This morning, after arriving at work, I took a good look around and realized that I could see just the faintest beginnings of sunrise. The sun wasn’t up yet, but the horizon was all gilded with yellows and golds and oranges and the darkness was just beginning to recede. For a moment, I was encouraged. We’re nearing the end of the winter, I thought. Soon there will be no more driving to work in the dark. At last, sunlight. Then I realized that Daylight Saving Time starts in a couple of weeks. We “spring forward”, I think, which if my brain is working right (and I can only hope it’s not) means that whatever the sun’s doing at 7am today it will be doing at 8am in a couple of weeks. Which means just as I’m beginning to be able to enjoy the sunrise and light on my way to work, it will be snatched away from me again.

Dammit.

Thanks, Mitch. I really appreciate your bringing Indiana into the modern age with the time changing and all. Super job.

*sigh*

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I didn’t realize it had been so long since I’d said anything. Having nothing of substance to say yet, I fall back on the old “list of things” format…

Natalie report: The problem with the rice cereal we were feeding her (or trying to) turned out to be the consistency. We made it thicker (and thank you to Dad and the ladies at his work for suggesting this) and she took it much better. So much better, in fact, that we started her on sweet potatoes last night. I’m not sure how she liked them, as there was much grimacing involved, but she stayed calm and ate the whole jar. Also, she’s up to twenty pounds now. Yikes.

Also, there are a couple of new baby pictures here. They’ve been up for a little while, actually, I just hadn’t gotten around to posting the link here. I think there are maybe more coming? But I’m not sure. I know Tim found a bunch on the camera we’d both forgotten about, at least.

I’m quitting caffeine again. Today is day #3, and it’s just gotten ridiculously bad. Huge migraine, scrape-me-off-the-floor-with-a-spatula tired, loss of appetite, the works. This baffles me. I’ve quit caffeine before, and quit it cold-turkey from multiple cups of coffee or black tea a day. Right now I usually only have about 8-12 oz of low-caf oolong tea in the morning, and maybe a Coke or a mug of green tea later in the day. Somehow, it’s worse this time than it ever has been before, despite the level of use being significantly lower than it ever has been before at a time when I’ve been trying to quit. It’s nuts.

I’m adding an entry to the blogroll. (Or I will after I finish this entry, anyway.) My cousin Megan (hi, Meg!) is an absolutely amazing professional photographer (which I’m not just saying because I think she’s reading this; seriously, she does beautiful work), and she’s also got a photography blog. The blog is here, and you should also check out her business site here. Especially if you’re anywhere near the area and in need of a photographer.

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HA! I have broken the 200-pound mark; at weigh-in yesterday morning I was down to 199. It’s amazing how much your state of mind can affect how heavy you feel; Wednesday I was very blah and discouraged and felt very heavy, but now I feel skinnier and healthier. It’s like magic.

If you haven’t seen the latest new movie trailer to make a big splash, you really should. Because it’s not every day you get a new Indiana Jones teaser.

Tim reports that I was talking in my sleep Wednesday night. This sort of… bothers me. Because usually if one of us is acting weird while asleep, it’s him. I don’t think I’ve ever talked in my sleep before, or at least not that anyone’s told me about. I must have been thinking about it more than I realized, though, because last night I dreamed that I was talking in my sleep. In the dream, I was dreaming (a dream within a dream, that is) that I was lying on the couch watching TV, alone and with all the lights out. At the same time, though, I heard Tim talking to me. I had this bizzare feeling of trying to… er, sort of shift, I guess, it’s hard to describe… to wherever he was, but being stuck on the couch. And then I asked if I was talking in my sleep again and he said yes. (At least, I’m pretty sure this was only a dream. If I really was talking in my sleep again, he didn’t mention it this morning.) Dreams can be really strange things sometimes.

I love Stonyfield Farms’ yogurt, so when I got an invite to vote on their next new flavor, I hurried over to see what was under consideration. I find myself intrigued by such flavors as “Pomegranate Berry” (nonfat), “Fresh Herb” (lowfat), and “Green Tea” (also lowfat), and also developing an advance craving for more conventional ones like “Apple Pie” (whole milk) and “Pina Colada” (lowfat). And then I found myself thinking, huh, fresh herb yogurt. Savory yogurt. It’s not something you see a lot on the grocery store shelves; I think we often think of yogurt as a natural pairing for fruit and forget how yummy it is in, say, tzaziki. I’m thinking of getting a single cup of plain yogurt tomorrow and adding whatever fresh herbs we’ve got around (I think we still have some basil, although I think the rosemary’s gone and I know the thyme is) with maybe a touch of seasoning just to see what it tastes like.

I’ll walk in the rain by your side
I’ll cling to the warmth of your tiny hand
I’ll do anything to help you understand
I’ll love you more than anybody can

And the wind will whisper your name to me
Little birds will sing along in time
Leaves will bow down when you walk by
And morning bells will chime
–John Denver, “For Baby (For Bobbie)”

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The number of posts composed of various bits and pieces over the past few weeks is probably a reflection of my state of mind. I’m still a bit scattered. It’ll pass. Eventually.

At last, the writer’s strike is over. Now we can get back to our regularly scheduled programming, and hopefully kick some of the crappy reality TV that’s rushed in to fill the void to the curb. (We can keep Crowned, though. Just because it’s so ridiculous you can’t help but love to laugh at it.)

The weight loss is not going as well as it had been. I haven’t lost anything for two weeks now, and I’m not really looking forward to tomorrow’s weigh-in because I’m afraid it’ll make three weeks of no loss. I have to take responsibility for it, here; I haven’t hit some mysterious plateau or something, I’ve just gotten a bit lax on diet and exercise for a couple of weeks. I’m back on track now, though, and hopefully I can manage to stay that way.

To that end, Tim and I used part of our tax return to purchase a treadmill. It took me all of two sessions to discover that I am a wuss. I tried to do its “weight loss” program and had to stop because it started to set a pace I couldn’t keep up with. So–manual mode for me from here on in. I also have to remember to bring a water bottle in with me so that I can hydrate during my workout… Walking on the treadmill doesn’t burn as many calories as I’d like (I suppose walking never did, but I never had the numbers right in front of my face), so I think maybe I should find something to supplement my workouts with. I’m not sure what, but I think whatever it is has to happen on non-walking days, because I’ve just only got so much time every evening.

The Quest for Solid Food continues. Natalie seems (to me) interested in the spoon and what’s on it, but still can’t keep the food in her mouth. We have yet to make it through a whole bowl, because she just gets pissed off and starts crying, and at that point there’s really not much to be done about it. We had originally been trying (at the doctor’s suggestion) to offer cereal at a time sort of in-between bottles. Tim’s suggested, though, trying it right after a bottle so she doesn’t just work herself into being hungry again. It’s a learning process for all of us. Sometimes I do wonder if she’s actually ready for this or not… It’s so hard to tell.

Is everything I post lately really about either Natalie or weight loss? Maybe it just feels that way. I feel like I must be getting boring here.

Insert random song lyrics and/or quote here.

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My little brother is getting married, y’all!

Congrats to Andrew and Tina.

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An odd mark appeared on the palm of my right hand yesterday. It’s two little red dots. It almost looks like some teeny tiny vampire sneaked up on me and… well, not bit me, I guess, since I can’t see any punctures, but… maybe painted on me? With a little tiny paintbrush?

I’ve decided that I think the spots are blood, because they started off bright red and have since turned the dark brown-red of dried blood. But they also appear to be under the outer layer of skin, because they’re not washing off and I can see the creases in my palm overlaid on them. Maybe it was little tiny vampires with itsy bitsy tattoo needles.

I’d say it really was a bite of some sort, actually, but the site isn’t painful or swollen or itchy or anything. It’s just… these two little dots of color. Weird.

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John McCain

Ha. Finally, a campaign site with no MySpace link. The site design is awfully busy, though. It pulls my eyes in every direction, all at once. No one element is that bad, but there are too many elements. There’s a poke at the Dems in a poll on the front page, but they had little pokes at the Bush administration scattered throughout their sites too, so I’ll let it slide. As long as he’s not all “Democrats are teh 3VIL!!1!!1!” I think I’m OK.

Right. Issues. Health care. (Why have I chosen these issues to pick on? I don’t even know. Because they caught my eye, I guess.) He’s talking complete reform here. Not necessarily a new insurance plan the way Clinton and Obama are going, but reforming the culture of health care entirely. Promoting competition, putting more decisions in patients’ hands, require more accountability from providers for the prices they charge, fund R&D on chronic care and also for generic drugs, pass laws to limit frivilous lawsuits and “excessive damage rewards”, enforce federal policies that protect patients. It’s an entirely different approach. What keeps coming up in my mind is that although some of these measures will eventually have an impact on health care costs, they will take time to take effect. Also, there are no provisions here for making sure that health insurance is available to everyone; it’s about making it more honest and lowering the cost, not making it available. The two are not necessarily the same. I mean, one of the things that really caught my eye about the Democratic plan was the clause that no one would be denied coverage based on a pre-existing condition. As the wife of someone with a “pre-existing condition”, that means something to me, you know?

Iraq. Oh, Iraq. McCain, of course, wants to keep going. And add more troops. He feels that if we withdraw before Iraq can support itself, the region will destabalize and it’ll just be a big old nest of al Qaeda and that will cause big problems for us. This position makes more sense to me if the withdrawal in question is a total withdrawal, washing our hands of the whole thing, not doing anything to clean up the mess we’ve made. That’s not what the Democrats are proposing, though, and as such I find it difficult to buy what McCain is selling here. McCain’s statement about the situation also includes a plan to regain the support of the American people for this war. He seems to think that if we properly understand the price of defeat, we’ll be all for it again. And… well, see previous. Withdrawal does not necessarily mean defeat, and it doesn’t necessarily mean giving up. And the lack of support in this country for this war is not due to a failure to understand the consequences, in my opinion.

McCain doesn’t have a section about “energy”, but he does have one on the environment. It doesn’t really say that much, though, in comparison with Obama and Clinton who went on and on. It just says some stuff about being responsible stewards of our resources. He seems to be headed in the direction of nuclear energy rather than biofuel and so forth. That’s about it. It’s really vague. Not enough information. I mean, I’m glad he recognizes the environment as a concern, but I was hoping to get a little more info on what that means to him and what he’s going to do about it.

Other issues: He wants to overturn Roe v. Wade, end abortion, and “nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench.” He wants to define marriage as one man, one woman. He wants to enact measures to protect children from pornography and sexual predators on the Internet. (A laudable goal all in all, but I’m unconvinced about his approach.) He’s not against stem cell research, but is against certain methods of obtaining stem cells, which… does not get quite as quick a rejection from me as some of the rest of this stuff.

I feel like I’ve made a good effort at giving McCain a fair hearing and finding out what he’s saying and what he’s about. It has, however, only reinforced my aversion to voting for him. There are many things McCain wants to do that I cannot support, things he says that I cannot agree with. I cannot vote for him.

Of course, Indiana’s just going to throw all its electoral votes into the Republican hat (which at this point seems to probably mean McCain) anyway, so in the end, does it really matter how I vote? I’m holding onto the illusion that it does… Unfortunately, I’m all too aware that it’s an illusion.

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Barack Obama

The site is more what I’d expected, although there are still links to social sites like Facebook and MySpace… and a lot of them. Am I just being old-fashioned here in my dislike for seeing candidates use those things? Is it a perfectly valid way to reach out to voters, especially younger ones?

What did I start with on Clinton’s page? Right. Healthcare. Obama’s proposal is… remarkably similar to Clinton’s. A plan similar to what Congress gets, with no one turned away, and so on and so forth. He wants to give subsidies to families who need it, whereas Clinton offered a tax credit. (I wish I knew more about how that works, so that I could figure out which seems better to me.) Another difference is that he talks about setting up a watchdog group to reform private insurance for those who choose not to partake of the government plan. Interestingly, he would also require employers who don’t contribute to their employees’ plans to contribute to the national plan. And here’s the required part; children would be required to have coverage. He wants to computerize everyone’s health records, which makes sense to me as long as proper security measures are taken. (Insert joke here about storing the records on a Unix box.) And legalize buying prescription drugs from other countries, provided said medicine is “safe” and cheaper outside the US. And all kinds of stuff. I like what I’m hearing, but I’m slightly concerned that it might be too much and it might not all get done. Because there’s really a lot here. Then again, a presidency is a big thing and maybe I’m underestimating what can be done.

Then there was Iraq. According to this, Obama has been steadfastly against it the whole time. Whereas Clinton is proposing a redeployment, he wants to pull out pretty much as soon as possible, it looks like, with any remaining troops being those required to guard our embassy (etc.) and potentially to carry out strikes on al Qaeda should aQ operations be discovered in Iraq. His position is that the best way to get Iraq’s leaders to make progress is to stop trying to hold their hands. He also seems to have a more specific plan to “engage” the people of Iraq (government or otherwise) to resolve their differences. I like getting us out of there, with the provision that we do take some action to sort of clean up our mess, as it were, and it sounds like that’s where he’s going with this.

And the third thing I looked at was energy. Again, there are a lot of similarities to Clinton’s plan. In fact, some of the numbers are exactly the same as the ones I cited in my entry about Clinton. One interesting thing Obama’s got is an initiative to reward forest owners and farmers and so forth when they do things like plant trees or “undertake farming practices that capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere”. I don’t remember whether Clinton had something like that or not. In any case, though, I may just be missing it, but I see little here to differentiate between the two candidates.

Other issues… One that comes up with Obama is faith. This is one area where he’s already earned a lot of brownie points in my book, and I’ve barely gotten into the issue. Why? Because of a quote I saw out of a speech he made in which he talked about how this is no longer “a Christian country” and it’s time we recognized that. He considers it a bad thing to legislate one’s own religion on other people, unlike some other lawmakers I could mention. And that, to me, is a Very Good Thing. That the President’s religion should inform his (or her, I suppose I should say now) choice of what issues to support and how to address them, I do not deny. It is the responsibility of everyone (including the President) to live up to their own values, and that includes religious values where they are present. It becomes a problem, though, when someone in a position of power starts pushing for laws that force others to comply with hir beliefs. I’m all for a candidate who sees that distinction and respects it. I also took the time to read this speech on the subject of politics and religion, and while I don’t know if I agree with every point Obama makes, I do think that he’s got a lot of good ones. This is potentially a blog entry of its own if I get started on it, so I’ll stop for now.

Miscellaneous other issues… As part of his “ethics” section, Obama proposes to make his cabinet have periodic national town hall-type meetings and also to make regulatory agencies discuss business in public, in an attempt to get the public back into the government. He wants to expand hate crime legislation, which I’m kind of up in the air on. (On the one hand, hate crimes are something that horrify me, moreso than “regular” crimes. On the other hand, it doesn’t matter whether Jane Doe was murdered because she was African-American or because she had some really nice jewelry. She’s still just as dead either way. And if it’s already a crime in the first place, then there are already penalties in place for it without having to add the “hate” label. Again, this could be its own post; I’ll move on now.) His Homeland Security concerns seem to focus on protection of resources and such, not trying to hunt down the terrorists in our midst by compromising individual freedoms, which I like very, very much.

One final note: It’s really just a design decision, but I find it interesting that whereas Clinton sort of pushed all the information about herself into its own section on her site, Obama mixes faith and family and ethics in with all the rest of his issues. Whether it’s really significant or not, it gives a sort of subtle impression that he doesn’t separate himself out into “the political Obama” and “the person Obama”, that the things that make him who he is will also inform his decisions as President. Which could be bad with the wrong person and the wrong approach, but after reading some of the rest of his site I don’t get the impression that he’s the wrong person with the wrong approach.

Overall, I find myself leaning toward Obama over Clinton, based on what I’ve seen on their web sites. Clinton’s site just had me kind of going, “Eh, yeah, that sounds good,” whereas with Obama I felt like he’d hit more accurately my target for a President of the United States. It’s not that I’d be completely unhappy with Clinton, but I think I’d be happier still with Obama based on what I know right now. Fortunate, since at the moment he’s in the lead for the Democratic nomination…

Next, I am going to attempt to give “the other side” a fair hearing by looking into John McCain. I already know that I’m not likely to really, er, appreciate his political stance? But it’s only fair to have a look rather than just deciding on some really vague ideas about who he is and what he stands for. (After that… I’m not actually sure who else is running in any other parties. I may have to wait a little to see who else I maybe should be looking into. Not that I have any real illusions about a third-party candidate winning, but dammit, in 2004 I voted against, and this time around I’d really like to vote for, even if I know my candidate may not have a chance.)

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(More candidates, specifically Obama, coming soon. I wanted to get this out of my “to post” queue at last, though; it’s a little overdue.)

Stations of the Sun: Ahathoor

Hail unto Thee who art Ahathoor in Thy triumphing, even unto Thee who art Ahathoor in Thy beauty, who travellest over the heavens in thy bark at the Mid-course of the Sun. Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm. Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Morning!

In the bottle, this is a clean scent. It’s almost minty to some degree, although there’s something deeper and mellower beneath that. On me, there’s a honey note that jumps out almost immediately. Yay! I love that note. There’s a tiny bit of incense, too, I think. It’s definitely not Delphi or Athens, though, although I have trouble pinning down the exact note that makes the difference. As it dries, it hovers on the edge of being perfumey, but the honey always pulls it back. That “different” note also starts to become more pronounced; I think it’s a bit of spice. I really like this one. Which, to tell you the truth, is no big surprise to me. Now I want to try the other two Stations of the Sun, since I’ve liked this one and Tum so well.

Stations of the Sun: Tum

Hail unto Thee who art Tum in Thy setting, even unto Thee who art Tum in Thy joy, who travellest over the Heavens in Thy bark at the Down-going of the Sun. Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm. Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Day!

Tum I already had; I had traded a vial that didn’t catch my interest to Shadow for it. Nonetheless, I’ll give it the same treatment everything else is getting, if only because I never did post sniffing notes on it when I got it.

In the bottle, it’s honey. Honeyhoneyhoney, but there’s also something sharper lurking beneath it. On me, it actually smells a lot like Delphi. Honey-wine and incense. It’s not quite the same, but I can’t quite pin down what’s different. Maybe it’s a little lighter. The honey certainly fades faster from the scent as it dries, leaving more of an incensey smell with perhaps even a little bit of parchment to it. I thought I detected a floral note early on, but then couldn’t find it again, so maybe not. Whatever the actual components are, I like this one very much and am glad that I have an extra sample bottle of it now. Tim says he likes it too. Which is good, since I just got a whole bottle of something that smells so much like it.

Vinland

The legendary site of the Viking colony in Newfoundland founded circa 985. Crisp northern wind blowing over loganberry, wild roses, prairie crocus, iris versicolor Linné, mountain avens, yellow birch bark, mayflower and maple leaf.

In the bottle, I’m not quite sure how to describe it. A little bit earthy, a little bit floral, and unlike anything else I’ve smelled from BPAL to date. (Total count to date: 26 scents, which sounds like quite a few but is really only a fraction of what they offer.) Looking at the description, I think the bark and leaves might be what’s making it so different and hard to identify; I’m not used to those scents in a perfume. (Not a complaint.) On me, it first becomes a very sharp floral. Then it starts to get earthier, though not in the icky soil-and-chocolate way that Siren did. Deeper. It’s a good earthier. Finally, it mellows and lifts into something a little more floral again. I have to look at the description to identify what I’m smelling; it’s the wild rose and the loganberry, I think, although that deeper scent (the leaves and bark, perhaps?) still linger in the background. It’s a complex scent, and I think I like it.

OK, so that’s the lot of them, finally. Overall I’m pretty pleased with this batch. Nearly everything I chose, I’m happy with (some more than others, but I’ve hardly put any in the “probably/definitely won’t wear” pile), and although some of the free samples worked out better than others, there were some good finds there as well. And now I’ve got my BPAL fix for a while, so I’m happy.

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Hillary Clinton

The site is at least not the quagmire of mudslinging that Kerry’s was four years ago, but it still bothers me. It’s not until I start listing what individual things bother me that I see the overall problem: It seems unprofessional. The use of her first name (“Hillary for President” rather than “Clinton for President”), the links to her pages on MySpace and Facebook and YouTube, the attempts to make the campaign trendy with terms like “HillCast” and “HillStars” and “HillBlazers”. It’s very “look at me, I’m cool, you can relate to me”, and while that can be very effective and appealing… I also want to see more evidence of a sense of what sort of familiarity is appropriate to the job, and this doesn’t give me that. This gives me the sense that she’s just really trying to be cool so people will vote for her. And you know what happens when people try to be cool. But this is all irrelevant to her actual ability to do the actual job. It’s just not a favorable first impression, is all.

Everything else here, I’ll probably have to look into more, because I’m woefully under-informed on many issues. But for now I’m just trying to even get any idea of what the candidates stand for, even if I don’t necessarily understand all of it.

One of the first issues I come across is health care. Clinton wants to allow every American the option of choosing any of the plans that are available to our Congresscritters. No one barred from it due to pre-existing conditions or uninsurability or whatever, and tax credits to help pay for it. Interesting things: A focus on “efficiency and modernization” is mentioned, which sounds a little scary actually and I’d like to know more about. Under the heading of “shared responsibility”, the “individuals” bullet-point is, “will be required to get and keep insurance in a system where insurance is affordable and accessible.” So will it now be law that you must be insured? That bothers me too, a little; in a system where it’s available and truly accessible to anyone, it seems to me it’s your own fault if you don’t have it and not the government’s duty to play nanny and make you get it. Of course, I know there are other areas in which insurance is required (auto insurance springs first to mind), so perhaps I’m being overly concerned here.

Then there’s Ending the War in Iraq. I wish I were more informed about military strategy. I like the idea of getting the heck out of there, seeing as I’m still not convinced we should’ve been there in the first place. What I don’t know is whether Clinton’s proposed plan is going to be viable. Replacing military force with diplomacy appeals to me, but will it work? This is a question people often ask out of skepticism, but I ask out of honest ignorance. I may need something to compare and contrast with here. Maybe if I have an alternative to look at, I can at least tell which seems better to me.

Energy. Clinton wants to reduce emissions and reliance upon foreign oil, and increase “green” energy sources (also creating jobs in that field). She also wants to improve our public transportation. OK, sounds good. It seems pretty ambitious (25% of electricity to be generated from renewable sources by 2025 and 60 billion gallons of “homegrown biofuel” available by 2030, for example), but I’m interested… mostly. She also wants to phase out incandescent lighting starting in 2012, in favor of compact flourescent bulbs and LEDs. Here is where I start to approach my “government micromanaging my life” threshhold, though. (Doing this research is really making me think about this, the balance between individual autonomy and/or privacy and government intervention and/or oversight to lead us all forward and keep things running smoothly. But that’s another post.) I’m not sure how I feel about it, especially knowing that compact flourescents may be energy-efficient but can be more hazardous to dispose of when it becomes necessary. It’s one of those… we choose to use compact flourescents where possible, but I’m not sure how comfortable I am with legislating that onto everyone else. I feel like there are good reasons to use them, but… I don’t know. (Then again, they’re just freaking light bulbs and I don’t know why I’m reacting like she wants to legislate a hugely personal choice here.)

Miscellaneous other issues: I don’t know much about the immigration issue and am not that interested in it per se, but am glad to see that Clinton appears to be trying to balance the interests of this country with the needs of those trying to emigrate. Her “women’s issues” page actually makes much of the idea that it’s not necessarily specifically about women (except where that’s unavoidable, such as her firm pro-choice stance), but about making sure everyone is treated equally. Which is great by me; I like being equal and all, but too often when it’s about “women’s rights” it turns into making women “special”, whereas all I’m interested in being is equal. I’m also happy with the way she handled the issue in general, indicating her interest without being overtly, “I’m a woman, so if you women want someone to support you in the White House you’ll elect me.”

Interesting quote: “During the Cold War, with missiles pointed at us, we never stopped talking to the Soviet Union. That didn’t mean we agreed with them or approved of them. But it did mean we came to understand them — and that was crucial to confronting the threats they posed.” That’s something I wish more people understood, honestly.

OK. Do I know any more about Clinton than I did before? Y…eah, I think I do. And a lot of what I’m seeing here I like. Of course, it’s all from her site. It’s been set up to make me want to like her and vote for her. I have no other perspective on it and am horribly underinformed about any side of a lot of these issues. In the end, I’m not certain whether this has done me that much good or not… But I guess it’s better than nothing at all.

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