total convenience and flowers seven days milk:

Me: Hey, fishwhistle! Look at this! The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is back in fashion again!

Fishwhistle, skeptically: ...

Me: No, look! It's right here in the Times! Man, you wait long enough, any old idea comes around again.

Fishwhistle, speedily: The flat earth theory?

Me, after an awkward pause: Just wait. I bet sooner or later some bit of string theory or fancy programing language will require a flat-earth frame of reference.

Fishwhistle, grumpily: ...

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In other news, today is Getting Ready for Grape-Juice-Making-Day Day, and sheep poop was involved. Tomorrow is the Great Day of Grape Juice itself, and if you can get here in the next week or so - because the juice only lasts about three weeks - we would be delighted to give you some. It's usually pretty good and we always have way more than we can drink. And this year, because we have hired ourselves a Hired Hand, we will have more than usual - in previous years we've gotten too tired to go on before we've juiced even half the ridiculously large amount of otherwise-inedible grapes from the back yard.

It's been a good year for the grapes, too. Also beets (last week I made myself quite ill by eating a couple of pounds of beet tzatziki and pretty much nothing else over the course of 36 hours or so, but it was so good! Not quite as good as the beet tzatziki that idlerat makes, but pretty close) and onions, most herbs except cilantro, garlic, cape gooseberries, chard, raspberries, arugala, rhubarb and chiles. Not so good for tomatoes, lettuce, and apricots, but no summer is perfect, right? And since I was too crippled to do much besides stick everything in the ground and hope for the best, it's amazing we got anything at all.

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In other other news, my ex-girlfriend (some people referred to her at the time as the Spawn of Satan, which was possibly a slander on some of Satan's other children, but never mind that now) has been for some time the chief drama critic for a high-circulation tabloid newspaper in a Major Metropolitan Area, which is kind of hilarious as long as you have no connection to whatever it is she's reviewing. But now, sources tell me, she is also contributing criticism to NPR. I've been listening and listening - even going so far as to Google - but so far nothing. I will keep you posted.

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And finally, a little further away, a way-too-brief visit to the New York Area reminded me that the best thing about New York is not the art or the walking around or the shopping or the brilliant acupuncture (check out People's Acupuncture of Brooklyn, the beauty and helpfulness of which I cannot even describe in words) or the fabulous music of many descriptions, much of it made by friends, or even the astonishing food (and there was some truly astonishing food, the best of which came from the gardens and/or kitchens of friends) but the chance to just hang out with the people I love. I miss you all already! Thank you so much for the wonderful acupuncture treatment and music and food and letting me stay in your apartments and most of all your company!

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And now to rinse off the sheep poop and boil some more jars. Hey look! I posted!




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The Center for Anti-Violence Education (under whose umbrella is Brooklyn Women's Martial Arts, where I trained for many years) is having a fund-raiser. This is the organization that saved my life. That's not a metaphor, not an exaggeration. They taught me how to connect my spirit to my mind to my body. They taught me what "anti-racism" means. They taught me to yell. They taught me I have a self worth defending. Lately I've been leaning extra hard on what I learned there, for reasons some of you will understand. I'll send them what I can. Could you? Thanks.

Here's the link.

A sequence of linkages that began with the sad discovery that I can only download from Rhapsody while in the U.S., and continued through the not terribly informative webpage of a semi-obscure downtown-NY 1980s band, ended with my finding the blog of my ex-wife. It's a pretty good blog, actually. She's still super-adjectival and prone to pointless dissing of lesbians, but otherwise, okay. She's certainly far better as a blogger than as a life partner.

So that was my day. How are you?