Change of Life

I'm pretty sure I've entered perimenopause.  In the last couple of months I've had night sweats, hot flashes, and have had a lot of trouble sleeping.  My period is two weeks late and I'm not pregnant.  There are other symptoms too.  A change of life.

It's appalling how the web is so utterly commercial now.  Looking for information on perimenopause I have to wade through page after page of ad-larded material, often subjecting me to mini-movies and myriad, sometimes animated ads for everything from schizophrenia to incontinence to unsightly skin disorders.  It's really unpleasant.

Here is the best website I've found on menopause:

The North American Menopause Society - Non-profit with lots of non-commericial, authoritative information and resources on menopause.

Equinox

We strayed across the fields at fall
broad September fields all seven moons
had passed and now on horseback
eight and nine were done.

Our motion moved the earth
and thrashing winds around were we
at one with the endless plain and
the tall, swaying wheat.

How many horses?  How many hours?
Beneath our bodies, beating the ground
Hands in manes and long hair waving
in rhythm with the wheat.

More interests

7. World Geography and Culture

• Geography instruction for K12 (Geoculture Club | Geoclub )
• Demographic trends
• Anthropology and ethnography
• Statehood and minority populations
• Immigration policy and impact

8. Vestiges of Proto-Indo-European religion and mythology

• The Kalash of Chitral, Pakistan (KalashaPeople |  Literature | Pakpics | Global Post | Wikipedia | SiteShara | Kalasha.org |
• Nuristan, Afghanistan (pre late 19th. c.) (Languages |
• Bulgaria
• Celtic areas (Ireland, Brittany, West Scottish isles and Hebrides
• Remote Slavs: Slovakia,  Ruthenia..

9. Women's Rights Abuses

• Female genital mutilation (circumcision and infibulation) 
• Honor killings
• Lack of birth control
• Female infanticide (India, Tibet, China)
• Female as property

10.  Russian Literature

• Fyodor Dostoevsky (Wikipedia | Wiki-На русском | Works in Russian | Project Gutenberg | Online Books )
• Children's literature (K. Chukovsky, S. Marshak, etc.)
• Lyric Poetry (Pushkin, Tyutchev, Bryusov, etc.)
• Mikhail Bulgakov
• Vladimir Nabokov

11.  Useful Languages to Improve my Proficiency

• Spanish
• French
• Russian
• Arabic
• Hindi
• Mandarin

12. Ancient languages

• Biblical Hebrew
• Sanskrit
• Biblical Greek
• Avestan
• Latin
• Old English

13.  Organized Extremism which threatens American Democracy

• Muslim extremism (funded by Gulf-state and Iranian extremists)
• Libertarian extremism (tea-baggers, Rupert Murdoch, etc.)
• Other religious fundamentalists (Christian, Mormon, Jewish, etc.)
• ? (What will happen when there is a critical mass of people out of work?)

14.  Adoption Issues

• Identity formation in adoptees in closed adoptions who know they were adopted
• The Adoptee and orphan in world mythology and art
• Adoption and Abortion - unfortunately, they really are linked for mothers who want to deny having ever given birth
• Reconnecting - One candy-coated can of worms many adoptees desperately desire
• Being adopted as an existential state
• The concept of adoptee rights vs. a mother's desire to get rid of her baby

 15. Theater

• Theater for educational purposes (see NYT blurb about Danny Burstein's science education musical gala)
• Siberian Tiger Theater
• Opera and Musical Theater (Composing projects: Crime & Punishment, Robert Saul)
• Poetry in theater
• Theater of agitation
• Theater of the absurd
• Mystical theater

16.  Cinema

• Alfred Hitchcock (http://hitchcock.tv/ | http://www.hitchcockwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page )
• Andrei Tarkovsky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Tarkovsky |
• Soviet comedies
• Peter Sellers
• Italian classic cinema (Fellini, Bertolucci, Visconti, Antonioni, De Sica, Pasolini, comedies)
• Indian Cinema including Bollywood, Satyajit Ray, Deepa Mehta and Mira Nair
• Contemporary Argentine cinema (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_cinema#Contemporary_cinema)
• Peter Weir (http://www.peterweircave.com/films.html)
• Leslie Howard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Howard_(actor))

17.  Mongols

18. Religion

19. Speciation

20. Rationality and Mysticism - How they co-exist

The Interest Files

Geneva called yesterday and told me that she is cleaning her stuff out of her mom's garage and that she is trying to make files out of various items compiled over the years which correspond to 20 of her broad areas of interest.  As a journalist, she said that this is especially helpful in solidifying what information you have on a given topic.  I thought it might be helpful if I did the same, at least in the abstract, trying to organize my broad interests into neat categories and subcategories.  Here we go.

1. Displaced and Misunderstood Minorities

• The Jews
• Gypsies/Roma
• Zoroastrians/Parsees
• Adoptees

2. Zoroastrianism and its permutations

• Zoroastrianism's impact/shared features with Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Mazdaism, Manicheaism and other early Eastern faiths
• Remnants of Zoroastrianism in modern communities: Parsees, Iran, The Yazidi Kurds, Central Asian remnants
• Avestan and the Avesta, shared properties with Sanskrit and other IE languages
• The hedgehog in Zoroastrian theology and mythology 

3. Tribal Supremacism and Mob Mentality

• Northern European ("white") supremacist groups such as Nazis, Aryan Nation, StormFront, National Front, etc.  
• Religious supremacist groups such as Al Qaeda, Kahane Chai, Hindutva movement, etc.
• Caste systems such as in India, pre-Thatcher Great Britain, etc.
• Anti-miscegenation laws in religious and secular law
• Notions of race and culture

4. Poetry

• Forms of poetry
• Translation of poetry
• Performance of poetry (The Raven, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, etc.)
• Poetry slams
• Poetry games such as those we used to create "wacky tapes"
• Teaching poetry

 5. Linguistics

• Comparative Indo-European linguistics, Historical IE linguistics
• Endangered languages
• Second language learning and instruction

 6. Web Technologies

• Want to learn Flash to make instructional games
• Want to learn Joomla

I'm sure I'll think of more later, but these are the ones that come to mind the most right now.

Keeping it Together

That's the name of the game.  I've always done well in real crisis situations. Goodness knows I've had my share.  Andrew's illness is hard on the whole family.  Art's expectations have gone down considerably, which is key to having him able to constructively engage.  I've never been good at taking care of myself physically, other than doing the minimum to accomplish what I have to.  Mentally, I set myself many challenges, but when emotional problems become unavoidable, caring for my physical plant deteriorates even more.  Must improve this situation.

Not for the Weak

Parenting is not for the weak. It's all I can do to try and cope with these kids. I am here, with my few domestic skills, my itinerant depression, my love, my hope. Andrew is suffering with major depression and it is scary for everyone. I love him so much. Art is suffering because of Andrew's suffering. Art doesn't understand why his kids wouldn't be exactly like him, which is kind of mind-blowing.