Lucky White Girl

More than a slogan

This is still not the post-election blog entry I've been meaning to write but hey, there's plenty of analysis of the new president-elect out there, and much of it speaks my heart and mind these days (see for example, Eugene Robinson's column Morning in America). 

So no analysis from me yet.  Instead this is the kind of personal-political post that you've come to expect from this blog.  [If "Lucky White Girl" weren't such a damn pithy-and-memorable-yet-dead-on-accurate name for this blog it might be called "The View From Here" (la vista desde aca) because one of the main ideas of standpoint feminism is that one's understanding of the world is profoundly shaped by one's place within it, that is, by your socio-economic position which, in turn, depends a whole lot on the race and gender identity society plops on your head (which may or may not coincide with the one you yourself choose)]. 

So I'll just say that from my (feminist) standpoint, the view from here is just fine these days!  I've never felt this way before about a leader of our country, never felt a glimmer of hope for a future where maybe my country doesn't rule the world with a bloody iron fist, invading sovereign nations left and right, engaging in immoral wars and irresponsible fiscal policy and using and disposing of the planet as it sees fit for short-term convenience.  Maybe things can indeed change.

Coupled with this, is my own struggle with adjusting to life in this strange world that is Washington DC.  (Although how different the city seems now that I know the Obama family will be moving into the White House down the street!) and my recent vacation back home to Florida gave me time (not enough!) to reflect on my first year in the big city and wonder if it suits me or not.

I decided that if I'm ever going to feel at home here I'll need to develop a sense of place.  Easier said than done.  I have such a sense of place for where I grew up: the smell of recently trimmed lantana bushes, the light in the sky after a rain on a humid summer day, that classic arboreal mix of oaks and palm trees that formed the backdrop of my childhood --all that is gone here.  There are different things.  Things I don't know yet.  Cherry blossoms and cold weather.  This is the city of Presidents, about as far away from the cypress knees and black muck of Florida backwaters as you can get and I need to start feeling it, really feeling it.  Especially now that we have a new President. 

Obama reminds me of the best of our country's former leaders, Roosevelt (Franklin D.) or Kennedy, (in some ways one, and in other ways the other).  I've never really studied much domestic (U.S.) political history.  I might as well start.  So I'm reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's Pulitzer Prizing winning history of the Roosevelts called No Ordinary Time.  (Any thoughts on this book?)

For the first time, I feel really invested in my country.  Invested in the sense that I don't just see it as the place where it just so happens that I was born and if it gets too bad or ugly I can always leave for friendlier shores, but I feel, instead, that it's a place representative of an idea --democracy, progress-- that, surprisingly enough, turns out to be alive after all.  This is the road back to the embodiment of greatness that this country was on, in some ways (not in others), in the 1930s.  It's an idea I want to help make happen.

I know expectations are high for this man we just elected last Tuesday but this is a country so demoralized by eight years of the worst leadership in its history that I have to say we need this feeling of unbridled enthusiasm, of idealistic aspirations.  It's more than just a slogan, it's a prescription for a sick nation; yes, we can!  Democracy is not dead.  The dream of America is still possible.   And a great leader like Obama is going to be the one to bring us there.

A bit bored... more research please!

I just twittered about this but think it maybe deserves a blog post because I know I have a few readers who like the bits of autobiography that come out here from time to time. Here's what I'm thinking lately:

I feel a bit guilty.  I love the organization I work for but I'm already a bit bored with "Communications Coordinator".  (I guess this is why you're not supposed to hire over-qualified people, right?) 

I want to do more substantive work.  Less tech stuff/web development stuff, more research.  I could do more research if they needed me to.  I mean, I do have this graduate degree and I hear that's supposed to mean I can, you know, maneuver my way around source material.  They've talked about putting out reports like what Human Rights Watch does.  Maybe I could do that.  That would make me happy.  Otherwise I'm starting to wonder how long I would stay at a job like this no matter how much I love them.

Today for example I spent the day going through news stories, filing them, distributing them to those who might be interested and then compiling a news roundup post for our blog.  (Granted, this normally this wouldn't take me all day but I've been out of the office for awhile and had a backlog.  Plus I had a 2 hour dentist appointment this afternoon).  Anyway that's one of my typical days for me.  The other typical day for me is pitching which just requires me to pull out my extroverted vivacious bubbly side and the third typical day for me involves spending a lot of time honing my web development skills on our Joomla site. 

Not that I'm complaining.  At least I get to write a lot.  And I get to write big picture stuff.  I have to understand what everyone in the organization does and what they work on so I can write about it.  I get to write about pesticides and the EPA and I get to write about guest-worker programs and immigration and labor rights.  It's good stuff.

But I want more.  Let me work on a report or something.  On guestworker programs or immigration reform. 
Something.  Maybe I'll talk to my boss about it when he gets back from this conference.

foreboding

My nephew's joining the Marines. They promised him money for college and training as a helicopter technician. He'll almost certain to be sent to Iraq.

I don't care what anyone says, I cannot see how it's possible that he is NOT making a huge mistake. It's possible that he'll come out of it okay. But I feel it's more possible that he won't.  Much more possible.  Even if he isn't killed. What he'll be doing over there... will very likely mess him up.  That's what war does.  Messes up a lot of people.  His life will be forever changed.

I am thinking about what this will mean for my family. What it would be like for my sister, my parents, if he didn't come back. Or comes back with PTSD or missing arms or legs. Or comes back and commits suicide. It makes me think of when my own parents lost their son at a really young age. It happened before I was born but for as much as it impacted my life, it may as well have happened last year. So much of who we are and why my family is the way they are is due to that single tragedy. The reverberations are still felt today, more than 30 years later.

My nephew's going to Iraq and I have the most awful feeling about this...

"You mean you're 32 and you're not a lawyer yet??"

I should say first that I love DC.  Moving up here and starting this job has been the best thing to happen to me since...well, in a long time!  I'm lucky enough to work with really nice down-to-earth people who simply do good, honest work to make the world a better place.  And that's just it.  They're really good people, all of them, doing really good work!  If they were corporate types I wouldn't be feeling this way at all, but last night I met this guy who's 26 and does employment law which is, I guess, kind of a civil rights thing (you know, like discrimination etc)  and he's about to finish law school and take the bar exam and then he'll keep doing civil rights work and he was just so cool.  I was jealous.

And that's the thing about this city.  I'm feeling the pressure.  Am I a slacker?  I'm thinking thoughts I never thought before like, gee, I'm 32 and I'm not a lawyer yet! What's wrong with me?? lol...

Everyone here is a good-guy lawyer (okay well not *everyone* in the city but everyone I'm meeting in non-profit-land!).  I've never been even remotely interested in anything like law school.  The closest I've come is taking a few international law courses but now I find myself wondering about it.  You could argue that I should consider international law because I've always been inclined towards the theoretical (sorry that's an IR joke!) but if you want to make a real impact on people's lives it seems like domestic law would be more practical.  Save some family from being homeless.  Keep immigrant parents from being separated from their kids.  Challenge big corporations that spray their workers with pesticides.

Why am I so enamored with lawyers now you ask?  Is this just a phase?  Will I grow out of it?  Maybe...

But you see, lawyers are like Catholics.

I'll pause a second for that to catch your attention! Lol....

Okay, no, it's true: Lawyers are like Catholics.  Both have bad reputations among certain sectors of the general public, right?  And to an extent there are valid reasons for those bad reputations.  But I didn't grow up around Catholics and I didn't grow up around lawyers and by the time I met both as an adult I was politically active enough to be meeting the cool ones.  I met the liberation theology Catholics and poverty lawyers.  The Catholics were organizing against US sponsored violence in Latin America and the lawyers were helping out people who were getting evicted from their homes.  What's not to love?

Law school would be a lot of time and money and effort.  About the equivalent of having a child (except that it ends in three years) and since I'm now considering the very real possibility that having children might not be my lot in life, I think I've decided this: If I don't have a child, should I go to law school?

What do you think?

 

Sometimes I wonder.

You ever watch Spanish telenovelas?  Well, you know how there's always the villain --this woman who is so quintessentially evil so as to provide a foil to the pure-heartedness of the heroine?  Well, even though I know it's true that people aren't so one-sided in real life I also think it's true that these caricatures represent some fundamental truth about human nature, just isolated and concentrated and drawn out for emphasis.

Sometimes I wonder why it's so difficult for me to be good.  I have to try so hard NOT to be that villain!  It takes much conscious effort on my part to remember NOT to hate everyone; to remember to love; to remember to forgive; to remember to be kind and magnanimous and think about others before myself.  I shudder to think how awful a person I'd be if I didn't put so much work into it!  And heaven forbid I get busy with a new job and a new life in a new city and suddenly have much less time to devote to the cause!

I forgot a friend's birthday.  And not just for a little while.  For nearly a week!  And not just any friend!  A friend who went out of his way to help me through one of the most difficult times of my life when I was looking for a job and not finding anything and was more depressed than I had been in years and years and years!  That's what kind of friend he was!  And I thank him by completely forgetting about his birthday because I was so wrapped up in myself and my life and figuring out the idiosyncrasies of cascading style sheets!

And it's not the first time that I realize I've been rude, forgetful and thoughtless lately with other people's lives and other people's feelings.  I think the only difference between me and one of those villains on a telenovela is that they consciously *try* to hurt other people and I do it absent-mindedly because I forget!  But it's the same effect.  (I know intent is supposed to count for something but I don't really understand why.  A drunk driver might not intend to kill someone but the end result is the same as if they'd plotted murder so what's the difference?)

I know I've said in the past that I think human nature is fundamentally good and it's society that messes us up but now I'm beginning to wonder.  Maybe institutionalized religion exists for just this purpose.  Because we all need a hell of a lot of help to not hurt each other so much!

What one person can do

The US changed its mind!  In an overtime session of the US climate change conference we've finally agreed to a compromise we said just moments before we'd never agree to.  And the most interesting part of the story, I think, is this:  Just after the US delegate announced our rejection of the proposal a short speech by a delegate from Papua New Guinea challenged the US to "lead, follow or get out of the way"

Just five minutes later, when it appeared the conference was on the brink of collapse, Dobriansky [the US delegate] took to the floor again to announce the United States was willing to accept the arrangement." (from the CNN story)

Now y'all know I'm not normally one to write about environmental issues in anything but the most general terms so I don't know if the compromise was really all that big of a victory (because I understand that it still did not include specific benchmarks about things like carbon emissions) but it's a step closer than they were and more than any reasonable person could probably expect from the current administration. 

Learning DC, snapshot

Me: [looking at map] Hey there's the Naval Observatory!  I wonder what that is?
Chris: For navel gazing, of course! [snicker]

Ms. Lucky goes to Washington...

... for a job interview!  With a 26-year old non-profit organization representing farmworkers!  This is it.  This is THE job.  While I'm still considering other options right now this is the one that's pulling me most.  The group represents farmworkers across the nation "to improve their living and working conditions, immigration status, health, occupational safety, and access to justice."  I would sooo love to be a part of that!  I have some reading up to do on the subject but this is an issue that's long been near and dear to my heart. 

I applied for a position as Communications Coordinator which seems to be a combination of a writer/web-content developer/PR-type position.  I had a great telephone interview with the director of the organization last week and he offered to pay for a plane ticket for me to come to DC for a live interview.  I'm sooo excited!  Wish me luck!  I might just have landed myself a good ol' fashioned job!  Yipppppeeeee!!!!

Quick! What is the oldest peace and justice group still active in the US today?

This past week I had a job interview with some folks from the Fellowship of Reconciliation, commonly known simply as FOR.  The job is for organizer for their campaign to end military aid to Colombia and it would be based out of San Francisco (!!!).  I could write a lengthy post about my personal feelings about this adventure, detailing the nervousness and excitement I feel right now and what I would hope out of getting such a job but I won't.  I'm going to write about something else I learned this week that was mildly surprising. 

I was surprised (and yeah, okay disappointed) at how many people --even those on the progressive left who have no excuse-- had never heard of FOR when I told them about the job interview.  "Your interview is with who?" they asked and I have to admit I was a little peeved.  Here I get an interview with THE OLDEST PEACE AND JUSTICE ORGANIZATION IN THE U.S. and they've never heard of it!!!  Humph!  Count on your friends to bring you back down to earth! 

But really now, it's true.  Most people have never heard of FOR despite the huge role the organization has played in the history of the 20th century especially on behalf of the poor and poorly treated.  Why this is (that people have never heard of this organization) is too long and depressing to get into here but I thought it'd be worth it to write a mini introduction to the Fellowship of Reconciliation and why you --yes, YOU!-- should care:

• For was founded in the US in 1915 by 68 pacifists including Jane Adams and A.J. Muste.
• The American Civil Liberties Union developed out of FOR's conscientious objectors program
• FOR and the Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE, sponsored the first Freedom Ride in 1947.
• FOR worked with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.(probably their most famous member) on the Montgomery Bus Boycotts

You see the pattern here?  FOR is like the gold standard for faith-based peace and justice organizations in the US.  At every major campaign against injustice, they've been there.  The organization itself was founded out of a response to World War I and it's been a major force for social change even into the 21st century.  From domestic issues such as poverty and racism, to international affairs such as abolishing nuclear weapons and ending and preventing war and reducing US imperialism and the demilitarization of US foreign policy, FOR is one of the major players in the people's history of the United States.  You should know the name.  Not only because yours truly is hoping to have the honor of working with such a prestigious organization, but because they're a damned awesome group! 

Find out more about FOR around the world, in several languages at their international site.  And by the way, I'd be surprised if they actually selected me out of thousands of applicants across the country but if by some crazy chance they do, be warned: this blog may suddenly stop functioning because I will have had a heart attack!!

More than one way to catch a rat: On the direct and indirect approaches to persuasion

I was knitting a sock and listening to the Diane Rehm show the other day when an online friend of mine pops me an IM:  "Whatcha doing?"

"Knitting a sock and listening to the Diane Rehm show" I say and right away he was off giving me his unsolicited opinion about Diane Rehm, her "butt kissing" and the time she interviewed Henry Kissinger.  "I wouldn't have been surprised," he went on, "if she'd have leaned over and---" well, I'll censor that part of his remark as it involved sexualized language and I don't want anyone to get any wrong ideas about what kind of blog this is!  But his comments annoyed me for several reasons, not least of which was that I doubt he would've used the term he used if Diane Rehm had been a "he" and not a "she".

The other reason it didn't sit well was because it seemed indicative of a simplistic, monolithic approach to things.  Ms Rehm does not browbeat her guests; that's not her style.  She is always polite, both with guests and people who call in to the show. No matter how infamous the guest or how obnoxious the caller she will always treat them graciously and gently.  Even if they are brutal dictators (and no one has to tell me what a ruthless thug Kissinger was).  I do not think this makes her a brown-noser.  She is not Amy Goodman.  Amy Goodman is Amy Goodman and Diane Rehm is Diane Rehm and I don't need Diane Rehm to be Amy Goodman because I have Amy Goodman to be Amy Goodman!  Capiche? 

This sort of black and white approach irritates me.  If you had a nationally syndicated talk show and your guest was someone like George Bush or Henry Kissinger, how would you treat them?  You could be ruthless and direct (that's good sometimes) or you could take the indirect approach (that's good sometimes too).  Both can be useful but too often we ignore the latter in favor of the former and so here I want to make an argument for the indirect approach.

The indirect approach is subtler and it's true you risk losing the part of your audience that doesn't appreciate subtlety (or is too busy to take the time to notice it) but it also means you have enough respect for the intelligence of your audience to not tell them something they should be able to figure out for themselves.  Smart writers can put the facts out there and trust their audience to make reasonable conclusions based on those facts.  And let's be honest, if you do have someone like George Bush or Henry Kissinger on a stage and let them talk long enough, do you really feel it's necessary to hang a sign around their necks telling everyone what evil merciless asshats they are?

I find that I struggle with this in my own writing, especially when writing for certain audiences.  There's a certain pressure to reveal not only your subject but also your personal position in each piece.  This is why I like this blog.  Most of the time I'm not trying to prove anything here to anyone so I say what I think and leave the rest up to you.  You either get it or you don't.  The downside is it does leave quite a bit of room for misinterpretation.  I like to think that's not my problem.  I wish I could be more like this when writing for non-personal-blog outlets.  It's something I have to work on.

The point is there are several ways to catch a rat.  Only one of them involves poisoned cheese.

Popularity

Whew, anyone else feel it's gettin' a little crowded in here today?  That might be because we've had some 100,000 visitors come through in the past 24 hours since I posted the melted laptop story on reddit last night.  (I didn't know about reddit two years ago when the incident happened; last night I was sorting through my blog and came upon the post again.  It's a good story so I thought I'd submit it.  Next thing I know it's on the front page and getting thousands of hits per minute!)  Now it's gone on to digg and various other places and the comments are flooding my inbox.  (Most are nice, sympathetic or laughing; a few people who just seem to be perpetually angry left really nasty comments as if I'd insulted their mother or something <insert eyeroll here>.  I don't understand what would make them so upset but there's a lot of things I don't understand in this world!)   

I'm really grateful to Typepad and their servers for not crashing on me with all this traffic and I'm really, really glad to be meeting a few really cool new people who came to read a funny story about a melted laptop but stayed because they like or just appreciate my writing on other subjects. 

For a lot people this is the first they've come across a Marxist before and several people seem to want to know more about it so here's a note to say you can get an overview of sorts by reading my FAQs. 

Oh and I learned a new thing about popular perceptions of Marxism: people get Marxists confused with Luddites or maybe the Amish!  Apparently we should all be driving around in horse and buggy carts because Marx was against technology!  lol... that one made me snicker it's so silly and obviously uninformed but I think I know where it comes from.  I might write a longer post about this later but here's the short answer: Marx was certainly not against technology.  He didn't talk much about it one way or the other but Marxist theorists have debated whether or not technology is good or bad for the working class.  Some think that technology is a tool of the ruling class to keep control of the system which benefits them and others see technology as a potential tool for the working class to organize and fight back.  Lots of people including me, think it works both ways and that technology is indeed a useful organizing tool that can enrich our lives and the worldwide struggle for liberation.  There's a really good book called CyberMarx by Nick Dyer-Witheford which gives an excellent summary of this question. 

So anyway I'm glad the story's so popular and I'm glad it gave people a good belly laugh but I am sorta looking forward to things calming down and to all the wingnuts to disperse.  Those who like good Marxist theory (even if they don't know it yet) are welcome to stick around.  I usually have a regular stream of thoughtful and controversial posts.  For now, my 15 minutes of fame has been a fun diversion but I have translating to do and articles to write.  To all the new visitors: have fun exploring Lucky White Girl!

There's a word for people like us

One day about ten years ago I was sitting on an old school bus in Guatemala with this French-Canadian girl I had met in my homestay.  I remember the bus was nearly empty (that was unusual in a country whose primary mode of transportation is buses) when during the course of the conversation my new friend said something to me about why I use the term "American" when referring only to people from the United States.  I was a little dumbfounded.  "What do you mean," I asked her, unsure of what she could possibly be getting at.  What else would I call them but 'Americans'? 

"America is the whole continent," she explained in her accented English.  "There's North America, Central America and South America.  It's odd that for you an American is someone from the US but for us and others an American is someone from any of the countries that make up the Americas". 

Wow.  Really?  I thought about it for a minute and realized it was true.  It was a silly term.  "Americans" can't just mean folks in the U.S.!  We're all "Americans".  But then what do I call us then?  Ah, there's the rub! 

That was my introduction to how enthnocentric even our language can be and how blind we who grow up within the ranks of the privileged can be to such enthnocentricity.  At first I thought my friend was being over-sensitive --after all she was Quebequois!  But as I spent more time in Latin America it began to make more sense to me.  How rude --and how typical-- for us to not even notice (linguistically) all the other non-US people living in the Americas.  I spent a lot of time as a "guest" in various Latin American countries.  Of course I didn't want to offend my hosts.  After awhile, it became more natural for me to refer to "the Americas" and to use the term "American" more inclusively.

In Spanish there's a word for people from this country (and I don't mean "gringo"!).  The word is estadounidense.  It's precise and it rolls off the tongue as easily as canadiense or japones.  In English, however, it's trickier.  United-Statesian sounds incredibly awkward until you get used to it and for awhile I played around with using "USian" (pronounced like the pronoun "us" with "-ian").  Mostly, however, I just tried to avoid using the word at all.  "People from this country" I would say.  Or "folks in the United States".  I was definitely in the minority and usually no one noticed I had abandoned the term (but I was thrilled when I once had a class taught by a professor from Cuba who did the same thing.)

So that's why I was pleasantly surprised to read this op-ed in yesterday's NY Times. Surprised because it just hasn't been all that often that I've encountered other English speakers who have thought about this, much less tried to change the way they use the word "American".   Then I looked again and saw the article was not written by English speakers at all but by two French journalists from the newspaper Le Monde. 

How much does language reflect our social reality and vice versa?  As I mentioned in this post, I really don't know, which is maybe why I haven't been more vocal about the matter.  But I know I do like precision in language and if nothing else, USians, estado-unidenses or just plain "people from the US" gives us that.  In the scheme of things, though, what does it matter?  Borders are fiction.  It's true, there is a word for people like us.  That word is "Americans".

Traveling by bus in the US: A primer

Not that I mean to sound conceited about it or anything (because there is a certain category of folks to whom such a claim would sound admirable) but I have done a significant amount of bus travel in my life.  I've been on rickety old former school buses in Guatemala re-incarnated into gentle metal mammoths belching diesel fumes into the air as they careen along green mountainsides loaded down with people, tourists, chickens, bags of maiz and sometimes goats and pigs.  I've been on luxurious double-decker Pullman buses in South America with reclining plush seats, air conditioning and Jackie Chan movies.  And I've been in dingy Greyhound buses with malfunctioning toilets easing in and out of dirty downtowns in cities across the US.  No matter where you are, buses in some form or another, are the ultimate in proletariat transportation!  They are, arguably, the best way to really see a country and its people (the only near comparisons I can think of being trains and bicycles, but that's another post).

This is not meant to imply that I've thoroughly enjoyed every bus ride I've ever taken!  I've never been so car-sick as I was one time on a bus traveling from Manizales back to Bogota, Colombia.  I thought I was going to die and so did several of my nearest co-passengers (even the driver felt sorry for me)!  And I remember a similar one in Guatemala when I thought my kidneys were going to burst and they would have to bury me alongside the ambulant venders selling bags of water and frozen bananas.  Crossing the border from Guatemala into Chiapas once we were stopped by an Army roadblock and everyone had to get off and be searched for contraband.

But I have had way more plesant experiences on buses than unplesant ones.  Once I sat next to an older man I swear was Gabriel Garcia Marquez and fell asleep with my head on his shoulder.  Once when I was in high school and snuk out for the weekend to go visit my boyfriend in Savannah (telling my parents I had gone to a friends house), a man on the Greyhound serenaded us from DeLand to Daytona with his mellow acoustic guitar tunes and every one seemed caught up in the glow of unexpected intimacy of strangers. (And it was still a good trip, even though when I got back I found out I had been caught because my truck had been towed from behind the bus station while I was gone and my parents duly notified by the company!)

No journey is really complete, I think, if it does not involve a long bus ride upon which to reflect.

In the US we have few inter-city and inter-state bus systems and by far the most popular and well known is Greyhound.  I'm planning another bus trip in a few days so that got me thinking about writing a post about the subject.  It's definitely a good way to go, but before you pack your bags and hop on the 'hound, take a minute to consider the golden rule of bus travel which I've learned in my years of bus riding:

Above all else, when taking the bus in the US, consider the route between your destinations.  If there is no major highway between your point A and your point B you might want to reconsider.  Try bus-free alternatives instead such as hitch-hiking, train-hopping or car-sharing if you cannot bike or walk because even if the two cities are physically close, if there's no direct bus route between them you'll end up going to a hub somewhere and waiting on a transfer.  For example, my folks live in a little town about an hour and a half from where I live but I would never consider taking the bus there.  It would take at least eight hours as I would have to first go north to transfer in Jacksonville then wait for another bus going south through Daytona then to Tampa via Orlando.  In that amount of time I could've biked the distance from here to there and stopped to have a dip in one of the fresh-water springs in the national forest along the way.

On the other hand, if you're traveling between two major cities linked by an interstate, it's pretty wasteful NOT to take the bus.  Gainesville to Atlanta for example is 7 hours 20 minutes, only an hour or so more than driving a car, PLUS it's safer, PLUS they're almost always on time, PLUS you don't have to worry about where to leave your car when you get there, PLUS there's a MARTA (Atlanta metro) stop right there and PLUS you can get a lot of reading and thinking done along the way. 

The same is true going the other way, south from Gainesville to Tampa/St. Pete but last I rode that route the bus didn't use the interstate much but made lots of little meandering jogs to stop off at small towns along the way.  It is very scenic but it takes about twice the time as driving it.

Buses in the US are not as colorful nor as convenient as they are in other countries.  There's no doorman or small boy riding shotgun and yelling out the name of the destination in a voice that echoes through the misty morning of a third world bus depot where women in huipils cook fresh arepas or tortillas and serve strong lukewarm coffee for hungry travelers in hole-in-the-wall restaurants.   But you WILL share your ride with grandmothers and young people, hippies and recovering drug addicts.  And maybe if you're very lucky, there will be some long-haired romantic on board who will break out the guitar and sing you some beautiful old love songs along the way.

Survey says!

I remember one time, not long after George Jr. stole the 2000 election (or maybe it was after he was elected in 2004) I was despairing about the state of the world and what would become of it with such a man put in charge of the most powerful country on the planet and a friend of mine said, "I remember when Reagan was elected we felt the same way".  Really, I said, what did you do? I asked him.  "We got through it".  Just that.  We got through it.  And I felt better.  I began to see that this wasn't the first time something absolutely horrible had happened.  Terrible things have happened before and people get through it.  Some individuals might give up, but social change, collective action does not stop.

Now the end of the reign of Bush is within sight.  I thought this day would never come.  His poll numbers are in the pits; for the first time in my life the majority of the US population appear to be against war (I just wish they coulda figured it out sooner; woulda saved so many lives).  I went to an anti-war vigil a few weeks ago and it was nice to be on the winning side for a change.  Most passersby supported us.

We got through it.  Two terms the worst president in US history (thanks bin Laden for making the second term possible!) and we got through it.

This is project is still in its formative stages, so nothing's set in stone yet.  The idea is to talk to a bunch of activists, especially older people or people who've been active for many years and collect their stories about how they got to where they are today, what they've learned over the years and what keeps them going through difficult times.  Because we could use that kind of long-term perspective.

So I've interviewed five people so far.  They're sorta like my trial run --you know the practice interviews you do while still working out the kinks-- but I've gotten such good stuff tonight I really want to use it somehow.  You might get a transcript here or at least some excerpts.

I've got about five or six questions depending on how the interview was going and the interviews take about 5-10 minutes.

I recorded the interviews on a digital tape recorder.

The Questions:

1.) If you'd like, you can state your name and maybe your age.
2.) Where are you from?
3.) What do you do?
4.) How long have you done it?
5.) What was the defining moment or moments in your life when you felt like you really understood the world in a way you hadn't before?  How did it change you or what was your response to this shift in perspective?
6.) From your own personal experience being a political activist, working for political change, what was the most unexpected thing that you learned?
7.)  What's your take on the world now?
8.)  What would you say to young activists today to help them get through difficult times?

I think I'd like to change number 6 to this:

"From your own personal experience working for political change, what was the most surprising thing that you discovered about the process of working in an organized movement?"

That should yield some interesting responses!  I can't wait to ask people that one!

Maybe I'll post my own answers to the questions tomorrow so watch this space and --please-- if anyone out there reading this wants to contribute feel free to put your answers in the comment section below.

Scotland, PA and other remakes

I watched Scotland, PA last night and it was great!  I used to say that I didn't like remakes of Shakespeare but I think that's an old opinion that I need to revisit.  Back in my undergrad days I saw several remakes (on the stage and on the big screen) I didn't like.  Back then I was an English lit major and I was really into the bard.  I took two classes on him and read most of the plays.  I memorized the entire fourth act of Hamlet.  We had a Shakespeare in the park festival in St. Pete that I used to go to regularly and when I was at Clemson they had a festival too. 

The most memorable play I ever saw was one that was almost more like a dramatic reading of the play.  It wasn't a play in the sense that they had no costumes or stage scenery.  But no, they weren't naked!  They just wore simple black shirts and pants.  The only props they used were three black boxes.  Our professor explained that the elaborate costumes and scenery one normally sees in presentations of Shakespearian plays are more a product of the Victorian era anyway.  What this minimalist presentation did is strip away everything but the words themselves.  You could totally focus only on the language and the pure emotion displayed therein.  It was great.  I'd really like to see another presentation like this one day.

Anyway Scotland, PA is a good remake.  For me a good remake doesn't just represent the famous story; it adds something.  It has to be a good movie in and of its own right.  The best remake ever done in my book, is Apocolypse Now.  It's every bit as important as a work of art as is its inspiration (maybe even better because it lacks the 19th century racism Chinua Achebe pointed out)  The movie goes above and beyond just adapting Conrad's story about the evil inherent in human nature to a contemporary setting.  Coppola uses it to make cutting political commentary on important social issues of his time (the Vietnam war). 

Scotland, PA doesn't aspire to anything so lofty.  It's just an entertaining murder-comedy.  There's no risk of the audience member identifying uncomfortably with the murderous protagonists, but it is cute to think of the parallels of modern fiefdoms in the fast-food business and cheezy 70s popular culture. 

It made me want to have a mini-Shakespeare fest of my own so I put some old favorites on my list, some of which I want to see again:

• Richard III 1995 remake with Ian McKellen set in early 20th century facist Europe (one of my favorite remakes)
• Looking for Richard (my all time favorite documentary about the making of a fictional film version of Richard III with Al Pacino; excellent commentary giving context and background to one of Shakespeare's best plays)
• Hamlet the 1990 Mel Gibson version; I liked it then when I was a kid.  I'm not sure if I'd still like it as much now compared to....
• Hamlet the 1996 Kenneth Branagh version.  This one just blows every other version away.
• Romeo and Juliet Zeffirelli's 1968 classic.  Still the best... so beautiful!!
• The Merchant of Venice Al Pacino plays Shylock, the most problematic of Shakespeare's plays it's unavoidably anti-semitic but definitely makes you think and I love Al Pacino!
• Othello
• My Own Private Idaho... a funky adaptation of Henry IV

Adaptions I didn't like:

• Hamlet adapted to modern day NYC; so painfully bad I almost walked out

Adaptations I saw but thought were just so-so:

• Romeo and Juliet the Leonardo DiCaprio version.

Anyone have any other recommendations to see or avoid?  There are so many out there.

Some thoughts on loving

I was born and grew up in a small north central Florida town.  A "small town" in this case means about 30 to 40,000 people.  To me back then it seemed like a backwater.  It's about two hours from where I live now.  For a more detailed description of my hometown, my childhood home and my love/hate relationship with my home-state of Florida, see this post from February 2005.

There are three things in my life that I would say I have a love/hate relationship with: Christianity (and/or Catholicism, specifically), my country (the US), and my family.  Before I go further let me clarify what I mean by the term.  I'm using it more for the diametric opposition it conveys rather than for the actual terms.  Hate is such a strong word.  It's more like, I love these things immensely but at the same time they also sometimes (often?) hurt me and disappoint me. 

I love the teachings of Jesus and liberation theology and the idea of being in communion with God and other people.  I hate Crusades, intolerance and religion used as an excuse for patriarchy.  I love the people of this country and "good old American values" such as hardwork, (the working class!  I love that term!) and rooting for the underdog.  I hate to see us, as a country, grow greedy and fearful, militarized and corporatized and employ an imperialistic foreign policy that crushes other countries and causes much pain and suffering around the world.  I love my parents and my sisters and my nephews and niece.  I hate to see money and material wealth become such a strong focus of their lives and feel we lost something when we left the middle class for a more opulent lifestyle. 

But I don't really hate any of these things/people.  I just feel sad for them, sometimes betrayed by them and often disappointed in them.  But there's no doubt in my mind that I still love them. 

And every now and then they do the opposite: they make me proud.  Catholic priests martyred themselves for the poor in Central America and pressure the US to stop teaching torture techniques in US Army training schools.  It was a US president who instituted the New Deal and created the first real social safety nets in this country.  And however muddled our motives might have been, we did fight the Nazis (at least the ones in Europe and Asia in the 1930s).  And it was my Dad who once or twice dressed up as Santa Claus and arrived with hundreds of presents for poor kids at a low-income day care center and once gave some kid who used to work for him a full scholarship to a university.  That's when I know what it feels like to not only love these things/people but also to be really and truly proud of them.  It's such an amazing feeling.

So I was just thinking about love and relationships and how great it is that as we grow older our concept of love gets more nuanced and more mature (hopefully) so that where it once seemed impossible to reconcile deeply held beliefs in peace and justice and nonviolence with our love for people who sometimes act less than peace-fully, very unjustly and often violently, now it seems possible that these things aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. 

At some point I think we let go of that useless notion of deserving (what a useless concept! to imagine that we can decide who deserves what!  If the word dropped out of the English language altogether I think that in and of itself would be a revolution right there), we stop linking up love with desert and just let it go.  You don't love the world because it deserves to be loved.  You love the world because it's beautiful.  You love the world just because it is.  It has nothing to do with desert.

Which doesn't mean that we don't feel disappointed when our religions act intolerantly or our country acts like an imperiaist or our families act materialistic.  And it doesn't mean we shouldn't feel disappointed during those times.  It just means we never withdraw our love.  We speak out to the homophobic bishop, we protest aggressive foreign policies and we quietly and delicately reject, or decline to participate in, the materialism of our families, but we do all this out of love. 

To the extent that every so often in our lives, we can do these things in this way, well... I just think we will have arrived, even if temporarily at a truly mature, fully realized humanity.  I really do.  I don't think we stay in that place ever (or most of us don't anyway).  I think we just get lucky sometimes.  Or we practice and get better at it but for the most part I think its more of a temporary state of grace that we get blessed with every so often and it never lasts.  But it is possible.  And it is practicable.

Chico el mundo

That means small world and this is one of those stories that make you appreciate the amazing coincidences in life.  To begin I have to tell those of you who don't know me that when I was working in Colombia doing international accompaniment in and around Barrancabermeja the organization I worked for was very short staffed and after about six months and innumerable crises we were all very stressed out.  The head office asked us what we needed to keep us going.  I had a boyfriend in Bogota at the time and loved visiting the city.  I asked for a room of my own there in the capital --some place I could go to take  in country breaks.  So it was arranged.  I rented a room from a little old lady.  I furnished it with a bed, a desk and an old moth-eaten Oriental rug.  It was very cozy.

That was nearly 3 years ago now.  I've mentioned here before that a few months ago my friend Susie had some friends here in Gainesville who were from Colombia and one day a few months ago she introduced us and that's how I met Antonio.  He is planning on moving back to Bogota after being gone for ten years so she thought maybe it'd be good to get us together since I'm considering that as well.  Maybe we could look for a place together.  So we've been thinking about it and have become good friends and maybe such a thing will happen in the not so distant future.

Well Susie is visiting Gainesville at the moment and so the three of us are hanging out a lot and the other night we went to Toño's house for dinner because it was his brother's birthday.  Soon I was talking to his mom about houses and housing and neighborhoods in the city.  I told her about the neighborhood I used to live in.

"It's hard to find actually because even the taxi drivers don't know it.  It's near the Universidad Nacional.  Acevedo Tejado, it's called"  Really? she says, my aunt lives there.  I know exactly where you're talking about!  Wow, that's amazing.  It's a huge city.  7-8 million people.  I'm amazed she even knew the tiny neighborhood.   What's her name?  Ana, she said.  It didn't sound familiar.  At the moment I couldn't remember the name of the old lady I lived with, but it wasn't Ana.  Maria?  Margarita?  I asked where her aunt lived.  Near the pedestrian bridge?  Yes, there's a pedestrian bridge nearby.  Wow, what a coincidence.  I wished I could remember the name of the old lady so I could ask if she knew her.  Then Antonio said something about tia Anita and I was like that's it!  That's her name!  Anita!  Doña Anita!  Anita is just short for Ana, of course but for some reason it didn't click.  Toño thought it was just the power of suggestion.  It couldn't really be the same lady.  What are the chances?  Ana's a common name.  Describe the house, I said, what is her house like?  It sounded like the house where I stayed. 

At this point I couldn't stand it any longer.  I had to go home and get my scrapbook.  I had a picture of the house and a picture of her (which I took seriptiously because she would never let me take her picture).  It did look like the aunt's house but they couldn't be sure and the photo of her was not very clear.  Still.  I was convinced that I stayed with Toño's great aunt when I lived in Bogota.  Did she have a son who's an engineer?  Yes, she did.  But lots of people have sons who are engineers (it's maybe even more common there for people to be engineers than it is here; I'm not sure why.  A guy I dated there was an engineer too). 

The clencher came when Clara (Antonio's mom) told me that the son had a very unusual name but she couldn't remember what it was.  I told her that her son had taken me to look at an apartment he had for rent because I was considering staying in the city and getting my own place.  Aristepo!  That's his name!  It was his father's name, that's why they called him that!  And there it was.  Aristepo was the name of the man who took me to see an apartment on the northside of the city, the 50-something engineer son of the old lady I lived with.  Doña Anita was the same tia Ana of Antonio's mother!

How'd ya like that?  I lived with Toño's great aunt three years ago in Bogota.  Weird, eh?

Some thoughts on security

If I had to choose between being very poor or being very rich, though, I hope I would choose the former.

I was thinking about the insecurity of poverty and the false security of wealth.  When I think about being poor, sometimes I imagine what it would be like to be in the same situation as the homeless people I know here in my town.  I imagine being old and sick and not having access to medical care.  And that scares me. 

But then the most amazing thing happens.  I can't explain it but this is also what pulled me through when I was in Colombia.  When I was recently arrived in Colombia and was coping with living in such a violent city and living with so much fear and anxiety I had this dream.  I dreamt that everyone lived underground, like hobbits.  And as we went to visit the families that lived along the river each one had their home underground in a small dark cave.  They would invite us in and I was scared.  I have a certain tendency to claustrophobia and have had panic attacks in small dark places.  I didn't know what to do.  I was there to do a job that required me to visit people in their homes and here they all were living underground!  But then I had this realization: that was their home.  They lived there.  People lived like that in their hobbit holes every day.  And for some reason --for some inexplicable reason-- that was all I needed to know.  If they could do this --if this was part of the human experience-- well then of course I could do it too because I am also human!  I know it sounds silly but it was this realization that helped me go forward with something that terrified me.

And that's what I think now whenever I think of being elderly and poor and sick and dying on the street, in a darkened doorway or on a parkbench.  People do this.  This has been the human experience for millions.  This was life for them.  If they did it, I could do it too.  It's amazing but I really can face anything when I remember this.

So the point was that for this reason it's easier for me to choose the insecurity of poverty over the false security of wealth because insecurity connects me to the rest of humanity while the sense of security that comes from wealth (which is not real anyway) is all about separating me from the human experience.  It leads to isolation and despair. 

And also the realness of the insecurity of poverty, the honesty of it is helpful too.  It's honest about the nature of reality, the nature of the world, the nature of human kind.  The false security that wealth lends you is fragile.  It breaks so easily because it's not true.  And when it inevitably does eventually, it's easy to be devastated.  How can you feel really secure when that security is built on lies?  Only if you don't examine it very closely I think.  But then you still have the problem of how to cope when it breaks down.

Walkabout.

Did you ever see the movie Walkabout?  I did about five, six years ago.  It was during the summer when I worked picking blueberries with my boyfriend at the time, Chris.  Chris was tall and thin with blond hair and blue eyes.  Classic surfer dude type.

We lived way out in the middle of rural north Florida on a piece land owned by a state peace group, the Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice.  An old farmer donated the land which had been part of an old tree farm and they had just built a new community building out there.  Besides the new building, there was a falling down old cracker house with a wrap around porch where we made tie-dyed t-shirts and a double-wide trailer that served as an office and living quarters for the caretaker.  Which was Chris.  Another girl, --I think her name was Elena-- lived out there with us.  Besides taking care of the land, which involved keeping the tractor running, mowing the grass around the pecan trees and maintaining a languishing vegetable garden, we would work during the day on some nearby farms.  Picking blueberries, pruning pepper plants, potting caladiums.  And in the evenings we would rent movies from Joe's Movie Gallery in the stripmall in town.

Watching movies was about the only time we were ever inside that summer.  We showered outside.  We ate outside.  We slept outside in tents because it was cooler.  We had lots of sex outside.  We walked around naked outside.  One day a car pulled up before we could get our clothes on.  I think Elena talked to them.  They were the neighbors who were concerned about the heathen hippies who had moved in next door.  Eventually Chris made himself a sort of wrap around skirt to put on.  It was dark pink with lighter pink stars on it.  I still have some of the fabric.

I think I never was younger or healthier or more full of life than I was that summer.  Or maybe it just seems so to me tonight.  Hands working the bushes, picking delicate berries, $6 a bucket. The owner would come around in a golf cart to bring us drinks and sandwiches on white bread.  I remember burning my fingers on the haberno peppers at Farmer John's.  Eating raw corn still warm from the sun for the first time in my life.  And my friend Jimmy talking to me about philosophy while we potted thousands and thousands of caladiums.

---

I am reading Talk Talk by T.C. Boyle (link leads to a good summary on Bookslut.com....here's a link to a review from Powell's which I'm not sure I agree with yet).

Encounter with my neighbor

Tonight I had invited some friends over to watch one of those movies I got from the library, (we saw Closely Watched Trains which is supposed to be an example of Czech New Wave cinema, if you didn't know! lol) and it was pretty interesting, I guess, if a little bizarre, and so I'm hanging out with the guys (it's me, Tom, this guy Antonio who I'd never met before but he's a friend of a friend I've been trying to get together with lately and then Musa stopped by about half an hour into the film) and Sadie stuck her nose in everyone's face and licked their feet.  All of this is irrelevant information (except for the Czech New Wave cinema part) because what I'm about to tell you is what happened after the movie.

After the movie we were all hanging around outside, them getting ready to go, and I noticed the moon.  The moon is rather beautiful looking these days, so I had the idea that I wanted to try out the new tripod that Tom brought over for me on long term loan.  So I go inside and get the camera and I set it up in my neighbor Connie's driveway across the street and start taking pictures.  Well, Connie, she lives next door to these really weird people.  I mean, if I had to use a stereotype, I'd say they're rednecks.  When I moved in here I immediately met most of my neighbors.  I never got to meet them because they have a 8 foot high chainlink fence with barbed wire on top and 50 million dogs in there that are always having puppies.  Not the most welcoming place in the world.

The guy --a big, burly, bald white guy-- drives a tow truck.  He used to crank up his motorcycle every morning just before 7am on his way to work.  It's loud enough to wake all of east Gainesville (can they not make mufflers for motorcycles or do obnoxious people like this just not like to use them?)

Anyway I'm out there taking photos of the moon and I wanted Musa and Tom to accompany me (well because I live in the sort of neighborhood where you never know who's going to walk up to you in the middle of the night and I wanted to be able to just concentrate on my picture taking and not worry about what's going on around me) which they were fine with because they had a non-stop 3 hour conversation about bikes going on so it was just a matter of dragging them around with me while they talked.  And given what happened it's probably a good thing I did have them, even though I'm not sure how useful either one of them would be in a dangerous situation, they're both so laid back! (haha, sorry guys!)  I mean if someone came up to mug us, Musa would probably just get a big grin on his face and start asking them why they believe in guns and what their philosophy of life is and maybe he'd offer to give him a bicycle (he has lots that he fixes up and gives away) and Tom, shoot, Tom would probably have to think about it first ('cause he's the kind that thinks too much!) and then he'd say he'd have to go check his budget, then he'd go for a bike ride and then finally he'd come back with his new social analysis skills and start psychoanalyzing everyone's behavior until the agressor finally gives up and runs away screaming.  ... which, now that I think about it, would kind of serve the purpose anyway, wouldn't it?

Anyway, here's what happened (I know, I know, finally!)... Musa and Tom are getting bored with me taking pictures and they are wanting to go look at Musa's bike shed when the 50 million dogs in Mr. and Mrs. Redneck's yard start barking and then this voice calls out (it's Mr. Redneck) asking what the hell we think we're doing out there.  I'm joking around and laughing and not at all worried (yet) and I tell him we're taking pictures of the moon but then he says "well you better get the f--k away from my van!"

Huh?  Musa and Tom stop talking about bikes.  "I'm nowhere near your van!" I yell back at him.  I'm taking pictures, I mumble, and if he talks to me like that I'm not even going to send him a copy.  Silence.  I'm taking my picture.  Musa and Tom are standing there.  Then we hear noises.  They are I'm-coming-out-of-my-house-with-my-gun kind of noises.  I tell Musa and Tom they are not allowed to leave to go to Musa's house to look at bikes.  Tom asks if I know these people.  I say no.  He nods understandingly.  "Seem like friendly types" he says.

And then the gate is opening and I can hear him walking around the van to come kill us and what am I thinking about in this moment??  the camera!  I am thinking I want to hold onto it by the strap so if the tripod gets knocked over I can keep it from hitting the ground too hard.  But before I can act on this thought he's there in front of us with a steel pipe the size of a baseball bat. 

Now, let me set the scene for you here.  I'm 5'4 and 115 pounds.  I am armed with some rather delicate (and expensive) camera equipment.  He is over 6 foot, probably twice my weight and he's weilding a four foot long metal pipe.  What's my reaction?

I look at him incredulously and get sarcastic.  "I live across the street from you!  I'm taking a photograph of the friggin' moon and I'm not even in your driveway I'm in Connie's!' (or something like that, maybe Tom remembers exactly what I said 'cause I sure don't).  I just remember pointing out that I live across the street so if he bashes my head in with that thing the police won't have to look very far to find him!

I can't remember what he said but he turned and walked away.  Mrs. Redneck was behind him and she said "well, we have a right to be concerned!" and I said "and I have a right to take pictures!" (yeah, I know great come-back, eh? Well, shoot, would you've done any better??)

Can you imagine this 6 foot 200 pound tow-truck driver being so afraid of the world that he barracades himself in this fortress like house guarded by 50 million ugly dogs?  Gimme a break!

Calling Al Sharpton

Getting off the phone with my friend Pat:

Pat: Ok, anyway hey, I gotta go.  I gotta call Al Sharpton!
Me: [laughter]
Pat: I'm serious!  C'mon how many friends do you know that when they say they gotta call Al Sharpton they really mean it?

It's true.  Only Pat.  He really will call Al Sharpton.  Or at least try anyway.  He's been calling the man's office about 25 times a day (he's got OCD --obsessive compulsive disorder.  He calls everybody about 25 times a day!).

Indefatiguable, that's what he is.  Maybe I'll see that that gets put on his gravestone too.  Along with the already decided upon comment by his first grade teacher: "Patrick Fitpatrick [yes that's his real name!] talks too much and disturbs others!".  Never has been a more appropriate epigraph for a person.

So why is Pat calling Al Sharpton (whose office, by the way, according to Pat, is in Vegas)? 

Pat is calling Al Sharpton because he's supposed to come here as a guest speaker.  Sharpton is, not Pat.  (We have to put up with Pat speaking every other Monday night at the city commission meetings!)  Sharpton is coming to the O'Dome on the 12th.  And so Pat, showman that he is, wants to get the attention of the bigwigs in City Hall by having Sharpton lead a public rally in front the clock tower downtown to put the pressure on the city to do something for the homeless community.

"Don't you think we'd look good together in a photoshoot"? he interjects and I can see my friend Pat, this old white guy with a potbelly, fist raised in the air in the old school salute, grinning with Al Sharpton, who probably looks embarrassed.... Then again, on second thought, I bet they'd actually get along just great.  They have so much in common: they're two loud, outspoken, faith-based rabble rousers who make people uncomfortable. 

If anything comes of it, you heard it here first: Pat and Al... birds of a feather.  hahah... And you can bet I'll be the one to take that picture!! 

Fincas Organicas

So the farm turned out to be pretty cool.  I'm actually glad it wasn't a typical touristy thing to do.  I did all that ten years ago; I didn't really *need* to see another volcano, did I?  Though we drove right by the entrance to Irazu, the one closest to the city that was all covered in clouds when I went before so I kinda wanted to pop in just to see because it was a clear  morning but we were already late. 

Speaking of which, we drove by Irazu because we got lost about six times on the way.  Manuel kept asking for directions and people kept sending us off on the wrong road.  Isias kept up a steady stream of chatter the whole way; (he’s really warmed up to me now).  And then with all this zipping up and down mountains, the dog threw up in the car.  More accurately he threw up all over Betti who was none too happy with how things were going so far.  Apparently Pequeño has a history of carsickness so Isiais was instructed by his mom to try to keep his head out the window (!!) so the whole way I’m watching this eight year old trying to hold onto a squirmy dog who’s half out a window that’s open plenty wide enough for him to fall out of if Isias loses his grip or gets scared he’s gonna vomit and drops him.  After about five minutes of imagining this poor child traumatized by seeing his pooch get splattered all over the highway I suggested that maybe this wasn’t working out so well and could I offer up a plastic bag as an alternative?, whereupon Betti thanked me for the bag but didn’t take it, took the dog on her own lap where about forty-five minutes later he ralphed.  She threatened to leave the dog at the farm if we ever got there.  Isiais said no.  She said he could either have the dog or her which was it? and Isias replied “the dog”.

I found all of this immensely entertaining.  But, unfortunately, we eventually found the farm. 

No, I’m kidding; the farm was pretty cool.  It turned out to be an organic farm too so I immediately a.) felt a kinship there with hippy Gainesvillians and b.) thought of about half a dozen people who'd be appreciating the experience way more than I was.  Not to say I didn't think it was all very cool: they had earthworm beds, co-operative crops and a natural insecticide plant they called guacamayo (which actually is the word for macaw, you know, like the big parrots? but I forgot to ask why they called it that). 

And I re-discovered this fruit that I loved when I was in Colombia.  Don Ricardo the farmer there said that it’s called passion fruit in English but no these are not passion fruit.  I think we call maracuya passion fruit.  These are different.  We don’t really have these things up there, not even in the exotic foods section of the grocery store.  They’re about the size of muscadine grapes but they’re yellow.  And they come encased in a little paper bonnet.  (I’m sorry, believe it or not, it didn’t occur to me to take a photo but I found this one on the web!) Anyway I can’t believe I forgot about them because I used to eat these things by the bowlful.  And now I can’t even remember the Spanish word for the things so I can’t google it and show you a picture either. I remember!  They're uchuvas! They look like they’re a member of the nightshade family (ask me how I know that!  I don’t know that!  I’m not a plant person!  Which is all the more reason that if I’m right, y’all really should give me credit for being “muy de pilas” [sharp])!

Anyway, here’s the best part about the farm: they have had volunteers from abroad there in the past.  Not a lot; it’s not a huge farm, you know; but a few.  Enough for them to have a guest book, though most of the signers were from Costa Rica (they get help from a couple government ecological and environmental programs so visitors come out to check on things and all).  Don Ricardo and his daughter take stuff to the farmer’s market in San Jose so maybe people find them there too but the point is I have a question for my Gainesville friends: anyone interested in working on an organic farm in Costa Rica in exchange for free room and board?  It’s really nice.  Check out the photos.  And what’s the name of that network y’all have Willing Workers on Organic Farms or something?  I couldn’t remember.  But Randy, Jen, Sand, Musa... y’all should check it out.  I have their emails if you’re interested.

Remember how I said we were going to a farm because Manuel and Betti have a fondness for them?  Well, it’s a pretty serious fondness for Betti –she mentioned this 20 hectare farm her uncle has in Paraguay and how they should go down there and live on it.  Only she doesn’t have any particular knowledge of agriculture.  So that’s when you get these kids from up north to come down and work the land in exchange for food and lodging.  Later, on the way back she talked for half an hour about the idea.  Uno nunca sabe.  Maybe next year I'll be asking if anyone wants to go to Paraguay!

CPTers freed in Iraq

Thank God.

A meme

Where did this word "meme" come from?  Who coined it?  It reminds me of the machine that makes those grainy purply copied coloring sheets they handed out in kindergarten.  This, I guess, is a meme that comes from tiny little dots, a Tampa blog.  I altered it a little bit to fit what I feel like writing about today.

Four jobs I've had in my past:

• office assistant to an attorney whose clients lived on death row (why I know what Aileen Wurnous' handwriting looks like)
• painter of pottery for tourists in Savannah
• bookseller
• Subway sandwich maker (my first job when I was in high school)

Four things I want to do before 2006 is over

• write a really good short story (and maybe get it published)
  
• travel abroad again (and get that internship I applied for)
• do well in my last four classes, take the comps and finish this dang MA!
• have a really spectacular vegetable garden

Four things I say a lot (why would anyone want to know this?)

• "oh my goodness" (in English);
• "me entiendes?" (when conversing in Spanish);
• "mira" (in either language); and
• "jesus, why the hell can't they just say what they mean?" (when reading articles for school)

Four things I don't trust:

Medium rare laptop

Sometimes life is like the movies: just when you think the world is going end, a deus ex machina steps in and magically everything is okay.

Today I come rushing home because it's the end of the semester and I have finals coming up and I need to write two papers tonight so that I can go camping this holiday weekend with peace of mind so I get home and GIL says, hey honey, you're just in time!  I'm cooking french fries! 

Oh that's good, I say, because I haven't eaten yet and I have all this work to do.  Let me just put my bike away.  I walk into the kitchen and notice my computer's not on the kitchen table.  Which.  Means. It's.... oh, SHIT!!!!

I open the over door.  No fries.  Just one miserable looking laptop.  (STOP:  EXPLANATION OF WHY I KEEP MY LAPTOP IN THE OVEN: I keep it there because I live in a high crime area in a house with windows that don't even lock.  I figure the oven's actually a very safe place.  Who would think to look there for valuables? and if the house burns down the computer'd be okay.  The system worked just fine when I was living alone.)

My screams cause GIL to drop his book and come running. 

I accomplish all of the following in under 3.8 minutes:

• rant
• rave
• think of all the data I lost in addition to the machine itself
• wonder how I'll get my papers done
• cry
• hate myself for thinking the oven would be a good storage place
• hate GIL for not remembering that I keep it in there (I told him TWICE! you'd THINK he'd remember something like that!)
• fall to the floor beating my fists on my legs
• pace the room
• plan how to get a new laptop before the end of the semester even though both of us are so broke we can't even buy enough groceries to get us through the month
• resolve not to permanently ruin GIL's relationship with my parents by telling them that he cooked the laptop they gave me for Christmas
• yell at myself
• yell at GIL
• cancel our weekend plans

It's 2:30 in the afternoon.  I just got home from class have tons of work to do before we leave for the Thanksgiving holiday and I nearly lost my computer.  It was cooked.  In the oven.  At roughly 300 degrees.  For about five minutes.

Here's what it looks like:

But the story's not over.  I'm happy to report that I am not typing this from my boyfriend's computer. 

I'm working from the melted laptop you see above.  When we set it on the table to inspect the damage and noticed that the little green light was flashing.  We pressed the button.  Welcome, it says.  Then it starts Windows.  We breath a sigh of relief until it goes to a black screen and displays the following message:

"Your computer powered off because it overheated.  This may be caused by... [list of a number of things I don't remember just that oven cooking was not one of them].  Please wait while we readjust your settings".  Then the desktop appeared and it was back.  It even found the wireless signal and connected.

Can you believe it?  IT'S FINE!!!   The thing is completly fine!  Apparently, for as awful as it looks, the only melted thing is the casing.  I'm told we could just buy a new case for it.

I have never felt such raw, pure emotions as I felt then.  When you literally feel all the cliches associated with a particular feeling.  A flood of relief swept over me.  I felt weak at the knees.  I think I am still shaking.