040405 Golden morning, up before the swarm. Golden diesel, humming over the horizon back in time to when bewilderment was king. To work, to work on concrete under sheet metal in between lapses of mouth-open henna-haired madness and warm skin. Today, the west coast an angst- and flesh-besotted history, to work in a familiar space amidst the strangeness of morning is to work, once again, hallelujah, in a strange space amidst newly familiar smells. My head still spins with infection. War and zombies are imminent as always. My offspring reveal all in resplendent beauty. God I want a smoke. The pope is dead. Long live the pope. 040405 Ah, the homeopathy debacle. Most people, my wife apparently included, get very offended when you disagree, even tentatively, with them. Still. I feel as if I'd shot her puppy. But I've read more than "a couple of articles on the Internet." I've read a whole bunch of them. I have seen no convincing evidence that the shit works, nor any logical or even intuitive explanation as to why it might. Unless, of course, some magic is invoked when you shake water that once, many hundreds of dilutions ago, came in contact with a natural or artificial toxin (which would include pretty much all water). I think the worst thing about it is the abuse of innocence. I don't want her giving Megan that stuff and saying it's medicine. That's being way too careless with the faith of one who utterly trusts you. How cruel, to arm someone against real dragons with an illusory sword--? I can't support it, even if my wife gets sad, offended, or frustrated. I don't want to see it happen to her, either. She's an innocent in her own way. How insidious, to compromise someone's defenses through their optimism and hopefulness. I suppose it's even possible that she at some level agrees with me, and feels foolish. It's never a matter of pride to admit one's been taken by a scam. "Why do people read their horoscopes? Why do people believe in good luck and bad luck? Why do people ask a dowser for help? Why do people visit fortune-tellers? People who do these things want to know about the future, to avoid uncertainty, and to take control of their lives. For many people the uncertainty in life is unbearable. These people want explanations that they can understand. Modern science has become so complex that many people turn away in frustration. It is unfortunate that most people throughout the world do not understand what science is and what science does. For example, how many people can explain why it is warmer in the summer than in the winter? (Only 2 of 23 recent Harvard graduates could mention the tilt of the earth's axis[14].) Or how many people understand the basic ideas of biological evolution? A survey by the National Science Foundation in May 1966 reported that 48% of American adults believe that humans and dinosaurs coexisted, and only 47% knew that it takes one year for the earth to go around the sun. This scientific illiteracy, due in part to the shortcomings in our education systems, makes it easy for pseudoscience and superstition to succeed." -- from http://www.homeowatch.org/articles/wagner.html Is Homeopathy "New Science" or "New Age?" Mahlon W. Wagner, Ph.D. "Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence." One of the purveyors' websites mentions that FDA approves and recognizes their stuff. That FDA document only says it's legal to sell, and you have to label it a certain way. It says the stuff is EXEMPT from testing for identity and strength of active ingredients. Glad to know they're protecting us. Basically, the only way it could work is if it is magic. I don't necessarily disbelieve in magic. I find certain rituals helpful and fascinating. However, I prefer magic that doesn't cost a lot of money, and that doesn't irresponsibly or capitalistically attempt to pass itself off as science. Why am I saying all this to my journal? Cuz I can tell SHE really doesn't want to hear it right now. But I have to get it out somehow. It's kind of a big deal to me. Maybe I feel it's some kind of precedent-setter for our family's collective approach to life. I know part of marriage is repeatedly waking up to find yourself married to a complete stranger. I just hope not to find myself married to one who is completely alien to me. I really wish I could reiterate all this to her, and hear her say sincerely, "Yes, I see what you mean." But I don't see that happening any time soon. Aside from the generalized one that is pretty much ongoing, this may be the first real crisis in our marriage. I don't know if she sees it that way. Maybe I'm attributing too much significance to this little episode. I won't be sure until the reverberations have all played out, until I can put a name and a body to the big presence that these little particular rippples are bumping up against in my intuitive mind. Or maybe it's a personal crisis. It does seem to be moving me to examine some of my own hypocrisies and convenient or unfinished thoughts. 040605 Most non-lesbians probably want to be lesbians. From their perspective, lesbianism probably seems dreamlike and huge. Pleasure, so secret and so facile. Anyway, that's how it seems to me. But I don't count because I am both an optimist and a lesbian. Except when I'm a fag. Sometimes I'm a gender-irrelevant cocksucker. Sometimes I'm a pussy-boy shitsucker footlicker. Whatever. Sometimes I'm a billiard ball. Then I go click-click-click until I get into a pocket, or the game gets tired of playing me. I'm not very good at this, I lie; then I mop up someone's quarters. It's a living. Did you know you can cure cancer by ripping out my guts and eating them, if you prepare them a certain way? I don't get cancer. I still don't get cancer. I swim, and eat people alive. 041205 Uh. Yeah. AIAC: Right now I'd have to say my all-around favorite Mac is the iMac G3 Summer 2000 that I set up for Meggie. It's so crisp and quick and cute and smart. Even has firewire and DVD! Runs OS9 way faster than a G4 with OS X at twice the MHz. Plus, it represents the first time I diagnosed and dug in and fixed a major hardware problem (hard drive replacement). Plus plus, it's SO COOL that we got it for free! "I dunno," they said. "It doesn't start up," they said. "You can have it!" Hee hee! 041205 Holly: like an overcautious, unblooded writer, she steers herself away from the fault-lines that make her really interesting. 042005 Working on Shakespeare essay questions at Rochambo. Brain well-used. Can't even think of anything to do now, but OMSATIGO. La La La. Ring a Ding Ding. Hey Nonny Ho. WOOOOP!!!!!!!!!!!! 042505 That old saw about listening to everyone as if they were more enlightened than you is useful, but if you can simultaneously listen to them as if they were less, you'll get the whole shebang. Or at least more of it. There's probably another step beyond....