happy birthday to me

the universe celebrated my birthday by raining ancient meteors upon the earth!

the people of chile celebrated my birthday by insigating a peoples' revolution!

the american cancer society celebrated my birthday by kicking off a universal healthcare campaign

my dad celebrated my birthday by requesting the performer sing "somewhere over the rainbow" at a bar in new york. apparently thats my song. im sure eggs and tomatoes were thrown.

Super Dork celebrated my birthday by buying me a gift, he says. (i speculate it is something like Tolstoy's collection of letters, or the audio version of Ulysses, or maybe a workbook explaining the theory of relativity.) YES!

i celebrated my birthday with a "down south burger" and lemon meringue pie at the frisco shop (also known as the nighthawk). sadly, the nighthawk-- the only place in austin where: bouffant hairdoos are still the rage, a heaping ball of butter is served with everything, and you are guaranteed to be called "hon" -- may soon be turned into a walgreens!

two years ago...

"The family huddled on the platforms, silent and fretful. The water was six inches deep in the car before the flood spread evenly over the embankment and moved into the cotton field on the other side. During that day and night the men slept soddenly, side by side on the boxcar door. And Ma lay close to Rose of Sharon. Sometimes Ma whispered to her and sometimes sat up quietly, her face brooding. Under the blanket she hoarded the remains of the store bread.
The rain had become intermittent now--little wet squalls and quiet times. On the morning of the second day Pa splashed through the camp and came back with ten potatoes in his pockets. Ma watched him sullenly while he chopped out part of the inner wall of the car, built a fire, and scooped water into a pan. The family ate the steaming boiled potatoes with their fingers. And when this last food was gone, they stared at the gray water; and in the night they did not lie down for a long time."
- The Grapes of Wrath

Two years ago today, Hurricane Katrina drowned the Louisiana Gulf Coast. I wasn't there, but the storm had an impact on my life because since 2005, I have interviewed several Katrina survivors. I still keep in touch with them. Its hard to believe its been two years since the storm, because the lives of those I interviewed have changed very little since they first came here by bus with nothing but the stained clothes they wore, and a handful of family photos (if they were lucky). They are still walking a very fine line between security and destitution. These families use grandmother's SSI disability checks to pay the energy bill. They go without necessities such as nutritious food and eye glasses, just so they can make rent. Their lives are like the salvaged photographs taped on the living room walls: torn, blurred, water stained. Yet something recognizable remains. Or it could, if we as citizens demanded our government provide the kind of significant recovery assistance that is necessary for people to recover from total and utter destruction.

As President Bush parades around New Orleans, offering nothing but false promises as he has done over the last two years, thousands of survivors remain in Texas. Their futures are very uncertain and they have been offered few opportunities for long-term recovery. They are on the fringes economically, politically, and physically. The evacuees I interviewed live in apartments on the far edges of Austin-- neighborhoods that have long been racially segregated. When survivors were left to fend for themselves at the Superdome or on the desolate highway to Metairie, that was only the beginning of the abandonment. Most families have long ago lost their FEMA assistance, and they have just become part of the anonymous working poor. They were poor in New Orleans, but now they have no history, no connections, no social foundation. How can President Bush fly from Washington to New Orleans and announce today that he sees "a more blessed day ahead"?

So that is what Im thinking about as my birthday approaches.

c2 = a2 + b2

lately i have been having nightmares about all the formulas associated with triangles. square this. half that. radius this times this. unlike my husband who does physics for ... fun?... i avoid math like the plague, bill o'reilly, and mopac during rush hour. the reason for the nightmares then, is the fact that i am taking the GRE on monday. i can breeze through the vocab, reading comp, and writing, but math kills. it kills! so please pray for me.

turning 28 in exactly one week. 28, almost 30. which means, of course: almost 40 and then almost dead. feeling our age, my friend and i are pondering the idea of getting some quick PhDs at university of phoenix online and writing the next bestseller self-help book.

there are things to be happy for, however. little new family members are arriving in my husband's (Super Dork's) family: neices, nephews, etc. they are helping populate the earth with future physicists, musicians, and all-around geniuses. (meanwhile, i dont know if i correctly spelled "geniuses" mmmmm....)

Super Dork and i are notoriously cheap. yet we are pondering an art purchase. first major purchase since we bought 10 gallons of pickled jalapenos at costco.

its a lithograph by willie cole we found in a gallery in ABQ. he is an african american artist whose works are based on the form of an iron -- an image which i believe evokes the women before him who were domestic workers. his art embodies their spirit. he also creates sculptures that follow this theme: one for example is constructed of egg 'beaters' that resemble African sculpture and which were carved out of two large sections of porch post. the litograph we love is made with irons to form a vibrant brown and orange sunflower.

the question is: do we have to own it to appreciate it?

Look West.

“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit”. - Edward Abbey

On being footloose in the West...

"It should not be denied. . . that being footloose has always exhilarated us. it is associated in our minds with escape from history and oppression and law and irksome obligations, with absolute freedom, and the road has always led West."

-Wallace Stegner, The American West as Living Space

Returning to the quiet, habitual life is strange after living two weeks in the Southwest, high on mountain air and red rock. Our trip from New Mexico to Colorado to Utah to Nevada was wild. We hiked the Jemez Mountains in New Mexico and came across unexcavated Anasazi ruins, littered with ancient pottery shards. The back roads from Georgia O'Keefe's "Ghost Ranch" to Taos took us to reservation towns consisting of wind-battered general stores that sell nothing but hard liquor. In Colorado, we stayed in an old silver mining town and ascended almost 3,000 vertical feet to the summit of Twin Peaks. We scaled rocks. I complained that I would rather be poolside with a martini (It was a lie). The descent was so intense we basically just slid down. In Zion, we "hiked" through water knee-deep into "The Narrows" and searched for snails the size of pencil points that only live on Utah rocks protruding from the Virgin River.

We took the burnt-orange Tin Can On Wheels that we rented from Hertz to places we didnt think it could go: the Mojave Desert, the Rio Grande gorge, to uncharted roads in Utah, through the Rocky Mountain switchbacks in the rain, and then finally (when both the car and us were covered in dust), down the Las Vegas strip. Las Vegas was a stark reminder of the absurdity of unbridled American consumerism. Its a plastic city weighed down by smog. Every show promises "A Good Time!" and tired midwestern families will pay whatever it takes for a piece of it. Watered-down Las Vegas margaritas from foot-long glasses cost $20. But there are up-sides: In the Vegas airport I made 50% on my money at the slot machine! Of course, I only gambled $5-- coming out with $7.50. All the casinos and shops are indoors and air conditioned. In short, Las Vegas is where Americans go to be stimulated and refrigerated.

Compared to the West, Austin is humid, flat, and civilized. The brilliant book I read on the trip ("Into the Wild") has inspired future adventures. Its time for another trip-- but this time not a vacation. Im plotting an escape route that will take us somewhere far away for more than just a few weeks...

the lesser-traveled road we'll take.

if you are looking for me, this is where i will be.

blogger life

Im not sure where to begin. And what is a "blog" anyways? A long, continuous, uneventful e-autobiography that nobody reads but oneself? Perhaps. One of my favorite writers, Roald Dahl ("Witches"), once quipped: "An autobiography is a book a person writes about his own life and it is usually full of all sorts of boring details." So that is the title of my blog: "boring details."

It begins a little less-boring than usual, because in less than 24 hours, ill be on a west-bound plane (to new mexico!) somehow my husband finagled first-class seats, which also means ill be on my third glass of champagne. (who cares if its before noon? im taking full advantage of all that 'first class' has to offer).

my colleague was so kind to lend me his vast collection of new mexico travel books, and to highlight for me the winding mountain road from Canones to Cuba, new mexico. the destination? an unknown little restaurant called El Bruno. also on the agenda:

- an extended visit with friends in ABQ
- hot springs in the jemez mountains
- the santa fe opera (cossi fan tutti)
- "ghost ranch" (home and beloved landscape of georgia o'keefe)
- durango, colorado (mesa verde national park)
- a cabin (sans running water and electricity) outside cedar city, utah
- sin city, nevada
- also i hear there is a place in taos that sells "green chili beer" which to me sounds like the perfect concoction.

i have to say, there is no place i love better than the southwest. ive traveled some, but never to anyplace so eerily breathtaking as northern new mexico. (and i am including the albuquerque airport! i swear, the adobe-style airport is full of beautiful people adorned in turquoise jewlery, all eating chalupas.)

until later ciao...