Coachella this weekend was amazing (pics here!). I came to Bakersfield Thursday for my good buddy Wes’ going-away party, and remembered the Coachella Arts & Music festival was the next 3 days down in the desert east of LA. I was lucky to buy good tickets on Friday at face value from a stranger off Craigslist and had a free hotel stay from my Marriott rewards card. After 7 hours of driving from Bakersfield to Indio, CA (normally a 3-hour trip), I made it safe & almost sound.

There were so many highlights, from delightful new sounds, to people-watching, to art exhibits, but for now I’ll just touch on the last headliner (as my posts have been rather religion/politically-oriented as of late). Rage Against the Machine put on a great, flawless performance, and very political/revolutional, as expected. I liked the meat of his message, which was that Americans philosophically do not want to be the country that invades other countries preemptively, then profits from the country’s reconstruction. He said that this has been our path for generations, and that every American generation has to fight to keep such urges from proliferating.

I personally am thinking that Bush has 70%+ of this country worried because his actions smack of a fledgling moral imperialistic power in the world, which was NOT the value America was founded on (never mind the regretable treatment of America’s natives, and other such invasions since then (Mexico, etc.)!). He defends his stance on abortion and gay rights based on what God says is right (which in itself is very open to interpretation), which is quite impossible to argue against (because absolutes deny any intrusions of logic or contradictions). The problem is, if you give on the issues of gay rights & abortion, you open the door to all sorts of policies based on what “God” says is right. Of course, the justifications given are never overtly “God said it was so,” but when you get to the heart of the issue that is usually where one ends up.

But enough of the heavy stuff for tonight…

I’m also thinking about talents lately. When you go to a festival like this, you realize these people have all spent a long time developing one specific talent, whether it is DJ-ing, singing, walking on stilts, making art, etc. It makes me wonder what my talent is….What it is that I am contributing to the world. Is it enough to do many things well, or is it better to specialize in your highest talent? And how do you know what your highest talent is? I spent 5 years training to be a hammer thrower, more years training to sing, some time training to play piano, flute, saxophone, many years journaling & writing, constantly decorating & re-organizing things, playing basketball, softball, volleyball, studying the Bible, volunteering & helping others, learning basic massage, studying chemical engineering, etc. I could go on and on about the different trades I’ve dabbled in, but Master of None is still my label. And I’m trying to be satisfied with that.

PS: Apparently it is difficult to see a 3-inch dropoff in the asphalt when it’s pitch black..probably shouldn’t be moving big bodies with weak ligaments at high rates of speed under those conditions. Note to self. (sprained my ankle pretty good jogging away from the concert at Cochella, and skinned up my left hand (which I’m going to Urgent care to get checked out tomorrow a.m. Better safe than sorry. I’ll spare you the picture on this one too)

A hotel ironing board substitutes well for crutches. Just put the flat side against you and grab onto the center rail!

It’s been too long and I’ve been too insanely busy to write, much less reflect on my life as of recent. My birthday was Monday the 16th (see my new time counter on the Profile page), and my parents “surprised” me by coming to town the day before (more like half-surprised, as mom is not too good at keeping secrets, although I didn’t know the exact date they were coming).

I’ve been terribly busy with my day job event planning for the big Forum next week and juggling massage clients & training a new therapist to work with me.

Oh yeah, and my estrogen levels are the highest they have ever been…3100 as of last count. Today was the big day, I took my last injection of hormones to prepare my precious eggs for retrieval 36 hours later, to be used by who-knows-who, who-knows-when. Somehow I’m very happy about the prospect of my genes being carried on in the world, even if I don’t get to oversee them.

My roommate keeps holding to his view that reproduction is just vanity at its finest, that with the scarcity of resources, & number of unwanted children needing able parents, why reproduce at all? Of course, it should be noted that my roommate is homosexual and therefore this worldview suits him perfectly. Always something to chew on here in San Francisco.

I’ve also been wanting to share this picture I took of the stock room at Jack in the Box near my day-job. I had just been wondering to myself whether Jack in the Box had jumped on the no-more-trans-fats wagon, when I rounded the curve toward the drive-thru window and got a peep of towers and towers of boxes labeled “All Vegetable Frying Shortening.” Jury is still out.

Well, it seems my last “deleting rarely-used files” spree ended in me not being able to upload pictures from my camera at the moment, so the picture of those boxes will have to wait. Also missing are the pictures from the Lily Allen concert I attended with my roommate as his birthday present. Hopefully they will be coming soon…

Watched Jesus Camp on Easter, which is a documentary about an Evangelical children’s camp in North Dakota-something I could really relate to! A few of the comments made by the pastors really stood out, and reminded me of why I parted from their radical beliefs (quoted are my paraphrases):

‘Our message is what draws children-that somebody loves them, that they have a purpose in life and were created to be special, while the secular world is telling them they are just like the animals and don’t have a profound purpose.’

43 percent of Evangelicals accepted Jesus by age 13

‘Democracy is the best system man has made on this earth, but God’s plan is supreme. The problem with democracy is that everyone has equal freedom.’

The thing that scares me about Evangelicals is the fundamental belief that the ultimate goal is a Christian world where everyone worships the one true God. There can be no separation of church and state with that belief, hence Evangelical Christianity is at odds with the core belief our fragile nation was founded upon. Right-wing Christian politicians know that it is fashionable right now to tell the voters that they can’t separate their religious beliefs from their political decisions. Just the other day the Arkansas governor running for presidential nomination said just that. On one side, I admired his honesty, but on the other side, it worried me because I know it means that this person is committed to changing this country into a church-state where the bible, at least the new testament, reigns supreme. And anyone with an offbeat sexual orientation or desire to limit the human ‘right’ or should I say ‘duty’ to reproduce will be silenced and trampled on by the hordes of brainwashed Fundamentalists who are drawn like a child to the promise of being more special than they really are. Religion is vanity. And pride cometh before a you-know-what.

I heard a man on NPR yesterday make a remark I liked. He was on his third marriage, and when asked if this was it, he was very positive this would be his final marriage, saying, ‘I finally learned how to be a decent human being.’

I think that sums up the challenge of marriage pretty well. Marriage puts your whole character to the test, and sometimes we give into easy indecency with our partners–treating them rudely, not trusting, not being kind & respectful.

Test: So when you feel troubled by your relationship, concentrate on being a good, decent person first & foremost and see how far that takes you!