Turning Points

Reading 19th century novels years ago in college, I was once struck by the whole idea of turning points. For example, toward the end of War and Peace Nicholas Rostov is literally poised to leave his beloved Marya, after a painful good-bye conversation, when suddenly the look she gives him with her luminous eyes arrests him, and he confesses his love and they end up happily married. But it could have gone either way, they both could have ended up single and lonely instead. There was a fulcrum, a pivot point, where the full unfolding of the future was undecided. What force is it that pushes things in one direction or the other?
Tomorrow is my surgery. I've been reading about endometriomas and ovarian cancer, the various types of lesions, on the internet. The subject is very complicated, and my ultrasound report leaves me with more questions than answers. It's funny not knowing which way events will fall. "Prognosticate" is one of Rachel's vocabulary words this week--looking for present clues to predict future events. I keep looking for clues. But it's ultimately pointless, since we won't know what's up until tomorrow.

More Sisters

Now that I've FINALLY figured out how to post photos using Flickr, I'm really going to go nuts! This picture shows the rest of the Cull girl matriarchy: my other two sisters, Mary Ellen (in blue) and Jane (in pink), plus Rachel, and Jane's daughter, Natalie Lynn, representing the next generation--taken during our Thanksgiving Day jewelrymaking fest. Jane has a nice little jewelry business, and is making gorgeous stuff these days. Mary Ellen gave me a reiki treatment after our exceptionally fine dinner, concentrating on my horrendous 2nd chakra problems. It's great having sisters who are masters of the healing arts (Jane is an herbalist, Amy is a devout Christian, Jill is already on the other side of the material plane, part of the welcome center). The highlight of Thanksgiving evening as far as I was concerned was the father-and-son guitar concert by Drew and Tim. A good time was had by all!

Sisters

My Aunt Jeanne recently sent me this old photo from around 1959. I believe this was taken on the front porch of Bema and Granpa's house in Staten Island. Jill is on the left, obviously not hungry (nice band-aid). Amy is on the right, looking a little bewildered. That's me in the middle, long before estrogen wreaked havoc on my poor body.

Excuses for not posting lately

So far I've just been posting using the Windows PC at work, using Hello to post photos. But since I have an iMac at home and in the Education lab, plus a G4 at work, I've been trying to figure out the ins and outs of posting with a Mac. Unfortuntely, Blogger's Mac support is not great, although they have suggestions at their site. For example, I only have two editing tools on this display (spellchecker & image upload help), so I can't highlight or italicize text. So I'm going to use Flickr for posting photos, and load the recommended Mozilla Firefox browser in search of better editing tools. I can always use the Windows machine for editing posts, but what a pain! Rachel and I just got a nice 5 mp digital camera, so I'll be posting photos sometime soon.

Requiem for a Dream

Today seems like a good day to think about Hubert Selby's Requiem for a Dream, a dark examination of our American Protestant ethic told through the story of four drug addicts. Like our current political situation, it's not for the faint of heart. In her personal exploration of the lives of blue collar workers, Nickel and Dimed (which should be required reading for anyone who ever eats in a restaurant or shops at Wal-Mart), Barbara Ehrenreich expressed her astonishment at the tenacity with which the working poor hang on to the ideal of the American Dream. If they just work hard enough, they believe that everything will work out in the end. Even if they can't make ends meet, even if they can't afford decent housing or medical care or education, even if the world is literally crumbling around them: NEVERTHELESS, they believe that Success is still possible for everyone in America. Kudos to the late great Selby for exposing the flawed underpinnings of our great capitalist system in all its lurid glory. As this important election draws to a close, I am awestruck at our national addiction to untruth.

Thoughts on Today's Election

Raised with my parents' and grandparents' conservative views, I used to be a Republican. My dad's views on capitalism were formed by Hayek and Von Mises decades ago (reading The Road to Serfdom was his watershed experience), and don't seem to have evolved at all during his lifetime. He is unable to see that unfettered capitalism in this country has resulted in an incredible disparity between rich and poor. I was well into my adult life before I realized how insensitive the Republican party has become to social issues. "Compassionate conservatism" is an oxymoron. Conservatives believe that the poor deserve their poverty just as the rich deserve their riches. It's an undemocratic, elitist system that perpetuates itself because the Republicans have managed to rally portions of the unsuspecting middle class around issues like abortion and gay rights (check out Thomas Frank's beautifully written What's the Matter with Kansas? for insight into this phenomenon). People aren't looking at the big picture: like it's wrong to kill people before they're born, but it's okay to kill them afterward in wars or if they are convicted of a capital offense?--or just doom them to a life of ignorance and poverty and slavery to capitalism? Doesn't sound "pro-life" to me!

So my hopes are for a Kerry win, a Democratic majority in the Senate, and a surge of public support for the working poor and the middle class, and the issues that affect all of us, not just rich people and well-meaning but misguided religious conservatives. It's time to mend the social fabric!

Reunion at the Lizard

Yesterday evening I went to a mini-reunion of high school friends: Carolyn, Vicki, Freda, Roger, Natalie, Mike, and Raymond, of the Woodridge High School Class of 1973. We met at the old Peninsula Night Club (now the Winking Lizard). We are all turning 50 within the next year, so it was also a birthday celebration, with Ray and Freda already over the hill! I think the early birds Vicki, Rachel and I were there almost five hours. It was so great to see everyone again, it amazed me how basically the same we are--just older and infinitely wiser, with crappy middle-aged bodies! Mike looks so cool with his white beard--Rachel thinks he looks like Jerry Garcia (minus the drugs). The younger generation was represented by my Rachel and Eric, Roger and Natalie's son, who were undoubtedly grateful they didn't have to spend the entire evening just listening to the old fogies.

My old circle of girlfriends (circle of old girlfriends?) represents the four elements in astrology: Vicki (water), Carolyn (earth), Freda (air), and me (fire). Isn't that cool? Our parents must have planned it that way! Speaking of family planning, Eric was born on his dad's birthday--how did Roger and Natalie manage to pull that one off? Rachel (my designated driver) and I didn't get home 'til around midnight pre-DST EST. Thank god for the extra hour of sleep!

Today's link is to the The Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail - Cuyahoga Valley, which is maybe 50 yards from the Lizard.