Things to Break a Heart.

I work in a domestic violence shelter here for women. There is one young girl staying who has been here about seven months now. She is fourteen and she came pregnant and with only one eye. Last month she gave birth to a little preemie girl, Mindy Jimena. I bought Mindy Jimena a little red woolen traje, with the cutest little cap the day after she was born. I walked in La Democracia and haggled and haggled and told the baby clothes booth all about little Mindy Jimena and the baby clothes lady cried a little, and added red booties for free. I thought, Mindy Jimena, there are people who love you.

Today Mindy Jimena died, and I want to throw red, rotten tomatoes at the whole ugly world.

Her little hands. I loved her little hands. I let them curl around my big fingers and kissed the little tips. I´m so angry and sad.

It is soon Mindy Jimena´s mother´s quinceanaro. What do you do for a quinceanaro when everything is so ugly? Does a cake with chocolate curls and cherries mean one damn thing?

E & J.B. Young Co.

I've only found one picture of a similar book. Here: http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/lucile/publishers/young/YOUNG.HTM

Here's your evidence. Now you can pretend that I never existed.

My philosophy teacher is a moron.

So I'm hashing out what I need from him. I need the credits. I'm not learning anything from him. I'm paying for the credits. I don't care about the grades, I hypothetically have enough high-profile recommendations to scooch myself into a mediocre graduate school position.

So let's face it. I'm going to spend as little time interacting with my teacher as possible. I am not going to ream him out for philosophizing about whether or not women are lying when they say they've been raped. I'm going to take my Xanax, read the material with my middle finger perpetually wagging, and write unflinchingly boring papers while soundly cussing him out the entire time.

My hope is that I'll spend less than ten hours to finish the course. That should get me a C.

I've had a very frustrating last few days. What I do when I'm frustrated is zone out. Right now it is my video game which allows me to do that.

But then I ignore everything else, which is problematic. Especially when I'm in school. I was a week and a half ahead so I could concentrate on Guatemala when I got there, so I'm still going strong. I'll be okay. But I'm back on the hamster track.

I've done alot of thinking about where I want to go with my writing. Watching friends of mine go through hard times when their works become famous, and knowing how personal and psychological my writing is, I don't really want to put it out there anymore. At least not in my name.

I don't want people to know who I am. I want to hide. I guess some creative work which plushes out my resume in applying for work or graduate school would be nice, but the stuff that really belongs to me, I want it to stay that way.

You may also have noticed that I've stopped writing so much about sex abuse in the SDA church. Aside from wanting to blow my brains out every time I think about it or talk about it, I want to be known as me. Just me. Or even not known. Anonymity is precious. I could certainly handle pulling my blinds and becoming a hermit in Montana. Like the una-bomber, eh? (except, without the killing/hurting people part.)

Regardless, I'll keep talking about it. The church won't get to put me under the carpet. I'm still here. I'll be here for as long as there is an issue of church irresponsibility, cover ups and treating victims badly.

“Humiliate people for long enough and a wilderness bursts out of them.”


-Salman Rushdie

Drunk.

So yes, I'm drunk. Thus, the posts.

Dekalog gives me hope in mankind. I love Zbigniew Preisner, I think his muzyka in Dekalog V is the best of any of his works. I know I'll be angry at myself if I don't take some of my money and move to Poland to become fluent in the language.

The bit where Jaceck is executed is pretty self-explanatory, and so is the bit with Piotr, the lawyer. Piotr is who I was looking for when I went lawyer-hunting. I think I found him.

"Life is complicated." Kieslowski said his moral from the ten is to live carefully, with your eyes open. Nothing more.

This one is the first part of the first dekalog.

The Anti-humanist

The more I live, the more I agree with Jeffers.

Not Man Apart
Then what is the answer?- Not to be deluded by dreams.
To know that great civilizations have broken down into violence,
and their tyrants come, many times before.
When open violence appears, to avoid it with honor or choose
the least ugly faction; these evils are essential.
To keep one's own integrity, be merciful and uncorrupted
and not wish for evil; and not be duped
By dreams of universal justice or happiness. These dreams will
not be fulfilled.
To know this, and know that however ugly the parts appear
the whole remains beautiful. A severed hand
Is an ugly thing and man dissevered from the earth and stars
and his history... for contemplation or in fact...
Often appears atrociously ugly. Integrity is wholeness,
the greatest beauty is
Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty
of the universe. Love that, not man
Apart from that, or else you will share man's pitiful confusions,
or drown in despair when his days darken.

-- Robinson Jeffers

More and more I agree with Spinoza, whom I really understand only with a Giles Deluezian dummy-translation. That God is whatever is unchangeable, and what is really unchangeable?

(Does that mean that the closed-minded stubborn jerks of the world are indeed God, or do they just think they're God?)

Ugh. I know nothing. But Jeffers gives me comfort.

Haiti.

I'm heartbroken about Haiti.

For me, this is what I'm going to do:

-Take a deep breath, and keep doing what I am doing to help people. I can't help everyone, and I do have to take care of myself. I'm committed to Eduardo and Manuel. Right now, that's what I need to stick to.

-Give tiny bits here and there. Buy cheaper food and give the extra money set aside for food to the funds set up at the grocery store. Instead of playing the lottery: give. $7.00 may not be much, but if every single person in the US gave that we would raise 2,128,418,068. That is ALOT. If every household gave that much, we'd raise 721 million dollars. If every household that is making above 24,000 a year gave that much we would raise more like 427 million dollars.

Daisy the Cat

Isn't my baby soooooo darling?

Dollhouse

Apart from being sad that Dollhouse is only one episode away from ending, I'm really curious about how Whedon will end perhaps his last television show. For those who don't watch the show, you'll be bored and confused. For those who do, read on.

There are two loose ends I see: Alpha and Clyde.

Clyde might be a red herring, but I can't see Alpha given the boot without a final goodbye. The old, gun must go off Chekhovian theory, you know? I think he took over Rossum through his genius multiples. Remember how he is the one who first invented the remote wipe and used it on Echo?

I really think he took over Rossum and instigated the apocalypse through killer technology. It has to be.

More Fundraising

I was also considering working with some of the jewelers in the area, taking pictures of all their jewelry on some of my friends, and posting it here.

I made friends with one Mexican guy who had a great stockpile and a good grasp on English. He's a street seller. It would be easy to get him to bring his stuff to an internet cafe nearby and put it all online. I was thinking...ebay? It would be a risk though. Anything extra from his asking price I could give to Nuevos Horizontes. He'd make out, and hopefully, so would the kids.

There are alot of antiques (i.e. artifacts like arrowheads) in them that ARE legal to sell, and they'd go for alot in the US.

Raising Money for Kids

I have been sitting around thinking what to do to raise money for the kids I love in Guatemala. I refuse to ask for donations. I've got some ideas, and I have to make sure it's all legal, but here they are, and if you're interested in any of the products, please say so, and I'll try to get all the stuff you ask for. My hope is to send $500.00 back to Nuevos Horizontes from "giving" away products from Guatemala and Honduras in exchange for pledges for donations to Horizontes.

I can bring back 3 boxes of NICE Honduran cigars. I'm hoping to receive pledges of at least $300.00 on these boxes.

2 bottles of aged rum. I'm hoping to receive pledges of $120.00 for this.

Te de Jamaica or Hibiscus tea. This is excellent for blood pressure and is really expensive in the states. I can bring back a pound of dried petals, which is ALOT. I can probably give for a promise of $25.00 to Horizontes per quarter pound. It really needs agave to taste good, and I like it weak and cool. It's bitter otherwise. I can bring back some sweet concentrate, but it definitely isn't as healthy. For concentrate I'd need $20.00 per bottle. The bottle is really big.

Coffee, of course. I'll buy straight from the workers, so I won't be giving to the companies that feed Guatemalan workers horse adrenaline calling it "vitamins." It'll be from Justicia Solidaria, an excellent co-op formed in the face of the 80's genocide. I'm not expecting to make much money from that, so I just require shipping costs and money ahead of time, because they do sell at carro prices. Pretty much, that's just to support the co-op, not the kids.

I'd be losing money on this, so please don't worry on where the money is being allocated. My donation is the wholesale price of the products. If you're interested about any of these, please write me at durhamm@eou.edu

Thanks for looking!

The New White House

It is gratifying to feel listened to by the people I pay taxes to. I disagree with Obama on many things (I'd actually define myself, if anything, as a log cabin liberal Republican) but I do feel that he is more fair about this war than Bush was. I feel that he does not scoff at my non-violent beliefs, and is listening to what the extraordinary cost of war really is.

If a war is justified anywhere, it is justified in Afghanistan. He has a battleplan. He doesn't have cotton in his ears. I morally disagree with it, I do not logically disagree with it.

I disagree with him on government spending. If anything, the government needs to be tightening her belt in preparation of a very long recession. (Listen to Alan Greenspan already!) But at least the money is going in-house, not to large companies like Black Water and Halliburton. I feel better having more government oversight. It makes me sick to think how many random killings by my government has been done overseas in the last eight years. Now there is at least a pittance of justice, as opposed to none.

Here is a picture of some of what I've bought for the kids at the daycare on my return trip.



Note all the shoes. I have sort of a half-plan to set up a zapato de finco (i.e. shoe farm). When the kids' shoes don't fit anymore they can return with their old shoes and trade them in for a pair that fit! I'm thinking sixty shoes would get my plan off the ground. My heart melted when I saw their dear little feet blistered and smashed in shoes two sizes too small, or some of them without shoes at all. It's such a basic little thing. I've got about 30 thus far, not all of them shown here.

What you don't see here is test tube make up I bought for wholesale. I also worked at a domestic violence shelter. Alot of the 'women' there are only 14, often raped by dads or beaten by husands. Some of the dearest to me all hung out in the bathroom, giggling for almost an hour one day. They tripped out all smiley and happy, with moviestar makeup. They were glowing. They deserve so much more than just silly things, but I've been picking test tubes up wherever I find them, and I try to get the right color.

Hey, does anyone know where to find brown baby dolls? I'm trying to find bi-racial dolls. REALLY difficult. You'd be surprised. I'm going to tour ebay to try and find brown baby dolls.

Eduardo and Manuel.

Some huge news this early morning. I'll cut and paste to tell it to you. I took some parts out about personal stuff.

Hello Michelle,

Happy new year! Sorry I have not written you until now. So, After we went to have lunch with Eduardo and Manuel do you remember?. I went on a vacation trip for a couple weeks then I got back to Xela and had to hurry up to buy christmas gifts for my family. then, this week I have been dealing with fixing some electrical problems at the school so just today I finally have some time to write you.
Anyhow, I saw the teacher from the day care (seño Lety) in the street the other day and she told me that during the two weeks I was on vacation the social worker in charge of the kids asked Doña Roberta to bring the kids to Sololá because someone from their family (an uncle and his wife) who have a job will be the ones taking care of the kids. She said that Doña Roberta was really sad of leaving them and the kids were also really sad but they know it had to happen at some point.
Anyhow so maybe next week I will go visit the day care and find out more details about the kiddies, and also see if Doña Roberta can give me some information about the location where the kids are...

I have to go now Michelle but I will let you know whatever I find out about the kiddies and also let me know what do you want me to do with the rest of your money otherwise I will keep it until you come back to Guatemala.

Wish you the best to you and your husband this 2010, I send you a very biiiigggg huggg.

Sary

Dear Sary,

I got your newsy letter with a mixture of feelings. Of course I am so happy that Eduardo y Manuel are neither in an orphanage or back with their mama, but I also don't know how this will turn out...you know? I hope it all turns out well, but I'm making plans for both.

First, I would love when I return to head to the location of this uncle with you and speak with him and the kids, find out what his and their circumstances are. I know he is in charge and we have little say. If he doesn't want to see or speak to us, we can do little about it. I've sort of planned for both. I am in this for the long term for both of them, regardless.

I am very busy with school and work lately. I am also sorry to hear about the electrical problems at school. I hope it hasn't lost you too much money. I look forward to seeing you soon. Take good care of yourself, Sary, you are such a sweetheart. I will see you in a month, hopefully!

Love,
Michelle

Happy, happy home.

Oh god. I'm salivating. My dream since...well, forever, has been to have an orphanage.



There's enough room there (3 houses!) to have my mama and papa come to visit, and my little nephew (who is a quarter Venezuelan, after all, and ought to learn Spanish) to have his own bunk with all the other babies.

*sigh* I want it so bad.

This is all the information: http://www.xelapages.com/sunsethostel/mainhouse.htm

Okay, I'm off to watch a different sort of house...the Dollhouse.

An Unheard Letter.

While cleaning out my "sent" box in my email, I came across this letter, whose recipient I am blacking out in respect and hope. This was a situation that I came from feeling like I had done something wrong, and I second-guessed my words and actions. In reading this now, I see I was not in the wrong. Six months to figure that out.

Dear Anonymous,

Thank you for discussing the problem of sexual abuse in the SDA church with me during a very busy time in your day. I felt, however, that we were talking about two different things.

To summarize what I saw you talking about:

You were trying to help me as an individual, obviously within a short span of time, and giving me advice on what I should do on a personal level.

What I was trying to talk about:

Institutional inertia within the Adventist church and lifting some of the burden I have had to tell my story and live my abuse over and over. I am not looking for help in my personal life. Although it is obvious I need that, I have it from my husband, counselor, and various mentors. I'm looking for a meeting of individuals within the church for nonviolent, extreme change in the beauracracy to help those who have already been victimized and those who will be if we remain silent. I have found myself with the burden of speaking out alone, and going this awful path alone. I am looking at being sued for a simple phrase and because I'm speaking out. I face this alone, without help from old friends from the church.

In the Catholic church, the Voice of the Faithful was formed to create action among the true church, the parishioners. I hope for something like that to rise up amongst Adventist laypeople, so the burden does not rest entirely upon abuse victims who already find each and every day a struggle and find it difficult in the extreme to be sued and made pariah.

I'm begging for help in creating a group of faithful Adventists (which I am not) who will lobby tirelessly for those who have been raped, sodomized, and otherwise painfully hurt within the SDA church. I no longer have the ties to create this, nor do I have the energy. On top of that I'm not a leader, I'm a writer. I'm asking for you to use your admirable ties to help find that leader of lobbyists. I don't think you're the leader, and I understand if you don't feel a "calling" to throw yourself into this but I'm asking that you send out antennaes to inform and discover within your sphere of influence and friends, or at least find the friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a future leader, someone who is able and willing to give their life in organizing and prodding this cause to fruition.

All of this is extremely difficult to talk about, but I wanted to affirm you and thank you for reaching out to me within the frame of time given. I'm sorry you've been hurt as badly as you've been and thankful that you've found hope where you have. I truly am happy for you though your path will likely not be my path and I hope you can respect that.

Yours,
Michelle Durham

Unsurprisingly, I never got an answer.

Nothing. Nada.

I'm so embarrassed about how much weight I've gained.

I've had issues with food my whole life. I was stick-skinny as a baby--up to second grade when I was 9 and when I think the whole thing happened. (The actual timeline eludes me.)

I was chubby for the next 6 years when I went on a diet, and was a normal weight up till I went to Milo, where I became bulimic. I've struggled with that and gone up and down like crazy.

My smallest was when a guy I loved very much broke up with me and my biggest when I was with an abusive boyfriend.

Now I'm pushing "heaviest." I gained about 20 pounds while in the lawsuit, and then gained even more in 2009. I feel so badly about myself, and I don't even know where to start to make myself healthy again. At least I'm no longer bulimic.

As Potok writes,

start at the beginning.

A New Year.

Now that it's the new year I've been doing alot of changing and vowing and oh-mying at the last year.

Pretty much, last year I closed the curtains, curled up, and slept. And cried. That's it.

But I'm so sick of crying and not being okay. I want to LIVE, goddammit!

I'm going for a walk. The world is so white outside. I'm bringing my blue plastic sled with me.