Blood




Sale

Originally uploaded by moyalynne

Blood is on my mind — exactly, not exactly, approximately, and completely figuratively. A few quotes, which my body chooses, through its common organ, to randomly connect:

My heart is a big red liquid pump that gets stuck all the time.
— David Sobel

But these are tainted years, ours; the blood of men far away
tumbles again in the foam, the waves stain us, the moon is spattered.
These faraway agonies are our agonies
and the struggle for the oppressed is a hard vein in my nature.

Perhaps this war will pass like the others which divided us,
leaving us dead, killing us along with the killers
but the shame of this time puts its burning fingers to our faces.
Who will erase the ruthlessness hidden in innocent blood?
— Pablo Neruda

Colony-stimulating factors are glycoproteins which act on hematopoietic cells by binding to specific cell surface receptors and stimulating proliferation, differentiation commitment, and some end-cell functional activation.
— NEUPOGEN® package insert

If I could, I would take your fever in me. If I could, but I can’t do anything.
— Will Johnston

And I know it well…
— Bon Iver

NCLR: Not business as usual


Waterfall – Courtesy MLK

Originally uploaded by moyalynne

Congratulations to NCLR — National Center for Lesbian Rights — for opening up to the two-way dialog of blogging today, with http://overturn8.nclrights.org/.

Says Kate Kendell in today’s blog entry:

The New Year is off to a great start. After a bit of a breather for some over the holidays, it is clear that our community is not going back to business as usual. We know that 2009 has the potential to be a transformative year—but only with activism, action, involvement and vigilance…

Kendell, who provided part of the management of the No On Prop 8 campaign, has been subject to criticism (much of which online) since November’s heartbreaking passage of the proposition, but it’s clear she’s not just going back into her corner and cowering.

This sounds to me like an organization that has tuned in to the community since the election, listened in, and — here’s the key — responded to change. If Obama’s victory comes from the mantra of “change we can believe in,” “Yes we can” is something you can answer if you really can change. It reminds me of what Charles Darwin was purported to really have said about evolution:

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

Don’t get me wrong — NCLR is full of some of the strongest, most intelligent people I know — but I’m impressed with this latest foray into being open to the online conversation. I hope you consider joining in.

I Go to the Hills


We Found Maria!

Originally uploaded by moyalynne

So we climb to the peak of 2008, turn around and look down, but also gaze ahead. I’m eager to be done with 2008 and on with 2009, but 2008 was not all bad.

Things I liked:

  • Getting married
  • Working on @NoOnProp8
  • Snow just off of Highway 280
  • Sing-a-Long Sound of Music
  • Listening to random music
  • May in the California Supreme Court
  • Rescuing the Bumblebee Queen
  • Meeting friends – new and old (well, “long-time”)
  • Being part of an exciting and disruptive project at work
  • The California Academy of Sciences
  • Sazerac
  • BLUE BOTTLE COFFEE
  • Surprise chocolates
  • The Public Library
  • Seattle
  • Twitter and Facebook doing the tango
  • Hope, in general
  • Obama
  • All my family
  • LUCY and LEANNE. Turn the world around.

Things I could have done without:

  • My brother’s bout with chemical warfare
  • Proposition 8
  • Insomnia
  • Going to work instead of toward the snow
  • Cancer in general
  • Being part of an exciting and disruptive project at work
  • Proposition 8
  • Iritis (whatever the HECK that is)
  • Proposition 8
  • Fighting of any kind
  • The disappearance of money
  • Proposition 8

Looks like things are generally good, in the balance.  All things in perspective; I look forward to that in 2009. Many mountains to climb ahead. I promise to work my hardest, help, and hope.

With love to all and good hiking boots,
-m