Disc 27!!

Warning: This post is going to be all over the place.

Coming down the home stretch for the end of this two week wait. My beta is scheduled for Monday morning. I've been feeling increasingly dizzy over the past three days and the amount of nausea that I have has also increased. There's also intermittent breast tenderness in there too (though definitely not as much before I miscarried).

I went to acupuncture and yoga yesterday. I think the acupuncture helped the dizziness. We were doing guided imagery in yoga though, and at one point, my teacher started talking about the ocean and a lotus blossom floating in the waves. Nausea City, people. Of course, then, for absolutely no reason, I started thinking about fried chicken and the nausea subsided. Darn, now I want fried chicken!
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This post's title refers to the fact that after a long, hard slog, I have finally made it to the last disc in my audiobook on the Korean War, The Coldest Winter by David Halberstam. DISC 27, baby!

I am a history buff, but generally concentrate on much earlier periods in Europe -- pretty much anywhere from the Middle Ages through the late 19th century. In my high school history class, we never got past the early stages of World War II, so I've always felt lacking in knowledge of the 1950s - 1970s.

David Halberstam's The Coldest Winter came highly recommended as a good study of the reasons for and actions during The Korean War. I genuinely enjoyed the book, but don't think it translates very well as an audiobook. Halberstam makes frequent digressions to talk about the personal histories of the main figures and this makes the reader lose place and confuse context.

I would like to give huge marks to the narrator, Scott Brick, who has a great, clear voice and speaks with just the right amount of feeling.
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So far, so good. John Dear is doing good at his new job. He's been getting up and out the door early to get to work on time, and he's determined to pull his fair share of the household responsibilities.

There are a few kinks that we need to work out, but I think that everything is going well (knock on wood).
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Today marks the start of IComLeaveWe for October. This comes at the perfect time to distract myself from the 2ww.

Here's where I've commented today:

One Day Two Day (it was her birthday! three weeks ago. whoops.)
Kitchen Stewardship (in response to an anti-abortion post)
Ship Full of Pirates (on her lemon curd recipe)
Not the Jet Set (on her baking mix recipe)
Simply Sugar & Gluten-Free (on her pumpkin dog biscuits recipe)

I returned a comment from:
Who Shot My Stork? (on the one day I happened to be productive)

Smooth Jazz and Choose Your Own Adventure

Oh, yeah (must be said in the Kool Aid guy's voice).

Within 5 minutes of my sending a Friend request (it turned out that I hadn't done it the first time), HS boyfriend accepted my request AND sent me a note. Man, is he desperate. (j/k).

I still got it. (blows on fingers and rubs them on shirt).

Hips swivelling a little more this morning.

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If I was an actual writer, this post would now go into an articulate and poignant essay on how Facebook and similar sites draw you back into the past and ask the question, "can you ever really go home again?" Unfortunately, I am not an actual writer, so you're going to get an inarticulate and rambling essay.

The problem is that as quickly as you are drawn back into your past self, you really can't go back there. Not while you're still in the here and now.

I often wonder if I could go back and change my actions/words, would I? I think my life would have ended up differently. I would not be the person that I am today. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. It's not about regrets, for me, these questions are more about what if?

Except, when would I go back, what would I change? Something big? What if I went through life as a thin person? That's major. What if John Dear and I had broken up when we had first started going out and he revealed some definite breakup-caliber things, or later, when he almost called off the wedding?

Yet, everything affects everything else. Who talked about the butterfly effect? It could be something as trivial as missing a train, like in that Gwyneth Paltrow movie.

It was so much easier with those Choose Your Own Adventure books. No decision was final because I could hold my place, see what happened and if I didn't like it, just choose the opposite path. I guess what I'd love is a save and restart option on this life of mine.

Round One

Summary: Jendeis is an utter loser. She is aware of this fact.

Facebook pulled up high school boyfriend and asked if I wanted to Friend him. I'm not doing anything unless he tries to Friend me or slips me a note in study hall that looks like this:

Otherwise, am setting myself up for rejection and I went through that the first time around.

At least I got to see his picture. I'm pretty sure I've won this round (aka Who Has Better Hair?). Though the more I consider his hair in the picture, I can't decide whether it's improved from high school or not. Mission Impossible: must find a solo picture of myself where I (1) don't look deranged, and (2) definitely resemble attractive non-deranged movie star.*

In the absence of those pictures so far, have posted interesting pic from my wedding as was clearly last time I looked non-deranged, though was on heavy drugs at the time, so maybe drugs are the answer for my non-deranged look.

*Assuming there are any attractive non-deranged movie stars left.

1995

Aside from reminding myself just how old I feel, 1995 is the year that I graduated from high school. Found this meme over at Jill's and just had to do it.

The Rules:
A.) Go to Music Outfitters.
B.) Enter the year you graduated from high school in the search function and get the list of 100 most popular songs of that year.
C.) Bold the songs you like, strike through the ones you REALLY hate.

1. Gangsta's Paradise, Coolio
2. Waterfalls, TLC
3. Creep, TLC
4. Kiss From A Rose, Seal
5. On Bended Knee, Boyz II Men
6. Another Night, Real McCoy
7. Fantasy, Mariah Carey
8. Take A Bow, Madonna
9. Don't Take It Personal (Just One Of Dem Days), Monica
10. This Is How We Do It, Montell Jordan
11. I Know, Dionne Farris
12. Water Runs Dry, Boyz II Men
13. Freak Like Me, Adina Howard
14. Run-Around, Blues Traveler
15. I Can Love You Like That, All-4-One
16. Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?, Bryan Adams
17. Always, Bon Jovi
18. Boombastic/In The Summertime, Shaggy
19. Total Eclipse Of The Heart, Nicki French
20. You Gotta Be, Des'ree
21. You Are Not Alone, Michael Jackson
22. Hold My Hand, Hootie and The Blowfish
23. One More Chance-Stay With Me, Notorious B.I.G.
24. Here Comes The Hotstepper, Ini Kamoze
25. Candy Rain, Soul For Real
26. Let Her, w Hootie and The Blowfish
27. I Believe, Blessid Union Of Souls
28. Red Light Special, TLC
29. Runaway, Janet Jackson
30. Strong Enough, Sheryl Crow
31. Colors Of The Wind, Vanessa Williams
32. Someone To Love, Jon B.
33. Only Wanna Be With You, Hootie and The Blowfish
34. If You Love Me, Brownstone
35. In The House Of Stone And Light, Martin Page
36. I Got 5 On It, Luniz
37. Baby, Brandy
38. Run Away, Real McCoy
39. As I Lay Me Down, Sophie B. Hawkins
40. He's Mine, Mokenstef
41. December, Collective Soul
42. I'll Be There For You-You're All I Need To Get By, Method Man-Mary J. Blige
43. Shy Guy, Diana King
44. I'm The Only One, Melissa Etheridge
45. Every Little Thing I Do, Soul For Real
46. Before I Let You Go, BLACKstreet
47. Big Poppa/Warning, Notorious B.I.G.
48. Sukiyaki, 4 P.M.
49. I Wanna Be Down, Brandy
50. I'll Make Love To You, Boyz II Men
51. Dear Mama/Old School, 2Pac
52. Hold On, Jamie Walters
53. Keep Their Heads Ringin', Dr. Dre
54. The Rhythm Of The Night, Corona
55. Roll To Me, Del Amitri
56. Scream/Childhood, Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson
57. Freek'n You, Jodeci
58. I Wish, Skee-lo
59. Believe, Elton John
60. Carnival, Natalie Merchant
61. You Don't Know How It Feels, Tom Petty
62. Back For Good, Take That
63. Tootsee Roll, 69 Boyz
64. You Want This-70's Love Groove, Janet Jackson
65. Tell Me, Groove Theory
66. Can't You See, Total
67. All I Wanna Do, Sheryl Crow
68. This Lil' Game We Play, Subway
69. Come And Get Your Love, Real McCoy
70. This Ain't A Love Song, Bon Jovi
71. Secret, Madonna
72. Player's Anthem, Junior M.A.F.I.A.
73. Feel Me Flow, Naughty By Nature
74. Every Day Of The Week, Jade
75. The Sweetest Days, Vanessa Williams
76. Short Dick Man, 20 Fingers Featuring Gillette
77. Brokenhearted, Brandy
78. No More "I Love You's", Annie Lennox
79. You Used To Love Me, Faith Evans
80. Constantly, Immature
81. Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me, U2
82. 100% Pure Love, Crystal Waters
83. Ask Of You, Raphael Saadiq
84. Sugar Hill, Az
85. Good, Better Than Ezra
86. Brown Sugar, D'angelo
87. Turn The Beat Around, Gloria Estefan
88. 'Til You Do Me Right, After 7
89. 1st Of Tha Month, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
90. Like The Way I Do If I Wanted To, Melissa Etheridge
91. I Live My Life For You, Firehouse
92. Dream About You-Funky Melody, Stevie B
93. Cotton Eye Joe, Rednex
94. Thank You, Boyz II Men
95. I'll Stand By You, Pretenders
96. I Miss You, N II U
97. Give It 2 You, Da Brat
98. Best Friend, Brandy
99. Misery, Soul Asylum
100. Can't Stop Lovin' You, Van Halen

Guess I'm just neutral on most of the songs from my graduation year. I just remember listening to a lot of The Beatles back then.

Can we remember?

A marking point. A defining line. A place where you can distinguish between the two halves of your life. Before and After. BCE and AD. For my grandparents, that date is December 7, 1941, the day that Pearl Harbor was attacked. For my parents, it is November 22, 1963, the day that President Kennedy was assassinated.

I always wondered what my date would be. What day would stand out where I could clearly point to it and say, here, here is where my life was changed? As I grew older, I thought, maybe my generation won't have such a day. Could we be that lucky? (Of course, this is a very American-centric view of the world, there are dozens of dates to pull that are significant to peoples around the world.)

Well, we have a day, a defining line, a moment in time that is ours. September 11, 2001 is that day. The day that the world changed. How trite that sounds, but how true. I don't think I ever understood before that day how my grandparents or parents felt on their days. You can sympathize, but you don't really understand, can't empathize. I guess it's one of those things where you really do have to be there.

Time marches on. Time doesn't heal all wounds, but time blurs memories, makes them hazy, and you start seeing that day through a mist. Our children's generation will not know how our country came together on September 12th. They will know the stories, but not feel it in their hearts. Our grandchildren will learn about it in school, and just file that date away in preparation for a history exam.

We say that we should never forget, but how can we ever remember?

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Today, in order to commemorate September 11th, Bridges is running their first 100 Words Project. Please stop by to read others' memories of our generation's defining moment.

Review - The Romanov Bride

This morning I completed The Romanov Bride by Robert Alexander. The book switches back and forth between the story of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna (sister of the Empress Alexandra) and Pavel, a Russian peasant-turned-revolutionary, in the years leading up to and surrounding the 1917 Revolution in Russia.

The book was just OK. I don't think it succeeds on its own as a novel, nor as fiction based on history. Neither the life of the aristocracy, the life of the revolutionary, nor the history of the revolution are covered well. Random bits and pieces of political and personal history are dropped among the pages in a haphazard manner and not explained well. The characters are not well drawn and I found myself wanting more.

In his afterword, Mr. Alexander notes that he relied much on the Grand Duchess' personal letters for his book. I would find such a collection to be extremely interesting and more of a window onto a character and a time than this novel.

If you are looking for a really good novel set during the Russian Revolution that also tries to describe the chaos of the times, go to Dr. Zhivago. The Romanov Bride pales in the comparison.

Indecision 2008

Margalit posted yesterday about the New Hampshire primary and discussed the conventional wisdom that many women are voting for Senator Clinton solely because she is a woman and that Black people are voting for Senator Obama solely because he is Black. She links to Gloria Steinem's op-ed in the New York Times, an essay I highly recommend for food-for-thought.

Margalit's post has inspired me to write one of my own.

First, I believe someone on C-SPAN yesterday said that if they had over 500,000 voters in New Hampshire, that would be more than voted in the NH general election in 2006. That kind of a result is pretty awesome. Didn't they have something like 65% turnout? That is wonderful for elections in the United States!

Back to gender and racial politics -- I thought the whole point of equality was that we shouldn't vote for the Black candidate simply because he's Black, or the woman candidate simply because she's a woman. Maybe we are not there as a country yet.

If we are to judge people by the "content of their character" alone, I don't think that I would vote for Senator Clinton. There were a lot of shady things that went on during President Clinton's administration (politics-wise, not even looking at the sex scandals) and she was right there in the thick of it.

(Attention, cynical moment approaching) Of course, Senator Obama may just not have been in national politics long enough to have a scandal attached to him. But, I don't think it is fair to label him with the inexperience brush. How much experience in foreign policy did either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush have when they stepped into the White House?

No matter who turns out to be the candidate in our general elections, I will almost certainly be voting for the Democrat. I align with the Democrats on social issues, and after the last eight years, I don't think that the Republicans can claim any sort of ownership of fiscal responsibility. (Check out Margalit's blog for a widget detailing what the expenses in Iraq could have been used for).

Elvis as POTUS

Elvis Presley was always tops with my parents. They got to see him in Vegas when he started performing there (when he was right at the edge of the precipice). For me, I've always enjoyed most of Elvis' songs, but I seem to like them more and more as I get older. For example, I never was into "Can't Help Falling In Love With You," but I've grown to like it and it became our first dance song at our wedding.

Anyways, I've been reading a Television Without Pity commentary on an Elvis documentary and needed to share the following:

Steven Boone: If Elvis had gone the evangelical route, he'd probably still
be here, and we'd prolly have three wars alongside Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sars: President Presley.

MZS: Oh, man, I SEE it.

Sars: Thirty years dead he's still better than the current occupant.

MZS: Elvis would have declared, like, one war per month. But on the plus
side: he would have kicked ass performing at his own inaugural.

RIP

Elvis Aaron Presley

1935-1977