Gaia Passed On for Samhain

My oldest cat, Gaia, whose picture you can see here, died over the weekend while I was away at a conference in San Diego. She was one witchy cat, and it is fully appropriate that she passed on during this season when the veil is thin, when the life and harvest of the season come to a close (at least where I live) and the fallow time of winter approaches.

This is my first long-term pet's death, and it is somewhat unsettling to have been absent for her passage, although B and K tell me they are glad I wasn't here to see her rapid decline at the end. It's also interesting to recognize how I've slowly detached from her emotionally, probably subconsciously realizing that she was on her way out of here.

This afternoon I'm going to the vet, where she is being kept in a freezer before her cremation. I'll take her collar off and say goodbye to her body because I've been saying goodbye to her spirit ever since I heard the news early Saturday morning.

It is Samhain / Halloween. Day of the Dead is almost here. Blessings and honor to the ancestors, to those who have gone before, and the innate transience of Life through Death.

DP: Due Process, Death Penalty, or Something Else?

Given the fact that my brain has been reduced to mush, it's not surprising that some of the things my brain lapses on are rather . . . unusual.

Like the number of things that DP could stand for. In my Con Law notes it's Due Process. In Crim Law it's Death Penalty. Porn-watchers may think of something else it could be.

In any case, today I picked up a two-day-old paper and saw this opinion column written by Leonard Pitts with the Miami Herald. Being the anemic-from-bloodloss leftie that I am, I liked the message, sure. But as one who appreciates smooth writing and the power of rhetoric, I thought he did a good job of laying it out. Because the bottom line is that if you don't have breathy love for state-sanctioned-murder, to those who do, you're just a goddamn hippie anyway. Or maybe that's just me that's the goddamn hippie. *shrug*

More Obscenity

At the beginning of our obscenity discussion in Con Law last week, the prof reminded us about Steve York, a student at UC San Diego who engaged in sexually explicit tactics last spring, apparently part of a growing campus-based challenge of free speech through pornographic expressions. UC San Diego has a student tv station broadcast on closed-circuit television on campus, ostensibly outside the control of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates indecent television content and has the power to ban obscene content.

Once again Mr. York exercised his desire to shock and awe. Last Thursday night he aired content showing him having unprotected sex with an "unidentified adult actress" to acknowledge National Freedom of Speech Week. All just to push the envelope, since UCSD hasn't yet articulated the rules of the tv station's charter in the wake of Mr. York's "expressions" last spring.

Why am I mentioning this? B/c my prof has received phone calls from Steve. He says he's not representing him, but the prof seems to know what's going on and told us all to "watch the news" to see what would happen in the aftermath of the latest York-ism. Prof is on the cutting-edge of all this obscenity stuff. I hear his Cyberlaw class is primarily porn. Hmm. Maybe I'll have to change my schedule and fit that in . . .

The legal standards for what constitutes obscenity have been set forth in a 3-part test articulated in 1973 (yes, twenty-two years ago, before VHS, pay-per-view, cable, and widespread enjoyment of the internet). To show something is legally obscene: 1. must be patently offensive to the average person applying community standards (which community? the one where the material was produced or the one where it was consumed? courts have tended to uphold the latter), 2. appeal primarily to the prurient interest (ie lewd, lustful, etc), 3. have no redeeming social value through literary, artistic, scientific, or other means.

It's arguable that a male college student engaged in sexual activity with a porn actress may not violate community standards and may have redeeming social value as a commentary on pushing the standard of obscenity laws in a blatant exercise of potentially protected speech. Dunno for sure. But it's possible.

Back to my studies.

Obscenity

In Constitutional Law we finally reached the topic I've been anticipating. Porn! Obscenity! Free speech!

I'm looking forward to discussing this in class today. In the last class prof asked the question "why as a society do we regulate obscenity?" My response: "we live in a puritanical society and the repression of sexuality does more harm than good. We shouldn't regulate obscenity because it is inherently expressive speech." Whoa, that got some choice gasps from the puritans in the room. Hee! I love ConLaw.

John Tehranian's article on the obscenity test used by the Court (established in 1973) and its unworkability, "Sanitizing Cyberspace: Obscenity, Miller and the Future of Public Discourse on the Internet:, 11 Journal of Intellectual Property 1 (2003), made a lot of sense to me when I first read it last year.

Perhaps more on this later, after class.

Don't Lick My Gauze

Right now I'm on the second shift, taking care of B, who had a tooth pulled today under anesthesia. I'm also missing Legislative Process, a once-a-week class that I'll also miss in two weeks when I'm at a conference. Ouch. But I definitely made the right decision. B is loopy, semi-conscious, and needs someone to change the gauze and icepacks, get the applesauce, and listen to the funny things he says. Pretty hilarious.

I went to my daytime classes, and K went in late to work so she could take B out to his appointment, twenty miles across the valley in the suburbs. K, with B in tow, picked me up from the trainstop near our house. B was reclined in the front seat, hair disheveled, with a big white velcro headband wrapped around his jaw with an icepack, looking like Marley's Ghost.

While we were getting B settled, before K left for work, we changed the chunk of gauze ("it's like a tampon" B slurred). B stuck it in his mouth before taking the meds, though, so he took it back out momentarily, holding it between his fingers while swallowing the pills. At that point, our oldest cat, Gaia tried to jump up on the futon, right next to the gauze perched between B's wobbly digits.

"Don't lick my gauze!" he shrieks. Quintessential post-op moment.

Here's a picture of Gaia (Bo Baia), in her I'm-ready-to-pounce-and-give-you-love mode.

Now B is sleeping, amazed I put his used mouth tampon in my hand while getting him a new one. Oh yes. Now that's gotta be love.

Pilgrimage

As I was walking up to this particular fin, I felt like a pilgrim approaching a huge altar. It was a pivotal trip in many ways. Both M and I had a lot to think about and it was fantastic to be away from the city and in a place where we could stretch and breathe and think . . . and not necessarily talk if we didn't want to.

However.

(Isn't there always a however?)

These terrifically rude climbers from Colorado camped next to us, blaring music, drinking copious amounts of beer, and making huge amounts of noise. Just what one wants while escaping the white and not-so-white noise that accompanies our usual daily lives. Quite unpleasant.

But whatever. On the aggregate, we had a good trip. It's hard to be back to the grind; I still feel like I'm in the desert.

Fall Break in the Desert

It has been a lovely week without classes, and I just returned from several fantastic days in the redrock country of southeastern Utah. On Friday I took an 11-mile hike and had some amazing views. I'm so glad I found the quiet and solitude I needed in the desert. Redrock is good for the soul.

This is Chesler Park, on the western edge of the loop hike in Canyonlands NP:


More on the trip later. It was awesome, but I'm exhausted and have much to do in preparation for return to school tomorrow. Here's one more pic of my shadow on the right with my friend M on the left, who joined me on this adventure.

Concrete

Monday when I tried to use my gender (aka perceived female-ness) at the home improvement warehouse, I learned that every place in the valley was out of the sand mix we needed. Apparently there is a cement shortage. I briefly wondered if we would have a half-skinned basement floor indefinitely, but a shipment came in yesterday and B picked it up. This time, though, he asked for help. Amazing how just asking for what one needs can yield such results!

Gender Assumptions

Eighty pounds. I knew the sand mix concrete we were using to re-skin the concrete in our basement came in eighty pound bags. What I don't think my body realized was how eighty pounds actually feels, from getting it off the shelf and onto the cart at the warehouse home improvement chain, getting it off the cart and into the back of the truck in the parking lot, and getting it back out of the truck and down to the basement at home. Somehow that sixty-pound backpack is so much more manageable than an eighty-pound bag of concrete mix.

B went alone to the home repair warehouse chain to get a few bags for the test area. A number of employees saw B hauling bags of concrete off the shelf and onto a cart but they all quickly turned off the aisle, probably to avoid helping him. That $7-10/hour wage apparently doesn't compel such heavy lifting. (Can't say I blame them.)

When B, K, and I went back to Home Depot to get nine more bags, B climbed up on one of the mobile staircases to start hauling bags off the chin-high shelf, and K and I took turns taking the bag from him and putting it on the cart. A young male employee came and helped after K and I struggled with three bags and quickly worked with B to haul up our cart.

Now it turns out we need another six bags or so. (Yes, we severely underestimated our coverage needs, but concrete coverage is the least of the lessons learned by this project.)

Time for strategy.

We hypothesize that if a single female is trying to haul concrete, the employees will help her out. Maybe even help get it from the cart and into the truck. We plan to test this hypothesis. I'll keep you posted.

Introductions & Explanations

Much of what I post here will likely refer to (or be directly about) my family. Since my household isn't typical, I should explain.

I've recently accepted that I'm accurately described as bisexual, although I prefer to identify as Queer. I resisted using the bisexual label for so long it's ridiculous. See, I honestly thought I was a lesbian who made a Chasing Amy-esque exception. But no. I'm bi. Bisexual identity can be a complex topic. Possible fodder for future posts . . . ?

My immediate non-bio family includes a male partner of six-plus years (B) and his female partner of nearly three years (K). Can you say polyamory? We aren't missionaries for this love-style, but it's how we live and we are (surprisingly? gratefully? happily) functional. B, K, and I are each open to new relationships, but tend to be . . . selective. This selectivity is for our individual and familial health, both physical and psychological. (No, we're not swingers. But sometimes I wish I were one. More sex would be kind of nice.)

Our human family is complemented by two dogs (Cassie and Aki), four felines (Gaia, Merlin, Smoky, and Buddy), two aquariums of waterlife ("the fish"), and a lot of indoor and outdoor plantlife ("the plants" and "the garden").

• Cassie is a Shih-tzu/Toy American Eskimo mix, born in early 2002, and is very outdoorsy considering her pansy ancestry. We've had her since she was twelve weeks old. The people whose un-fixed dogs had a backyard breeding session that conceived dear Cassie and her brothers called her "princess" until I adopted her, and that quite accurately describes her attitude towards life. I'll stick in a dirty hiking picture, just to keep it real.
• Aki is a Rottweiler/Blue Heeler mix, born circa 1997, lived with K's mother and stepfather until January 2005, when we adopted him. He was a ranch dog and is thrilled to sleep indoors and eat food from bowls instead of carrion. Actually, he might miss the carrion. Aki has lots of stories - maybe you'll read more about them later.
• The cats' lives are terrifically convoluted and somehow telling stories about one's dogs seems less strange than telling the life-stories of one's cats. Since I'm strange, you'll get the cat-stories, but you're spared today. Oh, and pictures will undoubtedly follow. You've been warned.
  
• The fish just aren't that interesting to me. B and K run that area of the household, thank you very much.
  
• The plants and garden have fantastic lives.
  

Now that I've introduced some of the key players, future posts will hopefully be less confusing.

I spend my days doing law school. And doing things like this. I spend my nights doing things like this and pretending to study.