Terisa Green, Ph.D. Freelance Writer
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5/8/05
As of today, I am not blogging.
5/2/05
Mother's Day is coming soon. Although people like to think that Hallmark invented it, there's been a day for visiting mothers since the Middle Ages, celebrated on the fourth Sunday of Lent. The Hallmark association, however, is a strong one. In fact, in the United States, the woman responsible for starting the modern version of the holiday (Anna Jarvis, 1907) actually tried to get the whole thing abolished because of the commercialization. You can't unring the bell, though, and you can't deny profits to the greeting card companies, the post office, FTD, and Hershey's.
4/22/05
Why did they have to have a conclave? Why did they even vote? While the cardinals prayed about their choice and hoped that they were doing god's will, why didn't they just let god pick? Have a monkey throw a dart at a spinning wheel of names or maybe just wait for a lightning bolt to land in a fortuitous spot. It's got to take a pretty puny amount of faith to meet in secret, have a media blackout, and cast ballots on papers that have to be burned.
4/18/05
A friend recently brought a newspaper article to my attention about new archaeological investigations being done in the Sierras, calling it CSI: Donner Party. Although I’m vaguely familiar with the CSI reference, I had to look up what it meant since I’ve never seen any of the TV shows that seem to have popped up around the theme of Crime Scene Investigation. Is that what the Donner Party site is now, a crime scene? A 150-year-old crime scene? I guess the Discovery Channel thought so. That must make it good science. Let’s not even get into issues about the value of particularistic research, contributions to the discipline, yaddah yaddah yaddah. Instead, let’s just take a moment to marvel at how there is already a “vow” to “ceremoniously bury” any human remains that might be discovered. Really. If the site had been a Paiute encampment and human remains were discovered, my guess would be that the human remains would have gone into plastic bags, been labeled with a Sharpie, put into an archival museum box, and stored on a shelf somewhere.
4/15/05
In Virginia, they have refused the right to offer an opening prayer at a county meeting to a Wiccan priestess, excluding her from a list of religious leaders allowed to pray at the Board of Supervisors' meetings. As long as we're going to ignore the separation of church and state, why not have some fun? Would it open the doors to all sorts of religions? I hope so. Would some crackpots sneak in the door too? Double I hope so.
4/6/05
Oh what I wouldn't give to be in Rome. I think Anne Lamott is of a religious nature (can't remember if she's Catholic or not). But does it matter if we're Catholic? I don't think so. I've been fascinated with Catholicism and the Popes for quite some time. To date, my favorite is Pope John XXIII. He died in an era that had not yet discovered satellite TV, the internet, or globalization. I know him only from a few mentions made of him here and there and Cahill's brief (but fabulous) biography of him. I am struck by the fact that John Paul II was a handsome man and might have even been an actor at one point in his life. John XXIII was anything but handsome, anything but a man of languages and the world. But what a Pope.
4/5/05
Somebody important died recently, and I don't mean the Pope or Terry Schiavo. Booey the Cat finally slipped quietly away. There was no television coverage, but we'll miss him just the same. Safe trip, little Boney Butt.
3/30/05
Yes, you knew the day would come when people would be paid to get tattoos of advertisements. You just didn't think you'd live to see it (www.tatad.com). But here it is and there you still are. People are getting paid (in money or through barter) for getting permanently inked (not the temporary tattoo that the forehead guy did). Professional athletes who show some skin (like boxers) are getting paid for henna tattoos also. It's the kind of phenomena that used to be relegated to urban legend, rumor, and sci-fi movies.
What other people think about you or your tattoo shouldn't affect your choice because it's you that has to live with it, shower after shower, for the rest of your life (never assume you'll be able to have it removed with a laser, since you may not). Whether other people think a tattoo ad is a sell-out, ugly, or lame doesn't matter. There are many people who walk the planet and think those things about any tattoo. Other people are intrigued by it as the latest fad or news item -- and some of the logos are attractive. For some people it's just another tattoo in a long list of tattoos and for others it's just more business -- no big deal.
My second book on tattooing is due out in June and doesn't cover tattoo ads because it wasn't happening when the manuscript was written. I don't ever knock anybody's tattoo choice (unless it's anti-social) and if I could have covered the topic of tattoo ads in the new book, I would have put it in the chapter about choosing your symbol. Like the "name game" (getting the name of your loved one tattooed), the tattoo ad is inherently something that stands a chance of becoming less relevant to the tattooee over the course of their life. The company whose logo you've got could even go out of business. Do your headwork and visualize you and your tattoo ten years from now and then twenty and thirty. Imagine telling your date or your kids about it. Imagine explaining it every day to strangers, maybe multiple times a day. You might even want to contact someone who's got a tattoo ad and see what they think, in hindsight, about their choice. Finally, though, realize that you'll never really know what it's like to be inked (or inked with an ad) until it happens.
3/26/05
Speaking of tattoos, which I wasn’t but I think it’s about time, two prison guards in New York last week were charged with supplying tattoo needles and inks (among other things) to an inmate in the Ogdensburg Correctional Facility. Both guards had apparently been tattooed by the inmate (both got their wives’ names). While most of the world is clucking tongues and wagging fingers over the stupidity of supplying a potential ‘weapon’ to an inmate, they might have saved themselves some hepatitis if the tattoo materials were sterile. Of course, they could have saved their jobs too if they’d just gone to a reputable tattoo shop where everything is either sterilized (needles and tubes) or single use (gloves, razor, cotton swabs, ink cups) and the consumables are dispensed cleanly (Vaseline with a single-use tongue depressor, alcohol and green soap from squirt bottles, handi-wipes from the box). Tsk, tsk.
Contrast that with Canada. Last year, the Correctional Service of Canada actually suggested putting tattoo parlors in federal prisons to curb the spread of blood borne pathogens. Now that’s what I’d call thinking about the inking.
3/24/05
Anne writes about the people in her life. It's not that I don't have people in my life, because I've got some ultra fine people in there. But do they want me to write about them? Even if I didn't diss people, would they want to read about themselves in a blog (or an article or book)? I tend to think that most of the people I know could probably care less whether they appeared in my writing or not. Even so, I'd be second-guessing myself right and left about it -- an activity in which I don't usually engage (for better or worse). I think that for the time being I'll have to write about the weather (it's raining again in LA), my pets (two plastic fish), my bonsai (some new growth), and my iMac (back from being repaired).
3/22/05
I was interviewed by a tattoo magazine last week (the same one where I have a column) and it weirded me out a bit. Every other interview I've done has been about my work. This interview was about me though and, more to the point, what I thought about me. I can typically go months without thinking about what I think about me. But, all of a sudden, there I was in the spotlight, if a telephone interview can have a spotlight. Man do I hate the spotlight. Why did I do it then? Partially because the interviewer was so engaging and fun (I like chatting with other writers -- what a surprise), partially because that writer has a job to do and I don't want to make it harder than it already is, and partially because I didn't think it'd be a big deal. But even now, I'm deconstructing it. When you're asked how you want people to remember you and you say "I'd prefer if they didn't," it's got to be a sign that your person-in-the-spotlight interview could be going better.
3/21/05
I'm thinking today that I should have some little bracelets made up that say "WWALD" for "What Would Anne Lamott Do". They would sort of guide people through their day, keeping them mindful of their relationship to the universe and Anne. It's not that we'd all do the same thing that Anne would do, supposing that we even know what she'd do anyway. No. It would just make you wonder what she'd do and then you'd do whatever you were going to do anyway.
3/19/05
Today is the day that I post this sucker. So it's HTML for me and optimizing JPEGs. I would bet a million dollars that Anne doesn't have to do stuff like this.
3/18/05
Our differences run deep! When asked about my religion I proclaim that I'm a devout atheist. It usually gets a small laugh, but it's absolutely true. I've considered my atheism seriously, for some time, from many angles. I'm content with it, despite being in the vast minority (and partially because of being in the vast minority). Anne, however, is a woman of faith. It's not me, for sure, but I admire it. Plus, she's a red head.
3/17/05
It would appear that I'm not Anne Lamott. I think I knew that, even though I'd never really thought of it in such concrete terms. But then my-writer-friend-Marie noted that Anne Lamott's fro shot her coolness factor past mine. Of course, I had to agree. But then I also had to wonder about not being Anne Lamott. Where are my penetrating, pithy, unflinching, therapeutic, tender, dead on, best-selling -- and let's not forget ultra cool -- observations on us all?
Her articles at Salon.com -- go read.
Anne Lamott,
I Am Not
(my blog)
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