Wednesday 5 November 2008

Letter to my nation

Last night I cared. I cried a bit when CNN announced that Sen. Obama had won the election. I cried more when I saw Rev. Jesse Jackson crying. I have unending respect for the Rev. Jackson, and I grew up in a city where his voice rose above so many others and what he said made listening worthwhile.

It felt incredibly good to be a part of this country last night.

This morning brought with it a few sour notes that I cannot pretend away. Proposition 8 passed in California. Initiative 424 passed in Nebraska. A proposition to prevent unmarried couples from adopting passed. Maine split their electoral votes. Nebraska did not. Although it was heartening to see that Saline county went blue along with Lancaster and Douglas counties. It was good to see and hear how many people went to the polls, regardless of their affiliations.

My one cultural issue with the Obama/Biden campaign (oh how fun it will be to teach our spellcheckers to get rid of the nasty red lines there) had nothing to do with the candidates, and in fact, is an attitude that was not preached by that campaign. It is the sense that the President will be responsible for fixing everything. It is the willingness to alleviate our own responsibilities by burdening our newly elected President. It is the disillusionment of the last decades come to fruition in the unkindest of ways: okay, we voted you in, now change everything and change it in the way we want it changed. Yes, we can change things, we can create an environment in which change is more readily acceptable, though it comes with pains, as it must. In order to live up to that promise we cannot sit back and become complacent and allow ourselves to remain ignorant and aloof and apathetic. No longer do we have the excuse that dissenting voices are not heard. We have the example of those who attempted "revolution" only to find heartache, violence, imprisonment and the pointlessness of wasted passion.

Much of the last administration has left a stain on the collected soul and character of our nation. Last night's election showed that we are beginning to understand what we need to do in order to heal these newest wounds. We still have some very old wounds to heal as well. Rifts that have never been addressed. Horrors unacknowledged.

I do not envy President-Elect Obama his job. It is one that I have never wanted for myself. I believe that the best leadership is provided by those who see a leader as the person with the best organizational and management skills. Leaders who see leadership as giving service through strong communication skills and good hiring practices are people who understand that the ultimate aim of this country is to perpetuate itself in a sustainable and effective way, not to provide leaders with power, deification and a rowdy, uneducated public easily swayed and easily mollified.

We have, for far too long, allowed ourselves not to be lead but to be corralled. We maintain our silence at our peril. We believe what we are told about ourselves to our shame.

There are conversations that need to be held, hosted, encouraged and participated in: What is a conservative thinker, what is a liberal thinker, are they different from republican thinkers and democratic thinkers and what are those as well? What is ethical government, is it desirable, how do we discuss ethics in government, real or imagined? What is the purpose of education and how do/don't schools live up to that? Are we engaged in denying human rights to people? How do we approach that?

I believe that even engaging in these conversations allows for greater thought and purpose to action. Actively making decisions in life, as far as we can, is part of what makes a life well-lived.

Thursday 31 July 2008

On the verge of angry

I spent the majority of my morning working with my past blogs and the organization of them via this very cute little spreadsheet that I had a good time developing - if 'developing' is a small enough word for what I did.

There were words of winter and the crunch of frozen rain and apples and walking alone and I could smell the contentment coming off of everything and I smiled for joy. Ethel slept between my feet under the desk for an hour or more as my mind drifted into and out of conversations I haven't had out loud, but which answered questions I hadn't even known I was asking myself. My solitude was complete and creative and good.

And then I came to a place where the internet was opened and I read my emails and took one look at my Reader and am now completely irritated and disgusted with humanity and how easily we forget that on the other end of all these tubes and wires and codes are human beings. Human beings who have as much right to be offensive and awful as they do to be thoughtful and considerate. Human beings who are supposed to be able to make decisions for themselves that do not rely on validation from others for their overgrown egos and the sense that there is Power with admiration because leadership is not about Power unless you want it to end in some disgusting loss of humanity - physical or spiritual. Leadership is about service, it is about being the best person to organize or motivate a group of people in service of a larger goal, that goal being the maintenance and perpetuation of said group.

I am disgusted at the need to be a dick for the sake of being a dick, or being wounded for the sake of making a Big Pronouncement that serves nothing but the purpose of someone's ego.

Egos are good, they allow us to understand our strengths and our possibilities and to sense when we have not done well. Life is not best lived when it is lived in service of our egos for they are flighty moody things subject to the will of none and the whim of all when they are not bounded.

Today I would like nothing more than to say that I am done. That I have enough friends and they are wonderful and my life is fulfilling enough and I am done with the rest of the world because they are acting like petulant children with no perspective, no respect and no sense of the consequences of their actions.

However. There is more inspiration, motivation, creativity and joy to be found within the world than without it.

It is not a finite answer. This will happen again. And again I will be angry, though perhaps not so likely to think of turning my back.

My father has given me ears to hear my voice. The anger abates and I am left with only focus and a desire for laughter and song and my project. The cats will purr when I come home and I will find joy in their warmth. My friends will laugh at my silliness and I will find comfort in that.

Everyone else can choke on their own choices, I have better things to do.

Friday 27 June 2008

Friday List of Awesome

This is a list of that which I find awesome during the week, more like what occurs to me to post, but it sounds better the other way. I started doing these about 3 months ago and managed not to have one for the entire month of June (not including today). I blame Warren Ellis and Whitechapel entirely. You should too.

Freakangels. (There is a shirt. I will have one. It will go nicely with the pleated skirt of purple.) Also - Paul Duffield is fucking brilliant.

Bunny is making me happy lately.

as is Pibgorn - ooooo.

and Scary Go Round, ah, i had forgot the joys of thee.

Julie Taymor. Just her. Because she is brilliant.

My dear acquaintance Krista who moved away and isn't coming back! has a lovely blog with her photos.

The FURminator. 'nuff said.

Will Wheaton. He cracks me the fuck up.

Stephen Fry. Because how can I have gone this long without including him on any list of anything awesome ever? There oughta be a law. Really.

The trailer for Dr. Horrible is up. So much laughing.

Index on Censorship.

I'm including it here because I'm making a huge assumption that this is where it belongs - has anyone actually seen In Bruges yet? Anyone wanna take me when/if it comes to town? I promise to wear shoes in public, but that's about the only societal norm that can be anticipated these days. Probably it's not coming to town, is it? Sometimes this place is very stupid.

Hammocks are awesome. I am looking forward to spending some time in one this weekend. As an antidote for the whining. Of which there has been much this week.

Thank you and much love to all of you who have been so graciously amused by me and my misery and griping - it's good to laugh and get some perspective.

Anyone got anything to add to this? It's been a month since the last one - surely other people have awesome to share....

**This will be cross posted to my myspace, facebook, and livejournal, **

Tuesday 24 June 2008

i swear, chandreyee, we didn’t break anything...

well, almost anyway, and it wasn't actually my fault, i swear, it just - well, the thing just flew off and there wasn't anything i could do about it and then when we discovered it in the sauce for the meat for the dinner, there just was no getting around it - the metal spout for the kosher salt was just too damn hot to pick up with our hands. i used a spoon to fish out and let it cool by the sink. and washed it off with soap and warm water and tried to put it back on the kosher salt box. i may have failed at that part of it. maybe.

the evening was an adventure all the way around, tho one not on the scale of runaway pups or scary drunk men. more like finding oneself the unwittingly well-timed rescuer of friends locked out of other friend's homes - don't ask and i won't tell - and frying balls and chicken so tender that it fell apart and realizing that even though i still can't smell anything well, i do know what the air feels like when it is carrying scent to my nose, kind of warm and heavy and slightly orange colored, though not tasting, that may have been psychosomatic owing to the lovely red color of the spices and the oil on top of the yoghurt coating the chicken. there was terrible white wine (seriously. terrible. suddenly i am she who finds the bad wine. better than other possibilities.) and we had to remember to leave it on the porch when we crossed the street to peer into the home with porch work being attempted. the two homes next to each other, twins of some relatively non-descript early 20th century style - the kind of homes whose interiors are filled with curving staircases and real wood panelling, the kind whose exteriors are so confused as to be ridiculous - seriously, what were those columns about? - and the brink front walks in a semi-circle joining the two porches, the bricks that are famous and of which there are not enough to finish the project so it ends, deceptive in its unfinished state, it looks as though the rest of them just fell off somehow - it is strangely disturbing to stand there and look at it and realize that the bricks didn't just erode away, they didn't fall away, they are all on the ground and the ground is still there - still prepped for more of them - it is not finished being built, not in some advanced stage of becoming un-done.

we did succeed in making a mess of Chandreyee's kitchen. we also succeeded in cleaning it up. because we are adults and even though the home of our friend is a place of food and laughter and multiple simultaneous conversations and ideas and joy and music and movies, it is also her home, and we know how to clean up after ourselves. we are laying groundwork for the future of this place. our laughter is our blessing: our hope that our friend find happiness and joy and focus and comfort in this place that becomes her home.

and the chicken was fucking awesome and falafel makes everything better and the bad wine was just bad enough to be laughable and the movie makes me happy and watching commentary with company is the same as having leave to talk over the commentary and over the movie all at the same time - the layers were thick, they were. seriously.

tonight is for Jazz and family. later there will be more housecleaning and prayers of thanks that i was not under the dripping ceiling fan last night.

thunder and lightning float through my consciousness making me question my sense of my own mortality and reactions and sensations and fears. i would sit and watch storms and ponder rain drops and surfaces and shining leaves and battered grass and the water rushing to the drains washing the wheels of the cars parked on my streets.

i have begun collecting the writing that i did between May 9, 2007 and Taming of the Shrew on my birthday this year. it is an interesting exercise. more real than i expected.