oh, it's been so long that i'm not even sure i can write anymore, but i'm tickled:

(CNN) -- Australia declined a request from the Bush administration to resettle detainees held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay, the Australian Associated Press agency (AAP) reported Saturday.

Australia's acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard said each detainee was considered on a "case-by-case basis" and decided that none met her country's "stringent national security and immigration criteria," AAP reported.

Australia turned down a similar request from the Bush administration in early 2008 to resettle a small group of detainees. Washington approached Canberra again in early December.

damage control, damage control. and memories of penal colonies that would make kafka do a flip or two. what to do with all the bodies but flush them, and where else but Port Arthur or Norfolk Island? ah, damage control.

i'm sitting in at the clearwater international airport, a quarter-mile structure that makes lehigh valley international look like laguardia. they are actually announcing individual flights that are landing, to the people waiting in the cafeteria with me, for their relatives to arrive. i've seen one plane land in the last hour, and one commuter jet take off. the "restaurant" reminds me of my grandmother's bingo hall in espy, pa--if it ain't fried, you're SOL. you order at the counter from the corrugated plastic signs patched with various colored letters.

i've spent the last two weeks at marvet, at the mote marine laboratory, listening to lecture-upon-lecture on marine mammal and reptile medicine--primarily Atlantic Bottlenose dolphins, sea lions, otters, Bowhead whales, and Loggerhead, Ridleys, and Green sea turtles. i ultrasounded a loggerhead a captive sea turtle;  i watched another dig in the sand and lay her eggs on a beach near sarasota, where she was tagged with a satellite transmitter. yesterday, i was able to scrub manatee wounds and weigh babies.

this wild one was found tangled in four lobster traps and a channel marker near tampa. you can see the scar running across the neck. the monofilament fishing line entanglements, among others, lead to strangulation if not decapitation of the animal, not dissimilar to the puppies chained to trees and neglected, whose collars fail to grow with them. and then there are the once-every-six-minutes boat strikes.

they have thick vibrissae (whiskerish) which they use for tactile purposes--one study we discussed showed they could differentiate at the 17mm level.

this is a sixty-year old captive manatee (fifty-nine, actually--there's a birthday celebration planned for next month). he's a local tourist attraction at the south florida museum (a thirteen-hundred pound one, at that).

another day was spent at sea world in orlando.

the dolphins are trained to weigh themselves.

training a pseudo killer whale.

oral exam.

and yet another, but this time with a mama orca and her two calves.

a betadyne prophylaxis.

operant conditioning.

they are also trained to present themselves for physical examinations.

a urine draw.

a silent observer seeking handouts.

hanging with a king penguin.

supposedly, brown pellys are endangered in most areas except for florida.

a florida sunset.

some must-hears on a thursday's midnight.

hallelujah - john cale

sick of myself - matthew sweet

needle and the damage done - neil young

kiss off - violent femmes

brilliant disguise - bruce springsteen

nude as the news -cat power

laid - james

no myth - michael penn

so long marianne - leonard cohen

my sister - juliana hatfield

they're blind - the replacements

oh my god - liz phair

so, yet another life experience slapped me in the mouth this week. after having lunch with a friend, i drove home from school on thursday, taking a side road that i don't normally take, the side road with my gym on it, which i haven't visited in the last week since taking up soccer again (post-my broken rib from last season healing). as coincidence would have it, the corner of my eye catches an old pit trying to cross the street, oblivious to traffic. so i pull over, play traffic cop (and the traffic actually stops, surprisingly), and i grab her, noting her inability to support her hind legs, her dandruff and the large red cyst on her back and slipping my keychain string around her neck. she doesn't budge, either because she can't or because she thinks i'm a tool. so i pick her up and place her in the back of my car.

i start making calls to campus, and one of our school vets agrees to immediately take a look at her. as she lowers the stethoscope to what she assumed to be a ten-year-old dog's chest, the first words i hear are "grade v heart murmur, raging." there's only a grade vi beyond the v, and that's not good. she offers to give me a free ultrasound in the morning. so i head to campus and get on the phone, trying various rescue groups. only one answered, and the word i expected--unadoptable--was thrown. none of the others called me back. our resident class saint jen, the fosterer of kittens, puppies, elk, you name it, takes me up to her apartment and calms me down. we bathe, deworm, deflea, and feed the dog. i ask my roommates if i can keep her overnight. she collapses in the garage onto a bed of blankets, but then rises to follow me to the door, wanting inside. she's a house dog.

the mitral insufficiency is confirmed by the ultrasound the next morning, and once again i am amazed by the generosity of western university's faculty, how willing they are to disrupt their own busy schedules in order to help students. i ask the dr. what i should do, and she recommends, with my schedule, my poverty, not to take on the dog. i know she is right, but have trouble accepting it.

i try some more rescues. i am told to shelter the dog. i talk to friends. i am told to humanely euthanize it. i break down during our class group work and take the dog home. my friends call to say they are worried about me. i talk to one of our veterinary issues professors, who also plays the calmist, and she advises me based on her experience rescuing animals. my roommate tells me she feels uncomfortable having the dog in the garage when she has two smaller dogs in the house. i need to decide between sheltering or euthanizing this dog, with the wide gold eyes, staring up at me from where it's sunning itself on the grass, wagging its tail and smiling. i go to my soccer games, weepy and miserable.

i come home; it's dark, and she's somehow pulled herself up onto a lawn chair in the yard. i sit beside her, petting her and crying, not for her, but for myself because i wonder how my conscience, always guilt-ridden (i can take on a catholic any day), is going to survive this.

i talk to some more friends in the morning. they advise feeding the dog steaks, burgers. letting it live it up for a few days. they offer to assist me in funding a euthanasia through a local vet, as the vets at school have no means of disposing of a dog's body (and supposedly, it's illegal to bury a dog in your yard in california, but some shelters have 'drop boxes' for such purposes. i could not envision myself placing the dog in a 'drop box.'). they leave, and i sit on the edge of my bed. i think that euthanasia would be more humane than making her sit in the shelter for five days (that's law, too). then i think, at least at the shelter, she'd have a shimmer of a chance. then i know she won't. then i think, i'm a chickenshit. i am too emotionally immature to make this decision, to take this life in my hands and end it.

i take her to the shelter.

i bawl on the way in, i bawl inside. they stare at me and  exchange side words. they tell me they need proof that i live in rancho cucamonga to take her. all i have in my wallet is a credit card check i have been keeping in the case of finding the perferct apartment in santa monica. they come to take her back, and i think i can still run, but my feet are planted. i have to turn my head as they walk her back.

and i think of the vet in indiana that refused to write me a recommendation because he didn't think i'd make a good veterinarian for this exact reason.

i tell them that i need her collar and leash back. i wait twenty minutes. a woman comes in with her cat tucked under her arm, complaining that her apartment does not allow cats and her husband is now allergic. i start bawling again. i ask the shelter workers how they survive a day there. they shake their heads. i wait to get the collar and lead and don't run out, simply because they belong to jen. i bawl on my way out the door. i call my mother, bawling, and she tells me to go home and calm down.

but i am driving to santa monica to look at apartments, and luckily, a friend agrees to come along, and he keeps me sane as i look at an apartment, as we walk down the third street promenade, as i get weepy again in an adidas store. i am on the promenade again, and i hear a voice call to me, another student from school, in that mass of people, more than fifty miles from campus. i embrace her, and i think, 'coincidences.' we walk to the pier. my phone rings. 7022. four digits. must be telemarketer. i do not answer.

an hour later we are driving back, through malibu. 7020 on the phone. i answer. it's the shelter, the woman i had dealt with earlier in the day. she says that because i had appeared so upset at the shelter, she wanted to call me to let me know that the owner was there, picking up the dog. my chest is suddenly rushed with calm, with endorphins, and i try to breathe as i am talking to the owner, explaining how i had treated the dog, explaining the ultrasound, explaining the dog needs a vet, and thanking her endlessly for finding her. she tries to offer me a reward, and i try to explain to her that this phone call is all the reward i'll need, that now i know i'll be able to sleep tonight. all i remember her saying is, "God bless you. God bless you."

and i feel forgiven. as if my resected soul has been replanted.

anyway. for my mother:

i also won a few scholarship awards for my volunteer work. the shots below are at the east west scholarship dinner a few weeks ago. i feel weird posting pictures of myself on here, but i haven't seen my mother in almost a year, and i'm sure my darling sister kelly will SHOW HER HOW TO TURN ON A COMPUTER AND VIEW THESE, RIGHT, KELLY?? (btw, i've been rooting for you to get a car. telling your parents how sexist it is that the boys got cars [albeit, landmines] and you haven't. absolutely sexist. whenever you go to s'ville, just use that word. sexist.). 

at the homestead prior to the dinner. that's my roommate's hyper pug looking for catfood at my feet (yes, my feet smell like catfood)

eric and i receiving our awards from the president of the university

eric and i and some benefactors at the dinner

eric, katie and i imbibing on the free spirits

i've been a piss-poor blogger. the high hand of veterinary school has dictated my two-to-one moves across the board. my cat is pissed at me. i haven't seen my dogs since november. i owe a dozen or more people emails. i'm still trying to understand how others tick, how i tick. and this is definitely an awkard space for attempting such feats. today, in our issues course we had a talk from teri austin, an animal rescue activist. turns how she spent eighty-seven seasons on knots landing. i used to watch knots landing with my stepfather on thursday nights at ten when i was in the single digits. i don't remember her.

i make so few connections with people outside of my schooling. i make it a point to hit romano's macaroni grill once a month, merely because the waiter knows my name. i request his table, he asks how i'm doing. knows my order. the mushroom ravioli and about three liters of ice tea. his name is daryl. i was sad when i'd by chance heard the restaurant was closing a few weeks ago. i went in to say my goodbyes, and he happily informed me that he'd been transferred to the same restaurant a few foothill boulevard towns away. i happily ate my ravioli and listened to him sing opera for two women at an adjacent table. he wrote on my check: 'thank you alice! you're the best!' i keep the check on my desk, near my audobon society guides, near the picture of my eight year-old brother effing around in my sister's bikini, to keep me sane.

i've won two scholarships and a morris animal foundation summer grant for circovirus research in common murre feather follicles. the academic accolades never seem to be the problem...

i'm thinking of moving closer to the ocean, where i can get cotton candy on the pier. where i can walk my dog on the beach. where i can jump on the pch and go anywhere on a saturday morning. i have built my school around my life (not to mention my life around my school). i've been doing it for more than eight years, now. i'm incredibly lonely sometimes. others, i fly. i'm thirty-four next month. i don't like even-numbered years. regardless of their contents. i need something to love right now, so i'm bottle-feeding a two-week old kitten that purrs like a 1x1 skipping across a picket fence.

i watched simon pegg's latest flick tonight, a distant second to the others. but i walked in weepy and miserable and out as if a cancer had been excised. thank whomever for these moments of reprieve. i bought a set of stamps with jimmy stewart's likeness on them, just so i could look at them when i need to. by the way chester hates the two-week old.

i have to write my dissertation. now. or maybe this summer.

today, i was a little frustrated. most everyone is freaking out over the third round of impending exams, but a student showed up at my door with a smile on her face, offering to buy me denny's because i drove her in to school a few weeks ago (she's got my complex--the need to pay back each kindness doublefold, and then the need to still feel guilty about it. but she's ten years younger than me. i've got no excuse).

a few weeks ago, on one of my low days, where i was just struggling to make it until the end of the day, she walks up to me in grand rounds and tells me she has a surprise for me. of course, i ask if it's edible. and she says it's an edible-type product, and pulls out a half-liter of A1 sauce. everyone who knows me knows how i descecrate my pasta, potatoes (what a weird word. potatoes) with the smudgy stuff. i almost wept.

we're driving today, through the always lovely pomona, bent on a greasy v-burger, and we pull across main, and there's a man lying on the sidewalk beside a cart with an upright garbage can. i slow down, and there's a man standing over him, asking him if he wants help up. everyone else is walking/driving by. i jerk the car to the side and stride to them, asking the man on the ground what's the matter. he can't seem to respond to me. i pick up the phone and dial 911, but four rings later, no one's picking up. the lady at the courthouse across the street yells to me that she has made the call, that they are arriving soon. i hang up the phone. in pennsylvania, 911 calls you back.

the man's head is on the concrete, and i go to the back of my truck and grab a t-shirt and place it under his head, trying to make him more comfortable. he's coherent for a moment or so, and then his head goes down, and his eyes glass-up. and i panic. and all i can think of to do, before hopping in to start the kayaking cpr i learned from the pedophilic swim instructor back in indiana, is to test his cranial nerves. i do a menace test, bringing my palm close to his eyes, and his reaction is slow, before he turns and looks up at me like i'm a moron. i pull my hand back. and my car alarm goes off.

as i run over to silence it, the cops and ambulance pull up, and they want me to clear my truck out of the way, so i do. colette and i are silent for a few minutes as we head to our destination, and i think of the day i spent at the l.a. county hospital on wednesday because i got misdiagnosed with a diaphragmatic hernia (i won't tell you that it was just a gas bubble in the fundus of my stomach because that would be too embarrassing). there were cots stacked upon cots, in corners, in the halls, around the triage. there were no tvs, no couches, no cushions, no plants. the guy next to me had a bag of puke in his hand. the woman on the other side of me was bleeding out of her head. convicts lined the wall, their handcuffed wrists holding up bibles while the deputies sat next to them, bored out of their minds. four cops surround a bed, a guy with tattoos. one of the cops has his hand on his holster, waiting. and i was a waste of their time, seeking a blank second opinion after the urgent care doctor the evening before insinuated that i'd better start fasting for invasive surgery.

we get to denny's. we gossip. we go to wal-mart. i buy a vacuum cleaner, and decide it's time i find my own apartment. we return to school, go through the routine. and i don't remember this until right now, as i'm studying murmurs, regurgitations.

a classic ghost story that hits all too close to home, considering last year's events, that blurs the lines between childhood and non-childhood, fragile lines of reality. oh, human fallibility.

and i have just crawled out of four months of solitary confinement, p.o.w.-style. i think back to the first week of august, and all is clear. between then and now, blur. eighteen weeks of veterinary school later, two weeks of exams down, and one more on suturing. in this time i have been in the most stressful social situations of my life, dealing with my own hypersensitivity as well as the insensitivity of others; i have pushed my brain and body to the limit, working on four hours of sleep a night just to cram one more ounce of information; i have gained a wonderful friend who has made sure that i won't spend christmas alone (and that's her butt in the picture); i have gone madly into debt on a five-digit tuition bill; and i now know how to recognize and lance corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis in sheep (and my ex-students will be happy to know now that i'm actually working with goats rather than just incorporating them into blackboard sentences emphasizing passive vs active voice).

i have been front row to both suzanne vega:

(thanks, mr. andrew u.c.l.a. for recording s.v. for me)

and aimee mann (with the second annual aimee mann christmas show troupe/vaudeville act):

(and morgan murphy, and jackson browne, and paul f. tompkins, and amos lee)

 (and nellie mckay)

(and grant-lee phillips)

(and my personal favorite, her ever devout bassist)

so overall i guess i can't complain. it's been the most rigorous, challenging time of my life, but i've hung in there (wow).

oklahoma. and its charms. ordered in increasing degrees of severity. i think.

howe.

so, when i'm not studying for twelve hour days, i'm sucking up the morbid fascination of spending days in hollywood. i finally got within six feet of jimmy stewart, humphrey bogart, marion davies, tyrone power, rudolph valentino, larry fine, and (maybe) walt disney. olivia d'havilland is still alive. can you believe it?

sid grauman's chinese theater

bette davis (such tiny hands and feet) and gregory peck (sigh)

natalie wood and cary grant

jean harlow and olivia dehavilland

marion davies and pola negri. when ms. negri signed, my grandfather was five years old.

harold lloyd (make way!) and peter sellers. quite the coupling.

ingrid bergman and jim henson

george peppard and...thomas ince? guess getting shot by a possessive megalomaniac publisher has its perks.

for my mom

for me

don't ask me if i'm ashamed. because i'm not. really.

roldolfo guglielmi valentino (if it wasn't for the appendicitis, he might have made a guest appearance in junior's mental ward)

cecil b. demille

tyrone power

a memorial to jayne mansfield (she's actually buried in pa). amazing how much mariska looks like her (minus the corset).

so obscure.

marion davies

kate patiently waiting as i pursue my morbid rant

kate asked me to take these. hm.

alfred hitchcock

john ritter

kate paying jack sparrow and davy jones to make out. she offered five. they were hesitant. they offered to make out with her. then jack worried about the "children present." kate chastised him for not maintaining character--unscrupulous to a T. they told her to double her offer. she did. all the moms in the crowd started snapping pics like nobody's business.

coming off of v-wave at the race, after sliding down it backward, after getting t-rescued by chris, my paddle buddy for the day, after getting blown over. and somehow staying upright.

yum.

ken ate his share, too.