Stop the Insanity

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090422/ap_on_re_us/us_fed_up_mom;_ylt=AlX0B6fzoXSf1tFkONazZzcDW7oF

Ok, I would never do this but who wouldn't show up in court for this woman to say, "I've thought about it."

It's like a baby crying - it has this sort of dual effect - you have this overwhelming sympathy and concern and somewhere on a lower, baser track in your brain you just want to get it to stop. After months of little sleep and this crying that has no explanation (you go through your litany, wet? no. hungry? been fed. tired? just woke up.) and you find yourself thinking, "What?" to your baby. What in the world have you got to cry about?!

It's the same with the bickering. God! It's awful. My kids have this way of saying each others names in disgust that might as well be a screeching sound or nails on a chalkboard. "Wilbuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrr!!!!!" "Emeryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!"

It's terrifying.

And in the car it's always the worst. They want to bring a book a toy a lego guy a whatever in the car, even though we have a rule about no toys in the car. But I'm late, we need to get to school, I sigh, "Whatever! Fine! Bring a lego guy, bring 10 lego guys, let's just go!" Then in the car they fight over the LEGO GUYS! It's insanity. Absolute insanity.

So, would I pull the car over and say 'get out'? No, but I can imagine this poor woman. Gripping the steering wheel, trying to drive, she keeps calmly reinforcing to her children that they must stop fighting. And then, if you don't stop fighting I'm going to pull this car over and leave you wherever we are to duke it out. And suddenly in her head, as the incessant bickering continues over some bullshit that the children don't actually even CARE about it occurs to her to just do it. The little devil says, "you told them. You said if they didn't stop. Follow through for once in your life. Do it!"

Mari's Beehive

I patterned myself after Mari Wilson off and on through college. I did the beehive, cocktail dresses (although I paired them with combat boots)... And I loved this song. I bought this cassette tape while I was in high school (1983? 84?) and I remember riding around in Susie Shearer's Honda Matic with the sunroof open and this blasting.

What Rich Is

"I'm not after sympathy. We are blessed. What I want is a reality check on what rich means," Ms. Parnell says. "I can pay my mortgage and I can buy some clothes. I'm not going without, but I'm not living a life of luxury."

This is from a woman whose family earns $250,000 per year...

http://finance.yahoo.com/retirement/article/106934/Wealth-Less-Effect-Earning-Well-Feeling-Otherwise

There is this article in the WSJ about whiny-pusses who make at least 250K and don't want their taxes to go up because they are barely eking out a living.

Please.

It's hard for me to even know where to start with these people. I feel so rich, so blessed, so privileged - because "I can pay my mortgage and I can buy some clothes. I'm not going without" to quote idiot-woman Ms. Parnell. And if she wants a reality check, I submit she look no further than within. What is it about Ms. Parnell that makes her feel less than rich in the midst of all that abundance? It seems more a spiritual quandary than a tax issue. Compared to most people in this country she's rich. Certainly when you scan the globe, she and the other 250K/year earners are among the Super-Rich. Do we now define Candy Spelling as rich and anything less as middle class? I guess I thought when you could do all those things (am I a Depression baby all of a sudden?): Pay your mortgage, go to resorts for vacation, have 5 kids (these people had 5 kids! My mother is an only child because my grandparents couldn't afford more. All those kids were a choice!) and have $1,200 left over every month ---- YOU WERE RICH. Yes, Ms. Parnell, I think you do need a reality check on what Rich is. You are but you didn't have the sense God gave you to enjoy it.

FOR THE EYE and The sun doesn't move

Emery has to take these eye drops every day for his allergies - it's called Pataday and it comes in this teeney little bottle that you'd swear holds about 3 drops. The last time I refilled the prescription they put the bottle in a pill bottle (it usually just comes in the Pataday box, which is also teensy weensy) and on the pill bottle was a sticker, larger than the eye drop bottle, that said, "FOR THE EYE" . And I just thought, what else would you do with this? Or would it be so harmful to accidentally swallow it? Or is it that it wouldn't be effective if you took this some other way? I pictured people putting it on their skin as a topical or putting drops on their tongues and screwing up their faces in consternation, saying to their significant others in a twangy voice, "I cain't figger this out, it jus' ain't workin'! These gol' dang allergys is jus' as bad as before!"

On another note, it was a very sunny morning yesterday, the kind we live for here in the Seattle Metro but as we left for school the sun had briefly gone behind a cloud. The clouds were thick enough that you could stare right at the sun and see this shadowy round thing up in the sky - a perfect outline of the sun. Wilbur asked me what that round thing was in the sky and I said it was the sun, that the sun had gone behind a cloud. In a very concerned voice Wilbur said, "the sun doesn't move!" He said it like I was messing with the laws of the universe and shaking the very foundation on which he based his understanding of this world. So I said, "yes, you are right, the sun doesn't move -- I should have said the clouds came in front of the sun..."

Holy Week

I love Easter and especially love all of holy week. We are going to communion for Maundy Thursday at church tomorrow and then for Good Friday we are doing a dramatic reading that I put together. We rehearsed last night and I think it's going to be very good - moving and solemn.

The thing about Iowans...

Atlantic Meat Locker
Originally uploaded by mcrriowa

They are stubborn, independent thinkers. Meredith Wilson was right, there is an Iowa kind:

Oh, there's nothing halfway
About the Iowa way to treat you,
When we treat you
Which we may not do at all.
There's an Iowa kind of special
Chip-on-the-shoulder attitude.
We've never been without.
That we recall.
We can be cold
As our falling thermometers in December
If you ask about our weather in July.
And we're so by God stubborn
We could stand touchin' noses
For a week at a time
And never see eye-to-eye.
But what the heck, you're welcome,
Join us at the picnic.
You can eat your fill
Of all the food you bring yourself.
You really ought to give Iowa a try.

I have found every Iowan I've ever met to fit this bill in some form or fashion. I have loved every minute I've spent in that beautiful state so I understand why my husband loves it so much. I also understand why he left, not so much Iowa, but the small town life he knew there. Being a very private person and having everyone in town know all your business all the time was a kind of torture to him.

I've gotten a first-class education in all things Iowan from my Iowa-born-and-bred farmer husband. They would give you the clothes of their backs but they wouldn't want you to mention it to anyone. They don't put on airs but they are proud, proud, proud. And they may pick at each other but they wouldn't want to be anywhere else. They aren't hick-ish or uneducated, the state of Iowa may have the best public schools in the nation and their students are industrious, well educated and resourceful.

So, it was a surprise to me that they passed an amendment banning gay marriage. I am just glad that sitting on the bench of Iowa's State Supreme Court are some independent thinkers who are now protecting their constitution and the rights of many of their citizens.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090403/ap_on_re_us/iowa_gay_marriage

White Like Me

Both boys desperately needed haircuts. For the past 8 years I have cut Emery's hair and for the past 4, Wilbur's too. But they've gotten too squirmy and there's too much complaining and I'm sick of sweeping hair into the yard... So, I started taking them to this little neighborhood 'Hair and Nailz' kind of place. But I want to be able to walk in (their signs always say, "Walk-Ins Welcome") but this last time no one was available to cut their hair. Plus, they'd each had their hair cut at this place once and they hadn't done a great job. All I ever did, and what I wanted done, was a buzz. They both have perfectly straight hair and until they are ready to groom it themselves the only haircut that keeps it neat and tidy is a buzz.

So, out we walked. I told the boys that we were going into town to see if we could find a barber to cut their hair and low and behold as soon as I got downtown in Woodinville I saw a barber's pole. I swear I've driven that way a hundred times and never noticed it, but there we were. I parked the car and we all went in. There were 4 black men getting their hair cut by 3 black men and one black woman. I registered this information - we were the only white people in there - and then realized that one of the guys getting a haircut is a guy that works in my building. So, we spoke and laughed for a moment and I made arrangements for the young woman to cut the boys' hair. We sat down. Emery has been giving me looks and then when he's out of earshot of the barbers and customers he says, sotto voce, "Are we going to get our hair cut here?" I said that yes, we were.

Well, it only took about 10 minutes and the boys were comfortable (there is a chess set and a pool table and they wanted to do both) and they got the best haircuts they've ever had and they were more comfortable actually getting the hair cut (she was good with the clippers I mean). We talked about the experience on the way home. I asked Emery, "were you uncomfortable when we first walked in?" and he told me, "yes - I felt like we didn't belong there" -- I pointed out that any one of those people in there might feel the same way anywhere else in Woodinville. It was very likely that they were surrounded by white people and one of them might be the only black person in the room. I told the boys that it was a good thing to be in a situation like that where you were the 'other'.

I asked the young woman her name as she finished Wilbur's haircut and I paid her. She said, "Mess" and handed me her card. I thought I'd misunderstood her. But sure enough, that was her name.

I Can Read

I remember the mobile library in San Antonio and going to get books there. They always had those books that said "an I Can Read! book"...

Wilbur is just on the verge of reading. He writes, almost compulsively, letters in strings that mimic words, he asks me what every single sign says - along the roads, in the grocery store, everywhere. But he just isn't quite getting it. It's so odd how something doesn't make sense and then one day, it does. I never went through this with Emery because he read so early. I keep worrying that Wilbur won't read or that there is something wrong. It's sort of maddening.

I should just enjoy this and not worry. I should just be where we are and quit trying to get somewhere else faster.

A Rooster Crows in Brooklyn

Years ago Doug lived in Los Angeles - before I knew him. He was deciding whether or not to go graduate school, trying to decide if he should leave LA; and one morning in the middle of LA County he was awakened by a rooster crowing. I often make him tell me this story... and the end of the story is that when he hears that rooster crowing he thinks to himself, "I've got to get the fuck out of here." Like that was the signal it was time to leave Los Angeles, the big city, the excess, the current road trip, all that; and go back to school.

When we lived in New York in Hell's Kitchen I heard roosters crowing all the time. I wanted to leave the City; nothing was going my way and things hadn't worked out the way I supposed. Every time we heard a rooster crow in the morning I would say to Doug, "See? We've got to get the fuck out of here. The rooster is telling us. The rooster is telling us to go." But Doug would remind me that the California rooster was the harbinger and a rooster to be obeyed because his crowing came out of nowhere. And that's why it was a sign. "These roosters crow all the time" he would say as salsa music blared from the apartment building behind us. "Castro had chickens in NY, it's not so unusual here."

I was reminded of all this by this story of a woman getting shot by an arrow.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/nyregion/17arrow.html?ref=nyregion

This woman was getting out of her car and as she opened the door she got hit in the gut with an arrow. I think if that happened to me, and Doug were there with me at that moment, I would say, "OK, are you satisfied? It's the wild west in Manhattan. Can we go now?"

Bye Bye Seattle P-I

I've been listening to this series on KPLU (the NPR station at Pacific Lutheran U) on the last days of the Seattle Post Intelligencer, and our last days as a 2-daily-newspaper city. (http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kplu/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1478803) The broadcast yesterday focused on investigative journalism asking who would be our watchdog if newspapers couldn't anymore.

They had a blogger named Scott St. Clair who posited that the blogosphere (a loathed word) fills this function and there is no need for professional journalists. He spoke of the inanity of 'professional' journalism with such derision that it caught my attention and I started rolling his name around in my mind. And when he talked of representing the Evergreen Freedom Foundation I knew exactly who he was.

Whenever the word Freedom is used by an organization, you can bet that 7 times out of 10 it's some rabid right-wing cabal. And this time was no exception. This fool, Scott St. Clair, was one of the major opponents of Tent City, and, no surprise - the Evergreen Freedom Foundation is a conservative think tank.

That the irony escapes Mr. St. Clair is also no surprise; I mean the fact that he is publicly associated with a conservative think tank and yet proposes to fill the role of an unbiased journalist.

Motel Living

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/us/11motel.html

Our family has been involved in the horror of homelessness since 2004, when the Tent City IV encampment first moved to the East Side of King County. At that time, while we weren't in a recession, while we were all living high on the hog and while the high life we enjoyed seemed never to end, people here expressed vitriolic rage that any roving group of homeless people would be given comfort in our suburban neighborhoods.

I bet some of those people are now facing the prospect themselves.

For some reason, being homeless myself is one of my long-term fears. I have been afraid of ending up with nowhere to go since I first left my parent's home in 1984. I don't know why, it's not always a rational fear, but I think about it. I used to think about who I'd call to ask for help. Maybe it's because I always felt it could happen to me that I felt compassion for people in that situation - I don't know. I had some of the same fears that opponents expressed. But in the end, I'm mostly afraid I'll be one of those people who needs help one day, and if I did, I would hope to find compassion.

Squre Root Day & Give It Up for Lent

Today, 3/3/09, is Square Root Day. Just to mark it and make mention.

And now, Give it up for Lent...

I am going to abstain from Facebook for Lent this year. It just came to me in church on Sunday that that is what I should do. I sit in front of a computer all day and maybe I could get tuned into the lengthening of the days and the season of Lent by not getting online in the evening.

Working Title

I have started trying to figure out what the children will do all summer. This is an annual task, fraught with pitfalls. The school offers day camps and we have some college student nannies who like to pick up summer work. Historically, whatever ratio of home care to school care I've tried I hear complaints. If they are home more than at camp they get bored. If they are at camp more than at home they miss the comforts of home. One thing I have begun to figure out is that I should just ignore all that bitching and not take it so personally. But both options are pricey and when they complain I feel bad that they aren't enjoying their summers and then I feel resentful because I've spent all this money - blah blah blah.

I am going to try and find some more challenging options for Emery - either technology or science camp - for part of the summer.

What's a whorehouse?

New Store in Denver: Men's Whorehouse
Originally uploaded by Jeffrey Beall

So yesterday Emery is watching TV upstairs - some program called Kirby, which I have never actually sat down and watched. I hear parents all the time saying, "I watched the program and felt it was ok..." Well, I really have never done that. I have listened to the program from another room and the program is on Noggin or PBS or Nickelodeon. I have overheard the program. I trust it's ok.

But yesterday, Emery comes down the stairs from watching this show and says to me, "Mom, what's a whorehouse?" I start to wonder if giving him my secret code was really stupid or what in the world is he watching up there? I ask him that, "What are you watching up there?" Kirby he says, but they may have said the H word. And something about a whorehouse. What's the H word I say? I tell him to just say it - it's only a word. And we don't want him to go around saying Hell, not because it's a bad word but because it's common and sounds low rent for kids to cuss. Doug and I stumble a bit trying to explain a whorehouse, and we say things like house of ill repute which really doesn't go any further in explaining the concept, in fact it is obviously purposefully vague.

Finally I say that a whorehouse is a place where someone can pay for sex. Someone can pay someone else to have sex with them. I've always tried to be very factual and even casual about the topic of sex or our anatomy or procreation. But I have to admit, explaining deviant behavior, something lusty and illicit, is a different proposition.

In end, Emery has the show paused upstairs (it was OnDemand) and he says, "Let me just show you." As he's rewinding he's saying, "I think they said something like Hell up in a whorehouse" and I am trying to imagine the innocent circumstance that would permit Kirby or any show to throw around the word whorehouse. When the snippet plays I realize the animated character says, "Hello poorhouse" as in "if such-and-such happens it'll be Hello Poorhouse!"

I am relieved (that he wasn't watching a dirty, damaging show) and then immediately realize that we explained this whole thing about whorehouse to him when we really didn't have to. Really though, explaining a poorhouse is much harder.

forgiveness

There are certain things that I've never forgiven myself for and they often come into my thoughts early in the morning when I'm just waking up. No matter the 12 steps, no matter how sick they made me, nor how long I've carried them around, I just can't bring myself to let them go. I can't get past the notion that I've not attoned for these things and that somewhere the people I've wronged, some of whom are dead, remember these things against me; even in death. And they have not forgiven me either.

There's a notion promulgated by therapists and mental health professionals that I must forgive myself and accept forgiveness from others. But I don't see how. As I get older these things get more pronounced. The one that awoke me this morning was making someone give up something for me, a high school boyfriend... And he missed something that he shouldn't have. And a year later he was gone. I torture myself with that and I have for 25 years. After 25 years it seems more important, because I'm a parent and I think of all the things I want for my children. This boyfriend's mother must feel that kind of regret about me: why did I hurt her son? Why did he die? If he was going to die, couldn't he have had a nicer girlfriend who would make sure he did all the things he should have done before he died, instead of one who held him back? She held him back out of selfishness and insecurity. Shame on her.

The rational part of me (or I might say the evil part) tries to say that it was just as much in his control as mine - to say whether we stayed or went to that dance. It says that I can't make up history and decide that this was an all-important life experience that he regretted missing. I really don't know what he thought of it. All I know is that it was a puppy-love, teen-age romance that is forever colored in my mind because he died. Because of that, everything I did or didn't do, all of my insecurities that played out on someone else's life, my inability to be a normal teen-ager at that time have tormented me. I think, 'I should have done things differently'. I wish I could call him up and laugh about it now - how I wouldn't go, how strange and wierd I felt inside about all those budding feelings, how I hated all that and just wasn't ready for it. I think now how unprepared I was to have any sexual feelings and how I was overwhelmed by growing up.

I realize now how all of this was fertile ground for growing mental dis-ease and disorder. And they grew tall and put down deep and substantial roots. No wonder I was so sick. Sometimes I think I could so easily get sick all over again. Like a mouth sore that I wish I could avoid, I'm drawn to this pain over and over; I keep sticking my tongue in it, making it hurt more. I had a dentist once who said the toungue is an exaggerator; a sort of drama queen, enlarging everything it feels. I don't want to be indulgent with this painful memory or the many others that I dredge up. There's the whole bit about my best friend in high school - that mess. I don't want to be indulgent, but there are things that happened, that I felt and did, for which it seems there is no forgiveness.

Susanna Kaysen

I am reading Susanna Kaysen's book, The Camera My Mother Gave Me... And last night we started watching Away From Her, the film for which Julie Christie received an Oscar nod. Aging is bringing about a whole slew of insecurities and troubles for me. The notion that your body or your mind can just turn on you is truly frightening. The changes in my skin and hair bother me already, I can't imagine if my mind began to go - it's truly terrifying.

The Susanna Kaysen book is all about her vagina and the fact that something went horribly wrong with it - it hurt all the time. But no one can find anything wrong with her - it's like a phantom limb. So, it seems that it's not necessarily her body turning against her. Her mind might be doing it.

Months ago I read this fascinating article in the New Yorker about itching. It recounted the story of a woman who had this phantom itch on her scalp and an uncontrollable desire to scratch it. She managed to control the urge while awake, but once she fell asleep all bets were off. She finally scratched all the way through to her brain fluid - all the way through her scalp. The thing is, it was all neurological. Some scientist doing research on phantom limb pain figured out that one thing that seemed to work was using mirrors to give the illusion that the limb was there. When the patient's mind was fooled into seeing the limb and the person could scratch the phantom, the brain let go of the itch or the pain or what-have-you.

Because a Great Nation Deserves Great Art

There's a whole lotta wrangling going on with the stimulus bill and some 50 million (0f the more than 800 billion) going to the National Endowment for the Arts. Now I know that even a sum so small, when multiplied many times for many "pet" projects adds up. But, if there were ever a time in our history when we need museums, libraries, theatres, art programs in schools, opera, symphony and the like, it is most certainly now. We need our spirits nourished and lifted. And there are so many communities across this country who could lose their art presence with this economic downturn ne'er to have it return.

We don't really have to worry about the New Yorks, the LAs, Seattles, Houstons -- we have to worry about Omaha or Midland or Jacksonville or Springfield... And it's not just how many people are employed downstream of the NEA, it's really about holding on to who we are during tough times.

So, pony up. I am tired of republicans throwing around the acronym NEA with derision like it's so ridiculous that we spend money on art and culture. Who are we without it?

My Big Break

So This American Life's theme this week was all about people who'd gotten their big break only to find that it was probably the worst thing that could ever happen to them. One story was about a couple who had a sketch comedy act and their big break came being on the Ed Sullivan show the same night as The Beatles. The Beatles first time on TV in the US.

It's funny to me because I recently thought that I was glad that some of my dreams didn't come true - that I didn't really know what I was dreaming about when I was hoping for them. I've discovered, for example, that in a lot of ways I'm a private person and being famous is probably something I would hate. Although I dreamed of being famous when I was a little girl. I don't like to travel all that much - more of a homebody, but I used to sort of fancy myself someone who'd travel the world. I now realize I probably would hate that.

Anyway, it's interesting... the synchronicity of the universe... that just when I was thinking that I heard a whole show about it...

This is the day...

It's Inauguration Day! It's Inauguration Day! I have a song in my heart:

This is the day
(this is the day)

That God has made
(that God has made)

I will rejoice
(I will rejoice)

and be glad in it
(and be glad in it)

This is the day that God has made
I will rejoice and be glad in it

This is the day
(this is the day)

That God has made


Happy Inaugural 2009!

Harald the Shaggy

This morning Emery was telling me all about Harald the Shaggy, who was some Norse Mythological figure who would not let his facial hair or the hair on his head be cut or combed until he conquered all of Norway . Emery said all that and then Wilbur said, "Big hair."

Andrew Wyeth

“I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show.”

Andrew Wyeth

This is why Doug loves Andrew Wyeth's paintings so much. Doug loves any movie or story that is set in winter - stark, cold - not lush and green. When we start a movie, in the theatre or at home, if it's cold he'll say, "I love a movie that's set in winter." A Simple Plan, Fargo, Affliction. There are many, but those come to mind at this hour.

I don't mean that any movie set in a cold climate is a great movie to him, nor does he dislike movies where climate isn't a factor or where it's warm or what-have-you... It's just that he particularly likes what happens when there's shivering and snow and wind. And a starkness to the landscape. I think he likes what Andrew Wyeth likes. The thing beneath and the promise of what's coming but isn't visible. And that idea that the whole story doesn't show.

Goodbye to Andrew Wyeth, whose art is loved by us.

Traveling Wilburys Wisdom During Tough Times

Well it's all right
Riding around in the breeze
Well it's all right
If you live the life you please
Well it's all right
Doing the best you can
Well it's all right
As long as you lend a hand

You can sit around and wait for the phone to ring
(at the end of the line)
Waiting for someone to tell you everything
(at the end of the line)
Sit around and wonder what tomorrow'll bring
(at the end of the line)
Maybe a diamond ring

Well it's all right
Even if they say you're wrong
Well it's all right
Sometimes you gotta be strong
Well it's all right
As long as you got someone to lay with
Well it's all right
Every day is judgment day

Maybe somewhere down the road a ways
(at the end of the line)
You'll think of me and wonder where i am these days
(at the end of the line)
Maybe somewhere down the road when somebody plays
(at the end of the line)
Purple Haze

Well it's all right
Even when push comes to shove
Well it's all right
If you got someone to love
Well it's all right
Everything will work out fine
Well it's all right
We're going to the end of the line

Don't have to be ashamed of the car I drive
(at the end of the line)
I'm just glad to be here happy to be alive
(at the end of the line)
And it don't matter if you're by my side
(at the end of the line)
I'm satisfied

Well it's all right
Even if you're old and gray
Well it's all right
You still got something to say
Well it's all right
Remember live and let live
Well it's all right
The best you can do is forgive
Well it's all right
Riding around on the breeze
Well it's all right
If you live the life you please
Well it's all right
Even if the sun don't shine
Well it's all right
We're going to the end of the line

Whatever

Wilbur always puts his shoes on the wrong feet. I don't know why, we've gone over it a million times, he's a very capable, smart child... But for some reason he really insists on putting them on the wrong feet. If we are just headed out to school I don't really worry with it anymore. He looks a little like Eugene Levy in Waiting for Guffman and his two left feet, but no matter. When he gets to school he's going to change into his 'inside' shoes anyway. But if we are going somewhere together in public I have to insist that he change them; I think people will think, "now why wouldn't his mother put his shoes on the right feet?"

Yesterday, Emery had to stay after school to finish his geography work and Wilbur and I went over to Starbucks (a sign he instantly recognizes) to kill a half hour. As we walked from the car I told him that his shoes were on the wrong feet and couldn't we stop and switch them? He kept saying "no they're not" and I kept saying "yes they are" and finally he sighed and said, with great exasperation, "Whatever..."

Global Storming

As we flood in Western Washington and people are evacuated from their homes and all the major highways that lead to Seattle are closed, I think back to last week when we had record snows - there are a lot of people around here of a conservative ilk who said, "Global Warming, heh!" I had a science teacher in 7th grade who used to ask us tricky questions and when anyone gave an answer that wasn't well thought out or too obvious he'd say, "you can pick the dummies out of the crowd..."

That's what I think about people who, during bouts of intense, abnormal and devastating weather, say, "Global warming, hmph." As if they are somehow the scientists. As if it's really that simple. Wow, more snow this year, I guess that hot planet theory is all wet.

The predictions about global warming, from what I've read, predict more hurricane activity, intensified storm systems, and hotter heat waves. Cold snaps and snow falling in the Southern reaches of the US isn't evidence against the warming of this planet.

The thing is, if I were God and I created the world and the heavens, I would get pretty sad and hurt and angry seeing people crap on it. I would get pretty tired of all their carbon footprints marking up the beautiful home I made for them. And I think that would make me more disappointed than anything else human beings do. Except maybe war. War and crapping on the beautiful world I gave my selfish, petty, ungrateful children. I could do without praises and lauding if the the people in the world I made would just treat it and each other decently.

Little Brother

Wilbur just asked me, "Am I a little brother?" And I said, "Yes." And he said, "I have a bigger brother?" And I said, "Yes."

Loving Lent

I love Lent. Growing up we didn't really observe lent - it seemed distinctly Catholic and Baptists didn't really want to have anything to do with that. But I love the 40 days (minus Sundays) that make up lent much more than I enjoy the 12 days of Christmas. Christmas feels public - as it should, bringing a baby into the world ushers you into community even if you've kept to yourselves prior to that event. Lent feels private. Lent feels like meditation and reflection.

I am working on something for Good Friday that really excites me. I saw this incredible documentary about a death row minister in Texas and it's a Good Friday story. I will work on that through Lent. That's my lenten project.

One bad apple

One bad apple
Originally uploaded by waɪ.tiː

Last week on This American Life the theme was 'Ruining it for the rest of us...' and what happens when one person's actions or choices affect a lot of other people.

The opening was a study of group dynamics and behavior by a Professor of Management who found that one bad apple could spoil the whole bunch girl; and it's something that I have seen myself as a manager of people. It's so easy to be negative that if someone on your team starts enticing you there you tend to slide right into hell with them.

This business of our choices affecting others is nowhere more evident than the subprime lending crisis. People borrowing money they can't afford to repay affects us all. Our choices aren't made in a vacuum.

Story Corps

Story Corps
Originally uploaded by BinaryLA

I love this program on NPR - Story Corps is an organization that lets ordinary people record stories of their lives. This morning, in a story from Atlanta, the story was a hospital chaplain reflecting upon her retirement. A friend interviews her and asks her about the most significant moments in her ministry. The chaplain's answer moved me.

First she spoke of blessing the hands of hospital workers, not just doctors and nurses but the janitorial staff who clean toilets, the people who do food prep, each of them getting a blessing to carry out their efforts. it struck me how forward thinking and comprehensive her ministry was - to honor the work and labor of each person doing the meanest task.

Then she told of a place in the hospital, in windowless rooms, where surgical technicians assemble the instruments for each surgery. They are given an order with patient's name and all the instruments required for that person's surgery. The chaplain said that as she blessed the hands of a woman technician who was doing this work, the technician told her that she'd been doing the job for 40 years and for all that time, as she assembled the tools for each surgery she prayed for that person by name as she added each instrument.

The chaplain said she found out that many of the technicians did this and she talked of the importance of this work that no one knew about - the families didn't know their loved one was being prayed for, the person having surgery didn't know and the technician would never meet these people or know the outcome of the surgery. But each had this quiet ministry, requiring no reconginition of their work.

It would be easy to look at the job description of one of these surgical techs and to list the requirements and duties of the job. But it's impossible to estimate the value of the creativity and energy someone brings to a job, where it's not required and there is no tangible benefit to the worker to do more and go above what's asked of them.

On The Porch of Charlie

It's so funny how children discern new concepts and the questions they ask reflect that. Wilbur plays around with syntax as he learns the rules of expressing oneself. Lately he keeps asking us what certain things are - conceptually, he's trying to understand it. Like midnight - he asked what time is midnight. But he'll also ask what something is when it just is what it is...

Yesterday, as we got 12 inches of snow between sunrise and sunset, they went out to play at our next-door-neighbor's house. I bundled them up and put a hat on Wilbur under his parka hood. When Wilbur got home I noticed that the hat wasn't on his head and asked him about it. "Oh NO!" he said - "I left it on the porch of Charlie!"

Barack Obama and Rick Warren

I have no fondness for Pastor Warren, but I totally understand this strategy from our future President and I think it's more than a ploy. If you want people to understand your position and have any respect for you at all, you have to bring them into your fold, and it's so obvious that Obama is one of those people who could find some kind of value in sitting down for a beer with almost anyone.

It's the smart move. If democrats and religious progressives like myself ever hope to be understood by the religious right, we have to talk to them. We can't all keep playing this game where when I'm in charge you're shut out and when you're in charge I am.

I am encouraged, like some kind of Libra, that this man keeps his friends close and his enemies closer and that he shows deference and respect for people whose views are very different from his own. We need this kind of dispassionate, reasoned, rational approach. Someone from any part of the spectrum may be the one with the bright idea. It'd be a shame to miss it because of ideology.

Richie, Ralph and Ponzi

What is Ponzi I asked myself? Is it an acronym?

What's interesting to me about this kind of greed is that Bernie Madoff and Ken Lay and the Tyco guy and Ted Stevens ET AL are people who are generally bright and well-educated, completely aware of the thing they are doing and how the ripple will stretch out from the center. It's not like some person embroiled in poverty for a lifetime who steals a TV from WalMart.

I have just been shocked at the unscrupulousness of Americans in general; like people who buy a house they absolutely know they can't afford, or the woman on 60 Minutes the other night in Miami who is a successful acupuncturist but got involved in real estate on the side. Rula Giosmas. The acupuncturist. The real estate speculator. This woman/prototype has brought our financial system to its knees.

This idiot woman bought 6 properties - some of them apartment complexes and multi-family homes - and now has them financed with adjustable rate mortgages which she cannot afford to pay. When asked by Scott Pelley if she'd read the paperwork, if she'd understood that the interest rate was ADJUSTABLE, she looked unblinking back at him and said, I KID YOU NOT, 'I was very busy. ' As if that is some sort of reason or answer. As if we care that she was busy. Or that since she was busy it was clearly incumbent upon someone else to understand her financial wheeling and dealing.

Here's the story:

Asked what she understood about the loans, Giosmas says, "Well, unfortunately, I didn't ask too many questions. I mean in the old days, I would shop around. But because of the frenzy, and I was so busy looking to buy other properties, I didn't really focus on shopping around for mortgage brokers."

"But if you're investing in real estate, you're buying multiple properties, you should be asking a lot of questions," Pelley remarks. "Why didn't you ask?"

"I was busy. I was really busy looking at property all the time, all day long," she replies. She also acknowledges that she didn't read the paperwork. Now she’s losing money on every property.

I want homeowners to get help and Main Street to get help, but this kind of stupidity should experience the Darwinian result of its actions.

Here's what wikipedia says about Ponzi Schemes:

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that involves paying abnormally high returns to investors out of the money paid in by subsequent investors, rather than from the profit from any real business. It is named after Charles Ponzi.[1] The term "Ponzi scheme" is used primarily in the United States, while other English-speaking countries do not distinguish verbally between this scheme and other forms of pyramid scheme.[2]
The scheme usually offers abnormally high short-term returns in order to entice new investors. The perpetuation of the high returns that a Ponzi scheme advertises (and pays) requires an ever-increasing flow of money from investors in order to keep the scheme going.
The system is destined to collapse because there are little or no underlying earnings from the money received by the promoter. However, the scheme is often interrupted by legal authorities before it collapses, because a Ponzi scheme is suspected and/or because the promoter is selling unregistered securities. As more investors become involved, the likelihood of the scheme coming to the attention of authorities
increases.
The scheme is named after Charles Ponzi, who became notorious for using the technique after emigrating from Italy to the United States in 1903. Ponzi was not the first to invent such a scheme, but his operation took in so much money that it was the first to become known throughout the United States. His original scheme was in theory based on arbitraging international reply coupons for postage stamps, but soon diverted later investors' money to support payments to earlier investors and Ponzi's personal wealth. Today's schemes are often considerably more sophisticated than Ponzi's, although the underlying formula is quite similar and the principle behind every Ponzi scheme is to exploit investor naïveté. However, it has been shown that entering a Ponzi scheme can be rational even at the last round of the scheme if a government will likely bail out those participating in the Ponzi scheme.[3]

nunchuck and weremote

Yesterday the boys were going upstairs to play the wii and since we only have one nunchuck at the moment (I know, we are getting another one for Christmas, who knew so many games required the remote and nunchuck?)... since we only have one nunchuck Emery said, "I call nunchuck!" and Wilbur said, "I call weremote!"

D and I laughed with each other about this. First of all, it's so funny that the little 0ne calls the thing that's left. But even funnier is how Wilbur has always called the REmote the WEREmote. Like Werewolf but Weremote. I don't know how this is because he pronounces other words with RE just fine.

It's one of those things that I hope never goes away, even though I know it will.

A Triumph!

We saw Emery's first acting efforts tonight in front of a full house and it was glorious! He was so wonderful, natural, beautiful to watch! I don't want him to be an actor, but I loved seeing him up there; he was confident and self-assured and when he had the briefest glimmer of uncertainty in the first moments he was out there he just breathed a deep breath and found his place and blew on by.

We don't act anymore, Doug and me... But we certainly benefit from our experience and we know Emery will, too. It's a skill, to stand up in front of a crowd and play a part - whether speaking on some subject or being a character. Tonight he was the narrator - sort of a master of ceremonies - and he played it to the hilt. And we were so proud.

What if there were no hell?

What if Jesus died for everyone, really? Like he really did and no matter what you did or said or what religion you were or where you were born or how you were raised? What if? What would church mean if he just died for everyone? If he just died for everyone. period. What if that was his gift and he gave it - he didn't expect anything in return. A true gift.

What if Jesus said, "I am a way, a truth and a life?" What if Jesus said things that were transcribed in a slightly different way than the way he actually said them? What if we asked questions about how the bible became the bible? Who picked what's in there? What did they leave out? What could happen?

What if Jesus is a savior, a prophet, a messiah? Does he have to be the only one? Does he have to be the only way? What if he weren't? What if his message of love and inclusion is for you, whether you believe it or not? What does that mean to people who believe? Is that a threat? Why?

What if we have a creator who loves his creation? What if we are the collective creators and the creation? What if we can't really understand what that all means? Is it worth killing for, When we may not really understand it?

What does it mean to believe without fear? What would it mean to just have faith for today and nothing else happens - no hell, no heaven? Or what if heaven is a sleeping child in the crook of his parents' arms? What if it's just peace? Would that be ok?

What if Jesus doesn't need your belief? What if he just gave a gift and he doesn't need something back? What if we all get to be one with creation in death? What could that mean? What if all the things that matter now fell away? Deeds, misdeeds, loves, failures, crimes great and small? Is that bad?

Capital Disgrace

At the Death House Door - Fresh Air
Originally uploaded by WhipTheDo

I don't think of myself as an activist with regard to capital punishment and the failure of the death penalty as either a deterrent or as a just solution, but whenever I hear any story of any death row inmate - no matter how guilty, no matter the circumstance, I start to feel like an activist.

I watched the documentary At The Death House Door on Saturday (on IFC) and I kept thinking 'this is a Good Friday drama'. The death row inmate, Carlos de Luna, is proclaimed innocent by an overwhelming number of people and yet he's dead, killed by the State of Texas. And it didn't go well. It took 11 minutes.

The man at the center of the documentary though is Carol Pickett, whose death house ministry has turned him into an activist, although he's uncomfortable with that word. He crusades all over Texas against the death penalty.

I want to take this story and use it for Good Friday and Easter. That idea hit me right between the eyes when de Luna asked to call Carol Pickett Daddy. It just jumped out at me - Abba, Father...

Emery On Stage

Emery's first dramatic performance will be this coming Wednesday with Woodinville Montessori School's Christmas Caper. Emery has a near photographic memory, so if he'll read through his lines a few times he'll have it, and with some basic maintenance he can have it down cold. The thing is, IF he'll read through it and do the basic maintenance.

It's funny that when I was acting the most pesky question was, "how do you learn all those lines?" because it seemed like the least of the work and here you'd just sweated it out all over the stage and someone asked you about memorization. It'd be like watching a mechanical genius rebuild an automobile engine and then asking him or her, "How did you slide under the car?"

But, having said that, I realized when Emery joined the drama club and came home with his first script, memorization was going to be the biggest hurdle. All of a sudden I wanted to ask him, "How are you going to memorize all these lines?" Because there were a lot of them - big long speeches... And I had no concept of the rehearsal strategies or methodology. So, we've gone over and over the lines; trying to have him slow down to a pace where human ears can hear what he's saying and he doesn't sound like an announcer on a car commercial. We've tried to give him pointers without telling him how to do it or making him frustrated or, God Forbid, giving him a line reading. We've said things like, "you're going to be nervous at the performance so you really want to have this down cold." And, "you know, if you go up during the show you'll have to SAY something - you can't call for line."

I realize he doesn't really know what we're talking about. He's never done this so he can't imagine how naked and vulnerable it feels 2 minutes before the show starts, or how you question all the work you've done and think thinks like, 'what in the world have we been doing for the past 6 weeks - I don't remember anything! Have we even rehearsed?' So we just keep urging him on, and looking forward to seeing him up there. We know he'll understand it all very soon.

You Can't Take It With You

David Sedaris!
Originally uploaded by Aaron_M

I'm sure it's just because I'm reading Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, but... We saw Seattle Rep's production of YCTIWY last night and the Vanderhof/Sycamore family had resonances to me with my visions of the Sedaris family.

I don't mean to say that David Sedaris sees his family the way Alice sees hers, but they are so eccentric and funny.

It was a lovely production and so timely, what with the state of the world the way it is.

Happy Birthday Granny

Today would have been Granny's 93rd birthday. Doug and I were talking about this last night and saying it was still hard to imagine that she is gone.

I hear her every now and then and I talk to her too. Just like I talk to Daddy. I was watching an old Andy Williams Christmas special on PBS the other night and he got choked up about still missing his parents, even though now he is a very old man. Time changes the pain and lessens it, but it also makes me sad to be less sad. I don't want to keep losing the people I've lost. I don't want to lose my memories of them or the sharpness of their image in my mind. So feeling better is a different kind of grief.

out of the habit

I haven't been journaling/blogging for a few days and I find I'm a bit out of the habit. Our Thanksgiving was lovely - Leigh & Alex and Gabrielle and Charles Henry came and stayed the night. Erick and his girlfriend Amber came (and Erick did a lot of the cooking). Tyler came and brought Green Bean Casserole. It was a great time and everything was delicious. It made a huge difference having Erick there to do most of the cooking. I did all my stuff on Tuesday and Wednesday (cranberry sauce, cheesecake, cornbread and dry ingredients for dressing, fruit salad, brining) and he was really on the spot Thursday (he made brussel sprouts with pancetta, creamed corn, mashed potatoes, a lovely salad and a fabulous banana/butterscotch dessert).

It is always so nice to see my nephews, and it just makes me even more excited for Christmas!

Granny's Musical Chairs

As the holidays approach and we have planned to have our wonderful guests spend nights in our home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, I keep remembering a story we tell in our family... People were coming to stay with Granny and Poppa and my mother and somehow, the way Granny had it arranged in the end, no one got to sleep in his own bed. She came up with some sort of illogical solution and my family has laughed about it for years now.

That story is sort of a life-lesson story for me to just relax about the details and give up some of the control. Maybe step back a bit and see what I'm really doing - how I'm actually arranging things and ask myself, Does this make sense?

I keep thinking about where all these people are going to sleep. What if my nephew Erick and his girlfriend stay the night on Thanksgiving? Where will they sleep? But, you know what Paige? It'll work out and you shouldn't worry about it. And don't make Leigh and Alex sleep in your bedroom so that Erick and Amber can sleep in Wilbur's room, while Wilbur sleeps with you in Emery's room and Doug and Emery sleep in the TV room. Because that's the kind of scenario you've been devising and guess what? No one would be in his own bed!

quick note

Emery just told me he was really reluctant to go downstairs and feed his guinea pigs in the morning b/c the heat isn't on first thing and it's quite chilly. It sounded so funny for him to say, "I'm really reluctant..."

Wilbur loses tooth, and really loses tooth

I drove Emery to tennis on Saturday and as we parked the car Wilbur says, "I lost my tooth." Just very calmly, I lost my tooth. So I said, "Oh! when did you lose it?" and Wilbur replies, "10 minutes ago."

Well, knowing that my 5-year-old has no concept of time or the difference between 10 minutes and 8 hours I start to get a little concerned. It turns out that we don't know where or when he lost his tooth and he hasn't said one word about the tooth fairy.

I've started to wonder if he was so concerned with the tooth fairy coming that he just got rid of that tooth! He wouldn't be that cheeky, would he?

Christmas Hair Bows

http://www.abunchofbows.com/smalchrishai.html

Ok, this is so funny. When I see the two words Hair Bow together, I think of UT Bow Heads. I don't know if everyone had bow heads in the 1980s, but in Austin we had this sect or class of girls. The bow head:
1. in a sorority. And not some lame one like KD. Tri-Delt, Theta, Chi Omega
2. wore those nylon soccer/jogging shorts. When I think of the things we wore that gave us no shape at all and yet that's what was in. And they wore them really low on their hips.
3. always had on big oversized t-shirts with the short-sleeved arms rolled up so they looked sleeveless. You had to have really skinny arms to roll your sleeves up like that and not have your shoulders and upper arms look manly. I know because I didn't.
4. Hair always pulled into a tight ponytail almost on the top of your head - tied with, you guessed, a big bow.

Now the bows got BIG. And these girls may not all have been stupid, but they sure looked like they were and they certainly sounded like they were. Every sentence began with "Ummmm..." Except it was more like Ehmmmm....

I shudder to think of it.

Prop 8

I've been so elated about the election that it has been difficult to think about what happened in California. I haven't wanted to lose steam... But, it's impossible to ignore the fact that we still face these disagreements with each other over basic civil rights.

As I sat at my Living the Questions seminar on Wednesday, I thought about how often I, as a left-leaning open-minded Christian, have sublimated my true beliefs in the face of more conservative views. I thought about how the entire time I was growing up there was this intuition in me that said, 'that doesn't sound like a loving God' when confronted with narrow interpretations of the divine. I feel evangelistic now - about my expansive view of God and my radical views of Jesus. I don't want to keep silent.

I got into an argument with Norm our contractor over this issue of marriage for all. He made what I'm sure he felt were innocuous statements about the timing of pushing this gay marriage stuff and said things that sound evil to me like: what about civil unions?

I lit into him. I gave my now well worn argument comparing civil unions to Brown vs. the Board of Ed and the ignominy of the concept of separate but equal... I hollered that, as a WASP man he had no idea what it meant to be asked to wait and be patient for rights that others enjoy. If it were 1922, I said, and I weren't allowed to vote, how long should I wait for you to wake up and acknowledge my right? When is it a good time for you? When might you get around to it, since you aren't the one suffering?

My pastor and her partner were married in California. I can't imagine waking up one morning to find that I am no longer married. Or that the marriage license I purchased from the state of Texas was invalid. Would they give me my money back? Or is it insult and injury for same sex couples who paid the state for the right to marry?

Doug has to go back to Iowa today with Dwight to do some things for my mother-in-law. In this picture he's wearing his favorite T-shirt which says, "No one listens to me until I fart." I loathe this t-shirt even though I bought it for him. I loathe it but it makes me laugh because it's so silly and stupid and true. It's such a DAD shirt. We talk about all the inappropriate places he could wear it.

So we are going to be missing daddy for the next few days. The boys are already pouty-lipped since he's the fun one and I'm the dictator.

Scary Fairy

Clothespin Doll Tooth Fairy Box
Originally uploaded by sweetimaginations

Wilbur is just about to lose both his bottom front teeth - they are practically horizontal. This has prompted a lot of discussion about the tooth fairy. We all tell him about the Tooth Fairy like we discussed it before and he knows all about it, but it has become clear to me as the teeth get looser, that he is a bit concerned about some creature flying into his room as he sleeps...

Upon reflection, why wouldn't he be? I started wondering if I should really talk about this made up fairy. I was watching Wilbur's face this morning as Emery told him the things that would happen, what Wilbur would do with the tooth or teeth, where he'd put them, and what would happen next. Wilbur had a look of real terror on his face.

When I picked him up from school today, the first thing he said was, "Mom, what IS the tooth fairy?" Like - what is it - a person coming into my room, what?

Maybe this isn't such a good idea - telling him these fibs and scaring him about freaky fairies who like teeth. As we explained it the other day he said, "Why does she want the teeth?" And we all just stared at him, Emery, Doug and me... What do you say in the face of such logic? Why would she want the teeth? What shall she do with them?

I have no answers, only questions...

'Cause Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

It's odd to outgrow a friendship.

I have never been any good at letting things slide with people. I have made my husband and other friends very uncomfortable by confronting a casual statement. And I have never been one of those southern women who is too nice to tell you how she feels. Often to a fault I tell and I should really just shut up. It would be a lot easier to let it go.

I guess I'm afraid that if I did that - let some stupidity or hate or false statement slide, where would I stop? Some examples --

someone recently said to me that all of this trouble with greed is bound to happen when people don't feel accountable to their creator... Couldn't let that go. So, if you're agnostic or atheist you can't be a good citizen? Is that the implication?

someone recently said to me that they wouldn't mind civil unions (not marriage though) but why now? Did they gay community really need to push this now? -- I certainly couldn't let this go. How long should someone wait for a basic human right? What if it were 1922 and I weren't allowed to vote? Should I forgo that fight because there's too much going on? Ridiculous.

And then there's that prayer. That prayer I received... AAAAHHH. That Prayer. It can't even be called a prayer it's so hateful. Calling reproductive choice sinful. Calling welfare recipients lazy. And the sender has no idea why this made me so angry. Of course not. The author of this foul prayer, Joe Wright, can't imagine it either. People who are so imbued with that hateful rhetoric seem to be incapable of understanding its impact. Their self-righteousness prevents it.

I know how flawed I am. I come before the divine again and again seeking forgiveness, admitting my failures. But I can't abide that KNOWING that some people have about who is right and who is evil. The more I learn the more I know that the less I know. The more open to the questions I am. And if my faith were so tenuous that a single circumstance could undo it, I guess I might hold fast to fantasy too. But my faith is not that way - the physical properties of this world, the social and economic realities of biblical times, the flawed human authorship of the Bible, the non-existence of hell -- I didn't grow up being taught all these things, but acknowledging them now doesn't shake my faith. My perceptions might alter, but my understanding of the divine merely grows.

Joe the Preacher

Someone sent me an awful prayer - the subject of the email was, "A Prayer for Our Nation." If it had come by post I'd have burnt it. It was so hateful and awful that I have cut ties with the sender. The email attributed this prayer to Billy Graham, but that was wrong. It was by Joe Wright. The email said, "He is such a wise man, he really knows what's going on in the country right now!" But the prayer was delivered in 1996. I found it on snopes.

I am so tired of pablum Christianity with its black and white everything and swallow-it-whole mentality. So sick of just receiving junk like that via email - toxic, harmful and wasteful trash - and doing nothing about it. I'm so tired of hateful language casting me as a sinner for what I believe. I'm not going to take it anymore. Those right-wingers are on notice. No more facebook friendliness.

I won't write it. But I'll pray its opposite.
The religiosity that some cling to inspires this prayer.

We confess that we have ridiculed those who question and sat in judgment of them.

We have worshipped a hostile and unwelcoming god of our own design instead of learning about your nature and the lenses - Jesus, Mohammed and others - through whom we might know you.

We have endorsed exclusivity and called it Christ-like.

We have held tight to our money and called it faith.

We have neglected the needy because they haven't earned our love and called it prudent.

We have made the first first instead of the last first and denied a helping hand to those who need it.

We have decided we know better and characterized private choices as sinful acts.

We have taught our children to hate what they don't understand and called it Homeland Security.

We have abused power and called it a necessary means to an end.

We have ridiculed our neighbor's ideas and called it righteousness.

We have polluted the air and thought nothing of our responsibility to your creation and called it economics.

We have invented the values of our forefathers and pretended that they endorsed the idea of a Christian nation and called it our mission.

Segregation and Patsy Lynn Blackburn

My mother wrote this article for the community blog where she lives. I was very moved by it and it's the kind of thing I want to hold on to in my journal here for posterity. I no longer take my family history for granted, having lost my dad and his memories. I have been trying to devise ways to hold on to our stories, we Thompsons and Blackburns and Moons... This is a start.

The election is over, and I have been reflecting on its meaning. All of the pundits have been referring to this election as "historic." This is certainly true in two main ways--an African-American presidential nominee and the Republican nomination of a woman for vice-president. I would like to look at this election in a more personal way.

I was born in 1938 and grew up in Ft. Worth, Texas, a completely segregated city. Everything was divided into black and white: the schools, the swimming pools, the parks, the bus and train stations, the cemeteries, the movie theaters, the hospitals, the churches, the doctor's offices, the funeral homes, the neighborhoods, and the restaurants, diners, and coffee shops.

When my mother and I went downtown to shop (there were no malls back then), there were two water fountains by the elevators. One was labeled "Colored" and one "White."
I always wondered what would happen if I drank out of the wrong one. Being a child, I imagined that an alarm would sound and I would be arrested or something. So, of course, I never tried it or even asked. In public places, there had to be four restrooms divided by race and gender. (You can figure it out.) In smaller businesses, there were usually no restrooms for blacks at all. There was a very popular barbecue restaurant in what was called "Colored Town" called The Big Apple. Many whites ate there, but blacks were not allowed inside. They could go to a window in the back of the restaurant and order food to go. It may have been the original "Take Out" in Ft. Worth. I was never in a classroom with an African-American student until I started teaching in San Antonio in 1962. (San Antonio was integrated early and never had the racial conflicts that other southern cities had.)

This was the norm, and I accepted it. When I was in the 8th grade my parents and I moved, and I rode a city bus across town to and from school each day. The white people sat in the seats from the back door to the front. The black people had to sit from the back door to the rear. Of course, there are fewer seats back there. There was no sign or marker indicating this fact. Everyone just knew. Sometimes the seats at the back of the bus would all be taken, and black people had to stand crammed in the aisle in their section. The front of the bus might have plenty of empty seats, but no black people sat there, ever.

In 1968, I was teaching American History to 10th graders, and we were studying the Civil Rights Movement. I was telling the class about all these things I have written about here. The students seemed very involved in my lecture. When I got to the part about the buses, one young man raised his hand and said, "Mrs. Thompson, what did you do about it?"
There was a long silence on my part. I finally said, "Nothing." I went on to explain how I was just 13 years old and didn't think I could do anything about it even though it seemed unfair. That seemed like a lame excuse at the time and still does today.

Patsy

This is my mother in 1962:

And just a little later - 1969

Celebration

We went back and forth between the television and the laptop - checking results, drinking wine, fretting... and finally starting to feel very hopeful, even optimistic.

We got the children downstairs to watch McCain concede and the Barack Obama acceptance. We explained how important this was, and in some fashion why it was important. Not that we can even grasp it totally right now.

We were moved by John McCain. We were grateful for his grace. We were moved by the emotion on Jesse Jackson's face as the culmination of a lifetime of work brought tears. I don't pretend to speak for him. I couldn't possibly understand that kind of struggle. It moved us though.

Now we pray.

I pray for a safe, sobered and serious society as we anticipate January 20th.

Cry Babies

Gonna be some unhappy people in the world over the next few days.



I know how they feel.



They should remember- those people who are certain that Obama is the wrong choice, not experienced enough, too liberal - they should remember that in THEIR judgement, George W. Bush was the right choice for America.



Sue me if I don't trust their instincts on Barack Obama.



Hello Heartbreak. I give a shout out to my contractor's carpenters who listen to hate-filled talk radio in my home and put stickers on their trucks that say NOBama. They are going to be some sad dudes. They are also Seahawks fans. They have so much to be sad about.



I've put up with their radio and their quiet anger and their stickers for months now because this realization has been building and building that something big was coming. No need to rub their noses in it. No need even to discuss it. It was coming and there was no stopping it.

Anxiety

Cat Fight!
Originally uploaded by privatenobby

When you asked my brother-in-law David how he was doing sometimes he'd say, "Aw, I'm as anxious as a three-legged cat in the middle of the interstate."

That's how I felt all weekend, and it's clearly not only my premonition about the UT/Tech game... It's this election.

In 1992 I was in grad school at Ohio U and we were so excited about Bill Clinton. That Wednesday morning after the election was glorious and full of promise. I could never have predicted the turn of events after that time, but on that morning everything was perfect.

I feel that same sense of excitement this time but everything feels less pure. Is it my age? Am I cynical? Or are we less innocent now? I think it's me. And I also think it's the circumstance.

When I worked at Amy's we had a grease trap. That thing had to be cleaned every month or 2, I can't remember how often. But when Roto-rooter came with their truck and hooked up that hose, the smell was, as Emery once said about a terrible smell, The Devil. It was the worst thing I've ever smelled or seen. Sometimes you'd see a bit of whatever was being pumped out.

That's what President Obama or John McCain is going to be doing for the first year. Cleaning the grease trap. When whoever gets in gets in and opens up that trap to see what's inside, I think it's going to be smelly and foul.

Great Pumpkin & WWI Flying Ace

"It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" (1966)
Originally uploaded by Eddy Roy

I recorded It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and we watched it the other night. When it got to the part of the show where Snoopy is the ace pilot sitting atop his dog house, trying to shoot down the Red Baron, Wilbur laughed harder than either Doug or I have EVER heard him laugh. EVER. ever.

He laughed so hard he started choking. Then he laughed so hard that he started making this gutteral noise in the back of his throat. Then he laughed so hard he began to do this sort of high-pitched sighing. He laughed so hard that Emery, Doug and me almost wet our pants. It must've gone on for 10 minutes.

There is nothing like hearing a child lose control with laughter. When he watched it again, the same thing happened. And when Snoopy is downed in the French countryside and starts traveling on foot through France (no one would ever write that into a children's show anymore, sadly) he just guffawed. Oh, it was hilarious.

Hunny Bird

Wilbur has this little stuffed hummingbird that is teacher gave him last year. He calls it his hunny bird (sometimes it sounds like he's saying hunningbird or huntingbird). He took it with him this morning to school. He is so tender.

Fractals

Fractal Leaf
Originally uploaded by gripspix

I saw this fascinating program on Nova about Fractals and the research being done based on their properties. I want to learn more about this. I told Leigh yesterday that when you are lousy at math, as I always was, you never get to the gorgeous stuff of math; you wallow in ugly, boring math. And that's where I lived. So, seeing something like this and understanding it, conceptually at least, is exciting.

a Bee in my Bonnet

Yesterday I actually got a bee in my bonnet; it flew into my hair. I didn't realize it was a bee until I reached into my hair to pull out the leaf or the bug or whatever had just hit me on the head with the force of a rain drop fallin' on my head. As I tried to find this thing in my hair I felt a stinging sensation on my right ring finger and a moment after that the same sensation on my head.

Panic!

I saw two guys on the walking trail with leaf blowers on their backs and I ran up to them and yelled, "I've got a bee in my hair and I can't find it!" The leaf-blower-guy pulled his glove off and started digging through my hair. He located the bee and threw it with force toward the ground and stomped on it.

I felt bad about that since the bees have had so much trouble lately, but I was so grateful to the man that I put my hand on his shoulder and said thank you about a million times. He smiled and nodded to me. I realized that neither he nor his partner seemed to speak any English and I wondered what they had seen coming toward them, what had they understood about what was happening as I hollered and waved my hands and gestured toward my hair?

I have always relied on the kindness of strangers.

No Offense But...

Emery often begins a sentence with this phrase, "No offense Mom, but..." Each time I tell him that whenever he begins a sentence this way, he causes me offense.

A parent gave me some very, very good advice, which I find almost impossible to heed: Don't Take It Personally.

She said 'don't take it all so personally, all this stuff they do and the things they say and their boorish behavior.' She told me that by kid 3 of 4 she started to realize this in her own life - that when they complained or tried to act cool or said insulting things or said, "no offense but..." she just wouldn't take it personally.

When I am able to apply this principle, I am amazed at the result. But, even though I am a mother, I am clearly just a regular person as well. And when I work hard all day and then come home and really try to make a delicious and nutritious dinner using organic ingredients after purchasing these items with my re-usable bags and someone crinkles up his nose and makes a face like he is being asked to smell shit and says, "No offense Mom but this stuff STIIIIINNNNKKKKSSSS!" - call me psycho, but I take it as a personal affront.

I realize though that it's not personal. Sometimes they just say crap to say crap. Sometimes they just want to hear themselves talk. When did I decide that a 9-year-old was the arbiter of taste or a good judge of what's delicious? And it's no big deal. I know how nutritious and delicious it is, and I know he's going to eat it too. I enjoy that power. So, let it go Paige. Don't take it so personally. Remember who has got the upper hand here. And let him be.

I Heart New Yorker

This is scathingly brilliant.


My Gal
by George Saunders September 22, 2008

Explaining how she felt when John McCain offered her the Vice-Presidential spot, my Vice-Presidential candidate, Governor Sarah Palin, said something very profound: “I answered him ‘Yes’ because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can’t blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we’re on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can’t blink. So I didn’t blink then even when asked to run as his running mate.”

Isn’t that so true? I know that many times, in my life, while living it, someone would come up and, because of I had good readiness, in terms of how I was wired, when they asked that—whatever they asked—I would just not blink, because, knowing that, if I did blink, or even wink, that is weakness, therefore you can’t, you just don’t. You could, but no—you aren’t.
That is just how I am.

Do you know the difference between me and a Hockey Mom who has forgot her lipstick?
A dog collar.

Do you know the difference between me and a dog collar smeared with lipstick?
Not a damn thing.

We are essentially wired identical.

So, when Barack Obama says he will put some lipstick on my pig, I am, like, Are you calling me a pig? If so, thanks! Pigs are the most non-Élite of all barnyard animals. And also, if you put lipstick on my pig, do you know what the difference will be between that pig and a pit bull? I’ll tell you: a pit bull can easily kill a pig. And, as the pig dies, guess what the Hockey Mom is doing? Going to her car, putting on more lipstick, so that, upon returning, finding that pig dead, she once again looks identical to that pit bull, which, staying on mission, the two of them step over the dead pig, looking exactly like twins, except the pit bull is scratching his lower ass with one frantic leg, whereas the Hockey Mom is carrying an extra hockey stick in case Todd breaks his again. But both are going, like, Ha ha, where’s that dumb pig now? Dead, that’s who, and also: not a smidge of lipstick.

A lose-lose for the pig.

There’s a lesson in that, I think.

Who does that pig represent, and that collar, and that Hockey Mom, and that pit bull?
You figure it out. Then give me a call.

Seriously, give me a call.

Now, let us discuss the Élites. There are two kinds of folks: Élites and Regulars. Why people love Sarah Palin is, she is a Regular. That is also why they love me. She did not go to some Élite Ivy League college, which I also did not. Her and me, actually, did not go to the very same Ivy League school. Although she is younger than me, so therefore she didn’t go there slightly earlier than I didn’t go there. But, had I been younger, we possibly could have not graduated in the exact same class. That would have been fun. Sarah Palin is hot. Hot for a politician. Or someone you just see in a store. But, happily, I did not go to college at all, having not finished high school, due to I killed a man. But had I gone to college, trust me, it would not have been some Ivy League Élite-breeding factory but, rather, a community college in danger of losing its accreditation, built right on a fault zone, riddled with asbestos, and also, the crack-addicted professors are all dyslexic.

Sarah Palin was also the mayor of a very small town. To tell the truth, this is where my qualifications begin to outstrip even hers. I have never been the mayor of anything. I can’t even spell right. I had help with the above, but now— Murray, note to Murray: do not correct what follows. Lets shoe the people how I rilly spel Mooray and punshuate so thay can c how reglar I am, and ther 4 fit to leed the nashun, do to: not sum mistir fansy pans.

OK Mooray. Get corecting agin!

Thanks, Murray, you’re fabulous. Very good at what you do. Actually, Murray, come to think of it, you are so good, I suspect you are some kind of Élite. You are fired, Murray, as soon as this article is done. I’m going to hire someone Regular, who is not so excellent, and lives off the salt of the land and the fat of his brow and the sweat of his earth. Although I hope he’s not a screw-up.
I’m finding it hard to concentrate, as my eyes are killing me, due to I have not blinked since I started writing this. And, me being Regular, it takes a long time for me to write something this long.

Where was I? Ah, yes: I hate Élites. Which is why, whenever I am having brain surgery, or eye surgery, which is sometimes necessary due to all my non-blinking, I always hire some random Regular guy, with shaking hands if possible, who is also a drunk, scared of the sight of blood, and harbors a secret dislike for me.

Now, let’s talk about slogans. Ours is: Country First. Think about it. When you think of what should come first, what does? Us ourselves? No. That would be selfish. Our personal families? Selfish. God? God is good, I love Him, but, as our slogan suggests, no, sorry, God, You are not First. No, you don’t, Lord! How about: the common good of all mankind! Is that First? Don’t make me laugh with your weak blinking! No! Mercy is not First and wisdom is not First and love is super but way near the back, and ditto with patience and discernment and compassion and all that happy crap, they are all back behind Country, in the back of my S.U.V., which— Here is an example! Say I am about to run over a nun or orphan, or an orphan who grew up to become a nun—which I admire that, that is cool, good bootstrapping there, Sister—but then God or whomever goes, “It is My will that you hit that orphaned nun, do not ask Me why, don’t you dare, and I say unto thee, if you do not hit that nun, via a skillful swerve, your Country is going to suffer, and don’t ask Me how, specifically, as I have not decided that yet!” Well, I am going to do my best to get that nun in one felt swope, because, at the Convention, at which my Vice-Presidential candidate kicked mucho butt, what did the signs there say? Did they say “Orphaned Nuns First” and then there is a picture of a sad little nun with a hobo pack?

How Deep is Your Love

bee-gees-beegees
Originally uploaded by DHTML ♦

I was listening to How Deep is Your Love today and I had a memory of my first dance. The boy was Van Wisdom, it was 6th grade (Dwight D. Eisenhower Middle School in San Antonio) and the song was How Deep Is Your Love...

I remember a bunch of girls running up to me and saying, "Van's looking for you! Van's looking for you! He's going to ask you to dance!"

Now, in those days Van Wisdom was hot stuff and a little out of my league. I didn't even know he knew who I was.

It turns out there was a reason he was drawn to me... It turns out, I found out years later, that he was gay. In fact, even more years later, he died of AIDS. His daddy is a baptist preacher and he, Charles Wisdom, wrote a book about his son. It's a book espoused by Exodus International, a nonprofit, interdenominational Christian organization that promotes "the message of Freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ."

But, I had totally forgotten about my first dance, and to this song. The song held a special place in my memory but I wasn't really sure why.

Republican Rep. Michele I'm-a-FOOL Bachmann

I'm sorry, this is just pathetic:

Bachmann said Tuesday she probably should have watched "Hardball" to see what it was like before she went on it.

What is it with this rash of stupid, silly, bubble-headed, inane, I-want-to-use-the-C-word, irrelevant, ill-informed, obtuse, fatuous, half-wit women? Do you only need a nice pair of legs and some sort of hair-do to be a woman in politics? Where are the women like me? She makes fools of us all.


This FOOL, IDIOT of a woman goes on Hardball and talks about how she doesn't like Obama because she doesn't think Socialism is good for America, she calls him anti-american and she says we ought to find others with anti-american views and do something about them. There are so many inanities that one doesn't know where to begin!

1. Barack Obama isn't advocating socialism, Henry Paulson is doing that.
2. Ferreting out anti-Americans isn't socialist behavior; it's fascist.
3. Going on any program, I don't care if it's Captain Billy's Whizbag, without watching the program is the mark of a fool and certainly someone too stupid to hold public office.
4. Even if she hadn't researched the program on which she was appearing, how did that entice her to say what she did?

I am tired of stupid people trying to get paid with taxpayer money to do a job for which they would never be hired, but feel perfectly comfortable getting elected to do. This woman is a scourge and should be skewered.