Karin's Ramblings

What I want to know about the candidates

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 02:05:00 +0000

So I contacted three presidential campaigns today with the following question:

Where do you stand on medical marijuana, assisted suicide and the ability of states to set stronger emission control standards than the federal government requires?

Can't the City of San Diego Get Anything Right?

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 18:13:00 +0000

City Council has resurrected their plan to rid the city of RVs, gardeners, plumbers and the rest of us messy folks. I guess the pension mess is resolved, we now have money to pay our Liberians and repair our parks, and the streets are no longer riddled with huge holes.

From R.V.’s United For Fair Parking:

Proposed Parking Ordinance Affecting All of San Diego!

This ordinance would prohibit ALL oversize vehicles, trailers, and recreational vehicles from parking on public streets between 10 pm and 6 am, 7 days a week! An over sized vehicle is defined as being over 7 ft high OR over 22 ft long. A permit to park your RV in front of your house overnight is available (72 hour max). Each permit would cost you $3.50 and you are restricted to 24 per year.

COMMERCIAL vehicles are included in this ordinance. NO permit is being considered for them. Your plumbing vehicle, tow truck and or gardening trailer will be banned from overnight parking on city streets.

I don't know about you, but when I come home at 9 PM or 2 AM, there is no parking in front of my house. So the person with the Hummer can park in front of my house for free, while I have to have a permit. What's up with that?

This is an issue the city keeps bringing up and I've attended many of the meetings over the years. The people opposed are a cross section of our community and their reasons as different as their lives. Seems to me this ordinance is geared towards our working class communities. People with enough land around their houses to park on their own property with a $250,000 RV will not be impacted. But me with a small, but tall van living in a crowded neighborhood get regulated to death.

The next thing you know we'll have to pay to park our bicycles at the beach.

STAND UP!

I'm Angry

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:30:00 +0000

And very sick to my stomach.

The corporate bailout has me fuming. When I fume I write letters to people. Since I read the San Francisco Gate online to remind myself of what twenty first century people think, I wrote them to vent my anger at my elected officials and anyone who cares to read. Find my letter online under the title US of C.

Here's the letter that was published by the San Francisco Chronicle on Friday, October 3:

US of C

Editor - I can't believe the Senate supported this horrendous bailout of large companies.
Small business is the engine that runs the American economy, and they bail out the large corporations? What kind of insanity is that?
In an economy when our future has been hocked by President Bush, the Senate just sentenced us to living with his mistakes for the next 20 years. How can they justify that? I'm guessing it's because the companies they are bailing out are the major contributors to their campaigns. Democracy is dead in the United States of Corporations.
KARIN ZIRK
San Diego

Senatorial Credulousness

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:00:00 +0000

Senate approves bailout after revisions, 74-25.

~ Need I say more....

Is Chocolate Helping or Harming Me?

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:20:00 +0000

I've been depending on the sweet, pure kick of organic fair trade dark chocolate as a motivator, pick me up, warm blanket and reward, but now as I'm aging, chocolate is starting to mess with my life - eye twitches, blurry vision after too much dark chocolate. I'm desperate. How do people survive life without chocolate? Can I continue to function while still reducing my chocolate intake?

Inquring minds want to know!

I Finished the Novel - Now What?

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 04:55:00 +0000

I finished my novel, Falling From the Moon, in June and September is almost a memory. In June and July I gave copies of the book to a few trusted friends to read, hoping to get some feedback. I've been working on the novel for years and years and years and no one had read the entire book cover to cover and I definitely wanted to clean up the typos, grammar issues and matters of choreography before trying to show it to someone who might actually want to publish it.

Yes, that is the goal. As much as I was compelled to keep writing the book even when I was sick of it and wanted to escape from its clutch, I always knew that someday I would try to get it published.

So I'm waiting on my friends, hint hint, to return their copies with lots of pen marks on the page. I've registered for the La Jolla Writers Conference in November and my deadline to have my synopsis and first twelve pages in their post office box is October 1st - so I better get hustling.

I've been trapped in synopsis hell, learning how to be concise, cover the basic plots points and be a bit of a tease so I can leave prospective agents hungry for more. This conference asked for a one page synopsis and after slaving over it for days, I think I have a one page draft.

In the meantime, I'm reading the novel myself and scribbling all over the printed page so I guess my triumphant June post wasn't so climatic after all. But this last draft is mostly sentence changes and minor edits. I hope to be done with this verion by November 1st.

Wish me luck!

How Riding the Bus Saved Me from a Nervous Breakdown

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 17:12:00 +0000

Every morning when I wake up, I'm already behind on my to-do list and before I've even had breakfast, my stress level is through the roof. My brain knows that if I take a few minutes to sit quietly, I'll feel more relaxed, but once I'm loosing my sanity, it's hard for me to figure out how to sit still. Not to mention, trying to find a moment between trips to the potty, phone calls and the endless stream of work related messages to my crackberry, relaxation seems as out of reach as Jupiter.

Yet the moment the bus arrives at the bus stop and I climb on board, everything stops. I can pull out my book and read, watch the boats on the water as we zoom by on the freeway, edit my novel, or just eavesdrop on the conversations of excited teenagers wrapped up in what Bob said to Sally or other simple problems. My heart slows down and I can make notes on what I need to do or think or how I'm feeling. I can do nothing. Today I wished the trip was longer. Thirty minutes after climbing on board, I was off and speed walking through the streets to my office tower overlooking San Diego Harbor. Now I'm anticipating the journey home so I can get back to working on the synopsis of my novel I need to have done by Friday for the La Jolla Writers Conference in November.

Hail to the Number 30 Bus - my savior.

Global Warming, the Price of Energy & Obesity

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:11:00 +0000

Seems to me there's a direct correlation between the three and the lower the price of energy the more energy we consume, hence the more we contribute to global warming and the fatter we get. Yupe I said it: FAT! We are a nation of fat people and I'm no exception. I won't insult with you statistics as I know you hear the stats weekly if not daily.

The United States is the fattest nation on earth and we are in the top tier of per capitia energy consumption depending on the study. Our share of global warming is by far the biggest share because we act like consuming lots of oil and getting fat is in our best interests. Where the f&#@k did that idea come from? I could point fingers at mass market advertising that has brainwashed half the country into thinking that the more Big Macs they buy and the more they drive around in a gigantic pickup truck the sexier they will be or the bigger their d^&ks will get or the more popular they will be , but it's all b&*ls&^t. Shouldn't high school drama be reserved for those in grades nine to twelve?

What about putting the logic on the table?

Higher energy costs cause people to minimize oil (gas, coal, nuclear, etc) energy and use human energy. The more we use human energy to do the tasks that need doing in our lives, the more calories we burn. We loose weight, get in shape, have fewer heart attacks and strokes, and get to meet our neighbors.

The less oil/gas/coal/nuclear energy we use, the more we slow down the temperature increase that is happening. YES GW: Global Warming is caused by human beings burning non-human sources of energy. The more we relay on human energy, the more we make friends to help us carry, lift, haul, build and walk. The more friends we have the happier we will be (according to health study after health study).

This talk about finding cheap sources of energy is like trying to eat more and still loose weight. It ain't gonna happen.

As the old saying goes, "you can't get something for nothing."

Salt Water, Strong Arms and the Quest to Save the Planet

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:15:00 +0000

Today was the 17th Annual Paddle for Clean Water - an awesome event put together by San Diego Surfrider. The basic premise is we want clean ocean water and we're willing to paddle around the Ocean Beach Pier (about 3/4 of a mile) to make our voices heard. I'm not sure how long I've been participating, probably since the second or third paddle.

One day many years ago (back in the early nineties), I was surfing in Pacific Beach and when I exited the water this man handed me a flyer and asked me to participate in the upcoming paddle. I tried to explain to him that I suck as a surfer, catching a wave seems as much luck as anything, and no one needed me cluttering up the surf.

He was undetered. His mission: increase female participation in the event. For those who don't remember, there weren't too many women surfing back then and I guess even fewer participating in the paddle. We spoke for a while and I told him I would think about it. For reasons I can't fathom, I went that year and paddled out in a crowd of people hooting and hollering and drumming on their boards to let the world know that clean water is our birth right and we're here to be loud and proud. I got goosebumps from the collective energy and the unity between a group, which normally flies solo, joining arms for the future.

To this day I still do the paddle and I'm still friends with Tom. Only this year, the water is full of women. Two year old girls riding on their daddy's boards, grandma's and retirees laughing and gliding through the water with the love of the ocean shining in their eyes. Young women paddling up a storm and Moms paddling alongside their children. It's hard and I love it. As long as I can paddle around the OB Pier with six hundred or one thousand people, who are tired of pollution, then I know I'm alive. I'll be sore tomorrow, but for tonight if you missed the twelve foot wooden boards from the fifties, the beautiful tattoos, or the smiles on so many faces, you missed out on what community feels like.

Barak Obama on the Environment

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:41:00 +0000

I want to throw up. American politics suck. The candidate of the people is Cynthia McKinney - the green woman running for president. She's my candidate of choice and the candidate who espouses "Leave the oil in the soil." Now you, I and the lamppost on the corner know, she won't be living in the White House anytime soon. The power money political machine has this country too tightly harnessed for a progressive candidate. I'll be voting for Cynthia because quite frankly, I want a woman president, I want a progressive president, and I want a president who understands that our future won't come from clinging to our destructive childish ways of living, but from exploring new options and letting that good old American ingenuity run with new energy, extreme sonservation and revamped manufacturing processes. We can't compete with Asia playing old games, but we're damn good at inventing new games.

So what does this have to do with Barak and the environment? I don't claim to know what's in the man's heart, but based on what's being said out there on the campaign trail, Mr. Obama now supports drilling for oil (wars in the Middle East), extraction of clean coal (destruction of communities and black lung disease) and nuclear power (able to destroy entire regions in a single bound). WHAT THE FUCK! I thought we, as a country, were starting to realize that energy conservation and renewable energy were the ways to provide security for the American people.

So in spite of my initial excitement at Mr. Obama's nomination by the Democratic party, I guess the song remains the same, big money wins, and the United States is going to continue it's downward spiral. Are there any job openings for a database administrator in Chile?

How personal is the political?

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 03:00:00 +0000

Looking back on writers like Anais Nin and the women's movement of the late sixties and into the seventies, a common mantra was the personal is political and if you examine the personal closely enough, you find the common humanity of all.

As I watch the media staged events that are the campaign for president of the United States, I've started to reframe my own life. For the last nine and a half years, I've been looking at all my problems as my own personal failure to be able to juggle full time work, full time caregiving, and part time projects such as writing, environmental activism not to mention a social life. But listening to some of the speeches floating around, I am beginning to wonder, if there might not be a balance that comes from the direction the President is supposed to provide our country. So I wonder, if for the last eight years we'd had a president who wasn't a spoiled little rich brat, maybe somehow my life would be easier.

Maybe, a descent paying 75% job would be available, because in this job market, it's either work fifty hours a week at a livable wage or work thirty hours a week at the same wage I earned in nineteen eighty. Maybe, there would be health care without a co-pay for calling your doctor on the phone. Maybe, the caregiving burden I am taking off the government's back would be recognized for something - either earnings towards my own retirement or caregiving subsidies. Maybe I would be making more in real terms now than I was twenty five years ago. Maybe we would have had a president who was smarter than me and could come up with ways to lift a burden placed on my shoulders by the failed health care systems.

Or maybe not. Maybe I'm to blame. After all, I could just work and care for my mom, not try to save a creek or write a novel or organize my community. Maybe if I was happy working for a corporation so the CEO could vacation in the Bahamas every year, I wouldn't feel so frustrated with my options.

Unfortunately, I'm one of those crack pot dreamers who thinks that there is a way for people to live fulfilling lives, love and be loved, to follow their bliss and still support themselves, and that maybe, just maybe, my hard work will help someone else someday, somehow. That's been an unpopular belief these last eight years. I hope it won't be forever.

To my sister who blazed that trail ~~ RIP Shirley Chisholm ~~ you will not be forgotten. And to all those who have come since, don't forget whose shoulders you're standing on.

La Jolla Shores by Moonlight

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:34:00 +0000

Too often I complain and whine about my life: the lack of sleep, the lack of friends, the lack of sex; but sometimes I am reminded of miracles.

Yesterday, I worked my day job from 8 AM to 6 PM then went off to a consulting gig with with a company by Miramar. Yesterday was also the first time in over a year that I had a regular caregiver working on a Wednesday evenings.

I finished with my consulting meeting by 7:30 PM and heading home I realized that La Jolla Shores was on the way home - how sweet is that? Of course I had a swimsuit and towel in my car so I pulled on into the parking lot as the last traces of the orange sky was lingering on the water. After changing into my suit, I walked the length of the beach, very slowly, trying to remember to breath and walk with my shoulders back and my pelvis tucked in to lengthen my spine. (My yoga teacher would be proud.)

Then about 8:15, when the only light on the water was the hideous flood lights from the Beach and Tennis Club to the north of me and the perfectly shaped crescent moon, I slide into water. The sea was warm, the waves mellow and it was the perfect reminder that despite all the things wrong with my life, there are occasional high points.

As I swam I thought about the poor people who have never been night swimming in a moon glow ocean or who have some place like La Jolla Shores to stop by on the way home from work.

YES! Magazine and What I Want To Be When I Grow Up

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:22:00 +0000

YES Magazine's tag line is "Supporting you in building a just and sustainable world" and when the latest issue arrives in my mail box I inhale the stories of the rebirth of Students for a Democratic Society, a female president in Chile, autonomous social movements in Argentina, the real scoop on energy usage, and the solutions to the health care crises in this country and I want to be one of the heroes between the covers of the 100% recycled, post-consumer waste, process chlorine-free paper, example of journalism that digs deep and uncovers the peaceful but dramatic social movements taking place under the radar of mainstream media.

As I read, I look for career opportunities that would allow me to pay my mother's caregiving bills while blending my skills in communication with my desire to be one of the people creating a future that respects the planet and the creatures who scurry across her belly. I analyze the careers people have created in their quest to save the planet and each other and try to figure out where I fit in while putting in forty hours a week in the computer trenches as a database administrator.

Once upon a time I had a quote over my desk that talked about the future as something not found, but created, the roads to it are built by those taking the journey and the journey changing both the traveler and the destination and believe it to be true. As Robert Frost said all those years ago, "I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference."

My zig zag journey from the streets of San Francisco to the mission of restoring the native habitat in my ten foot by fifteen foot front yard leaves me middle aged and plodding through the woods, creating a path and dragging a hundred and twenty pound weight behind me. I tramp through the jungle looking for paths between trees and tigers and wonder how I ended up in the this part of the jungle and why. Some days I am weary and I sit down and contemplate finding the energy to climb over one more rock, traverse one more mountain range or swim across another river.

Then I read about tree sitting in South Central Los Angeles, interfaith movements of environmental activists and the purpling of America in the latest issue, grab a hold of a tree and pull myself up and get back to writing and tree planting and caring for another generation while I figure out who I want to be when I grow up.

Denver is Light Years Away From San Diego

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:22:00 +0000

The Democratic National Convention is being held later this month in Denver and I'm stuck on the sidelines while the activist community is gearing up to protest the farce. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a member of the Green Party.

The Democrats masquerade as the party of the people and the people are going to be on hand in Denver to let the Democrats know what we mean by "for the people." From free food to childcare, this time around the focus is on creating an alternative future as well as disrupting the old power structures.

From Recreate 68 and Disrupt Denver to the clandestine insurgent rebel clown army the people's voice is gearing up to be seen and heard. And I'm stuck in San Diego with a new job in corporate America and a wheelchair bound mother who was born to a life a privilege and squandered her life.

My daily mind is filled with questions like how can I say I want to create a positive future for all if I throw away a human being? How can I create a positive future, when the past has me shackled? I know that most traditional cultures hold their elders in high esteem, but how does that play out when modern medicine interferes and the percentage of the population who can't go to the bathroom by themselves grows? How much can you give to the elders without taking away from the children? What about elders who have no wisdom to pass down either because they don't think or because they're too disabled too think?

It's not PC to question the sanctity of human life, but western medicine has blurred the line between life and death and now we have armies of half dead walking around and western medicine says "see you later" leaving families to stagger under the weight of the walking (or wheelchair rolling) dead. Our ability to keep parts of the human body funcationing has gone beyond our understanding of life. Now if all those doctors had to grapple daily with lifting dead weight from the bed to the wheelchair or getting woken up in the middle of the night for nine years to change a diaper, maybe there would be some level of understanding. But as long as the consequences of western medicine are divested from their so called "healing" actions, the science of keeping a heart beating will have nothing to do with living.

So I send some money to Recreate 68 in Denver to help with legal fees or food or whatever people on the ground need to spend money on when challenging the power structure of the United States. I read Indy Media and send my energy to my brothers and sisters who can be there to create the future I want for all of us.

Sitting here behind my computer, my heart breaks over the irony of life. I, who see the farce in creating a life in computers, am stuck behind one watching from afar. If you're able to make Denver, go, participate, feel the power that comes from changing the world when holding hands with new friends and old comrades. You won't regret it. I'll be doing laundry, changing diapers, washing dishes in San Diego and shedding a few tears about being stuck in isolation while you are creating the world we want.

Let's take back our future. Peace!

Me and UCLA

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 03:15:00 +0000

The UCLA Writers' Program offers an amazing banquet of writing classes through UCLA Extension. From October 2007 until March 2008, I took a great on-line course in advanced fiction that gave me the tools I needed to finish my novel.

When I was awarded the Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, my instructor told me to let the Writers' Program know and I would get some great publicity out of it. And she was right. Check it out, I'm famous for today anyway.

From UCLA Writers' Studio web site:

"Online Student Receives Fiction Writing Grant

Student Karin Zirk was awarded a grant for unpublished novels through the Elizabeth George Foundation. Karin has been using the grant to take Writers’ Program online courses to finish her novel, Falling from the Moon.

Karin says, "The grant provided time to write and funding for classes such as Novel V, where I studied under the incredible Caroline Leavitt. Not only is she a cheerleader extraordinaire, but her ability to share tools that helped me find the holes in my novel and fill them with the missing pieces of the story was incredible," Karin says. "In addition to the Novel V class, I had the privilege of taking Katharine Sand's Riveting Writing course, which has given me the tools I need to pitch this book to an agent."

We look forward to reading the finished manuscript, Karin! Congratulations."

On Bad News

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:51:00 +0000

I emailed a friend the other day and used the subject line of "Bad News" and she thought someone had died. In my lexicon, people dying is never bad news.

Now before you think I'm harsh, I've been taking care of a severely disabled parent for over nine years. Think about it, that's before the second George Bush started what I hate to call his "presidency;" perhaps we could just say his "residency" in the White House.

But I disgress. Dying is easier to deal with. You can cry, stay in bed for days sobbing. You can grieve and mourn and then you can move on with a new life or move or go on a date. Sure it's a life missing that person and frankly I doubt I'd mourn for more than five minutes if GW died, but that's not the point. When people live, you have to keep dealing with them. And dealing with them and dealing with them.

That means rinsing out urine soaked pillows every night because someone can't leave them under the water proof pull sheet or trying to teach someone how to say the word yogurt every other day or one thousand, six hundred times since this nightmare began. It starts with a "y." We draw the "y" with our fingers on the kitchen table and out comes "sharez" or some other non sequitur. Then we draw an "o" on the kitchen table and try to sound it out. "Sharon." Then five other words that start with the "sh" sound. Finally I say it starts with the sound "yo" and then the word "yogurt" is uttered.

Once we've established the word yogurt, we move on to cereal. And so it goes.

Rainbow Gathering Black Hole

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:31:00 +0000

I'm back from the Rainbow Gathering in Wyoming - the black hole I disappeared into last month. The Gathering tends to be all consuming and this year was no different. Front Gate, the search for Garrett Bardin and the realities of Death Camp sucked up three weeks of my life and except for the loss of ten pounds of fat and the gain of one ounce of wisdom, I have nothing to show for it.

I created a blog just for this year's gathering a few months ago and it turns out to have been a hit - or at least that's what I was hearing on the land. Starting today, I'll be posting entries on my gathering experience over there. So if you haven't visited the Wyoming Gathering Blogspot, check it out today.

It's Done! (sort of)

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 02:11:00 +0000

On Monday I finished my novel, the novel I started in 1995. Six to eight drafts later and six months of writing fifteen hours a week and it's done (sort of).

So what's the next step? Two close friends will read it while I'm gone to Wyoming for the Rainbow Gathering. Hopefully, when I come back, all I need to do is some line edits and then I can start looking for an agent.

It feels anti-climatic and scary. I'm not sure who I will be if I'm not the person working on the stories of Sapphire and Lauren. Can I let them go? Will I have empty nest syndrome? Only time will tell.

Thanks to everyone who has supported me along the way!

The Seventh Generation and Barak Obama

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:06:00 +0000

For many years, I have tried to live by the creed of dedication to the seventh generation.

Depending on who you listen to the concept is either a foreshadowing of Native people's return to sovereignty and re-centering human culture around the needs of the planet or living your life in such a way that you are protecting the interests of the seventh generation in the future. At twenty five years a generation, that's 175 years from now. There are days when the changes we need to enact in our daily lives seem overwhelming and trying to survive another year, seems enough to worry about, let alone protecting the planet for the people who will be born in the year 2183.

Tuesday night my mom and I watched Barak Obama's speech acknowledging that he has become the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee and hopefully the next President of the United States of America. We all know this is a historic moment, but while we watched him, I reflected.

My mom immigrated to the United States in the early 1950s, encountered segregated beaches in New York and New Jersey, witnessed the birth of the civil rights movement and gave birth to me in 1960. Mr. Obama was born one year later according to some sources on the Internet so he and I are of the same generation. If the generation of our parents, the ones who registered voters in the south, the ones who desegregated schools, the ones who marched on Washington, DC are the first generation, then Mr. Obama and I are the second generation and the third generation is of voting age today and dreaming of a new world.

I have grown up with the civil rights movement, the images on television, the bitter words spoken in fear of change, the courageous men and women who dared to fall in love with people not of their racial background, and the hopes of people who raised bi-racial children in a world not yet ready to accept that love is more important than color. The changes seemed painfully slow and yet, collectively we are miles away from where we were in 1958.

From this point forward, I will look at the quest to care for the seventh generation a bit differently. While walking the road for the children of 2183, we are changing the lives of the children who will be born in 2033. I only hope we live up to that which the world demands of us today.

Just a shout out to the men and women who will be writing thoughts like these in the year 2058. May we have done all that you expected of us.

What's Wrong with the US Government

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Fri, 23 May 2008 02:08:00 +0000

Today's rant is about the postal service.

I have a friend in Wyoming hiking and camping. He's been there for three weeks and is planning on staying for another two months. I promised to send him his mail from time to time, but never know where he's going to be.

My friend called me the other day and said "send it General Delivery to Pinedale, Wyoming." I put everything in an envelope and rode my bike to the Pacific Beach Post Office to mail it. They couldn't help me. Apparently the United States Postal Service has no ability to find the zip code for general delivery in Pinedale, population under two thousand people. Now Pinedale is a small town as are most towns in Wyoming so I know there's only one post office. I told the postal worker this and she asked her co-workers and they all decided I needed to go to the Midway Post Office, which is six miles away. Now six miles to you rural folks might not sound like much, but for us city folks, six miles of stop signs, traffic signals and up and down hills and back again in under an hour (when I had to be home) wasn't going to happen on my bike. I guess I could have ridden home, started up a car and driven there, but then it would by seven miles there and seven miles back getting close to rush hour.

I felt like I was in the twilight zone. If a person cannot not obtain a zip code from a United States Post Office, then where, I ask, would I find one? So I rode my bike three blocks to the library, got on the library computer, went to the USPS website and searched for the zip code for the street address of "General Delivery" in Pinedale, Wyoming. And I had the zip code.

Then I had to go back to the Post Office to mail the package. Am I the only person who sees something wrong with this picture?

On Momentum

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Sat, 17 May 2008 22:00:00 +0000

I have a friend named Karen who has three boys, ages five and under. I have an eighty one year old mother with a brain damaged by stroke and physical problems on the side.

I often wonder how the other Karen does it, keep up with three young kids, and I realized it has to do with momentum. Kids supply their own momentum if not always in the necessary direction. Of course, three small boys combined probably don't have the amount of mass that my mother has, but they have a plethora of velocity. Given that momentum somehow equals mass times velocity, I think they are off the charts.

My mother is lacking in momentum. She has the desire for it, but can't seem to remember to ask, suggest or do anything. I have to provide momentum for two. It's hard to to muster up the necessary momentum day after day to drag a 130 pound woman plus wheelchair into the pool, out of the pool. For a walk. To do exercises. A struggle to mount a conversation with a woman who omits verbs and nouns from her not quite sentences. When asked what she wants to do, a common response is "This one" with her first finger pointing at the ceiling.

If you're confused, no worries. So am I. "This one" can mean a sleeping pill, reading a book, television, a walk or a number of other things that will require five minutes of guessing games before communication is established.

So some days, I grit me teeth and chat over dinner. An exchange of three sentences is about fifteen minutes worth of questions, signs, waiting and frustration on both sides. Some days I don't even try. I'm too tired, or too frustrated, and just want to put food on the table in front of her and read the paper or clean the toilet while she eats.

So the next time your small child chatters up a storm, count your blessings. At least feigning interest and a few well placed "oh really" and "that was very nice" will carry your for fifteen minutes with kids. I on the other hand, am stuck flipping through a Swedish-English dictionary, trying to comprehend a nounless and verbless sentence and asking questions that will help me figure out what my mother is trying to say.

Least you judge me, when you've been trying to teach someone to say "bedroom" for nine years without consistent success, it's frustrating and you have to give me kudos for trying again tomorrow - a tactic I've employed for nine years now.

I Lost My Mornings

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Sat, 17 May 2008 02:41:00 +0000

I lost my mornings nine years ago and I only realized it this week. It's not that I don't have mornings anymore, but they're not my mornings. Not my time to catch the sunrise surf or wake early and watch the sky change color.

The one day a week that I do own my mornings, I use them to sleep, since sleeping when you have a disabled parent to care for is an oxymoron. But let's not worry about that now. My concern is that it took me nine years to realize I hadn't been swimming at dawn in, well you guessed it, nine years. I could have noticed after five years that I hadn't watched the sunrise in five years. Or noticed after three years that I hadn't stayed up all night and watched the sky change color in three years.

So I'm not sure what that says about me other than I've been sucked into Zombie land. Zombie land is a strange place. No fun. No play. But you're so busy working, you don't even notice that recess has been canceled. I'm not really sure what to do about it. There doesn't seem to be an exit gate or glow in the dark signs pointing the way out of here. Or maybe the signs are there, but because I'm a Zombie, I don't notice.

If you happen to notice some befuddled mornings walking about in circles not quite sure where they belong, will you send them my way?

Gathering Fever

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Fri, 02 May 2008 17:24:00 +0000

So it's that time of year again folks. Gathering fever has struck. I've created a new blog for the Wyoming Gathering, so check it out. A lot of the old family are going to be on hand to share 37 years of gathering wisdom before they loose their ability to get out on the land and gather with us.

So this year is the year to come home. For more information, visit Karin's Wyoming Gathering blog.

April aka Overwhelm Your Local Environmental Activist Month

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 19:00:00 +0000

So April is drawing to an end thankfully. I used to really love April. All the flowers. The cool ocean breezes. The promise of warm ocean water and nights of fog.

Since forming the Friends of Rose Creek I've renamed April to "kill you local environmental activist month" (I left kill out of the post title as it seemed to easy to take it literally). San Diego Earth Fair is behind us. Great day. Lots of people stopped by our booth eager to learn about Rose Creek and our vision for the future. It was a twelve hour day for me not to mention the eight hours of preparation time over the prior two days. The last two hours at the fair I was doing squats in hiking boots and picking up cigarette butts, beer bottles and scraps of plastic.

Saturday is the Creek to Bay Cleanup - yet another massive day. We have a 40 yard roll off dumpster coming and hopefully 75 + volunteers to fill it in under three hours. Plus raffle prizes to give away, an ice cream social to plan. So I'm out humping for volunteers, trying to find people whose idea of an awesome Saturday morning is hauling sofas, tires and spray paint cans out of the creek. Logistics on this are huge and I haven't tracked my time.

There's trees that need to be watered weekly and a host of events I had to say no to because there is only so much a middle aged worn out woman can do. So I ask everyone, why does it have to happen in April? I know April 22 is Earth Day and having earth related events is cool. But what about March? Don't we love the earth in March? Or November or May?

I secretly suspect it is a plot to kill off environmental activists - maybe give us a heart attack or a nervous break down or leave us babbling in the corner. With the new greening of America, I would hope that loving the earth is an twelve month affair, but so far, the only real change I've seen is in corporate advertising. Go figure.

TC Boyle & Opening Sentences

noreply@blogger.com (Karin Zirk) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:30:00 +0000

I've been reworking the opening of my novel and trying to create an opening sentence that packs a wallop. Today I went to the library and read the opening paragraph to all the Boyle novels on the shelf. There were seven or eight. While the exercise was very useful for my opening sentence, (I hope), it left me feeling rather discouraged. I'm 47 years old and have yet to complete even one novel, let alone the cornucopia of ideas that Boyle has produced so far.

Of course the only option to not trying to finish anything is never finishing anything so I continue on. But just for giggles, take a quick comparison and you'll see what I mean.

Falling From the Moon's first sentence: "He vaporized fifteen years ago leaving faint traces of patchouli, the echo of an acoustic guitar in the hallway and festering lesions on her destiny."

Drop's City's first sentence: The morning was a fish in a net, glistening and wriggling at the dead black border of her consciousness, but she'd never caught a fish in a net or on a hook either, so she couldn't really say if or how or why.