Allie tagged me for a meme on what I did for Earth Day.

Well, not much to be honest.

The way I see it, Earth Day is for the people who don’t try to live like “we” do. That is, most of those who read my blog, and most of the blogs I read, are all trying to reduce, reuse, and recycle. We’re trying to lower our carbon footprints. We’re trying to educate the general public, our friends and family, about the perils of bottled water, additives and preservatives, “farming” techniques etc.

Maybe it’s arrogant of me to think Earth Day doesn’t apply to me. Maybe it’s me being holier than thou, that my pentacle is pointier than yours. But I live a life dedicated to saving Our Mother. Certainly there are more things I can do and I am working on incorporating such things into my life style. Some take money which we don’t have. Some take time. Some take other resources. But I’m doing a pretty damned good job and more than most of the people I know in real life.

Excuse me while I go pat myself on the back. (Just have to do some yoga first so I can physically pat myself =).

The answers to the questions asked.

Allie asked: When do you feel the most like yourself?

That’s a damned hard question, Allie! I put a lot of thought into it and the answer is I feel most like myself when I’m home alone. And when I’m sitting around just hanging out with Wolf.

The opposite of that is I feel least like myself when I’m in any sort of social situation. Be it a family function, a party with friends, or at work, I tuck important parts of my personality away because I cannot be myself. My opinions are too strong, my views on society and politics are too radical, too oppositional.

Erikka asked: what’s going on with the chickies?

Wolf finished the chicken coop last weekend (pictures later. I had to send my camera out to be serviced) in anticipation of the arrival of the chickens on Monday but for some reason they didn’t get here. It would appear they will be here on Friday however, because we’ll be in Mass. all weekend for Dad’s memorial service, we won’t be able to pick them up until next Monday, the 5th of May.

Incidentally, the 5th is the actual day Dad died. I think it’s apropos to bring new life — and life giving animals — onto Howling Hill on the new moon and on Dad’s deathday. It’ll be a day of celebration. Right after I get the crown put on my tooth.

Randilin asked me two questions: 1) If you could change one thing in the world what would it be? 2) If you could travel back in time and change history what would you change?

1) If given the opportunity to make one major change, I would change the way people think. Yea, that’s huge, I know. But I would change the idea of “more is better.” I would change the idea that it’s ok to kill other people for money, food, resources.

2) Given the opportunity to time travel (which always the superpower I chose when given the hypothetical question. Must be the genealogist in me.) I would go back and change the mind of whomever came up with capitalism. I think it’s the most detrimental idea wo/man has ever had. It’s raped our planet and all it’s inhabitants.

A close second, btw, is I’d change the evangelical nature of Christianity. While I don’t think there’s anything wrong with believing in Christ, I very much think there’s something wrong with the evangelical nature of the religion. Along with it’s close friend and mate capitalism, Christianity has done more damage. It seems to have created problems just so it could come in and “rescue” the heathen.

Noelle questioned: My standard question: What person, alive or dead, do you wish kept a blog?

Hmmm, tough one. Princess Diana, certainly. Christ. Christine de Pizan . Definitely Hypathia. Mary and Mary Magdalene, absolutely. Fatimah. Must I go on?

RA also asked two questions: Why do you blog? What are you reading now?

I used to try and keep a diary but I was never very successful. I never remembered I had it. I was always afraid someone would find it*, I would loose it. After stopping and starting a million times, it just seemed so pointless.

I started blogging in 2005 as a way to work through the anger which is just starting to dissipate. The blog I had, which some of my current readers were patrons of, was just so full of rage. I raged about the world, about school, about my childhood. It was fairly cathartic, actually. I deleted that blog last year and started anew. I struggle to keep this blog more cheerful and less rageful. Sometimes I slip and fall back into old patterns. When I do, I either delete or move on.

So the answer to your question is to exorcise the pain in my chest. Well, that was the initial reason I started blogging. Now I blog to make connections, to peek into other people’s lives. To travel the country without leaving my house. To continue practicing my writing because it’s a skill I don’t want to lose.

I knew someone was going to ask me what I’m currently reading. About the only thing I’m reading right now is other peoples blogs. I’m weird about books. As much as I love them, I don’t read them very often. I have lots of them, I continue to buy them, but reading them is a completely different action.

I binge read to be honest. I started reading Women of the Celts but lost interest in it. Not that it isn’t interesting, it is and it’s well written and researched. That’s what happens to me and books. I start to read them then I don’t finish. Or I read a book straight through then start on another just to put it down a few pages in.

So the short answer is I’m not reading anything. Does that make me a bad blogger?

Peppylady, one of my most dedicated readers asked me three questions: 1. Do you have curly or straight hair? 2. What was your first post about? 3. Does anyone in your family know about your blog, if so how do they react?

1. I have bone straight hair. Right now it’s just past my shoulders and it’s brown. I’ve colored it, permed it, cut it, and done just about everything under Sun over the years. Now that I’m getting old and must look appropriate if I want a job, I just keep it long and natural.

2. Well, if you mean on this blog, it was entitled womb building If you mean my previous blog, I have no idea. Probably me trying to figure out how to work Blogger.

3. When I first started blogging I informed many of my family members of my venture. However, they were uninterested. To my knowledge, no family member reads this blog despite the fact that two cousins also blog (their links are on my sidebar). Also, I have another blog where I write about my genealogy. Every family member I have an email address for was given the address but only two read it that I know of: my cousin Patty in Mississippi and Mireille in Massachusetts. (That I keep private because names and pictures are on it so don’t ask for the address.)

I would love it if my family read my words. I have a link to Howling Hill on my Facebook profile. Despite having over twenty cousins as “friends” I don’t think a single one of them has clicked on the link to bring them here. I also think I have one on my MySpace, but I don’t remember. I should check.

As for friends there is only one I know for sure who reads this, Scott. Otherwise my friends are “too busy.” Glenn and Maggie may read it now that they have their own blog but I’m not sure. I know they used to read Pensieve, which is one blog I merged here. Pensieve focused on my spirituality.

Oooh, that was fun. I’ll do it again at a later date. How about you?

*Which happened and got me into a heap of trouble in 7th grade. My mother’s husband read it, saw I had written “I wish Ken would die” because he had just gotten out of the hospital after suffering from a collapsed lung (hint: don’t smoke). The whole thing exploded when I demanded to know why he was in my room, why he was snooping around, and what gave him the right to read my diary, which was locked. My mother justified his actions then wanted to know why I wished death on him. She seemed so baffled. So was I.

I know I’ve mentioned a few times that I’m planning a memorial service for my dad this coming Saturday. I wrote up an announcement for the Boston Globe. This is what I wrote:

A memorial mass in honor of [Dad's first name, middle initial, and last name] will be held on Saturday May 3, 2008 at 10am at the Church of [name] [street address], Lexington, MA.

[Dad's] life was taken suddenly on May 5, 1978 in his hometown of Lexington. He left behind his wife, [name] and son [name] both of Bedford and daughter Michelle [my last name and town I live in]; his mother [name]; brothers [name] and [name] of Lexington; and sister [name] of Concord; and many aunts, uncles, and cousins of Cambridge, Arlington, and Charlestown.

Please join us as we celebrate his life and bring stories and pictures you wish to share with his friends and family. No flowers please. Donations can be made in [Dad's] name to the donors’ favorite charity.

Can you believe that cost over $300? I said to the woman “this is obnoxiously cost prohibitive. How are the poor and working class supposed to afford running an obit at such an astronomical rate?” I then told her to forget it.

I’m disgusted with Boston Globe. I won’t be subscribing to that newspaper anytime soon.

The last time Shrub sent out rebates I got a really small amount — like $30 or something — so I donated it to Planned Parenthood in GW’s name.

The federal government is sending each and everyone of us a $600 rebate.

If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, the money will go to China ,

If we spend it on gasoline it will go to the Arabs,

If we purchase a computer it will go to India ,

If we purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico , Honduras , and
Guatemala ,

If we purchase a good car it will go to Japan ,

If we purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan ,

and none of it will help the American economy.

The only way to keep that money here at home is to buy prostitutes,
weed, beer, and tattoos, since these are the only products still
produced in the USA .

Thank you for your help & please support the economy

Instead of sending the money to PP — because I know we’re getting more than $30 — maybe I’ll get a new tattoo instead.

Randilin posted these questions on his blog.

• A train is out of control and racing down the track towards another car with 5 passengers who are trapped inside. You are at the switch and can redirect the car however the only track you can redirect it to has a single person trapped in a car. Do you redirect the runaway train, to kill the one person or let it continue towards the five?
• Now what if the same on coming train could be stopped by dropped a heavy weight from and over head bridge. Would you drop the weight? Even if the only weight available was a very fat man sitting on a bench admiring the sun set?
• If you found that you able to kill the one to save the five then I offer you this last possibility which is an all too real situation. A doctor in a hospital has five patients all terminal each with a different organ failing and causing their deaths. In the waiting room sits a healthy man, who is also the perfect match to all five patients. Would it be moral to take the life of the healthy man to save the five?

To be honest, I have no idea what I would do in a situation like that, I’m not sure any of us do. But I know I wouldn’t kill the one to save the many. I don’t care if the one is a fat man (does his life have less value because he’s fat?), Jeffery Dahmer, or the psychopath who locked his daughter in the basement for 20 years. Killing one to save many isn’t an option because it alludes the life of one is less valuable than the life of many.

So let me ask you this: if the train was filled with 100 Jeffery Dahmers and the one on the tracks was Joseph Stalin, would you kill Stalin to save the Dahmers? Or what if the one on the track was the Dali Lama and the train filled with ____ [enter your favorite bad guy/gal here]?

In a sociology class I took a decade ago (!) the professor posed this question to us: you’re in a small row boat with your mother, your spouse, and your toddler. The boat starts to sink and you can only save one. Who do you save?

At the time I took the class I said the toddler but I’ve changed my mind. Now I would save my spouse. Why the change? Because I know what it’s like to be a child without a parent and the pain that goes along with that. I wouldn’t want to watch my child grow up never knowing its father (I say “father” because I’m hetro) and being disadvantaged because it comes from a one parent family. Having saved my spouse we could have another child or not, it would be our choice. But saving the toddler and finding another spouse — who would be a stepfather — is also not really an option considering I came from a stepparent household and it’s not something I would inflict on my worst enemy (and yes, I know there are good stepparents out there).

As you can see though, saving my mother never enters my brain. Is that bad?

Edited to add: When it comes to the death penalty for those who kill cops, I vehemently disagree. Besides the fact that I don’t support the death penalty* I don’t understand why it’s ok to kill a cop killer but not a nurse killer. Or a factory worker killer. Having worked in EMS for a bunch of years, I don’t think the life of a police officer is more valuable than a bum on the street and I get really, really riled up about it.

*If we lived in a world with no racism or classism one with no sexism, then I would support the death penalty. But it’s so unfairly metered out in the US I cannot support the death penalty. Certainly I believe there are people who should be put to death if they committed certain crimes (pedophilia, genocide, rape, torture, war) such as Stalin, GW Bush, Pol Pot, Alexander the Great, various Popes, Jeffery Dahmer, etc. but until we live in a world where the color of one’s skin — or the economic class one comes from — doesn’t automatically make you a suspect I will work against the death penalty.

AMSTETTEN, Austria - The children locked in the basement never saw the light of day for years. A retired electrician has confessed to imprisoning his daughter for 24 years and fathering seven children with her in a windowless cell sealed by an electronic keyless-entry system, police said Monday.

…

Polzer told reporters that Fritzl was an authoritarian who took care never to allow anyone near the cellar. Hans-Heinz Lenze, a senior local official, said experts were trying to figure out if anything could have been heard beyond the cell’s padded, reinforced concrete walls.

…

Investigators said the area where she and three of the children were held included rooms whose height did not exceed 5 1/2 feet. The area had a TV and small hot plates for cooking.

How does this happen? WHY does this happen? Excuse me while I go vomit.

Noelle offered her readership the chance to ask her any question they wanted. Today she started to answer them.

Jumping on her band wagon, I’ll answer any question yous gots for mes’.

Edited to add: I’ll answer next week to give my readership time to ponder questions.