Shock and Awe

For decades, men have been improving organ transplant surgery. We now not only type and crossmatch ABO blood types, and Rh factors, but also HLA-antigens. We have databases around the country (in the U.S. anyway) for bone marrow and other organ donors. Universities are always having blood donation days, and people actually do sign up to give blood to total strangers (even if that stranger may be the next person who goes postal in a McDonald’s and kills you).

But nothing can beat the success rate of a placenta. How does the maternal uterus not reject foreign tissue that shares her bloodstream? Fascinating stuff!

Even a woman with a Stanford-Binet IQ < 50 can, without even thinking, find a way to join two non-HLA matched tissues together without graft-versus-host rejection!

Take that, all you Nobel Prize Winners!

If anyone’s looking for a 27′ Catalina, passion84sailing is selling her sailboat. I can’t afford a $19,000+ boat, but her pictures were worth looking at, if only to dream of my next sailing vacation. It’s clear from her pictures that she’s taken very good care of the teak trim. . . . I hope she finds a worthy buyer.

Bundy Quotes

Peggy Bundy:Al, just call a roofer!
Al Bundy: There. Right there, Peg, is the problem with America. We’ve lost our spirit of self-reliance! Something’s broken, call someone. Something’s leaking, call someone. One of the kids suffers a ruptured appendix, call someone! Whatever happened to rugged American manhood?
Bud Bundy: Well we don’t know yet, Dad. Kelly’s tests haven’t come back from the lab yet.
Kelly Bundy: Chew Dad’s socks!
Bud Bundy: Eat Mom’s food!

Al Bundy: You think I’m a loser? Because I have a stinking job that I hate, a family that doesn’t respect me, and a whole city that curses the day I was born? Well, that may mean loser to you, but let me tell you something. Every day when I wake up in the morning, I know it’s not going to get any better until I go back to sleep. So I get up. I have my watered-down Tang and my still-frozen Pop Tart. I get in my car with no gas, no upholstery, and six more payments. I fight honking traffic just for the privilege of putting cheap shoes onto the cloven hooves of people like you. I’ll never play football like I wanted to. I’ll never know the touch of a beautiful woman. And I’ll never know the joy of driving through the city without a bag over my head. But I’m not a loser. Because, despite it all, me and every other guy who’ll never be what they wanted to be, is out there, being what we don’t want to be, forty hours a week, for life. And the fact that I didn’t put a gun in my mouth years ago — that little fact makes me a winner, baby!

Marcy Rhoades D’Arcy: Oh, it’s too bad some men don’t know how to give up their sports gracefully instead of lingering on like big babies.
Al Bundy: Yeah, doggone it. If we could only be comfortable with our age like you darn gals. You know, I mean, in the morning you go into the bathroom, a little blush, a little mascara and voila! You got an old woman scared of rain. Then you try and clean and jerk your breasts into a bra, ease some exercise pants over that front and back belly, go down to the market and flirt with the bag boy. I guess what I’m trying to say is it’s just pretty pathetic when we guys try to cling to our youth.

Peggy Bundy: What would you like?
Al Bundy: A nice juicy steak, medium rare, with little brown potatoes on the right side of the plate, ketchup on the left, where some people waste space with vegetables. And for dessert, a roast beef.

Bud Bundy: Well, when I get my degree, from an accredited community college, I might add, I’ll be the one with the Lucky Charms, my friends. And I’ll be eating them out of the bra cups of my own private breakfast treat, Monique. Here’s to the future.

Al Bundy: We’re gonna go where people pretend to want to go when they can’t afford to go someplace good. We’re gonna see America. We take no map. We’ll follow the sun. Stay in cheap motels and steal what we need along the way. We go west, past the cheese factories, where the air is fresh, the sky is big, and a man can still kill his dinner with his car. Guys, tomorrow we put the pedal to the metal and we ride with the wind.

We Gotta Get Outta This Place

by Eric Burdon and the Animals, 1965

In this dirty old part of the city
Where the sun refused to shine
People tell me there ain’t no use in tryin’

Now my girl you’re so young and pretty
And one thing I know is true
You’ll be dead before your time is due, I know

Watch my daddy in bed a-dyin’
Watched his hair been turnin’ grey
He’s been workin’ and slavin’ his life away
Oh yes I know it

(Yeah!) He’s been workin’ so hard
(Yeah!) I’ve been workin’ too, baby
(Yeah!) Every night and day
(Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!)

We gotta get out of this place
If it’s the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
’cause girl, there’s a better life for me and you

Now my girl you’re so young and pretty
And one thing I know is true, yeah
You’ll be dead before your time is due, I know it

Watch my daddy in bed a-dyin’
Watched his hair been turnin’ grey, yeah
He’s been workin’ and slavin’ his life away
I know he’s been workin’ so hard

(Yeah!) I’ve been workin’ too, baby
(Yeah!) Every day baby
(Yeah!) Whoa!
(Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!)

We gotta get out of this place
If it’s the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
Girl, there’s a better life for me and you
Somewhere baby, somehow I know it

We gotta get out of this place
If it’s the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
Girl, there’s a better life for me and you
Believe me baby
I know it baby
You know it too

OLIVER PLATT AND SAILING

This book cracks me up!

The Boat That Wouldn’t Float
by Canadian Farley Mowat

This would make a great sailing movie! WITH OLIVER PLATT!!!! I love Oliver Platt.

For those that are wondering, Matt and I are moving to the Texas High Plains, close to Amarillo.

People I run into ask me, “Where are you moving to?” all the time. And I happily tell them! And then they look at me with wonder and ask, “Why aren’t you moving back to California to be with your parents?” That is such a dumb question, I really don’t think it merits an answer. So I simply say, “I don’t like California.” That usually shuts them up.

There was one spring, my dad was mowing our lawn. We were still living in Arkansas at the time. He found a two baby birds in the grass under our pine tree in the front yard. We debated what to do with them. Finally we decided to get a ladder and put them back in the nest.

The mother took them back and cared for them.

And then a week later, another wind storm came along, and again, my dad found a baby bird under the tree. Same spot. This time it had most of its feathers starting to grow in.

(Obviously this mother bird didn’t know how to build a proper nest.)

So, we figured we wouldn’t put it back in this time.

We fed it bugs and rice. It grew and was happy and all its feathers came in. And finally, I decided it might be time to let it go. That day, I let it run around in the backyard. It couldn’t fly. And the neighbor’s tomcat came by, and scared the shit out of me. I was certain he’d pounce on my little baby and kill it before it could figure out it could fly away.

So I called to it to come back to me so I could take it inside “where it was safe.”

It came back. Hesitantly. Almost as if it knew. . . .

I kept the bird (he was no longer a baby) for a few more days, and I was scared to let it try to fly again, because the tomcat was always around. But during those three days, the bird’s health deteriorated rapidly. He had his taste of freedom, and he was dying.

Looking back, I know I should have just let him go that day. Perhaps the tomcat would have eaten him, but it would have been nobler death to die, than to die in my house, pining for the green grass and the wind and trees.

So my mom and dad call me up sometimes, and say, “Why don’t you come back to California? You can take over your dad’s practice. You can stay in our house and we’ll get a new house for ourselves.”

And I say, “No, thanks, Mom and Dad. Matt and I are doing what we want to do.”

And so I really admire my cousin Joy because she’s probably the only one of my relatives (close to my age) who understands what it’s like to leave home to make a life for oneself. It takes a lot of gumption to not go back, when your parents are calling you back. You have to tell yourself, “I can lick that tomcat.”

HE EVEN LOOKS LIKE FARLEY MOWAT!!!!
(well, okay, sort of. . . in a Rorschach inkblot kind of way)

Movin’ On

The other weekend, I took a trip out to the South Pasture to deliver one old spare tire back to the place where the sailing club keeps its boats. It’s so nice to see all of those boats clustered together. I may not have gotten my graduate degree here, but at least I helped to find two perfectly fine boats, and get them back in working order. The big red one is particularly nice, and came with a spinnaker. The smaller one is the Rhodes Bantam. I will miss it most of all.

Rhodes Bantams are no longer made. It seems a good design should weather the times well. But most people want small, fast tender boats, if they’re young. And if they’re old, they want one with a cabin.

I like the Rhodes Bantam. I will miss its roomy cockpit. And the dryness of the bow well. I like the ease of the way the centerboard lines are rigged. It’s just a nicely designed boat.

AND best of all, tiny little me can even lift it into the water, if need be.

Matt can say he learned to sail on a Rhodes Bantam!

Anyway, it’s time to say goodbye to everyone I knew here. Not like I’ll miss most of them.

Education is a big waste. But I did meet some great people whom I will miss.

I will especially miss sailing with Dimi.

Dimi in the Rhodes Bantam

Dimi taught me some Bulgarian, on the long drive to the nuclear power plant reservoir. He taught me quite a lot, but unfortunately, my brain only retained one word — “DOOP-kah.” The Bulgarian word for “pothole.”

There were quite a lot of potholes on the County Road from the Sailing Club shed to the Newk-yoo-ler Power Plant Reservoir.

The plural of “DOOP-kah” is “DOOP-ki.” Yes, Illinois has plenty of “DOOP-ki.” It seems they’re always trying to fix them too, but I never seen any improvement.

I suppose I’ll see plenty of “DOOP-ki” in Texas too.

Route 66

We’re leaving next weekend! I’m so excited! A week of no cats jumping on my head while I’m asleep. No doggy needing to piss every 2 hours. 16 hours of nonstop driving!

Matt’s biggest wish is to take a picture in front of our new house, while holding pitchforks!

It’s been a long time coming, and we are due this house, and although it won’t be our dream house (the one we plan to build), it had better be damn comfy or we’re not buying it.

Matt’s a little scared because he hasn’t lived outside of Illinois. But I’m proud of him that he’s willing to take this leap with me. He is my one constant right now in life, and I’m more grateful for that than I can ever express. When I married him, I knew I married someone who was able to envision things yet unseen. And to me, that is the most important thing I need in a partner.

I eat cynics in my sleep. (They taste too yucky to eat when I’m awake.)

Rhodes Bantam 14′

If anyone is willing to part with one of these boats (even sans trailer or spinnaker), I’d be willing to buy. Leave a note for me down below.

(Pictures from http://www.dngoodchild.com/)

Midwestern Spring

Today would have been a perfect day to go sailing. The sun was out. It was in the high 70′s. All the nearby lakes have unfrozen. The wind was at least 15 mph (maybe more), so I could have had the option of windsurfing.

Yes, today would have been a great day to go sailing.

Bite Me

I‘ve been trying to convince my female friends to go on a cruising charter with me. Most say, “Okay,” kinda half-heartedly, as I probably do when they ask me how I feel about the latest TV shows they’re watching.

So, I was really vindicated when my godsister calls me up out of the blue and tells me she went sailing with her brother’s friend, and loved it. I wanted to squeal, “I told you so! Didn’t I tell you so? Say it! I told you so!”

What was really cool, was she said she’d lived in St. Petersburg, Florida for 6 years, and never saw the city from the ocean until last week. It gave her a totally new perspective on the place, to see it from the water like that.

I like to see the sailing bug bite people, most especially my godsister.

I like sailing with Matt. But one of the people on my sailing list wrote about a particularly harrowing experience she had with her husband, while sailing. He is an intelligent man, and so he likes to question things. Unfortunately, during a storm that cropped up, questioning his wife’s orders was not what was needed in order to get out of danger.

As another woman said, “A boat is not a democracy.”

I think that’s also really true of one’s life. And my Xanga site.

From February’s “Sailing World” Picture by Stuart Streuli A crowded mark rounding for the Wavelength 24 class at the 2004 Sailing World St. Petersburg NOOD Regatta. This event, which was won by Matt Patterson, served as the class’s national championship for 2004. ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.–In staunch opposition to some rather dire forecasts, the final day of the Sailing World St. Petersburg NOOD Regatta Presented by Mount Gay Rum provided some spectacular sailing for the record fleet of 193 boats. The sun broke through with a vengeance just before 10 a.m., bringing with it a shifty and puffy westerly breeze that stretched the limits of many competitors and put more than a few rails and spinnakers in the water. One team that was happy to see the whitecaps developing on Tampa Bay was Quentin Strauss’ Melges 24 crew on Gill. “We got going today,” said helmsman Stuart Rix. “We like the wind.” Strauss and his team, who hail from Great Britain, have been using the U.S. southern Melges circuit to tune up for a summer of racing in Europe. “We had a bad start and had to go back on Day 1,” Rix added. “That’s what spoiled our regatta a bit.” But the Gill team rebounded over the weekend with a third and then three consecutive firsts to close out the regatta. It wasn’t enough to catch Doug Fisher of Sarasota, Fla., who had five top-four finishes and won the regatta with 12 points, but it’s certainly a good omen for the team as they head home. “We did some practicing before we came over and it really came down to our boathandling today,” said Rix. “It was puffy and very shifty. We suspected it to be so with the breeze coming off the land. I grew up on small lakes so I like the shifty stuff.” from http://www.sailingworld.com/article.jsp?ID=32726&typeID=403&catID=597

The Chaos Machine

There have been some people in my life that seem to bring nothing but trouble with them. There is always something going horribly wrong in their life, and they want everyone else to fix it. When others give them advice, they shoot it down, and then continue to whine about their situation. They are caught in something someone called “the chaos machine.” I think psychologists would call these people Borderline Personalities. Everything is a cause to be fought. Everything is something to be concerned over. And it has to be fought by them.

It feels really nice to slough these people off.

As I spend my day working to fix things that are concerning (like LIFE AND DEATH), it is really amusing to come home and have people call me to tell me about their “problems.”

From now on, if someone wants me to solve their “problems”, they’ll have to pay me $50/hour.

The quicker Matt and I build up our savings, the farther we can get from those who would want us to maintain their “chaos machine.”