pistachio’s posterous

this email to my parents sums it up best.

photo credit Damon Cortesi (c) 2009 http://bit.ly/mlsek

A note from Kevin Marks: I liked this bit in Cory(Doctorow)'s Makers book:

i think the absolute central challenge in life is to learn to not be afraid of who you actually are.

"You  only blinched inside," said Pooh, "and that's the bravest 
way for a Very Small Animal not to  blinch  that  there is."

as a lapsed agnostic christian (I KNOW, right? like there are agnostic christians "in good standing?"), this might sound strange, but maundy thursday is a really important (obscure religious) holiday for me.

my (south glastonbury congregational) church held a somber candlelit service on maundy thursday evenings. they became a special thing i would do with mom. but what caught my heart wasn't the sip of "wine," the melancholy tone or the rare quiet darkness in church. what stays with me to this day is the abject humanity of jesus in the stories of the last supper, the betrayal, the denial and above all, in gethsemane.

he's human. he's sad. he's stoic and humble and passionate, as ever. but he also aches, and let's us know. he's alone... his closest disciples cannot even stay awake even though he's admitted to them how freaked out and upset he feels about what is coming.

despite his entreaties, they fall asleep repeatedly. he's alone. he's scared. and while he bears up in his particularly jesus-y way and goes on into the morning of the passion, for a moment he does blinch inside.

he's asking to sit out the round. he's asking for a literal passover (the last supper was a seder, no?) from the suffering he knows to be his fate. he's all "look it's cool, i'll do it if that's what you need me to do, but, um, err..."

it makes the parables and the sayings and the lessons so much more real. it casts into stronger relief the many stories that sound so ridiculously "holier than thou" that it's hard for the average person to relate to behaving in the ways jesus modeled. the many many times he does not blinch. it makes me connect to the human being inside those stories with so much more credence and interest.

"sad superman"

Tango ’til They’re Sore
Well you play that tarantella all the hounds will start to roar
The boys all go to hell and then the cubans hit the floor
They drive along the pipeline, they tango ’til they’re sore

They take apart their nightmares and they leave them by the door
Let me fall out of the window with confetti in my hair
Deal out jacks or better on a blanket by the stairs
I’ll tell you all my secrets, but I lie about my past

And send me off to bed for evermore
Make sure they play my theme song, I guess daisies will have to do
Just get me to new orleans and paint shadows on the pews
Turn the spit on that pig and kick the drum and let me down

Put my clarinet beneath your bed ’til I get back in town
Let me fall out of the window with confetti in my hair
Deal out jacks or better on a blanket by the stairs
I’ll tell you all my secrets, but I lie about my past

So send me off to bed for evermore
Just make sure she’s all in calico and the color of a doll
Wave the flag on cadillac day, and a skillet on the wall
Cut me a switch or hold your breath ’til the sun goes down

Write my name on the hood, send me off to another town, and just
And just let me fall out of the window with confetti in my hair
Deal out jacks or better on a blanket by the stairs
Tell you all my secrets, but I lie about my past

Will you send me off to bed for evermore
Fall out of the window with confetti in my hair
Deal out jacks or better on a blanket by the stairs
I’ll tell you all my secrets, but I lie about my past
i frigging love Tom Waits, but I still don't understand why i like this song so much.

Send me off to bed for evermore, send me off to bed for evermore

remembering forgotten things i never knew. humbled. thirsty to learn. grateful. where to begin? your (aggregate) work amazes me. your energy.

thank you.

some of it is in escaping & reinventing context. framing. perspectives. priorities. but most is in listening. watching. seeking out.

it's only just seeping in how much you inspired me.

my cup runs over. so i'm afraid to spill it. maybe instead i'll pour it out somewhere it can do some good. then refill.

synaptic. remix.

(some tweeted reflections on my melted brainstate on the Sunday evening after #fooeast. just starting to appreciate the incredible minds that were brought together and how each is the node of amazing work, and the possibilities in broadening my mind by following and thinking about their work more... the experience was synaptic, connective. the challenge now is to remix the ideas and energy and listening and learning.)

Image via CrunchBase

But also a bit funny.

Like, the unflattering picture of me serving food at a picnic in my backyard that keeps coming up. Yippeee!

What snippets of YOUR digital life float up in the post-search world?

As promised, Kangaroo Care: When babywearing is a matter of life and death http://twurl.nl/r062ln not "fashion" http://twurl.nl/ki65dm. Greater awareness of the importance of carrying babies close, and acceptance and support of the practice is important, on many levels. Even when I got "permission" to do it in the NICU, it was only to hold her, not properly wear her. Nobody had info on the right slings to use. So, while we gave her some kangaroo care while sitting around, I was never able to fully carry her that way til we got home.

My slings and baby wraps are so precious to me, I could not bring myself to give them away with the baby clothes. It's hard to explain. And it's definitely not a practice that's accepted on the level it ought to be. Ostracizing it isn't the most fantastic idea. Although I know they didn't "mean" harm, the ad basically made it sound like a snarky mom was playing along with a lame fad. That's a terrific way to regard something that can really improve quality of life for babies and parents of BOTH genders.

(Reconstructed from tweets) I kept my blog post a neutral and professional as i could, but the Motrin thing is obnoxious and insulting. This is my quintessential babywearing pic: me w/PICC line & severe enterococcus septicemia carrying preemie S and her monitor in a sling. It's an exaggeration to say babywearing saved both our lives, antibiotics saved mine, but it surely helped us both recover faster. The photo shows S at 23 days old and mee recovering from enterococcus septicemia. Both ridiculously grateful for babywearing. August, 2005.

I'll need this later on. Could you hang onto it for a sec? Thanks kindly.