February 15, 2003
this is what i saw.

this is the picture that cnn has right now on their front page with headlines about the rallies today:

no, it isn't a pleasant image. the visitors to cnn get to see that and be lead to think that we were unpatriotic and violent.

this is a snippet of what i, and i'm sure millions of others, saw today:

eugenians gathering in mass for peace.

congressman peter defazio, member of the new homeland security committee, assuring us that there are elected officials with reason.

a peaceful couple.

the group leading us all in song.

a peaceful kid, and to the left side you'll see a mother holding her child.

this woman, i watched her sing, cheer and be brought to tears by the words of the speakers.

and at the end- all of us strangers and friends holding hands, creating a circle around the federal building, joining our voices and spirits in for peace.

Posted by brooke at 11.16.46 PM

have you watched the news???

TURN ON YOUR NEWS! we are all over the world!!! i just got home from the peace rally a few minutes ago. 4,000 people at our rally! i took lots of pictures, i'm *so* psyched. i've got goose bumps! i'll be putting together an album of today tonight for me, my family, and y'all of course.

Posted by brooke at 06.20.57 PM

bomb dream.

i dreamt last night / this morning that i was participating in a 2 day peace rally . we were bombed by the north koreans. activist people that i know were killed. a friend of mine was killed. world war III had started and bush didn't care that it was the north koreans. the bombs were targeting the peace demonstrations. i was scared, went back the second day but was glad to go home to whiteaker, hoping that they weren't bombing my neighborhood.

my dream was too real. i can't even imagine how the iraqi people must feel right now. i only hope that bush hears our voices today.

Posted by brooke at 08.43.57 AM

ready for the rally.

colin powell: force should always be a last resort but it should be a resort to have. (that is a paraphrase)

brooke: force should never be a resort, our brains are evolved enough to come up with non forceful means to settle our differences.

brooke thought: oh yeah. the world is run by men, the kind who have no idea that their brains are actually at the end of their penisis. the end of a penis is small so of course they can't come with ways to solve these problems without violence.

i'm ready for the rally tommorrow. i'll be with the women in black contingent. i've actually found my black pants and black loafers. i got a black peasant type shirt the other day to take to greece which is big enough to go over another shirt, cause its likely to be raining. but all this means i'm not gonna make a new sign. i'm going to be marching to the rally with a group of concerned west side neighbors who are leaving from the fairgrounds. the students at the u of ore. are also marching but since i'm a west side resident and not a student anymore (even though everyone thinks i am cause i look so young) i'm gonna do that. plus the parking is *way* easier.

our house of rep. dude peter defazio will be there. he voted for unlimited war powers against afghanistan but now he's against this war. i'm rather pissed at him for voting the way he did about afghanistan. i think before he starts talking about peace and all that he should apologize for voting to kill. maybe this is supposed to make up for it, but it doesn't. he needs to apologize.

btw. brooke, over at the bitter shack of resentment, has co-written a book that is due out in may. its called "Brave Hearts, Rebel Spirits:
A Spiritual Activist's Handbook".. from the synopsis over at powells:

Brave Hearts, Rebel Spirits is both a celebration of the people who have chosen a heart-centered path of service and social action and a practical guidebook for others to follow in their footsteps or carve out their own road to social action. Strikingly designed pages present the lives and words of Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Thich Nhat Hang, Ceasar Chavez, Aung San Suu Kyi, and many others who have transformed their deep personal faiths into non-violent action for change. Alongside their stories is practical information about the kind of projects and programs that individuals can get involved with to make a difference today.Anita Roddick begins the book with an urgent plea for everyone to get involved, followed by inspiring, short profiles of peace crusaders of our time from around the world.

you can read more of the synopsis and while you are there you can preorder it (i myself am hoping mother kali's will carry it and if they don't i'll order it through them).

now its after midnight and i should think about going to sleep. with the aid of sominex.

Posted by brooke at 12.31.48 AM

February 14, 2003
fun with skins

check out my new winamp skin DANIA, and DAD :) and LISA, see the title of the song :)

Posted by brooke at 07.46.05 PM

hahahahahahaa

did y'all know that there is another another occasionally depressed bibliophile lesbian named Brooke? i knew she was radical, but i didn't know the other stuff.

and in visiting today i just noticed she's got a link to daemon records. how many of y'all know about them? *eyebrow lift*

Posted by brooke at 04.08.22 PM

i'm nuts!

oh goodness, i just read the post before this, at 2am in the morning, i can be totally whacked.. managed to get 7 hours of sleep. woke to an email from sappho travel about the flight to mytilini. they are going to do it, and then send my ticket to me. i talked to mom about the weak dollar and exchangin money to the euro now incase we're bombing iraq when i leave, cause that'll send the exchange rate way down. it'll give me a chance to head to portland cause i've been told you can do it at the portland airport for a lot cheaper than at a bank here. hopefully i'll work it out so i can do lunch with my friend c.

i should go into town and deal with money stuff, but i really don't want too. i think i might just wanna hang here with the cats and clean. and then head to the y.

oh shit, i just remembered! i've also got to deal with this local women in black flyer that i can't get to work, she's sent it to 2 different emails, and nada. i've also got to track down my black pants. and then wash everything so i can go and obviously be a part of the women in black contingent. and then make a brand new poster for the rally tommorrow, i'm thinking a black with white writing poster. problem is, it might rain tommorrow, so i'll have to duck tape it (clear) to protect it.

yeah. we are having a peace rally here in eugene, they are happening all over. there is also a march that starts from the student union at the u of ore. to the rally. i think i'll head there too.

all of a sudden i'm realizing i've got a lot to do. maybe less cleaning and just more focusing on getting ready for the rally and working out. try to stop the shakes.

i've not yet checked the news yet for the morning. not sure i want too.

and on that note, manic-brooke needs to go make some rice.

Posted by brooke at 11.45.53 AM

trip panic is kicking in.

i've almost been up for 24 hours. though my brain wouldn't think so. i think i'm gonna cut off my xanax and switch to good ol' sominex for sleep. i think i've found 2 possible hotels in athens. on the boarder of the plaka, in the syndagma. the acropolis borders the plaka. it also appears that there is a 24 hour bus to the airport which is good cause i depart early in the morning. i've also managed to locate the streets on which my guide book says there are international bookstores. a bit far away, but i guess that will be the excitement of the busses? i've contacted one of the hostels hoping they'll get back to me. its the one i want to stay in.. its right across the street from jewish museum. i really want to go there, along with the acropolis, hadrian's arch, and i think socrates's cell is near by that same area. its gonna be trippy going from lesvos to athens.

i'm hoping to have my plane reservation for a flight into mytilini from athens made tommorrow, and then work on getting the reservation to go into turkey by the middle of next week.

i went through my clothes. i'll be taking little. 2 skirts and leggings, a pair of shorts, 2 long sleeve shirts, my favorite sweater, hat and scarf, raincoat, 2 t's and my nightgown and my favorite jeans. no overalls, too bulky. everything is es going to be easily compactable. toiletrees, my tevas and my boston birkies. a few pairs of socks. guidebooks, my cd player and cds, batteries, a journal and some books. plus probably an extra bag for souviners.

i'm going to take the overnight ferry from mytilini to athens, that way i dont have to pay for a hotel and i can arrive in athens in the morning.

with the help of the wonderful women at aappho travel (see link over there -->) this is coming together. i'm not going to hit molyvos on lesvos. but i'm hoping to go to thermi, a non tourist town with thermal spas that artemis is rumoured to have used. that will be my sacred site.

okay, its 1.30am. i've been up for 23 hours now. the cats are asleep, the boys even together. i've taken 2.5 xanax. tommorrow its sominiex. maybe that will help.

on that note i've got money panic to deal with for the next 2 weeks, but i guess it'll be okay. i just transferred extra money into my savings account. but bcbs owes me around 300.00, 200.00 of which will go to dr. c to pay off my 300.00 annual deductible.

and if i get my ass in gear, tommorrow i'll go to social security to apply for medicaid. and then get on the long waiting list for section 8 housing cause by the time my name comes up i'll be poor. so much to do.

dammit, i wish dr c. couldh have given me something for these shakes. i need sleep. crisis pain and this trip. thats whats causing the rapid cycling. pure excitment and then ickola. and i've got other stuff going on that i can't talk about. i don't think thats helping my mood at all. i guess i'll be back at the gym tommorrow on the rowing machine and the the stairs, and maybe some weight. i should go for a swim too. maybe all that will calm me down. i hate this.

got two very understanding comments to 3am.. so nice to know i'm not alone.

oh and btw, did you hear that those fucks in dc are not ruling out the possibility of nukes on iraq.. and they say iraq has weapons of mas destruction, i seriously doubt they compare to ours.

in sticking with my penis theory, that bush's penis is too small and he needs to do this, i'm starting to conclude he's got serious problems with his penis and that it night actually be rotting off. why else would he be this stupid to ignore the UN and NATO? stuipd fuck. my dr. said she think that bush is an addict. if i'd not been so manic when i saw her i would have gotten her to expand on that. but she did point out that he had a problem with alcohol and drugs in college and somehow this ties into now, and i know it dies, but like i said i didn't get the full story. next week. i personally like my penis rotting off theory. his, rumsfeld's, and powells. and condolezza must have recently had her clitoris removed, or something along that lines. cause she's bought hook line and sinker into this without seeing any possible ramiifications (re: ductaping your windows, buying emergency supplies, oh wait those are happening).. i don't understand it., i think we need to pump some kind of estrogen that can be sucked in by breath into their meeting rooms. maybe that will stop all this shit. fuck, ol' madeline albright has got way more female sense than coni rice. i think condi is just there as a tropy.

okay, i should go to sleep now.

night all.

Posted by brooke at 01.56.41 AM

February 13, 2003
working on my trip plans.

rayo and i are going to the hotsprings at 6.30am. so i decided to stay up and start working on an itinerary for my trip.

i've decided to fly into mytilini from athens. 1 hour vs 12 hours by ferry. i'm going to take the ferry back though. i've also decided that if its possible to do a day trip to turkey in the low season i am going to do that. i'm in the process of making reservations to spend a night at the andreas apartments. in mytilini (the port town of the island) i will hopefully stay at the sappho hotel. i'm debating about whether to try to make it back to athens for 3 or 4 days there. its such a big city. but there are really only 2 places i want to go: the acropolis and an international bookstore i've been reading about, other than that its just about walking around and taking the city in. spending more time on lesvos seems to be the thing to do.

Posted by brooke at 05.23.14 AM

3am

3am in the morning. i am awake. but i fell asleep at 6.30pm so 8 hours is better than yesterday and better than what i expected.

i've hit crisis mode again. we have our suspcions why, but those don't do anything, all we know is that brooke is in crisis. i told my therapist it was about time, i've not been through one like this in a few months.

its the kind of pain that only people who have been there get. its the type of pain that makes me feel every second and that every second feels like a minute and every minute an hour. its the type of pain that i need to run from but i can't because its in my own head and the type of pain killers i take don't work instantly they take weeks to kick in.

so many people say they get it because they've suffered the blues. and these days depression, in a good effort to make it more accepted, is being treated by the masses in a way that all they see is that you take a pill and its okay. they advertise the drugs like they advertise drugs for hair loss, viagra, and allergies. in an effort to lift the stigma they have relegated it to something like the flu. and its not. and it remains a stigma and insurance companies aren't required by law to provide equal benefits in treatment. and state governments when they have to make cuts those of us with mental illness disabilities get our meds and our treatments cut because we're not considered full class citizens, our illnesses don't count and the result is we die because of it. no, this is not the flu.

and i am in crisis. and very few people understand. the only way to make people understand is to bring up the analagy of cancer. my illness goes into remission at times and i am less fearful of my own death, but then it comes out of remission and my life is as threatned as anyone who's cancer has come out of remission. and then we throw new drugs at it and wait to see if this time the tumor will shrink, disappear. it is a waiting game. only difference is there are no tests besides my own judgement about whether the drugs are actually working. the science of tracking this tumor doesn't exist in anything except words.

and i wait. each agonizing moment of every day i wait. and i wonder over and over what it is that i am doing wrong, being told that i have to be proactive- i have to exercise, eat better, get up, get out of my apartment- and when i can't, when its nearly impossible to get out of bed just to go to the bathroom i feel the weight of the blame on my shoulders. aind my pain only increases, because it is a sign that i am a failure. that if i were a better person this illness wouldn't have the grip on me that it did. that if i were a better person i wouldn't be here over and over and over.

and so now its me and my pain. and there's nothing anyone can do to make it go away. its not about how much i am loved or apprecciated or anything external it is about a pain inside and so great that my life becomes its prisoner.

Posted by brooke at 03.27.53 AM

February 12, 2003
peace songs so far

i'm up late. shouldn't listen to spearhead when i wanna go to sleep. he rocks!

my anti-war / peace songs that i have copies of (mp3 and wmf) so far:
blowin' in the wind: sung by joan baez
dear mr. president: alix olson
for what its worth: buffalo springfield
peace train: cat stevens
peace, love & understanding: sung by elivs costello and nick lowe
all over the world: sung by arlo guthrie, holly near, ronnie gilbert, & pete seeger
waltzing mathilda: sung by joan baez
last night i had the strangest dream: simon & garfunkel
bomb the world: spearhead
jerusalem: steve earle
imagine: john lennon
happy x-mas (war is over): john lennon
the great peace march: holly near

i've got more songs to download, more lists to look through and i need to pour through my own cd's cause i've got some more peace loving songs i just can't remember who. i'm hoping to be able to convert the .wmf files to .mp3 but i don't have a program to do that right now. and i'm considering offering to make copies of it if folks are interested.

Posted by brooke at 12.57.24 AM

February 11, 2003
this is how much we care.

so, this administration spends billions upon billions of dollars on killing innocent people. and then they say we need to save money so bush proposes erasing renting cap for federal housing assistance.

you tell me now if we are doing the right thing.

Posted by brooke at 05.26.18 PM

i don't normally care.

the oscar nominations came out this morning. i normally don't care. but i dig underdogs. nia vardalos was nominated for best original screen play for "my big fat greek wedding." i've seen her on numerous interviews, she continues to be sincere and amazed at all that is happening to her. plus she's got a gut, hips, and not a hollywood face. i hope she doesn't change any of that cause she's the kind of woman in entertainment we need to see getting the big press, the big awards, the noteriety. i hope she wins cause it'd be a big spit in the face of all those damn skinny, overly publisized, waaay freakin' neurotic, ungrateful people who get this star worship we in this country give.

Posted by brooke at 08.57.27 AM

February 10, 2003
happy birthday susie!

yep. today is my aunt susie's birhday. she's my dad's little sister. she is also my favorite aunt.

what kind of sappy things can i say about her? i remember getting a pottery wheel when i was a kid and her sitting downstairs in the basement of wild rose shores using it, i got tired but she stayed down there and played some more. she also helped me figure out how to use a programable car i had. i was the flower girl in her wedding, i was just a wee little thing, but i remember her taking me to where the wedding was going to happen and showing me what to do. her presence in my life has truly been a highlight of my growing up and my life as a kid and even now just wouldn't be right without my aunt susie.

happy birhday susie. love you.

(ps. any comments here for susie will be sent along 8-D)

Posted by brooke at 01.18.39 AM

lust.

she really is the most beautiful spoken word artist performing today, and she'll be in portland on 1 may. its a thursday but thats fine with me. fuck, i'm even tempted to follow her up to seattle the next day. i so lust after alix olson, i so lust after her.

Posted by brooke at 12.00.24 AM

February 09, 2003
in other news...

well, if any of you read faith's site, you'll see that our friendship has ended in a huge KABOOM. and my good name has been slandered all over the web. at least from faith's perspective. and her readers. and i brought it all on myself, i haven't painted a good picture of myself. i fess up, i didn't have to say anything. and people can choose whether to believe faith or not. that is out of my control.

*but* i don't care. i'm finally getting to say things to her that i've been wanting to say for a long time that people told me never to say to her because it might piss her off. i did that as to protect our friendship. but as pointed out to me by my mother and 3 friends "why would i be friends with someone if i hated them because they were jewish?" thus the crux of faith's stupidity.

and the friendship is over. its been a good one, but in the end, i myself simply can't be friends who blindly hates. i have my own issues about christianity and men, and i work every day to try to get over those. i am not perfect, and i am not blind to my imperfections. i have many. do i regret things i said yesterday and just a few minutes ago on faith's page? no. again, i'm imperfect, emotional, i can be a real bitch.

for the last few days i've wondered about whether i should continue to blog because of this. my feelings and all that i had tied up there, but as i've sat back and remembered conversations with people about my questioning of her hate its easy to let go.

my same friend randy who says i have too much faith in people also says that my standards for my friends are too high. i hold myself up to much higher standards. but as i move into a more healthy me and move in and out of friendships i am learning that the the things i do need friends to get: blind hate is not okay- any hate of any large group is not okay, my cats are very important in my life, working on becoming a better person is very important, respecting my belief that violence against other human beings is *not* okay-- these are all things that potential friends have to have. in order for me to be friends with someone though, the two biggies are blind hate and my cats. if they have blind hate towards any group- forget it, and if they can't understand the importance of my cats in my life-forget it.

we all learn life lessons. and they are tough ones. but i'm finding that i bounce back pretty damn well these days from little ones. and i hate to say this, but this is just a little one. one bump in the road that only solidifies the biggest lesson learned in childhood-- not one taught but just given in everyday life- it simply doesn't matter what color, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientatin, creed or any of that a person is. and the further lesson that we are all human and in the end we are all the same. goddess.. my parents might have fucked up in some areas, but in this one they got it just right.

and that is the end of that.

Posted by brooke at 01.32.46 PM