What causes earthquakes?

Tuesday, September 27 around 2:30 a.m. an earthquake rocked Sarajevo. Not "ROCKED" like death and destruction, but "rocked" as you would a baby that is already deeply asleep.

Entranced by my wild dreams, the bed shook, but surely the tremors were the result of my exquisite fantasy.

Imagine my shock when I discovered everyone knew about my earthquake. I felt strangely exposed. But no, there was a real, actual earthquake.

So now I know what causes earthquakes... and why there are so many in California :)

Does romance take 2?

Light evening rain
Street lamps light the Ferhadija

I pass the Catholic Church and I stop to take in the moment
...and 10 minutes turn to 20

Umbrella poised lazy on my shoulder
Pulling every second deep into memory

The clock strikes midnight

If you have no internet and no mobile phone are you still a person?

I am here in Sarajevo now and my lack of connectivity is just killing me. This has nothing to do with Bosnia, just random stupid events.

When my computer was repaired a month or two ago, the tech rep replaced my mother board with one that does not have a modem. 99% of the modern world would never notice, but I rely on dial-up out here to log on at home and do things like update my blog. So here I am at the office at 5:30pm on a Saturday.

On top of that, there was confusion about my mobile chip so I don't have a mobile phone. I can't write my friends to tell them I am here because where would they call. I can't read mail so I can't even reliably reply.

I tell you, this is the highest degree of roughing it I can take. It is almost sundown and I have no plans and no way to make plans - on a SATURDAY NIGHT no less. I have email addresses for friends, but then I can't go home. I'd have to stay at the office waiting for someone to write back. I'm not capable of that level of desperation. I can't call anyone because their phone numbers are in my phone which is in the hands of the person who screwed up the chip. It was her birthday yesterday and I forgot so I couldn't possibly proceed to whine about my phone problems.

The next time someone even brings up the idea of camping (other than camping out for tickets - the only "good" camping), I need to recognize that I would never be able to handle it for even 24 hours.

I have met the "other woman" and it has shaken my self confidence...why?

For those of you who don't know or can't figure out, I thrive on being the center of attention - specifically male attention. I'd rather be in a random photo shoot for Maxim than the front cover of Good Housekeeping (and I work hard everyday to make sure Good Housekeeping doesn't come calling).

So I have known for more than a year that there is another woman in my office who is often spoken of as being attractive and men bend over backwards to run into her and make conversation, etc. Of course I immediately cyber stalked her and found a picture...

Phew....what a relief, she's not all that. At least IMHO...

Then on Friday, I spoke with her at good length at a reception. Every minute I talked to her my heart sank lower and lower. First of all, she's Dr. Other Woman. I always knew that, but there are some amazingly stupid people that somehow manage to get PhD's. As she talked, it became more and more clear that she was not one of them. Nor is she boring, sadly (at least for me) I'd say her personality is not less than sparkling. Oh well, maybe she won't get tenure and I'll be off the hook in just 3 - 4 years...Damn, that's not going to happen, she's pretty freakin' great. At least there's just the two of us in a male dominated office. I guess I will just have to share. I wonder if people have the "Ginger/Marianne" debate about the two of us...

Saturday, more difficulties. A married friend's wife had her baby shower. (If you can follow this, the friend is best friends with the guy from Aug 5 & Aug 17). I know that my friend still thinks I'm hot because he kisses me on the mouth whenever he sees me and we have met up in groups with our female friends that he also knows well and the mouth kisses (and occasional pats on the backside) are just for me.

And then, one day I started to hear a name, a woman's name, creep into conversation more and more. He had just been transferred to a new office and "she" works there. And they talk and talk. His wife, whom I've become very friendly with asked me if I though if they were more than friends. I found myself getting really pissed and thinking, better f*cking not be!

So I get to the shower. I look around the room at all the yentas and realize that I don't know anyone. I am not typically invited to these things as all of my friends are guys. In this case, the party was being thrown by the mother of my friend. So then I see someone who I felt I could relate to because she looked as uncomfortable as I did.

Thank God! She was great. Smart, funny, we exchanged emails...decided to make plans for when I get back from Bosnia. Then she says, "I was having so much fun, I never properly introduced myself; Hi, I'm 'Other Woman'". It was all I could do not to pull my hand away like I was touching a hot stove. Now I've got plans with her. *sigh*

People have long supposed that the way I think is because I have a crappy relationship with my father and therefore I crave male attention. Maybe, but I also grew up in a society that prizes prowess with the opposite sex.

However, I do think that the fact that I never had a love relationship with my parents makes me hyper-insecure. I'm not needy. I'm not a constant flowers and candy chick, but go on a trip and bring nothing back for me and there will be hell to pay. Why? Because you went away and didn't think of me while you were there. Well, maybe you did, but how would I know? It's not about the gift; for me it's truly the thought that counts.

It's like the fact that I didn't get attention as a kid means that I have an irrational fear of somehow fading into the background.

It's wrong, but I miss it. Am I a bad person?

So I am getting ready to head back to my home away from home: Sarajevo, Bosnia i Herzegovina.

There are so many thoughts swirling around in my head that I cannot sleep at night. I have a pretty high pressure list of things to accomplish and the situation out there with the leadership of our project has never been more tense. The project is definitely at a turning point and everyone feels it. (For those of you who share my love of football, it's like we are down by 2pts and because of a broken play there is a jump ball in the end zone - it is equally important for each team that they be the one to come down with the ball)

...But in all this stress and confusion...there is one thought...one worry, that keeps surfacing over and over again...

There's a guy (you could just tell I was going here) that IMs me (tell me that wasn't a surprise) when I am in Sarajevo. He IMs me other times, but when I am in Sarajevo, it's different. It's everyday...and sometimes...it gets...dirty.

I loved it. It got to were I craved it...and then he told me what I kind of already sensed: he is uncomfortable with our "chats". So I said I would be good and not "lead him into temptation" figuring he was just going through a phase, but we went through the last week of my trip platonically.

Day 1

Denial (this isn't happening to me!)

I mean really, he won't stop, he can't stop...nothing to worry about. Men typically have the willpower of a crack addict when it comes to sex so I can easily wait this out

Day 3

Anger (why is this happening to me?)

Doesn't he know I'm out here suffering? This sucks! How long do I have to keep this up... "Yes, we are having nice weather, and you", "Wow, that sounds fun", aaaahhhh!

Day 5

Bargaining (I promise I'll be a better person if...)

What if we swear it won't lead to anything? We have always stopped when I get back stateside, why can't we just trust that we are in control?

Day 6

Depression (I don't care anymore)

You know, he is not someone that I would touch anyway. Not because he's married, but because he's the type where no matter how it happened, people would blame me. Who needs that wrap?

Day 7

Acceptance (I'm ready for whatever comes)

I knew I was heading back to the states and it would have ended anyway...and I always accepted that being stateside meant it's over.

Now, I'm wondering if it's really over.

All this work, all this pressure, and I am worried that I've lost my I.M. f**k buddy.

This guy has told me no, so it's I.M. rape if I start with him - but I want to...

It's not going to lead to anything - really! PROMISE!

Damn, I think I'm backsliding into "bargaining".

What will happen to America?

Now I'm asking the questions...

There doesn't seem to be a place for me here. I have felt this for a long time.

I am not white
I am not Christian
I am not rich
I am not conservative
I am not hung up sexually
I am not OK with our love of violence

I am not comfortable in a hypocritical society
...where we promise equal protection under the law - unless you are poor, gay, etc.
...where we say "government for the people", but it really is for the special few
...where we say "government by the people", but only those who will tow the party line

We criticized communist Russia because people had to to be in the "party" to get anything
We criticize the middle east for having religious based government
We accuse Mexico of not caring for its poor
We call the Caribbean nations "Banana Republics" because of their stupid and corrupt governments.

Yes, like everyone else I am reacting to Hurricane Katrina, but for me, it is not the event itself itself as much as it is the incarnation of what I have for a long time believed about the form of "democracy" that we have here. This is not a democracy in the way I learned in 5th grade. We have a form of government that I have never heard of before. It's an oligarchy where the selection criteria to be the ruling class is money. The masses pay taxes (the "ruling party" does not) but are not really given much for that; it makes me think of the use of humans in "The Matrix" - our life force, the work of our hands, powers the social elite.

I am not as radical as the people who say we get nothing, that's not true - I look around me and see roads, and military, and other social programs - but I also see that the bottom rung here is so low and the top rung is so high.

I really believe that it is true that you have to take personal responsibility, but why is it that most of the people who are saying this are people who have never had to take personal responsibility. They are proud of the fact that they have won the socioeconomic race, but most of them practically started at the finish line.

The thing that has shocked me to the core about New Orleans is that it exposed that this is NOT a Republican thing. Where are the Democrats? Where is my party's leadership? This is an American thing. We as Americans have embraced our consumerist culture that measures worth only in terms of buying power. We are coming off of a 10 year orgy of expensive luxury cars and $500,000 houses. We sign our kids up for little league and scouts and private schools while there are other families that live in one bedroom apartments, don't own a washing machine, much less a car, and cannot get an adequate education for their kids.

...And we are OK with that because we can afford these things. To comfort ourselves we have made the words "afford", "deserve" and "earned" into synonyms.

No matter how much money I make, it will never mean that...

I have "earned" the right to ignore human suffering
I "deserve" not to have to consider the suffering of others
I can "afford" to believe that allowing others to suffer for my gain is acceptable

When I was a kid, people used to have bumper stickers that said "If you don't love [picture of a heart] America, get your ass [picture of a donkey] out".

How can you say you love America, if you don't love Americans?...all of them...and want the best for them...regardless whether they believe what you believe, or don't look or act the way you do, or love the gender you think they should, or whether or not you are comfortable with their choices.

So now I am considering that bumper sticker. Maybe I should get my ass out.

There is a part of me that thinks that if you are on a sinking boat, don't just stand there, grab a bucket and start bailing. But, then, it's there a point where you have to throw down the bucket and grab a life vest.

There is some kind of tipping point.

I often think of how much better life was for the Jews that left Germany before the rise of the Reich. How did they know it was time to leave? What was the clue for the people who left Cuba before Castro came to power? You can find the points in history that seem so obvious to us in modern 20/20 hindsight, but I wonder if people will look back on this moment in our history and ask, why didn't the disenfranchised rise up against their unjust "democratically elected" government while they still had the chance?

I can't say that I have anything other than paranoid apocalyptic fears of what will happen, but I really do think something will. Something that will make me full of regret.

We have just shown a very dangerous world that our flank is totally exposed.

Rebuttal...

Read this: my life...and probably every other girls haha

Very well written.

I was almost "every other" girl. When I was 13, the summer I turned 14, right before 9th grade, I met him. The last guy I ever pined for, the last time I gave the keys to my heart to someone else, the last time I let my guard down. It's not that I have never let anyone else in - I just never handed over the keys.

This guy was the most talented sax player. I had never played sax before but wanted to learn - not just learn but be in the marching band (our band was one of the absolute top in the state). Mr. Tolbert, the band director, told this guy that since he sat first chair and was captain of the saxophone section, I was his responsibility for the summer. If he could teach me to play, come fall I'd march with the band. I never wanted anything more than to make the band...until I heard this guy play, and then I never wanted anything more than him. I did the stuff Kelsey talked about: "worry and obsess over the slightest glance, whisper, touch"; "time and time again dropped their male friend hint after hint after hint"; "spent their weekends sitting on the sidelines".

At the end of the summer, a new swanky mall opened and hired musicians to play. I knew that this guy had a sax quartet (2 altos, 1 tenor and 1 baritone) but I had never heard them. The were offered a time slot at the mall and he told everyone to come out and see them [total sidebar - almost no one came because the new mall was in the white, rich, Jewish section of town and our band was all black except one white girl on flute and a brother and sister who were Mexican]. So I went...

I was running late so when I got there, they were already set up to play. They were wearing their marching band uniforms which must have looked pretty comical to the shoppers. This was not a concert, just live background music, so people were just milling around - and then they started to play "Careless Whisper". People froze. People stepped out of stores to hear. No one was coming rushing over to see...they just stopped in their tracks along the promenades and balconies. I stared at him and the sound so completely filled me that I became unaware of my surroundings.

It ended...there was a moment of silence...and then thunderous applause. I was thinking that I just wanted to rush up on the stage and kiss him like were were alone on an island at sunset and...What the hell!!! Some other chick must have been thinking the same thing. She ran on the stage and he put his arm out to her - he put his arm out! - and they were kissing.

At the same moment, my heart stopped beating, I stopped breathing, and I thought I was going to throw up.

That night, there was a knock on my window - him! "Why did you run away?", "She means nothing to me", "I have wanted you all summer" And so I snuck out of my house and spent the whole night just talking to him in his car (he was a senior). We connected, we bonded, and I knew I would give myself to him and we would live the rest of our lives in each other's arms.

Since the day I started kindergarten I had never been more excited for the first day of school. I was leaving the geeky president of the computer club (really, I was) back in Jr. High and I was starting my first day of high school as the girlfriend of the captain of the saxophone section who was a senior - the ultimate trophy! Plus I had made the band. I couldn't wait for woodwind practice, 3rd period! Ok, in between first and second period I passed a gaggle of other band members who seemed to be looking at me and laughing - but that's just freshman paranoia...

Nope! Turned out that in the week between our "magical evening" and the start of school, he managed to tell just about everyone about this pathetic little freshman that he was forced to tutor over the summer who had this huge crush on him and who stupidly thought he would want to be my boyfriend. He told them some of the personal things I had shared with him that night. I was a total laughing stock.

So guess who knocked on my window that very same night... "I'm so sorry", "Please forgive me", "I was embarrassed to tell anyone I had fallen for you", blah, blah, blah... but this was the best line I think I have ever been fed: "I wish I could face my friends; I want to be strong for you, no, for us". A sinlge tear fell from the corner of his eye and I was kissing him before it reached his cheek.

This went on and on and on. I endured the laughing and the insults and eventually, he started hitting me and I took that too. The "relationship" came to a spectacular end when he slapped me in the hallway and my cousin's friend saw it. My cousin then burst into our math class with several of his football teammates and beat the crap out of him (this guy was bad enough at math that he and I were in the same class).

I transferred the next year, but I had learned my lesson. And now, practically 20 years later to the day, I would never let someone get the upper hand again.

My #1 dating law: No Pining!
If I see I guy that looks interesting, I talk to him immediately. If there seems to be any mutual interest, I ask him about meeting him for something - bite to eat, coffee, etc. If I offer and am rebuffed, I put the guy out of my head immediately and never look back - if he really is "busy", "going out of town" or any of that other crap, he will just have to find me. If you stick to this, you will always have enough guys in play that no one guy dominates your thoughts. Then, when you are ready, you can choose to be more serious.

Why do women insist on tears and martyrdom? Look at my picture...the best you could say is kinda pretty. I'm not a woman that is watched when I walk into a room, but I make damn sure I'm watched on the way out.

I'm not going to lie...I obsess about my weight and my clothes (esp, my lingerie) and my appearance, but that's maybe about 20-30% of the package. The rest is about capturing the imagination.

Yep, you guessed it, I don't have a lot of women friends.

I watched Brigdet Jones' Diary with a colleague who said the movie was her lifestory, meanwhile, I totally didn't get, even for a second, why a grown woman would act this way.

People think that people like me are totally different from them, but that's not true. I am making a conscious choice to grab the reigns and in a lot of ways, these "nice girls" consistently choose to sit in the passenger seat.

I really loved Kelsey's piece because in the middle she tosses out an insult:
"This one's for the girls who you can take home to mom, but [you] won't because it's easier to sleep with a whore than foster a relationship"

Who could tire of the tearful "nice girl" shouting whore or slut? Not me I tell you.

It bothered me at first but I came to realize that the "nice girls" and I want two different things. "Nice girls" go out for a coffee with a guy and start fantasizing about their life together and the guy senses this and thinks about how to hold this girl at arms length. On the other hand, I'm fantasizing about our night together and how far I'm going to let things escalate and the guy is thinking about how he can get more. I know you are thinking guys are too dumb to pick up on this stuff, but you'd be surprised how quick they catch on to nuances conversation topics like:

"Nice Girl"
Your day at work
Your favorite teacher
Your favorite TV show
A problem you are concerned about
How much you love your cat(s)

Other girl
Sports/World events/something he'd care about
Favorite sexy jokes
Sex
Sex
How much he'd love my...um...cat, right

See the difference?...men do.

Ok, I'm being extreme, but I have had the displeasure of watching enough women in action that I now understand completely why men are obsessed with sex. If men didn't have overwhelming sex drives, the human race would have died out because men would never have put up with all the cutesy talk just to get to the sex.