I wish I could say I've learned something this year.   A lot of things happened in 1963 and we are still trying to make sense of it all. What will 2013 look like in 50 years?



Let the buyer beware?  Guys who look like Dick Cheney often make money off of death? I knew that already. 



I met some admirable new people and got to see some old friends.  Potential pain with each.  Saying goodbye feels like death to me but more sad--a dead person (dog) isn't around corporeally somewhere not being with me.  Either they are gone or they are ghosty spirits imminent.  BBC thinks the unlived moments are infinite.  But in my mind death puts an end to potential (in this realm at least) and it is the all the lost moments and choices not made when we are alive that make me sad.

So far my favorite movie of the year is Our Idiot Brother which was released in 2011.  It bought tears to my eyes.

Now I'm watching Bachelorette which seems awesome too.  There is an actress who looks like the woman in Y La Bamba and they keep saying Becky.

Nelson Mandela 12/5/13

Post by Occupy Wall St.

A day that started with fast food workers walking out, willing to work for a living wage.
It's cold here in Stumptown.  No pity.
Why do we believe it's ok for one person to profit off another?
That God shows favor by providing wealth? Who, what is love?  Not something all-knowing and everlasting in my book. Love is like a melting snowflake and the Creator is jealous, selfish, and angry and didn't make anything out of nothing.


Racial issues have been in the news.

http://www.salon.com/2013/12/02/three_white_college_students_file_racial_discrimination_complaint_against_professor_over_lesson_on_structural_racism/

I once had a complaint lodged against me for offending white men in a cultural competence training.  (It was rejected.)

http://www.salon.com/2013/12/04/new_york_times_blind_spot_on_clinton_and_race/

Can we do any better than Hillary?  Why not Michelle?

I remember the girl who came to my high school from South Africa and wonder what she is doing now.

http://www.stereogum.com/1549171/read-lou-reeds-obituary-placed-by-laurie-anderson-in-their-local-paper/news/

Nice to die old but not a vegetable admired but not harassed leaving music and poetry behind. 

Elizabeth Wurtzel can be funny.

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/music/60307/no-mr-nice-guy

It is nice to know that El Hefe truly is a great guy. I wonder about Woody Allen now, knowing that Mia was cheating on him with Sinatra.

For Halloween I dressed as my favorite celebrity gossip story of the year. 

Paul Simon John Lennon

A leader of a seminal rock band died this morning

Lou Reed.  I had a t-shirt with the Warhol banana on it, sleeves cut off of course, that I'd wear without a bra.  I had a show on KRRC at breakfast time Sunday mornings that I would start with this song each time I made it.  Sometimes I would be there late Saturday night and decide to go to bed, leaving my time slot to be filled by whoever was dj'ing overnight.

When I saw Lou play recently I was disappointed that he used a teleprompter.  But that was before I started paying attention to musicians and realized how hard it is to memorize lyrics.

I didn't have much of a feeling besides annoyance at other people's attention being drawn toward something I didn't care about when John Lennon died.  I hope I've become less solipsistic in the years since that day. I know I appreciate John and the Beatles more now.

Lou Reed and the Velvets were it for me, coolness incarnate.  Sad for his widow Laurie Anderson.  I don't know where I was when I heard about John Lennon's death.  Today I was watching "As Good As It Gets" and looking at facebook.

My ex-husband is at his girlfriend's mother's funeral.

Sometimes I am amazed when I think about all of the lives of all of the people I don't know.  The more I  find out, the more I realize that truth is stranger than fiction.

I was feeling guilty today for hurting people I have loved.  Sorry people I have loved.

I hope I can learn to laugh at the perversity of human nature--that we have a sense of right and wrong, good and evil, and yet we fuck up constantly--rather than cry to turn away from the truth.

Like Antonin Scalia.  He thinks he is a good person.  He believes in the Devil and the Catholic Church.  He thinks is was brave not to recuse himself from Dick Cheney's case.  He has reached the pinnacle of the legal profession in our country.

I've considered taking up stand-up as a hobby.  It might be easier than learning a craft or how to play an instrument.  But for the next two years I've committed to studying Hebrew.