Adventures in American Healthcare

A few days before I left England, my ear began to itch, in the spot where I used to have a cartilage piercing. I didn't worry about it, but scratched at it, absentmindedly, thinking I really should do something about it but then forgetting. Then I got on a 10 hour flight, followed immediately by a 16 hour train ride. I got to my dad's house and felt exhuasted and my ear was irrated to heck. I caught a glimpse of it in the mirror and my entire ear was red enough that I could step in for Rudolph and save Christmas, in case a holiday movie suddemly formed around me.

My dad took me to see a doctor at an "urgent care clinic." This is American for a walk-in clinic. First, a nurse took my contact details and then told me to wait in the lobby. The primary feature of this was a large flatscreen TV showing adverts for prescription drugs. "Feeling stressed? Ask your doctor about Damitol. Damitol can help with burts of impotent rage. Do not take Damitol if you are already taking Fukitol. Side effects of Damitol may include becoming red faced, excessive sputtering and fatigue. Damitol works best when combined with diet and exercise. . . ." Blah blah blah. They had a 5 or 10 minute advert for a diabetes drug. Then they had a minute or two of random health-related information, then another advert. It was all branded as CNN Health.

"This is weird." I said to my dad.

"I think it's just general information about insulin . . . oh. That is weird."

A nurse took me back, weighed me, took my blood pressure, pulse and temperature and asked about allergies. All interactions with healthcare providers in the US start with weight, blood pressure, etc. I explained about my ear, which was significantly less red by then. She took notes and left.

A moment later, the doctor came in and I repeated my story. He looked at my ear for 5 seconds and prescribed sulfa antibiotics. "They're cheap," he explained. I asked something about my ear and he said it was probably a staph infection and they tend to respond to sulpha.

"Staph?!" I thought.

"Unless it's MRSA," he continued.

I quit listening to his list of dire diseases. I asked about side effects and he started talking about posssible allergic reactions. "In the worst case your mouth and tongue will swell up and . . ."

"I just wanted to know if it was ok to drink or not." I interrupted.

"If you drink, it will make the allergic reaction hit more quickly . . ."

I stopped listening again. Then I went out to the front to pay. Actually, my dad paid. It was over $100. Then we went to a pharmacy, where the drugs were only $14. They really were quite cheap.

The pharmacist explained that they might upset my stomach, etc. i had forgotten that in the States, you get this information from pharmacists and not doctors. Probably because we were in Washington state, she didn't mention that I should stay out of the sun.

So I started taking antibiotics, wondering if my British GP would have prescribed them. he certainly would have poked my ear several times first. I also started putting hot compresses on it. It hurt if anything touched it, so no wearing headphones or hats or sleeping on that side.

Last night, on the 8th day, it was bright red again. And still hurting and warm to the touch this morning, so I resolved to go to a clinic. I called the one closest to my house. They weren't answering, so I called another which was taking a holiday and then another and another. Every clinic seems to be closed today, except for one 3 miles away, which said it was open, but the recptionist was busy. I cycled over. It was closed.

Finally, I tried the Berkeley Free Clinic and was startled when a person answered. I described my woes. "You need to be seen," he said, but they couldn't see me before Monday. "Do you have money or insurance?" The person asked. Money, yes. Insurance, no. He suggested that I go to Highland Hospital. "They have an urgent care clinic. Go to the emergency room and they'll direct you."

I faffed around for a bit and finally got on a bus. Highland is an emergency-only hospital with a reputation for highly organised, professional helpful staff in the midst of the complete chaos.

I asked for the urgent care clinic and was told it had closed down. They said they just do it all in emergency now. The intake person said it was fine that I wasn't having an emergency and took my ID and told me to sit.

I got called up to a triage desk and a nurse took my temperature pulse and blood pressure and asked about allergies and past illnesses. "When was your last tetnus shot?" Then she asked what the problem was and gave me a red wristband to indicate that I have allergies. She told me to wait in a different room.

I got called back to a different desk where I was asked for ID again, address, emergency contact information, mother's maiden name, social security number, whether I had a job and a GP and many other questions. "Did you come by car or bus?" Then, she told me to wait again.

A nurse called me and walked me over to a bunch of cublicles. "Wait here for a moment." He said and then vanished. A while later, a woman introduced herself as a doctor and I repeated my entire tale of woe. She looked in my ears and then prodded my ill one a bit. She said it was a minor infection and would probably go away on its own, but decided to prescribe me new antibiotics. She told me to keep sitting there and a nurse would come.

The nurse had the prescription forms. "You have to take these every 6 hours, which is a pain in the ass." She looked at my warm, but no longer red ear and wondered why I had been given a prescription at all. She lead me to wait for a financial advisor. While waiting, I heard an announcement calling the trauma team to assemble, saying a type 2 trauma would be arriving in 8 minutes.

The financial person asked if I had a job and for ID. I said I worked in England. "So you're not a resident of California?" Well, I kind of am, I'm just studying abroad. I gave her my expired drivers lisence. It has the wrong name on it. This did not help clarify matters. She said I would need to provide pay stubs to prove my income. I said they were in England. She sent me to wait to talk to her supervisor.

I looked at the information provided to me while I waited. "Cellulitis usually clears up on its own." No mention of staph or mrsa. The financial person called me back.

"You're not a resident here." We began again. I finally gave up. She asked what had happened during my visit. "Oh, that won't cost much anyway."

"How much will it be?"

They don't tally it up for a couple of weeks. In my experience, a trip to an emergency room is at least $400, so I really hope this will be billed as if their clinic still existed.

I took the prescription to Walgreens pharmacy, despite knowing that they have a 1000% markup on some drugs, including ones I got from them in the past. 7 days of the new antibiotic cost $60, but if I spend $20 to enroll on their discount program, I could get it for $30. Obviously, they have a large markup on antibiotics also. Charming. I enrolled in the program. The form I got explained that it was not health insurance. No kidding.

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Post Script

The bill from Highland came out to $283, which is a lot less than I'd anticipated.

Letters to State Represenatives

Dear Honourable _,

I am writing to ask that more resources are allocated to higher education in the state of California. I've read that the regents of the UC system are voting to hugely increase fees. I've also read that the CSUs have been cutting services like library hours and doing no new admissions this spring.

While I understand that the state is having a budget crisis, the degree of cuts to the university systems and the size of fee increases is alarming. It's actually cheaper for California students seeking a professional graduate degree to go out of state or even overseas. Our universities are excellent, but they must also be affordable to the populations they were established to serve. Raising fees may also have a detrimental effect on their standards as some of the most qualified students are simply unable to afford to attend and those that do attend can't access the libraries except during limited hours.

Cutting the university system is short-sighted and foolhardy. It plunges middle class families into severe debt and puts education out of reach for much of the working class. Given that the Bay Area economy essential runs on brain power, this is not only dooming the would-be-students who cannot afford an education, it potentially harms all of the industries of the area. Our short-term downturn will become a long term one if we squander our human resources in a sort-sighted attempt to save money.

If we have to cut something, why not the prison system? It costs far more to house a convict for a year than to educate a student for year. Furthermore, every execution costs millions of dollars. Surely that money would be better spent on a young person's future than ending a life. How many millions or billions of dollars do we spend on enforcing nonsensical anti-marijuana laws? Again, wouldn't it be better to reduce student fees than to put somebody found possessing a joint through our justice system. If we neglect education in favour of prisons, I fear that over time we'll need more and more prisons and have less and less for education until the outstanding know-how of the Bay Area is just a distant memory.

Thank you for your time,
C. Hutchins

You can find your two state legislators here.

Will be in California . . . for a funeral

Timanna Bennett died. I don't really know what happened. T was a good friend for a long time. I'm flying out tomorrow. T's memorial service is at the Mills chapel on Saturday, 14 February, at 11am. There will be a potluck reception afterwards. As far as I know, T was the first of my Mills friends to die. A lot of people who knew her then seem to be planning on coming. I think some of them fell out of contact since, but T was just such a remarkable person.

I will post more about her later, but right now I just can't. I should be packing to travel anyway or washing some of the many dishes that I shouldn't leave in my sink for two weeks. I'll be in the Bay Area until the 23rd. I hope to be able to see as many friends as possible while I'm back, especially if I haven't seen them for a while. I didn't see too many people when I was home for Christmas, but I did see T, thank gods.

My cell phone number is 917 355 5064. That's a New York number, but it rings in my pocket.

This is all very distressing.

I am in Califronia

I am here until the 23rd, when I'm off to Oregon, and then back again for a few days after xmas and then back to London.

If you want to hang out, call my cell phone: 917 355 5064. That's the same number I've had for the last year or so. Heh, but I'm using the physical phone that I bought in 2003. It doesn't take pictures, but it does calls and SMS which is all I really ever want to do. People look at me funny when I pull it out though. I feel dinosaur like. That and the only sweater I have here is one owned by my dad in the mid 80's. I'm very retro with the prehistoric phone and the Cosby sweater.

My plans for this evening have fallen through. Everybody is busy for the holidays, which is reasonable and to be expected. It's really weird being here for some reason. When I left last February, I wondered if maybe I was making a huge mistake leaving someplace where I so thoroughly belonged for someplace that I so totally didn't. Now I don't feel it here either, but maybe that's jetlag.

I wish other people still blogged. It was easier to keep up with people when we were all reading each other's blogs. Twitter is just not the same.

Disengaged

I don't feel engaged on the Prop 8 thing. Some of this is distance, certainly, but not all of it. I mean, I have benefited personally from Same Sex Marriage. My (now ex) wife and I got married in Canada in 2003. And then, alas, got divorced in California in 2005, in what was likely the state's first ever same sex divorce.

The value of divorce as a civil institution is extremely high. Unfortunately, things don't always work out and couples need a structure to disentangle their finances and lives. As divorce is usually an adversarial process, having things like precedent and laws protects both halves of the divorcing couple. Otherwise, the stronger half of the ex-couple would steam roll the weaker half, whether that strength be emotional or financial. Divorce is an important right for that reason and also for tax consequences. If you own property, as in land or a house, it's going to most likely change ownership status during a divorce. If it's a divorce, the state doesn't ask for taxes on this transaction, which is good because splitting up is already incredibly expensive.

So my disengagement with this isn't because I don't see the value of gay marriage. I'm very much aware of how it has helped me. But when they started same sex marriages in California, the larger gay rights groups put out word that a ballot measure was coming and asked gays to please look presentable. Which meant: no men in dresses. Because people like me are embarrassing.

Obviously, LGB people should have all the same rights as straight people. But this battle for marriage is incredibly normative in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable. No, I am not just like you, Mr. Cis Hetero, and I refuse to pretend that I am. Which means that I'm not really invited to the party. And despite that exclusion, we lost anyway.

We can't have ENDA protection for trans people because we're too weird and gays come first. We can't have marriages for visibly-trans people because we're too weird and gays come first. Not that we have either of these things, mind you, but just in case let's make sure trannies are out.

The support-gay-marriage "cause" on Facebook, which is a pseudo charitable thing one can join, is attached to the HRC, a gay rights group which actively lobbies against trans people and gives assloads of money to Log Cabin Republicans. Are you fighting to be included in the right wing? Is it your dream to be an oppressor instead of oppressed?

I want our side to win. I want the State Supreme Court to decide that narrowing the Equal Protection clause of the state constitution, or declaring marriage not to be a fundamental right, would be a major revision and not a minor amendment, as this would seem logically to be the case. I want marriage for everybody, including me. But can we stop pretending that all queers are just like straight people except we happen to fall hopelessly in love with people of the same normative gender? Because I'm tired of being told to keep quiet and these kinds of normative lies leave too many of us unprotected.

Why we lost on Prop 8

The SF Chronicle wrote a bit about campaign strategy:

That allowed Prop. 8 opponents, worried that many voters were not enamored with the idea of same-sex marriage, to run a TV campaign that almost never mentioned gays or lesbians or showed them in an ad. Instead, the ads charged that Prop. 8 supporters wanted to take away rights from a single, unnamed group of people, which just wasn't fair.

If we're not even willing to name ourselves as citizens, why on earth would anybody want to support us? If we're ashamed of being LGBT, then why are our rights valuable? If this strategy NEVER WORKS, why do the mainstream campaigns keep using it?!

If we want rights, then we have to be gay and proud, not weirdly lurking and hiding. Same sex couples deserve the right to marry! Stand up and say it!

In other news, holy cow, Obama won. oh my god.

In the KFJC Pit

This afternoon, Polly Moller and I went down to Los Altos Hills to play in the KFJC pit. KFJC is the radio station at Foothill College, a community college. I took classes there during the summer when I was in high school. And I listened to that radio station when I was a teen, but I'd never been inside of it before.

They lead us down to the "pit" which is a room full of CDs and records with enough space in the middle for a small band to play. I was looking at all of them, since I listened to this station so much when I was a kid. On one wall was tubs full of 7 inch punk records. I saw Bratmobile sort of casually stacked at the edge. These records changed my life! These actual records! Not, like, a different instance but the same pressing, but these actual physical pieces of vinyl opened up my world when I was 16 and then I was in the room with them.

They started calling up sound engineers so that somebody would come over. One finally did, so we did a sound check. There was so much hum and the right channel was out on my headphones. So the sound guy jiggled the headphone cables and I separated the audio cables from the power cables, as they were all snuggling together. Then we improved for about 25 minutes.

I played my "Simple Sample" program. I didn't know I was going to be playing this ahead of time, so I played the version I had put together for the ETC gig. It has joystick control. It also has a bug in the timing thing that I need to find and squash. Polly played flute and also toys. She read text from a spam message. The text is totally bizarre. I hope she posts it so I can link to it. It has some really disturbing images that come up in it, like with some sort of giant bug, ala Naked Lunch. I sampled her and mostly just played it back, since she wasn't into the pitch shifting. I added a garbling thing that I originally wrote to mangle Bush, (which I played at ETC along with porn samples.)

I haven't started officially live coding yet, but I'm at the point where I will confidently modify a program during a sound check. The coming lie detector piece is written to allow live code modification. Because I'm lazy and it's easier than making buttons and stuff to change states. And that piece is why we were at KFJC. We were there to promote the Edgetone Festival. So after we played, we were interviewed. Well, mostly Polly was interviewed because she is on the board of the festival and because she already knows those guys and finally because I was struck shy by being some place so cool.

Then we packed up and went for food.

The set seemed ok, but Polly was sad because yesterday would have been her 11th anniversary with Paul if he were still alive. It's the first one she's marked since he's gone. She got a tattoo on her back yesterday in honor of him. It's the Two of Cups, which is a tarot card that had special meaning for them. She spent 3.5 hours having needles pushed into her lower back. It was intense. The tat looks cool, though. It still needs some color work. Her artist is really cool. Seeing that happen really made me want to get another one. A tuba to go with my bass clef? A modular synth front panel? (yes!!) A bike gear and chain? A trans pride symbol? A peace symbol? All of those? (yes!!!)

M ex has a peace symbol around the same spot I would want to put mine. It might be a little weird, but it's hardly unique for a Berkeley radical to display a peace sign, so I think it would be ok. I'm leaning towards the trans pride symbol, but also wary, in case I want to go stealth or something. Which is stupid, because I'd have to go into hiding or something and give up my career and it would still only out me to people who know this symbol.

Um, anyway, my time is mostly scheduled with practicing for our show on the 23rd. Which you should come to.

Edit

The lyrics are now in the comments for this post.

Les Hutchins & Polly Moller @ the Luggage Store

Les Hutchins & Polly Moller @ the Luggage Store, originally uploaded by celesteh.

Hey Bay Area people, I've got a show coming up on 3 January in San Francisco. Start out the new year with live music!

I'll be playing laptop, didjeridu and some synthesizer. Specifically, I'll be using my live sampling application, as heard in Paris, Berlin, the Hague and now San Francisco! It will be a duo with monster-flutist Polly Moller. (Note that she is not literally a monster but her flute playing is what you would get if King Kong or Godzilla played flute - and were really good at it.)

If Polly's name sounds familiar with you, it's because she was the lead of the flute-fronted rock band that I played in some years ago. Her flute playing then, as now, was full of agro tones and weird-awesome sounds that you don't expect from a flute. She's also really fun to improv with and her sounds work really well with electronic processing. I can do stuff with her that I haven't been able to do with other flutists.

(Also, just to add, I'm awesome too.)

The show is at 1007 Market St in SF at the Luggage Store Gallery. It's easily accessible via BART or muni (take the N line from the Caltrain station). Admission is $6 - $10 sliding scale. But if all you've got is $3 or $0 or something, they'll still let you in.

The show starts at 8 with Jen Baker (Trombone) and Damon Smith (Double Bass). Those two formed half of the Just in Time Quartet, of which I was a member. Damon was also my bass teacher. He's really cool and knows how to throat sing. Jen is also cool, but I don't know her work as well.

Then at 9, Polly and I are on for 45 minutes or so.

I know some people have been curious about my Evenfall Minimodular synth. Polly describes it as "vintage" but it's less than 10 years old. They are, however, rare. A guy in the south bay made them. At the time they were new, they were absolutely your best bet for starting into analog synths. It's small, portable, yet a fully featured modular. Like an Arp, it has a bunch of normalized connections (it doesn't need to be patched, but can be). And it's got a MIDI in. The Evenfall guy thought it would be a raver's dream. I don't know if the trance/house folks ever got into this, but, it really should have been their dream. It's flexible enough to be anybody's dream, since it's modular. I'll be patching it and otherwise being arty. So here's a chance to see / hear it in action.

The poster image is kind of random. I was hoping to find a picture of Polly and I together, but then gave up and used this snapshot I took of a peace sign at the Cesar Chavez park

Adventures in Healthcare

Over break, I noticed a strange and itchy mole on my back. Since I'm at very high risk for skin cancer, I just got it removed for testing. In case anybody cares, I will compare and contrast my experiences with a previous mole removal in the US.

So several years ago, when I had a weird mole, I went to a dermatologist in California to get it removed. He had some sort of student with him, also male, whom he addressed instead of me. He explained to the student what was going to happen when the mole got removed. Also, he went on to note how he would eventually remove the (queer-themed) tattoo on my back. "I like my tattoo." I protested. He still not address me, but explained to the student that I would one day grow up and come to my senses.

I can't recall about anesthetic. I have a recollection of the procedure being uncomfortable. He used a round gouging tool which popped the mole out pretty quickly. Then, he stitched it up. I came back some time later to get the stitches removed and to get my lab results which showed that the mole was nothing. Which is good because he didn't get the whole thing when he took it out.

This time, I went to a general practitioner in the Netherlands instead of a dermatologist. She only had me pull up my shirt instead of remove it, so she never saw my tattoo. Also, there was nobody in the room to talk to but me. We chatted a bit. She used a ton of anesthetic, so I didn't feel anything at all, which is good because it took much longer. I didn't look or anything, but I suspect that she used scissors instead of a tool. It took several minutes to remove.

She gave me two stitches which will come out in a week. Lab results come back in two weeks. My back itches even more than before now, but doesn't hurt. Augh, the itching.

Thanks to the dermatologist from a few years ago and other medical experiences, I'm always pleasantly surprised when a doctor treats me as a human. Yeah, I'm gender non-normative and queer, but I'm still a person.

Yet another Earthquake

This morning, right after I got up. As all my California readers are certainly aware, sometimes very large earthquakes have foreshocks. These are a bunch of minor (or major) earthquakes that precede something really big. Not all really big earthquakes have foreshocks, but almost all have aftershocks, some of which are nearly as big as the major quake itself.

FEMA, the now-defunct US Emergency Management agency, made a list several years ago of the top three disasters likely to befall the US. The list included a terrorist attack in New York, a major hurricane hitting New Orleans and a large earthquake in the San Francisco region. Wouldn't it be great if Bush went 3 for 3? I'm sure Bay Area residents can expect all the same support, help, aid and relief that was offered to people struck by Katrina and all the transparency and honesty of the response to the Twin Towers disaster.

I don't live in a rich neighborhood. I'm screwed. Oh, and why is FEMA now defunct? Because it's part of homeland security. The Bush Administration doesn't care about disasters unless it means they get to start a war afterwards.

Ok so what's the deal with earthquakes? Ok, you know how continents slowly drift around over really long periods of time? They do it in little leaps and bounds. If you are on the border of the movement, you get shaken up when the movement happens. That's an earthquake. The surface of the earth is covered with really big puzzle pieces called "plates". The places where the plates touch each other are where earthquakes tend to happen. There are cracks and stuff along those borders. Those are called faults. They're what shakes. The whole Pacific Rim is covered with faults and therefore with earthquakes and volcanos. This is sometimes called the Ring of Fire.

The San Francisco aera is covered with tons of fault lines. Some are big and some are little. The big quake in 1989 was centered over 100 km south of Berkeley and was on the Loma Prieta fault. The big fault that goes very close to me is called the Hayward fault. It has not had a really big quake in a long time and thus is due for one. Sometimes in the next century. There's a reason the phrase "geological time" exists. Sometimes a bunch of little earthquakes is just a bunch of little earthquakes, but there's no certainty.

Everywhere in the world has risks. Low-lying areas flood. Some places have scary storms. Here, the ground shakes. But, my gods, the scenery is beautiful.

Links: USGS: Earthquakes, Disaster Preparedness

Earthquake!

Yikes!

3.7 on the Richter scale, very near my house. There was another one of the same size in the same place just a couple of days ago. Foreshocks? I wanted to come home for the holidays, but not for the Big One.

In possibly related news, today is/was international orgasm for peace day. Maybe a bunch of last minute procrastinators actually made the earth move.

I really hate earthquakes. I was in the big one in 1989. That made elevated highways near my house now collapse despite being well over 100 km south of here. The Hayward fault is much closer and due to go. I hope it waits until I'm out of here.

Looking Forward/Looking Backwards

Party Report

At the party were: Esperanto Ed & Sandy (who left before midnight), Sarah Dotie + cousin Kareem and Brother Bob (who had to leave before too late so Sarah could go relocate mating Salamnders to a new pool as part of an abatement program or something), and Polly and Paul. And Ellen and I, of course. It was a small group. I made a mountain of gaucamole. I told Ellen that Californians eat tons of gaucamole and that you couldn't make too much of it for a party. So last night, I ate a bunch of leftover gauc. Anyway, we chatted and ate food and totally missed the countdown. I looked at my watch at 12:02 and ordered Sarah to call popcorn to see it was after midnight. It was. So we toasted the New Year a bit late. One of my resolutions was better time management, alas. I started the New Year late, but at least it was under five minutes late.

We had several six packs of beer for the party. Of which four beers were consumed. Two by Ellen and two by me. Then I switched and had a glass of Compari + OJ, thus making me the heavist drinker at the party. It makes me nervous when I notice that I'm drinking more than everyone else, but fully half of the people there were non-drinkers and some folks who might normally drink were obstaining so they could go do things like interrupt salamander mating.

I thought it was oodles of fun. So did Ellen. She was impressed by the complete nerdiness of my social circle. Yes, I am a nerd. Most of my friends are nerds. I think she was worried that a bunch of really hip people were going to come over. Maybe I seem hip? That would be exciting. Do nerds suspect me of hipness?

I was very releived when Polly started talking about the decline of Santa Cruz. I had been concerned that it had always been uncool and for some reason I hadn't noticed before. But no, Polly verifies that Herland did used to be an extremely hip hangout and the Saturn was awesome, etc. She said that less than five years ago, scruz was colonized by valley yuppies. alas. woe for the world. The homoginization of amerika is spreading even to liberal enclaves.

after the party, I played Ellen some MP3s of Polly's flute playing. Ellen said it was the best, most interresting flute playing that she'd heard in her life. Earlier, she had been talking about how the flute was completely boring and I had argued that cool extended techniques existed. and indeed they do and Polly knows them.

A New Day, A New Year

Woke up early yesterday and full of energy and optimism. Had two cups of coffee and then felt even more energetic and optomistic. Thanks to the hard work of Ellen, I am now addicted to coffee. I woke up yesterday thinking, "If I get up now, I could have coffee!" I'm up to two cups in the morning. I think I will try to stay at that level. coffee makes me so awake and so smart and la la la. anyway.

We went to Half Moon Bay to try beachiness again. the sand there is a lovely yellow color. But it was cold, cold, cold, so I did not walk barefoot in the waves and ran up the beach a few times to keep my feet from getting wet. Ellen, however, got wet feet as she failed to successfully dodge the waves a few times. But she was laughing so much afterwards, I suspect it may have been somewhat on purpose.

the rains caused the streams that run to the ocean to swell. Torrents of muddy freshwater were rushing out to the sea. We walked down a sandy penninsula as deep, fast freshwater raced on our right and the ocean crashed to our left. I feel some sort of mystical connection to the earth and the sea when I'm surrounded by so much water. The ocean makes me feel like I'm part of something bigger than myself. I feel the presence of a mother earth when I feel the salt and hear the crashing waves. It was quite lovely

As we drove further up highway 1, I was reminded of a trip I took there in 2002 with my parents and Christi. Sometime after brain surgery, when my mother could communicate, she indicated that she wanted to go to a restaurant in Moss Landing called the Distillery. She liked fish and the restaurant is purported to be haunted. She loved ghost stories and haunting and so the Distillery was one of her favorite restaurants as far as I know. My dad and her ordered crab cakes. I remember being impressed about the discretion of the waiter. I was worried about things like that then. On the way there, we drove through the farms of Half Moon Bay. We passed the Christmas tree farms, the pumpkin farms and the horses. My mom used to ride and show horses. I had the idea that she might like to do horseback riding and was looking to get her into a program for adults with disabilities. I asked her if she was interesting in having a horse. She said, "oh yeah. Maybe someday. Not now." Her memory wasn't good. We told her she didn't have time left, but she couldn't remember or didn't want to. The word "someday" broke my heart. There was no someday. there is no someday.

Yesterday, Ellen and I drove past the distillery and stopped at a second beach a bit north of there. We looked at the sandy cliffs and more water rushing to finally again meet the ocean. I thought of the future. There is no someday. There is no control of fate. Take things as they come. Look for opportunities. Do my best. I might die tomorrow as my life rushes back towards the sea and the earth, but I cannot know. this is a kind of optimism. I will do my best. I will accept things as they happen. I will change what I can. I will accept what I cannot change. I am a part of the universe and I belong to the world.

Jean's ritual

We came back to the East Bay and went to Jean's New Year Ritual. there I discovered that my attempts at serentiy and new age hippy-dippy spirituality do not extend to political discussions. I cannot change some people's minds, but damnit, I'll try anyway. someone there thought that Kucinich was a Nader-like spoiler who must be stopped. For the record, Nader did not lose Gore's election. Gore lost it. Because he's as uncompelling as Gray Davis and because of massive voting fraud in Florida and probably other states with electronic ballotting systems, the same systems that are now all over the country. Made by Diebold, the completely partison republican voting machine company who does not release their source code and runs our elections for profit.

Simply, I would not have voted for Gore. I will not vote for anyone that wants to throw queer or poor folks or people of color or the third world to the wolves to protect corporate profits. The excuse cited is that a progressive would be unacceptable to middle america. but let's pause for a minute and think of the massive role that corporate money plays in campaigns. Are candidates that think the country ought to be run for the benfit of the people rather than profits really unacceptable to middle america or are they unacceptable to the plutocrats that pay for campaigns? Kucinich has major labor support. the majority of americans agree with his platform. If you think that that you can't vote you're conscience because it will lose, then you've already lost. there's no hope. You might was well go to work for Haliburton.

Jean's ritual consists of list making. this year it was three lists. This ritual is a prayer more than it is making resolutions. the first list is things you want to leave behind in the passing year. I listed angst, procrastination and war. The second list is things you want to draw to yourself in the new year. I listed self-reliance, confidence, widsom, knowledge and skills. The third list is new this year and it is things that you are grateful for. Jean says that if she focusses on what she's grateful for, she feels better about the world.

Jean passed out envelopes, which we self addressed and then sealed in our lists of things to draw in and things we're grateful for. In the middle of next December, she will stamp the envelopes and mail them to us. For the list of things to leave behind, we went out to a small fire pit in the back yard and burned the lists. In years past, there's been singing at this point, but this year there was only a little singing by a few people. I am guilty of non-participation. Jean asked me to hum the MIDI thingee I posted to my blog in mid-December, but I couldn't remember it. I had forgotten about the pice, thinking it wasn't worth working on.

For the last few months, I've been noticing a dearth of music. My stereo was mostly silent in Middletown and I noticed most other people's were as well. I was thinking this was because I was at music school. We spend all day studying music and listening to pieces to analyze them and write papers or whatever and so don't put on background music. But now I'm wondering if this is everywhere. Have people stopped wanting to sing? If we don't have music in our lives, if we don't listen, if we don't sing, how can we live? How can we resist evil? How can we fight for good? How can we remember what is beautiful? How can we call for justice if we cannot sing?

So I'm adding a resolution to sing more. My voice is out of practice. Some Californians may recall my willingness to start singing at the drop of a hat, but lately, I've been more restrained. This restaint is not a good thing. (well, moderation is a good thing.)

One of the things that I like Ellen is that she sings. she sings to the cats. She sings to me. We should all sing to each other.

I saw Danica at the ritual. I asked what pronoun to use and the reply was "they." It makes me feel silly to use it, but silliness is a good thing. they seemed very together and happy. I hope to see them again while I'm in town.

We came home from the ritual and I played the MIDI file that Jean liked for Ellen. Ellen liked it too. So I'll work on it when I get back to my desktop computer where my notation software lives.

comments appear to be working again.

Has Santa Cruz changed or have I?

I swear that once upon a time the beaches there were really nice. Herland cafe and bookshop was a hip hangout. The Saturn Cafe had good food (it was the first place I aver had chai . . .). It was a really queer-firendly town. Crawling with lesbians.

I haven't been to scruz regularly for ten years. I used to date a Santa Cruz girl. I would go nearly every week down to Capitola. I told my parents that I was participating in all night movie marathons at a friend's house, but I was really going out to see this girl. Then, she dumped me and I went away to college. This was a smart move on her part as I was a complete asshole at the time.

Anyway, getting back to the present tense, or at least the recently past tense, when Ellen wanted to know where was a nifty place to go to the beach, I said that Santa Cruz was a hip little town with a nice beach. So yesterday, we hopped in the car and drove down a looong stretch of 880/17 to get to the beach. We hopped out at the Boardwalk. Ok, the boardwalk is not cool and never has been, but we walked down the beach aways and saw sea lions. The sea lions were pretty cool. the long dock near the boardwalk has pieces of it close to the water that sea lions were napping on and barking at each other.

the beach was grayish. Noise pollution from the boardwalk floated down it. I walked barefoot and let the frgid water run over my feet.

then we went to the downtown. Full of chain stores. I went to the Santa Cruz Dyke March a few years back. It was a small and fun affair. It included street theater, chanting, partial nudity and a brief protest outside of the Barnes and Noble store. It was the first chain store on the main street. Some subterfuge had been involved in it's getting there. Some community members were outraged. those outraged people clearly lost that battle and maybe left town, i dunno. Baby gap. Urban outfitters. etc etc etc.

So we went to herland to get a cup of coffee or some hummus or whatever. It's not a cafe anymore. It's a bookstore only. They had to move down the street from their old location. the person behind the counter was a baby boomer goddess-worshipping type. The store was playing really bad out of tune folk music. the books were all published by Naiad press. Lame lame lame. I got a copy of the latest Dykes to Watch Out For book. The woman behind the counter said, "Since you're planning to go out to lunch, are you sure that you don't want a bag?"

Closetted? In Santa Cruz? What's happened to the world? I've been whining that people on the East Coast aren't out. But this is California. This is Santa Cruz, which in 1993 or 1994 was reported by the San Jose Mercury News to be 25% lesbian/bisexual/LUG. (The first place I ever saw the word LUG (Lesbian Until Graduation) was in that article.) Did the whole world change when I wasn't paying attention?

We walked through the yuppied throngs amidst the chain stores towards the Saturn Cafe. I was feeling discouraged. A piece of my youth is gone forever. Or was it always lame and I hadn't noticed because I was young and breaking so many rules by going down there?

The Saturn Cafe was recently in the news for responding to the French Fries/Freedom Fires debacle by renaming their fried "Impeach Bush Fries." Alas, now the menu just says "Fries." And they're not very good. The only hint of the activism and queerness that I thought still lurked in scruz was a manifesto on Saturn's bathroom doors about how they were fighting against binary gender divisions by making their bathrooms officially non gendered. If only thier food was still good.

Ellen was a good sport. She said that it was a good learning experience and she's glad we went all the way down there to find out she doesn't need to go back.

Alas. either the town has completely changed or I have. Or maybe both of us. Everything in the world is different. The girl I dated isn't even a girl anymore.

and

it's the 25 anniversary of the slaying of the US's first openly gay politician, Harvey Milk, a member of the San Francisco board of supervisors. Dan White, the killer, also killed Mayor Moscone. The gay community responded by having a candle-light march. White, a former police officer, plead temporary insanity and his plea became erroneously known as the Twinkie Defense. Although it mentioned ho-ho's and whatnot, it didn't hinge on junk food. The jury was selected to be pro-death penatly, as White might have been sentenced to death. The conservative, pro-police jury, widely described as homphobic, sentenced White to eight years in prison, of which he served five. The gay community responded with a somehwhat angrier march. Some marchers wanted to commit vandalism. The march leaders had formed a human chain keeping the rowdier deonstrators out of trouble. the overwhelmingly homophic police department promptly arrested all the leaders and provoke the crowd, which responded to the provocation. The police then went into the Castro (the city's gay neighborhood) and started pulling people out of bars and arresting them. Gay folks in bars were as apolitcal then as they are now. Guys just looking to drink and cruise were beaten by police. The police joked about getting cute guys and boyfriends as they assaulted bystanders. A riot thus errupted. Police cars were overturned. This eventually became known as the White Night Riots. Queers do fight back.

christi is here

Which is really nice for many reasons. yay christi. i have a bad cold though. but i'm reading a book about Lou Harrison and it's making me homesick. he was an east bay kind of guy, even after he moved to aptos, he regularly commuted to Mills. there's a chart in the book about the tuning syetm on the Mills gamelan (which he designed). and apparently, he wrote the graduation processional played by the mills gamelan at graduations. they played that at my graduation, but i can't remember it.

Mills was quite the happening place in the 30's. they did these summer session where they had up-and-coming artists, musicians, dancers, etc come and teach short classes. Lou wrote a score for a Mills Drama dept production. It was commissioned. these days there isn't even a drama department and certainly no money for a summer session. The college president then understood that such events added to the presitge of the school and thus paid for themselves eventually. Mills is still banking on the the afterglow of what it did in the 30s. But what is it doing now? Alas, mills is a shadow of her former self. If only we could bring Rheinhardt back from the grave and re-install her as college president.

But i have a new school affiliation now and new academic politics to bemoan. it's against the rules to write messages in chalk on campus. this is the biggest political issue. this was a stroke of genious on the part of the admin. every other student issue is subsumed by the chalking debate. they've stopped all other criticism. it's brilliant.

I was checking my home email account and i didn't unsubscribe from all my lists, so I got email from the Berkeley Socialists about an upcoming event where they will explain why revolution is necessary. and the annual Anarchist vs. Communist soccer match is looking for a pep band. and things seem to be still going well on the left coast. the brass liberation orchestra is continuing it's debate on politics vs. muscianship. on the right coast, well, we're worrying about whether or not it would get you in trouble to chalk "i love wesleyan" or "i love president bennet" in front of the president's house. duh. yeah. and you can't buy beer on sunday. for real. i went to the supermarket and tried to buy beer today. you can't buy beer after 8:00 either. people here think of californians as backwards wackos, but at least we can go into a store and buy beer at normal times.

somebody told me that somebody tunred the us on it's side and shook it and all the oddballs rattled down to california. great. i don't disagree entirely with this assesment. everyone running for governor should return to their home state. anyway.

so i'm not doing anything political but reading Chomsky books and getting email from the Kucinich campaign. they mesh well together. chomsky says that if there's a progressive candidate (like a real progressive, not backed-by-buisiness Dean) on a major ballot, then progressives have already won. the Kucinich meetups are during my Gamelan class though. And i might skip class to go sit in or protest something, but i'm not skipping class to discuss fundraising strategies. sure, i'll got hit up impoverished grad students for donations. the undergrads actually have cash, but i think they should organize themselves to fundraise it. i don't want to have a Kucinich house party to get cash out of undergrads, for example. the power balance seems wrong.

anyway, lou harrison was the quintissential california composer. he was highly political and fought the good fight. he built his own instruments (ca people do that. somebody once attributed it to the weather). the east coast and he did not get along. so he returned to relatively rural isolation, but was still connected to a university-type community. east coasters didn't take ca-types seriously. ca composers had to go to the east if they were "serious." people tried to get famous enough to new york. then, if they were famous there, they could come back and THEN the bay area would take them seriously, but not before. yeah, things have sure changed in the last 60 years...

weather here: 85 degrees F and humid enough to rain rain rain. i can't wait till i get famous enough to move back home. i'm starting a band with a clarinetist, angela, and my housemate aaron, who plays drums and is from nyc and heck, maybe we'll get some gigs.