Speaking of glitches...

More computer glitches: seems that in removing all Norton traces, the nifty program that sorted my incoming mail into folders -- known as Ella -- has been screwed up. Tony spent a couple of hours trying to figure it out tonight, to no avail. Outlook Express blows up when you activate Ella. GrrrrrrRRRRRrrr. He'll get on the phone tomorrow and see if it can be fixed.

ANYway.

I went with a group of girlfriends to see The Vagina Monologues Friday night. I'd read about it but had not seen a performance. It was just outstanding and I'd love a chance to be in it.

It is a look at women and sexuality and power and abuse. Playwright Eve Ensler performed it as a one-woman show, but it's been done with different women doing each monologue, as a readers' theatre, or -- as this performance was -- wrapped around a setting (a wedding) with each guest and the bride performing. It was touching. It was frustrating. It was a little uncomfortable. And I laughed until I cried, until my belly ached.

There were a good number of men in the audience, although most of them were young -- it was held at Chico State, so there were lots of students with a smattering of older folk. I think it might have been a little hard to hear for the men: while it is not a male-bashing free-for-all, it speaks of male insensitivities, cruelties, abuses, and downright criminal behavior. And it also tells about men who adore women, who are sensitive and gentle and caring.

Admittedly, public declarations about vaginas are not commonplace in Red Bluff, nor, I suspect, in most towns, and the title (and probably some of the language) would rile up some folks much as certain movies used to do back in the '50s and '60s.... remember Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Oooo...that caused demonstrations and calls for censorship in my hometown!

I'm going again next year. This was the seventh year it's been performed in Chico, and it's worthy of an annual pilgrimage.

It's been an unsettling week -- perhaps it was the full moon, perhaps the unusually warm and dry winter weather we've had -- but I wasn't alone in feeling something uncomfortable in the air. I pounded away and met deadlines, mailed newsletters (not without glitches), and started some fundraising activities but sleep was elusive and dreams were vivid when it did come. I hope this week will be better. Rain is supposed to return, and with it, more seasonal temperatures. I'm not ready to declare spring just yet, so I'll be glad to see it.

Meanwhile, the books are finally back on the shelves, fiction alphabetized by author and nonfiction in categories, if not Dewey Decimal order. I've got photos spread all over the room now, trying to figure out which to put in what frames to hang. I'll get it all done eventually.

I'm reading the February issue of O Magazine at the moment...marvelous content in this publication, much to my surprise.