.

Ah, Southeast England--it had been too long. I want to come back to stay--will you have me?

Back Safe

I have returned from London. Victorious.

Not over London.

My victory came about twelve hours later when my reckless driving ticket was dismissed in court. While it might have appeared reckless to drive to Virginia minutes after a 10 hour flight (Gatwick to Cincinnati, Cincinnati to Charlotte—remarkably, all on time!) it needed to be done so I grabbed my mom and headed up. The snow was constant but not bad and traffic was low--thanks, I think, to everyone on the eastern seaboard camping out that night in DC. I'd never seen lorries drive—or have the ability to drive—that fast on I-85. I stayed out of the way. 65 is fast enough for me in the snow. Anyway, slept over in South Hill (twitch) and headed to court the following morning in the nearby town of Boydton through a dazzlingly white landscape. Everything was delayed a few hours on account of the snow but I only had to wait half an hour (after three trips through courthouse security. My mom, a nurse, always has scissors and at least one hemostat in her purse. These came up in the bag x-ray and I had an amusing time explaining to the security guard what a hemostat was while she bustled her tools back to the car.) The judge was straightforward and fair and looked surprisingly like the judge from Baltimore's traffic court. Most of the day's defendants didn't show, which is normal, so mine came up pretty quickly. Turned out the cop, the judge, and half the room had had trouble on that onramp and the cop even emphasized "that real tight curve with all the ruts in it" and "tried to correct but landed in deep mud." The judge asked me if I'd gotten caught in one of the ruts and I said I did. To paraphrase his final comment on the matter, "This court is very familiar with accidents caused by that onramp, and I personally am very familiar with it, and can't find you at fault. Case dismissed--you're free to go." I thanked them politely and booked it out of there. Hooray!

Oh yeah, England is good too.

Londres

My Christmas present to myself is 10 days in England. So there.

I have knitted 3 hats since I've been home. The process is exceptionally easy with a round knitting loom, and a delightful, mindless activity to keep my hands occupied.

I'd love to get into theatrical hair and make-up. Prosthetics and fake blood and bruises and wigs are just neat. Sadly I don't believe my work experience affords me much of a chance to get a job in this field without re-training. "Okay, what are your credentials?" "Well, gimme an hour and an angle grinder and I could probably make you some scissors..."

I got a little creative in the bar the other day and came up with a tasty new drink. If it already has a name I can't find it, but its an ounce of peach schnapps, two ounces of white wine (i used a chilled Pinot Grigio), two ounces of grapefruit juice, and a splash of club soda. It is very refreshing and not too sweet. I shook it and strained it into a balloon glass filled with ice. Garnish with a grapefruit slice.

Ow, I just burned my tongue on hot tea.

The Sentimental Truth

Since the moment I could recognize sounds I've known and trusted the voice of radio personality Garrison Keillor. I can recall hearing A Prairie Home Companion from my baby seat, clad in my rumpled Sunday best, sucking on my fist and dozing off to the comforting drone of Minnesota's finest humorist. The words, incomprehensible to an infant's ears, meant little, but the deep, calm meter of his monologue was just the remedy for the morning's stresses of an itchy dress, a hard pew, and brimstone.

Twenty years—and a few religious crises—later I was struck by just how deep an impression those car rides had made upon me. Keillor's voice, and indeed even the opening bars of "Tishomingo Blues" to this day elicit in me such feelings of safety, of well-being and warmth, that any place I hear them instantly feels like home. Though the coziness generally dissipates after a few moments, I still find it remarkable that I've established such a deep connection with the voice of a complete stranger.

The discovery that I was hardly alone in this sentiment led me to appreciate and quietly covet the power of vocal presenters—particularly those of National Public Radio. When an undergraduate classmate jokingly mentioned that I had "one of those NPR voices" after I'd read a particularly soporific piece of prose I secretly hoped it was true, and I could find a use for it. Studies and social nights in Canterbury validated the utility of my regionally-neutral American voice, particularly in November of 2004 when it was a bit incriminating to sound Southern. My calm, trustworthy NPR voice still tends to come out when I address large groups of people—namely excitable children and sobriety-challenged adults who tend to panic around sailboats. It finds use when I answer phones for pledge drives and leave voice messages for strangers, but I've always wanted the chance to read the news, review a book, or simply declare the time of day in a broadcast. Would my desire to speak on the radio be sated by a simple "the current time is ten fifty-seven pm" announcement? Probably not, but if it was all I got I hope I would continue to relish the moment.

This is the sappy and saccharine but true reason behind why I want to study broadcast journalism. Now I have to figure out a professional, dedicated, and experienced-sounding reason to write up in 250 words and submit to the masters program alongside two references from professors or professional contacts who have actually read something I've written. (Wherein lies the greatest trouble—no one who knows me academically or professionally has ever needed me to write anything more than my name for any academic or professional purpose. Any ideas?) I may be biting off a bit more than I'm prepared to chew. Or pay for.

Virginia

I began writing this story from the comfort and warmth of a motel in southern Virginia, before it was actually over. I finished it in the comfort and warmth of my bedroom in South Carolina.

I have omitted names out of respect for people's privacy. Everyone I encountered was incredibly nice and helpful and I intend to send them Christmas cards.

The story began Sunday morning, shortly after I had exited the train which had brought me from my thanksgiving festivities in New York City back to my car in Baltimore. It was drizzly and cold but not awful and the roads were reasonable. I knew that traffic was supposed to be bad—it was the last vacation day of the Thanksgiving holiday—but from where I stood, and indeed throughout most of my trip it was tolerable and even normal. I believe I'd caught one of those weird travel pockets, where everyone else encounters a horrible ordeal—traffic, fog, driving rain—but I was whisking along at or just below the posted speed limit, pretty close to on time.

My destination was home. 450 miles or so. My vehicle contained everything I'd had in Baltimore, minus a few ruined items of clothing that had since been donated to charity or interred in a landfill. I was listening to Boy, by Roald Dahl, and was doing the automotive equivalent of mooing along with the herd. I was content.

I stopped for gas about twelve miles from the North Carolina border.

I happily printed my receipt—about $22 for 12 gallons of gas, and popped it into my center console. I figured I would eventually frame it. I eased my car back onto the street and pointed her toward the freeway—I-85 South, toward Carolina.

I rolled up to a stop at the large intersection before the interstate and waited for the left-turn light to go green. It did so in due course and I mounted the onramp. It had signs indicating you should be aware of some curvy-ness, which I acknowledged just like any other road warning. I was smoothly accelerating, and had been doing so for about four or five seconds, when I saw the curve. I think I was going about 35 miles per hour—the yellow sign recomended 25. I saw that it was a tightish curve, and tapped the brakes. As I came around it, however, I realized a bit too late that it was a tighter curve than I'd initially believed, and attempted to slow down further while turning the wheel to follow it.

This did not make my brakes very happy, apparently, and the anti-lock mechanism began to engage. This did not help matters, as it caused the wheel to jerk frightfully. I held on, and kept the wheel aligned, but the tires were already set on their trajectory—about 10 degrees from the pavement. I skidded to a stop on the embankment. It was just before 7 pm.

I didn't hear any bumps or crunches, but the hill was essesntially a soup of red mud and grasses. After ascertaining that I was okay I hopped out to see how things looked. The car looked essentially okay except for one rather important thing—when the rear tires slipped down off the road they sank instantly into about eight inches of mud, the upshot of which was that the rear bumper got caught on the asphalt and quite literally popped off.

Not wonderful, I told myself, but not the end of the world. I'll need a tow truck. I hopped back in the car and, with shaking hands, dialed AAA. The phone was answered by a kind lady who, as per company protocol, asked me if I was in a safe place. I believed I was.

That's when the shouting started.

Two middle-aged men and several of their dogs were running toward me, yelling something incomprehensible. I stepped out to see what was going on and was greeted by a small, excited hound of some persuasion. They remained incomprehensible even in close proximity, but were basically asking if I was okay. I said I was and was on the phone to get a tow truck, I'm sorry to have alarmed you. I climbed back in the car to speak to the AAA lady. The men kept shouting and one pulled open the door. He hollered for me to get out. I refused, pulled the door closed, and locked it, rather terrified of his bloodshot eyes. After a few confused moments in which the lady on the phone asked me where I was, I saw a fire department vehicle pull up, lights and sirens blaring. I unlocked the door, which set off the alarm. Christ on a bike.

After fumbling with my keys until the alarm quieted I stepped out to hear one of the men shouting, a bit more clearly, at a fire department member a few inches from him.

"we live on the hill there, we saw the car go off'n the road, we thought it was on the roof so we dialed 9-1-1." then to me, "you need to slow down there on that curve."

"Thanks. No, really."

One of the fire department members, of about 7 in the vehicle, came and asked if I was all right, said that EMS was going to pull up in a second and check me out. I expressed appreciation for their concern but was fine and really just needed a tow—I'd be able to handle it from there. As I said it, the remainder of the uniformed men slogged up the muddy hill and swarmed the car–they popped the hood and disconnected the battery so as to prevent the airbags from deploying and inspected what they could of the damage in the dark. A police car arrived.

After inquiring as to my well-being, the officer asked for my license, registration, and insurance information. I climbed back into the car and found these bits of paper and plastic and handed them to him. He walked back off to the squad car.

I lifted my phone back to my ear. The nice AAA lady was still on the phone, and asked me to ask someone where I was. I said I didn't know, and asked another police officer. "We're handling it," he replied, "now please follow the other officer back to the car." Baffled and still trying to get a tow, I continued trying to describe my location until the second officer stated, "the tow truck is already on the way. Your insurance will pay for it." Shit. Insurance.

I thanked the nice AAA lady and hung up. I approached the squad car, and the cop unlocked the door and offered me a seat. I left my feet on the road as my shoes were muddy. He was filling in what looked like a mountain of paperwork.

"How fast do you think you were going?"
"I think about 30, 35 miles an hour."
"You sure?"
"Yessir, I couldn't have gotten up much faster than that. I'd been stopped at the red light just a few yards back."
"hmm."

"So what happened?"
"That curve—i just didn't realize it was as tight as it was. I turned too late, my brakes locked up, and I was off the road. It wouldn't be so bad except for the mud."

I looked through the windshield and saw a tow truck operator hooking a line to my rear axle. The fire department members, now a dozen or so, were standing around looking bored.

The police officer got my attention again.

"I'm writing you a ticket for reckless driving."
"What? Reckless? I just said-"
"You lost control of the vehicle. Legally, that's reckless driving."
"But sir, I wasn't going that fast, I just wasn't aware of the shape of the road. I'm not from here."
"I know, I know. And I suggest you take that up in court. Seriously."
"I'm sorry?"
"I'm legally obligated to write you a ticket for this, but I think you need to contest it in court. I'm setting you a court date for January 20th."
"Sir, I'm sorry, but this just isn't right. All I need is a tow."
"If there's more than $1,ooo worth of damage I'm required to write a ticket."

I glanced back at my bumper, fully intact and popped back, delicately, into place by the tow truck's cable.

"You think that's a thousand dollars worth of damage?"
"Maybe."

He showed me where to sign and informed me that he would not tick the box indicating I could pay the ticket by mail. My signature affixed, he handed me the large ticket, my registration, license, and insurance card. I climbed out of the car, slightly dazed and beginning to grow angry, and began to wander toward the car and all of my posessions.

The car was nearly in position to be hauled up. As it returned to the road I watched the rear left tire squish oddly off the wheel where it hit the asphalt ridge. Well shit.

I stepped back and found myself surrounded by firemen. They were chatting amongst themselves, and I overheard the line, "well, its not as bad as the one this morning."

"What was that?"
"we pulled another car off this spot this morning. Right here. You're prob'ly the fourth, fifth person we've pulled off here this month. This curve is treacherous."
"Whoa. Well, that makes me feel a little better."
"Yeah, people come down the onramp thinkin' they're going okay, then wham, they get spun off."
"I didn't think I was going too fast..."

A fireman glanced into the car and saw my handbag in the passenger seat, my colorful wallet peeking out of it. "Want your pocketbook? Or anything else out of the car?" Pocketbook. I'm really out in the sticks. He handed it to me. I later hoped that I'd thanked him.

I called my mom. I believe it was the second time I'd called her and begun with, "Hi mom. I'm okay, but..." The car was pulled fully onto the tow truck and I began to look at the damage. Tire, bumper, mud. Was that really it? All this for what could easily be handled with duct tape?

I heard myself swearing and choking up. Great, you're in front of dozens of people who you've just told you're a rational and sane person to have on the road. I dimly heard mom encouraging me to relax and get a hold of myself. Seeds of doubt and fear began tracing across my mind. Were you speeding? Did you jerk the wheel? Did these people put this here as a trap? Does this town depend on car accidents? Are they evil? Are they aliens? The reds, yellows, and blues of emergency vehicle lights were growing misty and confused in my eyes, like a dirty kaleidoscope. I realized my hands were shaking and dimly registered that I might have dropped something.

The tow truck driver was trying to subtly get my attention. He opened the passenger door of the cab and I clambered awkwardly in. My shaking hand fumbled to close the door around the odd parcel of paperwork it still contained.

The driver looked to be in his mid sixties, large and strong. My mouth fired off, babbling thanks for his help and a variety pack of other asinine information as he smoothly completed a three-point turn and started off back up the onramp. I was a bit surprised that we weren't going out and around until I glanced up and saw three fire trucks, punctuated by lines of road flares, blocking the entryway.

"Sheez. I had no idea this was such a big deal. These folks work Fast."
"This happens often enough that we got a routine set up. They had plenty of practice this morning."
"I'd heard about that. Was that one as bad as this?"
"Yours ain't bad."
"I'm sorry it caused such a fuss—seems like every fire department in the county answered."
"Don't worry about it. Not much else goes on around here. Everybody wants to get involved."

Feeling a bit like Arlo Gutherie I fell quiet.

In a matter of seconds we were pulling into a Citgo station full of cars and tow trucks. I hopped out and followed him into the store, where two men and two women, one of which looked near my age, were chatting. He handed me a business card and disappeared into the garage, where two cars hovered overhead on hydraulic lifts. A forty-something man with sandy hair and a goatee grinned at me.

"Here she is! How's the car?"
"I broke it."

Everyone laughed and smiled in a pitying sort of way, and I heard several renditions of "they need to do something about that curve–you're the second one today" while the girl behind the counter asked me where I was from and if I'd need a place to stay. After everyone expressed their sympathy for my distance from home, she called her friend over at the Comfort Inn. Calmed and somewhat less confused, a message arrived from the accounting branch of my brain. License. We've lost track of the license. Eyes and hands–look for it. I obeyed. It was gone. The goatee'd man was orating.

"You know, I think they could save a lot by paving over where that gravel is—y'know, putting yellow lines on it to show that it ain't road, but if people skid off they can get back on. 'Cos you and that guy this mornin', you coulda just got back going if the gravel weren't all wet and gouged out. Folks run off an they come back in and smooth out the gravel, but five, ten people skid off there a day without gettin' hurt and gouge out a hole. Then it rains and all that turns into mud. Till you come along and skid into it and what with the mud an the hole you fall in an get stuck."

"Well you know the state ain't gonna do nothin about it until somebody gets real hurt and sues. Till then they'll just blame the drivers and hand out reckless drivin tickets. Did you get one?"

"I did. I was pretty surprised." I showed the girl the ticket and she nodded. "I think I dropped my license."

"Did the cop hand it back to you?"
"Yeah, I must have dropped it in the mud."
"Well who was the ticketing officer? Maybe you dropped it in the car."
"Er...C. S."
"I'll give him a call."

She picked up her cell phone and hit a button on speed dial. "Hey darlin, could you have a look around in your car... yes she said you handed it back to her but she dropped it... no she's got everything else... call me if it turns up. I'll talk to you later."

Paranoia flared again. Are these nice people in cahoots with the cops? What kind of a set-up is this?

"You all gotten to know the police force?"
"Aw of course. My husband's a state trooper. C.S. is a good guy—the sheriff's real tough on 'em. I intend to give him a piece of my mind about sayin you were drivin reckless over there, though–he knows how bad it is, 'specially if you ain't from around here."

After a few more moments of shuffling in which I returned to the tow truck and searched around my seat i found myself getting back into it with the friendly goatee'd man and taking a quick ride over to the Comfort Inn. He lowered the ramp in the parking lot so i could get my passport out of a notebook in a large suitcase in the back. I dragged it inside and was met with the tastefully decorated lobby of a business-class motel and an attractive lady in what I guessed was her late 60's from her whitening, smoothly tucked-up hair. She smiled at me from across the high check-in counter.

"So here's the girl of the hour."

She began typing and looking for a room for me. I asked if they offered a AAA discount and she looked at me over her glasses. "I'm giving you every discount I can find." I wanted to hug her. She placed me in a downstairs room with two queen beds for $40 a night. I discovered later that this was just about half their going rate. I signed the check-in agreement and she asked me to call her when I got settled.

With my driver's help I offloaded about half of my worldly possessions into my large, clean room. I attempted to tip him and he backed away quickly. I hoped I hadn't insulted him. Inside, door triple-locked, I settled in to call my insurance company and parents. My first call to the insurance company ended suddenly—I heard crackling and shuffling akin to someone else in the same house picking up the phone which the agent did not hear. I asked if perhaps her quality assurance monitor was messed up and the connection was instantly severed. I tried again. This call was successful and, after providing her with as much information as she required and reminding her I was stranded far from home, a different agent assured me that someone would call me first thing in the morning. It was 8:30pm.

I placed the call to the front desk on the motel phone and the same thing happened. Shuffle shuffle click. I tried again, weirded out, and informed the desk lady that I'd gotten in and settled, thank you so much. She reminded me to lock my doors and get some rest.

I called my mom and told her I thought my phones had been bugged. She told me I was exhausted. As she's a healthcare professional and tends to be right about these things I believed her.

I set my alarm for 8 am and crawled into bed. It was 10pm.

After about fifteen minutes of sleep I was jerked awake by clock radio honky-tonk and continued the pointless stream of arguments I'd been mulling over all night. I called the insurance company again and was given the name and number of my case's assigned agent. The agent wouldn't reach his desk until 11:30am. Check-out was at 11 so I went back to the hotel desk and the same nice lady gave me the same nice price for the same nice room for another night. We chatted a bit and watched Law and Order on the big lobby television while I waited to make my phone call. She had been an upwardly-mobile actress in the Village back in her day, but she got married and didn't want to raise her family in the City. She tried to continue acting in regional theatre in upstate New York but was prevented by her race. She did some dancing and modeling for some Black-community pageants but grew disgruntled quickly with the prejudice that prevented her from pursuing her dreams.

I called the insurance guy again. No answer. I left a message. To pass the time I wandered over to the tow company's garage—it was visible from the hotel—bought a soda and settled in to chat with the folks who ran it. They were mostly family and the man who'd collected the car was the patriarch and owner. A number of family members and regulars wandered in and out to pass the time—one of which was a retired cop. He'd heard about me already and recounted with amusement that back in the day he sat at the end of that onramp to catch speeders on the freeway. This was really convenient as every time someone wiped out on that curve he'd just have to back up to help them out.

Every half-hour or so I called the insurance agent, but he never answered, and his voice mailbox was full after my first message. I dialed the call center and suggested that perhaps my agent wasn't in today and if so could I get someone else on my case so I could get things moving oh did I happen to mention I'm Stranded here have a nice day. They connected me to another voice mailbox with a message that clearly announced that its owner would not be in today. I called again, recounted the story so far in four part harmony and requested that something useful happen soon.

My agent called me. He was sick and had just gotten to work after he'd called in to say he couldn't make it and his boss said he had to. He sounded like he was running on Day-Quil. I felt like an ass for hating him up until this point. He was just a liability adjuster and, once he confirmed I was the only person involved, put my claim in to be handled by someone local. He got in touch with the garage and asked if a little bit of work—a tire and a mud clearing—could get her running well enough that i could get home. Someone noticed something a bit off about the front end and said they didn't think so, it needed to go to a body shop. The agent called a rental company and asked if it was possible for me to get a car after having misplaced my license. Her "no" response was so quick that he didn't press the issue. Not particularly helpful on any front, the agent said a claims adjuster would come out to evaluate the car and get things moving by the end of the day.

I used the hotel computer to hop online and entertain myself in between calls to keep myself occupied. A friend informed me that I was the sixth person he knew who had run off the road in the past two days. I told him he'd jinxed all of us. As the end of the day rolled around and my constant calls and messages led to a steaming heap of diddly-squat on the claims adjustment front I returned to the garage to ask if anyone had seen my license. The owner drove me over to the onramp and I slogged fruitlessly through the mud for a while. Upon our return to the garage his granddaughter, a pretty high school-aged girl who'd once played softball in my hometown, drove me up to where my car was stored and helped me dig through it. Again unsuccessful, I retrieved my laptop from the heaps of baggage and returned to the motel in the dark. I called my other half on Google Talk and allowed his soothing voice to quell much of my frustration. As soon as he dozed off it all came back, but it was a welcome respite.

Again, bed around 10. Fifteen minutes of sleep just before 8. More phone calls. Even less accomplished.

I puttered around between the hotel and the garage, making more friends. Tuesday's shop attendant was a soft-spoken woman of indeterminate age, probably around 40, who kept me entertained with conversation for several hours. I would periodically step outside to bug the insurance company and she would comment on how they were probably giving me the run-around in hopes that I'd get annoyed and cancel my service so they could fine me for breaking contract and not pay a dime toward repairs. Later, when my mom called to give me an update on her progress toward picking me up, she mentioned that she was surprised I didn't urge her to hurry and "get me away from this scary Stephen King novel." I really liked her.

An elderly, toothless man came and went periodically through the shop, occasionally making remarks to the attendant in a barely-audible wheeze. He told a number of racist jokes and got annoyed when I didn't laugh. They weren't funny. One in particular sounded like a threat. I didn't like him.

After a while it occurred to me that I hadn't eaten in about three days and the attendant pointed me toward the buffet restaurant next door. Named the "Down Home Country Restaurant" the buffet offered fried okra, green beans, kung pao chicken, lychees, sweet potato casserole, egg drop soup, peach cobbler, oysters on the half shell, stuffed portobello caps, crab ragoons, and about seventy other dishes, most of which contained meat. After sating myself on every vegetable in the place and consuming a cream puff I paid my $5.50 and returned to the garage, giggling maniacally.

After a while my mom arrived and thanked everyone she could find for being so nice and helpful while I was stuck here. We loaded up everything I owned, which took some pressure off of my car's flat tire, thanked a few more people, and crept back onto the dreaded onramp at about eight miles an hour. When the ramp straightened out mom relaxed, we sped up, and the car hurried up toward home.

The insurance adjuster finally called yesterday afternoon and said she'd get my car towed to a garage that was part of the company. I'll still have to go up and collect it when its ready—a 7-hour bus ride. This is assuming that the finance department actually pays out–they've been searching for loopholes since I filed the claim. Then in January it looks like I have a date in court. I'll let you know how that goes. The obnoxious part is the cop was right—even though the damage to the car is not extensive, the sheer cost of towing, driven up by insurance companies, and storage, driven up by insurance companies, compounded with my insurance company's refusal to do anything for four days, will easily put the cost of this whole incident over a thousand dollars.

This event has provided me with a valuable life lesson: I'm ready to move to England.

unemployed and homeless

so. i lost my job.

snigger.

the season is over, the boats are shrink-wrapped, the spars are safe, the hangovers are receding, and everyone has scattered to the four corners of the globe.

well, everyone has scattered. some just scattered to other houses in Baltimore. others have flown to the west coast and beyond to Australia, a few are moving to new york, and one brave soul is moving to Maine. I'm going to have thanksgiving with my family before I come up with any more definitive plans than "move to New York, try again."

its all fine. i'm going to try and wash the taney out of my clothes for the next couple of days.

well, its not fine fine. i have just completely lost all of the friends i'd spent the past year bonding with. i feel that my likelihood of encountering any of them again hovers around a 12% chance.

The Lady Maryland's cook was picked up by his family on Saturday, and it blew all of us away to hear him called Grandpa. Their captain and mine have bought a Rover and plan to sail it from Myrtle Beach to Buffalo once the canals re-open in spring, and i might get a call to help on the transit. LM's first mate has bought a ketch and plans to sail it from Maryland to Maine soon, while her second mate has some rather Kerouac-esque goals in mind. Almost everyone has warm, homeward-bound feelings right now and hopes to re-connect with their estranged land-based families. I wish them the best, and happy holidays.

I'm not alone out of my crew when I express the sentiment that i'm not entirely sure where i'm going from here, or for how long, or why. We rode this gig like a runaway train until it suddenly stopped, flinging us off the roof onto our now bruised behinds, dizzy and perplexed.

Again...any suggestions for graduate study? Something cool i don't know about? Journalism looks like fun, but where is it going to get me that a BA in theatre hasn't? Radio broadcast also looks like...HEAPS of fun, but with competition and the fact that i've barely adjusted a knob on a stereo receiver i have a funny feeling i'm not an ideal candidate for admission. Alas. maybe i'll sign up for some welding classes in January, or try for some freelance theatre gigs with my sister. Or try and get a deckhand gig on the Lettie G. Howard. I don't know anymore. Doesn't anyone just...know what i'm supposed to do?

Aha! I'll take up religion.

tee hee hee hee hee

Actually, I discovered with my haircut (or lack thereof), if i wear an Under Armour black mock turtleneck thermal garment, i look like a priest. Its pretty funny. well, i thought it was funny. other people might say the more appropriate word is "offensive" given the context.

So technically i'm not homeless--i'm in a house now. An actual...house. It doesn't list to starboard at low tide, it doesn't creak in high wind, it doesn't make that wonderful sloshing noise and rock me gently to sleep...it just sits here bravely atop a scenic overlook with the bay beautiful but powerless down below.

On the whole, my housing situation's cool factor has warmed a few degrees. Oh well.

I'm handling it well, i think. At the beginning of last week it didn't occur to me how much i was going to miss my Taney mates and their little noises and behaviors to which I'd grown so accustomed. Seeing the light go on through the holes in the wall, hearing barely-suppressed music through someone else's headphones, hearing the sighing, the swearing, the snoring, the shaving, the shouting...when I left yesterday morning there was complete and utter silence. To say I exited in a hurry would be an understatement. I freakin' ran.

So there you have it. The boats are in exactly the same condition as when I arrived last year--a few things have improved, but a few others have degraded and need maintenance. The pier is vacant, the kids are gone, the crabs have been released and a light film of dust has already begun to settle. I am again looking for work, housing, and friends.

Did 2008 actually happen?

wordle

wordle makes my life out to sound pretty damn cool.
thanks Kim.

yesterday marked the end of the LCF shipboard department's
sailing season. As of today, all of the boats are down-
rigged and half have frames erected for winter coverings. 
Its all very sad, very cold, and very hard work. I spent
today at the top of Sigsbee's mast taking down blocks and
lines--I'd imagine that's the last time i'll ever be up
there. Weird.  The sails are stowed, the spars are stored,
and we have 3 days left of employment.

Save the Day!...light

While I'm not a huge advocate of daylight savings' time, I am happy to fall back every year. After two or three weeks of waking up in the dark, it is wonderful to have at least a little more time of waking up to sunshine before that, too, disappears in preparation for winter. Ah, temperate zones.

So my absentee ballot application was mailed to the wrong address, bounced, and came back to the voter registration office. I got in touch with them and they sent out a new one...and it arrived today, November 3. (for anyone unfamiliar with the absentee voting system, you are first mailed a ballot application, which you fill out and return, and upon receipt of a perfectly filled out application, the actual absentee ballot is mailed, which you then fill out and mail back. its asinine, it wastes paper, it wastes time, and i put in for it with plenty of time to take care of everything, and South Carolina screwed up.) Thanks, SC. you've fucked me again. Way to withhold constitutional rights.

So, I had a great week in Philadelphia. The kids were awesome to work with, we made and ate some delicious food, i discovered new bars and new beers, i slept in a real bed, and, what fabulous timing--the Phillies won the world series while we were in town! It was fun to watch the revelry in the streets after that--that was until they started lighting things on fire and looting. Didn't quite grasp how "hooray we won" translates into "hey, lets break shit!" but oh well, i've never been a Phanatic.

I also discovered one of those awesome bookshops in the old part of town--called the Book Trader, it had scores of volumes stacked right to the ceiling, confusing, tight, twisty, irregular aisles, funny lighting, that old-book smell, a huge upstairs, and the best shopkeepers i've yet met. I bought six classics i've been needing to read for about eleven dollars and practically skipped home. (by "practically" i mean "i skipped home.")

On the slow, difficult transit up I took a number of photos of the bridges we went under in the C&D Canal (chesapeake & Delaware). as soon as I retrieve my camera from Sigsbee i'll be sure to share a few. It was a very pretty, if laborious, trip up--the current was strong against us the whole way, it was freezing, and the wind was directly on our quarter, which meant the main wanted to jibe the whole freakin day. Most of the time we held it off or allowed it to jibe safely, but steering was a relentless battle against the wind. A positive upshot of the current was that when we finally did get into Philadelphia, the entire exterior of the boat had been cleaned of algae. Who'd a thunk it.

The transit back was quick and easy by contrast. Whereas on the way up we averaged about 3.7 knots, the way back we averaged 9.3 and made it in 14 hours. Instead of two days. The wind was still on our quarter, but the current was helping at an amazing clip (that same amazing clip we were fighting before) and practically threw us into Baltimore. The buoys, anchored against the onslaught of water, looked like they were motoring past as the waves broke around them. I'd never thought to personify a buoy before, but it was pretty funny.

I finished James Michener's Chesapeake! I knocked out the last 500 pages in about 4 days. I was sad to see Rosalind's Revenge go. Say what you will about the power of the seas and the perpetual motion of nature that maintains the universe's constancy... Dammit, I Liked that house!

I'm currently about halfway through The Kite Runner, which I borrowed from a crewmate after I ran out of pages. While transits can be tough, there's also rather a lot of down-time when you're not on the wheel. While I'm not enjoying the story per se, it is excellently written so far.