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Today NPR is talking about the barter system and how it can be useful in a depressed economy. They have been talking with people who exchange sewing work for someone to come by and give their cat a diabetic shot, exchanging electric guitars for acoustic ones, hairdressing for carpentry, and countless other exchanges. One of the ideas I liked best was the idea of some barter communities of balancing growth of their group with the importance of having a small, intimate community to trade in. I immediately thought of spiritquesting, and what a great little community of very handy people we've got here.

Unfortunately, being surrounded by crafty people has yet to rub off on me. I am terrible at sewing and still pretty iffy on bike maintenance (though I can confidently change my brakes. And tires, kinda sorta). But one thing I have taught myself in the past couple of years, out of necessity, has been gluten free baking. And I need a nice pair of jeans shortened and hemmed. I have needed this done for about six months now, but haven't gotten around to finding a shop in town to trust. And while I know a couple of people who hem, I'm not a big fan of asking for random favors. I have finally perfected the gluten free chocolate chip cookie and I have been told I have some excellent cakes, brownies, sandwich bread, and lemon loaf (which seems to be a pretty consistent favorite among test groups).

So...gluten free baked goods for tailoring?

Oh yes. All I need to do is finish making my pan-pipes. To spray paint silver or not to spray paint silver? That is this week's question.

When I was a kid, the local library had this contest or program (it was a long time ago, I don't remember much) where kids signed up with their Summer Reading Lists, checked out a book or two at a time, and the library kept track of how many books kids were reading. Because I started being a nutball at a very early age, I got really really into it. Now, that initial confusion over whether to call it a "program" or a "contest" may have a lot to do with the fact that whatever it was, a contest it became to me. I was determined to read more books than anyone else.

And so one summer, I spent all my free time reading. I must have been in 2nd grade. This was how my mother decided enforce a "no reading at the dinner table" policy. Apparently I was obnoxious. But I read a lot. After I had gotten through all the "Ramona Quimby"s and "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret", I even moved on to books I didn't really understand. This was the summer I tackled Shakespear. I read everything the library had, which was all of his major canonical work. So, technically, I can say I have read all of Shakespeare's plays. TECHNICALLY. A lot of them I don't remember at all. I finished them, but I was 8.

My summer reading is now actually about the joy of reading, instead of an obsessive desire to get a star with my name and a huge number on the wall of the library, or whatever the end result was of that program/contest. Since I am finishing off my last quarter of school, the last few months and the next few months to come will not contain much leisure reading. But I have my summer list all ready. In order. Really. They're in stack, in the order in which to be read, next to my bed. Here's my list:

1. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks. You've probably heard of it. The fictional book is written as a non-fiction account of, you guessed it cuz you're a smartie, the Zombie War. Which I'm assuming is exactly what it sounds like. It's been on my list for a really long time, but I never got around to getting a copy. Well, now I have it and it's ready to be read.

2. Cast Me Out If You Will by Lalithambika Antherjanam. This is a collection of short stories and memoir by this amazing Indian writer, feminist, and social activist. The title speaks to the experience of many young women of being "cast out", or "being declared dead to the community", if they deviate from prescribed normative roles.

3. fledgling by Octavia Butler. I fell in love with Octavia Butler's writing a few months ago. Her engaging writing style will no doubt add to this novel, whose back cover description had me taking it home after the first three lines: "Shori is a mystery. Found alone in the woods, she appears to be a little black girl with traumatic amnesia and near-fatal wounds. But Shori is a fifty-three-year-old vampire with a ravenous hunger for blood". Yeah. I'm excited.

4. Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman. This is just a collection of some of Gaiman's short stories. I've read a great deal of his work, which varies from novels, to short stories, to comics (like Sandman, Black Orchid, and a short stint for Miracle Man), but I have yet to read this collection. It's supposed to be pretty fantastic.

5. Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder. Non-fiction about a man who brought cures for diseases and other medical supplies to people in need around the world.

6. Selected Poems of Ezra Pound. Not because I haven't already read Pound; just because sometimes you need some awesome poetry.

7. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Because I am ashamed I haven't already read this.

8. The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future by Riane Eisler. Non-fiction about evidence of ancient cultures practicing goddess-worship, the importance of women in historical societies, and even feminist slant in the teachings of Jesus. I have been wanting to read this for a really really long time, but it keeps getting postponed. Now it's on my list. Which is online. I have to stick to it.

So, this is really off-topic for what I want to be writing about here, but I think it is important. Very few people know about Celiacs disease, which is a genetic auto-immune disease and a severe form of gluten-intolerance. What is gluten? Yeah, I get that a lot. It is a type of elastic protein found in cereal grains. Why does it make my small intenstine crystallize and die? I have no idea. I've done some research, but most of the time it is really overwhelming and highly jargonated. I've done even more research the last couple of days because I've been really sick.

I found out that I have Celiacs last September. Now, I'm a long-term vegetarian who has a passion for bread and homemade pasta cultivated by years of indoctrination into Southern Italian culture and lifestyle. Gluten-free bread and rice pasta? Not so much with the tastiness. And thick, chewy, Tuscan style crust? Only in my dreams. I've gotten pretty used to looking at labels and being careful of contamination (even shared surfaces, LAME). I have also gotten used to the inevitable slip-ups that result in what feels like horrible indigestion, sometimes accompanied by sharp, stabbing gut pains. I am also used to sometimes getting a cold or flu after that (that's the auto-immune part). Now, I have heard about people getting really bad auto-immune reactions, where the body really starts going to town on itself, but have never really experienced it (since I was diagnosed and knew what was going on). Well, that happened this week.

Sometimes, if the reaction is bad enough and your body is just week enough, a tiny amount of gluten can set off a painful, painful illness. The body's attack on itself can result in swollen organs, serious infectious illness, and other various pleasantries (I recite these things to myself when I catch myself gazing at artisan breads, while inhaling very, very deeply).

So yeah, I figured that stuff out for myself. But so many others haven't, especially in America. The  diagnosis is so difficult to make, and something like 86% of people with Celiacs don't know it (how they come up with that statistic, I will never know). In other countries, it's a pretty common-knowledge thing. In Italy, for example, you go to a restaurant and say "Io sono celiaco" and they shrug like it's no big thing and bring you some gluten free bread or crackers and a separate menu (or just make suggestions). Same thing in France and Germany. In America, at least in my experience, you ask if something is gluten-free and people sort of stare for a couple of minutes and then go "huh?"

So here's my point: people don't know much about this stuff. It's sad. A lot of people need help and don't know where to go to get it. A lot of people are just constantly sick, some even die, and no one knows why. On the off-chance someone gets diagnosed (here, at least), it's hard to figure out where to go from there. So yeah, if anyone is interested, or more importantly, if anyone needs great recipes and a quasi-support group, check out the blogs on my blogroll. They took me way too long to find, but I'm glad I have them now. It's always good to know you're not a total freak. More importantly, it's great to know how to make a delicious gluten-free holiday meal (and look at pictures of it!).

Hey, everyone. Sorry it has taken so long-- the life of a student can be crazy sometimes! Anywho, let's just get down to it. What is Channel-Surfing the Apocalypse? For starters, it's a really great book by Susan Smith Nash, "a day in the life of the fin-de-millenium mind". I read it a while ago and was completely blown away. It is really a collection of short stories, but after a while you start to realize that they intersect. The same characters start appearing in multiple stories, often in a continuation of what was going on with them a few stories earlier. The short stories are all really just snapshots of people's lives. Nash is channel-surfing these people's stories, catching glimpses of lots of "channels", or lives, and sometimes coming back for another peek at them. Despite the brevity of the narratives, Nash writes each character and story with incredible passion and tenderness.

That's kind of how I feel sometimes. I have a lot of different interests that I am really passionate about, but I can't pay attention to everything at once. Most of my interests involve theory and reading, but I can't multitask those things very well. I focus on one thing at a time but change frequently. I want to channel-surf what's going on in the world, in academia, in the books I'm reading, in my college seminars, and in really great conversations I have with friends (especially when they involve hot chocolate). There is so much stuff going on not only in my personal life, but in the world around me. It is all interesting, but more than that, it is all so important. Everything is connected and the smallest action can have the most profound impact on life.

I am haunted by single lines in books, panels from comics, pictures, and things people say. I want to have a record of it somewhere because you can get so caught up in trying to take everything in that sometimes it is difficult to revist those moments or that really great thought you had. I want to share those moments with others and I want other people to share their own moments, too. It really is those small things that have such enormous consequences for us. It's that single advertisement that makes us scrutinize our bodies, or book that opens a whole new world.

So here it is. A record of my channel-surfing, connected to lots of other people who all have great things to say.