Dru Blood - I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings: July 2004 Archives

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« June 2004 | Main | August 2004 »

Suspension.

July 30, 2004

It's Friday, and the kids just left for their weekend visit with papa. Whenever they leave like that, there's this moment - or there are moments - of suspension. I'm stuck between two worlds.

I just really started feeling that other world a couple of weekends ago. I was invited over to a friend's house for movies and girly fun late at night. It was already dark and I left the house and put my key in the door of the car. I had to look around to see if anyone was watching. As if I was doing something illicit and clandestine, leaving my house in the middle of the night without my children. It felt odd, and slightly thrilling at the same time.

But the suspension I feel just when they leave, and in the moments following is sort of a pit-of-my-stomach feeling. I know they will be back, and I know it will almost seem too soon when they DO come back. But for those moments after they leave, the weekend yawns in front of me with seeming neverendingness. Suddenly, all of the things I had planned to do seem utterly unimportant, and i want to lay down in my bed and hug my pillow and just lay there for hours, partly to luxuriate in my aloneness, and partly to mourn about it.

The suspension doesn't last long. I click into place, with all of the ideas of people that I have been waiting to see, alone. And places I have been waiting to go, alone. And things I've been wanting to do...also alone. The laughter and silliness and the rolling around merrimaking that occured just minutes ago are stifled as if a gloved hand has wrapped its fingers around it all. I'm still vibrating from it, but my energy is more directed as it is contained.

Posted at 4:54 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Any Austin Cat Lovers?

July 29, 2004

Got a plea in a comment to post this information:

Please pass on the info if you are in the Austin area... ::::
Ugh...The LJ Austin community journal recently went to moderated posts only. They've yet to allow any posts after 7pm to come through tonight. Mine is time-sensitive, so I'm itching. I have two Austin peeps on my friends list, and one of you has some cat link/networking abilities. If either of you want her before she's put to sleep, or can post it in your journal for other Austinites to see, here is the info (She's tubby and cute!):

-----------------------------------

The volunteers at the Town Lake Animal Shelter were desperate to find a home (OR A TEMPORARY FOSTER HOME) for a cat there tonight. Chloe will be put to sleep tomorrow night, by close of business. The volunteers tried to give her to me for Free. I've been at the shelter nightly for almost 4 weeks to look for a lost pet, and have not seen these same volunteers act like this before.

The deal:

Chloe was supposed to be put to sleep tomorrow morning. The volunteers got the front desk to put a hold on her until 7pm instead, because someone might be interested in her. Volunteers say they are trying hard with Chloe because she's so sweet, and are bummed that she's become so depressed from being there so long and don't want to see her put to sleep.

Chloe's photo is no longer on the shelter's website - but here's her stats:

- You can foster Chloe temporarily or keep! The volunteers will stay in touch, & help you find a home for her if fostered.
- FREE! Her fee dropped down to $20.00. The volunteers said they will pay the $20.00. You should tell the adoption desk that the volunteers said they would pay!
- No waiting period! You can take Chloe home immediately.
- Female
- Gray & White Snowshoe & Siamese Mix. Blue Eyes. Short Hair.
- Roly-Poly! 16 pounds. She's so tubby, she's darling.
- Has all shots!
- Microchipped!
- Spayed!
- Front Declawed (this means inside only & she won't rip up your stuff!)
- 5-years old
- Digs playing with her toy mouse
- She's become bummed out in her cage, so she doesn't come running to the front of the cage anymore. Just needs lovin'.
- They say her health is great.
- Her owner gave her up, because they just didn't want a cat anymore.

-- Must be there earlier than 7:00pm when they close tomorrow night, to fill out adoption papers at the adoption desk.

-- If you rent, they need to see a paper from your landlord stating it's okay to have pets.
-- If you have pets, they need to see rabies shot proof for your other pets.

If no pets - even better, you don't need rabies proof - just come get her. (Personally, I would lie my butt off & say I do not have any pets, if I was a bit behind on rabies shots & knew that mine were always inside ...but that's just me.)

Town Lake Animal Shelter's website & location: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/animals/

Chloe's Shelter/prison I.D. is: A351670 -- She is in Kennel #AB 20 She is in the Adoption cat house, not the stray cat house.

* I'm in a situation where I can't take on a new cat - or I would have walked out of there with her tonight. The volunteers said they can't take anymore cats, Chloe's cage has Vet signs on it - no biggie, they had her on special food to try to get her to lose weight or something - they think the special food signs scared people away without realizing it's only food, and she is healthy.

If you get Chloe - please comment here! Would love to know that she's found a permanent or temporary foster home.

I hope someone can find this cat a good home.

Posted at 11:15 PM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

An update

July 29, 2004

Well, I made it through the first week of the part-time job. I think I actually hit my stride with the beginner class that I'm teaching. Suddenly, I just clicked with the students, and was able to make jokes and laugh and everyone seemed to be able to breathe a little. I'm working with Senior Citizens, and I think the breaking point was when someone complained that they couldn't remember because they were "Too Old" and I laughed and said I was going to put a jar in the front of the room, and every time someone complained about being old, they were going to have to put a quarter in it. That even made my toughest customer smile, so I think I had them at that one.

Not that even my toughest customer is all that tough. She is a sweetheart, and it's fairly obvious that she is covering up some fear and/or insecurity by being a little persnickety about certain things. I dunno how to describe it, but I run into it a lot when I'm training adults. In fact, I'm probably guilty of it myself whenever someone is trying to teach ME something. That sort of attitude where if I don't get something RIGHT FUCKING AWAY it's more the teacher's fault than mine. All I'm doing to help her get through it is just being really ultra patient and walking her through things. She's a wonderful lady. I don't want her to feel frustrated with herself OR with me.

So, anyway, yeah...I've already grown sort of attached to my students, even though I haven't learned their names yet (I'm bringing in index cards on Monday so I can start practicing names). It should be an interesting 6 weeks...and I just got word from the boss lady that they might need me to extend my contract for another 6 weeks to bring this crew of beginners up through the intermediate level. Which would be only 2 days a week, and if I can handle it, I'm told that I'm welcome to teach again. Which is like, wow! That's a lot of nice extra cash. I'll have to seriously think about it for a bit, and talk it over with whoever might be willing to continue to help out with childcare.

But anyway, I don't have to wake up early tomorrow. I can lounge in bed and let the children watch PBS until I'm DAMN good and ready to get up. And then they leave for their papa's house tomorrow evening, and I will have the house to myself and NO PLANS on Friday. I'm trying to tell myself that I'm going to spend that time cleaning up. Do you think I should believe myself? Definitely on the agenda is watching This documentary on Dateline NBC. I might get myself a new outfit so i can dress up like a goddess for goddess night (did I mention J is the best. boyfriend. EVER. ? Because, damn, I do believe I'm being wined and dined on Saturday night.) Other than that, I'm open. I'm free and easy. And the house will be quiet. And I will be, quite happily, alone. Unless I can maybe call up J for a late-night booty call, after I've had about enough of the aloneness.

ERm...

But I didn't say that out loud, now, did I?

At any rate, it promises to be a nice, relaxing weekend. I'll be making pasta sauce on Friday, for lasagnas on Sunday. Loud music. Loud love. And maybe a bit of quiet reading thrown in for effect.

I'll even be able to pay off some of my bills that have been escalating out of control, because this is the month I get three paychecks. Yahoo.

I was hoping I could muster the energy this evening to write my 4 elements of a happy relationship, but I just don't have the energy to pull it off without making it sound overly serious. I mean, who in their right freaking mind would take SERIOUS relationship advice from ME?

I might try it later, injected with a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor. For now, I'm thinking I'm either going to veg out in front of the TV for a bit, or just plain go to sleep.

Hope you are well.

Posted at 10:13 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Goddess Night at Ararat

July 28, 2004

GODDESS NITE Full Moon Benefit for Ararat Restaurant July 31st, 2004
Reserve your ticket to our Dinner/Theatre Showcase. Treat yourself to a special menu... a three course Middle Eastern feast. Enjoy live music by Katie O, belly dance by Cassandra and spoken word.

YUM!

Posted at 2:07 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

2 Down, 22 to go.

July 27, 2004

And I hate to make it sound like this second job is something that is incredibly taxing. Because it's not. It's difficult. It's mentally and emotionally a bit draining (it's difficult to stay patient with people while they fumble around with a mouse for 15 minutes trying to click on something) but, ultimately, it's incredibly rewarding and fun and, well, lucrative.

But, I really don't know how people do it. By people, I mean people who work outside the home for 40+ hours a week. My full-time job is a 32 hour a week full time job, and many of those hours are worked from home, sporadically throughout the day. It's taken me 4 years almost to stop feeling guilty about this fact, having come away from a job where I worked 45-50 hours a week, with travel.

I can't remember what that was like. I can't imagine what it's like to come home from an 8-10 hour work day and then have to be energized for your kids. And i mean that not with the "I'm so superior because I spend the majority of my day interacting with my children" trip I'm sure I've laid before, but with the "holy fuck, I don't think I could hack this as a permanent gig and I'm in total awe of people who do" tip.

Because, it's day two, and I'm struggling, and I can already tell that my children are going to be watching an awful damn lot of videos over the next 6 weeks. That's all I'm saying.

I have to say that I have mad respect for the mamas who are helping me out by watching my kiddos, too. The mamas, and the two high school-aged ladies who watched them today. I've got it arranged so I'm paying people 2 days out of the week, and making food the for people the other two days. It's madness. I'm sure I'm paying like half my salary out in food and cash, and thankfully I'm making enough to be able to afford that. But it's madness. Madness I tell you. And, really, I kind of want those of you who don't have chidren to think of the logistical nightmare of finding childcare for kids in order to work extra hours and make ends meet...particularly the next time you hear about "welfare moms" and what have you. Or the working poor. Because, it is. It's a logistical fucking nightmare.

Which isn't to say that I'm not having at least a tiny bit of fun with it. I seem to enjoy logistical nightmares. Which is why, when I finish with this post, I'm going to finish making the Morrocan stew that I got 3/4 done with on Sunday, and I'm going to whip up a bowl full of hummus and slice up some pita bread so I can bring it all to the babysitter's tomorrow.

And this weekend, I'm making a huge crockpot full of spaghetti sauce so I can fix two gorgeous lasagnas to bring over next week. My new motto? Will Food For Work!

Posted at 10:35 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

MT 3.01

July 27, 2004

Adam installed the new version of MT last night, and it's really cool, but there are still a few things that need to be worked out. Pardon the commenting weirdness that has happened in the meantime. For now, I'm going to have to approve comments before they are posted, so it might take a bit from when you comment until when you see your comment.

Thanks! Take care!

Posted at 1:49 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Still Thinking.

July 26, 2004

I had a weekend full of thought and full of myself in thought. And full of apprehension and a little bit of dread about the coming week. And then more thoughts.

I wanted to write an essay here about some of the elements of relationships that I've discovered are necessary for me, and I might do it still, but I'm too tired to do it justice, so I'm just going to ramble on about some new thoughts and observations I've had about myself over the weekend and today, and perhaps these are things that others might be able to relate to.

This morning, J took the kids to Round Rock so my friend C could babysit them while I went to work. What was going to be a logistical nightmare for me (basically waking at 7, and rousing children who rarely wake up before 9, getting them dressed, fed, ready to go, packing lunch, getting myself ready, then driving everyone about 45 minutes in rush hour and somehow making it back down by 9 AM) with the help of J became an almost pleasant experience.

I can tell you now why I've had so much angst about family and relationships and needs being fulfilled. I can tell you because as I was on my way to work, driving leisurely in J's car (he took the van to avoid the hassle of moving the car seat. Because he's just. that. cool.) and arriving about 30 minutes EARLY, allowing myself time to psyche myself up to teach a class for which I have no curriculum in a completely different environment than I'm accustomed to. I thought about the ease with which J accepted the challenge of helping me. There was no hesitation. I needed practical help, and he provided me with everything I needed to accomplish what I needed to accomplish. And when I thought about that from the comfort of his car, I realized that L - the father of my children - would never have done the same. And I'm not just engaging in hyperbole when I say this, because I've experienced it. In order for me to convince L to help with the kids so I could make extra money, even when we were married, I had to "trade" time with him. Even when we were married and he wasn't working, i had to beg him to watch the kids for 8 16 hour days one summer so I could make an extra couple thousand dollars. I had to beg him, AND I had to hear belly-aching about it for years afterwards.

I'm not fucking joking.

And when I remember these things, I can't believe that I actually put UP with it. For so long! And, no WONDER i'm a freaking basket case. No wonder I'm constantly worried about violating J's boundaries. No wonder I can't believe that there aren't strings attached. No fucking wonder. God.

I need to be as gentle with myself as J is to me. Seriously. I need to be more patient, too. It's like, I'll be going along fine, and then I'll remember one of the many really tremendously fucked-up things that L has done that I didn't give a second thought to when it was happening, and it's like "oof."

You know? No wonder I feel so fucking unworthy. And needy. And afraid to admit that I'm needy.

So, anyway, yeah. I'm driving in J's nice car, listening to my cd on his cd player. The CD that has been in his car for months and months now. And that's significant. That's such a boyfriend thing, you know? he has my CD in his car. Isn't that, like, quintessential BOYFRIEND? And I'm really luxuriating in the whole idea of him being my boyfriend. I'm thinking about the time that my car was stalled out, and I called him...and he was there without hesitation. And I'm thinking about all of the little practical things he has taken care of without making any sort of fuss over it. And I'm in fucking awe. I have a utilitarian man in my life. It's truly an amazing thing.

Not to make it sound like he serves no other function, and, I mean, certainly I can take damn good care of myself, but I guess the fact that he is so damn USEFUL is what contrasts J so much with L, and what actually is causing a lot of my current state of mourning. Like, why did I spend so much time thinking that I was the only one who actually had to take care of stuff around here? And every. single. fucking. attempt. at trying to get some help was met with, at best, resistance, and at worse a complete tirade about how evil and worthless I am. There were frequent occasions where L made it seem like he was somehow building my character by refusing to help out with anything. Like the fact that I ever even ASKED for help was some sort of admission of complete failure to thrive on my part and needed to be met with yet another "learning experience."

And, of course, if I screwed up whatever it was that I was having to take care of...I was promptly put in my place for being a complete failure.

I think you get the picture.

So, I figured out, driving in my boyfriend's car today, that I need to enjoy this boyfriend thing for a good long time. I need to really FEEL the boyfriend thing. I need to learn to allow and accept kindness offered in sentiment and in action. Not that i wasn't appreciating it before...it's not an appreciation thing at all. It's more of an adjustment in the way I was limiting the role of boyfriend to some sort of casual affair as opposed to the full splendor of boyfriend-dom.

OK, I think I'm losing my mind here, but I'm going to post this anyway. And then i'm going to get some good sleep. And maybe tomorrow I'll write a bit about how i can't figure out how the average american parent gets by on only ever seeing their children about 5 hours or so a day...and maybe I'll also reveal my 4 elements of a successful relationship, which was my crackpot theory that saved me this weekend.

Later, later, later.

Posted at 11:15 PM • Comments (4) • TrackBack

I'm feeling this one.

July 26, 2004

BAY AREA / 'A dire situation' for working poor / 3 minimum-wage jobs required for family of 3 to live

A single parent with two children living in the Bay Area would need to work at least three minimum wage jobs to care for their family's basic needs, while nationwide the cost of living for many is so high that government subsidies are essential for survival, according to a report released Thursday by a network of family advocacy groups.

[link via p6]

Posted at 2:26 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Blah, expanded.

July 25, 2004

So, I'm having some difficulties here that I was hoping I could avoid. Relationship things. It's the kind of thing where all sorts of issues are rearing their ugly heads at the same time, and it's difficult for me to sort through all of them to decide which of the issues are actually happening in the present, and which are issues that might or might not happen in the future...and which might be residual angst from my former relationship.

It's all a load of mush in my head, and it makes it difficult to truly enjoy the present, and it also makes me feel a bit morose and withdrawn and unable to really put myself out there in the way I like to present myself. Which sounds fake, and it's really not. I'm comfortable with the fact that there's the joyous, bouncy, exuberant dru in there mixing it up with the eternally broken-hearted dru...and/but, not to play favorites, but I really prefer the bouncy, happy me, even though sometimes to struggle to express that is painful.

And it's not that i want to suppress the morose dru. I LOVE a good cry. i love to mope around being sad. I even love wallowing in it sometimes. But there are times when it's just not convenient or helpful to express those feelings...and there are other feelings that are equally valid that I desire to express.

What makes this worse is that I've been faulted for this in past relationships. I've been called crazy. I've been accused of faking tears to get my way or gain sympathy. Fuck, there was a series of images of me above the men's room door at the local alt-rock club here that an ex-boyfriend made: smiling dru, crying dru, smiling dru, crying dru...etc. You get the picture. It makes me feel more than a little self-conscious about Just Being Me. Particularly when there's another person present while I'm going through this.

And I guess i understand J better than I thought, because...yeah, when I start feeling like this, I really just want to push everyone away so i can focus on one of the feelings without distraction. it's like I wish I could put my relationships with people on pause, so I can really feel and process things before moving on.

Right now, i have a lot to process.

There's a lot going on around mourning the end of my marriage that I really thought I had already resolved. But, since the issues I'm feeling my way through predate my marriage and seem to be recurring in my current relationship in a mild form, it's especially complicated. It all has to do with my idea of family. I'm all broken-hearted over the fact that my children do not have any ties with family, mine, L's...or just me and L together. And I'm feeling like in order to really resolve this issue, I need to create a family for them. For me.

Which, you know...is a lot of pressure. First, because it means I feel the need to define what a family is. Is a family a communal group of people with shared goals and ideals? Is a family one other adult human committed to me and the children? Do I believe in marriage and the nuclear family? Do I even believe in monogamy?

I have a very practical view of relationships as a result of much of this. I have an idea that I could very easily just find someone who is also in need of a familial structure who will support me and who I can support in whatever shared goals we have. And, too, I'm a huge romantic...so I want lots and lots of love and romance and adventure. But these two things don't always exist in one person - in fact, I've found, they are very rare. I had a impractical romantic attachment to L, and the romance couldn't sustain the impracticality of it.

So, yeah...there's a lot to think about. Meanwhile, my children are growing, and growing attached to people, and loving, and playing, and struggling, and being loved. And I, too, am doing all of the above and more.

If i could just turn my brain off for a bit, and use my senses to enjoy what is presently happening, all would be well. I'm hoping that in the coming weeks, with the new job, I won't have too terribly much time to think, anyway. I'm hoping that helps.

Posted at 9:04 AM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

blah.

July 23, 2004

just. Blah.

That is all.

Posted at 11:50 AM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

Gothic Gardening...

July 22, 2004

Something Wicked This Way Grows....

[link courtesy of evil mommy]

Posted at 7:15 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

suck my left one, hoover house.

July 22, 2004

Just read this news story about a woman who was asked to leave Hoover House restaurant in Iowa for feeding her baby:

Carl Nelson, owner of the Hoover House Restaurant, on July 3 asked Iowa City resident Amy Schoon to either nurse her 8-month-old son in a restroom, cover herself more, or leave the restaurant. Schoon, who said she was appropriately covered, left.

Joy had this, among other things, to say in response:

Some women feel that they should be able to whip their breasts out and feed a baby regardless of who is around them. Pull the shirt off and bare everything. No blanket, no coverups, no nothing, because it's the natural way to feed a child. One woman even commented in the article that no one complained about seeing a baby exposed when it's diaper was changed. Well I would rather see a 3 month old babies butt than a 35 year old woman's breast to be honest.

I don't have much time to respond right now, but I totally disagree with Joy's take, and I'd like to send out a hearty fuck off to the proprieter of this Hoover House restaurant. While I respect Joy's right to choose to not breastfeed in public, I don't think anyone should feel self-conscious or wrong about doing so. The law is actually on my side on this one. Many states, including Iowa and Texas have laws that specify that women have the legal right to breastfeed their children whereever they are allowed to be. There's nothing in the law that specifies that a woman must wear a freaking blanket over her body in order to do so.

I'm so terribly sorry that some people can't deal with the sight of my floppy, milk-swollen breast. I understand it's not the most beautiful thing to most of the world, but it's beautiful to the one person who counts when I'm whipping it out for the purpose of breastfeeding.

People who have problems with the idea of women who breastfeed in public need to seriously get over themselves and examine what their real issue is. I've hung out with dozens of breastfeeding moms in my lifetime and have never once had an experience where a woman was waving her breast around in the air, demanding the attention of anyone other than the hungry baby. If that bothers you, maybe you ought to move to a planet where everyone chooses to feed their children synthetically so that there's no potential whatsoever for any natural processes will interfere with your view of the wet t-shirt contest.

Posted at 1:55 PM • Comments (16) • TrackBack

Studies...an update (pardon the pun)

July 22, 2004

I just agreed to participate in a study being done by a major university here in Texas. I dunno if I should disclose the premise of the study or any other specifics, but it seems like an interesting study that I would want to lend my experiences to in hopes of rounding out the data. In other words, I feel like my situation, as it relates to the study, is unique and interesting. Plus, the study is totally legit (meaning, I did some research into the names given to me by the grad student I spoke with) and they will pay me (not much, but enough) for my participation.

So, cool. Now the trick is finding time to participate.

While I was being preliminarily interviewed for the study, I was asked about my dating relationship. The options I was given to choose from were on a continuum that progressed like this: "not dating" "casually dating several people" "casually dating one person" "in a serious or committed relationship with one person" "engaged to be married" or "married."

I had a tough time with that one. Which, to me, means that in spite of the fact that J and I have a lot of fun together, I am not quite sure if we are casual or serious. And if we're serious, based on that continuum, would the next step be, GASP, engagement?

It's a silly thing to worry about, and I'm not excessively worried about the progression of things. But what I am worried about is the fact that I don't know where we are or if our relationship is on any sort of continuum at all. The one side of me that rebels against defining things is very satisfied with this. But the side of me that likes to put things in neat little boxes with labels on them is quite displeased.

So, we'll see. It's just strange how this study and these questions were timed to coincide almost perfectly with my own questioning. We'll see where it goes from here.

Posted at 10:39 AM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

middle east grand strategy in 60 seconds or less!

July 21, 2004

MidEastWeb Middle East Web Log - Middle East Grand Strategy in 60 Seconds or Less

Attention, world leaders: try MidEastWeb's new system for selecting your country's grand strategy in the Middle East. It's fast. It's effective. And it's free.

Posted at 11:27 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

holy fucking shit.

July 21, 2004

Ladies and gentlemen, we now live in a world where politicians use terms like"girly-man" and "terminate them" (not to mention "bring it on")...and where musicians aren't allowed to be political.

What the fuck?

[links courtesy of Tish, who is somehow capable of saying more than things like "holy fucking shit" and "what the fuck" in response to this bullshit. Read her instead.]

Posted at 12:08 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Now Accepting Applications

July 21, 2004

OK, so, starting next week, I will not have my usual morning blog time, nor will I be able to stay awake into the wee hours finding links and posting thoughts. I will be working a second job to compensate for the fact that my asshole ex seems to think that everyone in the entire world EXCEPT for him is responsible for, you know, paying for the daily necessities of having children.

Don't pity me, the second job is actually pretty fun. But if you do pity me, feel free to paypal me, too.

OR, better yet, send in your application to be substitute Dru. You can be anonymous, if that will help you rid yourself of the bile you've no doubt been storing up these days, afraid to say anything in your own blog about such daring topics as, oh, actually voting for a presidential candidate that might possibly represent one or two of your issues.

Or whatever else you would like to post about. We all know what a weird mish-mash (clearly, i never listened to any of the number of blogging "experts" who have said that a blog needs a FOCUS. "Focus, shmocus!" I say!) of issues get posted here as it is...so there's a lot there to choose from.

Just e-mail me (drublood at mindspring dot com) and let me know you want to participate, and i'll give you guest author status.

Posted at 11:51 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

You Make it Easy

July 21, 2004

air

"Never been here - How about you ?"
You smile at my answer,
You've given me the chance,
To be held and understood.

You leave me laughing without crying,
There's no use denying,
For many times I've tried,
Love has never felt as good.

Be it downtown or way up in the air,
When your heart's pounding,
You know that I'm aware.

You make it easy to watch the world with love,
You make it easy to let the past be done,
You make it easy.

How'd you do it ? How'd you find me ?
How did I find you ?
How can this be true ?
To be held and understood.

Keep it coming - no one's running
The lesson I'm learning
'Cause blessings are deserved
By the trust that always could

Be it downtown or way up in the air,
When your heart's pounding,
You know that I'm aware.

You make it easy to watch the world with love,
You make it easy to let the past be done,
You make it easy.

So watch me fall in love

Posted at 10:03 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Ack!

July 21, 2004

How NOT to Talk!

How many of these are YOU guilty of? It's sort of frightening. And, in terms of face-to-face conversation, a lot of these are just plain control tactics...

[via p6, my hero of the day.]

Posted at 9:37 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Racism 101

July 21, 2004

I'm sort of working my way backwards through the last week or so of Prometheus 6. Miss a day, miss a lot.

Prometheus 6: One more

Whoah, and then there's this one.

Why are white people so invested in denying that racism exists, even when it exists within them (us)? It makes no sense. Of COURSE you (we) are racist. If you (we) are disgusted enough with racism to want to fucking deny it to the face (or computer screen) of someone who says he experiences it regularly, why can't you (we) take two fucking minutes to think about how it is manifested in YOU (us)?

Damn.

Then there's this, and I quote Mr. 6, himself:

White America wants off the racial hook no less than Black America does. The hook is in deep, though. Getting it out will hurt, no matter what. So stop looking for a painless method of not being racist. At this point in out history, after just 40 years of Black freedom and 40 years of white folks having to live with the dual-soul syndrome DuBois wrote of in Black folks a century or so ago, there is no painless way for ANY of us.

And this just makes me want to scream and tear my hair out, among other things.

There are more posts in the series, which is why Mr. 6 tends to group things like this together and put them elsewhere. Just keep reading.

(edited to add my own accountability. Nyeesh.)

Posted at 9:12 AM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

Yes Library Bling!

July 20, 2004

Returning Your Bucks to the Library

I recently gave a talk about indie press to a group of librarians, and I tried to communicate the level of enthusiasm the zine and DIY community have for libraries. They were an essential part of an enriched childhood, allowing us to sate our voracious book nerd appetites -- the fact that there was no financial risk to taking out something new encouraged us to read widely and expand our tastes. As adults on a broke artist budget they allow us to research and read while saving our money to produce our next book or CD or movie or zine.
A lot of readers first encounter my books through the library. Unlike some misguided writers, I think this is awesome and I want to encourage this. So if you want to support an indie press and the public libraries in one fell swoop, I've set up an option to donate a book of mine to the library: I'm calling it the NO MEDIA KINGS, YES LIBRARY BLING Drive.

Great idea, Jim!

Posted at 8:43 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

I'm leeeeeeeeeeeaving yoooooooou.

July 20, 2004

There's something wholly gratifying about belting out that part of Cibo Matto's "Speechless." You know, the part at the end where the chorus goes "You saw me crying, but now my eyes are dry"...and then that stark resolution of finally ending things, stated with such joyous finality. yes! it's refreshing. it's invigorating. Yesterday (or was it the day before) when I was singing into the broomstick while cleaning the house (must have been the day before, because i didn't do shit for cleaning the house yesterday) - at the top of my lungs...it occurred to me that dumping people, or at least declaring the end of a relationship, could become addictive.

Think about the power in a song like "Speechless," or "i will survive." it's like nah-nah...I don't need your shit any more. I'm going it alone. I would rather be ALONE than deal with your shit one more day, hour, minute, second...yes! That's some powerful shit. That's some powerful shit to dump on someone.

And it does feel powerful to be over someone. To Just Not Care about the stupid little games they play. To Just Not Wonder what they are doing when they are not with you. To Just Not Give A Fuck. Period.

Of course, the flipside of that is the point of the new relationship where you care altogether too much, and there's angst about every little thing (matters). And you feel sentimental about the power you felt when you ended the last relationship, and perhaps there's even a part of you that wants to enact that power in the current relationship even though you don't ACTUALLY want it to end.

Does that make sense? I haven't done this in my current relationship, but I know in my past I have had multiple instances of declaring "Enough is Enough!" before it was ever even being close to be enough, partially hoping to see the other person's reaction, and partially hoping to regain that power of being The One Who Breaks Up as opposed to being The One Who Is Broken Up With.

And i remember when L broke up with me, I realized that I had NEVER been The One Who Is Broken Up With before...well, not really. i mean, i had been the One Who Was Cheated On, but in both of those instances, I was the one who made the final declaration of breaking up. So, whatever. I remember I was conscious of the feeling "This is what it's like to Be Broken Up With."

At any rate, we all know how that one ended. Or neverended. As L continued to live here without at least granting me the courtesy of actually, you know, following through on the Breaking Up...and in the end, I had to do the Throwing Out, which was, in itself, a very empowering thing to do, although it certainly didn't feel empowering at the time I was doing it.

What am I getting at here? Maybe this...maybe there are some destructive tendencies I am battling, or maybe the knowledge of the feeling of power and control that comes from Breaking Up has me worried that it can be used against me! Ack!

Or maybe it's the knowledge that there's something precious in my life that I don't want to lose, and how very little control I, personally, have in ensuring that I don't lose it. Because there are all sorts of conflicting energies that could cause me to lose what I have, and i'm just a tiny force pulling in the opposite direction.

Or maybe I just really like Cibo Matto, and I wanted an excuse to post the lyrics to these two songs that had me shaking my booty in defiance while cleaning the house on Sunday. That might be it, too.

speechless

i'm so speechless...you saw me crying you've never known
i'm so speechless...i'll never come back to you

did you call me? once in a week?
all you wanna do is to be like a sheik
always catching girls like fishing for crawfish
you won't get a dish never, you're just a selfish

please don't take me to the bayou
i'm not a freak i don't wanna lose my shoes
do you? you do? i go through your taboo you do
now i'm so blue

don't make my mouth water
don't make me want to slaughter
if you give me a dishwasher
don't clean my life with your style

i'm so speechless i saw something i've never known
i'm so speechless i saw something you've never shown

you want quantity - i want quality
how can i get up to go through this tragedy?
there's no remedy in my satchel.
only some memory
i feel empty
Love is like a bubble, easily breakable
i can't take this ache for my own sake
i'm cutting the lope from your boat
but something still sticks in my throat

i'm so speechless i saw something i've never known
i'm so speechless i saw something you've never shown

Lint of Love
Cibo Matto
I can't say I'm good at cleaning it, baby
The lint of love, it's made of 'dust of confusion'
You see, the president is in trouble
Every cent you make is floating in a bubble
My heart's content. I can't find it in the Bible.
Doesn't say how to take away the lint of love
I can't help myself, I can't help myself

Human beings always hard to believe
What you think is not quite alright at the other side of the nation
Got two eyes, but we only got one mouth
We could live, we could jive, we could live, we could jive
Without the lint of love
I can't help myself, I can't help myself

We can't avoid the lint of love,
And you've got to know how to take it away

Posted at 11:55 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Evidently, Professor Kim didn't hear the news...

July 19, 2004

that, according the the author of the previous post, Mumia Abu Jamal is just a "pet"...Professor Kim's News Notes: 07/18/2004 - 07/24/2004

Noting disturbing racial patterns in the application of the death penalty in Pennsylvania, the NAACP urged it chapters "throughout the United States and the world to support the international call for Mumia Abu-Jamal to be released from death row," according to an article on Jamal's website.

Posted at 8:37 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Yawn! More Green Bashing

July 19, 2004

Steve Gilliard's News Blog : What good are the Greens?

Now, the GOP used racial and religious bigotry to gain their advantage in the South and Midwest, while the Democrats didn't make the economic case which had worked for 40 years.
Why? Because of the new left. They started out as SDS and morphed into the Weathermen. Those who didn't minor in bomb making wound up working for Ralph Nader. You cannot just give credit to the GOP, they merely rode over broken ground until they found daylight.

The wreckage of the old new left can be seen in places like Berkeley, Pacifica Radio and ANSWER. Ineffectutal, riven with internal divisions and consumed with s litany of injustices from Mumia to Palestine, they aren't taken seriously by anyone but themselves. No one in the old new left noticed that black people placed a whole bunch of convicts wrongly convicted over their pet Mumia and had no great love of the Palestinians.

Posting on the run, but this is yet another example of the bullshit that I am tired of dealing with from the non-radical left.

Look, mom! I'm an "ivory tower intellectual!"

Posted at 8:29 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

A letter to the Black Caucus from a Black woman living in South Central

July 19, 2004

To the Black Caucus from a Black woman living in South Central -- Main Story Archive - Nader for President 2004 - www.votenader.org

To Rep. Cummings and members of the Black Caucus,
You demanded independent candidates Ralph Nader and Peter Camejo withdraw from the presidential race in favor of NAFTA approving, Iraq invading, Afghanistan bombing, Sudanese pharmaceutical plant bombing, right-wing Israeli prime minister and murderer Ariel Sharon supporting, impeachment of George W. Bush for the forced removal of democratically elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide refusing, and mandatory minimum sentencing supporting - John Kerry.

Kerry's contempt for human rights, international law, arms control and the United Nations is unforgivable.

(any questions?)

Posted at 8:11 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Really fucking depressing.

July 19, 2004

'Enemy Contact. Kill 'em, Kill 'em.'

But the demands of the military's mission and a soldier's mental health are sometimes at odds.
"Our primary goal is to keep soldiers functional, so they can continue to fight," Cardona says. "Everything else, including feeling well, is second to that."

Mental health technicians are available for troops who request help, Cardona says, but stress teams aren't deployed to bases just because U.S. forces kill hostile fighters. He says about half of the soldiers seeking help are traumatized because they killed someone.

"Killing unleashes emotions few people are prepared to deal with," Cardona says. "We help soldiers put those emotions and experiences away, so they can go into battle the next day. We set the expectation that shock is temporary, and that they will return to duty."

Posted at 7:36 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Gotta Get Lifted...

July 19, 2004

I'm finding myself in a bit of a funk. It's funny, because I've sort of been witnessing myself going there...observing all of the various pieces of my life forming, slow motionlike, into that same old small cage that I know so well. And as surely as I know that it exists, I also know that it's temporary. But I think I need to spend some time letting myself just feel everything. Taking every spare minute I can to feel things, mourn the things that are clamoring to be mourned, and let them go. They've built up. All of the worries. They've built up and I haven't had a chance to sift through them and figure out what to hold on to and what to let go. Kiss goodbye.

I'm not sure if the funk has anything to do with this, but I've also found myself at a point in my healing from the divorce where I can't even remember being "with" L. I mean, I think of our names togeter - Dru & L - and it sounds like a foreign language. And I look at the children, and it's almost like a form of shellshock. How could such a brief union produce something so persistent...so permanent...so much a part of my daily life, and so much a part of who I (am) (have) become(ing). It's shocking. And sad. And I mourn for that intact family that I never had at the same time (still) not feeling like I deserve it, even though my children certainly do.

And then there's J. The man is like magic. And what could be more frightening than that? All this time, before i even GOT a divorce, when L first left me and I first started imagining my life without a husband and with children. I spent some time thinking about who on earth would want to date a woman with kids. My mom never remarried, and the boyfriends she brought around were definitely not overly interested in entertaining her brood. I have heard so many horror stories of the new person in a woman's life and his/her relationship with the children that I started believing it (see: mean world syndrome) so I just assumed I would never find anyone and if I did it would be a secret I kept from my kids.

And then there was J. Stealth J. In fact, I think I first fell in love with J BECAUSE he was so sweet to my kids. He was sweet to me, too...but all of my friends are sweet to me, I don't think I would have considered going beyond friendship if he hadn't demonstrated a similar, but altogether different sweetness with my children. And he's been consistent in that behavior throughout. This whole time, considering them...both as an extension of me and individually...in ways that sometimes I wonder if even their father considers them.

And this whole time, I've always framed the single-parent relationship angst as "what a lot of pressure that puts on the new person in the relationship." and I've worried about J feeling pressured because of his relationship with my kids.

And/but last night, I was gripped. Perhaps it seeped in because I'm feeling morose and undeserving of love in general, but no matter how...it did seep in one way or the other...and as I listened to J demonstrate his endless abundance of patience with the children (he blew in the door last night and played and played and played with Cole while I cried real tears of appreciation for his sweetness and listened to the relationship that is forming between them) and as he explained things to Monk and then we all went for a walk and he cheerfully carried Coley on his shoulders and helped him throw rocks into water and sang songs over and over and helped Cole to defeat the monsters of his imagination and I walked ahead, crying again because it's just so damn beautiful. And then I was gripped...because it's not J who is under pressure here. It's me.

I mean, thankfully the man who is so wonderful to my children is absolutely wonderful to me, as well...but here he has so much access to the most intimate relationships in my life. He has so much power. Power he has earned, but power that others have earned, as well, only to use that power to destroy more than build. And the pressure i feel is a pressure to be perfect (!) and deserving and receptive and patient and kind in return...and these are all things I can do/be, certainly, but they are also things that I have a tendency to withhold or withdraw or just plain not have in me at any given time, you know?

So, wow. That's a lot of stuff. And I know much of it is unrealistic expectations of myself. but it's still there, realistic or not. Still something I need to deal with and work through, among the million other things I'm having to deal with and work through.

It's funny, because so many people ask me what they can do to help me out. I feel like I have people here to support me, but I can't give any of this to any of them. This isn't stuff I can get help with. It's just stuff I have to figure out and work on alone.

Writing. Crying. Measuring my reactions to make sure they are grounded in the Real Present rather than someplace in my mind or in the past. Writing. Crying some more. Getting a good backrub (thanks, J! Best. Boyfriend. Ever. I swear. Even though I wouldn't be aware of hardly any of this stuff if I didn't have him to compare things to.) Working. Thinking. Getting hugs from Coley. Crying some more. (the other day, I was crying and coley was worried. He apologized, like he thought he had made me cry, and i said "No, no...sweetheart...you didn't make me sad." and he said "Why are you sad, mama" and i just said "I'm just releasing some sad feelings that I have." and he started to cry with me and I said "you know, when someone is crying because of their feelings, it's almost the same thing as when someone cries when they fall down and skin their knee. You can comfort them the same way. You can say 'Are you ok?' and 'is there anything I can do to make you feel better?' and you can give hugs and kisses. And coley said "Are you OK? Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?" and he gave me a hug and a kiss and I smiled and hugged and kissed him back and said but sometimes when someone is crying because of feelings, they just want to be left alone. And coley said "Do you want me to leave you alone?" And I said "no. I like having you here right now. I just don't want you to feel like I'm crying because of you." But by then I didn't feel like crying anymore, so i snuggled coley close to me and we laughed about something and i felt much much better).

Posted at 12:53 PM • Comments (4) • TrackBack

Consumer demand v. production

July 19, 2004

Another great post at Living On Less.

We may be used to thinking of industry as the main architect of environmental degradation, but the consumption activity of households and individuals both drives the production side to generate needless goods and services, which are readily and greedily absorbed by the private sector, and directly consumes an excess of energy and products.

There's a lot to consider there. How much am I overconsuming?

First, I have this house. It's fairly large. I could, fairly easily, house at least another person and perhaps another family and consume less energy per person in doing so.

Second, I need to find a way to start taking the bus again - sharing this house might allow for that, if I find someone who I can trust to watch my kids so I can spend more time in transit.

Third, there's food. Food. Spending more time preparing it and making sure it all gets eaten, rather than stockpiling it and using quick-fix meals because I'm too tired or whatever other excuse to actually cook from scratch with the good food we have. Again, a roommate who would share the cooking responsibilities would help with this.

It all seems to point to sharing my space, but I have a tremendous reluctance to doing so. Why am I so averse to the idea? Is it a legitimate excuse that I need time to recover from sharing the house with L? What other ways do I legitimize my inaction?

Posted at 10:58 AM • Comments (4) • TrackBack

Hot potato

July 19, 2004

'Here You Go. Here's Iraq. Take It'

Leaning in close, the mid-level American administrator speaks more in a hiss than a whisper. His tone is confessional, drenched in frustration.
"We didn't hand over power to the Iraqis. We threw it at them," he confides, casting a guilty glance toward the many eyes filling the chandelier-lit room. Nobody else heard him. Good. This kind of talk could cost him his job.

"There was no orderly transition. Nothing gradual. Just, `Here you go. Here's Iraq. Take it'."

"None of us had any idea sovereignty was going to switch two days early," he continues, speaking on the promise of anonymity. "So we didn't even get the last contracts finished. It was chaos. More than a billion dollars in plans never went through. Huge appropriations were just left on the table, undone."

Posted at 8:57 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Cole on Death

July 19, 2004

"Being Alive is fun! But being dead isn't fun, because....you can't play when you are dead...aaaaaaand......you can't LOVE when you are dead. You can't do ANYTHING when you are dead!"

-Cole, age 3

(This is somewhat paraphrased, but there are only a few words I'm guessing on. The gist of the statement is the same.)

Posted at 8:53 AM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

just one of those things...

July 18, 2004

oooo-weee, what a great weekend i had! It seems I haven't had a spare moment in the past 48 hours or so. Which could explain why I'm doing some guilt-induced panic cleaning while waiting for my children to arrive home. I keep meaning to put cleaning the house on my list of priorities for the weekends that the kids are at their papas, but it keeps getting (mysteriously) pushed to the bottom of the list...the LONG list...of things I end up doing.

Friday night I went out with J to the They Might Be Giants show. My pal M, who posted on the blog last week, and will be one of the myriad (I hope) substitute drus while I work that extra job later this month, had informed me earlier that day or maybe the day before that the best strategy for gaining stagefront positioning would be to yell out "There's a Unix system down in the back of the room." Boy, he wasn't kidding! A larger gathering of glorious nerds I have not seen since my bbs days when all would gather at a local pub for socializing "IRL." I, of course, loved it...as my flavor du jour seems to be regular-looking guys with a bit of a paunch. I had a wide array of eye candy to choose from.

Of course, my favorite regular-looking guy with a bit of a most delicious paunch ended up eventually standing behind me. i've decided that I must go dancing with J sometime. He gave me the most awesome massage while I was doing some minor booty shaking. The man knows how to use his hands, among other things...

So, yeah. It was the show, the massage, the cutey Johns on stage and the rest of the band. I have never been witness to TMBG live, although I have listened to their music, not so much as a fan but as an admirer, for about the entire time they've been in existence (!)...I'm much more a fan after having witnessed their live show. They are just very funny, very entertaining people, and it made me happy to be supporting people who are having fun making music and just being. I don't know how to explain it, but it gives me peace to know that there are people who can so obviously be doing what they love and enjoy and be supported doing it.

I had a great time. And J took me out for ice cream afterwards...and, before that, I got myself a sly and the family stone cd because I just haven't been able to get "It's a Family Affair" out of my head since i heard it on the radio a week or so ago.

After ice cream and a trip to the video store we came back to my place and didn't get to spend nearly enough time goofing around before we were fast asleep, all tuckered out from the events of the evening, I guess. I was bummed that we didn't get to spend more time hanging out and talking because I have a lot I want to say to J and lately we just haven't been able to spend enough time together, and by the time I'm used to being around him again to the point where I can talk about all of these crazy ideas I have running through my head, it's already time for us to part. And i had to work on Saturday, so basically we woke up and drank coffee and, you know, goofed around a bit more, and then it was time to go.

Use yr imagination, would you? This ain't the Penthouse Forum, you know.

At any rate, work was ok fun. There were a few drop-ins, but there was no a/c, so after the last drop in left, I closed up and headed home. I had plans with Kate to go to Ana's art opening, and I had told Kate that I was going to wear some lipstick. I actually had to go buy some lipstick, because the last time I wore makeup was, I think, on my wedding day. I'm just not a makeup girl. I had fun putting it on, but i felt so awkward when kate arrived to pick me up that I didn't want to look at her. I felt like i was in drag.

But I got over it, and we headed out to the Tillery Street Theater where innumerable treasures were in store for us. First, the beautiful artwork by Ms. Sisnet mangotree mermaid hips herself. Then, the lovely food. The drumming which I felt I was barely worthy of witnessing. The woman drumming (ack! I can't remember her name, and someone needs to remind me because i want to order her CD!) was just this gorgeous gorgeous radiant soul. i don't even think gorgeous is the right word, because it was beyond a physical beauty. The woman had essence - and I felt like i was in the presence of royalty all night as she beamed throughout the room and played her drum for us. It was lovely.

And then Ana spoke, and I had previously thought the drums were going to be the high point, but I was so delighted by Ana's words that I don't even know. I guess all of the elements of the evening sort of ended up weaving themselves into an interlocking pattern of sheer ecstatic enjoyment.

Ms. Ana makes me smile. All of the ladies there last night did. It was just such a wonderful evening. One of those nights where everyone around seems beautiful and I couldn't stop looking and looking, enjoying the joy that I and everyone else seemed to be feeling.

And then we danced. And we danced all night. I have made a vow to do more dancing. Even though it was such a welcoming and non-judgmental environment, I was still uptight and self-conscious from my lack of practice enough to feel like I was being very stiff and I did feel a little tense, as I discovered later in the night when I realized that my jaw was clenched and had been for some time.

But, still, I enjoyed myself. And there will be more dancing in my future. And Kate met a lovely lovely woman, and I'm excited about that...and i just had a great time. Truly great. And I'm hoping to head to to more ALLGO dances in the future...they have them every month there at the Tillory Street Theater, and I love the smoke-free, welcoming environment, and the dj's kicked ass, too.

So, I went to bed tired and elated and feeling lonely for J, particularly after witnessing so much love energy in that room, dancing. And I woke up lonely for J and went grocery shopping and am cleaning my house, lonely for J...and will probably not get to see J until later tonight when my kids are here and I will still be lonely for J because the kids will be clamoring and I will be loving them and loving J in an "I'm a parent of these two beautiful boys who I love" way instead of a "I'm a woman in love with a man" way.

But, I suppose, longing is the better part of love. Or so I've claimed before. And I don't imagine it will kill me to be lonely for a little while longer.

Posted at 3:14 PM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

The Third Choice...or, Everything I Know About Politics I learned from a 3 year old.

July 16, 2004

Almost every parenting book I have ever read has insisted that children want to please their parents, and children need to be given choices - with the implication that children will choose one of the options presented to them. In other words, children prefer to select from a smaller field of choices presented by an authority, rather than the entire field of choices presented by the world at large.

Isn't it just my luck that my kids never gave a fuck about my narrow field of choices. This would lead to conversations like this:

Mom: Would you like to take a bath now or after dinner?
Monk: I don't want to take a bath!

This, of course, made me very frustrated...particularly since it has been and remains a persistant pattern in my attempt to offer choices to my children. In fact, my children's stubborn refusal to follow the rules of the parenting books have caused me to become a whole lot more authoritarian, at times, then I ever wished to be. I have even had to resort to whipping out the "Because i said so" line that I NEVER ever dreamed i would use.

However, it can be assumed that as a parent of small children, I do have a good deal more experience than my constituents, and therefore can occasionally engage in a power play or two for the sake of Getting Things Done and Keeping Everyone Safe.

The same cannot be said of the power play being enacted by the Democrats in this country, who seem to have a problem with presenting two choices (one choice, really) and attempting to enforce the "because I said so" method of parenting.

I'm sorry that it's so difficult for some people to believe that I have the option of choosing none of the above, in spite of compelling arguments. You can attempt to persuade me. You can attempt to bribe me. You can attempt to make me feel guilty. In the end, as a grown adult in a democracy, my choice is my choice.

Some people who are arguing these facts with me refuse to believe that I can make an informed decision without declaring the "wrongness" of someone of an opposing view. That making an informed decision means completely and utterly invalidating every single other decision out there. This argument seems to crop up in my life a lot. In fact, I bemoaned my own difficulty in making decisions because of my inability to do that. But now I'm starting to understand myself a little better. The fact is that sometimes when presented with an either/or option, the ONLY choice is NEITHER. And it seems that some people really just can't hang with that. In fact, I'm getting the impression that really just fucks with the reality of certain individuals. (hint: read the comments)

Posted at 2:24 PM • Comments (6) • TrackBack

Thoughts on Nader...

July 16, 2004

i'm being "schooled" on politics at Open Source Politics. Evidently, Kenneth Quinell feels that his status as a poli-sci professor (or instructor, i can't tell which) makes his opinion more equal than mine. Or, at least, that's the impression that I get.

But I've read a lot about Nader, and I've thought a lot about the man and backlash* against him over the past few months. And this morning I had a revelation.

It seems to me that the Democrats have a choice in how to respond to Nader's candidacy. They can choose to pay attention to those of us who feel Nader is a viable choice for president, to adopt or at least debate his platforms, to consider our priorities and at least discuss them. In other words, they can choose to treat us as a valid constituency.

OR, they can do everything in their power to minimize the importance of our concerns, up to and including ignoring them completely and then, to add insult to injury, they can attempt to make it seems as though we are somehow responsible for damaging the democratic process!

If anything, the democratic party seems to have moved further RIGHT since the last presidential elections. I just don't see Kerry as a liberal candidate. I disagree strongly with his stance on gay marriage (he's against it) and the war on terror (he's for more troops and traditional warfare) as well as his obvious corporate schilldom. I tried to find links for his positions on these things, but his stance on the issues is so vague it's absolutely ridiculous. His website might as well be blank, which is another contrast to Nader. Nader's stance on the issues is very clearly delineated on his website, which I suppose makes it easier to attack him, but also makes it much easier to hold him accountable.

So, basically, what I was thinking this morning is that Kerry and those who support him and the Democratic parties efforts at keeping Nader off the ballot are a lot like my 7 year old son - rather than moving towards compromise to solve a problem, they move further and further into their own self-interest, to their detriment. And that's odd, because, to me, that type of behavior is way more indicative of selfish, self-aggrandizement than anything I have seen exhibited by Nader.

All I'm asking is that my issues be included in a platform or a mandate. All I am asking is for inclusion. Clearly, the democratic party feels it can ignore the issues that are important to me and still not only feel entitled to my vote, but also entitled to ridicule me for standing up for myself.

So I ask, if my vote is so important to John Kerry democrats, why are you working so hard to completely alienate me and ensure that I vote for ANYBODY but Kerry?

*it's an old link, but i feel it's still applicable.

Posted at 8:50 AM • Comments (5) • TrackBack

Monk swims!

July 15, 2004

Monk swam to from the ledge to me (standing about 6 feet or so away from the ledge) and back about 7 times today. He can swim! And he's getting a little better, and a little more confident every time we go swimming. This is very exciting for me, because for so long he has steadfastly REFUSED to get his face wet. Today, his friend Seth peer pressured him into holding his breath underwater for as long as possible, and i think that helped Monk get over the panic of having his face in.

i'm so proud of my little guy. of course, i violated all social consciousness and took him out for a slushie as a reward. So much for an uber-pc sugar-free lifestyle. Sigh.

Posted at 3:33 PM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

Outrage Fatigue

July 15, 2004

This one: The Onion | Nation’s Liberals Suffering From Outrage Fatigue is for Lisa by way of r@d@r.

Posted at 3:26 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

More Nader News from Zagg

July 15, 2004

Go read Zagg's zagg: More Nader post for a bunch of interesting facts and statistics about the Nader campaign, past and present.

Posted at 11:42 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

This breaks my heart...

July 15, 2004

Tish linked up this article aout Anamarie Regino: spiked-health | Article | The lock-up diet

Anamarie's story illustrates the intimate relationship between, on the one hand, slenderness and power, privilege, and money, and on the other, fat and powerlessness, lack of social status, and relative poverty. In both instances, these dichotomies manifested themselves along ethnic lines as well. (The Hispanic social worker who interviewed Martinez-Regino when the state began the process of taking her child from her insisted on doing so in Spanish, despite the fact that English is Martinez-Regino's first language. According to Martinez-Regino, the social worker kept demanding the telephone numbers of her family in Mexico, even though Martinez-Regino was born in the USA and has spent her entire life here.)
Perhaps the most striking irony of Anamarie's story is the faith her family maintains in doctors and medicine. Despite being accused by doctors, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, of abusing their child, Anamarie's parents cling to the belief that doctors can be trusted to explain the meaning of what has happened to their daughter. Ultimately, it is this faith - a very American faith in the ability of science and technology to answer what are, in the most fundamental sense, political and cultural, rather than scientific, questions - that plays perhaps the most crucial role in supporting the war on fat.

What remains difficult to see, even for those who have paid the heaviest price in that war, is that it isn't people like Anamarie who have a weight problem. We live in a nation in which those in authority can look at a three-year-old girl with the 'wrong' sort of body and decide, on the basis of nothing more than irrational beliefs born of their own fear and loathing of fat, that her family must be torn apart. Now that is a weight problem.

I don't have any time right now to add any commentary, but Tish has a few more links for you to read and reflect upon. (permalinks don't work, but it's the July 14th, 2004 Post)

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Gimme some (fair labor practice) sugar

July 14, 2004

Guerrilla News Network

"Child labor is rampant on El Salvador's sugarcane plantations," said Bochenek, lead author of the HRW report, which was based on interviews conducted early last year with 32 children and youths between the ages of 12 and 22, as well as with parents, teachers, activists, academics, lawyers, government officials, and representatives of the Salvadoran Sugar Association. "Companies that buy or use Salvadoran sugar should realize that fact and take responsibility for doing something about it."
Cutting sugar cane is back-breaking and hazardous work for a variety of reasons. The most common tools are machetes and knives. Both the monotony of the work and the fact that it is usually performed under direct sunlight make for frequent accidents, even among experienced workers.

Virtually all of the children interviewed by HRW bore multiple scars from cuts they received during their work. ''I cut myself on the leg,” one 13-year-old boy told an HRW interviewer as he displayed a scar on his left shin. “There was a lot of blood. I got stitches at the clinic.” His mother added that the incident occurred when he was 12.

Because cane is often burned before it is cut to clear away the leaves, workers may suffer smoke inhalation and burns on their feet. As one former labor inspector told HRW, "Sugarcane has the most risks. It's indisputable - sugarcane is the most dangerous (agricultural work)."

You can send e-mail to Coca-Cola and the Salvadoran Sugar Association through Human Rights Watch.

Does anyone know if Sucanat is cool with fair trade & labor practices? I've been snooping around the internet, looking for information, and i haven't found anything. Oh, never mind, here's something.

Posted at 10:51 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Yet another hit against the environment

July 14, 2004

The Forest or the Trees - Center for American Progress

You'd think by now the element of surprise would have vanished. For three years running the Bush Administration has issued a steady stream of regulatory missives quietly dismantling federal protections for our air, land and water. One week it rewrote clean water laws so that 20 million acres of wetlands were left unprotected. Another week it decided thousands of gallons of highly radioactive waste slated for cleanup were better left in the ground. Next it moved to exempt oil and gas industries from following laws to protect surface and drinking water. It ordered thousands of acres of sensitive land opened for energy development even while slashing energy efficiency programs. And it proposed rules to allow more toxic mercury into the environment. So bad have been hundreds of environmental rollbacks issued to date, that the Environmental Protection Agency's two most senior enforcement officials quit at least partly in reaction to the onslaught.

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more pundit than rude.

July 14, 2004

This person is a freaking genius...

In reference to this article (which, frankly, makes me wonder if GW and co have some sort of colony ready and waiting for them on another planet):
The Rude Pundit

But Bush doesn't give a shit. He's a steamroller, baby, ready to destroy the country, leave a killing field of skulls in his wake, in his monomaniacal attempt to cling to power. We're just gettin' started here, gang, and our motherfucker of a President isn't above trotting out the corpse of a 9/11 victim and using it as a puppet, making it say, "Remember meeeee." And he sure as shit ain't above telling the world, "American intelligence is bullshit, only I am right, now lick my fuckin' cowboy boots." In other words, Bush will burn down the house rather than put in a new foundation.

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Well Said!

July 14, 2004

Greens For Nader: Green Leader's Statement: Put Nader on the Ballot

Stuff is running out. Not just oil either. There are many strategic minerals needed to fuel our overblown economy that do not come from within our borders. Stuff our government and others will be willing to go to war for. Not only is Afghanistan a good route to control for a pipeline from the Caspian Sea oil fields to Haliburton’s billion dollar port facility in Pakistan, but its loaded with natural gas and strategic minerals. Kosovo, it turns out, is loaded with metalloids, rare elements essential to the computer and electronics industry. And the Republic of the Congo, now there’s a big prize just ripe for the taking! No matter who is elected in November, do not be surprised to see increasing US military involvement in Africa.
We do not have the time to wait for the Democrats and Republicans in some uncharacteristic gesture of generosity to bestow upon us PR or IRV or STV or any of the other nostrums promoted by Greens who just want to get their foot in the door. Many Greens seem to think we have 20 or 30 years to slowly build the party from the grassroots and get our act together to start electing people in any sizeable numbers to state and national government. We need to have a credible party and platform and candidates with name recognition and campaign experience to step in at a moments notice when the tide begins to turn in the very near future.

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Psyched about....love?

July 14, 2004

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am officially a sap. Sure, you all knew it before. Hell, *I* have always known it, but I'm loathe to admit it. But that doesn't make it any less true.

I'm a sap because I'm totally psyched about being in love with J. Isn't that sort of weird? I mean, I've known the guy forever...and we've been dating for about 6 months now. You'd think the excitement would have worn off a bit by now. But, no. Yesterday, I was telling someone about him for the first time, and...I just started giggling and COULD. NOT. STOP. I think I giggled about J on and off for a few hours yesterday afternoon. The kids were perplexed, but it's not like I could have explained what the heck I was giggling about.

But they know. Because I'm a sap and I'm totally transparent. On Sunday when J was over playing Risk with Monk, Monk said, bluntly, to J "My mom is in love with you." Just like that. I think he was fortifying his troops, and it was all very casual.

I'm so relieved that he's at least outing me on something we ALL know to be true. I've given up trying to deny it or minimize it to Monk. He had me figured out within the first WEEK of our relationship.

One time, I asked Monk why it was so important that he know whether or not i was in love with J. Monk said "Because I want to know who my new dad is going to be." I laughed. I said "you already HAVE a dad." Monk replied "I mean STEP dad, mom." I laughed again...a bit more nervously..."So, you think j's going to be your new stepdad?" "yes." "How many stepdads are you going to have, Monk?" "Just one."

Is it wishful thinking...or is this kid some sort of oracle?

At any rate, yeah. J has reduced me to giggles. It's a bit disconcerting that he's not all giggly about it, too...but that's the thing. I love J because he's so...steadfast(?) Which is not to say that he's not expressive. There are certain acts that J executes with artistic skill, but verbal expressions of rampant enthusiasm is not one of those areas. I'm trying to get used to that. He tells me to pay attention to his actions as opposed to his words. And, yeah, it's totally obvious framed that way. I'm just, I guess, used to proclamations with no actions to back them up. I much prefer J's way. Silently proving his love to me.

It's nice, but so much different from my wild-ass manic mode of expression. Which probably is one of the things that makes him so appealing to me.

But i didn't start this post so i could analyze J. I actually just wrote this post because I can. I can PROCLAIM LOUDLY that I love J. That i love him I love him I love him and i am free to do so. i can giggle along with everyone else that this person who i have known since he was a surly post-adolescent has turned into a man who makes me giggle. And I giggle because I never would have figured that all along that post-adolescent contained this man. And I giggle because the reason he was able to keep that a secret all along was BECAUSE he's so mellow. And I giggle because I'm so silly to mistake his mellow nature for a dispassionate one.

Silly dru. Silly, madly in love, psyched, giggly, silly dru.

Posted at 11:37 AM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

Dru for an hour

July 14, 2004

In case you did not know, I am not Dru. I am just a guest blogger she asked to help by being Dru for a day, a week or maybe even a month after she begins her new job later this month. I have never written a blog before so this is all new to me. The closest thing I do to blogging is e-mailing reports to my wife of what the idiots at my work are up to. These people are ridiculous. One of them just walked by my office with no shirt on. His ass crack is showing, he is super sweaty and has these little tufts of hair on his shoulders. I have no problem with any of that except for the fact that he is always talking about girls that are “a little too chunky for him” yet I have to look at this shit. What a double standard. I guess I will learn how to blog as I go. I have always been very drawn to the idea of it all but never started one because I am fairly certain that nobody would read it. It is certainly not because I have nothing to say. I have no shortage of content. I have just been waiting for an audience. I guess this is perfect then.

I have so much going on in my life right now and I love all of it. Unfortunately I am in this frame of mind where I am just waiting for something bad to happen and get in the way of all the things I am trying to accomplish. I know it is a waste of emotional energy but I have so much trouble getting beyond it. It also seems like I spend so much time thinking about how little time I have. It’s all very counter-productive. I guess I need to find a way to sleep less. We spend so much precious time sleeping. I definitely sleep less than I did a few years ago but I still need more time to do things. Maybe Dru could give me some tips on sleep reduction.

The big decision that my wife and I are dealing with right now is finding a place to live. We live in St. Louis in a lame over-priced apartment complex where we really don’t know our neighbors, can’t ride our bikes to anywhere cool, are not near our friends and are very far from where we both work. We want to move into the city and live in a real community and walk and ride our bikes places. We got an offer last night for a sort of exciting living opportunity. My friend Betsy e-mailed me and asked if we would be interested in moving into a building known as the Community Arts and Media Project (CAMP). CAMP houses the St. Louis Independent Media Center, The Green Party, The Confluence Newspaper, A community bike co-op which I help to run and by the time we would move in it will have a community computer lab and a zine library. It would be such an exciting place to live. It is the real hub of activism in this city and is forging many great relationships in the neighborhood. I am involved in many of the things going on there and would be able to do much more if I was living there. Another bonus is that it would be very inexpensive and give us the chance to save some money and maybe buy a house somewhere in that area.

I ran it past Beth on the way home from work last night and she was surprisingly supportive of the idea. We went over the most obvious pro and cons in the car. The pros were pretty obvious. We really like all the people involved, the price is right, we like the sense of community there, other than work we could commute by bike, and there is a full bike workshop on the property, which is cool. The cons are few but noteworthy: we would be giving up some privacy. We have a roommate now and are not very private people so I don’t think this is a major issue. Our biggest problem is our dogs. We have 3 of them. One would likely go to live with our roommate. He loves her more than me anyway and I know she would take great care of him. That leaves Salsa and Pablo. They would move with us. Our two main fears are that they will either bark and disturb the other people living there or that they will escape and something bad will happen to them. We are gone about 10 hours a day and they would likely be locked up in our room for much of that. They have done that before and it has been fine but we fear that if they are locked up and someone is home they will bark all day. Another problem that may not be a big deal is that our oldest dog Mr. Pablo has a rather spotty history with people of color and will now be living in an African American neighborhood. I hope all that is behind him. One of the solutions for this whole thing is to take the dogs to doggie daycare. Yes, there is such a thing. They would be able to hang out with other dogs, run through an obstacle course and would have a pool to play in. The problem is that it is just too damn expensive to send them every day and secondly, how much credibility would we have living in an activist collective and sending our pets to daycare. I guess we will have to come up with a better solution if we are really going to do this.

Posted at 11:24 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

I keep echoing p6...

July 14, 2004

But, I can't help it. I was honestly JUST about to post this quote from the version of The Emporer's New Clothes I read to my kids yesterday:

The emporer writhed, for he knew it was true. But eh thought, "The procession must go on now." So he held himself stiffer than ever, and the chamberlains held up the invisible train."

When I stumbled upon Prometheus 6's political statement of the day.

Posted at 11:16 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Loverboy

July 14, 2004

Cole's first words this morning, as Monk came into the bedroom, were "I love you, Monk. Do you love me?"

The child is the biggest loveydove. I swear. I hear countless "I love you mama"s throughout the day, and I get more hugs that I would have ever thought I deserved.

So, there's a bright side to having a child who is clingy and mommy-centric. It's sort of hard to have a bad day when the first thing you hear upon waking is your two beautiful children declaring their love for each other.

Posted at 10:07 AM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

de-kopelization of kopel's 59 deceits.

July 13, 2004

Thudfactor ::

Kopel’s piece is called “Fifty-Nine deceits in Fahrenheit 9/11.” You should go read it here for the full effect. I’ve tried to synopsize each so-called “deceit” for clarity’s sake. I hope Kopel does this himself in the final article. It will at least protect him from the accusation that he’s being intentionally dense to hide his own deceits. I strongly urge you to read and make up your own mind. Where Kopel actually provides a synopsis himself, I’ve tried to use that.

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New Blog Research Survey

July 13, 2004

Blog Survey Information

Ladies, represent!

[link via xx]

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Cole's balance.

July 13, 2004

Storytime this afternoon, Cole was doing his usual silly bouncing around on the bed thing and ended up bouncing right off and banging his head on a table. He was very upset, crying, wailing...and we had this conversation:

Mama: Aww...Coley. Yr going to be ok. You just lost your balance!
Coley (crying even louder): Waaaaaaaah! I want my BALANCE BACK!

hee hee.

Posted at 3:04 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Recipe Request! Please respond!

July 13, 2004

Full Bellies Recipe Blog

Towards the end of the month this month, my life is going to be considerably more hectic for about 6 weeks or so, and I need some good recipes for casseroles that freeze well and portable, healthy lunch foods. i'm definitely going to be making a lot of hummus, tofu egg salad, and other things, but I'd like to be able to change it up a bit.

I'd love to make a good variety of yummy things for my kiddos, as well as the people who are volunteering to watch them for me. Please help!

Posted at 12:42 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Um, OK. Clear Channel is at it again.

July 13, 2004

TOTALLY unacceptable

The New York Times > New York Region > Antiwar Group Says Its Ad Is Rejected

Last night, the president and chief executive of Clear Channel, Paul Meyer, said the company had objected to the group's use of "the bomb imagery" in the proposed billboard. Mr. Meyer said Clear Channel had accepted a billboard that would replace the bomb with a dove. However, he said, any billboard at the site required the approval of the Marriott Marquis management, which he said also objected to the bomb.

Meanwhile, all over Austin, there are huge billboards depicting a woman coming out of a tanning bed with her boobs hanging down and a total "fuck me" expression on her face. My children see this billboard.

I am fucking sick to fucking death of the "standard" that somehow manages to claim that political symbology (is that a word?) is more offensive than corporate advertising.

marginally acceptable

[link via shameless agitator]

Posted at 9:48 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

no title.

July 13, 2004

[via p6]

Posted at 9:04 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Keep Them Confused

July 13, 2004

Talk of election day delays has been proliferating for months now...perhaps even longer. Yesterday, that discussion burst through the conspiracy freak barrier and became fodder for mainstream discussion. It was all over the homeschool list I'm on...with pretty much unanimous dissent from the far right all the way over to the radical left. Actually, it was somewhat amazing to see the words of people who I have ALWAYS very strongly disagreed with echoing some of my own, and I learned that many of those people are firmly against voting for Bush in the next election. If the homeschool list could be extrapolated to the public at large, it seems like Bush is in serious trouble.

Then today, the counter reports started coming in. , and those headlines compete with the headlines that still say the department of homeland security is considering a delay.

What's with the confusion? Is it the media getting the information wrong (again?) Or is it an intentionally fabricated confusion on the part of the government officials being asked? OR is it just that no one in Washington knows what the fuck anyone else is saying?

Whatever it is, i'm not sure that it's working in favor of Bush&co, but then, I don't know what the long-term effects of this type of psychological warfare might be. I'm sure I've said it before, and I'll say it again...this administration is like an abusive relationship. No fucking joke.

[See also: ]

Posted at 8:56 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

All but one

July 12, 2004

I feel totally invincible.

I have all but one of the weekdays covered for the temp job I'm taking. I'm certain I can get that last day covered by the backup plan I had. Who says I don't have plans? My freaking back-up plans have back-up plans. I guess that's one good reason to be a total stressed-out "have to plan every single fucking thing in advance" kind of person.

It's been a stressful day for me. My boss was out of town last week, which resulted in my non-boss stepping in, as she is prone to do, and completely freaking out about everything, and making me feel torn in my allegiances because it was as if by freaking out she was saying that my boss-boss doesn't do his job correctly, you know? It's just too much damn stress for me. Add to that the fact that my co-worker has this serious power trip thing that is exacerbated by the absence of boss-boss, and you have one little stresspuppy me. But today I saw my boss-boss, and I almost instantly felt more mellow. I think it's just because non-boss just assumes that no one can do their jobs, and co-worker spends so much time trying to make me feel like she's in power or whatever, and I get to feeling like no one appreciates what I DO...so it's good to have boss-boss back, even though there are still several hectic things that need to be taken care of this week.

Monk spent the entire day playing Risk: Lord of the Rings edition by himself in his room. Coley spend the entire day smelling my armpits. My kids are insane.

It's not even midnight yet, and I'm ready to go to bed. What's up with that? I should probably listen to my body and just go to sleep. That's what I'm going to do. Good night.

Posted at 11:30 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

It COULD be worse...

July 12, 2004

J just e-mailed me with the following message:

be glad coley's just complaining about the evil nothing, and not making you post affirmations on all the doors into the house. that can lead to a bit of a mixup.

Posted at 3:30 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Waking Up

July 12, 2004

Lately I've been waking up with worry...mostly over all that I didn't accomplish the day before. This morning I woke up worrying about the second job I will be starting the monday after next. I'll have one more peaceful Monday morning and then the following week it will begin.

Three hours a day does not sound like much, but it's going to be a huge inconvenience. When I think about teaching the class, I feel confident and positive. I'm sure I can do it. I'm sure it will be an enjoyable challenge. But the prospect of shuttling the kids all over town so I can do it is daunting, to say the least.

For six weeks...you know? Six. Weeks.

In the end, though, I'm sure the weeks will fly by, and at the end of it I will have a handful of extra cash to apply to...bills, the house, and all of the various little nit-picky things that I haven't been able to take care of for awhile now.

Of course, it would be nicer if l would just pay child support, but that's not currently within my control. And when he does pay, he will have to pay interest on what he hasn't paid thus far. The longer he waits, the worse he looks. And, as much as that money would be useful, I can survive without it. I can do it. Three or four hours a day is nothing. It means maybe I can't blog all that much* or read the news for six weeks. It means I'll devote all of the time I am not at work to focusing on my children. That's not such a bad thing. It means I need to economize my time, and squeese everything I can out of every single minute. I can do that. I've done that.

It also means I will have the delightful opportunity to work with a group of people who I know I will totally enjoy working with. It means I will open up some doors of opportunity for future work. It means I will get to change things up a bit and try some different stuff. We'll see how that goes.

So, I'm preparing myself. I'm breathing in and breathing out - like preparing for a marathon. I can do this. I'm fortunate to have the opportunity to do it, and I can do it.

Now I can only hope that Coley can do it, too. *sigh*

*which means I will be looking for people to guest author this blog during that time. Any volunteers?

Posted at 8:41 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Sunday Drifting into Monday.

July 12, 2004

I'm about to go curl up with my birdy cole for a short summer's night, but thought I'd write a bit about the weekend before doing so, because it was one of those quietly momentous weekends, filled with small victories and mini-accomplishments.

For one thing, Monk SWAM. He pushed off the side of the pool and kept himself afloat for about 10-15 seconds before he started to go under, and he didn't freak out when he went under, either. Of course, I yanked him back up when he went under because I didn't want him to be traumatized after taking such a huge and wonderful chance on trusting me that I wouldn't let him drown.

Monk's a really cautious kid, so this whole "learning to swim" thing has taken an inexorably long time. I think he's finally over his fear of the water, and if I'm patient with him, I think he'll be actually swimming by next summer. The summer fairy brought him a life vest, and i think wearing that gave him the impetus to just try it. It was like he got a taste of the freedom he could have if he would learn to swim, and the vest is uncomfortable enough to be slightly not as pleasant as actually just swimming on your own.

So, anyway, yeah. I felt like I could comfortably call that Monk's first swim. Coley also made some progress at the pool, as he likes to point out when I start bragging on Monk's little swimming adventure. He accidentally let go of the side of the pool once and went totally under the water and did not freak out when it happened. I grabbed him right up, but he will exclaim to anyone who will listen that he had an "underwater tea party," which is something I have been trying to get him to do all summer but he's just not having it.

Saturday...I don't even want to talk about Saturday. It was a crappy day all around other than the fact that Monk lost a tooth and in so doing accrued the last few dollars he would need to make his first-ever independent purchase with his own money. He's been saving up to buy Risk: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy Edition, and this morning we marched right over to the mall and bought it. My little guy.

J came over this afternoon and we were going to attend a festival at the farmer's market but it turned out to be too damned expensive for what it looked like it was offering. So, we walked home and made it into the house JUST as it started pouring rain. So we went outside and played in the rain a bit, got soaking wet, had some laughs...a couple of good falls...and Monk lost the ring from the game that he bought.

Later, when he and J began their freaking Risk marathon game (it took about 5 or 6 hours to complete!) I loaned them my wedding ring to use in place of the lost ring. I marveled at how tiny the ring was...I'm not sure it would fit my chubby fingers now, but I'm not going to attempt to put it on, either. That just seems like bad mojo. Kinda like letting my boyfriend drink out of the coffee cup with L's name on it, you know?

I had the lovely Susan and her sister, the lovely Karen, as well as the lovely Steve over for dinner tonight. I made north african split pea soup - it was seasoned with cinnamon, cumin, cardamom, and cayenne, and damn if it wasn't some tasty stuff! J and Monk were playing risk the whole time. It sucks when yr boyfriend is so cool with yr kids because, well, I just can't get mad about it, you know? I was jealous, though...even though i love it. The kids think he's the coolest in the whole world. And when Coley was pouting about J's departure, I was in full agreement with the sentiment "You can't go! Stay!"

Which is to say that as much as I love being with my kids (particularly when there is so much fun stuff happening) as well as with J AND the kids...I'm looking forward to having J all to my greedy little self at some point next weekend when the kids are with their papa. I think there's a game I'd like to play with him that we might be able to stretch out into a 6-hour marathon, if he'd be willing.

Heh heh.

Posted at 1:11 AM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

Sunday NewsBlogging

July 11, 2004

TNR Online | July Surprise? (print)

This spring, the administration significantly increased its pressure on Pakistan to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman Al Zawahiri, or the Taliban's Mullah Mohammed Omar, all of whom are believed to be hiding in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan. A succession of high-level American officials--from outgoing CIA Director George Tenet to Secretary of State Colin Powell to Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca to State Department counterterrorism chief Cofer Black to a top CIA South Asia official--have visited Pakistan in recent months to urge General Pervez Musharraf's government to do more in the war on terrorism. In April, Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to Afghanistan, publicly chided the Pakistanis for providing a "sanctuary" for Al Qaeda and Taliban forces crossing the Afghan border. "The problem has not been solved and needs to be solved, the sooner the better," he said.
This public pressure would be appropriate, even laudable, had it not been accompanied by an unseemly private insistence that the Pakistanis deliver these high-value targets (HVTs) before Americans go to the polls in November.

***
The Rude Pundit

As you toddle off into your weekend, try to maintain some sense of decorum, goddamnit. Don't run around in a panic, trying to get fucked by the last drunk in the bar because it might be your last fuck on earth. Oh, it's tempting to act like this is the end of days, considering the mindnumbing stream of threats, threats, threats emanating from "unnamed senior administration officials."
The Rude Pundit just watched Tom "Where's Your Fucking Neck?" Ridge on CNN this morning, doing the Bush balancing act of saying, "Go about your business" but "Keep vigilant" because there are terrorists who want to blow your shit up, especially if you try to vote this year. Ridge pooh-poohed the idea that this announcement of a threat was in any way politically motivated, despite the fact that Ridge could offer nothing specific about, well, fuck, anything. Just live with a vague sense of anxiety, a little nausea in the pit of your stomach, and a bit of suspicion of anyone looking a little Middle-Eastern. Along those lines, Ridge said that the Department of Homeland Security gets tips from citizens that leads to action against people "every week."

***
[via vegan blog]Consumer Power Reforms Chicken Factories -- but Not Enough

Jamming animals together is bound to spread disease. Keeping them in the constant presence of low-level antibiotics is bound to spread antibiotic-resistant disease. Our animal factories are active sources of drug-resistant Salmonella and E. coli and other microbes, some of which infect people. In Europe and America, where animal factories are widespread, people are showing up in hospitals with infections that are resistant to four or five different antibiotics. In the U.S. 14,000 deaths per year are attributed to drug-resistant microbes.
It is crazy to undermine the effectiveness of antibiotics, the greatest health breakthrough of the twentieth century, just to make cheaper meat. Doctors are pleading for the control of antibiotics in the meat industry. Both the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization have issued stern warnings, which in the U.S. have not been turned into government regulation. Meat producers are major campaign contributors.

***
US: Patriotic Pride and Fear

"It certainly seems that the world is going mad," Canadian psychologist Dr Daniel Burston told Asia Times Online, quickly noting that an increasing retreat into "social phantasy systems" would be more accurate. Burston - whose work has been acclaimed in the mainstream media - noted that famed social psychologist Erich Fromm had written on "socially patterned defects" that enabled large groups of people to adjust themselves comfortably to a system that, humanly speaking, is "fundamentally at odds with our basic existential and human needs". Burston observed that this resulted in "deficiencies, or traits, or attitudes which don't generate internal conflict when, in fact, they should".
He saw the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal as raising a number of questions, noting that "there seems very little doubt that it was sanctioned from above". Burston labeled the guards' behavior as "sadistic".

Fromm, in his 1941 classic Escape from Freedom , wrote: "A person can be entirely dominated by his sadistic strivings and consciously believe that he is motivated only by his sense of duty." And on June 23, the Associated Press (AP) reported that an August 2002 US Justice Department memo "argues that torture - and even the deliberate killing - of prisoners in the terror war could be justified", with torture being redefined as "only actions that cause severe pain akin to organ failure".

AP also reported that the Justice Department had now "backed away" from the memo.

***
The Left Coaster: Will Our News Media Cover the Abu Ghraib Children's Story?

Last May, some reports about the abuse of children showed up in the foreign press. Now, Save the Children is trying to bring focus on the problem that there are still children being held in Abu Ghraib and to seek their release. Many of these children were taken when the Army was sweeping Iraqi neighborhoods to try to intimidate the insurgency. As the Red Cross reported, most of those caught in the sweeps were innocent people who could provide no information.
And in the United States, the only news about this story was that the Pentagon was to brief the Congress in secret sessions about what they know about this problem yesterday.

***
the bitter shack of resentment: How to Stop the Next War Now

I'm working on a new book for CodePink with founders Jodie Evans and Medea Benjamin, and I'd like to hear from you bloggy people. The idea is basic: lots of different viewpoints on what the progressive, anti-war movement did right leading up to the war in Iraq, what we/they did wrong, and how we can keep the fact that we failed to prevent the last war (despite mobilizing record numbers worldwide) from sapping the enthusiasm, hope, and strength of the movement.

***
Richard Lichtman: The End of Innocence, Reflections on American Pathology

The dehumanization of a society dominated by alienated, technocratic, corporatist military imperialism is the dehumanization of its leading agents and, to a greater or lesser degree, the remainder of us as well. In our society, as McNamara's presentation reveals, moral problems are more and more reduced to practical tasks to be judged by their efficiency, the ends and normative principles that direct them less and less open to scrutiny, unexamined and left subservient to capitalist domination. Our unwillingness to engage in moral reflection and accept moral responsibility is the willed attempt to avoid looking into the face of a society of very deep corruption. And what does this corruption finally consist in? One of its root assertions is the prevailing hypothesis that we Americans, are superior to the remainder of the world's peoples, that we have the right or even the obligation to dominate them and decide on their behalf; that we alone understand what justice, virtue and human fulfillment consist in, we who have so degraded ourselves and destroyed the long nurtured hopes of others.

***
ZNet |Iraq | Conquer and Plunder follows Shock and Awe

Well, what's not to love?
Lack of receipts, transparency or any itemized reports according to the auditors. That's right, there is no itemized accounting of these seized Iraqi assets spent by American military commanders in cash. The NY Times also reports that "at least $1 billion has been distributed in this fashion by some estimates more than $2 billion." You see, we know the number give or take a billion.

The lack of transparency is unsurprising given the Development Fund for Iraq's accounting by the CPA "lacks a double entry system and consists solely of spreadsheets and tables maintained by a single accountant, making the records prone to error." That's right, the CPA appointed a single accountant for a fund that last reported over $20 in collected Iraqi oil revenues. The fewer records, the fewer headaches.

What little information the CPA grudgingly published about this fund it was mandated to use "in a transparent manner to meet the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people" show an outrageous lack of transparency. There are single line items totaling as much as $7.4 billion without any details.

Posted at 1:59 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Lay Me Low

July 11, 2004

I've written this story a hundred times and I'll write it a hundred more, and more than that besides. The story is sad but neverending, really, so maybe it's not sad after all, we won't know until the end that never comes.

At any rate, he was young, too young. Too young to know when the end was supposed to come. He was young, but he sure knew his way around a gun. And that's exactly what he crawled up with that night. Knew just where to aim, and I suppose that's the only thing you really need to know at that point because, really, who's going to judge on technique over efficacy at that point?

But before this, before you acquainted yourself so intimately with the Ultimate Orifice, there was that other person you were. Cocky. Spirited. Like no one would ever day reject you. In spite of the fact that you faced ultimate rejection of the very people who were supposed to have distilled that confidence in you. And you ended up, quite literally, on my doorstep, didn't you? Because you, quite literally, had no place else to go.

But that was years before. I called you my brother. I don't know why you didn't call me, brother. Instead I got a phone call from our mutual friend twice removed and all I could think about when i heard the news was some dumb sesame street song I forgot the name of but was reminded years later that it was "la-la-la-la LUMP in my oatmeal!"

I miss you. I guess that's what I have been meaning to say through these endless verbal gymnastics that have tumbled out onto this screen. Really, all I meant to say, really...Is I miss you. i try to imagine what it will be like when my boys are as old as you were. As old as you were when you came alive in me, and as old as you were when you died.

They are not your children, but I think I see you in them. Is that so hard to believe?

Posted at 2:05 AM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

Random Quotes from Random Blogs

July 10, 2004

These are from my blogroll, as well as random blogs chosen from weblogs.com

Madame Insane

I haven't written much about current events lately. In a way I feel like it's redundant -- preaching to the choir, etc -- but that's not really why. One of the blogs I read regularly has mentioned this sort of ennui, this burnout -- someone who comments there has said their "outrage meter" is broken. I can agree with that. Every day brings some new ridiculous bit of news that goes underreported in the mainstream press, and there's plenty of other news that doesn't get mentioned at all. Death, destruction, lies, Vice presidents telling Senators to go fuck themselves, torture of adults and children, PATRIOT act nonsense, civilian contractor bullshit, bad economic news, CIA agent outing -- all fall by the wayside in favor of attempts to discredit Michael Moore because of the way he looks, for Chrissake. Look out! Large, casually-dressed, baseball-hatted man with a legit axe to grind makes factual documentary! Tom Ridge isn't exactly a small guy -- his vague-yet-urgent "terror alerts" must have more credence because he wears a suit. Or something.

Robyn's Secret Passage

Q. Who should not take v1ag@rA? A. if u have heard rumours that u should not take it, that is just JEALOUS HATERS who are just jealous and are being haters and are suffering from tall poppy syndrome so you should not listen to them!!!!

Prometheus 6: To tell the truth, it's one of the flaws too

Don't worry, Jesse. It's only common among those stupid enough to think things are "on track" in "the war on terror."

Trish Wilson's Blog

Here are a few things the Bush administration doesn't want Americans to think about now that Tom Ridge has announced that Al Qaeda may launch another major terrorism attack to disrupt the Presidential elections[...]

places for writers

Online information for Canadian writers was difficult to find in 1997. So as a Canadian poet, I decided to address the situation. So, the first version of [places for writers] was created.
Since then, the site has continued to evolve into a comprehensive resource for Canadian writers and readers of Canadian writers. Within this site you will find daily updates of places to publish poetry and fiction, contests, literary news, book resources, websites for writers, locations of retreats, and resources for funding.

Uppity-Negro.com: A Hello, Kitty 30th Anniversary Celebration Fansite: That unspoken assumption thing

If I didn't know better -- come t'think of it, I don't -- I'd think they were trying to express their homophobia (or homo-hostile tendencies, if you prefer) in terms that make them feel good about themselves; they're defending something that's under attack. As opposed to writing discrimination into the Constitution, which just doesn't have the same ring to it.

zeebahtronic.

American Apparel's the new thing in hipster/liberal/arty circles. They advertise themselves as "sweat-shop free." Nowhere in their literature is there mention of unions, something I found a little fishy.

Posted at 11:38 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Conscience at War

July 9, 2004

Jeanne of Body and soul posts some compelling links which describe the psyches of soldiers returning from war...Body and Soul: Conscience at war

This is something that has bothered me for a long time. As justifications for this war slip farther and farther away, we seem to take greater refuge in how much better our methods of killing are, by which we mean not that we kill any fewer people (by anyone's reckoning, we kill far more), or that the people we kill are any less likely to be innocent victims, but that we do it from afar, without distinguishing between the guilty and the innocent, and therefore, by some bizarre logic, become less culpable, more civilized.

I heard a report last night on NPR about the new Viet Nam war plaque which commemorates those who died after the war. There was brief (too brief) mention of the psychological ramifications of warfare. The thought of all of those soldiers coming home from Iraq with the plethora of physical and mental ailments that they will have scares the shit out of me on the behalf of them as well as the loved ones who will have to deal with them.

Posted at 7:15 PM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

Dean/Nader debate today

July 9, 2004

Blog for America

Today, June 9th, at 2:00 pm est, Governor Dean will debate independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader in a live broadcast produced by NPR's Justice Talking.
C-SPAN3 will show the debate live with coverage beginning at 1:30 pm est.

Live audio is available through National Public Radio's website at www.justicetalking.org/ or click here for local listings.

Posted at 1:32 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Best. Boyfriend. Ever.

July 9, 2004

i haven't talked about him in awhile, but J is still busy fulfilling his duties as the best. boyfriend. ever. Ever. EVER.

I can't point to specifics about him that make him so...well, there are some things about him that make our relationship so very healing to me that are really things that I don't feel are my right to share in detail, but they involve how he deals with certain personal challenges he faces in a manner that is gentle and considerate of those around him. He is just so responsive to gentle requests for reassurance or adjustment. I keep forgetting this, and letting problems slide past a point where it's good for them to slide, and yet every time i go to him to resolve these problems, he treats me with the utmost kindness, patience, self-actualization, and respect.

Me and the boys are totally lucky and happy to have such a wonderful man in our lives. Whenever i think of all of the crap I have to endure from the annoying MEN in my life, I just have to redirect my thoughts to Mr. J, and I have hope for my boys, and maybe even (as hyperbolic as it sounds) for huMANity in general.

Posted at 12:39 PM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

Helen Keller knew

July 9, 2004

I want to tie this Helen Keller quote:

"I had once believed that we were all masters of our fate - that we could could our lives into any form we pleased....I had overcome deafness and blindness sufficiently to be happy, and I supposed that anyone could come out victorious if he threw himself valiently into life's struggle. But as I went more and more about the country I learned that I had spoken with assurance on a subject I knew little about...I learned that the power to rise in the world is not within the reach of everyone.

with

this post at ^^^Living on Less

I don't consider someone who lives very far away geographically as being any less of a fellow traveler in this life than the person who lives down the street. Therefore I don't subscribe to the notion that my or anyone's concern for the struggle for survival taking place half a world away arises out of a kind of paternalistic impulse for charity toward the unfortunate and downtrodden. It's just an accident of birth that I am here with my computer and my supermarket foods and hot and cold running water. I could just as easily have been born in a shantytown and have to get by scavenging for metal scraps and go to bed hungry as often as not.

And I'm wondering if these posts have anything to do with the patriotism post I'm trying to write. Because I'm wondering if patriotism and privilege are somehow related.

Mostly, though, when I read that quote by Helen Keller, I want to make business cards out of it that say on the front "Helen Keller Knew" and have that quote on the back, and keep them with me at all times so that when some stupid overprivileged individual tries to feed me some crap about how America is the land of opportunity, or tries to get all superior about their privileged position in life, I can hand them the card and just say "Helen Keller knew, you ignorant asshole...figure it the fuck out."

Because if someone who is blind and deaf can figure out that her (no doubt hard-earned) achievements in life have been unearned to some extent. Have come to her through unearned membership in a privileged social class, there really is no excuse for anyone else to have not figured that out by now.

"The future of America rests on the leaders of 80 million working men and women and their children. To end the war and capitalism, all you need to do is straighten up and fold your arms." - Helen Keller

Posted at 8:53 AM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

This post will get me in trouble

July 9, 2004

I'm sitting here, wondering why I can't write a heartfelt post about hopefulness. I'm staring at a quote by Malcolm X, thinking about a post by Jason, and pondering the meaning of patriotism as is being hotly debated at the iron blog...

...and all I can think about is how very tired of MEN I am.

Yes, you heard me right. I'm sick to fucking death of MEN. It just seems that lately I have an overwhelming amount of idiocy in my life that is directly attributable to the men who populate my little world. I'm not going to assign specific blame, but i'm just tired of the general irresponsibility, emotional unavailability, manipulation, game-playing, sexism, condescension and outright static that seems to be threaded throughout so many of my relationships with men these days.

OK...yes...I know I have reason to be more than a little frustrated with my ex, but there are other men who, frankly, I feel like smacking upside the head. There are more than a few men in my life who i would just like to take a long vacation from having to deal with. Unfortunately, I'm unable to do so with the majority of them, for one reason or another.

And I hang out with my boys all day trying to puzzle this out. How much of the frustrating qualities of men are just things that are inherently male? How much of it is socialization? If it's socialization, how am I to be sure that I'm not socializing my boys to be annoying men...because, surely, I'm socialized to raise annoying men, right?

Blah. What I'm tired of is this. I'm tired of opening myself up to people (read: men) who are terminally closed. I'm tired of being given advice that I don't need. I'm tired of having to direct and manage behavior that should be instinctual. I'm tired of having to explain my emotions. I'm tired of being disregarded and invalidated. I'm tired of WAR. I'm tired of arguing. I'm tired of being told a definitive answer about something that HAS NO DEFINITIVE ANSWER. I'm tired of faux authoritativeness. I'm tired, so very very sick and tired of simple answers to complex questions. I'm tired of it all. And I hate to blame the men in my life for this crap, but I don't seem to get it from the women, you know? I just don't.

In fact, the strange thing is that for once in my life, the men who are commenting on my blog are actually some of the least offensive men in my life! What the fuck is up with that?

I think that's the worst part of all, because if I encountered the kind of smarmy condescension on my blog that I seem to have to deal with on a regular basis from the men in my real life, I could just rant here and get it over with. But instead, I have to handle things with an overwhelmingly tedious degree of diplomacy and tact...and that's just no fun.

No fun at all.

Posted at 12:06 AM • Comments (5) • TrackBack

Therapy

July 8, 2004

Had a wholly unproductive session with my therapist yesterday. Maybe it's just that my conversations with friends are so much more productive. People who know me seem to offer better insight than a trained professional. Go figure.

What I went for was sort of a counterbalance to the feelings that were triggered by the way my attorney treated me during the temporary orders hearing, and the days of self-doubt that followed. i'm not sure how much i said here, but basically, my attorney suggested that I sell the house in a very patronizing "you need to get your shit together, and I know what's best for you." way. After a week of self-examination about that subject, i realized that he does not, in fact, know what's best for me. And that I have analyzed my own situation from many angles for several years now and, damnit, I know what's best. *i* do. No one else. What bothered me, and what I went to the therapist to figure out, is why I had such an emotional reaction to his behavior towards me and why I spent so much time re-evaluating my decision based on his snap assessment.

One thing that she did nail was that the conversation with my attorney DID snap me into my "little girl" mode. For a full five or ten minutes, I went from being a confident, capable adult standing her ground to a misty-eyed 3-year old being rejected by a father figure. I got that. I got that like 10 minutes after I left the courthouse that day and had a chance to evaluate it.

What the therapist assumed that was totally untrue was that the reason this got to me was because I was unsure of whether I was right. She asked me "Well, Drucilla, how sure are you that you are making the right decision?"

What the fuck kind of question is that? I hesitated to answer. And when I did answer, she said that my hesitation was indication that I didn't feel I was right, and that I needed to do more research to find out if I was making the right decision.

I was like "Whoah, whoah, waitaminutewaitaminute! My hesitation is not due to self-doubt...my hesitation is due to the fact that deciding whether or not to sell or not to sell your house to save a couple of hundred bux a month is a decision that I can feel fairly right about at the moment, but that i can just as easily be wrong about. It's what FEELS right...but I won't know if it's the right decision until a year from now when I've actually lived with the decision."

You know? Because sometimes that's how decisions are made. We're not talking about which way is the right way to turn to get to a static destination here. I'm not even sure if there IS a right or wrong decision in this case. I know that I have plans, several of them, that will get me through the next few months of staying in this house whether or not Mr. L. decides to actually PAY the child support that is due to me (and, by the way, in case anyone is keeping track, he has not paid a single dime and as of monday will be behind by THREE payments) and I have plans for what I can do to keep the house if Mr. L decides to not ever pay child support. There are some things that I DON'T have definite plans for, but I'm not going to mention those things...and, suffice to say, those are fairly large catastrophies that I don't feel comfortable planning for at this moment in time.

So, who is to say that i'm right? Perhaps my problem is that I can see validity in any number of choices, but i need to take the time to determine which is the best choice for me in any given situation...which isn't always easy to do, particularly when I am engaged in psychic warfare with a person who has been particularly conniving and manipulative with me for several years. It's like, no wonder my head was all fucked up that day. And no wonder I responded emotionally to my lawyer. I had all of these emotions, and no place to put them...my lawyer was a safe target, even though he maybe didn't deserve them. He offered what he felt was prudent advice, and all I had to do was say "Thanks for that information." and move on. I don't owe him a justification for not taking his advice...I already paid him what I owed him.

At any rate, I have another appointment next Wednesday, and we'll see where this takes me. Maybe therapy is just not right for me at this point. Maybe there are just too many immediate visceral challenges to overcome for me to make any progress with root causes and emotional histories. I'm going to try again next week, see where it goes, and then make a decision (which will be the RIGHT decision, because *I* will be the one making it, damnit!) about whether to continue.

Posted at 5:00 PM • Comments (8) • TrackBack

Matt Taibbi gets it

July 8, 2004

DONKEY. ELEPHANT. CHICKEN?
The pacifists stick to their guns, and then some. By Matt Taibbi

That's junkie morality. That's why, from the Democrats' point of view, it makes perfect sense to nominate a gazillionaire missile-humping aristocrat who'll have more corporate logos pasted on him than a NASCAR driver when he gets into office. What's the difference? We got off! Why is everybody complaining?

[zagg, again]

Posted at 10:53 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

That's the crux of it. Right there.

July 8, 2004

Democracy Now! | Nader Calls Kerry a "Puppet" For Israel, Charges Dems With "Mini-Watergate"

[...]where I stand is simple. The two parties are being pulled 24-hours a day by a whole variety of intense corporate interests into the maw of their lobbying power and into the maw of corporate globalization. Who's pulling on the other side? That's what our Nader-Comejo candidacy is about. If we give John Kerry a blank check, he will have no mandates. I have not met any group supporting John Kerry that's demanding anything of John Kerry. When I met him over a month ago, I said, you know, if you win, you're not going to have any mandate. He said, don't worry, I will do this and that when I'm president. Yeah, we have heard that before. That's the key here. Who is pulling in the direction of the interests of the American people? There's necessities on the Democratic party if you have 'an anybody but Bush' mentality. Anybody but Bush closes the mind immediately. There is no room for any variable, strategies, tactics, any innovation presidential campaigning, and you're signaling to the Democrats that they can take your vote for granted. When you do that, you are taken. That's particularly true of labor and minorities without which the Democrats wouldn't win any elections. They are being taken for granted. They cannot even get a living wage for 47 million full-time workers in this country. One out of every three workers makes less than $10 an hour, 25% of the workers are making in this country -- just think of that -- are making less than $8.70 an hour, gross before deductions, and before the cost of driving to work.

When it comes down to it, I just can't form an argument against that. Can you?

Seriously. Can you? Regardless of who you actually end up voting for...can you argue against that?

[link courtesy of Zagg]

Posted at 10:38 AM • Comments (7) • TrackBack

They've come for your children!

July 8, 2004

Trish Wilson's Blog: More Wingnuttery About Gay Marriage Stealing Kids From Straight People

No, folks, nobody wants to be called a moonbat. That's probably why very few people (with the exception of, it seems, Baskerville and Parker) have even suggested that gay marriage steals kids from straight people. I mean, seriously, who really agrees with Baskerville that mothers are in cahoots with the courts and the government to get divorced and steal kids from their fathers, and then these moms hook up with pedophiles and other child abusers, and then Social Services steps in to take the abused kids from mom and give them up for adoption - to gay people? What planet do these people live on?

Oh maude freaking damn, you know? What is wrong with people?

I'm supposed to worry about someone's church being accused of the bigotry that it's actually currently and actively based on when there are so very many loving couples and individuals who are ready and willing to provide stable homes to children who don't have them?

I could easily posit that THREE adults in a relationship would provide a more loving home environment for children, and I might even be able to prove it. but that doesn't mean that a single parent or a gay couple is inherently harmful to a child.

Blah!

Posted at 9:32 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Birthdays...

July 8, 2004

Happy belated birthday to George!

Happy upcoming birthday to Susan!

Anyone else need birthday greetings?

Posted at 8:52 AM • Comments (4) • TrackBack

I don't even think pod people were this...evil.

July 8, 2004

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: Another Attack on the Arctic

Thwarted by the public in its efforts to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, the Bush administration and the oil companies are now quietly turning their attention to the balance of the Arctic region of Alaska, all the way west to the Chukchi Sea, within sight of Siberia. In advance of its efforts, the administration has jettisoned environmental safeguards and is now threatening the traditional-use rights of the Alaska Natives who have hunted caribou and waterfowl along the Arctic slope for thousands of years.

[link courtesy of <"a href="http://www.prometheus6.org/">p6]

Posted at 8:41 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Posting...

July 8, 2004

I'm having trouble finding time to post these days. Coley has been very clingy since returning from his weekend at papa's house, and I've had a few things to take care of both work-related and personal.

I have several ideas for essays that I would like to write, including the breastfeeding article I was talking about over a month ago and the homebirth article I was talking about a few weeks ago, as well as some things about patriotism and apathy. Jason's post here sparked me into at least feeling like I need to drag myself kicking and screaming back into discussions or at least thoughts about what our country is doing to the rest of the world...rather than lamenting in my little corner.

But, for now, I'm still lamenting in my corner. Because trying to focus on writing when Coley is here turns me into evil mommy from hell, and we don't like her very much around here. I intended to do some writing last night, but Coley wouldn't go to sleep without me there (he has this bogey man called "The Evil Nothing" and he won't stay in a room by himself if the Evil Nothing is there) and I sort of fell asleep putting him to sleep and didn't get anything done that needed to get done last night.

So, perhaps tonight. Or perhaps tomorrow night....or sometime in the near future. Or something. I don't fucking know. For now, visit the Iron Blog and observe the debate on Patriotism between Pineapple Girl and Rosemary Esmay.

Posted at 8:34 AM • Comments (4)

my first presidential nomination...

July 6, 2004

dot liz :: Well, I'm a jet fuel genius - I solve all the world's problems with out even tryin'... ::

And I don't think I'm quite old enough to run.

I'm blushing.

Posted at 10:51 PM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Thank you, Robert Jensen.

July 6, 2004

For articulating so plainly what I could not articulate about Fahrenheit 9/11...ZNet |Iraq | Fahrenheit 9/11 is a Stupid White Movie

How dare I describe as racist a movie that highlights the disenfranchisement of black voters and goes after the way in which military recruiters chase low-income minority youth? My claim is not that Moore is an overt racist, but that the movie unconsciously replicates a more subtle racism, one that we all have to struggle to resist.
First, there is one segment that invokes the worst kind of ugly-American nativism, in which Moore mocks the Bush administration's "coalition of the willing," the nations it lined up to support the invasion of Iraq. Aside from Great Britain there was no significant military support from other nations and no real coalition, which Moore is right to point out. But when he lists the countries in the so-called coalition, he uses images that have racist undertones. To depict the Republic of Palau (a small Pacific island nation), Moore chooses an image of stereotypical "native" dancers, while a man riding on an animal-drawn cart represents Costa Rica. Pictures of monkeys running are on the screen during a discussion of Morocco's apparent offer to send monkeys to clear landmines. To ridicule the Bush propaganda on this issue, Moore uses these images and an exaggerated voice-over in a fashion that says, in essence, "What kind of coalition is it that has these backward countries?" Moore might argue that is not his intention, but intention is not the only question; we all are responsible for how we tap into these kinds of stereotypes.

More subtle and important is Moore's invocation of a racism in which solidarity between dominant whites and non-white groups domestically can be forged by demonizing the foreign "enemy," which these days has an Arab and South Asian face. For example, in the segment about law-enforcement infiltration of peace groups, the camera pans the almost exclusively white faces (I noticed one Asian man in the scene) in the group Peace Fresno and asks how anyone could imagine these folks could be terrorists. There is no consideration of the fact that Arab and Muslim groups that are equally dedicated to peace have to endure routine harassment and constantly prove that they weren't terrorists, precisely because they weren't white.

I think I found the film more redeeming than Robert did, but I was disturbed by much of what I sensed as racism threaded throughout, even though I couldn't for the life of me specify where that feeling came from.

I think it started with the description of Stevie Wonder as "little" Stevie Wonder, but then someone explained to me that Stevie Wonder used to be called "Little Stevie" when he was still a wee child star. Still...I thought it somewhat odd that he would use such a patronizing nickname for such a big star...one that I had never heard.

That was the most obvious instance to me, but I did cringe at the images associated with the other states in the "Coalition of the Willing" and the pan of the all-white peace group. And I'm sure if I were to watch the film again with pen and paper in hand, I would be able to note many other areas where I got "That Feeling."

So, what does that mean? Does it mean the film is not worth watching? Does it mean that Michael Moore is an inadequate spokesperson? Does it mean that we need to protest at theaters where F 9/11 is playing?

I'm not sure what it means, to tell you the truth. I guess it just means that privilege and racism rear their ugly heads in every medium and from every source, and we need to be aware of the messages we are receiving and sending.

I also agree with Robert that the problem is the assumption that The American Way is somehow the default Way To Be...and I have more to say on this subject, and tying it in to the book I'm currently reading, Lies My Teacher Told Me, as Loewen also makes the point that history is viewed as a series of pre-ordained events...that history "just happened" as opposed to being a series of choices that could have taken us in a completely different direction.

That will have to be a different post, however, as I'm out of time for now...

Posted at 12:17 PM • Comments (7) • TrackBack

Michael Moore and the Liberal Elite.

July 6, 2004

The New York Times > Opinion > Guest Columnist: Dude, Where's That Elite?

It's true that there are plenty of working-class people — though far from a majority — who will vote for Bush and the white-tie crowd that he has affectionately referred to as his "base." But it would be redundant to speak of a "conservative elite" when the ranks of our corporate rulers are packed tight with the kind of Republicans who routinely avoid the humiliating discomforts of first class for travel by private jet.

Posted at 9:30 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Arguing

July 6, 2004

I am so sick and tired of arguing with my seven year old. Yesterday, he tried to argue with me about what day of the week it was. Today, he woke up when Cole and I were taking a box of Legos out of his room. He came running out into the living room and asked what we had put in his room. "We didn't put anything IN your room, we took the Legos OUT."

"There weren't any Legos in my room! You put something in there!"

"Monk, we JUST walked out of the room with a box of Legos."

He's still standing here arguing with me. INSISTING that there's no way that I took the Lego's out of his room, and that I'm lying, and that he's never going to speak to me again because I lied. Meanwhile, Coley's playing quietly with the Legos and i have lost all desire to write anything.

What a lovely fucking morning.

Posted at 7:50 AM • Comments (6) • TrackBack

Stump the Monkey

July 5, 2004

monk has a friend over today, and they are playing a game called "Stump the Monkey." Where his friend will ask a question, and Monk will answer. So far, Monk has answered "Who invented electricity" and "Who invented the telephone."

Just now, the continued the game while they were playing Stratego, and L (monk's friend) asked "Who was the first human."

Monk said "That's hard to answer because it's either Adam, or scientists haven't figured it out yet."

L says: "haha! i stumped the monkey!"

Monk said "No! Because there's a MYTH that it was Adam, but it hasn't been proved by scientists. So no one really knows."

The next question was "Who was the first person in your family?"

Monk said "There IS no FIRST person in my family, because EVERYONE is part of my family."

It's so fun listening to them. And it's amazing to hear what he's picked up.

Posted at 2:04 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Freecycle rocks

July 5, 2004

I scored an awesome k'nex set, never used, through Freecycle this weekend. It's a model of Saturn V which, when assembled, is over 3 feet tall and even has a countdown sound chip(!)

The kids are going to love it, and they're going to put it together today during "math/logic game day" here at my house. I only know of one other family who will be there, but it should be fun.

Cole woke up this morning and IMMEDIATELY asked me to play his new memory game with him. Monk woke up and IMMEDIATELY started reading Swiss Family Robinson. He wanted to stay up late last night and read it, but he had had a big, exciting day and math club starts at 10 AM, so I wanted him to get some sleep.

I really can't complain, though. It's awesome that he's so excited about reading that it's the last thing he thinks about before he goes to sleep, and the first thing he thinks about when he wakes up.

I'm sipping iced coffee and am about ready to get up and clean up my kitchen. i made some good hummus last night, with cilantro, and I'll put it out for snacks and lunch. I think it's going to be a good day.

Posted at 9:30 AM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

Weekend.

July 4, 2004

I am so exhausted. I am SO exhausted. I am. So. Exhausted.

But in a good way. It's been a long, hot, exhausting, luxurious, sweet, wonderful weekend, and I'm ready to drop, but I'm going to squeeze another hour or so out of the day so I can watch My So-Called Life.

i have a lot to talk about that will just have to wait until tomorrow. Stuff like:

Acceptance of the invitation to be the Iron Blogger Green.
Career opportunity
Rabbit Proof Fence
Freecycling SCORE
Fahrenheit 911
Best. Boyfriend. Ever.
My joyful days without the kids, and their joyful return.
On procrastination of housework
Fireworks in Bastrop
Why are my pets so freaking weird?

I'm not sure how much of that I will get to next week, but I'll do my best. And I do take requests.

Hope yours was lovely.

Posted at 11:49 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Abbie the cat has a vet bill

July 2, 2004

Abbie The Cat Has A Posse

If you can't afford to chip in money, at least send well wishes.

Poor kitty.

[link via uffish]

Posted at 8:44 AM • Comments (1) • TrackBack

Is it Thursday already?

July 1, 2004

Today I was out hanging clothes on the line and it struck me that it's freaking THURSDAY. I had a moment of panic, because we haven't been out of the house all week, and then I remembered that it's been raining or threatening to rain all week and that's WHY we haven't done anything fun.

Well, today the sun is shining, and I'm hoping we can spend the afternoon at the playground or the pool. Tomorrow, too. Two lazy days, and then tomorrow evening, the boys will go to papa and I will have a weekend to myself.

This whole weekend visitation thing is very strange to me. I both dread and look forward to the weekends that the boys are away from me. I think I'd be happier if it happened once a month rather than every other week, but...anyway...

I have an opportunity to earn a little extra money, well, actually, a considerable amount of extra money, coming up at the end of this month and through August. It won't be easy to shuffle the kids around, but it's temporary, and the extra money will totally help. Plus, the job entails working with seniors - teaching computer skills - which is such a fun challenge. I have always enjoyed working with the senior citizens who come to the classes I usually teach. I never had a really close relationship with any of my elder relatives, and I just crave that kind of interaction. So, cross your fingers for me that I can find childcare, because it's just a cool opportunity all around.

I better go and hang out with the Cole-monster. I've slacked all week because of the rain, and now that it's sunny I have no excuses. Gotta get this place cleaned up so we can be lazy all afternoon.

Posted at 11:07 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Mermaid Hips.

July 1, 2004

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JULY 17| AFRO-CARIBBEAN QUEER WY’MN ART| AT ALLGO MERMAID HIPS: The Work of ANA SISNETT No admission fee| ALLGO?s Tillery Street Theatre 701 Tillery Street Austin, TX 78702
7pm-8pm Reception| 8pm Spoken Word| 9pm-Midnight Dancing with DJ LENNE (DJ NXS) of Rainbow DJ Service For directions and other information go to http://www.allgo.org or call 512.472-2001 ext. 106

This very special event will feature Ana Sisnett’s mixed media visual art created with acrylics, polymer clay, digital imagery, and text. Sisnett's spoken word, inspired by stories she hears "in the motion of the Ocean," blends poetry, social commentary and the erotic in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Ms. Sisnett’s visual art will be available for sale at this event.

I am so there...anyone want to join me? I just wish my boys could be with me that night so they could meet the fabulous Ms. S.

Posted at 10:30 AM • Comments (3) • TrackBack