conservative blues

I'm intrigued by how well my subject line fits the times in my own life, as Springfield has a strange grip on my internal landscape. It also reminds me that last night I went with my friend Sarah to the university for a lecture by Bay Buchanan. I have to say, a conservative discussion on a university campus is BY FAR more interesting than any liberal discussion on anything. This is especially so when the woman speaking has LOTS to say about her position on abortion, marriage, divorce, and how the feminist movement has hurt women and children far more than it has helped. She did give them credit for getting relatively equal pay on a job for job basis, with education and experience factored in. I certainly don't have a political side, as most conservative issues seem to hold water, and many liberal ideas seem often to be commonsense. I recognize the value of listening and trying to understand a viewpoint that could very well be valid and previously unconsidered. So when she said that a small study showed 100% of women who'd had abortions before the age of 18 with a history of breast cancer in the family had breast cancer by the time they were 35, I perked up. My friend Sarah did, as well, considering her personal history and the fact that her mom had a breast removed last year, she spent most of the night feeling queezy and weird.

In any case, there was that. It's been wine madness at the house lately, or it feels like it. Mike received a bottle of delicious homemade apple cider wine from our very lovely friends, D&C, for his assistance with shelf construction in a home with seemingly no studs. and I came to realize that I had four bottles of mead on a shelf for ageing, so we popped open one of those the other night with joy, though it's still young at 5 months, needs another 7. It should be quite good, I imagine. I think the one we tried was lemonbalm, red clover and borage. :D Then last night J&S brought over a bottle from a winery outside of Petersburg that they'd been saving for a special occasion that tasted really strongly of cloves and cider spices... it was delectable.

I'm geeking out on seeds, really and truly. I don't have access to the garden, yet, but my beautiful friends, Katie and Badger, have broken ground on the plot for this summer in the NC. Two more weeks, and I'll be breathing deeply that moist, crisp, springtime, dark and lovely air that calms my heart and strengthens my spirit. Love, love, love... Yep, so I'll have too many seeds to plant this season, but that's perfect because they will be left over for next year with a decent humidor thingie for the moisture. Some people use plastic tupperware, some use cedar boxes, some build them giant, some buy old cigar boxes, some even put them in vacuum sealed containers for the apocalypse. I'll keep some like that and hope that seed saving staves off the need for apolalyptic protection. Also, horizon herbs is a spectacular source for herb seeds, and I recommend to every gardener to really start to get to know the local weeds, first, then get to know whatever herbal traditions exist in your area or in other areas of the world with a similar latitude/elevation. Plants are our companions on this earth, and it's damn good to know them, love them, and interact with them. Nothing feels more satisfying, except maybe having children, but that's my thought. Heirloom seed varieties, some very old: http://www.rareseeds.com/ ; high quality herb seeds, does a lot of exchanges with Joe Hollis at Mountain Gardens, where I also interned with someone who interned with the owner, Richo Cech, and vouched very highly for him and his business: http://www.horizonherbs.com/ ; a gardening supply co-op, as used by Joe Hollis and the Wild Fermentation master, Sandor Katz, a really fantastic source for organic growers: http://www.fedcoseeds.com/

One other thing, I've been watching fewer videos, but the ones I'm mostly interested with are from the library, and it's a series called Connections, it's the bomb shit. Sub-named, An Alternative View of Change. O, it's good, from the early '80s, describes the interconnected events and inventions that have brought us to this perilous place on the planet. Just watch them! The other thing is, the John Adams movies put out by HBO, they really did the work of helping me to envision this country's beginnings a little differently. But, fuck Tom Hanks. I don't know why, but I don't like him. That's really the only down side to that, and it's totally unfounded in logic. But, from the perspective I've been hearing from Jonah Lehrer who wrote How We Decide, logic has very, very little to do with it.

with love,

abigail.