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Tulia. Still. (or, Justice: Texas Style)

April 30, 2003

This editorial in today's Austin American-Statesman just has me totally...flabbergasted:

Among those still in prison is a 61-year-old Swisher County hog farmer afflicted with severe diabetes. He was the supposed kingpin. There is a young mother, Kizzie White, whose two children have had maternal guidance and love taken away from them for more than four years. There are several others in prison who just want to move on with their lives and get out of Texas.

Even though the state's star witness, Tom cman, has been thoroughly discredited and indicted on felony perjury charges, Tulia defendants must remain in prison.

Hi. I live in Texas. Please nuke us.

Love Your Veterans...

April 30, 2003

Educate yourself about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and understand that the war will never be over for those who served:

young soldier nodded his head, listening, thinking the thoughts he then spoke: "I just hope that these people can find it in their hearts to forgive us, and that they know it was an accident."

Then Spc. 1st Class Bill Scates of Oklahoma City spoke. "I had to look that woman right in the eyes," he said, "and I felt so horrible for her. I've got a little girl."

His rage began to boil. "I'm constantly angry over what happened with that family. ... I'm pissed off at my chain of command for not putting up signs in every language (at that checkpoint), to warn 'em. Normally I'm a talkative guy, a happy person, — but I've been real quiet lately, because I'm so pissed off. I'm thinking more and more I'm so frustrated, so angry, I want to choke somebody ... constantly."

Not to mention the PTSD that is no doubt rampant among the Iraqi survivors.

coupla notes & the great cockroach massacre

April 30, 2003

I'm just feeling good this morning because it rained and because I just heard from ms. Pear about our madcap adventure (I'm calling it the mad mama tour of zero three) & she is, in fact, NOT flaking even though I Had premonitions of flake yesterday (so much for my psychic abilities).

But not much to say other than that right now. I've been goofing all morning, flirting with sleeping in, but unable to because I share the bed with a silly angel who woke up and demanded "good booby, mama?" And neither of us were going to go back to sleep after fully waking to the sounds of all of those damn birds.

Should I tell you about the great cockroach massacre? I swear to you that I am not THAT much of a slob. Well, I'm kind of a slob, but I'm sure there are bigger slobs out there with less of a fucking cockroach problem. Suffice to say that I Have had to box up all of the books that I was formerly keeping in my bedroom because all of a sudden there were a bunch of the little (did I say LITTLE? these bugs are actually anything BUT little...which is why I can't smash them with shoes...they make a crunching noise that turns my stomach something fierce) fuckers eating my reading materials. Like i'd wake up in the middle of the night and it sounded like MICE in my room. I think it has something to do with the huge-ass oak tree outside of the bedroom, and the fact that the house is totally not sealed to the outside world. & I was starting to think I should fumigate, but the guy I work with pointed out that these roaches (which are actually water bugs or palmetto bugs, I think) would just cough a lot and run from the building, only to come back later once the fumes died down and I think he's probably right.

So, anyway, what DOES kill them is peppermint dr. bronner's. And the day after I cleared the bookshelves of books, they were all exposed and out in the open saying "Where the fuck's my cover!" and I opened fire, ignoring the fact that I really hate to kill any living creature (I ignore that a lot when it comes to fucking roaches) and I got...well, I won't give numbers, but I got a lot of them before I finally turned off the light and went back to bed in a noticably more silent room.

I think c was traumatized, though...I'm hoping it's not permanent.

& now you know why I've been so tired lately...it's because I've been up battling roaches at night. I think I have won, though. Last night was practically roach free. I think the trick is that I'm just going to have to get rid of all of my freaking earthly possessions so they will have nowhere to hide.

So, great. I co-exist with zen master cockroaches. Could my life be any more surreal?

vacation

April 30, 2003

While discussing my impending journey to DC with L today, it came up that L is feeling a little apprehensive about the trip because he will miss the children so much. While the cynical side of me thinks he's just saying this so I don't get overly bratty about the fact that he gets 2 weeks of sweet unadulterated adulterated freedom from children and I get to drive for days in a smelly van with my smelly kids, I do, in fact, believe that he misses us when we go (and I say "us" even though he claims that I am an adult and therefore he does not miss *ME* when I leave. I choose to disbelieve him on this one, but don't tell him I told you so.)

At any rate, after admitting to his tendency to pine for the children, he issued a challenge to me. He claims that I will not accomplish anything remotely useful if he takes the children out of town for 2 weeks. He claims that I would spend that time moping around the house feeling lonely. I, on the other had, feel that a 2-week vacation from children would lead me to be wildly productive in one form or another. While I might not accomplish tasks or chores, just the IDEA of being in the house ALL ALONE for two weeks STRAIGHT is enough to bring me to a near-orgasm...and I might just feel that it's completely productive to lay in bed and bath and luxuriate in absolute cherished silence the entire time. That would be highly productive.

Sure, I might miss the children on occasion...but considering I have not had a break from them for over 2 years (not since I used to travel when I worked for Kinko's. And well I remember being able to stay up until all hours in hotel rooms watching MTV and other such forbidden delights, like an unshared bed with non-pee stained blankets. Holy. mother. fuck!) I think I would get by.

So, the point of this all is that L is threatening/offering to take the kids to Mississippi for two weeks upon my return from DC. My concern is cy's nursing - I don't want him to wean. I'm thinking that it won't kill me to wait a year or so for weaning to happen first, but I could not. stop. thinking. about it all day today, and I'm wondering if anyone has experience with a nursing toddler being separated from boobies for an extended period of time. Is it likely that he will wean?

Gah. I mean...you know what I mean? TWO WEEKS. That would be so very rad.

country profiles

April 29, 2003

I thought this page of the bbc site was pretty interesting. Of course, take it for what it is, a major news conglomerate's idea of history, etc. Still, it could come in handy in the future.

Patriot Raid.

April 29, 2003

Just in case you need anecdotal evidence to prove that the Patriot Act is fucked...this article does a fine job of drawing the picture. Unfortunately, it's true:

explained that we were just eating dinner and asked why we were being held. We were told by the INS agent that we would be released once they had confirmation that we had no outstanding warrants and our immigration status was OK'd.

In pre-9/11 America, the legality of this would have been questionable. After all, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution states: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized."

"You have no right to hold us," Asher insisted.

"Yes, we have every right," responded one of the agents. "You are being held under the Patriot Act following suspicion under an internal Homeland Security investigation."

The USA PATRIOT Act was passed into law on October 26, 2001 in order to facilitate the post 9/11 crackdown on terrorism (the name is actually an acronym: "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act.") Like most Americans, I did not recognize the extent to which this bill foregoes our civil liberties. Among the unprecedented rights it grants to the federal government are the right to wiretap without warrant, and the right to detain without warrant. As I quickly discovered, the right to an attorney has been seemingly fudged as well.

When I asked to speak to a lawyer, the INS official informed me that I do have the right to a lawyer but I would have to be brought down to the station and await security clearance before being granted one. When I asked how long that would take, he replied with a coy smile: "Maybe a day, maybe a week, maybe a month."

We insisted that we had every right to leave and were going to do so. One of the policemen walked over with his hand on his gun and taunted: "Go ahead and leave, just go ahead."

Truly wonderful. I really want our police forces to have that much power. After all, they have been so good at handling the power they already do have with aplomb and consistency, right?

parentingriffic!

April 29, 2003

So, I'm having one of those "challenging" days, probably to balance out the excellent times over the past few weeks. m has been on his best behavior, and, really, that can only last for so long before something starts to give. c's just generally being a challenging troublemaker lately, and that has been consistent today.

At the playground today, I watched m lay prone on the ground for about an hour and a half while K kind of ignored him to play with other kids. I don't think K did anything wrong, but she WAS ignoring m and that DID hurt his feelings. I think it was justifiable and valid for K to play with other kids AND I think it was justifiable and valid for m to be upset about that. The challenge was to support each of the kids AND point out that maybe there was a better way to handle things.

For m, I kind of told him that K wasn't being intentionally mean, and that she's not obligated to only play with him when they are at the playground. I also pointed out that he was making a choice to not have any fun, and that K was not responsible for that decision. It didn't get him up off of the ground, but I felt like I had fulfilled my duty as a parent.

I also apologized to him for having pushed him away the week before when he was being extra clingy at the playground. Apparently, m is going through some sort of awkward social phase where he's having difficulty connecting with other kids. I'm sure he'll make it through OK, but I have anxiety about L's prophecy about the need for school-type socialization being fulfilled. It's for that reason that I was attempting to push him away from me last week, in hopes that he would find another kid to play with and stop clinging on mama. I realize now that he will venture forth again when he feels secure, and he probably needs some extra reassurance from me to get there.

On K's part, the friends she was playing with had to go back to the classroom, and I found her marching up to some guy and giving him a big shove and SPITTING ON HIM and giving him what for about how he's always mean to girls and how he's a big bully. I have to admit, I was somewhat impressed. He shoved her and spat back, but she held her own, so I saw no point in intervening. I had no idea whether this was playful fighting or serious, because everyone was seeming to smile about it, but I was keeping a close eye on the situation, just in case.

Later, K came running back to me, saying we HAD TO go home because this guy was being mean to her. Going home was not an option, as I had promised L some hours of peace and quiet so he could get some work done. I explained to K that I had witnessed their earlier scuffle, and that it was difficult for me to defend her when she started it. But I told her that I was watching and that if this kid started anything with her I would certainly intervene on her behalf, now that I was aware that it was unwelcome. I also had to explain to her that this kid (I think I actually called him a jerk) was running around having fun, while K was choosing to let him get to her and having a bad time. I told her, while it's not ok for him to directly bully her, and that she should definitely call upon me to help her so we could get him to stop, at this point, she was allowing him to have power over her that he should not have had. Again, I reassured her that I would make sure she was safe if she wanted to play, but going home was not an option, and the playground is big enough for everyone, etc., etc. I'm not altogether sure this was the best solution, but it was all I had at the time.

I also mentioned to K that she might want to try to mend some fences with m, who, I explained, was feeling left out because she had been playing with other friends. I told her that I didn't think she did anything wrong, but that m was pretty upset & maybe she should try to talk with him.

Finally, K got up and started playing with some other kids, and the bullies who were picking on her actually had the fucking nerve to taunt ME. She had told them my name, apparently, and they were having great fun running to within earshot of me, saying my name, and then running away so I would "not know" who had said this. I tried ignoring them, but they were doing it for about half an hour and I finally got irritated enough that I calmly walked over to the playground and said "Hi. Is there something I can help you with?" "No." Said the fucking brat. "OK, great...I'd appreciate it if you'd leave me alone, then...I'm trying to hang out with my kids and relax here." "OK." She said. I could tell she was a little shocked that I had said anything & I'm not sure if it would have been better to just ignore them.

At this point, K was trying to apologize to m, who was running away from her and sticking his tongue out at her (sigh)...and K chased him right into her own trap, where the evil bully guy saw her and immediately started chasing her (without having been prompted to do so by anything K did) and calling upon the entire playground to "Chase her! Chase her!" while K screamed and WAS NOT laughing. I jumped up shouting. I was SO angry I thought I was going to fucking throttle this kid. I just said "NO! SHE DOES NOT WANT YOU TO CHASE HER!" He didn't hear me at first, but damn he was ashamed when he realized that I was yelling at him. I hate to shame the kid, but he was being an asshole, and I will not allow a kid I am watching to be bullied like that. K should be free to use the playground without being afraid of being yelled at and chased after, damnit. And the supervising teacher was just sitting there...I suppose because this shit happens all of the time. I remember it well. I remember running in fear from the boys on the playground, laughing, because it didn't do to act afraid - it only made it worse.

At any rate, the kid stopped chasing her, and then they went inside, and then K lost her charm on her necklace, and cy fell down and started crying, and K kept trying to apologize to M, who continued to act like a butt to her until I finally got frustrated and told him that if he stuck his tongue out one more time he wasn't going to get his computer time for the day...which I KNOW was probably a bad parenting move, but at this point I figured I was heading straight to parenting purgatory if not outright hell anyway.

So, here we are. K is pouting on the couch, m is looking at his Puzzlemania book, c is fiddling with his "battat" toy & I can't remember when the house has ever been so quiet. It's unsettling.

I'm going to meditate on this one and try to figure out what I did right and what I did wrong, but I hope I don't have to learn from my mistakes, because I really don't ever want to have so many issues pop up all at once ever ever again.

Corporate Rights vs. Human Rights

April 29, 2003

Lisa has an excellent essay up about the rights of corporations:

You know, we've got a lot of dumb people in this country, and by and large, they vote Republican. Think about it. Who gets the KKK vote? Who gets the fascist patriot movement vote? The anti-gay vote? The anti-woman vote? The uber-intolerant-Christian vote? The anti-poor vote? The anti-peace vote? The anti-worker vote? The anti-teacher vote? The anti-environment vote? The anti-democracy vote? The anti-Social Security vote? The anti-civil liberties vote?

This underbelly of American democracy doesn't appreciate that political free speech shouldn't get you fired, and in the case of The Chicks, corporations shouldn't be permitted to rally up vitriolic protests against them.

[link courtesy of Seeing the Forest]

bahahaha

April 29, 2003

Stressmagnet asks all the right questions.

Aaron's back

April 29, 2003

Although it might be a temporary revival, mr. hawkins is back posting at uppity-negro.com. I hope he figures out a way to keep posting. It almost seemed for awhile there like uppity-negro was a community blog, and Aaron was our lovely host. I know, I know...that's a totally nerdy thing to say, but the house was always hopping, there was always good conversation, and Aaron is DAMN funny, DAMN smart, and just...DAMN! you know?

So...Aaron, love...do what you gotta do, but rest assured that you will be sorely missed if you choose to shut it down.

You gotta love good ole Rummy

April 29, 2003

He adds new meaning to the word "evasive" and just makes me feel so very fucking proud to be living in a free fucking country, where our politicians are True Representatives of the people:

Rumsfeld: "I mean, I'll answer. The president announced a policy. It has been tested and looked at legally, and we are proceeding on that basis -- that the people gathered in Guantanamo we would prefer not to hold. We would like to have arrangements with other countries that they would take their nationals on a basis where we could get future access to them, in the event additional intelligence comes up, and where we have reason to have confidence that they would not simply release people that are a danger to the lives of American men, women and children.

"Now we're keeping them down there to keep them off the street. These -- this is a worldwide network that -- the al Qaeda is, and these folks and the Taliban were part of that and were fighting in Afghanistan and killing people.

"We have them in Guantanamo, they're being examined and interrogated by an interagency process. The president has several ways he can proceed. He can put them into an Article 3, United States Article 3, our Constitution, court; he can establish a military commission and try them that way; or he can keep them for the duration of the war and keep them off the street so they don't kill other people.

"Now, everything that is being done is being done legally and properly. And this constant refrain of 'the juveniles,' as though there's a hundred of children in there -- these are not children. Dick Myers responded to that. There are plenty of people who have been killed by people who were still in their teens.

Like the article states in its opening paragraph:

The Pentagon has now admitted it is holding, and interrogating, children aged 13 to 15 in its secretive Cuban prison camp. But Donald Rumsfeld says that's O.K., because these kids are so dangerous they bend the laws of space and time and become "not children."

What else can I add to that? I wonder if the children who were oppressed by the Hussein regime were also...not children. & what the fuck does QUANTITY matter when we are talking about individuals lives? Whether it's 1, 5 or 100...it's still minor children being held in a prison camp. NOT. IN. MY. FUCKING. NAME.

Feeling. Some. Anger.

April 28, 2003

I wholeheartedly agree with Julian's assessment over at Stand Down of this article :

Officials inside government and advisers outside told ABCNEWS the administration emphasized the danger of Saddam's weapons to gain the legal justification for war from the United Nations and to stress the danger at home to Americans. "We were not lying," said one official. "But it was just a matter of emphasis."

Officials now say they may not find hundreds of tons of mustard and nerve agents and maybe not thousands of liters of anthrax and other toxins. But U.S. forces will find some, they say. On Thursday, President Bush raised the possibility for the first time that any such Iraqi weapons were destroyed before or during the war.

If weapons of mass destruction were not the primary reason for war, what was?

This kind of bullshit might be ok to some of my fellow Americans, but it doesn't fucking fly with me. If our leaders feel that it's necessary to "stretch the truth" so they can have their way with public policy ON MY DIME, then they shouldn't fucking be doing what they're doing. If our ELECTED SERVANTS OF THE FUCKING PUBLIC can't gain the support they need for the actions they take by telling the truth about their motivations, then that brings the validity of those actions into serious question.

Which is why I CONTINUE to call bullshit on this action and why I have not wavered in my anti-war stance.

UPDATE: Elaine linked up this article, which says it far more eloquently than I have.

Wal Mart and Moyers

April 28, 2003

I don't subscribe to Mother Jones, so I don't have access to the entire article here:

Given its staggering size and rapid expansion, Wal-Mart increasingly sets the standard for wages and benefits throughout the U.S. economy. "Americans can't live on a Wal-Mart paycheck," says Greg Denier, communications director for the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW). "Yet it's the dominant employer, and what they pay will be the future of working America." The average hourly worker at Wal-Mart earns barely $18,000 a year at a company that pocketed $6.6 billion in profits last year. Forty percent of employees opt not to receive coverage under the company's medical plan, which costs up to $2,844 a year, plus a deductible. As Jennifer McLaughlin puts it, "They're on top of the Fortune 500, and I can't get health insurance for my kid."

[...]Angered by the disparity between profits and wages, thousands of former and current employees like McLaughlin have started to fight the company on a variety of fronts. Workers in 27 states are suing Wal-Mart for violating wage-and-hour laws; in the first of the cases to go to trial, an Oregon jury found the company guilty in December of systematically forcing employees to work overtime without pay.

Of course, we all know that Wal-Mart is evil and they screw their employees over, but reading this article reminded me of one of the segments on a recent Moyers show about overtime pay and flex time. There's a lot of information on the topic at the link provided.

If you aren't watching Moyers, you really should. He is my hero.

Now that's just FUCKED UP.

April 28, 2003

This site certainly LOOKS sincere:

Empower Peace seeks to build a worldwide network of high school students and teachers committed to breaking down cultural barriers and misperceptions through open dialogue. Our goal is to bring about a climate of mutual respect and understanding by exposing youth to their contemporaries from abroad.

Empower Peace also hopes to assist teachers worldwide by enabling their students to learn firsthand about people and countries that they may have only experienced in schoolbooks. Furthermore, through videoconferencing and the Internet, Empower Peace hopes to create an arena where students all over the world may engage in a dialogue sharing insight into their cultures, customs and live styles.

Empower Peace hopes to develop a worldwide network of educators committed to empowering their students through participation in this program.

And then, if you do your homework, you discover that this project is being undertaken by The Rendon Group:

The Rendon Group is a secretive public relations firm that has assisted a number of U.S. military interventions in nations including Argentina, Colombia, Haiti, Iraq, Kosovo, Panama and Zimbabwe. Rendon's activities include organizing the Iraqi National Congress, a PR front group designed to foment the overthrow of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

In a 1998 speech to the National Security Conference (NSC), John Rendon described himself as "an information warrior, and a perception manager. This is probably best described in the words of Hunter S. Thompson, when he wrote 'When things turn weird, the weird turn pro.'"

"Through its network of international offices and strategic alliances," the Rendon Group website boasted in 2002, "the company has provided communications services to clients in more than 78 countries, and maintains contact with government officials, decision-makers, and news media around the globe."

Kind of makes you wonder where the money is or something. Power? What is it that keeps these groups operating from both ends of the spectrum?

Maybe it's just plain old propaganda:

A February 1998 report by Peter Jennings cited records obtained by ABC News which showed that the Rendon Group spent more than $23 million dollars in the first year of its contract with the CIA. It worked closely with the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an opposition coalition of 19 Iraqi and Kurdish organizations whose main tasks were to "gather information, distribute propaganda and recruit dissidents." According to ABC, Rendon came up with the name for the Iraqi National Congress and channeled $12 million of covert CIA funding to it between 1992 and 1996. Writing in The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh says the Rendon Group was "paid close to a hundred million dollars by the CIA" for its work with the INC.[2]

(This post was brought to you courtesy of this week's spin of the week at Guerilla News Network)

Digital Empowerment vs. Workforce Development

April 28, 2003

(this was originally pubbed on Saturday, but I posted so much crap yesterday that it has fallen down the page & I wanted to put it back at the top So I remember to rewrite it.)

So, basically (&without revealing too much classified information) here are some thoughts on the meeting I had yesterday at the LBJ school of Public Affairs with some doctor so&so or other and a few of my co-workers.

What seems to have been the gist of the meeting was they're trying to get a huge grant to undertake a project that will provide NGOs with a wide array of open source tools that will help them to do their jobs. The odd thing is this entire idea was framed within the context of using blogs as a means of creating easily updated & versatile portals into public service sites & communities. The goal is to work backwards providing the clients of non-profits & NGOs & small GOs a stair-step approach to becoming familiar with and literate in the front-and-back end applications in the process.

So, basically, this guy was saying that he gets paid about 50 times as much as I do to come up with the same idea as me. Hahahhahaha

OK, so I"m exaggerating a bit, but I have been attempting to get my bosses into the idea of using blogs both in our workplace and in the classroom to accomplish some of our unaddressed goals. I'm glad that now that Dr. Soandso has shown them the importance and validity of this, they might actually help me to take action.

Of course as always, my reason for desiring to do this and the party line in my organization differ dramatically & I really do wish my nice boss was working with me today so I could corner him and fire questions at him.

The deal is that, for some fucked up reason, our organization & apparently all orgs in the same line of work, are forced to construct curriculum in the context of workforce development. The assumption being that our poor, long-suffering, un-and-under-employed clients are chomping at the bit to compete for jobs that are only available to the privileged and/or well-connected anyway. Never mind that in the trenches it's apparent to me that a) these "poor downtrodden" folks are perfectly capable of internal compulsion without external reward AND not only that, there just aren't enough jobs to go around anyway.

It would seem that the people in power don't need to worry too much about this, as they have already ransacked the system to the point where these same people have literally no voice in government. Where corporations rule & no corporation seems to be the slightest bit interested in adding more payroll to the bottom line, it seems completely ridiculous to justify the existence of programs like mine by standards of "workforce development." So whenever that phrase comes up in converations with my associates, it becomes exceedingly difficult to not quite visibly stick my fingers down my throat to evoke the gag reflex - regardless of the prestige of the surroundings and host.

What we need IN ACTUALITY (and I know the word "reality" is a novel idea for my collegiate (read "overly-educated") co-horts (and it was amazing to me that the very person who scoffs at the fact that nice boss and I do not have degrees is the same person who was needing lay-person explanations of the concepts being discussed at the meeting.) Anyway...in ACTUALITY what we need is an empowered and vocally active citizenry to help right the wrongs of the current system.

The sneaky thing is that this goal can be accomplished using the same tools as our so-called workforce development angle.

Just to give you a brief explanation of all of the issues, in my mind, a community technology center ought to be addressing:

Level 1:
Provide proliferate broad-band cutting access to cutting-edge computers and software. This is not, as Michael Powell has alluded, replacing the digital divide with the Mercedes divide...because what we are actually addressing is the class divide, and you can't bridge the socioeconomic class divide when the majority of people who are already laps behind are shoved into barely drivable jalopies with the rest of us lap and re-lap them in our screamed-out ferraris.

Level 2:
Get people interested in and over their fear of computers through empathic and effective training programs and services. This enables people to better and more accurately participate in such a diverse range of activities as reading the news for free, finding interest groups & communities with like needs, and even operating new electronic voting machines with greater accuracy (and/or protesting their existence when they are shown to function in a way that is counter to the best interest of the people.)

Level 3:
Train people not only on basic applications such as MS office, but also on practical application of the computer as an educational/informational tool. Develop media savvy and discernment among underrepresented populations, broaden the bases and shine up the bullshit detectors. Open doors to community groups and provide consulting in how computers can be used for advocacy and sociopolitical advocacy.

Level 4:
& this is one we are so far missing, but this is also one that could, potentially, fed the other 3 as giving people a voice online & creating communities for a wide-variety of underrepresented groups will make the other steps more self-satisfying. Who the fuck wants to join a party already in progress that you weren't invited to & at which people are busily actively and passively excluding you? It's important for everyone to have their own safe space at the table...their own plate from which others can't steal, but is able to be shared from with discretion. Currently underrepresented groups need to be allowed to create a strong online presence & this can be done partially using blogs. We have tried this with HTML classes, but the learning curve is such that it makes it nearly impossible for our clients to nurture the power of their voices. Blogs involve a one-time investment in time to create the code for the template, (and not even necessarily, as premade templates are widely available) and endless applications for content creation.

And, in my experience with blogs, the more you create content, the more you learn about the coding, and then, eventually, the more likely is there to be interest in more of the server-side functionings.

This is where the revolution will happen. Opening the 'net to those who are currently disenfranchised and disempowered by a system that knows damn well it's perpetuation both relies on and is a result of this disempowerment.

If we can sneak people in through this back door before it, too, becomes usurped by the oligarchical media conglomerates, we may have a fighting chance

**I'm probably going to work on this article quite a bit (meaning, mostly, removing my snide analogies and adding some references) and submit it to my organization to hopefully help them to understand that workforce development is a very short-sighted goal. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

I just need to say one more thing.

April 28, 2003

My dear husband has spontaneously sprouted a bleeding heart and has decided that it's imperative that our primarily outdoor cats be kept indoors through baby bird season (this was prompted by the adorable baby blue jays he found on Friday...pictures forthcoming). While I think it's incredibly crushworthy (I hate it when I get a crush on my damn husband) that he is doing this, it's also a pain in the ass, as Bela, the grey kitty, has spent the last 72 hours caterwauling like she's in heat. L has deduced that she's actually saying "prowl! prowl! prowl!"

& if i don't go to bed and get two closed doors between myself and this damn cat, I'm going to start throwing things at her.

wait...first I have to say that the now defunct full bleed was linked up at two blogs that have resulted in an inundation of hits there & I am so so bummed that I can't redirect people here. But, oh well. Maybe there's enough halfway decent writing there to keep people occupied until they figure it out.

A Busy Week...

April 28, 2003

K. So those of you who are convinced that I'm just another one of those hip slacker types should know that I actually have a very busy week planned this week. Filled with meetings and stuff...like, as in, I will actually have to work.

Here's the rundown, as i need to add these things to my spiffy new PDA (since now I don't have the old "Well, if you would GET ME a PDA, I would be able to REMEMBER all of this stuff" excuse anymore.)

Monday
-Our regularly scheduled every-other-week meeting from 3:30-5:00
-An HTML curriculum meeting from 6-?? (this means I need to run to work after the meeting and try to remember all of the stuff I had thought needed changing)
-There's supposed to be an anti-war meetup at Flightpat at 8, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen.

Tuesday
-Meet with David about creating blog curriculum

Wednesday
-Just my normal every day work stuff.

Thursday
-Meet with the people who are doing the workforce development training (This means I have to spend some time looking through the instructor guide they gave me and identify what should be changed to better suit our curriculum)

Friday
I'm off work, bub

Saturday
-Taking the day off to participate in the Showdown in Texas

Sunday
Off work again

Monday
-Blogging/open source meeting

And I am just CERTAIN I'm forgetting something. Several somethings. And, of course, this does not include all of the fun adventures I have while wearing my mama cape during the day...those adventures would be:

Monday
-Stay at home and attempt to clean up the house a bit

Tuesday
-Unschooler park day

Wednesday
-Young Explorers co-op

Thursday
-Austin Area Homeschooler Park Day

Friday
-We'll probably have a nice hike

Saturday
-I'll be busy at the showdown

Sunday
-Dunno yet. Maybe I'll go to the library.

Shit. That's a full week. I should probably attempt to get some sleep. Nighty night.

I lied

April 27, 2003

The previous post wasn't my last post for now. This one is. hahahaha.

I'm about to leave the glorious un air conditioned splendor of my workplace and head back home where the children are hyper, the husband is grouchy, and the lawn needs to be mowed (or is it mown? Or does anyone really give a fuck?)

But I would like to say that it's been a successful day in that I found a pair of used Addidas for 5 bux at Savers, and it feels good (albeit very strange) to be wearing a pair of shoes with arches. I'm sure it will make the mile long hike to the bus stop a bit less painful, and I'm sure these shoes are more breathe-worthy than my non-leather boots, which should make anyone who has to smell my stinky feet on a regular basis quite happy. These shoes are leather, but they were used, and after about 15 years of debate with myself over whether it's ethical to wear used leather shoes, I think I've resolved that it is. That anything used is ethical. & if you don't agree, you can shove it...and then come back to me when you've spent 15 years thinking about it.

Um...what else?

I mapped out the route to DC and back using mapquest. It's subject to change, but it's looking like I'll be going from Austin to Memphis, Memphis to DC, DC to New York (?) New York to Chicago, Chicago to Champagne...and then back to Austin. There might be more anchor points added along the way, but that's what I've got for now. I think the kids and I can do 16 hour days, provided we're not in the car more than a few hours at a time. That would give us 12 hours of car time interspersed with several hour or so long breaks. And if I plan right, I can even take breaks at parks and forests rather than stupid old rest stops.

Hope everyone had a good day today. I was planning on getting back into reading up on war news, today, but apparently I am still needing a break from it. I had a relaxing meditation last night after the kids went to bed. I turned off all of the lights, lit some candles and incense, turned on some music...and then turned off the music and luxuriated in the darkness and silence. I felt good. I feel good. Truly happy. And I want to savor that for the time being before I throw myself back into the things that make me angry.

Next week is the showdown in Texas...and, while Mr. "Not the babysitter for the Revolution" is refusing to watch the children any more than usual, I do have 5 hours on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to spend on the streets, creating a presence of resistance deep in the heart of Texas.

One more, and then I think I need to go home

April 27, 2003

OK, m would never ever EVER go for this, but I'm one of these people who enjoys learning about all of the rules of grammar that I make an almost conscious effort to violate ruthlessly on a regular basis. To that end, this site is pretty fun.

Teachers for Social Justice

April 27, 2003

Damn...this makes me wish I was in Chicago...but it's a good resource regardless.

The megaPenny project

April 27, 2003

I thought this link was interesting.

(yes, I'm still cleaning out my inbox...there are like 4000 e-mails in there.)

Wildlife Art

April 27, 2003

I need to get radical homeschoolers dot org back up and running, so I can link up awesome websites like this one. Basically, it's an interactive journal site that allows you to choose your inspirational nature image and music, and write down whatever you feel about it. Amazing stuff.

Cleaning out my inbox

April 27, 2003

I found this link about the worldview of a 5-year old Waldorf-homeschooled child, as illuminated during a conversation following the viewing of the movie Powaqqatsi:

So how, if they don't have anything, can they be better than us?

"Because they DON'T HAVE ANYTHING. They are only busy. They work all day, together - everyone was helping everyone. Even the small children like Zynnia (2) carried things, heavy things to help the people."

Yes, I saw that but I still don't understand why or how that would make you say they are 'better people'.

"They are not spoiled with too much. We have everything and we are spoiled because I never carried anything heavy."

Would you like me to give you heavy things to carry?

"I would like to help. I would like to work. I would like to help everybody!"

& from the same e-mail list, but on the evil side of the spectrum, there is a link to this site.

Road Trip Planning...

April 27, 2003

I'm starting to get the fever for this road trip idea, and I've made some preliminary plans for how'm going to get there. It's looking like I can keep it affordable if I spend 20 bux or less a day on food & I canNOT purchase any extras like souvenirs and whatnot, which I'm pretty good at resisting, provided we can make it to a visitor's center and get our free map to remember where we've been and all.

L's all anxious about me traveling alone, which is weird because, um, I did drive to Portland OR and back by myself a few summers ago, and I took a trip to Chicago by myself one winter. With the kids both times...not to mention all of the other modes of travel I've used to get me and one or both of the children from point a to point b over the years. I'm not worried. In fact, this should be easier than the Portland trip and the Chicago trip because cy's actually able to walk well and m's used to being a big brother and has been a big help with keeping cy out of trouble around the house. I'm very fortunate that m is the oldest, because he's totally safety conscious. All I have to do is tell him an activity (such as hitting his brother in the backseat and making all sorts of racket, for instance) is dangerous, and he generally stops. hahahahaha. Let's just hope I don't abuse that too much (ex: "m...talking is very dangerous. Please don't say anything for the next 50 miles" - which I'm SURE I used at some point in the mountains between Montana and Idaho.)

Speaking of which, the route I want to take will go right through the Appalachians. I'm going to see what Mapquest has to say about that, and I realized that the atlas I'm using to plan things is from 1995, and there might be some new roads by now...so that needs to be one of the purchases I make in preparation for the trip.

We need to pack light if we're going to be traipsing back with a car full of people, but I think I can deal with that. I might see if I can borrow a rooftop luggage carrier from someone, but it seems like I'll be staying places with washers and dryers and stuff, and I don't mind being stinky for days if it's for a good cause. hahahaha.

So, here are some of the things I need to do get ready for the trip:

• L needs to do the damn taxes so I can be SURE that we're getting an adequate amount of money back

• I need to get the brakes done on the car, and make sure my cutey mechanic feels that the car is roadworthy

• I need to get a new jack, since the old one is crapped (I should probably do that sooner than later, as I'm currently driving around without a jack.)

• I'd LIKE to get a fancy-pants mp3 player with car kit (this is one of those luxury items that suddenly has become a seeming necessity.)

• I need to either add roadside assistance to my insurance policy, or I need to sign up for a triple A membership before it's too late to activate it before the trip

• Thankfully, I have enough luggage, coolers, water bottles, and various other incidentals (like a car charger for my celly & an adaptor for other electric devices) to get us through. So there's not much BUYING I need to do, but I would like to get a few very portable toys for the kids & some things that make eating on the go a little easier like sippy cups (which I do not have at all. How weird is it that cy has never really used a sippy cup before?) Maybe I'll exchange some of our toys with some other families so the kids have something new to play with on the road. Sticker books, magnetic puzzles, and sewing cards would do the trick, too. m, ever the trooper, has always been a pretty content little traveler guy, so I'm mostly worried about cy.

• I need to come up with a few good recipes for basic foods we can eat on the road. PB&J is the obvious choice for something cheap and simple, but it's also messy. Trail mix, nuts, veggies and fruit...and lots and lots of garbanzos. I bet we'll be really pleasant to be around by the time we get where we need to go.

• I'm probably going to just use disposable diapers on the trip. We've been using them a lot lately anyway. Ever since the dryer broke and we started keeping disposables around the house, L's been getting pretty reliant on them. It pisses me off, but it's a pretty minor thing to get aggravated about. There's just not going to be room in the car to tote around a bunch of cloth diapers & it's only 2 weeks, so I'm not going to sweat it. I'll make it up to mother nature somehow.

• The dog. L doesn't want to watch her while I'm out of town. I can't bring her with. I need to find someone who will take care of the dog. I'm hoping this won't be a too much of a problem.

• I still would really like to convince L that it would be more realistic for us to rent out the back room of the house rather than let him use it for his giant computer room/office. It would ease my mind a great deal if I knew we were going to be getting a steady flow of extra money every month. As it is, I'm losing 100 bux a month, as I will not be babysitting K over the summer.

It really seems like I'm forgetting something, but I don't think I am. I guess after having done this a few times, I've accumulated the tools I need to make the trip go off smoothly, particularly the know-how, esp. with regard to what I need to bring and what I don't need at all. I'm trying to decide if I should bring the computer along. It'd be good to leave it behind, but I might need it for something. Who knows. I'll just wait and see how full the car is and decide then.

I'm still crossing my fingers hoping that the money comes together and everything falls into place, but if I get 500 or so bucks from my employer to put toward the trip, and if my travel partners who are coming home with me don't flake (you hear that, ladies? NO FLAKING!!!) it seems totally do-able & not just that, but it seems like it would be a mistake to NOT do it.

(& I just realized that I have a check for like 250 bux floating around here somewhere that I was going to use to fix the dryer...but I can just use the clothesline instead until we get more money, so I can use that for the trip. Just a little priority shift is all it takes for me to get what I want.)

Crush Mix

April 26, 2003

Hey...I only have one potential crush candidate for May. What gives? I know my hit count dropped by like half when I moved over here, but where is the love, people?

That said, I have finally solidified the crush mix for those lucky people who allow themselves to be subjected to my obsessive attentions for the month. Here's a song list, in case it interests ya:

Chumbawamba - Look, No Strings!
The Cure - Just like Heaven
REM - Superman
Mission of Burma - Forget
Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen in Love?
John Coltrane - Just for the Love
Johnny Cash - I Walk The Line
Cibo Matto - Moon Child
Bow Wow Wow - I Want Candy
Pretenders - Back on the Chain Gang
Dog Faced Hermans - How We Connect
Mazzy Star - She's My Baby
the Cramps - Can't Hardly Stand It
Dead Can Dance - Persian Love Song
PJ Harvey - Who Will Love Me Now?
Pogues - A Pair of Brown Eyes
Stereo Total - Ich Libe Dich Alexander
Nick Cave - Brompton Oratory
Stereo Total - Love With the Three of Us

As with all things I promise, I'll get it to you when I get it to you. And apologies in advance for the long delays. hahahaha

frickin frack!

April 26, 2003

It's like I have to have mafia connections to figure out how to sign my freaking child up for a sports team around here. I've been searching endlessly for some sort of webpage that says something like "registration for this sport occurs on this date at this time" and I got nothin. Abso-fucking-lutely nothing.

Sigh.

I guess I'm going to have to use the good old fashioned telephone machine on this one, folks. Time for the phone-a-phobe to step outta her box.

(speakingawhich...I think I might have found another long lost friend while snooping through internet white pages & I might have to try calling that number, too)

UPDATE:

You think I'm gonna need to blow this guy to get information out of him? Here's the e-mail exchange:

I wrote:

Hi,

I have a 6 year old son who would like to join a soccer team, but I can't find information about when and where registration happens. Can you send me some information, please?

Drucilla Blood

He replied:

All depends where you live.

Um...ok. So I suppose I'm going to have to send about 20 gazillion e-mails just to sort all of this out. Have park district youth sports not discovered the advantage of, say, brochures and websites? Handy informational things? ARRRRRGH!

UNbefuckinglievable

April 25, 2003

Yomama sent me to this article:

Wolfe began to nurse the baby again, using her own bib and blanket. She says the man got out of his seat, walked over to hers and stood staring at her. She says she approached him afterward and twice asked if he had a problem with her feeding her son.

"He marched past me and to the very back of the cabin to talk to the flight attendant," she wrote. "He told her, 'This woman just assaulted me.' ... He then explained that the asking of two questions by a 'foreign national' in international airspace made him feel the victim of terror and as such he wanted to file an assault charge."

She says the flight attendants also began to call her and her travelling party "foreign nationals in international airspace on an international flight during a time of war." And she was informed both of the complaint and that it could be upgraded to a Level 3, which meant possible mandatory detainment by U.S. authorities for 24 hours, RCMP involvement and criminal charges for an act of war upon an American.

I suppose it wouldn't have helped for her to squirt them all in the fucking eyes...

A coupla random thoughts.

April 25, 2003

Today I was walking around, noticing tree trunks. And, I dunno if it's just this weird spring kinda romantic buzz I got going, but damnit, tree trunks are SEXY. Has anyone else noticed this?

And also today, I chanced to attend a meeting that basically justified the amount of time I've spent blogging when i shoulda been working. Which is to say that blogging is going to probably become more a part of my job than had been the case previously & I might even get to blog about work on my own work blog. Pretty nift. & also, I'm going to be writing a curriculum for a blogging class & I'm hoping I can do that while I'm in DC with some of my favorite bloggers on earth...so they can help me and stuff. We can confab. Innat what business people do?

On the way out of the building at the LBJ school today, my boss (who also does not have a degree) got a dirty look when he said "See...we're so much smarter than these people." which was basically true, for him at least. He probably knows way more about the stuff we discussed today than the people who were doing the discussing.

Anyway, it was a good day, and I got to do lots of walking around, and even though it's like 5 million degrees outside, I hardly broke a sweat.

More on non-monogamy

April 25, 2003

Suzanne brought up some cogent points in her response to my earlier post about monogamy and anarchy (or autonomy would actually be a better way to put it.) And, in fact, one of the things I wrote in my paper journal earlier this week that never made it to electric is this:

& don't think I'm not aware of the irony in the fact that hte very yearning to be intimate with everyone might actually be the thing that leaves me alienated by so many. Ha ha!

There's a lot in my history that would attest to this fact, and I actually naturally came upon a way of coping with my mad desire to love everyone. For so many years, I actually thought it was a bona fide pathology & many have told me as much as well, but now I see that it is a valid method for coping with the disparity between my desire to be intimate with a large amount of people, and the social construct of monogamy that prevents it. Wanna know what it is?

I don't have sex!

Wow. All those years of saying no because I knew once I said yes I was somehow obligated, and I never wanted to be obligated. & now that I'm older and have a more mature attitude about sex and actually desire sex, it's STILL preferable for me to abstain from sex rather than close myself off to other people. Which is not to say that I ALWAYS abstain, but I most always do, and I'm fairly sexually monogamous...if that makes any sense.

How cool. Thanks for helping me knock that one out, Suzanne. I'm sure I'll talk more about this later, but for now I'm remembering fondly the wonderful sleepover parties I used to have...a different man each night tucked up in my warm bed, telling stories, laughing, and snuggling in gleeful autonomy.

Madcap adventure.

April 25, 2003

So, I had the distinct pleasure of chatting with one miss lorraine last night, who is altogether too frequently ABSENT from the computer, but who also haps to live in the DC area where I'm hopin hoping hoping to be come end of June.

And the best part is that word has it Ms. Pear has alluded to a desire to traipse back to Austin with me, having hopeful adventures all the way home. Including maybe a drop-in on miz insane.

So, we're kidnapping Lorraine and the three of us mamas and our respective broods are going to hop in the car and drive and drive and no doubt laugh and laugh and have one hell of a time. Don't you wish you were us?

I just told Lorraine fuck it...if my car breaks down, I'll just have to move in with her and adam and live there forever. Bahahahahahaha. How rich do I feel to know such delightful people?

Meanwhile, I'm having a hell of a blast at artery & you really should join up and throw down some spontaneous prose/poetry/wordart/play with us. It's really quite fun to do & I'm hoping it's fun to read, as well.

Anyway, look...it's another beautiful day (is what I used to say very emphatically to c every fucking morning two years ago when my world was crumbling & all I had was my own damn optimism to get me through. & looky now, it's the first thing I think when I open my eyes. Hows that for some hardcore brainwashment) & I need to go wander around in it. Hope you are all well.

Stupidhead (by m)

April 24, 2003

Today I HARDLY argued with dad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And, I KIND of liked lunch. Duh! I ALWAYS kind of like MEALS. Really! Lunch is a MEAL...that's a snack. Beause, ahem, it's called lunch because it's in. the af-ter-noon. Blah blah blah! ::sigh:: ::giggle::

AND breakfast was TOTALLY good! Besides, I always like pancakes and that's what's for breakfast, blah blah blah! And I played THREE hours of computer. Two on dad's shift, one on mom's shift. And they were ALL on Fox kid's pack 2. I love that game! Especially mini-car racing & hyperball! Dad played Alchemist. Duh! Dad REMEMBERS. HOW. TO. PLAY. IT! Blah Blah Blah...yadda yadda yadda. Duh Duh Duh.

Of course, I played with c and c tortured me, and of course I did THREE CHORES, plus brushed my teeth. I mean, BY MY SELF!

The end!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OOOOOH...new toy!

April 24, 2003

(pardon me while I have some Quality Time.)

Sometimes you just gotta read Abbie

April 24, 2003

This entry just cracked me up...but the whole blog is a work of sheer genius. Here, Abbie the Cat describes certain, er, procedures:

the treatmtnt at the hostpial is not one i would recommend to a friend or acquintance first you get a shot and get real sleepy and when your guard is down thats when they jump in with a big frily collar that makes your head stick out and then that's when they put a tube where a tube shouldNOT GO amnd I MEAN THAT emphatically

m Picks

April 24, 2003

Since it seems to be a m kind of day, I thought I'd post a couple faves of the moment:

His favorite joke (mine, too)
Why was 6 afraid of 7?
Because 7, 8, 9!

His favorite poem (Blueroses' Gaby will like this, too)
The Bells of London

Oranges and lemons,
Say the bells of St. Clement's

You owe me five farthings,
Say the bells of St. Martin's

When will you pay me?
Say the bells of Old Bailey.

When I grow rich,
Say the bells of Shoreditch.

When will that be?
Say the bells of Stepney.

I'm sure I don't know,
Says the Great Bell of Bow.

(& this is m's fave part)

Here comes the candle
to light you to bed.
Here comes the chopper,
to chop off your head.

(insert wild gales of laughter.)

m Woke Up First.

April 24, 2003

You know there's been some sort of crucial universal shift when m is the first one to wake up in the morning. But that's only because c didn't wake up at his usual 7:30 time this morning, for once. It's too bad I had a godawful nightmare last night and couldn't get back to sleep. I was actually so freaked out, I crawled into L's arms and started crying. I'm a wimp about nightmares, but thankfully I don't have them very often. I can't even remember what it was about, but it was just...frightening. It left an afterscare. Something about home invasion and biting dogs and on top of it all a broken heart (to boot). How very odd. The funny part is that I remember in the dream they took everything & left my laptop. BAhahahahahaha. See, had I actually thought about that last night, I would have just laughed instead of cried, but I think maybe the reason I had the dream was more to drive me to L than to freak me out or make me laugh. Which was OK. I probably need to try to be close to L more than I do. Perhaps there's hope after all somewhere in there. I'm not counting on it...but it's a possibility.

So anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah. m woke up first this morning, and like the little butt that he is, he instantly said "OK everyone! I'm awake! Time to get up!" That kid would FREAK if we woke him at 7 when we normally wake up. I just lifted my arm up from the bed and pointed to the door. (YOu should know that m, in an act of civil disobedience, has proclaimed that he's going to be sleeping in the family bed until I let him start playing Age of Empires again. hahahahaha.)

It didn't take me long to get up after him. No sense laying there being kicked by a half-awake c. So, here I am, and the cool part is that m is "babysitting" c for half an hour as one of his daily chores, so I have time to read and writing and whatever WITHOUT having to find something to distract c with.

I think I could learn to live with m waking up first.

More Arguments against Monogamy

April 24, 2003

My Ideal Partner:

• Is a man
  
• Is a woman
  
• Is neither a man nor a woman
  
• Is both a man and a woman
  
• Is tall
  
• Is short
  
• Is in between tall and short
  
• Likes to talk
  
• Savors silence
  
• Listens
  
• Is not afraid to tell me to shut up (and can do it w/o animosity)
  
• Knows when I'm lying, and knows when to let me get away with it
  
• Demands the truth at all times
  
• Has strong hands
  
• Has weak hands
  
• Has no hands
  
• Can encircle me
  
• Knows when to get the fuck out of my way
  
• Lets me win
  
• Holds me accountable
  
• Kicks my ass (NOT literally)
  
• Is an absolute mystery
  
• Is completely open and honest
  
• Takes care my children
  
• Takes care of me
  
• Knows that I can take damn good care of myself
  
• Is independent
  
• Likes to be pampered
  
• Kisses my ass
  
• Is completely sincere
  
• Totally agrees with everything I say and do and stand for
  
• Is not afraid to argue with me
  
• Is not afraid to be argued with
  
• Is not afraid to be agreed with
  
• Raises counterpoints without coming off as being intentionally confrontational
  
• Doesn't care that I am frequently intentionally confrontational
  
• Knows that I'm always secretly smiling through the confrontation
  
• Does not feel judged by me, even when I'm being judgmental
  
• Can deal with the fact that I'm easily distracted
  
• Knows how to get me to focus when necessary
  
• Can laugh with me
  
• Can laugh at me
  
• Can be laughed at and with
  
• Can just laugh...for no fucking reason at all
  
• Is handy
  
• Lets me take care of things.
  
• Has a soft voice
  
• Has a loud voice
  
• Moves gracefully
  
• Is a big dolt
  
• Thinks I'm cool
  
• Thinks I'm a total nerd
  
• Loves me for my intelligence
  
• Loves me for my sense of humor
  
• Loves me for my freak
  
• Has brown eyes
  
• Has green eyes
  
• Has blue eyes
  
• Likes to travel
  
• Likes to stay home and take care of the pets while I travel
  
• Earns an honest living
  
• Stays home and makes art all day
  
• Is intelligent
  
• Is wise
  
• Makes a lot of mistakes, but learns from them
  
• Is creative
  
• Is thrifty
  
• Gives
  
• Takes
  
• Is predictable
  
• Is spontaneous
  
• Can cook, and does
  
• Can clean, and does
  
• Is an artist
  
• Is a poet
  
• Is a thief
  
• Is a businessperson
  
• Wants to hug me
  
• Wants sex
  
• Wants to snuggle
  
• Wants to sit in the same room as me and read books, silent and distant
  
• Just wants to lie next to me and listen to the doves
  
• Lets me run off at the mouth
  
• Knows when to shut me up with kisses.
  
• Knows when to placate me
  
• Knows when to beat a hasty retreat.
  
• (...)(and I'm sure I'll be adding to this list all day)
  

My willingness to compromise:

• Practically not at all

(It's not that I don't know what I want. It's just that I want everything. hahahahaha)

Things that make me very sad.

April 23, 2003

I can only avoid the war news for so long before I go and read something like this, and I feel the bile rising. There simply has to be another way. Because shit like this is unacceptable:

For some of the younger men of Cyclone Company, it is hard to piece together war memories into a coherent story. "Did this look like a war to you?" asked Spc. Royce Arcay, 26. "I've never been to a war, but it sure didn't seem like what they put on TV.... It's just kind of weird looking at dead bodies. They don't look real. I never thought I'd see dead bodies like that, or body parts."

Bodies killed by the powerful 120-millimeter main guns of an Abrams M-1A1 tank, or its mounted machine guns, don't lie in quiet repose with neat red circles for wounds. They are mangled, blown apart and burned beyond recognition.

m 3000

April 23, 2003

We played with flashlights in the hallway, blah blah blah. I even made TWO reports.

Number 1: It was about how a rocket gets off the ground.

Number 2: How the sun comes up and the sun goes down and the moon comes up and the moon comes down.

Then we ate lunch. But while we were playing with flashlights, I even made a cartoon about dinosaurs for mom! Can you believe it? Even T. Rex! My favorite! I mean, whoah! Dinosaurs are so cool!

Well, lunch was even better than that. Cuz you know me, I've been STARVING these days. But now I'm luckily eating some garbanzos. Mm. They're DELICIOUS.

::sigh:: I've also been tired today, so I took a nap while dad was watching me. Ah. And of course, my baby brother has been torturing me. Cuz, you know c, he is SO BAD!! I mean, if you meet c, and you're, you know, whoever's reading this that's a man better not go near c because...he thinks EVERYBODY'S dad! I mean, he just LOVES men!

My favorite uncle is Uncle Robert. ::sigh:: ::sigh:: We used to have a, you know, someone that rented one of our rooms for a long time. His name is Adam. Room. Dad's room. We got some money from him of course. DUH! That's what room owners that didn't live in our house before DO!

Blah blah blah...la uh ug. ::burp:: ::giggle::

Well, there's one more thing I have to say "blahlajaljflkajl;jeon asfinesi"

::giggle::

(m pretends to pass out.)

::giggle::

oh, this is the REAL thing I had to say. I'm GLAD this is a REAL house I live in. AND I'm glad I'm the nicest kid in it. Duh! Of course! ::giggle!!!!!!!!!!!!::

I'm having one of those days...

April 23, 2003

Where I could just go on and on and fucking on. And I believe I have, in all of the various outlets I've provided for myself. This is the kind of day that I really SHOULD skip work and go hang out at k8s house and have mad arm-flailing conversations with her about life and love and lifelong love, but she's out of town, I'm 'fraid so you poor saps are just stuck with me. bahahahaha mwahahahahahahahahahaha.

Um, anyway...today was the perfect day for the Boatman's Call which I threw into my little portable CD player to listen to on the way to the bus stop. It's grey and windy and absolutely lovely outside, especially when one considers the summer that is looming on the all-to-near horizon. So, I listened to the Boatman's call, trying hard to not think about that monstrosity that Nick Cave released recently that I've been able to listen to for exactly 20 minutes total in the 4 or 5 attempts I've made of listening.

But Boatman's call is the perfect compromise for those of us who want Mr. Cave to live forever, and continue to put out music. It's surprisingly mellow, gorgeously lyrical, and heart-wrenchingly beautiful. The entire CD is a testament to love and it's myriad stages. It contains some of the most wonderful love songs, as well as one of the sexiest few stanzas in the history of music, from "Brompton Oratory":

And I wish that I was made of stone
So that I would not have to see
A beauty impossible to define
A beauty impossible to believe

A beauty impossible to endure
The blood imparted in little sips
The smell of you still on my hands
As I bring the cup up to my lips.

No God up in the sky
No devil beneath the sea
Could do the job that you did, babe,
Of bringing me to my knees.

Just. Absolutely. Lovely.

So, the damn fine day continues and will continue as I'm here at work, where I always manage to enjoy myself. & my stomach growls, but I just might go get myself a sammich or something.