Cariño a Largo Distancia

Cold coffee and pouring rain. Its one of those quiet Saturday that follows a loud night and my ears are happy for the rest. I've got headphones on even though its not loud at all in here, just the rumba of the bakery below and the buses on the street.

But I put these head phones on for a reason, to hear my family when I called them on the computer a while ago. Everyone, all six who had to travel and the four that are already there are in Austin for my Grandfather's 90th birthday. His eyes are failing and his ears are gone and he mixes up our names but his hair is holding on and he still has the statley, calm passion that brought him down from Canada, to love in UCLA, to community psychology in Austin, his three children, his grandchildren, his neighbors and collegues and freinds. I could not be more proud to have him for a grandfather. His truck, the chinese food, the stories and the jokes and the sourdough pancakes and the stories, those stories, helped me feel safe as a little kid and strong as a big kid. And I know, as a grown-up, when ever it's quiet, I'll hear his voice.

This is my 101th post and I was going to make a big hullaballo about it. But 90 years to 100 little paragraphs about speaking spanish? I think he's got me beat on this one. So happy birthday, Grandpa, Mr. Dr. Ira Iscoe, itinerant homeboy with a spatula in hand. I hope your day is wonderful and that you know how much we love you.

Last Day In Puembo!

Today was my final day, for real. I didn't have to come in until 12 so I slept late which was really really nice. I love this job, but I do not love waking up at 6 am and the two-hour commute. If I work in rural health, if I work in health care, if I work at all, I will need to not commute so aggressively. I will also need to have a lifestyle that doesn't drive me to stay up late. Here, its pretty good if I don't go out or do anything social or am sick. If I just get home, watch some TV, eat some food, chat with Pilar and write a little, then I can get to sleep by 10 which makes life bearable the next day. The problem is that I like to watch movies with friends, go out to dinner, call my mom, read another chapter. I am also sick a lot and that seems to make me stay up writhing around hugging an ice pack. Going to sleep at eleven is completely rational but it guarantees me falling asleep on two of three buses the next day.

The solution to this is to alter one part that’s putting pressure on the system. I could either find a job/lifestyle where I don't have to wake up very early or find one where it's cool to go to sleep early. I feel like after I have kids it will be much easier and socially acceptable for me to go to sleep early. So I'll just wait that one out till I reproduce and keep falling asleep on the bus.

Enough about my circadian rhythms, what actually happened today? We had a long meeting with the principal of one of the high schools, Ciudad de Puembo. The Leci and the Duk had gone to a program about adolescent health in the morning about staring programs in schools, basically health classes. They presented her the syllabus with specific classes about nutrition, hygiene, exercise, sexual health (I don't know what that contained, but I'd like to). The principal seemed keen on the idea but kept stressing that her students had psychological problems and needed counseling. L and D said that that was part of the program, self esteem, but they weren't really trained to address psychological issues. The principal showed us a notebook that she had created where every page addressed a class or a child with problems or a family or something. It was all very disorganized and also completely illegible. The office was also very large and in one half was a conference-like room where a family was talking to a school worker. Apparently this family had a lot of problems. The principal told us all about the problems in a whisper while the family was in the room. To me, this is about as rude as you can get, and it was clearly making the Leci and Duk uncomfortable. After the principal had shown us the entire notebook and explained the home lives of several problem students, we reiterated the plans and left.

Back at the center, things were pretty slow. They didn't give out appointments because of the training, so there were only a few people waiting. Three babies got vaccinated, a woman reviewed her Pap smear results, and I took many people's blood pressures. I'd been having splitting facial headaches for three days so the Duk checked me out and told me I had sinusitis. The benefits of working at a doctor's office: free antibiotics!

The church bells had been ringing all day signaling a death in the town. It was an old woman, a friend to everyone. Carla's grandmother, even though I thought Carla was Marci's daughter. Marci and her daughter (so far's I know) Michelle and I stood outside and watched the funeral procession: a clunky banda de pueblo, young girls (Carla included) with florist bouquets, pallbearers of comically different heights, fifty or so towns people dressed in a mixture of black formal and work clothes, crying or laughing or just walking along. Marci cried, Michelle got bored, and storm clouds welled up behind the crowed.

Even though I'll be hopefully coming back at least one day after I get back from the Galapagos, it was hard to say goodbye to the Centro, and the Leci especially. I gave her The World According to Garp in Spanish because its about a badass (read: feminist) nurse and traveling the world and being goofy. I hope she and I will keep in touch, and I really will work at it. She's a good person, an interesting person, a hard working person, and we definitely have the same-place-and-time thing going on. Well, I was in her place on her time. I hope I helped her some. I hope I wasn't a burden after the first ten times or so. Those times, I know I was.

The Duk had her car so she drove us all to Quito. She dropped off the Leci near the Trole to meet her boyfriend. We got the Duk's boyfriend who was blandly handsome and smelled excellent. They dropped me off at the Universidad Catolica in a drizzle. It was a pretty long walk home but the rain didn't bother me even as it got stronger. I felt like I was really outside for the first time in a few days. My head felt clearer. And don't attribute that to the antibiotics, I just took my first dose at 8.

Joy Doy Voy OR Fruit, Part II

Today I think I did good. Fragile, baldy conjugated, mercury-spill good. Wednesday good. Dirty hair good. Full of flaws and sins and intestinal bacteria but holy, whole, healthy, here.

We prepared the patients fast today with the usual disturbances: Caesar, a mental retarded 26 year old who gestures wildly and only says "uh buba buba bub," and the second tuberculosis patient, nicely named Segundo, needing his weekly pills. I got to watch him take them which is an important part of the treatment plan! Go Public Heath/DOTS!

We gathered our things and walked to the first school we were vaccinating that day for Hepatitis B. There was only one 6th grade of twelve children who all began screaming as soon as we entered the room. And surprise! That Nigerian guy who was hitting on me on the bus a month or so ago was their teacher. He came up to me and began talking very low and quiet in English about how we should hang out. I busied myself filling syringes. He left the children alone in the room, weirdly, where they continued shrieking. We vaccinated 11, excepting one girl who was apparently in chemotherapy and had to wear a mask all the time.

Walk back to the center, grab the Puembo bus to its final stop, Mangaguantag. Its even more rural, dirt roads, chickens, no sewers or drains. We walk a kilometer or so to the school that is in an assembly that requires all the kids to sit on the blacktop in chairs and scream in unison. We grab the 6th graders from the mass and get them in the classroom. There's a lot of yelling and two kids cry but I also have some nice conversations with students about life in the States, what they study, how germs work, etc.

As we walked back to the Centro, we ran into Dina, the woman I met on my first day in Puembo. She was dressed in her usual tiny shirt and tights, but this time she had her taxi driver husband and two adorable kids with her. She invited me to her house to "suck on guavas" and I said yes. I'm a firm believer in affirming kindness and saying yes to things. Except when I'm mean or stay at home, of course. So we turned around and walked the three blocks to her house and climbed cement steps to the roof, covered in clotheslines and empty bottles and cinder blocks and guavas. A huge guava tree with thick green leaves and gnarly pods, growing from the lot below. Her four year old scrambled around on rebar picking guavas while her husband climbed the tree and dropped down guava after guava.

Its fun to eat a guava but its not very pleasant. You have to twist and smack the pod to open it and inside are overgrown peas covered in a thick white fuzz. Pop one in your mouth, fingers slimy, suck and gnaw for a minute or two. The fur slides off, slightly tangy, and you spit out the giant bean sprout that’s inside, brown and green. There are ten or twenty pips in each pod, and none have much flavor or texture. It is truly a fruit that became a foodstuff because people were looking for something to eat that would give them some sucrose and didn't taste nasty.

Dina fills a plastic bag with about 7 pounds of guavas and 15 or so lemons and limes that she got from somewhere. I decline politely, and then carry home my giant bag of sour fruit.

Back at the Centro, I give everybody guavas. The dentist, the doctor, and the woman who comes in every day to get her caesarian wound cleaned. Two for the Leci, two for Doña Marcy, as many as the little girls next-door can deal with. Marcy has to run out for a second and we watch her daughter Camilla, who sits on the floor of the pharmacy sucking on guavas.

We spend a while putting the medications that we received from Yaruqui into the cabinets, sucking on guavas. This extremely annoying family that I think are albinos and/or have some sort of mental problem come in with their creepily pale baby. They ask me "when I will start being a doctor." Uhh never? I do not give them guavas.

At four, I pack up my things and the Leci and the dentist give me a brown banana and approximately a quarter of a watermelon. I never get sick of how much fruit there is here, how fresh it is, how good it smells, how cheap it is. And today is a day of fruit, the fruits of Puembo. Especially after the mango fiasco, it’s nice to feel the solid, pliable heft of a fruit in my hand and not feel guilty.

With my melon rind thrown away, I see Don Segundo in the park, the tuberculosis patient from earlier. He's so old and polite. His nails remind me of tree roots, he always takes his pills with giant swallows of pink yoghurt that he drinks from a juice bottle.

He waves me down. I give him a guava and get on the bus.

Yo

want to listen to some chill music without words and a nerdy video from the 80s? I bet you do.

This was shamelessly lifted from the blog of Michelle, one of those people that knows waaaay more about music than you ever could.

Kiki Mama Takka Takka

One of the joys of life is watching your friends become friends with your mother, being friends with other people's mothers, and maybe one day being friends with your kids' friends. I've been lucky all my life to have a mother that barely embarassed me and that always has been someone to show off to my friends. Besides being an excellent mother in the nurturer-breadwinner-help-you-grow, she's also a pretty cool person who knows how to make my friends happy with out creeping them out. She's accepting of thier flaws and weirdness and the stupid things they do near my house. When Elliott Day drank a lot of cough syrup and wine and then threw up at my 16th birthday party, she sent him outside to take a walk. When Jill and I smoked cigarettes in my room, she let us talk about what was stressing us out. When Abby Moore and my sister poured nail polish all over the bathtub at age 6, she got out the bottle of acetone.

And it's almost the same, wathcing Pilar talk to Jimmy's friend MonKiki (a man, and a normal man at that, a middle school math teacher), but with one degree more of separation and observation. I see Jimmy look to his mother before he speaks, Kiki glad to be in a warm safe place, Pilar so happy and comforatble. And I see myself, glad to be included, not saying anything, in my pajamas, eating nachos. Its not like what I added to the conversation was important at all, and they might not have wanted me there. But to hear about thier lives, Pilar and her stories, Jimmy's jokes. And sad things too, how Kiki's girlfriend had an ectopic pregnancy and how they really want a baby. How Pilar regrets her marriage and how Jimmy misses a father. I nod, I grunt along, I sip my beer fast and eat the nachos.

Pilar lets them swear and put thier elbows on the table because she knows they call each other "broder" and will sleep together on Jimmy's rotten mattress on the floor. She knows they are freinds and she respects with wisdom. I hope, I can't wait really, to watch my children and their friends with that same love.

Gender Bender

Written about Monday

Pretty quiet day yestearday, considering how things usually are. In the morning, the Leci and I prepared all the patientes to see the Duk and then went to Yaruqui. When I was first figuring out my ICRP, I was going to work at the hospital in Yaruqui, but its much farther away so I settled on little Puembo. However, its number 14 of the 26 public hospitals in the province of Pichincha. Babies are born by Ceasarian, virus loads are counted, you can go to a psychologist or an OB-GYN. The bus ride there isn't long, you take the Puembo bus out to La Y and then the Yaruqui bus another 30 minutes east.

We went there to drop off spetum samples from the TB patients as well as requests for more mecication and supplies, and to get a new set of Hep B vaccines. It was exciting to be in a larger hospital with better division of labor. A pediatrician, a pharmacist, someone who just works with the endless charts spilling out of thier shelves, they all have thier jobs in Yaruqui. Those postions would be redundant in Puembo, of course, but it would certainly make life easier.

I'm also getting to know Leci better. We talk about our families or learning spanish or english or how hard the job is. She's working in Puembo on her Rural Year too, which I didn't know. She'll be looking for work in May. She hopes to keep working in a sub-centro in a rural area, maybe Latacunca or Ambato.

the most interesting/embarassing part of the day came as I was preparing a patient for the afternoon appotintments. It was a one month old baby and its mother wanted to open up a history and get a infant check-up.

I'll back up a little bit and explain what makes this just so embarassing. On Sunday, sitting in a park in Cuenca, we were talking about how here babies live very gendered lives. Little boys are almost always in blue and girls are in dresses or pink or yellow with lace and they always, always have thier ears pierced. From a very very yongue age. Often its done in the hospital, but we have had a few times when parents march in with a three-month-old and ask for the earrings to be shoved in, sans gun. So earrings are omnipresent among little girls and I was saying I didn't like it. First of all, taking care of your earrings is something we equate with maturity. Its sort of a sign of growing up, cleaning and turning the posts. Second, and most strong for me, is the gendered behavior of earrings. For me, a huge part of how I grew up was being comfortable with gender ambiguity. I know that's not everybody's story and that not everybody wants that, but I also know there was no way I could have pulled that off with gold hoops in my earlobes. When parents pierce thier little girls ears when they are very yongue, they are demanding that thier daughters will act like women the rest of thier lives and that they cannot hide thier gender in profile view.

So that's what I was thinking as this mother brought in her baby to fill out the forms. The admission form in pretty arduous and by the time I get to the easy questions I usually breeze along to give the parents a break "Gender....male....civil status....single." Because at least the last one is obvious for a baby. And I thought the first question was too, for a baby dressed all in blue with unmarred ear lobes.

Of course, I forgot to weigh and measure the patient when I filled out the forms, so it was a good ten minutes before the mom wrestled the diaper and put her child (named Dennis Joannah) on the scale. Little Dennis might only have been a month old, but I know a vagina when I see one, and she was in possession. But still I didn't want to believe it. I didn't believe that a mother would dress her baby in opposition to her gender. I didn't believe that a mother might choose ambiguity, or choose hand-me-downs from an older child, or just like the color blue and the name Dennis.

I still didn't believe it, so I asked for the vaccine card they give you at birth: pink, niña. I had to use white-out all over the admission forms and staple another page on the chart: growth chart for girls, not boys. During this time, Dennis peed herself and the mom put her in a new diaper with trains and airplanes on the front.

For a girl who had short hair for years, for a girl who wore boy's jeans, for a girl named Dana, for a girl who isn't always so into being a girl, I sure made a lot of assumptions about what it means to be a girl or a boy in that office. I started my behavior because I wanted to make the patient comfortable. I've asked grown men and pregnant mothers thier gender and they always react shocked. Of course they do, they are presenting gendered signs on purpose. But this mother wasn't and I didn't give her the benefit of the doubt. Or the benefit of androgyny, or the benifit of just having a tiny baby and leaving it at that.

Commuter

WHINING ALERT! PUT IN EARPLUGS NOW!

The time has come that I am sick of my commute. Its just too long and too uncomfortable. It starts out ok. Its beautiful to wake up while the sky is just turning pink and see it turn blue again. Pilar and I move in synchrony making breakfast and then we pray together. She crosses herself and arches her back so that it cracks, and I mutter something about nature and look reverantly out the window. I walk the four blocks to the bus and everything looks pale and clean and empty. The first bus isn't bad at all but all hope is lost by Floresta. I'm just sick of the curves and the winding roads and the danger. By the end of riding the metro to high school it was the same, there was no thrill of the rebirth out of the tunnel by Takoma, no joy at new graffiti. And the Floresta is the same way now. We round the curve of a bridge and the Andes spread before us and sun dries clothes and flowers bloom and all I can think about is stretching my legs.

Third bus is worse. Much poorer people so I feel awkward listening to music, this is clearly not a crowed that has ipods. I mostly listen to the same songs over and over or else the Rolling Stones, both of witch help me appreciate the scenery by reminding me that daily life can be beautiful. But that bus too is too long. By the time we clear Tumbaco I'm ready to be there, by the time we get to "La Y" that's the start of Puembo I'm late, by the time we pass the third high school I'm standing, antsy to go, and everyone is looking at me because they don't have ipods to fidget with.

And then back, opposite direction, more sweaty, less optimistic. Sagging. Bent a little bit.

And so today, leaving work early to go to school for an orientation was almost worse because it broke up my commute. Instead of something to just get through, it was 40 minutes of baking in the sun about to be late for the orientation. This was followed by the 2 hours of class about how to be safe in the Galapagos and not touch the animals. Then I ate some frozen yoghurt. Then I ate an empanada. Thennnnnnn I had to get on the Floresta going the oppposite direction to the Floresta starting-place. I got on a Floresta in the proper direction and we had one of those drivers that I love but should really not exist. He's the type of guy that will let any and all people on. The bus has 25 actual seats and five or so that they sweeze around the lump the engine creates by the driver. 5 more can stand comfortably, 8 is pushing it. There were twelve people standing when we pulled out of Cumbaya, and five more got on as we twisted our way home.

And then, untieng ourselves, I ran to my final bus that was stopped for passengers in a roundabout, getting honked to hell. I've got that agression that gets you on busses, and I was so intent on grabbing and shoving myself in that I didn't notice that I was pushing a lady with two kids out of the way and that the bus driver had stopped for real and was patiently pointing out that I could enter through the back door.

Sheepish, I grab a seat and wade through traffic until my corner. I walk back paranoid because its dark outside but nothing happens and nothing has. I spook easy though and my steps are fast. A man, a black man, stops to pick somehting up from the sidewalk and I'm sure that's him stopping to get behind me to rob me. He looks at me, as I try to not have that happen and sometimes, wow, I just want to gouge out my eyes so I don't have to make eye contact with anybody. He knew. He knew that I saw him for a black man waiting to rob and not a fellow grabbing a nickel from the concrete. My fault. I've been judging things at light speed all day. It's no excuse, but at least I understand why I did it.

Happenin's

Written Tuesday Night

I'm sleepy all the time. Its 10:07 and I wish I had gone to sleep hours ago. Seven thirty would have been good, or at 9 after the Big Bang Theory.

Maybe instead of talking about that semi-good sitcom, I should tell you about my life in a foreign country. Sounds good.

Saturday, I went on adventure with my friend Stewart. We took the TeleferiQuo, a big fancy gondola system up the mountain Pichincha that creats the Western wall of Quito. Pichincha is semi-active and there was a huge ash eruption maybe ten or twenty years ago. Its not dangerous, just thrilling. Anyway, we went up to the top and started looking for horses to ride through this beautiful paramo that lies at the top. After walking uphill for an hour or so, we found no horses to rent, so we kept walking another two hours. This is not a tourist activity, you're at over 4000 meters and the altitude made even Stew and I take frequent breaks so that we could "appreciate the beautiful scenery that surrounds us."

Our goal was this giant rocky crag of black volcanic stone that we were calling Nono because we thought that was the name. It's not, though, Nono is the name of a suburb to the south of Quito. So we walk along, calling out to Nono, our nononovia. Once we reach Nono, there is heavy evidence of landslides, the black rocks look even bigger and scarier than they did from far away. We say Nono more; the oxygen is thin and we are hungry. We tromp down singing every song we can remember the words to. As we near the bottom, maybe 1000 meters away, we find the horses. They look very gallant with thier saddals and woven blankets against the mountain and sky but look pretty underfead and tired. However, there are llamas that you can take unlimited pictures with if you pay 50 cents. You can also wear a cowboy hat and a poncho. Stewart takes advantage of this deal and I almost feel like I'm betraying a secret to tell you how happy he was. Not that he was embarassed to be happy, its that it was an embarassment of riches. The pictures on my camera better come out well because they really restored my faith in the natural world and the bond between man and animals.

Sunday, I mostly just slept. Acually, I watched an entire season of The Big Bang Theory, but let's not talk about that. Monday, i didn't go to work. Rather, I worked on my paper for my ICRP and took a shower at abuelas because our house did not have water because the neighbors were not paying the water bills. Good job, neighbors.

Today, I was back at work in Puembo. it was a day that really broke the routine, in a way that was not particularly pleasant. Firstly, we went to a local high school to attend to the students. The Duk and I loaded up an offical Ministry of Public Health backpack with medicine and forms and walked ten or so blocks to the school. As soon as we turned the corner, I remembered why we mark the box "Rural" when tehy ask on forms. A block away from the center of town there are fields of corn and barley and onion. Pichincha is to the West and you could see the snowy tops of Cotopaxi and Antisana if it were to be clear. The roads are grey brick with straw in the cracks. A horse passes us, then a John Deere tractor. The houses are brick and mud. Its obvious that we are in the mountains. Not very high, and quite close to a giant city, but in the Sierra without a doubt.

There are some parts of this rural world that remind you of the poverty. Its customary to dress in many, many layers of clothes, four or five shirts and sweaters, pants under pants. And people wear these without worry for stains or marks or rips. They are patched and repaired and worn forever. And that in itself is not a sign of poverty, its a choice of consumption and wardrobe, but its does effect how people view you. Before spending time up here, I would have almost automatically judged someone for wearing stained clothes. Now I think twice about it and understand that rules of looking good, looking solid, looking and feeling healthy here are different than those I am used to.

Anyway, we got to the school and it was a relajo. They had set up this giant tent for us in the middle of the basketball court with a gurney, table, and some benches. We basically had to set the whole thing up with 400 high schoolers wandering around, asking questions, touching stuff, and trying to get out of class. Originally, about 70 kids lined up, all claiming to be sick. The Odontologist and I walked around, interrogating each one "how long have you had the cough?" "Does it hurt when you swallow" "How loud is the snoring" and sending kids who were obviously not sick back to class.

After a while, the Leci showed up with the many, many things we had forgot: the sharps bottle for tounge depressors, a trashbag, thermometers, and much, much more Ibuprofen.

Because there's not much you can do when you have a cold or a fever or even the flu really. You can throw up and feel hot and drink tea and soup for a few days, and sleep a lot. I am sure people here understand that for the most part, but part of my job is interacting with the people that do not. Today, for example, I spoke to five partents who were frantic and pleading with worry about their children that had sore throats and fevers. Strep is horrible and so is tonsilitis and H1N1 is a risk, but for the majority of those fevers you just have to lie there and be miserable. Once we give out the appointments for the day, there's no fitting anybody else in unless its a heavy-bleeding emergency. On one hand, I feel horrible telling partents to take thier kids home, let them lie down, give them water and juice and tea, and wait a few days. On the other hand, I feel that its not my place to tell them how to deal with children I don't have. On my newly-created third hand, shouldn't they know how to deal with a fever already?

So there's been a lot of that lately, a lot of sick-eyed kids and parents that grab your arm and plead and beg for the appointment with the magic doctor that will give the magic pills (avialiable over the counter at ten cents a pop) that will take the evil away.

Enough judgement and poor interpretation of cultural values. Time to sleep

Sunday Survey

Hi Everyone,

I'm feeling lazy right now and don't really want to write anything that involves constructing a paragraph, so here's a survey about 2010.

30 Q’s on 2010!!

1. What was the hardest part about the year 2010?

Leaving, moving around, finishing things. Lots of thing ended or just came to a close. Sorry to be so general.

2. Pick a song that encompasses spring 2010

The Rabbit, The Bat and The Reindeer by Dr. Dog

3. Describe your spring using words that start with the letter “N”

Nighttime, Nearby, Nearly, No More Qualitative Reasonign Class Please

3. Tell three quick funny stories that happened

a. One time, the sus house was still really dirty when it was time to check out of it and we had to clean it like twice more and that was embarassing!

b. One time, to avoid doing the dishes, an unnamed friend hid all the diry dishes in a laundry basket under his bed

c. One time, my mom came to Quito and she got really oxygen deprived from the lack of oxygen (obviously) and began giggling non stop and we yelled at her

4. When you were stressed, what did you do as an outlet?

Well, I tried and got better at doing exercise and certainly writing. But there is always the tried and true favorite of complaining, eating carbohydrates and taking a nap.

5. Did any of your beliefs change?

Lots, about my self, the world, politics, other people. Not so much spiritual stuff.

6. Who was the last person you kissed?

Thats my business

7. What food did you eat a lot of?

Applesauce, veggie bugers, chinese food, soup, french fries, salads.

8. Pick a song that encompasses summer 2010

Not contrived at all, but Chllin by Wale.

9. Describe your summer using words that start with the letter “E”

Excellent, Electricity (lackthereo), Empezando el blog, Evil Boss, Eventful, Eventual,

10. Did you develop any bad habits in 2010? Break any old ones?

Well the carb-and-nap routine got pretty strong. Stopped smoking those pesky monthly cigarettes, But started eating meat which I don;t like.

11. Look back. Describe a beautiful moment that happened this past year.

Oh man seeing ma and lester at the airport was pretty wonderful

12. Who is your best friend? Has it changed since last year?

Yes, it has. But I am very blessed with best friend all over the place and in differnet capacities. I've got my train-riding best friend, my skinny-dipping best friend, my spontaneity best friends, the people I come home to, the people I grew up with. The person I said goodbye to but still keep there at the top of my list.

13. Pick a song that encompasses fall 2010

You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go by Mr. Bob Dylan (the link is to a cover that's pretty different but quite nice)

14. Describe your fall using words that start with the letter “W”

Whaaaaat? Wired, Worried, Work, Worldy, Water, Waiting, Welcome, Wonderful

15. Tell three drunken stories (or just sum more funny stories)

Let's just do normal stories

a. One time, this lady was outside the house and pilar was like "Oh wow its my cousin Anita from Guayaquil, how unexpected! I have missed her so!" and let this lady in and made her coffee. But it was not Cousin Anita, it was a woman from the Eugenio Espejo mission asking if there were any disabled people in the house

b. One time, we made applesacue but convinced Brandon Bigler that it was shredded pork. The pork had come from a wild hog that was terrorizing Britta's yard and scaring her sister so her dad shot it. That was a total lie, but we just kept telling and he just kept asking.

c. One time, I wore my shirt inside out for a whole day of school and didn't realize it! How hilarious!

16. Name 5 things you’ve accomplished

a. Mucho Spañol

b. More independant

c. Awesome research paper

d. Yecuador

e. Better mental health

17. Name some things you regret

Not being able to stay up late, not taking more wild chances, not being more honest, taking Drawing

18. What was the saddest moment of 2010?

I've cried alot this year.

19. Favorite cereal!

This was the year that i discovered that I don't really like cerael that much. It's just not that good. But I guess good granola or shredded wheat or maybe rice krispies

20. Talk about your family.

Well, now I have two and I couldn't love either of them more. My mothers are both such nurturing, wonderful people who understand me so well. My USAmom is so strong and wonderful and has made me who I am. My Ecuamami understands me so much better than I could have hoped. And my ñaños? Angry, independant, brilliant people who I want to take with me everywhere. That might only be four people but its more than enough, an embarssment of riches, for me.

21. Did you take a vacation? Where did you go? Talk about it.

Well, I went to Ecuador, you know. I also went to Scientist's Cliffs with Eustice and Chicago and Up North with the fam. Pretty wonderful, beautiful places.

22. What was the nicest thing anybody has said to you this past year? Meanest?

Nicest: "Andrew Dombos 1:22am

if i had to describe you, i would say you're an charasmatic, thoughtful, empowered woman" Thanks bro!

Meanest? I think this.

23. Did you leave the country?

Yessir and I am so glad I did!

24. Pick a song that encompasses winter 2010

Regina Spektor's Carbon Monozide

25. Describe your winter using words that start with the letter “Y”

Yum, yearning, year, Yedlin, Nick, Yuk

26. What was your favorite song?

Overall? I think Strawberry Weed by the Caesars. Thanks, Daedal!

27. You have to write a biography about this past year for you, what is the title of the book?

Pasaje en la Mano

28. Talk about Hate in 2010

It was there, I tried to shut it down, that didn't work so well.

29. Talk about Love in 2010

More the "inward eye is the bliss of solitude" than the "honey lovey" kind but I'm glad that that happend.

30. Resolutions for next year?

Write bastante, get stronger, get a job, contribute to the universe in a postive manner, keep in touch, stay safe.

Fwiday

It's Friday and I didn't go to Puembo today and I don't really want to write an entry, but I'm more afraid and embarassed by failure. I told myself I would write an entry every day for this month (its ok if I write it one day and don't post it till the next, or if I write it for a school journal (see everything I write about Puembo) or if it is stupid or a silly list. MUST WRITE EVERY DAY)

Writing writing writing writing gotta pee.

Peed.

Some things that have happened recently

-Went to ICRP class and Galapagos seminar. We all have a lot of angst about our IRCPs and how to get good grades in the class. I'll stay quiet on the issue for political correctness, but I will share this quote

Teacher: So why were whalers so intent on hunting sperm whales in the Galapagos?

Impudent student (me): for the sperm?

Teacher: That's correct!

So it turns out that the word for sperm (esperma) is also a word for whale fat and thusly a word for candle. Meaning I could now say "Blow out the esperma, its getting late" and it would be COMPLETLEY CORRECT. Except in spanglish and I don't really use candles that much. But still!

-Just spent $430 on plane tickets to Cuenca for next weekend. For myself and two friends who are paying me back, but still. I feel like my mom is going to have a fainting spell.

-Speaking of medical emergencies, I tried to go swimming today. I was like 500 m in when I got this horrible cramp in my shoulder. Certain it was a heart attach, in reality gas pain, I kicked with a kickboard for 150 m and then got out and took a really long shower

-Speaking of swimming, I met my CONFIDENTIALLY MAINTAINED friend at the pool and we had a swimming lesson: the frog kick. she's a little scared of the ocean so we are getting ready for the Galapagos.

-So you know how my abuela has the dental clinic in her house? where malcolm lives? And the clinic has a guard to let people in and he has a girlfriend and the girlfriend won her town beauty pagent and we met her today and she is beautiful and totally silent.

-I have a cold and the main symptoms are abundant yellow-orange snot and a feeling of dizziness. It's not just normal cotton head. It feels like a combination of standing up when you have low blood pressure and having the spins when you are very drunk. Advil seems to help for no apparent reason. It doesn't hurt! How could Advil help?!?!

-I watched 3/4 of the Facebook movie and it was actually good and made me glad I left the east coast.

-Tomorrow is the 14th which means have been here for five months which means we barely have a month left. Alpha and Omega.

This! Is! RURAL HEALTH!!!!!!

Today in Puembo, everybody's expectations ran into each other. Chocarse, if you would. We were set to go out to the community to do something no one thought to call outreach. I got to the clinic at what I thought was late by 820 to find the Doc and Leci calmly treating fevers and bronquitis that every person seems to have. After three or four complete patient work ups, we gathered up our stuff: two coolers of vaccines (Hep B for the 6th graders, influenza for the old people); a sharps deposit box (really a 5-liter water bottle with the lable wripped off); some trash bags; a metal can full of cotton; and some anticeptic jel.

The Leci wanted to take a taxi because none of us really had any idea where the old folks' home was, but the Duk (that's what Leci calls the Doctor) insisted on driving her new Nissan. Within two kilometers we were on dirt road and the Duk was cursing her luck and lack of fourwheel drive. We drove around back roads for a while looking for something red, I didn't know the word. Eventually we stopped at a cross intersection and the Duk decided to turn around. Not looking behind her, reversing fast, she slammed the car into this large rock and scraped up her bumper. So then she turned hopped out of the car and put on the emergency break but didn't put the car in park, so it rolled back farther into the rock. She shrieked. Leci muttered about the taxi again. Duk tried to get into the car and drive away, but the key wouldn't turn. I thought to her "slam the break pedal and jerk the wheel to the left" but ended up articulating something like "you must be pushing the part on the floor for the breaking and flipping the tire." Obviously I was not understood and Duk kept impressing us with her lack of driving and car managmente skills.

Leci decided to walk to the nearest civilization, a high school called Colegio Israel which had everyhting plastered in Israeli flags. I tagged along as we searched for the secretary who searched for the pricipal who referered us to a teacher who knew a lot about cars. The principal, the teacher, a gardner with Down's syndrome, Leci and I all got into the principal's car and drove the 500 meteres to the stuck doctors. The teacher got in the car, slammed the break pedal, jerked the wheel, and started the car. I told you so.

With much embarassment and silent machismo, we got directions to the asilo. We got lost a few more times, and the Leci got out and ran in one direction to see if we were going the right way, but we got there.

The asilo housed about 9 old people most of whom wanted to sleep. We sat around in a room filled with exercise equiptment and fishtanks. I filled the syringes, the Duk and the Leci gave the shots, the Duk's sister who is also a Duk filled out the paper work. The dentist, who materalized as soon as we entered as the asilo talked about teh importantce of denture care.

After that completley-not-worth-the-trouble trip, we all hoped our next stop at the school would be better. We vaccinated the fourteen kids in sexto curso, me on the syringe-filling again. The Duks went to the first grade and gave a lecture about washing your hands, brushing your teeth, and "not sticking anything into any orifice of your body. It will get stuck."

The Leci went into the computer room to figure something out, so I sat by myself in high noon on a basketball court. Toasty. After about fourty minutes, she came out and told me to come with her to the fourth grade where she gave a similar health class lecture, relying heavily on the scaring power of the "filth underneath your fingernails" and its power to move all over your body. Also referenced was the love one feels for ones family, and how one could kill ones family if one does not wash ones hands.

Leci and SistaDuk seemed to think it would be cool for me to give the next lecture, to kids in about 2nd grade. I was not so in to the idea, but I was looking forward to actually speaking something. I also felt pretty good about it because in SPANISH 205 I actually did just this, talk to second graders in spanish about washing thier hands.

We pulled out around one pm, holding the giant bottle of needles behind my back so that the first graders going out for recess wouldn't be scared of gringas and doctors for the rest of ther lives. The Duks had to go to Yaruquí for a meeting, so the Leci and I walked a ways down to the Y intersection that begins the town of Puembo. The bus driver did charge us pasaje, but he did say "who's safe from AIDS today, doc?" and let us sit with our coolers in the front of the bus, which was both caring and funny.

Leci and I did paperwork for a while, then ate at Doña Marci's, where we had fried rice with hot dogs, easily the worst additon I have seen to that dish.

We walked with Doña Marci and her 10 yeah old daugher (the one I played teaching-English with) to the high school. On the way there, we commened about how the daughter is starting to grow breasts and how her nipples are visible through her shirt. Ok, honestly. The daughter responded that she didn't care. Ok, bravery.

Doña was a total jerk about the vaccines to the kids, saying this was punishment that they didn't do ther homework, brining the bottle of used needles on purpose past several classrooms "to put the fear in them." This seems to be pretty de regur, however. The teacher at the other school said that we should put the shots in thier eyes or butts. This seems unnecessarily cruel to me, and I know it would have made me cry and hyperventilate at their age, but I guess these kids are tougher.

Gimme a Shot- Puembo, day 3

Feeling soooo sick, that's why I didn't write yesterday. I was too sick. Also, I went out for Mexican food and when I came back I just went to bed. I tried to make it to Puembo on time today, but I just couldn't. I ate my breakfast, got dressed, called the Leci and went back to sleep for two hours. Sometimes, that's gotta happen. Once I got my act together I made it to ICRP and things went pretty normally.

I had missed the opening procedures: the giving of appointments, the opening cabinets and doors, the temperature check on the two vaccine freezers. All the paitents were weighted and measured and the doctors were giving out perscriptions like candy. There were far fewer adultos de tecer edad for influenza vaccines. However, four really really old people from the Mora family all came in, all claming to be each other's cousins. The second Maria Mora acredited the lack of old people coming in to the dance class going on at the old folks home that morning. We're going to the old folks' home (asilio, same word for mental asylum) tomorrow, so I hope there is not bialoterapia class then.

I really like working with the old people. They are usually very sweet, patient, and eager. Mothers have babies that cry and little kids that get restless, and people with jobs want to get back to them. But the elderly people have usually devoted their entire morning to making it to the health center and getting the shot. They are in no hurry.

They support each other. Several times a person who has already gotten the vaccine comes back with a friend or neighbor who is less self sufficient. I came into the clinic today to see a very old woman in a wheelchair. I asked if she needed help getting up the stairs. She told me that she was waiting for her daughter-in-law to get vaccinated, then asked me politely if I could vaccinate her. The daughter-in-law was 69, the mother-in-law was 87. They both had chins full of white whiskers.

Several patients come in daily or very often for blood pressure checks. Most of them don't really understand how thier blood pressure works, but they all know that smaller numbers are better. one man who comes in every day says that he will bring another person wih him each day for thier vaccination.

I had my first needle stick today. I was loading up a syringe to give to the Leci to inject, when it popped out of the bottle too fast at poked my index finger. It hurt surprisingly badly and bleed a lot too, making me feel more sympathy for all these old people whose skinny arms we are blithly plunging needles into. There was no risk of infection at all, it was a new needle. I might have given myself 100th of a flu vaccination, but I'm pretty sure I bled that out. But it was scary, to be so close to wounding myself, a medical procedure I'm not qualified to give, to contamination and all those stories about dirty needles.

After I washed it and wrapped it in cotton, I hid out in the archives room for a while, putting files back in place. It stopped bleeding quickly and I can't even see the mark now, but I remember the adrenaline, the spot of blood, putting the cover on that needle and putting it in the sharps disposal as fast as I possibly could.

However, there's a cool part to this scary story. The SCS or the Ministry of Public Health in general, I guess, has gotten these new needles for vaccinations that are one of the best public health and harm prevention measures I've ever seen. It's single-use syringes! And I don't just mean that they are thowing them away after one use, I mean that it is physically impossible to use them more than once. You pull the cap off, fill it up, push the plunger down and it is impossible to pull back up! Even if you go half way down, there's no going back. This makes it easy to give the whole shot, but it's also a failsafe way to prevent multiple needle usage.

You might think that this is wasteful, and I won't argue there. But needles are one of those things that are supposed to be wasted. Toilet paper? No. Food? No. I'm a supporter of if its yellow let it mellow and re-using plastic bags and all that. But as soon as I stick my runny nose into a medical buliding, I want it all thrown away. Gloves, masks, q-tips, and most certainly needles. And when I see track marks, which I have, and most certainly will see in pretty much any of my job options for the future, I want to focus on the addiction that caused them, not on the sickness that could result.

From an ecological prespective, single-use syringes are a bad idea. But, if you look bigger, vaccines themselves are a bad idea: they make a weaker herd, more people thowing things away and buying cars and cutting holes in the ozone layer. These elderly people shouldn't even have lived as long as they have, and they shouldn't make it past this flu season if they aren't strong enough. But from a harm-reduction persective, which is the -ology in which I find the answers closer to the meaning-of-life question, it makes perfect, beautiful sense.

First Day of IRCP

Written Monday Night

I've got a huge surprise for you guys. I am currently sitting in my bed! In pajamas! Pilar and Jimmy and Natalia are watching TV! This is the most exciting thing to happen in weeks. But naw really, it's amazingly comforting to be in a safe place, not out at a bar or a restarurant or even in a livingroom. Just quiet. Under covers. I know I say that almost every day, and I certainly say it more often to myself, but being quiet, warm, little is the feeling that keeps me going.

Partially why I want that feeling right now is because I've been pretty busy the past few days. I did go paintballing on Saturday and it was so so fun. We took taxis way to the north, by the Carcelen bus station. Our taxi driver was totally sure he knew where he was going, but ended up dropping us off like two miles down a steep hill from where the paintball place actually was. At least we got our muscles all warmed up.

We got suited up in jumpsuits and masks and the goofy looking guns with thiere little super-ball pellets. The arena was basically a lot with dead grass, wooden shacks, a beat up old car, and some oil drums. All covered with neon splats of paint. We dodged and shot and hit and yelled and it was great, the team, the adrenaline, the anger, the competativeness, the threat of pain. We played five or six rounds. Around round four I tried to make it to behind this barrel and tripped and twisted my ankel really badly. Of course I was the only girl so I tried to play it off but it was one of those where it actually does really hurt and you just have to lie on the ground for a while praying people don't judge you too hard.

So during the next rounds, which we played in some nearby woods with 12 Ecuadorian bros, I either lay in some weeds and contemplated life, or I huddled in a shrub being the "sniper." Everyone was very nice to me and didn't make fun of me or make sexist comments.

I went to a bar with basically the same people and we talked about our favorite books. Ender's Game seems to be on the tip of everyone's tongue lately. Maybe its a wintertime thing? I've had like 5 separate conversations about it. Anyone else outside of Ecuador reading it?

Sunday I did nothing. Almost honestly. I talked to Ma, Emily Hanne and Tina Cava, Jon Posn and Zak Rogo. I also read a book Iggy lent me, Ironweed up on my roof and pretended I was a hobo. This was a normal Sunday.

Today was monday and I started my work! I woke up ungodly early. Well, I didn't think it was that early, but Pilar was moaning the whole time. I almost ordered her to go back to bed, but she was like "you cannot eat alone! you cannot make your own coffee!" I tried to tell her that I've been at least mostly making my breakfast for like 6 years but she was hearing none of it.

Got my buses easy, slept all the way. Maybe I do have to leave the house a little early. Once I got there, Leci already had arranged the turnos for the day and I got all the charts out of the file cabinets. We weighed and measured everybody, loud and crowded but fairly straightforward.

Today was really busy, from my limited sample of days. Everyone seemed to need things writteen twice or a clinical history opened or missing thier card or forgot waht year they were born. And people didn't stop. Normally one or two or five people will come in a morning asking for various things, but there's not usally five waiting at the door.

Part of the problem was the influenza vaccine. There are free influenza vaccines for adults over 65 which is a good public health idea but is just another program to execute. Adults need cards and we need to take thier names and make sure no one is allergic to eggs. We administered over 30 vaccines today, me filling the syrenges and forms and an aid doing the acutal shot. It was really wonderful, actually. Probably 10 or 12 very old indegenous women came in to get shots. They were freinds so they all decided to take the time to come in together. One lady, the most sentient, told each woman where to go, took and stored her card, helped her roll up her sleeve, reminded her to breathe. It was very caring. I refused one woman, though, which might not have been the right thing to do. I think she had dementia or brain damage or soemthing, because she didn't know her name and wouldn't respond to anyone. I felt like vaccinating her would be without her consent, and the Leci was too busy to argue.

Around 1 we took a break for lunch. The doctor, a woman visiting her from Canada (another doctor and a future friend), the Leci and myself crammed into this woman's tiny house which is on the clinic property. For 1.25, she fed us potatoes, rice, spicy hotdogs, soup, juice and heavens be! salad! We snarfed down our food and returned to work.

There were more emergencies today that I remember. The first was a woman who had run her finger up in an industrial sewing machine about a week ago. Today, the finger was very swollen, infected, and covered in necrotic tissue. Gross! Cool!

The second emergency was far more scary. A man, tall and pale, brought in a woman, short and dark from the flower plantation where they both work. She was swathed in cotton and rubber, booth with holes, her hand clenching her thick rubber gloved fingers. Twitching constantly, her blood pressure was low, her right side was almost paralyzed and insenstive to pain. When we got her on the table, she had a seizure. She couldn't move her eyes past the midline, her right arm was stricken with cramps that made her cry.

I don't know much about medicine, but when I smell the pesticides coming off someone as the enter the room, I'm inclined to believe that the cause of this problem might not be one hundred percent genetic. It's good she came in, good that she was wearing long sleeves and gloves and boots, but that much chemical exposure cannot be good.

The SubCentro hasn't a single anti-convulsion drug in its pharmacy, so as soon as the doctora had checked her out as best she could, after a few rounds of arm pain-attacks, her friend and I lifted her up to put her in his car to take her to the hospital in Yaruqui. I don't know what happened to her. I hope she is ok.

After that, I was a little overwhelmed, so I sat on the playground in the yard of the clinic and helped one of the little girls that lives in that tiny house with her English homework. She was learning the differnce between "a" and "an" and "the." Have you ever thought about how hard "the" would be to say? we have so many way of saying it, "da" "thee" "thuh." She got it wrong almost all the time, but she does know a bunch of words, probably more than I could read in Spanish when I was 8. she also has a barbie doll named Cynthia who is "ocho, igual que yo! Ella es mi amiga por siempre!"

At four, I cleaned up my things and walked to the bus stop. An old woman who I had seen earlier at the clinic and I sat on the steps where the bus stops, eating ice cream silently. I feel like that might become a routine.

Updates!

Not much has been going on the last few days. After my Cotopaxi Adventure and my Plaza Fosch Adventure I have chilled out a lot at home. Lots of reading, including this book about a doctor my mom gave me, that, you're right ma, is really terribly written. I've gone to abuelas and done the requisite cheek-kissing of everyone in the dynasty, slept on the couch. I walk across the street and swim 1500 meters which is very impressive because it is more than a kilometer. Are you not impressed with my athletic prowess?

After that, I go back to abuelas, drink cold coffee and eat a banana, and take the bus home.

Yesterday, we had ICRP class (surprise!) and no one knew about it so we were actually like 3 hours late. I haven't actually started my IRCP this month yet. I called the nurse on Tuesday and asked when I should come in and she was like "Monday, or Tuesday...whenever you want." So that seems pretty relaxed.

However, I'm getting really pumped up for my SIP and am going to get my ICRP work to work for that. How? The sub centro at Puembo does a great deal of work with birth control distribution and counseling. I could write my ICRP monografia (sort of like a term paper) about access to birth control in Ecuador, especially among indigenous women, and then that could be (or could be close to) my Literature Review for my SIP! Which would be about birth control among indigenous women in Ecuador! I'm not sure if this is cheating or something, but it's what really interests me and your research is supposed to further more research, right?

Not that I've started writing or anything.

The other thing that's happened lately is going out to dinner a lot and eating good food. The Bio/Ecology students went off to Tiputini deep in the jungle on the 6th to do research, so we kept going out to lavish dinners to say goodbye to them.

On the 5th, we went to this lovely asian-fusian restarurant. I had green curry so spicy and creamy it made me tear up. I've missed spicy food so much, jasmine rice, chopsticks. I am going to gorge myself on Thai food when I get back. I also had a sake bomb which I though would be really good because I always read about them. Acutally, it just tasted like rotten beer with some airfreshener in it. Also, trying to get the sake to fall into the glass, it spilled all over me and made a huge mess. This was not worth a drink that tasted like drain cleaner.

The next day we went to this Mexican restaurant that we had always made fun of because there is a guy in a huge sombrero and fake moustache outside waving a menu and yelling "hey you guys! come on in!" over and over. I ordered enchilladas and was hoping to continue my spice dream, but it was mainly a bowl of melted cheese with pieces of chicken and a single corn torilla wripped up on the top. Yum! Not!

Yesterday, I went over to Jamie's and he and Scott and I made a pimpin dinner of Macaroni and Cheese with mushrooms, a giant salad and....water. We even set the table and lit candles. Then we watched Star Wars and everybody fell asleep.

Today, I am going to eat some toast Pilar left for me, go to the store with her, hopefully go paintballing, go to Jimmy's concert, and maybe hear from my mom. You know, the regular.

Thinkin Hard

Its 10 am here in Ecuador! I am under my covers like crazy rich uncle Dana eating a banana with peanut butter, God's Gift to Food, and my head itches mercilessly. Just giving you my vital stats, you know.

As this program winds to a close, I'm thinking a whole lot about time and how it's expanding and snapping shut and shrinking in front of my eyes. For example, in late January at some point in my life, my mom and sister came to visit me in Kalamazoo. I was almost completley sure that that was one year ago, but once I really think about it, it's clear that it was two years ago when I was a freshman. They visited me in Hoben, my friends in Trow, we walked around the snowy campus and I skipped out on my caf meals to eat at Saffron and The Strutt. Last year, late January? We were cuddeled up in the sus house, trying to not turn on the heat. Zak had just gone to THAILAND. ( I tried to find your Thailand blog, Zak, and couldn't) I was taking sculputure, statistics, and beginning to gnaw my way through my independant study.

And three years ago? Slogging through twelth grade, knowing I was going to Kalamazoo, a secret warmth to get through physics.

Five years ago? I'd just started reading Cat's Cradle with Zak for the first time, and we all know how much that book means to me.

But no matter how many Januaries and Julies pass, each morning I wake up and slip on my glasses and pray that I haven't peed my pants while sleeping. It's not an issue for me, peeing my pants, it's probably happened five times since being potty trained but it remains something that I am afraid of having happened when I wake up.

With that confession over, I guess I could start actually start making sense here. What I mean to say is that no matter how time stretches and rips and gets tangled up on itself and in my mind, there are some things that stay constant. My anxiety about silly things definitely counts as something that's been there for me forever, and it's probably going to be there until my end. Sometimes, often, its no fun, it holds me back, it keeps me in my room writing furiously or imagining my death via food posioning.

However, the strength of the anxiety does help me remember parts of my life that might have faded otherwise. The churning stomach, the paralyzed brain, tight fists and though loops provide strong, clear points of recognition that might have gotten smoothed over it the physical fear wasn't so strong. And now, in a part of my life that's less riddled with anxiety, I can look back and learn from it.

For example, when I was little, I had this big thing about loosing teeth. I felt so miserable, like a part of me was dying or had abandoned me. I remember being six or seven and loosing a big tooth near the back. This seemed worse than anything, I was crying so hard. My mom, genius that she is, gave me a little potted plant from the drug store to help me feel like life was still going on even though I lost a part of myself.

Yesterday, quietly flipping out about how Ecuador is coming to an end and I'll never travel again and I don't know what I am doing with my life and have no friends, I rewound back to the lost tooth and the little plant. Its the same worry and solution all over again: loosing what is yours, the only thing you can identify and grab onto in the messy world, soothed by the reminder that the universe is larger than your bloody mouth, and that this giantness and variety can be a comfort.

So I keep losing teeth, knocking them out, they fall out while I'm sleeping or in class or at a party. And sometimes they hurt, and sometimes I don't notice until months later, but I always miss them, and I can't resist running my tongue over my bare gums.

But then in my backyard, under my bed, in my notebooks and friendships and heard in my conversations, are a million tiny trees, ferns and bonsais, dying or dead or growing strong, moments that I remember the bigger world around me, stop crying over my teeth, and just chill out and go with it.

So yesterday I lost a tooth and today I found a tree: the sounds people make when they are togehter. I heard in in my house growing up, Ma and her friend having coffee at 8 on a weekend morning. Later as I entrerd the teenager-sleep-forever phase, Ma and Lesters talking artifically loud to wake me up at 11.

"SHOULD WE HAVE FRENCH TOAST, DEAR DAUGHTER WHO DOES NOT SLEEP TILL NOON?"

"WHY PERHAPS WE SHOULD LOVING MOTHER! IF ONLY THERE WAS A THIRD PERSON HERE TO MAKE THE COFFEE!"

"ALAS, YOUR SISTER HAS JOINED THE CONVENT OF HER BEDROOM AND WILL NOT ROUSE HERSELF"

The Sus House bickering and disecting of what happened last night, or the frantic key-board and pages turned as an all-nighter winds down.

And now here, with Pilar and Jimmy, just this morning

"Ma, we have to go!"

"Ok, I just have to find my toothbrush. Did you take my toothbrush?"

"Ma, why on earth would I take your toothbrush?"

"Well, you took my hairbrush yesterday."

"That's different. We both have hair that we need to brush"

"We both have teeth my son. And I am going to brush mine before we leave this house"

My teeth make me cry and my trees make me giggle, and both of them help me remember my complicated, boring, wonderful, thrilling, scary, adventuresome life.

Bad Dana! Bad!

I didn't write today and I didn't write yesterday, I am failing at my new year's resolution. But I sitll love writing! Do not worry, I promise an entry tomorrow. A nice juice one filled with gossip, cheese, weird dreams, anxiety, way too many commas, you know, the usual

Didn't Write It, Still Like It

My Fast-Beating Immigrant Heart

On Being from a Failed Empire

by Gary Shteyngart

Past seven years I've been joking about how I was born in one failed empire (the USSR) and how someday I'm going to die in another one. Is it time to retire that joke? I came to America as a child. I studied hard, got circumcised, wrote two books, and then W. happened. I remember how excited I was to get my first U.S. passport, how happily I brandished it when going off to some ridiculous country where the ruling elite gorged itself on oil profits while enemies of the state were sent to roast in a dank tropical hell.

And then we became that country. Mr. Obama: Please make it better. All that work, all that lost foreskin, all those years of mooing the Pledge of Allegiance with one hand on my fast-beating immigrant heart—give me some pride back. Raise our taxes, if you must. We'll write even more crap for The Stranger to make up the difference. We'll do anything to redeem our butchered ideals. Let us throw off this threadbare imperial mantle. Weren't we a nation once?

From http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/here-comes-the-sun/Content?oid=757896

Everyone should read The Stranger, all the time