|
November I've developed into quite a swan. I'm one of those people that will probably look better and better as I get older, until I drop dead of beauty. - Rufus Wainwright (via Catherine Wheels) Sometimes I wonder why we make note of these made up ideas of time. But being done with October feels good. I don't know why it was such a stinky month. Autumn is my favorite season. And I don't know why I'm feeling happy to arrive at a moment in time that feels like such a precipice. I am though. Maybe it's because soon all the campaign hammering will stop and we will know what's next.
Saturday night was noisy in the neighborhood and I didn't sleep well. I kept going back to bed all day Sunday but I can almost never sleep in the day. I could barely keep my eyes open during 60 minutes, which was not necessarily a bad thing. I went to bed at ten with a head full of Melanie Klein and at that point couldn't sleep at all. Ah, well.
I'm going to take my voter information pamphlet (and when I say pamphlet you should picture a volume the size of a thick magazine) (lots to vote on here) and study up. Some things are a no brainer.
So here we go. In the words of Amy Goodman, the count down to the show down. And I have this strange calm. Like when you've been pushing a muscle for to long and you finally relax. For just a moment you feel more relaxed than you ever have. And then... Did not want to get out of bed. Did not want to turn on the radio. If I could spend the day with my head under the covers I would.
Having given voice to all that, it is entirely the wrong attitude. Since our election four years ago was hijacked by a hyper media, corrupt state officials, the supreme court and our own apathy this feels like the election in which we take back democracy. All those forces are still at play.
I'm tired of feeling afraid when I walk into the polling place. It shouldn't be this overwhelming. The system needs work. The electoral college should be the first thing to go. If I think about how much money was spent on this election I will end up back in bed. Amp has a few great posts but I can't link to specific posts there. I seem to be stuck in frame set. He mentioned what the Democrats did in Oregon. Democracy? We need a big change in how it all works.
But today I'll walk over to my polling place and cast my vote. My tired and terrified vote. In one way or another, this is the oldest story in America: the struggle to determine whether "we, the people" is a spiritual idea embedded in a political reality? one nation, indivisible ? or merely a charade masquerading as piety and manipulated by the powerful and privileged to sustain their own way of life at the expense of others. -Moyers I thought I might take a book to the poll because there was so much talk about long lines. As it turned out there was only one guy in front of me. But there were more people there than I normally see and when I left there were six people in line. I came home and made tuna salad.
That's really the way it is. First the drama. Then lunch. I did actually crash for about twenty minutes. Slept hard until awakened by a loud fly buzzing around the room.
Turned on the TV. Turned off the TV. Read for awhile. Turned the TV back on. Made coffee.
As news of the first few states came in my stomach began to turn. I kept reminding myself that these states aren't the ones to watch. It's too early. Keep breathing. But. This is so intense. The good news: America is a divided nation. Despite the pundit hand-wringing over this fact, it is a positive thing. Nearly--nearly--half of the electorate rejected Bush's leadership, his agenda, his priorities, his falsehoods. From Eminem to the chairman of Bank of America to 48 Nobel laureates to gangbangers who joined anti-Bush get-out-the-vote efforts in swing states. Nearly half of the voting public concluded that Bush had caused the deaths of over 1,100 American GIs and literally countless Iraqis (maybe 100,000) for no compelling reason. Nearly half saw the emperor buck naked and butt ugly. Nearly half said no to his rash actions and dishonest justifications. Nearly half realized that Bush had misrepresented the war in Iraq as a crucial part of the effort against al Qaeda and Islamic jihadism. Nearly half desired better and more honest leadership. Nearly half knew that Bush has led the country astray. -David Corn Recently, in my comments, I was accused of taking my emotional temperature too often. This morning I don't have any emotional temperature. I feel bloodless.
I went to bed at 11:00 after a manic evening of reloading the CSPAN map every two minutes and channel jumping around the news channels. I was back up at 11:20. Back at the computer. I did sleep. Until 5:00 when I woke up having a nightmare.
So.
Punch drunk.
Bloodless.
The e-mail I got this morning from The Nation reminds me of what Joe Hill said before being murdered in 1915 by a firing squad in the yard of the Utah State Penitentiary. "Don't mourn, organize!" As the day moves along and I read blogs, listen to the radio, eat my eggs and toast, emotion surfaces and then falls slips back under the layer of shock.
Kristina said something smart about grounding in the physical world. I've been taking pretty good care of myself through all this. Given that my appetite and sleep patterns have been whacked. Last night I made chicken, acorn squash and micro greens for dinner. At another time in my history I might have smoked and drank my way through the evening. This morning I did some much needed yoga.
Liberal people often tell me that they don't watch TV. Then they wonder how people could have voted for Bush. Watch some TV tonight. Look at the way culture elevates meanness and ignorance. It won't take much. Ten minutes of a show or two. A few commercials. All those people we like to think are so stupid are coming home from jobs in which they make not enough money to pay the credit card debt they built trying to feel better about their lives. They are too tired to read, or think, or help their own kids with homework. They watch TV. And they are fed a toxic idea of power and beauty. They are fed fear of their neighbors and the rest of the world.
John Kerry, in his concession speech, said we wake up winners simply because we are Americans. I find no reason to take pride in that fact. Neither am I ashamed. Because being an "American" has never been about being one thing. The definition of that word and the meaning of that identity has always been static and rarely positive in terms that I would endorse. For me it is rather like being a member of a family that behaves badly in a small town. I do feel a need to apologize. And a need to explain why we are the way we are. At the same time I feel that there has always been a dissonant America. There have always been people who didn't move in lock step with the agenda of greed and domination.
Yeah. I am feeling like dreams of my political youth, which almost seemed to coalesce in the early days of the Clinton presidency, have been crushed by the much more simplistic agenda fed to an exhausted, frustrated and disenfranchised population. I'm not willing to use words like moron and boob (what would Des Femmes make of the use of boob as a slam? ) because I've worked in restaurants with too many good people who didn't get ideas like internalized oppression. Don't tell them that they don't understand their oppression. They're living it. I'm not sure it's about having starch. I think its about knowing how to frame the debate and then ... framing it. We lost control of the frame. So to speak. We lost it to huge amounts of money. We lost it to our own need to allow people to have their own opinions. We lost it because the other guys are framing it with lies.
We are not one nation. Clearly. We don't wake up in the same nation. And really, in some ways, I hope we never do. Difference is good. I'm not interested in common ground. I'm not interested in uniting. I'm interesting in finding the ways in which we can all get a little bit of what we want. The one nation I'd like to wake up in is the one in which we all have homes, food, jobs, health care and dignity. After those basics are handled we can talk about the rest.
So. Anyway. Now what?
Cyndi has a good idea.
I've been thinking and thinking about it. I think it's a great idea. And I'm a bit obtuse about the market. Willfully obtuse. Maybe it's time to get smarter.
And then there's the what to do about my writing question. Some of the blood is flowing back into that part of my brain. I think I'll be able to post more often than I did last month. I had two pieces of writing rejected by The Sun, which really hurt because I love them so. For years I've intended to use the Reader's Write prompt and send it in and I have not. Maybe if I had they would know me and my writing. Anyway. It is something to try.
Amber has a cool project. Timely.
Some how I have to get my art and writing and politics and on and on into motion. Some how. Despite this machine that wants to mold me and everyone else into an obedient corporate servants. It's the same question that's been nagging at me for such a long time.
What to do?
And please. It is a some what rhetorical question. Not that I'm closed to suggestions. But these kinds of changes are never simple. And I am working on it all. Yeah.
Well.
Ya know.
Miguel linked to someone who linked to someone who said,
Yeah.
Deep breath.
My emotional temperature has been up and down and back up. Dru pointed to a comment thread in which there was mention of the push for Gay marriage as the reason for the way things turned out. I was only mildly irritated by it until I heard it three or four more times. At which point I was beyond rage.
I burst into tears a few times.
I laughed out loud a few times.
Yeah.
Well. On the morning after the morning after I am listening to the radio and reading blogs. There were votes that were not counted and that it was close and maybe it was another stolen election. I'm glad there are people working on all that. I think we need to keep talking about that. I think most of us are so anxious to move on and get past how bad this feels that we don't want to keep poking at it.
I don't accept a lot of how this looks. It is true that many people in this country voted for Bush. It is true that when you look at the big red states and surrounding clusters of blue we look like a country full of dopes in the middle and the south. But I think that's too simple. If you look at the numbers on a state by state basis the numbers are close. I don't accept the idea of a conservative mandate.
There is no doubt that the next four years will be difficult. There is no doubt that this dubious notion of morality exists and that there is a vigourous conservative Christian coalition. But I want to keep resisting ideas that divide things into simple and alienated terms. And I don't want to be in such a hurry to feel better.
I found myself working pretty hard to keep my emotions from becoming overwhelming all day yesterday. I am too often overwhelmed by my emotions. But I'm certainly not interested in not feeling. There are reasons to be sad. There are reasons to be angry.
The electoral college map is an example of how ideas can be sold. People aren't that easy to color code.
I never feel fully competent when writing about things like this. I often feel like I'm not being clear. And that may be because I don't like to take the big stand too often. I like to keep the notion of complexity in play. Part of complexity is that there are moments when things get simple and I have and will take a big stand now and then. I often feel like I'm jumping from the macro view to the micro view and trying to stop and every point in between.
What I can say with confidence is that there are a lot of great people doing a lot of great work. I think a bit of despair is inevitable and not such a terrible thing and I like the idea of us all gathered for a plaintive wail. If you're wailing, I'm wailing with you. And then we can make a joke and have a giggle and make some plans. In my dream I had moved into a small house with Eminem. He hadn't moved out yet and the place was a mess. For some reason I knew I couldn't clean it up in a hurry. So I would clean a little bit and then watch TV or sleep. He seemed to be OK as long as I didn't go to fast.
I woke up. Made note of the dream with no small amount of wondering what it could be about and turned over for a bit more sleep. I went right back into it. He had painted graffiti on a wall that I had painted. It was nice graffiti. Words from poems and parts of sentences he thought I would like.
Uh.
Hmm.
I'm still wondering if the stolen election news will build. Bruce linked this Palast article. Cyndi linked this. Democracy Now is talking about it. It's in the paper. I just wonder if we can keep the focus and make some noise.
My friend Tom sent e-mail that he had gone back to blog writing. Which I thought was a great response to all this emotion. Karen forwarded an e-mail from this guy in which he said:
People are struggling and some of us are trying to move forward, some of us are trying to question what happened.
And the governor of the state of California continues to act the bully.
The other day I was writing and I was concentrating really hard. I noticed I was cold but I've been having such a hard time writing lately. I didn't want to stop. Finally I broke the trance and got up to close the windows, at which point I realized it was raining. Really hard. Weather in SF is always curious. Sweater cold one minute. Tank top hot the next. The last few days have been cold and rainy. Apropos.
I think I've blogged about this before but I make this soup based on a Portuguese soup. I had rainbow kale that was going limp so I used that, red beans, chicken stock. There are more layers you could add. Meat. Onions. Herbs. But I was in my toss it together mode and the beans and greens are a lot of flavor in and of themselves. I had that with some red wine. It was a deeply comforting meal. took the chill off.
We're gonna need comfort. I've gone from spiders to lizards here. Perhaps it's the season. Perhaps the lizards are eating the spiders. For the past twelve hours, there has been a beautiful little green anole perched on the cat food bag in the laundry room. S/he (how can I tell?) regards me curiously, cocking his/her head whenever I approach...but doesn't scurry away unless I make sudden moves towards him/her. The kids and I observed back last night. Cole said "Hello, little lizard." Monk said "I'm going to go into the other room, little lizard, so there will be one less person in here making you scared." It occurs to me that it's not a bad thing that Monk is convinced he is, as he says "a RE-PUB-LICK-IN!"...the world could use some republicans who are sensitive about the mental/emotional state of little lizards. - Dru I just turned on the TV and Lucille Clifton was reading this poem.
Picture the smile on my face.
I needed that poem. In the midst of all the election post mortum there is a bit of (cough) news today about how fat people are making the cost of flying higher. (Via BFB although it's all over the news so I've been hearing it again and again.) I mean ... don't take me there. Not this week.
And. Also. Back to the idea of the electoral map as a rhetorical tool. Elayne posted a great map. If I titled my posts I would title this:some of my best friends are Christians.
Just to be clear. Because really, it's a time for clarity.
I posted the link to Elayne's maps (which has been expanded since I did) because of the map where the country is broken down into smaller bits. There were maps like that on the news Tuesday that broke states into voting districts by color. While it may be true that more southern and middle states were more Republican, the big red and blue swatches of the electoral college are too simple. I listened to a panel on CSPAN doing a post mortem district by district and my head was aching with numbers that I couldn't contain.
And then there was the comment I left over at Dale's.
All week I feel like I've been arguing for complexity one minute and a bottom line the next. And that's the way it will be for a while. Because it's all true. There is an extreme right. And they do worry me. And they are well funded. But. They are people. I mean look. Nothing is that simple. Guess who doesn't support the war.
Anyway. I try to hold notions of complexity even when I'm being simplistic. How's that for double speak?
Sigh.
I did an exit poll on Tuesday. I don't remember the word values being on it but I'm sure if I saw it I would not have checked it. It is too vague. Add the word family. Family values. It is still rather vague in my opinion. I think about one of my radical lesbian friends. What was she doing on Tuesday night while I obsessed in front of the computer? Helping her son with his homework.
My strongest impression from the weddings was how straight many people looked. Being an aging hippie chick I remember when we used the word straight to mean conservative. And the weddings were filled with what I would call conservative values. There were more babies than there was camp. And, for the record, I loved the camp. There was dignity. Is this the group the Democratic party wants to blame?
I heard a woman saying something about how the traditional view of marriage has worked so well. Since my parents were divorced when I was three months old and my father never paid more than three or four months of child support and went on to be married FIVE more times, I'm not feeling it. This morning is difficult. I had the idea for the post I wrote yesterday but it took me a very long time to write it. I was looking at the pictures. Thinking. Feeling.
I spent some time looking through the blogs and listening to NPR, which is my typical Saturday morning. I'm reading lots of great writing. Lots of passion and energy. Lots of heart.
And then it hits me.
I'm so sad.
I don't think this is a big, bad deal. It seems obvious. It's a reaction to the political world, the way things are articulated, the limits of my own ability, the crash of a week of trying very hard to keep a focus going. In some ways it is my default emotion. It's the way I feel most of the time. And I know that people don't want me to feel sad and worry when I'm sad. I don't want people to feel sad. I worry when people are sad. I'm tempted to write the laundry list of reasons for why I am and most often have been sad. But. Some of the people who read this blog know me and some know me better than others and it's a tape loop that I really don't want to run just now. It's a tape loop that is always running.
Having sadness as a default doesn't mean I don't know happiness. I do. And I relish it when I feel it. So it isn't about me feeling sad and that being a bad thing. It's just about talking out loud about it.
I remember days spent dreaming. Dreaming of the things that would happen. The way it would be. Lots of dreaming. Lots of letters from teachers saying I was very smart but I day dreamed too much. I dream too much. I don't do enough.
OK. Well. Yeah.
I wanna go have a coffee with a friend and talk. But my friends don't live the kinds of lives in which I can just have that impulse and call and have it happen. My friends have jobs and kids and partners and hobbies and therapy sessions and body work and previously scheduled time with a friend.
And. Honestly. I don't talk much when I'm sad. My throat is tight. My eyes are full. And it isn't like there's a way to talk about it. It is what it is. It may be best to just feel through it.
But look. I can type. So I am. Because it feels like it's the one thing I can do. Most of the time. I can put words on the screen. On Saturday I watched Together. I cried through the last half of the movie. Which is not to say that it is a sad movie. It's a sweet movie with lots of laugh out loud moments. In the end it's about people coming through for each other in surprising ways. That's a theme that always gets to me.
When I was young I couldn't cry. My throat got so tight it hurt. Even if I was alone. In the last five years or so I cry a lot. It feels good. Especially when you need it and I needed it on Saturday.
My last few posts have drawn two comments that I felt were misunderstandings of what I wrote. I began to wonder if I hadn't written well. I wondered that at that time I was writing. There is no doubt that emotion plays a part in how measured I can be when I'm writing. I make every effort to be measured and I think I've been writing a lot about my personal struggle to hold onto a sense of balance and keep an open heart in the face of an election that makes me feel furious and grief stricken. Since that message may not be clear, let me say it very clearly. I am struggling to maintain a sense of balance and an open heart in the face of an election that makes me feel furious and grief stricken.
I remember this in the days after the 9/11. Because in my MFA program I was meeting lots of new people, I was braced in my communications with people. I remember so many moments of feeling cautious and feeling the need to be clear and informed in my opinion. I also remember what a relief it was to talk with people with whom I knew agreed. I could be sloppy and rhetorical and just dump the feeling. Get It out of my system and then go back to the business of trying to learn what I needed to know to make my points.
Right after the election I read things on blogs that made me cringe even when I agreed. But I also read people giving voice to the powerful and difficult emotions brought up by this election. I watched people doing what I felt I was doing. Moving through the cycles of emotion and trying to tell the truth. And I watched people who didn't seem to care about how they said what they said. They just gave voice to their rage. And I think they have that right.
I'm generally interested in keeping the conversation going. I think I do work really hard to have a tone in my communications that allows for people to disagree with me and still holds the line on what I'm trying to say. I may not always be successful. And last night as I watched the news and saw the film of soldiers kicking doors and heard the rationals for the invasion of hospitals my desire to be fair and have an open heart began to dwindle.
I am always suspicious of broad brush hyperbolic ideas about what's going on. Things are rarely simple. And. Also. Too. I have my opinions and a need to say things in a big, over blown, wound up, emotion driven manner. And I take comfort in that kind of writing sometimes. So it is a struggle. And it probably should be.
Yesterday I couldn't even come up with a post because I was lost to the extreme. I chose to remain silent.
Last night I was trying to cope with some feelings of being misunderstood. I thought about James Carville and Mary Matlin. I sometimes wonder how they manage to have a conversation that isn't a fight. They are both centrists in their parties. But they both have the job of articulating the agenda of their parties.
Whenever I fill out one of those what-is-your-blog-about things I say something about it being what ever I'm thinking about on any given day. I often think about political things. And I think it's pretty clear that I am not a centrist. I did not vote for anyone this time. I voted against someone. I'm sick of that. I'm sick of feeling like there is so much at stake. I don't really think that the extreme right is who voted this guy in. I think it was them and a lot of other more centrist people who generally like the economic polices of the Republican party and/or don't think it's a good idea to change leaders in the middle of a war and let's face it, Kerry wasn't that compelling. And then there's the morals stuff. I think it's pretty clear where I stand on all of those issues. Of great comfort to me was the conversation I had with my extremely conservative mother who does not agree with me on the issues but doesn't think the government should tell people how to live.
Maybe I'll start thinking more about recipes. Or write little essays as I walk through the world. Or what ever. I've always tried to write to where the blood is flowing. I try to be mindful of the blog world and link to other people who are writing and posting beautiful art. I try to be balanced and open hearted. And sometimes I fail. Maybe it's a time for just sayin what you feel and not worrying about how you get it said.
I wanted to point to some new art that Craig did because I am such a fan of his art. And I find that I am worried that the art speaks too strongly about things. And I find it more troubling that I am spending one minute worrying about that. Because it is glorious and exact and as I listen to the rational for the ramp up in Falluja in preparations for the installed democracy I find myself thinking about one of his pieces.
I'm not sure how to keep a tone that makes sure anyone who reads me will feel like I am balanced and have an open heart. Not when there is so much at stake.
And then I come back to that feeling I had as I watched the movie. The movie has nothing to do with politics. It's about family and music and destiny and class and it's about how people come through for each other in surprising ways. People do come through for each other in surprising ways. These are peckish times. I don't think we have to agree with each other about everything. But we do need to keep talking. And it may not always go well. In the middle of the night I woke from a dream and thought about how I would write it up for the blog. But you know how it goes. I went back to sleep and woke up with dream fragments. None of which made sense. I do remember one part in which I found a bunch of posts from a blogger who hasn't been writing and I wondered how I'd missed them.
Yesterday Matt and Chris had a hearing about some legislation intended to limit condo conversions. It was a long and contentious meeting and will be heard by the full board. I was struck by the tenuous negotiation between trying to make sure the poorest among us are protected and trying not to hurt the people who scrape it together to buy a small house. In SF that means a lot of scraping. Attempts to craft the legislation were subverted by emotion. Matt always keeps his cool. Chris has a harder time. He has been under more personal attack than most local politicians, so I understand. And I like his passion, so I'm not put off by his tantrums.
In SF this is a constant battle ground. The rights of the poor pitched against the consumption of the rich with the neither rich nor poor but trying very hard to get ahead squeezed in the middle. I think it's that way everywhere but it really seems to play out in our city hall, again and again.
For me it's compelling because of the public testimony. There was a woman who was recently married and her landlord won't allow the husband to move in because, in the lease, it says only one person can live there. I'm assuming that things like that in a lease are about costs like water, or wear and tear. What I don't get is why the lease can't be adjusted to accommodate the second tenant. Except I know that landlords sometimes use things like this to evict people who aren't paying market rate. And then there's the young woman who worked really hard to buy a two unit place with some friends. She's worried that the legislation will hurt her in some way that I couldn't entirely parse. But she isn't a big money person. She's just trying to own her home.
With property and business owner ship comes privilege and responsibility and some times hardship. What about the people who never get to the place where they can do anything but rent and work for someone? How do we make sure they can have a base line of assurance? These are the questions that drive well intended progressive politicians and better them than me. I am too bewildered by the numbers and too irritated by rhetoric and I want everyone to be happy. I've heard people say that good public policy makes no one completely happy.
I live in a progressive bubble. The mayor, who I still don't trust, does fairly radical things and the board of supervisors fights for the rights of tenants and workers. But it is never simple. I was just in the kitchen washing the dishes. And the sun pushed through the thick grey of the day. The room filled up with light. Kinda like when the house lights come on in a theater. Yesterday, on the news, there were two stories. One was about an FTC suit of phoney weight loss companies and the other was about a new pill that can help you quit smoking and lose weight. At least once I heard a news person say the lead for both stories back to back without even a blink. No notice of the way those two stories bump into one another.
We are getting use to double speak. We went to Iraq because there were weapons of mass destruction. When there are none we're there to liberate the people from an evil dictator. The war declared over and mission accomplished but it goes on and on and on. We're in Falluja to rid the city of insurgents. Insurgent leaders fled before the battle began. The battle is successful. Context shifting. Debate reframeing.
People tell me to turn it all off and I do. More and more often. Because it becomes so mind bending.
And then there was news that caught my attention. I started looking for George on line. Of course he was there. Taking pictures.
Later that same day: I woke up this morning from a dream in which I was in a check out line and as I woke up I was literally feeling for my wallet and not finding it, oddly enough. I had to get up and find it because I was so worried.
That was how my day began. And then I talked on the phone and responded to some e-mail and addax. All the while I was working on this post. I just now realized that I never finished it and clicked on publish. Mind bending. That's my excuse. I. Uh. Hmmm. Well.
There's been a few news reports about the people who are questioning the election. All of them take a diminishing tone, which, no matter how you feel about whether or not there needs to be a complete count of the votes, is not the way news should be reported. In my opinion.
If it turned out that the vote had been tampered with and Kerry challenged it and things were reversed I would, in some ways, be thrilled. In other ways, I would think it would be a set up for four years of Kerry being blocked and harassed in ways that would make the blocking and harassment of Clinton look like nitpicking. I also think the whole battle would play out between all of us. Things would get ugly. And. Maybe that would be OK. So I have mixed feeling about the out come. But I have no mixed feelings about the righteousness of the people who are asking the questions.
They have that right. They are not conspiracy theorists. They are hard working people.
Karen sent me e-mail about people who are working on it all and ways to push the point and Move On is taking it up as well.
So I'm gonna write some letters and make some calls but I don't have a feeling that it will mean Kerry gets the job.
I just think that after all is said and done we should have elections in this country that are less suspect. And I don't think there's anything wrong with dissent. Stephen sent e-mail that he was reading at Books Inc. I wrote back that I make jokes about having agoraphobia that are less and less funny all the time but that I would be there.
It had been raining all night and was raining in the morning and I began to make deals with the gods about sun for ... well that was the problem. I had not much to offer. Not even reverence. And then it got sunny and so I said thank you. Just in case.
As I walked to the trolley it was beginning again and I grumbled something to who ever might be listening. As the trolley rounded onto Market it was pouring and gray and as moody and miserable a storm as ever could be. I do like the rain. I just like it better when I'm inside. And I was inside the trolley but I was worried that it would keep up and I would have to walk in it. Just before Fifth the sun burst through. Just like the other morning. By the time we were at Castro it was dripping a bit. Nothing too bad.
That's me. That's the way I am. I catastrophize. I laugh at myself when it turns out that things are not only not bad but might even be good and then it's neither terrible nor beautiful. Just drippy.
I'm about half way through the book about Klein. It isn't the best trolley read. Not with teenagers calling their dad on cell phones to beg for a ride home and couples arguing about money in a combination of English and Tagalong and young boys with something like Tourett's or maybe just an interest in seeing how long dad would make the effort to explain the reason why the abrupt explosions of ear splitting sound the boy was making were not good public behavior. Psychoanalytic theory from a French feminist perspective doesn't get through the demand of all that cacophony. This, by the way, is the book in the trilogy on life, madness and words. This one being on madness. I'll tell ya about madness. Trying to read the book on the trolley. That was madness.
Most of the people I like the best don't suffer psychoanalytic theory of the neo Freudian variety. I understand why. But. I like this project. I like the idea of reading the lives of specific women though their work.
I went to Peet's to wait for Deb. Easier to read there. Only the sound of a guy talking about what cut backs in funds are doing to exacerbate homelessness, a woman who was telling him about her study of pre-Christian religions and two guys talking in the nothing I'm saying really matters I just need to be near you kind of way. The two guys were sitting to my right at a table slightly higher than mine so I could see all the under the table touching of thighs. Not that I was looking. Not with all that psychoanalytic theory to hold my attention.
Deb came and we went for dinner. I had tuna noodle casserole. Really. It was so good. Not canned tuna. It was fresh tuna and peas and it was creamy and warm and the perfect thing on a rainy day. We went back to Peet's and Stephen was there.
I always feel loud and bombastic and needy around Stephen. I think it's because I love the way he thinks about things and he's someone who made a difference in the way I think. And he's quiet. And thoughtful. And specific. I noticed that I was doing lots of negative self speak. Just like when Val was here. It's another one of the things I do. I say the bad thing I think the person is thinking before they can say it. But I don't really think Val or Stephen would be thinking bad things about me so I don't know why I did it around them. I'm the one thinking bad things about me.
There's this one section in Distortion that stays with me like a dream. That's been a theme lately. Dreams. Life. Which is which? Stephen writes about people in a way that makes every thing about them seem like something you might have felt yourself. Even when there's just no way. When I was reading the book I was struck by how detached I am from my own sexual desire. I just don't pay attention. Almost. I am aware of it sometimes but I have no sense of agency and no sense of possibility. It's just something I take care of myself every once in awhile. In fact, I think I go out of my way to not notice the touches of the thigh under the table.
Back on the trolley, when the rain was coming down, I remembered that tiny bit of time in the early part of this summer when I thought that something wonderful was happening. For just a little while I thought I might be loved. In that way. You know? And it was so ... intoxicating. And then it became clear that I was wrong. And I fought the idea. Until I couldn't fight any more. And then I just worked on. Getting over it.
So. The reading. Stephen was wonderful. Gifted me with a new character and new dreamscape full of gauchos and the beautiful twin of a longed for object of desire and ideas of wicked and torn up drawings and smacks on the butt. All this after a bunch of unfocused reading about object theory and the anxiety of desire and rain that turned to sun that turned to drips. Sidewalks with yellow leaves pasted to them with wet. Dramas. Inner and outer. Imagined. Projected. Feared. Realized. Overheard.
There was a woman in front of me who had green and purple hair and tattoos and too tight black clothing and a volume level that rivaled the young boy on the trolley but without the father explaining the etiquette of public space. In front of her was a man dressed in leather. Leather covered with buttons and patches and slogans and spikes. And silver jewelry. And the look of someone who may have been high. And ya know I see people like this every day and lets remember that I have two tattoos and a pierced nose. So it wasn't so much that I thought they were odd. I just felt like I'd seen them before. Standing in front of CBGB. Or was it at the Chelsea? Or was it in a dream? Everything began to feel like I was on Acid. And I felt like a blank space.
Madness. Well. Ya know. Acid trip. I'm tellin ya.
I got home and my copy of Amber's book was in my mail box. It is beautiful and soothing. Like tuna noodle casserole.
And then there was the news of Iris Chang. I can't quite explain why the news hit me the way it did or even exactly how it hit me. I wasn't that sad when it was raining. I wasn't that happy in the sun. I wasn't really annoyed or engaged by people on the trolley or at the reading. I was just moving through it all. It seemed like a tape loop was running and I needed to take notes. You know. In case there was a test. I haven't been talking about my Sim playing and I have been playing. Mostly on the weekends when there's lots of good radio and Book TV. The game is absorbing enough to play with out any background noise but I like to think there is something feeding my brain. The game does give me lots to think about but I always think that reflects my inability to play. I take it all too seriously. It really is just like the hours I spent playing with dolls as a kid. Telling myself little stories the whole time. This new game has more story telling possibility. You are really telling the story of the whole town. It's a soap opera.
And then there's the stages of life: infant, toddler, child, teen, adult and elder. And then you die. Sims death is very cute. There are hula girls. Singing Aloha Oe. And you get to be a ghost. But still. There will be an end to your narrative line. As it were.
I find that I rush the baby stage. All the baby does is need. Food. Diaper changes. In the middle of the night. So when the notice comes in that the baby is about to become a toddler you can either wait a day or take the baby to a cake where, after everyone sings of course, it will spin in the air and become a toddler. Toddlers need potty training and they need to learn to walk and talk, all of which depends on adult participation. It's also a time when the Sim can play with toys and gain skill points. I remember reading about a trend in which parents were trying to teach their babies things at a very young age and thinking it was a bit over the top. With my Sims, I am that parent. Ironically, the toddlers and kids always want to be read to and I never do that. I'd like to think I would read to kids. I have read to kids who I know. But in the game you're always thinking about how to make the most of your time. More so now that the hula girls are waiting in the wings.
I rush the toddler phase a little bit. The kid phase and teen phase are all about making friends and developing more skills. Being an adult is about career and family. And what is being an elder about? That was the question that began hours of me staring at the screen wondering.
They can retire. They get pension checks. But they don't seem to like that. What do you do if you aren't working? Swim, paint, read, play chess. Seems good to me but they want jobs. Part time jobs. But still.
And then there was the idea that, in a couple, if one person dies, the other person will be there alone. Waiting to die. Ewww. My solution was to move in one of the kids and their family. It's very cool. Three generations, living together. Soon to be four if I can fend off the hula girls. There are ways.
The first generation of the kids of adults who came with the game are about to launch and this has me hand wringing and teeth gnashing. I want everything to be perfect. What does perfect mean? Oh. That's so complicated. There's an aspiration meter and ... oh. Never mind. Let's just say that the layers of meaning making are thick.
There are things that happen that make me laugh out loud. And, with all the life transitions, I have felt sentimental and weepy, which makes me feel a bit odd. To say the least. See what I mean? I just can't play. But what always gets me to stop playing is that it's just too much like life. That and the overwhelming responsibility of being a god. Er, uh, goddess. Thirty years or more ago, if you had told me there would be an African American woman in a position of power in the national government, I would have thrust my chubby fist into the air and said, "right on!"
Picture me. Sitting here. Head in hands. No. No. No.
I have a sore tooth. I'm not sure if it's my tooth or my gum and I mostly notice it at night. It wakes me up. I think I might be grinding my teeth as I sleep. It feels like such a neurotic thing to do. And yet. So understandable. All things considered. I had my soap opera on. They were dealing with racism because of an event in the house. The group leaders asked each person if they were racist and all but one said no. The one who didn't say no didn't exactly say yes. She said she knew that she stereotyped. Kind of a side step. I hate when people say no to that question. I especially hate it when white people say no.
If you ask me I always say yes. Do I want to be? Of course not. Do I cultivate it in myself. No. But I know where I grew up. Amos and Andy was on television when I was a kid. I don't remember having thoughts of hate toward people of color, or even feeling superior. I do remember having thoughts of difference. As I grew older I challenged those ideas. Should I be congratulated? I think not. I think that should be the default response.
My neighborhood was white collar working class. Social division was between me (a Methodist) and the Catholic kids. The people of color I saw were on the bus. My mother, when asked, was adamant about there being no difference but none of the kids I knew were being bombed in their church. My families reaction was to blame it on the south.
I live in a country that begins with stories of three ships crossing the ocean and then more ships filled with people looking for freedom and then a document written with words about freedom that ignored the people who were clearly not free. Ignored them until the country split apart and even then lacked the will to forge a meaningful equity. Not until it was demanded did the will for equity begin to develop. And still. Still, we have work to do.
Most of us want to be thought of as a good person. Many of us want to think well of others. It doesn't feel good to say yes to that question. It feels terrible. I wonder how much worse it must feel to deal with racism every day and not be able to pretend it happens else where. A little bit of uncomfortable truth doesn't seem like too much to bear.
So I am rethinking my earlier post. If you see me now I will thrust my fat fist into the air and say, "right on." It won't have the ring of pleasure it might have if it were someone I respect. But still. Some things have changed. Back in the day, when I had a job, I went to the dentist. I didn't have health insurance from the job but I was making enough money to go. My dentist gave me a thing (like a brace but it's not called a brace) to correct my bite. I had to wear it all the time for a month and then I could just wear it at night. I don't think there was anything terribly wrong with my bite but it was the guy's specialty. The next step was supposed to include sanding down some teeth but that was more money and time and discomfort and I didn't want to do it. And then I started school and that was the end of the cash.
Last night I wore "the thing" (what the heck was it called?) and had no pain from the tooth. It does set the top teeth forward, in a way. Hard to explain. But it worked. There may still be problems with the tooth. And there may be a day when I have a job and can go to the dentist. Won't that be nice?
I was thinking about it all. Of course. Heath insurance. My inability (or is it unwillingness) to take it seriously. Health care. Culturally. Personally.
This morning I read Lynn following her from the lovely comment she left me. Bias is indeed everywhere. She wrote a post that I found poignant in which she talks about body image issues. Ironically I, fat positive rebel that I am, was just thinking about the same thing. I was thinking about it because of my Sims.
In the first game I found the fat body site and had so much fun making the Sim me. In this game being fat means being unfit and shows up as all belly and butt. I love bellies and butts so that's OK but it isn't really accurate. Arms are fat. Legs are fat. Faces are fat. So there is no Sim me in my Sims 2. And I find that I react to the way weight shows up on some of the bodies. Certain Sims look very cute to me fat. Other's don't. Why? It's completely subjective and I know that my eye has been poisoned by the media. So, despite the work that I have done to see differently, I am still subject to the bias.
It's just a lot of work to deprogram and the work is always subverted if you watch any TV or see magazines in the store or just deal with any media at all, ever.
In Lynn's comments someone mentions the "legitimate concerns about health and rising costs of medical care- " and goes on to talk about why that may be part of fat hatred. It's a cool comment taken as a whole but I want to challenge the word legitimate.
Insurance companies. The people who say that if you give them a little bit of money every month they will help pay your medical bills. It is a business and would not be a viable business if people got sick all the time and needed lots of medical care. And they aren't likely to insure people who are going to have big medical bills. At least not at low cost. So how do they go about figuring out who gets the higher costs? How do you measure health?
Big question. I wouldn't want to try and answer it. We do know that insurance companies sometimes (cough) find reasons not to pay for care. And then there are HMOs. And ideas about preventative care. I think ideas of preventative care are good, generally. But bodies are very complex. One person's prevention is another person's poison.
In terms of weight, insurance companies came up with BMI as a measure for health. There is much debate about the use of BMI as a measurment. It's interesting to think about the fact that the insurance companies can change the numbers at will. Which they did. So people went to bed one night at a healthy weight and woke up the next day at what is considered an unhealthy weight. Think about that.
This is not my area of expertise. There are people who study this stuff who make the argument better that I can. What I know is my own life and the lives of my friends. I don't get much health care, which is more about money than weight. I have a great fat neutral doctor now (who I only see when I'm really sick and I pay cash.) but I have avoided doctors because of fat phobia. I know lots of fat people who avoid doctors. I'm not causing the rise in health care cost. The ideas about who I am are causing the rising costs. And who comes up with those ideas?
There is money being made.
Yesterday there were two news stories telling me that if I got more sleep and bought a dog I would lose weight. Experts. Experts said so. See now. My tooth woke me up. I lost sleep and now I'm fat.
Oh I'm getting kooky. I know. But it makes me feel kooky. It's one thing to have a media that tells you what beauty looks like and it's another to have constant crap coming at you about health and weight.
A friend was telling me about a show on which they talked about a girl who went to doctors about her weight. They ran her through the same old tired eat less exercise more trip again and again until finally she found a doctor who thought out side of that blame the fat person thing and figured out that she had Cushing's Syndrome. She's received some kind of treatment and she has lost weight. I don't really know the details because I didn't see the show. Whether or not she lost weight and whether or not that is a healthier thing is a whole conversation but, for me, is ultimately about how she feels. My point is that her weight was part of a complex adrenal disfunction and she was blamed for it.
And that's just one example.
Someone. Some where. Might wonder if I found out that I had Cushing Syndrome and could lose weight by taking some kind of pill, would I. I really don't think so. I can't say. Some of my weight could be about some amount of adrenal disfunction. Adrenal glands are all about dealing with stress. The world is stressful. The world is stressful in ways that are new. And worse. So my fat grandmother and my fat mother give me a genetic predisposition and then I live in this world. I mean, who really knows and I don't really care.
There are two things that are true at the same time. I am not a particularly healthy person. Nor a particularly unhealthy person. I think my heath issues have to be read in the context of my whole life. I have had and sometimes still do have a really ambivalent relationship with my body. Some of that comes to me naturally and some of that is reinforced by culture. I can work from the inside out. And I think the culture can meet me half way.
When I first saw the picture on Lynn's blog I thought she was (is) such a cutie! And why would anyone think anything else? I'm always imagining a scene in which I am standing in a public space next to a thin or average sized person. The person eats lots of crap food and never moves and smokes and drinks and yadda yadda. I eat vegetables and fruit and some crap food (although it's usually pretty high falooten crap food) (what with being a foody and all) swim, do yoga and walk. Which of us healthy? And now add the impact of the hostility directed at me when I am in public because of my weight and the absence of that kind of hostility for the thin or average sized. Health impact?
Anyway.
So.
Yeah.
My tooth is OK. I woke up from a night of complicated dreams ending with me in a room and a big kids choir was walking in to sing. I was so happy to be there to hear them. In the middle of the night I woke up convinced that there was going to be an earthquake. There may have been one. There will be one. Some day. I've never been here for a big one. The little ones are weird enough.
Susan linked up this site about Victoria's Secret and the catalogue bomb. It is the time of year when my mail box is full of catalogues every day. I was looking at a Pottery Barn one the other day and thinking about the shiny new smooth lines in the pictures. Just like bodies. We like everything smooth and new.
I have a bed room set that was gifted to me by someone I didn't even know that well. She was moving and knew I needed a bed. Extremely kind, I thought. It's kind of vintage. There's a label that says it's genuine Fashion Flow Furniture. Kind of forties looking. Not something I would have picked but after ten years I've become quite attached to it. Most of my furniture is getting old. Not smooth. My cushy chair has lost some cush. But I like it. Sometimes I want a new one. But I'd rather just get some more cush for this one. Pictures can be seductive. I'd be tempted. You know. If I had some money.
Last night on the news there were mothers of soldiers saying that they didn't like the way the media covered Iraq. They thought it was too negative. Ironic. Since I think the news is a propaganda machine FOR the war. The mothers pointed to a list of soldier's blogs, which are pretty interesting. Filled with pro war rhetoric. But interesting. I found myself pondering the fact that so many people feel the way they do about it all. Since it is so opposite of my own feelings. It's not so much about right and wrong. It's about how we get to where we are.
I woke up a little later than usual and am a bit spacier that usual. Or maybe not. Heh. I have the local news on the TV as I write. They are reporting that there is an obesity virus. This isn't new news. Just after the report they talk to a comedy guy who is in town and they all make jokes about donuts filled with the virus.
My head. Shaking. In dismay. Not big dismay. Just a whatthefuck kind of shaking.
I'm gonna go take a shower and do some laundry and apartment cleaning. Right now it looks like there might have been an earthquake on my desk. Have you had ever had a dream in which you are trying to wake up but you can't so that when you actually do wake up it feels like you've been swimming up from some indescribably deep place ? That's how life feels to me right now. Which I suppose sounds terribly dreary. But I guess I hope that being able to describe it might mean that I am about to wake up. Or have woken up. Or sumthin.
I watched Southern Comfort last night. I wonder how it must feel to be a male to female transgendered person with botched breast reduction surgery watching the new television shows in which doctors do painstaking work to get a nose, or an eye, or a hip into just the right cookie cutter shape we are told is beauty. It's a movie that makes the life of the transgendered people real. Accessible. Heart breaking. And normal.
That's one of things I always hope I do. Describe the life of someone who is fat in a way that takes away the onerous rhetoric about blame and shame. Which is not to say that there isn't difficulty.
After October I vowed that I would push myself to write every day. And I have been unsuccessful.
Obviously. After I wrote my post and did the usual morning stuff yesterday I walked over to Trader Joe's to get some muffins. I was thinking about why it's so hard to write these days, why I blog, why blogging is so hard right now, and on and on and on.
I blog because it's a way to write. I remember a teacher in my MFA program said he didn't write for a year after he graduated from his MFA program. I am not hypergraphic. Sometimes language just leaves me. But the blog has kept me writing. And that has been good.
What keeps me going is enormous gratitude for the people who stop by to read and more gratitude than can be measured for the people who stop by more than once and the friendships I've made in the blog world and the writing. The desire to write. So these fallow times are miserable.
Later I listened to the supes while they made the choice to not censure Chris Daly. It was one of those meetings with hours of public testimony most of which was pro Chris. I met Chris years ago when I was selling coffee. He is intense.
He lost his cool. It wasn't a good thing. Oh well. He shouldn't have said the bad word. But censure? Oh no, no, no.
I'm big on decorum and the need for public officials to keep their cool. I really had to think about the fact that I didn't want the big deal made of what happened. I am more aligned with Chris politically. Does that mean I don't want him to be held to a standard of civility? Oh. Maybe.
But there was this thing. Chris represents a district in which most of the people are working class and poor. There is so much need there. He works very hard as was witnessed by the line of people there to speak for him. The supervisor who brought the motion to censure represents a district of money. The whole thing had a feel of the master of the house calling the servants to task for being too uppity. I really don't think that was her intention. I don't think she has a clue about her deeply held sense of entitlement. Chris made a public apology to her but she wanted more. She wanted a public apology to the lobbyist Chris told off.
My affection for hours of public testimony reminded me of what I like about blogging. Oddly enough. I think blogging subverts the star/expert culture. More and more we hear political blogs and bloggers being quoted in the mainstream media. So there is a way in which blogging can be swallowed by the star/expert culture. But there will always be the bloggers who aren't stars, or experts, or pundit. I may have my star/expert/pundit wanna be urges but I subvert myself by trying to be honest and risking looking raggedy.
It's been a raggedy year.
In public testimony there is (often) every race, sexual identity, sexual preference, ethnicity, size, language challenged (by which I do not mean that they speak a language other than English, although they do. I mean some of them are less than articulate) poetic, bombastic, rhetorical. whacked out point of view represented. It's the real reality TV.
I talked with a friend on the phone. She reminded me of something I said to her a few months ago. She said I told her to "trust me". She was pushing me about what I was going to do and I got prickly and we were talking about how hard it can be to talk to me when I'm in a certain mood. I have a vague memory of the conversation. I think I've lost trust in my self. In my life. Something about her feeding my own language back to me clicked off a cascade of internal shifting the result of which remains to be seen.
Yesterday was thick. Thick with metaphor and thought and listening.
Today?
Well.
We'll see. Years ago, when I lived in Boulder, I would cook big Thanksgiving meals and invite everyone in town. I cooked for days. And, because it was the eighties and because most of the people I knew were musicians, there were always drugs. And booze. Lots. The whole time I was cooking I was horking up white powder so by the time diner was ready I had no appetite.
One year, as soon as the food was on the table, I snuck off to my bed room with a glass of wine and a smoke. I just needed a minute. Karen went with me. We were just chatting away when a young woman, the roommate of a friend, not someone I knew very well at all, walked in, gave us a strange look and projectile vomited all over my bed.
Gross. I know. It turned out that she was on mushrooms for the first time and she had been drinking a lot of wine. But here's the cool part of the story.
Karen had all the soiled bedding off the bed and into garbage bags ready to take to the laundromat, flipped the mattress and remade the bed before I could finish my cigarette. And you have to know that Karen was a very small woman. Thin. Very thin and looked like a strong wind would knock her down. But she had strength. There are better stories I could tell to portray her strength and her character but every year I remember her flipping that mattress. So fast.
I have been as unlucky as it possible to be when it comes to romance but I have had more luck than can be measured when it comes to friends.
Marie has the perfect Thanksgiving picture up. But I also liked the one she had up the other day.
I hope you eat too much. I hope you enjoy it all. I hope you have too much of everything. Too many hugs. Too many kisses. Too much of everything good. And if something goes wrong, I hope you have a friend who takes care of it. At about three o'clock I poured a glass of wine and threw some potatoes in a pot. I made some gravy and heated some already cooked turkey up in it. I had a mixed green salad and some cranberries. Good. It was all good.
IFC was doing an all day Dinner For Five marathon. Kind of a drag since I have the first disc of the first two seasons coming from Netflix. I half watched a bunch of them while I played with my dolls. The game has a bug. When a Sim gets too many memories it won't do things that are interactive, like eat a meal with other Sims, or hang out in the hot tub, or talk on the phone. It sucks the fun out of the game. They say there is a patch in the works. They've been saying that for a month. My Sims are all at the point where they have memories. So my game playing has mostly stopped. I played around with building houses.
Late in the evening I opened the back door to put out some recycling and the air smelled like rain and cold in the city. Pavement and wood smoke. I took a deep breath.
So. Ya know. It was a fine day.
Susan posted about Buy Nothing Day before Thanksgiving. I won't be buying anything. But. Ya know. I'm kinda broke. Reverend Billy is on the radio.
Mark linked up these stickers. The other day I was thinking that I am in a certain amount of denial about the election and the new (cough) moral America. Mark also linked a campaign that seems rather poetic to me. And yet, I feel the need to wake up and look at it all with eyes wide open. I still think it would be interesting if Ohio speaks up in a few days saying, "Uh. well. We did the count. And. Uh. Kerry won." Things are plenty interesting in other countries.
The morning show has had two different people talking about how the brain works. I'm not sure why. But there was some rather good news. It used to be thought that you were born with all the brain cells you would ever have. Now they find that the brain builds new cells. New brain cells. That is very good news indeed. Judy Collins was on Now last night. Listening to her tossed me into a sentimental revelry. I had many of her early albums when I was seventeen. I learned a lot about folk music from her. And Joan Baez. Odetta. Bob Dylan. the first time I heard Chelsea Morning Judy Collins was singing it. Years later I heard the Clintons say they named their daughter after the Judy Collin's song Chelsea Morning and I cringed. I liked Judy Collins. I loved Joni.
A few years ago I bought a disc of the last Judy Collins album that had any big meaning in my life. I might some day like all those early albums again. I think it may have been from Judy that learned about Leonard Cohen. And now she has an disc of his music. (My favorite person singing his music might be Jennifer Warnes) I am awash in names of musicians song lyrics this morning.
It was also from Judy that learned about Antonia Brico, who I heard give a lecture at the University of Colorado. The take away message was "I will not be deflected from my course." She made us all say it out loud with her again and again. She was quite wonderful.
I was a bit void of course even then. I knew I wanted to sing but I didn't think I was good enough. And I wasn't. In some ways. I have a nice voice but nothing grand or unique. I have good stage presence. My musicianship is really nil. I just loved the feel of lyrics moving through my throat. I get the same feeling when I write something that I love.
Also on Now was Roya Hakakian. Also filled me with revelry and wonder about the successes and failures of social revolutions.
So here I am on Saturday morning. Filled with revelry and wonder and lyrics. Typing slow. I know there's supposed to be a tryptophan effect with turkey but I swear. Three days of turkey. Three days of naps. Crash and burn naps. Needing a nap always startles me. I don't like them. I have the weirdest dreams during naps. But in the past year I have napped more often. Age. Hormones. Lethargy. And now turkey.
Heh.
I watched Artemisia. I didn't know that it was a controversial film. I liked it well enough. Not overly much. I didn't think that she was portrayed as being so inspired by the guy. She seemed pretty self directed. But the turkey and the naps may have softened my brain. Yesterday I woke up and just had nothing to say. Not a thing. During the day thoughts would begin to gather but nothing ever formed. This morning isn't feeling any more inspired. Except, one of my neighbors is cooking bacon. It smells so good. I'm thinking about knocking on doors and begging. I'm eating oatmeal with dried cranberries and an oat bran, blueberry, raspberry muffin. It's all very good. Some bacon would be good with it. Heh.
Sometime
I think the only way to
break out of a time of writing
struggle is to write about
every little thing. Other
times I think it's good
to let the pressure build
until something just has
to come out. These days.
Oh. I dunno. The smell of
bacon. It seemed like I
could write about that.
And the dried cranberries.
I bought them at
I am thinking about why people in one country can hit the streets in pursuit of democracy and in another country only a few people beg for it. I am thinking about the news of a ramp up of military recruitment in high schools (it was all over the news last night but I can't find a story to link) and the news of health crisis and loss. I am thinking about things.
It's cold here. Very cold. All day I scan my life for reasons to write. The other night I was loving the smell of olive oil as it heats in a pan. The smell of rain on pavement on Thanksgiving night. The smell of bacon in an apartment building on a cold morning. It seems like I should be able to write about it all.
|
