I wish my brain would just shut up, sometimes.

[Warning: this post is going to be a whine.  I am blogging this because it's too long for Facebook and I want a reminder of the first part of the post. I am disabling comments because, while reassurance is always lovely, I need to figure out how to fix this problem for myself.]

I've been working on resumes and cover letters.  Yesterday, I gave up on trying to figure out what to say about myself (how does one say nice things about oneself? enquiring minds want to know) and reviewed my LinkedIn recommendations for ideas.

Those were pretty good and included phrases like "Pat is an absolute delight! I would hire her again in a heartbeat," "Patricia distinguished herself, combining stolid (sic) performance with an eye for process improvements and well-timed suggestions for enhancing efficiency of the smallest office duties through large scale project conclusions," "You can count on Patricia for an excellent job well done no matter what is thrown at her, and always done on time and within budget,” "Her intelligent, effective contributions would be a boon to any organization, and I recommend her very highly," and so on.

Part of this is the nature of LinkedIn.  People only get good reviews -- they only ask recommendations from people they know will say nice things, and only disclose those that say how wonderful they are. Still, I think mine are pretty good, and they were obtained from people who would refuse to write a review rather than lie. I did not have to hide a single recommendation.

Edited to add: A friend of mine emailed me to say that she has some ambiguous recommendations to weed out jobs she's pretty sure she'll  hate. One of them says that she would make a perfect second wife.

I used some of them in my cover letter, and in the process got to feeling pretty upbeat.  I'm not half-bad at things. I'm smart.  I work hard. I problem solve.  I am a "team player" who can work with just about anyone.* I write well. With that wind in my sails, I was able to urge the company I was writing to to hire me for a job which is well within my  capabilities; according to the Rocket Scientist, beneath me (then again, he's really biased).

Today, I had to turn my attention to other things. And my brain revolted.

It spent all day reliving moments that I really screwed up.  What I had done that hurt other people. How my own stupidity had hurt me. How I had made choices which, while they seemed like the best option at the time, left me with an uncertain future.  How I had not looked long-term enough when making life decisions. How I had failed to live up to expectations. How I had lost people through my own idiocy.  It's almost as though I am incapable of feeling good about myself for any length of time without outside assistance.

I hate feeling this way.  Maybe I should just reread the recommendations every day.  Of course, while that will reassure me as to my worth as an employee, it doesn't say all that much about me as a human being, other than I play well with others.

Insecurities 'r' us.

*That's pretty much true: at PAL I was known for working with the most difficult members with tact and grace.  Of course, the knowledge that quickly percolated through the cabal of the most crazy members that I was a Stanford-trained attorney (I didn't mention the "haven't practiced in many, many years" bit to them) probably didn't hurt my reputation.  Once they found that out, they were actively nice to me while they could be snarling dogs to everyone else.

Yet one more reason to love Stephen Colbert.

In September, Colbert (who is devoutly Catholic) appeared at Fordham University along with Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York.  A question was raised from the audience about how to maintain joy while many Christians spread hatred of others, especially gays. According to the New York Times,

Cardinal Dolan responded with two meandering anecdotes — one about having met this week with Muslim leaders, and another about encountering demonstrators outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral. But Mr. Colbert’s response was quick and unequivocal. “If someone spreads hate,” he said, “then they’re not your religious leader.”

Exactly.*

*A question came from a young man who was considering the priesthood whether he should date.  Cardinal Dolan said it would be a good idea, followed by "let me give you the number of my nieces."  Colbert was more to the point: “It’s actually a great pickup line: I’m seriously considering the priesthood. You can change my mind.”

This is so completely true of me.

"I am not a morning person in the same way that the stars are not fruit-bats." Neil Gaiman.

I love you.

Rachel Kay Albers on why she never plays hard to get.

I agree with her completely, and  I do as she does, with one notable exception:  with romantic partners, unless I was very sure that I knew how they felt about me, I did not say "I love you," even though I may have wanted to. I said other things -- "take care of yourself" chief among them -- but not the Three Big Words.

I have had no trouble at all saying "I love you" to friends or family.  They are safe; I generally know that they love me too, and if they reject me it hurts but does not devastate me.  It was only when something more than friendship was on the line that I hesitated.

"I love you" have always been dangerous words.  Scary words.

They made me far too vulnerable: if I said "I love you" then I was setting myself up for finding out that the other person did not love me back.  Worse, I risked being seen as needy and clingy, as causing unnecessary drama.  I possibly caused discomfort or embarrassment to the other person, resulting in them thinking less of me. Worst of all, I could have caused emotional pain to someone else, which I determinedly try to avoid at all costs as a matter of principle. And not just "someone else" -- someone I loved.

Admitting that you love someone can result in a bar to them remaining friends with you.  I have never believed in dating people with whom you would not want to be friends over the long haul, and I would have hated to lose a friendship because of my feelings.

Yet, like Rachel Adams, I think this is a form of dishonesty; more accurately, inauthenticity.  It is allowing fear to rule you.  It disregards the fact that all of us go through this world only once,  that life is uncertain and death can lurk just around the corner.  It ignores that we need other people, as friends, as lovers, as companions on this road.   It closes our eyes to the possibility of joy.

Love is a great thing.  It needs to be confessed and celebrated, not hidden away in a closet, regardless of what others may think.

So, were I ever to find myself faced with this situation again, I hope I would have the courage and maturity to admit loving someone. Who knows how great the result could be?

DIckens Fair.

I spent Sunday before last at the Dickens Fair. It required a great suspension of disbelief on my part.

Like its brother, Ren Fair, Dickens Fair is a venue where adults can go to pretend that they are back in a period of time when life was simpler, more interesting.  It doesn't work for me because a) the anachronisms* (aside from all the people not dressed in garb at all, the fashions range through a wide time period -- like today, women's fashions changed relatively rapidly) and b) I was a history major in college.

A history major with an emphasis on women's history.  With a particular interest in women's history in Britain and the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries. It's been nearly thirty years since I graduated, but I remember enough to know that no sane woman would want to return to Dickensian England.

Life for the upper classes could be comfortable, for the middle class tolerable, for the working poor miserable.  This goes double for women.  A woman's property (and children were seen as property), including her dowry if she had one and her earnings, if she were a working woman, legally belonged solely to her husband.  He could -- and in some recorded cases, did -- return home only to divest her of whatever she had before leaving again. Divorce for any reason -- including cruelty or adultery on a husband's part -- was a disaster for women: it meant ostracization, and loss of children, home, and property.

The double standard was extreme: it was assumed that men would indulge their sexual desires, where women were expected to be pure and chaste.  Women's emotions were seen often as pathological, hysterical.  (One interesting side effect was the cure: inducing orgasms.  The vibrator was invented by a Victorian doctor who was tired of the fatigue of "vulvular stimulation." See the movie Hysteria, which while not exactly accurate did get some basic facts right.)

Rates of infant and maternal mortality were incredibly high.  This was an era before antisepsis.  A hospital was where you were taken as a matter of last resort.

There was child labor. There were debtor's prisons. Dickens was very familiar with both: his father spent time in the latter, and Charles was forced to work ten-hour days at a boot blacking shop.

There was no safety net -- you starved if you did not have enough food.

The zeitgeist of the era -- at least where women, or at least those who were not poor, were concerned -- was conveyed by the contemptible poem "The Angel in the House" by Coventry Patmore.  Women were to be devoted, submissive, meek, living only for home and family and above all pure.  They were not supposed to think.

There was no higher education for women. The first college for women at Cambridge, Girton Hall, was founded in 1869, the year before Dickens died, but women were not granted Bachelor of Arts degrees until 1921. The first college for women at Oxford, Lady Margaret Hall, was established in 1878 -- eight years after Charles Dickens died -- and women were not allowed to receive degrees from the university until 1920. Women were prevented from becoming doctors or lawyers.

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson became the first woman to get a medical license in England in 1865, only five years before Dickens died.  No medical school would admit her, so she applied for the School of Apothecaries, where she was successful in obtaining her license to practice.  After she graduated, the school amended its charter to prevent women from enrolling. (She later attended the University of Paris, and received a medical degree from there. The British Medical Register did not accept this qualification.)  It was not until 1922 that Carrie Morrison became the first woman solicitor.

Not to mention the suffrage movement, which was in its infancy.  I could go on and on, but since I suspect I am already addressing people who know some of this anyway, I'll stop.

I'm not sure why all of this bothers me so much.  After all, Dickens Fair really is just "LARPing for adults" as the Red-Headed Menace calls it.  People dress up (and I thought about wearing my corset and a black skirt, even though I would have looked like a spectacularly disreputable dance-hall girl) and pretend.

I blame Hollywood.  The reason this entire endeavor is so attractive to people is because of how the world of Dickens is portrayed on the big and small screens.  The children in Oliver! appear hungry -- if that -- not starving.  The streets in any version of A Christmas Carol that I've seen are clean, not filthy.

That world is neat and tidy, even as it proclaims itself not to be. It is the glamorization of what was a dirty, unpleasant time. The Disneyfication of history.

I love history.  It is incredibly important that we view the past as clearly as we can, as honestly as we can.  To do otherwise risks us minimizing the hard work of the people who have brought us so far: the women who fought for suffrage, the scientists and doctors who fought for proper medical care and cleaner living conditions, the activists who fought to end child labor. It took effort on the part of a great many people,most of whom never made it into the history books, to create the world of today. And while it may be fun to play act as though I am in Dickensian London, it's so much better to look around and recognize the world I live in.

A world without children working ten hours a day or people dying from cholera and where women are (at least in theory) allowed to pursue whatever dream they might have seems good enough to me.

*My favorite anachronism story: when the family visited the reenactment of the Battle of Tewkesbury in 2008, while we were discussing the costumes, the Red-Headed Menace mentioned that he saw some EMTs.  "How are they dressed? In armor?" I asked sarcastically.  "No, in blue uniforms with "PARAMEDIC" written on the back."  My other favorite story from that day: the Not-So-Little Drummer Boy asked "Which side do you think is going to win?"  I explained that this was a reenactment, that the House of York won every year, the same as they had in 1471. "The same side wins every year?  What's the point of replaying it then?"  I had to admit he might have a point.

The Red-Headed Menace just suggested that there needs to be Godspell 2: The Islam Edition.

I,  along with many people -- most people, perhaps -- view Handel's Messiah as a Christmas piece.  It's not:  it covers the foretelling of Jesus, his birth, death, resurrection and return.  In fact, the "Hallelujah Chorus" occurs in Part II, which deals with his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, not his birth.

Likewise, I have always thought of the musical Godspell as having an Easter theme.  But, given that it is based on the Gospel of Matthew, it too deals with the entirety of Jesus' life. All of which is to say, I just realized that "Prepare Ye" is really a Christmas song.

Time to update my holiday playlist.

I found all of these links amusing... thought others might as well:

Newbie lawyer forecloses on BofA.  (This was originally reported on in 2011, but I missed it at the time.)

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence crash Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio's dinner in Union Square. You go Sisters!

And finally, the best...

Monsters are people, too -- a report on a scientific paper involving monsters, D&D, and whose lead author is fourteen.

Jon Stewart's take on Fox New's coverage of "the war on Christmas."

Happy holidays.

Endearments.

I call The Rocket Scientist "dear."

I call the kids "hon" (individually -- as a group they are "you guys"), usually with my eyes shut and my hand rubbing the bridge of my nose in exasperation*: "Hon, just because the girl you like can't hang out with you does not mean it is the end of the world.  Trust me, when you get older you will find plenty of women who are attracted to red-headed athletic guys who can intelligently discuss the differences between materialism and idealism, or give refutations for the teleological explanations for the existence of God."**

I call Penwiper "sweetheart." I don't call Pandora anything; she and I have a truce which consists of us mutually ignoring each other's existence.

I do not call anyone darling or sugar -- not that I have any real objections to the terms, but I just don't.

I do NOT call anyone anything cute like honey-bunny*** or cutie-pie or snookums.

Because, as I have been saying for years,  I am NOT cute.****

*Usually with the Red-Headed Menace, because although all of my kids can be exasperating, he occasionally turns it into an art form.
**Not actually a real conversation, although I have had very similar ones with him.
***Although, since Pulp Fiction came out, "honey-bunny" has a sort of dangerous, armed coke-addict vibe to it.
****"I am dark... and mysterious... and pissed off."  Almost Famous.

Well of course, silly. She's a *cat*.

Penwiper strolls through the living room into the dining room, where I am sitting.

Me:  Good morning, sweetheart.
The Rocket Scientist, from the kitchen: I assume you were talking to the cat, not me.
Me: That's right -- how did you know?
RS:  You never call me "sweetheart."
Me: True.
RS: Hey, I know where I fit in the hierarchy around here.*

*I asked him if he wanted me to call him "sweetheart," and he said no, as long as I did not start calling the cat "dear."

[Insert own post here.]

Calming down, I've decided that, while I am still quite angry over the Senate refusing to ratify the UN Disabilities Treaty, calling people names is not productive and is in fact in violation of my values of respecting other people and engaging in civilized political discourse.

So I removed the post.

Today's words of wisdom from the Red-Headed Menace:

"I looked at the Intro to Calculus section at the back of my Trig book.  It was so cool!  Calculus is the Fantasy Football of mathematics!"*

"Santa is really creepy.  He's like one of those serial killers from Criminal Minds, without the dead bodies."

The kid is many things, but boring isn't one of them.

*Please don't ask me to explain what he meant by that. I have no clue whatsoever. Then again, I never took Calculus.

This is for Sarah...

Because I promised my friend Sarah... Josh Groban (aka Neil Gaiman's* younger lookalike) sings Kanye West Tweets.

For a long time, perhaps because of the sort of music he generally sings, I just assumed that Josh Groban would be a really boring person.  Then I saw him in Jimmy Kimmel's "I'm F***ing Ben Affleck" video, and realized that here was a guy with a well-developed sense of humor.  Every interview I've seen with him sense has reinforced that.

Edited to add: And.... then there is this: your favorite Kanye West Tweet hand-stitched and made to order. (Thanks to my friend Cathy for the heads-up.)

*I would like to note that I have just had further evidence that Blogger is by and for geeks:  the text window recognizes Gaiman but not Groban or Kimmel.  Not that I didn't know this already, I just find it amusing.

My name is Pat, and I am powerless over...

I have just spent time reading over all my "Gratitude Posts." (See sidebar.)  I feel pretty good.

I write acceptably well, but there tends to be a lot of overlap in the lists.  This is not surprising, since I wrote them at disparate times and without referring to previous iterations.  I am grateful for certain things on an ongoing basis, and it strikes me that while most of the repeated items are pretty significant in the world -- my family, art, love, life, the ocean, the color blue -- various stripes of Starbucks Venti flavored mochas are not.

It makes me not want even to think about how much money I have given the Starbucks Corporation.

Unimaginable.

There are things in this world which I admit are fully beyond my imagination. I was reminded of them yesterday when talking to my friend Sarah about her trip to Uganda and Rwanda this summer.

In The Book of Mormon, the chief villain is a local warlord who terrorizes villagers. I cannot imagine what that must be like, other than I am positive it would be much worse than Matt Stone and Trey Parker portrayed.  There are so many little details about life in dangerous situations and places that I would never even think of. Sarah told me how, in the cities in Rwanda that she visited, the streets did not have street signs. She asked someone about this, and was told that that was to make it harder for soldiers during the genocide to find the person they had set out to kill.

I would never have imagined that.  There are probably many more details about living in a war zone -- or, in the case of Rwanda, genocide -- that I don't know and fall outside my comprehension.

 I have been reminded that, while life here is not perfect (especially as a woman), there are ways in which it could be much worse. The jokes about things being “first world problems” ring true: so much of what I face on a daily basis or which troubles me about life in America pales in comparison to living in terror.

Yet even as I type this, I face the fact that there are those who live in their own type of terror in this country. Maybe they do not face murdering warlords, but they do face homelessness and hunger, and lack of medical care. The social safety net is frayed and badly needs mending. Although I am a relatively empathetic and understanding person, I am completely sure that there are details about homelessness that I cannot imagine.  I know it is increasingly easy to become homeless in this country but what it would be like to experience on a first hand basis, especially for the most desperate homeless people living on the streets staggers me.

 As we head into the beginning of the season of “goodwill to all men,” I need to think hard about ways in which I contribute to change to make people’s lives better. Charitable contributions* and political action come to mind first, but I’m sure there are other ways if I could think of them.

 After all, it is the season of hope, as well.

*Our family contributes through the Combined Federal Campaign (a program for federal workers which deducts charitable contributions from paychecks) to a number of different charities.  Right now, those include Second Harvest Food Bank, Habitat for Humanity, and Heifer International.  Next year, I want to add Kiva and Doctors Without Borders.

If you don't care where you are, you're not lost

Last Tuesday, I went to Grace Cathedral to walk the labyrinth.  Afterwards, I felt calm and centered, and decided to engage in a favorite activity, ignoring Google Maps and just driving around the city. Although I generally really dislike driving in San Francisco if I have to actually get somewhere (what do you mean, you can't turn left anywhere along Market Street?), just wandering is fun.

In some ways, it is impossible to get lost in San Francisco.  You go long enough in any direction and you hit either a freeway or a waterfront.  As long as you know what to do once you hit the water, and as long as you don't end up on I-80 and on the Bay Bridge going to Oakland (I'm quite okay with going over the Golden Gate), you're fine.

I know which way west is from Grace Cathedral, and in any case the sun was low in the horizon.  I took California as far as I could, then cut over onto Geary to Point Lobos Avenue, and made my way to the Great Highway running along the seashore.

The sea was lovely. The sun was low in the sky, obscured by clouds, but with light escaping from behind them.  I have often said that the sea is rarely blue:  the waves were a dull gold, reflecting the muted sunshine in the late-afternoon sky.  At the edge of the ocean, the breakers were white and green.

I rolled down the window and felt the soft, cool, ocean breeze on my face.  The salt air was soothing in my nostrils.

I love the ocean.  I will take any reasonable opportunity to be near to it, even if only for the short while it takes me to drive the Great Highway down to Skyline Boulevard.  I was good:  I did not forsake my obligations at home to drive along the coast for another hour.

As I said, wandering San Francisco is fun.  I hope I can get lost there again soon.

Silver Linings Playbook.

In my quest to see as many potential Oscar contenders as possible this year, this evening I went to see Silver Linings Playbook.  I'm not quit sure how I feel about it.

It has been rated quite highly: it got "Must Go" recommendations from both audience and critics on Fandango, a 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, and a solid A from Entertainment Weekly.  And in many places it works.  Jennifer Lawrence is good, but Bradley Cooper is great.  And if there is no Best Supporting Actor nod for Robert De Niro, there is no justice in the world.

But there are other places where it fails to gel.  The relationship between the protagonist, Pat, and his doctor, for example: it was totally unrealistic. And there were other places where the movie felt off-kilter or forced.

So... I don't know.  Maybe after I've thought about it for a couple of days, I can do a proper review.

A post I'd like to point y'all towards: Default to kindness by Ian Welsh.  I heartily agree with what Mr. Welsh has to say.  (Via Mike the Mad Biologist.)

I've been thinking about The Book of Mormon more. I've decided that whereas one of my favorite movies, Dogma, addresses the question, "What does faith look like?," The Book of Mormon asks "What is religion good for, anyway?"

They are really tackling similar issues, albeit from slightly different angles.

I wish you joy.

On Tuesday, I went to Grace Cathedral to walk the labyrinth.  Something I was involved in had just ended on Monday, and between that ending and my job assignment being completed, and just life generally, I felt in need of spiritual reassurance.

Regardless of what I think about God, walking labyrinths has always grounded me.   Sometimes that effect does not last very long, but at least while I am walking my mind tends to be clear and focused and I feel calm descend to the core of my soul.

There are other labyrinths closer to me (including at All Saints Episcopal Church in Palo Alto) but the indoor labyrinth at Grace particularly moves me.*  The stained glass and pews are comforting reminders of a faith I once had.  Whatever the doctrinal issues standing between me and the Catholic Church, and recently between me and any organized religion, I find the rituals and the spaces held sacred to be soothing. They fill me with what might almost be described as joy.

I started by thinking about letting go.  I often have to let go of things and people, and this is a recurrent theme in my meditations while labyrinth walking.

My mind wandered to people I was upset with for one reason or another.  My mind does wander when doing this sort of meditation, and I simply have to figure out whether the new road is likely to be a fruitful one.  In this case, I decided it was.

I began by visualizing these people individually and wishing them peace.  My mantra was "I wish [him/her/them] peace," repeatedly.  It did not feel very difficullt: I generally wish peace for all people I know.  So I moved on to wishing each of them joy.

Ah.  This was much more difficult, and I had to refocus time and again on what I wanted to achieve, and why.

Wishing people peace can be dispassionate and removed: "wherever you are, may you find peace."  Wishing people joy is personal: "Wherever you are, and whatever the state of your relationship with me, I actively want you to be happy."**

To wish people joy is to begin to shed any load of bitterness you carry.  While there are people whom it is neither possible nor perhaps healthy to wish joy (someone who physically or sexually abused you, for example), most people fall well outside that category.  The sources of conflict can be over trivial or much larger things, they can be longstanding or more recent, they can be open or unspoken.

To wish people joy is to move towards forgiveness.  It is also to move towards responsibility: it is easier to see your own contributions to whatever the conflict is, or if you have been holding grudges long beyond the point where it is appropriate, if you are not fixated on the other person.

Wishing people joy, forgiving them, moving on or past, makes my life better, more whole.  I am not there yet:  I have to return to my mantra of joy when I think of certain people in my life.  I am hopeful that before too long I will be able to think of them only with forgiveness in my heart.

We are heading into the season of goodwill towards all.  I am glad I have started actually trying to practice it.

*There is also an outdoor labyrinth at Grace.  I had the idea on Tuesday that I would love to walk it at midnight on New Year's Eve.  I won't be able to do that, having just come in from Georgia earlier in the day, but I am certainly keeping it in mind for next year.  Of course, I am sure it will have occurred to a lot of people.
**I'm intrigued by the fact that it is easier to wish joy upon people who I suspect are not going to be happy no matter what than those who generally are pretty happy anyway.  In any case, me wishing them joy will not affect them (unless I tell them about it), the exercise is for my benefit, mostly.

Not a lot of people could do that

When I mentioned to the Rocket Scientist that "Elf's Lament" by the Barenaked Ladies is "the theme song for the Occupy North Pole movement," he cracked up.  "Oh, we need to do that next summer," he cackled, referring to him and his team. "We're not at the North Pole, but we're closer than anybody else is."

I do live in an interesting household.

I have so many posts backed up -- a post about a trip to Grace Cathedral, a post about the joys of being lost in San Francisco, a partly finished post about why I find Dickens Fair so annoying, a mostly finished piece about things unimaginable, a half-done piece which I am struggling with about my strong feelings about the Israeli-Palenstinian conflict -- and what have I been doing?  Watching H2 (a documentary on Jonestown) and refreshing Facebook.

Lack of focus, much?

Hasa Diga Eebowai.

I just saw The Book of Mormon with my friend Sarah.  I don't know when the last time was that I laughed so much and so loudly, sometimes thinking "I can't believe I'm laughing at this."  I was so loud -- I could not help myself -- that the ladies sitting in front of us commented on it afterward (but in a friendly way).  I was good, though: I did not sing along to "I Believe," even though I had to bite my lip.

The actor playing Elder Cunningham looked very familiar. I had seen him on the Tonys, when the show was opened by the Broadway cast doing "Hello," and even then he had looked familiar.  I checked the Playbill, and discovered that he was Jared Gertner, who was part of another memorable theater experience for me when he toured with The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.  I'm turning into a big fan of his.

My only complaint? I can't go back and see it again tomorrow night.

Sing we Noel.

It's that time of year again.  Mind you, if it were up to me, I would play holiday music in July. Wherever I am in "my journey of faith" (and right now, that would be at the "I'm not sure a deity exists anymore" stage), I love these songs.  Here is my top 25 -- at least for this week.

"The 4 Seasons (Winter) I. Allegro Non Molto,"   Antonio Vivaldi*
(It has "Winter" in the title, right?)

"Angels We Have Heard On High," Josh Groban & Brian McKnight*

"Celebrate Me Home," Kenny Loggins

"Elf's Lament," Barenaked Ladies & Michael Bublé *
(The theme song for the Occupy North Pole movement.)

"Feliz Navidad," José Feliciano

"Fifty Kilowatt Tree," The Bobs*
(For those in my neck of the woods, think of some of the gaudier houses in Willow Glen, and triple it.)

"Gaudete, Gaudete," El Duende*

"God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" Barenaked Ladies & Sarah McLachlan*
(Best version of this song ever.  Period.)

"Light One Candle," Peter, Paul and Mary

"Merry Christmas from the Family," Jill Sobule*

"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," Judy Garland

"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," Twisted Sister*
(Yes, I have two versions of this song.  One is iconic, the other just... strange.)

"Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town," Bruce Springsteen

"12 Days of Christmas," John Denver & the Muppets*
"The 12 Days of Christmas (Live)" Straight No Chaser*
(Yes, I have two versions of this, too.  The first is, well, the Muppets! With a bravura performance by Miss Piggy! And the SNC version has to be heard to be believed.)

"What Child Is This," John Denver

"Calypso Noel ," Johnny Mathis
(I remember this fondly from my childhood because it has no freakin' snow in it.  It's tropical, which worked for me since, as my sister said, "The only part of Christmas that is white around here is the sand.")

"The Chanukah Song," Adam Sandler
(Hate his movies -- except for Punch Drunk Love; like this song for no discernible reason I can think of.)

"Christmas Time Is Here," Vince Guaraldi Trio
(You may remember this from A Charlie Brown Christmas.)

"Hark! The Herald Angels Sing / Angels We Have Heard On High," Straight No Chaser

"Simple Gifts," Judy Collins

"I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm," Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong*

"The First Noel," Josh Groban & Faith Hill*

"Symphony No. 9, "Choral", Ode to Joy," Ludwig von Beethoven
(I hereby declare this to be a holiday song.  Doesn't it just sound redolent of pine trees and snow?)


What are your favorites?

*Music is a social phenomenon. These are songs that I heard about from other people: most of them from my friend Cathy, the Muppets from my friend Sarah, my friend Susan gave me Josh Groban's Christmas CD, and also said, "You have to look on YouTube for the Straight No Chaser "12 Days of Christmas."  The Red-Headed Menace turned me on to Vivaldi, and The Not-So-Little Drummer Boy likes Ella Fitzgerald. 

Her drug of choice.

Penwiper just brought me a plastic container of catnip she had retrieved from behind the entertainment center in the living room, and tried to open it with her teeth.  At first, I tied some up in some parchment, but she started tearing that apart, so I just put some out for her on a saucer.

Does this mean I'm enabling her?

More crafting

Last Sunday's project:

(Sorry the picture is so blurry.)

Swarovski crystal bicones (Crystal 3 mm, Iolite 4mm, Purple Velvet 6 mm), Swarovski faux pearls (the best faux pearls -- creamrose light, 6 and 8 mm), silver-plate bead caps and amethyst (10 x 7 oval), and a handmade 18 gauge sterling silver clasp.  I was not particularly happy with the clasp -- I am clearly out of practice.

I am not sure why I made this in purple.  I have other purple necklaces.

Over at Lawyers, Guns, and Money, SEK has a great story about one young man's experience with forces greater than himself. Oh, and basketball.

While the Judy Garland version is definitive, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" as done by Twisted Sister has a lot to commend it.

Quote of the day

"When people call you shrill, it really means they actually have no way to answer what you just said." Paul Krugman, on Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me.

A couple of culinary observations...

I am rapidly coming around to the Not-So-Little Drummer Boy's position that there are few foods that are not improved by putting sriracha on them.  In this case, cornbread stuffing.  I love the heat -- and my family rebels against me putting any more chipotle pepper in it when I am making it.

My sour cream chocolate pie is really good.  It is even better spread with marshmallow fluff.  Last night, I realized why:  it's a s'more! Graham cracker crust, chocolate middle, marshmallow top... next time I think I will simply spread the entire top with marshmallow fluff and take the propane torch to it.  Yum.

I was going to actually wear a dress (gasp!) when I go to see Book of Mormon next week, but alas, that is not to be.  When I went to see Lincoln last night, I fell down.  My right knee has a scrape on it the size of an orange, with another cut down near my right ankle.

Today, all of me hurts.  My knee, both ankles, my neck, my back, you name it.  I have a disabled placard that I got before my fibromyalgia got better, which I usually do not use, but I did today.  Walking is difficult.

I do this often. I have told people with some justification that I trip over thick air.  I have tripped on cobblestones in St. Petersburg, Paris and Rome, and on the smooth sidewalks near my house.  If there is a wrinkle in a rug, I will stumble.  If there is a tree root in my way, I will fall.

The most embarrassing fall occurred at my twentieth Stanford Law reunion.  I had to psych myself up to go to the reunion in the first place by telling myself that yes, I had actually graduated from this place and had as much right as any other graduate to be there. I had put on my best "I'm a lawyer, dammit" demeanor (it only gets trotted out on special occasions -- usually when I am wearing pantyhose), and made my entrance into the wooden pavilion where breakfast was being served.  I promptly caught my heel on the very small step from the ground to the floor of the pavilion, and landed flat on my backside. I was not hurt (and fortunately did not break my glasses), but my dignity was in tatters.

It was just as well.  I felt deflated, and hence relaxed a bit, and probably had a better time talking to people because I was no longer worried about keeping up appearances.  (It should also be noted that, when I went back for lunch, signs had been posting warning people about the step and encouraging them to watch out.)

I am not sure why I am so susceptible to falling.  My hunch is that I have never mastered the skill of looking at all the world around me -- much of which is quite interesting -- and paying attention to my feet.  Or I am intently talking to the people I am with:  in the case of last night's fall, I was too busy ranting to the Red-Headed Menace (complete with expansive hand gestures) about the misleading signs in the parking lot of Vallco Shopping Center to notice that the ground next to the sidewalk had eroded about two inches, hence making it ripe for me to step into, with less than optimal results.

If it is a choice between seeing what wonders are out there at eye level and above -- birds, trees, buildings, sunsets, people -- and risking tripping, I'll  take the world every time.

I just hope I do not break my neck one of these days.

Go me.

I would just like to say that for someone who suffers from tremors so bad that they occasionally affect my ability to hold utensils, creating a piece like that below is not a mean feat, at least as far as I'm concerned.  Of course, I made it, so I am far from an unbiased observer.

It is not a piece I would sell, if indeed I were selling jewelry (I have not in the past eighteen months -- I have barely been making jewelry in that time).  The malachite, the crystal and green Swarovski, and the gold-filled spacer beads are authentic, but the clasp (which is not handmade -- I was out of 18 gauge gold-filled wire) and the bead caps are flimsy and gold plated.

The bead-stringing for the most part was slow but not incredibly difficult -- I have a technique which allows me to compensate for my tremor -- but stringing the crimp beads, wire guards, and clasp was murder, as was actually clamping the crimps.

I like the design.  Now I just have to buy a green shirt I can wear it with.

Things I am thankful for, 2012 edition.

My annual list of 50 things, great and small, important and not,  that I give thanks for.  In absolutely no significant order:

The Big Bang Theory.

The Next Iron Chef.
Alton Brown's turkey brine recipe.
Cranberry pineapple sauce.
Cornbread stuffing.
A functioning stove and refrigerator.*
Good movies.
Ken Burns.

Baseball.

E-books on my phone.
Cory Doctorow.
Facebook.
Blogger.
Venti non-fat no-whip Salted-Carmel Mochas.
Broadway.
The Book of Mormon, which I am going to see next week.

Victorian High Tea, complete with scones and petit fours.

Italy.

Piazza San Marco at twilight.

The Trevi fountain at midnight.

Raphael's "School of Athens."

The back roads of Tuscany.

The Napa Valley on autumn afternoons.

Mumford & Sons.

Democracy.

All of those in the military and out who fight to protect our rights.

That this past election is over.

Props  30 & 36, Measure A (Santa Clara County) and Measure D (San Jose), all of which passed.

President Barack Obama.

Senators Elizabeth Warren, Claire McCaskill, and Tammy Baldwin.

Nate Silver.

Mathematics.

Paul Krugman.

Rachel Maddow.

Jon Stewart.

Stephen Colbert.
My cat.

The meds that make my life possible.**  

The various medical professionals who have helped me make it through this year.

The roof over my head.

The food on my table.

The clothes on my back.

That I don't have to worry where my next meal is coming from.

My family.
Specifically, The Not-So-Little Drummer Boy, Railfan, and The Red-Headed Menace.

My friends.
The ocean.
Art.
Love.
Life.

* The power went out in our neighborhood for an hour and a half this morning; it was stressful, to say the least.
**One of my family's "thank yous" was for the fact that I was no longer on meds that made me a ghost of my former self.

Here's looking at you, kid.

Today is the Not-So-Little Drummer Boy’s birthday. For the first time I will not be able to celebrate in person with him. I so wish this were different.

The NSLDB was born at seven minutes past midnight, November 20, 1990.  It was a difficult labor and birth – several ER visits and one hospitalization due to dehydration caused by severe hyperemesis gravida.  All of this while I was finishing law school and studying for the California bar exam (which I passed, I might add).

He was nearly three weeks late – it was an induced birth that lasted thirty hours.  He was a beautiful, wonderful baby, a fact I failed to realize three weeks later when I descended into postpartum psychosis and had to be hospitalized.

He talked early, and fluently, and was consistently aware of the things going on around him.  He told me at five that television commercials were no good because all they were trying to do was sell you stuff.  I know adults who still don’t seem to have figured that out.

He has never shied away from expressing himself. When his youngest brother was born, I was trying to cope with the exhaustion of having a newborn by sitting watching old Looney Tunes cartoons.  The NSLDB was watching with me. (Yes, I know I was being a bad mother by having a six-year old see such violent fare.  I was too sleep-deprived to care.)  “Duck season!,” said Bugs.  “Rabbit season!” said Daffy.  “Duck season!” “Rabbit season!” “Duck season!” “Baby season,” growled a quiet voice sitting next to me.

When he was eight, he was hit while crossing the street by a speeding SUV.  By the grace of whatever God there is, he survived.  (In one of the worst memories of my life, the ER doctor cheerfully told me, “He’s a lucky boy, if that car had hit an inch higher he would be dead.”)  While he was in the ER, through a bloodied mouth that was now absent three front permanent teeth, he tried to tell jokes to make me and the nurse laugh. (“ ‘Ell, I ‘ould always ‘e a ‘entriloquist….”).  Instead, both of us had to fight back tears.  “I’m supposed to try and make you feel better, not the other way around,” I responded.

The NSLDB was never a kid that blended in.  A friend visited us once when he was ten and commented that it must be like living with a Borscht Belt comedian.  A counselor told him in middle school – much to the dismay of his father and I – that he should stop using such big words, that he should try to be more like the other kids.  That was a little like asking a peacock to shear his feathers.

When the NSLDB discovered the drums, he was in nirvana (we ended up in city mediation due to his practicing.)  He loves music, and by the time he was in high school had more music than anyone else I knew.  He was interested in every aspect: I remember on a band trip I was chaperoning, hearing him discuss a band with a classmate. The classmate had mentioned a current group he liked, and the NSLDB took off: he discussed the music, then the production, the other albums with the same producer, and the audio techniques he particularly liked… The other kid looked a bit shell-shocked.

When he went to the orientation for the Mountain View Los Altos High School District’s Freestyle Academy, he walked up to the audio instructor and said, “So, how much Pro Tools do I need to know? I haven’t worked with it.”  The instructor hemmed and hawed and said, “Well, we generally start people out on GarageBand.”  The NSLDB had been working with GarageBand for two years already.

It was at the Freestyle Academy that he discovered art and design.  He has carried that love into his work at college, and I know that it will be with him the rest of his life.

When younger he did not handle boredom well.  During his eighth grade band, when he was better than most of the other (younger) drummers and hence not being challenged enough, he led a mutiny about the uniforms.  (I got a call from the his band teacher about that one.)  When he was a freshman in high school, he was assigned in an English class to write an essay about a “heroic figure.”  He was in fact quite bored with the class, and not particularly taken with the rather humorless teacher, so he chose as his heroic subject the pot of petunias in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe.  I did not actually hear about that from the teacher directly, but at parent-teacher conference the young woman did express bewilderment about how to deal with him.

There is no one I would rather go to an art museum with.  He is his own person, he likes what he likes, and is willing to discuss why intelligently.  He does not see the art as sacred cows or the museums as temples: in the Musee d’Orsay he walked up to Degas sculpture of the little ballerina girl and said “What a brat.”  You could hear a gasp go around the group of art-lovers clustered around her.  He was talking in an art museum! He was criticizing a beloved work! Then he went on… “Look at how smug she is.  I know this girl.  I went to school with girls just like her.”  “Oh, yeah,” said another observer.  And soon, people were discussing the statue as if she were a person, and is that not the most any artist can ask? To have their work come alive for people?

When we went to the Art Institute of Chicago, I of course went for the famous works, especially Seurat’s “Sunday on La Grande Jatte” and Grant Wood’s “American Gothic.”  He, on the other hand, fell in love with Ivan Albright’s “That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do.”  Without him, in my rush to see what was “important” (read: well-known), I would have missed this fascinating, dark work.

He makes people better just by knowing him.  That’s not just the opinion of a doting mother:  I once got a call from a high-school English teacher telling me how much he loved having the NSLDB in his class, and that a girl in class had said that knowing him had changed her life.  This same class always had a contest at the end of the year, to decide who had been the most insightful and valued contributor to the class that year. “It would have been unanimous, Mom,” he told me, “but I decided I’m not the type of person who votes for himself.”  In his evaluations at college, one of his professors called him “a credit to the college.”

He’s not perfect:  He procrastinates sometimes, and is disorganized (he gets that from his mother – although unlike her he seems to be getting better) and has an occasional tendency towards cynicism (he gets that from his father). He has other faults, but they are more than compensated for by his virtues.

I miss him terribly.  He can discuss politics, and art, and culture, and philosophy with a clear-headedness missing in those much older and ostensibly wiser than he is.  Having Thanksgiving without him is tearing me apart, even as I recognize that he is a grownup now, with a grownup’s responsibilities that will mean that I see less and less of him. 

So, here’s to you, kid.  I love you very much, and I am prouder of you than you can ever know.  I hope that you have a marvelous birthday.

Okay, so I'm whining.

Today is the sixteenth anniversary of the day my dad died.  Tomorrow is my eldest son's birthday, and for the first time since that winter evening twenty-two years ago, I won't be able to celebrate with him -- even last year, when he did not get home until the 21st, we still had a party. For the first time since he was born, I won't be able to celebrate Thanksgiving with him, either.

I should write a lengthy post about Dad.  Instead, I feel like retreating to my room with a large take-out order of Coldstone Creamery's dark chocolate & peppermint ice cream with crushed Oreos mixed in  and old episodes of Big Bang Theory.

I guess I'd just better go make dinner.

I'm working on it.

A great quote from Sunny Anderson on Food Network, "I'm thankful that every day is another chance to get it right."

For complicated reasons -- read: reasons I really don't want to explain -- I have re-added a site meter bar to the bottom of the blog.  It really only tracks location, not much else.

I'm sort of blue tonight.  Partly it is the rain which has been falling off and on all day. More than that, I am trying to find a solution for an ongoing issue, and the results of my introspection are leading me down roads I don't want to go -- but to places where I need to be in the end.  Mourning the aftermath of the decisions I haven't quite made yet but which I can see are inevitable takes a toll on the psyche.

I need comfort food.

A little Sondheim is always in order: I'm listening to Sondheim! The Birthday Celebration.  It seems to be helping -- surely more than watching the DVD of the last performance of Rent would. (Although Patti Lupone's tendency to sing flat on "A Little Priest" does get on my nerves.)  Maybe after this, I'll queue up A Celebration at Carnegie Hall.

Figuring out answers will just need to wait until tomorrow.

Skyfall.

The Rocket Scientist and I flipped a coin over which movie we would go to see tonight, and I lost.  So instead of going to see Daniel Day-Lewis be grave and presidential in Lincoln, we went to see Skyfall. I liked it much better than I expected to.

I am not a James Bond fan -- I generally only see the movies when dragged to them.  I was relieved that I ended up getting called out of Quantum of Solace because of a sick kid -- at least I was once I ascertained that the kid was not really sick, but just very anxious, and I was able to calm him down.  I never did end up seeing the rest of the movie, which is fine by me.  From an earlier Bond era, A View to A Kill is one of the very few movies I have ever walked out of in my  life. I met the hoopla around the franchise turning 50 with a sincere "Who cares?"

I had no intentions of seeing Skyfall.

But I liked it.  In addition to suspense, which I expected, it had humor, which I did not.  There were also great actors (Judy Dench, Ralph Fiennes), eye candy (Daniel Craig, and the actor who played Q, not to mention London and Scotland, both wonderful places), and Javier Bardem, who seems to be making a career of being the most bad-ass villain imaginable.

My favorite line of the entire movie? "What makes you think it would be my first time?"  It doesn't seem funny here, but in context it's great.

In fact, I only had one gripe, because I am that person who nitpicks things to death. It doesn't matter much, so I feel comfortable griping about it here, but in respect to people who get annoyed about spoilers, it is in a footnote behind a cut.  (If you're reading in the RSS feed, sorry.)

So, in general, a very good movie.  I highly recommend it.

Time to talk.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."
"The Walrus and the Carpenter," Lewis Carroll

My friend Sarah treated me to Victorian High Tea at Tyme for Tea in Niles on Wednesday.  It was a lovely afternoon.

The sky was that cornflower blue that blesses us who live here in the fall, and although the hills had not yet turned from brown to green, the trees had turned from green to red.  Niles is a small town hidden away in the East Bay, lovely and quaint, if admittedly a bit kitschy.  The Niles Canyon Railroad runs from there, and I have sweet memories of taking small boys riding on a steam train through the golden hills on a November Saturday afternoon.

Tea was fun, and silly.  The tea shop has a chest of hats, so I donned a brown panama and selected a maroon cloche for Sarah.  We dined on fresh-baked cherry scones and lemon curd, tea sandwiches and petit fours, washed down with warm tea redolent of peach and ginger.

We talked.  We talked of work -- hers ongoing and mine recently completed.  We talked of family.  We talked politics.  She commiserated with me over my frustration with recent health issues and meds side effects.*  I talked about the year, and how glad I was it was drawing to a close.    We talked about our plans to see The Book of Mormon, and she talked about having had to remind herself not to sing the songs out loud during her trip to Uganda.  We talked about how I had just started reading Cory Doctorow's fiction (as opposed to his blogging), and how Nate Silver was, as she said, "adorkable." We talked about how the sex workers in Amsterdam are unionized, and how legalization of behavior makes it easier to regulate.

We talked of our lives as they are, and our lives as we would have them be, and the world around us.

It is soul-filling to talk at length to friends whose approval I need not seek, whose disfavor I do not fear.    Not because they do  not matter -- there are legions in this world whose opinion is of no consequence to me -- but because they can be trusted to not judge me, or when judgment is inevitable (for who never judges?) to leaven it with love and compassion.  People who know my imperfections and accept me anyway.  Who like me anyway. And whom I like and respect in turn, regardless of their flaws, whatever those may be.

I am grateful to have friends like that. Some, such as Sarah, or Stephanie, live close to me.  Some -- Cathy or Jennifer or Carol or others -- are flung across the country (and soon, in Jennifer's case, across the world).  I do  not have as many as I would like, or arguably need (I am a solitary and suspicious type, and people often have to work to get to know me), and I am far, far too bad at keeping in touch, but I treasure each one of them.

I need to tell them that more often.

We need to talk.

*Among other things, my hair is falling out.  No, I do not have cancer.

It's that time of year again...

Some people in my neighborhood still have the spiderweb decorations up from Halloween, while others have already put up their Christmas lights.

Rachel Maddow on why all of us won Tuesday night.  It's well worth watching all the way through, even if it is sixteen minutes long.  The best soundbite has been plastered all over Facebook, but her most important points come right at the end.

It's nice to go out on a high note.

As of 8:00 p.m. election evening, the moment the California polls closed, I once again became unemployed.

Over the past three and a half weeks, I have gained about $1,000, a water bottle, tote bag, and t-shirt (I won something in each of the office raffles) each proclaiming me to be allied with one union or another, none of which I actually am, three $25 gift certificates for working eight-hour shifts, and a fair chunk of experience in dealing with disgruntled people over the phone.

I have lost one purple Swarovski drop earring, and some naivete about the political process -- not that I was all that naive before.

I worked with some wonderful human beings, but I once again totally failed to exchange basic information such as phone numbers or email addresses.  I did grab the email address of one of the supervisors, who promised us all references.  I also made a point of going to all the supervisors and thanking them for creating such a wonderful workplace:  given the type of work, it could have been horrible, and it was anything but.

Tuesday was by the far the best day I worked: no salesmanship, no explaining exactly how important raising the minimum wage in San Jose or the sales tax in Santa Clara County was, or why Jimmy Nguyen would make such a good District 8 Councilman.  All I did was call registered voters and remind them how important it is that they vote.  I could be happy and enthusiastic, and most often I had people thanking me for calling. I had more than one person tell me how important what I was doing was.

Given my deep conviction about the vital importance of electoral process, this was perfect.  As I told one of my supervisors an hour in, I was having fun.

One man awkwardly explained he was in fact in the polling booth as I called.  I forbore reminding him that he wasn't supposed to have cell phones in there.  Another women defiantly said "I voted for Romney," and was surprised and sheepish when I gently replied, "I don't care who you voted for, ma'am, only that you voted."  I had more than one person, recognizing the phone number as being that from which they had received numerous political calls over the past month, state before I had a chance to say anything "I voted already." My favorite was a woman who explained that her son -- the person I was calling for -- had voted already, and went down the line listing the propositions and how she had told him to vote.  We were both laughing by the end of the conversation.

I laughed a lot, and smiled, and said "wonderful!" and "have a great evening!" and meant every word of it. One of the other staffers, a woman who had done this for many more weeks than I had, complimented me on my rap, and told me how genuine and pleasant I was.  I was flattered, and more than that, relieved. Being a torch-bearer for representative democracy is a role I take very seriously.

Like the census job in 2010, I felt that what I did mattered.  Of the five campaigns I worked on, three and a half were successful.  (One of the campaigns was for two candidates for city council, one of whom was elected, while the other was not.)  I helped make sure that education can be adequately funded in California, and that people living on the edge in San Jose can make something closer to a living wage.

Now the election, and my stint as a phone banker, are over. I think that I, and all the people who sat next me on the phones and computers, did a good -- and important -- job.

I'm sad to see them go, but happy things turned out so well in the end.

I, and many political nerds across the land, have a deep and abiding crush on Nate Silver.  Not that he is ever going to read this, but thanks, Nate, for giving us intelligent and sane analysis.

Chris Kluwe is saying goodbye to blogging, at least for now. : (

I understand why, and can only wish him good luck and Godspeed. And who knows, I may even be  moved to root for the Vikings occasionally.

Why yes, I am high maintenance, at least these days. Sometimes.

I had a meltdown of sorts at work.  Not a  major meltdown. I just got upset at what I saw as a fundamentally unfair situation.

I had agreed to work eight hours.  Working eight hours ended up causing me problems, and a missed appointment fee to the tune of fifty bucks.  It was not my appointment, either, but somehow it was my responsibility.

I'm the mom, you see.  My responsibility, my fault, even though the individual in question had set up the appointment by himself and not told me when it was.  So I was stressed and upset going into the shift.

There were not enough computers to go around, so I and a lot of other people were reduced to using pre-paid cell phones to make calls.  The noise was immense, but I coped, and did the best I could.  Remember the esprit d'corps I mentioned?  I really do like the people I work with, even in the midst of noise and chaos.

Two hours before the end of shift, one of the supervisors took away all of the cell phones to give to volunteers who were coming in.  After much deliberation by the bosses, those of us using the phones were offered two options: continue to work using our personal cell phones, or go home early.  We would not be paid for the hour we went home early, of course, but they were going to give us the gas cards that they had promised people who agreed to work eight hours.

I had no option.  I do not have unlimited cell phone minutes. (I also did not want the people we were calling to have my personal cell number, but that is another matter.)  I was in a position where I was going to be forced to go home.  When I suggested that people who were on computers might be asked if they wanted to go home early, that was rejected as "opening up an entire new can of worms."  I was clearly unhappy.  I did not yell, but I did complain.  I suppose if you pushed the point I committed insubordination.

The youngest of the bosses found a young woman who agreed to go home early.  And as it turned out, a number of the volunteers left after a short while, so people could go back to using phones.

I apologized to one of the bosses, but in my heart I am not sure I meant it.  It seems to me that you need to make better plans for people to be able to work when you tell them to show up.  This is not the first time this has happened: a few days ago I punted something that mattered to me, and which may have longer term implications,  so that I could work eight hours, only to be told when I arrived that plans had changed and everyone would only work five.  Had I known in advance, I could have shifted the time I work so as to take better care of my personal obligations.

I am pretty sure I have torched any chance of getting any sort of recommendation from any of these people.  Which is okay: the last job I would want to move into at this point is telemarketing. As I mentioned in my last post, I am resoundingly mediocre at this.

I just regret letting my emotions get the better of me.  It was unprofessional.  I know better.  I almost always behave better.

It is towards the end of a long year.  Having a job, for even a few weeks, was a bright spot, and now it is almost over.  This saddens me immensely.

Pain.  Loss.  Endings.

I need joy and beginnings.  And soon.

Being a phone banker  has been an... interesting ... experience for me.

I like my bosses, who do a good job of maintaining morale.  I like my coworkers, and the esprit d' corps which we have seemed to have created for ourselves.

It's just that I quite frankly suck at this job.

Not bad enough to get fired, but I am certainly resoundingly mediocre.  What saves me is my work ethic: I show up early every day, only leave my station during official breaks, never leave before we're let go.  I work as hard as I can.  I am sweet and helpful and... only marginally competent.

And, unfortunately, with only two more days to go, I am not going to have time to develop any sort of basic mastery of good telemarketing technique.

I hate that.  I need to be, if not the best at everything, then certainly good at it.  And I'm not, and won't be.

There is precedence, sadly: I was not a particularly good lawyer, either, expensive law school education notwithstanding.

*rimshot*

Yesterday, The Red-Headed Menace said that in his AP American History class they were watching "The Civil War."  He has recently watched "Jazz," and I just got through watching "The National Parks."

When I suggested that this evening we watch "The Civil War" so that he could review, he stated that he was "Ken-Burnsed out."

My votes

 I am going to indulge myself in a bit of pontification here.  Not that it probably matters to anyone, but here is how I am voting on all major California races and propositions:

President, Vice President: Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Quite frankly, the Republican vision of America and the world scares me.  There are a lot of things Obama has done -- or failed to do -- that I have been unhappy about, but given that all of politics is a compromise between the ideal and the achievable, in many ways he has done much more than most of us really should have expected. I realize that I am in the bluest region in a very blue state (taken as a whole -- the Central Valley and other rural regions run red), and so my vote in the Presidential race means little, but I am still not going to vote for a third party candidate.  I would hate to have a situation like 2000, where the candidate with the most popular votes loses in the electoral college.  It would embolden those in opposition, and make it even harder to get anything done for the next four years.  Given that there is sure to be at least one SCOTUS appointment in that time, offering as much support for Obama as possible matters.

U.S. Senate: Dianne Feinstein. Sigh.  I am no fan of Feinstein.  I was not impressed by her opponent's candidate statement, however, and even had I been so I would still vote for the incumbent.  Numbers matter here, and having as many Democrats in the Senate as possible is important.

Proposition 30, increase in income taxes and sales taxes:  Yes. The state needs the money.  We are in dire financial straits.  Failure to pass this would result in state spending reductions, primarily to education.  Given the way that Prop 13 has gutted the best public schools in the country over the past three decades, this is a necessity.  (Also, if I'm looking at supporters versus opponents, The League of Women Voters versus the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association? No contest.)

Proposition 31, "State Budget, State And Local Government. Initiative Constitutional Amendment And Statute": No. Because of its two-year budgeting requirement, it would add inflexibility to the state budgeting process. It would also result in a loss of tax revenue to the tune of $200 million annually.

Proposition 32, alleged political campaign reform: This one deserves its own post, but no, no, no. It's deceptive and unfair.

Proposition 33, auto insurance rates: I admit, I have not read enough about this to have a clear idea about it, so as it stands now, no.

Proposition 34, repeal of the death penalty: Yes.  That I should be firmly in support of Prop 34 should be no surprise to anyone who knows me.  In fact, out of all the propositions, this is the one I feel most intensely about.

Proposition 35, human trafficking: No. I am extremely wary of creating or changing criminal laws -- especially ones that increase the penalties for behavior as much as this one does -- by the initiative process.  (Also, the definition of "Commercial sex act" ("sexual conduct on account of which anything of value is given or received by any person") seem to me as being overbroad. ) The requirement of Internet registration is unwieldy, and given the nature of the Internet, allows for the possibility of abuse.  (And yes, I do understand that that my opposition to Prop 35 is  inconsistent with my support for Props 34 and 36.)

Proposition 36, penalties under the three strikes laws: Yes.  The three-strikes law was flawed from its adoption by initiative in 1994, and has been misused.  Prop 36 fixes the worst of it.

Proposition 37, GMO labeling requirements: No.  A very wise law professor once told me that if the consequences of a proposition are at all vague, regardless of how good it looks, vote against it.  Prop 37 -- the Genetically Engineered Food Labeling Initiative --  has the potential of being a mare's nest.  It could be the food equivalent of the posting requirements of Prop. 65, costing businesses and consumers a lot of money without actually giving people choices.  The whole area of food labeling needs to be handled on a federal level. You want to argue that the FDA and USDA are owned lock, stock, and barrel by Monsanto?  Okay,  but that is where the fight should be.  This leaves aside the entire scientific question of whether GMO foods are at all harmful. The argument that "people should make up their own minds" does not carry much weight with me, since most people are susceptible to scare tactics.  Using litigation as an enforcement mechanism also bothers me.

Proposition 38, tax to fund early childhood education programs:  No. I object to Prop 38 even though it aims to raise income taxes the same as Prop 30 does.  Firstly, the increases start at $7,500 rather than $250,000.  More importantly, though, passing this will do nothing to prevent the automatic five billion dollars in education spending cuts that will occur if this gets more votes than Prop. 30.

Proposition 39, business tax treatment, clean energy fund:  This particular proposition drives me crazier than the others.  I like the changes in tax treatment for businesses -- I think that basing taxes on the amount of in-state sales makes a lot of sense. But that money needs to go into the general fund, not be locked into particular  projects. It's a yes, but a reluctant yes.

Proposition 40, referendum on State Senate redistricting: Yes.  The districts drawn by the citizen's commission are fair and reasonable.  There is currently no opposition to the measure, the opponents having withdrawn following the State Supreme Court having ruled that the districts were to be kept in place for the 2012 election, so voting no seems silly.  I am interested in finding out the backstory, though: apparently the proposition was put on the ballot by people hoping it would be defeated, thus invalidating the districts drawn by the commission.  It never occurred to me that someone would put a measure on the ballot in order to force a "no" vote, but now that I think about it, it makes sense.

There are a host of county and local measures and races, but I am going to skip those.  (Most people who read this would not care whether Santa Clara County passes a one-eighth a penny sales tax, or renews an existing parcel tax for clean water management, or about the people running for school board or city council.)

So, if you are in California, how are you voting?