Dru Blood - I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings: October 2007 Archives

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« September 2007 | Main | November 2007 »

I found this interesting...

October 30, 2007

I was not aware that lethal injection was being challenged:

BBC NEWS | Americas | Judges delay death in Mississippi

There has been only one execution - in Texas - since the Supreme Court agreed to consider the challenge to the use of the lethal injection lodged by death-row inmates Ralph Baze and Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr in Kentucky on 25 September.
The pair argue that the method constitutes "cruel and unusual" punishment - forbidden by the US Constitution.

Posted at 9:57 PM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

By the way...

October 22, 2007

I am feeling really tentative and self-conscious about blogging. I feel very rusty, and am wondering what is the point of it all. I'm just going to try to ignore those feelings and continue to write publicly. I think there is value in it, I'm just not sure what, exactly, that value is anymore...

Posted at 8:27 AM • Comments (2) • TrackBack

Mining for Cole.

October 22, 2007

It's Cole's birthday week this week. Wednesday will be his 7th bday. Seven. My baby is seven.

For me, Cole's birthday marks both one of the best and worst times of my life. Of course, it was wonderful to give birth to such an amazing little guy. The birth, which occurred at my home in my bed surrounded by people I cared about after a day spent visiting friends in a sort of peaceful haze of pain, was one of the proudest moments I've ever experienced. But there were less joyful circumstances surrounding his birth, as well. And the subsequent few years were very difficult for all of us.

Things are better now. For now. I try to be hopeful without being stupid about it. But still I tend to look back and cringe at all Cole didn't get in his first few years that Monk did get. Mostly little things. Because Cole did get a lot more of my time, but I'm not sure that he got as much of my focused attention.

I am thinking I need to dig up my journals from his first few years of life, because last night I was reading a journal from Monk's first few years and witnessing the joy of having that little person in my life and I just don't remember writing about Cole in the same way. Which is not to say that I wasn't happy with him. That child has always had an infectiously sweet way about him, even when he was a tiny infant who wouldn't sleep unless he was at least touching me and usually not even unless he was laying on my chest or cradled in the sling. And I know that second, third, fourth, etc., children usually suffer a dearth of memory books and remembrances of firsts, but the problem is that I don't remember things unless I write them down...and I am worried that I just didn't pay as much attention to Cole's development as I did to Monk.

Maybe that's the problem in general with my life post-Cole. I haven't been paying enough attention to anything. I lack focus. I am easily distractable and I go off on wild meandering tangents that always lead me back to where I started. I live, as one of my friends is constantly reminding me, in my own little world. And, unfortunately, I think it's a world that has become too well-guarded against invasion or even invitation.

So I am going to force myself to form a habit. I need to write about the kids every day. Because in writing about them, I notice them. I might not write so much about them in this space, because they are both older now and they don't necessarily appreciate my maternal gushing over their every day small victories...but I will record my memories of their abstract and concrete accomplishments in my paper journal. For a little while every day. So I can remember their place in my world. So I can prove to myself seven years down that I DO notice. And also...to train myself to pay attention. A little bit of focus every day on who they are as people and who they are becoming. And so one day we can look back at who they have been...

Excerpt from 11/23/1997 journal:

Monk goes about his way, learning and growing and becoming a young boy. Sometimes I wonder how we are doing as parents. There will always be things to resent, I suppose. It is frustrating and totally rewarding. To watch him grow. To be a part of his life. I hope he understands - I hope I convey the rewards more than the frustrations. He is a fantastic boy. Lately he has been amazing me with his practiced independence. He knows what no means, but chooses to ignore it..."

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The Dazzling Architecture of the Uninhabitable...

October 22, 2007

I would like to start blogging again. I would like to start putting out posts that have no moral/societal relevance whatsoever other than what the readers (however sparse) may assign. I don't know why I stopped, but I would like to get back in the habit, and what better time than the present.

Why did I stop blogging in the first place? I don't know, exactly. I know that I have grow increasingly disillusioned with the entire concept of news blogging. I thought about it pretty hard today, while walking, and I think right now I am just having a difficult time imagining that all the complaining actually does anything. I honestly don't think there's enough of a difference between republican and democrat to change the direction in which we are heading. Sure, there are some policy differences, and a degree to which the left might slow our descent into whatever a non-religious person might call "hell on earth," but I think the problems in this world are larger than that. And I think it's a shift in individual consciousness and, hopefully, collective consciousness that is needed to make a change.

No, I have not converted to any sort of bizarro cult, either. hahaha.

And, look...some of the idiots on the left irritate the shit out of me. For one thing, around here there's this whole "keep austin weird" contingent...and the "no wal-mart" crowd. On the surface, those sound like concepts I would agree with. But I dunno. It didn't take very long for me to get into a conversation with one of the no wal-mart people and realize that it's not Wal-mart that a lot of these idiots don't want. It's "those people" who shop at wal-mart (yes, I actually had someone from my disgustingly yuppified neighborhood say that to me) that are undesirable. I find it difficult to associate myself with a movement against large chain stores that isn't also against rampant consumerism in general. And I think that hypocrisy is what has made me feel incredibly blog-averse for a long time now.

And don't think I'm excluding myself from that judgment. Another huge part of my hesitance to blog about news and politics anymore is my own hypocrisy. Or, at the very least, my own reluctance to issue moral truths as if I somehow have a handle on right and wrong that no one else can figure out for themselves. I just don't.

Instead, what I am going to try to get back to doing is relating my experiences and my revalations and my own ideas about what it all means to me. I don't want to argue with anyone about what it means to them, and I don't want to assert my point of view as the only acceptable way of looking at things. I just want to WRITE. And be heard to whatever extent people want to hear me. I don't want to end up arguing with people about strollers again only to read countless posts from people who disagreed with something I said or some way I said it five years ago and use my frequent bouts of stupidity as a springboard to act like morally superior assholes. I fully admit I am an idiot. I have no answers. I only know that I have a way of looking at the world that I kind of want to share with other people. I miss it. I want to make time for it again.

The End.

Oh, P.S. Since I am, in fact, a total hypocrite...don't be surprised if I go around mouthing off on occasion. There's only so much mileage I can get out of talking about butterflies, spiders, and cute children. hahaha.

Posted at 1:04 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Nothing Matters Except This Anthill

October 21, 2007

It has been an interesting weekend. Aside from a midnight movie on Friday, I have been focusing on doing art and cleaning the house and preparing for Coley's birthday party next week. I even canceled a date in part because I just don't want to be bothered with time constraints (and in part because, if I were to be bothered with them, the time constraint being suggested was wholly uninteresting to me, but that's another post altogether...one that I am trynig to restrain myself from writing, to be honest.)

At any rate, a little while ago, I brought in some laundry and was folding it on my bed when I noticed a tiny little jumping spider. He must've taken up residence in the laundry while it was out on the line. He leapt impossibly far to land on my laptop, and sat there, seeming to observe me as I went about my laundry folding, casting sidelong glances between the spider and the stupid self-help video I for some reason chose to watch from Netflix. And the spider started to build a web! Right in front of my eyes!

Well, needless to say, I quickly lost ALL interest in the video and watched the spider, instead. I giggled as he jumped cutely from the plastic tub on my little bedside table to the frame of the canvas that was leaning against the wall. Covering my mouth so as not to accidentally blow him to spider kingdom come with my exhalations of delight. I tried to even take a little video of him, but he was so tiny and my focusing skills are still embarrassingly inadequate, so I doubt it turned out well. And anyway, he seemed to have some degree of stage fright, because when I whipped out the camera all construction ceased and he just hung there on the end of a strand, twisting and looking, I am sure, like a tiny little booger on the end of a string through the lens of my camera. Oh well, I guess some things are best observed directly. I mean, I could probably rent a zillion videos made by professional documentarians and videographers that would depict spiderweb building, but how often to I get to observe it in my very own house?

So I guess I watched him building his web for about half an hour before he seemed to take a break and I lost interest in waiting for him to do something interesting again. The thought of sharing my bedroom with my spider friend is not thrilling to me, but I can't bring myself to remove him. I'm sure he'll vacate on his own at some point.

The cool thing is that later, when I had all but forgotten about my little 8-legged friend, I was reading the new issue of King Cat Comics and Stories, and John P had a couple of different comics in which he became so absorbed in observing life around him that, for that time, those little details were all that mattered. The first one depicted him squatting down to watch ants, without words save the last frame which contained a thought balloon of John saying "Nothing matters except tis anthill."

It's something I am really trying to put into practice, and can be a good exercise for everything from making sure you are fully present with people or just fully present to experience in general. It works for listening to silly kids' stories, observing bees and bugs in a bush, marking the miracle of clouds and birds in the sky, sex, productive conversation, and communing with spiders.

I dunno. I've never been a huge fan of the idea of meditation or journeying inward for the sake of being inside myself. I find that I spend far too much time there anyway, and I get distracted from experiencing things by tending to return there for safety. Instead, I think it's nice to be fully outside of myself for a change. Not thinking about what came before or what comes next, but just enjoying what is in front of me.

Later, I was thinking about how this applied to art. About how artists take those tiny moments...or my favorite artists do, anyway...and make them neverending. I guess, the flip side is that some artists can take huge concepts and distill them down into something digestible. I like that, too. But right now, it seems like distilling things down oversimplifies things. I'd rather appreciate fleeting moments and tiny things. I'd rather that nothing matter except this anthill.

And I'm so thankful that there are people in this world like John P to remind me of that. :) <3

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Now playing: Beauty Pill - the cigarette girl from the future
via FoxyTunes

Posted at 5:43 PM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

Low +Charlie Parr @ Mohawk 10/3/2007

October 8, 2007

Went out to see Low last week with my favorite guitar man. It had been a crappy week and I wasn't feeling much like being in public & was worried about bringing guitar man down because he's not fond of being in public either...but LOW. You can't blow off LOW.

So we went, and of course guitar man cheered my ass up because he's so silly and sweet. Or maybe it was the rum and coke...

Or maybe it was the guitar man from Austin, Minnesota on stage hunched over and playing into a box of mics. He explained the invention that aided the muffled quality of his sound by saying he once stuffed a box full of mittens to attain the perfect effect. Some smart ass in the crowd yelled out into the 90 degree air "What are mittens?"

Anyway, he was delightful, and the surprise of seeing a delightful opening act made me squeeze my guitar man's hand in glee and whisper "I LOVE HIM" probably louder than I intended. Just flat out laid back blues slide guitar and grumbled mumbled muffled (mittened) vocals. I love him and I love the irony that his logo appears to be a bear driving a car with a trailer carrying a dead bird attached, since my guitar man is always a bear to me, and our love is like birds.

I have heard that Low often plays to crowds that sit, cross-legged, on the floor. Seemed appropriate to lean and close my eyes through their entire set. I wanted a pillow, but I settled for an arm and even though I was accused of snoring I was wide awake and wide open to the shimmering rhapsody of Low.

For those of you who haven't heard Low...think of the slowest thing you could possibly imagine, then slow it down a notch. My guitar man pointed out to me that it's actually REALLY difficult to play as slow as low. I hadn't thought about it, because I am not a musician and even if I was I would probably play slowly in a bad and untalented way...but with that idea in mind, I have gone back and listened to Low and kind of marveled at the slow and steady and PERFECT rhythm that they keep. That, and the harmonies that made songs about dead people and graves and one-eyed three-legged dogs seem like spiritual hymns. Uplifting.

Was it an understated show? Yes. Was it a quiet show? Indeed. Was it fun? I don't know if fun is the word I would use to describe Low and Charlie Parr. But it was a good way to let go of the tension of the week, and it brought me halfway to recovery, the other half way of which came over pancakes and silly banter with the guitar man, who, as always, was a wonderful companion for another treasured adventure.

Now...if we could only get the guitar man on stage so he could blow people away...but then whose hand would I squeeze and into whose ear would I squeal enthusiastic praise? Meh. I can dream.

Posted at 10:48 PM • Comments (3) • TrackBack

The Innocents

October 8, 2007

I seem to be randomly choosing a lot of movies lately that affect me a lot more deeply than I anticipate they will. First it was Ghost World, then, to a slightly lesser extent, Broken Flowers...and yesterday in my quest for a horror film fix, I chose The Innocents from Netflix on demand.

I had no idea that, instead of the usual light horror movie fare, I was going to be transported into a darkly moody black and white portrait of either a sexually repressed woman's descent into madness or the aftermath of the sexual assault of two children...or both.

This movie was a cinematic rorschach test in which spatterings and blots of details were provided, and the viewer was left to apply his or her own experience to fill in the white space. For myself...as a mother, I was pulled in one direction. As the victim of sexual trauma, I was pulled in another. It was gut-wrenching.

From an aesthetic standpoint, it was a gorgeous film. Dream-like black and white sequences, mixed with startling uses of sound and silence. This film was suspenseful and dramatic without any of the formulaic devices used in most suspense and drama movies. I will be looking for this to be shown in a theater at some point...I'd love to see it on a big screen. Although I would probably have to go alone, as I don't know that I could comfortably watch it with another person present.

In the end, I was left thinking about all manner of things both within and outside of the scope of the film. Parenting, obviously, and parenting through trauma. But also, the movie made me really think about how we as adults deal with the lives that were handed to us as children. And how the ghosts of our experiences haunt our adult lives. Do we choose to acknowledge those ghosts or do we choose to pretend they aren't there? And if we choose to acknowledge them, do we force others to acknowledge them as well, or do we allow others - both adult and children - to make those choices as is appropriate for them as individuals.
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Now playing: Joy Division - The Eternal
via FoxyTunes

Posted at 8:13 AM • Comments (1) • TrackBack