It has been exactly a month since my last blog. Which I'm afraid is long enough to have completely lost my meager reader base. Please come back! I'm going to post the link on Facebook in hopes of reinvigorating my blog and forcing myself to be inspired more often.
And I am inspired. There are several reasons for that, which include a week sitting around the house with my amazing crazy family, but the main reason is a website called cheapwomen.org, set up by two amazing women, one of whom I vaguely knew in college. You really have to check this out. Convicted by personal financial crises, these two embarked on a 4 month contest to see who could spend the least money. Their writings about this experience are funny, sad, and infinitely creative. Like I said, I am inspired.
I am inspired because our society looks down on people who decide not to spend money on crap we don't need. Being frugal, staying away from excess, once built this country up. Now we turn up our noses at frugality and our economy is headed for the toilet, dragged down into the sinkhole of our spiraling blind materialism. This blog- and my relentlessly thrifty and counter-cultural family- have reminded me that it is ok to live far below your means. Just because I have a real job now doesn't mean that I have to buy everything new, that I have to get a car, live the American dream to the fullest. I can be completely happy without all this new stuff. Probably happier.
Another thing I have been thinking about, in the Christmas season, is the line between stinginess (bad) and frugality (good). Our family really doesn't buy gifts for each other, and I don't buy gifts for most of my friends. I always prided myself on this "lack of materialism". But who am I kidding? I buy stuff for myself! Why is that ok, but it's bad to buy Christmas gifts??!! Here is what I have concluded: it is fine to be cheap with yourself; but not ok to be cheap towards others. That doesn't mean I have to go out and buy expensive gifts for all my friends. But it means that I need to buy into the anti-materialism fully- including myself as well. It is NOT OK to tell friends I don't buy gifts because I don't like how materialistic Christmas has become, yet go out shopping for myself at the post-Christmas sales.
As Christians we are called to live generously. And we are also called to love our neighbor, which means many things, but surely must include giving to the needy and taking care of our planet by not consuming crap we don't really need. It also means sharing with those in need instead of feeding my own obese stash of stuff. Living out these principles harmoniously is not easy, but it is something I believe we MUST confront. A few conclusions I have come to: (1) Giving and generosity is about time and love and care as much or more than it is about money (2) Consuming less new stuff frees up more resources for giving (3) Frugality without creativity and God's grace = stinginess.
So I have a few resolutions for the new year. I am going to write them down here in this public place because I want to be held to them. I hope they will help me to be a more creative, generous, healthy and loving person.
1. From here on out, any gifts to adults in my life will be homemade (I say "adults" because making toys for my little brother is beyond my abilities). I will show that I love people individually by investing time and creativity and thought into making something unique to that person.
2. I will donate generously and sacrificially to relief and development organizations like International Justice Mission and Mennonite Central Committee.
3. I will get a sewing machine and with the exception of suits for work (I am a lawyer after all) attempt to buy more of my clothes from thrift stores.
4. I will only buy a car if I absolutely need it. I will not give up the scooter and buy a car just because it is the thing I am "supposed" to do.
5. I will think carefully about new purchases: Do I really need this? Why am I buying this? I will fight the social pressure to buy things just because I can. I will take advantage of free stuff.
6. I will eat no more than 3 eggs a week. (this one is just for my health)
More to come.... Merry Christmas!
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Tucson thanksgiving
On Thanksgiving morning, after some trouble with the rental car company that I won't get into here, I was on I-8 East to Tucson. It was a bright sunny day- like every day in Yuma- and the air was cool and out on the shiny open road I was in a state of unexpected exhilaration. I think I'd marry Pat Green if he wasn't already married, which I'm nearly certain he is, and I could get him to leave Texas, which is highly unlikely judging from how much he sings about that vast expanse of cowboy land. Anyway. His music makes me inexplicably happy, and I was belting out "three days" and I even smiled at the Border Patrol agent, yes sir I am an American citizen and I will drive safe, thanks, roll down the window and turn up the music and off into the rocky bare mountains that hem in Yuma on the eastern side. Off to Tucson, you don't need that whiskey no more Pat and thank God I'm alive and whoops I left my cell phone on my kitchen table and it's too late to go back and get it now!
Off to the homey house just west of the soft pink Veteran's hospital where I will be greeted by the people who knew me as a baby and their ridiculously friendly and impossibly endearing dogs who are only spoken to in Spanish, the formal tense, where I will be loved and fed well and treated as a daughter. Then to spend Thanksgiving drugged with turkey and pie and red wine and curled in a hammock overlooking Tucson's sparking lights on the back porch of the house with dog footprints in the living room tiles, laughing as the Thanksgiving guests make up strange dances to Barbara Streissand in the light of the chiminea. To my dear friend Roseanne, the best conversations you ever had over omelets, we'll stop eating so many eggs tomorrow, really. Drive up to Mount Lemon, desert to sky forest and breathtaking mountain views in 30 minutes, Laura I know it's amazing but please look at the road. Wandering around the historic neighborhoods south of the University, adobe houses painted bright colors, porches festooned with wind chimes and Mexican tiled windowframes.
I fall more in love with this city every time I come. Of course, the life I envision for myself there will be good and frustrating and excruciating and beautiful in ways that I cannot predict. But I'm looking forward to it. To the life God is preparing for me there already.
Off to the homey house just west of the soft pink Veteran's hospital where I will be greeted by the people who knew me as a baby and their ridiculously friendly and impossibly endearing dogs who are only spoken to in Spanish, the formal tense, where I will be loved and fed well and treated as a daughter. Then to spend Thanksgiving drugged with turkey and pie and red wine and curled in a hammock overlooking Tucson's sparking lights on the back porch of the house with dog footprints in the living room tiles, laughing as the Thanksgiving guests make up strange dances to Barbara Streissand in the light of the chiminea. To my dear friend Roseanne, the best conversations you ever had over omelets, we'll stop eating so many eggs tomorrow, really. Drive up to Mount Lemon, desert to sky forest and breathtaking mountain views in 30 minutes, Laura I know it's amazing but please look at the road. Wandering around the historic neighborhoods south of the University, adobe houses painted bright colors, porches festooned with wind chimes and Mexican tiled windowframes.
I fall more in love with this city every time I come. Of course, the life I envision for myself there will be good and frustrating and excruciating and beautiful in ways that I cannot predict. But I'm looking forward to it. To the life God is preparing for me there already.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
the internet
I have not written in a while, not because of a lack of time, but rather of inspiration. Work continues to be composed of long stretches of tedium broken by ocassional flashes of usefulness and interest. I spend too much time on social networking sites, obsessively balancing my checkbook, checking the weather in every city I know anyone, and (confession time) even sporadic and unsucessful ventures into on-line dating. I am convinced that the internet is the biggest time-waster known to mankind, above TV and text-messaging even. Whole hours can slip into oblivion, and I emerge neither wiser nor happier, eyes hurting from computer screen strain. Not that the internet is completely a bad thing- on the contrary, life without it seems overwhelmingly and impossibly daunting.
I read an editorial, about how the Internet age has contributed to the growth of libertarian politics by creating a generation of people who are smart, well-informed, and think that they don't need anyone else. A bit scary really. I would also say that it has created a generation of people who are connected to mind-boggling numbers of people like never before, but at a superficial level. So have we really gained anything? A blessing and a curse. Most of the time I think that the Internet is more of a blessing than a curse, but sometimes my weighing of the two sides favors the curse opinion.
When I step back and think about it, it's amazing how willing people are to abandon all privacy, bare their secret musings, desires, and interests, all in the most public of all mediums. In that respect, the Internet operates a bit like a mask, allowing people to be more open, more daring perhaps, than they would be in real life. When you meet someone in real life, do you immediately tell them your favorite things, all the details of your personality, even your income? No. But all that info is right out for everyone to see on Myspace or Facebook, and noone thinks this is weird. And I'm right there with them.
I'm not going anywhere in particular with this. And I think I'm done now. Like I say, lack of inspiration. I'll try to get inspired more often. In the meantime, I'm going to try to have more of a (non-internet) life.
I read an editorial, about how the Internet age has contributed to the growth of libertarian politics by creating a generation of people who are smart, well-informed, and think that they don't need anyone else. A bit scary really. I would also say that it has created a generation of people who are connected to mind-boggling numbers of people like never before, but at a superficial level. So have we really gained anything? A blessing and a curse. Most of the time I think that the Internet is more of a blessing than a curse, but sometimes my weighing of the two sides favors the curse opinion.
When I step back and think about it, it's amazing how willing people are to abandon all privacy, bare their secret musings, desires, and interests, all in the most public of all mediums. In that respect, the Internet operates a bit like a mask, allowing people to be more open, more daring perhaps, than they would be in real life. When you meet someone in real life, do you immediately tell them your favorite things, all the details of your personality, even your income? No. But all that info is right out for everyone to see on Myspace or Facebook, and noone thinks this is weird. And I'm right there with them.
I'm not going anywhere in particular with this. And I think I'm done now. Like I say, lack of inspiration. I'll try to get inspired more often. In the meantime, I'm going to try to have more of a (non-internet) life.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Quote of the day
From Governor Schwarzenegger: "I think that what we need is the weather- to change. We need rain, we need the wind to stop, and we need it to get wet out there. That's what we need right now." To really get the full comedic force of this quote, go to npr.org, click on "governor schwarzenegger" and hear the accented version. Quick, what are you waiting for? Do it now!
Monday, October 22, 2007
san diego is burning?
This past weekend I escaped to San Diego with two girlfriends. We had a picnic and watched seals and beautiful people for hours at La Jolla, spent an hour trying to find parking in the Gaslamp District and then wore out feet out walking blocks and blocks in heels, sipped wine in the sun in Temecula overlooking a vineyard while the wind threatened to snatch anything not nailed down, marveled at IKEA and signs advertising an "electric car charging station," talked about men. We had a good time, even if the first place we chose to go dancing turned out to be so sketchy we left without going in, and the second one didn't actually play salsa music, and there were those inevitable tense direction-less exchanges that happen when no one really knows where they're going in a big city.
That last part took me back to college road trips, where June and/or Rachael and I explored Alabama, New Orleans, Arizona, San Francisco, strong personalities clashing into occasional flares of rage, quickly forgiven because where can you find better friends than this? Is there anyone you'd rather see the Grand Canyon or the Maple Leaf or the redwoods with, or talk about God at 11pm on a dark highway, or get a speeding ticket with? Of course not. And because we deeply and unconsciously knew that true relationships do not form or survive without confronting conflict.
Well, that's a tangent. June and Rachael, if you're reading this, you'll always be my best friends even if June never comes back from China and Rachael stays in Alabama forever. You know that.
On the way back to Yuma through the undescribable boulder-strewn mountains that I will never in a million years get used to, the crazy fall winds named "Santa Anas" picked up, threatening to fling the little rental Nissan off into the vast valleys on either side of the road. Luckily the wind didn't continue into the desert, because otherwise we would have been caught in a vicious sandstorm like the one that shut down the highway two weeks ago. This morning I read that San Diego county- actually some of the suburbs, not the city itself- is on fire, wildfires popping up all over, fed by the gusting winds and a drought. We did pass through some smoke on Sunday as we left Temecula, but we had no idea of the extent of the fires that were to come. People are losing their homes and the fire department just can't contain all the burning. That makes me sad, because Southern California is as gloriously beautiful as it is unaffordable, the red tile roofed houses on mountains spotted with white rocky outcroppings and pencil-thin trees, the huge waves, the unnervingly shiny-new and clean cities. I would say it's God's country, except that I'm pretty sure that his Son and 90% of the world's population couldn't afford to live there. So I'll just say it's gloriously beautiful and leave it at that. =)
That last part took me back to college road trips, where June and/or Rachael and I explored Alabama, New Orleans, Arizona, San Francisco, strong personalities clashing into occasional flares of rage, quickly forgiven because where can you find better friends than this? Is there anyone you'd rather see the Grand Canyon or the Maple Leaf or the redwoods with, or talk about God at 11pm on a dark highway, or get a speeding ticket with? Of course not. And because we deeply and unconsciously knew that true relationships do not form or survive without confronting conflict.
Well, that's a tangent. June and Rachael, if you're reading this, you'll always be my best friends even if June never comes back from China and Rachael stays in Alabama forever. You know that.
On the way back to Yuma through the undescribable boulder-strewn mountains that I will never in a million years get used to, the crazy fall winds named "Santa Anas" picked up, threatening to fling the little rental Nissan off into the vast valleys on either side of the road. Luckily the wind didn't continue into the desert, because otherwise we would have been caught in a vicious sandstorm like the one that shut down the highway two weeks ago. This morning I read that San Diego county- actually some of the suburbs, not the city itself- is on fire, wildfires popping up all over, fed by the gusting winds and a drought. We did pass through some smoke on Sunday as we left Temecula, but we had no idea of the extent of the fires that were to come. People are losing their homes and the fire department just can't contain all the burning. That makes me sad, because Southern California is as gloriously beautiful as it is unaffordable, the red tile roofed houses on mountains spotted with white rocky outcroppings and pencil-thin trees, the huge waves, the unnervingly shiny-new and clean cities. I would say it's God's country, except that I'm pretty sure that his Son and 90% of the world's population couldn't afford to live there. So I'll just say it's gloriously beautiful and leave it at that. =)
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
musings on God's will
For starters, I just saw an article on Yahoo news about how the ACLU helped a Christian graduate of West Point gain conscientious objector status and be released from the military. The man said his Christian beliefs would not allow him to kill another human being, and he now wants to enter seminary. Interesting, huh? Also, note to Religious Right: the ACLU does actually come out on the side of Christians sometimes, so I guess they are not ALL God-hating atheists dragging our country into the gutter with the help of Hillary Clinton. whew.
In Yuma-land, not so much to report. I am increasingly bored with my job and unsatisfied with my life here but feel a little trapped for now. Turns out those misgivings I had about taking this job in the first place were right, but in my May poverty-stricken panic and blind groping for direction I stuffed them down and dove in.
Did I miss God's will? If I did, I have to place part of the blame squarely on His huge shoulders, because he was not altogether forthcoming with his directions. Why is that? Why are we expected to obey this elusive will if the Will-giver repeatedly hides the ball? So now am I supposed to say that He has a purpose for my frustrating and often lonely months here? Isn't that really just saying I should make the most out of anything which comes along, which is true independently of Him? I do not have answers and probably spewing my questions out into the void of cyberspace is not the best way to deal with them. I guess I am hoping that at some point in the future this will all make sense, and then I can say: look, go back and see how bad it was and it was all worth it, see? But right now I am finding it hard to hide my scorn for that smug fulfilled future version of me.
Rather than say, God has a specific plan for my life, and He'll lead me to each step, doesn't it fit more with reality to say that He gives us general principles of how life is best led, of how to treat others and live with integrity and find true meaning, and then helps us find peace and satisfaction and even joy in the situations we get ourselves into through the application (or mis-application) of those principles? Because if He had a clear plan that he wanted us to follow, the guidance would have to be a lot more concrete. Otherwise God is just petty and a bit capricious, and I am not so doubtful of his character to believe that is true.
My little brother has been sending me letters every week, faithfully laboring over penciled sentences on the backs of postcards. But for weeks I haven't received any, and I just realized why- his earnest efforts have been going undelivered. A missed "A" in the address made all the difference. It breaks my heart to think of all his work lost, swallowed in the depths of the US Postal Service.
I feel bad, because Phillip's letters were lost. But I don't feel responsible- I gave him the right address and somehow in the transition from Dad's email to Mom's notes to Phillip's letter that "A" was forgotten. But what if I had merely told Phillip: I live somewhere in Yuma Arizona, I'm not going to tell you exactly, you try to figure it out. Then of course I would feel bad for the loss of the letters, because it was my own fault that Phillip wasn't able to guess my address! How could he?
So that's why I don't think that God's plan is all that specific. Because otherwise, him expecting me to follow it, given his complete lack of direction to me, would be just as absurd as me expecting Phillip to get my address right when I didn't tell it to him. So do I believe that God sent me specifically to Yuma where he knew I would be frustrated and lonely? No, because I believe that he loves me, and don't even tell me it's because he wanted to teach me humility because believe me, I am well aware of my faults. Do I believe that He had some other specific place I was supposed to go instead that I missed the memo on? No, I can't. Rather, God wants me to use my skills to make the world a better place, to show his love and justice and peace to others. Whether I do that in Shanghai China or Mobile Alabama is more a matter of where my God-given desires and talents and the circumstances that come along lead me. He'll bless my efforts to find ways and places to serve him, and he'll usually comfort me when things go wrong. But I'm done with expecting him to give me geographic directions.
In Yuma-land, not so much to report. I am increasingly bored with my job and unsatisfied with my life here but feel a little trapped for now. Turns out those misgivings I had about taking this job in the first place were right, but in my May poverty-stricken panic and blind groping for direction I stuffed them down and dove in.
Did I miss God's will? If I did, I have to place part of the blame squarely on His huge shoulders, because he was not altogether forthcoming with his directions. Why is that? Why are we expected to obey this elusive will if the Will-giver repeatedly hides the ball? So now am I supposed to say that He has a purpose for my frustrating and often lonely months here? Isn't that really just saying I should make the most out of anything which comes along, which is true independently of Him? I do not have answers and probably spewing my questions out into the void of cyberspace is not the best way to deal with them. I guess I am hoping that at some point in the future this will all make sense, and then I can say: look, go back and see how bad it was and it was all worth it, see? But right now I am finding it hard to hide my scorn for that smug fulfilled future version of me.
Rather than say, God has a specific plan for my life, and He'll lead me to each step, doesn't it fit more with reality to say that He gives us general principles of how life is best led, of how to treat others and live with integrity and find true meaning, and then helps us find peace and satisfaction and even joy in the situations we get ourselves into through the application (or mis-application) of those principles? Because if He had a clear plan that he wanted us to follow, the guidance would have to be a lot more concrete. Otherwise God is just petty and a bit capricious, and I am not so doubtful of his character to believe that is true.
My little brother has been sending me letters every week, faithfully laboring over penciled sentences on the backs of postcards. But for weeks I haven't received any, and I just realized why- his earnest efforts have been going undelivered. A missed "A" in the address made all the difference. It breaks my heart to think of all his work lost, swallowed in the depths of the US Postal Service.
I feel bad, because Phillip's letters were lost. But I don't feel responsible- I gave him the right address and somehow in the transition from Dad's email to Mom's notes to Phillip's letter that "A" was forgotten. But what if I had merely told Phillip: I live somewhere in Yuma Arizona, I'm not going to tell you exactly, you try to figure it out. Then of course I would feel bad for the loss of the letters, because it was my own fault that Phillip wasn't able to guess my address! How could he?
So that's why I don't think that God's plan is all that specific. Because otherwise, him expecting me to follow it, given his complete lack of direction to me, would be just as absurd as me expecting Phillip to get my address right when I didn't tell it to him. So do I believe that God sent me specifically to Yuma where he knew I would be frustrated and lonely? No, because I believe that he loves me, and don't even tell me it's because he wanted to teach me humility because believe me, I am well aware of my faults. Do I believe that He had some other specific place I was supposed to go instead that I missed the memo on? No, I can't. Rather, God wants me to use my skills to make the world a better place, to show his love and justice and peace to others. Whether I do that in Shanghai China or Mobile Alabama is more a matter of where my God-given desires and talents and the circumstances that come along lead me. He'll bless my efforts to find ways and places to serve him, and he'll usually comfort me when things go wrong. But I'm done with expecting him to give me geographic directions.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Purgatory or something like it
Sometimes I feel like I spend most of my life waiting around for something to happen. I feel that way now more than ever. I just found out on Friday that I passed the Arizona bar exam. Relief! Elation! No more waiting around in this quasi-lawyer state! Except... for that nice little letter I got today: congrats, you've passed the bar exam, but we don't have your character report completed yet. In other words, the waiting is not over yet.
But will it ever be? I will be a lawyer soon- hopefully very soon- but then there will be more waiting. Because let's face it- I'm not all that happy in Yuma, and I don't plan to stay here too long. So my life here is also a waiting time- waiting for when I've put in enough time that I can not feel too guilty about leaving for the life I really want.
And then- won't I be waiting for something else? Like finding that person I want to spend the rest of my life with- can I ever really be settled, sure of where I am until that important part of my life falls into place?
I guess my point is, all of life is purgatory if you make it that way. So I should be trying to get out of the middle-land, not wallowing in it. But to be honest, it is hard right now. Happiness is so elusive, and the waiting is so tangible.
But will it ever be? I will be a lawyer soon- hopefully very soon- but then there will be more waiting. Because let's face it- I'm not all that happy in Yuma, and I don't plan to stay here too long. So my life here is also a waiting time- waiting for when I've put in enough time that I can not feel too guilty about leaving for the life I really want.
And then- won't I be waiting for something else? Like finding that person I want to spend the rest of my life with- can I ever really be settled, sure of where I am until that important part of my life falls into place?
I guess my point is, all of life is purgatory if you make it that way. So I should be trying to get out of the middle-land, not wallowing in it. But to be honest, it is hard right now. Happiness is so elusive, and the waiting is so tangible.
Monday, September 17, 2007
assorted news and musings
I've got nothing terribly deep or profound to say today. Just reporting that I actually left Yuma this past week, which is pretty exciting. I went to Prescott, a little mountain town 90 miles north of Phoenix, for a work meeting. It was amazing to see mountains covered with trees- so beautiful! And feel cool weather- it was so crisp and fall-like, it reminded me of Georgia fall minus the changing leaves. It was the most East-coast looking city I've seen- the architecture reminded me of home. And then there were a couple really cool old saloons, walls covered with framed pictures of turn of the century Prescott. Guys in cowboy hats and boots and with guns, your classic Westerns.
The depressing part about Prescott is that you're driving through these glorious mountains and wide open valleys, and then suddenly you get to the outskirts of the city and there's bix box stores and Golden Corrals and other trash sitting on the leveled-off tops of the mountains. It's enough to make any good nature-lover cry in frustration. I'm thinking- what kind of city allows this to happen? Do they not have any zoning, land-use plan, conservation ethic? And then I found out it's reservation land. So the Native American tribes can do basically whatever they want with it. Which, in this case, has been to sell out spectacularly. Oh, the irony.
Prescott has money and lots of it- retiring Californians cashing in on this mountaintop beauty. Which made for all kinds of jokes about why CLS (a poverty law firm) has an office here. I guess there are homeless people everywhere if you look hard enough.
In other news, I'm moving. Some agricultural company bought my apartment complex and is trying to get everyone out so they can move in migrant workers in November. I technically could stay until my lease is up in December, but everyone tells me it's hard to find housing then, so I'm moving now. It is quite a rude awakening trying to find a decent apartment in this city- now I see why most people I know rent houses, which are way more affordable and nicer if you have someone to share rent. Being a renter in this town makes me have a lot more empathy for our low-income clients who have to fight to stay one step ahead of eviction. I have never seen so much sub-standard housing in all my life. Battling a constant stream of slum lords could be really satisfying. Except that most of our clients are living paycheck to paycheck in a way I could never dream of- and by the time a landlord is forced to give back that month of rent that the tenant paid for a house made inhabitable by non-working AC in 110-degree weather, the tenant has already been forced to go into crushing debt to make up the difference and get into another place. Having an extra $500 of disposable income or savings could make all the difference for these people. On poverty in Yuma- a recent census reported in the newspaper states that "only" 18% of the population are at or below the poverty line. Since when is 1/5 "only"? Add those that are at 150% of the poverty line- which is the cut-off for who CLS serves- and you've got an awful big chunk of the Yuma county population. And then think about how many of the poor probably never got counted, because they are here illegally. A local immigrant advocacy group reports that when a crime victim (victim!!) doesn't speak English, who do the police call to translate? the Border Patrol. who then deport her/him. I'm not making this up.
Well, I'm about at the end of my rambling for now. For you who read all that- now I know who my true friends are. =)
The depressing part about Prescott is that you're driving through these glorious mountains and wide open valleys, and then suddenly you get to the outskirts of the city and there's bix box stores and Golden Corrals and other trash sitting on the leveled-off tops of the mountains. It's enough to make any good nature-lover cry in frustration. I'm thinking- what kind of city allows this to happen? Do they not have any zoning, land-use plan, conservation ethic? And then I found out it's reservation land. So the Native American tribes can do basically whatever they want with it. Which, in this case, has been to sell out spectacularly. Oh, the irony.
Prescott has money and lots of it- retiring Californians cashing in on this mountaintop beauty. Which made for all kinds of jokes about why CLS (a poverty law firm) has an office here. I guess there are homeless people everywhere if you look hard enough.
In other news, I'm moving. Some agricultural company bought my apartment complex and is trying to get everyone out so they can move in migrant workers in November. I technically could stay until my lease is up in December, but everyone tells me it's hard to find housing then, so I'm moving now. It is quite a rude awakening trying to find a decent apartment in this city- now I see why most people I know rent houses, which are way more affordable and nicer if you have someone to share rent. Being a renter in this town makes me have a lot more empathy for our low-income clients who have to fight to stay one step ahead of eviction. I have never seen so much sub-standard housing in all my life. Battling a constant stream of slum lords could be really satisfying. Except that most of our clients are living paycheck to paycheck in a way I could never dream of- and by the time a landlord is forced to give back that month of rent that the tenant paid for a house made inhabitable by non-working AC in 110-degree weather, the tenant has already been forced to go into crushing debt to make up the difference and get into another place. Having an extra $500 of disposable income or savings could make all the difference for these people. On poverty in Yuma- a recent census reported in the newspaper states that "only" 18% of the population are at or below the poverty line. Since when is 1/5 "only"? Add those that are at 150% of the poverty line- which is the cut-off for who CLS serves- and you've got an awful big chunk of the Yuma county population. And then think about how many of the poor probably never got counted, because they are here illegally. A local immigrant advocacy group reports that when a crime victim (victim!!) doesn't speak English, who do the police call to translate? the Border Patrol. who then deport her/him. I'm not making this up.
Well, I'm about at the end of my rambling for now. For you who read all that- now I know who my true friends are. =)
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Possible lives
This morning I talked to a friend who just landed a job in Washington DC. And sitting on the countertop of my little 1950s-style apartment kitchen, staring out into the hot street, listening to her talk about Dupont Circle, I felt a definite pang of something that felt like regret. I pictured the stone rowhouses and shaded sidewalks and subways full of people in suits and tennis shoes speaking a million foreign languages and people playing frisbee in parks surrounded by little delis and corner grocery stores and and the feel of success and ambition and promise in the eyes of would-be movers and shakers. And I was jealous. "I'm so happy for you! Sure, I could move there in a year or so!" But then I thought about Arizona's wide-open skies, lavender and gold and white in the morning, clear and starry at night; about the Catalina mountains green from rain, of sun so bright (every day!) that you can't possibly stay in bed past 8 and instantaneous rainstorms carrying the smell of mesquite in windtorn blasts, of California's glorious and not-so-far away beaches. I remember the unmistakably Mexican sound of banda music and the casual bi-lingualism ("Y tambien, he said..."), the suprising and unpretentious open friendliness of the people here, the excitement of a simmering future of a country playing right out loud in front of me at its borders. And I am reminded again: I love this country! I DO! Aside from all the wonderful bizarre things about being American like the fact that a poor immigrant's son can grow up to be Attorney General (even if he is a slimy one) and any presidential candidate has to at least pretend to be at home in small-town Iowa and we are all so different that any comprehensive definition of "American" is impossible: I love the huge towering Northern cities and their gorgeously restored historic houses and gritty inner parts and comprehensive subway systems filled with the languages of the world and unabashed ambition. I love the West's wide open spaces and jagged mountains and and laid-back attitude about life and crazy mix of hippies and Mexicans and military families. And I love the South's glorious pink and white blossomed springs and reviving old urban neighborhoods and muddy rivers.
So wherever I end up, there is going to be regret. Regret that I cannot live in every part of this beautiful, huge, fatally flawed and yet yes, greatest country in the world. So many possible lives out there. My goal should be to enjoy the one, out of all possible variations, that I am living right now, instead of agonizing about the ones that I have not and may never live.
So wherever I end up, there is going to be regret. Regret that I cannot live in every part of this beautiful, huge, fatally flawed and yet yes, greatest country in the world. So many possible lives out there. My goal should be to enjoy the one, out of all possible variations, that I am living right now, instead of agonizing about the ones that I have not and may never live.
thoughts on a lanyard
As I caught up on my friend Shannon's blog (check it out at http://www.shanltay.typepad.com/) I was struck by this poem by Billy Collins, which I have read somewhere before. I find it profound:
The Lanyard
The other day as I was ricocheting slowlyoff the pale blue walls of this room,bouncing from typewriter to piano,from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,I found myself in the L section of the dictionarywhere my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelistcould send one more suddenly into the past --a past where I sat at a workbench at a campby a deep Adirondack lake learning how to braid thin plastic stripsinto a lanyard, a gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard or wear one, if that's what you did with them,but that did no keep me from crossing strand over stand again and again until I had made a boxy red and white lanyard for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breasts,and I gave her a lanyard.She nursed me in many a sickroom,lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips, set cold face-cloths on my forehead,and then led me out in the the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.Here are thousands of meals, she said,and here is clothing and a good education.And here is your lanyard, I replied,which I made with a little help from a counselor.
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,strong legs, bones and teeth,and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.And here, I wish to say to her now,is a smaller gift -- not the archaic truth
that you can never repay your mother,but the rueful admission that when she tookthe two-tone lanyard from my hands,I was as sure as a boy could be that this useless, worthless thing I woveout of boredom would be enough to make us even.
Isn't that true? Surely of mothers (and fathers), but also of God. He gives me a world of glowing sunsets and crashing waves and mountains, a family full of grace and wisdom and tough love, an absurdly healthy body, and a mind capable of appreciating it all, and I say: Here God. I will work in a job that helps the poor for a little while. I'll even tell people that I believe in You. So we're even, right? What more could You possibly want from me?
The Lanyard
The other day as I was ricocheting slowlyoff the pale blue walls of this room,bouncing from typewriter to piano,from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,I found myself in the L section of the dictionarywhere my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelistcould send one more suddenly into the past --a past where I sat at a workbench at a campby a deep Adirondack lake learning how to braid thin plastic stripsinto a lanyard, a gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard or wear one, if that's what you did with them,but that did no keep me from crossing strand over stand again and again until I had made a boxy red and white lanyard for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breasts,and I gave her a lanyard.She nursed me in many a sickroom,lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips, set cold face-cloths on my forehead,and then led me out in the the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.Here are thousands of meals, she said,and here is clothing and a good education.And here is your lanyard, I replied,which I made with a little help from a counselor.
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,strong legs, bones and teeth,and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.And here, I wish to say to her now,is a smaller gift -- not the archaic truth
that you can never repay your mother,but the rueful admission that when she tookthe two-tone lanyard from my hands,I was as sure as a boy could be that this useless, worthless thing I woveout of boredom would be enough to make us even.
Isn't that true? Surely of mothers (and fathers), but also of God. He gives me a world of glowing sunsets and crashing waves and mountains, a family full of grace and wisdom and tough love, an absurdly healthy body, and a mind capable of appreciating it all, and I say: Here God. I will work in a job that helps the poor for a little while. I'll even tell people that I believe in You. So we're even, right? What more could You possibly want from me?
Thursday, August 30, 2007
hot days
In case any of you back on the East Coast are still complaining about, oh my gosh, it's 103 today, I'm dying, here's some Yuma statistics for you, from our very own local newspaper the Sun (of course):
Number of days in Yuma, from July 1 to August 29 (just two months!), in which temps were above...
-100 degrees: 57
-105 degrees: 43
-110 degrees: 19
Number of "cool" days (below 100) for the same time period? 3.
Nuf said.
Number of days in Yuma, from July 1 to August 29 (just two months!), in which temps were above...
-100 degrees: 57
-105 degrees: 43
-110 degrees: 19
Number of "cool" days (below 100) for the same time period? 3.
Nuf said.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
a phantom future
I heard what I thought was an insightful and interesting essay on the radio this morning, and I wanted to share it. The author started out by noting the phenomenon of phantom pains in amputees- how people who have limbs amputated sometimes feel pain in arms and legs that are not there. A few years ago, the author was diagnosed with cancer, and told he had 6 months to live. Now his prognosis is more hopeful, but he still finds thinking about the future difficult. He wonders: Are my plans for 2 years from now- a future that for me may very well not exist- as absurd, as meaningless, as pain felt in an arm long severed? Do I have, in effect, a phantom future?
And it made me think- with or without a prognosis of imminent death, aren't even our most carefully crafted and contemplated plans absurd, in a way? Of course we have to plan for the future; for lack of vision a people perish, right? But lest we get too wrapped up in a future that is not ours, that could be snatched from our grasping hands at any moment, it is arrogance of the most absurd (and yet common, and for me very personal) kind to to believe that those plans are anything more than mere feeling and sensation, a hope for things uncertain.
Is this morbid? I don't think so. It's just one more reminder that our destinies are not our own. Whether you believe that God or fate or evil or anything else does the life altering/directing/snatching, I think we all can agree that there will always be an element of life that is uncertain, no matter how strong or wise we become. Yes, make plans, by all means! But let's recognize those plans for what they really are: an amputee's sensory longing.
As a corollary-- while any plans I construct for myself are phantom futures, the plans of the One who has the power over the course of my life are solid, beyond reach of life's uncertainties. As unsatisfactory as it may sound, God's plans- which in their entirety are completely unknown and unknowable to me- are the only real sure thing. The plans I carefully plan and construct and sweat for are ephemeral; the Divine future I can't predict or build or sway is lasting. Honestly, I only am comfortable with this arrangement when I am at my wit's and strength's end, but I believe it is true.
And it made me think- with or without a prognosis of imminent death, aren't even our most carefully crafted and contemplated plans absurd, in a way? Of course we have to plan for the future; for lack of vision a people perish, right? But lest we get too wrapped up in a future that is not ours, that could be snatched from our grasping hands at any moment, it is arrogance of the most absurd (and yet common, and for me very personal) kind to to believe that those plans are anything more than mere feeling and sensation, a hope for things uncertain.
Is this morbid? I don't think so. It's just one more reminder that our destinies are not our own. Whether you believe that God or fate or evil or anything else does the life altering/directing/snatching, I think we all can agree that there will always be an element of life that is uncertain, no matter how strong or wise we become. Yes, make plans, by all means! But let's recognize those plans for what they really are: an amputee's sensory longing.
As a corollary-- while any plans I construct for myself are phantom futures, the plans of the One who has the power over the course of my life are solid, beyond reach of life's uncertainties. As unsatisfactory as it may sound, God's plans- which in their entirety are completely unknown and unknowable to me- are the only real sure thing. The plans I carefully plan and construct and sweat for are ephemeral; the Divine future I can't predict or build or sway is lasting. Honestly, I only am comfortable with this arrangement when I am at my wit's and strength's end, but I believe it is true.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
the seduction of snobbery
I spent a day this past week with the most arrogant and self-absorbed person I've ever met. And it was an unbelievably unpleasant and infuriating experience. But my point here is not to bash him, but to reflect on what I learned from that experience.
Call it what you will- arrogance, elitism, conceit, narcissism, self-righteousness- it's ugly. But I think it's very very easy to fall into the trap, when we start making judgments about others. Here's how the process works, as I saw it played out in front of me: (1) I am smart/cultured/unique/other positive trait. (2) I don't like/get along with/am different from that person. (3) That must be because that person is not as smart/cultured/deep/cosmopolitan as I am. (4) That person is therefore stupid/shallow/naive/uncultured. (5) I am better than that person. Do this enough times, and step five becomes: I am better than most people. I am one of the elite.
And on and on it goes, until I am so self-absorbed and out of touch with reality that no one can stand to be around me. And the really tragic thing is, I've convinced myself that everyone but me is the problem. If only people were as deep/cultured/smart as I am, I would have more friends/dates/etc. But instead I'm stuck here trying to make the best of it, surrounded by idiots, a modern-day martyr. (insufferable, isn't it?)
But of course it doesn't start off looking so obviously ugly. See step 1? There's nothing wrong with liking yourself- with believing that you are smart or attractive or cultured or witty. I think the real problem comes when you start making judgments about others based on your opinions of yourself. And that is where the danger is, and that is where it becomes personal for me. Maybe this guy is in an advanced stage of the disease of pride, but I've got its beginning sniffles. It's the same disease; he's just left his untreated, ignored the warning signs for years.
For example: I hate Wal-Mart, not a great surprise to anyone who knows me. I hate it because it exemplifies a throw-away, consumer-crazed culture; I hate its cavernous cheaply made expanses and how it is dirty and impersonal and destroys small businesses and wraps itself in a fascade of made-in-America while treating American and non-American employees like crap. I think these are all good reasons to hate Wal-Mart, and I stand by them. But here's the next step: People who shop at Wal-Mart are not socially conscious like I am. They are either slobs who don't know or apathetic sheep who don't care. (Wow, I'm feeling superior already! That was easy.) People who shop at Wal-Mart are obviously less cultured/socially conscious/thoughtful/tasteful than I am. (See? I didn't even have to get to know any of those people and yet I've elevated myself above 3/4 of the American public! Easy!)
Except: Lots of people I love and admire shop at Wal-Mart. I probably do lots of things that are just as bad for the world as shopping at Wal-Mart. The "excepts" could go on and on.
Elitism/snobbery/judgment is cheap. It is easy. But it is ultimately costly. It allows us to make snap judgments about people who are different than us, and to thereby instantly elevate our own egos. But the cost is: We throw reflection and critical thinking out the window. We don't get to know or love people. We bypass the chance to grow and learn and face our mistakes and faults. We use people. We miss out on LIFE. Taken to its endpoint, this approach to life would leave you or me completely alone in a tight little superiority box with our nose in the air.
So that is why I say that I am not writing this to bash this guy. Because in his delusional self-glorification, I caught a glimpse of what I could become if I let my own self-righteousness go unchecked. And it was ugly.
Call it what you will- arrogance, elitism, conceit, narcissism, self-righteousness- it's ugly. But I think it's very very easy to fall into the trap, when we start making judgments about others. Here's how the process works, as I saw it played out in front of me: (1) I am smart/cultured/unique/other positive trait. (2) I don't like/get along with/am different from that person. (3) That must be because that person is not as smart/cultured/deep/cosmopolitan as I am. (4) That person is therefore stupid/shallow/naive/uncultured. (5) I am better than that person. Do this enough times, and step five becomes: I am better than most people. I am one of the elite.
And on and on it goes, until I am so self-absorbed and out of touch with reality that no one can stand to be around me. And the really tragic thing is, I've convinced myself that everyone but me is the problem. If only people were as deep/cultured/smart as I am, I would have more friends/dates/etc. But instead I'm stuck here trying to make the best of it, surrounded by idiots, a modern-day martyr. (insufferable, isn't it?)
But of course it doesn't start off looking so obviously ugly. See step 1? There's nothing wrong with liking yourself- with believing that you are smart or attractive or cultured or witty. I think the real problem comes when you start making judgments about others based on your opinions of yourself. And that is where the danger is, and that is where it becomes personal for me. Maybe this guy is in an advanced stage of the disease of pride, but I've got its beginning sniffles. It's the same disease; he's just left his untreated, ignored the warning signs for years.
For example: I hate Wal-Mart, not a great surprise to anyone who knows me. I hate it because it exemplifies a throw-away, consumer-crazed culture; I hate its cavernous cheaply made expanses and how it is dirty and impersonal and destroys small businesses and wraps itself in a fascade of made-in-America while treating American and non-American employees like crap. I think these are all good reasons to hate Wal-Mart, and I stand by them. But here's the next step: People who shop at Wal-Mart are not socially conscious like I am. They are either slobs who don't know or apathetic sheep who don't care. (Wow, I'm feeling superior already! That was easy.) People who shop at Wal-Mart are obviously less cultured/socially conscious/thoughtful/tasteful than I am. (See? I didn't even have to get to know any of those people and yet I've elevated myself above 3/4 of the American public! Easy!)
Except: Lots of people I love and admire shop at Wal-Mart. I probably do lots of things that are just as bad for the world as shopping at Wal-Mart. The "excepts" could go on and on.
Elitism/snobbery/judgment is cheap. It is easy. But it is ultimately costly. It allows us to make snap judgments about people who are different than us, and to thereby instantly elevate our own egos. But the cost is: We throw reflection and critical thinking out the window. We don't get to know or love people. We bypass the chance to grow and learn and face our mistakes and faults. We use people. We miss out on LIFE. Taken to its endpoint, this approach to life would leave you or me completely alone in a tight little superiority box with our nose in the air.
So that is why I say that I am not writing this to bash this guy. Because in his delusional self-glorification, I caught a glimpse of what I could become if I let my own self-righteousness go unchecked. And it was ugly.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Yuma Star
Let me start by saying that I have never watched American Idol, and I don't intend to start. But this past Wednesday, I found myself seated in Yuma's historic theater, yelling the name of a contestant in Yuma's own version of the talent contest.
My new friend Lisa, a 23 year old teacher from Michigan ( have I mentioned that around 90% of Yuma's teachers come from out of state?) , had been in Yuma one week. But this gutsy recent college grad loves to sing, and is good at it, so she signed up for Yuma's annual singing competition. Since she had no family here to come see her, she gave me one of her free "family tickets" and I promised to be there. And it was fun.
Unlike the TV version, Yuma Star contestants can be anyone brave enough to get up on stage. This made for a fascinating cross section of the community, from the skinny 13 year old in a tube top singing some pop song that I have never heard, to the 41 year old Mexican father in cowboy hat and boots singing a simple ballad in Spanish, to the 24 year old Army member with 2 kids singing "before he cheats" in all that song's angry glory (to the extent of kicking over the mike stand), to the 15 year old whose version of the Titanic song was absolutely excruciating, to the young Michigan transplant dedicating "Gotta be" to her new friends at Yuma school district number one. Then at the end, one of the judges gets up on stage to kill some time while the scores are being tallied. "I'll sing something. Do you all mind if it's about Jesus?" Lots of cheers. So the night ends up with a gospel song sung by the big man with the football player physique.
I like the small town version of American Idol (Idiot?) much better than the TV version. Because it's the chance to see someone just like you, only a little braver or more spotlight-hungry, up there going for it in front of an audience of people praying that their friend won't forget the words, trip onstage, or lose their top. And in the end, when I stood outside in the 100 degree 9 oclock evening waiting for Lisa, and saw the new "stars" walking out of the theater basking in their newfound small town celebrity-dom, I have to admit feeling a glow of fondness for this little city in the middle of the desert.
And yes, Lisa made it to the next round.
My new friend Lisa, a 23 year old teacher from Michigan ( have I mentioned that around 90% of Yuma's teachers come from out of state?) , had been in Yuma one week. But this gutsy recent college grad loves to sing, and is good at it, so she signed up for Yuma's annual singing competition. Since she had no family here to come see her, she gave me one of her free "family tickets" and I promised to be there. And it was fun.
Unlike the TV version, Yuma Star contestants can be anyone brave enough to get up on stage. This made for a fascinating cross section of the community, from the skinny 13 year old in a tube top singing some pop song that I have never heard, to the 41 year old Mexican father in cowboy hat and boots singing a simple ballad in Spanish, to the 24 year old Army member with 2 kids singing "before he cheats" in all that song's angry glory (to the extent of kicking over the mike stand), to the 15 year old whose version of the Titanic song was absolutely excruciating, to the young Michigan transplant dedicating "Gotta be" to her new friends at Yuma school district number one. Then at the end, one of the judges gets up on stage to kill some time while the scores are being tallied. "I'll sing something. Do you all mind if it's about Jesus?" Lots of cheers. So the night ends up with a gospel song sung by the big man with the football player physique.
I like the small town version of American Idol (Idiot?) much better than the TV version. Because it's the chance to see someone just like you, only a little braver or more spotlight-hungry, up there going for it in front of an audience of people praying that their friend won't forget the words, trip onstage, or lose their top. And in the end, when I stood outside in the 100 degree 9 oclock evening waiting for Lisa, and saw the new "stars" walking out of the theater basking in their newfound small town celebrity-dom, I have to admit feeling a glow of fondness for this little city in the middle of the desert.
And yes, Lisa made it to the next round.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
The Yuman shopping cart: a field observation
In the suburbs and large cities, carts are fairly docile and domesticated creatures, huddling together in neat rowns and hered in and out by high school bagger boys. But in the small town of Yuma, carts' true character are revealed.
Carts are by nature wild and solitary animals. They are amazingly elusive, skulking warily in the corners of parking lots. They gather in small clumps between parked cars like surly teenagers, plotting their escape.
And they do escape. Aided by the desperation of car-less humans faced with the challenge of hauling tortillas and beans to their homes in the stifling heat, the carts break away from their asphalt corrals. From what I've observed, the preferred habitat of the Yuman carts are vacant lots and run-down apartment buildings, where they jangle along fences and walls in solitary windblown freedom. Often, they can be found rolling on their backs in the dust, wheels raised to the sky in rusty joy.
Although the carts generally enjoy the solitary life, they do congregate in canals, where they commune in submerged secrecy until a municipal water crisis exposes their box-like bodies to the sun. And it is here, in the concrete channelled ribbons of diverted Colorado River water, that these proud steel creatures go to die. Worn out by old age and wild living, they disintegrate into the minerals that give Yuma water its distinctively unappealing taste.
That's how I see it.
Carts are by nature wild and solitary animals. They are amazingly elusive, skulking warily in the corners of parking lots. They gather in small clumps between parked cars like surly teenagers, plotting their escape.
And they do escape. Aided by the desperation of car-less humans faced with the challenge of hauling tortillas and beans to their homes in the stifling heat, the carts break away from their asphalt corrals. From what I've observed, the preferred habitat of the Yuman carts are vacant lots and run-down apartment buildings, where they jangle along fences and walls in solitary windblown freedom. Often, they can be found rolling on their backs in the dust, wheels raised to the sky in rusty joy.
Although the carts generally enjoy the solitary life, they do congregate in canals, where they commune in submerged secrecy until a municipal water crisis exposes their box-like bodies to the sun. And it is here, in the concrete channelled ribbons of diverted Colorado River water, that these proud steel creatures go to die. Worn out by old age and wild living, they disintegrate into the minerals that give Yuma water its distinctively unappealing taste.
That's how I see it.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Die Hard's big lie
I went to see the latest Bourne movie yesterday. Sitting through the previews was pretty appalling. I think I saw 20 murders just in the previews. I don't know if Hollywood is coming up with more violent movies, or if because of the high military presence Yuma gets all of the finest shoot-em-ups, but it was awful. Or maybe that it what I get for going to see an action movie, even if it is an action movie where the hero has a little bit of a conscience, who is haunted by his crimes and trying to escape.
The movies that really bother me are these ones where these supposedly good loving family men turn into Rambos when someone does something to their families. These movies- Die Hard and all its spawn, Kevin Bacon being the star of the most recent one- sell the lie that it is ok to murder and maim with astonishing brutality if your family is in danger. It's this sick marriage of love for family, and brutal violence. All this, and when you've washed the blood of countless people from your hands, you can go back to your wife and kids, cleansed with gory adrenaline, as if it was all worth it. We are sick- to twist a good impulse- love and sacrifice for your family- into a license to kill.
These type of movies especially bother me because they are fundamentally dishonest. Because violence has a cost. Even violence that is undertaken with the best of intentions, for the most noble of causes. I saw another movie two weeks ago, one that was much more honest about the effects of violence. I think that any really realistic war movie leaves me with a sinking realization of the absolute inutility of war. The Wind that Shakes the Barley, about Ireland's war for independence. It shows the journey of two brothers, who, motivated by the abuses perpetrated on their beloved country by an occupying force, turn away from the lives that they should have had in a better world, and fight for their country. And it shows how the war twists them, how it ultimately destroys their family and all that they fought for, and you are left with a single despairing question: Why??? War is voracious, and once you are immersed in it you cannot get out, even if the cause is hopeless, because what of those who have already died? And so you go on fighting and dying because of those who fought and died before. So that their fighting and dying was not in vain. These men saw their death approaching, and yet could not/would not budge from a path that they had embarked on, and the movie helped me to understand why they could not escape.
I wish we had more portrayals of war like that, instead of those that portray killing as costless.
The movies that really bother me are these ones where these supposedly good loving family men turn into Rambos when someone does something to their families. These movies- Die Hard and all its spawn, Kevin Bacon being the star of the most recent one- sell the lie that it is ok to murder and maim with astonishing brutality if your family is in danger. It's this sick marriage of love for family, and brutal violence. All this, and when you've washed the blood of countless people from your hands, you can go back to your wife and kids, cleansed with gory adrenaline, as if it was all worth it. We are sick- to twist a good impulse- love and sacrifice for your family- into a license to kill.
These type of movies especially bother me because they are fundamentally dishonest. Because violence has a cost. Even violence that is undertaken with the best of intentions, for the most noble of causes. I saw another movie two weeks ago, one that was much more honest about the effects of violence. I think that any really realistic war movie leaves me with a sinking realization of the absolute inutility of war. The Wind that Shakes the Barley, about Ireland's war for independence. It shows the journey of two brothers, who, motivated by the abuses perpetrated on their beloved country by an occupying force, turn away from the lives that they should have had in a better world, and fight for their country. And it shows how the war twists them, how it ultimately destroys their family and all that they fought for, and you are left with a single despairing question: Why??? War is voracious, and once you are immersed in it you cannot get out, even if the cause is hopeless, because what of those who have already died? And so you go on fighting and dying because of those who fought and died before. So that their fighting and dying was not in vain. These men saw their death approaching, and yet could not/would not budge from a path that they had embarked on, and the movie helped me to understand why they could not escape.
I wish we had more portrayals of war like that, instead of those that portray killing as costless.
101 things to do in Yuma
I've been very lazy about blogging lately. I'll try to do better.
A friend of mine showed me a list of 101 things to do in Yuma, which I now can't find on the internet. Maybe it's sort of a dark humor that's only funny if you actually live here, but even now I am giggling. Some of my favorites: 1. Shoot at stray cats with BB guns. 2. Shoot at stray cats with shotguns. 3. Read in the paper about how the stray cat population is growing. 4. Drag race the snowbirds down 4th Avenue. 5. Go to super Walmart. 6. Swim illegally in the canals. 7. Watch dead people float down the canals. 8. Swim with dead people in the canals. 9. Hang out in Sanguinetti park around 11pm and wait for the sprinklers to come on. 10. Go to super Walmart again. And on and on.... Please don't be offended- I don't actually advocate shooting at cats.
It's not that bad. But Yuma does have a really bad stray cat problem and there are 3 Walmarts in a town of 100,000 people, and apparently if you are smuggling drugs and you get caught the drug mafia throws your body in the canal. Speaking of canals, the water levels were really low this morning for some reason and I swear I counted 10 shopping carts in the canal within 1.5 miles. It made me laugh because I was thinking how people throw bikes in the canals in Amsterdam. Different continents, same moronic impulses...
The high today was only 101 and I kid you not, you can feel the difference. It's downright pleasant to walk around outside when it's only 95. When it's not 115, the wind feels nice instead of feeling like someone's chasing you with a blowdryer.
A friend of mine showed me a list of 101 things to do in Yuma, which I now can't find on the internet. Maybe it's sort of a dark humor that's only funny if you actually live here, but even now I am giggling. Some of my favorites: 1. Shoot at stray cats with BB guns. 2. Shoot at stray cats with shotguns. 3. Read in the paper about how the stray cat population is growing. 4. Drag race the snowbirds down 4th Avenue. 5. Go to super Walmart. 6. Swim illegally in the canals. 7. Watch dead people float down the canals. 8. Swim with dead people in the canals. 9. Hang out in Sanguinetti park around 11pm and wait for the sprinklers to come on. 10. Go to super Walmart again. And on and on.... Please don't be offended- I don't actually advocate shooting at cats.
It's not that bad. But Yuma does have a really bad stray cat problem and there are 3 Walmarts in a town of 100,000 people, and apparently if you are smuggling drugs and you get caught the drug mafia throws your body in the canal. Speaking of canals, the water levels were really low this morning for some reason and I swear I counted 10 shopping carts in the canal within 1.5 miles. It made me laugh because I was thinking how people throw bikes in the canals in Amsterdam. Different continents, same moronic impulses...
The high today was only 101 and I kid you not, you can feel the difference. It's downright pleasant to walk around outside when it's only 95. When it's not 115, the wind feels nice instead of feeling like someone's chasing you with a blowdryer.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Politics
I listen to the news on public radio every morning. I like being informed, but there are some days that I just get angry. And this has been a bad week. Allow me to vent a bit:
So the program that gives states money to use on establishing health care programs for children whose families have incomes above the poverty line, but who still can't afford private health insurance (ok, I could just stop right there, because that's an embarassing enough problem for the land of the American dream, but I'll continue) is up for renewal, and Congress is actually talking about expanding it, because for some incomprehensible reason the number of kids in this category keeps rising. And then Bush has the absolute audacity to announce that he's going to veto any expansion. Because it would be irresponsible to increase the funding. However His Infinite Wisdom apparently does not deem it irresponsible to (1) pour billions into Iraq every month despite the fact that we are seeing absolutely no good return on our money (2) sell arms cheap to Saudi Arabia to allow that veritable champion of human rights to keep its good democratic influence in the Middle East (3) continue fighting a "war on drugs" which has terrorized a lot of Columbian farmers and put a lot of people (most black men) in jail but done nothing to combat our national drug problem (4) throw out sentences for your cronies who lie (don't worry Gonzalez, I've got your back too- keep up the stonewalling and I'll take care of you just like I did Libby).
I am angry.
Add a whole lot of lies and arrogance to the picture with the whole firing of US attorneys. Questions: (1) If nothing improper was done, then what in the hell is Bush trying to hide with all this talk of executive privilege for every person who has ever breathed in the White House? (2) How many lies will we take from slimy slimy little Gonzalez before enough is enough? (3) Since when does the big murky cloud of executive privilege cover the entire Presidential staff?
I am angry.
How did we get to this point, and is there any way out? How long can we go on choking on lies and oily greed and rampant consumerism that ignores all sanity?
So the program that gives states money to use on establishing health care programs for children whose families have incomes above the poverty line, but who still can't afford private health insurance (ok, I could just stop right there, because that's an embarassing enough problem for the land of the American dream, but I'll continue) is up for renewal, and Congress is actually talking about expanding it, because for some incomprehensible reason the number of kids in this category keeps rising. And then Bush has the absolute audacity to announce that he's going to veto any expansion. Because it would be irresponsible to increase the funding. However His Infinite Wisdom apparently does not deem it irresponsible to (1) pour billions into Iraq every month despite the fact that we are seeing absolutely no good return on our money (2) sell arms cheap to Saudi Arabia to allow that veritable champion of human rights to keep its good democratic influence in the Middle East (3) continue fighting a "war on drugs" which has terrorized a lot of Columbian farmers and put a lot of people (most black men) in jail but done nothing to combat our national drug problem (4) throw out sentences for your cronies who lie (don't worry Gonzalez, I've got your back too- keep up the stonewalling and I'll take care of you just like I did Libby).
I am angry.
Add a whole lot of lies and arrogance to the picture with the whole firing of US attorneys. Questions: (1) If nothing improper was done, then what in the hell is Bush trying to hide with all this talk of executive privilege for every person who has ever breathed in the White House? (2) How many lies will we take from slimy slimy little Gonzalez before enough is enough? (3) Since when does the big murky cloud of executive privilege cover the entire Presidential staff?
I am angry.
How did we get to this point, and is there any way out? How long can we go on choking on lies and oily greed and rampant consumerism that ignores all sanity?
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
sweet sweet freedom
As of 5pm this afternoon, I am officially done taking the Arizona Bar Exam. I feel such relief... I am positive I passed, although it's possible that feeling is a protection mechanism because my brain knows I could not handle the thought of not passing. Regardless. I'm done. When it all comes down to it, the anticipation is much worse than the actual thing. Although, being in an huge icebox (I swear the air conditioning was so low my fingernails were blue) for three hours with 900 people writing furiously for two days straight was not fun. The Tucson Convention Center lobby has this creepy display of dolls representing each and every President and First Lady, and I think it reflects on the absolute brain dead state we were all in, that this morning people were just standing and staring at these dolls. It was kind of funny.
Tucson is beautiful right now. (that's where the bar exam was). As I drove in on Monday afternoon, passing Picacho Peak I saw lightning off in the dark sky distance, and then the rain fell. Rain so hard that people were pulling off the road. Rain harder than I have ever seen, and I was just sitting there open-mouthed because I haven't seen anything close to rain in a month and a half and we're in the desert! But it rained all day, rained as I drove into Tucson, rained so that the streets were flooded, rained on the kids splashing in water up to their waists in the streets, bringing out the smell of wet mesquite that is etched into my memory so deep I didn't know it was there. The cool wet night of monsoon season washed away anxiety and rain-longing and I just felt so happy. I was greeted at Stucky's house by their two enormous and absurdly friendly dogs.
Last night, after the exam, Roseanne and I drove up to "A" mountain, stopping first for raspados (Mexican snow cones with real fruit and ice cream). The mountain is right on the edge of the city, and Tucson was spread out all sparkly and wet below. Chilled by the ice cream and cool breeze and drizzle, we enjoyed the view and I dreamed about this place being home.
Thank you to all of you who were thinking of me during these past two days. It has been a rough month but I think things will get better now.
Tucson is beautiful right now. (that's where the bar exam was). As I drove in on Monday afternoon, passing Picacho Peak I saw lightning off in the dark sky distance, and then the rain fell. Rain so hard that people were pulling off the road. Rain harder than I have ever seen, and I was just sitting there open-mouthed because I haven't seen anything close to rain in a month and a half and we're in the desert! But it rained all day, rained as I drove into Tucson, rained so that the streets were flooded, rained on the kids splashing in water up to their waists in the streets, bringing out the smell of wet mesquite that is etched into my memory so deep I didn't know it was there. The cool wet night of monsoon season washed away anxiety and rain-longing and I just felt so happy. I was greeted at Stucky's house by their two enormous and absurdly friendly dogs.
Last night, after the exam, Roseanne and I drove up to "A" mountain, stopping first for raspados (Mexican snow cones with real fruit and ice cream). The mountain is right on the edge of the city, and Tucson was spread out all sparkly and wet below. Chilled by the ice cream and cool breeze and drizzle, we enjoyed the view and I dreamed about this place being home.
Thank you to all of you who were thinking of me during these past two days. It has been a rough month but I think things will get better now.
Monday, July 9, 2007
My outlook on Yuma, and my current life, changes a lot from day to day. Some days I just get so tired of spending all day inside reading about the most boring aspects of law, watching the sun blaze outside and despairing of ever finding my place in this town. And that's usually when I wait until near sunset and go take a long walk. And I know this is weird, but the place that always makes me feel better is the cemetery. It is the most peaceful place, and also so fascinating. Yesterday I saw, in addition to the everpresent clouds of white doves, a pack of rabbits. But what rabbits! I've never seen anything like them. At first I thought it was a deer, because this rabbit is hairless and stick-thin, with the most absurdly large ears. I swear its ears were a foot long, and they stood straight up, so that this bizarre creature looked twice as big as it actually was. I followed it around until I could figure out what it was and then I just laughed at this space creature rabbit. So in the last rays of blinding sunlight, it was just me and the alien rabbits and the doves and an ancient probably homeless man with long gray hair and a half-empty bottle, sitting comatose on a tombstone. The hot breeze and the silence cleared my head, and I started thinking about the message I heard in church (full of sweet little old people) that morning. About freedom from fear. About how fear comes when we expect things to turn out one way, and our expectations come crumbling down around us and we are left with blind faith. Or in my case, blind faith in a cemetery with weird rabbits.
I'm not sure how long I will stay in Yuma. I know that this life I am living now is only for two more weeks, and then it will be time to really see what this place is like. But I have decided: I am going to take advantage of this time and place. I will not live in fear of having made a mistake. I will seize onto what is beautiful and strange in this place, and when it is time to go, I may not have a lot of soulmates but I want to be able to say that I know every street, that I have eaten truckloads of tamales and chorrizo burritos from Stan's grocery, that I know my neighbors and co-workers and the servers at every downtown restaurant, that I have attended at least one quinceaÑera and countless Scorpions baseball games, that I can make guacamole, that I have swam in the Colorado river and run to California (ha! did that yesterday!).
And Yuma has beautiful sunsets. Maybe Arizona sunsets in general are beautiful. The still clarity, how every surface has a subdued glow, a matte finish lit from within. It is absolutely glorious.
I'm not sure how long I will stay in Yuma. I know that this life I am living now is only for two more weeks, and then it will be time to really see what this place is like. But I have decided: I am going to take advantage of this time and place. I will not live in fear of having made a mistake. I will seize onto what is beautiful and strange in this place, and when it is time to go, I may not have a lot of soulmates but I want to be able to say that I know every street, that I have eaten truckloads of tamales and chorrizo burritos from Stan's grocery, that I know my neighbors and co-workers and the servers at every downtown restaurant, that I have attended at least one quinceaÑera and countless Scorpions baseball games, that I can make guacamole, that I have swam in the Colorado river and run to California (ha! did that yesterday!).
And Yuma has beautiful sunsets. Maybe Arizona sunsets in general are beautiful. The still clarity, how every surface has a subdued glow, a matte finish lit from within. It is absolutely glorious.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Yuma and Arizona factoids
It's another hot day in Yuma, folks. I don't know why we even bother with weather forecasts here. Every day is "hot, clear, highs in the ___ (number well above 100)." Tomorrow's forecast: 112. I can feel the melanoma forming every time I go outside.
Did you know:
-GM is building a "hot weather testing center" on the Yuma Proving Ground land. That's the facility used by the military for testing bombs, because it's the most God-forsaken stretch of barren hot desert you ever saw. I almost don't mind them dropping bombs on it, that's how bad it is. Anyway, GM is building a facility there for testing how its cars deal with heat, AND the military will use it for (dropping more bombs?). Interesting, huh. thank you NPR.
-Yuma High School's mascot? The Criminals. That's right. The story: once upon a time, long long ago, the high school was housed in the local jail. I forget why. Need to hear that story again I guess.
- Yuma county is the nation's largest producer of many agricultural products, including winter lettuce. Just throw some water on this desert, and things grow! That is downright miraculous to me. It just goes to show that there is always some life hidden away, beneath the surface.
-Arizona is a community property state. Which means that any income during the marriage (not including gifts or inheritance to either spouse), of either spouse, is not their separate property, but the property of the "community." If they get divorced or one spouse dies, all income is split evenly, even if only one spouse worked outside the home during the entire marriage. This seems to me to be an exceptionally progressive system for recognizing the equal contributions of spouses even if one "only" raises children in the home. And it comes from the old Spanish tradition.
Sorry, I don't have any profound thoughts for today. I just needed an escape from Corporations.
Did you know:
-GM is building a "hot weather testing center" on the Yuma Proving Ground land. That's the facility used by the military for testing bombs, because it's the most God-forsaken stretch of barren hot desert you ever saw. I almost don't mind them dropping bombs on it, that's how bad it is. Anyway, GM is building a facility there for testing how its cars deal with heat, AND the military will use it for (dropping more bombs?). Interesting, huh. thank you NPR.
-Yuma High School's mascot? The Criminals. That's right. The story: once upon a time, long long ago, the high school was housed in the local jail. I forget why. Need to hear that story again I guess.
- Yuma county is the nation's largest producer of many agricultural products, including winter lettuce. Just throw some water on this desert, and things grow! That is downright miraculous to me. It just goes to show that there is always some life hidden away, beneath the surface.
-Arizona is a community property state. Which means that any income during the marriage (not including gifts or inheritance to either spouse), of either spouse, is not their separate property, but the property of the "community." If they get divorced or one spouse dies, all income is split evenly, even if only one spouse worked outside the home during the entire marriage. This seems to me to be an exceptionally progressive system for recognizing the equal contributions of spouses even if one "only" raises children in the home. And it comes from the old Spanish tradition.
Sorry, I don't have any profound thoughts for today. I just needed an escape from Corporations.
Monday, June 25, 2007
making old things new
I've gotten into the habit of taking walks around the neighborhoods surrounding me, in the evenings when it's bearable outside. I live in an apartment in the old part of Yuma, and it's a sort of run-down dusty area. I like it though. There are some beautiful old houses, and the downtown with its abandoned side streets and adobe buildings with wide porches makes me feel like I've walked into a different world. This is the Yuma that was left behind when the shiny new mall, Yuma Palms, was built just a few miles south. The mall, with its flashy movie theater and big department stores and well-lit streets, is the place to be on a weekend. Meanwhile, old downtown Yuma houses lawyer's offices and some struggling antiques stores, two bars, a casino, a newly restored old theater and a newly built one, and a few restaurants.
You know why I like it? I get such a sense of excitement, like something beautiful is simmering right below the surface- the possibility of restoration and vitality that still lives deep within the empty broken windows and the boarded up side streets. I know it's there, because I pass La Casa Gutierrez, a beautiful old home that now houses a fantastic Mexican restaurant. The windows are trimmed with blue and red tile, a fountain bubbles in the front yard, and the walls covered with pictures of Yuma's past citizens, and the place is always full at lunch. And the downtown is not nearly as deserted as it first seems- go inside a seemingly deserted cafe, and there's people there, the students from the cosmetology school on their lunch break, a mother and son just done with karate lessons, the inevitable lawyers, old ladies from Canada.
It's the feeling I get every time I'm in a shabby old lived-in place. Philadelphia, the sketchy part of Normaltown in Athens, South Tucson. There is just something about these places.
And it got me thinking about restoration. I love the feeling of taking something that has history, that has felt the fingerprints and feet of generations and is decidely worse for wear, and restoring it to something beautiful. Not restoring it to how it was before, with crazy huge Victorian furniture, but making the old relevant and functional and attractive in today's world. There's something holy about that.
I don't think Holy is too strong a word for it. If you think about it, restoration is what we are called to, more than anything else. We start out in God's image, and life twists and distorts and dirties that image until it is barely recognizable. But God sees through the bad paint and cracked tile and unkempt yard of this house that is our lives- He sees the beauty underneath, what we are supposed to be, called to be. And he restores us. It brings to mind the passage in Ezekiel- 16:6- where the prophet describes Israel as an abandoned child, left to die in her blood and filth. And God sees her and speaks that earth-shattering word: LIVE!
Isn't that what He's done for all of us?
On a smaller scale, it's what he's called us to do. To restore what is broken and run-down and dirty and worn out. To bring hope and revival and new life.
I don't think that this restoration mission is a narrow one. It should touch and influence every facet of our lives. Obviously, it applies to restoring and building up the broken and run-down people around us, but there's more than that. I believe that we are called to bring restoration to what is old, to find what is good and beautiful and relevant in the things that have been cast off. To reinvigorate and restore old neighborhoods, re-discover cast off clothes and re-invent them, take in stray animals. All according to the gifts God has given us.
This applies to the church as well. Instead of creating a new Christianity which reinforces American lifestyle values and emulates corporations and celebrities, let's look for relevant ideas from our roots. Let's pull out those ideas of community, of simplicity, of hard work, that motivated Christians ages ago. Our job is to make the church relevant, not by creating something new, but by restoring what has been lost and making it functional and meaningful for today.
These are the ideas that came to me as I walked- maybe it's the result of my brain trying to escape from the agonies of studying commercial paper and contracts. Let me know what you think.
You know why I like it? I get such a sense of excitement, like something beautiful is simmering right below the surface- the possibility of restoration and vitality that still lives deep within the empty broken windows and the boarded up side streets. I know it's there, because I pass La Casa Gutierrez, a beautiful old home that now houses a fantastic Mexican restaurant. The windows are trimmed with blue and red tile, a fountain bubbles in the front yard, and the walls covered with pictures of Yuma's past citizens, and the place is always full at lunch. And the downtown is not nearly as deserted as it first seems- go inside a seemingly deserted cafe, and there's people there, the students from the cosmetology school on their lunch break, a mother and son just done with karate lessons, the inevitable lawyers, old ladies from Canada.
It's the feeling I get every time I'm in a shabby old lived-in place. Philadelphia, the sketchy part of Normaltown in Athens, South Tucson. There is just something about these places.
And it got me thinking about restoration. I love the feeling of taking something that has history, that has felt the fingerprints and feet of generations and is decidely worse for wear, and restoring it to something beautiful. Not restoring it to how it was before, with crazy huge Victorian furniture, but making the old relevant and functional and attractive in today's world. There's something holy about that.
I don't think Holy is too strong a word for it. If you think about it, restoration is what we are called to, more than anything else. We start out in God's image, and life twists and distorts and dirties that image until it is barely recognizable. But God sees through the bad paint and cracked tile and unkempt yard of this house that is our lives- He sees the beauty underneath, what we are supposed to be, called to be. And he restores us. It brings to mind the passage in Ezekiel- 16:6- where the prophet describes Israel as an abandoned child, left to die in her blood and filth. And God sees her and speaks that earth-shattering word: LIVE!
Isn't that what He's done for all of us?
On a smaller scale, it's what he's called us to do. To restore what is broken and run-down and dirty and worn out. To bring hope and revival and new life.
I don't think that this restoration mission is a narrow one. It should touch and influence every facet of our lives. Obviously, it applies to restoring and building up the broken and run-down people around us, but there's more than that. I believe that we are called to bring restoration to what is old, to find what is good and beautiful and relevant in the things that have been cast off. To reinvigorate and restore old neighborhoods, re-discover cast off clothes and re-invent them, take in stray animals. All according to the gifts God has given us.
This applies to the church as well. Instead of creating a new Christianity which reinforces American lifestyle values and emulates corporations and celebrities, let's look for relevant ideas from our roots. Let's pull out those ideas of community, of simplicity, of hard work, that motivated Christians ages ago. Our job is to make the church relevant, not by creating something new, but by restoring what has been lost and making it functional and meaningful for today.
These are the ideas that came to me as I walked- maybe it's the result of my brain trying to escape from the agonies of studying commercial paper and contracts. Let me know what you think.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
doves in the cemetary
Yuma, Arizona. My new home, for now. A very hot place in the summer.
I've been getting up early and going running, because the mornings here are beautiful, and really the only bearable time of day. It's breezy and bright and somewhat cool. I'd passed the Yuma cemetary several times, and it looked so interesting, so this morning I ran over there and walked around. It was around 6:30am, the sun was bright, there was a cool breeze, and I was all alone in this cemetary on the top of a hill. Gravestones stretched out in front of me in a vast expanse. This is the "poor" side of the cemetary- through a gate to the south is a vast green field with endless rows of neat plaques and fake flower bouquets, where people with more money are buried in serene respectability. But on this side, people can put up whatever grave marker they want or can afford, from a bare wooden post to a stone marker with a glass fronted case full of photos set in an enclosed area with sprinklers to keep the grass perpetually green. There's bare cement slabs with names written in marker, shabby wooden crosses like those ones you see by the highway, decorated with ribbons and fake flowers; there's simple metal plaques with the names of WWII veterans; and then family plots with statues of Mary and flowery poems in Spanish and more extensive structures. I love cemetaries. I wandered along the dusty paths surrounded by Redondo and Mendoza and Rodriguez for an hour. There was a flock of doves- must have been a hundred of them- and they settled and rose in a white cloud among the crosses. I've never seen real doves up close like that. That walk through the cemetary was so peaceful and beautiful.
Later in the morning, after breakfast and some bar studying, I came outside and met Charlie, the son of the landlord, a skinny guy with skin stretched tight over his face and a nervous energy. He came in to lower my water heater temp- I'm really considering turning it off, since I see no need for hot water when it's in the triple digits outside. Anyway, he and his buddy were hilarious. Charlie kept up a constant stream of chatter while he was adjusting the water heater. "hey, I like that scooter, how much did you pay for it? I have a buddy who got one for 50 cents from this woman who was getting divorced, she sold it for spite. Wow, look how dirty this water heater is. If I had known I would have cleaned it. I've learned all about rentals from my mom. I'm so worried about her, she just had heart surgery, gave us all a scare. Hey, look at that doorframe, I need to work on that. Your air conditioning working ok? Good. Now I'm not going to touch this wire with my wet hands. You know, I was going to get this great job working with trucks, but I got stuck on some 220 and it scared me good. I wouldn't even plug in a lamp after that. I just couldn't let go of it. But I wouldn't take disability. No, I like to work. Matter of fact, I'm not a gambling addict, but I sure do like the Paradise (casino). And they like me too- I win all the time. I just won $75. Last year I won $4000 but I got hit hard with taxes. " And on and on... I sure have met a lot of characters here already. And I've only been here a week.
I've been getting up early and going running, because the mornings here are beautiful, and really the only bearable time of day. It's breezy and bright and somewhat cool. I'd passed the Yuma cemetary several times, and it looked so interesting, so this morning I ran over there and walked around. It was around 6:30am, the sun was bright, there was a cool breeze, and I was all alone in this cemetary on the top of a hill. Gravestones stretched out in front of me in a vast expanse. This is the "poor" side of the cemetary- through a gate to the south is a vast green field with endless rows of neat plaques and fake flower bouquets, where people with more money are buried in serene respectability. But on this side, people can put up whatever grave marker they want or can afford, from a bare wooden post to a stone marker with a glass fronted case full of photos set in an enclosed area with sprinklers to keep the grass perpetually green. There's bare cement slabs with names written in marker, shabby wooden crosses like those ones you see by the highway, decorated with ribbons and fake flowers; there's simple metal plaques with the names of WWII veterans; and then family plots with statues of Mary and flowery poems in Spanish and more extensive structures. I love cemetaries. I wandered along the dusty paths surrounded by Redondo and Mendoza and Rodriguez for an hour. There was a flock of doves- must have been a hundred of them- and they settled and rose in a white cloud among the crosses. I've never seen real doves up close like that. That walk through the cemetary was so peaceful and beautiful.
Later in the morning, after breakfast and some bar studying, I came outside and met Charlie, the son of the landlord, a skinny guy with skin stretched tight over his face and a nervous energy. He came in to lower my water heater temp- I'm really considering turning it off, since I see no need for hot water when it's in the triple digits outside. Anyway, he and his buddy were hilarious. Charlie kept up a constant stream of chatter while he was adjusting the water heater. "hey, I like that scooter, how much did you pay for it? I have a buddy who got one for 50 cents from this woman who was getting divorced, she sold it for spite. Wow, look how dirty this water heater is. If I had known I would have cleaned it. I've learned all about rentals from my mom. I'm so worried about her, she just had heart surgery, gave us all a scare. Hey, look at that doorframe, I need to work on that. Your air conditioning working ok? Good. Now I'm not going to touch this wire with my wet hands. You know, I was going to get this great job working with trucks, but I got stuck on some 220 and it scared me good. I wouldn't even plug in a lamp after that. I just couldn't let go of it. But I wouldn't take disability. No, I like to work. Matter of fact, I'm not a gambling addict, but I sure do like the Paradise (casino). And they like me too- I win all the time. I just won $75. Last year I won $4000 but I got hit hard with taxes. " And on and on... I sure have met a lot of characters here already. And I've only been here a week.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Saturday night
It's a Saturday night in Athens- that would mean I'm sitting in a coffeehouse, scouring the Internet for job openings, sending resumes and cover letters out into cyberspace, and cursing Hot Corner's eradic wireless connection. Life is back to normal.
Athens didn't change much in the month I was gone in India. The house by the railroad tracks on Pulaski, where a constant ebb and flow of punk kids lived and decorated the porch with strange hanging art and held numerous musical gatherings and no doubt consumed large amounts of illegal substances, is boarded up. And the undaunted owner of the restaurant that was Mia Madonna and then Cafe Moulin Rouge has now decided to try his hand at putting a Spanish tapas bar in this apparently profit-challenged location. And the location on College Ave that was a bar called Lunch Paper and then a cell phone shop is now what appears to be a bar called, of all things, the Chapel.
I love this town. It's just so weirdly out of place in Georgia. Actually, it's just weird, period. The skinny guy with a big bandage on his cheek and a discman with headphones who dances and sings to himself outside the bank on College, oblivious to the amusement of passing students; the Tuesday afternoon war protesters by the Arch; the hippy organic grocery stores and bizarrely dressed "townies" confident in their defiantly noncomformist musical insular subculture and their smug disdain of the strapless dress and make up wearing sorority children, the latest out-of-control rant of a certain nameless law professor in the Flagpole. I love that this place makes me feel normal for riding a bike and recycling, and that at the same time it challenges me to not be too "normal."
I do get annoyed by some stuff here, of course. The clueless rich kids drinking their daddy's money away downtown, drowning in entitlement and laziness and complacency. And on the other side, the same homeless guys downtown who have absolutely nothing wrong with them and yet will try to get a buck out of anyone who looks sympathetic, and all I can think about when I see an able-bodied overweight guy asking me for money is the guy on the train in India, crawling on his knees through the train aisles scraping up trash and getting a few pennies, and I just get angry. Don't get me wrong, some people are homeless for good reasons, and are legitimately in need of help. But I spent two winters doing occasional volunteering at a homeless shelter, and I got really fed up of people complaining that we didn't have their favorite kind of bagel for breakfast. The more I see poverty in other countries, the harder it is for me to muster up much compassion for someone who walks around downtown all day asking for money.
What we need is more immigrants. I read about these guys who got arrested in California I think- they had crawled underground through a two-foot wide pipe, from Mexico to the US. Why are we not greeting these people with a welcoming band and a certificate of citizenship, instead of putting them in jail and deporting them? How many American citizens would crawl half a mile through a sewer pipe, or walk for two weeks through the desert, for the opportunity to work two minimum wage jobs at the same time, while living in an apartment with 15 other people? Just my personal opinion...
Athens didn't change much in the month I was gone in India. The house by the railroad tracks on Pulaski, where a constant ebb and flow of punk kids lived and decorated the porch with strange hanging art and held numerous musical gatherings and no doubt consumed large amounts of illegal substances, is boarded up. And the undaunted owner of the restaurant that was Mia Madonna and then Cafe Moulin Rouge has now decided to try his hand at putting a Spanish tapas bar in this apparently profit-challenged location. And the location on College Ave that was a bar called Lunch Paper and then a cell phone shop is now what appears to be a bar called, of all things, the Chapel.
I love this town. It's just so weirdly out of place in Georgia. Actually, it's just weird, period. The skinny guy with a big bandage on his cheek and a discman with headphones who dances and sings to himself outside the bank on College, oblivious to the amusement of passing students; the Tuesday afternoon war protesters by the Arch; the hippy organic grocery stores and bizarrely dressed "townies" confident in their defiantly noncomformist musical insular subculture and their smug disdain of the strapless dress and make up wearing sorority children, the latest out-of-control rant of a certain nameless law professor in the Flagpole. I love that this place makes me feel normal for riding a bike and recycling, and that at the same time it challenges me to not be too "normal."
I do get annoyed by some stuff here, of course. The clueless rich kids drinking their daddy's money away downtown, drowning in entitlement and laziness and complacency. And on the other side, the same homeless guys downtown who have absolutely nothing wrong with them and yet will try to get a buck out of anyone who looks sympathetic, and all I can think about when I see an able-bodied overweight guy asking me for money is the guy on the train in India, crawling on his knees through the train aisles scraping up trash and getting a few pennies, and I just get angry. Don't get me wrong, some people are homeless for good reasons, and are legitimately in need of help. But I spent two winters doing occasional volunteering at a homeless shelter, and I got really fed up of people complaining that we didn't have their favorite kind of bagel for breakfast. The more I see poverty in other countries, the harder it is for me to muster up much compassion for someone who walks around downtown all day asking for money.
What we need is more immigrants. I read about these guys who got arrested in California I think- they had crawled underground through a two-foot wide pipe, from Mexico to the US. Why are we not greeting these people with a welcoming band and a certificate of citizenship, instead of putting them in jail and deporting them? How many American citizens would crawl half a mile through a sewer pipe, or walk for two weeks through the desert, for the opportunity to work two minimum wage jobs at the same time, while living in an apartment with 15 other people? Just my personal opinion...
Friday, January 12, 2007
Photos from India
Here are pictures, in no particular order (actually kind of backwards) because I am a technological idiot, sorry. A crowded street market in Ahmedebad, where people shop by ancient city walls
Moghul architecture- the Red fort in Delhi.
Moghul architecture- the Red fort in Delhi.
Detail of the Taj Majal. Below, clothes spread out to dry around the tents where people live by the side of the road in Agra (location of the Taj Majal)
Detail of stone gratework and stone inlay at the "baby Taj" (an earlier building in the same style as the BIG Taj)in Agra
a group of kids who we found playing in the dry river bed beneath the Taj Majal's riverside location.
Detail of stone gratework and stone inlay at the "baby Taj" (an earlier building in the same style as the BIG Taj)in Agra
a group of kids who we found playing in the dry river bed beneath the Taj Majal's riverside location. The Taj Majal in all its glory- it is huge.
A camel in Udaipur, all dressed up.
A traditional Rajastani dance performance in Udaipur. Vendors amid a crowd of pigeons in the old city of Jaipur.
the Wind Palace in Jaipur- all red sandstone.
A saree shop in Jaipur- amazing color. 
A vendor at a train station- I took this photo out the tinted train window. The Gateway to India in Bombay/Mumbai.
Thali- an Indian all-you-can-eat plate that is delicious! The waiters keep bringing you food and bread until you can't eat another bite, and then they keep bringing it.
Thali- an Indian all-you-can-eat plate that is delicious! The waiters keep bringing you food and bread until you can't eat another bite, and then they keep bringing it. A street scene in Ahmedebad gives a sense of how crowded and colorful the cities are!
Part of the lake palace in Udaipur .
Part of the lake palace in Udaipur . Girls at a dance school in Chennai/Madras.
Detail of the temple at Madurai- see the monkey? The temples always seemed to be covered with monkeys.
Top bunk sleeper class on the train on New Year's Eve.
A saree shop in Bangalore, Christmas day- see the statue of the Hindu god right below the goofy Santa?
A fruit vendor in Mysore
A fruit vendor in Mysore
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