What do you really value

It was one of those October days that you wish wold never die. I did my yoga, while, I still can, out on the deck of my studio (trying to remember to call it that) and, once again, reminded myself why I love that discipline so much – it makes me feel with all my senses – I can smell the aging leaves and whiff of Cam’s cigarette. I hear the train, birds peeping, the wind lifting the leaves, the train in the valley, the long approach of traffic. I see a red-tailed hawk, and the yet green trees, the deeper blue of the sky that occurs in fall. I feel my feet on the soft rug, the air touch my chest, the bruises form the weekend on my buttocks, the twinge in my left shoulder that comes on with too many nights of poor sleep, and the luxurious stretch in the muscles – like a cat. I taste a metallic twang from the slight sinus infection.

Sitting with my mother in the Chinese restaurant in Trenton it seemed to me that the essence of being human (we were discussing “The Good Earth” by Pearl S. Buck) is balance, striking the happy medium. “Moderation in all things.”

I can’t recall who said that, but much of our life is figuring out what is the happy medium when others have gone on before us to try to lead the way. Trouble is that the happy medium seems to be all in your perspective. Did Mother Teresa consider herself extreme? And is it extreme to listen to your muse and miss the housekeeping. What if your culture values the beautifully kept and appointed house or the nineteen courses, three day prep time, meal, or the clothes that cost thousands of dollars, drachmas, francs, and untold hours to assemble? That leads us back, inextricably, to what we value in our lives. What do I value? Clean house, yes, but farther down the list, still I want a clean house, so I pay someone to keep it relatively clean for me. Fame, seems to be a requirement of our culture, money, yes and no, children, yes and no. What is it I want?

To be published, to have written. Yes, and time for creativity and play and good food and sex and hanggliding and travel. I don’t think I value money for prestige, more for what it can do – security of a sort, travel, the little day-to-day thingies that we suddenly perceive we can’t exist another moment without. I value literacy and language and fairness. I am the child of a child raised on the egalitarian spirit that ran across the nation during the Great Depression, that leveled so many of us. Made us all poor, all equal, all having to understand the day-to-day tribulations of our neighbors because we were all (at least the plurality of us working and farming people) in ‘it’ together. When I was growing up in the military, we were all poor together, except we weren’t really poor only by today’s standards, or some more elite’s. See, the thing is, when everyone around you is poor, and you aren’t starving or naked, you don’t ever know you’re poor.

We were all young families starting out, with multiple children, and hand-me-downs were de rigeur. Mothers learned to get by on what the man brought home. Made do with soups and stews and what we got off the local markets. Or you went hunting or fishing or bought things in bulk and put them up or raised them and did the same, or bought a side of beef with your brother-in-law and split it. Shoes got passed down and coats, none of it was really worn out, mended or shortened. We grew too fast. And, since all of us shared clothes and ‘made do’ it wasn’t any kind of hardship. I liked that time and miss it. Too much TV, too much consumer culture exposed to ur children, to ourselves. So, back to balance.

One person’s balance might involve religion and how much time ot devote to it and their own life, their families' lives. Another might want all the outward accoutrmenets of wealth, but get in over their head in debt. One of us might spend all her time pursuing sports,never reading.

And my writing. Why is my nattering of any more import than another persons? We so value our own individuality, our own ‘voice.’ Trouble is that, from space, we probably all sound like the see-sawing of the locusts. Each singing his or her own song that sounds very like the rest. The few about us worth listening to get drowned out. The few with a real original thought disappear in the crowds. And why is my nattering any more of importance than that of some poor girl in a the slums of Rio de Janeiro? Maybe it is the whole of our voices going on for ages that actually is of import. Maybe it is our own individual song weaving in with the others of our era that matter, the blogs, and diaries, the columns and newspaper articles, the very focus of our individual attentions that matters. Perhaps the topics that we write of, as a group, make up what is human in the first part of the third millennium.

Individuals are now all-important and we expect our governments, not just to protect our borders, our families, but our individual selves, even if those selves are so widely disparate as to defy easy listing. I am a human, female by genitalia, androgynous by thought (and testing) and preference, a thinker with a more or less intact brain, by luck and genetics and upbringing and parentage. I am a desultory writer, genealogist, bisexual (with a strong heterosexual leaning), a feminist, a liberal (by American standards), a pro-democracy advocate, a believer in the infinity of our rights so long as ‘my fist doesn’t hit your nose.’ An Emergency medicine-trained doctor, somewhat computer literate, deliverer of babies, lover of literature, a pilot of hanggliders, a practitioner of yoga, a walker, and international traveler, curious, but also very selfish. A talker and listener. I am, thank god and my teachers, literate! Employed, not homeless, in debt, not a parent (not my choice), divorced once, currently involved deeply with one man. Friend to a handful of people, devoted to animals both furry and otherwise, daughter, ex-wife, lover, niece, teacher, ACLS instructor, semi-German speaker, educated in some Latin, lover of history, sci-fi writer, futurist, ecologist (well, attempting), journalist, gardener, chef, driver, swimmer, ex-surgery resident, occasional darts-player, German beer advocate and swiller, skier, hiker, surfer, sailor, snowboarder, bike-rider, enemy to a few, poet, wine-collector (and alleged connoisseur.)

Chattanooga's BDSM Resources

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Last night's flight

Flew again last night and managed about 13 minutes. Not great, but considering that Carl (an XC comp pilot) and Eric (a very experienced local pilot) did the same, and the two of them whacked, and the fact that I timed my launch as then new thermal cycle was beginning, thus leading the guys behind me into the gnarly little thermal that I worked practically to the ground, I don’t feel very bad. I had a good launch, in fact, got complimented on it by Gordon (the chief instructor) later, and a good two or three step landing. It really is easy to time the landings in this new glider, now that I’ve adjusted the hang-point so that I’m not flying so fast. Mustn’t pat myself on the back too much, but it felt so good, again to fly.

Tom got 4500 over and flew over an hour, and Scott got to 5700 and flew up the valley about 30-45 minutes. Both came down glowing. Tom and I sat on launch watching the sunset with Emmalina, who, I had decided, needed a little away time from her brother. She thoroughly enjoyed being the center of attention for once, as people came and went from launch, including a twosome (not a couple, think more like cousins) from Vermont and New York, Susannah and Tom. Susannah has been taking lessons and is now a Hang 1, and Tom starts on Thursday in ground school. They’re here only a few days, but I can tell it’s dream of hers.

We sat discussing how hard it is to only come for a few days and how it feels as fi you’ll never clear the hills. I told her that it took me more than 160 hill flights over 18 months to clear the hills, but that it is definitely worth it; that when she has that first evening sunset flight when the air is golden like honey and you look down on the darkening valley and it seems you can't find down if you want it, then she will realize all that sweat was for something tangible and rich.

Flying Season Again!

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Introversion

Have known I was an introvert all my life, but this is pretty succinct, and has a sense of humor...

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200303/rauch?ca=0aveuVsO8PwfJHjAQ0qKEW7PnFcrBptE29Z2ByLMSMo%3D

The Pozo-Seco Singers

For the record, this is one of my favorite albums, well the second half of the double album in this CD. A special favorite is "Mary Jenkins" which seems to relate a sinfgle day in a woman, probably a mother, burying her son in the aftermath of either WWI or the Civil War. I find it and "Johnny" unutterably poignant. You can find the combined album at either:

http://amazon.com or http://cduniverse.com .

Mom bought it around 1969 and I played the hell out of it during my Simon and Garfunkel period in the early 1970's. If you've never heard it, treat yourself, especially, "Mary Jenkins."

Toxic Work

Finally came clean to my new boss and myself that this place feels toxic anymore. It's not about how good you do your job, it's about micromanagement. Don't know if it's this way at all hosptials but it feels as if (in modern medical management) the tail is wagging the dog. The business part of medicine has overwhelmed the calling of medicine, and belive me, it is a calling. How else at 0300 with your hand up someone's butt trying to retreive some object that shouldn't have been there to begin with? I don't mind that aspect of the job per se, it is rather that the management of hosptials now is left in the hands of business professionals rather than anyone who actually understands that no matter what the DRG's say to you you can't send home an eighty-five year old with a new pelvic fracture on simple pain meds and expect that she's gong to get better. It ain't gonna happen and money or no money the lady needs to be in the hosptial. This country is going to have to decided if little 'inefficient' hospitals are worth saving or do we need to close down all these smaller places in favor of the MegaMedCenters that will be miles away when you need them. Perhaps that is what the taxpayers of this area do want, but I think they'll regret it when they have that emergency in the middle of the night.

NaNoWriMo and Simon Benson

We interrupt this Nano session (trying to make up for the extracurricular play session engendered by my selection of reading material last p.m.) for the announcement that I am surprised to find myself still dripping from the House of Gord bondage video we watched last night just before he bound me in multicolored rope, cupped various protruberant spots until they spurted or leaked, then vibrated me into a near faint while caning me. I take full responsibility as I called him as he was making his way home and told him I'd just finished a little short novel by Simon Benson (or maybe he's just the illustrator) called "Hanoi Hilton." I have NEVER had a rubber fetish, but I do now. God, there were some really nasty scenes in that book, and the illustrations were perfect. Ahh, now back to my novel....

Breast Torture

Not my favorite day. Not a disaster. I worked well, but I had to get the mammogram done that wasn’t done, when I had it scheduled on Tuesday, due to over-scheduling myself for teaching the ACLS class, going over all the latest, greatest of same on my computer (which only downloads at 56K since I have dial-up in the back-end of GA and every one of the fourteen or so filmettes I’m required to review before I can certify that I am still certified in the art of trying to put humpty-dumpty back on the wall, required at least 30 min apiece) the cleanup behind and of the two new pooping puppies, the book club meeting at my house, etc. So, I thought, I’ll just pop over and get that Mammogram done on as an outpatient while I work – go over on lunchbreak. Of course not, it can’t be that easy. No, since the tissue in my breasts is very dense (as, I suspect, am I for allowing a PA to make me go through this) the mammograms have always been a little problematic. Unlike most people I don’t have very tender breasts, so the procedure itself is not difficult, just the fact that they can’t see anything. So, then they have to do an ultrasound, which doesn’t tell them what they need to know except that we (both the ultrasonographer and I) both feel several discrete lumps, none of them indurated or dimpled or…whatever. So then we need more views of the mammogram, Finally, Dr. H, himself, (the mammogram guru) comes over and manipulates my suspect right breast (which tries to look as innocent as possible and claim all the lumps are due to my Dom loving breast torture) and can’t seem to find anything definitive and tell me I really, should, go over to their new state-o-the-art digital mammography unit out in the ancillary hospital(where I was scheduled, originally, on Tuesday) to get a better mammogram. So, after having three people mash, manipulate, peruse, and handle my breasts (especially the poor right one) while I philosophically look elsewhere doing my best not to think too much on cancer, we all agree that I will schedule myself and do all this again next week, the sword of Damocles hanging over my head while I work all weekend and still can’t feel the definitive “lump.” I have lots of ‘em. Damn it.

September morning

Feels like a real September morning. Like when we met. I want to wander through the streets in love, seeing what there is to see and walking about hand-in-hand and poking into small shops while wearing our fetish clothes and making people smile or scowl. All a matter of fabric -- just how you sew a piece of leather together. In a shoe, it’s uptown, in a vest or harness, its kink. Still the same cow's hide.
I want to lay in our warm bed in the morning twilight and feel his heart beat through the walls of his chest. I want to lay beside him for hours, forever, knowing that his eager cock will be there time after time when I roll over; if I sleep It will nudge me awake, it will dive between my legs forcing them apart. It will seek my inner folds and find them wet, and he will laugh and call me his little slut for wanting him so much. Then he’ll confine me to the room, naked and go and fetch us food and coffee, laced with Bailey's, from the cold kitchen while I listen to his footsteps --wondering what he has planned for us next, what scandalous thing he force me to do next to please him. Walk down Broad Street naked except for a vinyl dress and heels, dance with a gay man in drag, bend over just far enough for the man eying me opposite to see my clit hood piercing? Will he make walk about with a collar on in public, will he direct me to the tattoo/piercing parlor to stare in horror at the pain awaiting me if he gets me further pierced? Then, smile at my face. This is what I want.