oh...just me: February 2006 Archives

Squeeze number three. But today someone mentioned an alternative screening possibility, so I checked it out with the radiation tech. Lisa hadn't heard of it...thermasomething, but she did say ultrasound is used at a certain point to determine if a lump is cystic (has fluid) or solid (biopsy time). A lot of stuff is being done with MRI technology now, but nothing new in this arena. The most interesting part of the conversation (I thought) was comparing European and US research. We both had the sense of the Europeans being much more broadly interested and even experimental with a wider range of concern while the US is more invested in high-profile crisis research.

The other point had to do with the doses of radiation used these days compared with the old days. I did ask (according to my rights, posted on the wall) for the exact dosage.... it's calculated in millirems and she cited some comparitives to emphasize the minimal risk involved. It reminded me of concerns someone had at some point when I was a kid with all kinds of dental work being done and a few concussions....that we needed to be careful of the number of xrays I had. Lisa said dentists used to use very high dosages (apparently not so anymore). At any rate, I wondered - is that what happened to my memory? Some of my synapses got fried or otherwise 'mis'configured? :-) That would explain a lot...

Watched two movies this evening, Bulworth, and Diary of a Mad Black Woman.

I enjoyed Bulworth's assault on the current state of political-economic affairs, but mostly I empathized with the fact of making personal mistakes on the grandest public scale possible. I wish I could learn well in a more discrete fashion but it just doesn't seem to be my modus operandi.

I'll confess, "Diary" just made me sad with it's them of love gone wrong. It's hardly a comedy, as my fellow movie-viewers critiqued, it is falsely advertised as such. It's more a proselytizing film for Christianity - and not necessarily in its most radical/humanizing form. Nonetheless, once we've made people "pay" for their sins against us (real or imagined?), we do have the option to forgive and move on. Best would be to forgive before any degree of retribution but such requires true sainthood, yes?

Truman was a messed up dude, as far as I can tell from the depiction in the movie. He was brilliant, understood the power of media (as in McLuhan's infamous "the medium is the message") and apparently had no compunction in using people's lives as fodder for a good story - to wit, In Cold Blood.

His own life wasn't so glamorous, which isn't an excuse for being nonchalant with others' lives - regardless of their own choices. The most compelling line of the movie, to me, was when Capote explains the similarity between his life and the life of Perry Smith - who turns out to be the one who committed all four of the cold-blooded murders. "One day he stood up and went out the back door, while I went out the front."

Yes, and. Truman Capote may have walked out the front door and led a life that didn't violate the law, but that doesn't mean his actions didn't violate other persons. He needed Perry Smith and Dick Hickock to be guilty and die for their crime. They were, and they did... does it excuse his lack of compassion? His book was more important to him than their lives. But they were guilty - most especially Perry, to whom Capote became most close.

when Lee and I were going through these slides with Sam, I had the weirdest moment....that looks like my mom, that's my dad! Those are my parents! In the backyard of our house in Denver. :-) It might have been Sam's last visit before we moved to Florida...circa 1976.

This is what happens when I'm not feeling well but resist going to sleep. I would swear that I selected three spam comments to delete but NO, I erased a whole 17 good ones along with them. An irretrievable error. Did someone say something about a slow learning curve? :-(

I don't have so many rituals in my life. Wikipedia notes the adjective is related "to the noun 'rite', as in rite of passage." Such as a birthday.

I found a bottle of Jubilee- Hugel 2000 . . . from the superb 2000 vintage, by the best known Alsace Company, founded at Riquewihr in 1639."

Whatever Cat Stevens' actual politics, his music has been meaningful to me. In particular, I've always enjoyed Miles from Nowhere.