little oases everywhere

Can I just say how amazing hotels are? They have always struck me as just wonderful, these little oases scattered throughout everywhere, tiny havens of personal space and civilized accommodation wherever you happen to find yourself, whatever circumstances bring you through the doors.

Update of the Week

A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave. ---Mahatma Ghandi

Out the window:
Nightly thunderstorms have been happening all week, and it's gorgeous and sometimes very dramatic. The days are oppressively hot. I'm so glad to have air conditioning. It looks like the coming week is going to be filled with rain and possibly thunder and lightning. The milk run is next week, and I'm glad I have new wipers and new tires and new brakes. 

Connecting:
Letters and songs

Books and conversation

A visit with Vivian where I got to tell her that I love her just the way she is and she doesn't need to change anything about herself to please others.

Daily morning phone calls with my friends sustain me in this isolation.

Reading:
A Hidden Wholeness, Parker Palmer

"The Moral Equivalent of War," William James

"The Sentimentality of Reason," William James

Watching:
Umbrella Academy, Season 2

Doing:

• Philosophy: Office Hours Monday-Friday
• Writing: Submitted a piece to two more journals. I feel as though my job right now is collecting rejection slips. Writing for the upcoming week is largely focusing on letting the Spirit guide me instead of accomplishing an assignment. It's going to be a wonky month.
• This upcoming month, I think I'm putting Stillness as an activity. 

Cooking:
Once I finally came out of the disability fog this week, I wanted nothing more than the world's most simple fare, and lots of it. I made a pot of rice, a pot of white beans, and a lentil and potato soup. This is soul food.

Knitting:

• The garter blanket is onto skein 5 (Woolstok 150, Highland Fleece). It's large enough that I no longer store it in a basket but in my large backpack. It's ridiculous to try to carry, so it's fortunate that none of us is going anywhere these days.
• the Brownstone jumper is on skein 2 (Woolstok 150, Cast Iron). I like the perspective shift I'm getting with doing the jumper construction in a way that is completely new to me (sleeves first; body worked from the bottom up; I've ever done a V-neck before).

No words needed:


Lesson learned the past few days:

Breathe. 

No, really, that's it; just breathe. 

Daydreaming:
A cabin in the woods, with a little garden patio, and a doghouse between the kiln and the writing studio.

Listening:

Asylum

Any book you write is its own asylum.
----Kristin Dombeck in The Selfishness of Others

Journaling: Part I

This morning I was talking with a coworker about journaling, which had come from a different conversation with a different coworker about her desire to start LifeCoaching.

Here's some homework: Listen to Just South of the Unicorns. If you need questions to answer after listening to that story, I can give you some, but before you read my questions, grab your pen and just write a few lines about what hit you in the story, what moved you and why. This was a powerful tale well-told, and I sat in the Staples parking lot for an extra fifteen minutes, listening, rapt.

the point, again, please?

"article There was a gasoline-led rally, but now I think it's running out of puff. It seems to need constant bullish news at the moment to push it up," said Christopher Bellew, of Bache Commodities. "Everyone is talking about demand destruction."

article The White House on Wednesday made a new push for expanded offshore drilling to help lower fuel prices, days after new government data showed American petroleum product exports hit record levels. "The sooner Congress lifts the ban, the sooner we can get this oil from the ocean floor to your gas tank," Bush said. In May, U.S. oil companies shipped 183,000 barrels of gasoline a day out of the country, even as Americans saw prices at the pump steadily rise. U.S. exports of diesel fuel reached 444,000 barrels a day in May, a record for any month and four times higher than a year ago.

article The four-week average of new jobless claims, a better gauge of underlying labor trends because it irons out week-to-week volatility, rose by 11,000 to 393,000 from 382,000 the week before. This was the highest reading since October 2005.

This measure has risen steadily as the U.S. housing slump chilled growth and crimped hiring.

The number of people remaining on the benefits roll after drawing an initial week of aid jumped 185,000 to a much more-than-forecast 3.282 million in the week ended July 19, the most recent week for which data is available.

article Year to date, demand for gasoline is still 2.23 percent weaker compared to the same period last year, MasterCard said. Prices for gasoline are up 37.2 percent since last year, when the national average price was $2.93 per gallon, according to MasterCard. A Reuters poll showed energy analysts forecast that the Energy Information Administration on Wednesday would report a small decrease in U.S. gasoline inventories due to a decline in production and imports.

article U.S. gasoline stocks fell by 3.5 million barrels last week, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, countering analyst calls for a 200,000-barrel build.

"The gasoline data showed a stronger demand than expected and support at $120 held, causing crude futures to rally," said Phil Flynn, analyst at Alaron Trading.

The EIA report also showed U.S. crude oil stocks dropped by 100,000 barrels, lower than analysts forecasts, while distillate stocks rose 2.4 million barrels, more than expected.

Additional support came from U.S. refinery problems, with BP cutting rates at its Texas City, Texas, plant due to mechanical problems. Top U.S. refiner Valero plans to cut gasoline production by an average of 330,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the third quarter at its 16 plants.

Who? Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE: VLO) is a Fortune 500 company based in San Antonio, Texas, with 21,836 employees and annual revenue of more than US$90 billion. The company owns and operates 17 refineries throughout the United States, Canada and the Caribbean with a combined throughput capacity of approximately 3.3 million barrels per day, making it the largest refiner in North America. Valero is also one of the nation's largest retail operators with more than 5,000 retail and branded wholesale outlets in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean under various brand names, including Valero, Diamond Shamrock, Ultramar, Shamrock and Beacon.

Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil made nearly $1,500 per second. Exxon Mobil once again reported the largest quarterly profit in U.S. history Thursday, posting net income of $11.68 billion on revenue of $138 billion in the second quarter. That profit works out to $1,485.55 a second. That barely beat the previous corporate record of $11.66 billion, also set by Exxon in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Face it: oil companies are more addicted to their record-breaking profit levels than Americans are to their oil. And, as the articles indicate, there is plenty of oil in production in the United States. Exports are up, production is down, and existing leases are unexplored. So, Mr. McCain, please explain to me one more time how expanded offshore drilling is supposed to help me? I seem to have missed something.