A Thought. . . .

One recent morning, just after I rose from sleep and made my usual way to the bathroom, I listened carefully to my body. I heard the usual cracks and pops of joints I hear almost every morning -- knees, elbows, back, neck -- but this time I heard all the liquid sounds.

I’m sure I’d heard some of these before, but I had never noticed how many of them there are. I listened to all of them happen, all together, one by one over the course of several minutes. They were small, discrete gurgles and blips, distinct and brief, as various liquids and semi-solids shifted inside.

Most of them came from my gut and lower abdomen, of course: various materials shifting in my intestines now that I had altered position from supine to erect, urine gurgling out of my bladder or shifting from the kidneys as the bladder emptied, I imagine. But occasionally I heard something elsewhere: in my stomach, even (I believe) my throat.

I flashed on a sudden mental image of an elaborate chemistry set, with liquids dripping and flowing into and out of beakers, flasks, Erlenmeyer bulbs, condensers, funnels, and retorts . . . which, in a way, is exactly what we are.

A Giant and Happy Step Forward

Well, we finally did it. Same-sex marriage is legal in Oregon, and probably for good.

On Monday, a federal judge in Eugene ruled that a ban on gay marriage enshrined in the state constitution by Oregon voters ten years ago would not likely stand in the face of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions last June that struck down much of the federal “Defense of Marriage” act.

Multnomah County, where I live, legalized same-sex marriage in early 2004, and granted more than 3,000 licenses to gay and lesbian couples before court activity halted the process and a November initiative killed it altogether. The statewide vote that year was 57 percent for Ballot Measure 36, which defined marriage as “between one man and one woman,” versus 43 percent against.

It was disheartening for gays, lesbians, and those of us who support their civil rights. We knew the future was with us; we knew ever-increasing numbers of younger Americans see nothing wrong with same-sex marriage; but we figured the U.S. would have to wait another generation to make that leap.

The wonder of it is that it suddenly happened so fast. Twenty-six years ago I published op-ed pieces in the Roseburg News-Review in support of gay rights, and enjoyed a shower of enraged and abusive letters to the editor in response. Two years ago, it felt like we were no closer to change than we’d been in 1988.

Poking the Press

There’s nothing like seeing your name in print . . . unless it’s seeing the media respond to something you wrote, as well.

Last Saturday, one of the editorial writers of the Portland Oregonian published a lead editorial objecting to a proposed ban on smoking in public parks. He framed his argument in terms of freedom and the rights of smokers to do as they please versus the “minor” health threat posed by secondary smoke.

I responded with an emailed letter to the editor stating that he had missed the point -- partly because the Portland Bureau of Parks and Recreation is doing the same by promoting the ban as a health issue.

It’s also a much bigger environmental issue, I suggested. Plus, smokers have pretty much brought the ban down on themselves: If they had policed their own behavior, and properly disposed of their butts, they might not have attracted the ire of nonsmokers.

But increasingly, I see not only hundreds of cigarette butts on the ground in the parks, but it’s also all too easy to witness pedestrians and drivers at the wheel dropping lit cigarettes on the sidewalks and streets when they’ve finished with them.

The Coming Wars Over Water … and a Local Skirmish

A pretty good social, political, cultural, and scientific blog could be written simply on issues related to water.

To start with, roughly 60 percent of our body consists of water, though that varies a lot with our different body parts and how we take care of ourselves. Adipose tissue -- fats that store energy and provide cushioning and insulation -- is only 10 percent water, while muscles contain 75 percent (although you might have been tempted to think it’s the other way around).

Another fact that goes against common sense is that men tend to have a higher percentage of water in their bodies (average of more than 58 percent) than women (less than 49 percent), despite the complaints of the latter. Other factors that can make our internal water levels diminish include disease and age.

Although we tend not to feel thirsty until our inner water content is down by 2 to 3 percent, researchers have shown that mental and physical performance can begin to suffer after as little as 1 percent water depletion. (Forgetting to bring my own water to auditions, rehearsals, and performances has probably been my biggest consistent weakness as an actor.)