Stealing beauty

Right now I’m stealing time. It’s 8:10 at Westwood and the students are clicking away at the keyboards. I’ve tried to limit my personal computer time during work these first two weeks, but I still have coffee to drink and am officially not awake and so what’s a few minutes to let the few of you in on something.

This isn’t about my new job and it’s not about being back—both good things, but maybe not enough right now. This is about the important bits of beauty that come into your life and how you have to treasure them. Really this is about Skunk Ape. You know how in high school someone says with the worldly experience of a 16 year old that “everything is temporary” and you cling to that sentiment and their hipness and begin to emulate just how unattached you can become in your personal life and you cease reflecting on the recently discarded childhood and innocence and eventually, about 20 years later, you think “yeah, nothing is real” and the meaning changed? Or is that just me? Well, I have a few things that have buoyed me through the rootless ideological idiocy–family, friends, and the cats that possess me. And Skunk Ape, aka Ms. Monkles, russet nose princess of my heart had to be put to sleep this Monday.

So this is a plea to you all, find that beautiful bit in your life and enjoy it while it lasts. Learn from it, emulate it, document it—but don’t put it off or forget it’s importance. Because everything really is temporary, but experiencing it is real.

Real world, it’s me

So I’m half-way through my first week of American reality. American reality, just so you know, involves the things you’d think it does: driving, eating-in-the-car-on-the-run-wherever-you-can and it’s not usually remotely healthy, working, waking early. Maybe it’s not so different from my Italian reality, but there were no cars and the food was better. On the flip side, I’m actually making money here, so America has that going for it. I’m happy, I’m sad, yeah, this is life again on this side.*

But this week, something interesting happened. It’s going to sound heartless, but stay with me. The interesting thing is David Foster Wallace killed himself. And because of a jig-saw series of events after his death that began with Darryl asking me if I’d heard of him on Sunday and ended with me sitting here Wednesday night trying to relax and wait for Jon Stewart to come on while I’m bored and restless, I was led to the transcript of Wallace’s commencement address at Kenyon State in 2005. Wow. This is it. What he’s talking about is the dividing line. Thinking and how we think is what separates us. It defines our life. My hair is on end and I’m happy. And yes, it’s terrible this is coming to me posthumously from a stranger, someone who can’t edit it or take it back. But then again, that’s it right? The beauty is that he wrote it. He used the black and white magic to put it all down and that is the glory. He wrote and so he isn’t dead. He just can’t change his mind. It’s beautiful. I don’t agree with it all, I mean there is the whole “this is about ME” thing that I usually attribute to the generation before me, but then again, I’m the one ranting about how this (unfortunately newly deceased) writer has put it all in a way I can think about now. None of this will make since unless you read it. So just read it. And think about life. And water.

This is water.

*After realizing that I mention a suicide, and then considering some of the things he says and then me saying I’m sad, for those of you (I’m really talking about mom here) who would worry that I’m sad and relating to David Foster Wallace, please know, I’m happy and not suicidal and am, if anything, very much alive and breathing and stupidly ecstatic about these things. I love the fact that I’m in water and I love the fact I found these words so that when I do become (what is the word?) darkly pessimistic, I will be able to put it in a frame. I can now take the dark picture and examine it and think about it and love it and love the fact that I’m able to experience it, think it and possess all of the scraps and crumbs that make up my bit of water here. So, to reiterate, I’m happy. Hope you are too.

Thank you Arianna

Yes, a Huffington article put things in perspective for me and I feel a calmer motivation today. Once more it is going to take us a lot of effort to get the message back to where it needs to be and off of the distraction. But things are so bad, I think that most will remember the party and in part the person (McCain) that got us in this desperate situation.

Things to think about and remind others off and to educate the masses about:

Gas was an average of $1.46 when Bush took office. McCain, like Cheney Bush, is in bed with big oil. His mantra of “drill drill drill” is more than enough evidence of it. And if you think things will change by drilling, you may be right, but they will not change for probably 20 years an by then, if we dedicate resources to an alternative, drilling and killing the environment for oil would be a moot point.

Barack Obama is not a Muslim. Most of these readers know that, but a lot of you live in areas and are related (like me) to people that continue this lie. Please tell everyone you know.

Over 4,000 US Soldiers have died in a conflict that has not been appropriately justified.

Our economy is suffering and spiraling out of control. And McCain wants to continue the same Bush economic plan that has gotten us in this situation.

Unemployment is on the rise. Foreclosures are running rampant.

These are just a few of the several things we all were thinking about a few weeks ago. We need to refocus and get back on track and reconsider who is the best to lead us out of the pit that we are in. McCain and Palin = Bush and Cheney. Thanks Arianna for reminding me of that. Please feel free to post other problems that we have encountered in the past 8 years.

worse than the worst

I should just start an “Sarah Palin is evil” blog. Or maybe “Liar, liar, Sarah’s pants are on fire.”

Forget the fact that they will not let her campaign by herself and have her in a Cheney-like bubble from the media. I get it, they can’t trust her alone yet. That and McCain has no charisma on his own. No, I’m more concerned with her ideas and political stances. So expect a few articles like this every time I get a chance to appear on my blog.

$400,000 were used to educate the public about the benefits of aerial hunting. And yes, she tried to allow for wolf bounty hunters to get compensated (especially when they shoot from planes). I really love the fact that she justifies $150 a sawed off paw by claiming it is for the Native Americans that live in Alaska. You know, so they won’t have to compete for moose. Right. I think the Native Americans that are still actively living a life off of the land, can handle themselves in nature. What they may not be able to handle is the total dissimation of their environment by oil companies, fisheries and the mining industry. And I also suspect they may be a bit miffed by the Palin-esque hunters that just shoot moose for pleasure rather than need.

Unfortunately Alaska does face serious problems. Alaska suffers from one of the highest rates of FAS (fetal alcohol syndrome) in the country. I guess she is more inclined to put beliefs before country. Why spend tax-payers money to propagate your own personal belief system when there is so much that needs to be done? And not just her belief about killing bears and wolves from planes, she also advocates teaching creationism in school.

And if you really want to have some fun, check out and see how often Sarah Palin and Ted Stevens have been co-speakers at events. Yes, she likes to claim to be a big reformer, but she is just as much  as a party player than anyone else. Oh  GW Junior Junior, you should at least try a little harder to not be so much of the same.

George Bush Jr. Jr.

Well, some of the dust has settled after the McCain VP pick and I have to now add to my belief that McCain is pandering in the worst possible way. Not only is he pandering, he is doing it from a clearly senile stance. He went out and picked a vagina, but not just a vagina, but a George Bush Jr. Jr vagina. Yes, that’s right, after McCain spent the past few months claiming to be away from W, he apparently didn’t realize how deep his unspoken love of the worst president in out nations history (thus far) ran. When you put a skirt and quirk on W, I guess an old man such as McCain is fooled.

Yes, Sarah is W in a skirt. It may be hard to realize at first, what with the updo and the lipstick, but clearly no 2 people could be more similar without being the same person. Redneck (check), Short stint as border state governor (check), proud of being DC outsider (check), when cut bleeds oil (check), believes rape and incest victims do not have the right to reclaim their body (check), gun toting (check), weak on economy and education (check), lies for a laugh and a chuckle (check), fascist-like tendencies in their limited governing record (check), blatant misuse of language and facts (check), total disregard of the environmental problems that face the world (check). You know I could go on, but the truth is that I have limited internet access and little time.

And for any one whining that she is the VP pick and not the prez pick, let’s remember that the average life expectancy for men is 73.6 years of age. Mac Bush is pushing it.

But one last thing, please stop comparing her to Teddy Roosevelt. TR was for a national health insurance, he promoted the conservation movement. The fact Jr. Jr. wants to open up ANWR to drilling and opposes any health care reform makes me feel like TR would probably take her out on a Cheney style hunt. Of course, maybe not since she’s a woman and back in the day, TR would have not seen her as an equal. Actually, I don’t see her as an equal to him either.