Answers for Steve and Lacey

1. What's your favorite color? Orange.

2. Why isn't 11 pronounced onety-one? Too long. Besides, if it were we wouldn't have your favorite number, eleventy-threeve, or mine, eleventeen.

3. Mark - Boxers or briefs? Boxer-briefs.

4. What was the best thing before sliced bread was invented? Germ theory and the advent of regular bathing.

5. Can you post that recipe if the super yummy salad dressing you made last we had dinner at your place? I will, but I always make it on the fly, so give me some time to measure it all out for you. It's true, though. Everyone likes it.

6. Why do you park on a driveway and drive on a parkway? Shouldn't you ask some of your engineer friends?

7. Can you tell me how to reprogram my sprinkler system? Absolutely! When the green light is flashing, pres and hold the program button until, "Steven!!!" appears on the screen. Actually no, I can't.

8. What's your favorite food? Cheese.

9. Are you supposed to rinse herbs before you use them or does that make the flavor go away? Definitely rinse them. Dirt's on the outside, flavor's on the inside.

10. Why won't these voices in my head stop arguing? Maybe you need to distract them with a shiny new toy. Like beer!

11. What are the numbers for the next lottery drawing? I'm not telling, but if I win you'll get a present.

12. If you were travelling in a ship going the speed of light, what would happen if you turned the headlights on? I don't know, but I would be compressed to a pancake, right? So I don't think I'd notice the headlights.

13. What's another word for thesaurus? Lexicon would work. Actually a dictionary can be used as a thesaurus.

14. Am I annoying? No, you are lovely.

Also, nobody asked me any more boob questions but Lauren did call to my attention a fact that I failed to mention here. Fake boobs don't last forever. Great ones that work as they should still need to be replaced around every ten years. Doesn't that suck?

Open for Questions

So, I haven't gotten any comments for a month now, but I know you're still out there. In fact, I'm getting visits from new cities every day. So let's make sure you're getting what you want. Can I answer any questions for you? Do you want to hear more about my plants? Curious about something I've neglected to mention on my new body? Something nagging you about skin transplants, the scintilating business of home-making? Speak up, readers.

MLKJ Day of Service

Somehow I ended up tossing logs up a steep hill today. I'm sure I'll be sore, but I loved every minute of it.

What the Body Can Do

I've spent a fair amount of the hours in 2008 marveling at the human body.

My mom made the doctors' jaws drop when she basically did a pull-up in her hospital bed a few days after her 2nd hip surgery. It was easier to get the linens sorted that way.

The men's gymnastics at the Olympics this year had me googling "Iron Cross" late into the night.

And by most measures, I've healed pretty quickly. I've already mostly forgotten more pain than I think I'd experienced cumulatively up until this year. Last week I finished physical therapy. Although I'll count it as a very positive experience, I'm looking forward to overhearing very bad pickup attempts at 24 Hour Fitness instead of anecdotes of being shot 8 times. Just the therapists words, though, "I have no restrictions for you. You can do whatever you want to." still make me giddy. Whatever I Want To! To quote my friend Kristin, what will that look like??

Tomorrow, at least, it will look like planting, pruning, and clearing at Balboa Park as part of an interfaith MLKJ day of service. I hope to take a few photos of this enormous treat that right now I'm too excited about to sleep.

In the future, who knows? I think I've missed a few too many crucial years of training to get close to the video below, but seeing Streb vs. Gravity tonight kicked my wonder at the human body up about a bazillion percent. I highly recommend.



As a modern dance performance, I most appreciated the performers sense of fun and irreverence throughout and the utterly fearless falling. You can find out more about the company here.

Into '09

I don't think it will come as a surprise that I'm ever so happy to welcome an officially New Year. I'm excited to see what Mark and I will create in the year ahead. What our home will look like, the decisions we make about what's important in our lives, and the experiences we choose this year will little by little create a memory of '09 that is unknowable right now, and that's very fun to think about. Then there's the looking back. I feel drawn to do a lot of that lately, and I'm working on a list of Good things that happened in '08. Because while I am kinda glad to close the door on that year, fantastic things did happen, and I don't want to remember it as a giant black spot. So that's to come.

For now I have a few holiday highlights to share.
I didn't get very crazy with the wrapping or decor this year. In fact, in a lot of ways our holidays were about keeping things simple. So we enjoyed a couple of seasonal changes in our home, but mainly we upped usage of the warm and cozy things that are always here. We played more music, spent more time sharing blankets, and lit a lot more candles.

Hanukkah was great this year. We took a look at our presents all lined up the night before and Mark said, "You know, all our lives we've had this night before things start, and we stare at the presents and get all amped up, trying not to peek. Do you want to just go for it?" And I said "Yes." Then we celebrated the real eight nights which fell across Christmas and my birthday.

Christmas was wacky. At my parents house, as usual. But we celebrated a lot on Christmas eve, which, growing up, was strictly reserved for wrapping presents until midnight and freaking out about trinkets that we hid too well. Hey, everyone has their family traditions. Once I convinced myself that I wasn't doing the verboten by opening presents early, it was quite lovely. My mom lost no gifties (we think) ate a fantastic meal, and were ready for bed in normal diurnal fashion. Dad even helped with dinner and made some of the best ever biscuits. Beer biscuits, of course.

Christmas day was the usual with more family and the absolutely essential breakfast sandwich. We pumped that up this year with free range bacon and raw Oregon cheddar from Homegrown Meats. A big new favorite around here.

A quiet few days ensued, and then it was my birthday. We went to dinner, took a lovely drive, had a smooch,


and went to one of my favorite places in San Diego the next day for a small hike.

The 30th, we took in the Holiday Bowl, which is always great football. We got wonderful seats and managed to stay warm with some very careful layering.

Surprisingly, New Year's Eve exceeded our expectations. We had dinner with the lovely Kelley and Steve within walking distance of their place, and worked in games, bubbly, and a few fireworks by midnight. Which struck, and amen!

So that's it. Now I'm tasked with getting in a little bit of exercise so that I don't get too too chastised when I go back to pt next week. Let's hope for a very productive week?

Another Photo Submission

A while back a photo newsletter I subscribe to sent out a list of photo contests to enter. One caught my eye right away because of its theme. Started in 1999, M.I.L.K. stands for Moments of Intimacy, Laughter, and Kinship. My favorite moments, really. I didn't think I had anything to contribute, and am genetically predisposed to Not throw my hat in, in general (the downside of humility). But after such a great family-oriented trip up north, and after MUCH incredibly kind encouragement from my dad, I went for it. The judging won't be announced until March of next year, but in the meantime, this little guy is hoping someone really really likes him:

At any rate, I do. Big thanks to Dave, Simone, and Mark for spilling over with kinship and laughter.

Also, head over to the M.I.L.K. website to view some past winners. I think they're full of especially beautiful messages to consider this time of year. Click here, then go to M.I.L.K Images under About M.I.L.K.

I Guess This Is My Holiday Letter

Or really, it's far more informative than any holiday letter I'd send. And I never sent any holiday letters anyway. Interesting. So while this has been a pretty crap year for me, it's been a year of unprecedented Jess access for you! Is that a good thing? Well. As much as I'm pining for '09 I've got a little more to fill you in on before it's over. And one more apology for not posting in so long. Oops.

Two weeks ago I had a set of very opposite doctors' appointments. The first was my dermy, Dr. Ld. That awesome acne that I've had since May or June is still hanging around despite one antibiotic and a slew of topicals. Lucky for me it's winter now and I don't have to debate too long before dressing. Anyway I thought I'd give dermy another shot at making me less uncomfortable. Not so much luck. I encountered that oh so familiar frustration with dermatology. Lots of shrugging by Dr. Ld. Sympathetic shrugging, and the suggestion that things would probably settle down in time. I did get a jar of goo that's so strong my face was peeling 5 days after I stopped using it. Yow. And he did offer to do some hormone testing, blood tests, that would basically just confirm that I'm out of whack right now without offering much treatment suggestion. So after I said no, thank you, we shook hands and agreed to meet again in February. He left, and I burst into tears. Ridculous. I am scared of poking around too much, terrified of more abnormal test results, even if it's just wacky hormones that I already knew about.

That said, I will do the test in February if I'm still looking like a teenager in the worst way.

My second appointment was with my radiation Oncologyst, Dr. W. He's in the same place I had my radiation treatments. As I was waiting for him, I got to see some of my favorite of his staff. And then a woman came out from the treatment area and said to the front office girls, "I don't know what I ever did with myself without you guys!" I think she was only about 10% kiding. Dr. W was lovely as usual. He did a full exam and then told me to call if anything came up, that he'd always be available, but that he didn't expect to see me in his office again. "WHAT?" I said. "This is my last appointment?!" And he said, "Yep. Happy Hanukkah!"

After he left the office I did a Snoopy dance.
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Remember that new baby in the family? Last week we went up to see her and her new biggest fans, Mom, Dad, Big Sister, & Grandparents. Think she was very cute?

Oh, just a little bit. Everyone else looked marvelous as well. Except Zara is 3, so she moves a little fast for me to prove it with my camera.

A rare non-blurry snap. We did have a great early Hanukkah, thanks to our crack latke team.

We took several beautiful jaunts to Sonoma, Occidental, and Freestone.




Holiday plans for us are: Hanukkah every night at home, Christmas Eve with my parents and Christmas Day there for me while Mark tends the people at work. We have small plans for New Years Eve, and I'll try to grab a few photos of it all. If I'm not in touch as much as I'd like, I wish you the happiest holidays and a wonderful, healthy New Year.