Goodbye, Hennessy, Goodbye

I had a chicken named Hennessy. She died, she died.

My hen didn't come home from the vet's yesterday. It looks like she had leukosis, cancer, and there would have been no cure. She spared me the hard decisions by giving up ten minutes before I got back to the vet. Which is in character; she was an unassuming and sweet chicken. She really, really enjoyed snails.

I cried. I definitely cried. Lately I've been more in love with having chickens than ever. Camilla is lonely now, and might have contracted Hennessy's illness. I'd like to raise a couple of new chicks, but I'm not sure yet whether they, too, would be at risk.

She had been sick for many months. (I didn't mention it in these virtual pages because, picture it: "Wa, my back hurts, and also did I mention, wa poultry disease and wa, wa life is terrible..." I'm not trying to be a Jewish stereotype.) I had taken her twice to a piece of shit vet who popped her a bunch of pills with barely a glance at her.

I was desperately reading The Chicken Health Handbook, which was full of pictures of diseased guts and paralyzed chickens. For many diseases listed, the "Treatment" section said: "None; cull." Maybe someday I'll be enough of a hardened chicken keeper to take that. There was a time, after all, when this passage from a favorite gardening book would puncture my heart: "Many people leave small beets in the ground in spring hoping they will get bigger, but they will go to seed instead, and then die."

I finally found a good vet yesterday morning, when things were looking dire. She couldn't save Hennessy, but I appreciated her compassion. She broke me the bad news so gently as Crim's cell was dying on the drive over. When we got there, we said our goodbyes. The nurses had laid Hennessy out on two folded white towels, her head resting on one like a little angel chicken. Surely the best mortuary services any chicken could hope for.

The vet was able to give Hennessy some relief and she was eating and drinking eagerly just before she died. So I sent her to roost with a full crop.

Goodbye, honey.

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Welcome to My Plog

It's settled. This will henceforth be a particularly lovable weblog, or

plog.

I hope you will indulge my calling my own blog lovable, and, worse, particularly so. But what if I had called it a pathetic little weblog or a pretty lame weblog? Then you'd feel all obligated to pump me up with reassurances. Such a favor I'm doing you.


So, why a plog?

The innernet is well-populated with snarky weblogs. The snog genre is wide-ranging and inventive, if a bit hackneyed. Wonkette is one familiar example. The one about the white people is another. Snogs may be of the highest quality, funny and incisive, but there's nothing lovable about them. Byron Crawford, snogger extraordinaire, often refers to "people who live to hate on shit, such as myself." Pure, delicious snog.

A plog distinguishes itself by its joie de vivre. Its outlook is more sincere than sarcasmic. Here are a few plogs of note:

• The Fix. Fine political plog from Washington Post reporter Chris Cillizza. No one takes quite such genuine delight in deconstructing the horserace. (Well, besides Chris Matthews.) Cillizza has a great rapport with us Fixistas.




• Tiny Farm Blog. From a two-acre farm in Ontario, Canada comes this whirlwind of delights. Best garden porn around.




• Hendrik Hertzberg. New Yorker stalwart Hertzberg is a surprisingly tender plogger. I find his tag, "Notes on politics, mostly" particularly lovable.

Let me know of other plogs I should check out. And with that, this little plogger is taking a wee break. See ya.

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Hov-Bama

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I Like This

MANY SENSIBLE people would be pleased to move into a new home with a finished yard: crew-cut lawn, tidy perennials, perhaps a sturdy herb garden, all pre-drip irrigated.

I suppose so because that seems to be the way yards are prepped for the real estate market. But that sounds so paint-by-numbers. My fantasy yard is more like a barren plains: flat, empty, hideous, awaiting my hand.

A blog is a nice barren plains. You scatter seeds however. It's a blank canvas, amenable to whims.

So, I like it.


THERE IS one problem, however. "Blog" is an ugly word. It does not make me feel cute inside. I wish this innernet-based repository of serial commentary could be called something else.

You know how "carefully researched weblogs" are called "crogs"? I need something like that.

"Plog," for example. Now there's a sweet little word. "Brog" is cute, too. I don't know what I would retroactively declare that either stands for. Petty weblog? Pathetic little weblog? Badly researched weblog? Maybe something with a little less built-in self-loathing.

Ideas?


Note to readers: This marks my 100th post. (Hence the existential talk.) Happy Centpostial!

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Pesach, Baby

Passover really has it all: elaborate symbolism, spring fever, an epic redemption narrative, matzo balls, even a distinct Tupac vibe. (Witness the downfall of my ene-meez.)

It's one of those rare Manischewitz-swilling Jewish holidays that we get to celebrate, not just "observe."

(When a well-meaning gentile says, "Happy Yom Kippur" we have to be like, "Oh, thanks, but I'm uh...fasting for my sins." Here's what to say for Yom Kippur: "May you have an easy fast." No seriously. Aren't we a fun-loving people?)

But Jews do bust out on Passover. We were slaves and we were freed! When else do white people sit around a table singing, "Let My People Go"? Jews belt it out, too: Waaaaaay dooown in E-gypt! la-aand! We're commanded to recline during the seder, like free people (apparently) do. That can be tough on the digestive tract, but it's pretty sweet for the spine.

The Passover story is kind of like an HBO series: there are so many damn characters and plot churnings that you're always just shy of knowing what the hell's going on. Which is my absolute favorite thing. And, God? Eh. He's one character.

Pesach falls this weekend, right at peak lay season. Which is most opportune since it's a holiday dripping with eggs, even by Jewish standards. (Challah: eggs. Kugel: eggs. Latkes: eggs. Matzo brie: eggs, eggs, eggs.) Hennessy and Camilla are all too happy to show off. They're like, Brawk, quadrupling the matzo ball recipe? Not a problem, not a problem, back to the nest box.

The egg is right there on the seder plate with the maror (horseradish) for the bitterness of slavery and the charoses (apples-n-nuts) for the sweetness of freedom. Passover has pagan roots as a festival honoring the return of spring. Hence the egg, symbolizing renewal, both earthly and spiritual. And this, from the resplendent Song of Songs:

For lo the winter is past

The rain is over and gone

The flowers appear on the earth

The time of singing is come

Happy Passover.

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Final comment and then no more of this tedious crap about pain.

When you get sick or hurt, at first there is some novelty appeal. On one hand it sucks, but on the other you get to watch movies on demand. (The latter is overrated, though; pain is scary and it's hard to relax.) For me this flare also had some, shall we say, academic appeal. I wanted to study it. I spent a chunk of my life shut-in style and I was most curious to revisit it and take notes. Most curious.

Well the novelty wears fucking fast, is what I'm getting at. A month of pain life makes a fascinating study. After that you're not an anthropologist any more.

One nugget I have gleaned: preventing oneself from doing things is depressing. And of course, the majority of "things" are pain-risky. Lot of counterintuitive logic at play. Like, wouldn't it be good to get out and do something? No, it would be better to stay on the couch.

That may partly explain the tendency toward aggressive treatment. It's more psychologically satisfying. But aggressive treatment in back problems like mine can be ineffective or worse. Often, and often infuriatingly, the best treatment is rest.

So, take-home lesson in hand. Can I go back now?

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Lululemon Bag, Don't Preach

When a lululemon athletica opened on College Avenue, I judiciously planned to avoid it. Because, frankly, I don't approve. Three-packs of wifebeaters from SuperLongs make fine workout wear. But before long, I caved. Snuck in and bought the $80 Boogie Pant.

It turned out to be a sound investment. When my pain is bad, demand rises for pants that won't pinch but won't make me hate myself either. (That would be in contrast with jeans on the first hand and sweats on the second.) The so-called Boogie Pant is cute, too: superb butt containment.

The problem is the bag. The store supplies, with purchase, a real bag--something you can bring to the gym to match your new clothes and give them free advertising. I couldn't chuck such a sensible bag.




Which means I must encounter this bag daily--and face a barrage of unsolicited lululemon advice. Do one thing a day that scares you, the bag challenges when I wake up in a grim mood. Stress is related to 99% of all illness, the bag chides when my back is fucked the fuck up, causing my stress level to skyrocket. Friends are more important than money, the bag thoughtfully reminds me, and I suddenly feel lacking in both.

Who authorized this dispensation of life lessons from an athletic wear bag? One that was thrust upon me, that I didn't even have the free will to choose to acquire? And who is writing these gems? Do they employ a wisdom board, full of gurus and health experts? Or is it just some schmuck in corporate who thinks I should visualize my "eventual demise" and not trust that a pension will carry me through old age?

lululemon: The world is changing at such a rapid rate that waiting to implement changes will leave you two steps behind. DO IT NOW, DO IT NOW, DO IT NOW!

Cleb: AAAaaaaahhhh!!!

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Vay Iz Mir

You've probably heard someone say Oy vay, or, if you're fortunate, Oy vay iz mir, which usually comes out as Oyvayzmir.

Vay is Yiddish for pain. Oy vay iz mir translates to Oh, pain is to me.

Which captures my feelings at present. When I chose my own adventure back here, I bet poorly, and lost. My disc is back out, pressuring my nerve. Or so I picture it. I don't really know what's happening back there, and it doesn't quite matter. (I also like to imagine a friendly giant holding me upside down, letting the pain slowly drain back from my ankle to my spine.)

Have I been to The Doctor? Yes, many doctors, many years ago. Now I can't afford health insurance, what with my pre-existing condition. But I don't wish I could go to The Doctor. Sure, it would be nice if I had someone with whom to consult, someone to help. But doctors had little to offer me, and so it is for many people with serious back problems. So, you stretch, you swim, you ergonomize; you develop your own system.

What happened? Nothing. And that's the stupidest part. All I did was have a part-time job, sit up five afternoons a week. And those few extra mornings.

Of course one doesn't want to be dreary, especially one like me who wants people to read her blog. And I am rather masterful at anticipation. So I can, sometimes, know how happy I'll be when it's better. When I am able to walk around Lake Merritt, when I get to hear "Superstar" in the club, when I can putter carelessly in the garden, it's gonna be sweet.

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Wednesdays Are Always Blue

BOOK REVIEW
Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant
Daniel Tammet



DANIEL TAMMET can recite 22,514 digits of pi--five hours, no mistakes--and learned Icelandic (Icelandic!) in a week. But don't be jelly of his brain powers. Asperger's is no picnic. Tammet endured potentially fatal seizures, an entire childhood of ostracism, guilt over the trouble he caused his parents and intensive battles with his own petulant brain before reaching the comfortable plateau of domestic bliss and demi-celebrity where he currently resides. Did I mention he's gay?

Why beat around the bush: I loved this book. It doesn't hurt that the "blue day" in question was exactly one week before my own wee birthday, which would make it way too easy for Tammet to tell me that was a Wednesday. (His savant powers include calendrical calculation, the ability to tell what day of the week any given date falls.) "Wednesdays are always blue," he explains in the book's opening paragraph, "like the number 9 or the sound of loud voices arguing."

Like many autistic savants, Tammet has synesthesia, which means that he experiences numbers and words unusually. He strongly associates numbers with specific colors and images. (When he met David Letterman, he declared the talk show host looked like the number 117: "tall and lanky.") He also writes about how certain words make him feel. I will never be able to envision the digits of pi as a soothing landscape of hills, but with the words I think I get it. The word "Clebilicious" makes me feel cute inside, whereas, "Fergalicious"--yuck. At least don't spell it with an "a."


WHILE Tammet's mental struggles take place on an unimaginable scale, his neuroses are universally human. He quests to be at peace with his limitations and embrace his gifts. He yearns for understanding, acceptance, love.

He also has to strike a balance between overcoming his psychological tics and accomodating them. He has learned, for example, that if he drops a spoon while doing dishes, meltdown will ensue. So he slowly steps away from the sink and lets it pass. We should all be so serene. (Shit, I should be so serene.)

Three-quarters of the way through the book, I turned the page to find a chapter entitled "Falling in Love," and my eyes teared up. You can't help but want this guy to be happy. Tammet's relationship with honey bunny Neil is almost unbearably sweet. For someone like Tammet--being, well, weird--it is particularly meaningful to be wholly understood and accepted by another person.


DID I mention he's really into vegetable gardening? He touches on it in the book, but in the documentary about him, Brain Man (he kinda hated the title), the back garden at his home in Herne Bay, England is featured as an important source of equanimity. (Oh yeah, did I mention he's British? Could I possibly not adore him?)

By the end of the book, Tammet has traveled an immense distance from his childhood--attested to by the fact that he wrote a book. It's hard for anyone on the autistic spectrum to express emotions and it's hard for anyone on the human spectrum to write a book. So, yes, his mind is extraordinary. But what makes this book such a great read is Tammet's extraordinary heart.

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