The snow must go on!
You'd think, snowed in, I would find the time to rest and update other people on my life. Well, I'll take this opportunity at least...
Thursday-Inaugural
So, Thursday I got up at 6am (only having about 5 to 6 hours of sleep the previous two days) and took the MARC down to DC and met up with 40 of my closest friends for the TYBOB protest. We went through mountains of security, watched other groups get tear-gassed or peppersprayed as they tried to parade down eighth street, went through security again because STARBUCKS was considered insecure, turned our backs on Clinton's motorcade by accident (swearing when I realized it, then it made the 40-50 cops within earshot laugh :) but finally turned our backs on bush. It was moving to stand there, stony faced, calmly turning your back on a motorcade - backed up by 30 other people doing the same thing (and other protesters) - backed up by thousands of cops also with their back to the president. We got some minor verbal scuffles every now and again, but since we weren't identifying who we were, the instigators tended to stay with those with signs and tee shirts. Favorite sign: the only bush i trust is my own (gave her a marker too to make it more visible). I also think liberals better understand what "Excuse me" means - either that or the bush supporters could smell a liberal and didnt want to make moving around easy :). This article really captures what it was like.
Then we tried to get home and discovered there had been an amtrak derailment and there werent any trains. Yay jordan for coming to get me at Greenbelt. Stupid MARC.
Friday dawned beautiful, (aside from insomnia battles the night before) and it was off to work. Spent a crazy day dealing with snow potential and our classes for today. Made a billion phone calls. and worked until 9pm. BUT....since it was going to snow, eric decided to come north instead of me going south! (yay!) so we're snowed in in Baltimore instead of the Burg. I also tried to introduce Eric to the joys of 2am grocery shopping. I think that after midnight is THE best time to grocery shop. Yes, there are fewer checkouts open, but many fewer people. And since it isn't standing in line that bothers me but the crowds in the store itself, I am satisfied. Until I stop being nocturnal (and a morning person - go figure) I will prefer to do my marketing between midnight and 6am.
So armed with hot chocolate, (sacreligious to eric) frozen bagels, and foodstuffs for the weekend, we snuggled in for a snow day or two. The only thing I'll make sure we have lots of for the next snow day? - movies. We read a lot, but I know eric finished his book. I have to convince him that my VHS collection is worth watching :). But I'm thinking about Netflix or the like, so that should not be a problem again!
So after putting out some work fires this morning, we're settling in for snow day #2. I'm hoping that my apartment will plow by tomorrow when I leave, because there is snow everywhere! Also (unsurprisingly) the city hasn't come by yet (last year, we never saw a plow) so tomorrow morning might be a slow-moving morning :).
Turning My Back
I am exhausted and excited at the same time. I will be making my voice heard today, and hopefully i'll come home alive, safe, and the like. :) ive just been exhausted, so there have been no messages.
So Lend Our Voices only to sounds of freedom
Or do you?
Today was so frustrating overall. So much turmoil that the "Doing Favors" desk is still closed. I even turned down a favor that I will feel guilty about. But then again, I feel guilty for not being a foster mother. Stupid Catholic guilt.
In the face of that frustration, I decided I wanted some anti-social time and some renewal. So, I could have done my Cobra breaths (and I did, but I'm having trouble feeling the energy like I did two days after the Tantra workshop or in the moment I had in the workshop-stupid being able to do those as Laurie's people had really raged up the energies in the house) (energies? kate, you really did have too much wine) (yeah, shut up kate, that's part of the fun-and I did really feel it!) (ah, go yab yum, whatever) but I decided I wanted something more dramatic. So, I watched the daily show, cleaned out my tub, and settled in for a wonderful bath. It took a lot of preparation - I purchased a bottle of wine, picked up my wineglasses from JessaAndGorgos, found the bath scenty-things Mark and Charlotte gave me, dug out my candles, an ashtray, and three books - nonfiction, fiction, and the bible, just to cover any vagrance of mood - and got my CD player and appropriate music (Jewel's spirit, since I didnt want to borrow a classical CD from J&G and 88.1 was playing jazz. That should lead to a bath that is clearly not going to meet expectations - but it really gave me the quiet and renewal I needed. Now, I'm vaguely positively introspective (for those of you that wondered, I polished off half the wine and the fiction) and I'm marvelously comfortable and relaxed, despite having a very small bathtub. If you're not going to do it right, don't do it at all.
But now, I'm here, and prior to going to bed, I'm just thinking of people I'd like to talk to again. You see, I saw Alissa and Ellie for the first time in years this week. So therefore, my mind turns to people that I haven't seen in an even longer time, probably for even poorer reasons. Except in these cases, its not just seeing so much as talking to. I'll post the list at some other time, because I'm going to make a few reaches this week, to try to reestablish real communication.
But now, after my bath, as I'm about to go finish my glass of wine and head to bed, I do have one regret - that I didn't buy more into the tantra atmosphere. And that I couldn't convince other people that the tantra atmosphere wasn't what I thought it was on first glance (granted, my sense of humor intervened, and my sense of the ironic took over, but even though I love and see the humor behind me - going to a tantra workshop, I wish I could have gotten what everyone else got out of it). Eh, maybe working for her isn't so weird after all.
Well everyone - Namaste and enjoy yourselves!
To Do Today...
-clean up from the party I threw while dog-sitting. at least I did used to live in the house I threw the party in ;)
-get over losing trivial pursuit on "falconry"
-Stand naked under a waterfall with Benjamin Disraeli and Anastasia from Cinderella
-go out to lunch with elisheva, since I haven't seen her in years!
-clean my apartment
-spread the word
-read more books!
-evaluate resumes for our contract position
-appreciate the fact I have no hangover
-relish the fact I have no hangover
-go see liss tomorrow, who i also havent seen in years
-relearn how to write complete sentences
-charge my poor dead cell phone
-figure out where my memoryis going, cause its not staying here
-wake up eric to get him to go buy his books
-finish my rex stout book and start buying greg more ;)
-reevaluate my life and my priorities
To prove I'm not a hurtful person
Update: You can do this too! this guy still needs 300 more!
Thanks to Anders Jacobsen for this project!
So this was brought to my attention and since I do want to help people (regardless of my stance on what the US Government should do :) I am helping in my own small way with the effort.
International aid organizations:
UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund)
United Nations' World Food Programme
Medecins Sans Frontieres / Doctors without Borders (donate!)
CARE International
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
UK/Europe:
Disasters Emergency Comittee (DEC) - comprises a raft of aid agencies, including the below and others
British Red Cross
Oxfam
Save the Children UK
North America:
American Red Cross
Canadian Red Cross
Save The Children
Oxfam America
Anders Jacobsen: Webloggers: Give to tsunami victims and I'll give too!
Call us to hear the voices that challenge
"This is the way that Americans respond. They respond through their churches and through their communities," [Condoleeza] Rice, whom President Bush has nominated to succeed Colin L. Powell as secretary of state, said in a brief interview. "What the government does is important, but what each individual American does is even more important."
(from here)
I am not denigrating charity donations in the slightest. Anyone who knows me knows that I feel guilty when I don't have enough to give to charity, and I relish the opportunities I have to contribute something of myself to a cause or relief.
However, when my secretary of state advocates the importance of charity donations OVER federal aid, I'm not sure what to do. I can't say I'm surprised the Bush administration wants to politicize a terrible tragedy. The United States has been criticized publically for not leading the world in this disaster relief. Our public face is not defined by each one of us individually giving to charity (the Amazon one click site had garnered over $12 Billion for the red cross) but instead our government's initial offering of $15 million (And today's claim that even bringing it up to $350m is the ceiling). Should our foreign policy be determined by groups of citizens writing letters to various foreign embassies? Why should our disaster relief? What on earth has this country come to? And that is the public statement of our future secretary of state. And I know that less than 1/2 of 1 percent of our federal dollars go to foreign aid.
I guess it really is true - the richer you are, the less you give :).
(if you want to do something on your own, contribute to the IRC here or Mercy Corps or whatever other group you'd like)
I have been considering bible quotes to put down here. However, I don't want my continuing use of them to be misinterpreted, so I'll skip it for now. My use of them will be to increase my knowledge while deciding for myself if organized religion is a good idea for me.
happy new year!
Well, 2004 has left us in the dust, and 2005 is upon us. So many things are different, and yet so much is the same.
Last year...
-My car gave me trouble
-I was in love with eric
-I had terrible insomnia, awaking in the middle of the night
This year...
-My car is giving me trouble
-I am still in love with eric
-I'm blogging at 5am, what do you think?
But maybe it was the tantric workshop (want a story? call me :), or maybe this was my instinctive nature boiling over - I have so much love in me I don't know what to do. So much for eric. So much for my family. So much for my friends. So much for people I disagree with. All I want to do is take everyone in and give them a rest.
Things were different five years ago. Five years ago, I was lending everyone strength, and it was completely sapping my own. Five years ago, I went out and did destructive, hurtful things to try to fill in something that wasn't there anymore, and make people hate me more than I hated myself. Five years ago, I couldn't grieve.
I wonder if that part of our history was as defining for anyone else. I don't really know, since the people that it also would have touched, I don't talk to anymore. I talk to Ang, but she has had so much else in her life, and it wasn't the same. But also, within the last five years, I have had other things in my life, but the guilt I have over this one seems occasionally overwhelming.
You may ask, "Why guilt?" I certainly didn't kill anyone. But part of the reason I couldn't grieve, and part of the reason I couldn't explain it to anyone was the situation from the previous six months. Because I reached out and hurt someone and never got a chance to really explain it. And that person meant more to me than I let on to anyone, including myself. It is so silly now, to think about it. It was damn silly then, too. But one cannot go back and change the past.
(edited-are you a friend?)
You know what is so bad about my insomnia? I'm not even tired. Also, even after all of these morbid and semi-morbid thoughts, I don't feel sad. I just have so much life and love left to give that I hope I have time to do what I need to do. I hope I don't mess anything up either. I could really only live through a painful, guilty death like five years ago once. I'm not going to do it again.
I have a new years resolution - to make sure everyone know how much love I have to give. To not hurt anyone doing it. Oh yeah, and to make wonderful crock-pot dishes. And never stop laughing, because that's part of life and love.
I've also been in love with eric for almost five years now. That's the anniversary that will happen this year that I'm really looking forward to.
But now, thus says the Lord,
who greeted you, O Jacob, and formed you, O Israel:
Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name: you are mine.
When you pass through the water, I will be with you;
in the rivers you shall now drown.
When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned;
the flames will not consume you.
Isaiah 43:1-2
