Off to Zion

Its time. I went for a walk today in Sugarhouse Park and I realized that spring is just a few days away. There was a time, years ago, when that meant a trip to Zion with my friends. We tried to do something to mark the change of seasons. It was wonderful. It meant that we were able to keep in touch with each other and with nature.
This year I'll be going with Mike. It will be our first real and slow trip anywhere. I left my old job mid-January. It required me to work 6 days a week. The only trips we were able to take were the quick overnight kind. A long drive followed by stopping for pictures and very cold sunbathing, followed by a night of camping and hiking is just what I need to recharge my desert starved soul. I'm thinking about staying at the hot springs in LaVerkin or just off the road in Toquerville. I loved parking on a dirt road and just listening to the wind. I want to get wet in the streams and maybe even make a detour to Red Cliffs. I will do the requisite nude sunbathing, no matter how cold it is. Its spring in my heart, damn it.
Zion itself isn't strong in my remembrance. I remember driving it better than hiking it. So I expect any of the hikes we take will feel brand new. I may insist that we stop for pie at the restaraunt there though. I remember that.
On the way back, we may hit Parowan Gap. We've camped out there before but I want to hike up to the top and see if the fire pit we made way back when is still there. Of course I will be on the lookout for the elusive hot turkey sandwich. They used to be available at every cafe and truckstop. Nowadays I can't find a decent one anywhere. The closest to good I've had is in Tremonton. It tasted exactly like the ones we used to get for school lunch at Beaver High, right down to the dinner roll.
Of course I'll take my knitting and running shoes. Mike will spend hours photographing old road signs and bugs. I'll either do some sprints back and forth waiting for him or make a scarf or a hat or something.
It won't be the same though. I never thought that I'd miss the people I seemed to care so little about at the time. I guess I was so busy with school and being married and work it was easy to take their friendship for granted. Now things are settled and better than they've ever been and I have all the time in the world to go missing them. I saw Marjean when Bob took me out for my birthday lunch. She was drunk, but friendly. She wanted my number so we could get together. She still hasn't called. It would be swell to hang with MaryRuth. At this time of year I really miss her calm and whimsical energy. I don't think I'm likely to meet anyone nicer.
And then there are the guys. I miss the goofiness and the playfulness. The divorces mean that those times together can never happen again so I recognize that I seem to be stuck in some type of nostalgia loop. But man, I think I'm not going to be too hard on myself about it. Those were good times. I loved coming back to Gregg and Marjean's after a hike so tired I'd fall asleep watching videos with them. And the mess the watermelon made on the Cedar Canyon road when we threw it off the back of his jeep. We couldn't even hear the splat because the wind in our ears was so loud. I think of myself and how much I've changed. I was always so worried about following the rules. I really didn't know how to relax and have fun. Maybe thats why I like to remember those days. I could really appreciate that now. Hell, I'd even go skinnydipping. Take that Marjean.

Farenheit 451

Everyone in the household is sick. Today after work when others were napping, I read. I was surprised to find I'd never read this. Of course I found something in it with which to relate.

It was the bum's grandfather that really moved me. Bradbury's language always gets me going. My favorite of his writings is Dandelion Wine. 451 had a similar flavor. I think that was made me catch my breath at the mention of the grandfather. I'm not a philanthropist, I'll probably never have enough money to make a big difference. But the two paragraphs that describe the grandfather and the grandfather's philosophy and ethic echoed my own.

I'm not as good as a well written piece of surreal fiction, but the thing about Bradbury is that even though his premises are fiction, the people he places there are real.

Growing older

So today is just another Monday. I'm bummed about the election. I really really wanted HRC. I used to respect John McCain. Somehow he quit being John McCain and became a Republican party shill. Obama never really fired my imagination. He seems too hopeful and inspiring to actually get anything done. Sarah Palin, well, lets just say that at least she's pretty. For a pitbull.

I'm looking forward to autumn. I'm done at usps the end of the month. I expect to have adventures in blue collar work and maybe do some massage after that. I love working with my hands. I adore working with people. I want a job with a lot of social contact and flexibility for my yoga classes and running. Writing would be great too. Massage is wonderful but you just don't get interaction with clients. They usually are so zoned out or asleep you have to coax them off the table at the end of a session.

I need to start getting yearly mammograms, so I've got that going for me. I'm still looking for nice group of people to hang out with. I've decided to explore this poly-thing a little closer. It doesn't surprise me that people would get together to support each others ideas about sexual lifestyle. It does make me nervous. Sometimes I feel absurdly fringe. And I'm not even wiccan or any of the other billion things many people who live this way are. I expect I will engage with and adore them. Then our lives will take us all in different directions and we will adore each other from afar. In a way, I can't wait.

My ring is at the jeweler's. It is getting sized. I love it. I'm so happy to be marrying Mike. I anticipate each day the things we will do and discover together.

Oh, here's some of the bookmarks on my computer. Sometimes when I'm bored I go looking for anything new. Maybe you like that too.

http://lavenajohnson.com/
http://bloomingwriter.blogspot.com/
http://www.violentacres.com/
http://jezebel.com/5027322/we-cant-be-friends-because-your-girlfriend-says-so
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/
http://icanhascheezburger.com/

and my favorite
http://www.snuggie2u.blogspot.com/

Pi Time

To my fan: I need another tea bowl. I love that pale blue and tan glaze.

KTHNX

Cheating

I should be asleep. Yet here I am, at my desk, my left shoulder is throbbing and I can't bring myself to quit. I'm addicted.

I'm not overly concerned by it. I'm just running out the clock at this point. Mike has been super busy with Jim. Jim is a great friend of his from the most recent start up. They've been climbing mountains and drinking beer. I've been playing computer games and writing.

Jim leaves for the east tomorrow. I hope he enjoyed his visit. I have yet to get him a copy of The Monkeywrench Gang. I'll have to mail it. I wonder if he will like it.

There is just something about being a girl that's making me go sour. Maybe its not so much being a girl as being a girl friend. I felt like the third wheel around the boys this weekend. I'm not the type to get resentful easily, so it isn't a problem. But I was surprised to realize I was uneasy.

I didn't feel like either guy was tired of having me around or anything. I think it is just that I accept Mike has a life apart from me. Seeing him with one of his buddies placed him out of context. Also, since we are generally one of those sickening lovey-dovey kinds of couples, I was self conscious about affection. It seemed like high school again. Next time I get together with Steph I'll have to ask her if she's going thru a kind of deja vu also. Its probably just me because I tend to live a small life. Most of my friends have been situational. I hang out with Bob or sometimes visit with folk from work. Mostly I focus on them and what they think about things. Just like school, when we had lunch room friends. Now that I'm older and my kids are requiring less actual attention I feel the lack of relaxed easy going pals.

Mike has those in spades. The interesting thing is, he doesn't care. I suspect that this is because he is far more interesting than I am. I want outside stimulation. I love stories and "OMG, you won't believe this!" Mike is bored by that. Possibly its because amazing things happen to him all the time. He just wants to come home and relax. I want to mix it up. I like to be entertained.

I love the stories people relish telling. When I was doing massage and a man would get self conscious about his relaxation response, I would ask him about the first time he fell in love. It was amazing to see the change that would come over him. His face would soften and I would hear stories that always emphasized the beauty in people. Also, erections just disappeared. I loved that kind of work. It was a little bit sneaky. Thinking happy thoughts makes people happy. It built my rep as a great massage therapist, so I won't complain.

It seems that the error is most likely with me. It most likely wasn't that the dynamic was thrown off as much as I can't help being a girl. A very silly girl.

Hiking

Hiking has been looming large in my life as of late. I think I'll get one of those topo maps of the mountains surrounding Salt Lake. That way I can stick a pin in all the trails I'm coming to recognize. It will take me decades to explore even half of them.
The one thing I have learned about the local hiking trails is that they make me lonesome for southern Utah.
I didn't expect to miss it so much. I don't think I even really liked living there. But each morning I wake up listening for coyotes and if I'm up early enough, looking for stars. I miss the cat piss smell of the desert after a rain. I miss the thick grainy dust you could grind in your teeth, all red and sandy. Here dust is ugly grey. Its someone else's dirt. I miss the mud so thick it would suck your shoes off if you tried to cross it. I miss lightening storms and the smell of rain drifting across the desert with a lushness of cool. I miss the sudden smell of alfalfa and sound of farming sprinklers. I miss livestock. I miss the way they smell and especially they way they sound. I miss the clank of bells and chewing and lowing. I miss the call of peacocks. I miss the whine of a lone truck on the highway. I miss the hiking in the coolness of a pine forest. I miss the knee high grass of mountain meadows and sponginess of unexpected waterways. I almost never hear the hum of insects any more.

There is too much of everything in a city. There's too much money and noise and dirt. Theres too much demanding my time.
I love it here to, though. Against all odds I'm finding myself a part of this valley filled with strangers. I chat with the woman in the grocery store about the heavenly scent of ripe fresh tomatoes. I know the clerk at my local gas station. The faces in my neighborhood are familiar, if not well known. I like that. Sometimes, in the country, people get to know you too well. Actually I don't believe that. I don't think people can get to know each other too well. But in the city, it seems, people are more forgiving. There is so much more that requires patience, if not attention. Lines are longer, traffic is bigger, you don't even know the name of your mailman.

When I was growing up I wanted to get as far away from southern Utah as possible. I wanted to go somewhere where people did important things. I wanted to mingle with people like me, or like I thought I was. I thought a lot more of myself than there turned out to be.

Now all I really want is to go home. I want to live out on the road to the dump or something like it in a little desert town. I want the mountains and creeks and canyons and coolness to be 20 minutes away. I don't mind if the only grocery store in town closes at 8 p.m. on a Saturday night and isn't open at all on Sunday. I want to hear crickets and domestic geese and chickens. I want to hear coyotes call on a lonely evening and see jack rabbits fly across the road in front of my car. I want big hunks of red sandstone stained black with weather to lay down on when the sun is high in a pale blue sky. I want wood to chop and garden hoses gushing well water to grow my tomatoes. I want a clothesline so I can dry my clothes in all that beauty and then wear it on my back.

Body

I learned something today. True, I learn something most days, but today I learned that current law doesn't necessarily hold the idea that we own our bodies.

Apparently this thought was codified in 1976. It pertains to discoveries made from donated and excised tissues. Basically the idea is that once something is drawn out or cut off, it becomes the property of whomever it was that did the drawing/cutting or agents acting for another entity. This is basically the reason that medical research and development can move forward.

What an interesting concept. Firstly, as a feminist I can't help but think how this idea can be applied to a woman's right to chose when or if to become a parent. I'll assume that it isn't practical to do so because it hasn't. I haven't read the pertinent court cases lately but I seem to remember that the primary reason a woman is allowed abortion is to guarantee her right to privacy, not because she has right to rule over her own body.

So I guess its time to read some John Locke. I remember him from college classes. I can't believe that something as contemporary as current medical research is governed by law that predates the Constitution. I could understand it as a basis for newer rulings, much as we think back to the Magna Carta as a basis for individual rights and protections, but there has been at least hundreds of cases and interpretations that add to it.

As a consumer this approach makes me afraid.

A few years ago The Onion ran an article explaining that Microsoft had patented 1s and 0s. As far as I know patenting natural processes and genetic information is the closest thing to that spoof.