Τό γυναικεῖον τῆς Ὑπατίας - An Áit Bhanda na Hypatia - Hypatia's Gynaeceum

Misafirim bu dünyada,
misafir ve yabancıyım.

I am a traveler in this world,
a traveler and a stranger.
--Marian Kazi


I don't fit in with this world
I have never fit in anywhere.
That has fucked up things in my life
a lot.

My way, my hope, perhaps the excuse for my existence
has been to go through it graciously.

Giving thanks for all the blessings I've had...
flashes of deeper awareness, spirit rising in my chest, moments of inner peace
traveling alone on a dark and treacherous ridge toward an uncertain destiny...

Whatever; let me face it with good grace.
I guess good grace can be its own reward.

One day I will be finished and gone.
But if I manage to circulate some good grace while I'm alive...
it might keep on circulating?
Working hard here to find possibilities of hope rising above the heavy gloom.

Something in my spirit keeps rising.
Keeps getting up when it's been knocked down.
Something good at heart that just won't quit.

Something that didn't want me to end this text
until I'd worked it in.

Colcannon on the Ganges;
or,
Ever Tried Cookin Stuff in Yogurt?

3 tbs ghee
4 medium potatoes, 7 small potatoes, or a dozen new potatoes, parboiled, drained, and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 onion, chopped
1 habanero pepper, cored and chopped
1 tbs ginger-garlic purée
1 tbs curry powder
2 tsp turmeric
½ tsp garam masala or allspice
½ tsp black pepper
1 bunch kale
2 cups yogurt
1 tsp yellow mustard seed, ground fine
½ tsp salt

1. Sauté the onions in ghee over medium-high heat until transparent.

2. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Move the onions aside and tilt the pan to drain more ghee toward the empty space. Sauté the ginger-garlic purée in it separately for a minute.

2. Add the habanero and spices; stir well.

3. Add the potatoes and sauté, stirring frequently, for 10 minutes.

4. Stir in the chopped kale.

5. Stir in the yogurt, mustard, and salt over medium-low heat. Continue simmering slowly, stirring frequently to keep the yogurt from separating. When the potatoes are cooked through, about 30 minutes, remove from heat and either serve as is, or take a masher to the vegetables. The former is more like the Indian potatoes with yogurt and turmeric recipe that influenced this dish, the latter is more like colcannon.

It was in November of ninety-three that Dad departed this life. One day his face had gone gray as though the life were draining out. He left work in the midafternoon, saying he felt poorly, and asked for a glass of whiskey. When I fetched it to him, he smiled and gave me a blessing. Then he relaxed into a deep sleep. By morning his sleep had become eternal. Mama and I had no idea where to find a priest around there, to give Extreme Unction. There were none to be found for many miles around. We looked at each other, wondering what to do next. Then we sprinkled Dad with holy water, crossed ourselves, and said the Rosary over him.

All the folk from far and wide in Cambria County came to his funeral, to pay their respects to the Revolutionary War veteran. They were flying a big American flag and they had a fife and drum to accompany the funeral procession to the new cemetery, on land Dad had deeded to the Church, round the flank of the hill just above our settlement. His was the first grave, just as he had been the first settler. When I looked at all the veterans turned out and heard the strains of patriotic airs, my heart swelled up into the clear, bright sunshine of a cold November day. While I grieved and wept for Dad, I also felt great pride in his life, and even a sense of sacred elation as his spirit migrated to glory. It was like I could sense that happening in my heart, and I quietly said, "Farewell, Dad" as his spirit seemed to pass by.

My big brother Luke gave the funeral oration. He honored the memory of Dad as a hero who fought for our freedoms as Americans. In particular, he called to mind the guarantee of religious freedom that Mr. Jefferson had first written for Virginia and then introduced to the Bill of Rights, which had recently been ratified after much to-do about it. Luke held forth that this meant our right to profess the Catholic faith was now protected by the law of the land, and thank God we were Americans. He concluded by reminding all assembled that Dad's last wish had been to build a Catholic church on the land he had donated, and that it fell on our shoulders to bring his vision to fruition.

However, no church was to be built for several more years, until Father Gallitzin showed up and got folks a-building. In the meantime, whenever a priest was in the area, they held Mass at Luke's log cabin. It was already far too small to hold all the worshipers. Luke was now the senior McGuire of the settlement, so that he directed community affairs from then on.

Charity Marks and her children are another example of how my people have crossed racial boundaries.

My great-great-great-grandmother Mary Wagoner (1809-1897) was the daughter of Gertrude Charity Marks (177?-1859), who was rumored to be Indian. Sometime before 1807, Charity married a settler of German descent who had moved westward from Lancaster. A photo exists of Mary's younger brother Michael Francis Wagoner, in which he appears to be of nonwhite ancestry. Mary's oldest son Michael D. Wills (my grandmother's grandfather 1833-1910) was nicknamed "Black Mike" because of his dark complexion. My maternal grandmother had deep-set dark eyes and a straight nose like an Indian's. Michael Francis Wagoner had very deep-set dark eyes, but otherwise he looked pretty much black, like his nephew Black Mike.

Charity Marks was born in Cambria County in what was then the Indian Reserve, sometime after 1765. In those days, there was no white settlement there, because in 1763 King George had decreed no settlement west of the Appalachians. But she had a German last name. There were German traders in the Indian Reserve who acted as intermediaries between the Indians and the colony of Pennsylvania. She probably got the name Gertrude when she was baptized Catholic in 1819 or 1820. Charity's father John Marks was probably of German origin, while her mother's name is recorded only as Sarah, without a last name. So most likely my great-great-great-great-great-grandmother Sarah would be the Indian, or Black Indian, ancestor I'm looking for.

Charity's ancestry may have been a triracial mixture, considering how many escaped slaves found refuge among friendly Indians on the western side of the Appalachians and who knows, maybe the odd German or two, in the mid-18th century in southwestern Pennsylvania. There were also white women who married into Indian tribes, either voluntarily or as captives. Many of them when recaptured by whites said they preferred to go back and live with the Indians. They gave birth to mixed-race people who identified as Indian, at least as long as a tribal structure existed to support their Indian identity. Up in the Appalachian hollers from Georgia and South Carolina to West Virginia, triracial isolates developed-- originally in the bosom of Indian communities, but some remaining after the Indian tribal organization was gone. Those remaining in isolated hollers might remain a triracial isolate, but in flatter and more settled areas they or their children had a chance to assimilate to white identity.

I am postulating an extension of this area into southwestern Pennsylvania, a very small stretch from West Virginia and pretty plausible, given the known historical circumstances there. Slaves escaping from Maryland or Northern Virginia and joining up with Indian tribes could have migrated northward into southwestern Pennsylvania, especially since the British colonial forces of Virginia conducted military campaigns further south in the 1770s, and the area where they fought, West Virginia and Kentucky, was opened to white settlement earlier than the rest of the Appalachian region.

But on western Pennsylvanian topography, where the Allegheny Plateau is less rugged than in West Virginia or in eastern Tennessee where the Melungeon people long remained a triracial isolate, people of triracial ancestry wound up assimilating into the white population once settlers took over, beginning in the 1780s and '90s. Sociological conditions there in early frontier days would have facilitated people of mixed race marrying into white families more easily than later when the area became more populated and economically developed, and the racial attitudes of settled, lowland, plantation America moved upland with the population to supplant frontier values. People whose ancestry traces back to the areas just west of the Appalachian divide are likely to have some triracial background somewhere, to the extent it would have managed to diffuse into the general Appalachian population. The Indians in western Pennsylvania moved west over the Ohio in the 1780s to avoid the influx of settlers. There went the neighborhood. But people with some white blood may have had an incentive to stay and become assimilated with the white population. Any black ancestry could then be explained away as Indian.

Further South, the main Indian ethnicity was Cherokee. But southwestern Pennsylvania was contested ground in the mid-eighteenth century: the Iroquois Confederation laid legal claim to it, though it was home to Shawnee, and also had a large population of Lenni Lenape who had been displaced westward when whites took over eastern Pennsylvania. The name Allegheny is from the Lenape language Alligewinenk, which purportedly means 'a land into which they came from distant parts'. The best estimate I could come up with was that Charity Marks was most likely of Lenape background. They were already displaced people in southwest Pennsylvania in the 1760s, and probably more likely to marry an African or a German than Indians of settled, stable families.

The Wagner/Wills side of my family, basically German with a little African and Indian ancestry through Charity, joined up with the Irish McGuire side of my grandmother's ancestry when Black Mike married Bridget McDermitt (1839-1911), the granddaughter of Patience McGuire (1773-1847), in Cambria County in 1862. So their son, my grandmother's father, who she inherited her deep-set dark eyes from, was the great-grandson of both Charity Marks and Patience McGuire.

When I think about how to understand my racial identity, it gets so complicated as to defy definition.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, I'm classified as "white," because they define that category to include people from North Africa and the Middle East. As a Sicilian, I look to my North African Berber and Arab heritage as much as I do to the European side. My father's skin is so dark that I'm not sure how he passes as white. But he and the others in my family look unhappy when I point out to them their African ancestry. Like in Do the Right Thing or True Romance.

One hundred years ago, Sicilians in America were classified as nonwhite. At some point (probably after the United States allied with Italy in World War I) they decided to have us be white. I didn't get the memo.

My Afghan and Iranian friends (who are descended from the real Aryans) identify as "women of color." Their color is the same as mine. I'm not officially a woman of color, but in my de facto life experience, I don't pass perfectly as white. I mean white in terms of the social conventions around here.

On paper at the Department of Labor, Arabs are listed as "white." But to white Americans in real life, Arabs are The Other with menacing chords played every time they come on. Skin color has played no part in how Arab peoples have defined Arabness. The result is that the whole range of skin colors, in infinite gradations, from European white to African black, occurs among the Arab ethnic population. There is no one Arab skin color (though some shade of brown or olive is typical, especially in the Arab heartlands). The absence of a defining color bar must be upsetting to a racist society like white America, where the color bar was all-important in structuring American society.

With my swarthy Mediterranean olive complexion and my Arab-looking nose, people almost always assume I'm an immigrant from the Middle East. I've been asked if I speak English. I've been scolded by an angry bigot that "you people" are ruining everything, as he told me to go back to the Middle East where I came from.

It isn't so cut-and-dried that I'm automatically "white" in America. The default when it comes to beauty advice is blond-haired and blue-eyed. So I never thought makeup advice in general was very useful to me until I found the book Latina Beauty, which finally gave women of my color relevant information. One thing I learned from this book is a survey of makeup use showing that Latinas use more makeup than whites, blacks, or Asians. They could also count Middle Eastern women among the major makeup users. Something about the richness of our complexion allows for more makeup than is the norm for lighter complexions. The category white may be inclusive of my color in theory, but in white America's cultural setting the practical application of the concept white is skewed toward light complexions.

When I went grocery shopping the other day, this Arab guy started hitting on me. "'Scuse me, miss, where are you from? You look Arab."

I said over my shoulder while walking briskly away, نعم أنا عربية. He shouted after me, "عربية؟ السلام عليكم Let's get to know each other!" By that time I was out of there. It figures, why it's always the Arab guys sniffing after me like I'm a bitch in heat.

And of course I got the po pos called on me because I was sighted in a snooty neighborhood, and anyone who looks like me must be a terrorist.

I'm not a woman of color, but then white doesn't quite sit right with me either. I don't pass for "white." Maybe "white" is not the most accurate identity for me. But what that is, beats me. I always seem to fall into the cracks in between categories. And that's fine. I'm just me.

Syria and Greece, Italy and Spain, laid like pieces of a golden pavement into the sea-blue, chased, as we stoop nearer to them, with bossy beaten work of mountain chains, and glowing softly with terraced gardens, and flowers heavy with frankincense, mixed among masses of laurel, and orange, and plumy palm, that abate with their grey-green shadows the burning of the marble rocks, and of the ledges of porphyry sloping under lucent sand.
--John Ruskin

Το περιβόλι
Δ. Σαββόπουλος

Κάτι αλήθεια συμβαίνει εδώ κάτι μυστικό
κάτι πλούσιο και παράξενο σαν τοπίο του βυθού
Ανθισμένες κερασιές κι απόγευμα ζεστό
και πολύχρωμο χορτάρι, ναι για ν' αποκοιμηθώ

Αμαξάκια κάτασπρα φεύγουν απαλά
και μας φέρνουνε σε σένανε στα μέρη τα παλιά
Στο γαλάζιο θρόνο σου χρυσό μανδύα φοράς
και σε δυο λιοντάρια ήμερα τα πόδια σου ακουμπάς

Τόσα χρόνια πάλευα μόνη στα τυφλά
και ταξίδεψα κι αρρώστησα και πέρασα πολλά
Τώρα όμως πλάϊ σου και πάλι περπατώ
μέσ’ τα χρώματα του κήπου σου και δίπλα στο νερό

Αμαξάκια κάτασπρα φεύγουν απαλά
και μας φέρνουνε σε σένανε στα μέρη τα παλιά
Κοντά μου φωσφορίζοντας σκύβεις και με φιλάς
για την νύχτα με σκεπάζεις, ναι και με παρηγοράς

The Garden
D. Savvopoulos
translated by Johanna-Hypatia Cybeleia

Some truth occurs here, something secret
something rich and strange, like a seabed landscape
Blossoming cherry trees and warm afternoon
and many-colored grass, yes, for going to sleep

White carriages depart softly
and bring us to you in the regions of old
On your azure throne you wear a golden cloak
on two tame lions your feet rest

So many years I struggled alone in blindness
and I journeyed and fell sick and went through much
But now I'm by your side and I walk again
through the colors of your garden, beside the water

White carriages depart softly
and bring us to you in the regions of old
Shimmering near me, you bend down and kiss me
you cover me for the night, yes, and you comfort me

I wish so. But they have expelled me from the family for being queer. :(

A Fuji apple.

3/4 cup cornmeal
1½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt

2 eggs
3/4 cup milk

3 tbs olive oil or corn oil
½ onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 carrot, diced fine
1 or 2 jalapeños, diced fine
½ cup sweet corn kernels
½ cup green peas
1 tomato, diced
½ cup spinach, chopped
1/4 cup Italian parsley, chopped (or cilantro)
½ tsp each of: black pepper, cayenne, cumin, coriander
1 tsp each of: oregano, basil

3/4 cup shredded cheese: mozzarella, cheddar, Monterey jack, Parmesan, etc.

1. In a large skillet, sauté the onion in 2 tbs cooking oil until transparent.

2. Stir in the garlic, carrot, jalapeño, corn, and peas, and sauté lightly for a few minutes. Stir in the spices and herbs.

3. Mix the cornmeal, salt, and baking powder in a mixing bowl.

4. Beat the eggs and mix with milk.

5. Pour the eggs and milk into the cornmeal and mix well.

6. Fold in the sautéed vegetables, tomato, spinach, and parsley.

7. Put 1 more tbs of oil in the large skillet over medium heat, and pour in the batter. Top with shredded cheese. Cover and cook over medium-low heat for 20 minutes.

Serves 6.

கொங்குதேர் வாழ்க்கை அஞ்சிறைத் தும்பி
காமம் செப்பாது கண்டது மொழிமோ
பயிலியது கெழீஇய நட்பின் மயிலியல்
செறியெயிற்று அரிவை கூந்தலின்
நறியவும் உளவோநீ அறியும் பூவே

konkutēr vālkkai añcirait tumpi
kāmam ceppātu kaNTatu molimō
payiliyatu kelīiya naTpin mayiliyal
ceriyeyirru arivai kūntalin
nariyavum uLavōnī ariyum pūvē

Beautiful-winged bee
whose life is passed in search of honey
don't speak to me of desire
but tell me what you really saw:

Could even the flowers that you know
be as full of fragrance
as the hair of the woman
with the even set of teeth and the peacock nature,
to whom long affection binds me?

--Kuruntokai 2

மள்ளர் குழீஇய விழவி னானும்
மகளிர் தழீஇய துணங்கை யானும்
யாண்டுங் காணேன் மாண்தக் கோனை
யானுமோர் ஆடுகள மகளே என்கைக்
கோடீர் இலங்குவளை நெகிழ்த்த
பீடுகெழு குரிசிலுமோர் ஆடுகள மகளே.

maLLar kulīiya vilavi nānum
makaLir talīiya tuNankai yānum
yāNTung kāNēn māNtak kōnai
yānumōr āTukaLa makaLē enkai
kōTīr ilankuvaLai nekiltta
pīTukelu kuricilum ōr āTukaLa makaLē

Nowhere, not among the warriors at their festival,
nor with the girls dancing close in pairs,
nowhere did I see my dancer.

I am a dancer;
my pride, my lover,

—for love of her
these conch-shell bangles slip
from my wasting hands—

she's a dancer too.

—Kuruntokai 31
attributed to Princess Ādimantiyār (2nd century CE)

Happy birthday, Vicki! :*

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/01/AR2009050103406.html
When Women Rule, It Makes a Difference

By Christina L. Boyd and Lee Epstein
Sunday, May 3, 2009

When Sandra Day O'Connor retired from the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005, national polls suggested that the public overwhelmingly supported replacing her with a female juror. O'Connor seemed to agree. "He's good in every way, except he's not a woman" is what she had to say about the nomination of John G. Roberts Jr.

Now, Justice David H. Souter is set to retire from the court, and President Obama is already facing similar pressure. Who might take Souter's place? We're already being introduced to Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Pamela Karlan -- all very accomplished individuals who happen to possess the one qualification that many commentators and court-watchers seem to agree is the most important this time around: They are women.

Some of the pressure comes from those who believe that the membership of our courts should reflect the makeup of our society. More than half the U.S. population is female. Nearly one-third of all U.S. lawyers are women. Approximately 30 percent of the judges serving on the lower federal courts are women.

But a diverse Supreme Court isn't just about a bench that looks like America. This is about jurisprudence, too. In research that we conducted with our colleague Andrew D. Martin, we studied the votes of federal court of appeals judges in many areas of the law, from environmental cases to capital punishment and sex discrimination. For the most part, we found no difference in the voting patterns of male and female judges, except when it comes to sex discrimination cases. There, we found that female judges are approximately 10 percent more likely to rule in favor of the party bringing the discrimination claim. We also found that the presence of a female judge causes male judges to vote differently. When male and female judges serve together to decide a sex discrimination case, the male judges are nearly 15 percent more likely to rule in favor of the party alleging discrimination than when they sit with male judges only.

This holds true even after we account for judges' ideological leanings. If Obama is considering two fairly moderate people, one a woman and the other a man, we would expect the woman to cast more liberal votes in sex discrimination cases. The same would be true if the president were considering two very liberal candidates, again, one a man and one a woman.

The retirement of the liberal-leaning Souter may not give the president a chance to move the court significantly to the left. But it does let him make a different shift. If he does choose a woman to fill Souter's seat, he could have a major impact on an area of law that's important to many Americans -- women and men alike.
=============

Got this on Facebook:

NATION-WIDE Campaign: Kathleen Sullivan for Supreme Court Justice!
Sullivan is incredible qualified and would bring a lot of diversity to the bench.

Supreme Court Justice David Souter is planning to retire at the end of the current court term after 19 years on the bench. The vacancy will give President Obama his first chance to name a member of the high court and begin to shape its future direction. We are urging the consideration and appointment of Kathleen Sullivan.

Kathleen Sullivan is hands down one of the most qualified candidates. She is a Marshall scholar and former Stanford Law dean whom constitutional law legend Laurence Tribe once called “the most extraordinary student I had ever had.” She is the author of the nation’s leading casebook in constitutional law, has litigated before the Supreme Court, and has been named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America by the National Law Journal. Sullivan was also a professor of law at Harvard Law School from 1984 until 1993. She joined Stanford Law School in 1993 and became the Stanley Morrison Professor of Law in 1996. Sullivan then served as the dean of Stanford Law School from 1999 until 2004, when she voluntarily stepped down to serve as the inaugural director of a new Stanford center on constitutional law. Since 2004, she has been the Stanley Morrison Professor of Law at Stanford Law School.

In addition to this impressive list of qualifications, Sullivan is also a woman and openly gay which would bring some much needed diversity to the Supreme Court.

If chosen, Sullivan would become the first ever openly gay Justice and third female Justice in United States history to serve on the Supreme Court leading to a Court that more truly reflects the composition of the American population.

You can read more about Kathleen Sullivan here: http://www.law.stanford.edu/directory/profile/57/

--------------------------------
ACTION FOR MAY 20 - 22:
--------------------------------

STEP 1. Call Obama 202-456-1111
STEP 2. Email Obama: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
STEP 3: Repeat on Thursday and Friday.

--------------------------------------------------------
No matter what anyone tells you, remember…

NOW is our time.

YES we can.

Continue to invite your friends to join the campaign.

By fatima - Mirrored from Feministing
(I am thrilled to see someone speaking out about this, so brilliantly... right on, fatima)

http://community.feministing.com/2009/04/the-truth-about-femmesor-we-fu.html

the truth about femmes...or we fuck with misogyny so it's just easier to ignore us

i originally wrote this as a piece when me and couple other people in chicago were trying to start our own femme mafia (http://www.myspace.com/femmemafia). i thought it would be useful for people to ponder here at feministing as well, since i have seen some femme-bashing in some of the comment threads. i hope this can open up your minds to what a queer femme identity looks like.

on any given night, approximately 293584577432 hot queer women of all shapes and sizes, races, ethnicities, ages, religions, abilities venture into their local queer bars in search of a good flirt, fuck, or maybe even someone to fall in love with. they wear dresses, lipstick, long hair, and heels. they are outgoing and shy, the most dominant of tops and the most submissive of bottoms. they are funny, brilliant, and friendly. one thing is for sure and that is that they are HOT. and yet so many complain that no one approached them, that no one even saw them, and that everyone assumed they were straight. because queer femmes are largely ignored by the 'mainstream' queer community. the fact that they are even separate from the 'mainstream' just shows how fucked the whole thing is anyways. because that means that they are the 'other' and that the 'mainstream' are the people who look stereotypically gay.

okay so i like to wear lacy bras and undies. i live in dresses. hot pink lipstick makes my lips look amazing. and i wear eyeshadow. i like to knit and i want to learn how to sew. when i have time, baking and cooking are actually fun for me. all this and i love women. everything about them is beautiful to me. they make me excited about life and love and sex. i am femme and i am queer. if people can't see both of those things as being complementary to each other then it shows nothing more than their FEAR of the gender that i have chosen for myself.
( there's more... )
so when feminists and queers decide that they are ready to really kick patriarchy in its privileged balls, of course we will need the genderqueer, androgynous, and butch people, but we will also need the people who adorn the lipstick, the heels, the push-up bras. open your eyes and truly see us. because we are femme and we are fierce.

Since I began address canvassing last week, I've discovered that this is the most pleasant way to earn money I've ever experienced. The work is dead easy, just walking door to door and entering map spots on a hand-held computer with GPS. I'm so glad they sent me out this time of year, when the spring weather is so beautiful, the trees are all in riotous blossom in gorgeous colors, and the fragrance of many kinds of flowers fills the air. It's actually blissful to work this way, and I get the exercise I need too.

Sometimes people come to the door and I get to say hi from the Census Bureau. Most of them are pretty nice. People from other countries tend to be more distrustful of the government, I imagine with reason if they grew up under systems that lack our concept of civil society, where the government is to be feared or distrusted.

The same holds true for groups in America denied their rights: Last week I encountered a couple of elderly lesbians doing yardwork in their front yard. Their age must have been in their mid-60s or pushing 70. I said hi to one, and she gestured to the other one, presumably the dominant partner who does the talking. She greeted me by saying, "We're not going to answer any questions." When I started to explain that all their information is strictly confidential and by law can't be shared with any other agency, she spoke over me, repeating "We're not going to answer any questions" in a firm tone of voice with a "go away" smile. She is old enough to remember the days when you could get in a lot of trouble if it was known you were a lesbian couple. (cf. Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg) I smiled and said "Thank you" and kept walking.

I've been working in a neighborhood a stone's throw to the west of my own, except that the way these subdivisions are built, there is no road connecting them. So I have to drive east out my feeder road to the main thoroughfare, north a considerable way, and then southwest an even longer way on the other feeder road to my assigned area. Making the trip over 10 times as long. I'm not complaining-- because I get paid for mileage.

Today I canvassed an unusual cul-de-sac. The road formed a ring around a copse of trees in the center. It turned out to contain a small family cemetery from the 19th century. That explains why the road had been built around it like that. Not all of the gravestones were legible, but on one of them, belonging to Lucy Higgs (1842-1917) I read:

Dearest sister, thou hast left us
We thy loss most deeply feel
But 'tis God who has bereft us
He can all our sorrows heal.

Good thing I knocked off of work early today (I can set my own hours): although the weather was beautiful around midday, about a quarter past 5 there was a sudden hailstorm, making a huge racket on the roof and windows. When it stopped A. rushed outside to collect hailstones before they melted, in the belief that they have healing powers.

Romka', as they do every year at this event, performed their unquiet unique innovative postmodern punk/Goth way of taking belly dance to a whole other level. This year they started going into the audience and pulling people onto the dance floor to try and match their hip undulations and bosom shimmies. Soon it became a free for all rushing to the dance floor.

I waited for one of the Romka' women to pull me up from my chair... as I hit the dance floor I busted some very basic Belly Dance 101 moves. Her expression showed astonishment as she exclaimed "Oh my, you dance so well!" Well, she was being generous. But with the encouragement I managed to match her shimmy for shimmy. She used easy techniques for me to follow along with, not her advanced level of creative synchronized choreography.

Could it really be so surprising they would find belly dancers at this event they've gotten to know so well? There were dozens of fellow amateur belly dancers undulating in our midst. I didn't find out that irenejericho was across the room from Diana and me until later. Each of us was surprised to see the other there. Or I would have totally reprised the belly dance class we took together a few years ago. I bet Irene remembers she and I were the only two good students there.

First
             I noticed her eyes.

Then
             I noticed her badge.