Category: Uncategorized

I want to respond to Bush commuting Libby’s sentence by telling a story about why I like Hillary Clinton.

I used to work as a telecommunications analyst and by the 1980’s I was working for one of the largest companies in the world. When the corporate telecommunications department of this company had meetings, it would be me at a conference table with a bunch of men in suits. I was the only female. Whenever I got up to speak, which was rarely, it was always to propose an idea to a long line of unsympathetic faces. I knew it was time to leave when I couldn’t convince them that the internet was this great thing and a project that I had initiated to demonstrate this failed. Not because it wasn’t a good idea, but because they were more interested in proving me wrong than giving a potentially useful thing a try. I know that sounds bitter, but I’m not. I only wish I understood human nature better at the time.

When Clinton first took office I watched Hillary on TV, trying to propose and defend her health care plan, facing down a room of disapproving men. Maybe her plan needed work, I don’t know, but they were clearly more interested in proving her wrong than honestly studying the merits of her plan or even the need of a plan. This wasn’t about what was good for the country. They really went at her and I felt for her. I had only been subject to the derision of one conference table full of men. She was facing down congress AND on national TV. She handled it with such grace. I’ve been on her side ever since.

WHICH REMINDS ME. Gore saying he invented the internet, which he never actually said. The truth is, his role, and Clinton’s, actually was crucial and shaped the blogs, and the Facebooks and the YouTubes of today.

After I left the company I just described I started an online service called Echo. This was 1989, and except for the people who developed it and the college students and computer geeks (like myself) who used it for email and exchanging computer programs, few people had heard of the internet. I couldn’t get anybody to invest in my company because I couldn’t convince anyone with money that the internet was going to be big. I ended up putting my entire life savings, such as it was, into Echo.

No one knew what a modem was. To get people online I literally had to go around and tell people one-by-one what they were, then convince them to buy one, and then how to install it, and finally how to use the commands to navigate what was then a completely text-based interface. There were no graphics, no websites as we know them today, no pointing and clicking. I didn’t have enough money for any kind of real marketing compaign and getting customers one at a time is not enough to sustain a business and Echo was in danger of going under. I was young and scared and running out of ideas. Starting a business is kinda like starting a family. You put your entire heart and soul into it and you don’t want to lose it. You want to see it thrive.

Then Al Gore (and Clinton) started talking about what they called “The Information Superhighway.” Again and again they explained in clear terms how cool the internet was. Everyone started talking about it. All the newspapers started writing about it. It was everywhere. And soon everyone was asking, “How do I get on this highway?” I was able to say, “Here!” Not only didn’t Echo go under, but a lot of people started experimenting and innovating and you know the rest. Ebay! It would have happened eventually, but I’m telling you, it would have been delayed at least two presidential terms. And in those two terms a lot of start-ups would have gone under, and the people who had room to innovate wouldn’t have even begun, so who knows how long that delay ultimately would have been and what it would have cost us.

So to all those people who smirk about the Gore inventing the internet thing, he didn’t event it but he put it on the map and you don’t even have the integrity and good grace to acknowledge the gift I’m guessing you’re using and benefiting from.

These people were visionaries. They weren’t the last to know something, they were the first. They were among the first to see the potential of the internet, the first to say we needed a national health care plan, the first to say we have to start seriously protecting the environment.

Bush’s actions are not about what is good for the country. Commuting Libby’s sentence is not about seeing justice served. God, I feel such despair when I see what we’ve come to and what counts for vision today.

Face them down again Hillary. I’m guessing we both understand human nature a little better now.

Sometimes Howard and I go to the Hudson River to work. This is what we looked out on yesterday as Howard worked and I mostly goofed off. Very pretty, right? This is Manhattan. Life isn’t bad here and there.

I recently completed a course in Mindful Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). I did it because I read a study that found that it helped for “women’s troubles” (nod, nod, wink, wink). But it turned out to be this incredible thing that can be applied to everything you do. It’s essentially meditating and learning how to be “mindful” about your life. That’s it. Just a slight shift really in how you go about your day-to-day life. Never in a million years would I have thought I’d stick with meditating. I tried it in my twenties and it gave me unbearable, excruciating back aches. Never again, I said. I’m just not a meditating type.

Sure enough, I got back aches this time too, but they teach you how to deal with that and now it’s not a problem. Also, if you’re uncomfortable you can do it laying down or even walking, which I love. I’m a big walker.

Everywhere I go I read about MBSR now. It really does seem to be all the rage. That’s got to be because of two things: it’s not hard to learn and you get almost immediate results. The class is only 8 weeks long.

If you’re in New York City, I learned from Dr. Myra Weiss, and her name is on the University of Massachusett’s website, along with listings for teachers around the country. It was originally developed there by Jon Kabat-Zinn as a method for pain management, but there have been a ton of studies that show it’s great for other things, anxiety, etc. But if you’re in NYC, I can’t recommend Dr. Weiss enough. I’m not just saying that. She is warm, direct, and well, I’m taught, and if anything, I would say I went in there pretty skeptical, although I did want it to be useful, so maybe my two biases cancelled each other out.

Chris sent this to show that I am not the only one with a pet possessed by the devil. This is her dog Belle, with a haircut, and in the throes of demon infestation. Is that her tongue — oh no! It’s something she’s chewing on, right? But yes, I see it’s true. Belle is clearly evil. (Belle is a little tasmanian devil, actually. You have to see her. A little whirling dervish speed demon of a dog. It’s very cute. It’s like she is running on a motor of accelerated love.)

Jackie sent me a new banner. Thank you, Jackie! I am very happy with the new name. I love my little Satan’s Fur Puppets.

I just finished Willa Cather’s My Antonia, and that was a real pleasure I must say. I’m going to pick up some more Cather when I’m out today. There’s nothing like a new author to love.

Doesn’t this coming up week feel like a vacation week? Like we shouldn’t work at all, all week? It feels that way to me. Normally I watch the fireworks from my roof, but this year I think I might walk over to the river to watch, like I used to when I was younger, and wanted to be right there in the thick of it. Nothing else would do.

… I get the look of love. Except, there’s still a bit of the devil in that face, isn’t there? I’ve asked my friend Jackie to modify the blog banner to say: Satan’s Fur Puppets. That’s one of my favorite nicknames for Buddy and Finney.

The MRI was unnerving, I have to say. Two things made it okay. 1. They didn’t put me all the way in. From the knees down I was sticking out and that was enormously comforting. 2. I’m teeny. That space inside is VERY small. A lot smaller than it looks on TV. I got through the unnerving bits using MBSR which I have learned and I really have to post about.

Most people are braver than me, it seems. Life would be so much easier, I can’t help thinking, if I wasn’t afraid of EVERYTHING. (I saved a baby spider yesterday, but then later killed a big one because it was too scary. Felt terrible about it.)

Afterwards, I asked the MRI guy to show me the part of my arm where it hurts, because where it hurts is different from where the doctors says I’m injured. They say it’s my shoulder, I say it’s my arm. They say I feel it lower because pain radiates, but for me it hurts in a line across the top third of my arm.

Sure enough, all is darkness in the MRI until you get to spot where I say it hurts, and then there are two bright white lines going around the front of my arm, surrounded by a cloud of white and white spidery-looking veins. The guy says he isn’t really qualified to interpret and I say, “Could you just tell me, does everyone have two white lines there,” and he said no.

I’m worried that the people reading the MRI won’t look there. The prescription said to do the shoulder, and when I expressed my concerns about the location to the MRI guy he said, well, you’re so small we’re going to get that part in any case. But they might not look there.

In other news: The moth I photographed the other day is now dead. I felt terrible. (Again.) Maybe I should have tried to catch it and release it outside.

Poor monster moth. Tomorrow I’m getting an MRI for my hurt arm. I’ve never done this before. They always make MRIs look so scary on TV, and everytime I think, ‘but that doesn’t look particularly scary.’ Tomorrow I will know firsthand. Scary or no?