Judo Chop Awesome

So while it is only 11 am on my birthday, today has rocked my purple socks!

It started with an ever so tasty iced raspberry mocha, a ton of twitter, facebook, and email messages from my friends and GV family from all over the world. And then I just finished an interview with New Hampshire Public Radio's Word of Mouth program where I stuttered very little and felt that I sounded on the intelligent side...judo chop awesome, baby, yeah!

As for the rest of the day, I'm hoping for a nice regular good-mood day. Birthday dinner with the family, maybe a trip to the party store to get items for Friday's party---Libby suggested a donation jar for my face creams to I can retain my youthful appearance-I'm so gonna do it---and then a few hours of work in the evening.

And hopefully I can manage to pull a few whoopie cushion pranks on my parent today too!

Announcing the "No, Seriously, I am turning 29" Party

Hey everyone.... in an attempt to try to invite everyone I know in Salt Lake City, I just wanted to announce that I will be having a backyard BBQ on Friday August 1st at 7pm. The goal is to have a ton of people there and to practice a bunch of unfettered silliness which will include a whole lotta cupcakes that I intend on baking. I will also accept offerings of food and booze.

So if you are in SLC on the 1st and wish to come and play, drop me a line and I can give you more information. My email is deborah dot ann dot dilley at gmail dot com.

Fair? I Wonder What Your Base For Comparison Is?

It's no use, I can't sleep. And I am strangely considering going into work almost two hours early so that I have something to do with my time other than think.

Ok, here is what has been bugging me. Last Tuesday in my weekly session with the therapist I brought up the issue of stopping treatment. Why? Because I was really feeling good about myself and my life and hell....not spending $20 each week on sessions would be nice. When I broached the subject she asked me how I viewed our sessions in general and I made the mistake of telling her that I no longer kept a running tally of the minutes that I felt that she owed me. This of course sparked a HUGE discussion and apparently a "breakthrough" of one sort of another, basically that I have consistently felt "cheated" in life in one aspect or another. People have taken advantage of me-my loyalty, my fidelity, etc; I feel like I give more to people but don't receive anything back; I've been made to be the responsible one in situations where I should have never been put into. This idea has been the focus of alot of my thought patterns for this week.... and while I have come around to the idea, I am not sure if there is anything to be done about it. It has also come to another strange and sad epiphany.

I am not the type of person that people stay with.

While I've wanted nothing else in this world than to be loved, I really want someone to love me with longevity. Yes, I have my family there for me...but sometimes that feels cursory. This is where the "cheated" thing comes in. My brother for example... while he has been paying rent for the past two months, he only pays $150 a month, which barely covers the food expenses that I have trying to make sure that he has something to eat. I wouldn't feel that bad about it if he did chores around the house, but he doesn't. So I am the one who does the chores, I am the one who pays all the bills....and if I have a lapse of cleaning, Jimmy will still sneer at the dirty dishes and give me a look that says "why haven't you done this?" He will insist that he doesn't do this, but he does. And rather than waste my breath yelling at him to do this and that, I just suck it up and do it myself. If he isn't going to meet me half-way why bother getting him to try? Some days I love having him live with me, and I wistfully think about how we will probably live together always and how nice that will be. la de da. The reality of the situation is that he will live with me for as long as he can (with me taking care of him) and then he will leave when he is tired of me.

He will leave like everyone else does.

Back to the idea of why I am the person that no one stays with, it also comes down to what I offer in a relationship. What I have to offer, no one wants to share....not even with a child. I offer a space where everything is done for you, and attention is constantly paid to your needs....I hardly ever complain and when I do I can be easily quieted with a small token or a word. And who wants to share a situation where the world revolves around themselves? Mr.3 sure as hell didn't. In fact, that is why he kept stringing me along, I offered a world that he did not want to share and keeping me in my little glass bubble is appealing. Jimmy doesn't want to share me either, and PNG picked up on that....which is why he asked if my brother was awake the other night when he wanted to come over. PNG didn't want to share either.....and by coming to me whenever it fits into his schedule also shows that he just wants to visit my glass bubble, to enjoy his time there, but not to share it, not to let others know. I don't see it as being shunned but more of a situation where I am a pleasant secret to be kept locked and hidden away.

I feel like I offer a service. And while I will smile when you want me to and keep the house clean and give you sanctuary....I feel cheated the whole time. Those tokens that I am so easily quieted with last a short time....I'll still be mad, but I will never tell you about it. I'll still feel hurt, but you will never see it. All I have ever asked is to be met with half-way in any relationship, and I can never seem to get that offered back to me. I see my friends in their relationships committing what I would cite as "mistakes", they complain too much, they cry to much, they wear all of their flaws on their sleeves....and somehow they can get people to love and stay with them. I have these flaws too....but no one stays around long enough to see....I'm just as fragile, just as deserving of being taken seriously, and just as deserving of having someone take care of me....but no one stays to see it. It is so tiring having to be alone, do everything alone, and knowing that when I choose to start a family, I will have to do that alone as well.

So I guess my question in all of this is, now that I have identified that I feel cheated in most things....can that even be changed? What is the point of recognizing something like that in yourself when there is little hope of changing for the better? And perhaps the more indignant question: why do I have to be the one to change? I feel cheated in this as well....because it is all down to me, again..down to me to take care of myself, because (can we all chime in on this one?...) no one else will.

In the meantime, this is the second time in two days that I have watched the sunrise from my bedroom window. Oh, to just be able to be still....

Roller Derby and More!

So I went to roller derby with Ryan and Stephanie last night. We sat in the suicide area which is on the floor just on the edge of the rink. It was a blast and I definitely am going to go back. It was also interesting to see several people that I knew there: my doctor, a former MALer from BYU, and a guy that I met ages ago at a party at Stephanie's (he was one of the announcers). Even though I had a couple of beers I kept reminding myself that I really should cut my drinking down since I've come back from Budapest. It really isn't that bad, but it could easily get worse.

I got home about 9:30pm, did my GV work for the day, and then headed to bed while lamenting that I still looked damn good and that it was a shame that I didn't have anyone or anything else to do.

At 4:42am I get a text message from someone I am going to refer to as PNG (possible new guy), asking if I was still awake and if my brother is asleep. What my brother has to do with PNG coming over is beyond me. And for the next half hour or so there were several messages back and forth as to whether or not he was going to come over. There were a couple of issues surrounding this....one, the obvious, was that I was being woken out of a dead sleep. Two, was that this seemed to be just a booty call---don't get me wrong, I don't quite mind that, in fact part of the slowness in my replies was trying to decide to what degree I was going to get laid in this situation. I know that it sounds rather crude, but if he was just coming over for a bj and I wasn't going to get anything out of it, I don't really want to waste my time.... of course, this touches on an issue of me feeling "cheated" in various situations in my life that my therapist has been bringing up.

Anyway, by the end of the text conversation he was going to go and get food with his friends and call me back in the afternoon....so no action for me and I am seriously doubting that he will call me back. While I would like for him to call me....I'm just not sure what is up with him. And after asking him out with no answer back from him earlier this week, I am going to make sure that he is the next one to make an offer. If the relationship he wants to have is just a physical one, I am alright with that...I'm just not alright with being woken up at 5 am for a 'session'.

The sad thing is, was that by the end of our text conversation, I had gotten up and was trying to spruce myself up a bit. I had slept in my makeup and my hair was still in pig-tails, so my mascara was smeared a bit and my hair was pointed in difference directions. The worst thing though was that I had fallen asleep with my head on my hand and the blue hand stamp from roller derby has transferred itself to my face in a big blue smeary smudge.

Truly sexy. Oh yeah.

Word of Mouth

Yesterday I was interviewed by the New Hampshire Public Radio Show called Word of Mouth about recent articles on Global Voices.

I am my own worst critic and I thought that I did horribly, but it improves when I listen to it again and pretend that it isn't me speaking.

In any case, they liked me and I am booked for another segment on July 30th (my birthday)! So I guess that I wasn't that bad....

Waterboarding

Mr.3 once told me that he was waterboarded in S.E.R.E. school. And of course, we can no longer be sure if what he told me about that was true or not.... however, Vanity Fair author Christopher Hitchens can. Read the article and be sure to watch the video. It is amazing how such slight adaptations to the human body can create such terrible results. This also goes out to those (*cough cough Rumsfeld*)that think that forced standing isn't that much of a torture either.

Leaving the Pill Behind

Even though I have not had "relations" since Mr.3 left in January 2007, I have been still taking birth control....until this last month when I stopped. There are many reasons why, one of them being that for a while I felt like I would never ever find someone who would be willing to sleep with me again...but that has past. No, the more practical reasons were that I don't need to put my body through that hormonal stress if I don't have to. Birth control pills can make you gain weight and increases the amount of yeast that stays in your guts. Being a big girl, yeast is a constant issue....especially after the antibiotics from my ear infections ravaged my system---my GI track still has not recovered. As to weight and the pill, health-wise I need to lose weight if I want to have a baby some day, removing the pill (which I was starting to forget to take on a daily basis anyway) only makes sense in that long-term goal that I have.

Issues with stopping the pill...periods. On the pill, practically no periods or they lasted for one day. Without the pill, things are back to how they used to be...several days. It will take me a while to get used to this again.

As a strange side-note, I met a man last Friday. He is Hindu and, for reasons that I blush to discuss, the issue of me starting my period on Saturday has come up. So I started to look into the issue of how Hinduism treats the topic of menstruation. In Christian tradition women menstruate as a punishment for Eve...beware, don't get me started on the topic of original sin! In Hindu tradition menstruation comes from a negotiation:

In Hinduism, where rules of untouchability could be vast and complex, bleeding women were expected to avoid worship, cooking, and members of their own family through restrictions that were precisely proscribed; according to the Vendidad (16.4), a woman in her menses "should keep fifteen paces from fire, fifteen from water … and three paces from a holy man." Visiting a consecrated holy place during menses was highly contaminating and therefore forbidden, as were women's involvement in ritualistic worship practices in general. Such a stigma was explained in part by the Bhagavata Purana, which described the menstrual cycle as constituting a partial karmic reaction to Indra's inadvertent killing of a brahmana; according to the text, after Indra killed the brahmana, he proceeded to negotiate with four groups who agreed to absorb one-quarter of the karmic reaction in exchange for a blessing. Women received the blessing of engaging in sex during pregnancy without endangering the embryo in exchange for accepting the monthly menstrual cycle.

I find this interesting as at least it isn't woman's fault in one way or another. But of course women during this time are commonly still considered as "unclean". Husbands are not supposed to share the same bed with them, they aren't allowed to prepare food or do chores, and they aren't supposed to talk to a Brahman priest or participate in temple services. As my friend is of that caste I am going to ask him about this....but after my period is through in the effort of cultural sensitivity. In any case, it is still better than women are treated in the Jewish tradition...

Leviticus stated that while menstruating, a woman would be considered unclean for seven days and anyone who touched her would also be unclean. The taboo continued to be recognized by Orthodox Jews, who relegated bleeding women to their own secluded sphere or enjoined them to abstain from sexual intercourse for seven days, followed by immersion in the mikveh, or ritual bath. Such isolation accorded with what was thought to be women's special burdens-

Of course, in the effort of understanding the culture more of my new friend I have started reading up more on Hinduism, which has proved to be enlightening so far...

EDIT: See Within/Without's take on the subject and the comment war that follows.

Malie, Our Beloved Uromastyx Has Died

My poor brother. His Uromastyx died today. It is hard to see him have to deal with another pet loss...you might remember Fred the chameloen who died earlier in the year.

While the death of Fred was a struggle within the animal kingdom and a case of survival of the fittest, poor Malie's demise was ultimately due to gravity. He had started a digging expedition on a scale that we had not seen before. Sometime between 5pm when I last saw him moving about in my brother's room and 11pm when my brother discovered him after work, Malie had dug underneath a slate rock fixture in his tank. The slate was shifted and apparently crashed down upon Malie's neck and snapped it.

Jimmy is inconsolable. He was expecting to have Malie with him for the next 18-20 years. He also loved Malie more than any other pets that he has had. I loved Malie too, and it will be strange not to go into my brother's room and call his name out. "Maa-lie! Malie, Malie, Malie!" (He would pop his head up and look at you whenever you did that.) Some of you who have been to the house have met Malie. His personality was infectious, he was inquisitive and playful, it was like we had a puppy dog trapped inside a lizard's body. He even had a leash.

When Fred died, Jimmy was able to have his anger. His anger at the frog who ate Fred helped him get through it. This time he doesn't have that. Malie was just being Malie and something bad happened. It was oddly disconcerting to watch my brother weep and wail, sitting on the bathroom floor clutching Malie to his chest--Malie's head just sort of flopped backwards at an strange angle. And while my heart wanted to be there consoling my little brother, I couldn't watch him....so I called my Mom instead to tell her the news.

Luckily Jimmy is out with a friend who will hopefully be able to cheer him up or console him or whatever he needs right now. I am trying to get over the emotion of the situation so that I can go back to sleep. Not only does Jimmy's pets need to stop dying in tragic ways, but they also need to not do it when I am in a dead (excuse the pun) sleep. The house doesn't feel the same way it did after Fred died though. Maybe because this death was a more natural one. It is at times like these that I wonder how I will take it when my turtles will die. But I've been waiting for them to die for years. I find it hard to watch them grow into this really old age that they are in.

I'm not sure which is worse. The slow decline and dying of an old animal, or the swift death of a new pet in the family. For Jimmy, the loss of Malie goes deeper than I even realized. Jimmy has asked me to look into cremation services for Malie. I've found a couple of places that I will call in the morning. For the moment, Malie is inside the shoebox that my wedding heels were in, and the box is inside our deep freeze. Yes....and the crass joke that we all want to make, is that by morning we will have a lizard Popsicle in there. So you can laugh now since I made the joke. Humor gets me through these types of things, but I don't think that it will work this time with Jimmy.

Replacing Malie is going to be hard. Not only because of the special place that he filled in our hearts, but because Uromastyxs are hard to come by in general. Jimmy will have to wait until September for the Reptile Expo to get new ones. In fact just before he had discovered Malie, he was saying goodnight to me and wistfully telling me about how he was excited that he was going to be able to get Malie some friends to play with. Jimmy also (as within the past two days) just started a Uromastyx website and forum- he bought the domains and everything. He also has about 5 books on Uromastyxs coming in the mail. I guess that we will have to deal with those things when they come up, but the pain from Malie's loss is going to last a while.

So in the meantime, I am going to find some photos of Malie to put into this post, and continue with my research into pet cremation options. I guess that I could add pet funeral director to my resume.

Snippets of Conversation from Dinner

Jimmy: I like the Blue Ranger best, he was the sensitive geeky type.
Me: The geeky types always seem to be the ones that save the world in the end.
Jimmy: Yeah! He was always the one who said "Hey guys, lets take a step back and look at the situation"
Me: While the Red Ranger just wanted to go in and kick everyone's ass.
Jimmy: I wonder if the Blue Ranger ever got it on the Yellow Ranger...?

...........................
Me: You know I really appreciated how on Power Rangers, when they were in the costumes, you could always tell who was talking by their over-exaggerated body movements.

.............................
Jimmy: I shouldn't have sold those Power Ranger dolls....
Me: But they were totally trashed!
Jimmy: That makes them vintage....
-pause-
Jimmy: Besides, they were more jointed and could move them around more. They were more flexible than my artists model thingy. I want to pose it different ways but I would break it.
Me: Yeah they did have flexible ankles.
Jimmy: They were big too....like 10 inches tall. I wonder if I could find one and make it into a zombie?
Me: (singing) Zombie Rangers.....eating mortal brains on the side
Jimmy: (singing) Go go Zombie Rangers! Do doo do dup!

...................... and a little while after dinner.........
Jimmy: I really should just memorize my credit card number.
Me: No, you don't want to do that, what if someone gives you a truth serum...
Jimmy: Debbie, shut up! No one is going to give me a truth serum.
Me: But, but what if they did....then you would be giving out your number, and they would know it....
Jimmy: I don't think that those exist..
Me: You never know....it could happen when you least expect it.

Ga Ga Over the Idea of an Audio GV

Driving down to Cedar City today we were listening to Queen at full volume in the car. The song Radio Ga Ga came on and while I was singing at full volume to it I started thinking about how the lyrics applied to a recent conversation that we were having on the GV authors list about an audio version of GV.

We watch the shows -- we watch the stars
On videos for hours and hours
We hardly need to use our ears
How music changes through the years

The concern that started the debate was that an audio version of the GV site could be a benefit to those with disabilities...and not only those with visual impairments would benefit. My little brother has a learning disability and reading comes very hard to him. When I mentioned the idea to him (of reading individual posts from GV) he was all over it. He wants to know more about what I do, but he doesn't have the stamina to read though it. I recorded a demo reading of a post that I did (it is a very rough demo--the ceiling fan interfered with the audio) but he really enjoyed it.

Let's hope you never leave old friend
Like all good things on you we depend
So stick around cos we might miss you
When we grow tired of all this visual
You had your time, you had the power
You've yet to have your finest hour

The real problem is how to implement an audio version of GV? It would be ideal to have each post read....but the man power and time would be a huge labor of love. I wouldn't mind doing some of it, but I know that I don't have the time to record every post. However, I have a couple ideas of what could be done to include more audio on GV.

1. A story of the day podcast. NPR has a similar podcast that I subscribe to in which a story is singled out as the most interesting of the day. This could be done for GV, and it would be an opportunity to not only showcase featured stories, but we could feature stories from the other GV franchises: Lingua, Advocacy, Voices Without Votes, and Rising Voices.
2. A weekly show about what was featured on GV. This wouldn't have to be re-reading of the stories but a short summary of them, much like a regular radio show, and music could be included and all of that.

Next issue, is who would do the two things above? Most likely the podcast editor, who has had a difficult job already trying to find podcast content from around the world (It requires alot of listening!) . These two ideas would make the podcast editor's job a little easier with finding content and being able to supply consistent content, while compiling other information for a world podcast roundup.

I think that I will leave it here for the moment, but I welcome thoughts and comments.

Further Proof that I Kick Ass!

Like I really needed to give further proof.... :)

Today in yoga class my instructor announces that we are all going to try inverted handstands. Of course everyone in the room looked as paniked about it as I felt, but in the spirit of being adventurous I tried it.

And I did it.

Oh yeah....me and my large and weighty bum got in the air and I found that I could stay in the pose for just as long as the rest of my classmates. So in order to prove it (I raved about my coolness on Twitter) I have photo evidence. Of course the photo adds to my awesomeness as I look like the girl who got folded into two in the horror movie One Missed Call (see the original Japanese version---much better than the American).

Cool isn't it?
Jimmy tried to do it as well, and while he can hold in a full handstand he doesn't have the core muscles to do the table inverted stand that I did. If you want to see photos of him, you can see my flickr account.

Doctors, Doctors and more Doctors

I see an endochronologist every year, and last year I made an appointment for a year in advance because sometimes they get backlogged in appointments if you call later. Sometime in March I received a message saying that the doctor for my July appointment had been changed.

No big deal really.

Then a few weeks ago I get a letter saying that my appointment has been canceled due to a conflict in the new doctor's schedule and that I need to call in. I didn't because I was lazy.

The doctor's office left a phone message for me today, so I thought that I should probably call in and reschedule. Know what I found out? They apparently switched doctors on me because my current doctor no longer takes appointments on Tuesdays.

Why they just couldn't have rescheduled the appointment to begin with rather than decide to entirely change doctors is beyond me.

So now I am back with the original doctor, on a Monday.
Silly rabbits.

Ana Wahida :(

Some numbnuts wrote a piece in the Washington Post calling the Al-Kitaab Arabic Language Series as propagandistic. Which is silly, because it isn't. And because Maha (the title character) is a little on the depressed side he classifies the series as an "indoctrination into misery" of the Arab mindset. I am not exactly sure what the author wants the series to be more like....I really don't think that you can say that being an Arab in post 9-11 New York is that much better than pre-9/11. KABOBfest has more on this article. All I can really say is ...

STOP PICKING ON MAHA!

She has enough on her plate, it is hard being her.

Pictures of My Brother's Hair

My brother has been known to change his hair styles quite often. Recently his hair has been jet black, but apparently he doesn't like it.

Jimmy's hair the morning of July 4th.

So he decided to go blond. Yes, I know, from black to blonde. Lots of bleach was involved and the end result was a multicolored orangutan. Stupidly he asked me to shave his head, which resulted in what looked like a bald spot with the way his hair was dyed.



We called in his friend Nick to fix the problem.


After alot of this....

....he was left pretty short.

He has since dyed his hair to red.

Hair Dye

My brother is dying his hair again....now going from black to white...and then later back to red. I still think that his hair is just going to fall out but he insists that it will not. I will let you know if it does.

So I come into the bathroom to brush my teeth after having corn for lunch and he is standing there looking perplexed at the instructions. He gives me this pleading look wanting me to help him. I look over his shoulder to see....

"Hey, do you realize that those instructions are in Spanish?"

Problem solved.

Bollywood Dance Class

So during the summit our beloved Neha taught us all how to dance Bollywood style. The above video is hilarious to see anyway because of the way that the subtitles were added in. Joining into the dance was more fun though. So far there are two videos of the dance session: one on dotsub (you have to register for it) and on drop.io (password gVb0llyWoodWorkshop).

The trick to Bollywood dancing? Just follow the directions: Screw in the lightbulb and pet your dog! Hand out the plates, hand out the plates, hand out the plates....now pour the drinks, pour the drinks!

Thank god for video, it helps a bit in those "you just had to be there"moments.

The photo is Jillian York "handing out the plates" courtesy of Neha.

Back Home

Budapest was incredibly tiring but fun. When Libby picked me up at the airport she said that I looked exhausted but relaxed.

Relaxed?

I guess that I am. Although I don't think that I have been relaxed in ages. I wonder when that transition happened? I hope that it wasn't between the 3 long islands iced tea and getting felt up by the 5 British bachelor's party guys, because that is not going to happen very often.

I did get really energized about Global Voices and I have a whole slew of projects that I want to start working on. And of course I have to add these things into my busy schedule....although at the moment I feel like I am starting at square one with my schedule....hence me spending all day in my bedroom on my computer trying to get caught up on stuff.

Lots of funny things happened at the conference, most of which I will post about a little later....just keep yourself ready for Benny Lava!