bored in the lab

mix

One of my friends once mentioned someone had said to her "You know an american loves you if she makes you a mix" And then there's the breakup mix. I started one last year for Tom. It's been a year almost exactly and tomorrow he defends his dissertation. I just got the invite to the party. Weeeeee!

So I finished the CD. Well, the playlist at least. I haven't burned it yet. Cjblue will get a copy (she's made me promise her copies of any mixes I make). Below is the track list and artwork.

Name	Artist
Born In the '70s	Ed Harcourt
Fine Day for Sailing	Go Sailor
Gone Daddy Gone	Violent Femmes
Ain't No Good	Cake
Lost Cause	Beck
You Oughta Know	Richard Cheese
(This Is) A Fine Romance	Marilyn Monroe
Suspicious Minds	LaLae
Everyone Has a Summer	Lovage
The World Has Turned and Left Me Here	Weezer
Always On My Mind	Lewinski
My Man	Peggy Lee
Nowhere Man	Low
Sorry About Your Penis	Smash Mouth
Forgiveness	Goldfinger
I Don't Wanna Grow Up	Tom Waits
I Should Care	Sammy Davis Jr.
Now You're A Man	Dvda
Somewhere Over the Rainbow	Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
MyWayEdit	Sex Pistols (with Four Aces intro)

"I see naked people!"

Anyone read about the Brattleboro VT kids who are pissing people off by doing everything that teenagers do in a town, but doing it naked?

The focus is the nudity, although according to the Boston Globe story, nudity is legal (or at least not illegal) in their town as it is in many towns in VT. What's really going on? These young people are engaging in a venerable tradition - finding new and creative ways to piss people off. I guess they caught a couple of live ones this time.

Andrew Wdowiak, who works at Everyone's Books, said that he's not put off by the nudity, but that the act has become a little tired. ``I think it was more for the shock value," he said. ``They weren't flagrant about it."

But last week, when about a half-dozen naked teenagers congregated outside the store, ``it was like they were baking a cake, and they really frosted it," Wdowiak said. ``All the men were naked, and the women were topless. I needed about three drinks to erase that vision."

One patron of the bookstore let loose with hysterics of Academy Award proportions, he added.

Abstracting away from the nudity for a moment, this is very similar to the behavior I remember engaging in as a teen. We had one or two friends with toxic colored hair cut sculpted into fun, pokey, non-suburban shapes. That group was made up mostly of post-punk fashion decay types. For fun, we'd go into the city and pose for bus and trolley loads of tourists who inevitably craned their necks taking pictures of the "strange Boston people" while we made faces, flipped them off, and pantomimed sex acts on each other and nearby objects.

My favorite halloween was the time I went downtown with a (different) group of friends to fuck around. The evening included a few failed attempts at trick or treating in non-local neighborhoods, resulting in angry adults whose vocal outrage at our socially incorrect behavior was sweeter than any candy imaginable. The night ended with a donut and condiment fight in the parking lot across the street from the 7-11, between The Golden Bowl chinese restaurant and Mr. Donut. I was largely intoxicant free until college but I still really enjoyed big obvious public displays of idiocy from 13 on (and felt a genuine sense of accomplishment when adults hissed to one another that we were all probably using drugs).

The thing is that this exact kind of shit is the best kind of shit for most kids. Possibly all kids and what differs is just the how, when, and wheres of it.

What sort of sparkly popping cycle of energy does this kind of behavior generate and feed off which makes it so damned appealing? A couple of key characteristics come to mind.
1 - the more public the behavior, the more rewarding it is
2 - it involves perverting convention (which is a deeply satisfying way to rattle people and/or say fuck you to the man when you're a teen)
3 - there's an emphasis on details of wardrobe, of props (balloons, snakes, ink, safetypins, skateboards, glowsticks, hairstyle....etc), of soundtrack (music, noisy cars). I guess you could call these things accessories to the people and the event. The accessories are very important and without them there is no event or not much special about it. Also, my sense is they are important because otherwise there is an emphasis on direct, immediate, and uncloaked verbal self expression and that, I think, frightens and/or intimidates most people.

Regarding the accessories, I think it may well be a defining property of teens to be able to innovate culturally relevant accessories out of whatever is around though. A menu at a restaurant, for example, is redefined as a prop and script in the loud poetry reading that has sprung up while the group waits for their pancakes. What sets it off? Dunno. Could be lots of things. In general, individual human nature in our modern western US (counter) cultural context. Oh and my guess is that Brattleboro is fucking boring as fuck if you're between the ages of 12 and 23.

Here, let's see what's going on in Brattleboro:
This Friday at 8:00, folks can enjoy The Stairwell Sisters - "San Francisco’s all-gal, urban, old-time stringband is cutting a new figure in traditional music, with a deep and rowdy repertoire of timeless tunes plus a solid standing of smart, original material."
Oh yeah. Old time string band music is truly the ideal medium for the existential condundrum which characterizes most adolescent spirits.

"Embodying the Divine Feminine GODDESS CAMP! $30 - $150
A weekend immersion or take 2 hour sessions or full day... Join us in this immersion to express the Goddess within through belly dance, mythic costuming and play. The Goddess Dancing™ comes from Boston to lead us in the Sacred Shapes™ and a dance of Mythic Feminine Archetypes."
They fucking trademarked "Goddess Dancing" and "Sacred Shapes"? WTF?

There's more but those two are almost fully representative. I'm NOT saying this means there's no town sponsored or condoned venue for this set of young people. There might be, it just isn't on the chamber of commerce page. What I am saying is that from my very limited perspective, it looks like the kind of town where the adults put a premium on having a wide vareity of community oriented and cultural events which results in their feeling confused and hurt when their slightly older kids stop finding the Raccoon Wilderness Adventures Program a legitimate way to spend their summers. A whole lot of this kind of confused and hurt parent feelings can build up in a family and even in a community such that normal changes in expressive and recreational taste can be seen as betrayal. Betrayal is bad, we like to avoid bad things and bad feelings, so it's not a stretch to conjecture that in Brattleboro kids who yearn for something other than an all ages community center drama class might end up a bit marginalized.

Hence naked sunbathing in the parking lot at the focal center of the adult world - the bustling center of commerce that is downtown Brattleboro (yes, I am being just a little sarcastic. I've been to Brattleboro).

So what should the beleaguered grown ups of Brattleboro do? Debate whether or not nudity is a basic human right? I guess, I mean, that's what it looks like is going on. But I don't think this is the real core of the issue. The core is how are they going to stop the kids from using nudity as the newest provocative prop in the big drama of life, and if they try to what new and exciting thing will these young people do in response? Would they prefer that the kids take up arson and meth instead of nude hoola hooping contests?

I don't advocate carte blanche for adolescent behavior, really I don't. I'm definitely not an anarchist. I'm not even a libertarian. I think though that in most cases, it is best to view this sort of thing as performance art - try to enjoy what is enjoyable and take seriously what is disturbing. In the practical sense, I think there is not too much to worry about. As soon as enough 30-60 year olds come out in solidarity for the naked thing, as soon as tourists start showing up specifically to witness through the cracks in their eye shuttering fingers the frolicksome free nudity, possibly even before the first "Naked Parking Lot" postcard or T shirt is printed, trademarked and sold at the next GoddessFest, I predict it will lose the sparkly allure for most of the teens who created this little interesting piece of social art.

Chop, grate, liquify

I had my second physical therapy appointment today. While paying my co-pay ($15 a visit, twice a week for 6 weeks), I was asked if I wanted to take care of both appointments' co-pays this week right now. "I'd love to," I told the nice receptoinist, "But I just had a $500 weekend for my car and cat so my account is wee tiny (making gesture with index finger and thumb held quite close together) until AFTER Thursday."

And to my total surprise, she said "We do offer a discount for low income patients. You'd have to disclose financial information, but if you want I can get the paperwork for you..."
This was about the nicest thing I heard all day.

The clinic (?) is an odd place. I should preface this by saying I am not even a little bit sporty. I'm about as comfy in a gym as, oh, say Madonna would be at a Promise Keepers' rally.

I noticed on my first day that the set up included a couple of small private rooms and a large room with lots of table-beds, chairs, unindentifiable machines (pullies, wedges, wheels, I think they had all the basics covered), and oversized everyday objects, e.g., a very large green ball which a fellow grad student sat unsteadily on. As I made my way through the large room, I passed a young girl in street clothes sitting in a chair, pant cuffs rolled up, trying to use her toes to pick up marbles and drop them into a cup placed on the floor between her heels. Near the back of this room a middle aged woman in workout clothes was using her body to roll a very squishy looking red ball up and down a small patch of the wall.

It dawned on me a little later that I was just taking it on faith that all of these apparitions were normal in the physical theraputic context. That the people lying on the table-beds, legs wrapped in plastic bags and propped up on foam wedges, watching Grease on a large, loud TV were a normal, necessary element in the everyday function of any given physical therapy clinic, (because what normally happens here would generalize to any other, right)? It's just amazing how fast we build up a schema. When I thought about it a little later, I realized I have no way of knowing if all or any behavior I see in there is theraputic or if it's just someone's somewhat odd way of passing the time.

The first day was just talk, evaluation, and some stretching exercises. Today was a little different. First I got the new kid. She was an undergrad, who, we established before she squirted ultrasound lube all over my exposed left hip, is not taking my class this semester. She was very talkative. She wants to be a dentist. Perfect.
Here is a short list of things she told me or otherwise disclosed while ultrasounding my hip:
she transfered with a lot of credits
she is doing a double major
the second major has a good internship program
when she graduates she will be qualified for a job which will start at twice what I would make as a PhD adjunct
her father works and possibly lives in Detroit
she doesn't like Detroit
she doesn't like or is at best ambivalent about her father
she's applying to dental schools in NY, MA, and CT
she is from a working class background, possibly with some serious financial troubles

I was in a good mood from my earlier conversation with the receptionist so the only problem I had with the chattiness was that it caused me to try to engage in socially appropriate (for discourse) eye contact. You know, as opposed to closing my eyes or staring at a wall in order to keep that somewhat necessary distance while a total stranger is having a lot of contact with what is quite close to being part of your ass. Worse was that where and how I was lying while she ultrasounded my hip put my eyes right on line with her crotch. I wonder how it must have looked to her, me occasionally looking up from her crotch to glance at her over my body, mostly naked pelvis and all.

After Chatty McChatterson left, the physical therapist came in. I still haven't worked up the nerve to ask her how I can have sex without hurting my hip more. Instead we talked about proper activities like walking and sitting. Then she dug into my hip. "Let me know when I get to the part that hurts the most" she said. If I'd known what she was going to do when she got to this information, I may not have been so forthcoming with it. The short version is that what she did is called a "friction massage" and it's supposed to hurt. It did.

Then we did a pitiful number of strength exercises which left my leg feeling like jelly. I was garnished with an extremely large ice bag and left for ten minutes while jock guys instructed one another in the best way to skip down the hall past my door "Get 'em up high...really drive into it!" a jockish voice yelled (ka-klomp, ka-klomp, ka-klomp) "Come on, three more!" (ka-klomp, ka-klomp, ka-klomp).

So now I am at home and sore. I bought a book recommended by a friend (who recently graduated from Evil Graduate school) and I'm going to wash up, get into jammies, and read my lazy liquified ass to sleep.

Dx: S/P brainectomy

President Bush...signed an executive order that the administration said would help Americans choose health care the way they shop for airline tickets and cars.
....
"How many of you have got insurance and you never really care about the cost because somebody else is paying the bill?" Bush asked rhetorically. "You don't really care about quality because some person in an office somewhere is paying the bill on your behalf."
(AP)

This insight brings to mind another quote:
Now how can we argue with that. I think we are all indebted to [George W. Bush] here for clearly stating what had to be said. And I'm glad the children were here today to hear that speech. Not only was it authentic frontier gibberish...but it expressed a courage that is little seen in this day and age.

188, 65, 200+

188 minutes was how long my phone call was. The one that just ended. It was with a friend I haven't spoken to in close to a year. "So what's new?" he asked. I debated refering him to the blog. It's a little dangerous since the last thing I want is to feel like I have to deal with people I know in a professional manner on my blog. Yes, there are some radio people who lurk around now and then (hello radio people), but, well, they are a little different.

So we talked and talked and talked. Still there was more I'm sure, but damn, your bladder can only go for so long. He's a close friend but not that close.

Sharon and M___ came over earlier tonight. We were talking about sex. Sharon has a new boyfriend, and mentioned the hassle of having to buy condoms for the first time in forever. "I always feel sort of embarrassed" I said, "But then I remember - I'm getting some! So fuck it, you know?"

The conversation continued to the "how many people you've had sex with" discussion. Now I had always assumed my figure was shockingly high. Even if I add in a couple for good measure (on account of the blur of my early college days), it turns out I'm an innocent little flower, comparatively speaking. Sharon claimed "somewhere around 65". And M____ trumped us both with 200+ guys. They are both five years younger than I am. Holy shit. It's not a judgment, I just can't imagine that many for myself. As long as it was a good thing for all involved, there isn't a damned thing wrong with it.

What's odd is that both of them say they have a specific type. This surprised me since I guess I'd have thought that having a type would mean you would have more limited scope, a smaller net, and so fewer fish to catch. By contrast, I don't think I have a terribly specific type (my sister is probably the best qualified to comment on that from an outside perspective - A___? Your thoughts?). I suggested my five year marriage might have slowed down my rate. Sharon said "I was in a seven year serious relationship for most of those!" Ok, so maybe not.

Now I'm wondering about this. I'm wondering if having a type means if someone meets a certain (minimal) set of criteria for the type, that person is immediately and imminently fuckable.

PFG needs...

What I'm not doing:
Working on my class prep, my dissertation, thinking about Tom's defense this week, my dad's birthday this week, my broken car, my sick cat, my increasing school debt.

Not doing any of that. Nope.

I was up late working. I'm going to make myself a gold sticker for having gotten so very much done. I also have an appointment to look at a two bedroom apartment tomorrow bright and early in the morning, a meeting with the dean of the grad school to (essentially) bitch about the invasive and possibly illegal financial aid academic progress policy, and a PT appointment. And things are just going to get busier and busier as the week progresses and we launch into the beginning of the semester.

So at the moment, I'm slacking - stupid internet games are always good for that.

PFG needs to be expanded...
(possibly)

PFG needs more work
(no, I just need to DO more work.)

PFG needs a comment
(yes please)

PFG needs to avoid drifting into a wholly technical exercise
(you said "hole"...)

PFG needs broadband
(maybe broaderband)

PFG needs to hire more people or they need to clone you
(I love this sort of sentence, it's a marvelous non-sequitor. Anyone know if there's a formal name for this? It's like a kind of violation of relation between propositions.)

PFG Needs Your Help
(and remember, help is not spelled p-l-a-t-i-t-u-d-e. Got lots of those, don't need any more thanks.)

Quiz time

What movie Do you Belong in?

Take this quiz!

Aaaaahhhh?

As a footnote to my super duper fun week, I wanted to add that the doctor I saw Thursday actually put his hand in my mouth. "I want to feel that tonsil," he said as he gloved up. "You - oh my god, you're gonna put your hand in my mouth aren't you?" I asked.
To me this seemed a bit sudden. I've only seen him twice. Is it really ok to jump right into oral fisting?

a little help

Wow this sucks. My cat(Max) got sick last night just after I got home from curtailed errands. Errands cut short because my car (Mo) is officially squirrely and last night was one of its less fine moments.

At some point, I think I am going to have to face it that my car's electrical system is just sort of, well, fucked. I say this since trips to the mechanic involve increasingly familiar reports like "this wire's insulation is gone, that connection was corroded, this one worked when we hooked it up to the machine but didn't when it wasn't...we think it's 'cause our connection was grounding it..." I'd say I've been putting it off except that would imply there was a fixable issue or that I could afford to replace the non-fixable issue (the car). So far, neither is the case.

I got home at about 8:30 to Max having some kind of breathing/choking fit (no it wasn't a hair ball) that went on and on and on. I called the vet and we decided it would be best for him to be seen soon since it seemed he was having breathing problems.

Ok, so I run (limp quickly) over to A___'s apartment to get Max's carrier, start up Mo the car to bring it around to the entrance of the building so I don't have to heft my 18 lb cat too far. Mo had to be coaxed into starting, surged when it finally turned over, then BANG, grind...Mo didn't want to go, not one bit.

I called (and called and called) anyone I thought could possibly be helpful, even people I don't like a whole lot. Then I cried because no one was available. My sister and A___ at least answered my calls but there is precious little they could do from states away. The locals were not taking calls. Keep in mind that there is no public transportation and there are no taxi services out here in the middle of fucking nowhere CT.

About an hour after all this began, my friend M___ finally answered what I think was my third phone call, saying "Oh, I'm sorry I missed (all of) your calls..." He was really sweet though, drove the 25 miles of dark twisty country road from where he lives to my place, carried the 18 lb cat out to his car, and even went in with me to the vet.

M___'s never had a cat and can be a nervous driver, so this late night trip with my cat HOWLing in the backseat was probably a little bit harrowing for him I'm sure. Add to that my singing to the cat (we settled on "I will survive") and it may rank up there as one of those "worst things I had to do for a friend" moments for him. It wasn't that bad as far as bad things go, but, well, I have learned to assume moderate to high levels of sheltered in terms of life experiences of many of my fellow grad students.

The vet was nice, gave Max shots and did an x-ray. Max is still sick but not terrible. His lungs looked ok, but the vet said it might have been an asthma attack. More reason to move since now not only does the mold of the rotting (still not fixed) ceiling make me sick, it may be making my cat ill too . Max spent most of the day resting under my desk, but he hasn't had the scary fit like he was having last night.

And today, my car wouldn't start. A___'s not back until Wednesday night, I've got an appointment for Monday to bring my car in but it will have to be towed and I have no ride back from the garage (which is, like everything out here, far away), and no ride to go get it when they are done.

So all in all, this sucks in a big sucky way. Several years ago, I made a new year's resolution that I would learn how to accept help from others because I was so bad at it I would rather hurt myself than ask. I have spent the last few years with a string of obstacles that require me to ask again and again for all sorts of help from people around me. I see this as one of life's little ironies. Sort of like young jeremy finding 2/3rds of a $20 bill while down and out and needing money. It's one of those nasty jokes of fate that makes you want to believe in a god so you can go into a church and scream "ENOUGH, you fuck!"

You said "fundies"

This is what my sister blurted out when I asked "What? What is so funny" the other night when we were talking. I had made some comment about fundamentalism, referring to those who practice and preach it as "fundies". I was talking away, got several sentences beyond this point when I realized my sister had been laughing for a while.

"You said 'fundies'! bwahahahahahahahahahaha!" Clearly this needed to be addressed for the conversation to continue.

"Yes, I said 'fundies'. That's what they're called," I explained, "It's short for 'fundamentalist'."

She was still laughing. "Fundies are underwear for two people!" More laughter.

The woman had a point. "Ok, yes. Fundies means underwear for two and fundamentalists," I said. This made her laugh more. "Settle down Beavis."

Later, when I was recounting this conversation to some friends, I discovered "underwear for two" was not only not the most salient meaning of the word "fundies", it was in fact an entirely unknown, unexplored idea. My sample was a mixed age group out for margaritas for A___'s b-day.

Janice, a 50 something who protested the vietnam war, played in a band, and lobbied as a single mother against housing discrimination in the 70s (she ain't no square), had no idea what underwear for two were, that they ever existed, or that they were called "fundies".

Scott, a 24 year old sorta hippie grad student from the south had not heard of the word (except to describe fundamentalists) or the concept. He wanted to know how the two people would be positioned in underwear for two. "Can they stand in any orientation? I mean, can they be facing away from each other?" "Like spooning?" I asked. "Yeah that too..." he said but apparently he was envisioning several positions which I, being constrained by knowledge of the actual construction of fundies (the underwear), would not have envisioned.

We debated how underwear for two might be constructed so as to allow for these variations. Side by side Fundies? Could they exist? "Oh so you mean like "hole, hole, hole......Hole?" I said, gesturing so as to place my hypothetical leg holes into a straight line over the salsa cup and salt crusted glasses between us, not sure if there should be three or four leg openings in this creation. "Yeah!" said Scott, "Exactly!"

T___, a 30 year old student born and raised in Japan, had never heard of this concept but was immediately quite taken with it. He kept repeating "hole, hole, hole....hole" and laughing uncontrollably.

Janice accused me of making this up. "No, really! Underwear for two exists, it is called "fundies", it allows two people to stand facing one another or front to back while wearing the same pair of underwear. It does not allow two people to stand side to side as it's only hole, hole."
"Hole.....hole!" T___ promptly added.

"Fuck it, I'm googling 'Fundies' and I'll send you a picture" I announced.

So here it is. The google results are in. If you google fundies + definition, the first hit is a definition for fundamentalism. If you google just fundies, the first hit is underwear for two.

"eye shit"

In the course of looking for some content for my class - because you know, I think the students deserve at least that much - I ran across this dialect survey. One of the survey questions was "What do you call the gooey or dry matter that collects in the corners of your eyes, especially while you are sleeping?"

Turns out "sleep" was well liked by a sizable proportion of respondents (37.78%). The next largest group preference (10.68%) was for the childishly gross "eye booger". However, my personal favorite term was "eye shit", which accounted for .45% of the responses and was distributed as in the map above (yellow points).

I find it strangely comforting that "eye shit" had a showing at all. It's not a conscious distain for the whimsy underlying more popular terms like "sleepy seed" (1.67%) or "sand" (7.77%). It's just that sometimes I go through periods where am seized with a very strong urge to dispense with the verbal frippery.

Or maybe I'm just, at heart, a true vulgarian.

holy stars and stripes

I had to remove the model's face. She had this look like she might just kick my ass and it was seriously damaging my full enjoyment of the effect of her extremely patriotic ensemble. And I am enjoying it. A little bright spot of mirth in an otherwise largely mirthless day.

I'm in the going back to school murk and slump I think. Or maybe it's just anniversaries that have got me down.

Seems like everything today was at least a little not ok. I had planned to stay home on account of my hip hurting, work on the class I have to teach in about two weeks, finish my appeal to financial aid so I can please go further into debt for a chance at an ambiguous career.

To my dismay, at about 11, I remembered that I had a dissertation defense to go to. A friend this time, not the ex. It was, well, I had heard it before so it was not anything new. The presentation was great. Unfortunately, attending it involved my being in a room full of people I am growing to have a powerful dislike for. So many assholes, so little space. Each time I thought I could safely direct my gaze say over there, my line of vision would intersect with someone I dislike.

It was dark, my friend standing up front doing a valiant effort to bravely present his data and findings to a bunch of shitbags, and the shitbags all sitting around the table in various stages of ethical decay. Each rubbing a hand on his face in some scholarly way. And me standing then sitting then standing then pacing in the hall outside the door then standing again in the back of the room while several of the shitbags cast me those "what are you doing?" little half looks over their shoulders. One actually stared at me for prolonged periods of time, like he could stare me down into my seat.

At several points I had to fight an urge to bite someone. I did this by telling myself they would taste bad and of course there's the whole I'd be judged insane and locked up thing.

I passed the time thinking up colorful stories I could tell should one of my very concerned faculty members say anything about my fidgeting. "I had an abortion this weekend and I think they nicked something" was high on the list.

I think I should have stayed home today. Sorry Jay...I hope my seriously negative vibes were not perceptable and if so, I hope you know they had nothing to do with you or your dissertation. I'd like to think it was just my own little private storm cloud but then again, I know I have one of those transparent faces. If you caught me grimacing, it was either pain from my hip or the stray thought of how much it sucks that you can't walk up and slap the shit out of a windbag like, oh anyone on your committee, with impunity.

Needless to say, I skipped the "after party". Pain and the fear that whatever is up with me today might drive me to say what was on my mind sent me scrambling for home soon after the defense was over. Not soon enough to spare the idiot first year who got in my way, but he's not exactly a fan of mine anyhow.

Golly, I can't imagine why.

defensive

I just got a notice that my ex is defending his dissertation in two weeks. This pisses me off. This raises a whole range of unpleasant emotions and memories, but mostly all of them can be nicely overgeneralized into the category of "pissing me off".

I'm not sure what I'm gonna do with all that. I do have almost an entire dozen old eggs I haven't thrown out yet because I was certain a good reason to keep them would come up. They aren't rotten, just older than I'd want to cook with.

Please, no I am not going egg the fucking loser's house, car, family's house (although THAT is VERY tempting), or family member's cars. The eggs are relevant only because when I'm in a shitty foul mood that demands an outlet but for which the only apparent outlets are inappropriate, I like to go throw eggs at things. Neutral targets - phone poles, tree stumps, my landlord's house, etc. (cars with anti-choice stickers on them don't get egged. They get mayo.)

Anyhow, I think those eggs are going to come in handy.

fashion fucked

I'm not a fan of feet and toes, certainly not my own. Other people's I'm more neutral on, except when they are very alarmingly, disturbingly diseased looking bad. In general, I find I am more charitable in my assesment of other people's feet than I am of my own. I don't like the shape of mine and my toes strike me as looking freakishly long, boney, and skinny. They sometimes dislocate themselves just for the hell of it. The most embarassing time this happened was while I was high school aged and on the phone with a boy...I dropped the phone, yelping in pain. When I finally retrieved the phone, it was to mutter something like "My um, toe just went out of joint...I, uh, I have to go now 'cause I think I'm gonna pass out."

My toes have not been kind to me although I have tried to be nice to them, at least in recent years. I have tried painting them, thinking this might help. Somewhat but not enough to make me comfortable with the fashionable open toe sandals. It occurs to me that I'm fighting a lifetime of toe shame and training to be shod. The neighbors' kids ran around shoeless in the summer providing us with a model of barefooted barbarism which we discouraged from emulating. Our elitist parents had raised us to believe people like the neighbors' kids were idiots whose brains had been rotted by too much TV and a diet which included sugary cereal, Tang, and wonder bread.

To make matters worse, our mother the nurse had informed us of parasites that live in the ground and burrow up into the bare feet of morons like the neighbors' kids. She neglected to mention the rarity of hookworm infections in northern climes. We believed her. Why not? They did drink Tang after all.

Having been brought up to see barefootedness as a symbol of an unredeemable philistine nature helped along my budding aversion to the notion of exposing what I thought of as my nearly deformed ugly feet. Going to college changed that somewhat. I had to adapt to the many hippie kids who walked around campus and came to class bare foot. Their one concession was birkenstock type sandals, worn even in the winter (on the bitterest days worn with rag wool socks). I still never got the urge to be habitually bare foot in public though.

For most of my life, this was not a serious problem. It was possible to buy sandals that allowed me to keep my creepy toes safely out of the public eye. All that changed some years ago when the "hooker shoe" look took off. Black leather skinny strap sandals over (usually) tanned feet with bright red painted toenails look especially ridiculous on aged baby boomer white suburban women wearing pastel skorts and striped jerseys. To complete the scene, imagine some beach boys music blaring from a restaurant speaker, oil slicked boston harbor water slapping the dock which resembles nothing nautical as much as it does a strip mall surrounded by an armada of bright shiny midlife crisis boats, and a wide flat rear end looming ever closer to your bucket o' fried clams which rocks precariously on the cheap plastic table as the hooker footed woman shimmies in time to a beat that apparently only she can hear. Ah, summer at the marina.

And now there is no escaping the open toe. I have tried. Each summer I pray that the open toe sandal trend will come to a close but alas, each year it is reintroduced as if it were something new and exciting.

- One look that might take some getting used to is hosiery with open-toe shoes.
- By the way, open-toe works nicely right through fall (if you're cold, wear tights, it's a new look!).

No, it's not. I recall this look from the days when I saw women on TV exercise shows wearing long sleeved earth toned leotards and pantyhose (think fitness before Olivia Newton John's Physical and Jane Fonda's workout tapes). It's not a new look. It's an old look that thankfully had died a quiet death. It needn't be revived. Not everything retro is cool.

The only people who can possibly enjoy this years long and still growing obsession with open toe shoes are pedicurists.

On top of my issues with my own feet and exposing them, the impracticality of this trend offends my sense of, well, practicality. I was in New York two years ago for a conference in August. It rained buckets all week, and there they were, armies of open toe sandal wearing women, slogging through the urban creeks and streams that flowed at the edge of each sidewalk, seasonal rivers which crested at crosswalks, turns, and potholes in a scummy froth which only a Tang drinking hook worm addled fool would plunge their naked flesh into. Hell, the other week I saw several hospital support staff members wearing open toe shoes. Oh my god, you just don't want to do that. Sick people, fluids, etc. I won't go into details but there is a reason hospital floors aren't usually carpeted.

I'm keeping my feet covered, even if it means doing extra work to find the closed sandals. It's a comfort level thing, emotional and physical. For someone who used to spend summers debating combat boots or high tops, sandals are enough of a capitulation to the heat's effects on my arthritis. I refuse to be fucked by fashion into putting my toes out where they simply don't belong.

Bday

It's A___'s birthday! Officially it is in 6 minutes but by the time I get done and posted, it will be the birthday.

Happy Birthday Aaron!
How can I NOT love a man who lets me put ribbons in his hair?

As usual, I am having a gift buying conundrum - pay for half his campus parking pass or buy a memory thing reader (I'm so tech savvy) and other, um, toys. Guess he'll have to wait to see which one I decide on tomorrow.

"I was right"

This is a great quote from Senator Joe Lieberman, provided in the context of an MSNBC story, and apparently said this past Sunday:
But the Iraq war is a dominant issue for many voters. “I still believe I was right,” Lieberman said Sunday night, to support the U.S. military intervention to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

As of 10:23 PM, the early results of the CT democratic primary are:

Lieberman 108,683
Lamont 116,387

I'm wondering if he still thinks he's right after today. Even if he manages to squeeze out a win, this will be one hell of a spanking.

Add it up

Feeling kind of shitty so I'm missing a meeting tonight. This sucks but I'm going to try to get some work done so I don't feel like a total waste.

On the plus side, A___ is cooking dinner at the moment and it smells REALLY yummy. Mushrooms sauteed with wine is one of my favorite smells because my god it's good.

Today I did very little. I had big plans involving going to campus, hitting the financial aid office to drop off my enrollment form, and showing my face to the faculty who will otherwise conclude that I am sitting on my ass at home eating bon bons and living the vita slacka. I am not, but I've seen them make this assessment of others so I know it could easily apply to me.

However, before I got out today, I got this from financial aid:
You have attempted (registered for) more than the maximum permissible number of credits for a student pursuing a doctorate (including transfer credits).

It is for the above reason(s) that your request for financial aid has been denied for the 2006-2007 academic year.

Now this isn't a huge surprise to me. In fact, it is part of why I took so long getting my financial aid paperwork done. I suspected this was coming because they hit me with it last year too. Last year was the first year as a grad student I applied for loans. I was told I was approved for x amount, then sent exactly the same message you see above. What up with that? Presumably the loan program requires schools to ensure that students are not just sucking up federal loans (you know, 'cause it's such free money), wasting time and precious not free money we will need to pay back with interest while we drink and drug our way through school. And so even though that was the first time I asked for money while I was in grad school and even though it had been 15 years since I had taken out loans as an undergrad, my school felt I was at risk of being exactly that kind of apparently wide spread freeloading loser.

See, the way they measure satisfactory progress (which they are required to do by the federal government) is by how many credits you've taken in pursuit of your degree. What counts as credit toward the degree is broad and means in this context simply "graduate credit courses" on your transcript. You took them here, they're on the transcript, even if they are irrelevant, which in my case they are. Since I started off as a PhD student in one department then was harassed by my insane advisor to the point where it became clear I had to leave or switch to a different department, I have four years of a whole lot of credits, most of which are largely useless towards my current degree. I have four years of Noam Chomsky dogma that I had to essentially unlearn, and lost time on research methods, theoretical perspectives, findings, and stats that I had to catch up on. Hence, I have SHITLOADS of credits. More than enough for a PhD, according to financial aid.

I went through all this shit last year with them. I spoke to the dean (acting since the previous dean had been sent to a farm to live with other deans who tend to say horrible, racist things in public). The dean was unhappy that this was how the financial aid office was applying the credit limits or satisfactory academic progress requirements for grads. Specifically, his problem was that financial aid requires a written appeal before they will reinstate someone's eligibility for aid. This causes delays in loan disbursement, anxiety for the student, extra work tracking down faculty who are on vacations and/or out of town, etc. It also in some cases pressures students to disclose confidential personal information ranging from family tragedy, marital problems, and health issues. What makes it so extra disturbing is that once you have been deemed to have too many credits, you must go through this process EACH YEAR until you are done. Mr. Dean-guy said he would speak to them about this and try to change it. I'm sure he meant to. He's an earnest fellow. But he not usually very effective in any of the issues he addresses. I'm not sure if this is more because the school just really doesn't give a shit about graduate students and their needs or if it is because he flakes. How can you ask the dean that? "Hey Dean Doofus, did you like totally flake on that financial aid thing last year?" Earnest or no, I doubt he'd admit to that.

This year, I decided that since they wouldn't get around to telling me that I was denied aid until mid summer anyhow and since I will find the whole process about as much fun as a root canal, there was no rush in getting the first package processed. I just did my fafsa this past month. And voila, here's my rejection, without the cumbersome and disappointing denial following the initial approval.

And so I spent the afternoon on the phone with them ("Do I really need to write another appeal? Do you really need to know all of the gorey details of my checkered life since I started grad school? Do I really need to ask my troll-like division head for another letter stating that I have only been in this program for three years?") and the glorious financial aid hold music (holy shit it was bad), then writing e-mails to various faculty members asking them to yet again write supporting documents for the appeal.
Which sucked, btw.

However, while I feel tired and shitty today, less disappointed but highly annoyed nonetheless with my university's beurocratic bullshit, my hip is not too painful at the moment. I have a sweet guy who is cooking me dinner even though his birthday is this week and he's the one who's supposed to be kicking back and being taken care of, and I've got some awesome friends who are there for me if and when I need them. Overall, I think I come out ahead.

When in doubt...

This morning, my brother called. It wasn't that early, but I hadn't gotten to bed until a little after 3:00 AM so when he called a little after ten, I was still hitting the snooze button on the alarm. First he called my house phone.
"hey...It's me. I just wanted to remind you to vote tomorrow because your senator voted against gay marriage..." etc. etc.

Then he called my cell phone.

Waking up late today meant I almost missed the deadline to make changes to my registration should they have been necessary. See, although A___ and I both went down to town hall on the same day, both filled out registration cards right there in the office and dropped them off with the town clerk, both dealt with the somewhat ignorant and possibly stupid town workers there presumably to "assist" with matters like this, only A___ got a confirmation in the mail that his registration had been processed.

He got it last week. I checked my mail several times but nothing. I figured perhaps my letter carrier had done something creative with it. She's like that. I have decided she places the mail into the various compartments of our cluster box based on the principles of Feng Shui. I waited out the week hoping that my card would arrive or a neighbor would come to negotiate a mail exchange. Nothing.

So today is the last day to register as a democrat (in person) with the local registrar of voters. I think it was today at noon in fact. After speaking with little brother, I called the Secretary of State's office. Why them? Because that is what the morons at town hall said I should do if I hadn't gotten a confirmation card. I called and I spoke to someone who said "You should probably call your town's registrar". PROBABLY? I said "You know, they told me that I should call you guys." The woman replied by telling me she was new and this was her first election.

Ok. Now, I've got some sympathy for her at this point. But why (oh why) have this newbie answering the phone the day before the primary? It's not like the CT Secretary of State's office didn't know this was going to be a bigger than normal primary. Maybe they are so busy they had to let a Judy answer the phone at the elections office.

The woman got me the number for my registrar. I called. It was confusing. Finally, the old gal on the other end (who despite the confusion sounded much more competent than the town clerk who "helped" with my registration) said "I have you registered but something's not right. Let me call you back."

Turns out whoever processed it gave me the wrong address. Aw, and here I was blaming the mailman....she does deserve it though not for this issue it seems. Why would I leap to the conclusion that it was the carrier's fault? Because she does suck (A___ frequently gets a neighbor's bank statements), but also because I just sort of naturally assumed that something as important as processing voter registrations would not be left in the hands of idiots.

Turns out A___ also got a confirmation card for another person, not a neighbor. She shared a last name with A___ though. So that's two local registration fuck ups right here in my tiny little apartment complex in my tiny little town. This is troubling, no? Not conspiracy theory troubling, but again, don't you think voter registrations should be processed with a bit more care? I do.

After I vote tomorrow (assuming the repair the town registrar made to my registration actually goes through) I'm planning on asking who processes this stuff. I'm sort of curious now.

Oh and mostly of the point of this was to say if you live here in the US and plan to vote (ever), if you find you have any doubts about whether you are registered or registered PROPERLY, call and ask. I'm hoping to find out today what I should do if I go to vote tomorrow and find that the problem has not been fixed (because now I am finding I just haven't got a lot of faith in the town government). If I discover anything remotely informative, I'll post it.

Seriously, CT sucks

I live in the wealthiest state in the country. I live in Connecticut. I hate Connecticut. I plan to leave as soon as I am able.

I just read an AP story which gives me more reason to dislike Connecticut. According to the story, a study by the State of Connecticut's Office of Health Care Access shows that residents of CT visit the ER at a rate that is above the national average.

(from the OHCA report)
In 2003, the national ED utilization rate was just under 400 visits per 1,000 population, as compared to 420 per 1,000 in Connecticut.

Worse, the 2003 CT ER rate is up not only above the national average for 2003 but also above the CT rates for 2001 and 2002. From 03 to 04, CT showed an ER "utilization" rate increase of 2% (national data for 2004 isn't available yet).

So what the hell is up with Connecticut? It seems we do not do a good job taking care of our people. This does not need to be the case. Connecticut has the highest per capita income in the US. The region has the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth highest per capita income. We are a rich state surrounded by other rich states. It would seem we have the financial potential to take care of our citizens (maybe if we were able to bring ourselves to part with the notions of having only 2 state personal income tax brackets and one of the region's lowest corporate tax rates) . Is it that we have a state government that has spent far too many years assuaging the deep pocketted minority who faithfully pay for their re-elections, home improvements, and insulated blitheringly ignorant policies? Or maybe we just have a lot of lazy average citizens who have nothing better to do on any given night but go take up space in the ER? I suspect it is not the latter, as it seems the increase in ER usage reflects an increase in ER need (again from the same OCHA report):

Inpatient admissions through the ED increased from 44% in FY 2001 to 50% in FY 2005.
And
...In FY 2005, admissions through the ED were frequently more serious than routine admissions. While routine admissions were frequently birthrelated, ED admissions were more likely to involve respiratory or coronary diagnoses.

Am I being too mean to little old Connecticut? Isn't this just a reflection of trends in the national economy? According the chairman of emergency medicine at Connecticut's Norwalk Hospital Michael Carius (AP - Boston Globe) reasons for the trend in increased use of the ER include "a larger population that is also aging", "a growing number of uninsured and underinsured patients who rely on emergency rooms as their sole source of health care", and "a shortage of primary care physicians and specialty doctors".

It isn't clear from the context of these items in the AP story whether Carius meant all three of the listed factors were part of the national trend or whether some were specific to CT (like the shortage of PCPs and specialists). Even if for the sake of argument we assume that Carius meant them as general reasons for a national trend in increased ER use, if those reasons are valid, then it follows that CT has must have all those same general factors going on as well. This, in addition to the the information from the OHCA report regarding increased admits through the ER (compared to non ER admits), suggests that the richest state in the nation is outpacing the national average by simply letting our sick people rot.

And so I say, take Connecticut. Please.

Keep going

About a month ago, I said I was looking for a mantra or affirmation of some sort. I had forgotten about that but this week, upon recovering my saved bookmarks from my old computer, I finally checked in on a friend's blog and found his reply to my request there.

This past week, and most especially things like the encounter with the slack and ill tempered receptionist at what already felt like a relatively hopeless and overheated trip to the doctor's office, made last month's quest even more accute.

I am happy to say that I think I just came upon something completely satisfactory in a quote from Winston Churchill which appeared as the first line of Rob Brezny's horoscope for Virgo this week:

"If you are going through hell, keep going."

sometimes you eat the bear

I just read this story about a guard dog that freaked out and ripped up a priceless teddy bear that had once belonged to Elvis. I completely empathize with that dog.

Another agonizingly hot day. I thought that it was a little cooler than yesterday but today the storms kept threatening around the edges, never quite following through on the promises of lightening and thunder.

Another long hot car ride out to where there are signs of civilization, like doctors' offices and such. Today's ride ended with a surly receptionist who had NOT entered my appointment in the computer when I made it more than a week ago. I stayed calm, ish. I asked her to see if I had messed up and come on the wrong day. She looked me up. "No, you don't have an appointment in here. The last appointment was in March..." she started to read me the exact date and time of the appointment, like that was somehow relevant. I interrupted her "I know I didn't imagine making the appointment. I just rode all the way out here in an unairconditioned car. Is there any way he can fit me in today?" She flipped through my chart, looked things up, walked away from the desk twice, came back and did some more flipping through my chart. "It's a $25 copay" she said.

This apparently meant "yes, I checked and we can fit you in". I said "Ummmmm, ok. Do you have any idea what the timeline would be? I mean, how long?" She huffed and said tersely "I don't know. He'll try to fit you in..."

I stopped writing my check, "So uh, do I get my money back if it's five and he hasn't been able to see me?" More attitude "No. We close at 4:00." Oh no she didn't! Oh yes she did. "Do I get my money back if it's 4:00 and he hasn't been able to see me?" I said. I'm quite sure I said it with a whole lot of tone. I don't recall because my attention was not on self monitoring but rather turned inward, where I was throttling her like a dobermann with a teddy bear.

Very shortly after that, a nurse took me in. You know, it's funny how shocked they get in a doctor's office when you swear. There's extra shock when you swear in a gynecologist's office. Although for me, I was reserved, I know I said "fuck" and "bullshit" at least once each. "Maybe we'll just wait on your blood pressure" the nurse said stepping away from me like my potty mouth might be contagious. I watched her tanned french manicured fingers, ornamented with a white gold solitaire diamond engagement ring and wedding band, while she checked my pulse. When she finished my vital signs, I stood up. Now, second only to swearing for that "clutch the pearls" kind of response is if the patient who has been seated by the medical provider has the impudence to actually stand up. It's ok if you start off standing, if they didn't tell you to have a seat here or there. But for god's sake, don't get up unless you want to scare the shit out of them.

The nurse with the pretty hands backed up until she was pressed against the counter - I remained standing, speaking to her and the plastic larger than life movable parts display of the female reproductive organs. I remained standing while the nurse told me my doctor would not have time to perform the exam but his resident would. The plastic vagina sat safely mute on the counter behind her.

The nurse scurried off to find the more steel willed or at least less candy assed resident. I changed into the sheet they give you to change into and surveyed the room. One of my friends has told me that one way she deals with the demeaning effects of this sort of shit at the doctor's office is by taking things. Not shit like needles and stuff, they don't leave that out and anyhow, it's not what you'd take. I love this idea btw. Unfortunately, unless I wanted to try to jam the removable parts plastic twat into my purse, there was really nothing else that whispered "Take me!" Fortunately, A___ and I had stolen a pair of the paper shorts from the Ortho surgeon's office yesterday. I savored this memory for a moment, then pulled apart the adhered pages on the patient pamphlets on Lupron and shoved them back into the holder. Not much but it made me feel a teeny bit better.

So the exam was all good, said the Uber-gynecologist (the one I was supposed to see....the reason I drive all the way the fuck out there because he's an expert in Endometriosis which is what I have). All super duper great. Fucking fabo, oh yeah, except that my left ovary is fucked. This one has always been a problem and it is on the same side as the fucked up hip. But this did not bother Uberdoctor. It seemed to rattle his resident a bit during the exam though.

Because she was a resident and, I suspect, relatively new at this, she narrated her exploration with the ultrasound probe. "That" she said crushing a very tender part of my anatomy with the tip of the lubed condom wrapped probe "is your ovary" "Oh." I said. Because what else do you say? "It's...have you had problems with cysts before?" she asked wrenching the probe around some more to see it from a different angle. "Well, yeah...in college. I passed out. Ended up in the hospital" I offered. "This one has some, ah, well, and um....it's a little, well big. It's not as big as it looks on the screen. It's magnified. I'll just get some pictures" she said as she used her free hand to set the machine to capture various images of this large mutated looking thing. "And that's your other ovary," she said brightly, subjecting my other side to the twisting probe crush. "Oh yeah, that one's way back there....much smaller."

Again, what do you say to that? I guess I'm glad she didn't treat me like a slab of meat, but I have very little to say to her on the topic of a comparison of my ovaries. The way it works is they do the exam, then you wipe up and get dressed, then go wait (in a special interior waiting room) to be called into the office. It feels a little like going to see the principal. "Shit. What's he going to say? Am I in trouble?" So I figured I'd get the full report in the office. I know from experience that asking "what does it mean that my left ovary looks like, well, like that?" during the exam would be seen as jumping the gun. They don't like jumping the gun in doctor's office land.

Exam over, wipe up, dressed, wait, and then into Uber-doctor's office where he told me everything looked 100% great and normal. What about the ovary? I thought. But at that point, I was fed up with being there, sick of doctors and nurses and annoying peevish receptionists, and tired of trying to curb my desire to flip the fuck out.

I decided the brush off was my "get out of jail free card" and took the opportunity to flee. I will go back if the ortho approach to whatever the fuck is wrong with my hip doesn't pan out, I swear I will, and I will insist that a note be put on the chart and appointment record saying only my doctor will do the exam. At that moment though, I just wanted to make a break for it before someone else did something else to piss me off. Days like this, it's just too easy to lose your cool.

Well, a wiser fellow than myself once said, sometimes you eat the bear...

3 things

Three things that made me laugh today:

- Reading "Naked" by David Sedaris. I laughed so hard and so long that tears were streaming down my face, even after I put down the book. My god that man is FUNNY.

- The pad ad I saw on TV while waiting for over an hour in my doctor's office today. According to the comforting female voice over, this is the only pad that "soaks up worry". A____ suggested we get some and wear them on our heads.

- The blue puffy paper shorts I had to wear for my exam, and the face I am making in this picture (a mix between damned amused and impatience with the digital camera flash which delayed what had been a regal looking poofed out crotch pose I struck just before this one).

Normal

Normal is a difficult concept. Wordnet gives several shades of meaning:
- conforming with or constituting a norm or standard or level or type or social norm; not abnormal
- in accordance with scientific laws
- being approximately average or within certain limits in e.g. intelligence and development "a perfectly normal child"; "of normal intelligence"; "the most normal person I've ever met"

Which of these, I wonder, applies in the case of my looking for a normal bra?

I went to the mall today, the little bitty mall, the one the kids call the "shit mall" (the grad student kids at least). It was air conditioned, nice to get out of the house to somewhere other than a medical establishment or campus. I bought some sale stuff - things I had intended to buy for a while, which is always good.

Generally satisfied with my selections, I decided to quickly look over the offerings of bras since the ones in my drawer are in various states of decay. I hardly wear the fuckers in the winter but in the summer time I am resigned to needing to strap on the evil contraptions as the least over-heating way to preserve what constitutes "normal" modesty in those contexts that require it.

Problem is, my having not shopped for bras in years (and years) leaves me with few options in these summer months. I have one of the whachacallems, racerback bras that is in reasonably good repair. This is one of the better ones as it has no tears in it and the elastic stitching has sustained enough to hold it on and in place. Even this one has been through hell. I recently had to wrestle the plastic hook out of the vent hole in a dryer. Some of the hook broke, but it still snaps so I still wear it. The other choices involve the dark green threadworn satin and ripped lace one and the white floral thing which has been slowly turning itself inside out even on me.

I didn't have high hopes for finding a bra that wasn't evil. Most bras are evil - you just look for the one that is less so. Even the language that goes with bras is evil. Push up, under wire, center gore, plunge, rigid straps.

While I expect some disapointment when bra shopping, I wasn't prepared for the level of malice that the bra makers that be must holding towards women these days - towards flat chested women in particular ("Wonder bra. Your not-so-secret weapon will mash and torture those little B cups into a more presentable C so you can fight the good fight). It turns out if I wanted a bra with actual straps and cups and not just the undifferentiated band of suffocating lycra spandex cottonish fabric that they call a sports bra, my only choices were padded monstrosities. Padded monstrosities in a variety of colors, fabric, and with any number of trims for the large chested lady who wants to easily fend off any bullets that might happen to be streaking towards her décolletage.

I pretended to fall and hit my head on one of the monstrosities. "Oh thank god that big gianormous pad was there!" I said loudly to my fella A____ who was watching my mall theater. Shortly after, a customer service person was sent to Intimates. I kept looking but kept my editorials to quiet giggles and muttered curses.

I do remember when all the bras went underwire. It was difficult then but sometimes perseverence paid off in a soft cup. This gave me hope I might find something yet. Eventually, I spied a cluster of straps hanging more or less weightlesslyv around a rack. I ran over to examine the cup design. No mondo pillows, that was good. No scaffolding, also a bonus. And it was sort of like a bra, but not quite. More like a halter. Looser than the sports bra-constrictors, but tighter than a t-shirt. Some definition on the cups but not as much as I wanted. I looked at the tag. It turned out that in my hand, I held a "bralette".

Those were my choices. Bra-constrictor, bomber bra, or bralette. I guess I'm left with the scraggly looking but faithfully comfy rags in my wardrobe until the fashion lords that be stop building bras like warships and make some normal bras again.

Quiz

Which Major Arcana Tarot Card Are You?

You scored as XI: Justice. The blindfold arbiter weighs the evidence and passes judgement without fear or favour. There can be no appeal.Justice is not necessarily the same as Law. True justice seeks out the spirit of the law, not just its letter. If a law is bad then true Justice will set that law aside. This is the sacred responsibility of those given the power to judge. If well aspected in a Tarot reading, this card can indicate settlement of disputes, the achievement of a just outcome. If badly aspected this card can indicate corruption and failure of justice.

XI: Justice		81%
III - The Empress		81%
XIX: The Sun		69%
IV - The Emperor		69%
VI: The Lovers		69%
I - Magician		69%
VIII - Strength		63%
II - The High Priestess		63%
XV: The Devil		63%
XIII: Death		56%
0 - The Fool		38%
XVI: The Tower		19%
X - Wheel of Fortune		13%

Which Major Arcana Tarot Card Are You?
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