I found this email I had sent back in 2002…more fun stories of the parasitic nature of developing humans!

“My friend Gloria just told me a good story about knee surgery. Her friend had to have knee surgery when she was seven, because apparently, she had a twin sister in the womb that didn’t survive, and the twin’s tissue attached to the girl’s knee, and stayed there until she was seven when her mom noticed her limping around the house. The doctors initially thought is was some sort of calcium deposit, but it turned out it was a growth from her twin that needed to be removed!”

I knew there was one true Christian out there that wouldn’t let me get away with such blatant blasphemy! I also know that in mentioning something to me, it means you care :) and that you are serious in your convictions.

I will definitely add that book to my list of reads…haven’t read it yet. Thanks for the suggestion! But please don’t let my soul be your burden…

Romans:”For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”

“I am the way, the truth, & the life.”

So if God is self-evident, and God is truth, then truth is self-evident (if you are willing to be open to the truth).

Since I left the church early in college, I dedicated my life to the open pursuit of true knowledge. I tossed aside my filter of biblical absolutes, and in its place I set a screen of MY logic and experiences. I took in all viewpoints like a child, and passed them through my filter only. In this way, I believe I have made myself the most open I can be to “self-evident” truth.

As a bonus, I am able to process more information, which has landed me nuggets of truth that otherwise wouldn’t have made it past the “absolutes” filter.

If I truly belong with the God of your conviction, then that same self-evident truth will lead me back to Him, so the burden is not on one small speck of creation (Paul), but on all that “has been made”!

I am a moth to the flame of truth. I am open, however, I also believe that the truth has set me free.

P.S. It was such a bummer not to see you…hope you’ll come back to SF soon!

Sun Worshipping, originally uploaded by Chrissy Mc.

I was thrilled to wake up this morning after a week of dreary drizzle and rain to see beautiful blue skies & clouds! My first thought was to set up the lounge chair on the porch and soak in some sun. It felt amazing! It reminded me of a George Carlin comedy routine from “You Are All Diseased”:

“I decided to look around for something else to worship…something I could really count on…and immediately, I thought of the sun. Happened like that *snap*, overnight, I became a sun worshipper. Well, not overnight, you can’t see the sun at night, but first thing the next morning, I became a sun worshipper. Several reasons: First of all, I can see the sun, okay, unlike some other gods I could mention, I can actually see the sun. I’m big on that–if I can see something, I don’t know…kind of helps the credibility along, you know?

So everyday I can see the sun as it gives me everything I need: Heat, light, food, flowers in the park, reflections on the lake, an occasional skin cancer, but hey, at least there are no crucifictions and we’re not setting people on fire simply because they don’t agree with us. Sun worship is fairly simple. There’s no mystery, no miracles, no pagentry, no one asks for money, there are no songs to learn, and we don’t have a special building where we all gather once a week to compare clothing.

And the best thing about the sun, it never tells me I’m unworthy. Doesn’t tell me I’m a bad person that needs to be saved. Hasn’t said an unkind word…treats me fine. So I worship the sun. But, I don’t pray to the sun, know why? I wouldn’t presume on our friendship.”

This may be my most controversial post to-date. I signed a contract this week to become an egg donor (or ovum donor, in technical terms). Basically, a couple is going to pay over $30,000 to a clinic to try to get pregnant using my egg(s). I get a nice chunk of that for my efforts, about $6500. I found the clinic while looking for part-time work on Craigslist last December. I did my due diligence, and decided the small risks were worth the payout, and I couldn’t come up with an ethical justification for why I shouldn’t do it. I figure, I have over 200,000 eggs in my body, they want to take 10 or 15 and try to make a decent human being, why not?

I learned that couples wanting to use a donor are typically 40-somethings that worked through their prime years and waited until it was too late to conceive a child naturally. Around age 37, fertility takes a nose dive–your eggs are no good anymore.

So for some woman who really wants to go through the birthing process, bonding, etc., she can sometimes conceive using younger, fresher eggs. I guess my main concern in the situation would be the theory (my half-baked theory) that I would probably be the best person, evolutionarily speaking, to care for my own offspring. I suppose in some cases, mothers are unfit to be parents, but I would think that my milk, my touch, etc. would be optimum for raising my own genetic offspring.That’s the only real hangup I have, but it may not even be the case…those qualities are probably immeasurable, so it will forever be a theory of mine.

Now, I’ve thought about the 2 possible worst case scenarios: (1) In 18 years, the child will come knocking down my door having hated his/her life, wishing they were never born, and blaming all their trouble on me and my $6500 decision; (2) The child is raised to embody the opposite of all my values, AND that person will possess my intelligence (which is passed on the mother’s side, from what I’ve heard). In 20-30 years, we will be competing for some ideal (good/evil), a public office, business post, etc., and that person will become my mortal nemesis! Nobody wants a nemesis.

But happily, neither scenario seems likely, so I proceed.

There are some other ethical questions, such as, would you still do it if there was no money involved? I liked the answer one woman gave, that if it was for a family member or friend, they would do it for free, but for a stranger compensation is required. I don’t feel an obligation to provide my eggs for free at any time to anyone who wants to be fruitful and multiply. Many, if not most countries in the world have banned payments to egg donors, to prevent poor college students, or opportunistic young women on the margin, such as myself, from selling precious body parts for money. (I just hope they don’t take ALL the best eggs–leave me some winners!)

Other people have concerns for the multiple embryos that will be produced. That is a whole ‘nother issue. They will freeze the ones they don’t use in the first round. After that, they are free to use them again, donate them to another couple or to scientific research. It does feel strange donating potential humans to research. Then again, there wouldn’t have been any potential humans had there not been scientific intervention in the first place, so there’s your Catch-22.

In general, the old desperate mother’s discipline threat kind of holds true: “I brought you into this world, and I can take you out of it!” Of course, this opens another can of worms about women that kill their children after they are born, whether it is the desperate teenager suffocating the baby she gave birth to secretly in a bathroom stall at the prom, or whether it’s the religious schizopherenic wacko that drowns her children in the bathtub in order to “save” them.

The whole issue of right-to-life is one of the most devisive issues in our country, in our time. Religious proponents & anti-abortion activists are convinced that once the sperm meets the egg, then “bam,” life starts and that that human’s rights are as full as any living, breathing person outside the womb. Therefore, no one, not a mother, not an abortion doctor, has a right to choose to end that life…all reasonable attempts must be made to protect & further the budding human.

Obviously, in order to have a civil society, we must have respect for the rights of others (Golden rule–you wouldn’t want someone to kill/interfere with you, so therefore, you can’t kill/interfere with others).

However, I don’t feel it is as dreadful to kill a developing fetus as it is a person outside the womb. Yes, a fetus feels pain. Yes, a fetus is a person in a specific stage of development. But a fetus hasn’t touched as many other people’s lives yet, so the loss to the human species is less, AT THIS POINT IN TIME, if you kill a fetus versus an adult human. I say at this point in time, because if you took the effect on the universe for all of time, it would be impossible to speculate on. The fetus could grow up to spread peace or cure cancer, or be a bigot or a terrorist, so it could have a wonderful effect on the planet or a devastating one.

And, I might posture for the sake of argument, it is not as dreadful for a mother to kill her own offspring as it is to kill another mother’s offspring. This one is harder to defend, as the child is now valuable to many people other than its mother, but somehow, it feels like it is not as dreadful. Its the same concept as the woman who gets an abortion, versus the jerk that pushes a woman down the stairs, killing the baby she was looking forward to caring for. They are not the same crime from the standpoint of how valuable the baby was from the mother’s perspective. Where the activists would disagree is that the baby is valuable from a broader, human race perspective…that the baby is valuable because it exists.

I think there will come a point in our country, where it already has in some countries, when resources become very scarce, and we will have to make these life & death decisions for the good of the community rather than the individual. If I know there is one pile of food and it feeds X amount of people, and Jim & Jane want to have another baby but that will mean that one of us doesn’t get food, there will be problems. Right to life gets interesting in extreme situations.

Some countries have banned more than one or two children per couple, for example. I personally don’t think I’d have a problem with this if birth control were involved, and if I understood the necessity for the community, but it’s hard to say unless you’ve been in that situation and have had to kill a child that was over quota. Yikes.

Which brings me to the final point I will make tonight. Some people think there are enough children in this world that need good families, so why make your own children? Isn’t that inefficient? Wasteful? Not thinking about the big picture? Furthermore, why go to the trouble of buying eggs to make your own children when there are plenty down the street in the orphanage that need good parents? Foolish pride of accomplishment, I suppose, or simply wanting to take place in the evolutionary ebb & flow of generations that brought you into existence. I’ve said in one of my poems that having a child is the only thing I know I’m destined to do. My most primal drives make me think I want babies. It’s the only obvious thing I was put on this planet for. Everything else is just a guess–the engineering, the writing, the massaging, whatever else I pursue–just a guess.

Late Saturday night, as I was waiting for the bus back to Treasure Island, a young tagger sat down next to me and introduced himself as Ben. He pointed out some sloppy graffitti on a nearby wall, and I agreed it was ugly. He pointed to 3 other walls and showed me his work, explaining that he recognized some nearby artwork from his network of taggers from all over the country. I didn’t realize some taggers were a nomadic sort, that left their marks in different cities. As we were talking, he left his mark on the curb next to us in yellow paint. He added extra to this mark, the name Chris with an arrow pointing to me! (picture). He talked about tagging like it was a noble cause…making marks on the walls that people build to protect their money, like fortune is something that should be shared and not hoarded.

I was watching an episode of COPS the other day where they arrested this preppy kid for graffitti. They asked him, how would you feel if someome came and wrote all over your parents’ house like this? He didn’t really have a good answer.

There was an aire of freeloading about the tagger I met. He admitted that he and the taggers he knows are like gypsies and thieves. He was wondering if he could find an abandoned building on the island with grid electricity so he could grow pot in it. Drugs are an easy way to make money, if you have nothing to lose by getting caught.

I have to admit that I think some graffitti is beautiful & artistic, but I disagree with the communist undertones, and with the idea that no one should own property. There must be a happy medium. I know of a European country where you may own property, but everyone can enjoy it. For instance, you could go have a picnic in a farmer’s field and it wouldn’t be considered trespassing. That takes a certain amount of trust, but that may just be what this country needs.

Living in a city like San Francisco can give you a false sense of security and order on the planet. The neat, symmetrical buildings with their clean, wide sidewalks are somehow making me nervous tonight, like something so humanly perfect is bound to come crashing down…Some kind of entropic feeling I’m having, I guess, like this much order can’t exist for long in the universe.

Maybe I’m just feeling weird in the aftermath of my intense experience today, giving Reiki to a woman. I had all intentions of giving a chair massage, but her symptoms indicated an energy imbalance, so with her permission I attempted Reiki instead of continuing with the chair massage. What we experienced was nothing short of awesome. My breathing and heart rate slowed, as I went into a sort of trance, and the energy pulsed between my hands as I attempted to balance her energy. It took about 10 minutes, but her energy finally calmed down in the back-of-throat region. We experienced a sort of oneness in that powerful exchange that compelled a hug afterward, as we both looked at each other in amazement. I was on a high for a while after that, although I felt somewhat drained of energy, like a river had been flowing through me, had cut a channel, and had suddenly dried up, leaving an empty channel. But I soon restored the energy by stretching and coming back into awareness of my body.

I found it difficult to keep my humility for the rest of the day, because I knew I had accomplished something very powerful. I had been the biggest skeptic of Reiki healing, but after today I am a believer. I affected someone else’s energetic makeup by the laying on of hands. Cool.

I dyed my hair yesterday. It is slightly lighter. I’ve noticed that I get depressed whenever my hair completely grows out to its ‘natural’ color. My theory is that I’m not getting enough sunshine, so my hair doesn’t naturally highlight. Somewhere in me is probably a little voice telling me I look sickly and should get some sun. Not knowing when I’ll have the luxury of lounging in the sun, I’ll resolve to get some sun soon, and dye my hair lighter in the meantime. I feel much better today!

Today’s experiment was driving 70 mph, exactly the speed limit, on I-5. The reason I call it an experiment is the fact that I’ve never tried it before (and I suspect no one else has either!).

I estimate I’ve made the 8 hour round trip between Bako and San Fran at least 25 times. The average speed of passenger vehicles seems to be about 79 mph. When you go 79, you get passed by about the same number of cars that you personally pass. Most cars go either 75 or 85, and just a few are under 70 or over 90. That’s why I refer to 79 mph as the common law speed limit of I-5. You generally won’t get pulled over by CHP unless you go over 80.

The semis tend to stay between 60 and 70, which is a pain when the turtle semi tries to pass the snail semi on the hilly sections.

Anyway, today I decided that I didn’t really need the extra 9 mph (roughly 36 minutes) and instead the Prius and I would show others that it’s okay not to speed on I-5 while physically supporting Bush’s plan to reduce gasoline consumption (without having to use ethanol or drilling ‘environmentally consciously’ in rare pristine environments).

And it feels good. It never felt too fast, and it’s nice not to constantly be on the lookout for cops. I found that I don’t have to brake as often, which actually made me a slightly less observant driver. I had to remind myself to concentrate on driving.

Overall, I enjoyed going the speed limit and I’ll probably do it again.

Well, it’s 10pm and I’m in my pajamas–from last night! I basically spent the whole day organizing data on my computer, and rearranging my room/office. Things have been busy since opening my massage business, hence no posting lately. I’ve had 11 satisfied customers so far (out of 11!), and hopefully it will keep growing. I’m enjoying my day job as well – I get to help someone else organize data so that makes me happy.

I had my estate sale last weekend in Bakersfield, and it went perfectly, as planned. I made around $3,000.00 for all my worldly possessions, which is the amount that I’ve calculated to be just over my bare montly minimum for keeping my current lifestyle. In other words, the sale bought me one more month of comfort. I was proud of my advertising skills (signs posted at intersections):

I’ve had a few things on my mind to post about, just haven’t made the time. For one, I’ve been thinking about what “family” means. My new job is in a neighborhood of San Francisco known for lesbian couples pushing their babies down the sidewalk in a stroller together. They are not quite that ubiquitous, but I may have spotted one the other day. Also, when I was back for my estate sale, I learned that my former neighbor was hosting a 10-year-old child from Korea. Apparently, her family is so concerned about her education that they paid an American family to take their child for a year so she could learn our culture. My neighbor questioned their judgement, saying that he could never give up one of his kids for a year – that’s a year you would never get back with them. But what is best for the child? It’s an interesting question, but one that I don’t have the energy to address tonight.

Road to Bakersfield, originally uploaded by Chrissy Mc.

I snapped this picture from my dashboard on the way to my house in Bakersfield tonight around 930pm. I like how you can make out the moon and the tailights up ahead, and see the lines on the road. It captured my mood pretty well.