Dichroic Reflections

I haven’t fasted on Yom Kippur for years, but since I happened to remember what day it as today before I ate or drank anything, I thought I’d give it a shot - for part of the day, anyway. It’s about 11:30 AM now. The thing is, I’m not hungry as such, but I’m definitely a bit lightheaded, and sometimes the letters on my screen are a bit hard to see. Of course, the proper answer for that is that anyone observing Yom Kippur is supposed to be in services or at home, not at work. I’m a half-assed Jew at best.

The question is how much longer to go on. I certainly won’t fast all day; I have to drive home, and since tomorrow is a national holiday (October 10, Ten Ten, sort of like a Taiwan independence day) the traffic will be very bad. I will certainly continue at least until noon; the question is just how far to go from there. And also why. A statement of identity, I guess, even if it’s only in my own head.

Edited to add: Noon now. Here comes the headache, right on schedule. I think I’ve been erging too much, though: my brain keeps trying to apply the tricks I use to finish a long erg piece, even when I’m not meaning to push this longer. “Come on, you can do a little more! How about just one more hour? Or maybe three? What if you just take a sip of water? After all you don’t want to get dehydrated, and that’s not really breaking your fast!”

Note to brain: please stop.

And later still: I decided to break my fast at lunch. I don’t think “brain was annoying me” is a rabbinically sound reason for ending one’s fast, though.

It’s been a good weekend. As I wrote elsewhere, I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun finishing DFL in a regatta. I don’t feel too bad about the last-place finish, since I was racing women 20 years younger, who are training at a collegiate level, and I haven’t been in a boat for about a month. On the erg, yes, but my training there is aimed more at distance than sprints - and as any rower will point out, ergs sink. Also, as an open race, this was a 2000m distance, not the 1000m masters typically race. So add all those things up, and I finished way behind. On the other hand, I rowed a race I’m proud of: I was right with my competitors at the start, stayed with all but the winner for the first 500m or so, and kept up the pressure all the way through the race, never slacking or giving up.

Nearly as good, I met three new people: a Taiwanese rower who speaks good English, an American rower and his Malay girlfriend. I have phone numbers and addresses from all three and will definitely be making plans to get together.

Today I slept in, then despite my body making absolutely sure I could tell that I rowed hard yesterday, I did a long erg piece. If I hadn’t had the race, I’d have been doing a steady state 18km piece yesterday and a 13km piece full of power tens today; I decided the race took care of power so I did the 18km piece, at a light pace. Though actually the race was closer to the VO2Max piece I have scheduled for Tuesday (2000m at a 5km pace, 3000m at a marathon pace, repeated twice) so might do the power intervals then instead. Unfortunate, since as planned it’s long enough to require getting up extra early. Getting up at 5:30 then getting on the erg may be the very definition of adding insult to injury.

And I’ve turned the heel of the first of the socks I’m making as a stocking stuffer for Rudder - I realized I ought to do those while he’s not around, if possible - so I feel terribly accomplished this weekend.

One other thing I need to say: if anyone who reads this has been considering buying Here There Be Dragons, by James A. Owens, don’t. Or be prepared to ignore a lot of faults. The plot is mythic in scope, with a well-imagined world combining a variety of legends and motifs, and there are plenty of the sort of sly literary references I love. However, the writing sucks. At least, the writing in general is mediocre and the dialogue is absolutely awful. It doesn’t appear to have occurred to Owens that a bunch of Oxford scholars during the Great War would not be using the phrasing of an American kids of the late century, nor would they address each other by first names immediately upon meeting each other. The point where I nearly threw the book across the room is when they first meet the previous Caretaker of the Imaginarium Geographica (is that even proper Latin? Wouldn’t it be Geographica Imaginarium?) who is an older man. The scintillating dialogue on that momentous occasion:

“Call me Bert.”
“Okay, Bert.”

No, no, no, no. Do not think so. And with one exception, everyone they meet, including the archtype of Noah, speaks in the same register. Really, this book would have worked better if instead of making it a period piece, Owens had elected to make it something like one of the Voyage of the Basset series.

But the interlocking mythologies and the literary references really are kind of fun, which is why I have refrained from setting fire to it. (That plus Taipei really doesn’t need any more particulate pollution.)

It’s nice to hear that Biden won the race, but I don’t think that matters much. Who decides how to vote based on who won a VP debate? Only two things could have happened tonight that would matter:

1. I suppose Biden could have convinced some people he was too big a jerk to be elected. Highly unlikely. We already know he says stupid things sometimes and anyway, people are voting for Obama, not him. He did manage to maintain the idea of the Obama campaign taking the high road (relatively speaking only - the candidates themselves have done decently, their people not so much) and I suppose that might help. I think a lot of people like him better after this debate than before, but again, that’s not likely to change anyone’s votes.

2. Palin could have been so good or so bad that she swayed the opinion of someone who’d been uneasy about her. I think this did happen a bit. She’s certainly not likely to change the opinion of anyone who already thinks she’s clueless and in over her head, but she displayed the ability to take the conversation where she wants it and didn’t make any big gaffes that I heard of. She’s not going to sway any Obama supporters, but I would think anyone who had considered GWB intelligent enough to be President and who was worried about her, would consider her bright enough for VeeP after this debate.

One can of course hope that eight years of seeing the results of a vote for GWB might have changed people’s minds on the requirements for high office.

In other news, I have my race tomorrow, and I have no idea whatsoever what to expect. With the help of map and GPS, I’m pretty sure I can find the place again, at least.

I have just removed some malicious files from this site (gambling shit - does anyone ever really gamble on a site they’ve been led to by spam or malware?) and changed the admin password. I believe it is safe, and I apologize profusely if anyone did have annoying gambling sites popping up from here. I have asked Goggle for a review of the site, and hopefully they will agree it’s safe.

I was all proud of myself for actually cooking last night - I know nachos barely count as cooking to some, but I usually don’t cook much at all when I’m home alone. One of the hamburger patties Rudder keeps on hand, crumbled and cooked with seasoning, was just the right amount of meat for one. However, I think I ate too much anyway, I don’t think my body appreciated the 13 km this morning, either. Or possibly not the combination of that and the nachos I made last night. My head hurts - tension or the change in pressure from a passing typhoon that’s brough us strong winds, or both, and my stomach’s a little sunsettled. I’d consider going home sick, since I don’t think I’ve taken any sick time this year, but the 10 minute walk and the 30 minute drive that going home entails are both pretty unappealing. Also, I’m pretty sure this will pass in relatively short term. (Slightly later: yup, head still hurts but the stomach’s feeling a bit better.)

My IBS has been even better since coming to Taiwan than it was in the Netherlands, to the point that Rudder commented the other day that it hardly ever disrupts our plans any more. I eat a lot less beef here (and less in the Netherlands than in the US). These may well be related. I think also, not rowing before work helps my stess levels a lot - not having to worry about getting up at 4AM, not being perpetually tired (well, not as much) or scrambling to get to bed absurdly early, and most of all not dealing with a digestive system that rebels at the idea of being on the lake for two hours very early in the morning. One nice thing about ergs is that if you really need to make a pit stop in the middle of a workout, you can. That’s much more difficult on the water.

I believe that use of the word ” ’tis” is a common marker for a certain type of pretentiousness, though I find it hard to describe the type I mean. It goes along with the use of “mundanes” to describe people who aren’t you or your friends and with the belief that describing yourself as “weird” automatically means you’re cooler than those who aren’t. (You may well be; some weird people are. I just don’t believe that “weird” is only a description, not an automatic positive or negative value.) In occasional use, ” ’tis” doesn’t make me want to run the other way, but it does elicit from me the sort of “there s/he goes again” sigh you might give when someone you like gets a little pedantic on their favorite topic.

I believe that there is no such age as “too old for adventures”. Or for fun. And that the consequences of looking stupid are highly overrated.

I believe that it’s perfectly possible to wear clothes you enjoy and that feel good on, while still looking professional enough for most jobs. (Caveats: This may be easier for women than for men. And there are some jobs with uniforms or rigid enough dress standards that this is not possible. In those cases, fun underwear may help, again if possible.)

I believe that one major advantage of blogs is that when people get pompous you can just close the window and go away. (You made it this far? Surprising.)

I believe there aren’t masses, neither the great unwashed stupid immorals many very conservative people seem to believe in nor the hapless victims of circumstance many very liberal people believe in. Just people all the way up and down, and the majority of them are neither stupid nor venal though many are tired, stubborn, and maybe feeling trapped.None of these contribute to great choice-making. Unfortunately, it’s also true that some rich people do get calluses in their sense of humanity, and that poor people are limited by their circumstances to a degree most richer people don’t understand or believe. The poorest still have choices, but the costs can be cripplingly high.

I believe that maybe we should worry less about teenage sex and go back to worrying about people falling in love too young. I don’t think it’s coincidental that the topic is addressed in all of the ‘Little’ books (Little Women, the Little House series, the Little Colonel books) as well LM Montgomery and others of the period. Those books don’t make fun of ‘puppy love’; they take it very seriously, but the girls (and hopefully the boys) are taught that they ought to wait before selecting a life partner. I don’t think that’s a bad idea. The Little Colonel books describe the best idea, though they do tend to grind it in a bit: anyone remember the Hildegarde story? There is the girl who is kept from all knowledge of the adult world and so makes a bad choice (today’s equivalent: abstinence-only education and those dances girls go to with their fathers); the girl whose father jokes about the boyfriends early on an gives no guidance (modern equivalent: too many to count) and the girl whose father gives her a yardstick to measure her prince by. Then the story is translated into the world of the book, when the Little Colonel’s father gives her a ‘yardstick with three notches’: her future husband must be clean, strong, and honest, physically and morally. Meanwhile, he *doesn’t* keep her away from boys, or even from suitors, just helps her develop judgement and then depends on it. I think a modern equivalent might include more dating, maybe including sex - but I wonder if more kids practice safe sex when they think it’s just a flirtation and not True Luv Always. (I don’t know, maybe not. Either way I do think working to build judgement would help more than just forbidding.)

I believe that there are some things you need to have felt to be able to write. Wait - don’t get me wrong - I know you can’t judge a writer’s opinions by those of her characters. And you don’t have to have every experience to be able to write it, or we’d have no speculative fiction at al. And certainly the converse isn’t true; a writer can have all the experience in the world and fail to make a scene real. On the other hand, after reading Operation Luna and Old Man’s War, respectively, I’d have been deeply shocked to learn that Poul Anderson or John Scalzi didn’t love and respect their wives.

I might be wrong on any or all of these, but I’m pretty happy believing in them unless and until serious disproof arrives.

I finished my half-marathon yesterday (and erged another 5km today). Rudder took a picture (afterward, but before I changed or showered) mostly because I want to make an erg icon:

This vest also got finished this weekend and is now blocking. I knit it mostly because I have been getting very tired of complex cables on toothpicks and string, i.e. the rowing socks, though I’m also halfway up the leg of the second sock of the first pair, the colorful one. We will see whether I have the intestinal fortitude to begin the second sock in the blue yarn, which is knit on 64 instead of 60 stitches, immediately on completion of these. You’d think for a relief project I’d have chosen something without cables, but these big fat ones weren’t much trouble.

Chányuán

I.
The Taiwan moon
keeps her gibbous watch
over jungled mountains.
No ping there lies untouched.
Towns grow,
cities are overgrown,
the hungry jungle eats all:
only the moon knows
what was there.

II.
I have watched her
through inversion haze,
clear desert nights and dust storms.
Shining dim through Northern fogs,
Mirrored by water
in the dark before day.
Pallid at noon,
blazing on midnight snow.
I have not seen the same moon
Twice.

Continue Reading »

A bunch of stuff posted elsewhere that I never posted up here.

Skywatching

Today I lay and watched the sky-
after long deluges, I had quite forgot
it could be blue. I think I’d forgotten, too,
what a lovely thing a cloud can be.

I wonder, sometimes, what you see in me -
what I love in you is like the sky:
your ever-changing facets, like the clouds -
and like the clouds, each lovelier than the last.
I’d sink all my future and my past
in you, and fall into the sky -
that ‘delirious burning blue’ has depths that I
would sink into forever, if I could,
and likewise into you, and find it good.

Continue Reading »

A week and a half later on the shortshortshort cut, I miss my hair. Good thing over-short hair is a self-correcting problem.

Thanks for Typhoon Sinlaku, that was definitely the coziest weekend I’ve had in a while. During the course of it I made chicken soup, beef stew, knitted the heel of a sock, knitted past the 75% point on a vest, erged a total of 22 km, and read about three books. Never did get around to fixing either Wordpress blog, though (this one registers as an “attack site” for some reason, the other one’s media-adding menu isn’t working). Drat. I’m also still annoyed that this typhoon got so little mention in the news; of course it was quite rightly overshadowed by the nastier storm Ike (this one was actually stronger but that one apparently had more energy and so caused a much bigger storm surge). Still, Sinlaku wasn’t even mentioned in international news until well after it hit. I could be wrong but it sure feels like the English-language news just doesn’t care what happens to yellow people far away. Maybe the China earthquake hit during a slow news time.

On the political front I am growing less and less understanding of how anyone of good heart can support Palin. Supporting McCain, I can understand - I disagree but I understand. Supporting some of Palin’s stances on things like illegalization of abortion, I disagree but I understand. Supporting the whole flipflopping pro-big-oil, anti-polar-bear, knifing-those-who-cross-you undereducated underprinciples proving abstinence teaching doesn’t work package? That I don’t get. The other thing I don’t get is waffling who to vote for when one candidate clearly fits your positions because deep down you can’t bring yourself to vote for a black man. Or a woman, I guess, but I think those who would feel that way in other years were stuck this time, and I’m specifically embarassed by being related to someone with the black-man issue. Oh, and teaching Constitutional law counts as relevant experience. Or do you want another term of ignoring the Constitution when it’s inconveniently binding?

Crotchety today, I guess.