Obligatory Year-End Wrap Up Post, 2004 Version

Another year, down the drain. The hours of 2004 are drawing to a close, and I'm preparing to bid it a fond farewell. Well, perhaps not so fond. To paraphrase The Simpsons, this year both sucked and blew on many levels. There are more than a few parts of the last twelve months that I would like to erase from my life. (I will also spare my readers from having to listen to me whine about them.)

So what have we learned this year?

- Communication and honesty are the most important things in the world. In their absence, people start to assume. Assumptions are dangerous things, and can wreck months of your life that could have been saved if one person had just spoken up.
- If you poke fun at the Great White Death long enough, it will eventually show up and immobilize your city.
- People get way too freaked out over a bunch of mostly harmless insects just looking to get lucky.
- I had a novel in me after all. Too bad it's a crappy one.
- Safe Auto sucks. Their jingle sucks, their customer service sucks. Heck, one of the forms they sent me to sign even had a typo that read "suck." I kid you not.
- The entire country can be offended by a nipple that most of us didn't see until the news pointed it out and played in slow motion ad nauseum, and it's OK to sanitize the media in order to remove offensive language in the name of moral values, but it's still fine to show violence and gore. In the immortal words of Sheila Broflovski, "Remember what the MPAA says: Horrific, deplorable violence is okay, as long as people don't say any naughty words! That's what this war is all about!"
- Of course, moral values are subjective. Waging unnecessary wars, running up a huge deficit that future generations will have to deal with, screwing up the already faltering educational system, and destoying the environment in the name of big business are fine. Discriminating against two people who love each other is acceptable. After all, the Bible says so! (Of course, as the often forwarded letter to Dr. Laura/President Bush reminds us, so is eating shellfish and wearing poly-cotton blends. Enjoy your shrimp tray! Love your sweater! See you in hell!)
- I would be an awful music critic because I am entirely too concerned about whether the band was nice to me.
- I panic over everything, whether it be simple blood draws (no, I've not heard anything yet... no news is good news, I hope) or class reunions. My self esteem sucks, and I often don't handle it very well.
- It's OK to be intelligent again. (Or at least intelligent on quiz shows.) From the bottom of my useless pop culture trivia-filled heart, thanks, Ken Jennings!
- In the same way that I only seem to be allergic to kittens, I'm allergic to cheetah cubs. If I'm in the room with Bravo and Chance (the new 7 month old cheetahs from the Cat Ambassador Program), my throat closes up and I cough up a lung. However, I have no reaction at all to Sahara or Moya, the adult cheetahs in the program. I know, it's weird.
- I am Rhapsody's bitch. I will go into more detail about this a later date, but any service that allows me to come up with a five hour playlist comprised of nothing but songs used in commercials is OK with me.

I guess now would be as good a time as any to get those pesky resolutions out of the way. In the upcoming year, I resolve to:

- Read a "hard" book and a "fun" book every month. While I do spend a lot of time reading, a lot of it is flipping through the newest issue of Entertainment Weekly or re-reading Why Girls are Weird for the billionth time. I have a stack of unread books that I need to plow through, many of them from past Barrows Lecture Series speakers. So why am I rereading Memoirs of a Geisha?
- Learn to work my digital camera and find someplace to host my photos so I can torture everyone with tons of pictures of my cats. (Well, and other stuff too.) There are several things that I've needed to tweak on my site for a while now, but finding the time and motivation has been difficult.
- Do something cultural every month. I don't remember the last time I went to the Art Museum. I haven't been to a show at Playhouse in the Park since Roger Mexico moved. (I do miss those free tickets.... ) Although I've admired the architecture, I haven't been to the new location of the Contemporary Arts Center. I'm lucky enough to live in a city filled with great museums and arts programs, and I don't take advantage of it. As the song goes, "Culture is something good for you/Like liver, spinach and beets too." (I don't like those foods particularly, but I do like the symphony and the theater. I'll take a helping of the Cincinnati Opera, please, with a side of the Pops.)
- Go see local live music at least once a month. For a city that Forbes ridiculed for being "no fun," we have a vibrant local music scene. Attending the Midpoint Music Festival this past year reminded me how much I missed going out to see a band. MPMF gave me lots of new names to keep an eye out for when reading CityBeat, and hopefully along the way I'll discover more.
- Keep track of what goes on in my life. There are points where I can honestly say that I can't remember the last movie I saw or the last concert I've been to. (Case in point: the other night I rented a DVD from Blockbuster, and realized halfway through that I'd rented it before. No complaints - it was Eddie Izzard, after all - but I didn't remember watching it until I got a strange case of déjà vu about twenty minutes in.) As I get older, life seems to be moving faster. Maybe if I kept some sort of record, like a birder's life list, I would be able to retain some grasp on the universe as it whizzes past me. Hopefully this will help me with my next resolution...
- Post more often. Yeah, I say this every year and post less and less. I'm going with the "finding time and motivation" excuse again, but I hope to improve upon my past track record and write more.
- Exercise/lose weight. Yeah, almost everyone puts this on their list, don't they? But I'm getting old, and the metabolism is slowing down. While I'm comfortable (well, kind of) in my body, I would be a lot more comfortable if it were a little bit smaller. Besides, I have a reunion coming up this year. If I decide to go, I don't want to be in the "look how fat she got!" category.
- Relax. As I stated above, I tend to panic about everything in my life. I'm going to work on not being so high-strung about things. The blood tests will probably be fine. I probably won't wreck my car or get hit by a bus today. My car will probably not fall apart if I drive it outside of the city limits. My office will probably keep functioning if I take a vacation. (Granted, "functioning" is a nice way of saying "we'll pile up all of the work on your desk so you can do it when you get back.")
- Edit the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo so it's actually fit for human consumption. This is something to tackle later, since part of the editing process requires a trip to Hocking Hills State Park for research, and it's too cold to do that right now.
- Pick up the two half-finished manuscripts and try to get the first drafts done. I've proven that I can finish a novel. Now that I have that out of my system, I need to get Alison and Devin out of Nebraska. (Before I can do that, I need to make Alison into a sane and functioning person, since she was in bad shape when I stopped writing on the first novel. It probably would be a good idea to finish the first story before completing the sequel.)
- Wear pajama pants as much as humanly possible. I have a theory that the world would be a happier place if we could all wear pajama pants everywhere. I, for one, am much happier when I'm comfortable. I've also run this theory past JohnnyB, and he agrees wholeheartedly.

In fact, I will probably be ringing in the new year in my favorite blue plaid flannels. And my tiara. No one's going to see me but the cats and Zappagirl (she has no plans either, so she's coming over for my annual ritual of movies, wine, and food that's bad for you), and I doubt that they will mind all that much.

Let It Stop! Let It Stop! Let It Stop!

It's coming down
Snow pains on the motor veins
Keeps your business on the ground
It's coming down
Slow day for the teacher
And her wheels are spinning now
On account of winter, Mrs. Braintree
All the roads are closed
And the stores are loot for vagabonds
It's coming down
Go home!
- Trip Shakespeare, "Snow Day"

A lot of joking goes on about the way Cincinnatians approach snow. Around this time of the year (and during tornado season), every television station tries to one-up each other in their high-tech weather prediction toys. (My personal favorite right now is Channel 5's Power of 5, where they draw their weather information from five strategically placed Doppler systems.) Mass paranoia grips the city as we all brace ourselves for the impending Great White Death.

Occasionally it does happen. I remember the Blizzard of 1977 - 1978. I remember working customer service for a department store credit card where they offered to put people up in the local hotels to assure that they would have a first shift in the morning. (The shoppers in New York and New Jersey would have been ticked if there had been no one on the phone to look up their credit card numbers and explain that their credit limit could not be raised because they hadn't made a payment in 6 months.) I remember the following year when I moved to Clifton to an apartment complex at the bottom of a steep hill with a 90 degree turn halfway down (if you missed the turn, you would go plummeting into the woods); Nature saw fit to dump 18 inches of snow on us. It was ridiculously cold, but my fourth floor apartment was so overheated I kept a window cracked at all times. I couldn't get my car up the hill for two days, and finally hiked up the hill to the hippie market because the cat was out of food.

Since then, I've always joked about the people who rush to Kroger to stock up on food in case the entire city freezes over while they sleep, but yet I always find myself stocking up on soup and peanut butter with the rest of the crazy people. One can never be too sure, right? And it's not like I won't eat the food eventually.

Last night, I finished the last of my holiday shopping, and decided to swing by Kroger to pick up a few things.

Yeah, right. A few things. I had seen the news reports. It was going to snow. The first sighting of the Great White Death was upon our doorstep. My plans to pick up some shampoo, conditioner, sour cream, and oats became an all-out end of the world shopping spree. (Well, to be fair, Diet Coke was on sale. And so was the hard salami. And I was almost out of those two particular types of coffee. And the Banquet Crock Pot Classics sounded kind of good, plus it would make my Mom happy that I was actually using my Crock Pot.)

I awoke this morning to the sound of freezing rain hitting my window. It didn't sound good, but I still had a few hours to sleep. I'd set my alarm early just in case the Power of 5 was correct in its predictions of wintertime hell.

There was already about two inches of snow of the ground when I left for work, allowing myself twice as much time as usual to get there. Combined with the freezing rain, the roads absolutely sucked. It looked as if the main roads had been treated about an hour before I reached them, and they were covered over in snow, mixing in with the slush to make a skating rink out of Dana Avenue. Going up the hill on Rockdale Avenue was an adventure as well. (I chanted "don'tstopdon'tstopdon'tstop" at all of the other cars the entire time.) After almost skidding past the employee entrance at the Zoo (really, folks, whose idea was it to put it halfway down a winding hill?), I settled into my desk and did the small amount of work that I actually needed to get done. I worked ahead a little bit, but spent most of the next few hours checking weather reports and snow emergency announcements on various local news websites.

My supervisor was in as well. She had planned to work half a day, then pick her son up at the airport that afternoon. Her daugher was going to drive from Maryland later that evening. Since all of my family is in town, I had elected not to take any time off for the holidays, saving all of my accumulated hours for time when I actually had something interesting to do.

By 11:00, Boss Lady's son had called to announce his flight had been cancelled. She had called her daughter to advise her of the road conditions. We were all sitting and waiting until we got the "oh this is stupid - go home!" phone call. By noon, our department was released, and several of us went outside to clean off their cars.

Mind you, it had been snowing this entire time. It was snowing hard enough that by the time I had worked my way around with the snow brush and ice scraper, the place where I had started was covered again. I did the best I could, and slowly made my way out of the Zoo.

The hill that I had slid down that morning was covered in even more snow, and had glazed over into a lovely mix of slush and ice. It took me a good few minutes to get up the hill I can usually ascend in less than 30 seconds. I followed a person up Montgomery Road that felt it would be much safer for everyone involved if he went about 2 miles an hour. I made it home half an hour later (it usually takes about ten minutes), started cooking some Herb Chicken and Rice in the Crock Pot, and proceeded to watch the school and business closings that crawled across the bottom of the screen during Days of Our Lives. (And no, I didn't watch the soap.)

It's after 2:00 am. I should be sleeping, but I'm still watching the closings and snow emergency announcements like a hypnotized monkey. There's already 6 inches of snow on the ground in my naighborhood. I haven't seen a single snowplow or salt truck come down my street yet. I've just figured out that the tapping sound I've been hearing for the last two hours is more freezing rain. Eventually the freezing rain is supposed to give way to up to another foot of snow. Several semi trucks have jackknifed on the surrounding highways.

I'm kind of hoping that they city of Cincinnati decides to upgrade the current snow emergency to a level 2. If so, there's a good chance that the Zoo will be closed and I won't have to brave the roads. Today was enough excitement for the year, thanks. But unless they have the good sense to shut us down, I'll have to do it, because I'm the only one manning my office until the new year.

I looked into taking the bus. There used to be a bus stop a few blocks from my house that ran past the Zoo. (Granted the line stopped on the other side of the Zoo, but walking an extra block sounded like a better idea than crashing my tiny blue car.) I say "used to" because apparently they changed the route at the beginning of the month, and the bus now no longer goes past the Zoo, but loops past the other side of the Children's and University Hospital campuses, and I'm still not sure how to do a line transfer on the Metro.

Jim O'Brien, the chief meteorologist on Channel 5, announced in his last update that he might still be at the station in the morning, as he wasn't sure that he could get in, and no one was sure when his shift replacement would arrive. He's been breaking in every half hour all night on top of doing the 5:00 and 11:00 newscasts, plus a full hour of live broadcasts at 7:00. He's starting to get a little punchy. Please, someone, let Jim get a nap. Let Skippy the intern do the next few updates. All he needs to do is read off the teleprompter. Heck, at this point I could do the next update, even without a teleprompter:

The Great White Death has arrived. Stay inside. The entire world has been cancelled due to inclement weather, and will be postponed until a later date.

I feel bad about those who had out-of-town plans or loved ones coming in from other parts of the country, as I know this really screws up their holiday plans. But at this point, part of me wants to wake up to a blanket of white obscuring the street, glistening from the first rays of the sun, and the television proclaiming that the Zoo is closed, the city is closed, and everyone should take a snow day. I don't want to risk my neck driving to work to do nothing but wait for phone calls that aren't going to happen. I want to glance up bleary-eyed at the business closings, then crawl back under The Ugliest Comforter in the World and sleep.

I doubt it will happen, but it will give me something to dream about.

(And by the way, the Herb Chicken and Rice concoction was pretty good. And if I do have to go to work tomorrow, at least I'll have something warm and filling to take for my lunch.)

Nil By Mouth

It never fails. The only time you truly have a desire to do something is when you’re not allowed to do it.

Last night I went in to see Not-Dr. Ruth yesterday for my annual exam, and while I was there, she scheduled me for a couple of blood tests to be done in the morning. Nothing major – a TSH test and T4 test to monitor the multinodal goiter (ewww!) she found a few years ago, a blood glucose test since my father recently developed adult onset diabetes, and a lipid profile because I’ve never had my cholesterol and triglycerides checked. As I am becoming a woman of a certain age (a poetic way of saying I’m getting older), I figured it might be a good idea for me to start paying attention to these things. (I’ve also had a few other symptoms that could be the result of my wacky thyroid, and I thought it would be best to eliminate that possibility before looking into other causes.)

While I was making the appointment with the receptionist, I asked if there was anything I needed to do to prepare for the test. She glanced at the orders that Not-Dr. Ruth had written out. “Nothing by mouth after midnight.”

No big deal, I thought to myself. I would just go home, have dinner, and go to bed early. (Mind you, early for me is before 1:00 am.) It was only a few hours.

Apparently I’d forgotten my last run-in with the words “nothing by mouth after midnight.” The last time was before the surgery on my ankle, where I’d popped my last Percocet at 11:45 pm, hoping that it would last until the anesthesiologist put me under. Fat chance. I woke up around 5:30 in the morning, my ankle screaming with pain, unable to take anything to relieve it. I spent the next few hours watching cable, drifting in and out of sleep, watching VH1. (I learned to despise Kelly Clarkson during my stay at my parents’ house, as “Miss Independent” was playing every minute that Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love” and Coldplay’s “The Scientist” wasn’t.)

Last night was no different. After returning last week’s rentals and killing some time at Blockbuster, I headed home to ponder dinner. And that was when I started to worry. Would the cheesy mettwursts in the refrigerator send my LDL levels spiraling upward into the stratosphere? What would a cheese quesadilla do to my triglycerides? I settled on a veggie burger with the super high fiber bread as a makeshift bun, figuring that was the healthiest option, and settled in to watch Mean Girls.

10:30 pm – I’m out of Diet Coke. I elect not to open another one, since I’m going to try to get to sleep early tonight. (Yeah, like a whopping can of Diet Coke is going to affect me. Given my giant coffee mug that holds an entire pot of coffee, a 12 ounce soda is just a drop in the bucket.) I opt for a bottle of water instead.

11:30 pm – Last drag of the day. I have no idea if smoking counts, but since cigarettes lead to dry throat, which leads to more water, I stub out my clove and take another swig from my water bottle.

11:45 pm – The water bottle is almost empty. If I open another one, I’ll still be drinking it after midnight. Time to ration.

11:55 pm – Last drink of water. Sigh.

12:01 am – Dammit. I’m still thirsty.

12:03 am – And I’m not tired in the least, either. One more smoke and I’ll… aw, crap. I hide the cigarettes under a pile of junk mail.

12:11 am – Kismet and Ma Huang come tearing through the living room, displacing all of the junk mail on the coffee table. I hide the cigarettes under the Yellow Pages. Move that, Drunken Master Kitty. I dare you.

12:35 am – I cannot sleep. Maybe I’ll just take a few Tylenol PM and drift off to Conan O’Brien. Oh, wait. NPO MN. (Hey, I did learn something in nursing school!)

12:45 am – Do not think about the fudge on the top of the refrigerator. Repeat, do not think of the fudge.

1:15 am – Um, the Starbucks espresso brownie is off limits too.

I finally managed to sleep, and what did I dream of? Food, of course. I woke up at 7:00 am starving, sleepily thinking of what to prepare for breakfast, only to remember that I couldn’t have breakfast until after they jabbed a needle in my arm. (This was not helped along by the constant mentions of how to create a holiday feast on Today while I was still in the just-awake-enough-to-hit-the-snooze-alarm phase. This Not awake/not asleep phase also resulted in me dreaming that I had ADHD. Damn you, Katie Couric!)

I don’t get it. I used to always skip breakfast. Heck, when I was a corporate drone, I often skipped breakfast and lunch, and would only eat dinner when Roger Mexico force-fed me fake chicken nuggets. Now suddenly, I can’t survive a whole ten hours without eating something? When did this happen?

Even worse, though, was the fact that I still couldn’t have anything to drink. No water, no juice, and no coffee. I am not the most pleasant person in the morning before caffeination, but my Abyss Boy coffee mug would have to stay home. (I did toss a can of Diet Coke in my messenger bag to keep me going for the five minute drive from the doctor’s office to work.)

To top things off, my allergies were acting up and I couldn’t breathe, but antihistamines were out of the question until after my appointment with the phlebotomist. I kept my fingers crossed, hoping that I wouldn’t sneeze, causing my head to explode.

TLong story short (too late!), the appointment went fine. They even managed to get me in earlier than my scheduled time, so I was able to make it to work by 9:30, at which point I filled my coffee mug and my water bottle and grabbed a pack of granola bars out of the cabinet before I even turned on my computer. I am now happily hydrated, caffeinated, and sated. (And my antihistamines kicked in, and I am able to breathe again.) The phlebotomist didn’t blow a vein in the process of doing the blood draw(for once!), and my arm is no longer hurting.

Now I can just concentrate on worrying about my test results. At least I can do it with a full tummy and a drink in my hand.

Purple Bar Fever

The number for the day is 50,601.

Yes, that's right. I actually passed the 50,000 word mark on my NaNoWriMo at 9:09 pm this evening. After four years of trying and three years of crashing and burning, I have finally completed a novel.

Granted, the pacing is all over the place and there are chapters that are semi-brilliant followed by chapters of absolute crap. There's a mostly failed metafictional angle that I need to figure out how to fix, if only for the fact that it resulted in one of the funniest chapters I have ever written. (My characters leave the story, park their car at the foot of my bed, and tell me everything that's wrong with my plot. They then demand a fun scene, and spend the next thousand or so words getting drunk and playing Trivial Pursuit.)

When I started writing this year's attempt, I had every intention to write absolute crap, something that I would keep until it was validated, then laugh with glee as I deleted it from existance. Looking back upon it, I realize that there are actually some redeemable passages in my manuscript. Yes, there are at least 5000 words that need to be thrown out immediately, but there are several places where I can see adding details and extra scenes, two-dimensional characters that could be padded out to make them somewhat believable. It would require some major overhauling and a road trip to a state park two hours away to clear up some details that I guessed at from vague information on the internet, but I could possibly pull a decent story out of this. One that I wouldn't be ashamed to let other people read... who'd a thunk it?

(Sorry, had to take a break, as iTunes was playing "Mrs. Robinson" by Simon and Garfunkel, and I had to shake my groove thing, then seek out the Lemonheads version for the juxtaposition. The shufflemonkeys are being kind to me, and selecting happy happy songs while I celebrate my novel's completion. There's nothing like opening the individual sized bottle of champagne while the computer blares R.E.M.'s "Superman.")

Yes, the end scene is 80s teen movie treacle. Yes, my villian comes very close to monologuing (guess who saw The Incredibles yesterday?) and bears more than a passing resemblance to Agent Smith from The Matrix trilogy. (I even pictured Hugo Weaving sneering the lines as I wrote them, and had to resist giving him sunglasses more than once.)

All in all, the whole thing is a big giant mess. But it's done, and I will be downloading my winner's certificate tomorrow.

For your amusement, I compiled a list of things I researched while I was writing. Enjoy!

tinfoil hats
witchcraft trials in Ohio
cave systems in Hocking Hills State Park
Hanging Rock Iron Region
parts of a knife
Rosicrucians
locations of Meijer stores in the Kettering area
how to signal a horse to stop
parts of a bridle
quotes from Toy Story
transcript of Jon Stewart's appearance on Crossfire
lyrics to Elliott Smith songs
lyrics to "Margaritaville"
type of European camper vans
Sheila James Kuehl's biography
arteriovenous malformations
Waffle House menus
locations of Spaghetti Warehouse near Dayton
script to The Breakfast Club (because IMDB quotes let me down)
MacGillycuddy's Reeks
the effects and duration of sodium pentathol
quotes from The Iron Giant
hemostat forceps
Jospeh Campbell's description of the Hero cycle (long since abandoned)
CIA mind control experiments (not used)
remote viewing
Tae Bo
name origins, mostly Irish
various and sundry Trivial Pursuit questions
history of Haydenville, Ohio
butterfly effect
lyrics to Muse songs

Thanks for everyone's support. I couldn't have done it without you. (And for those of you still writing... Go! Go! Go! I'm at the finish line, cheering you on!

Chapter Thirteen

I'd fallen behind on my word count for NaNoWriMo. Life, as usual, had gotten in the way. Despite the fact that work had been incredibly slow, there'd always been a daily mini-crisis popping up to prevent me from working on things. Plus I really wasn't sure what the hell I was writing. I'd chucked my original plot out the window on the second day, and started fresh with new characters and a completely ludricrous plot about a slacker psychic and a government conspiracy and uncommunicative boyfriends. It was absolute crap. Perfect for NaNo, right?

I fluctuated between days of writing my ass off and days of just staring blankly at the manuscript with no idea where to go with it.

Not a big deal, I figured.

Last night, I had a brainstorm on the way home from work that actually made the plot work and would probably carry me through to the 50K mark. Granted, it was still crap. I scribbled down a few notes in my project folder and lost myself in a really bad episode of CSI and a really good episode of Without a Trace.

Friday night, I told myself. Friday night I would write. I would do 10,000 words in a weekend and get back on track.

7:30, Friday night. I went on an emergency mission of mercy to feed Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern's cats. I envisioned the next few chapters in my novel, heard the dialogue in my head, saw the cheesy chase scene. Brilliant!

(I also realized I was writing a bad X Files episode. Well, if Mulder and Scully were twenty-something slackers instead of FBI agents, and Scully was psychic, and the episode had been written by Jerry Bruckheimer, Joss Whedon, and Kevin Smith. And they'd all smoked a giant bag of crack before they pitched it.)

I drove home, opened a bottle of Gallo Café Zinfandel, changed into comfy clothes, and settled down to make more notes while I watched Joan of Arcadia. At 9:00, I would write.

I started sobbing my eyes out around 8:35. I didn't stop until about 9:15. Have I mentioned how brilliant Joan of Arcadia is?

They killed off a character that I've hated since the moment they introduced her. I saw the death scene coming a mile away. I called the cute Gift of the Magi-esque scene between Luke and Grace. I saw the Hamlet references coming. I swooned at the cuteness of Joan and Adam's first real date, complete with Joan's mom trying to hold back the tears. I even called the appearance of DogWalkerGod as soon as I heard the distant barks in the climactic end scene. (DogWalkerGod is played by Russ Tamblyn. He was Riff in West Side Story and Gideon in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. He was Dr. Jacoby in Twin Peaks. He's also Amber Tamblyn's dad - she's the eponymous Joan.)

And they used Warren Zevon's "Keep Me in Your Heart" for that last climactic scene. That song alone makes me sob.

That's good writing folks. Yes, I cry at the crop of a hat, but I was sobbing loudly for the last fifteen minutes of that show. Ma Huang actually came in to check on me. (He seems to do that when I'm visibly upset about things. Kismet, on the other hand, couldn't care less.)

And now it's after 10:00, and I'm trying to pull myself together out of the sorrow that I'm feelig over a bunch of imaginary characters on TV so I can write my imaginary characters into the worst chase scene ever.

I just wish that Rhapsody would stop playing blocks of Elliott Smith songs. Stupid shufflemonkeys, I'm depressed enough already!

14, 548 words down. Back into the fray....

VOTE!

From Michael Moore's website, sent to me via email from samiam:

*****************************************
11/1/04

Friends,

This is it. ONE DAY LEFT. There are many things I’d like to say. I’ve been on the road getting out the vote for 51 straight days so I haven’t had much time to write. So I’ve put together a bunch of notes to various groups all in this one letter. Please feel free to copy and send whatever portions are appropriate to your friends and family as you spend these last 24 hours trying to convince whomever you can to show up and vote for John Kerry.

Here are my final words…

To Decent Conservatives and Recovering Republicans:

In your heart of hearts you know Bush is a miserable failure. From having no plan on what to do in Iraq once he conquered Baghdad to the 380 missing tons of explosives that could be used to kill our brave young men and women, this guy doesn’t have a clue how to fight and win a war. You should see the mail I’ve been getting lately from our troops over there. They know how much the Iraqi people hate them. They are sitting ducks anytime they go out on the road. Many believe we are not that far away from a Tet-style offensive inside the Green Zone with hundreds of Americans and Brits killed.

Bush refused to go after and capture Osama bin Laden. He fought, every step of the way, the investigation into the 9/11 attacks. Who on earth would oppose such a thing? If 3,000 people died at your place of work and your boss said we don’t need to find out why or how it happened, he’d be thrown out on his ear. Bush’s behavior after this great tragedy alone is reason enough for his removal.

You already know that George W. Bush is the farthest thing from a conservative. He’s a reckless spender who has run up record-breaking deficits and the biggest debt in our history. He believes in having the government pry into everything from your library records to your bedroom. He has hit you with hidden taxes with his tax cuts for the rich.

I know many of you don’t like Bush, but are unsure of Kerry. Give the new guy a chance. He won’t raise your taxes (unless you are super-rich), he won’t take your hunting gun away, and he won’t make you visit France. He risked his life for you many years ago. He’s asking for the chance to do it again. Scott McConnell at The American Conservative magazine has endorsed him. What more do you need?

To My Friends on the Left:

Okay, Kerry isn’t everything you wished he would be. You’re right. He’s not you! Or me. But we’re not on the ballot – Kerry is. Yes, Kerry was wrong to vote for authorization for war in Iraq but he was in step with 70% of the American public who was being lied to by Bush & Co. And once everyone learned the truth, the majority turned against the war. Kerry has had only one position on the war – he believed his president.

President Kerry had better bring the troops home right away. My prediction: Kerry’s roots are anti-war. He has seen the horrors of war and because of that he will avoid war unless it is absolutely necessary. Ask most vets. But don’t ask someone whose only horror was when he arrived too late for a kegger in Alabama.

There’s a reason Bush calls Kerry the Number One Liberal in the Senate – THAT’S BECAUSE HE IS THE NUMBER ONE LIBERAL IN THE SENATE! What more do you want? My friends, this is about as good as it gets when voting for the Democrat. We don’t have the .29 Liberal running or the .14 Liberal or even the .2 Liberal – we got .1! When has that ever happened?

Those of us who may be to the left of the .1 liberal Democrat should remember that this year conservative Democrats have had to make a far greater shift in their position to back Kerry than we have. We’re the ones always being asked to make the huge compromises and to always vote holding our noses. No nose holding this time. This .1 liberal is not the tweedledee to Bush’s tweedledum.

To Nader Voters:

See the above note.
Ralph’s own party, the Green Party, would not endorse his run this year. That’s because those of us who want to build a third party in this country know that the only way to do this is to build bridges with those who believe in the issues Nader believes in. But not one of those people will sacrifice the chance to remove George W. Bush from the White House on Tuesday. The choice here is clear: do we join with our friends, or do we piss on them?
After the debacle of 2000, the Democrats got smart and abandoned the conservative wing of their party. That’s why 8 of the 9 Democrats in the primaries this year were from the liberal wing. Ralph should take credit for that and declare victory. It’s so sad that he doesn’t realize the good he’s accomplished. But for reasons only known to him, he’s more angry at the Democrats than he is at Bush. He has lost his compass. I worry he has lost his mind. But he still gives a great speech!

And Lila Lipscomb, the mother from Flint who lost her son in Iraq, she still grieves -- as do the mothers of 1,120 others (not to mention the mothers of the 100,000 Iraqis who have died because of Bush’s war). That’s what this election is about. Not Ralph proving some point. Almost none of us on his 2000 advisory group are supporting him this year. His total lack of respect for his best friends should tell all of you something about what he really thinks of you, too.

To the Non-Swing States:

Stop listening to how your vote doesn’t count in this election and that your state is already decided for Kerry or Bush. It is critical that you vote because we not only need to give Kerry the electoral win, but he needs to have a HUGE mandate with an ENORMOUS popular vote victory as well. It will be impossible for him to get anything done for four years if there is no clear mandate. We must not only defeat Bush, we must put a stake in the heart of the right-wing, neo-con movement. If you live in New York, California, Illinois, Texas, the Northeast or the Deep South, you need to vote and you need to bring ten people with you to the polls. If you live in a state where we have the chance to elect the Democrat to the Senate or the House, you need to vote. Turn off the TV. Quit listening to news media that has a vested interest in repeating to you over and over that your vote does not count. It does.

If you have friends or relatives who live in the 30-plus non-swing states, call them and remind them how important it is that Kerry gets a massive popular vote victory.

To Non-Voters:

I understand why you stopped voting. Politicians suck. Nothing ever seems to change. You’re only one vote.
Yes, politicians suck. But so do car salesmen – and that hasn’t stopped you from buying a car. Politicians only respond to the threat of the angry mob also known as the voting public. If most people don’t vote, that’s good news for them ‘cause then they don’t have to answer to the majority.

Almost fifty percent of Americans don’t vote. That means you belong to the largest political party in America – the Non-Voting Party. That means you hold all the power to toss George W. Bush out of the Oval Office. How cool is that?

I believe that we are going to have the largest election turnout in our lifetime tomorrow. You don’t want to miss out on that. The lines at the polls are going to be long and raucous and fun. It is an historic election. You won’t want to say that you were the only one who wasn’t there. Promise me you’ll vote, just this one time.

To All First-Time Voters:

Welcome to the longest running, uninterrupted democracy on earth! You own it. It’s yours.

A few words about how messy it’s going to be tomorrow. The lines are going to be long. Bring your iPods. Better yet, bring a friend or two. The election officials have no clue just how many millions are going to show up at the polls. This will be the largest turnout in our lifetime. They don’t have enough machines. They are going to have to send for more ballots.

And they are going to make it difficult for you to vote. The new law says if this is your first time voting you must bring ID with you that matches the address you are registered at.

If for some reason they can’t find your name on the voting rolls, you have the right to ask for a provisional ballot, which you can fill out and then sort things out later.

If you have any problems at the polling place, please call 1-866-OUR-VOTE. The people there can tell you how to find the precinct where you should be voting, get you legal help if you are denied the right to vote, or answer any other questions you may have.

If you need any help figuring out the ballot, don’t be afraid to ask. If you screw up your ballot, you can ask for another one. In fact, the law allows you to screw up your ballot two times before you finally have to submit your final ballot! Be careful to vote on the line that says John F. Kerry/John Edwards. Don’t vote for more than one Presidential, Senate or House candidate or you ballot won’t be counted. If your polling place has a stub or a receipt from your ballot, make sure they give you one.

Thanks for joining us. Democracy is not a spectator sport. It only works when we all come off the bench and participate.

To African Americans:

First of all, let’s just acknowledge what you already know: America is a country which still has a race problem, to put it nicely. Al Gore would be president today had thousands of African Americans not had their right to vote stolen from them in Florida in 2000.

Here is my commitment: I will do everything I can to make sure that this will not happen again. And I’m not the only one making this pledge. Thousands of volunteer lawyers are flying to Florida to act as poll watchers and intervene should there be any attempts to deny anyone their right to vote. They will NOT be messing around.
For my part, I have organized an army of 1,200 professional and amateur filmmakers who will be armed with video cameras throughout the states of Florida and Ohio. At the first sign of criminality, we will dispatch a camera crew to where the vote fraud is taking place and record what is going on. We will put a big public spotlight on any wrongdoing by Republican officials in those two states. They will not get away with this as they did in 2000.

In Ohio, the Republicans are sending almost 2,000 paid “poll challengers” into the black precincts of Cleveland in an attempt to stop African Americans from voting. This action is beyond despicable. Do not let this stop you from voting. I, and thousand of others, will be there to fight for you and protect you.

To George W.:

I know it’s gotta be rough for you right now. Hey, we’ve all been there. “You’re fired” are two horrible words when put together in that order. Bin Laden surfacing this weekend to remind the American people of your total and complete failure to capture him was a cruel trick or treat. But there he was. 3,000 people were killed and he’s laughing in your face. Why did you stop our Special Forces from going after him? Why did you forget about bin Laden on the DAY AFTER 9/11 and tell your terrorism czar to concentrate on Iraq instead?

There he was, OBL, all tan and rested and on videotape (hey, did you get the feeling that he had a bootleg of my movie? Are there DVD players in those caves in Afghanistan?)

Speaking of my movie – can I ask you a personal question before we part ways for good on Tuesday? Why did you and your friends fund SIX “documentaries” trashing me -- but only ONE film against Kerry? C’mon, he was the candidate, not me. What a waste of your time and resources! Sure, I know what your pollsters told you, that the film had convinced some people to vote you out. I just want you to know that that was not my original intent. Funny things happen at the movies. Hope you get to see a few at the multiplex in Waco. It’s a great way to relax.

To John Kerry:

Thank you.

And don’t worry – none of us are going away after you are inaugurated. We’ll be there to hold your hand and keep you honest. Don’t let us down. We’re betting you won’t. So is the rest of the world.

That’s it. See you at the polls – and at the victory party tomorrow night.

Yours,
Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
**************************************************

It's pouring in Cincinnati at the moment, and it's supposed to only get worse all day. Please don't let this deter you, people. There's this nifty thing called the umbrella....

Bring your ID with you. It's not required in Ohio, but you might need it if your right to vote is challenged. (Also, the folks at WLWT have an Alert Team in place to check into anyone interfering with your right to vote. Call them at (513) 241-8315 to report any problems.

If you live in the city of Cincinnati, please, for the love of everything decent, vote YES on Issue 3. I no longer live within the city limits, so I have no vote. That's not going to stop me from bugging the living daylights out of those who do have a say in the matter.

As for me, I'll be braving the lines after work, then watching The Manchurian Candidate (the original one, thank you very much) and Fahrenheit 9/11 before I get sucked into the unending madness of the returns coverage. (I considered watching those movies for Halloween, as they are two of the scariest movies that I own. I decided to save them for tonight and watched 28 Days Later instead.)

Keep your fingers crossed, kids. It's gonna get ugly....

Here We Go Again...

Just when I thought that I was out they pull me back in. - Michael Corleone

Last night, as I was driving home from work, my mind wandered to the subject of National Novel Writing Month, and I pondered whether I should put myself through the insane torture of trying to write 50,000 words in 30 days again. For those of you keeping score at home, I've participated for the last three years and have gone down in flames every single time. The first year I was dealing with some messy personal issues that found their way into the story. Yeah, writing about your character losing her mind while you're doing the same? Not a healthy idea. The second year, I was attempting to move across town, and packing kind of got in the way of things. I blame last year's failure on being preoccupied by physical therapy and being out of my mind on Percocet.

(Speaking of Percocet, MyoMom broke her finger and her foot, and is currently at the doctor's getting the fractures set. She tripped and fell. Yeah, natural grace runs in the family. Get well soon, Mom. And enjoy the painkillers while they last!)

By the time I'd pulled into the garage, I'd pretty much decided against writing this year. What little creativity I had to begin with has dried up lately, and the idea of setting myself up for a fourth year of failure seemed a little masochistic. Sitting on the couch watching Desperate Housewives seemed like a much more appealing option than staring at my computer screen trying to think of something interesting for my characters to do. Yes, sitting this year out would be for the best. Besides, if I didn't mention it, no one would even remember it. Right?

Wrong.

I received an email from my Municipal Liason this morning, inviting me to the Meet and Greet on Saturday. Mmmm, fish and chips. Mmm, Bass Ale. The Meet and Greet last year was an absolute blast. I met some nice folks, a few of which have returned this year. And then I started thinking about the overcaffeinated Write-Ins, and the giggles I got from the "I Hate Myself and I Want to Die" threads on the forums, and...

Yeah, I'm back. Hello, NaNoWriMo. Let the insanity begin.

I'm making some rules this year, though:

1. No pressure. If I finish, I finish. If I stall out at 10,000 words, that's OK too. Seeing as how I have no plot ideas, no characters, nothing nothing NOTHING at the moment and the madness starts in less than a week, I'm a little freaked out. Oh well. We'll see how it goes.

2. No overzealous editing. My main downfall over the last three years has been my focusing on trying to write something good. I tend to forget that the idea of NaNoWriMo is to write crap, not the great American novel. And while I like what I've written over the last few years, my nitpicking has caused me to get stuck. (Case in point: Alison and Devin are still stuck in Fermata, Nebraska. They've been stuck there for two years.) Editing is what one does December - October, not at 3 a.m. on November 15th.

3. No clever symbolic gestures or stylistic touches. How much time did I waste on the first year switching back and forth between fonts to represent my character's state of consciousness? How much time looking up the names of the bones of the hand so my character could recite them like a mantra during her breakdown? How much time to set up the Scrabble game where every single word tied in with the plotline and the characters' predicament? How much time fast forwarding through The Blair Witch Project so I could transcribe thirty seconds of dialogue that related to my narrator's thoughts? How much time looking for the perfect lyrics, the perfect songs that expressed my characters' feelings in the karaoke scene? Again, while I like how these elements play into what I've written, I spent entirely too much time looking at maps of Nebraska trying to figure out exactly what expressway my characters were on when they got lost.

Hopefully setting these ground rules will help me reach the elusive 50K mark. Not that I'm holding my breath or anything... but I'm stocking up on the coffee and red wine just in case.

Five and a half days... anyone got any plot ideas?

Going Home Again

About a year and a half ago, I moved from Cincinnati proper back to the not-so-booming metropolis of Norwood, Ohio - my hometown. It's been kind of a weird transition.

Since as far as I can remember, Norwood has always been looked upon as more than a bit on the white trash side of the fence. It was a working-class city (the local GM factory manufactured Camaros and Firebirds), and the residents were predominately Caucasian. My mother has, on more than one occasion, told the story of her friend's discomfort (understatement) when her young son, upon seeing his first African-American person, walked up to the woman and tried to rub the strange color off of the woman. Unthinkable in this day and age, but a naïve reaction to something new by a toddler growing up here.

Despite the fact that I was not an outspoken Myo in high school, I was a pretty radically thinking person. A few of my friends were dealing with sexual identity issues, and despite my inability to actually put a label on what exactly my friends were going through, I started to form a non-judgmental view of the world around me. Religion? Didn't really matter. Color of your skin? Whatever. Who you wanted to make out with? Have fun.

There was one unwritten rule, one unspoken bigotry, though. Get out of Norwood.

After 26 years, I managed to do this. I moved into a house with relatively flaky roommates in Madisonville, a few blocks from a pretty shady neighborhood. My parents were more than a bit freaked. (C'mon, MyoMom. Admit it. You know you were.)

At least I got out of Norwood, I thought.

A year later, the leaseholder of the house fell in love and moved into a trailer with her boyfriend. (And ran off with my security deposit, I might add.) I moved in with a friend who insisted on living a few blocks away from her parents. She hadn't quite cut the apron strings, but wanted to feel like she did. After a year of living away from my family, I was mildly irritated by the fact that I tried my best to be a good roommate, but came home many nights to dishes that I didn't dirty that had been sitting for days and a chain-smoking sweatpants-wearing person camped out on the couch who didn't see why she should have to scrape the two-day-old fettuccini out of the saucepan.

After a year and a half, I was told I needed to move. I was not on the lease (as my credit sucked like a black hole), so I was the one who needed to find a new place to live. Understandable, but still a major moment of panic. I had a month to find a place to live, and I had to shop for Christmas presents while I was looking. Wasn't the holiday season stressful enough?

My mother immediately jumped in to help, looking for apartments in my price range in the Norwood/Oakley area. Unfortunately, my price range could barely afford me a basement apartment (with tile floors!) on a dead end street in Oakley... if my credit rating passed the muster. I politely smiled at the leasing agent and told her I'd think about it.

I didn't even look at the places in Norwood. There was no way in hell, I told myself, that I would ever move back. (I did drive past the places, though, and in my defense, they were all pretty much nasty complexes in the more rundown sections of town. The GM plant had closed in 1987, and the city had suffered in the wake of the massive layoffs and unemployment.)

I eventually found a place in Clifton Heights, where all of my friends had lived during my college years. Unfortunately, by the time I moved to Clifton, everyone I knew had moved elsewhere. (Except for Mike Dangers, who just recently bought a house after living in the same apartment in Clifton for over ten years. Congrats, man!) It didn't matter; I had a reasonably-sized apartment with off-street parking in a liberal complex. The majority of the residents were gay or minority grad students. My resident managers had been featured in an article about same-sex unions in the local paper. I was a part-time bartender at the hot alternative bar. It was a good fit.

And thank goodness, it wasn't Norwood.

Nine years later, my happily eclectic complex had started to show some signs of wear. My rent had gone up almost $100 in that time. The managers felt the need to install locks on our laundry rooms. My storage space was broken into. After 9/11, I received a notice on my door that any racial slurs were greatly frowned upon. Apparently newer residents had taken it upon themselves to make comments about some of our minority residents. There were also several postings about apartment and vehicle break-ins. I had suffered a vehicle break-in myself (on Christmas Day, no less), and when the second one in my parking lot occurred, I'd decided I'd had enough of the college bohemian life. In a panic, I called my mother (who happened to be working at the Zoo at the same time I was).

A few hours later, she asked me how I felt about moving back to Norwood. I pondered it for a second, and asked where exactly in Norwood she was proposing.

Turns out the apartment in question was in a four-family near the older (i.e., big huge houses) part of town. It was centrally located, was a reasonably good size, was reasonably priced, and had a garage. My potential landlady had two children that were Zoo employees.

I started packing.

A year and a half later, I'm quite content here. My neighbors are quirky (it's a family building; I'm the only non-relative), the teenaged son across the hall has some definite anger issues. I'm a little irritated by the fact that my neighbors all have dogs and don't clean up after them. (No backyard barbeques here; I respect my friends and their shoes.)

I've tried to keep my moving back into town a hush-hush thing. I'm not sure why. Did I think that moving back to Norwood meant failure, that I couldn't hack it in "the big city" and I slunk back into town, with my tail between my legs?

My cover (if I even really had one), was blown a few weeks ago. My parents had picked me up after work for dinner, and we were rear-ended right in front of the mall in the center of town. While my father tried to reason with the other driver, my mother dialed 911, resulting in a police car, a fire truck, and an ambulance parading down Montgomery Road.

The first paramedic got off the truck, and my mother immediately recognized him by a family resemblance to some old friends. I was surprised, mostly because I'd expected the connection in the "Six Degrees of Norwood" game to come from the police car.

It was at this point the second paramedic approached my side of the SUV. "Miss Myo?"

I stared blankly at the paramedic. I'd not given any information to anyone yet, and it was a bit presumptuous to assume I was related to the people in the car. (Although I do look a lot like MyoMom.) "Umm, yeah?"

"Myo? Went to Norwood High School?"

"Umm. Yeah?"

"It's Joe. Joe High School. I went to school with you."

Oh. Duh. I hung out with Joe High School the summer after I left Miami, before he went away to the Army (I think? some armed forces division). "Good god man! How've you been?"

As he checked me for accident-related injuries, we caught up a little and my head tried to fill in physical blanks. He got married last year; somewhere down the line his tall wiry framed had filled out, he'd lost the braces as well as the unruly curly hair with the blonde highlights. I wondered what his head was registering. Huh. She's gained a bit of weight. Her hair is long again. She's dying her hair - but not for a few months. Nice tattoo - didn't expect that. And did she say she lived a few blocks from here?

My cover was blown.

I suppose I'm a little (OK, a lot) freaked out about my upcoming 20th year high school reunion. (20 years? Yikes!) Granted, I've been through a lot since I left high school. I worry that a lot of it will be considered disappointment. "You know, she never finished college. She never got married. And she moved back to Norwood. Scandal!"

I'd like to believe that I won't be faced with those judgments if I step through the doors of the local hotel conference room next year. (And I say "if" because I've not yet decided if I should go.) I know that those judgments are only labels I've placed upon myself. In most probability, my former classmates will remember me as the quiet studious girl, and won't speculate any further upon my life after receiving my diploma.

It still scares me, though.

All of this weirdness is happening around me, and I can only worry if I'll be the only unmarried geek with no secondary education, who never did anything with her life at the reunion. How ridiculous. How self-centered. Why am I so insecure about being in the same room with a bunch of people I've not seen in two decades? What right do these people have to pass any sort of judgment upon my life, and why am I so convinced that they will?

I know I’m being ridiculous. I know there’s no set measurement for success or failure. There are many places in my past where I can point out moments where I felt like I was on the right path, but more often than not I have a hard time finding those places.

And it's then that I realize that, despite my attempts at avoiding any type of bigotry, I do have an intolerance. I have a prejudice. I've been brainwashed into what I should have been. I'm not sure where that expectation came from, but the prejudice is strong.

It has nothing to do with moving back to Norwood. I'm Myo-intolerant.

I expected more from her (or was convinced that I should expect more from her), and I'm terrified that other people might see the image that I see when I look in the mirror. All of the blemishes, all of the imperfections. My past is something indisguisable and scarring, and no matter how hard I try, it won’t rub off.

Back when I lived in Clifton, it was easy to avoid looking in the mirror. I only had one, on the sliding doors of the medicine cabinet above my bathroom sink. Here, I have a full length (but only half width… it came with the apartment) mirror on the bathroom door, partially obscured by an oversized blue robe. I have to face myself a lot more often here, have to see myself as I actually am. I find it’s sometimes hard to look myself in the eye.

I'm working on it, but sometimes I really hate that mirror.

Nice Guys Finish Last

Midpoint Music Festival, Day One here

Midpoint Music Festival, Day Two here

Midpoint Music Festival - Day Three. Once upon a time, I thought it would be fun to be a music critic. How hard could it be? Go see a bunch of bands, listen to a stack of CDs, and write about why they do (or do not) rock. Cake walk, right?

After two nights of playing faux music critic, with non-stop barhopping and an entire afternoon spent listening to the stack of CDs I've either purchased or been given at the shows, I can safely attest it's not the dream job it seemed to be. All of the bands have started to run together (might be because of my affinity for Jeff Buckley/Nick Drake-tinged singer-songwriters, huh?). It took an entire pot of coffee on Saturday afternoon to get me motivated enough to edit the notes from Thursday night's shows. (Of course, that could also be chalked up to my lack of motivation about practically anything on a Saturday afternoon that doesn't involve sleeping and eating. Oh, and typing with caffeine jitters? Challenging.)

I arrived at Jefferson Hall as Remedy, the first band of the night, was starting. Unfortunately, so was the Pete Rose movie, and everyone at my end of the bar stared at the television like slack-jawed yokels as the opening credits played over footage of hit #4192 until a guy behind me nudged his friend. "C'mon dude," he remarked. "They're only gonna show this like a million more times." Point taken. Oh yeah, the band.

Remedy's "Dig It" description in CityBeat was listed as "Crowded House, a less glammy Poison, a lingering sense of déja vù." As odd as that sounds, it was pretty accurate. The singer did have a Neil Finn (albeit after a particularly long rough night) quality to his voice, and the hooks were catchy, with the strums of acoustic guitar melting into radio-friendly pop metal. They're one of those bands that, while I probably wouldn't rush out and buy one of their albums, I also wouldn't change the radio if I heard them on WEBN while driving home from work.

(Hee. Pete Rose is at the racetrack. Wonder what he's doing there? Wait, is that supposed to be Marge Schott? She's too tall and she's not smoking.)

As I headed down Main Street to Lava, I was accosted by a panhandler on a bicycle who, after I refused to give him any money, told me to "take my fat white ass home." And then he started asking me for money again. Um, dude? Let's use a little bit of logic here. If I wasn't going to give you money before you insulted me, what makes you think that I'll change my mind after you call me names?

My run-in with the panhandler made me late for the beginning of the Infinite Number of Sounds set at Lava. Guildenstern had recommended this band to me a few months ago, and they certainly didn't disappoint. Electronic noise rock band, accompanied by a video screen showing random images of buildings imploding in reverse, high-speed POV shots of highway driving, and cheesy sci-fi movies. (I swear I saw scenes from The Black Hole spliced in with the gorilla in a diving helmet from Robot Monster.) If schizophrenia had a sound, this would be it. (And I mean that in a good way, really.) The memories of the jerk on the bike and his comments towards me faded away as I watched a cheetah hunting a Thompson's gazelle in slo-mo, followed by a dramatic moment from a low-budget martial arts film.

The set concluded with a spoken-word story about stressed-out lonely cats being left alone in an apartment and peeing on everything, accompanied by drumming and high-pitched electronic droning. The video screen interspersed scenes of snow-capped mountains, tribal dancing, aforementioned cats, and Buddhist monks. Weird, not everyone's cup of tea, but strangely compelling. I was pretty much transfixed for the entire set. (And quite excited when I saw they were coming back to town in October.)

I stepped outside to get some air after the set, and ran into Jason yet again. Well, "ran into" might be an understatement. "He grabbed me by the shoulders, wide-eyed and awestruck, and announced, "I just saw the COOLEST band! There was this band called gaberdine at Crush and they sounded like Belle and Sebastian with a lower voice! and they had an electric cello! and an e-bow! and a kazoo solo! and they were just so cool!"

I grabbed his shoulders right back. "ME TOO!" I extolled the virtues of Infinite Number of Sounds to him, then ran over to Crush to pick up gaberdine's EP at Jason's insistence. (I also picked up a copy of existaria's promotional CD while I was there, and after listening to it, regretted my decision to start the evening seeing Remedy. While they were a good band, they didn't really evoke a huge response in me. I had been a little scared off by the comparison of existaria to "Tori Amos and Mad Season" but fell in love with the instrumental acoustic sonic landscapes on the CD. Obviously I'd not expected to pick a winner with every set, but this was the biggest misstep on my schedule. Well, that and not choosing to see Messerly and Ewing, and it's rumored that their MPMF appearance would be their last. Oops.)

Next up - Coltrane Motion, another of the Datawaslost bands. Originally from Cincinnati and now residing in Chicago, the buzz must have been good on this band, as there were so many people crowded around the stage that I couldn't see the band. The indiefolkhoptronic thing didn't really rock my world for the moment (but I did like their song on the sampler quite a bit), so I decided to check out Staggering Statistics next door at Crush. Apparently everyone had the same idea at the same time as I did, because I encountered my first real line of the weekend, and ended up listening to half of the band's set while standing on the stairs.

The room was packed for good reason. While Greg Dulli may have received the sultry soulfulness in the break-up of the Afghan Whigs, John Curley certainly laid claim to the rock, and Staggering Statistics put on an impressive set. Impressive enough that they ran late, and threw my schedule off yet again. I snagged the band's CD and headed back to Lava to catch the first half of Hungry Lucy's set, which had already started (damn you, Curley! damn you and your rockin' band!).

When Johnny B introduced me to Hungry Lucy years ago, they seemed to be the stereotypical goth-pop band with female vocalist. Their music seems to have ventured further into the trip-hop realm, and the stage show's sound is lush and polished.

It was then that I made the biggest mistake of the evening. I chose to leave Lava in the middle of Hungry Lucy's set to return to Crush for Blackbear. ( I'm taking some consolation that Hungry Lucy will be playing at the same show as Infinite Number of Sounds in October. I am so there.) The venue was still pretty packed, and the band seemed to be having technical issues. After a few minutes of "I can't hear the violin" and "Can you turn up everything?", the band finally started to play. Their lo-fi electronic alt-folk is OK, but again, I wasn't really feeling it. Jason had promised that they would end the set with "Your Eyes, My Choir" (also on the Datawaslost sampler), and that he would be appearing in the chorus (shades of Polyphonic Spree, but without the robes), so I stuck around, chatting with John Curley by the merchandise table while I waited.

(Editor's note: I mentally wrestled over whether I should include this next paragraph. On the one hand, this is my journal, and I should be free to say what I feel about anything. On the other hand, I don't like using my posts to bash people personally. However, the person involved really irritated me and the encounter fits in with the underlying theme of this post. So here goes.)

In the middle of the Blackbear set, Chris from The Green Room came in, and I again congratulated him on the previous evening's set. He remarked that while he never was one to sing his own praises, he thought they sounded better than they ever had. It was all I could do to not laugh in his face. (It was true that the band had vastly improved; I wasn't going to argue that. But anyone who knows Chris knows that he has four main topics of conversation: baseball, weather, Rush, and why his band is better than any other band ever conceived in the Cincinnati area.) After saying this, he then proceeded to ponder the reasons why those "indie rock poseurs" preferred "crappy bands like this" to his. I tried to diffuse his tirade with a comment about everyone having their own opinions and tastes, but he was on a roll and continued to lambaste any band I mentioned. I wanted to point out that insulting your would-be audience and your peers doesn't lead to good word-of-mouth about one's band or a big take at the door, regardless of talent. Like the panhandler earlier that night, why would I be more likely to give up my hard-earned cash after you've insulted me?

(Man, none of this would've happened if I'd split the midnight set between Hungry Lucy and Freekbass. Unfortunately, Freekbass was playing at 1120, and the distance between the two clubs and the previous night's experience with the poor sound quality of the venue had soured me on that idea. Someday I'll see Freekbass again. Someday.)

I decided it would be best if I parted company with Chris before I felt the need to smack him in the back of the head, so I wished him well and headed back up the street. I had made a promise to the guys in Mary Ellis that I would come see their set, and I have always tried to be a woman of my word - especially to people who are nice to me.

The guitarist that I had met the night before greeted me at the door of RBC. "You made it!"

"Of course I did - I said I'd be here." I complimented him on the CD they'd given me the night before. (I'd had a chance to listen to it earlier that afternoon, and I was surprisingly impressed. Think Green Day without the angst. Mary Ellis is the happiest pop-punk band ever.)

"Oh, we're even better live," he assured me.

After the negativity I'd endured just a few minutes earlier, it was refreshing to see a band that was incredibly nice and had the skills to back up their claims of a good live show. The venue was only half full and people kept milling in and out, hoping to fit as much music as possible into that last hour, but the band played as if they'd sold out Madison Square Garden, grinning happily as they asked the audience for gum in between songs. Finally the band's enthusiasm was too much for me, and I tucked my notebook into my messenger bag to go dance with wild abandon at the edge of the stage. By far, Mary Ellis had the most earnest and heartfelt set of the evening. And the most fun, by a long shot.

Tonight, if anything, was a lesson in graciousness. Nice goes a long way in my book. In the same way, negativity goes even further, and will bias my views of you and your creative projects that I might patronize in the future. A bunch of guys from Wisconsin were nice to a complete stranger (and remembered who I was the next night) and looked as if they were having the time of their lives playing in a club in Cincinnati. Another band member felt the need to insult his musical peers, his fans, and my thoughts and opinions. If both of these bands were playing in different venues on the same night, guess which one I would go see?

But the evening had drawn to a close, and the bouncers were getting that anxious "please go home now" look in their eyes, so I decided to hit the road. There would be plenty of time to ponder the politics of pleasantries in the music business later. I had a weekend's worth of sleep to catch up on, thirty-something pages of notes to edit, and a stack of CDs to listen to. Wake me when it's time for next year's festival, please?

I'm with the Band (well, kinda)

Looking for Thursday night's recap?

Midpoint Music Festival, day two. Too much Moerlein + not enough sleep + frustrating day at work = cranky strung out Myo. I had hoped to have a few moments to start editing down last night's notes before I headed out for the evening, but it was not to be. And seeing as how most of the television shows I watch premiered this week, I had about five hours of various and sundry cop shows to wade through as well. (I foresee a lot of coffee in my future.)

I started my evening at Lava (yet again), drinking an overpriced watery Diet Coke and checking out Tristen Shields. CityBeat compared his music to Massive Attack meets Wilco meets Nick Drake, which seemed pretty accurate. (Poor Nick Drake. No one knew who he was for years, and now most people know him is "that guy who did that Volkswagen song.") My friend Jason was playing keyboards in this band, and Andrew from .andrew. was sitting in on guitar. (Apparently the Lava/Crush venues are home base for the Datawaslost collective this weekend.) I offered my congratulations to the band and picked up a copy of another sampler CD on my way out the door to 1120 for The Green Room's show at 10:00.

I wasn't really sure where 1120 was, to be honest. The map showed it near Barrel House, on the outskirts of the Main Street district. After wandering around like a complete moron for a few minutes, I asked the Barrel House doorman for directions. "Over there, " he pointed across the street to an unmarked brick building.

As I later found out, the two stages at 1120 were set up especially for the Midpoint Music Festival. (It looked like the building usually served as a practice space for bands.) The bar consisted of a hastily assembled assortment of wine, Jack Daniels coolers, and draft beer served from a cooler tap. (And for some reason, they were offering frozen margaritas. Seeing as how most bars I've frequented have considered blender drinks to be too much trouble, I was amused that this temporary setup had bothered to include them.)

Chris, the singer and bass player for The Green Room, was standing near the front door chatting with a few people, and it took him a few minutes of "who the hell are you, weird girl?" glances for him to recognize me. We walked over to the bar to get a beer as he told me that I was going to be surprised at how the band sounded. After seeing the band sporadically through lineup and style changes (with varying degrees of musical prowess - I actually watched the band break up onstange one night), I decided to withhold all comments until they actually played.

For the most part, the band sounded better than I've ever heard them play. They've become much more polished, and Chris has traded in the higher register whininess for a faux British sneer. As they headed into the 8 billionth version of "Winter of Discontent" that I've heard over the years, I noticed that they'd reworked it as well into a slower and more subdued song. This version fit the bitterness of the lyrics much more effectively.

Unfortuntely, the vast improvement of the band's sound was almost destroyed when Chris chastized the crowd in between songs, telling them to stop talking to their friends and move closer to the stage. (I later found out that the comment was directed specifically to one of his friends, but it still came off sounding kind of snotty, and it spoiled a bit of my goodwill towards the band. The fact that a small chunk of plaster got knocked loose from the ceiling midset and exploded as it landed in my lap didn't help matters any, either.)

After pelting the audience with 80s-styled mini buttons, Chris made a quick lap around the venue and ducked out to Rhinos for a drink. I hung back by the bar with his friend Joe (the one who'd been yelled at earlier) and waited for FLUTTR, the next band, to start.

FLUTTR turned out to be an Evanescence-type band from Boston with an electric cello and MIDI marimba, fronted by three cute goth girls. (Suddenly Joe seemed much more interested in the band once he saw the singer. Imagine that.) Unfortunately, the acoustics of the room were pretty awful, and most of the interesting parts of the music were drowned out by the guitar and drums. (I purchased their CD, and was quite glad that I did. They sounded 100% better on disc with proper mxing.) I made a mental note to recommend the band to Johnny B the next time I saw him, and headed over to Barrel House for the midnight set.

Barrel House was pretty packed, but I managed to find a seat at the end of the bar before the show started. I decided to get a pint of Red Legg Ale rather than a Moerlein for this portion of the evening, since drinking bottled beer in brewpubs is a crime against nature.

Noctaluca, compared to "Tim and Jeff Buckley, Radiohead, and Pink Floyd," turned out to be the most pleasant surprise of the evening. Where Stephanie's Id had made me want to listen to Fiona Apple's When the Pawn... last night, this band makes me want to go home, turn off all the lights, and listen to Jeff Buckley's Grace with the headphones on. Georgeous vocals, smooth and lush guitar. I rushed over to the merchandise booth in search of a CD. (Regrettably, nothing yet, but they're currently in the studio.) Jason Ludwig, the frontman for the band, had a solo recording available, and I purchased that as a consolation prize. (Good choice on my part. The album had been nominated for Album of the Year at this past year's Cincinnati Entertainment Awards and Jason had ended up winning Best Singer/Songwriter. See, sometimes I do have some good taste!)

I had really tried to plan to see bands that I'd not seen before (or in the case of The Green Room, not for a long while) this weekend, and with the exception of the 1:00 am slot, I'd managed to do so. The one "been there, done that" on my agenda was at RBC, and that spot belonged to Buckra. The dance floor in front of the stage was pretty packed, so I found a seat in the back where I could shake my booty on my bar stool and take notes at the same time.

(Editor's note: As I was browsing Buckra's website, I realized that the band was formed from the ashes of The Rottweilers, who were pretty ubiquitous on the local band scene back in the 90s. Duh. No wonder their groove had always sounded so familiar. I proceeded to smack myself in the head with my copy of "Bully Hater" for being so clueless.)

Somewhere during the chorus of "Shake Your Baby Fat," a large man with twelve inch Liberty spikes stuck a CD under my beer. "You looked like you needed a coaster, he explained with a smile. The CD turned out to be for Mary Ellis, the band who was closing the night at RBC on Saturday. After chatting for a few minutes with the spiky-haired fellow, who introduced himself as Eric, the drummer, I soon found myself adopted by Mike and Don, two other members of the band and one of the members' girlfriends. All of there were incredibly nice folks and, after bribing me with a few promotional buttons, convinced me that I should finish out my weekend by coming to see their band. Being a sucker for friendly people and free stuff, I agreed and headed for home, grabbing my free Buckra ringer T shirt as I left. (See what I mean about the free stuff?)

Another night under my belt. I couldn't wait for the fun to begin again the next night. Well, after some much needed sleep, that is....

Midpoint, Main Street, and Myo

For a city that at times seems freakishly conservative when it comes to the arts, Cincinnati has a surprisingly diverse music scene. (That and our profilic past in the brewery industry baffles me to this day.) Once home to King Records, the city has produced its fair share of artists who made it to the major labels and some renown. Bootsy Collins. Afghan Whigs (and Twilight Singers). Ass Ponys. Over the Rhine. Throneberry. Not huge household names (well, except maybe Bootsy), but well known in their respective circles. Peter Frampton moved to Indian Hill a few years back. Mojo Nixon was a DJ on WEBN for a while.

(We're responsible for unleashing 98° upon an unsuspecting world, too. Yeah, we're to blame for Mr. Jessica Simpson himself, Nick Lachey. This is balanced on the great karmic scale of music by the presence of 97X, which happily returned to an internet format a few months after selling the radio frequency/physical station itself.)

Adding to the list of musical accomplishments, the city became host to Midpoint Music Festival a few years ago. As a music fan who has for years wanted to trek down to the SxSW Festival in Austin in hopes of discovering the Next Big Thing, this was an exciting development.

I'd kind of fallen away from the local music scene. My friends in bands started to get real jobs, get married, settle down. As we all got older, it became harder to get up in the morning after a long loud night at Sudsy Malones. And who had the money to check out 5 bands a week when the gas and electric bill was due?

I regretted losing that part of my life. So when faced with the opportunity to see a ton of unsigned bands from all over the place for really cheap, I jumped at the chance. (Besides, I figured it would get me out of the house and hopefully give me something to write about.)

The website for MPMF had mentioned the availability of a "three day all venue badge" at the conference registration table downtown, so after work on Thursday I came home, took the world's fastest shower, changed my clothes, and set off for the Crowne Plaza in hopes of getting there before registration closed at 7:00. I made it, plunked down my credit card, and was presented with my very own... neon yellow plastic armband. (Yes, the kind you can't remove intact after you put it on. So I was going to be stuck wearing this thing for the next 57 hours. Work is gonna love this.)

Not knowing what kind of crowds or parking situations to expect, I headed over to Jefferson Hall on Main Street to spread out my schedule and my CityBeat guide and plot my course for the evening over a beer. The schedule was overwhelming. 254 bands spread out over three nights and several venues (many of which I'd never been to) up and down the street. I highlighted a few bands in each time slot, making a backup plan just in case my first choices were not my thing.

While poring over the schedule and sipping at my Bass Ale, the stage manager - hi Tim! - for Jefferson Hall introduced himself and offered to get me a copy of the sampler. (He'd seen me scribbling in my notebook, and asked me who I was writing for; I explained my plan to write about the event on my website. Behold the power of the pen.) I thanked him, and set off for Lava to see sleepybird.

sleepybird had a lo-fi alt-folky feel to them which I quite enjoyed. They're a 2:00 am kind of band, the kind of music you listen to while sitting at a friend's apartment discussing world philosophies by candlelight after too many beers and cigarettes.

While watching the band, I ran into my friend Jason, who was playing with The Minni-Thins at 10:00 next door at Crush. I promised I'd come check out part of their set.

When Jason had warned me that The Minni-Thins were a "bit different" than sleepybird, he wasn't kidding. Loud, aggressive power punk, with hints of The Pixies thrown in for good measure. Fun, if you're in that kind of mood. I wasn't, and ducked out after three songs.

Back at Lava, .andrew. had taken the stage. Described in the "You'll Dig It If You Dig" tag of CityBeat as "Nick Drake, Crowded House, a choirboy gone slightly wrong," both the bartender and I were impressed by his set. No CD yet, but he swore he was working on it when I talked to him after the show. (Oh, and he was very nice, which goes a long way in my book.)

Stephanie's Id from Asheville, NC was up next. I hadn't seen any out-of-town bands yet (well, sleepybird is from Dayton, but that doesn't really count), so I decided to stick around to check them out. Good choice. If you threw Fiona Apple's When the Pawn... in a blender with Portishead and a vibraphone, set it on frappé, and served the resulting mixture in a swanky jazz lounge, you'd have a pretty good idea of what they sounded like. There's not a mainstream radio station in the world that would have any idea what to do with them, but there should be.

I headed back up the street to Jekyll and Hyde's to check out Idle Mirth, and ran into Dave from The Green Room on my way. I assured him I was coming to see them Friday night, and he tipped me off that his wife's band LovelyCrash was playing at Neon's around the corner. I promised I'd check out the end of their set.

Idle Mirth, billed in the "Dig It" description as "Portishead, Hooverphonic, Fiona Apple" proved to be (in my opinion) none of the above. The singer had a lovely voice, but it was completely drowned out by the guitar and drums. It may have been a bad mix or an issue with venue acoustics, but I wasn't feeling it and headed for Neon's after a few songs.

I unfortunately only got to see the last two or three songs in LovelyCrash's set, but I was pretty much blown away by them. CityBeat described them far better than I could ever attempt to: "The Breeders and Scrawl beat up the Bangles while the Ronettes fashionably look on and spit. Later, the Cramps come over and tell their surf guitar friends to stop by as well and everybody gets drunk on Cosmopolitans and Gran Marnier. Gorgeous harmonies, catchy hooks and memorable lyrics, bass and drums that'll kick your ass. I'm out of metaphors. You get it. Go see 'em." I hadn't realized that Beth was in the band (or that she had previously been in Perfect Jewish Couple), nor did I have any idea that Jen (Dave's wife) could sing. I awarded them my "Band to Watch" award of the night, and bugged Jen about the upcoming CD after the show.

As the night drew to a close, I stopped back at Jefferson Hall to say goodnight to Tim and apologize for not seeing any of the bands there that night. (Most of the bands there seemed to be of the more mainstream rock genre, and none of the bios really appealed to me.) He shrugged. "Hell, I don't care. You're here. You're seeing the bands, and you're covering the event." (I explained to him that I only had a handful of readers, and one of them was my mom. "Eh. Still doesn't matter," he responded. Tim is my new best friend this weekend.)

I took inventory of the evening as I repacked my messenger bag for work the next day. 11 pages of notes, four CDs (I purchased sleepybird's no flood, Tim gave me the official MPMF sampler, and I'd wound up getting a couple of two-song samplers from patientZero and Tuesday Conspiracy.), five stickers, one promotional matchbook, one promotional postcard. Not a bad take for the night.

Oh, and one neon yellow armband that I was going to have to conceal with a long sleeved shirt the next morning. Sometimes it's hard to be this glamorous.

Ow, My Head

(I apologize in advance for my drunken liberal ramblings. What follows is a very one-sided and opinionated recap of George W. Bush's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, originally sent as an email to non-TV-havin' Roger Mexico, with editorial comments by Captain Morgan.)

(WARNING! This entry drops the F-bomb a lot. I get worked up when I've had a drink and watch political stuff.)

(Yes, I always talk to Roger Mexico with little-to-no capitalization. I'm a rebel like that.)

(Transcript of speech here, if you'd like to follow along. I cannot believe I just linked to that site, but it needs to be made public, right? Not that it will make my drunken rantings make any more sense.)

(The FBI is reading my journal right now, aren't they? Hi, guys! Welcome! Check out the Rhino Cam!)

(This is an awful lot of comments in parentheses, don't you think?)

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so, i guess it's obvious that i'm drunk or a masochist or both.

i'm watching w accept the republican nomination at the rnc. if i wasn't talking back to the television, i think my head might explode.

jumpin' giant jesus on a pogo stick (which is being built a few miles away... must tell you 'bout that sometime...)! to reiterate a much cliched slogan, i love my country, but i fear my government.

ok, he's talking about simplifying the tax codes. has this man ever filled out his own 1040. no, because math involving more than two digits confuses the chimp.

gah... health insurance... must not throw tv out window. where the fuck's the rum?

ownership society? we're all in debt, moron! and still he blathers on... oh, crap. no, not the personal savings social security. more rum.

don't fucking talk to me about education reform, w. i deal with these people every day. cough up the bucks. tests ain't the answer to everything.

oh, crap. he just attempted spanish. i shudder at the pronunciation errors.

oh great. more tests at a higher level in math and science. where the hell's the money???

the delegates scare me. and he just plugged his web address.

ah, and now we start the mudslinging... i don't think i have enough alcohol in my apartment. oh, good god, now he's started in on family values.

"unborn child" reference: 10:38 pm

faith-based charities. marriage is sacred between one man and one woman blah blah blah liberal judgescakes. defense of marriage act <> conservative values. ow, my head. where the fuck is the rum?

tara-ism. don't get me started. cheesy 9/11 plug. rah rah rah go usa! (and the crowd joins in.)

yeah, pre-emptive strikes rock, w. you want to be the full-time war president, don'tcha?

hey! protesters! yay, protesters! you go with your anti-war selves! (as i sit comfortably on my couch, grinning like an idiot.)

blah blah. we killed a lot of people. and because of OUR clear moral decsions, we rule. did he just mention "weapons of mass destruction"? good god man. drop it, already.

i feel like i'm in church. this man is preaching to me. and i ain't buying what he's selling.

can i just comment on the special stage built for him? george w. bush in the round. what. the . hell? this is NOT a rock star president.

MUST BUY COPY OF FAHRENHEIT 9/11 ON FIRST DAY. michael moore may be biased as hell, but at least it's a sign of moral sanity. up is down here, people.

HOLY CRAP! was that britney spears? what the hell?

(and then i get distracted looking for a confirmation on the britney sighting. damn, i'm a loser, but i want to make sure i'm not completely insane. c'mon fametrackers!)

generations will blah blah blah. um, generations will be paying off the debt you created.

w attempts a bit of stand up comedy. um, no.

another 9/11 plug. more sad war stories. and morality. and liberty. and character. (dear george, please call lila lipscomb.) and, oh have i mentioned 9/11 yet? (glamour shot of rudy guiliani)

oh my. he's paraphrasing the bible. or the byrds. a time for sadness, a time for struggle, a time for rebuilding. And now we have reached a time for hope. to everything, turn, turn, turn.

um, what about the unemployment issues? outsourcing? WHERE'S THE MONEY COMING FROM, IF YOU'RE NOT RAISING TAXES? guess we'll leave that as a not-so-happy inheritance?

ow, ow, ow, my head. will staying up until midnight to hear john kerry's midnight ohio rally make me feel better, or only make my head hurt worse?

aw, tom brokaw is saying bye-bye to his last political committee. kinda sweet. i've always liked tom.

must go reaquaint myself with captain morgan. and start worrying about november.
************************************

And, now that I've sent an email that will put me on that scary liberal watch list, I suppose I'll watch that subversive David Letterman and go to bed. My job as an American is done.

Big Baby

Sometimes my job has its advantages... like scooping all of the "real" news sources in the Cincinnati area. Here's the latest news from the Zoo...


IT’S A GIRL!
Cincinnati Zoo’s Sumatran Rhino Makes History with Second Calf

The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden proudly announces that Emi, a critically endangered Sumatran rhinoceros, today became the first Sumatran rhino in history to produce two calves in captivity. Emi delivered a healthy female calf at 12:51 p.m. in her indoor stall.

“This is a historic birth. It is proof the science of breeding Sumatran rhinos has been developed at the Cincinnati Zoo and the first birth was not a one time wonder,” said Dr. Terri Roth, Vice President of Animal Sciences. “Because Sumatran rhinos are on the brink of extinction, this calf serves as a lifeline for a species clinging desperately to survival.”

Emi became restless early Thursday morning and started contractions at 12:04 p.m., Friday. Soon after delivery at 12:51 p.m., Emi began licking the calf. The calf first attempted to stand at 1:06 p.m. Emi and her calf will remain inside for the next few weeks to allow privacy during this bonding time.

Emi and her calf are doing great. Beginning at 10 a.m. Saturday, visitors can get their first glimpse of mom and the new baby on the monitors in the public exhibit at the Zoo’s Center for Conservation & Research of Endangered Wildlife (CREW) and through Rhino Cam. The Rhino Cam, courtesy of Time Warner Cable, is a Web-controllable video camera accessible 24-hours-a-day through the Zoo’s Website. Viewing hours are subject to change.

In September of 2001, Emi gave birth to a healthy 72.6 pound calf named, Andalas. This was the first time in 112 years that a Sumatran rhinoceros successfully reproduced in captivity.

Good news like this comes at a critical time in the conservation of Sumatran rhinos. Today less than 300 survive in the wild and only eight in captivity. Emi and the Cincinnati Zoo’s male, Ipuh are on loan from the Indonesian government and are the only successfully captive breeding pair in the world. Only two other Sumatran rhinos are in the United States. Andalas currently resides at the Los Angeles Zoo and a fourth rhino, an older female, resides at the Bronx Zoo.

Emi had a history of early pregnancy loss before carrying her first full-term calf. During that pregnancy, Emi was prescribed a daily dose of oral progesterone. None was administered throughout this pregnancy.

Sumatran rhinos are a flagship species for the Cincinnati Zoo’s signature conservation programs. The Sumatran rhinoceros is considered one of the most endangered mammals on earth. In the last 15 years over 50% of the Sumatran rhino population has been lost because of poaching and habitat destruction.

I went over to watch the monitors shortly after the birth was announced to the employees. She's adorable. I'll be watching Rhino Cam all weekend if anyone is looking for me....

(Edited to add... there are pictures on the Zoo's website now.)