Yosemite

Originally uploaded by subvert.com.

Great way to kick off the trip. Beautiful day of hiking with Stacey’s dad and brother who happened to be there on vacation. We hiked to the top where there is a little pool of mountain water. My first cardio since the accident last oct. It’s amazing what you can do one step at a time.

Stacey wanted to bring the plants.

Although I neglected to blog it before it began, I have been on vacation, travelling with my sweetie before she begins med school next month.

This has included a vacation from the Net, erspecially once we got to Spain and the Nokia N93 wouldn´t roam without getting yet another SIM card or rechaging with more Euros (which, it is easy to forget, quite  bit more than a US dollar each).

 I´ve missed the Net at time but it´s been very good for me to empty my mind. Of course I long to analyze and make stories. But speaking a different language and my sweetie on vacation make that difficult.

Eventually the craving passed and I was able to spend no less than 4 days in a row in he Meditteranean and wonder only about things like socks.

Why do European men wear dress socks, sometimes as thin as women´s nylons with shorts, while American men will wear white sweat socks, even with a suit?

I´ll be back in SF and online in a few days. Until then, enjoy the Web without me. 

6/15/07Heather conversates with equivocal musicianAmy Tobin, GTD electronic apostleMerlin Mann, her guardian angel,+rescuer spirtual leaderPatrick Barnes and the people formerly known as the audience.

Which movie do you want to see? Buy or sell? Paper or plastic? Whether by prayer or Powerpoint presentation, how do you make decisions?

Listen to the mp3 of the entire show (90 min)

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Good tech samaritan

Originally uploaded by subvert.com.

Petteri Koponen of Jaiku solves my Nokia N93 trouble

T Mobile phone support was useless. A friendly Finn with geek cred (and the same phone) solved all my problems!

Last night at the dinner before the talk show, my guest Merlin casually dropped “pack of fives” into conversation. As in, “If that guy gives you any trouble, give him a pack of fives.” You say this while raising a fist to illustrate.

This let to a bunch of fun reminiscing about my grandpa Sam and the stuff he would say. One of his favourite ways to show affection was to say “I’m gonna give you a punch in the nose McGee.” We were all McGee at different times. Also MacDuff. He also liked to call his grandchildren Butch or Butchie from the time we were infants (I was the only one for which this name was the least bit accurate). Trumpanick and Muzzik were also common terms for us, though these are Yiddish words and really Old Timey in a different way, meaning “troublemaker.” He emigrated/was smuggled out from the shtetl to Canada when he was 5 years old.

I miss my grandpa, but everytime I hear his words I feel like he’s here.

What’s your grandparent’s Old Timey slang?

One of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long while. I laughed out loud. Which happens for me maybe once a month if I’m lucky. So awesome to get past the usual comedian’s understated response: “funny.”

Why are you still reading this blog post? Go watch Bob Smigel rock the dog, the mike and Broadway.

ulnar nerve palsyEver since my accident last October, I haven’t been able to feel my pinky finger on my left hand, or part of the ring finger, or the front and back of the hand below those fingers.How big a deal is a pinky finger you might ask?I might have thought it wasn’t that big a deal before I lost the ability to feel and really use mine.You’d be amazed at how often you use that finger. Among other things, I now know I would use it to:cutting your foodholding a wineglassrock climbingplaying hockeydriving the carputting on a ponytailclappingholding handsholding anythingquality lesbian sexkeyboardingWestern medicine calls what I have ulnar nerve palsy. Turns out that our nerves supply the charge to your muscles. Without that charge, the muscles atrophy (check out the big scoop between my thumb and forefinger and then look at your own). All this means that after months and months of therapy I now have a left hand that’s about half as strong as my right hand and nowhere near as delft or agile.So what do the doctors have to say about all this Will it come back to normal?They’re quite succinct: “we don’t know.”Other than physically manipulating my fingers every day so that they don’t stay too “clawed” (as you can see) when the nerve comes back, there’s not much to do.Not having anything to do or any knowledge if I’m going to get this back has been difficult. i’ve seen a holistic chiropractor who has encouraged me to hum to send energy down the fluid around the nerve. I’ve also been encouraged to imagine / visualize using my left hand normally as well as my right hand to keep the neural pathways open and healing. One energy healer at a party did reiki on it and another friend prayed for it.Energy healing is a frickin hilarious punchline, until you need it (ok, even if you need it, it’s still pretty funny).Basically I’ve stepped into the large void in which science has not yet given us answers. And so what is there? Faith. Faith that it will come back, that my attitude and belief can help make that happen.I have chosen that for the very rational reason that it’s the only thing I can do and I very much wish to do something. Holding the attitude of “we’ll see whatever the hell happens to my hand happens” is not so comforting.In the off chance there is some yet-to-be-charted quantum affect of my attitude and mental decision affecting my body’s healing, then I certainly have nothing to lose and everything to gain by doing it.I suppose that goes for the prayer and the energy healing too.The great news is that this week’s EMG revealed that my nerve has regenerated some. Why this has happened I don’t know. Medicine doesn’t seem to know either. They conjecture that the surgery relieved some pressure on the nerve. But do I now look to science and faith to encourage the rest of whatever healing I’ll get.All science has to say to me at the moment is, “I don’t know” and “You’ll get whatever you’re going to get within 18 months of the surgery” which was last March.Is faith just a way of approaching what science can’t yet explain?My belief and mind can say whatever I choose to have them say.I choose full recovery.What do you think?

Name: Bulimia
Sold with: MandMs
Modelled by: the usual suspects

Moving is an interesting thing.

It is showing me:
how much I love San Francisco and how special it is.
how little I need things
how important my information, my writing, my data is to me
these links, these pointers
to other people and ideas are what point to my life
moving in space
from node to node
heart to heart
mind to mind.

Only love and exchange are constant.