| December It's World AIDs Day. I was thinking about it last night. I was thinking about how long it took before the medical industry paid any serious attention. And still there is no cure. Just people who are living with AIDs. I am happy that people are living but I can't help but notice the cost of their treatment and think about who profits. Meanwhile I get spam and watch commercials about the pills men can take to make sure they can enjoy sex. What medical researcher worked away on that problem while countries were being decimated? Third world countries. Women. Children. There is something about priority. Every year there's a new pill to help me lose weight but we can't find a cure and get the existing medical solution distributed for people with AIDs.
On Sunday I watched the show I love to hate. In this episode the family has a young son who has bones that break easily. They put cork floors though the house so that, if he falls he will land on softer ground. They put hand rails though the house. And they did things for family members, like make sure that the mom's spoon collection was displayed. It's one big commercial for Sears and yet, I cry. I cry when the families come home and they have a whole new world and things are better and more beautiful and new. And yet, I can hear the sound of a million anxious others, writing to the show, hoping to be one of the lucky ones. One of the lucky people with all new stuff. I don't think there is anything wrong with wanting to have a beautiful home. I just feel like we become drunk with longing. Longing for stuff. And in that drunken stupor we stop thinking about things.
And yet.
People really come out of the woodwork to make things good for these people. Fire departments show up to fill pools. Neighbor ladies bring dinner and work on sewing projects. It's all so "family values." But it is moving. I do cry.
People do show up for each other. Problems are solved Things do get better. People will work really hard for a common good. It's the ideas about common good. It's the lack of critical thinking. It's the lusting stupor in which we live. That's the part that bugs me. Because we ought to be asking more questions.
I like joy. I like abundance. I like too much of a good thing. But I long for the feeling that everyone is at the table. I long for a world in which there is no one living with nothing while families who already own homes and big screen TVs get made over homes with flat screen TVs.
We are coming up on the twenty year anniversary of Bhopal. And still no justice for the people there. There's too much wrong. I write in fragments. My thinking feels fragmented. I struggle to hold a center but the center will not hold. I cry when a woman sees her spoon collection in a perfect row on a wall. It matters. But it just isn't enough. I think of you when I least expect to, when you would least imagine me thinking of you, when I am watching a movie about a Cuban writer and I want to turn and watch you watching the same movie, when I think I would recognize your smell when I want to ask if you would like some coffee and you would want some and I would make us some. I am conjuring you. I am remembering a you that never existed. I return to the film. And wonder. Why now? My windows look onto another building across a small parking lot. Very small. One row of cars. Six. Maybe seven. The building is white stucco. Sort of. I can see into many of the windows and I imagine they can see into mine. Not that there is anything goin on up in here.
I have seen one set of neighbors getting amorous. Nothing too explicit and I looked a way.
There was a fellow living in one place. He sat in an a recliner illuminated by light from a television. I used to wish I could paint him. Framed by the window in all that blue light. The man who lives there now has his desk in the window. He sits at a lap top. Maybe he is writing a blog. Sometimes the laptop is there but he is not. Sometimes they are both gone.
One window is a bathroom. The glass is frosted so that only light and shadow can be seen. There is the always present shadow of something hanging in the window. Something with a shape too odd. Perhaps a wash cloth, or a towel. Or some hanging bag.
There are, in fact, a million stories. And some of them, in fact, are naked. I caught about ten minutes of Crossfire yesterday. I used to like to watch it but I got sick of people talking over one another, so it's been awhile. But I noticed that Patricia Ireland was on to debate Jerry Falwell about sex education in schools. More than once she said she wasn't opposed to teaching abstinence in schools.
And then Falwell said:
So they were pretty much in agreement but they didn't seem to notice and I suspect that there are details about which they would argue. But they couldn't really get to a detailed discussion because they kept stepping on each other and James Carville and another woman (whose name I didn't bother to learn) were also on the show. Now. I love James. I do. I love his passion. I love his politics. I love his accent. But he and the other woman were just shooting insults at one another. So after about fifteen minutes I turned it off.
I like spirited debate. Years ago I saw film of Germaine Greer debate William Buckley debate at Cambridge. It was smart and funny and dignified. They may have stepped on each other from time to time. It's been awhile. But I don't remember it being mean.
I've been thinking about my own reactions to the way people talk to one another in public forums since the thing with Cris because the debate was framed around the idea of civility. And many of the details were ignored. In the simplest way of describing the issue Cris shouldn't have told a member of the public to fuck off in a meeting at which he was sitting in a position of power. But looking at the details things read very differently. The guy was a lobbyist for landlords. People were being (and have been) hostile to Cris in no uncertain terms. The tone of the meeting should have been managed better by Matt (as he said himself) and there was no way it should have been brought to the floor as a reason for censure.
These days in SF you can really see the class war being fought at City Hall. Yesterday there were hearings about health and education. In public testimony you always hear the same thing. Business owners and property owners say it's too hard in SF. Poor people say it's too hard. And guess where my sympathies fall. And the real focus needs to be on corporate greed, which it was yesterday when Sutter Health was being called to task for the lockout at a special meeting being called by (guess who?) Cris Daly.
Supervisor Sandoval (another of my favorites) proposed cutting funds from the Convention and Visitors bureau and giving them to the Tom Waddel public health clinic. Works for me. He also proposed cutting funds from the arts. I'm less thrilled with that. And did Daly's public scolding have any impact on his style? Not so much.
I used to like words civility. I even liked the word moral. And value. I have values which I consider moral. I think people should have roofs over their heads and jobs and food and health care and education and access. I think some base line needs to exist. I don't care if people make money but at what cost and to whom?
And yes. I think sex education should be taught in schools. I'm not sure about teaching abstinence. I mean. Some of us learn about abstinence in the halls of rejection. I think it might be cool to have lots of classroom conversation about what it all means and why we feel what we feel and do what we do. I think we could think and talk about it all. Thinking and talking are good. And let's make sure people know how to be safe. And also know where babies come from.
Some time after my Crossfire turn off I got an e-mail from Kristina asking if I was watching Oprah so I turned it on mid way through. She was showing a bit of The Dying Rooms. Yes. We should know where babies come from. And we should know what happens to them. And the use of the words moral and value should be expansive.
Maybe things have always been this tense. Or maybe there are just moments when the tension feels more acute. And maybe public discourse becomes more hostile in those times. Sometimes I can handle it. And sometimes I can not. There must be a Sci-Fi story somewhere about a person who plays a computer game so much that they get sucked into the game and become part of it. If there isn't there should be. And I should write it. But I'm too busy playing.
The story telling in the first game was mostly contained in a specific house. You went out of your house to make friends but that was it. In the new game it's really about the whole town. People grow old and die. Their ghosts haunt the houses in which they lived. Kids that make friends in school fall in love as teens, marry as adults and have kids. I have read other players talk about how many generations they have played. I can't imagine how much they have to play to get to where they are. I have a fifth generation family but only because three levels of that family were already in the game.
And then there are the problems of continuity. These two sisters were once the same age.
But one of them moved out with her dad when he moved in with another woman. (Oh, it's all very Peyton Place.) So she grew up a little faster and is now married and has just given birth to twins.
Both parents were at the wedding. That's them with the white hair. The sister is there as well and the groom's parents are the other two. And the groom's brother was there. Kissing on her sister.
His brother and her sister are married now. This is the happy couple back when they were still teens.
I'm doing a terrible job of telling this story. I'm sure these are the issues of long fiction writing. How do you handle time? I also think I need to take closer pictures. I don't care so much about siblings aging in disjointed time lines but I have kids who are about to become elders before their parents do. I wake up thinking about these stories. What house do I play first? How do I keep everyone in sequence? Hours go by.
I am not a fiction writer. I have no desire to be one. And right now I'm not even sure I could. Ai Yi Yi.
There's a baby boom in my little community. The first wave of teens have had kids and that wave of teens have become adults and are having kids. But see the other couple in the picture of the teens making out? The boy had a crush on a girl but I didn't notice. She's long grown and married to someone else and close to being an elder. He's in a long suspended teen hood waiting for the girl he's kissing to grow up.
Time. What a concept. Larry Bensky did a two hour show yesterday from Ohio about the struggle to get the votes recounted. It was interesting.
I readily accept the idea that voter fraud in Ohio may have cost Kerry the election but I think that's about me self comforting in the aftermath. I appreciate the efforts of the people doing the work but it is hard to imagine that anything will come from it. Kerry's campaign joined the effort.
The most I've heard about this on the mainstream media is that Kerry got more votes than originally projected. It was tossed off as an interesting factoid and nothing to think too much about and done in the same news cast in which we talk about making it possible for Democratic elections to be held in Iraq. It's all very through the looking glass.
It's funny to listen to that kind of news while playing a god game in which all my effort is focused on getting teenagers to fall in love so that they can marry and start making babies. And then listening to Tom Wolfe, Barack Obama and then Bobby. Actually, I stopped playing to watch Bobby. I love him so. But I got the other teens in the picture launched into adult life and now I think I might not play for awhile. I am actually a bit tired of it.
Life feels very fragmented. I feel fragmented.
I keep thinking about a comment from Butuki, which I can't figure out how to link so I'll quote.
When I first read it I thought skinship sounded so sane in terms of how people relate to their bodies. I still do but I'm not sure that I think it adds up to more sanity as life goes on. What does lead to more sanity as life goes on?
I'm always thinking about the way we read our lives in terms of value and how we read other people's lives in terms of value. This time of year is fraught with that narrative. I watched The First Five People last night because Mom wanted me to watch it and I know there will be a quiz when she calls. I kept thinking it was It's a Wonderful Life with a few changes in scene, and character. I didn't like it or not like it in any great way. My sentiments are easy to manipulate. I cry over all meaning making. But I kept thinking about why we have this narrative at this time of year. Why is it so hard to believe that every life matters?
Tom Wolfe said something charmingly self deprecating about his white suit. He said (and I'm paraphrasing) people thought the suit was such a sign of an interesting personality that he barely had to have one.
I dunno. This is how my mind works. I'm thinking about the irony of fighting for Democracy every where except Ohio. I'm thinking about how we develop a sense of our bodies and how that impacts our sexuality. I'm thinking about what makes a life valuable. And I'm thinking about the next three teenage couple I need to get out into a simulated town. And I'm eating oatmeal with dried mango and orange blossom honey, a blueberry muffin and, yes, three strips of bacon.
It is a wonderful life. I threw away some leeks and mushrooms yesterday. I get so mad at myself when I let food go bad. I knew they were on the way out and I was going to cook them together and put them on some mushroom pasta. It seemed like a great meal for these cold, rainy days. But I didn't. I don't even remember why.
In the restaurant industry you throw away food all the time. You can't serve things that aren't REALLY good. But it often means you ordered too much or prepared to much. So it means failure. Even without that experience I hate the waste. Especially when I could have done something and didn't.
I am pretty frustrated with myself these days. Sometimes I listen to the inner chat and know that if anyone else said those things to be I'd be pushing back in a big way. I'm sort of chasing my own tail. A lot.
The issue of Yoga4Everybody with my article is out and this one has pictures of actual fat women. I'm in the back so you can't see me as well as some of the others, which is in part because I'm tall and felt like should stand behind people. And I got a little shy. This piece is full of quotes from my fellow yoginis many of which can be read on Sally's site. That's what the magazine wanted. I don't love it as much as I love the other one but it's OK.
Why does nothing ever seem quite good enough? It was thrilling to read that my other article was being read in Paris. (Thank you François!) For about fifty seconds I felt proud. And then I began the rest of the day.
I'm not one for easy metaphors. I know that I have to keep a sense of proportion and balance. I know that the good lives in one hand and the bad in the other. And I have both hands to look at, consider, accept, reject, wash away.
Maybe it's the thick gray of the day. Mercury in retrograde. My own funny way of being in the world. I watched Westwing as I am wont to do. I pretend it's the news. I pretend it's the real Westwing. In truth the Bartlett administration has been as disappointing as the Clinton administration was. And yet. Disappointment isn't as bad as what I feel now.
When the show was over I should have just turned off the tube. I knew there wasn't anything on. But I came across this show. I've been sucked into this show a few times now. It's just fascinating. I saw one in which a wife who was Cajun and who raised alligators for the meat swapped with a vegan woman. Oh the drama! The vegan woman came off as controlling, judgemental and self involved. And lacking conviction. Her big swing out was to taste alligator. It wasn't hard to understand that she would not want to eat meat. But she was so sanctimonious. And the Cajun woman was trying make veggie gumbo, which no one liked. But she was so sweet. She tried so hard.
Last night was a rock-n-roll pierced and tattoed mom and a bible totin strict mom. It was just amazing. The show demonstrates how entrenched people can be in their own sense of self and how small shift of perception can make so much difference in how they participate with their families. I saw one in which the husband was in tears when he realized how hard his wife worked. They do an after the show thing in which they go back to see if anything has changed. I've only seen a few times but it does seem like things change a little bit in some cases. Husbands help with the household. Mothers and daughters form better communication. Stuff like that. But some people stay in their groove.
One of the reasons I moved around so much was because I wanted to see if the person I thought I was the same everywhere. Maybe I wondered because I spent summers with my dad's family in Missouri and winters with my mom's family in Pennsylvania. There were always ideas about "how we do thing here". Things about my accent and my attitude and my clothes. So if all those things change, who am I?
There's a section in a piece I wrote.
If I signed on to be in show where I had to have a different spouse I would expect some new experiences. It is amazing how dug in people can be and more amazing how extreme we are in our differences. If you put me in Pro Bush military household I would have a head ache every day but it wouldn't bother me to wear khakis. Or what ever. And I would be respectful (or try to be) in my conversations. And. I would be happy when I got to go home. So maybe I'm a little entrenched myself.
This is the kind of thing that puts my head into deep spin. I've met lots of people with lots of ways of being in the world. There is a way in which it comes down to style and not substance. But there is also a deeper meaning structure. One in which we are driven by the same needs. And I like that we express those drives in different ways.
Only connect. Sounds so simple. So true. And yet. Impunity--the perception of being outside the law--has long been the hallmark of the Bush regime. What is alarming is that it appears to have deepened since the election, ushering in what can best be described as an orgy of impunity. In Iraq, US forces and their Iraqi surrogates are assaulting civilian targets and openly attacking doctors, clerics and journalists who have dared to count the bodies. At home, impunity has been made official policy with Bush's nomination of Alberto Gonzales--the man who personally advised the President in his infamous "torture memo" that the Geneva Conventions are "obsolete"--as Attorney General. - Naomi Klein (Because Mike says no blog is complete without it. )( And, ya know, because it's really smart and right on.) On Wednesday the fire alarm outside my back door began to beep and continued to beep all day. I was trying to get it together to call the guy who works on things around the building when one of my neighbors called and said she was calling him. A few hours later she called to say that maybe I should call to put pressure on him. Apparently she used his home phone and I have his cell number. So he didn't know there was a problem and it was a bit late in the day. He was just a wee bit pissy about having to come and deal with it.
I am a little too good at being able to tune out. Part of me knew that the constant beeping was bothering me but I just tuned out. And then when he was pissy I got really mad. Not out loud. I just walked around my apartment talking to myself for awhile. Well. Actually. I was talking to him. But in my head.
It makes me laugh. The amount of drama that I can call up with something like this. Sheesh. I was yelling at him (in my head) and yelling at myself for not calling and letting the neighbor do it and yelling at them both for not having the right number and yadda yadda yadda. It was just obnoxious. And maybe having listened to this shrill, rhythmic beep for eight hours put me in a mood. But then I had to listen to all that inner fussing. Much harder to tune out.
This morning, at about six, it went off again. Then it stopped. Then it went off again around seven and kept going for about twenty minutes. I usually wake up between 6:30 and 7:00 so it wasn't a big deal but I have already called him and he is on his way. I learn my lessons.
Some times. I had to walk up to the post office to pick up a package (thank you Karen). It was a nice day and I was glad to have a reason to go out in it. I decided that I would have a coffee while I was up there. When I first walked in the place was almost empty. I made a joke about it to the girl behind the counter. I sat down with my double cap and a brownie and a book. Perfect.
The owner of this place came in with a couple of guys and his father. I know him because I used to buy coffee from him for the big tourist restaurant I managed. He's a North Beach native. Well know. Nice enough. Always says hi when he sees me. The guys looked like salesmen. During my time managing the restaurant I met with so many of them. I recognize the vibe. They were all laughing and joking. Loudly. I smiled and went back to my book. But the conversation pushed into my concentration. One of the guys was saying something about having offered to give a woman an examination for breast cancer and they all laughed.
Having worked in restaurants and having been in a rock-n-roll band I have heard some crude humor from the mouths of men. I have a pretty transparent face and if I am annoyed it shows. But in a work environment I have not always been as confrontational as I might have been. Not out loud anyway. So there's a kind of filter that I have through which comments like that pass. And this guy wasn't saying it to me, he was saying it near me. Loudly. One of the guys said, 'You're bad" to him but there was lots of laughter.
The letters on the page in front of me began to swim. I thought about my two aunts who both died of cancer. Both having breasts removed. One having her uterus removed. Just body parts. Body parts that are labeled with meaning. I thought about a time when one of them made a joke about it being no big deal to lose her breasts because no one was enjoying them anyway. I was young and I wondered who it was that should be enjoying them. Was it her? Was it some unnamed man?
A woman walked up to the guys in the coffee shop and one of them complimented her coat and ran his hand down her arm. There was nothing licentious in his manner but the guy with the jokes said something about it being a way to cop a feel. He went on and on about it. And then one of the men pulled out an ultrasound of "his son" and there were jokes about paternity tests. It wasn't clear whether the man should want to have the test prove his fatherhood.
The man making the jokes was older. There was also some conversation about social security so maybe he was in his sixties. He was nice looking. It seemed to me that he was trying to make sure that everyone knew, that no matter what his age, he still had desire. He may have been this way his life. Joking his way to a projected virility. I don't have a problem with him wanting to touch women. It's good and alive and wonderful to want to touch. I just wish he could communicate that desire in a way that didn't sound like hate speech.
And they all laughed. Because boys will be boys.
If I could write anything that would make men like that guy understand how stuff like that feels to many women I would spend all my time writing it.
Last night I was listening to Benjamin Zander on Now. He talked about something his father wrote in 1948 about how the Jewish people building a homeland in Jerusalem should never forget the sacrifice they were asking of the people who were already living there. And in that simple act of acknowledgement possibility opens. It's such a powerful idea, the idea that if we really remember the experience of the other we can mediate some of the difficulty of the times when we are at cross purposes. I don't think remembering is enough. I think people need to make amends. But remembering the person, thinking about how it feels for them, is the only way we can make meaningful amends.
It's too east to just write the guy in the coffee shop off as an asshole. Not that I didn't have that thought. I did. But I keep thinking about the smiles on the faces of the other men. The pleasure they were taking in each others company. The way I never want to squelch the expression of desire. The way it feels to have breast cancer made into a punch line. A punch line.
There is hurt in the world There always will be. We are at cross purposes too often. We need to voice our own desire with no thought. No thought at all. And maybe we can have a time when we look at one another and talk about how it all felt. Maybe it's just a hope that I harbor. If you knew how it felt it would change the way you speak and act and it would give you the language you need to say I'm sorry. I keep talking about my fascination with the story telling nature in the Sims. Here's an example.
The game came with a few towns and a few pre made families with pre written stories, one of which was Brandi Broke. When you enter Brandi's house for the first time you see that she has a teenage boy, a toddler and she is pregnant. Her husband has died in a mysterious pool accident. (If you play the Sims you know that the way to kill people is to tell them to go swimming and then get rid of the stairs so that they have no way to get out. Why would you want to kill someone? To get a ghost, of course.) If you look at Brandi's relationships you see that she is in love with a townie. I could have had her marry him. But I didn't like him. I don't know why because later I did bring him into the game and I really like him but then I didn't like him.
So. Brandi met and fell in love with another pre made character, Nina and Nina moved in. Nina has romantic aspirations. Which means that she wants to have woohoo (Sims speak for the horizontal mambo) with as many people as possible. Brandi has family aspirations, which means she wants to be in one relationship and have as many babies as possible. I was learning how to play this new game so I didn't get it all right a way. When I did realize they were at cross purposes I had Nina move out and I made the perfect guy for Brandi. I made the nicest, sweetest guy, also on the family track and brought him into the game. I don't even remember how they met but they met pretty quickly, fell in love, got married and started making babies.
AND THEN. One day when Brandi was pregnant, she died for no apparent reason. Well. She didn't die because I didn't save the game. But when I tried to play with her she would die. Nothing I did changed that. So I went to a friend of her's house and had the friend call and invite her to move in. And she did. AND. She fell in love with her friend right on the spot. I guess that's how family aspiration track people are. The friend was also on a romance track and was happy to have someone to new to have an affair with but was never gonna want to get married. Or joined. Same sex couples in the game get joined. But now what was I gonna do? Her family was going to come home and there would be no Brandi. Should they have her move back in? Well. That's what I did do and it seemed like it worked out. She had her baby and then got pregnant again. She has seven kids all together and she's a few days away from being an elder. Her husband will be an elder a few days before she is. Her sons are married and have their own babies. It's all so cute.
As it turns out pregnant women dying for no apparent reason happens. Whether it's a glitch in the game or something Maxis thought was funny I can't say. But I saved her.
Her kids have always been in public school. Private school is easier on kids. But in my value system I want public schools to be better so I haven't been that interested in the whole private school thing. But the kids really want to be in private school. How you get in is to invite the head master over. He likes a home with expensive stuff and he likes good food and he wants to be talked to. If he gets in the hot tub you get extra points. But since I already don't like the whole private school thing I don't like him. I hate the invite the headmaster part of the game. But I want Brandi's kids to have and easier life so we make the call.
He likes the house better than I thought he would. Lot's of points there. He likes dinner. Lots of points. Things are looking good. And then he walks up to Brandi and says something and disappears. Poof. He is gone.
I go to the site and read that this has happened to other people. Another glitch? Perhaps. But it was so Dickinsonian. I mean here is this poor (she's so poor her last name is Broke) single mother who has had this interesting life, been rescued from death, worked her way to the top of the culinary career (almost) and will soon be an elder and it was like this guy was saying your kids will never get into our school. It's probably a glitch. We can invite him back. It might work out. But I'm just saying. this game is amazing. I like to think I am the one telling the story. I'm doing the clicking. But, whether by default or design the game is telling it with me.
Which is just so much like life.
Brandi will die eventually. Her husband will die before she does and it will make her sad. I'm not sure how I'm going to play that. One of her kids will stay in the house and raise their own family. So they may comfort her. Or maybe I'll have one of her lovers move in. We'll see. And then she will be a ghost. A ghost who will haunt the house. It's just so interesting to me.
I have one picture of Bandi and her family at dinner.
So cute. It seems like a long time ago. Jeanne had come to visit. We'd been out for dinner and conversation. When we got back to the apartment we thought we'd watch some TV. On every channel there was a car chase in LA. That car chase was the beginning of a national obsession with OJ but I was not interested. I turned off the TV that night and ignored it all to the best of my ability. It was everywhere so it was impossible not to see something about it. But I had no opinion about his guilt or innocence and I felt like the media frenzy was not a good thing.
I remained disinterested until the day the verdict was announced. On that day I couldn't get away from the TV. The news went from one place to another asking how people felt. In some communities of color there was jubilation. In battered women's shelters there was grief. In sports bars there was mixed reaction and comments about the cost of lawyers. For me, the meaning being taken from the verdict was heart wrenching and instructional. We see things through our own filters.
What comprises a jury of our peers? Is it possible to listen to evidence with an open mind? How does a verdict impact the body politic?
So it was with the Scott Peterson trial. I just didn't care. It's not that I didn't care about the loss of the families. Maybe it isn't really that I didn't care but rather that I felt the need to pull away from the media pounding about the case. And, again, yesterday was different. I was completely captured by the jurors and the reaction of people to the verdict.
The jurors seemed so worn. They spoke about being changed. They were clear, grounded, thoughtful and sad. And the reactions of the general public were brain splitting. People talked about being happy about him getting the death penalty because they were pro life. Huh?
There have always been people who have an interest courts and trials. I think court room proceedings should be open for public scrutiny. But the observation of things has an impact on them. And the media keeps us distracted with hours of focus on things like this and gives us little to no information on so many other things. While I was listening to the jurors I got an e-mail with news from Chile. No real mention of it on the news.
Any death is a cause for sadness. The death of a mother and an unborn child is a horror. But what is the political meaning being made by hyper-concentration on this case? How does the media use our humanity to form our politic?
I oppose the death penalty. Always. My opposition is based in what I saw in the faces of those jurors. When we as a culture ask people to sentence people to death we need to think about how it's going to impact them. And how does it impact the people who have to carry out that decision? Of course this case will go through such a lengthy and costly appeals process that Peterson will probably die of old age. But the impact on the jurors will be the same.
They did the job they had to do. I wish them peace. And I'm sad that they had to even think about the death penalty. I have no opinion about the guilt or innocence of this man. I didn't pay attention to the details. And I would never be in their position because I don't support the death penalty. I wouldn't be chosen for the jury. So my thoughts are for them. And the families. Kristina and I often talk about the impact of noise. Having lived in apartment buildings in cities I can tune a lot out. Most of the time. Sometimes the sea lions wake me up in the night. Sometimes neighbors have parties. But I tune out trash collectors and school bells and drunken party people stumbling trough dramas out side my window.
This morning I was woken by a loud thud and the engine sound of what ever was dropping it. It sounded like it was right out front. It sounded like metal being dropped. In one big thud.
It was about the time I woulda woke up anyhow. But I turned over and tried to go back to sleep. I couldn't. I knew I wouldn't be able to. I just lay there.
Seems like such a metaphor for who I am right now. I might want to wake up. I might not be able to sleep. But if something else is making gonna make me wake up I'm gonna fight it.
I'm just. So. How I am. If you go to Sally's web site and scroll down there's a link to a PDF of my second article about yoga. This one is quote driven and there are pictures of fat women. Real fat women. The photo that was used with the YI article was of a women who I wouldn't even call large and that was frustrating. I feel more ownership of the YI piece. I wish it was on line. The Yoga 4 Every Body piece was written toward the requests of the editor. Which is not to say that it's bad. I just feel more ownership of the first one. But. It is good to have stuff out there.
I did some yoga yesterday. My practice has been less than regular. It is always good to return to it. I am more given to stretching in general. More aware of tension in my body. This isn't so much about yoga as it is about age. My body doesn't rebound as quickly. It demands attention now. Which is good. I suppose.
There is this holly daze thing happening around me. And I'm just trying to ignore it. I have no funding. No energy. I'm not feeling all bah humbug. Although I'm not loving the pounds of catalogues I get every day. Mostly I'm just feeling out of the loop.
I dunno. I dunno. Let me speak let me spit out my bitterness |
