ditch that

sketchy msn ("evil empire") browser. try the browser we use at the bfc, mozilla firefox. guaranteed no more pop-ups or banner ads. and you're supporting the thankless toil of open source rebels. then give your email allegiance to paranoid open source rebels like riseup. guaranteed no more spam (mozilla also has their own email, thunderbird).

i wonder if scott is still alive

by which i mean his corporeal being; we already know the fate of that which is the spark and essence of the entity we once knew as scott...

No! rage against the darkness, scooter, rage against the darkness!

in the "Friday" section

of today's SF Chronicle they have a big article on Starhawk, who was the interviewee in an ish of The Sun some while ago and has written at least a few pieces for that mag. They have a photo of her in her kitchen making spaghetti!

doin' graves at Cal Campus

this weekend. It's also my Saturday to draw blood at Berkley, so it'll be a No Sleep Saturday. Sunday I'm free, and I have the following choices for volunteer activities:

1. Do bike parking with the bicycle coalition down at Halloween in the Castro.
2. Do support services (I have no idea what this entails, other than being courteous to drunk persons) with SFSI down at the aforementioned Halloween in the Castro.
3. Attending a party with bfc folks where attendees will be calling newly registered voters in swing states to encourage them to not vote for Bush.

any suggestion which I should do?

The US has lots of fresh water

but not in the right places. You guys of course have a bazillion times more, which all freezes in the winter. It's always good to remember that most of the US west of Iowa is a desert.

I don't know how much Canadian TV we get on cable, the only TV I watch is when I'm at Sticky's and the only channels he gets are what he can pick up with the antenna connected to his TV set. Oddly, that means no NBC, but he gets cantonese language TV (broadcast locally) and International TV, which has programs originating from all over the world.

maybe the fear

comes from back in the early 70s when southern Cal was having it's "water crisis" and there was talk that LA's demand would far outstrip it's source of water. There was talk of schemes like towing icebergs from antarctica and collecting the meltwater, building massive desalinization plants, and piping it down from the huge freshwater lakes of Canada. Of course the solution was to steal it from the Sierras (like SF does) and the Colorado River basin.

that's crazy!

so, what are we supposed to be using this "stolen" water for, anyway?

along those lines...

Originally uploaded by danaclaycomb.

this cracked me up for some reason.

oh yeah

your reference was to "Pink Floyd: The Wall." There's actually a recent techo song with vocals that consist of repetition of that very set of lyrics "hello, is there anybody etc..."

good thing this election

is the monumental effort to get people registered to vote and encourage them to do so. The message seems tacked on to everything these days. I think it mainly stems from angry Democrats desperately wanting to see Bush defeated, and seeing their best chance at achieving this by getting historically undervoting groups like young adults. hispanics, etc to the polls. Then the Republicans countered with their own campaign so as not to be seen as anti-democracy. In addition there's the lingering memory of the horrible mess of the 2000 election. Thus giving rise to bumper stickers like "RE-DEFEAT BUSH." The logic being that the more people that vote, the more legitimate the outcome of the election. something like that.

don't think i've ever had a flouride treatment.

but then again i've only been to the dentist like 5 times since i turned 18. oddly enough, though, i kinda find going to the dentist, a weirdly pleasurable exprerience (like electrolysis).

feeling doldroms-y lately. too much work. too much extracurricular stuff. too much of everything.

one of our pathologists jumped off the golden gate bridge Monday. It was his day off. everyone's kinda in shock.

Carolyn and I

had a dentist appontment today. Neither one of us had cavities. Never-the-less, she was not very happy with me because of the Floride treatment. After we left the dentist office, Carolyn said, "You promised to warn me about tell me everything bad that would ever happen - well, you didn't tell me about the giant thing they stick in your mouth for an hour with sour stuff."
"Oh, year," I said half giggling, I forgot allabout floride treatments."
"You forgot? You just can't forget a thing like that!"
"No, really, I forgot about the grapey Floride stuff."
"I'll never believe you about anything. Hey, what did the dentist go talk to you about in the waiting room.?"
"You don't want to know."
"Yes, I do!"
"Okay, he said you're gonna need braces."
"Cool! Really?"
"No, it, is not cool. It is expensive. But it is not for a few years. He just wanted to warn us so we can start saving right now."
"Will it hurt?"
"Sort of"
"Really?"
"Yes - I don't know - maybe, it's different now. Ask your friends."

hello

Hello, hello Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me. Is there anyone at home?

Every fall I wonder

if Carolyn has developed a hearing problem because she starts talking louder, but then I remember it's just school and being around kids all day. Kids in a group talk louder and louder to be heard over the group until everyone is practically shouting, and then they walk around talking that way all day long like someone whose just been to a concert. "I'm ten inches away from you" I'd say to kids when I'm subbing. "I can hear you just fine."

There aren't many

interesting deaths, but I did like the one I came across the other day at work where the guy died from complications of injuries received falling off a float in a parade. Somehow that just seems more interesting than colon cancer.

cool patient names for today:

Jesus Kwong
Young Limb

I have to get a new home page

but I'm too lazy to look for one. This default MSN news page depresses me with its teaser lines "Choose your Dream Mini-van!" "Down load Shania's latest hit!" And it does this weird thing where even if you click on some other page in history and it appears to be coming up, you somehow go back to MSN, like, No, you may not go to Blogger until find out how to lower your insurance rates, prepare 10 Healthy Halloween Treats, and view the worst celebrity hairstyles! You must read "When You Have Money and Your Friends Don't" and "Are You Bitter About Love? Take This Quiz."

Ed and I

actually had a very pleasant weekend together. We just sort of hung out. All summer it seems like we are coming and going and passing each other on the way to and from work, handing off Carolyn like a football.. (I don't mean that she is burden - actually, we've always been kind of jealous about each other's time spent with her.) And the house of course has been a preoccupation. And there is just something about marriage - they way you depend on each other to get things done. I don't think either of us "nag"; still you find yourself saying "Could you help me with....did you remember to.. do you think you could...is it okay if we.."
So yeah, it's kind of unusual just to be in each other's company and not ask for anything or be asked, just to hang out.. Carolyn had a sleep over at her friend's house (in exchange for us babysitting her friend the next day.) So I cooked a steak, and we watched a movie, soaked in the hot tub, and went to bed early.

Did you read the

Daniel Ellsburg interview in the Sun this month?

So what should we talk about?

I feel pretty out of touch with the election and American culture. I don't even know what the new fall TV shows are. I'm going through a phase where everything I read or see on TV seems terribly uninteresting and/or irritating. People in general seem uninteresting or irritating, and then I feel guilty for being so negative, for squandering opportunities for connection, growth, experience, knowledge. etc. but sometimes interaction feels so unsatisfying.
This is how I feel right before I get depressed. maybe its time to renew my Rx for celexa.

Carolyn is not enthusiastic about school this year. I ask her "So, what'd you learn today." And she says "Same thing we learned yesterday." But then when I go to pick her up for something she doesn't look unhappy. Still, it seems like so much time is spent just managing kids, lining them up, getting them from point A to point B, synchronizing the putting away of pencil boxes and taking out of spelling books, of getting kids to learn routines, disciplining inappropriate behavior, etc.I mean, I know that sort of thing is necessary, but it's just kind of dismal that school is really more about socialization than learning. I have this sense that somehow Carolyn has just figured that out and feels a little betrayed, or maybe I'm reading too much into her disenchantment this year.
I don't blame her teacher or the school. Sometimes it just seems the nature of the beast, a limit to the kind of learning that can go on in large group, especially a large group of squirmy little kids. While I was working on my histology assignment she was looking through all my anatomy books and asking questions about the different organs. There's no way in a big class a kid can ask ten questions in a row about something that strikes their curiosity - by the 2nd question the other kids are bored or distracted and acting up. I don't know what the answer is - every day I put her on the bus and hope that she doesn't start hating it too much.

Things have settled down a bit

We're not living in as much clutter and chaos, and there's heat, which is definitely an improvement. You wouldn't think moving across the driveway would cause such disarray but it has. And of course, while it kept raining everyweekend, so when it was put boots on, go over the old house take boots off, pick up furniture or boxes, put boots on, carry stuff over to house take boots off, place itemin house, put boots on, repeat until insane.
I've spent every Saturday varnishing, trim, cord around, the spindles of the railing on the stairs and loft. I'm still not done.
I finished my first assignment for histology part II. It was actually due on Friday. Maybe I can get Jaon at the post office to post mark it Friday or Saturday. She did it for me once before.
I have to send my absentee ballot in still. I almost feel like voting for Bush just because I hate to see this whole Iraq thing become a Democrat fiasco. I feel like George got us in to this mess, he can damn well get us out. But he's such a smug bastard I just can't do it. But he is going to win, if only because everyone dislikes Kerry's wife. She sort of reminds me of the mother in the movie the Graduate,where as Laura Bush is like everyone's first grade teacher.
Two of the barn cats died. So it was a sad experiment, but I don't think they would have survived down at the barn either. The female calico is doing okay. It is even eating tiny bits of chicken. Earl, our big grey male hisses at it but he hasn't tried to hurt it. Cincy our, tabby, ran off for a few days. I think it got confused when it went to the old house and there was no one there to open the door. But she reappeared today. The dog just looks at the kitten like "oh, no, not another one."He is fairly tolerant of the cats though unless they try to eat out of his dog dish. The calico will have to go back to the barn when she's bigger. I can't afford to get another cat fixed. Hey Scott, want a kitten? Some calicos are ugly but this one is really cute. It has little white paws too.
I am bored out of my canoe at work. I don't know how I can do this the rest of my life. Do you ever just get tired of seeing and talking to the same people day after day? Am I abnormal in this respect? And then when the people you work with want to do something social, you can hardly say "I'm sick of you guys. I just want to go home and be a hermit."
I've been feeling very misanthropic lately. Whenever people approach me to do civic minded things, I cringe. I wouldn't mind volunteering my time, but some how it inevitably involves going to really tedious meetings and then they make you secretary or treasurer and you have to take notes or keep track of money or wash dishes at suppers or sell raffle tickets. I hate stuff like that.
Family Guy is on. Gotta go.

this is not fun

when you guys don't post. just say the word

and we can end

it right now!!

thank you.

Bush is gonna win

it's so sad, our future's (ok our kids' futures.. ok, YOUR kids' futures) are in hock.

historys loose screws

historys loose screws
lets string em up
lets torque em down
lets make a program, lets make a whole week
on the history channel
lets google everything that comes outta their mouths
lets draft a policy paper
maybe in a think tank
maybe in the drunk tank
i don't know about you but i wanna have a better life
i wanna have a fresh start
i dont want shink wrapped talking heads at costco
i dont wanna be the new clientele
in historys psychodeli
(im gettin a sammich there every day)

surely you have things to say

don't you?

go to kazaa

and download the song "Is This Thing On?" by The Promise Ring. Once again, as long as I can occasionally find songs that put a glow on my brain tissue, life is still worth living.


Delaware are you aware of the air supply and television?
Are you still there, is this thing on, am I coming down?
Delaware where are you? Where are you? From Philadelphia?
Are you a-where are you tonight are you? Delaware?

proud

of Sticky 'cause he did some volunteer work Sunday for George Bush, sitting at a table at the Clement Street Fair, registering people to vote and warping their minds with Republikan propaganda leaflets (yes, there are Republicans in SF, a whopping 17% of registered voters). I was surprised, he was only told he was a pathetic tool of fascists twice!

scary use of photoshop.

Originally uploaded by danaclaycomb.

this montage was taped to a shop window near Davies.

the Dems...

... and the Republicans.

boo! velly scelly!

well hi

not much for the moment.

shotgun in the needleexchangemobile.

Originally uploaded by danaclaycomb.

keepin' an eye out for da man, cuz da man don't like no punk-ass harm reductionists on his turf!

I can see why...

... Sticky is attracted to you, Dana.

meow!

(keeping with the barn cats topic)

you think american campaign posters are annoying!

Originally uploaded by danaclaycomb.

Here's a poster I saw in Crete for the Greek communist party. Are bloated capitalists in Europe still wearing stovepipe hats?

reader: primly dressed woman on the J Church.

book: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.

Barn cats! I forgot about the barn cats that came with the farm... The folks that sold us the place couldn't bring their two barn cats with them to their new place (by which I mean they couldn't catch them). We ended up with them skulking the barn for like six months, until they finally got their hay moved out of our barn, leaving the cats no place to hide.

It's 15 years later and I now spend my Thursday evenings driving around Oakland with a punk rock girl and a transguy handing out clean needles to street junkies. It's a life, I guess.

In my Religio-spiritual Anthro class Tuesday, we watched excerpts from Monty Python and the Holy Grail because of the cogent examples contained therein of the archetypical "sorcerer" and "witch." I love my Anthro prof!

We have to do a term paper for the class. I'm doing mine on "Spiritual Beliefs of Intravenous Drug Users."

We are moved in.

no furnace, but if I run the dryer and the dish washer continuously, it's not too cold in here. While moving, I kept hearing mewing sounds from the vicinity of the barn. We have barn cats, which Eds feeds and encourages to keep the mouse population under control. Barn cats are surprisingly robust and healthy, but the kittens seem to have a rather high mortality rate, and are often lost, stepped on by cows, killed by tom cats, or eaten by something else. You sort of learn not to keep track of them. But as we were moving furniture all weekend the mewing went on and on for two days straight, and finally I went down there to see what was going on. Ed said the kittens kept falling out of the top level of the barn, and the mother would go get them, and take them back up into they hay mow, and they'd fall out again. She must have just given up or run off, because they were outside the barn, in a pile of manure, all shivery and cold and hungery. So I took them to the house and washed them off and dried them and fed them tiny spoonfuls of milk. I put clean towel in the drier to warm it up and wrapped them in it and placed them in a milk crate in the kitchen and they went to sleep and finally stopped mewing. I've been feeding them every five hours ever since. But they are definitely going back to the barn, once they are strong enough. I've already got Cincy and Earl -two cats is enough.

sticky's email appeal to get on board w/ George W

"Kerry scored #1 for top tax & spender in 2003, to the left of liberal icon Ted
Kennedy himself! Verified by factcheck nonpartisans! He was rejected by Gore
as vp running mate in 2000 because of fear American people might understand who he really is! #11 on the alltime liberal "bigspend the other guy's bucks" list
according to 'factcheck', supported by NZ and dad, proof they are
progressive, modern, and responsible! A few 'believe it or not' facts
to amuse your day Tweeter! Your mission is to convince Marc to
vote Bush-- use the Demo tactic of 'all things to all peeps,' promise him an asian girl!

VT"

that's a great CD.

I'll finish the new mix CD one of these days, Diane.

August MCAT scores came out today. I didn't rock out, but I got a respactable score: 31R. I did rock out on the writing sample, though. Sucked on physical sciences. So it balanced out. 31R is an average score for getting accepted to a good med school (like UCSF). So I'm still in the running (I think).

shameless in seattle.

in the interests of fairness...
Originally uploaded by danaclaycomb.

this is what I look like in the morning. now you've see it all. I am free...

the acoustics

of your new house sound neat. as does the house. just sounds neat.

raining tonight.

weather has been nice for over a week. lots of blue skies mostly.

but getting chilly.

i think its supposed to be 31 for the low on Saturday night. brrr.

election is stupid.

work is stupid.

everything is stupid and hopeless.

aside from that, everything is great. :)

Wow!

The acoustics of a house with a loft are something! I bought the White Stripes CD with "I wanna be the Boy" on iy figuring the rest couldn't be that bad. (My ex-boy friend used to cringe when I bought a tape just because Iliked one song - as if I was I was passing a car on a hill.)
The stereo sounds phenominal! The house has the acoustics of an old wood church.

this about as political as I get.

this is about as political as I get.
Originally uploaded by danaclaycomb.

ah, riding home drunk on my bike at 11:30 pm. Being drunk is fun, but riding your bike drunk is even funner. I can't tell you all the times I've found myself riding my bike drunk. I am 42 years old and I'm still riding my bike while intoxicated. I am really hopeless.

Anyway, went to a bfc meeting tonight, which is how I got drunk. Also worked a 12 hour shift today. I am ti-erd! My replacement as supervisor started on the job today. I must admit a small part of me is kinda resentful. No one's said anything, but if I have to give up my office, I'm gonna be a whole lot resentful.

WHAT'S UP SCOOTER?

haven't seen any debates.

Winston dared me to put a 'Bush for President' sign in my window. I declined. Too busy to really pay attention to what's going on with the dismal election. At bfc I got recruited to be a phlebotomist, in addition to my duties in the hepatitis section. So every other Saturday I'll be drawing kids for HIV tests for four hours. Is this progress in my life? I learned that bfc experience is looked on highly favorably for UCSF applicants, and that just about every year someone from bfc gets into the highly coveted UCSF joint medical program (you spend half your time at UCSF, half your time at Berkeley, and end up with both an MD and a MPH degree). One can hope.

wildlife on my morning commute.

IMG_0206.JPG
Originally uploaded by danaclaycomb.

you gotta admire the resourcefulness of birds that will eat fresh vomit.

reader: freckly goth girl on the Richmond BART.

book: Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans, the McSweeney's humor anthology.

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving

(tomorrow actually) It's not my turn to cook, so that's kind of nice.

Rained last week. Have been slogging through the mud moving furniture and things. I don't know why Ed is dragging his feet on this. I don't want to be moving dressers in the snow.

Today is mild though. Leaves are very colorful. There was a note on the cabin door from Bonnie, new neighbor building next door. She said they would be there this weekend, so Carolyn and I stopped buy to see how their place was coming. They have the roof on and it all closed in, windows in too, and that's all their doing until spring. Out of money,too.

It's getting about time to close up our place. Tomorrow or next weekend I'll probably go out, put a fire in the fire place and clean and put things away, dismantle the pump, put away lawn chairs and things, put the shutters on the bedroom. It's sort of a depressing job.

I wouldn't mind winter except for the darkness and being constantly sick and all of us turning couch slugs. November is always miserable - brown drab, cold, but not enough snow for anything fun.

What's new with the election? How were the debates? I didn't catch them. Sorry I have nothing interesting to say.

so

I feel the blog dying again. What's wrong with you people?

Olmec Head.

IMG_0207.JPG
Originally uploaded by danaclaycomb.

City College just got a brand new giant Olmec head. I love Olmec heads!

tara was the philander-ee

when she and Al got together (he was a resident at the Cincy VA, she was an ER nurse). Al was married to someone else at the time (he has 3 kids with his ex). So one good turn deserves another, I guess.

Al's "excuse" for his cheatin' is that Tara's "gotten fat and isn't attractive to me any more." I haven't seen Tara in a coupla years, so she may be fat, who knows. Last time I saw her she looked pretty much the same as she did in college.

No kids because Tara had a hysterectomy when she was 30 (endometriosis).

They were married like 11 years or so...

How long have Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston been married? Like 2 years already?

uh..........

Val Kilmer is SOOOOO not Brad Pitt.

sigh.

with regard to Tara's ex: once a philanderer, always a philanderer.

say that 62 times fast.

Is Tara still good looking? Why no children?

With good looks and no children I'm sure she'll hook up real fast.

If that's what she wants.

How long were they married? How long has she known he was philandering again?

remember

since our little blog's once again hosted, you can click on 'view blog' to see how cool it really looks! (and the pictures I post). The way new blogger works, you can't see the images in edit mode. Hey! you've got a digi camera; use 'hello' to post yer own photos. It's real easy.

nothin' goin' on here. usual massive frustration. my section at the bfc had a meeting last night to decide which services we want to cut, on account of the clinic being in desperate financial straights.

it's been unseasonably cold here. I hate the cold.

Anyway, in The Island of Dr. Moreau, in Brad Pitt's introductory scene, he is wearing a sarong and is at the utmost height of his sexiness. His role is pretty unimportant, basically he plays Marlon Brando's henchman. The movie is worth renting for seeing the manimal prosthetics. Also, Marlon brando is at the utmost height of his creepiness.

Oh. I just remembered, Brad Pitt wasn't in The Island of Dr Moreau, it was Val Kilmer. Duh. Well, Val has a lot of essential Brad Pittiness about him, so the mistake was perhaps understandable. He was still pretty darn hot. had a short hair thing goin'.

I'll shut up now.

aerospace engineers?

i'm intrigued... my dad is an aerospace engineer, y'know. my dad never called himself that, though. he always just said he "designed jet engines for a living."

it's official! all the claycomb offspring are love losers! my sister recently broke up with her husband, the philandering doctor. she's moved back in with mom and dad. we are all now unmarried with no kids. mom really wants me to get into U of Cincy so i can come home. she already has me sharing an apartment with Tara.

oh yeah, I dreamed once that I went to school with Brad Pitt!

brad is so hot....

he makes my buns throb at a constant vibrancy quotient of 3.703.

Sorry. Been hanging around too many aerospace engineers this weekend.

sticky in seattle.