Big day coming
Topic: Catching up

After much fretting and fussing and crossing of fingers and visiting of really ridiculously unsuitable sharehouses, it has finally happened. I found a place in DC. It's a lovely apartment in a neighborhood I'm familiar with that's close to my friends and to the office. And which I will be sharing with two other people.

This is going to be interesting, since it has been quite awhile since I've shared housing.  I'm feeling pretty good about it, since I liked my future flatmates a lot when I met them, and the apartment is certainly big enough that I'm not going to feel like we're living on top of one another.  I just hope that I won't be too awkward about the process of re-learning how to live with people.

It's also strange because I'm leaving Baltimore.  For as long as I've been able to choose where I live, when I've been in the States I've chosen to live in Baltimore.  Making the choice to live in another city feels a bit odd, somehow even stranger than moving overseas ever did.  Perhaps because although Baltimore and DC aren't far apart, it's enough of a trip (particularly when relying on public transportation) that I know I won't be coming back to visit anywhere nearly as often as I'd like. 

Before things get serious around here...
Topic: Odds and ends
20

Created by OnePlusYou - Free Online Dating

Hat tip to tigtog at Hoyden About Town. 

Good reads
Topic: Reading

Ballastexistenz:  The Best Present I've Ever Received, which has planted the seed of an idea about Christmas presents for my family.

Shakesville: Impossibly Beautiful - links to the full series at the bottom of the post, all well worth checking out.

Anxious Black Woman:  Held to a Higher Standard?  A very thought-provoking post on how African Americans are pitted against other marginalized communities, that asks: "Are full citizenship, full participation in the state, and - inevitably - the "promise of whiteness" (for what else does whiteness promise but "full citizenship"?) the goals we must strive for, or can we envision something different for ourselves?"  I keep re-reading this over and over. 

Feministe:  Is It Worth the Risk? - Stop and think about how your "helpful" advice may very well be hurtful to people living with disabilities. 

Feminist Philosophers: Explaining Psychopathologies - the language is admittedly dense, but the ideas about the self and human relations are very intriguing.

Why, Pandora?
Topic: Quotidiana

Pandora, I want to love you.  Free music streaming through my computer - commercial-free channels based around songs and artists I like?  I love free.  I love music.  The channel built around "Midnight Lullaby" has been frankly brilliant.  But Pandora, I don't know what kind of relationship we can have when I say "I like Tori Amos" and you say "well, then you must like Sarah McLachlan."

I managed to wean you away from Sarah McLachlan with much frustrated whacking of the "thumbs down" button.  Then you started throwing up Norah Jones.  No and no and no again. 

I thought we had worked out our differences.  I was quite enjoying Meiko, actually.  You mixed some Kate Nash in, I was happy.  Why, why, why then did I suddenly find my eardrums cringing before an onslaught of Alanis Morissette?  Have I not been appreciative enough?  Have I taken you for granted?  What have I done to deserve such wanton cruelty?  I want to love you, Pandora, but I really don't know if there's a future for us.  

I definitely need to move
Topic: Catching up

No question about it any more.  I had a ridiculous week at work - I'll spare you the details, but there was way too much going on and it all had to get done right away. By all rights I should've been a basket case, just like I was the week before.  But not having the commute, being able to get a little extra sleep, being able to hang out with friends after work - it all made a huge difference.  I was stressed, but I still felt functional, and I was almost frighteningly productive. 

So my friends in DC have been alerted to keep an eye out for open apartments, and I'll be putting in a lot of time on DC's Craigslist in coming weeks.  Wish me luck.  

The laundry is in the dryer
Topic: Quotidiana

And I'm trying to keep myself occupied until it's done.  It's been a quiet night, except for the inevitable dirt bike drag race up the street.  Between the dirt bikes and the cacophany some people choose to blast from their cars (of every musical genre - though sometimes you hit a summer afternoon where someone's playing classic soul and it just makes you want to dance on the street corner as they roll by), summer is usually a season of noise in Baltimore.  Strange that it's so peaceful tonight. 

This coming week I get to have a small taste of what living DC would be like - I'm swapping apartments with a friend there for a few days.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to absolutely, totally and completely love not having to get up at 6:00 a.m. to go to work.  Hopefully I'll also realize that I could happily live in an apartment that's much cosier than mine.  Not that I need all the space I have now, really.  My furniture would fit comfortably into a much smaller apartment.  But I've gotten used to it, and I'm not looking forward to paying more for less, since DC is so much more expensive.  And that's assuming I can find a place, since I can't imagine it's going to be easy with students coming back and so many people unable to keep up on their mortgage payments.  

Something has to give, though.  I've been out of sorts for weeks, and I think it's mostly that I just never seem to have enough time or enough sleep.  I don't do well under pressure when there's no end in sight.  I can work like crazy to a deadline, but this is very different.  This is a situation that requires a change in my life - either I move, or I start being highly focused, organized and scheduled in every aspect of my life in a way I've not yet managed to accomplish.  And while that could be a good set of skills to learn, I just don't see it happening.  So I've been thinking, as much as I'm attached to Baltimore, as much as I like where I live, as much as I love my friends here - it's time for a change.

Looking for things to be happy about
Topic: Quotidiana
Found one: BfP is back.

Life/Work Balance
Topic: Editorializing
Mine is all kinds of off these days, although it's slowly improving.  But I still don't have time to comment at length right now on this very interesting post at Feministe that focuses (not exclusively - there are lots of other interesting links) on the challenges continuing to face women who want to have a family life and professional career - particularly the challenge of achieving equitable domestic care arrangements with their partners.  I appreciate this a lot, in light of my own domestic care issues lately (you should've seen the state of my apartment before this past weekend), and I only have myself to look after.  There are some eye-opening observations right there at the top of the page.  Go have a look.

Since when can hospitals deport people?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Topic: Incredibly Bad

From Cara at Feministe:

An immigrant woman from Honduras who has very recently awakened from a coma is being threatened with what can effectively be called deportation, because she does not have the insurance needed to cover her medical bills. (Don’t read the comments in these articles unless you want to lose your lunch.) But here is the real kicker: while it would be repulsive and incredibly inhumane to deport an uninsured/under-insured person with a serious medical condition because of their undocumented status, despite the lack of adequate facilities for their care in their nations of citizenship, it isn’t even the case here. Sonia del Cid Iscoa has a current visa and in the U.S. legally.

. . . 

In what rational world does a hospital have the right to send a patient to another country against her wishes? I know that on a day-to-day basis, our shitty health care system seems to have as much if not more direct power over our lives than the government does. But despite the common perception, they are not all-powerful. They are not the government. And they do not have the right to deport anyone, let alone a woman who is in the country legally and in grave medical condition.

Furthermore, knowingly and forcibly transferring a patient with kidney failure to a facility that does not have a dialysis unit is nothing short of violence. Plain and simple. Regardless of how we tend to behave, being a citizen of any nation other than the United States does not revoke your status as a human being. This is both racist and classist. This is flat out wrong.

A fund to help pay for Sonia del Cid Iscoa’s medical care has been set up through Wells Fargo Bank. Please help disseminate this information.

Disseminating this information is the least I can do.  That, and recommend that you go read the full post, and the comments.  This is distressing and disgusting on so many levels, I don't even know where to begin. 

Update: Sonia del Cid Iscoa will not be deported to Honduras (more on Feministe).  Her family may well still need money for her medical expenses, though, so keep that link above in mind.

Online exhibit on health and human rights
Topic: PSAs

The National Library of Medicine (NLM), the world's largest medical  
library and a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH),
recently launched a new exhibition, "Against the Odds: Making a  
Difference in Global Health." The exhibition will be on display at the
NLM on the outskirts of Washington DC until 2010, and can be viewed  
online. The web site focuses on a different theme each month and for  
MAY 2008 the theme is HEALTH and HUMAN RIGHTS: 
http://apps.nlm.nih.gov/againsttheodds//index.cfm

The exhibition explores aspects of the history of global health as  
well as current issues, highlighting the shared concerns of 
communities around the world. Materials from the History of Medicine Division of  
the National Library of Medicine are on display alongside artifacts 
and images gathered from across the globe and video interviews. Featured  
stories include the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the United
States and the work of ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power),  
the Chinese barefoot doctor movement, the International Campaign to  
Ban Landmines, and the smallpox eradication program led by the World  
Health Organization.

Alongside scientific discoveries and ongoing challenges, the stories  
illustrate the connections between health and human rights: the
importance of clean water, safe housing, nutritious food, affordable  
healthcare, and protection from violence in fostering health and  
wellbeing. Visitors to the exhibition web site are invited to share  
their perspectives on these issues and GET INVOLVED:

http://apps.nlm.nih.gov/againsttheodds/get_involved/index.cfm