Vacation. Because it's Summer here.

Summertime has rolled into town, creating mass confusion in the household over the appropriateness of eggnog and other holiday delights.  (We did the nog, if you're wondering, and it was right.)

Tomorrow, we head out in Vantastic for a whirlwind tour of the island.  This island.  The North Island.  We have food and the dog and a bed.  We're looking for sun, beaches and calm.  Vacation.  It's really all we ever wanted.

Speaking of The Go-Gos, it's my new year's resolution to learn all the songs off Beauty and the Beat and Vacation in case anyone ever needs a Skidmarks On My Heart-ready drummer.  It could happen.  You want a piece of that action?

You know you do.

WikiRebels: The Documentary

I have to wonder if WikiRebels, a documentary that aired on Swedish television earlier this month, will be aired on any stations in the U.S.  In any case, it doesn't matter, because it's available online.  See it in parts or see it as a whole at the link above.  But whatever you do, see it.  Whether Julian Assange will be convicted of the rape charges against him or not, whether the U.S. government will succeed in its misguided attempts to silence him or not, ultimately, is not important.  What matters is our knowledge, engagement and participation in the political structures that govern us.

And now, pardon me for a moment while I proselytize:

I watched the video Assange chose to call Collateral Murder for the first time in many months.  As I did the first time I saw it, I cried when the Apache helicopter crew fired their weapons on a group of men on a street below.  I cried for the victims and I cried for the brash American voices congratulating themselves for hitting their mark.  Everyone lost something in that moment, and I'm fairly certain that war is largely composed of just such moments, repeating in a loop until a decision is made to close it.  War is, those of us fortunate enough to avoid it are told, hell.  No joke.  So, how do we make a decision to end it?  After almost 9 years of fighting in Afghanistan and 7 in Iraq, I'm convinced that it is precisely the obscurity of both wars that allows them to persist.  Looking for a ready example of systemic obscurity?  How's this: the U.S. Air Force is denying its servicemembers access to websites and blogs that disseminate the WikiLeaks cables.

So, don't we know by now, when we close our eyes to the truth that our whole world can be destroyed.  In the dark, it's too easy to follow fear's motivation, to label freedoms as terrorist threats, to kill civilians in the name of irrational wars.  None of the fear imposed on us-- I swear I believe this-- should be considered necessary or acceptable.

If we don't have a chance to see what goes on in our names, then we can't know what is necessary or acceptable.  And if we don't take the opportunity to see what goes on when that information is made transparent, then are choosing fear over truth.

Demand transparency.

Thanks.

That'll be the end of my proselytizing.  For now.

People v. the Government

Today, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Liu Xiaobo of China for his fervent, non-violent struggle for human rights in his country.  The prizewinner was unavailable to collect his prize in Oslo because the Chinese government has incarcerated him for a period of 11 years as punishment for a petition he circulated calling for a multi-party system in Chinese government.  The Chinese government also refused to permit his wife to collect the prize for him, sentencing her to a period of house arrest, ostensibly for the precise purpose of keeping the notoriety of the Prize from influencing its population to celebrate a political prisoner.

A speech written by Liu Xiaobo and originally delivered before the court who sentenced him to his confinement was read at the Nobel ceremony.  Liu, in the same spirit of compassion toward those who would oppress him that must inspire his long fight for rights, wrote, "Hatred can rot away at a person's intelligence and conscience.  Enemy mentality will poison the spirit of a nation, incite cruel mortal struggles, destroy a society's tolerance and humanity, and hinder a nation's progress toward freedom and democracy."

In a fit of rage over the selection of Liu Xiaobo for the prize, China prohibited media in the country from all reporting of the Nobel committee's decision.  It sought company in its peevish indignation and lobbied other nations to boycott the prize, casting the prize as an symbol exclusive to western culture that should not be imposed on other nations with other values.  In a desperate attempt to claim autonomy over the delivery of impressive prizes, it even invented a new one: the Confucius Peace Prize.  Apparently, the first man selected to receive it turned it down, claiming that he'd never heard of it and didn't want it.  Poor China.  It probably wishes it could run away to Mars right now, where all that earthbound interest in human rights would be nice and irrelevant.

As the U.S. government prepares to level charges against Julian Assange, the founder and face of Wikileaks, for the website's distribution of leaked U.S. State Department cables, I can't help but draw comparisons between the two nations' churlish response to news that doesn't go its way.  Just as China would prefer to silence a writer and activist seeking political reform, so too, it seems, would the U.S. prefer to prevent the public's further access to the materials received and shared by Assange.  Even more interesting, aside from seeking transparency among governments as a fundamental necessity for true democratic governance, Assange really hasn't called for anything else.  He may feel one way or another about U.S. power but ultimately, his views of the U.S., as an Australian citizen, are inconsequential.  He cannot vote nor does he contribute to the American coffers as a taxpayer.  And yet.

And yet, many American politicians have called him a traitor.  (An impossible indictment as he is not a citizen of the country.)  They have called him a spy, despite the fact that he was given the material by an American military service member who simply copied files onto a CD and there doesn't seem to be any allegation or evidence that he requested the material beforehand.  And now, the U.S. Department of Justice is preparing to indict Assange under an antiquated law whose origin is is just another eerie skeleton in the deep, dark closet of American history and, even worse, whose applicability to the Wikileaks case is tenuous at best.  The Espionage Act of 1917 was the brainchild of a vulnerable and sick president, Woodrow Wilson, who sought to circumvent the First Amendment freedom of speech by criminalizing the protests of ordinary citizens-- educators, artists, activists-- against U.S. involvement in a war against Germany.

Now, the same poorly drafted, sadly intentioned, musty onion-skin Act has been slammed on the table before the ravenous, always combative powers-that-be-and-don't-want-to-not-be in the U.S.   (Senators Lieberman and Feinstein both want to see it employed against Assange.)  And the dust rising from its pages is helpfully obscuring the true facts of the Act's purpose and relevance to the matter at hand.

Like China, the U.S. apparently would prefer to sequester and confine the voices that speak against it.  Interestingly, however, the voice of Assange is not the issue here.  It's the documents that the U.S. government itself drafted and failed to secure from the prying and/or discontented eyes of its own employee.  Between the two regimes, perhaps the greatest similarity is the wish to appear competent even when incompetence is revealed.  And that, really, is just shameful.  These governments don't appear to be "of the people" but rather "over the people."  Therefore, it becomes necessary to shutdown any person, citizen or otherwise, who reminds the people of their obligation to become involved in government if they want it to change.

Pity.  Really, it's a pity.

Messenger v. Message

Really.  Is anyone surprised that the U.S. government maintains poorly guarded secrets about its diplomatic relationships with the rest of the world?  The country's ruling class can't tell its ass from an urgent need to rescue the middle class from predatory lenders who continue to feast on the rickety bones of families struggling to stay in shelter.  Thus, Congress carries on with all efforts to cover its ass but leaves families swinging floppy sticks at their mortgage holders from their front porches.

Most recently, we've seen the Senate hijack all commonsense and future financial security by stonewalling tax cuts for the middle class if the richest 1% of the population doesn't get their cut too.  Obama capitulated with the Republican hijackers, allowing them to ensure that those making over $564,000 per year will get at least $70,000 in tax savings instead of the paltry $27,000 in savings they would have seen had their tax bracket been increased from 33-35% to 36-39%.  By contrast, a family earning the median income in the country, or $55,000 per year will owe about $2,700 less than they might if the tax cuts were permitted to expire.

The best horrible thing about all this?  Congress and the White House agreed that the across the board tax cuts will simply be added to the national debt.  This, see, is the only way the politicians can cover their asses for the 2012 elections some 700 days off.

Crash.

Similarly, the Senate sits comfortably on its luscious, well guarded ass at yet another impasse-- this one confounding most observers who give a damn (including Condoleeza, HW and maybe a handful of U.S. citizens who really should tell their neighbors to get more involved) as it delays the ratification of a new treaty to reduce the nuclear arms capabilities of both the U.S. and its Cold War dance partner by another name, Russia.  The Senate Republicans argue that the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) is insufficient because, basically, they just don't know if Russia is going to play by its terms.  The same Republicans don't seem to remember that the treaty is a product of the quintessential Republican leadership of Ronald Reagan.  When it comes down to it, the tragedy of the New START is the same as that keeping the American people hamstrung by debt: the Republicans don't want to play with the Democrat kids on the playground because the Democrats could, potentially, swat their fat asses later... in that looming election still two years off.

So, it's with a heavy, indulgent hand that I turn to Wikileaks and all the meat it's tossing into the digital media, be it juicy (Putin and his minion, the Russian President, need some superhero underroos), dry (Prince Charles isn't as respectable as the Queen), stringy and unpalatable (Afghani leaders ask the U.S. to cover up the hiring of young dancing boys for American contractors), or really, really, really, shockingly rancid (American troops have been killing people in Yemen and Pakistan but the government denies it).  The information exposed in these cables may or may not help the U.S. if it chooses to pursue its neo-imperialist strategies around the world as it has since 9/11... that is, by obscuring its desperate pursuit of its enemies through a more desperate cultivation of fair weather friends who support those enemies in order to take advantage of the U.S.'s greatest vulnerabilities: oil addiction and a behemoth debt.  It probably won't help, actually, and that's why the freaky neocons and their lesser educated Tea Party friends are calling for the death of the messenger, rather than engaging in a more deliberate consideration of the information revealed.  Deliberation could expose too much information to a population that seems to prefer darkness to light.  Isn't this a distinct condition of an oppressed people?

Well, Julian Assange and his impressive network of skillful collaborators has presented the U.S., and I mean its people, not its government, with a really appealing opportunity.  We the People could make a choice to engage in our democracy, to review the shape of our nation's footprint internationally and to deliberate on that impression based on our national values.  We have a chance to kick our government in its over-protected ass, not for god or christ or the second amendment, but because we share a decent moral commonground that may not want to be oppressed or to oppress.  Right?

We aren't a bad people; we just don't seem to know better sometimes.  Now, we do.  Or, we have the chance to.  Read the cables.  Pass them around.  Think a little.  And don't call out for the death of a man who puts a light in your hand.  Instead, use the light.

The Wait for the Dog.

Five months and five days after we left her, she comes home.

For five long months, I've waited to see my dog.  She stayed behind in California while we moved on to find a good home, for ourselves, and really, for her.  Every house we considered was reviewed for benefits to the dog.  Every neighborhood, for its proximity to a dog run.

We settled in on the beach, not just for the views and and the incessant drone of the waves, but for the beckoning sandbox beyond our deck.  This would be her playground.

Today, the little dog is released from her 30-day confinement in quarantine.  We've visited with her often, at least twice a week but usually three, during that time.  In the first days, she was over-excited and confused to see us.  As time passed, she became hopeful that every visit was our last and that she would finally don her collar to depart.  She would sit patiently in front of the door during our visits, blocking our exit lest we forget what we came for.  Unfortunately, we had to explain to her uncomprehending, eternally devoted eyes, her sentence wasn't complete.  In the last week, I've fancied her new non-chalance as a resignation to her situation.  We arrive, she jumps and licks and tells us through wiggles and groans that she's okay but not totally satisfied with her digs.  She looks at the door and we say, "not yet."  And then she lets it go.  She heads onto her private, concrete patio to show us a toy, drink water, mutter at a bird hopping too close to the chainlink fence separating her from the best possible, but still inaccessible, world for her.  When we leave, she gets in bed and casts her dark eyes on us.  I read her disappointed compassion for us in them and I assure her that we've tried to be unselfish in this adventure, that she'll be happy at the beach, that we'll be together for the rest of her life, that she'll never have to sleep alone in a lonely, sparsely furnished kennel suite looking out on the hills and fields she'd love to romp.

Ah, but I know what she might think.  "Haven't I done this before?"

And that's when I commit, come what may, to staying on these islands.  Because, come what may, our dog shouldn't have to travel anymore.

Two more hours until they set her free.

Giving thanks

Down here, Thanksgiving isn't a holiday.

Of course it's not, silly; there was no massive campaign to share small-pox infested blankets with the Maori when those law-abiding Brits arrived to monitor from afar their more derelict brethren on the giant landmass to the west.  They didn't have to undertake that kind of deceptive inhumanity, having lugged enough virulent mayhem in their cultural and immunological baggage down to the islands after James Cook made his quick circle of the islands in 1769 to cause a massive reduction in the native population without it.

I'd like to think that the explorers and colonizers who trudged onto land in New Zealand and Australia may have finally come to grips with the karmic tragedy guaranteed by offering comfort in a snake's nest.  But, I'd be deceiving myself.  The colonizers offered a viral schmorgasbord to the inhabitants of these lands just as effectively as they did in the colonies that would become the U.S.  And the diseases were not always those of the body, but also those of the soul.  Or something like that.  Greed, prostitution, corruption probably took as great a toll as the physical exposure to previously unknown illnesses.

Okay, okay, I know.  Thanksgiving celebrates an earlier time; it's a memorial for the heady first days of colonization, when death loomed around the poorly constructed camps like an awkward colleague who isn't sure with which group he'll find his new best friend forever.  He likes the folks who've been around but these new folks are so weak and ill-prepared for the cold.  Surely, they'll hang with him.  Thank goodness for the Native Americans who let the white folks know that Death is kind of a giant nerd and the games he plays are really pretty lame.  Wasn't it nice of them to invite them to the cool kids' table all festively adorned by cornucopias just to make Death feel a little more insecure?  At least until someone tried to have a baby or something.  Poor Death, always left scuffing his heels when people get together in a friendly way.  Then again, ultimately, he always gets his way, doesn't he?

All this to wonder, isn't it amazing that I can hop from one violently claimed land to another, without suffering the violence or indeed even having to account for my forebears crap attitudes?  I'm thankful that time's passage helps heal deep sores, but more than that, I'm grateful for the occasional open smiles and frequent friendly questions about the path I took to join this tiny population on the bottom of the world.  I'm thankful that I'm not asked to leave quickly or ostracized to the point of anxiety to find my own escape route.  Most of all, I'm really, really happy that no one is offering a welcome basket filled with infested blankets.  That's really the best part of being able to live overseas.


Anyhoo, all this to say, isn't it amazing that I can continue to

 

It's Time.

The bridge.  So much easier to cross than time.

Monday mornings are the hardest but not for all the reasons they should be.  I don't have to rush into the office or wonder about the stacks of work I left for myself on Friday.  Mondays aren't hard because I suddenly have to wake up early or because I haven't picked up the dry cleaning.  They used to be the day of labor that popped out the screeching, paper-suckling baby who would grow, mature and die by week's end.  Now, Mondays are no more emblematic of the beginning of some transient, professional journey than my well-worn sheepskin boots are of my readiness to run a marathon.

These days, Monday kicks me in the pants for reasons wholly unrelated to work or stress or voicemail messages.  More than anything else, Monday is more like my caustic grandma who insisted on reminding me of the vast separation between me and the oodles of cousins who beat me to her dilapidated yard by about 8 years.  "You'll never know what it was like to play with them, granddaughter," she said though I usually thought she was gargling.  "They had each other.  And you have no one to play with."  She would put some prunes in a plastic bowl and push them into my chest until the plastic folded over on itself.  "Now, get out there so I can watch my stories."

Nowadays, Monday is nothing more than a reminder that over here, camping so close to the international dateline, I am so far ahead of the rest of the world that I can't really play with it.  While facebook messages and emails remind me that I should be picnicking in a sunny corner of the park, or sipping a beer while playing scrabble on someone's ipad, or wandering mindlessly over sidewalks I've walked a million times before but never on this very Sunday which makes everything different and new, my calendar and solitude require that I suck up the fun and save it for later in the week.  Shit, I can't even stream Monday morning radio to jumpstart the calm stoicism demanded by the five days between the weekend.  The best I can ask from Sunday radio streaming into a Monday morning is Guy Noir and he doesn't tell me how the market is doing in clear terms.  Oh, wait, the market isn't even open.

On the other side of the river, we saw something.

This Monday, I vowed to do my best to integrate with the hubbub of the actual Monday transpiring beyond my ocean view.  I got up and surged into the week, hoping I wouldn't be spotted immediately as an intruder.  Strangely, I found no traffic out there, no groaners and not a whiff of the slightly despondent, Monday frenzy that I remember from my working days.

I came home and remembered my grandma.  I don't think of her often, but today, on this very isolated and distant Monday, I'm sending a shout through the ether to her man-hungry, perfectly coiffed soul.  Nice prep, Grandma.  I am keenly aware of my separation from the other kids.

Highest and Best Use

Oh, woe is this friggin' world.  Not me, just the world.  Not even me in this world.  If it was me in this world that we were talking about, I would write, "Oh, hmm is me."  These days, I'm just wondering how it all keeps spinning.  And since the sun continues to rise over my sleeping eyes every morning around 6, I shouldn't really wonder about the spinning part as much as the other, less important stuff, like financial stability and quality of life.

I read two articles out of the New York Times today and then closed the browser, deciding that none of the other news fit to print was worthy of a read after the messages conveyed in those two timely gems.

I read this one first: Kindness of a Stranger Still Resonates.  In the midst of the Great Depression, an era so precisely named that no one wants to try it on again despite its possible fit, a Jewish refugee from Romania who'd made a small personal fortune in clothing decided to share a bit of it to those less fortunate.  He placed an ad in the local paper offering cash help in terrible times in exchange for brief letters describing the need.  People wrote about their inability to provide food or clothing for their families.  He made about 150 anonymous gifts in response to the letters he received, most for as little as $5.  He promised that no one would ever know about his generosity, confirming that he would hold the names of everyone who wrote to him in confidence until "the very end."

The other article was At Legal Fringe, Empty Houses Go To the Needy.  It highlights the forward thinking move of a born-again Christian dude in Florida who found an old law permitting adverse possession of unclaimed real property and decided to pursue it to the benefit of homeless families in North Lauderdale.  He's now being charged with fraud for accepting rent on properties he doesn't own and is facing up to 15 years in prison.  The rent he charged was well below market rate and often involved maintenance to the abandoned and deteriorating houses in lieu of dollars.  He thought it made sense to get folks into the properties and made sure to send letters to each of the banks and owners of record of the 20 properties he claimed, notifying them of his intentions.  He only got one response.  The authorities wish to remind us that his acts, while possibly honorable, also constitute trespassing.  The Floridian Robin Hood makes no claim to perfect charity.  He simply wanted to find an honest way to make a living while he helped some people out.  He even told his tenants that he didn't own the properties and contacted them when he was arrested to advise that they stop paying any rent to him.

Somewhere, in the gulf of time separating these two stories, the narrow, ruddy path of self-sufficiency and personal honor has been lost to the overgrowth of large, powerful, moneyed interests.  Adverse possession is one of the few, fine property law concepts I remember well from law school (with my sincere apologies to Professor J. Doobie aka Dobey aka Dobris).  It's a process that allows ownership of unused, unattended property to be placed into the hands of someone who has committed to tending the land in the manner of an owner, in the absence of the true owner.  Call it squatters' rights.

The concept made perfect sense to me in law school (although not in the precise terms that would have allowed me to answer Dobey's persistent queries on the subject).   If the true owner ain't around to claim the place, and someone moves on in to make a house a home, then then after a period of years, the new guy should win the prize-- ownership!  To accumulate points toward the prize over the years, the new guy would have been paying taxes, utilities, mowing the lawn, placing a hand-carved, rustic wooden mailbox he bought at the fair with his name engraved on the side.  Everyone knew he was there, enjoyed his monthly potlucks and good neighbor plates of Christmas cookies.   The new guy put the house to its highest and best use, which ultimately, I think, is the point of property law.  Thus, he can keep it.

These days, we get someone looking to put some houses to use, and to put some people who need houses into a decent situation, and he's looking at prison time.  The worst part is that the folks who moved into the houses understood the situation but found it highly preferable to waiting on reluctant social service workers or stagnant public housing wait lists for their shelter.  Instead, they moved in, cleaned up and made friends with their new neighbors.

So, if the banks and the true owners didn't respond to our heroic Christian dude's letters, and the neighbors are happy to see the nuisance house on the block spruced up, who's complaining about the dude's plan of action?  It seems to me that the authorities could have adopted the same promise of the Romanian refugee who saw how he could offer a helping hand: no one needs to know until the very end.

Blah Blah Bloviation.

Check out Exodus 7:20, yo.

Though I tried, I couldn't close my ears to the U.S. election results.  The pundits and media have called it a "red tide" which, surprisingly but absurdly, is apt.  A red tide has swept the nation.  Does no one know that a red tide was one of the first plagues of Egypt and described in Exodus as "waters... turned to blood"?  Prepare your antibiotics.  Unless, of course, you don't have health insurance.  In that case, maybe get a snorkel and wash frequently?

This morning, Hillary Clinton arrived in Wellington.  Her large plane sits on the runway across the bay from our house, dwarfing the 737s clustered around the nearby terminal.  I can see the American flag on its tall tail from where I sit.  (No, I can't see Russia.)  I read that the new Green Party mayor of Wellington rode her bike (in her trusty high visibility vest) to the airport at 5 this morning to meet her.  How sweet and impressive given the pics I've seen of Mayor Wade-Brown in her fitted cream dress greeting Hillary (in a pressed brown pantsuit, of course).  I applaud Hillary for scheduling a quick stay in friendly New Zealand in the days following the Republican trouncing at home.  Her New Zealand colleagues are sure to pose loads of leading questions about the apparent under-education of the teabaggers to which Hillary can respond with exasperated affirmations.  "No shit," I hope she replies.  And, "what the fuck, can I get a visa?"

These days, I'm procrastinating with zeal.  Instead of working through a climactic couple of chapters that have been exhaustively outlined and considered, I'm writing quaint little essays about my protagonist's disinterest in her mother's new dog and long paragraphs about the squeak of wheelchair wheels on linoleum.  I've decided to accept these diversionary tactics as antidotes to doubt, fear, confusion and maybe a little reluctance to see my plot climb over the ramp toward a resolution.

Who cares, though, right?  With a red tide approaching, it's probably best to scramble toward higher ground.  Oh wait, we already did that.  Thank goodness.

There's good news, I suppose.  Two neo-Nazis lost their bid for random municipal seats in Southern California.  Also, masturbators all over Delaware, secure in their self-love, voted to keep Christine O'Donnell out of the Senate.  Phew.

Congratulations, America, for eschewing facts once again in favor of fear.  As always, the limited education of my country people astounds.  Go team.

Shhh.

Well hello there,

I've been reading through recent facebook posts and trying to determine if those who habitually post positive thought messages-- of the dream it, see it, be it variety-- are actually getting any more done in their days than I am.  They post on facebook more than I do, and the more time I spend on facebook the less productive I am.  Really.  No joke.  But, maybe those affirmations get their engines going?  Maybe they're actually dreaming, seeing and being to fulfill their hearts' greatest desires?  Could it be so friggin' simple?  No way.

On the tail of a tale I shared with a new friend, about a humorous experience I'd had in a brief courtship with a local music store's rock band workshop, the new friend suggested that I imagine the appearance of perfectly compatible musicians, anticipate their cool roll into my life, and then wait patiently for their arrival.  I didn't question her or push for the specifics required to see the plan fulfilled; I just laughed.  She related a story of a woman she'd met who subscribed to the Oprah-advertised idea of "The Secret."  Since watching a video that discloses this secret, the woman no longer has any trouble finding parking.  Who knew that the solution to life's greatest mysteries would provide such advantage?  My friend was quick to include, "and when Sue can't find a parking space, she simply goes to another store."  Ah, the secret is revealed.  Its power thrives in the concession to its fallibility.

The secret, I think.

I looked up The Secret and read through the five pages of its eponymous book offered for free on its site.  The ancients knew this shit, I understand, from Plato and Socrates to Da Vinci to Einstein.  And now, a bunch of motivational speakers and life coaches peddle it.  I didn't get the impression that they do much else, unlike their illustrious, secret-keeping forebears.  As best I can tell, it's all about magnets.  Not ball bearings.  Magnets.

So, does it work?  Should I start laying out irresistible Reese's Pieces now to attract agents and book publishers or at least a couple of paying gigs to me?  Or is that not enough?  What if I combine it with witty bon mots on my facebook status update?  Maybe I should also surround myself with kitten art so I remember to hang in there.

I suppose there could be something to the idea of imagining great success, but really.  Isn't it all just a major distraction?  And if you can't imagine yourself crushed and mangled by the possible downside of wish fulfillment, then I think you were just raised in a more functional, power-endowing way.  And that, in the end, is probably the greatest secret, except, it really isn't one.  It's just fate.

But fate doesn't sell.

The hard part?

Maybe the hardest part of finishing this bitch of a self-assignment will be finding the peace to do so.  What I'm finding here, in my nicely appointed workspace with an unbeatable view of the bay, is that all the personal shit interferes much more completely when there isn't the monetary incentive to forget it and get some real work done.  Jobs are a great palliative, I think.

Or maybe that's all part of it.

All I know for sure at this point is that it sucks to wonder to the exclusion of all rational thought whether the quick and gusty wind outside will take me back home before I have a chance to get a first draft done.

Knowledge defiance

At this point in my life, I'm not doing much.  Most of the time, I'm trying to finish this novel I'm writing. It's about kids who die.  It's occasionally funny.  For about seven hours a day, I spend most of my time either writing it or wondering whether it'll ever end.

Okay, I'll concede, I do some other stuff.  I swim and do yoga a bunch.  In the afternoons, I like to melt dark chocolate and pour it into molds so I can arrange for my own flavor fantasies, like peanut butter or cherries or basil ganache, rather than pushing my immature American taste buds to accept so much citrus flavored chocolate.  On Mondays, I attend a jewelry class wherein I've made a fistful of rings but only finished one and it's a tad big for my portliest finger.  When the mood strikes, I may pack it all in and scramble through the sand-laced wind to hunker down at a table by the window at Maranui down the road.  If they've got it, I'll order a sticky date cake and eat it over a period of two hours or until the cafe closes at five.  I'm very good at savoring.  I also clean and cook and and obsess about money and hang laundry to dry so my obsession doesn't paralyze me.

In between all this, I ponder.  I sit myself on the edge of our living room with my feet on the deck and my ass in the house and I settle in for a long think.  It's time well spent, I think, because I'm pretty sure it's healthy to have a nice bit of thinking under a sky that's as ever changing as the ocean underneath it.  

But wait, there's more.  I almost started volunteering but I didn't because I don't really want to help someone file papers when I could be making chocolate, smelling half-dry laundry or even writing.  I almost played drums with a ragtag team of musically challenged adults who claimed to have never heard The Pretenders, but I backed out of that one too.   The reasons should be clear.  And recently, I contemplated a course in massage, figuring that the money I've spent on my education to date really should not be compounded by any further pursuits that won't bring some sort of recompense in the door.  After careful consideration, I've postponed the massage course as well since, well, really, I am trying to finish a novel and I'm only four months into my six month window for its completion.  That, and I'm still unsure if I want to touch anyone who might ask for me to do so.  I kind of like having a say in the matter.

I say all this because I've been thinking all day about the persistent and seemingly increasing unwillingness of the American mainstream to take a moment to have a really good think.  Or, maybe I'm jumping to the wrong conclusion but everything I read about the upcoming U.S. elections and the various policy issues hamstrung by the partisan rigor in all political conversation leads me to believe that the nation's cumulative ability to reason has jumped the shark.  We should be nauseous and ashamed to hear Senate candidates who celebrate their willful ignorance of the Constitution just as I am nauseous and ashamed to hear the continuing demonization of last year's successful attempt to begin health care reform for the population.  The fact that the faces of so many of those who protest the goal of ensuring access to care for everyone are bloated and flushed doesn't help with the nausea.  Apparently, the deficit of thought has helped to annihilate self-interest as well.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I should just book a flight to DC to revel with like minds at the Rally To Restore Sanity.  But, I'm a skeptic, and an optimistic one at that.  I think it's gonna take more than a rally to oppose the knowledge defiance in my fair nation.  It's going to take education, stability and above all, a great, big huzzah for moments spent in quiet rumination.  Spending as much time as I do sitting beside endlessly crashing waves, I can promise you that the contemplation really doesn't get old and doesn't seem to be capable of excess.

(Dis)connected

Over drinks a couple nights ago-- a deathly sweet caipirinha for me, a beer for my friend-- I wondered aloud about the necessity of remaining connected to my American political roots.  The musing was intended to be playful; I could no more easily surrender my deep dissatisfaction with governance than I would give up my mother.  While both may frustrate, they each infused my blood with its liveliest catalysts.

The consideration came in response to my friend's easy, proud confession to her limited knowledge of the willfully (blissfully?) ignorant antics of the Tea Party movement at home.  My friend earned her stripes in one of the United States, like me, but after making her way for seven years on this small island rising like a benign mole on the shadowed edge of the earth's plump, round bottom, she's converted her stripes to a more flattering, less restricted print.  I like her color choices these days as well as the long strand of pearls she wears, maybe to commemorate the bits of wisdom she's come upon since exchanging the grime of LA for the captivating view of the snow-capped peaks of the South Island from her kitchen window.  Maybe home is where the view is, where such mesmerizing outlooks aren't sullied by the paralyzed will of representatives too enamored with their power to recall their mandate.  Maybe my friend is home.

In the back room of the festive Brazilian bar, folks in business casual learned salsa to quiet music.  I checked on their progress while my friend attended to drinks and found them impressively competent.  Rather than opting for beer and a bench, they'd chosen to stiffly sway their hips in Dockers and pencil skirts.  They followed instructions well and everyone moved in time.

When we reconvened our conversation, my friend urged me to let it all go.  "It isn't relevant," she advised.  "Better to know the sale price of wool."  When I attempted to explain that a hefty percentage of my identity-- that part controlled by the cynical but enthusiastic animus compelling my blood on its course-- had been dedicated to the hyper-vigilant observation of and subsequent bellyaching about all the wrenches tossed flippantly into the poorly maintained works of our government, the one we'd been born under, my friend gave me a bewildered look and said, "I don't even need to understand that anymore."

Well, no, she doesn't, because, as we discussed over the rims of our glasses, moaning about John Key, the somewhat conservative Prime Minister of these fair bumps in the ocean, is like complaining that the ocean outside my window is just too loud.  While he ain't riding his bike to work to generate power for his grey water-producing washing machine, he's probably more capable of pushing a Democrat's agenda than the current House and Senate in the U.S.  My friend then encouraged me to forego American media.  I thought about the menagerie of Kiwiana I could introduce into the time and space left over by the abandonment.  I could learn to make lamingtons; I might figure out how to carry my 12 foot paddleboard in the wind; I could solve the mystery of the sizing of women's pants; I might even make a friend.

Of course, all of that will probably come in time.  I think my residency application will require the icing of a lamington as well as a cold water plunge.

The truth, however nerdy it may be, is this.  Seeing the rhetoric of the most recent batch of political aspirants looking to wrest control of the country from the current cohort of sticky-fingered pocket-divers, I'm unwilling to look away.  I may be inconsequential and distant (in either order), but I'm a witness.

A candidate for Senate from Kentucky is charging up his base by calling up the President's gaffe prior to his election about middle Americans holding tightly to their guns and religion.  The candidate is calling on guns, religion AND ammunition.  For what?  To shoot someone?  Who does he want killed or severely injured and forever traumatized?  Or is for the whimpering, liberal puppies who seek to restore social justice without asking if it ever existed?

Other congressional candidates are lauding their inexperience in the political world as their highest qualification for the job.  Even those who do have experience in the political world are denying it.  Democrats and Republicans alike wave their corporate CVs as proof of their ability to "grow jobs" while they make ridiculous statements like, "people who have never been in the business world-- they don't know how to run a business."  Again, my whipping boy of the moment: Rand Paul.   Does he think that the converse in this situation doesn't hold true?  Do people who have never been in the political world know how to run the government?  And by that, I mean, the government as it exists today?  With its three co-equal branches and mind-numbing administrative largesse stumbling all over its own girth to confront the svelte corporate beasts who would rather see it all privatized?  (And don't get all excited that maybe the companies could do it all better; after all, they're the svelte beasts, right?  They're only so trim because they don't bear the same responsibilities to all of us as the government does.  They're the childless women, the carefree bachelors.  They don't have to care about other people's kids.  That's what government of and by and for the people is supposed to do.)

None of this is to say that folks without prior experience can't do the job, but shouldn't it be a prerequisite that we see some sort of policy know-how and maybe an understanding of our system of government that demonstrates passage of tenth grade civics?

Oh well.  Maybe my friend is right.  It's all irrelevant from here.  And maybe it doesn't actually matter if we pay attention or not, bear witness or not.  What's becoming more clear is that while the Democrats did a good job of inspiring voter participation in 2008, the Tea Party has trumped them in 2010 by turning possible voters into viable, if foolish, candidates.  Good on them.  That's they way to take over government.

Maybe then, I'll look away and commit to disconnection.  I would probably grieve a little first.

Happy to be here.

The weekend was long and that was enough in itself to make it sweet.

The Foxton windmill.

These days, a weekend isn't as attractive for the break it provides but the company.  And the prospect of a long weekend, with someone, got me all antsy to slow down time, to make it endure, so we could see the heights and verdant valleys of the country without rush or worry.  It also meant another road trip, this time up the North Island on State Highway One to Rotorua.  

The One follows a path that snakes out of Wellington under the eaves of old wood and modern glass box houses perched on the hillside, swings on steep cliffs over the rambunctious Tasman Sea, turns inland from the western Kapiti Coast and weaves through tiny towns with more welcome signs than people and more sheep than anything else.  The towns abruptly disappear with the rise of the arid plateau, smeared like a warm palette by the brown and magenta brush that surrounds the active Mt. Ngauruhoe volcano.  This is the military training site of New Zealand but there's very little evidence of any environmental impact by the army's activity.  Beyond the volcano, the road descends toward Lake Taupo, a huge body of water resting on a winding shore of floating pumice stone.   Just north of Taupo, the steam starts to rise and the sulphuric stink of the earth's gassy belly overwhelms the smell of cut spring grass and evergreen.  Clusters of swollen, grassy bumps litter the hillsides, contusions caused by the restless fault lines intersecting and clashing beneath the region.

Rotorua is the navel of the island, a geologically hyperactive spot that makes clear the ongoing gestation of the island.  Thermal pools boil the sediment that exploded skyward in the last volcanic eruption and rained over the newly created crust that resurfaced the land.  Lakes of effervescent surface water colored by the blood red, purple and hard-boiled yellow of ferrous oxide, magnesium oxide and sulphur send noxious steam into thriving, anachronistic fern gulches.

We wandered paths beside the pools, spotting tiny fumaroles that spit hot bubbles underfoot.  We stared at mesmerizing mud pits roiling at a high boil and sending balloons of mud six feet in the air before they popped and smattered the surface.  We got used to the smell and ultimately bathed in hot sulphur pools.  Afterward, we felt silky soft and unworried about body odor.

Beside the insanity of the earth's gastric functions, Rotorua offered a carnival, black swans and their fuzzy, ugly ducklings, absolutely decent Mexican food at Sabroso and a fantastic place to stay at the Regency.  Fireworks burst after I finished my margarita and families spilled onto the sidewalk to watch.  We ate breakfast watching teenage boys practicing their haka on a street corner and we raced each other on tubular recumbent bikes hanging on a monorail.  (I was one second off the record for my age group.  Watch out Sarah Jane of Australia: I will best you yet.)  When we left, I wished there could have been a resort dance or ice cream social to celebrate the time we all got to spend together milling around the friendliest caustic place I've ever visited.  We could have compared adjectives for the smell and the relaxation it seemed to inspire.

Wai-o-tapu.

On the long road home, I thought a little about the cows I'd seen collapsing on their spindly legs to nestle into the long, green grass in the afternoon sun.  I wondered about the little lambs with their long tails that scurried away from traffic toward the belly of their mothers.  The sun had set slowly over a vast field burnished by the late light.  I remembered that coming home from a road trip used to mean traffic on an interstate moving angrily toward a place usually less beautiful than the vacation offered.

This time, we returned to our house on the ocean at high tide.  The waves were loud against the deck and the salt smell was everywhere.

Many kinds of failure.

I failed.  Or I succeeded for a very short time.  You choose.  My facebook break lasted 24 hours.  My brief reprieve illuminated the degree of duty I've accepted through the silly functions of the site.  There were messages I had to answer, wall posts that required a comment, tagged photos of me that I needed to review to be sure I'm not a hamster again.  I didn't like being a hamster that time.  I don't think I look like a hamster at all.  I'm barely hairy, except in the winter, and even then, it's light.  I swear.

Anyhoo, I'm accepting facebook but imposing strict rules of play on myself.  The discipline this will require is way more soul-enriching, or something, than total abstinence.

How's this for an uncomfortable non sequitur?  It's about failure, so it's on topic, even if it doesn't feel like it to you.

Over the weekend, I tried my fifth hot chocolate from a super cool, exceptionally stylish, specialty chocolate shop in Wellington called Ciocco.  The guy behind the bar is always kind, and if there are two of them, they are equally welcoming, pleasant and enthusiastic in their pitch for chocolate.  They smile and explain the rules of the joint regardless of your interest or prior knowledge.

The deal is: the shop doesn't sell a plain cup of cocoa.  The customer has to choose a flavour (that's right, with a 'u') from a list scrawled on a mirror behind the counter.  How about cardamom white chocolate?  Chili dark?  Tangerine milk?  Earl grey dark?  If you stay in the store, they lob a lump of chocolate into your cup, pour in some milk and give you a metal spoon/straw contraption that allows you to stir and suck, all at the same time.  The spraw, or stroon if you prefer, is a fun tool for a half minute but quickly inspired my scorn when I realized I'd sucked most of my chocolate blob out of my milk and had nothing but froth to entertain me while my parking time awaited expiration.   

As was the case with the first four, on Sunday, I got a nasty cup of ill prepared milk poured gently over a dab of chocolate that barely offered its color to the drink.  I took a sip, frowned to feel the burn of the milk's heat over the bite of chili and muttered when I couldn't discern the chocolate over the chili.  Everything about the taste was moderate while the heat of the milk burned my tongue.  I stirred and stirred, hoping to liberate any chocolate remnants from the deep and to cool the drink down.  Nothing helped.  I put my cup down to wait for a minute.  Maybe it had to brew.  I tasted again and it sucked, just like before.  If I'd had a stroon, I would have considered using it to fire a spitball at the window of Ciocco.  I was mad.  I wouldn't really do that, unless maybe the drink had tapioca at the bottom of the cup, and then I might, but not at a window.  Only at a friend.  Or maybe at a Humvee. 

I'd given it another shot and Ciocco failed me.  I tossed my cup and found a real hot chocolate, with marshmallows and the actual taste of bittersweet chocolate, down the street.  I commiserated with the barista, another coffee-free kinda guy who knew what it meant to have good, thick, rich, steaming liquid chocolate.  I also told him about my experience at Ciocco, so he would know what I know.

And now, my direct appeal.

To Ciocco: get it together.  I've wasted 25 bucks on you, hoping that the idea of your chocolate would match up with its flavor.  I wanted to support you, Ciocco.  I wanted you to have it all.  But, I'm done with you, Ciocco.  I've tasted your drinks and sampled your bars.  Your chocolate doesn't taste good, and I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you, but you need to get the taste right instead of relying on your estimable status as the only superfly specialty chocolate store in town.  Try one of your drinks.  I'm pretty sure you won't like it. 

Fish out of water.

When I open my bleary eyes to the glaring beam of sunlight assailing my room every morning, I don't greet the day with an intention to wile away the finite minutes of my precious life reading status updates.  I don't roll over sleepily self-absorbed with my future plans and mutter, "yes, please, facebook."  I don't.  I wouldn't.  I refuse.

Candidly, I don't care about most of the status messages I read.  They either don't apply to anything in which I'm marginally interested or they're written by someone with whom I have only a tangential relationship.  Maybe you interned for me years ago?  Maybe you and I sat through Con Law together?  We've probably never shared an afternoon in the sun, our beers warming in the sun.

And yet.

These days, I awake to the light with the fanciful ambition to write 3000 good words by nightfall.  Okay, I may bargain, I'll take 2500, a blog post and a few emails.  And I'll make chocolates.  I roll toward the empty but still warm space to my left and gaze out the window for a moment of gratitude that I no longer have to hop into uncomfortable pants and scurry into an office to hear voicemails of scared, worried, disgruntled, abused, or anxious clients.  I fold back the covers, stuff my feet into de rigueur sheepskin boots and launch myself down the stairs for tea.  Mornings: they are so ripe with prospect.  When I open the door to the ocean air, I'm certain I could knock out my entire word count by noon.  I could.

But then, I don't.  When my machine lights up, I don't jump into my business the way I used to jump into the business of others in efficient six minute intervals; instead, I cannonball into the shallow pool of banal updates on facebook and I wade around like an attention deficit child playing Marco Polo.  Inevitably, I forget if I'm looking for friends or avoiding them and I settle on some stupid update in surrender.  Megan is "a fish out of water." As I scroll up and down, refreshing for the most recent bit of posted prattle, I wonder, "is this the best we can do?" and "what the fuck am I doing with my life?"  And then I decide to like something, because that's a nice thing to do, I guess.

In general, with few exceptions, facebook doesn't offer me a smite of inspiration or a hint of pivotal information.  I've learned that co-workers would rather be elsewhere, that old acquaintances have children I will never meet and that Pee Wee Herman is far too prolific a poster.  There are those few redemptive qualities that merit mention: it's easy to remember birthdays and to sneak around in lives I wouldn't dare to enter.  I also like to peruse the photo albums of strangers; so much hammy fun seems to brew when people aren't sitting in front of facebook.  But I don't always feel right in celebrating these perks.  I'd rather see people on their birthdays, hug them, offer them a chocolate.  I'd rather not trespass on alien lands without an express invitation.  Really.

So, why do I keep going back?  Facebook offers persistent distraction, aggravating repetition, vapid nonsensical banter of unknowns and a sad realization that my online friends all seem to access the same media sources for their posts-- the same damn sources I'll eventually wander toward after confirming that none of my friends is winning a Nobel Prize or about to show up at my door.  I don't really want to do it anymore.  And I'm pretty sure it wouldn't matter if I didn't, at least not to the facebook "community."  They wouldn't notice and I would free up some time.  I want to get to 3000 words by noon and spend the afternoon doing all the things that truly warrant photo albums and postcard-length messages.  

Resolved: I'm taking a break.  You know where to find me.  I wonder how long I can last.

The wind shifts.

The largest storm on the planet didn't quite fit into the airspace over Wellington.  Despite an admirable attempt to squeeze itself into a more manageable girth, the best it could do was wring out some rain and shoot ornery bolts of lightening at us in a convincing display of its greater power.  It huffed away more quickly than it arrived, scorned, I think, by spring's gently wagging finger.

Spring is watching and waiting.

When the great ceiling cleared of the manic churn of cloud and wind, I caught a glimpse of summer.  At sunrise, the surfers launched themselves over the waves to claim their spots on the line.  Only an hour later, joggers and walkers with their companion kids and dogs arrived to wander the golden shore.  They were barely noticeable beside the fiery dispersion of light on the clear peaks of waves held up by a northerly breeze.  By midday, the sun had warmed us enough that the infrequent, toothless gusts of wind were more like polite coughs than screaming tantrums.

That was yesterday.

The sun rose behind clouds racing on a steady southerly wind this morning.  The bay is roiled by anxious white-capped chop charging the shore.  The beach is empty but for the kelp and wood abandoned by the water.  The waves ride each other, collapsing, reforming and falling again.

I think spring has tucked her hands in her pockets, bracing herself as she watches to see who wins the skirmish between the sun and the wind.

I love you, Mary.

To Mary of Radio NZ:

I listened to you this evening while sitting in my first NZ traffic jam.  After zigging right and zagging left on the stacked hairpin turns around Evans Bay, I was accosted by such an eruption of red light that I instinctively pulled down my sun visor.  I replaced it after quick self-counseling that this day, like other squally days but somehow more special for the largest storm on the planet churning nearby, was a dark day and those red lights required that I stop.

So I stopped.  No longer able nor willing to abide the sludgy techno fest on the cool station that had to be recorded on cassette through a microphone plugged into a Radio Shack tape recorder, I sought out Radio NZ.  I found you, Mary.

I've heard you before; I swear.  But I confess: I've never really listened to you, hearing your guests struggle to craft their messages on whatever political nightmare or social quandary they've stumbled into over the high octave trill of your voice.  For this, you also deserve tribute because your job as the host of your program is to get the spokespeople to speak, to provide time for their mangled fabrications or messy half-truths.  Yay, Mary, you make the guests talk.  Job well done.

Tonight, however, I honor you for something more.  Because tonight, you outdid yourself.  When I turned on the radio, you informed me that you would be interviewing Mr. Hide, the leader of the ACT party here in NZ (which, for my benefit and others who haven't yet managed to give a rat's ass about NZ politics, is kind of a Tea Party equivalent, but more entrenched and possibly better educated.)

A couple years back, Mr. Hide had been told by an ACT party parliamentary hopeful, David Garrett, that Mr. Garrett had criminally obtained an NZ passport in the name of a dead child.  Not his child, but the child of a family who had buried their son in a cemetery where Mr. Garrett happened to meander one day while deciding to see if he could get a forged passport.  Mr. Garrett commit the crime in 1982 but wasn't caught until 2005 when he was indicted by not convicted of passport fraud on the basis of a false affidavit in which Mr. Garrett assured the court that he'd led a blameless life.

Mr. Garrett told Mr. Hide this stuff, leaving out the bit about the false affidavit, and Mr. Hide promptly encouraged him to stand for parliament.  You see, integrity could be restored in politics if they all acknowledged their baser, criminal instincts.  Anyhoo, Mr. Garrett rose to some prominence as ACT's law and order patsy, demanding stricter sentencing, decrying second chances, and grooming his killer facial hair.

Now that the country has discovered that the man who doesn't believe in second chances for criminals is, in fact, a criminal, Mr. Garrett has found his own second and third chances, as well as his caterpillar moustache, rescinded.

Back to you, Mary.  I write to you tonight because you invited Mr. Hide to your program, he appeared and you tore him a new one.  You see, my ability to anticipate reason and challenge in the national discourse has been tortured by my long exposure to American media.   They aren't allowed to do what you did because money is on the line, and even if it isn't, it really is.  A Senator could opt to never appear on a show again if a radio host on NPR used his or her intelligence to grill the Senator on the basis for his or her votes.  Really, that would be no great loss to the Senator, who can always find friendlier shelter on a better controlled outlet.  Oh well.

Mary, you deserve a totem pole.

Tonight, Mary, as Mr. Hide tried to justify his impossibly hypocritical logic in encouraging his colleague to stand for parliament, even while permitting the facts to remain undisclosed to the people, you whipped your switch at him and he jumped.  You quoted ACT party literature, you found old quotes about zero tolerance uttered by Mr. Garrett himself, and you nailed Mr. Hide.  When Mr. Hide tried to return to his chosen points, you said, "No, I'm not interested in that."  And, at the end of it all, you wished him a pleasant evening.

For that, Mary, I love you.  Thank you for being one reason that NZ is better, even if it is really small.

Flash Mob

I started a jewelry-making class last Monday.  Since long-ago nights passed heavily in my mom's lap when I twirled a yellow gold ring over the loose skin of her pinky, I've wanted to learn to shape metal.  In college, I enrolled in Welding, but our efforts were focused on tractor-repair and cow-bells; the intricate web of gold I would have woven as a reciprocal gift for the ring my mom eventually gave me would have been melted in a flash by the arc welder.  I did love the crackle of the light as it ate and shat a line of metal into the join.

Due to time constraints and the effect of jilted investors left with nothing but grandma's necklaces to melt into their portfolios, I'll confine myself to brass, copper and silver for now.  In the meantime, I'll ponder quietly the inflated reputation that attends the inflated price of the prettier metal.  Gold doesn't really do much but it sure looks nice on our appendages.  So be it.

On our first day, we were handed two small scraps of copper and brass.  I eyed the copper in wonder, remembering the articles about cable theft I'd read recently.  Young men had broken into a wind farm risking electrocution at 220,000 volts for a clumsy tramp through a magnetic field on the other end of which was some copper wire.  And copper is worth less than gold?

I started with the brass so I could finally have the triumph of grabbing my own brass ring.  I will put it in the corner, I fantasized, just above my writing machine and I will lunge at it every minute or two, tugging at the leather belt wound around my belly to restrain me in my chair.  If I only had a horse...

I cut the brass, filed it, annealed it, shaped it and soldered it.  I was slow and methodical because no one told me that I could shape it more completely after I joined the straight edges with the solder.  My brass ring fit over the knots and knobs of my first finger perfectly.  I dropped the wide, fat, smooth, perfectly round evidence of my control issues into the slow cooker of acid pickle that will eat my skin and clean my metal or both if I'm so inclined.  As class finished, I returned to claim my prize.  The only object remaining in the hazy lavender liquid of the ersatz pickle barrel was a mangled turd of metal, vaguely reminiscent of an ellipse but hammered out of its round audacity ensuring it could grace only those fingers held patiently under the wheels of two-ton trucks while they practice parallel parking.

I didn't make this piece of shit.

"Um, hmm,"  I said.

The instructor said class was ending and ordered that I clean or replace all supplies I'd used over the evening.  Seven students marched past me to leave.  I glimpsed the rings they'd made and my mind manufactured accusations against each one of my fellow novice artisans.

"Yeah, um, my ring?" I asked.  I thought, one of you fucking assholes left me with a shitpile and it stinks.  Give me my ring.

And they were all gone.

I've spent the last week preparing for the moment this evening when I ask for my ring back.  I've imagined the passive speech in which I innocently request that everyone consider checking their rings against their fingers.  I've thought I could ask to inspect all rings and declaim thievery as counter-productive to adult education.  Finally, I dreamed of a flash mob descending on class tonight at 6:06 PM to slowdance to a modified version of this all-time great.  Yeah, the doggone ring is mine.  I'll love it endlessly.

I know, I know, it was either an honest mistake (likely made by one of the blind students in class who also has no sense of touch) or my ring is long gone.  I'll make more and get over it.  But I hate missing the brass ring.



PS- Anyone else think it's pretty tragic that the woman being held in Iran for her funwalk with friends across the border from Iraq is going to be released to the US because of her breast lumps and precancerous cells.  Um, duh, I hope she is a spy because with that kind of publicized pre-existing condition, she's shit out of luck for health insurance.  Maybe she's from Massachusetts.

Why so dumb?

Alright, I know I've got shit to figure out.  I get that.  I'm all, "oh, poor me, because I have so much time and I get to do exactly what I want with it."  Yeah, you can hate me.  I don't mind.  Sometimes, I hate myself, too.

But if you're on the prowl for a more substantive wrong to abhor-- perhaps a richer, juicier meatloaf of iniquity rather than the inconsequential small plate I serve up-- consider the following: dumb Americans.

I love my people.  I do.  But now, I'm away.  So, I'm going to dish it out straight.  Americans, you're really dumb.  Really, just painfully ignorant.  Unfortunately, with the limited appeal of education to people who don't care to actually read, it probably isn't going to get any better anytime soon.

Here's a shortlist of examples:

1. A northern Florida pastor wants to burn Qurans because its content differs from the Bible.  Couldn't he just burn last week's T.V. Guide?  Last I looked (probably in the early 80s), T.V. Guide provided information that may conflict with the New AND Old Testaments.  If the pastor would read the Quran and the Bible, he might find that their conflicts are fewer than either would have with his favorite entertainment weekly.  Unfortunately, the pastor won't read it.  He probably will, however, find pleasure in his own press.  (Kind of makes me wonder if the scared gun-toters who don't like the idea of Muslims building places of worship recognize the extremism in their midst?  Yeah, probably not.)

2. Republicans continue to trash Obama because he wants to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.  The Republicans say this will result in fewer jobs because small business owners will be more highly taxed.  If the Republicans subscribed to the lessons of history, they would know that top marginal tax rates for the wealthiest have been highest during times of substantial growth in the country.  We need that money.  How hard is that to understand?

Check it out:  You can look at old tax rates and read a Marketplace report that cites a labor economist at Georgetown who clarifies the difference between the rich and the super-rich and prompts the question, why aren't we getting more money out of the super-rich?  Huh?  I'm sure we're more numerous.  We can totally invite them to dinner and make them really uncomfortable.

Even sheep know to run from potential danger.

Finally, what the hell is up with all the reports on joblessness and the limited reporting on the growth of companies who are downsizing their workforces?  This report on the PBS Newshour on Labor Day made me so sad, I had to stop my quiet contemplation of the circling seagulls to listen attentively.  Although Dr. Pepper Snapple, the parent company of a Mott's factory in New York, is profitable, workers were offered a contract that cut their benefits and kept their wages flat.  When the workers rejected the contract, the company sought wage reductions of $1.50 per hour.  Nevermind the stability of the $6.5 million salary earned by Dr. Pepper's CEO.  If there's an abundance of workers, then the market turns them into a commodity.  Doesn't that offend anyone?  I mean, aside from the striking workers who have seen themselves replaced by a temporary labor force working at half their wage and without benefits.

So, dumb Americans, please, for your own good: get some damn traction.  Sink your soft, fat feet into the mud sliding beneath you and pay attention to the reality around you, rather than the big dream of wealth you'll never acquire.

Morning Tea.

So, I'm writing a book.  To my ears, or eyes, that sentence tickles the feet of the absurd.  It isn't that books shouldn't be written, or that anyone else deigns to do it.  It's that I would.  Shouldn't I be making better use of my time?

I was reminded of the various other occupations that could or should distract me from my ridiculous pursuit today, at morning tea.

First, I'm still not entirely sure what morning tea is intended to be.  I don't think it's breakfast.  It seems to be an opportunity to supplement the morning meal with a pastry, scone or cake.  Since I'm always perplexed about the proper amount of food to eat at tea, and I'm genetically predisposed to be thin yet convinced that I'm otherwise, I didn't eat at this morning's morning tea.  Unfortunately, I'd also skipped breakfast because it was the only way I could get out of the house before 10.  My report, therefore, may be colored by my poor, neglected hunger.  She growled for attention, but I put her in the corner.

I arrived late, despite the malnourishment.  I joined the ladies who tea instead of lunch and as I scanned the room, I realized that a dozen of the fifteen of us had babies or would be joined imminently by a wee one.  A place was kindly made for me at the table and I approached, tripping first on a plastic fire truck and second on a small, red shovel.  I sat, wisely inspecting my seat and removing a tiny airplane from the chair before letting my ass descend.  I congratulated myself for my foresight.  A child drove a blue car over my foot several times before I could introduce myself to his mother.

The kids played and the mothers talked.  Babies were fed and changed, passed and put down.  The mothers were remarkable for their calm comfort and their contented exchange of maternal secrets.  These woman are important, I thought.  They're raising the inhabitants of the world.  Good for them.  I wiped my face after a child sneezed at me and watched another cram a fist-sized wad of napkin into her mouth.

Here's the part where I started to question my personal commitments.  I was asked, as I always am, about my own kids.  "At kindy?"  Nope.  I keep them in the boot of the car, I could have said.  But that would be crude.  "No kids," I confessed.  "Working, then?"  Nope.  I'm writing a book.

Dragon sale.

Okay, see how that should have been a joke?  The funny punchline is that I am.  Writing a book.  

I was quick to point out that my mission was only to finish it, give it a read, stuff it into a drawer and check the job openings at the library, but that's not really what I want.  I do want to finish the book.  I don't want to work.  (I wouldn't mind, however, seeing my book in a library someday.)  What I'd prefer to do is just live and feel occasionally important for random contributions that don't require so much responsibility.  That makes me happy now.  I'm pretty sure it could sustain me.

So, why does that feel so absurd?

A Roadie.

We took a roadie to New Plymouth.  Look at me getting all colloquial!  Okay, maybe it's not really a standard issue kiwi-ism.  I don't know.  A friend used it and I'm assimilating.

To clarify:  we didn't take a hairy dude with a bowling ball gut testing the integrity of an ancient, shredded Slayer t-shirt to New Plymouth.  We drove there on our own after Christchurch was hit by a devastating earthquake.  Although not part of the plan, the earthquake gave us something from which we could flee.  Like any true American, I can latch onto a fearsome impossibility and ride it all the way to personal benefit.  In this case, an overnight stay at a charming seaside town about five hours away.

So, we gave our roadie a purpose as clambered into our well-used and well-loved, slightly musty van, pointing our fingers and declaring "to New Plymouth."  We motored away from town, spewing our diesel fumes onto the track of the hotly contested race between the swollen, murderous wave barreling across the Cook Strait to swallow our house and the torn gash of earth, ripping along the seams of an old but virile fault line that runs under our deck.  Suck on that, Nature!  We're heading north!

The roadie required that we take two of the nation's five, maybe six, highways.  We started on the One.  At some point, we would have to circle a roundabout to join up with the Three.  We lost the wide, multi-laned ribbon of road after about 20 kilometers.  From then on, the highway was never more than a two-lane road with an occasional passing lane to permit all those eager Subarus to jump the line.  I'm sure they had to be somewhere very fast.  We saw lots of pissing cows, nursing lambs and, well, sheep along the road.  Certainly, they need tending.  They're not just going to feed themselves... oh wait.  Suffice it to say, the grass was nicely maintained on every paddock.  I counted three signs for various, local abattoirs (a word that makes me want to dress nicely for slaughter) and a few billboards advertising farm kill and rendering.  That's convenient!  The Subarus may have had appointments.


Along the route, we encountered Bulls, a small town enslaved by an apparent municipal edict that all shops and cafes must be advertised using a eponymous pun.  "Edi-Bull!"  "Socia-Bull!"  "Fashion-a-Bull!"  I was sorry the town had yet to alter the signs over the public restrooms to read, "Bull's Shit."  Maybe I'll send a letter with the suggestion.

In case you're wondering, New Plymouth is worth the trip even if you aren't running from the earth's gaping maw.  The coastal walkway sits atop a long pile of boulders that crunch and screech under the giant waves that wait until hitting land to break.  A wind wand bounces lazily 100 meters up like the ball your uncle would never surrender as long as you kept asking for it.  A lot of things were called "Puke something" and though we tried to be mature, we ultimately failed.  As usual.

On the way back, we snapped a lot of pictures of choo choo train signs that really make train crossings much more fun and even inviting.  A diner along the One claimed as its name, Route 66 on the One.  We ate hot dogs there, to give it some street cred.  It didn't really deserve it.

We returned to find the race to destroy all things good and well in our world called off.  Poor Christchurch would bear the brunt of the earth's awful fit and we would set about explaining to our family and friends that their worry, though appreciated, was unnecessary.