11.18.2000

.. lets see..
i downloaded netscape 6 yesterday thinking it was going to be some magical browser.. thinking i was going to be able to see lots of cool stuff with it.. but nooooooooooooo.. i can't see flash with it.. apparently flash doesn't work right now with netscape 6.. i went to beatles.com to look around, i was inspired to head there because i'd just seen a really cool documentary on abc (btw.. i couldn't believe how many beatles songs i knew! they kept playing all these beatles songs as background and i knew about 80% of the songs.. i felt pretty hip :) ).. but i couldn't see the site, because its all in flash.. *grrr*

i think it must be nesting time or something.. or hibernating time.. or something.. the four of us, 4 being lily, max, ava and i, seem to be spending lots of time sleeping and curled up with each other. the last 4 mornings in a row i've woken up with all three on me.. and today i was sitting on the couch and next thing i knew they were all curled up together.. max on the outside edge of the couch, lily in the middle and ava on the inside of the couch with her head on lily's back (btw, lily, max and ava are cats).. it was the first time they'd done that with my knowledge.. i kept thinking "if only i had a camera!"

sidelight lily, max, and ava.. lily was the first cat i got as an adult. i just moved back to blacksburg, va- my hometown- after completing grad school at the university of georgia.. katy went back to my mother's house to live, as she was happier living in a bigger place, so i decided it was time to start a new generation of robertshaw cats.. i went to the Humane Society of Montgomery County with the names lily and ezemerelda in my head.. i walked in and saw this beautiful gray and white cat and said "thats lily!".. and lo and behold a week later she came home with me, purring all the way :) she is the mama cat in my bunch. ever so playful and loving. she is the favorite cat of my building (at least the front side of the building). lily's full name is meow lily bear
max came to lily and i 3 mos after lily came to live with me. i wanted a kitten. he was 5.5 weeks old when i got him. he came from an ad in the paper for free kittens. lily took to him instantly.. she used to hold him down and lick him.. when she first did this i thought she was trying to kill him, but then my brother's partner pointed out that she was actually licking him.. a great relief to me, because now i could trust them together. i call max aloof, my friends tell me that he is quite friendly.. he's just aloof compared to lily and ava. max's full name is maxthenew river.. he's named after the new river, my home river (even living 3000 miles away from it, the new river will *always* be my home river)..
lily and max travled across country with me (2900 miles in my truck), moved 3 times during the first 9 months of living here, and settled in to our apt that we've been living in now for 1.5 years..
in may of this year got a hankering to get *another* cat.. thats when ava pearl came into our lives.. i went to the greenhill humane society to find ava.. i looked around at various cats, picked up a few, liked a few, but when i put them with other cats they didn't react well.. a woman was holding the cat who would be ava, she wasn't serious about finding a cat, and she said "here, this one is really sweet" .. well, i got ava in my arms and fell in love. she worked well with other cats, and 20 minutes later she and i were on our way home. *happy sigh* i don't have a picture, so-- she is all white, rather small, nubly tail (she was born that way) with a black spot on her head. after two weeks of hissing and all that lily and max accepted ava. ava's full name is ava pearl skymoon..
as of this writing lily has just turned 3 years old, max 2.5 years, and ava is 13 months old. end rather long sidelight

my grandmother has been diagnosed with cirhossis of the liver.. they aren't giving her a life expectancy, but my ma says its at least a year.. i found this at view from the heart, a blog written by a critical care nurse:

Death by liver failure is long, agonizing, and without transplant pretty much as final an exit as you could wish. As the body loses it's clotting factors, the patients begin to bleed. Bruises appear seemingly out of thin air. Nosebleeds become torrents. The skin turns yellow, then almost orange as bilirubin levels build. Their mental faculties fail, and sedatives are generally not given. It's a pretty nasty way to go (as if any death is particularly pleasant).

i'll leave it to my family to read it here if they read this blog.. its not something i really see a need to send them as its not good reading.

this has been long.. i admire you if you've read this far. i've been reading the warrior's blog and her mother's blog.. i'm sending thoughts their way.

-mbr, brooke@rivervision.com

-mbr, brooke@rivervision.com
posted by m. brooke r 9:50 PM
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11.17.2000

hmm.. for those of you who have never driven a car in the state of oregon you won't know about the gas pumping law.. you see, in the state of oregon it is illegal to pump your own gas at a gas station.. apparently folks go through some sort of training in order to be able to pump gas.. sounds crazy, i know.. but thats the situation that i've learned to live with.. i've learned to plan 10 minutes for a stop at the gas station, instead of my georgia-virginia-living-self 2-5 minutes. i've come to appreciate it, i can sit and read while its taking place, if i've got a friend in the car she and i can continue to talk, etc.. its a nice thing when my dad comes to visit, because i spend more time with him and show him one visible pecularity about living in oregon..

but there are those gas stations who won't let me enjoy my reading material or my friend.. and today was one.

sidelight... you see, i was/am a kayaker. not sure if i still am, as i've hardly done any boating in the last 2 years since i've lived out here. i bought a canoe in march of this year thinking that would jump start my interest in paddling again, and thinking it would help me loose all of this weight..
another sidelight .. the weight.. yes, this awful weight. last june (of 99) i got put on some drugs to help me battle an illness that i suffer from.. in going on these drugs, the one thing i stressed over and over was weight gain, and how i needed to watch it.. well, in august of 99 i discovered i was gaining wait.. gaining more and more and more.. the dr that i was seeing at the time heard about this weight gain and never said anything. well, in february of this year (2000) i had another symptom pop up, which he said couldn't be because of the drugs i was on, because i was on too little of a dosage.. i also did some reading in february and discovered that lo and behold one of the drugs that i was on caused large amounts of weight gain.. my dr repsonded with the you are too low of a dosage for it to matter.. well, i disagreed and went off the drug (it wasn't doing anything, except causing this awful weight gain).. then we discovered that this second symptom that had popped up (due to different drug.. yes, i was on 3 at one point) was being caused by the drug that i was on.. well.. after going off both drugs (and eventually the third one) i've gained very little weight (even with my eating habits being crap, and my exercise habits being crap) and this second symptom has gone away.. so that leads us back to the kayaking/canoeing end second sidelight
anyhow, this awful weight that i've put on, i thought getting the canoe would be an impetus to loose it. fyi, i've been paddling whitewater on and off for about 13 years now.. at one point i was one of the top junior whitewater slalom racers (came in 3rd at the 1991 jr. national whitewater slalom championships).. in fact in 1992 i raced in the olympic trials.. so, paddling seemed natural. i'm good at it, even though i've not done much, i feel comfortable on the water, even in a canoe. i know about being on the water.. but it hasn't been ment to be.. i don't know why and i'm not sure i want to talk about it. in fact, i really don't want too. my hope is that one day i will feel comfy, and i will loose this weight and i will eventually feel the joy of being on the river once again... end first sidelight

anyhow, today the gas station attendant wanted to talk about kayaking, and i simply did not want to talk about it. its not something i talk about, espically to strangers. its only something i talk about when i want my life to seem more exciting than it really isn't. he was a jerk about me not wanting to talk about it.. i just don't get people who don't pick up that you really aren't in a talking mood.

so, thats what happened today. and thats also an explanation about something that folks who have just met me don't know anything about. they don't realize that under this body of flab is really the heart of an athlete.. one who doesn't exercise to loose weight, but one who happens to love activities that are physical.. and one who is frustrated about the fact that she can't do any of those physical activities she enjoys so much.

-mbr, brooke@rivervision.com
-mbr, brooke@rivervision.com
posted by m. brooke r 3:05 PM
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11.16.2000

collective rage is the phrase that keeps coming into my head lately.. the other night i was at a dinner for NO on 9 steering committee members and NO on 9 super volunteers... our field staff person had come down from portland for the dinner and was telling us a story of a man who had come into the portland campaign office after the election.. apparently the man had a sign that said some pretty awful things about lon mabon (thats him, over there on the left).. he asked to be taken to lon mabon's house so that he could picket the place and yell all sorts of things.. the reaction of most people in the room was that this was rather funny, but really not an appropriate thing to do.. my reaction was the opposite.. i got all serious and talked about how we needed folks like him, as much as we need folks like the NO on 9 campaign and groups like glsen (gay, lesbian, straight education network) and pflag... afterwards i continued to think about the man.. and thats when the term collective rage started floating around in my head.. people like lon mabon make us angry, and whats so wrong with that? and whats so wrong with expressing that? and whats so wrong with expressing that in a public forum.. yeah, if its just a small group expressing their anger then no, its not effective.. because that small group would look like a bunch of crazies.. and we really don't want that.. but if a larger group.. lets say 100 people publicly express their anger at the actions of lon mabon then maybe folks would take it more seriously.. then maybe this group of angry citizens wouldn't be deemed a group of crazies.. then maybe, even with a group as small as 100 people, we could start expressing our anger at lon mabon. because i think we are all angry at lon mabon. i mean, how can you not be? even if you express it differently, down deep there has to be some anger that people feel about lon mabon's actions. i can attest that he has made me angry, and he continues to make me angry.. i know, i know, but what is anger going to do? anger is a powerful emotion. if used for good it can be very useful. it can launch people into action. it can bring people together as one united front. again, i throw out the term collective rage.. i'm not sure what i'm getting at.. maybe i'm getting at some sort of political action that the people of oregon need to take. i have this crazy notion that if all 758,000 people who voted to defeat lon mabon and his hate mongering yet again were to gather together and show him how angry we are that he continues to do this that maybe he would stop. if all 758,000 of us were to gather together and do something crazy like stand outside his house and yell things and carry signs then maybe he would stop? 758,000 is a large number. its a lot of people. its a lot of people showing anger.. and if you've got that many people can you really say its a group of crazies? or can you say its over half the state of oregon saying NO to this. saying that this kind of hate and ignorance is no longer tolerable. saying that we won't stand for it, that its not about a freedom of speech issue or a freedom of democracy issue for a man like lon mabon, because what his goal is is to take away our freedom of speech, our freedom to exist without hate, our freedom to live without right wing religion dictating our lives. so yeah, lets all get together and show lon mabon some collective rage.. lets express some of our true emotions back at him.
-mbr, brooke@rivervision.com
-mbr, brooke@rivervision.com
posted by m. brooke r 10:55 AM
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11.15.2000

.. its now wednesday after the election.. agh.. this election stuff is getting rather old.. i'm ready for it to be over.. for all our lives to go back to some normalcy.. agh.. for some reason i can't seem to relax until all the votes are counted.. i've been looking at this damned 99% counted here in oregon since, what, thursday, friday?? not that i'm all that concerned about the presidential election.. bush will be it, our country will go to pot.. and he won't be reelected in 4 years.. i guess its good ol' measure 9. i'm wanting know the final counts on measure 9..

but, what is going on besides the election? not much. my cats. this morning i woke up and all three were curled up on different parts of my body. ava, in her typical style, was up on my chest, right where i could pet her easily. lily on my belly.. and max in his favorite spot at my feet. i didn't want to get up this morning because i was enjoying it too much. i stayed in bed waaaay tooooo long.. luckily they all made a collective decision to get up, and i realized i had to get up.. which i did, rather reluctantly..

wish i had an interesting thought to share here.. but i've not seen any that have really caught my eye..

-mbr
-mbr, brooke@rivervision.com
posted by m. brooke r 10:47 AM
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11.14.2000

..okay.. 99% of the votes in oregon are counted.

measure 9.. we are defeating it by a margin of 76,900 votes.. thats a 53/47% split.. unfortunately, the last 1% of the votes come from a conservative county.. josephine i think.. i'm getting a little fed up, they need to have their votes counted by now.

i'm coming off a post election high.. i think. the last few days have just been nuts.. people who's faces i know, but names i don't, are coming up to me and congratulating me for a job well done.. its been nice, lots of hugs.. i went to soromundi practice (the lesbian chorus of eugene) on thursday for only the second time since september.. we all sat down and the word went around "brooke's back".. whoah.. that was pretty incredible.. needless to say they all clapped for me.. blown away i must say..

saturday was spent at the mother kali's bookstore 25th anniversary party.. mk's is a feminist bookstore, one of the few left.. needless to say, it was an exciting day.. got to see lots and lots of folks. met e greenlaw-- one of the founders of the store. it was incredible to meet her. i wouldn't have come to eugene w/o mama k's. i didn't want the day to end. my heart-filled thanks go out to the dedicated group of women who made this event happen.. and also to the group of women who keep this bookstore open.

thats it for now.. a ruling just came from florida-- the hand counting won't happen. george w. bush might be president by the end of today. FUCK.
-mbr, brooke@rivervision.com
posted by m. brooke r 11:16 AM
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sites i read daily:
salon.com
cnn.com
usenet: rec.boats.paddle
usenet: soc.women.lesbian-and-bi

other important sites:
mother kalis books
rainy day records
population, environment, abortion, religion, and fatherhood
alix olson
wnba
the equality project
gay, lesbian, straight education network
pflag
american whitewater
ms. magazine
off our backs
the eugene weekly
"Finally Free" Personal Stories on Ex-Gay Ministries (this is a pdf file)

other web logs i read
living colours
viewfromtheheart